The Good Enough Mother

There is a fundamental shift in young women’s attitudes. The new direction for women is aimed at happiness and downshifting. The age of superwoman who wants to be the world’s best mother, wife and boss is dead.”
Margi Conklin, editor New Woman magazine, 2006

I'm in the midst of writing a book on how women today are managing to juggle it all-- career, kids, relationships and personal life-- what is commonly referred to in the media as the “work-life balance.” What I've discovered in the course of my research is something very different. Women today are sick and tired-- and I mean literally sick and tired-- of the pressure to “do it all.” Thanks to our feminist foremothers who paved the way for us to throw in our aprons and take our place in the boardroom, we have been brainwashed to believe that it is our duty to be superwomen-- super moms, super wives, super professionals.

I’m not slamming Gloria Steinem. We owe a great debt to the women’s liberation movement for opening doors that previously had been shut. But when we examine the day-to-day life of today’s “superwoman,” the picture is far from liberating-- cramming 36 hours worth of obligations into each 24 hour day, putting the needs of a whiny toddler above her own, caving in to the pressure of other people’s expectations and her own desire to excel in every aspect of her life. It’s a recipe for a nervous breakdown.

So what do we do? We give up on "doing it all" because we have learned that it doesn't make us happy. Instead, we try to be good enough mothers, good enough wives, good enough professionals.

In "The Good Enough Mother: Why Women Today Are Choosing Happiness Over Having It All," women of varied ages and backgrounds share the troubles and turmoil that inevitably arise when motherhood and career collide-- from struggling to keep down morning sickness while presenting to a board room of me, to writing a novel while care for a child with special needs, to getting a text message from a sick child while flying an F-16 over Afghanistan. Ambitious and accomplished, these women have taken different paths in life: lawyers, doctors, bankers, professors, writers, artists, mothers. Some are working full time while raising kids. Others have given up careers to be stay at home moms. Some are trying to balance motherhood with part-time work. Celebratory but realistic, their stories illustrate the multitude of choices available (and still unavailable) to women and the great rewards (and considerable pitfalls) of fitting motherhood into the professional mold.

The first book of its kind to let women express their own voices on the subject of, as I refer to it, the work-life imbalance, it exposes the difficulties women today face as they attempt to balance career with family life, inner happiness with the happiness of those dependent on them, the predictable life of the office with the chaotic life of the home. Honest, funny, frustrated, provocative, and, in some cases, in love with their work, these women don't claim to be able to “do it all” well. Sacrifices must be made on all ends, and feeling content and fulfilled on both a professional and personal level does not come easy, if at all.

My goal in this book is to expose the dirty truths of motherhood, the triumphs and failures, the inevitable challenges and crises that life brings:  battles with cancer, lost jobs and broken marriages, unplanned pregnancies and the heartbreak of infertility, and lots of “bad mommy” moments.   The anthology will appeal to a wide-ranging audience, including college graduates contemplating motherhood, parents overwhelmed by the demands of work and family life, stay-at-home mothers and mothers trying to “on ramp” back into the workforce, and husbands trying to understand the plight of the women in their lives. In a world that typically extols the voices of experts and professionals, this collection is a unique opportunity to hear the voices of the women around us--our mothers, daughters, wives, friends-- in the hopes that we can better understand what it means to be a woman, and a mother, today.

If you'd like to learn more about the project or are interested in contributing your story, please contact me at sam@walravens.com