You Can Have It All

When I was a girl in the '70s, the feminist media told me that I could do anything boys can do, that I can be anything I want to be in the world. And I believed it. I still believe it. I have to because I spent my entire adult life testing the theory, and it seems to have panned out. Sort of.

I don't need a man to support me, although I share a house with one. I am the breadwinner, the cook, the life organizer, the main housecleaner, and I have a busy social life as well as involving myself in lots of activities to improve the world. Even though it's not 50/50 in my house, I took a strange kind of pride in being able to do all of this. Because they told me I could and I actually can! I didn't have to just raise babies and stay at home. I can do anything!

Enter the baby.

Because if I can do all that at once, certainly I can have a child too right? I can be everything to her and still work full time and still have a decent marriage and still have friends and still actively benefit the world. This is the moment of my rude awakening. The moment that I realize that although it may look good on paper, that there is actually only so much of me to go around.

Who knew that my heart would do a 180 and want to stay home full time with that baby? That I would want to give it all up to change diapers and breastfeed and join mom's groups but would have no choice? What could have possibly prepared me for the guilt I would feel every time I dropped her off for someone else to take care of and drove away to work with a pit in my stomach? Or wonder how I got so off course, bought into all the hype so much, that I set myself up to be a breadwinner and a full time mommy?

And by the way, that is impossible. They lied to us big time. You cannot do all that 100%. Those of you who have kids and/or have careers - you already know this of course. I'm not sure why I was so blindsided, and so naive.

It took me at least six months to get past this fact, and to stop being incapacitated by it. I accept that this is how my life is, and I'm double-determined now to make a good life for my girl, to set a good example of a satisfying life, and set real expectations for her as she dreams of how she wants her life to be and what it means to be a woman.

I get up with the her, change her, feed her and get her ready for the day. At the same time I get myself ready for the day.  I have the great fortune to be able to work from home a couple of days a week, so I can be near her. While I'm working - email, phone calls, budgets, reviews, schedules, team meetings - I am also chasing a very busy and danger-loving toddler. I prepare homemade kid food at the same time I'm preparing dinner and doing the dishes, and sometimes, if I'm extra on top of it, laundry too. I do this all with a cluttered, scattered and fractured mind. I make lists to make lists of the things I need to do every day. I plan all the meals, do the shopping, clean the house and pay the bills. I orchestrate the schedule of her life too, to make sure she gets enough sleep time, eating time, play time and love.

I don't really like living this way, but it all needs to be done so I do it. I ask for help, and the husband does whatever I ask. And nothing more. He is admittedly overwhelmed by 10% of this. I don't want to be the boss of it all but I am. This is what I signed up for even if I didn't realize it at the time.

Another moment of realization - I am not super woman. There is no such thing as super woman, really, this is just what we do. Women have been functioning this way for millions of years. As sobering as it is, I can't help but feel a little bit of magic underlying it all. Yeah, we can do anything boys can do, and SO MUCH MORE. I send up an homage every single day to all the hard-working, magical and amazing women that make this world work. I get the whole feminist thing, now that I've come around to it in a very real way.