This diary is a response to today's front pager, "NYT to successful women: suck it up." Link
You'll see that I think Laura Clawson really goes overboard in her original analysis.
Jill Filipovic makes an important point that "When your school system runs in some substantial part on the free labor of parents (and let’s be real, it’s almost entirely the free labor of mothers), you have a big problem." There's that, and then I can't help goggling at this crap:
IT was last spring, somewhere between overseeing Teacher Appreciation Week and planning the fifth-grade graduation party, when Jamie Lentzner, mother of two in Foster City, Calif., reached her breaking point.
She had already designed the fifth-grade T-shirt, taught art twice monthly to three different classes, and organized movie night, restaurant night and beach night fund-raisers. She was overscheduled and exhausted. She had scant time to help her children with their school projects because — coincidentally — she was always working on projects for their school. "You’ve got to stop," said her husband, Darin, who worried that the constant stress she seemed to feel was damaging to her health.
Maybe you looked at that case and thought "hey, it's nice that her husband is all concerned about her health, but would it kill him to organize a movie night?" If so, keep reading. Because it turns out that, in this article, having a husband who's concerned that maybe working, taking care of the kids that are also his, and volunteering untold hours is a lot to take on is the most a woman can hope for.
And that's where I stopped reading, because that's entirely the opposite of what I thought.
I'm a graduate student and so is my girlfriend of (nearly) six years to whom I'll be married to in the not-so-distant future. We're both young professionals on our own paths we hope will lead to medical school. We both also hope to have a happy, healthy family when we grow up. Neither of us shies away from civic involvement either. I'm a Kiwanian, we're both involved in many of the activities in our congregation (Unitarian-Universalist).
So yes, we both know much about being extended and over-extended. But the key in this is that we're equals. I like watching hockey games on TV. She started watching too when we began dating, but doesn't need to watch them like I do. And you know what? That's fine. It's something I enjoy doing, it's something that I do which she can join if she wishes and shouldn't feel badly when she doesn't. Same goes for my involvement with Kiwanis- I'm periodically involved in our running projects while she's relaxing or studying.
The original post in question spoke of an NYT article about a woman so dedicated to helping her children's school that she neglected involvement in her family. I don't know what she did with her husband, but it distinctly commented about not even having time to help her kids do homework. And the author of the diary, Miss Laura/Laura Clawson, takes the husband to task for telling her to work less yet not helping the wife with her involvement as well as the NYT for not making the stern rebuke that she did.
Well quite honestly, I'm in agreement with the husband on this one. It's easy to portray the husband as a guy too involved in Monday Night Football and Thursday night poker games with the boys, but I feel that comparison falls apart when you turn it around. What happens if I volunteer to run four events with Kiwanis and our congregation, then quickly learn I've bitten off far too much? Well yes, I'd really hope my girlfriend would lend a hand to help me out of a tight spot so I can get through my commitments and still, you know, get some sleep at night. But you know what I'd do after? I'd learn not to over-commit myself in the future. Relationships are built on respect. I think that one spouse so over-committing themselves to non-familial activities to the point the only options are neglecting your spouse/children or having your spouse commit as much free time as you are displays a distinct lack of respect for your spouse- whatever the respective genders are of the spouses on each side of the relationship.
I think Laura's write-up of the article makes an implicit and rather sexist assumption: that the things the husband spends his time doing are distinctly less important than the things his wife is doing. Perhaps the things he's doing aren't more significant than watching the game and pounding back a few beers. Fine, let's assume that's exactly what he's doing. It's obvious that this woman has completely failed in striking a sustainable work-life balance. Is the most equitable, fair, egalitarian solution to the problem that the husband sacrifice his own as to help her regain hers? No, that's ridiculous. What needs to happen is these two spouses sit down and mutually agree on a plan where BOTH of them are operating at a sustainable balance of work, family, and civic involvement.