Last week I had the fortune of being interviewed by Dr. Portia Jackson of workingmotherhood.com for her podcast. We had a lot of fun talking about challenges and successes. I talked about treating each child as an individual, which can be a challenge with twins. (This article in Time about twins and gifted programs resonated with me as we submit our applications for public middle school this week – yes, applications because we have no zoned school.) Continue reading The Long View of Working Parenthood
Tag: work
More Mom Breadwinners Challenge Our Notions of the Traditional Family
It’s not easy to diffuse the impact of long-held stereotypes, especially when biology is involved.
It looks like my situation — I’m a working mom and my husband is a “diapering dad“ — is becoming more common. And according to the Pew Center’s recent numbers, the radical change in society in the past 50 years looks like this — women are now the sole or primary breadwinners in four out of ten households — up from 11% in 1960. The study also found that family income is actually higher when the mother is the breadwinner.
A change like this one does not come easily — it alters people’s fundamental notions of family structure, and may not be a perfect fit with the human biological reality. I’d argue a mom can make the money and have thriving kids and a thriving marriage — uterus, breasts, estrogen and all — as long as we don’t pretend those biological differences don’t exist.
The Pew report came out a few days after the release of hedge fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones‘ statements to a group of business school students about the unsuitability of mothers as global macro traders, an intense profession. He said, “As soon as that baby’s lips touched that girl’s bosom, forget it” and motioned to his chest, arguing that becoming a mother made women lose focus. His remarks were immediately criticized, especially by those of us who think we were focused pretty well after having babies. Continue reading More Mom Breadwinners Challenge Our Notions of the Traditional Family
The Unsteady Rise of the Power Mom and the Diapering Dad
“The most important career choice you’ll make is who you’ll marry,” Sheryl Sandberg, the ubiquitous Facebook COO and author of the “Lean In” book (and social movement), famously tells women. She advocates marrying someone who will do 50% of the “second shift,” freeing women to go full force in their careers, and allowing those stubborn low numbers of women in leadership positions to finally rise.
IF A MAN DOES ALL THE WORK THAT A WOMAN TRADITIONALLY DOES, as my stay-at-home husband happily does, IS THE PROBLEM SOLVED? Did I manage to reverse the gender roles and be the “father” who goes to work? Fresh out of law school, I expected to. But, it wasn’t so straightforward. Continue reading The Unsteady Rise of the Power Mom and the Diapering Dad
Much Ado About Going to the Office
I was interviewed in a piece on NPR today by Jennifer Ludden on Marisa Mayer’s now infamous “work from home memo,” available here.
Four points on the backlash:
1- Attack on Flexibility: This memo was perceived as taking something away that employees have gained in today’s workplace, something that innovation has enabled. And it’s more than just working from home – flexibility and remote work policies often go hand in hand and people, working mothers in particular, conflate them. They viewed this memo as an attack on flexibility as well. Studies show that most working moms want to work flexibly, or part time. That’s why the backlash was particularly harsh among female bloggers. Continue reading Much Ado About Going to the Office
Six Tips for Pumping Breastmilk at Work
You have breastfed your baby (or twins) since birth, and now you have to go back to work. It takes dedication to continue nursing when you are away from your little ones – obviously, a mother’s breasts were designed to feed her babies directly from the source and. But, thanks to technology, increased awareness and breastfeeding-friendly laws, there are some ways to make it a little easier (not easy!). The following are are some tips from those who have been there. Continue reading Six Tips for Pumping Breastmilk at Work
Tales from a Breadwinner With Breasts: The Incomplete Role Reversal
(A different post on this same topic and drawing these ideas was published on the site Professionelle in April 2013, called “The Unsteady Rise of the Power Mom and the Diapering Dad“)
I have been the sole (or virtually sole) breadwinner for the past eight years of my 11-year marriage. I can happily report that for those eight years, during which we had three children, the arrangement has worked out well enough for both of us that we plan to continue it. Based on Hanna Rosin’s research in her book “The End of Men,” our situation appears to be fairly unique – my husband does the lion’s share of the childcare and all (yes, all) of the housework and cooking. We have never had a nanny or a housekeeper, at his insistence.
That said, as Ms. Rosin said she found, switching traditional gender roles was not as seamless on my end as I thought it would be. This has left me to think that biology has had more of an influence on the childcare part of our labor division than I had anticipated. Continue reading Tales from a Breadwinner With Breasts: The Incomplete Role Reversal