We Can't Have It All... But Neither Can Men

I've been re-watching The West Wing lately. And yes -- for those of you keeping track, this marks the second time I've watched the series in less than 8 months -- a level of nerdiness on my part that is only eclipsed by the fact that I read the Tolkien cannon with even higher average frequency...

But I digress.  Last night I watched an episode in which the First Family's oldest daughter, Elizabeth, has decided to help her politically clueless husband run for Congress. Her father (President Bartlet) isn't a fan of the arrangement:

BARTLET
[Your husband's] a great guy and a fantastic father. You're the politician. Why the hell don't you run?

LIZ
Because Annie [Liz's teenaged daughter] pierced her face. And this one [holding up her son's baseball mitt] can't catch, or bathe.

BARTLET
You can handle it.

LIZ
You can't. Forgive me, Ms. Steinem and Ms. Friedan, you cannot do it
all.

BARTLET
Your mother did.

LIZ
No, Daddy. She didn't.


Bartlet goes on to apologize (in so many words) for the moments he sacrificed fatherhood on behalf of a political career, but later in the episode the First Lady -- Dr Bartlet -- also apologizes for the sacrifice her children made on behalf of her career.

And that's what got me thinking.  Elizabeth Bartlet is wrong to invoke famous feminists in the scene quoted above, because she's only taking one side of the perspective -- that of the woman/mother -- whereas the parents, President and Dr Bartlet, correctly recognize that when both parents have a career, neither parent can "have it all". Nor should they expect to.

If "having it all" for a woman means being able to pursue her career just as she would were she not a mother, than this old feminist mantra is an obvious (and, I might add, rather silly) falsehood:  having kids requires sacrifice.  But the same is true for men, and this is something we've not often talked about in connection to the question of "having it all". Should men with children be urged or expected to pursue a career as if they didn't have children? Should women?

If what is meant by "having it all" is that women can and should be enabled to successfully manage a career and a family at the same time, then I couldn't agree more -- but with qualification: it must be recognized that the success of both career and family on the part of the woman is contingent on the man's also pitching in and sacrificing in his career in order to have a family.  In other words: a woman cannot have it all if she's the only one making sacrifices.

The ultimate goal for society should not be, contra third-wave feminists, to get to a place where women can approach their careers "as if on a par with men", because this view relies on an overturned, outmoded, misplaced Mad-Men-esque gender bias that allows -- nay, encourages or even expects -- all men, including those with children, to go on behaving like bachelors.  That is, to align their time, energies, focus and career priorities in a way that supersedes or neglects all other considerations. Instead, we should aim for a society that encourages both women and men to think very differently about their careers and how they will direct their own finite resources once children are part of their story.  Hint: it ought to look different than if they were single.

This is a point the church has understood for several millennia now.  It's why until very recently (relative to its venerable age, that is) the church has always had celibates in prominent leadership roles -- people without children, without spouses.  Because the church has always recognized that the project of puzzling the deep questions of God and leading God's people in right ways is a job that requires total sacrifice to the gig.  When one has a wife or a husband or children, one cannot serve the church in the same way, and that's because he or she has a family requiring nurture as well.

The same is true of other callings, and for me that means as an academic.  I will use this time of my life when I am single to give all I can to the sort of research, teaching, and building of personal and professional relationships as only a single person can. Because I know that if one day I should enter a relationship, then having children will become a possibility and that will mean sacrifice in lots of directions... as well as great reward, of course.

Just as I was finalizing this entry, I was forwarded by a dear friend (thanks B!) a really excellent HuffPost article about Having It All, written by a woman/mother/author I know and greatly admire. I resonated with her deeply on her main point: it's important to ponder how we're defining the "all" in "having it all".  Give it a whirl (click here to read) and get back to me, will ya? Otherwise I'll go on re-watching The West Wing ad infinitum instead of pondering the deep questions of life...

An Open Letter to Our Unwritten Open Letters

Dear Unwritten Open Letters,

The other day I stumbled upon a hilarious time-suck of a website: Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency.  It is but one creative outlet for the many excellent authors associated with McSweeney's Publishing of San Francisco.

Among the varied and delicious aspects of Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency is a column entitled Open Letters to People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond. Here are a few titles from the column, sufficient in and of themselves for eliciting the sort of chuckle-fit that can drive an officemate to madness.

An Open Letter to My Ex-Fiancé About My Recent Arm Amputation

An Open Letter to the Man On Match.com Who Emailed Me to Fix a Grammar Mistake On My Profile Page

An Open Letter to My Toddler Regarding His Use of My iPhone

An Open Letter to the City and County Inspector Who Fined Me $500 Even Though the Weeds in My Front Lawn Were Well Under the 6” Regulation Height

An Open Letter to the Gentleman Blow-Drying His Balls in the Gym Locker Room

An Open Letter to the Glorious New Couple That Rose Like a Phoenix from the Infernal Failure That Was My Last Relationship

An Open Letter to Undated Yard Sale Signs and the Yard Sale Purveyors Who Make Them

An Open Letter To The Inanimate Objects In My Apartment That Just Sat There While I Was Heartbroken

An Open Letter to the Gym Shorts That Are Not in My Gym Bag


And so forth.

Scanning this column left me convicted, dear Unwritten Open Letters, of the fact that you were still, at present, unwritten. You see, when L and I first came up with the idea of creating you several months (years?) ago, we had been eating very good food and drinking very good caffeinated coffees wiling away good times in good company in a good city. And we had every good intention of carrying out these plans to draw you up.  But then the caffeine wore off, we waved adieu to each other and the city and the delicious coffee... and the business of life once again requisitioned our time and creative energies.  That, and we couldn't agree on the appropriate font.

Among the list of your envisioned kin were:
An Open Letter to Married Friends
An Open Letter to Friends With Kids
An Open Letter to Church Leaders on How To Incorporate Non-married Persons

A proper list, to be sure, and topics that deserve attention.  But fear not! Despite our negligence in bringing you to fruition, other people have gone ahead and done it for us -- put in the hard work of writing on these topics, and doing so brilliantly.

For example, several months ago My Lovely Sister-in-Law made me add to my intentionally spartan Bookmark Bar a link to an interview conducted by her pastor, the now-Bishop Stewart Ruch. It's all about how to preach Celibacy. I just now read it (sorry for the delay, Sis-in-Law!) and it is outstanding.  All that's left for me to do now is provide the link. Here is the link.

In summation, dear Unwritten Open Letters, you are for the present to remain as such. But who knows what the future will bring?

Yours in spirit, if not letter (see what I did there?)
E & probably also L

One thing to tell your single friend

Not sure I'm totally persuaded, but it's interesting, at least: 

"If you have a friend who is single and is motivated not to be, there is one thing to tell them that is actually helpful and it is this: 'I am going to work hard to try and find someone for you.' Dolling out insight is easy, taking action is hard." 

Read it all.

Singled Out: How Churches Can Embrace Unmarried Adults

Especially as Christmas rolls around, this article should be required reading for those in ministry.  No excerpts, just read it all.

Historians with(out) kids

We blogged about this before, but Friend-Of-This-Blog Laura asks some provocative questions about gender, parenting, promotion, and historians here.  Take a look.

Heartbreak

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?  Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father's care. (Matt 10:29)

 
I said goodbye to my best friend yesterday. I will always remember his sweet horsey breath on my cheek, his gentleness with small children, and the delight we both felt when we cantered through the woods. He was smart, kind, loyal, and sensitive; I was enormously blessed to call him my friend, and just being in his presence always filled me with joy and peace. Godspeed, dear Zak.

O God, you created all that is, and you love all that you have made: we come to you this day with grief and in thanksgiving. We grieve the death of our beloved Zak, who has been our companion on the way, and we thank you for the gift of his presence among us as a sign of the richness of your creation and the generosity of your love, through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Worth watching...

Patrick Stewart on domestic violence:

Mother's Day

At my church several years ago, some well-meaning passed out carnations to all the mothers in the pews on Mother's Day.  Most Sundays, I am one of only two or three single people in church, and on that day, I was the only woman who didn't have a flower.  I was stopped as I was leaving, given a flower, and when I said, "oh!  I don't have children!" was told, "that's ok.  You will someday!" 

I haven't been back on Mother's Day since. 

And so, pastoral types, if you get a minute before next Sunday, do give this a look. 

Who Wears the Pants

A while ago a very wise, very dear friend of mine shared some thoughts on her struggles with gender roles in church, work and marriage.  I asked if I could post excerpts from her letter, as she presents a different perspective than we at BtheB can provide, yet one that I am sure will resonate with many of our readers.  She writes:

While I am not single and haven't been for a long time, and I am not an academic, I deeply feel I push against assumptions of what it means to be a woman on a regular basis. Most recently (and probably most consistently), this has been in the realm of church life. One of my strongest traits is also one of the least "feminine": assertiveness. And it seems particularly problematic that this trait is one [Husband] does not particularly exemplify. Questions of "who wears the pants in the family" seem to come down to this one trait. The model in our church, and it seems many churches, is that women have roles of leadership over other women, children, music, or other more "feeling-oriented" positions. Few women find themselves in places where they are in executive, decision-making roles in the church, and yet these seem to be where I belong the most. I like thinking about systems and creating structure where none exists and helping empower people to use their gifts in fulfilling ways. I find that I can't help but thinking this way. It is for this reason that I have realized that I need to be fully "in" or fully disengaged from the initiatives I care about. I can't half-ass it. [Husband] has helped me realize this. I think this is also the reason that people either really appreciate me or don't like me.

In the work setting, it is a little easier having this trait of assertiveness as a female. I definitely have more role models. However, I still rub raw against other women especially. The strong, independent, yet passive-aggressive female is the one I have yet figured out how to work with--someone with whom I continually have conflict yet refuses to actually address that conflict. I find it infuriating.  I work with several women like this who I know do not like me. I desperately want to bridge the gap that exists, and yet, they seem to keep their power by not letting the gap be bridged. Perhaps men also operate like this and I am not aware of it, but so far I only have this sort of conflict with women. It deeply saddens me.

In my own marriage, I struggle to find ways and places to "choose weakness" in order to give space for my marriage to thrive. This may seem counter-intuitive or maybe not the place for a feminist, and yet after 10+ years of marriage, here I am. Just like as Christians it is often true that in our weakness, Christ lives. I think I am learning more of what it means to die to self--that I can choose to be less assertive, choose to not always be completely truthful (not in lying but in keeping thoughts to myself), choose to not insist on co-leading in every situation--all in order to empower someone else whom I care about deeply. I think this probably spills over into my other relationships, but I am working on practicing it first in my most important, and most difficult one.

Now, as [Husband] is in the [N]th year of being on the job market, I am in a place where I struggling to find what it means to look to the needs of our kids and me, but to support [Husband] as his "helpmate." I cringe to use that word, as I think it is often applied only to wives as a means to force them into a one-way role of submission. But, maybe as a couple we take turns being "helpmates" in various aspects of our lives? Maybe this is true of friendships also? 

As always, thanks to Friend for sharing this with me and allowing me to pass it on, and for welcoming me into both the hard and the beautiful aspects of your life. I shall do my best to return the favor.

Promoting historians

On the up side?  Being single means promotions happen more quickly than if I were married.

On the down side?  They won't happen as quickly for me as they will for my male colleagues, married or single.

Read it all, from a study by the American Historical Association.

Quick! Have a baby! (Or not.)

So there I was, driving down the road, minding my own business, listening to NPR, and this story came on the radio.  It's stayed with me.  Or rather, the sense of shock I felt as I listed to it stayed with me.  I wasn't surprised to hear that wealthy women in Manhattan are freezing their eggs, or that it's hard to get pregnant at 40.  I was surprised at what I didn't hear: any mention of the ethical, economic, and health issues involved.

Now, I'm not an ethicist, so I'm not going to weigh in here except to say that the ethical issues around freezing eggs, surrogacy, IVF, etc. are real, and deserve to be taken seriously.  I do think that well-meaning, intelligent people can come to different opinions about what is or is not ethical, but for heaven's sake, let's have the discussion, rather than pretend that there's not really a decision to be made here.

While we're discussing things, let's talk about the economic issues as well.  I was absolutely floored to listen to a doctor advocate procedures that could very easily hit $40,000 to be standard for women in their twenties.  Who can afford that?  How can she afford it?  To whom, precisely, is all that money going?  Also, that is a LOT of money; what are the ethics involved with spending it in such a way?  People may certainly decide that this is an appropriate use of their financial resources.  But what was staggering to me was how glib every single person in that story was about the cost.  As far as I could tell, they were not actually talking about Monopoly money.

And now, while we're having meaningful discussions, let's talk about the long-term health effects of undertaking what is, essentially, a very unnatural process.  We do all sorts of unnatural things with our bodies.  I get it.  In the best case, we make informed decisions about what we're going to do to our bodies, even if we periodically and unnaturally have cheeze puffs and skittles for dinner.  But there are, surely, very significant potential health issues for both parents and child in undertaking this sort of procedure.

And all that leads us to Judith Shulevitz's "The Grayest Generation" in the latest New Republic. Shulevitz is concerned with the wider health issues around advanced parental age, particularly the challenges faced by children born to older parents.  It's an interesting piece, and one that raises some fascinating problems... without proposing a single solution.  The implied solution seems to be "just have babies already... or better yet, ten years ago." But Shulevitz makes a few fatal assumptions.  First, she assumes that most people of childbearing age who want to have children are in stable relationships (or, second, if they're not, they're willing to have a child solo) and finally that potential parents are in stable economic circumstances.  

In my world (single! graduate student living very close to the poverty line! 30 years old!), none of those assumptions are accurate.  I am not in a stable relationship;  I have a hard time going on a dinner date.  There's absolutely. no. effing. way. I'd have a child on my own.  Quite apart from the moral and ethical issues involved there, I live alone, hundreds of miles from extended family.  And I, like so many people in my generation since 2008, am not wrapped in a cocoon of financial security.

So what, precisely, am I supposed to be doing?