In the last several weeks I’ve been grappling with the difficulty of work-life balance which has left little to no time for much else, including writing in this blog. As you working moms and dads know, the work-life balance is of course always a challenge. But lately, it’s been even harder. So hard in fact, that I had to step back and do what they call in the cooperate world, system-wide “reorganization.”
I won't bore you with all of the details, but suffice it to say I had to come to terms with the reality that my work-life was out of balance when in the very same week my supervisor talked to me about being behind in my paperwork and my son's school called me to say there was no one there to get my son off the school bus because I had forgotten that my daycare provider went away for an out of town wedding.
Now I have to say, both of these events, among others that were equal illustrations of the work-life imbalance, were unpleasant and not my proudest moments. But, if writer/poet Maya Angelou was correct that every cloud has a rainbow, I would say this difficult process of reorganization has led me to contemplate and question the very core of what it means to have work-life balance. What is work-life balance anyway? And more specifically, what is it for me? Both worthy questions no doubt.
The work-life question reminds me of a 2007 film starring Catherine Zeta Jones called No Reservations in which the main character Kate, played by Zeta Jones, has her whole life changed in the blink of an eye when her sister dies in a car accident leaving Kate to be caretaker for her grade school age niece. In one day, she goes from being a single working woman, who is a control-freak and married to her work as a chef, to being a working parent, and suddenly her life is unrecognizable leaving her priorities, values and lifestyle to be challenged in uninvited ways. In other words, this film depicts the essence of the work-life balance struggle, Hollywood style.
I love this movie for lots of reasons (one being all the aesthetic beauty of food!), but what I’ve been thinking about lately is this bit of dialogue at the end of the film between the character Kate and her therapist:
Kate: I wish there was a cookbook for life, you know? Recipes telling us exactly what to do. I know, I know, you're gonna say "How else will you learn, Kate."
Therapist: mm. No, actually I wasn't going to say that. You want to guess again?
Kate: No, no, go ahead.
Therapist: Well what I was going to say was, you know better than anyone, it's the recipes that you create yourself that are the best.
You’ve had that wish too, haven’t you? To have a cookbook for life. A recipe. A formula. A how-to instruction book. I have. In the midst of being torn in 2 (or 3 or 4) different directions, I have searched for the “right” answer.
Like two weeks ago. Two weeks ago I was begging for a book to tell me the "right" answer. It was 5 a.m. and my baby girl had come down with a low grade fever in the night. My husband and I were laying in bed with the baby sleeping between us while we discussed back and forth the schedule of the day each of us had had planned ahead of us. We reviewed which one of us had called out of work the last time one of our children was sick. We reminded each other of the impact on each our colleagues, and how our supervisors and clients can be when we call out of work. We tossed around the impact on the in-laws if we sent our baby to them with the low grade fever.
And of course, like all working parents, we ran ourselves through the guilt-mill for even having had these conversations at all. For not just saying first and foremost: we will always put our time with our children ahead of work. Yes, on that early morning, I wanted a clear, simple answer.
There is a church that I drive by each morning on my way to work that keeps a sign out front with words to ponder as you go by. Currently the sign reads: “Right. Wrong. Choose.” In the example I gave above I think to myself: if only it were that easy in making work-life balance decisions.! If only these overly-simplified, one-dimensional black and white words were applicable to an area of decision-making that is far more messy with no single truth awaiting our recognition.
I think the trick of the work-life balance, or at least what I've come up with for now, is the latter part of the dialogue between Kate and her therapist in the film: "It's the recipes that you create yourself that are the best." Use the cookbooks as a guideline only to get you started, then find the mix of ingredients, the right temperatures, to best lengths of time in the oven that work for you and yours.
In the middle of the 20th century an unknown chef named Julia Child co-wrote a cookbook called Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The purpose of the book was to bring the exquisite beauty of French culinary cooking to average, middle class American housewives. In writing this book one could argue that Julia Child was telling us exactly what to do in the kitchen to make the food exactly as she did. But to suggest that excludes the reality that Julia Child herself was making an interpretation of French cuisine. An interpretation that she felt would best suit her very specific American audience. Therefore, it stands to reason that there was an expectation that each individual woman, in the comfort of her own kitchen, with her own things, and her own family to feed, would as well shape and create something to be uniquely her own based on the solid guidance and suggestions from those who have gone before- in the kitchen that is.
I recently picked up a book by a Jesuit priest named Reverend James Martin SJ called Becoming Who You Are: Insights on the True Self from Thomas Merton and Other Saints. It is a small book, a meditation really, but it is filled with wisdom about living at home in your own skin.
One line in particular has stuck with me as I've been navigating and negotiating the work-life balance: "it is holy to be your true self." That just summarizes it all doesn't it? At the end of the day it is not about judgment, it is about compassionately trying (day in and day out) to line up your outsides with your insides so that you can take wise actions more often than not.
But remember fellow travelers of this work-life balance road: we will not be perfect. God does not expect us to be. It can take years of practice to begin to live our lives from a starting place of our true selves. As the rocking horse says to the stuffed rabbit in the old children's story The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams:
"[Real] doesn't happen all at once...You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
Yup, that describes working parenthood, doesn't it?
When I was a Peace Corps Volunteer I was told my time serving would be the "toughest job you'll ever love." Well, they were wrong about that, working parenthood trumps Peace Corps Volunteer for that award, no question.
But I have hope. Insights from films, theological books, memoirs, children's books, cookbooks and any other likely and unlikely spots of inspiration are all like little bread crumbs that help me to continue to move forward on this path of work-life balance. Where I learn to make it my own. Where I worry less about doing it "right." Where my true self is calling the shots.
What helps you retain work-life balance? How do you remain hopeful that it is possible?
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