The next Parent Talk lecture on January 22nd is targeted towards working parents, specifically Moms. Stop in to listen to the funny Michelle Cove as she talks about her book and how she eased some of her "mommy guilt."Check out this excerpt to learn more about the book.
Pointless Pressure
I learned over the past few years that we're all sick of pointless and pressure-inducing mantras like "find the balance" and "you can have it all." Please! We are big girls who know that juggling a career and family is messy and complicated. It was freeing to hear Anne-Marie Slaughter--a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, and the mother of two teenage boys--say in her Atlantic Magazine cover story "Why Women Still Can't Have it All" last July, "I'd been telling young women at my lectures that you can have it all . . . I'd been part, albeit unwittingly, of making millions of women feel that they are to blame if they cannot . . . rise up the ladder as fast as men and also have a family and an active home life."
Yes, let's stop striving to "have it all" and put our attention, as Slaughter suggests, on where it belongs: creating more flexibility in the workplace so women (and men) can attend to both their career and their family--and not get penalized in the future for making a "lateral" move professionally for the sake of the family.
We can also open up to each other about how and when we're struggling with the work-parent juggle so we know we're not alone in navigating this rocky terrain. Says Gina Robison-Billups, president of the International Association of Working Mothers, "When we share our guilt and that terrible feeling that we're not giving enough of ourselves to our kids, we realize that other moms feel the same way--it's incredibly liberating."
In fact, if you ever want to bond with another working mom, just ask her: "What was the moment when you almost lost your mind trying to balance career and family?" We all have at least one of these bad-mommy stories, and sharing these confessions is like offering one another gifts that say "Hey, we're all struggling with this, and that doesn't mean it's not worth it." Even though we choose this path, it's hard, and we're all making it up as we go.
Excerpted from "I Love Mondays: And Other Confessions from Devoted Working Moms" by Michelle Cove. Available from Seal Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright 2012.
"I Love Mondays and Other Confessions From Devoted Working Moms" by Michelle CoveTuesday, January 22 at 7:00 pmCharles River School6 Old Meadow Road Dover
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