On Having It All

**NOTE - this is not a lighthearted blog post with cute kid pics - turn away now if you're not interested :) ***

There is a recently published article by Anne-Marie Slaughter in The Atlantic titled "Why Women Still Can't Have It All".  I started reading the opinons and commentaries on the article before I actually saw the article itself.  My college years were filled with writing - after all, my degrees are strictly liberal arts and writing is what it's all about.  I appreciate the perspective from which she writes the article - but I am in a season of my life right now where it's not about hypotheticals and musings - my degrees are in philosophy and political science, I live for hypotheticals!!!! - it's about actions and applications to real life.

All of that being said, the article made me think a lot . . . and made me feel the need to act on those thoughts and pen a few things for my children in the future.  But before I get to the future, I need to lay down the past.

I have always done very well academically - not bragging, just stating.  I went to a private college on several scholarships (and student loans!!) and earned 2 degrees in 3 years - a BA in Political Science with contextual emphasis in Law and Politics and a BA in Philosophy with a concentration in East Asian Studies.  There it is - sounds fancy doesn't it?! Well it puts me in the "highly educated" group that Slaughter refers to in the article. I was on my track to law school when a few weeks before college graduation I just melted down and knew I couldn't do it.  In my attempt to take a break, the plan was to bartend and maybe do a temp job in an office - I was 20 with 2 degrees - I had all the time in the world.  Within 3 months my temp job turned into a full time position in an industry I was learning at superspeed - I was a Pharmacy Benefits Coordinator for a regional MCO.  I was blazing through and decided at 21 that if I was going to take that field, I needed to go all the way.  I started applying for MBA programs with concentrations in Healthcare Administration.  Not willing to give up my salary, I examined part time programs - unfortunately, I was told by more than 1 school that they would not admit a 21 year old into an MBA program, much less a part time one. 

So I got married, moved across the country, and decided to try and jump to the other side of my job and work for a PBM.  While I was job searching I got a job serving.  Within a few weeks I was made a supervisor . . . and then just 2 months later, I was managing the restaurant (and my husband! ha!).  This was about the time that I started having to walk the talk with my life.  I moved on the premise that I wanted to live life and not be tied down with a corporate job at 22 . . . well right as I was moving into restaurant management I got a call from a PBM with a salary twice what I was making - and I turned it down.  The restaurant business is fun . . .too much fun sometimes . . . but after bartending and marrying someone engrossed in that business, it was in my blood and I couldn't leave it for what I deemed "just money" at the time.

Fast forward to having our first baby and coming off of maternity leave . . . I was a bar manager and would get home at 3am.  Marlie, as scheduled then as she is now, would be up at 6:30am every morning.  Jay was a kitchen manager and left for work at 6am.  I lasted for 6 weeks before I took a look in the mirror and decided at the wise age of 25 that the fun was over and it was time to be realistic.  I needed to use my degree to get a job that would be more conducive to our life as a family i.e. a 9-5 job.

Here is where we pause - this would be where the article hits the core of most of its premises.  That career changing decision of a baby.  To me - this is when I actually had to start having priorities.  Up until this moment, I did what I wanted.  I was exploring careers and deciding what I wanted to be when I grew up . . . and while I knew that I wanted to be a Mom . . . I didn't know much past that.  I will very honestly tell you, I knew without a shadow of doubt that I didn't (and financially couldn't) want to be a stay at home mom.

So after exploring the possibilities of going into a law firm as basically low level scum without a law degree, I started throwing resumes out there like nobody's business.  And within 1 week I had a job - I was hired as an office manager for a small private company that designed and sold pet products.  My salary actually increased - I worked 8-5pm - I got to wear jeans and a tshirt to work every day - I had 2 office cats - and the people I worked with were decent (minus one that was way more than decent and one of the few people I miss from MN!).  Life was becoming very mellow . . . too complacent and not enough peace though . . . so we jumped ship and headed back to Tennessee.

Within 2 weeks of arriving back in Tennessee, I went straight back to the job I had left 4 years before to go explore.  Funny how that worked - I went and grew up and changed and the stupid job was right there waiting for me when I got back - no time wasted there!!!! I did my thing, proved myself to be the same rockstar I was when I left, and decided that was on lockdown and it was time for another baby.  Well I quickly realized there was another choice to be made.  I could pay someone $1600/month to care for Marlie and soon to be Sam or I could figure out a way to bend the system.  I started my Mary Kay business during that time - while I still feel that in itself was a good decision, life choices are best made outside of pregnancy hormones.  I didn't feel like that was the path to take to support my family, so I made the system change for me.  I went to my bosses and told them I wanted to work full time from home.  NO ONE in the company of about 300 worked from home - so they said no . . . like it was nothing they said no to my fabulously written proposal and factual statements about the money they had lost while I was gone and how I'd already recovered it.  So I did what any woman 6 months pregnant would do . . . I cried and then said screw you - simple as that - you won't follow my rules, I'm not coming back - good luck!  2 weeks before I left for maternity leave they saw me start backing off of projects and clearing my table and they realized I was serious - they caved :)  So after 10 weeks of maternity leave, I began working from home.

I think this would've been the point in my life that I might have been able to say I was the closest to "having it all"in Slaughter's terms.  I pulled down 40 hours a week worth of work and conference calls - but I was home with my girls the entire time I did it.  So I was doing it - I was acheiving goals and milestones professionally and I was finally there to be with my kids.  I will say in no uncertain terms - this was also the time in my life that I was most certain I was going to have a nervous breakdown or a heart attack at any given moment!!!!!!!  Maybe it's because I lacked what some inisist you must have as a woman to accomplish exceptional goals - a supportive AND available spouse.  Jayson was pulling down 70 hours a week at that point and then was gone for a total of 20 weeks out of 45.  Or maybe it was because I was spreading myself so thin that I didn't feel like I was doing anything 100%.  But in realizing that I just tried harder . . . and there were points where I was probably hitting close to 95% in the arenas of career and motherhood (I was fortunate that even though I was getting a 0 as a wife it didn't matter because Jayson wasnt around!) . . . but that's when I started having chest pains and had to go on anti-anxiety meds.  So yea - I did, I had it all - a beautiful home, healthy kids, a loving husband, a career with ample advancement opportunities . . . and it was so enjoyable that I had to be put on medication :)

Here is where we get to current . . . .which allows me to look to the future.  We moved because of Jayson's career opportunities.  And rather than keeping my job and making it work, I asked to be laid off.  At the height of the recession when other people were clinging to jobs, I looked at my boss and said, you either double my salary to cover the damage I am doing to my health, or give me my severance package and just let me go, PLEASE.  She hung on for a few months after that, but eventually let me go.  I will say at this point I could've put the girls in daycare . . . but being the dominant personality that I am, by then I had reached the thought that I was not going to pay someone else to do what I knew I could do better (this extended to Marlie's preschool too!).

It took me a couple of months to get into the routine of being a SAHM - and also the lack of income that was suddenly apparent.  But for the first time in a long time, I knew that every day I was giving something 100% - and I figured out that it was what was most important to me.  And I tell you, it hit me like a ton of bricks . . . I knew that what I wanted to be when I grew up was a Mom that my kids would look back at and know that I not only loved them, but that I really did help them along the way.  And that's when we decided it was time for #3!

So now I am here . . . and I have been doing this for 2.5 years.  And while it hasn't been the easiest thing, every single day - these moments have been the best in my life.  I can start to see by the people they are becoming that I am doing my job well.  I don't need a salary, or a pat on the back (though it's nice at times) to know that I am doing what I was meant to do and I am rocking it more than I have any other job in my life.

But let's go back to Slaughter's article - ultimately she concludes that the social structure and the system of how business and women are viewed is what needs to change.  But there are many of her counterparts, whose arguments she addresses, that would say that part of the reason for the lack of women in leadership is the decline of ambition and/or willingness to make sacrifices. And this is the point that hit me and compelled me to write this for my girls to look back at one day.  10 years ago I would've looked at a SAHM and said "What do you do all day?"  or "I would lose my freaking mind if I couldn't go to work", and of course "But wasn't there something that you wanted to do or be before you had kids".  And I think that one day, my ambitious, most likely over achieving, daughters will look at me and say the same thing.  And while I most definitely do not feel the need to defend my choices (or attack anyone elses's for that matter), I do want them to see the reasoning and the path of the choices I made.  I didn't lose ambition or my ability and desire to want something or to achieve a goal - and hopefully this little piece is free enough from grammatical and structural errors that they will see I haven't completely lost my mind either.  I simply decided after jumping on both sides of the fence, and sitting in the middle for a while, what was important to me and where I wanted to focus my energy . . . and still be able to find a peace in life that would allow me feel like I am living not just exisiting.

And beyond myself and the choices that I have made, I would want my girls to know that while I am doing what I do because of and for them . . . I am as much doing it for myself as well.  The profession that I have chosen (I like to refer to myself as Director of Development) comes with the inherent value of creating awesome memories.  I expect when they are older they will make their own choices, sacrifices, and decisions to be and do what they dream.  And I will do my best to make sure that they understand that having it all isn't defined in terms by one person or a subset of people - it is defined internally . . . and at the end of the day, you have to answer to yourself when you look in the mirror and decide if you have it all.  For me, today, in my little world - I can look in the mirror at the wise age of 31 and say that all of the steps I have taken down different paths while fumbling my way through to get to what I wanted to be when I grew up . . . they ended at a spot that I am so at peace with . . .  and it goes without saying, extremely blessed to be at thanks to the man I married . . . who is still too busy shaking his head at why I didn't go to law school and make us wealthy to notice that I haven't gone back to work :)