Balance this

This is one of those stories that makes my eyes roll so hard they nearly pop out of my head: “A business class at George Washington University aims to teach young women how to balance their careers with their personal lives," reads the promo for an NPR program.

I hoped for a moment that this was a case of media distortion and the class was really something else entirely. Nope. Professor Kathy Korman Frey describes balancing work and family as “a real entrepreneurial experience,” and says “so much of work-life balance is really practical, so it’s really teachable.” For example, one “time-management” assignment is for students to examine their daily schedules for a 24-hour day and “find an extra hour.”

There are so many things wrong with this, I don’t know where to start. How about with the fact that NPR and a prestigious university found it plausible to discuss the topic of work-life balance as an individual dilemma without once mentioning the political context that creates the dilemma, namely the American absence of social supports for parenting? Or that it never occurred to NPR to invite a guest who might mention these political questions, such as, oh, say, a feminist?

As the NPR host actually (sort of) noted, this class is home ec for the new century. Instead of learning to make potholders or jello molds, these future Suzy Home-and-career-makers learn how to “find an extra hour” and how to “locate and hold on to good childcare.” (It’s so hard to find good help these days.)

I’ll tell you how to hold on to good childcare: Create a nationally subsidized system of childcare centers that pay workers living wages. Treat childcare as a fully tax deductible and refundable business expense. And for balancing life and work, few things work so well as paid family leave.

The NPR program was weirdly vague. Just what “work-life” balance might mean wasn’t made clear. It appeared merely to mean being really busy, especially as the professor described the issue as affecting even her busy but childless students. Nowhere was there any reference to the specific, crushing difficulties faced by parents in our society—difficulties which for most mothers are desperate economic problems—let alone the specific historical and political facts that created these difficulties.

The insidious thing about the class is that it responds to a profound social problem in such a way as to silence potentially political discontent.

Balance this, George Washington.

Dad happier too when mom earns a wage

Update on that study that found mothers who work for pay are happier than those without a salary: Rebeldad Brian Reid, guest blogging at the Washington Post’s On Balance, took a look at the study and noticed that there are interesting results in it about dads. Fathers are happier too when their partners have wage-earning jobs. “This conclusion does a great job of cutting down the dangerous and misogynistic idea that men really, really want traditional marriages and a clear-cut division of responsibilities in the household.” Here’s to that.

And here’s to Rebeldad, who gives lots of reason for hope. “This conforms to my longstanding bias: I think that equality in marriage makes for happier kids and a more stable union. The even better news is that the data for the study was gathered between 1996 and 2003, meaning that the study authors were looking at an older set of fathers than are walking around my neighborhood. I'm optimistic that the next generation will be even more equality-minded.”

There is no alternative?

I’m haunted by a story a friend told me the other day of her sister-in-law who dropped out of the paid workforce. Joanne (not her real name) had been a lawyer until her children came along. Now she doesn’t work for pay and has no plans to do so ever again. Cynical me says half of marriages end in divorce. Add in the possibility of the husband losing his job or dying or being incapacitated and are those odds you want to play?

But that’s not the part of the story that got to me. Joanne told her sister-in-law that her law degree and her practice had been a waste. She should never have bothered, because you just can’t have it all. If you want to be a mother, you can’t have a (paid) career.

It’s the powerlessness and hopelessness of Joanne’s perspective that gets to me. In this grim vision, motherhood as practiced in our culture is an iron lung from which there’s no escape. It will always be this way. As Maggie Thatcher said, There Is No Alternative.

But here’s the shred of hope: My friend asked her sister-in-law about her daughters. Should they not bother with careers and degrees? Should they face up to no choice but unpaid mothering or no children? That stopped Joanne cold. She said no, she couldn’t accept that for her daughters. Some faint corner of Joanne’s mind insists there must be an alternative, if not for herself, then for her children.

If that’s true, why defer the dream?

Mothers happier having a (paying) job

Your average American apparently believes that moms would, and should, stay out of the paid workforce if only they could. Pundits love to cite the statistics saying that most moms who work full-time would rather cut back. Never mind the parallel statistics that say most stay-at-home moms would also like to work part-time. If you ask me, it all points to the scarcity of part-time work (more on my own experience with this in due time!) and the insane demands of the typical job. Never mind whether Ozzie’s wage-earning role fits modern-day Harriets; nowadays a full-time job means way more hours than Ozzie ever put in. Full-time working moms pine for fewer work hours, not to return home to do nothing but gurgle at baby (and feed and diaper and clean and ...).

Salon’s Broadsheet reports on a study that undercuts Caitlin Flanagan-type paeans to the idyll of staying at home. The study, from the British Institute for Social and Economic Research, finds that “mothers with jobs are significantly happier than their nonworking counterparts.” I hate to quibble with a sister, but I think the Broadsheet writer meant wage-earning mothers are happier than non-wage-earning mothers. Let’s not play into the media-created so-called “mommy wars”. We should all agree: Mothering is a job. Dammit. And, when you put it that way, suddenly the research seems like little more than common sense. Who wouldn’t be happier with some wages than without?