Tina Fey once wrote that the worst question you can ask a mother has nothing to do about their age or their weight. (I respectfully disagree. As a younger, more clueless man, I once asked a woman when the baby was due. She slapped my arm and informed me her baby was already three-months old. Lesson learned. Today, a woman can be visibly 8-months pregnant, wearing an “arriving soon” t-shirt with arrows pointing to the womb, and I will still refuse to acknowledge or ask about anything relating to a baby or due dates or pretty much anything else– I just leave the room out of panic.).
Nevertheless, the worst question you can ask a mother, Fey believes, is: “How do you juggle it all?”
I know enough not to jump into the topic of working moms — the proverbial tap dance recital in a minefield. Michelle Wolf (yes, that one of Correspondent’s Dinner fame) to my mind, has the best take on this subject and I’ll let her segue into the next section:
The above reflections strike a chord with me because I often feel I must do some juggling of my own. I do not pretend to one-up the complexities of working moms, who I concede clearly have it harder. I also don’t want to moan about my schedule (many of my friends are very busy in the truest senses of the word). But I’ve got some balls and chainsaws of my own to juggle: being a father and husband, a PhD student, a general counsel, an adjunct professor, all while trying to help at my church, trying to maintain friendships, trying to learn languages, squeezing a workout in, and not least, learning how to play Jenn Turner’s guitar part on Carnival or Eric Johnson’s Cliffs of Dover. (Mercifully baseball would have been another distraction but the Dodgers have been so horrible this season that I am forced to turn off the game and get some work done).
When I get the “how do you juggle it all” question, these days, I’ll often answer with the truth: I don’t. On my worst weeks, the nearest deadline always wins and there is no plan—only triage and sadness. On my best weeks, I’m ignoring (or worse disappointing) people on at least one end of my responsibilities. There has never been the perfect day or week where I get it all in there (a little catch with the boy, a movie with the girl, a little productivity at work, 500 words knocked off the dissertation, lunch with the wife, drinks with my mates). None of this ever works like that. It must be said as well that none of this is to complain. I signed up for all of this and I am fortunate enough to be involved with responsibilities that I genuinely enjoy.
So being at this for the last 2-3 years, I have learned that the truth of juggling is that I can’t, and if I try, I do it poorly.
All is not lost. It is simply difficult. Tough choices need to be made. In my own life, it means making sure that I give the first things their priority and realistically making peace with not doing everything that can afford to wait, or even being at peace with failure and unrealized expectations. For me, it certainly means making sure that I do not take my family for granted. It means that I limit my writing to more humbler, workmanlike tasks (rather than digging up the research that seeks to set the academic world on fire). It certainly means I won’t learn to play like Eric Johnson on the guitar. All of us must make choices on how we choose to build and shape our lives — for many these include such things as career, fame, wealth, expertise, social capital. I am choosing to build my life around perhaps comparatively ordinary things: family, community, faith. At the heart of what I’m laboring for, may it be said of me that I am a good father, a good husband to my wife, a servant to the churches, a good friend. These are not things to juggle, but rather to hold closely.
Feature Photo: Life and Work, Liana Finck, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/14/life-and-work
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