“The Existential Crisis of the

Wait-at-Home Mom”

by Robin Bonner

From Corporate Pro to Yoga Mom
The headline article in the October Philadelphia magazine caught my eye recently. In “Now What? The Existential Crisis of the Wait-at-Home Mom,” author Vicki Glembocki begins “The first generation of Philly women who ‘opted out’ in order to stay home with their kids is now ready for what’s next.Trouble is, opting back in can be pretty scary when you aren’t even sure who you are anymore.” Glembocki goes on to interview six Main Line women attending a Narberth yoga class to exercise their demons—demons brought on by their newfound loss of self as their children leave the nest.

Sure, they had high-powered careers before the babies came, and sure they gave it all up to be there with their children. Well, now that their children are grown, they’re not so sure. Not sure they want to go back to their careers. Not sure they can. Fact is, they’re not the same people they were 10, 15, or 20 or more years ago. After yoga, then over lunch at one woman’s home, these Main Line Moms discuss their dilemma. Who were these women before babies? Who are they now? Glembocki does a fabulous job of getting to the root of it, delving into the history of feminism and the choices women have and have not been able to make through the decades. She quotes Lisa Belkin’s 2003 New York Times article “The Op-Out Revolution” as well as Betty Friedan’s classic The Feminine Mystique. She weaves her tale skillfully, then packs the punch at the end.

Change as a Constant
As the Main Line Moms’ narrative unfolded, I found myself thinking, “Um, didn’t these ladies get the memo?” We’re all older—even those of us who for years kept our careers alive, either for love or for money, as we also raised our families. And, many of us are looking for a change—a second, different career, or perhaps even volunteer work more meaningful to us than our careers (see “Retirement Versus the Oncore Career” in the Summer 2007 issue of Empty Nest.) The focus for each of us is different now. So there’s no reason to expect that any of us will want to continue or go back to what we were doing years ago. At least they can feel better knowing that.

Glembocki acknowledges their plight: “Yet, as they listen to each other’s concerns about the next step, they all seem somewhat shocked that they’re now going through the same identity crisis, as if they’d each assumed, until this very bite of curried chicken salad, that they were wrestling with this issue alone.” She goes on to summarize Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, which as long ago as 1949 pushed women to “stop being dependent on men and start seeing themselves as women who, ahem, roar.”

As it turns out, though, those without careers went into and came out of motherhood relatively unscathed—they harbored no thoughts of returning to jobs—assuming, of course, that their marriages lasted and they were, and still are, truly happy with their decisions. Worse off were those with high-powered careers and big paychecks before babies who gave up everything to stay home. Their sense of self has shifted, perhaps irrevocably. However, it appears that those who “kept their hand in” their careers—perhaps out of need for the extra paycheck if for nothing else—are having less of an existential crisis. They’ve been better able to keep up with changes in their industry, with the technology that’s evolved in the past 20 years. Glembocki finally makes this point on the last page.

Keeping One’s Hand In
Because of its importance, I want to take a moment to address the issue of “keeping the career alive.” When I began my publishing career as a young editorial assistant in 1980 (after working in a book store and also selling encyclopedias), I did so with a dictaphone and an electric typewriter on my desk. It was years later, when I was home raising my daughters and freelancing as a photo researcher, copyeditor, and proofreader that we bought our first computer. When researching photos, I handled sleeves and sleeves of original 35-mm slides, trafficked them via U.S. mail (a process that cost me much sleep at night), and utilized a database program on our new computer to track their whereabouts. Today, I download digital files from various Web sites, and nothing is mailed. I’ve learned to use (in my sleep) the Microsoft Office Suite to manage text and data, Adobe PhotoShop to review digital art files, and QuarkXPress to lay out pages that in the past I could only do by hand. (Some of this was gained through a graduate program in English and Publishing, completed over the past 6 years.)

But now, the publishing industry itself has shrunk, the bottom line has become paramount, and publishing services, including the one for which I currently work (and liaise with corporate colleagues in India to get the work done), are on the rise. In fact, it amazes me how much in publishing has changed in the past 25 years, and my youngest child just graduated from college! If I hadn’t worked part time while my kids were growing up, where would I be today? Would I have the same contacts? Would the changes in industry and technology be overwhelming me? I’d surely be experiencing a much more pervasive existential crisis than I am right now. Glembocki confirms my suspicions: “This [backlash] advises women on the verge of off-ramping: ‘Don’t drop out completely.’ Work part time! Consult! Sell Silpada jewelry.” Do anything rather than let go completely.

No worries there. I made my decisions based on some basic intuition: (1) I watched my stay-at-home mother with no career aspirations fight for a sense of self. Funny, but she never seemed happy. I had a passion for making books—a passion that predated my decision to marry and raise a family—and I was unwilling to let my family completely obliterate that. (2) I wanted to be there for my kids—watch their first steps, read books to them at nap time, take them to music lessons and sports practices. So, I compromised and did both. I didn’t rise as far in the publishing world as I might have, had I stayed in the office. And my freelance publishing deadlines made us all crazy at times. (Did someone say a clean house? What is that, anyway?) But somehow we all got through it, relatively happily. My paychecks also provided the means to do a lot of things as a family that we wouldn’t have done otherwise (although paychecks for two full-time jobs, of course, would have made things easier). As Glembocki notes about Cynthia Drayton, one of the Main Line Moms who was faced with the choice between career and family, “Not that [she] was lying awake at night asking herself, ‘What would de Beauvoir do?’ She was simply trying to figure out what would be best for her and her family.”

Answers and Help
So, back to Bryn Mawr. Our ladies have finished yoga and showered, and are now lunching on chicken salad. The plan had been to have a high-powered career, have kids and raise them, then have the high-powered career again. Simple, right? Glembocki sums it up: “These ladies—and many others like them around Philadelphia—were hailed as the ones who’d finally figured out how to have it all. . . . Speaking at the Free Library in May, feminist author Amy Richards described them as ‘the four women in America who could afford to do this.’” Of course, there were many more than four, all of whom gave up whatever they were doing pre-motherhood to stay at home. For some the money was very tight, and for others it was not an issue, but the result was the same: They traded the career to which their identity was so closely tied for motherhood, which then took on that same identity role. In the end, they lost themselves to their family and missed the boat as the industry they aligned themselves with evolved without them.

As these women try to pick up the pieces, they are finding that resources designed to help them can be found out there. University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School offers their Career Comeback Program, “a free three-day seminar for a select group of 60 professional women from all over the country who [want] to start working again.” Drayton applied and got into the program. She was surprised to find that she lacked the confidence to complete even the first assignment. The other women felt the same way, though, and the break-out group discussions turned into therapy sessions. Drayton persevered, however, and analyzed what she wanted from a job at this point in her life. She found this was not “money” and “prestige,” as it had been before, but rather “passion” and “meaning.” Today, she has a “dream job” for a Virginia-based nonprofit organization. She negotiated a work arrangement whereby she works full time, but remotely, and has options to flex her work hours around her children’s sports schedules.

Other organizations also try to help. Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church announced an “integrative coaching workshop for women who want to create new possibilities for themselves.” Led by Katrina Ogilby, director of Beyond Empty Nest, the program helps woman decide “not ‘What am I going to be?’ or ‘How am I going to be it?’ or ‘Do I have enough skill to ever put together a PowerPoint presentation?’ It’s ‘Am I still the kind of woman who can do this? Have I changed too much?’” One more question would be, “Do I even want to?”

So, the Main Line Ladies are on their way to new post-motherhood fulfillment. In exploring this issue, Vicki Glembocki has done a great service to women everywhere. She’s helped women who feel, as she quotes Meg Wolitzer in The Ten-Year Nap, “…lost in the woods in the middle of my life” to get back on track, even if it’s in a new direction. And she confirms for those of us who limped along, compromising all the way, that we made the right decision. Besides, parenting never ends, even after the kids leave home. They didn’t die, they just moved out. They will always need us—but that is a topic for another time!

Links
Vicki Glembocki can be reached at vglembocki@phillymag.com
Wharton’s Career Comeback Program.
Organizations to help women and families:
Beyond Empty Nest
Take Away The Worry: Empty Nest & Beyond
Beyond the Mommy Years, by Carin Rubenstein