Women Can't Have it All. But We Can Talk About Some Things.

I'm riding on the caboose car of the train racing to respond to Anne Marie-Slaughter's essay, "Why Women Can't Have It All" in this month's The Atlantic. I know many of you have read it and already discussed it, but I just finally read the whole thing on vacation last week. I won't attempt to analyze the essay point for point, but I will encourage everyone who has a stake in preserving the American dream to read this essay. It is as comprehensive as it is thoughtful, and offers some very specific and (in my mind) achievable solutions to the problems with which women and families are dealing in the workplace and at home today. There is just one point that Slaughter raises that I want to share. Slaughter is an accomplished professional and a mother of two teenage boys.  She is a former dean at Princeton and senior level director in DC.  She says that for years she has taken very express measures to bring her children into the work conversation. That is, if she is running late for a meeting, she will not obliquely excuse herself. She will say it was because she had to drop off her son at practice, if that is the real reason. When she is introduced at professional conferences, she insists that the person introducing her mention that she is *also* a mother. She does not advocate gushing on about one's children while at work. But she does think that women will do each other a great service in refusing to be silent about that which matters most to them.

I agree what Slaughter's preaching, but I find it tremendously difficult to put into practice.

I have worked for some exceedingly anti-family organizations. Work and being present in the workplace was much celebrated; taking time off for family priorities was not. It was often surreptitiously used as a strike against a person's performance.

I am glad to no longer be serving said organizations.

Still, I find it hard to talk about my priorities in the workplace. I want to compartmentalize. I want to not appear un-serious about the work for which I am paid to do. I am fortunate to have female and male mentors who encourage faith first, family second, work third. It is still something with which I struggle.

And struggling is okay. I no longer try to find the balance in my work, but I am ever more encouraged by Slaughter's essay to live out my priorities, not only in deed, but in word. I don't want to deceive my students that they can have it all, because life is about choices and compromise. Some days you excel in one capacity, others you are walking on the treadmill while reading your work for tomorrow while texting with your husband and then you get home and the kids are all asleep and that is awful because you barely saw them, but wonderful because now you can get some grading done.

You can't have it all; no one can. Not even the richest most successful people in the world. Everyone is trying to be more present. Everyone is railing back against the you-have-a-smartphone-therefore-you-are-available-all-the-time song and dance. The song's music is catchy at first but the steps become increasingly more difficult as the multiple beats and multiple instruments syncopate....

I am choosing to live and tell the truth: Maintaining my priorities is a constant struggle, but it's certainly one for which I am willing to fight.

Power to Read

The note we received on the nightly read-along book for Ms. Thang.

We are so proud of her progress with literacy, and so thankful for her wonderful teachers.

Speaking of reading, I finally managed to finish reading my first book of the year. The first that did not include the character of Adobe Creative Suite CS5 OR Fancy Nancy OR Sam I Am. A groundbreaking feat for me.

Twice Upon a Time is the true story of the Christian conversion of two straight-edge punk rockers whose lives are unknowingly entwined in a number of marvelous ways. I had been wanting to read this book as Pastor Asscherick's preaching has had a profound effect on my own conversion. I knew much of the Cliff's Notes of the story, but little details that each man remembers about their childhoods (e.g. their grandparents' homes, the first time they saw a grown man cry) add to the robustness of the retelling.

The writing throughout the book is consistently beautiful, and the way the story is organized is engaging, even if you have no investment or knowledge of Asscherick or Renner. I would have liked for a little bit more first-person narrative. The third person works but it is hard to really get to know the characters from the jump. By the end, one has a well-rounded understanding of the men's characters but it was an uphill climb. Haha, you will understand that shameless pun if you read the book :)

Dealio Du Jour

I'm trying my best not to turn this bloggo into a 24-7 infomercial but I did want to note that I'm test-driving a new set of ads on the sidebar.  Also, I've made a few recent purchases and wanted to share some fieldnotes from the land of online retail. Also, I tell my daughter seventeen times an hour to stop picking her nose and eating it. I am part woman, part Chinese octupus with all the plates I have spinning in the air at once. Serious. I cannot speak to the quality of all the products the proprietors on the sidebar manufacture, but the deals are yours and I encourage you to take advantage of them as most expire after 30 days.  I will stuff your locker full of marshmallow Peeps (hardened ones!) and battery juice if you don't.

But for now, here are some of my latest recommendations from the field:

1. I bought these prints for Loverpants' new office from Fab.com. They are the archival echoes of New England bus lines.  Because don't we all want to remember the fun times we had riding the Greyhound for 8 hours from Boston into Hartford, the bus with the ceiling that dripped and the mold on the windows that wouldn't open?  The posters came swiftly and were to expectation. I've really enjoyed ogling the wares on this site.

2. I've enjoyed the stock that The Foundary keeps. I have had a couple of friends enjoy the spotlight that The Foundary offers its vendors. If you like interior design, this is the clearinghouse for you. If you don't like interior design, you should still subscribe to these e-mails so that maybe you'll take down that Nacho Libre poster from your living room.

3. Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Fast Dry Nail Color. I used this over the weekend. When you have a baby and a toddler, there is no other way to paint one's nails (if you prefer not to use your whole home and your own clothes as added canvas).  I went with the Blue Streak color but they have a lot of haut colors.

4. MediaBistro courses. I took the online Personal Essay course with Alyssa Giacobbe and the feedback I received from that class was instrumental to writing my manuscript and getting my book deal. What? Oh, haha, yeah, I'm already climbing the NYT Bestsellers list with my personal memoir?  Maybe you've heard of it? It's called The Help? Anyway, these courses are clutch if you're interested in writing as a creator or as a professional and don't have the wherewithall to take a class in-person.

Bon Apetit very much, xoxo Kendra