The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home (7 page)

Marjorie talks about “many women” and Mort talks about “most men,” but the dialogue seems obliquely infused with their own struggle. In the end, Mort Shaevitz refers obscurely to the idea of a woman “getting help from
everyone
—her husband, her children, and society,” a faceless crowd through which the Superwoman once again strides alone.
Having It All
and
The Superwoman Syndrome
advise women on how to do without a change in men, how to be a woman who is different from her mother,
married to a man not much different from her father. By adding “super” before “woman” and subtracting meaning from the word “all,” these authors tell women how to gracefully accommodate to the stalled revolution.

There have been two responses that counter the supermom: one is to poke fun at her and one is to propose an alternative to her—“the new man.” The humorous response is to be found in the joke books, memo pads, key chains, ashtrays, cocktail napkins, and coffee mugs sold in novelty and gift shops especially around Mother’s Day. It critiques the supermom by making her look ridiculous. One joke book by Barbara and Jim Dale, entitled the
Working Woman Book,
advises, “The first step in a good relationship with your children is memorizing their names.” In a section called “What You Can Do” in a chapter on raising children,
The Superwoman Syndrome
seriously advises: “A. Talk with your child, B. Play a game, C. Go to a sports event….” and under “Demonstrate Your Affection By” it helpfully notes, “A. Hugging, B. Kissing….”
⁷

Or again: “The famous Flying Wallendas were renowned for their feat of balancing seven Wallendas on a thin shaft of wood supported only by four Wallendas beneath whom was but one, strong, reliable, determined Wallenda … undoubtedly
Mrs.
Wallenda.”

One mug portrays a working mother with the familiar briefcase in one hand and baby in the other. But there is no striding, no smile, no backswept hair. The woman’s mouth is a wiggly line. Her hair is unkempt. One shoe is red, one blue. In one hand she holds a wailing baby, in the other a briefcase, papers cascading out. Beneath her it says, “I am a working mother. I am nuts.” There is nothing glamorous about being time-poor; the mug seems to say, “I’m not happy. I’m not fine.” Implicitly the cup critiques the frazzled supermom herself, not her inflexible work schedule, not the crisis in day-care, not the glacial pace of change in our idea of “a real man.” Her options were fine; what was
crazy—and funny—was her
decision
to work. That’s what makes the extra month a year a joke. In this way the commercial vision of the working mother incorporates a watered-down criticism of itself, has a good laugh, and continues on.

A serious critique of the supermom parallels the humorous one, and in popular journalism, this serious approach seemed to be crowding out many other journalistic approaches to the woman question. In
Woman on a Seesaw: The Ups and Downs of Making It,
for example, Hilary Cosell bitterly rues her single-minded focus on career, which barely made time for a husband and precluded having children. For example:

Like the frazzled coffee-mug mom, Cosell admits her stress. Like the coffee-mug mom, she deplores her “wrong decision” to enter the rat race, but does not much question the unwritten rules of that race. Both the humorous and the serious critiques of the supermom tell us things are not fine, but like the image of the working mother they criticize, they convey a fatalism. “That’s just how it is,” they say.

A second cultural trend tacitly critiques the supermom image by proposing an alternative—the new man. Increasingly, books, articles, films, and comics celebrate the man who feels that time
with his child and work around the house are compatible with being a real man. Above a series of articles in his syndicated newspaper column about his first year as a father, a series which later became a popular book entitled
Good Morning, Merry Sunshine,
Bob Greene is pictured holding his baby daughter, Amanda. Greene is not in transit between home and work. He is sitting down, apparently at home, where he works as a writer. He is in a short-sleeved shirt instead of a coat and tie—no need to address the professional world outside. He is smiling and in his arms, his daughter is laughing. He is successful—he is writing this column, this book. He writes on “male” topics like the Chicago mayoral election. He’s an involved father. But he’s not a house husband, like the man in the movie
Mr. Mom,
who for a disastrous, funny period—role reversal is an ancient, always humorous theme in literature—exchanges roles with his wife. Greene’s wife, Susan, is
also
home with Amanda; he joins, but doesn’t replace, his wife at home. As he writes in his journal:

The new man “has it all” in the same way the supermom has it all. He is a male version of the woman with the flying hair. Bob Greene is an involved father and also successful in a competitive field. In writing only about his own highly atypical experience,
though, Greene unintentionally conveys the idea that men face no conflict between doing a job and raising a child.

In fact, most working fathers who fully share the emotional responsibility and physical care of children and do half the housework also face great difficulty. As long as the “woman’s work” that some men do is socially devalued, as long as it is defined as woman’s work, as long as it’s tacked onto a regular work day, men who share it are likely to develop the same jagged mouth and frazzled hair as the coffee-mug mom. The image of the new man is like the image of the supermom: it obscures the strain.

The image of the supermom and, to a lesser extent, the image of the new man enter a curious cultural circle. First, more men and women become working couples. Spotting these men and women as a market, advertisers surround them with images—on computer Web sites, on magazine covers, in television commercials—mainly of the do-it-all woman. Then journalists write articles about her. Advice books follow, and finally, more ponderously, scientific word gets out. As a result of this chain of interpretations, the two-job couple see themselves down a long hall of mirrors.

What working mothers find in the cultured mirror has much to do with what the dilemmas in their lives make them look for. When the working mothers I talked with considered the image of the supermom, they imagined a woman who was unusually efficient, organized, energetic, bright, and confident. To be a supermom seemed like a good thing. To be called one was a compliment. She wasn’t real, but she was ideal. Nancy Holt, a social worker and the mother of a son named Joey, found the idea of a supermom curiously
useful.
She faced a terrible choice between having a stable marriage and an equal one, and she chose the stable marriage. She struggled hard to suppress her conflict with her husband and to perform an emotional cover-up. The supermom image appealed to her because it offered her a cultural cover-up to go with her emotional one. It clothed her compromise with an
aura of inevitability. It obscured the crisis she and her husband faced over the second shift, her conflict with her husband over it, and her attempts to suppress the conflict to preserve their marriage—leaving in their place the illusive, light, almost-winking image of that woman with the flying hair.

CHAPTER
4

Joey’s Problem: Nancy and Evan Holt

N
ANCY
Holt arrives home from work, her son, Joey, in one hand and a bag of groceries in the other. As she puts down the groceries and opens the front door, she sees a spill of mail on the hall floor, Joey’s half-eaten piece of cinnamon toast on the hall table, and the phone machine’s winking red light: a still-life reminder of the morning’s frantic rush to distribute the family to the world outside. Nancy, for seven years a social worker, is a short, lithe blond woman of thirty who talks and moves rapidly. She scoops the mail onto the hall table and heads for the kitchen, unbuttoning her coat as she goes. Joey sticks close behind her, intently explaining to her how dump trucks dump things. Joey is a fat-cheeked, lively four-year-old who chuckles easily at things that please him.

Having parked their red station wagon, Evan, her husband, comes in and hangs up his coat. He has picked her up at work and they’ve arrived home together. Apparently unready to face the kitchen commotion but not quite entitled to relax with the newspaper in the living room, he slowly studies the mail. Also thirty, Evan, a warehouse furniture salesman, has thinning pale blond hair, a stocky build, and a tendency to lean on one foot. In his manner there is something both affable and hesitant.

From the beginning, Nancy describes herself as an “ardent feminist”; she wants a similar balance of spheres and equal power. She began her marriage hoping that she and Evan would base their
identities in both parenthood and career, but clearly tilted toward parenthood. Evan felt it was fine for Nancy to have a career, if she could handle the family too.

As I observe in their home on this evening, I notice a small ripple on the surface of family waters. From the commotion of the kitchen, Nancy calls, “Eva-an, will you
please
set the table?” The word “please” is thick with irritation. Scurrying between refrigerator, sink, and oven, with Joey at her feet, Nancy wants Evan to help; she has asked him, but reluctantly. She seems to resent having to ask. (Later she tells me, “I
hate
to ask; why should I ask? It’s begging.”) Evan looks up from the mail and flashes an irritated glance toward the kitchen, stung, perhaps, to be asked in a way so barren of respect. He begins setting out knives and forks, asks if she will need spoons, then answers the doorbell. A neighbor’s child. No, Joey can’t play right now. The moment of irritation has passed.

Later as I interview Nancy and Evan separately, they describe their family life as very happy—except for Joey’s “problem.” Joey has great difficulty getting to sleep. They start trying to put him to bed at 8:00. Evan tries but Joey rebuffs him; Nancy has better luck. By 8:30 they have him
on
the bed where he crawls and bounds playfully. After 9:00 he still calls out for water or toys, and sneaks out of bed to switch on the light. This continues past 9:30, then 10:00 and 10:30. At about 11:00 Joey complains that his bed is “scary,” that he can only go to sleep in his parents’ bedroom. Worn down, Nancy accepts this proposition. And it is part of their current arrangement that putting Joey to bed is “Nancy’s job.” Nancy and Evan can’t get into bed until midnight or later, when Evan is tired and Nancy exhausted. She used to enjoy their lovemaking, Nancy tells me, but now sex seems like “more work.” The Holts consider their fatigue and impoverished sex life as results of Joey’s Problem.

The official history of Joey’s Problem—the story Nancy and Evan give me—begins with Joey’s fierce attachment to Nancy, and Nancy’s strong attachment to him. On an afternoon walk through
Golden Gate Park, Nancy devotes herself to Joey’s every move. Now Joey sees a squirrel; Nancy tells me she must remember to bring nuts next time. Now Joey is going up the slide; she notices that his pants are too short—she must take them down tonight. The two enjoy each other. Off the official record, neighbors and Joey’s baby-sitter say that Nancy is a wonderful mother, but privately they add how much “like a single mother.”

For his part, Evan sees little of Joey. He has his evening routine, working with his tools in the basement, and Joey always seems happy to be with Nancy. In fact, Joey shows little interest in Evan, and Evan hesitates to see that as a problem. “Little kids need their moms more than they need their dads,” he explains philosophically; “All boys go through an oedipal phase.”

Perfectly normal things happen. After a long day, mother, father, and son sit down to dinner. Evan and Nancy get the first chance all day to talk to each other, but both turn anxiously to Joey, expecting his mood to deteriorate. Nancy asks him if he wants celery with peanut butter on it. Joey says yes. “Are you sure that’s how you want it?” “Yes.” Then the fidgeting begins. “I don’t like the strings on my celery.” “Celery is made up of strings.” “The celery is too big.” Nancy grimly slices the celery. A certain tension mounts. Every time one parent begins a conversation with the other, Joey interrupts. “I don’t have anything to drink.” Nancy gets him juice. And finally, “Feed me.” By the end of the meal, no one has obstructed Joey’s victory. He has his mother’s reluctant attention and his father is reaching for a beer. But talking about it later, they say, “This is normal when you have kids.”