Thursday, August 8, 2013

The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/magazine/the-opt-out-generation-wants-back-in.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I was one of the professional women they are talking about in this article -- one who opted out of the career track to stay at home.  At the end of my maternity leave in January 2000, I extended the leave one month, still in denial, still putting off the pain of decision.  I didn't want to say to my mother, or any other professional woman I respected, that I was going to take my education and 10-year career and chuck them.  I was afraid to admit I was choosing diapers and nursing, playdates and parks.  I was scared.  All of us who chose to opt out were fearful.  We'd never be able to pick up where we left off. 

It feels a little less authentic now that I read I wasn't the only one struggling with the decision, I wasn't the only one who became mommy extraordinaire, volunteer queen, and home-making champion.  I was like every other educated mother who could afford to stay home and decided to do it.  I had a great run, too.  Envious of my friends with careers, yes.  Wishing I was in a conference room haggling with clients, no.  Staying at home was rewarding for me.  It also came with a price.  The Professor and I fought.  We almost divorced several times.  We power struggled over everything from money to the kind of turkey I bought. I have learned it wasn't about the money, or the turkey. It was about my decision on how to spend my time.  Owning that choice is difficult at best, even for the black and white thinkers.

The kids are older now.  They set their own alarms, make their own lunches, do their own laundry.  Mommy is still needed to direct and supervise but not execute any more.  This is a natural time to make a change.  I have friends who went back to work because they want to keep up their lifestyle and pay for their kids' college tuitions but can't swing it on one income.  I also have friends who traded with their partner.  She is the bread winner and he is the cook and chauffeur now.  The last group is like me, they have some time while the kids are in school, have maxed out in the volunteering arena and don't care for the Work-Out Barbie look.  Running errands and walking the dog doesn't take seven hours a day.  

Women who are empowered with choice have the easiest time of going back to work after being at home for a long stretch (the article uses 10 years as the average).  Whether that empowerment comes from external -- degrees from top schools, great networks, etc. -- or from internal -- recognizing the price of trade offs and making them (no matter how exhausting and uncomfortable that is) -- depends on the individual.  

The sucker punch in the article was from the woman whose own mother had worked as a high school drama teacher and speech therapist and was home in the afternoons and during school vacations.  She learned from her father, after her mother had died, that her mother had always wished she could have spent more time with her children.

So there is no easy answer.  No matter whether you opt out or not, opt back in or not.   Even when it looks like a woman has it all, in the end we discover she gave up something.


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