I wonder about the consequences of certain behaviors—what
they lead to and how they change people. I was talking to a good friend
yesterday about careers and career progression, and we were exchanging war
stories from our respective workplaces. It struck me that she is experiencing
now some of what I experienced about ten years ago. In my case, those experiences
led to a significant change in how I viewed workplace leadership, careers in
general, my career, and career progression. I have come full circle when it
comes to careers; I started my work life with real gusto. I wanted a career and
went after it. That’s no different than what many younger women experience
these days, just that at the time I did it (the late 1970s/early 1980s), it was
still considered a ‘big thing’ to want a long-term career if you were a woman.
I remember Ms. magazine and how it promoted
women’s value in the workplace and the importance of a career in women’s lives.
Feminism promoted the idea of women having a choice; they could choose the home
or the workplace, or both. The latter proved to be quite difficult when I was
young, because it wasn’t easy to give your all to the workplace and then at
home with a family and children. Most of the women I knew at that time (in the
USA) solved that dilemma in different ways; some were wealthy enough to hire
nannies to care for their children, while others placed them in private
daycare. Others worked part-time and gave up the idea of having a full-time career.
They had a job that helped pay the bills but which gave them the opportunity to
be with their children more. All of them acknowledged that it was not possible
to be a full-time employee and a full-time mother, and whether they felt guilt
about that was not the issue. They acknowledged that something had to give, and
sometimes it was their taking care of their own children that was sacrificed
for their career. I don’t know how most of them feel about that decision at
this point in their lives (most are in their early 60s). The few women I know
who have truly reached the top were and still are dynamos whose children
respect them for the fact that they broke through the barriers that had
hindered women. But again, those women had full-time help in the form of
nannies or parents who were available to help them raise their children.
Sometimes now I look at the younger women I know, who have
so many more choices than we ever did, and I don’t see their lives as easier
than ours. I rather see them as much more difficult. Even here in Norway, where
equality between the sexes has come a long way, there is still grumbling and
dissatisfaction with the way things have worked out for women. Why? Men are
expected to do more at home and to contribute equally to childcare and
housework. But most of the polls show that women are still doing most of the
housework and taking care of many aspects of childcare that men don’t seem to
or want to manage. I have no firm opinion about it; I am merely an observer and
a listener. I know many younger women who live alone and have no desire to have
children, while others have married later and had children later in order to
give themselves the opportunity to build a career. What I hear from many
younger women who work full-time is that they miss not being with their
children when they are working; they wish they could spend more time with them.
Their consciences bother them a lot. I think it’s an instinct in women to want
to be with their children; perhaps an instinct that men have as well. When
children arrive, life takes on a different character. The future of their
children becomes important, more important than their own lives. That’s the way
of nature, a way of ensuring the survival of future generations. There is not
enough time in life to do everything wholeheartedly. We cannot have it all—the
perfect job, the perfect home life, the perfect social life. None of them
exist. Guilt simply makes life more stressful. I am not saying we can eradicate
guilt; I don’t believe we can nor should we. But there is a happy medium. There
is a way of living life that does not require a person (woman or man) to
sacrifice her or his all on the altar of the workplace, only to go home
completely sapped for energy and willingness to take part in family life. I
think it is wrong of workplaces to expect that, and yet, that is the definition
of the modern workplace—more efficient, more productive, always can be better,
always can top last month’s or last year’s sales—in other words, never good
enough. Striving for more—more power, more prestige, and more money--continually.
That is the nature of the workplace and perhaps the nature of human beings. But
it does not lead to happiness, real happiness. It does not lead to any sort of
internal peace, it ignores the needs of the soul and the heart. Because in the
midst of the striving, the questions come. What am I doing this for? Why am I
doing this? What’s the goal? Why am I sacrificing my family life for a job that
will spit me out when the time comes to cut budgets and personnel? Why do we
willingly sign our lives over to a corporation that cares nothing about us in
the long run? Why do we do it? We have to start asking the tough questions. If
we do, there is hope for change.
My career is nearing its natural end. I never had my own
children, but I think if I had had them, I would have wanted to spend time with
them. I say that however from the perspective of now. I really don’t know what
it would have been like to have tried to balance children and a career. Of
course I would have had help from my husband, but still, I think it would have
been stressful. He and I have careers that are not 9 to 5, and they still
demand a level of engagement that we cannot give them anymore. I want much more
free time to pursue my hobbies and other activities. I don’t regret my choice
of career or the financial and intellectual independence it gave me, but I can
see why women and men choose not to pursue a career. It comes down to listening to
yourself, to your heart and soul. If you know you don’t want to devote your
life to a career and that you would rather stay at home with your children or
work part-time in order to spend more time with them, then that should be a
choice that society respects and rewards both women and men for. Such a choice is no longer
ridiculed, but it remains difficult for many couples to make it work. Social
trends and our culture have created the need for materialistic lifestyles that
require that couples work full-time in order to make them possible. Something
has to give. Some couples are choosing simpler lives—making do with less, moving
from cities, working for smaller companies, starting their own companies,
working for companies that allow them to work at home—all those things. I hope
that society moves in that direction—toward smaller rather than larger, and
toward less materialistic rather than more. I hope too that the right to
personal choice, to following one’s heart, and to wanting peace of soul count
for more in the years to come.
