The kids are fine

So, over at Rose's there's a discussion about her decision to go back to work after several months at home with their new daughter. Jeannie, another favorite of mine, had asked her 1) how she does it all, and 2) whether she feels guilty about going back to work. Rose wrote a good post that explains her feelings on the subject.

So, pressed for time, I popped up in the comments and asked this one question: Why doesn't anyone ever ask men whether they feel guilty going back to work? Gloria Steinem put it another way: "But the problem is that when I go around and speak on campuses, I still don't get young men standing up and saying, 'How can I combine career and family?'" Steinem put it much better than I did. People tend to hear my question and translate it to, "Why doesn't your husband feel guilty about being away from your kid(s) like you do?" That's not what I meant.

We can assume until the cows come home that most fathers miss their kids deeply when they are away, are involved in their lives, and so forth, and still ask ourselves the question of why our culture principally (if not solely) concerns itself with mothers who go back to work.

My grandmother, born as she was of another generation, tells me constantly how lucky I am that Mr. T "helps" with TK. And every single time I (patiently) remind Grandma that Mr. T does not "help" with the house and the kid. He does his share, and I don't look at that as anything greater than him fulfilling his basic obligations. To phrase it in terms of "helping" implies that Mr. T is assisting me with a responsibility that is primarily my own.

That dog, as we say in the Midwest, don't hunt. At least not anymore.

I start from the premise that, in a family headed by a couple, (1) the care of children and home and (2) the financial support of the family are joint obligations. From there, a couple may elect to divide these duties up in different ways at different times as circumstances dictate. What annoys me is that often, our culture does not start from that premise, but rather immediately assigns mom responsibility for the kids and the house, and dad the responsibility for the financial support, and maybe yard and car maintenance in some situations. (Of course, I could go off on a complete other tangent about how these days, women contribute more of the money but are also still frequently expected to bear, in addition to their job, their traditional burden of caring for the house, all while feeling the requisite amount of guilt that their children are in daycare. But that's another post.)

I guess part of the reason for my view is I'm not much of a gender essentialist. Some of you are shaking your heads right now and thinking, well, mothers are just hardwired to worry more about being away from their kids and to want to be with them all the time. Eh, maybe. Or maybe the culture has just drilled it into our heads that we suck if we don't torture ourselves with guilt for working outside the home.*

And a big reason I'm not a hardcore gender essentialist is that I've seen those boundaries break down in my own family. When TK was born, Mr. T was just starting his first year of an extremely demanding MBA program. I was the sole wage-earner in the family, and self-employed to boot. (Talk about fear.) And here I was, the primary caregiver (and foodgiver) of a newborn as well. Fortunately, I work at an office with my family, and my dad thought it would be neat to have his grandkid at the office every day.

But these circumstances compelled me to crystallize my view of family care, and all it entails, as a joint obligation between myself and Mr. T. There was absolutely no way I could take it all on myself. And frankly, I had no wish to. Mr. T stepped up, of course, both because he's just that kind of guy, and because I refused to have it any other way.

Today, I would have to say that Mr. T does slightly more of the daily, nitty-gritty kid care. On the other hand, this trip makes five weeks that he's been away from home this year so far. By the end of 2006, it will be up to eight weeks, possibly nine. So I'd say on the whole, we're about even.

I don't feel guilty that I work for pay instead of care for TK full time. What I do feel is not guilt so much as a longing to be near him, which I know Mr. T feels as much as I do. And here's the thing: TK is fine. Mr. T and I have a tenuous balance that we are constantly readjusting. (Case in point: it has become clear to me that if I were to go back into a traditional legal job, things would have to be signifcantly reworked.) But I do what 1) our finances require and 2) my mind and heart demands that I do. He's better off with a happier mom. And he's a pretty well-adjusted little dude as it is (if you count out some of the more obvious quirks that come with this family's genetic territory).

I think the real problems arise when you're not doing what you're comfortable doing. A good friend wants nothing more than to be home with her three kids, but they can't survive on her husband's income alone. This causes her real and deep pain. With me, I recall the exact moment I knew I had to get the hell out of that house. It was two weeks after TK was born and I was sitting on the couch, nursing him and staring at the rock wall opposite our stairwell. Nothing dramatic -- I just knew. Later that afternoon I packed up the kid and his gear and went into the office.

But back to the original point, which was why it's rare for someone to ask if fathers feel guilty going back to work. That's actually easy -- because they have women to do it for them for the most part. Mr. T actually stayed home with TK for six weeks between getting his MBA and starting the job out here, while our nanny was on maternity leave. I felt not a shred of worry, not a scintilla of guilt, because I knew he was with the other person in the world who loved him as much as I do. I suspect it's certainly much that way for most men.

What I'm certain I will now hear in response to that paragraph is "oh, I/my husbandwould love to stay home with Junior. If I/he could." Let me say that, while I generally defer to one's explication of their own feelings, this is an assertion that I cannot help but take with a tennis ball-sized grain of salt. It's the "if I could" that always gets to me. Usually the fathers mean "if finances would allow," and I accept that. But I've known too many high-earning professional women who give up big money to go home to assume that giving up a high salary is the real reason most men don't do it.

Obviously this suspicion cannot be generalized to everyone. For example, neither Mr. T nor I could give up our jobs right now without, well, losing our house. (Mr. T never says he'd love to stay home, either.)

And none of this is to criticize Jeannie for her question. She was discussing the issue with Rose, not a man. But it did tickle my gray matter and prompt me to open my trap and openly wonder something, as I am often inclined to do. And despite the long-ass post, I still haven't addressed all the issues involved, or all the possible personal permutations of this question. (For example, Full Moon will have a very clear statement on what it means to not have the choice at all.)

Oh well. Back to work.


*I don't mean to suggest there is no difference between the way fathers and mothers feel about their children ever. But I think the differences wane ever more quickly as the child gets older. When TK was born, I felt a powerful, unshakeable urge to be near him. When I was away, I felt somehow incomplete; when we were reunited, I felt almost a surge of relief. But in any event, those feelings have lessened a great deal as TK gets older. Which makes eminent sense; children are supposed to become more independent of their parents as time goes by.