• There's Still A Long Way To Go, Baby

• The Problem With No Name Revisited

• The Tired Superwoman

• A Life Of Balance

• The Way We Whine

• The Glass Ceiling Is In The Nursery

• What Did You Expect?

• Term Limits

What Did You Expect?

Two workshifts leave no play shift, no downtime, and not much sleep. That partly explains why working mothers gripe so much. The job description for working moms provides a clue as to why so often they go part-time or quit. Otherwise, women will likely suffer under an impossible workload. But there's something else going on here: frustrated expectations. Until they gave birth, many of the women now performing 70 to 100 percent of child care and household duties expected things to be 60/40, if not equal.

Both of two definitive studies of the transition to parenthood found that the most unrealistic expectations pregnant women hold are those of how much their husbands will share in child and home care. Despite changing women's opportunities outside the home, the women's movement left family roles basically intact. Yet, like my friend Susan, Mary Clayton, and Lauren Martling, many mothers don't anticipate that the childrearing workload will fall mostly on their shoulders (or how heavy or compelling it is). Then, boxed in by the seeming inevitability of what has happened, moms often see no option beyond resignation and complaint.

Just as "you can have it all" became a catchphrase in the 1960's and 70's, everyday people utter a new, more downbeat mantra: "you can't have it all." It serves as a snapshot reference to the absurdity of a woman thinking she can have a fulfilling life or career, well-adjusted children, and a happy marriage all at the same time.

Hitting two out of the three categories: fulfillment, secure children, and harmonious marriage, now seems a more realistic goal. More realistic perhaps, but far from ideal, and by no means guaranteed. In later chapters, we will identify the tools that take the conversation beyond complaint, into happy solutions that make a trifecta possible for mothers, fathers, and children.

< back to start | back to top ^ | next segment >