So, I'm in Starbucks the other day, a Saturday, on line and standing for a while listening to two young men behind me on the line.
And I'm thinking how different life is today, expectations of work and life, then when I was a child pre-Title IX, pre-women's rights. When I was in elementary school, young girls were told you could be a teacher, a nurse, and/or a mommy. Doctor, lawyer, Senator, President, were not in the realm of possibility. It began to change thanks to brave tough women who worked hard for Title IX and women's rights. So, by the time I was in 7th Grade (the year Title IX was enacted) the world began to change. By 4th grade, I was even allowed to wear pants to school, but not shorts, no jeans (and this was public school). Back then children went home for lunch because the expectation was the mom's were home waiting for them. There was no breakfast or lunch program. There was no after-school program. Families could afford to live on one salary and live a solid middle-class life.
So, I am in Starbucks thinking about life, watching young families around me, and listening to these two men discuss work/life balance, childcare issues, diapers, toilet training (or as I call it house-breaking) and marveling that they are involved enough with their children's lives to even consider these issues. My father might have thought about discussing education and school in some highly academic way, but was never involved in the specifics. Toward the end of his life, he definitely got it, that the world had changed, and balancing work and real life was difficult.
He watched me as I tried to be a good, involved parent, and work a full-time job and career, and manage a marriage, and how impossible it is. That feeling that we can do it all, but some part of our lives is always unfinished, incomplete, or imperfect. For we women perfectionists, it is a difficult pill to swallow.
Where we have come since 1972 is leaps and bounds, not the slow evolution of Darwinism which takes millions of years. It has moved at modern speed like the development of mainframe computers to laptops and smartphones and ipads in 40 years.
So, although my husband grew up with a stay at home mom, my son did not. And one day I hope he will be talking with a friend (at whatever his version of Starbucks will be in 20 years) about the same issues, and hopefully finding that there is more affordable better childcare than exists now, that paid family exits and is mandatory, and that he has a wonderful partner to share it all with.
