COLUMN Musings and Mishaps

Author: Lindsey Whitton

A few weeks ago I ran into two friends having coffee in The Grille. "Guess what we were just talking about?" they said. "We decided that you are going to be the ultimate do-it-all parent someday. The one with a high powered job who still shows up for car pool."
Later that night I called my mother and told her what my friends had said. She was immediately skeptical. "There are tradeoffs and consequences if you try to do it all, Lindsey," she warned. "You have unlimited options but limited time and energy." She cautioned me to inject some reality into visions of running major corporate meetings while keeping a perfect attendance record at every school play and holiday party.
When I came home for Thanksgiving, she handed me a pile of reading material on the plight of the modern woman: a New York Magazine cover story, "Who's the Better Mom?" a Town and Country Magazine column, "Teach Your Daughters Well" and two new best-selling novels, "The Nanny Diaries" and "I Don't Know How She Does It." The perennial quandary women face between choosing full-time child care and full-time employment has risen to debate again.
The last few generations of women have been brought up with the education and confidence to run the world, but if they choose to have a family, children still need at least one very committed parent. The particular quandary that my generation faces is that the glorified stay-at-home mom of our grandmother's time and the glorified working mom of our mother's time have given way to a society that accepts either role. We can't rebel, and we can't conform. We have to make our own choice.
Many men are choosing to be very involved parents, but still in more families it is the woman who bears the major responsibilities for raising children. And part time work, a possible compromise, often takes one off the fast track and may not even cover the cost of a baby sitter. Gradually employers are becoming more cognizant and supportive of this dilemma, but some industries have a long way to go.
I still have years to mull over these decisions, but I am beginning to realize that the modern mother's fantasy is very different from the modern woman's reality.
As for my mother? She held the high-powered corporate job through her 20s, even after I was born, and later started her own business as my three younger sisters joined our family. She has recently found opportunities for leadership in the volunteer field.
Perhaps you can have it all, but just not all at the same time.