Women are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. I know this. I lived it when I decided to give up partnership at a law firm to work part-time after my first child was born. I lived it a second time when I had my practice taken from me because I was a part-time lawyer, and the firm did not want that kind of “lack of commitment” for their most valued clients. I lived it yet again when, after my second child was born and private practice became too difficult for me with two toddlers and a litigator husband, I chose to give up practice altogether for awhile.
The critics were on both sides. There were the men who criticized me for not being home with my children, and there were the women who criticized me for not forging ahead full-time and breaking the glass ceiling by becoming the first woman partner in my firm. It felt bad then, and it still feels bad now when I force myself to think about it. But, I made peace with it along the way. Choices. That is what it is all about. Personal choices, and I do not owe allegiance to anyone on either side of that debate. I owe allegiance to myself and my family, and my situation is uniquely mine. Not anyone else’s.
So the current controversy over remarks in a profile of NYC mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, for the New York magazine has really captured my attention. Although I do not identify with many aspects of Ms. McCray’s life, I certainly identify with her conflicting feelings as a first-time mother, as described below in the profile:
“McCray had always imagined a life with children, but as with so many women the reality of motherhood—the loss of independence, the relentlessness of the responsibility—was difficult. ‘I was 40 years old. I had a life. Especially with Chiara (her first-born child)—will we feel guilt forever more? Of course, yes. But the truth is, I could not spend every day with her. I didn’t want to do that. I looked for all kinds of reason not to do it. I love her. I have thousands of photos of her—every 1-month birthday, 2-month birthday. But I’ve been working since I was 14, and that part of me is me. It took a long time for me to get into ‘I’m taking care of kids,’ and what that means.’ ”
And for that, a candid and honest description of her feelings and her difficulty adjusting to her new role as mother, she is being vilified in private conversations — by both women and men alike — and made an example (of what?) in the media, which always is in search of a salacious story.
What Ms. McCrary says is about as “right on” as I can describe. Bravo to her for saying it. What looks easy is hard, and what looks hard is hard when you are a new mother, and that is especially true when you are an older new mother with a working woman past. It fits me like a glove, and I am glad that she has the courage to address it and not sugarcoat her experiences.
Learn from this. You are likely to experience some of these same feelings, and you should not be ashamed of them. Motherhood is hard, no matter how you cut it. But, it also is beautiful, rewarding and completely worth it — warts and all. It is what makes our hearts sing — but those melodies surely are interrupted by harsh chords and atonal moments. That is just the way it is.
No one ever said it would be easy. Most things worth having are not.
