What the harmful myth of "having it all" is doing to women
This is part 2 of a 2-part post on working mothers. Today's veil of limitless options for women has left mothers feeling like inadequate contributors at work AND at home
In part 1 of this post, I discussed the rising rates of female breadwinners and how this financial arrangement, more common today than ever, doesn’t seem to indicate an increase in wives’ (and particularly, mothers) preference to be breadwinners. Ultimately, most women want the freedom to work without the responsibility to be the family’s financial provider, both of which are implicit in the term “breadwinner”.
If you missed part 1, you can find it here. Now, for part 2.
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Women seem to have more choice today than ever of how to balance work and family life. Not only do roughly 3 in 4 mothers of minors work, but the rates of female breadwinners has increased dramatically over the past several decades. Yet, how often does this greater choice on the macro scale lead to greater well-being on the micro (individual family) scale?
The reality of working mothers
A couple of years ago I came across a Reddit thread of women bewailing the difficulties of the working mother lifestyle, particularly for mothers of young children. One women even commented that she’d never submit herself to the pressures of career and motherhood at the same time, but that “being a working dad sounds pretty great. Sign me up for that!”
Although working dads typically face unique challenges of their own, the reality of raising young children is full of responsibilities borne mostly by Mom.
Between pregnancy, breastfeeding, and the psychological changes a mother experiences when raising her baby, any mom will tell you that women tend to be far better suited to the care of infants (and probably toddlers, too) than men are. And, in most families, moms also prefer to spend more time with their young ones than dads.
For example, when our first child was born, I wanted to carry him around with me everywhere, using the proven medical benefits of skin-to-skin contact as an excuse. Meanwhile, my husband mostly wanted to take care of me and catch up on sleep. Don’t get me wrong: he has always loved our son deeply. But, the intense attachment I felt to our newborn was something that took my husband longer to develop, a very common experience for fathers.
Despite these biological and psychological realities, the societal push for greater opportunity for women to work while raising kids continues. Unfortunately, though, what is typically promoted as greater freedom for women often results in greater pressure on women to figure out how to “have it all”.
Greater choice, or greater pressure?
In the 20th century, advocates for equality between the sexes likely would look on our current economic landscape as evidence of huge strides in the proper direction. After all, we have more female breadwinners than ever, women are graduating college at greater numbers than men, and females are increasingly assuming leadership positions across a variety of industries.
But, how are working mothers doing? Not only are they a large and important part of the female labor force, they’re also, at least hypothetically, supposed to be the greatest beneficiaries of the push for greater female freedoms at home and at work. After all, what could be more freeing for women than the ability to have it all - a happy marriage, fulfilling career, and thriving children?
Unfortunately, and perhaps unsurprising to anyone who actually knows at least one working mother, recent polls suggest that over 40% of these women suffer from anxiety or depression, while nearly 80% face significant stress about living up to their standards for working motherhood. In other words, the utopia we were promised has yet to come to fruition.
Busting the myth of “having it all”
A significant number of families require two incomes to pay the bills or maintain their preferred lifestyle. And, while some couples may be able to cut back on hours worked if they chose to live more frugally, that isn’t always possible. When focused on making ends meet, necessity more than the myth of having it all seems to encourage women to join the workforce.
However, the story is different for couples with greater financial flexibility, and its on the backs of these families that the push for greater choice for women has largely left us feeling inadequate no matter the work/life arrangement we choose. For women who have many options for how to spend their time, what is the right choice? It’s no secret that more choice isn’t always better. Psychologists have long understand the phenomenon of choice overload, in which we’re actually far less satisfied when we have too many options than if we have just a few.
Thankfully, there is a silver living.
While life is full of stressors we can’t completely control, like economic uncertainty, health problems, marital strife, and misbehaved kids, we can control our own expectations for how much we can accomplish at work and at home at the same time.
As a marriage therapist, I’ve seen that a huge source of stress for working mothers is their standards for themselves. Admittedly, I often wonder what my life would be like if I never felt a pang of guilt over not finishing my to-do list at work on a day when I chose to spend more time with my kids.
Could the antidote to much of our working-mom stress really be as simple as a shift in mindset? It may not solve everything, but it’s probably a reasonable place to start.
Life is a game of trade-offs
“You can have it all, just not all at once.” Whether Betty Friedan, Oprah, or someone else first said this, it’s a good quote.
However, it fell short in helping me be truly more at peace with balancing work and family. After reciting it to myself for months, I realized that relying on a vision of a future in which I could have it all - when my kids are grown and I can finally itch that career-woman scratch - as my source of hope was robbing me of experiencing the full joy that my present life has to offer.
A mentor of mine once told me to “cherish the old kitchen table”. Embedded in a conversation about starter homes and thrifted furniture, this advice was his way of telling me not to wish too much for a future time with a bigger house, more money, and greater flexibility. Oftentimes, the most successful people reminisce most about the early days of their marriages, their families, and their companies. It seems that, perhaps paradoxically, when we have the most restrictions, we can often find the most peace in a simpler life.
Now, every time I look at our scratched, four-seat kitchen table in our current (and first) house, I try to remind myself to appreciate the blessing of limitation. Our house is just big enough for our growing family, so there’s little extra room to add unnecessary stuff. Our kids are young, so my schedule is largely dictated by their naps and needs. And our surplus income is mostly nonexistent, so our Valentine’s Day and birthday presents tend to be homemade or edible rather than expensive and shiny. And, there’s something truly special about it.
Sometimes the simplicity provided by real limitations offers a peace that optionality can’t, and a comfort that every mother, working or not, deserves to have.