I'm not alone in the workplace

NY Times
March 15, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Working It Out
By CLAUDIA GOLDIN
Cambridge, Mass.
HIGHLY educated women are getting a bum rap from the press. There has recently been a spate of news and opinion articles telling us that these women, especially graduates of the best universities and professional schools, are "opting out" in record numbers, choosing the comforts of home and family over careers.
And because there are now 1.33 women graduating from college for every man, the best and brightest women will either have to "marry down" or, more likely, we are told, remain single. Taken together, highly educated women will have either family or career. Half of it all, rather than "having it all."
But the facts speak loudly and clearly against such suppositions. Women who graduated 25 years ago from the nation's top colleges did not "opt out" in large numbers, and today's graduates aren't likely to do so either.
To know whether a woman sacrificed career for her family, we need to know her employment status over many years. The Mellon Foundation did just that in the mid-1990's, collecting information on more than 10,000 women (and 10,000 men) who entered one of 34 highly selective colleges and universities in 1976 and graduated by 1981. We thus have detailed data about their educational, family and work histories when they were in their late 30's. That gives us enough information to figure out whether many women who graduated from top-ranked schools have left the work force.
Among these women fully 58 percent were never out of the job market for more than six months total in the 15 or so years that followed college or more advanced schooling. On average, the women in the survey spent a total of just 1.6 years out of the labor force, or 11 percent of their potential working years. Just 7 percent spent more than half of their available time away from employment.
These women were, moreover, committed not just to their careers. They were also wives and mothers — 87 percent of the sample had been married, 79 percent were still married 15 years after graduation and 69 percent had at least one child (statistics that are similar to national ones for this demographic group from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey). Women with at least one child spent a total of 2.1 years on average out of the labor force, or 14 percent of their potential time. Fifty percent of those with children never had a non-employment (non-educational) spell lasting more than 6 months.
You could argue that they opted out of their careers in more subtle ways, say, by choosing less demanding careers than those for which they had trained. But the occupation data for these women suggest otherwise. Women in these graduating classes stuck with their specialties to about the same degree as did comparable men. The vast majority of women who went to medical school were employed as doctors when in their late 30's; similarly, women who received law degrees were practicing lawyers.
What about more recent graduates, those who finished school 10 years ago and are, today, in their early 30's? It is too early to tell for sure, but there are strong hints that little has changed on the opt-out front. Statistics from the National Vital Statistics System show that highly educated women today are having babies even later in life on average than did the entering class of 1976 (and are having more of them). The Current Population Survey tells us that the percentage of college-educated women in their 30's who work has been high (in the 80 percent range) and fairly constant since the early 1990's, although the percentage dropped a bit — along with that of their male counterparts in the recent economic slump.
The fraction in their late 30's who are married, moreover, is around 75 percent and has not budged in the last 25 years. Taken together, the facts — later babies, more babies, high and fairly constant employment rates, stable marriage rates — don't spell big opt-out to me. And they don't spell big opt-out change either.
I'm not saying that all is rosy. These hard-working women still earn less than their male counterparts and they work more around the house. Given their lower earnings, it isn't surprising that some do opt out. But for the most part, female college graduates — especially those from top-notch schools — who are in their 30's are career women who care for their children if they have them and work hard for their families.
These are the opt-out facts. So why is there so much focus on women leaving the work force instead? My friend Ellen, a Ph.D. economist with two young children who teaches in a top-ranked medical school, recently noted with frustration that many people have difficulty believing that "women can actually contribute professionally and participate meaningfully in the raising of a family." But the truth is that a greater fraction of college women today are mixing family life and career than ever before. Denying that fact is ignoring the facts.
Claudia Goldin, a professor of economics at Harvard, is the author of "Understanding the Gender Gap."

How Dumb Can Someone Be?

I just have to ask the question. I returned home from work yesterday to discover the door to medicine chest in my bathroom open. That's the same medicine chest with Tylenol, Advil, prescription medicines containing codeine, bottles of rubbing alcohol, etc. A.k.a drugs and controlled substances. Thinking that it was my 3 year old son who climbed onto the side of the bathtub and opened it himself I asked my Au Pair to ensure that she keeps an eye on him when he goes upstairs by himself. She responded by telling me that it was she who left open the medicine cabinet. She added that she didn't think anything of it. WHAT????? She's a fucking moron.

A Husband's Sense of Entitlement

My husband usually travels Monday through Thursday, returning home on Thursday nights. As a result, besides missing the second shift chores of getting dinner, walking the dog, feeding the dog, feeding the cat, taking out the garbage, taking out the recycling, etc. , he misses out on dinner, playtime, bathtime, and bedtime with our son. While the aforementioned may seem like more chores, they are, in fact, the best part of the day for me and a key reason to have a child in the first place.

As you can imagine, by Thursday I'm pretty tired and fed up with having to be a single mother (one who works 45+ hours per week in a demanding job) so that I'm thrilled at having my husband around on Friday nights to help with the chores and spend some family time together. My husband, it seems, is not so thrilled.

He's playing squash on Friday night. The one night I can count on him to be home and help out, he'll be playing squash. I guess it's not enough to have every other night during the week to only worry about oneself, he needs Friday night too.

Makes perfect sense.

Why?

My son has started the "why" phase and is going to drive me crazy. I was singing Amazing Grace to him last night and he asked, "Mommy, what's a wretch?". I explained that it is a very sad person and he started an endless tirade of "Whys" that went something like this:
"Why is he sad?"
"Because maybe he lost his dog."
"Why?"
"Because maybe the dog found a bone."
"Why?"
"Because dogs really like bones."
"Why?"
You get the point. We ended the exchange with my child believing that Amazing Grace is a song about a person who is sad because his dog ran away to get a bone and I had a headache. Excellent.

Euology

One of my closest friends lost her father recently. She wrote the most moving eulogy I've ever heard or read. In fact, it's probably one of the most moving pieces of prose I've ever read - and I write a lot. The most moving parts to me where her father's characteristics of finding beauty in everyday things and his sense that anything was possible. Her Eulogy moved me to my core to the point where I'm trying to evolve my glass half empty self to be more like her father in those two respects. I'd like to give that gift to my son.

Here's the whole eulogy:

"A world without Gray Lewis in it: I still can’t fathom what that will
be. I’ve never known anyone who was more alive than my father;
it makes his sudden death even more unbelievable. A lively, restless,
insatiably curious mind, a jumpy, fidgety body, never still for more than a few
moments, a quick wit and a quick temper, a palpable sense of constant motion,
one eye always on what was coming down the pike: that was my
dad.

He was so dear to me: the person who took me to the
Nutcracker every year, somehow always managing to secure seats in the very first
row because I loved to peer into the orchestra pit; who sent me about 150 pens
in a big manila envelop – no letter or note, just a big envelop full of pens –
at college because I happen to mention on the phone that I couldn’t find
anything to write with; who arrived at the door when we bought our first house
with toolbox, tied with a giant bow and filled with every imaginable tool, each
individually wrapped and tied with ribbons; who listened to me cry for the
better part of a year after we lost our first baby, just a quiet loving presence
on the phone; and who sat with me – joyously – in the hospital for hours after
our next three – Zoe and Sophie and Ben – were born alive and healthy, each time
holding his new grandchild in his arms and saying “I always forget how
amazingly tiny they are.”

And he was also dear to many of
you – particularly to Hal, who loved my father dearly and had the tragic
misfortune to outlive his son, to Allison and Miles, who lost their father far
too soon and will miss him terribly, and to Jill, who shared his life and home,
family and future dreams for 27 years.

I was writing this eulogy
last night, struggling with sorrow, with what to say, what to tell all of you
about my dad. How could I capture in words how I loved him, what he meant
to me, the ways in which he shaped my life. Of course, I couldn’t do
it. It’s impossible. So many parts of who I am (the good and the
bad) and so much of what I strive to be and do in my own life are rooted in who
he was.

Who was he, then? He was a man who cherished ideas
and books and the life of the mind; who had a strong sense of social
justice that he truly tried to live in his daily life; who loved to argue, and
talk, and laugh; who was empathic and kind and a wonderful friend; who loved
what he called the ‘texture’ of his dear, beloved New York City; and who was
fairly confident most of the time that he was right and you were wrong, unless
you were agreeing with him, in which case he thought you were really
smart. He didn’t – excuse the language, but I’m quoting him here – he
didn’t give a flying fuck what anyone thought. This last quality, though
horrifying during my adolescence, when even having parents is embarrassing, was
tremendously exciting when I was a little girl and it certainly provides a
refreshing, freeing model for my adult life – though I don’t carry it quite as
far as he did.

As I tried to make sense of him and what’s happened,
I kept coming back to two things about my dad that have been wonderful in my
life, and I imagine in Allison and Miles’ lives, and that I hope I can
give to my kids.

The first is my dad’s rare and remarkable
ability to weave moments – little oasis of beauty or pleasure or personal
meaning – into daily life. He would go ten blocks out of his way to spend
a few minutes in a gallery looking at a beautiful painting he’d caught a glimpse
of through the window of a passing cab the previous day; he would stop in
the street to admire the way the clear light and deep shadows on an autumn
afternoon made two old men sitting on a park bench look figures in like a Dutch
masters painting; he took incredible pleasure in lovely objects, not just
for the beauty of the objects themselves, but for the care and craftsmanship
that had gone into making them. He could be transported by a really
wonderful chicken sandwich. The ability to find epiphany in the ordinary –
what a gift that was. That cliché that life is what happens when you’re
making plans is really true – and my dad, while always making big plans for
tomorrow, also infused his existence with meaning by fully experiencing and
appreciating the texture of daily life.

Another gift my dad gave to
me and, I think, to many others here today, as well, was the sense that
anything was possible. Never, ever in my life did he greet an idea of mine
with discouragement, never with reasons why it couldn’t or shouldn’t happen –
his attitude was always, well, why not? He never even said things like,
“you won’t make any money doing that,” or “that field is very
competitive”; there was no judgment, no warnings, no
second-guessing. He reacted to all of my dreams and ambitions and hopes as
though their coming true was the most natural thing in the world. He
exuded supreme confidence in not just me personally, though I did feel that, but
also in the very idea that all things were possible. He had the sense
that, well, someone was going to be the Secretary-General of the United Nations
or a mystery writer or a veterinarian or the president or any of the other ideas
I had – why shouldn’t that person be me? He got behind those dreams; he
supported them wholeheartedly while they lasted, and if they changed, well, he
got behind that next idea, too. I hope I can be that person for the people
in my own life.

Those were his greatest gifts to me: to find
and cherish those small but extraordinary events and exchanges with people that
have the power to transform the way you experience life, even if just for a
short moment; and a sense that anything was possible, that my dreams were
not just dreams but tomorrow’s reality.

All of us here
wish that my dad had an easier time these last years; it was hard to know how to
help him. Truth be told, he wasn’t good at asking for help, or accepting
it when offered. He wanted to be the helper, the rescuer, the fixer.
Most of the time he was able to – he was so marvelously inventive, so ingenious
and persuasive, so alive to the possible. But some things of the
last years were just beyond him. I know he was heartbroken when Paul and I
lost our first son, Sam, seven years ago; I think that 9/11 affected him
more than he let on – the assault on his beloved New York I think to some degree
fundamentally altered his sense of the world. And of course, he would have
given anything he had, done anything he could, to ease the pain that Allison and
Miles have had these last five years; they were both so so dear him.
But again, even in these hard times, I know that he had moments,
little pockets, of great joy.

To go forward into the rest of my
life without my dad; it’s a terrible thought. I can’t believe that I
articles he’s cut out for me will stop showing up in the mail, that the phone
will ring, but it won’t be him. I can’t believe that he won’t be part of
my daughters’ lives or that my baby son won’t remember him. But I will see
him when I look at my daughter Sophie’s eyes, the exact color of his, and I will
try to keep alive and hold close his unique and beautiful spirit."

Favorite Part of the Day

My favorite part of the day is definitely not the morning. Firstly, I'm not a morning person. Secondly, there are all the chores to do to get ready for the day: dress me, dress my son, walk the dog, feed the dog, feed my son, feed myself, battle over watching another episode of Dora the Explorer with my son, transition my son from me to the nanny, and any other thing that needs taking care of. Third, there's the pressure of getting all of the aforementioned completed so I can get to work on time (on time for me means less than 1/2 hour late). Finally, there's the separation trauma of saying goodbye to my son and having him cry hysterically.

The middle of the day is not my favorite part either. It is then that I am at work dealing with incompetents, micromanagers, crybabies, and other sundry characters all under looming client deadlines. It is also during this time when my circadian rhythms hit their low point and I just want to crawl under my desk to take a snooze.

You may have guessed by now that my favorite part of the day is the evening. It is not because by process of elimination this must be my favorite part of day but because it is a truly joyful time. There are still chores to do: feed the dog, walk the dog, feed my son, battle with my son over watching TV, feed myself, bathe my son, clean up after everyone, get stuff ready for the next day, and on and on. However, after dinner and before my son's bathtime there is an oasis of pure, unfettered fun in which my son and I may run, jump on the bed, jump on the floor, play hide and seek, dance, play the flute badly, tickle each other, blow balloons, pop balloons, or just generally act goofy while we giggle the whole time that is the highlight of my day.

It is that time of day that gets me through the other parts.

Ripping My Heart in Two

For the past week or two, my son, who is a few months shy of being 3 years old, has been saying, "Don't go to work mommy." When I reply that I must he says, "Wanna come too." So sad. It makes me feel bad everytime.

Way to Go Nicholas!

Nicholas Kristof, Op-Ed columnist for the NY Times ought to win some sort of humanitarian award. His article in today's NY Times on the lack of media attention to the genocide in Darfur is just the latest in what seems to be his own personal crusade to make the world aware of such atrocities. He published a series on sexual slavery that was as depressing as it was eye-opening. Thankfully, we have Mr. Kristof to raise awareness of many issues that politicians want to sweep under the rug.

Keep Trying

Well, my hubby got dinged from WW. They said they weren't sure he was a fit. We think they may have been looking for a woman since the other two candidates are women and there's only one other woman on the senior management team. Oh well, he'll just have to keep trying. - SUCKS!

Where's Daddy?

It's so sad. Yesterday, my son (who is 2 1/2) saw a plane flying overhead and started waving to it saying, "Hi Daddy." My husband is desperate to get out of managment consulting so he won't have to travel as much.

I remember when I was in consulting many of the Managers would quit just before making it to Partner because their children did the same as mine and thought their dads were on the planes overhead.

Please let my husband get the WW job so he can leave consulting.