To Work or Not: Wait, What's the Question?

Earlier this year, one of my favorite mommy-lit authors, Judith Warner, posed this question: Are You In, or Out? If the title alone didn’t grab me the subject matter did: Why are highly educated, career-wired women leaving the workforce to stay at home with their kids?

I would be lying if I said the work-or-not conundrum hasn’t been a constant struggle for me since my first son was born five years ago. When I returned from maternity leave, my boss at the time (a guy) confided in me at a staff retreat that I was on the “VP-track” … “unless motherhood derails you.” I was mortified. And determined to prove him (that sexist!) wrong. But I now know he verbalized “that which must not be mentioned” in a PC work environment as a somewhat friendly attempt to prompt me to examine my career in the context of a new life.

When my son was 18 months old, I left the company (leaving behind an offer for a coveted post in LA – my boss’ job … he had been fired). Though my career was heading exactly where I had hoped (and had worked so hard to attain), the hours and abject commitment to a job rang hollow when I looked into my baby’s precious little face. I no longer had the same zeal for the crushing demands of a high-powered career.

Without a paying job, I finally got to partake in the activities connected to long stretches of free time: gym class, story time at the library, a random trip to the zoo on a Tuesday. I tried to write on the side, but I was often too exhausted to flex any creativity after a long day with a toddler (parenting is, after all, also work – and rewarding at that). Eventually, I returned to outside employment on a flexible schedule, focusing on my two greatest passions: writing and parenting (while still allowing big chunks of time with my children).

And everyday I continue to question my choice.

Maybe it is because others (particularly family members) continue to question it: “Why don’t you just stay home? Your kids will only be little once ...” is the oft-repeated, mostly rhetorical, query. Or, others feel obliged to share a different refrain, “I guess I’m just lucky that I don’t have to work.” Usually, I brush such comments off, countering that “I work because I want to.” The truth is I secretly wonder: Am I being selfish by wanting to work, even at a reduced pace?

Reading Judith’s essay, crystallized the dilemma in a way I could not: “Given the nature of work today, I don’t think it’s all that surprising that women who don’t take any particular pleasure in their work or have a particular sense of a professional calling or a particular need to make money should choose to opt out.” Bingo. The modern-day American working world sucks and if you don’t love, love, love it (and don’t depend on it), giving it up for a full-time mommy role (which is demanding in a different way) is a no-brainer for some women. You’re not lucky as much as you are practical. And, I’m not unlucky as much as I am drawn to a calling (and, when it comes right down to it, practical, as well). So, maybe the real question isn’t "Should you work (even if you don’t have to)?” but “How do you balance your own desires/needs with raising a family?”

--shelley pate