B-Day Lunch for Mom at the Tea House with Sis
…on this day, March 8th –
International Women’s Day (sometimes known as International Working Women’s Day)
I went to the hair salon this week and after a few hours in the chair I emerged with highlighted, sleek hair which looked good, but still I was ticked.
During my long appointment (I have a lot of hair!) the hair stylist explained that she was new in town, had no family here and said that she was feeling increasingly anxious about the upcoming summer holidays as she did not know what to do about child care for her young daughter.
She told me that summer day camps are not only costly for her but they end at 3PM and she has to work until 4:30. She asked her boss whether she could finish early and they told her no, she had to do the ‘core business’ hours.
She has just moved here from the Caribbean and there are no neighbours or friends that can pick up her child and stay with her until she gets off shift. Her husband’s schedule does not allow for flexibility either. If she did pay for an after hours daycare she would still need to find a way to get her daughter to the daycare from the camp and said that the cost of sending her daughter to two different programs in one day was prohibitive on her budget.
She is caught both in a financial bind and a ‘time cage’.
Brigid Schulte in her book Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has The Time speaks about ‘time cages’, people caught in jobs where there is no time flexibility and because of this women are increasingly becoming anxious and burnt out.
This whole situation with the hair stylist really bugged me.
Here was a simple solution- get off work earlier, work a few evenings, or longer shifts on the weekend whatever, but the salon won’t allow it.
I don’t know if the manager is male or female but either way there should be some room for maneuvering here. I realize businesses need to make a profit but how hard would it be to let an employee off two hours earlier just for the summer months? Especially if she made up the time?
What burns me up with this woman’s story is that it is a story I have been hearing over and over for many years now, ever since my peer group started having kids.
There are many women I know who would be thrilled if their employers allowed them to work part time so that they could spend more time at home with their families. These are women who in some cases are long term employees, do excellent work, and are responsible and motivated. Yet company rules are such that the they are told they must work full time or quit.
Really??? In 2015 that is the best these companies/ employers can do for valuable staff members???
So what I really, really want…
…on this International Womans’ Day is for women and men to SUPPORT EACH OTHER MORE, so that we see big changes across the work landscape that allows for better work life balance for both sexes.
As Schulte puts it, the way we work today is completely at odds with how we do our best work. We are in the 21st century but we are dealing with a 1950’s ‘Dad brings home the bacon and Mom stays home’ mindset.
Last year Anne Marie Slaughter (whom I will refer to as AMS for brevity), the first woman director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department wrote a compelling article for The Atlantic titled ‘Why Women Still Can’t Have It All’. In this role Ms. Slaughter could be found at the UN meeting with every foreign minister and head of state in the world, or at a reception with President Obama and his wife Michelle. Clearly an important, glamorous job (and she was on leave from Princeton University where she had tenure -not too shabby either) but in January 2011 she quit.
Ms. Slaughter said she left because she could no longer juggle the needs of the job with the needs of her family which included two teenage boys, one of whom at age 14 was struggling at school. For AMS the worlds of work and care (and this can be child care or elder care) had collided resulting in what Brigid Schulte in her book calls ‘a code red event’.
(*If you haven’t already read it there is an older post in my Blog section at www.fullflightlifecoaching.com called The Power of Green Nail Polish- June 2014 which describes my ‘code red’ experience)
In the Atlantic article AMS said that the women who have managed to be both mothers and top professionals (FYI-she’s talking about highly educated women here) were either superhuman, rich or self employed. Her piece went on to cite numerous changes that were essential if women were to not just stay in the work force but thrive in it.
A Few Thoughts
So with Ms. Slaughters’ excellent essay in mind (I have referenced many of her points below and I encourage you to Google the actual article and have a read) here are a few thoughts this International Women’s Day;
- Women need to support each other better. It doesn’t matter if we are working Moms, stay at home Moms, breast feeding Moms, bottle feeding Moms, corporate Moms, hippie Moms whatever, we need to do what we can to make each others lives easier, both at home and in the workplace.
How do we do this? Stopping the Mommy wars for one. No one is better or less than any one else. We all love our kids and families and we all do what we need to do to provide for them.
- Recognize that parenting and work is not a ‘woman’s’ issue it is a family issue. A burnt out mother affects the entire family unit, workplace performance suffers and colleagues have to pick up the slack.
- Acknowledge the fact that people ( and studies show women particularly) are working harder that ever today. Why? There are numerous reasons;
-Increased cost of living
-Technological changes resulting in ‘work creep’, we can get e-mails and texts from our employers day and night so we are never totally turned off
-Cutbacks in workplaces resulting in heavier work loads
-More single Moms often with no partner to help counterbalance the stress of ‘doing it all’
-Perfectionism / Unrealistic expectations from self and society
-Wants vs. Needs. Do we really need that $50,000 car or do we just want it?
In Overwhelmed Schulte cited one study that said women today are unhappier than women 40 years ago.
Hmmm… Maybe we need to do something differently?
- We need to get women into positions of power where they can be catalysts for workplace change so that every company can operate from a ‘family first’ perspective. This would mean offering part time work, reduced hours, flex-hours, limited overnight travel, telecommuting etc. for their staff (male and female). That way women on the lower rungs of the corporate ladder can stay in the work force without feeling like they are compromising the needs of their families.
- WORK HOURS THAT MATCH SCHOOL & CAMP HOURS! (and heck maybe even an extended school year??) This would help out my hairdresser and thousands of other women caught in time cages (and we might get smarter kids too!).
- Marrying the right person helps IN A BIG WAY. Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg in her Barnard College commencement address stated;
‘The most important career decision you’re going to make is whether or not you have a life partner and who that partner is’.
Because supportive partners help us women achieve optimal work life balance.
- We need men to help us change workplace culture from the inside- women can’t do it alone. And the good news is that this is starting to happen as many men today have been raised by full time working mothers so they get it. We need to keep working this shift though.
- We need to help the men. I just read Emma Watson’s speech about the HeForShe initiative (She played Hermione in the Harry Potter films). In her position as UN Goodwill Ambassador she spoke about the need for gender equality for both sexes. Among other things she discussed men’s role in society being less valued (how they are sometimes lampooned and turned into Homer Simpson type characters -my words not hers), how some men have a distorted sense of what makes a man successful, of meeting men with mental health issues who are unable to ask for help as it isn’t seen as manly etc. We need to support each other in this life because cultural and societal pressures can be very strong.
- Look at the big picture in terms of when you have your children.
Again the brilliant Ms. Slaughter highlighted a modern trend in terms of childbearing, referring to top leaders in the generation ahead of her women like Hilary Clinton, Madeline Albright (First woman to become U.S Secretary of State,1996), Sandra Day O’Connor (U.S Supreme Court Justice, retired), Beverly McLachlin (Current Supreme Court Justice Canada)…
… and how they had their children in their 20s and early 30s which was the norm in the 1950s through to the 1970s. She talks about how this is no longer the case as many women are now pursuing careers and having children later in life.
When asked by younger women about sequencing career and children AMS recommends they establish their careers first, try to have kids before 35 and freeze their eggs- married or not. She further adds that ‘career on ramps’ for women new to the workforce in their mid 40’s (who had their kids early and did not build up a professional career) don’t really exist except on TV a la Alicia Florrick in The Goodwife!
I’m changing tact here a bit but here is a few more thoughts related to women and work…
- What happened to the Sabbath (a day of rest and reflection)? We need to reclaim the Sabbath! Did you know that this is one of the 10 Commandments?
‘Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy’.
(I had forgotten this and for the record I have never been much of a church goer although I was really into it when I was in elementary school, I think because it was social gathering and they gave out free pencils!)
Anyhow the definition of the Sabbath is as follows; a day of religious observance and abstinence from work kept by Jews from Friday evening to Saturday evening and by most Christians on Sunday.
I have discussed this with my husband many times over the last few years because I feel that having one true day of rest does NOT exist in our family, and indeed in many families, as many people now work Sundays. Years ago everything was closed and whether you attended church or not there was a sense of enforced ‘down’ time as you couldn’t run out and pick out groceries or hang out at the mall.
For my family rotating shift work is the culprit and as such there are many Saturdays and Sundays that it is just me and the boys. Although I have a good time with my kids I feel that as a family unit we are missing out because everyone benefits from the regularity of a real day of rest and being together, one with no activities scheduled, no chores to do, just going for a walk, or doing something fun and at the end of it having a Sunday meal where everyone is present.
What About You?
Maybe some of you keep the Sabbath day holy and attend church and if so that is great, as you have a space to sit and reflect, but for those of you that don’t and if you have a schedule where it is possible, GO FOR IT! You don’t have to go to church to do this, just create your version of the Sabbath, time for you to rest and reflect.
Despite my husbands nutty work life we still try for our ‘together’ days. If the schedule isn’t gelling and my husband’s days off fall mid-week we will just pull the kids out of school and make our own ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ and head to Science World or the Aquarium or ride the train into the city.
And on that note…
- MORE PLAY PLEASE! BECAUSE PLAY = CREATIVITY
If long hours and overwhelm at work is getting you down, play is the antidote. Have you heard of the ‘California effect’?
I believe both AMS and Ms. Schulte spoke about California being the birthplace of innovation for the U.S. Think tech companies like Apple and Google, Hollywood / entertainment, sports, food, lifestyle- so much has sprung out of that sunny state.
It has been said that companies do so well in California because they take their play as seriously as their work. At Google’s headquarters one can find great food, light sabres, ping pong tables and the company has a policy that requires employees to spend one day a week working on whatever they like.
Earlier this year my husband took a tour through the Twitter offices (outside of San Francisco) and he said there were multiple restaurants, a play room with video games, pool tables, etc..
Pretty fabulous for a workplace right?
And these companies aren’t providing all this just to be fun, they have a vested interest because various studies have shown that employees who take breaks and play and find ways to fill themselves up and reenergize come up with better ideas and have less stress.
So if you are feeling disempowered, spent and soooo burnt out you are crispy – Go play!
As Aristotle said;
‘We work to have leisure, on which happiness depends’.
So there is a whole bouquet of thoughts about women and work for you on this International Women’s Day– take what you like and leave the rest.
If you have any comments I would love to read them, so feel free to leave a comment below (if you are reading this on the website) or back at the website www.fullflightlifecoaching.com if you are reading this via newsletter.
I have also included a short list of books & articles for you that I have enjoyed and been inspired and informed by in the last while.
Thx for allowing me space in your inbox and enjoy your Sabbath!
xo
Eliz
BOOKS (in no particular order)
–Thrive the Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder: Arianna Huffington
–Overwhelmed Work, Love, And Play When No One Has The Time: Brigid Schulte
–Finding Your Way in a Wild New World: Martha Beck PhD.
–Upgrade Taking Your Work and Life from Ordinary to Extraordinary: Rana Florida
–Miracles Now 108 Life-Changing Tools for Less Stress, More Flow and Finding Your True Purpose: Gabrielle Bernstein
–Daring Greatly How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead: Brene Brown PhD.
ARTICLES
-Why Women Still Can’t Have It All, The Atlantic: Anne-Marie Slaughter
–America’s Workers: Stressed Out, Overwhelmed, Totally Exhausted, The Atlantic: Rebecca J. Rosen
–Emma Watson: HeForShe UN Ambassador for Gender Equality Speech, Reprinted in Common Ground: Emma Watson