'Supermoms' Should Tell the Truth About Their Perfect Lives

[Starry Messenger]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/supermoms-should-tell-the-truth-about-their-perfect-lives/258903/?google_editors_picks=true

I don't question the love any globetrotting star has for her children. But because there's little explanation about exactly how super successful, celebrated women with children do it all, regular "real-life" moms -- many of whom step out of the workforce or let job opportunities and larger ambitions lie -- often look and feel like a bunch of slackers.

When a layoff and stagnant post-9/11 job market in New York led my husband to accept an offer in Maryland, I became a weekday single mother, left alone to juggle a long workday, a long and unreliable commute, a live-out nanny and a toddler I often saw awake for less than an hour a day. I quickly realized that I needed to live a different way and work a different way. Soon after quitting my Manhattan-based magazine job a second pregnancy (surprise, twins!) put me on bedrest. Three small children, including one with learning differences and therapy needs, kept me out of the workforce.

<snip>

The veil about how public figures "have it all" is occasionally lifted. Arianna Huffington, Michelle Obama, and MSNBC host/professor Melissa Harris-Perry have been open about depending on their mothers as live-in child care providers. Before Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley become the governor of Maryland, I interviewed his wife, Katie, a district court judge, and asked how the couple was able to manage two frontline careers and four kids. Their secret weapon: her nearby parents.

<snip>

In most families, it's financially essential to maintain or, in my case, reintroduce two incomes. By not being collectively honest about how Americans care for their kids and provide an income, most of us are left to perform the juggling act on our own and pretend we have it all under control.

More reaction to the Anne-Marie Slaughter article posted earlier by maddezmom.

[obamanut2012]

1. Excellent!

Am reading now while eating lunch.

[Neoma]

2. Lunch... I knew I was forgetting something today...

Mmm, homemade veggie lasagna.

[Starry Messenger]

3. It is good.

I'd still like to see an article on some of the stressful things moms in the service sector have to contend with. I don't know if that would ever get covered in The Atlantic though.

[obamanut2012]

4. You just thought of an OP

Except for all the moms in FG.

[snooper2]

5. It's easier to put your kids in daycare from 7:30 - 5:30 than be a stay-at-home mom

My wife is one and our 2 year old can run you ragged in a couple hours..Now do that every day

Women at my work actually think of work as a break from the kids...Last birthday party we went to all the women who worked and used daycare told my wife "I don't know how you do it"


Of course, On June 1st my wife broke her kneecap so I've been working from home/taking care of daughter/cooking/cleaning/delivering meals to wife in bed/all shopping/yard work and trying to build a new fence when we get an hour here and there with a little girl putting rocks back in each hole I dig

We don't really have anyone to help out. My friend did come over with his boys last night so we could go out for an anniversary dinner for two hours.