On Having It All

Okay, so everyone and their mother has been talking about Slaughter’s article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” I confess I haven’t read it, though D paraphrased it to me. But here, in case anyone is interested, is my opinion on having it all.

If by “having it all” one means achieving as much in your career as you could without kids, and being as present a mother as you could without work, then you can’t have it all. One would think an idiot could figure that out, but it is a surprisingly personal and difficult realization, probably because it goes against something to realize that we face this by being women, and because it contradicts the preceding trajectory of our lives. I’ve seen most women in my field work through this at one point or another, some much later than others.

I figured this out January 2010. I had gone back to the hardest residency rotation of the year three months after she was born. She was in a twelve-hour daycare, and we were still struggling to pick her up on time. Once, the daycare closed due to a blizzard, I was scrubbed in operating, D was placing a line in a patient in the ICU, and one of us had to go pick her up. D left in the middle of his procedure, picked her up, and by some miracle we found a friend to watch her for the rest of the day.

I felt a lot of pressure at that point in my training to obtain surgical numbers, and was working over twelve hours a day. She was only awake twelve hours a day, and spent those hours at a daycare where she didn’t eat or sleep well, since we couldn’t afford a nanny on two residents’ salaries. I lost my milk supply without time to pump between operating. D was doing what he could and we were both praying we wouldn’t have to take call on the same night.

I remember standing in the shower one night and thinking, this isn’t worth it. No career is worth this. I saw what the women who gave everything to their jobs were like and didn’t want to become them. I decided at that point that if I couldn’t find a part-time job, I’d quit. I became the first part-time faculty hired at my institution, but eventually moved from academics to private practice for various reasons, one of which was that the pay wasn’t enough there to even cover childcare costs.

Up until that then, I always did what it took at work. I purposely picked the hardest rotations in med school if I thought I’d be trained better, and the same sentiment led me to Hopkins for residency. But I think seeing what women were like there in the long run, seeing what a toll work took on our marriage, laid the groundwork for what ended up being a very easy decision.

Because I think there is something about realizing you can’t have it all that allows you to have peace. You have to let go of that notion, you have live according to what you believe to be more important, or nothing else falls into place. The sooner you figure that out, the better. I am glad there are women breaking the glass ceiling, but that is not me, not now. Just because I could, doesn’t mean I should. And that also goes for men and being fathers. It also goes for not shortchanging your marriage for your career.

I realize I’m lucky to be in a field where part-time work is productive and lucrative. I still see patients and operate: I am not a leader in the field, nor the most productive surgeon in the area, and it will take me longer to build experience, but that is a small price to pay for being there for my kids. That is a small price to pay for being there for my husband.

I wonder sometimes if this outcome was worth all the training, but I think it was. It gave me a certain standard and approach that makes me feel I offer something unique clinically and surgically, it taught me efficiency and an inability to be fazed by difficult situations, and it helped me realize being somewhere prestigious is not really worth the price. All of these are qualities that enrich the time I do spend at work, allow me to do more at work within the limits I set, and give me peace about those limits.

Jesus never said we could have it all. He never said having it all is the key to happiness, or the point of life. It is an illusion, driven perhaps by our desire to fulfill ourselves rather than ask God how he wants us to serve. Am I glad I still work? Yes, because I believe God has given me a gift and skill set to keep up which I can use for his kingdom. I believe it makes me a healthier person and thus a better mother. Am I glad I stay at home most of the week? Yes, because I can know and steward my children, which I often feel is the harder task. Am I glad I can support my husband’s career, and have at least some time for our marriage? Yes, because I think marriages always take the back burner to work and kids. Is everything perfect? No. We’re always reassessing, adjusting. There’s a certain messiness that I’m starting to think is just life. But there is peace. Perhaps less outward ambition than I used to have, but more peace, and that’s a trade I’m willing to make.