Disclosure: This is kind of a serious post. I know that is unexciting, but you can suck it up and deal. This post is addressed primarily to the mothers/someday mothers who read this blog, but also applies in most cases to the fathers. Yes, I am making assumptions about the people who come here to read this- but I would venture to guess that I am right in about 90% of cases, since I am kind of a genius. So here it is:
I have read SO MANY articles lately on the same subject. Can we as women have it all? Can we have successful careers and still be able to remember our kid's middle name? Should I wear my baby in a Bjorn to the office cocktail party so I don't miss a single second of networking? Should you I be pumping in an abandoned warehouse behind my office building? Should I be paying $27,000 a month for daycare? Are these lima beans organic and free from GMOs? I am six months pregnant and still haven't made it to a prenatal Gymboree class, will my child end up homeless?
These are the insane questions that seem to plague the women of my generation. Do I lean in? Or stand up? Or if I get drunk enough, could I do a cartwheel? Conflicting advice comes at us from all sides. We should take 12 weeks of maternity leave, or two. The internet is full of equal parts sanctimommies and complete trainwreck moms, and both are getting book deals. So what are we supposed to think? Can we have it all? Or is it way more fun to be a complete mess and laugh about it?
I have thought about this question a LOT lately. Can I have it all? Do I already have it all? What in the hell is "all"??? My original answer to this question was this: No, of course you can't have it all. If you think you can, you are probably high. But then I started thinking about it, and really dissecting what "all" is, and I changed my mind. Here is my answer.
YES, you can have it all. And I would guess that 95% of people reading this blog already do. Allow me to explain.
1. You are likely reading this blog on a computer you own, or that your employer provides and on which you spend four hours a day reading Buzzfeed. What's more, 32% of the page views in the history of this blog have been on an iphone or ipad. Give yourself extra privilege points if you have a Lilly Pulitzer case for your iphone 5- now you're just rubbing it in.
2. If you're reading this blog, you can READ. Score one for you right there.
3. I would guess that 99% of people who read this blog have a high school diploma. Probably at least 75% of you have a college degree. You received this education in spite of the fact that you are a woman. You probably had to stand up and declare "Nobody puts Baby in a corner!" fewer than five times during your entire college interview process.
4. You have a house or an apartment, or some other respectable form of shelter. This house has HOT running water that you can drink from the tap, electricity 24/7, and heat. Most of you have air conditioning (though some of you live in New Hampshire, so all bets are off). I would guess that your kids all have their own beds. Whether they actually sleep in them or not is a question for another day.
5. If you gave birth to your own kids, you likely did so in a sanitary, accredited hospital. You survived, as did your baby. If you're smart, you were drugged to within an inch of your life. If you're really smart, you worked a tummy tuck in there.
6. You CHOSE to marry your spouse. No one forced you to. You may even have a ring worth roughly the Gross Domestic Product of a developing nation on your ring finger. If you chose your spouse unwisely, you have the legal right to divorce that scumbag- and sell the ring on ebay.
I could go on, but I think you see my point. 99% of people reading this blog already DO have it all- or at least more than women in previous generations could have dreamed. No, you can't be at work 200 hours a week and also spend eight hours a day with your kids doing Pinterest craft projects. You can't tuck your kids into bed while you're on a business trip. And you never will be able to. While I agree that there is still a long way to go to make this country fair to women, we already have about a bazillion advantages that women in other parts of the world could never even dream of.
The next time I am trying to figure out if I should lean in (FYI: Every time I try to lean in, I pull a hammy) I will try to remember the insane number of advantages I already have. The hours that I don't have to spend beating my laundry on a rock or walking three miles to a well will likely be spent taking my kids to the park or choosing between 46 different duvet covers at HomeGoods. On the way home, I'll probably end up in the Dunkin Donuts drive through, since that's the law in three New England states. I am driving a car that I own, with my healthy children inside, while sipping a large Vanilla Bean Coolatta. I'm pretty sure I already have it all.
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