Author: Sheila Quirke

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Michelle Obama on Work-Life Balance and Family Needs

It’s probably no surprise to the folks who read me regularly that I am a fan of our First Lady.  Michelle Obama, who took flak for calling herself America’s Mom-in-Chief several years ago, is a woman and mother I admire and respect in many ways.  Gal’s got it going on, you know what I mean? She can dance with Jimmy Fallon one night, turn around and represent America abroad as an icon, create a garden on the White House lawn, and be honest about the difficulties of achieving the elusive work-life balance so many working women struggle with.

And, you know, those arms.

^^^ Those are the arms I'm talking about, right there. Those are some guns I could support.
^^^ Those are the arms I’m talking about, right there. Those are some guns I could support.

Noodling through Facebook today, I found a link to an interview Ms. Obama did with Robin Roberts at a White House Summit on Working Families. Given that I no longer work outside the home, I had the 30 minutes to actually watch the interview.  Cue the bon bon comments now. Snark aside, I came away with my respect and admiration for Ms. Obama only grown in scope.

She gets it.

Before I had children I was very career driven.  I was going places and saw my trajectory only going up, up, up.  I presented professionally, wrote an occasional article about my field of expertise, and had, I thought, the world by the career stones.  I put off the decision to have kids because, well, I was pretty happy and fulfilled without them.  Then, in an instant, my life changed.

Sitting in front of one of her beloved slot machines in Biloxi, Mississippi, my Mom experienced a cerebral hemorrhage caused by an undiagnosed brain tumor.  That moment would change everything I valued and believed in about myself and my path.  A few months later, after becoming stable enough to fly to Chicago by air ambulance, a surgery, and weeks of hospitals and rehab, my Mom and Dad moved to a small Chicago apartment to be close to the medical team at Northwestern.

I went from staying at the office every night until 7 to skurrying my little tokus out the door the minute the clock struck 4:30.  My priorities shifted in an instant from career to caregiving.  Suddenly, the things that were most important to me were no longer ambition, conferences, mentoring, and advancement, but watching CNN with my Mom, folding sheets, cooking soft foods, and helping my parents through an inordinately difficult time.

For the first time I understood the impossible push/pull the mothers I worked alongside had struggled with.  I no longer felt like the work mattered to me more than them.  I realized how incredibly naive I had been, and unwittingly, what a jerk.

My Mom died eleven months after that bleed in front of the slot machine. My daughter was born just five months after her death.  I feel so grateful that the last lesson my Mom blessed me with was the knowledge that caring for the people I love is the most important work I will ever do. Because of that caregiving, I was a better mother to my daughter, and now my sons.

I also know how ridiculously privileged I have been in my own work-life balance.

With my Mom, I had a job that I could easily leave every day at 4:30. There were no professional obligations that bled into my caregiving time. When my first child was born, I negotiated moving to a part-time position, allowing me four days at home and three in the office.  When that same child was diagnosed with a brain tumor, I simply walked away from work, as there is no balancing the needs of a a critically ill child, in and out of the hospital with surgeries, chemo, ER visits, and neutropenic fevers, with a job outside the home.  I didn’t return to professional work, part-time again, until our surviving child was two.  And when my husband and I opted to adopt, I quit that job knowing that stay-at-home mothers are more attractive to many women looking to place a child for adoption.

Like I said, I have been ridiculously privileged in my work-life balance.

So has Michelle Obama.

What I love about her, though, is that she, too, seems very aware of the privilege she enjoys, despite her own hardships of parenting while working.  In this 30 minute interview with Robin Roberts, Ms. Obama demonstrates a keen awareness of the difficulty of raising children while working outside the home.  She knocks off facts about the high cost of child care, the difficulty of finding quality child care, the differences women who work hourly versus those women who are salaried face in their dual roles of mother and worker, single parenting, and the need to make work-life balance a family issue, not just a women’s issue — one that both fathers and mothers must consider and plan for.

And like I said, she gets it.

Two summers ago there was a huge Internet reaction to Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article in The Atlantic entitled, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” Like many with a wee little online platform, I criticized her arguments in a blog post.  What riled me the most about her position was how utterly privileged her concerns were.  There are so many working mothers out there whose struggles are so much more dire than whether or not to create a commuter arrangement for career advancement or if it is detrimental to have the nanny cook dinner rather than yourself.  There are mothers out there who get arrested for having their children sit in a locked car while they interview for the job they so desperately need to pay for food and housing.

While many women of privilege struggle over the idea of work-life balance, many more struggle with the reality of work-life balance.  The consequences of losing a job because they were at the hospital with their sick child.  The need to choose between food or rent.  The peril of leaving children alone, unattended, because that is the lesser of two evils — homelessness being the natural consequence.

Our First Lady encourages all of us, men and women, those of privilege and with access to resources and those choosing between untenable options, to start owning this issue of work-life balance.  She encourages us to make it a family issue instead of a women’s issue.  She encourages us to change the conversation and start speaking up for workers’ rights instead of corporate rights.  She wants workers to bring to the discussion the same pull that politcians feel from monied corporations.

Amen, sister.

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Go To the Joy

For Judith

A few months after our daughter died I spoke with a family friend who gave me some of the most profound advice of my life.  “Go to the joy,” she said, “Go to the joy.”  Four itty bitty little words that hold profound wisdom.

Joy2

This friend, too, had experienced great loss.  I know it is prejudicial, but I always feel a kinship with those, like me, who know deep, life altering loss. There is a wisdom gained, if not always acted upon, that comes with living through and with loss.  There is a shorthand that exists within us that is not, I imagine, unlike combat veterans.  We have seen things and experienced things that others have not and could not possibly understand.  We are, in some ways, another form of the walking wounded.

Years ago, when I was working as a clinical social worker in a retirement community, I ran a bereavement support group for widows and widowers. One man who had lost his wife of over five decades talked a lot about the necessity of wearing a mask when he was around others. Trust me when I say that when you live in a genteel retirement community, you are almost always around others.  Living in community can be exhausting, as the space to just be alone, really alone, is minimal.

Anyway.

This client would talk about putting on his mask every morning.  It would be inconceivable for him to not wear his mask, just as it would be to not wear pants.  His particular mask involved a slight closed mouth smile, brief, but limited, eye contact, and exchanging a few kind pleasantries about the day before moving the hell on and out of there.  He found most exchanges with other people burdensome.  They required great effort and they definitely required his mask.

Listening to this client talk about his mask always made me profoundly sad.  Because he was a minister in his life’s work, he felt a responsibility to show a strong public face — to live the life his flock aspired to.  For him, in his grief, that meant wearing the mask and not showing his vulnerability or his weakness or the true extent of his sadness.

I always felt for him, that he never felt comfortable enough to express how very sad he was to miss the love of his life, every minute of every day, his life’s partner in work and family.  I believe that the mask he wore took a toll on him, too, just as his grief did.

In my own grief, I’ve done almost the exact opposite as my former client.  I write about it, talk about it, share about it.  It’s been five years now, and here I still am, on the eve of my daughter’s 9th birthday, still going on about it.  I’ve been told, albeit by anonymous Internet strangers, to “get over it” and “find a new angle,” but here I still sit, writing about grief on my keyboard.  My sadness and its presence in my day-to-day life is no different than having blue eyes or being 5’5″ — it is something that just is.

The things that guide me most  in my grief are my friend’s words, “Go to the joy,” and my memories of Donna and her own relationship with joy. Kids get joy, you know?  They are joy magnets.  Think about a three or four or five year old and how so many of the things they do, they do with gusto.  A bug!  A sprinkler!  A Happy Meal!  Everything really is awesome! Except, you know, bed time.

I work to find the joy in every day life.  Some days it is easy.  Some days it is hard.  Feeling joy, true, amazing joy, does not negate my grief, but it does give me a reprieve.  Going to the joy — making a conscious choice to seek it out — has restored some balance in my life.  And, full disclosure, I understand how it could be much easier to find the joy when you are raising kiddos in your 40s rather than living in a retirement community in your 80s.  I get it, and I am grateful for it.

Perhaps, like my former client, I, too, have a mask.  My mask just happens to be my boys.  My giggling, growing, amazing, crazy, challenging, joyful boys.  They help me find the joy every day.  Well, almost every day.

And for that I am so very grateful.

Joy1

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Cupcakes and Guns

I am both honored and saddened to share this guest post today. The writer did not wish to be identified, to lessen any alarm for family and friends concerned over her safety.  This is Chicago, folks, in 2014.  

By Anonymous

The only crime scene I expect to see when I take my son to the bakery is the inevitable mess of crumbs that result from the collision of a kid and a cupcake. This Saturday afternoon, however, was not so idyllic.

We walked to get our cupcakes. When we were about two doors down from our favorite neighborhood bakery a police car sped by with its sirens on. It was loud. My son covered his ears. Other than the noise I didn’t think much about it. We live near a police station. The car could have been going anywhere.

We went in to the bakery so quickly that I didn’t notice the police car stopped on the next block.

The vibe in the bakery was odd. Adults were talking in hushed tones, clearly discussing something they didn’t want children to hear.

That’s how I learned that someone had been shot. On a street in my neighborhood. At 3 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon.

It had happened just minutes earlier. There were two kids alone at a table enjoying their cupcakes. I was told their mom was giving a statement because she had seen the shooting.

It's crazy to see what you find when you Google "cupcakes and guns."
It’s crazy to see what you find when you Google “cupcakes and guns.”

If we had not been walking at a 5 year old’s pace, stopping frequently to balance on concrete dividers and look at interesting leaves, perhaps we would have rounded the corner early enough to witness the crime. Or worse.

Gun violence does not respect the invisible lines that say it is a south side problem or a west side problem. Gun violence is a Chicago problem. More so, gun violence is an American problem.

Even if certain places, such as Chicago, try to limit access to guns in their communities other guns will find their ways across the invisible lines that separate counties and states with varying levels of gun control laws. To be effective a solution must be national.

And while limiting access to guns will help, we also need to address the poverty that makes desperate people do desperate things that often involve guns.

Yes, if you were wondering, the news accounts do say this incident was gang violence, but the only victim is reported to be an innocent bystander. He died.

We can’t dismiss gun violence by saying it’s just gangbangers killing each other. Other people get shot.

We can’t dismiss gun violence by saying it’s a different neighborhood’s problem. Those neighborhoods are not that far away.

We can’t dismiss gun violence by being against gun control because some good people want to have guns too. Guns are dangerous and need to be regulated.

I am writing this anonymously because my family already fears for my safety because of the headlines about Chicago gun violence that appear on the national news. Knowing how close I was to a shooting would have people coming to pack me up for somewhere safer.

But I don’t want to go. I love my neighborhood, and I love Chicago. To borrow a phrase from the gun rights folks, I will stand my ground.

I like to believe this can still be a place where a mom can take her son to get a cupcake without happening upon a crime scene, but a lot of shit is going to have to change. It’s not going to get better on its own.

Yep, we have an issue when folks actually want to start EATING the guns they love so much.
Yep, we have an issue when folks actually want to start EATING the guns they love so much.

The victim of this shooting was 28 year old Wil Lewis, a young man who had moved to the neighborhood last year and was supposed to start a new job this week.  He and his wife had previously lived in Wisconsin. Read about the shooting here.