Some new moms find having it all is too much

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Mar 19, 2007 | by Candace Murphy

EVEN SOME 30 years later, it's hard to shake Madison Avenue's image of the 1970s woman who had it all.

She was woman, w-o-m-a-n, baby -- could bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, push out 2.4 kids, spritz on the Enjoli and never, ever let her husband forget he's a man.

Though Enjoli advertisements and others like it were undoubtedly written by men, some of their sentiments rang true: Unlike generations before them, women were finally venturing outside the home to stake claim to both full-time careers and families. By all appearances, they finally had it all.

Fast forward to today, though, and the ad seems kitsch. Or worse, a lie.

At least that's what a recent national online poll seems to indicate. When asked whether the ideal would be to stay home full- time, to work at home or in an office part-time, or work in an office full-time, only 3 percent of new or expectant moms said they'd work in an office full-time if money weren't an issue.

In contrast, 43 percent said they'd ideally stay home full-time with their children, while 48 percent said they would opt to work parttime either at home or in an office. With numbers like that, "I am woman hear me roar" never sounded so distant.

"It's clear that if you look at the work fulltime stat of 3 percent, 97 percent of moms want complete or partial flexibility," says Jessica Lillie, director of marketing and consumer insights for BabyCenter.com, the Web site that conducted the poll. "The world we try to abide by and be perfect soldiers in is fairly constraining. We've posed this query to older moms, younger moms, and what we've found is that this desire for flexibility cuts across the demographics. Women today have watched their older cohorts struggle to have it all. They don't want to do that."

The BabyCenter poll is clearly limited: Only one question was asked, and beyond general demographics of the typical BabyCenter user, the data cannot be parsed by age, region or even whether the respondents have yet borne children.

But as simple a poll as it is, its message still gibes with national trends. Local parents, too, strongly echo its sentiments, explaining that it's not so much about having it all anymore but about striking a balance.

"I think values have changed, again," says Jessica Lindsey of Alameda, who works at home, running her own business. "Child- rearing is now considered a crucially important 'job.' Before, it was just part of the duties of being a wife."

Nationally, the shift in values was notably documented in a New York Times story published in September of 2005. Focusing on the future plans of Yale co-eds, the story posited that many women enrolled in the country's most elite colleges have decided that when the time comes, they will set aside their careers, no matter how high-powered they may be, in favor of raising children.

Quoting a slew of undergraduates who said they were tending to "not want to work at all" when they had kids, the story proved controversial, and even merited a response and lengthy discussion a few months later in the Yale alumni magazine.

But sometimes it's the truth that can be most controversial. Even Cynthia Russett, a professor of American History who has taught at Yale since 1967 -- two years before the school went co-ed -- was quoted in the New York Times piece and seemed to agree with the story's supposition.

"At the height of the women's movement, and shortly thereafter, women were much more firm in their expectation that they could somehow combine full-time work with child rearing," Russett told the New York Times. "The women today are, in effect, turning realistic."

Still, doubts of whether the Yale story represented a national trend circulated. Skeptics pointed out that a female Yale undergraduate is more likely to either come from wealth, or marry into it, thus making the decision to wholesale abandon a career much easier.

That's where the BabyCenter poll, which specifically set aside money issues, becomes relevant. The specific question asked in the poll was, "If money was not an issue and the decision was totally up to you, which path would you take?" The possible answers were: Stay home full time; Work office part-time; Work home part-time; Work home full-time; Work office full-time.

For Lillie of BabyCenter, the fact that only 3 percent of respondents said they would want to work full-time was not a big surprise. She attributes societal changes to what she calls Gen X Moms (defined by her as being between the ages of 29-42 in 2007) and the more modern Millennial Moms (up to age 28 in 2007).

"Gen X Moms led the charge on this one," says Lillie. "They questioned the concept of having it all and making mediocrity OK. The food is OK, letting the kids watch TV is OK, not having a high- powered career is OK, the house is a little messy is OK. But now, Millennial Moms are taking it a step further and opting out of the work force altogether."

But Bay Area parents aren't as quick to embrace BabyCenter's findings. When the Web site published its results, it titled its findings with the provocative question: "Can Working Moms Have it All?" That, and the way the question was asked, riled some local parents.