Farewell

03.04.2011

Hard to believe but this is my last post. The experiment has come to an end. I am grateful that I did this because I definitely grew more comfortable with the idea of having kids. I learned a lot about myself and I sharpened certain thoughts and opinions and even find myself changing on others. I learned to accept that everyone’s on their own journey and that we make the best choices we know how at any given moment. Hindsight is always 20/20 and no one’s perfect, most of all me.

Thank you to anyone who read any entries; I appreciate your readership and whatever journey you happen to be on with whichever topic, remember, it’s your journey and you’re in control of what you make of it.

I now leave with an excerpt from a book by Richard Back titled Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah that I have, since high school, considered to be a kind of Bible of mine.

The Master answered and said, “Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all – young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last, ‘I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.’ The other creatures laughed and said, ‘Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom.’ But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet in time, the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, ‘…a miracle!...the Messiah, come to save us all!’ And the one carried in the current said, ‘I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure…In the path of our happiness shall we find the learning for which we have chosen this lifetime. So it is that I have learned this day, and choose to leave you now to walk your own path, as you please.” And he went his way through the crowds and left them, and he returned to the everyday world of men and machines.

Thank you and goodnight.

A Woman's Inner Battle

02.23.2011

I’m currently reading Tom Brokaw’s book titled Boom! Voices of the Sixties in which he includes brief memoirs on different events and people. As a woman, my life is shaped by experiences that affect my gender and I don’t care what men think, they’ll never understand what it’s like knowing that the odds are against me in getting equal pay or equal opportunity because of my gender. But as aware as I like to consider myself to be, I’m realizing that I really don’t know what women went through so that I'd have the right to vote or the right to choose whether I want to work or not. This particular choice, it’s important to note, is not one that men have. I certainly take issue with the idea that I’d have so much more to give up but when it comes to working, women do have a choice even if it’s not the most financially sane one. (For example, there’s a couple I know of where the wife refuses to work and just pops out kid after kid to avoid the discussion or there’s another couple I know of where the husband was out of work and despite this, the wife refused to get a job because her job was raising the kids – even though her husband was at home too, unemployed, and taking money from his parents to put food on the table). That was a long tangent but my point is that women have the choice to work with kids or stay-at-home with kids. Men don’t naturally have that choice.

Mr. Brokaw wrote about women who were involved in some way with the women’s movement in the 1960s and although I didn’t agree with all the women’s choices or beliefs, what I appreciate is they didn’t let society’s view of what they should be or do hamper their goals in any way. It’s very easy for us women to push ourselves to the side because we’re taught from a young age to serve others and though I’m not advocating selfishness, I think it’s important to keep one’s goals in mind and not lose sight of that. I want to share some quotes that inspired me and made me feel proud to be a woman. It also made me appreciate all those women before me who paved the way for me. On behalf of all women today, Thank You.

She has little patience with women who worry about what they should “do.”

For her, it “isn’t an ethical question. It’s a question of how are they going to

move forward. There was a wave of sentiment that you were somehow

diminished if you didn’t work. My view has always been, work if you want to.

If your job repels you, move on to something else. Be good at what you want

to be.” – Carla Hills, lawyer, Beverly Hills, CA (p. 229).

She thinks that characterizing issues related to family as “women’s issues”

guarantees failure. “These are universal social issues that involve men, women,

and children. If you want to raise a family, it takes time and energy, and it

requires life adjustments – remember what every expectant parent hears: ‘It will

change your life!’ And it does. When ‘family’ is only a woman’s issue, then it

is women who will be expected to make the adjustment.” – Laura, Carla Hills’

daughter, mother of 2 and lawyer herself (p. 231).

“I used to think you could have it all,” she says. “Now I believe you can have it

all, but not all at the same time. There are costs to every decision. Mine weren’t

cost-free. I had only one child and two divorces. That’s a cost.” – Dr. Judith

Rodin, 1^st female president of an Ivy League university (U of Penn, 1994-2004;

pp. 221-222).

“I think my generation of women is constantly anxious about balancing

working

and motherhood. We don’t want to completely give up one for the other, and

we’re such compulsive mothers that we’re going eighteen hours a day between

the office and our kids – taking them to music lessons and soccer games, to

museums and swimming. The dads help a lot, but the moms want to be there

for their kids and for their jobs. It’s tough.” – Jennifer Brokaw, mother of two

and emergency-room physician. (p. 240)

Work, Guilt, and You Can't Have It All

11.14.2010

I’m currently reading Barbara Walters’ memoir, Audition, and I’m surprised at how much I’m enjoying it. It’s a rather thick book and all I think about is that it'll take me years to finish.

A few days ago, I came across her chapter where she writes about adopting her daughter, Jackie. I admire Barbara Walters on so many levels and grew up watching her on ABC’s 20/20 with Lynn Sherr (whose bio I read last year) and Hugh Downs, and Barbara was part of the group of women who trail blazed a path for women in journalism and the entertainment industry. So needless to say, what she had to say in this chapter on becoming a mother overnight was something I paid close attention to. She writes

…Is there a working mother on earth who doesn’t [feel guilt]? Mine was compounded in the sixties and seventies by the fact that working mothers like me were still a minority. These days the pendulum has swung so far the other way, toward work, that sizable numbers of mothers are leaving the workforce to stay home with their children. There is no perfect solution. Just exhaustion. And, my favorite word, guilt. I am known for saying that you can’t have it all – a great marriage, successful career, and well-adjusted children – at least not at the same time. It’s a bit easier today because there are employers who are more flexible, who may let you work part-time, and there are BlackBerries so you can work wherever you are, and there are husbands who will change diapers. But it’s still a balancing act and probably always will be.[1]

I obviously can’t relate to the feelings of guilt but I’ve certainly heard from mothers growing up and now friends who are moms that there is horrible guilt that comes with leaving a child behind to go work. I wonder if fathers feel the same way?

The sentence that really stuck out for me was that she said you “can’t have it all.” This is a fear and not because I happen to “have it all” now, because I don’t, but to not be successful in all areas of my life is what scares me. I tend to see more people abandon everything in their lives because of their kids. Marriages fall apart because the couple has stopped spending time with each other and/or there’s no advancement at work because the kids take up too much time and dedication. You can only focus on so many things at once and, when you have kids, they become your focus. If they don’t, there’s the possibility of contributing to their not being well-adjusted. It’s nice that Barbara made it a point to say that it’s slightly easier today with the changes in technology and that there are more men willing to step up with responsibility but the need for constantly managing a balancing act concerns me. But I suppose…that in of itself isn’t that different from how I live my life now. I may not have kids but I’m constantly balancing my priorities and not every part of my life gets 100% of my focus every moment of every day. And I’m well aware that success is something you have to work at and no one “has it all.” Nor do I think would I necessarily want that. Happiness is more important.

Looking at it this way, life with a kid doesn’t seem to be such a monstrous task. It’s just an adjustment and Lord knows I go through multiple adjustments a day. All you can do is your best, that’s all that anyone (should) asks for.

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[1] Walters, Barbara Audition: A Memoir, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY, 2008, p. 170.

Children of a Loveless Marriage

11.11.2010

I finished reading writer/director Nora Ephron’s new book, I Remember Nothing, and I highly recommend it. What I liked about it was its easy read, filled with humor, endearing moments and pure honesty. There is one issue, however, with which I disagree. She writes

But I can’t think of anything good about divorce as far as the children are concerned. You can’t kid yourself about that, although many people do. They say things like, It’s better for children not to grow up with their parents in an unhappy marriage. But unless the parents are beating each other up, or abusing the children, kids are better off if their parents are together. Children are much too young to shuttle between houses. They’re too young to handle the idea that the two people they love most in the world don’t love each other anymore, if they ever did. They’re too young to understand that all the wishful thinking in the world won’t bring their parents back together. And the newfangled rigmarole of joint custody doesn’t do anything to ease the cold reality: in order to see one parent, the divorced child must walk out on the other.[1]

Though I agree that no one should stay in an abusive relationship, I’m confused by the advice to stay in a loveless marriage for the sake of the children.

Rob and I have talked about this in respect to friends we both had growing up who wished their parents would divorce because it would, at least, bring peace. And when the parents did eventually divorce, and they always did, the friends’ reactions were somewhere in the vicinity of “Finally.” I haven’t yet met someone who wished their mismatched parents stayed together. The thing that parents forget, I think (and I take complete freedom to say the following without being a parent myself), is how perceptive kids are. You can’t fool them. By staying in a loveless marriage, you’re teaching your child how to behave, what to accept and how to settle. This isn’t fair to anyone involved.

My mom dated a man without ever sitting me down and explaining to me what was happening even though I caught every secret glance, every secret touch and every secret hand hold. Her excuse for never telling me was to protect me (from what, I don’t know) but what I learned was that liking someone was private and to be kept in the dark. And, in an odd way, something bad. I was ten and I didn’t understand exactly what the glances, touches and holding hands meant, but I knew that something unusual was going on despite her valiant efforts to keep the relationship under wraps.

I also knew, at age eight, when things were bad between my mom and my sister’s dad. I’m still unraveling the damage of those six months. Kids are sharper and more perceptive than adults give them credit for. They are also sponges for the knowledge that parents bestow upon them. I believe that staying in an unsupportive, loveless and devoid marriage is the path of least resistance with the potential for the most life-long emotional damage. You are also cheating yourself out of what is beautiful: love.

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[1] Ephron, Nora I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections, Alfred A. Knopf, 2010, New York, NY, p. 120.