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Dahlia, when you give these work-life balance talks, do you tell the young women who've come to hear you the unvarnished truth? Because I'd have to say that I tend to accentuate the happier truth (that writing is one of the most flexible careers around, girls, because you can tailor and re-tailor it to meet your ever-changing needs!) over those other, unhappier true facts: And your childless colleagues will resent the hell out of you, while you more or less constantly reproach yourself for falling short both at home and at work. While I agree with Dana that there's plenty to be done in terms of restructuring the American workplace to make it more family-friendly, even in the most accommodating circumstances, stories don't write themselves and kids need you when they need you. But you know what? Lucky, lucky us if that is our worst problem. Marjorie Williams wrote a great column about this one time, to the effect that what the complaining childless people don't get is that part of their compensation is: they don't have to deal with children. And that what complaining people with children tend to forget is: part of our compensation is that we do.
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Dahlia, now I'm cracking up at the image of you racing off to give talks on work-life balance while two midgets yank at your coat begging you not to go. "Hands off! I have to go talk about work-life balance!"
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Dahlia, I think you've introduced the missing ingredient that Dana, too, stirred into the equation: kids. And Hanna, mother of three, I wonder what you say to this: the fantasy of having the security (courtesy of a spouse with a regular, and large enough, paycheck or some other source of support) to mix being the person overseeing the kids and their care with being a freelancer who also pursues meaningful, if sometimes less-than-predictable, work.
Isn't that a reality that plenty of well-educated, lucky couples pursue, or would like to? (I'm not saying they choose each other with that in mind, or that it's the savviest course given the prospect of divorce, but it's where they end up.) I agree that it's more often the woman who gets the child + part-time work gig, while the man does the more regular breadwinning. And I would say that she may well sometimes publicly gnash her teeth that she isn't the one who's been able to pursue the "real" career while perhaps privately not really being so sorry that she gets to be with the kids a lot and have a more flexible, and often less stressful, work life. Does she face up to the contradictions of her predicament? Perhaps not; we all have our fantasies. But sometimes—increasingly, I would hope—the man may well be the juggler, and my bet is he's all but guaranteed to be belly-aching rather than thanking his sugar-mommy, whatever he really feels.
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