Viewpoint: A Mother but Also a Role Model : No Apologies Here

The other morning when I dropped off my daughter at school, I realized I was beginning to feel guilty about the shaky balancing act that requires me to be sole parent, household manager and career woman.

Let me rephrase that: I was starting to feel guilty about not feeling guilty.

What triggered this self-revelation was an innocent comment by one of my 5 1/2-year-old daughter’s classmates. He was sweetly trying to console Nora, who had burst into tears after I reminded her that I was leaving for an overnight business trip.

“I’m sorry your mom has to go out of town,” the boy told her, prompting a fresh round of sobs and giving me the sensation of having just been stabbed in the heart. For a fleeting moment, I considered canceling the trip.

Then a feeling of defiance set in.

There’s no doubt that kids need moms. But they also need role models in the workplace.

As a single mother, I work because I have to and because I want to. But I also set an example for my daughter, who almost certainly will be self-supporting one day. I view that duty as equal in importance to my role as nurturer.

My work puts me in touch with fascinating people and, aside from the inevitable ego-bruising rough patches, I generally like what it does for my view of me. Working also provides a steady paycheck, health benefits, paid vacation time and a retirement plan. I can support my daughter, me, our cat and an aging house, with some hope of being other than a bag lady supping on Kibbles ‘N Bits when I turn 65.

And occasional out-of-town trips help me do my job better.

To me, working is both an economic and an emotional imperative, and I sometimes wonder why more women don’t see it that way. Or their male partners and bosses, for that matter. Maybe we could all benefit from a drastic revamping of the work world. More on that later.

Meanwhile, chalk up the current views to a large, insidious attitude rooted in centuries of--let’s call it what it is--male domination.

“We’re living in this world that was constructed around the ideal of the breadwinner dad and the homemaker mom,” says Betty Holcomb, a consulting editor at Working Mother magazine and author of a new book called “Not Guilty! The Good News About Working Mothers” (Scribner).

“In the national discourse, there’s still this attitude that a good mom would be at home,” agrees Marcia Kropf, vice president of research and advisory services at Catalyst, a nonprofit organization based in New York that promotes women in the workplace. “We don’t raise women to think of themselves as needing economic power.”

Ladies, wake up and smell the toilet bowl cleaner!

Take a glance at the divorce stats and actuarial tables. Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce, often with women getting the shallow end of the financial deal. Women also live longer and are more likely to end up poor.

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Given the burdens that our culture heaps on women--chief responsibility for handling child care and tending to most of the household chores--while providing no safety nets in the workplace, it’s not surprising that so many mothers thrill at the idea of ditching the workplace grind.

For many women, chauffeuring the kids to soccer games and coordinating the school bake sale must seem like a day at the beach (only in theory, as stay-at-home moms quickly learn).

“Women rationalize,” notes Holcomb, “by saying, ‘My husband earns more, so I’ll quit.’ ”

For years now, when my female friends have married well and gleefully dropped out of the work force, I have offered the requisite congratulations. But I cringe on the inside because I see each defection as chipping away at the progress that women are making in the workplace.

I also wonder what message it sends to the sons and daughters of these friends, who grow up thinking that a woman’s place is in the home and that men go out to make the moola. Thus, the stereotypes perpetuate.

The idea of women gaining power is still frightening to many. A century ago, according to psychologist Faye J. Crosby at UC Santa Cruz, similar hand-wringing greeted women seeking a college education, provoking one professor to opine that such a strain would shrink women’s uteri.

Working, according to a college president at the time, would cause women to give birth to deformed children. (Scrubbing floors on hands and knees, by contrast, apparently caused no ill effects at all.)

Catalyst encourages women to work even when they don’t “have to.” If a woman drops out of the work force, she almost never makes up the lost earning power. Working even part time enhances long-term compensation, such as retirement and Social Security benefits, and helps a woman keep her skills honed and her network humming.

And every time a talented, trained female professional quits, it makes it that much tougher for those who remain. Among other problems, it heightens the common suspicion of many male managers that women view career as a temporary bridge to that glorious world where Prince Charming (whoever he is) pays all the bills. It also gives bosses an excuse to pay men more based on the (wildly outmoded) notion that “they have families to support.”

With pervasive beliefs like that, it’s no wonder that women typically earn 74 cents for each dollar earned by men, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Take that, you 12.8 million women who single-handedly sustained households in 1997.

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In the 4 1/2 years since I adopted my daughter, she has known me as a single mother working full time. For her, that has been normal.

Now, however, Nora is getting more exposure to the concept of moms who don’t have to rush to the office once they’ve taken the kids to school. Many of them linger for hours, volunteering in classes or planning events. Before you race to the keyboard to dash off some poison-pen e-mail to Martha, the Male-Bashing Feminazi, let me say this: I admire stay-at-home moms’ devotion to their children. Child care is one of the noblest--and toughest--jobs there is (though child-care professionals typically get paid less than zookeepers and janitors, confirming that our society devalues both women and children).

And I realize that homemaker moms are not purposely undermining the status of their office-bound peers.

But I wonder how many of them consider the potential economic and societal consequences of their choice.

And, from a purely personal perspective, I wince at the effect on Nora, who now routinely asks: “Mommy, when are you going to be able to stay all day?” Queries like that bring me to the brink of guiltdom. But I refuse to take the plunge. Instead, I take a vacation day now and then to help out at school.

Would I welcome more time with my daughter and an easing of the chest-pain-inducing logistics of my life? Heck, yes. But I’m often struck by how harried my homemaker friends are. Is it possible that they lose perspective--and lose themselves--amid the whirl of their demanding agendas in the home, where spouse and offspring often take them for granted?

Drawing on voluminous research years ago, psychologist Crosby, then at Smith College, found that the most critical difficulties women face are not conflicts between life roles--primarily parenting and working--but, rather, inequities within each of those. In her book “Juggling” (Free Press, 1991), she reported that the admittedly difficult effort to balance different roles demonstrably benefits women and their families.

Here’s where a workplace overhaul might save the day. My fantasy solution to this societal puzzle is a modest proposal:

Everybody--men and women--works.

But everybody works part time, maybe 30 hours a week. Equal work would merit equal pay; there would be full benefits for all. Productivity might actually soar if employees could get down to work without fretting constantly over the time crunch.

Imagine the fulfillment we all would feel with more freedom to attend soccer games, enjoy hobbies, clean house, run errands, take classes, read, see movies, work out, write novels, improve our tennis games, grocery shop and perhaps even indulge in that rarest of luxuries--an afternoon nap.

Relieved of the burden of being chief money-gatherer, many men would gladly throttle back. Prices would ratchet down accordingly, making everything more affordable. Many mothers, who might feel thwarted, bored or under-stimulated at home, would find another outlet for their skills and creativity.

OK, OK, so this is apple pie in the sky. But it’s nice to dream. It sure beats feeling guilty.