Leaning In

Last July, I wrote a lengthy response to the Anne-Marie Slaughter v. Sheryl Sandberg debate over whether women can or cannot have it all. If you recall or reread my essay, you’ll note that I don’t much like that query: “Can Women Have It All? has always sort of bothered me as a question. It’s so nebulous, so one-dimensional. Truly, what does it even mean? The answer is different for each of us and it changes as do we. There are definite societal inequalities -women make just .77 per dollar that men make in the US; some societies don’t value women at all- but by and large, I think that having it all means simply that you as a woman feel fulfilled, be it in your career, your relationships, your life choices, your sense of self.”

Yesterday, lazily scrolling through my Facebook feed during a spot of downtime while a babysitter was here, I came across a re-post of a plea to moms to put down their phones when with their children. The friend who re-posted this did so with the quick note “good reminder” headlining its presence on her page, and as many folks do need to put down (hide from themselves?) their gadgets, I started reading the letter.

Almost immediately, I was irritated. Written by a man who, as far as I could tell from his thumbnail pic, resembles Marcus Bachmann (egads!), this call to all the “mommas” out there reeked of condescension, chastising us for not watching closely enough every single move made by our kids. The results of this include a sad slump of your little boy’s shoulders, a delighted spin from your little girl that you missed and that she knows you missed (ignored). We are admonished to “put your eyes back on your prize: your kids,” to take every bit of this in and be completely present because the time is flying and soon your little boy won’t ask you to watch him, your little girl (“such a little beauty queen already” – don’t think I didn’t go ape on that phrase; great messaging Marcus) will stop twirling. His obvious belief that our not watching every moment of their lives will be damaging to them and a serious regret to us later, when it’s too late, was extremely clear. I got angrier.

For starters, Marcus, are you a stay-at-home-dad? Because if you are, you should have said that. For me at least, your message would have been taken differently. I may not have agreed but I’d have respected you for speaking from within the army of at-homers; I’d have known that you too are in the trenches and so at least understand the challenges of experiencing parenthood in that way. If you’re not, if you’re a working father who sees your kids one or two hours a day or if you’re not a parent at all, then please shut your trap. You have NO idea how much of everything I, as an engaged stay-at-home parent, see. No idea how involved I am, how much of myself I give most every hour of every day. No sense of my belief that my kids need to learn that I’m not going to watch and acknowledge and praise and encourage every spin/jump/song/coloring page they do. What’s that teaching them? That their pleasure and sense of accomplishment and self come from without rather than within? No way. I check my phone sometimes because I need and deserve a minute (or 20) for myself, whether that’s spent on a round of Angry Birds or attempting to edit a cover letter for a friend I’m helping with a job application. Maybe I just want to glance over the news headlines because I feel so disengaged with the larger world. Maybe I’m double-checking my older son’s school schedule so I’m not late to pick him up. What I’m not in need of is your presumptuous guilt trip from afar.

It is absolutely true that many parents need to pay more attention to their children, to be more sincerely engaged with them, to involve themselves more deeply in their children’s strengths and weaknesses, their development and health. When I read articles about children who are never read to, I ache. When I read about kids who are never hugged, loved, celebrated, valued, I almost can’t bear it. Those things are critically important to our children, and are some of our most basic and important responsibilities as their parents.

But I don’t think those neglectful parents are who this guy is addressing in his treacly note of patronizing disdain. I think it’s moms like me, and that’s why it riled me up so much.

Women who want to stay home with their children and can afford to do so are a fortunate group: I feel grateful every day that something I feel so passionately about (being an at-home parent) is doable. But these women are also a diverse group; some have no help, some have full-time nannies, some are trying to keep one foot in the career world they don’t want to leave, others are attempting to maintain lives that include identities as mom but also as woman, self, friend, role model, student. Which niche you inhabit can alter your experience of at-home parenthood dramatically.

I’d venture to say that most stay-at-home parents would agree that in some or many ways, their choice to stay home required sacrifice. It is hard every day, it is exhausting and not always fun or interesting. It asks that you be your best self so that you can raise and guide and keep safe and teach the little beings you brought into the  world (don’t even get me started on the anti-choice movement waging war in this country right now. Yep, I’m looking at you, crazy Arkansas.). And this point is the crux of why I just can’t get totally on board with Sheryl Sandberg’s call to Lean In.

Her movement, which I think is sincere in its hopes of encouraging women to be proud of their accomplishments and demand equal recognition/pay for them, nonetheless leaves out a swath of women who don’t have the resources to lean in as she suggests. This, I think, is what Anne-Marie Slaughter was troubled by and spoke out against.

Those resources could be financial: if you have a full-time nanny and/or a partner who is literally always there or able to be there, sure, you can lean in; if your kids are old enough to be in school much of each day, you can probably make something work; if you never wanted to stay home with your kids and lack monetary resources but have extended family around you who really want to pitch in, you could lean in and scrape by.

But if you choose to stay home either because you wouldn’t make enough by working to offset the cost of quality childcare (I worked in education pre-kids; I know) or because you really want to but would still like to maintain some sense of the you-before-becoming-a-mom, well, good luck leaning in in any big way. The lack of resources issue. I want to, I try to, but snow days, sick days, inconsistent auxiliary childcare…I’m on deck and have to be even with little or no notice. Meanwhile, your partner -likely, the breadwinner- needs to be supported too. My husband is great and his work enables our life, but when he travels 10 days out of 14, it’s all me and that’s a lot.

I’m not writing from bitterness in the least, but I do think it’s worthwhile to remember that many types of mom the world of parents is. More support and less judging would help us all, to both lean in and simply be able to do our best. What’s less frequently granted book tours and media coverage is that the U.S. has pitiful maternity and paternity leave policies, completely inadequate childcare available to the general populace, a definite lack of extended families in the same geographic area as you would find elsewhere. The village has, by and large, dissolved, and the challenges of that are definite. So when I read things like Marcus’ call to mommas to be even better, I kinda want to barf. When I feel I should be leaning in more, I think “on what? the wall?”

I welcome any change that helps to erase gender gaps in pay and expectations, I laud couples who make the best choices for who they are (both parents working, the dad stays home, they opt against having children, etc), but concurrently, let’s remember that in any decision and role there is nuance, shades of gray that also need acknowledgement and understanding. Let’s keep in mind that everyone starts from a different point, with different abilities and reserves and contexts. I’m starting to wander so will now say goodnight. To be continued, perhaps.

-first posted on March 11, 2013

On Personal Growth in My Early 20s

Love Lost, Life Lived, and One Luscious Link

When I was twenty-three, with a broken heart and a mask of bravado disguising a fragile self, I moved to New York. Manhattan. The City. The gauntlet that is one's early 20s had left me feeling battered, and in work, love and life, I sensed I'd lost my way. Intent on starting anew, I hitched my wagon to a vaguely defined position at an educational marketing firm and sublet the living room of a 5th floor walk-up apartment two acquaintances inhabited. Looking back, I realize I was running as fast as I could towards what I hoped would be a brighter horizon; with youthful idealism and a sense of urgency born from sadness, I grasped for opportunities and took those that first outstretched their hands.

As it became clear, neither the job nor the apartment was what it had initially seemed. My boss,  a testosterone-amped alcoholic, alternately hit on and raged at the females in our office (indeed, there were no other men save for a middle-aged manager who seemed perpetually anxious but was unbelievably, furtively kind). We women, mere wisps of women really - girlish waifs in high heels and make-up - just tried to keep our heads down and our assignments completed on time. The hours were long and the stress was high, but "home" was no oasis either.

The apartment was a long, narrow shotgun with a floor so slanted that if you closed the door too forcefully  on your way out, the freezer swung open and remained that way. We each had a bedroom, loosely defined, but no one had an actual door; the only thing separating me from my male roommate, a sweet guy who regularly ordered pot as you would pizza, was a curtain suspended from a wobbly rod. In the meager kitchen, the most prominent appliance was a hot dog toaster, one of those “how did this make it to market?” fad items in which you could toast two hot dogs and two buns concurrently. It, like the apartment, seemed perennially dirty, crusted with crumbs and grease, though I never actually saw it being used. For this domicile I spent half my monthly paycheck.

Life as I lived it that year was vastly different from anything I'd ever expected or experienced. In addition to New York's quick pace and insistence on independence, I found that thin was in, and meals became lonely tributes to the bevy of tasteless, fat-free fare that studded the inner aisles of my neighborhood Gristedes. Things were hard, wild, and exciting, and in the midst of this frenzy, I lost sight of the comfort and succor eating well provides. In many ways, this was a snub to my family and history; at its most basic, and most damaging, it was a repudiation of self.

You see, I grew up in southwest Louisiana, in a small, friendly town about forty miles north of the Gulf of Mexico and on the outskirts of Cajun country. Food was central there: family, traditions, holidays, celebrations, mourning…they all, in some way, constellated around cooking and eating together. And the food was (and is) spectacular. South Louisiana cuisine is a richly flavored one that masterfully incorporates the local gifts of seafood, spice, rice and pork in drawing from a panoply of culinary traditions including those from Spain, France, Africa and Italy. Food doesn’t get much better than a steaming bowl of chicken and sausage gumbo, fresh Gulf shrimp or a hot link of boudin, and growing up with these ingredients, which seemed as common as water and as prized as mother's milk, you are spoiled; your taste buds' bar is set forever higher.

My sister and I used to crab off the wharf in our backyard and lay traps for red swamp crawfish alongside our house where a small gully retained enough rainwater to encourage them to move in. One sassafras tree, so tall I thought it'd certainly dwarf a Redwood, shaded the northwest part of our yard; filé for gumbo is made from ground sassafras leaves, and I enjoyed that bit of before-and-after right there in our lawn. Sunday lunches were spent at my maternal grandparents' house, just a couple miles from ours. The meal - always spaghetti and roast, green salad and garlic bread, a huge wedge of Parmesan, iced tea and some sort of perfect pie - was led by my Sicilian Papa at one end of the rectangular metal table and my French-Cajun Nanny at the other. He was a fiery soul, loving and loud and eternally demanding "more cheese!"  She was a beautiful, elegant woman, as kind and patient as Job.

I left my hometown for college in the Midwest, and although my undergraduate years were sublime, I was acutely aware of how ill-prepared I was for the academic rigor and how much I missed the eccentric personality of Louisiana. During that challenging transitional period, I found accomplishment soothing, and as senior year dawned, my grades had become nearly perfect as had my waist-size. The latter was not purposeful but the compliments I received in response were seductive, quietly suggesting that my physical self was something else I might "achieve." I aced graduate school on an appallingly restricted diet and started work with a heady yet conflicted sense of invincibility and concern. A year later, things ended with the man I thought I'd marry, and I was devastated. With no studies left to master, I suspect I looked more closely at myself, the one entity on which I could always count. In New York, this came to a head and even though I surely wouldn't have admitted to it, I believe I recognized that in some small way. And so, each time my parents –adventurous travelers and enthusiastic eaters- came to visit, I gave myself a reprieve and eagerly anticipated the restaurant experiences we were sure to have.

The Night of the Seafood Sausage, as I’ve since taken to calling our dinner at Chanterelle, the venerable, now-shuttered, Tribeca institution, provided me one of the culinary highlights of my life despite the fact that I remember only one dish: the Grilled Seafood Sausage in Beurre Blanc. That evening, a beautiful night that did justice to Chanterelle’s looming windows, I paid no heed to presumed calorie counts, welcomed the bread basket with open arms and banished any consideration of just how much butter might be in the sauces. I simply had to have that sausage and ordered it without hesitation.

Et voilà. One perfectly arced link: stuffed with generous chunks of lobster, shrimp, scallops and white fish to the point at which the casing began to shrug with exertion; grilled to a golden hue and slick with heat and moisture; nestled in a languid pool of beurre blanc so ethereal it must have defied laws of physics. I smiled and gingerly picked up my fork and knife. The blade found the slightest resistance in the hot collagen’s taut skin but soon sliced cleanly through. Eyes wide, absorbing the delicacy in front of me, I speared a perfect round with my fork, pulled it gently through the pale yellow sauce and placed the bite on my tongue.

I was rendered speechless. Reflexively, my eyes shut, my chewing slowed, my taste buds thrilled with the assault of flavors from which they’d been largely deprived. My first conscious thought might have been, “I will absolutely hate to share even the smallest morsel of this with my parents.” Yet when you taste something so truly remarkable, share it you must if only so that others will believe your proclamations of greatness.

Exceptional seafood is often best when left to shine on its own: boiled shrimp with cocktail sauce; steamed crabs served alongside nothing but a bib, shell crackers and maybe a lemon; oysters on the half shell with a mild mignonette waiting in the wings. And so in some ways, ordering that sausage went against my better judgment: what if the meat was overcooked? what if the flavors of each sea creature were muddled, the whole made less than its parts?

For reasons then mystical but understood to me now, I took a leap by ordering that link. The indulgence of that sausage wasn’t simply that it was stuffed with incredible seafood or that it was literally full of calories, fat and cholesterol. I don’t remember it so clearly more than a decade later just because it was perfectly prepared. No, the taste of that dish lingers on my lips because it was a moment of freedom in which I learned, relearned, much. I have since come to believe that enjoying food is as much about what you’re eating as it is when, how, and with whom; that if you're open to experience, life is ever so much richer; and that the joie de vivre inherent in many Louisiana families isn't something to let go of.

I have never regretted the three years I lived in New York. There, because in Manhattan you either sink or swim, I started to become my truest self. As I winnowed through the sorts of jobs, friends, men and identities I didn't want, I gained a confidence I'd long sought. That meal at Chanterelle demonstrated to me, retrospectively of course, that even the smallest steps can shift life's tectonic plates in grand ways.

Coming Into My Own, part 1

Mindlessly reading Us Weekly this past weekend, I saw that Katie Holmes recently said that she felt she was coming into her own. I’m not a fan of Katie's, but I am happy she extracted herself and Suri from the freaky grip of Scientology, and if coming into her own helped her do so, I say hat’s off! Despite the vacuous inspiration, I have subsequently found myself thinking a lot about the events and periods in my own life which have ushered in or facilitated growth. As if our lives are ladders we climb to reach self-actualization, the rungs represent critical junctures without which we couldn’t progress nearly as well. Some feel further apart than others, and it seems incomprehensible that we’ll reach the next in any reasonable amount of time; others are splintery and weak, the utilization of them unpleasant –even painful- and we hope to move on from then quickly though such is not always meant to be.

I thought back to college, certain my years at Northwestern were the first big watershed event that put me on the right path to really coming into my own. I was so ill-prepared academically, so incorrect about what I thought I wanted to study and be, so unready for my first big heartbreak, so unaware of how good my undergraduate years would ultimately be for me. What I was -due to youth, naivete, the amazing people who surrounded me, the foundation my parents had provided me- was open. High school was not a place or time I enjoyed much, and when I got to college, I realized how much I’d needed a new context, a chance to start over as ME rather than the girl I’d been. Although Northwestern was so tough, its challenge is what pushed me towards a greater understanding of myself and who I wanted to become. I learned not to shy from a challenge but to run with it, daring it to hold me back. I learned that cool is such an insanely arbitrary term that encompasses most anything that is sincere, well-considered, kind, and so forth. I learned that sometimes you have to fail and disappoint yourself and others to learn how to really value what’s important and get serious. I learned what truly great friends are, how amazing sisterhoods of women can be, how horrible heartbreak can feel, how invigorating it feels to be truly engaged in studies that resonate deep in your being.

And though I was still so young and unformed when I graduated, I did have a core that was crystallizing: I had a sense of what I believed, what I stood for, what I would and wouldn’t accept in relationships (both romantic and platonic), who I was. I also graduated with the first real love of my life, a man I would have married had he asked but who I am now so thankful, didn’t. Our break-up was the springboard into the next crucible of my life: my years in New York. I moved to NY suddenly and with little serious thought. I was young, newly single, desperate to get out of Chicago (away from him), and while at a conference for work, I met an executive at a NY-based education marketing firm and convinced him to hire me despite my having NO experience in marketing. He turned out to be a psychotic boss who was also an ego-maniacal, lying alcoholic, but the firm did pay my moving expenses and I was in the Big Apple.

New York is magical, but I would be lying if I said anything other than that my first year there was one of the hardest of my life. I lived with the sister of my ex (it wasn’t as weird as it sounds) and a pothead who ordered weed like it was pizza and once broke our toilet bowl in half. I still don’t know how he managed that, but I do know that running from 85th and York to 94th and 3rd to pee at a friend’s apartment seemed like a hellish eternity. The floor of our 5th story walk-up was so slanted that the freezer door flew and remained open if you shut the front door too forcefully. It was a shitty railroad-style apartment, and I set up camp in the living room with only a “curtain” separating me from the oaf-like pothead. My sense of self was shaky; looking back on that year now almost scares me. I was floundering. The confidence I’d worked so hard for in college swung around me wildly, tantalizingly close but always out of reach.  I remember trying to grab hold of so many things -anything- I thought might help ground and define me, but that year was one I just had to get through. I was on my own, but I never felt secure. A few months after starting work at the marketing firm, an undeniably toxic situation, Iknew I had to leave. With the help of a former colleague, I secured a job at Columbia and gratefully left behind the second, rotten rung of my ladder.

Columbia was a haven. My colleagues there are, to this day, some of the people who mean most to me in the world. I fully credit one with inspiring me to start Em-i-lis; without his hilarious prodding, I never would have done it, maybe never even have thought to. I credit another with showing me how to be a strong wife and partner- you can and should and must expect from your significant other just as much as you put into your relationship. Another challenged my insistence that I didn’t have some degree of disordered eating; she’d experienced it and cared enough about me to say, “hey, I see what’s going on. Stop! I’ll help in any way you need.” And on and on. Their love came at me from all angles, and I healed in so many ways.

During those years, New York became just as important to me. To this day, I still feel energized in NY in a way I don’t anywhere else in the US. My last apartment was a small studio, but it was all mine. Its rent ate up 51% of my income which no financial advisor would suggest is close to optimal, but I had to have my own space, had to know I could. I loved that apartment despite it being a 4th floor walk-up with a creepy basement. I was so flipping independent, and it was amazing.

I remember walking home one December night, tipsy as could be having just been happily out with friends. I passed a bodega with a small Christmas tree lot next door, and although I was dressed in a skirt and heels, I decided that I simply must have a mid-sized Christmas tree. Of course, I also needed a stand, so ended up dragging both back home, through the snowy streets, up all the stairs and through the heavy door. That tree signified so much, especially because –as I realized in retrospect- it never occurred to me NOT to buy it. It never crossed my mind that it might be heavy, or cumbersome, or that I was a single woman in heels schlepping it home at some late hour on a random night. That I didn’t question anything meant everything, and I think that’s when I knew that I was always going to be pretty much OK.

Despite my adoration for NY, I realized after several years that I needed to leave. This critically important third rung was wearing thin. It was hard feeling so financially strapped all the time, and I was coming to think that the city’s dating scene just wasn't conducive to meeting someone I’d want to marry (I had always wanted to be married with kids). I was starting to feel cynical, and I missed being near family. And then I met Tom.

To be continued…