Go, Brazen Careerist, Go!
Posted on August 1st, 2008 – 11:46 AMBy May Chen
A few Sundays ago, I almost choked on my toast while perusing the paper.
It was a New York Times cover story about “Shared Parenting,” that utopian idea where both parents literally split childcare duties 50-50. The main couple in the story, Marc and Amy Vachon, both worked part-time and traded off parenting duties all week.
Great idea. Wonderful concept. Love to see how it’s done. But what drove me crazy was the reporter picked as their main subject a couple where the guy had previously spent many single years working a part-time schedule, rejecting promotions and declining to manage anyone so he could pursue other interests outside of work. Now if it was a driven CEO-type who ratcheted back to pursue the ideal of shared parenting, that would have been a fascinating story. Women do that all the time. Men? Not so much.
I was merely peeved. But the Brazen Careerist, aka Penelope Trunk, was livid.
If you don’t already read the Brazen Careerist, you should. Besides the fascinating life story - messy divorce, move with baby from New York City to Madison, Wisc., where she’s currently romancing a farmer - she cuts through the nonsense of the workplace and tells it like it is. Plus, when Cribsheet sent her a question once on flex time, she actually sent an answer back. In 5 minutes.
Anyway, back to the NYT piece. First she called the photo that ran with the article - Mom and kids are playing music while Dad is folding laundry - “Daddy Porn,” the equivalent of Mommy Porn, idealized pictures of mommyhood we’re all familiar with. Then she listed five reasons why the article made her want to “rip their heads off”…including the fact that “shared care kills two careers.”
But the most interesting thing was her disclosure that Marc and Amy were people she’d previously helped get some media attention and perhaps a book deal.
Wow, I thought. Maybe the thing she was most mad about was this: the Brazen Careerist was Out-Brazened.
11 Responses to "Go, Brazen Careerist, Go!"
My favorite quote in the article had something to do with when women are pregnant how they are questioned what are your plans when baby comes? going back to work? Staying home? but the husband/dad never gets asked that. How true is that.
Very interesting choices for the families, seems to ideal to be true. I can’t imagine how that would be able to work for a majority of families.
Thank you, Samara! After three days of zero comments on this blog, I was beginning to wonder if the weather was luring all Cribsheeters outside and away from their computers…
Wow, thanks for posting the link to the brazen careerist! I had heard of her before and her blog does look like a good one!
I had read this NY Times article when it first came out as well. It really did annoy me also, especially afterwards when I encountered the more accurate Washington Post article (which Penelope also refers to) which confirmed what I had always suspected…that part-time jobs are really hard to come by and American culture truly doesn’t support the working mom (let alone the working dad!).
I just don’t see shared care working for most parents. And it annoys me that the NY Times article posted this as the ideal. There is no ideal when it comes to parenting and it’s different in every family as every has their own individual needs. Also, like it or not, American culture does not support working parents at all. Even though it is getting better (telecommuting is increasing, 4 day work weeks are increasing somewhat, etc.) it still is no match to what it is like in other countries. The majority of American business care about the all mighty dollar; not about families, despite what they may say. It’s so difficult for one spouse to leave early to attend to a sick child or to get reduced hours or other benefits, let alone two! So the fact that th NY Times seems to be stating that all parents should be doing this is really irritating as it is just not possible in most cases.
As for the blog comments lately, I have had a hard time pulling up Cribsheet the past few days. The site keeps freezing up and not allowing me to access it. This just happened a few minutes ago and I had to try 6 times to get it back up. Maybe this has to do with the lack of comments this week?
That number of ~31 hours/week of housework is insane! Who has that much work to do around the house, seriously?! I probably spend less than an hour/day on those things, with the exception of laundry once/week which takes about 1 hour 45 minutes.
Wow. Great post, May. I could hear your emotion.
I agree with the Brazen Careerist. This is just a little to ideal to be real. There is no way that in our current culture that two parents are going to have good enough part-time jobs to make this work. First, I don’t know about any of you, but my job would just not fly part-time. Second, the hit on income and benefits (depending on how part-time we are talking) would make it pointless and impossible for the majority of us. You would have to have a plump saving to tap into. And finally, I gotta agree about the photo. It’s a bit over the top. I hope it was a joke.
Now for my disclaimer. Do I think the idea of shared parenting is bad? No, it’s a great idea. I just don’t think it’s logistically possible in our current society. It would be great if we could find a way to make it a possibility for the “real” people in America. Any ideas Cribsheeters?
I loved the BC’s point that in addition to the logistics being challenging, the difficulty of finding two decent-paying part-time jobs, etc., it’s a rare couple whose PERSONALITIES would work with this idea! I agree that most ships will not float with more than one captain giving orders…at least that would never work in our family! You need a “manager”.
And while I’m thrilled that my husband is extremely involved in our kids lives (stays home with them all summer; gives them meals and puts them to bed as well as I do; does all our laundry, etc.), if both of us were making doctor appointments, planning parties, etc. I think it would get really confusing.
An aside: I admit I was amused by the comment from the dad in the article, something like, “Why is there a special name for this? Why isn’t it just called parenting?” I do agree that Gen Xers seem compelled to label every little trend and turn it into some kind of “movement.” I think ALL of us just find the best plan for our own families and do what works for us, in whatever combination of work and family we can put together. Do we need to label all of these concepts with some kind of title…?
On another note, what did people think of the BC’s assertion that Gen Xers put parenthood ahead of everything…? I must admit, I really agree with this. It seems like many of the moms I know really struggle with guilt when they want to do anything for themselves, when they get an opportunity to have a life outside of children…where our own moms probably leapt at the chance when they got it! I’m not arguing pros or cons either way…I’m just asking folks’ opinions on whether or not they’ve noticed that trend among our generation, or if it’s just me.
Thoughts, anyone?
Katy, I’d like to give a label to Gen Xer’s desire to label everything. Let’s call it “labeling.” 
To respond to your side side, I do agree that we tend to put parenthood ahead of everything. We are the children of the last generation (I think) that had the freedom to have one parent at home. (It was the norm for all families.) We recognize the importance of a present parent. Because current culture keeps us busy with careers, we spend every non-working hour parenting instead of caring for ourselves because we are trying to replicate what our parents did as best we can within the limited free hours we have.
Those are my thoughts. Perhaps they are not reflective of Gen X and are just reflection of my own life.
Hi, ladies. I agree partially with Becky — but as an apparently younger mom (I’m 29), I feel more like a part of the first generation to have both parents at work. Having lived the latchkey kid syndrome also seems to inspire more career sacrifice in today’s parents. But then, I don’t know if I count as Gen-X, so maybe we’re comparing apples and oranges.
I just noticed how I started that last post: “Hi, ladies.” Ouch. Gender bias is everywhere!
2 things — 1) who works enough hours then to afford the health care? Because one of them has to be doing at least 30 hours to get insurance coverage from the office. And if one is, and the other isn’t, that’s not shared care, that’s just someone cutting back a day a week to help out at home.
2) 10 freaking pages? I’m a working mom. I need shared care to have enough time to actually read that novel of an article.
So if the health care thing was addressed in one of the other pages, I didn’t get that far.
Becky–
Yes, you put it very well. I think that is exactly what’s happening…many of us who grew up with mothers WITHOUT careers now have careers of our own…and thus maybe are more susceptible to guilt about what we “should” be doing instead…?
Shall we “label” it something…?! : )
