The Shift

I’m on a wonderful list serve of very smart, accomplished working mothers with babies and toddlers. What is the constant thread? Anxiety and guilt about child care.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this thread and discussion. I have a lot of guilty feelings about child care and being a working mom (so much so, I’m going to be in the Boston Globe Sunday magazine soon being interviewed about my mixed feelings about all this stuff). But in my work, I’m immersed in research about working parents and changing gender roles and all that and I try to be objective too. There’s no question we’re in the middle of a huge shift, and we’re the first true group of moms who consider it completely expected to both work and raise kids. But our society is still so conflicted about women’s dual roles, and I think we are too, personally and in our relationships. I know my husband is. I know part of him wishes I stayed home and he could have a hot dinner at 7pm every night. Sometimes I do too! I love being on maternity leave and going to Whole Foods and reading recipes and going to playgroups and such. We are totally the “shift” generation- men and women are in the middle of a major shift in roles and expectations. It’s very confusing, I think.

But objectively, I have to say that I think we are all being too hard on ourselves and we need to take a breath and give ourselves a pat on the back for doing all we do and accomplish.

Statistically, our generation spends more time with our children than any previous generation, and that’s even with a majority of women working outside the home. We are also so much more parenting-focused than any previous generation, and it may perhaps come at a cost to not just us, but our kids. Hence the whole “helicopter parenting” fear that’s arisen in the States. There is so much pressure to be a good parent and I just don’t think other generations felt it as much. They just did the best they could.

From the NY Times: “Before 1995, mothers spent an average of about 12 hours a week attending to the needs of their children. By 2007, that number had risen to 21.2 hours a week for college-educated women and 15.9 hours for those with less education.”

But the best news is that fathers spend strikingly more time with kids than any previous generation. For me, this is the most wonderful part of the shift. Maybe what kids lose in mommy-time, they gain in a dad. And that must be worth something good.