AIBU to think that I CAN have it all?

[TransatlanticCityGirl]

I was watching The Wright Stuff Extra the other day and once again, the whole "it's just not possible to have it all" topic came up again. Oh Lord....

This debate often leads me to wonder:

Just what exactly do these women define as "having it all"? Have they set their standards to an impossibly high level? And then and only then will they be happy?

How come men never worry about "having it all"? Do they think they already have it? Do they not want it? Or simply that would they rather just watch telly rather than think about it?

I personally think I CAN have it all, and while it may not be a walk in the park, it is not impossible and it doesn't even take an exceptional kind of woman to achieve it either. And in much the same way as money earned is far more rewarding that money won, achieving a happy well-rounded life will be far more rewarding that taking an easier route, e.g. sacrificing either my career or the family I want.

I believe that I can and will have it all. And in fact, I believe I already have it (although I do plan on taking it to the next level when I am ready). There is nothing more at this particular point in my life that I would want. I have an amazing husband, a daughter who brings me joy, a successful career, a lovely home, financial security, good friends and a recipe for the bestest cupcakes ever.

So what's the big deal? Why am I always hearing other women on TV complaining that you just can't have it all?

My DC have other carers as I work full time as I am the ONLY parent in my household. As a mother I dont think that means they have a different relationship with me than they would if i didnt work. Apart from that we would be on benefits and skint, as opposed to living in a nice house and going to private schools.

And yes, I palm off employ other people to do housework etc, but why should'nt I, Given that I work 40 hours a week, I'd rather spend my free time with my children than doing housework.

elastamum if I was in your boat I would do the same and I would definitely buy in all the help I could so I could spend more time with my kids.

I had a childminder when I was young and I said I would never inflict that on my kids and I haven't, I absolutely hated it I wanted to be with my mum. My mother worked PT, we did need the money to some extent (we could have just had less holidays) but my mother wanted to work she loved it. If you have grandparents and other relatives that is different. If you don't have a choice as you are a single parent then you do the best you can.

See Chestnut - my Mum worked FT from when I was 4 weeks old (she is a teacher) and I spent my younger years with my grandma and great aunt and cousins. I never ever felt deprived and never wanted my mother to be home. I liked the freedom I guess. Both my parents were very hands on though. Just like my husband and I are. My DS has never been bathed or put to bed by anyone other than the two of us and I can count on one hand the number of nights I have not been home for bath time and bed time. In fact, on half of one hand. I am there every morning for him and there every night for him. I have virtually no life outside work and him. I spend my weekends with him, so I don' feel like anyone spends more time with him than I do or my DH does.

And what about when your children go to school? will you stop having such a close relationship with them even though they are away from you for so long? And children grow up and don't want you around all the time. What then? The jobs aren't there simply waiting for you to walk back in.

I don't feel like I have it all. I have to work full time in order to keep a roof over our heads and I miss my 11 month old DD so much during the day it hurts. I get frustrated when people judge me for working full time and tell me to 'lower my expectations' and that it's my choice to work - actually it isn't my choice and my expectations are already pretty low! My DH and I neither earn big salaries but I earn a tiny bit more than him and if I didn't work we couldn't live on his salary because we are in London. Yes we have a mortgage - and are very lucky to have that, but it's for a small flat which is in desperate need of repair and we can't afford to do any of it. We now just about break even, as nursery fees are over half my take home salary a month. We haven't had a holiday for two years or any kind of 'luxury'. We are not able to save money as it all goes on living costs - which are getting even higher. So we are a bit stuck - neither of us are likely to be able to earn any more in the next few years.

I want to work in some way, because I always have and because I think it's good for my DD to be with other people and other children for some of the time. I also want her to see me working as my mum worked and it was inspirational to me that she could have lots of children and a career - albeit not as senior as my dad as she didn't work full time.

My ideal would be to work 3 or 4 days but I a) am not allowed to by my work and b) couldn't afford to as the cut in salary would not be matched with a proportional cut in nursery fees. I expect many, many families are in the same position as us.

But then again, if I compared myself to someone who didn't have a job, didn't have a partner or a baby or somewhere half decent to live, then yes - I do have it all!

buttonspoon I've had colleagues who cut their hours and just end up doing the same amount of work but being paid less... Obviously, I don't know what you do but it's not always a good thing.

about you missing your DD... I used to sit outside my DD's lovely nursery and sob in the car while she was off enjoying herself without a backwards glance. I know, though, that I am not cut out to be a SAHM - not even if I wanted to be. Now, a SAHM with a nanny, cleaner, gardener and, basically, a full staff might be something I could manage.

Just thought I'd add my tuppence...

I see that some of this thread has turned into the old SAHM vs working mother debate...

I don't think thats waht the OP was talking about really. I think the answer to the oh-so-ridiculous "can women have it all?" moan is three-fold (and I think this is what the OP was saying):

1. On a practical level, if a woman really wants to work and have children, it probably is possible with some juggling and comprimise. Obviously, its going to be much, much harder for a single parent because the financial load is basically doubled.

1. Men don't have this debate! And they don't "have it all".... in the traditional model of a SAHM and a working father, the father gets to spend a lot less time than he would like with his children.

1. The concept of "having it all" is so, so silly anyway! Its a bit lke saying "I want to be a lawyer and a doctor and do something creative... why can't I have it all!?" Of course its physically impossible to be at home and at work at the same time and its impossible to add children to your family without having increased outgoings, so less money overall.

I think the OP wasn't really being smug, she was just saying that she's happy with her lot.

I don't give a mokey's about "having it all". Whatever I have got, I LOVE it. But... I totally take on board that being happy and reaching a good compromise (primarily I am talking between work and kids here) is probably only possible with teamwork, whether that's father/mother or single parent with lots of support from grandparents etc... For instance, I have just had a year's mat leave and DH is now being a SAHD for a year while I am back full-time. And even that's only possible because I have a fairly well-paid job, a flexible employer (I leave at 5pm every day) and a low mortgage because of help (eternally gratefully received!) from parents.....

So having it all is nonsense, but having what you want...? Only with LOTS of help and support as far as my experience is concerned!

I haven't read the entire thread but I have to say I do completely agree with Xenia's comments on working. I cannot believe some people think that everything lands in hardworkers' laps through "luck". I sense an awful lot of resentment to those of us who work, maybe because the cliche of "having it all" in this day and age seems to have come to mean working and being a mother?

I choose to work full time in a well paid, interesting, senior position which I studied long and hard for before marriage and have continued to work hard at since, including whilst bringing up 4 children. DH chooses to work in a similar capacity, full time. We can therefore afford help and as a family this enables us to do what makes us happy. I am happy in my work and this, I believe is a positive role model for children. However, this does not mean that a happy SAHM is not a good role model. Each to their own but being a SAHM is not for me. It is probably true that if you earn more your life can be easier. I certainly appreciate having tasks carried out for me by paying someone else to do them, which allows me the time for activities with my DCs, for myself or with DH. I also understand this isn't possible for everyone who is in a family where both parents work full time.

We are super organised as a household but that is in my nature anyway. Having me, DH and nanny take a fair share of all the organising and planning, it works. I would never have chosen to be with a narrow minded / sexist man who would not agree with this approach to life. DH and I are equals but recognise that we each bring different skills to our family so there are some things that we naturally gravitate towards (e.g. among other activities he will do swimming and maths with the DCs whereas I will do cooking and reading). We are not perfect and of course some weeks are a challenge but on the whole, I wouldn't change anything (except maybe as others have said about having some more sleep!)

I don't think anyone can measure happiness or "having it all" for anyone else. It is so personal.

Lastly, I was surprised to read a post from someone who is not a mother. I do not know how anyone without children can even begin to comment on this thread as their experiences do not allow a like for like comparison.

It is not a great question, designed to make some people sound smug or teetering on the brink of pride before fall and the others just a little put out.

I don't think I've ever had it all at, be it popularity, good grades, good skin, a boyfriend, a job, a well paid job, children, a super husband, a lovely home, a harmonious figure, smooth hair... but I've had combinations and that's pretty nice in my book.

It's such a long life that surely there must be plenty of time for more combinations of elements that make one happy even it they don't all come at once.

Totally agree Harried! Maybe we should all be contemplating "pretty good for right now" instead!

I totally agree with LaydeeLaLa's post. The thread has made me think further about what "having it all". In retrospect I realise what an out of date and sexist question it is assumes that a sahm can't have it all because she isn't out in the workplace moving up the career ladder so she isn't as good as other "modern" women. The question also assumes that a wohm can't have it all because she isn't at home making sure the home is lovely and looking after husband and dcs so she isn't a proper woman. The question also fails to recognise the advent of technology which means that it is no longer necessarily to be in the office 5 days a week, plus these days there is the ability to outsource pretty much anything as people (both men and women) have turned time zappers into business opportunities. So its ridiculous from a wohm perspective to say that you can't have it all - good job and good homelife - because actually the more one earns the easier it is to outsource the crappy bits so that time with your children is maximised.

Dh works in the City, earns lots of money doing something that requires him to work stupid hours and be surgically attached to his blackberry including at the weekends and on holidays. Yet people would look at the positives - he is a great person, earns well and importantly would see and say that he is a great dad. No one would even question whether he has it all or has a right to have it all. No one would accuse him of not being a proper "father" or of not raising his children or of palming his responsibilities of to the nanny,cleaners,gardener and odd jobs man. I also work in the City, also earn well and yet those accusations would be levelled at me by some posters on this thread. It's sexism.

I also think that a sahm who positively chooses to do that role rather than getting into it by default has it all but its a different "all", especially when kids are older at school and you have the luxury of time. In summary I think we are debating an outdated sexist question and as some parts of the thread veer towards the old sahm v wohm, we are comparing apples and pears. Perhaps that's why men don't debate this?
Despite all this I have actually enjoyed reading the different pov on the thread

Laydee is right that if you want a successful career (and indeed to have good reationships with those you love) you need to put time and effort into it. I think mnost woking mothers and fathers do to.

I also suspect if you have under 5s you don't quite have the long term perspective those of us with older children have. It is not the case that you cannot be close to a child if you work. Plenty of fathers love their children and are close to them even though they work. Is the relationship different between a working and a non working mother? I really don't think so. I adore babies. I had 5. I breastfed them all for over a year. I loved spending time with them. They tended to feed every 3 hours at night for over a year. That is a huge amount of one to one bonding time and I remember that happily now and the evenings and weekends.

I don't feel the 5 would say what a horrible time we had because we had two parents loving us and a nanny who stayed 10 y ears than if we had just had the one mother. I do think they benefited because of my income (don't knock that aspect - if you cah buy places in god schools where 6% of children go and then they get 50% of the best univesrity places, 73% of senior judicial appontmen ts, x % of senior roles etc mothers earning a lot genuinely do hugely benefit childreni f they buy good school places for bright children); also money means you can be peaceful content mummy whose house has been cleaned, garden done, plumbing outsourced e tc and can then come homw and love and feed the baby and giggle with the toddler rather than tired poor harried housewife mother who is trying to do it all.

I would also say that working and having children means the chidlren can be more independent. Mine could get themselves to place son buses or across london on night buses when some of their more namby pambied peers with housewife mothers whose all was the child never could and some of those children of housewives have an aim to marry well and no ca erer ambition and thus the daughter is doubly damaged by the housewife mother.

Also my income and in a sense power has given me choices such as that I could let the 3 older children graduate debt free/be funded through professional qualifications. Most women end up in poverty becase they have no pension. Working mothers don't have that risk so your years from 70 - 90 are likely also to be a heap nicer if you work.

Anyway the simple answer is that people of either gender can work and have children and most love it. The suggestion women cannot have it all is a sexist concept that needs to be swept into the gutter and burend on the altar of sexist men as the burden is only harder on women than men if they are stupid enough to tolerate sexism at home in the first place. If they earn a pittance of cousre and their husband a lot more then it's more likely they will accept that sexism because their own income is pin money.

Obviously I agree with this post

"emmyloo2 Fri 23-Sep-11 07:46:26

What annoys me about this post is the number of posts which have the underlying message that if you work full-time as a mother you are somehow doing wrong by your child. It is just utter crap. No one ever judges a man for working full-time with young children. Ever. But god forbid you are a woman who finds staying at home all day mind numbingly boring, particularly when you spent 7 years at university training to do a job you happen to be quite skilled at and pays well. Why are men entitled to carry on with their careers without a backward glance while women who work full-time are somehow greedy because "they want it all". And while I don't have an issue with women staying home with children and not working, why do you all seem to want to judge those of us that have careers? Is it jealously? Or an underlying feeling of inadequacy because we have careers and you don't? I don't mean this in a nasty way but it just pisses me off to no end. I stayed home with my DS until he was 3.5 months old and that was well and truly enough for me. My DH also said if he had to stay home he would be bored out of his brain. But he gets to carry out with no judgment at all. Do the SAHM judge their husbands for working full-time?

isnt the phrase 'you cannot have it all' really telling women that they want is unimportant and that society expects them to make sacrifices?

(men on the other hand are not expected to make sacrifices because they are busy doing important things)

God, Xenia, my housewife mother pushed me like hell to have a career, and even not to have children. It's an assumption that a SAHM wishes that for her daughters.

Novice, I wonder if we actually SHOULD be questioning choices like those of your DH. Isn't it quite hard on children if they never see their father for more than five minutes? And sometimes - not necessarily true of you and your dh, of course, but I've seen this in my own extended family - a woman chooses to be an SAHM and thus more-or-less condemns her dh to a fairly unrewarding if well-paid career, with no real hope of change because he has to support her - so I'm just saying men sometimes make sacrifices too.

Id also add that I feel sorry for chestnuts children as chestnut seems to feel they have a less close relationship with their dad. I would feel terrible if I wanted to stay at home and the price of me getting what I want was my children having an inferior relationship to their dad. I would feel I was selfishly depriving them of something.

Thankfully our children have an equally close relationship with both of us. I think thats one of the greatest gifts parents can give their children

oh I must go back to work so that we can both see the children for only 2 hours a day - makes sense. Luckily I made my money before being a SAHM so private education (top 5 schools for my DC Xenia), gardener, cleaner etc... My kids are very deprived.

To each her own, and I think it's good to see so many women here believing in their own choice. There are lots of rubbish SAHMs and WOHMs, and brilliant ones too. And your children will probably always come up with something to resent you for.

Chestnut- you implied that your children were deprived of a lovely close relationship with their dad. And vice versa. That sort of deprivation can cut deeper than whether they go to a 'top 5 school' or how many cleaners and gardeners you have! Actually tbh I don't think my kids would feel deprived about whether we have a cleaner or not- but I do think feeling less close to their dad would deprive them

I agree with Xenia's broad thesis: that the phrase "having it all" is fatuous and we shouldn't really be having this discussion. But I have to say, Xenia, you live in a slightly Orwellian world where there are no non-sexist men and all is achievable simply by putting your foot down and insisting on things. Of course equal division of labour between the sexes and women fulfilling their potential at work alongside having children is something we should agitate for. But you seem to be assuming that all other women have the choices and chances you do. What about women who didn't get the opportunity to get an education to the standard that would let them earn these wages that will pay for nannies etc? What about women who through no fault of their own married men who initially appeared good bets and subsequently turned out to be sexists after three kids? There appear to be no hard edges and no curveballs at all in your world and I think you are unnecessarily harsh and judgemental of the people who didn't quite pull it off. Don't they deserve children? Don't they deserve any female solidarity?

The main issue is that this topic is wheeled out to keep women down and it's never raised with men. I was just reading an FT interview with a man. Nothing about children. Yet with women they will ask how work and children are balanced as if just because you are a woman mean you organise children but men don't. That is what we need to address.

As for whether men who work can have it all as much as women can have it all it depends on what your own personal IT is. Most parents want to work and have children and most manage it so to that extent they can have it all but silly books and films seem to sell if they suggest women are pathetic and men are great. And women who have failed at work and children feel comforted that other women might also find it hard to manage, whereas loads of competent men and women work and have families at the same time.

Not everyones 'all' is the same.

I don't think you should take this personally, chestnut - I didn't have anyone in mind except my own in-laws, and a general point.

I'm also not as sold as you are on a 'top five' school, whatever that means. (Do you mean top five in this week's league table?)

This is I fear because I'm one of the teloi of the toil - Xenia is another, I think - in that she is a high-powered hirer, and I'm an Oxford admissions tutor, and I've seen hundreds of kids who have had hundreds of thousands spent on their education, not always to much avail. Yes, good schools can be great, but it's not like a car's performance indicators. You can't buy education the way you can run a hedge-fund or floor a car to make it do 0-60 fast. Ultimately, whether kids cope well with gruelling courses is down to their emotional stability, and no simple WOH versus SAHM can decide that.

I 100% agree with your post Sieglinde. All the sahms I know are very smart women who have raised some fabulously independent children who have gone on to achieve great things academically and professionally - I would include mil in this. Second, the more I read on mumsnet the more I realise that a significant amount of sexism is perpetuated by women. We see plenty of that on this thread - eg slating sahms (yup sexist) and implying that a wohm is somewhat less of a mother (yuo sexist).

I agree with the point about questioning choices that some men make where they see their role as to work all hours "to provide". I think some women don't question the status quo because it means they have their "domain" and they can say their kids need them more or that their dc don't have as strong a relationship with their dh as they do with them. I do question and challenge dh. I insist on a family (including dh) breakfast every morning, that dh has to be home for bedtime stories each night (he re-attaches himself to the blackberry after dinner!) and weekend is family time. I often read on here that it is companies that need to change so that there isn't such a male culture of being in the office round the clock. Companies will take whatever pound of flesh is offered to them so I think real change will happen when men are enlightened and want to maximise their time with their kids and women question and challenge.

And when women ensure they don't put a huge No Entry sign barring men from the domestic sphere. The ability to accept you are not mother God, you are not the best person on the planet at handling your precious baby, that its father may be better than you are a plenty of things and its nanny or grand father might have a lot to offer too.

Women who question if women can have it all (not if men) are sexist and usually failures at work. It makes them fee good inside to think that no woman works and has children and a nice life. However they are deluding themselves.