Opting out of opting out… so far
Friday I kind of bottomed out on this funk I’ve been having. I was working hard on a deadline and I changed some of BigEditor’s deathless prose.
Defense: I was being more accurate, choosing the correct location of something over alliteration. Prosecution: I didn’t handle it right by calling and asking her; I made the change and sent the test newsletter. I got email from BigEditor that was worthy of The Devil Wears Prada (well, at least in my view), apologized, switched it back, and sent it off for the 4 pm deadline still.
In between I put my head on my desk and cried. When things go wrong with building the site, I can shrug it off that that’s not my job long-term. But this is my job long-term. And I keep hitting this wall in that I haven’t climbed the editorial ranks in the traditional way so I have had Too Much Say Too Early. It’s not that I don’t think the case was good for changing the phrase back. It’s more that in my world, she’d've called me up and asked me to change it, not fired off a “how dare you” email.
Also, I really like her and it stings.
I know that I’m capable of learning how to navigate in this world. I’m just not always sure I’m making the right choice in doing so. As a writer I am on the path of trying to stop obsessing over every choice; getting slammed for changing one minor phrase to fit the copy editor’s question is not conducive to trusting my experience and instincts. But as an editor if I want to hit the big leagues, I have to learn to handle the big league professional mores.
And emotionally I just hit that place where I was bottoming out that I suck as an editor, mother, wife, friend, blah blah. This is what I think all the NY Times-inspired pieces about why do high-level professional women opt-out is perhaps missing. There has been discussion that women are not happy in their jobs because the workplace is not family-friendly, etc.
But I think there is a whole other emotional level where there’s a sort of duality that’s hard to manage. Most of the time when things are fairly level I can manage my own ambivalence about my choice to work and have Noah in daycare. Over the long term I think this is the right decision for me (irregardless of how a particular job is going, etc.) And yet as soon as things get really hard, the scale tips.
It’s not that women can’t “handle” the crap at work. If they have to, they do, as millions of working women prove every day.
It’s more, I think, that in order to parent small children well in our current culture you have to be in a headspace where you are aware of the repercussions of your actions and in a sense gentle yourself down. With a 2 year old in particular, the dance is quite a finely detailed one: Noah will get mad, for example, that we have no blueberries at all and stomp off and it is my job as a mother to listen to him and let him grapple with his bad feelings, until he can’t any more and then appear to offer comfort. To do that I have to have my own emotions under control but also have my radar for his wide-open.
Dealing with a high-pressure, competitive workplace at the same time is really tiring. And when things go sour, for me anyway, I find the first thought that comes to mind is along the lines of leaving my son is not worth it! but that really translates to: if someone in my life is going to get the emotional energy it takes to walk a minefield, I pick my kid.
I know that loads of people never get this choice. I just think it is possible that those who do have the choice, end up making that decision because to be the calm composed one 24/7 is a lot of life energy they don’t want to spend. And maybe men are raised to just handle the whole thing differently and stop trying to please everyone and that gives them an advantage. I don’t know.
Well maybe I shouldn’t try to speak for everyone. That’s what I feel though. It’s not just the hours, the commuting, blah blah. It’s the moments where I feel like I have no more emotional capacity that are the ones that make me think the juggling act is not worth it.
In this case, the feeling lasted 45 minutes and then I went into a meeting and it’s been uphill from there.
Yesterday my parents took Noah to the zoo for a tot programme in the morning and I was going to work out (go me!) but the gym was closed for repairs to their water system (boo) so I went to Value Village and shopped for our family on a budget instead. Then after nap we took Noah to the playground and just had a rocking good time playing. It was exactly the sort of Saturday one would hope for out here in the middle-class burbs.
Oh yes, budget. Between our decision to go to the Briars, Carl’s trip out West for a funeral, car repairs, and a few luxury items like organic vegetable delivery, we suddenly are carrying some line of credit debt. Since we’re not really willing to cash in any of our emergency fund right now, we’re going to go for 4 months of really restrained spending and see where we get to with that. It’s happy that this aligns with the season of farmer’s markets and so on.
And now… it’s time to garden! First serious go of the season.
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I know what you mean, I think. A friend of mine took a couple of years off, starting when her son was 2. She said “I got sick of having people come in to my office to complain about petty little things. I’d be thinking, you are acting like a two year old. I get that at home, I don’t need it all day.” So yeah, only so much patience for the emotional heavy lifting.
Glad to hear things are uphill again for you, though. It’s a great day for the gardening.