What? Women Still Can't Have It All??!!
A couple of weeks ago, Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote a piece for Atlantic Monthly titled "Why Women Still Can't Have It All." Slaughter describes why she quit her demanding job as a Director of Policy Planning in the State Department to focus on "just" being a professor at Princeton - writing, speaking, and living in the same house with her husband and children. In the blog world this piece blew up comment sections, filled RSS readers, and generated a flurry of email exchanges. After plowing through the article, I couldn't help but wonder if Slaughter was telling us something we didn't already know? Do women (or men) still believe they can "have it all" or achieve (the other tired phrase) "life balance"?
I started asking around, and while many of my friends had seen the links and the subsequent hub-bub, most of them didn't bother reading the essay. Aside from the article being SUPER long, the other feedback was a general acceptance that there's no such thing as "having it all " or creating "life balance." My friends and colleagues didn't think they needed to read another article explaining this perspective.
One friend said "I don't know when getting 'life balance' became the Holy Grail, but I think it's a crock. There's no such thing. We all make trade-offs, so deal with it." (OK - "crock" isn't the precise quote, but you get the picture!)
Life is messy.
Sometimes the urgent squeezes out the important, and when that happens too much of the time, we KNOW that our priorities are out of whack. Actions express priorities, and there's something baked into each of us that says ultimately relationships matter more than tasks.
Even if we have a demanding job, the boundaries of a work day can be fairly consistent. If you're like me, you're more likely to debate whether you should take another crack at editing a document or reading an extra chapter of Harry Potter to the kids or cleaning up the kitchen or going to bed to get some decent rest. Those aren't things you balance. Those are trades you make.
Ultimately, Slaughter decided that working 80 hours a week and a three-hour train ride away from her family wasn't sustainable for family relationships. (This would be an example of a "no brainer.") Of course, I've never had to struggle with a trade off between hanging out with heads of states OR attending our kids' parent teacher conferences like Slaughter did, but I still think she made a good call.
Do you still believe in life balance? Where have you seen it working? Who do you know that "has it all" really?