We Don't Want it All

               If you have ever taken a physics class, you have probably dealt with a two body problem.  It is a physics problem that deals with the motion of two interacting bodies.  In academia the two body problem has another meaning.  After finishing undergrad, we have grad school, post docs, and more post docs.  Then, if we are lucky, we get tenure track jobs, research jobs, or industry jobs.  This means we can expect to change city every few years.  For us, the two body problem refers to the difficulty in maintaining a long term romantic relationship when neither you nor your partner can easily predict what city you will find yourself in more than two years out.  For a woman who wants a family this becomes a three, four, or as-many-bodies-as-you-intend-to-raise problem.  In physics, we do not have the tools to analytically solve the three body problem, let alone four or more bodies.  Similarly, in the real world, the problem of having a career and a family in academia, or any other field for that matter, remains woefully unsolved.

 

See this.  This looks like it would be awful to solve.  Now replace the spheres
and spacecraft with people, replace the algebra with creative time management,
and insert judgmental strangers and we have a real world 3 body problem

               Since women first entered the workforce en mass there has been a question of whether women can “have it all,” by which I mean have a career and a family.  Conservatives wrung their hands worrying that women would not be able to be proper mothers if they worked.  Employers questioned a woman’s ability to be dedicated to her job if she had a family to tend to.  Every generation of working women took a slightly different route to try to balance these opposing forces.  Some gave up entirely on being feminine or having families to have a career.  Some gave up their careers as soon as they had kids, and many many others tried to “have it all.”  What I ask is, “Do we want it all?” and “Why do we have to have it all?” 

Once “having it all” became a normal goal for educated women, anything less than that became some sort of failure.   We, as a society, like to pretend that we don’t look down on stay-at-home moms, women who choose not to have children, and moms who visibly struggle to balance their families and careers—but we do.  The stay at home moms are “lazy”, or “wasting their potential”, or “obviously insane overbearing helicopter parents who made their child into their career.”  Women without children or families are “power-hungry bitches”, “selfish for not having children”, or “missing out.”   And of course, those of us that try to have both will be treated as inadequate at both unless we work at our job as if we have no family, and raise a family as if we have no job.  There is immense pressure to “have it all” and make it look easy.  I am not even near the point of thinking about children, and still the very idea of trying to “have it all” terrifies me.

This 1980's perfume ad might be even more terrifying than trying to have it all.  It will give you an idea of what having it all was meant to look like.

We don’t necessarily respect the women who do “have it all.”  Single parents must support and raise a family on their own.  They have no choice but to “have it all.”  People do not treat working single moms as strong glamorous superwomen who get to “choose” to “have it all.”  Single parents are often seen as incompetent, incapable of raising their children properly, or an omen of the breakdown of the moral fabric of society. 

My mother entered the work force in the wake of the first wave of women who tried to “have it all” and who, I can only assume, wore that scary 80's perfume.  She was raised to join their ranks, expected to be a proper housewife with a business degree.  Having it all didn’t mean getting the best of both worlds.  Having it all meant doing all of the work of both worlds, and leaving your own needs behind.  When my parents divorced, having it all went from an expectation my mother was raised with to a necessity.  She, as one person, had to do the job of two parents.  She had to be a mother and a father.  But suddenly, the herculean task of having a job and raising children was not respectable like it had been before.  Suddenly, my mother was that reviled single mother, that symptom of the decadence of the modern world. 

Delicious delicious decadence

My parents divorced when I was in elementary school.  Some of my closest friends were not allowed to play with me outside of school because my mother was a single parent.  One parent directly told my mother I could not play with her child because my mother was “out all the time” doing who-knows-what sort of scandalous things.  Yes, she was out doing scandalous things like, you know, traveling for work, to earn money, to do trivial things, like feed her children.  I will not name any names, but if you were a close friend of mine in fifth and sixth grade and wonder why we never played together outside of school, you should go have a sit down talk with your parents about their biases against single mothers. 

You don't need to be a single mom to rock the dad mustache,
but single moms rock it particularly well.

These parents, and likely others whose judgments my mom shielded me from, questioned what values I could have learned in a single parent household.  While they were busy questioning my morality, they failed to appreciate what I did learn in my single parent household.  They failed to appreciate the resilience my mother taught me.  They failed to appreciate the self-reliance my mother taught me.  They failed to appreciate everything a single parent has to teach.  I only saw how biases against single parents impacted me, someone raised by a single parent.  The stigma is much more pronounced for the parents themselves.

We do not get to set “having it all” as the standard for educated women, and then belittle women for trying to meet that standard.  We do not get to expect women to show up to every soccer game, while telling them they are entitled for asking for flexible working hours.  We do not get to tell women they need to hold off having children if they want to be competitive in the workplace, then fret over the rising age of mothers, or the dropping fertility rate.  And yet we do. 

 

Translation: Beauty has no age but fertility does.
Translation: HAVE BABIES NOW!

Italy recently released an ad campaign to encourage young couples to have children.  The Mediterranean country saw fewer births in 2014 than any time since the formation of the modern Italian state in 1861.  Wary of a birthrate too low to maintain the current population levels, the Italian government has been trying desperately to encourage young couples to have children. Neither ad campaigns, nor the 80 euro a month baby bonus offered to lower-income Italian parents of young children will change the cultural and economic forces driving the birthrate down.  The stagnating economy makes raising a family on one income unviable.  The low rate of female employment, unaffordable costs of daycare, and current school day structure make it very difficult to have two working parents.  The result—no babies.

While as an American, it feels easy to point out the cultural and structural issues driving the birthrate down in other countries, things are not so different here. 

When I was born, working 20 hours a week from home counted as maternity leave for my mom.  That is not maternity leave.  That is just working reduced hours and getting a cute new blob of baby for a secretary.  I am sure I was an excellent assistant and made many essential contributions to my mother’s work.  We cannot ask working women to have children if it will at best slow their careers, or at worst leave them unable to reenter the job market because of high barriers to reentry or a dearth of viable childcare options.  In this economy, we simply cannot ask women not to work.  Things aren’t as dire as in Italy, but still we feel the same squeeze.

 

As you can see baby me and my mom are
very busy doing important business over here.

I am tired of having to discuss balancing a family and a career at Women in Physics events.  More importantly I am tired of knowing that my male peers do not even have to think about this.  We put this ludicrous expectation on women to have jobs and raise children and do not ask the same of men, even when they have children.  Then we wonder why women do not progress as far in their careers as men do.  As long as balancing a career and a family is seen as only a woman’s problem, as opposed to a young-people-interested-in-producing-even-younger-people problem, the three body problem will remain unsolved. 

I want a career, and I want children, but I don’t want to “have it all.”  Rather I want to build an environment where “having it all” does not mean “doing it all.”  I want to solve the three body problem.  To do this, we need to start by making maternity leave a legitimate option, not just working from home with a tiny new assistant.  We need to start offering paternity leave to shift the weight of raising children more evenly onto both parents’ shoulders.  Companies could provide daycare services, schools could offer aftercare, and companies could offer flexible hours and work at home options to families.  This would allow parents to participate in the workforce and care for their children once maternity/paternity leave ends.   I am not asking for a hand out; I am asking for the tools necessary for me to have a job.

Superman was not human.  That's how he did his job.  Moms are
approximately humans, so they shouldn't have to do superman's job.

             We can change the narrative of the working mother.  We can make it possible to “have it all” without forcing a woman to struggle, and pretend she isn’t.  Even better yet, we can make it okay for women to choose to not have children or (if they can afford it) to stay at home to raise their children.  Just stop judging them.  You, yes you, stop judging these women, and tell people who do to shut up.  Feminism did not happen to force all women to fill all the roles both men and women once did.   Feminism happened to give women a choice, (one men should have access to as well).  Finally, if you were raised by a working parent, or a single parent.  Call them now, and thank them.  They “do it all” and they do not receive the respect they deserve for this feat.  Thank your working parents for the sacrifices they made for you, then push to change things, so that we don’t need to make the same sacrifices when it comes time for use to have children.