I was honored to have Mom’s Homeroom fly out to Denver to interview me for a recent segment titled “The Balancing Act” (November 15, 2011). A collaboration between MSN and Frosted Mini-Wheats, Mom’s Homeroom is an online resource to help parents learn ways to empower their kids to succeed in school, and in life. This segment discusses what I’ve learned by talking with hundreds of women across the country– and around the world– about their daily struggle to balance motherhood, marriage and career.  Take a peek! 

I was intrigued by this recent article in The Times of India about how women in India, similar to women in the U.S., are putting off motherhood to pursue careers.. The issue of motherhood and work-life integration is clearly a global issue.

It’s no secret to me. I was depressed back in the day when I had little kids at home and was pulling long hours at a Silicon Valley software company. The juggle of motherhood and career– the impossibility of “doing it all”– was driving me mad. So I quit. And I found that staying at home with kids was even harder. What’s a smart, educated, career-driven mother to do to keep her wits about her?!

A new study by Katrina Leupp, a University of Washington sociology graduate student, has found that stay-at-home moms have more depression symptoms than their working counterparts. But among working moms, she found that those with a “supermom” attitude—who as young adults consistently agreed that women could easily combine work and family responsibilities—were at a higher risk for depression than those who thought that it would be more challenging.

“Employed women who expected that work-life balance was going to be hard are probably more likely to accept that they can’t do it all,” Leupp said. These moms may be more comfortable making tradeoffs, such as leaving work early to pick up kids, not taking on certain work projects or being less involved in school activities. But women who expected that being a working parent would be a breeze were more likely to feel like they were failing if they didn’t live up to that ideal.

Leupp analyzed survey responses from a national sample of 1,600 married mothers. The women were participants in a Labor Department longitudinal study, and as young women, they had previously answered work-life balance questions measuring whether they agreed with such statements as “Working wives lead to more juvenile delinquency” and “A woman is happiest if she can stay at home with her children.” When the women reached age 40, Leupp measured their levels of depression.

Read more about the study here. Watch Fox News Tampa Bay discuss TORN (9/6/2011).

TORN Contributor Darcy Mayers did a wonderful job fielding questions from Hoda and Kathie Lee on this morning’s Today Show on NBC (8/17/2011). The segment discussed a recent study out of the U.K. that showed that when moms work outside the house, kids turn out just fine. So, working moms, stop feeling guilty. The kids are all right.

Watch the segment here.

I am proud to announce that the Mom’s Choice Awards® has named TORN: True Stories of Kids, Career & the Conflict of Modern Motherhood a Gold Medal winner for 2011. The Mom’s Choice Awards® (MCA) is an awards program that recognizes authors, inventors and companies for creating quality family-friendly products and services.

The esteemed panel of judges responsible for choosing TORN included: Dr. Twila C. Liggett, ten-time Emmy-winner, professor and founder of PBS’s Reading Rainbow; Julie Aigner-Clark, Creator of Baby Einstein and The Safe Side Project; Jodee Blanco, New York Times best-selling author; Priscilla Dunstan, creator of the Dunstan Baby Language; Patricia Rossi, host of NBC’s Manners Minute; Dr. Letitia S. Wright, D.C., host of the Wright Place™ TV Show; and Catherine Witcher, M.Ed., special needs expert and founder of Precision Education, Inc.

If you haven’t had a chance to join the online discussion of TORN on the New York Times’ new Motherlode book club, I’ve posted the topics and comments that we’ve been discussing for the past few weeks below.  It’s been an honor to have been chosen as the 1st selection for this new online book club, and the response to TORN has been overwhelming. Whether you liked TORN or not, you all had a lot to say about the book and about the topic of motherhood and work-life balance.

Thank you, Lisa, for taking over where Oprah left off with your new “Lisa’s List” of books to read.

Here are the NY Times Motherlode Book Club discussions about TORN:

• Introducing the Motherlode Book Club (6/7/2011)
• Should Women Be Doctors? (6/13/2011)
• Are Moms and Dads Interchangeable? (6/20/2011)
• Talking about TORN (6/21/2011)
• Preparing to be TORN (6/24/2011)
• TORN Around the World (6/28/2011)
• The Doubts of a Stay-at-Home Dad (6/29/2011)
• Do GenX Women Choose Work Over Kids? (6/30/2011)

Recent research done by the New York think tank the Center for Work-Life Policy, headed by economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, has found that almost half, or 43 percent, of Generation X women (those born between 1965 and 1978) are childless.

The women surveyed, who ranged in age between 33 and 46 years old, were born during the height of the feminist movement. They grew to consider motherhood an obstacle to having a successful career. So they’ve put off having children — or avoided it entirely.

The strategy seems to be working, at least from a professional/career standpoint: 19 percent of those who participated in the study said they earn more than their husbands or partners, and 74 percent characterized themselves as ambitious. Though a number of women aren’t interested in having children, many do want to be moms but just find it too hard to balance raising kids with work. And many are afraid that once they get pregnant, their jobs will be affected.

Lead author Lauren Leader-Chivee studied 3,000 female and male college graduates in the U.S. and also looked at their counterparts in Britain. “We have found very similar trends in both countries,” she said.

Deborah Fryer, a 44-year-old documentary film maker and contributor to my book, TORN, has followed a path similar to the women surveyed and agrees with the findings.

“When I was in my twenties, I was only focused on finishing my PhD.  In my thirties, I dated a lot, but my true love was my new career as a documentary filmmaker, which took me all over the world,” says Fryer. “I thought I had all the time in the world.  I met my husband when I was 42.  I finally feel ready to have children now, but it’s just not that easy any more.  Some days I feel incredibly sad about it, and other days I feel incredibly free.”

Deborah’s story in TORN, “Birth Mark,” examines the decisions she has made regarding career and motherhood and the consequences of those decisions. Although TORN focuses primarily on the motherhood-career juggle, I felt it was important to highlight the stories of a few women who have made the choice NOT to have children because they can’t see a way to combine motherhood and career.

Which leads me to my question: Why is it that women still feel forced to choose between kids and career– today, in 2011?

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The NY Times announced yesterday (6/7/2011) the launch of a new online book club to be hosted and moderated by NY Times Motherlode Columnist, Lisa Belkin (read full article here).  The 1st book they will be discussing? TORN.

** Watch my interview with Lisa Belkin of the New York Times (6/14/2011).

Last time I looked, there were 86 reader comments on the announcement, most by excited readers who now have a new outlet for “gathering” with an online community to discuss important books on parenting. The concept of an online book club is brilliant, in my view. How many times I wish I could join my girlfriends for an evening “book club” night out, but can’t because life gets in the way. Now I can share my thoughts online, on my own time, with a wonderful group of readers from around the country.

Thank you, Lisa, for making the Motherlode Book Club a reality. Now we don’t even need Oprah’s Book Club. We have Lisa’s List. Hoorah!

Here is a snippet from the announcement Lisa made, with a short “review” of TORN:

“[TORN] is filled with the voices of women trying to solve an impossible equation, all doing the best they can. These nearly four dozen writers include a wide swath of the real world — attorneys and professors, software designers and social workers, soldiers and stay-at-home moms. They live on good incomes, and reduced incomes, and, in one case, on welfare. They are married, divorced and single. They are, as a group, far more educated than average, but so, too, I have learned, are Motherlode readers. They write about big things (cancer, depression, regrets, teen pregnancy, readjusting to being a mom after being a soldier in Iraq) and small (worm bins, cupcakes, speeding tickets, Dora the Explorer, dirty diapers.)

All of them have one thing in common — they have all compromised. Whether theirs is a compromise they can live with is the central question.”

So buy TORN, read it, and join us for a lively discussion online at the NY Times.

Read the NY Times Motherlode Book Club discussions about TORN:

• Introducing the Motherlode Book Club (6/7/2011)
• Talking about TORN (6/21/2011)
• Preparing to be TORN (6/24/2011)
• TORN around the world (6/28/2011)
• The Doubts of a Stay-at-Home Dad (6/29/2011)
• Do GenX Women Choose Work Over Kids? (6/30/2011)

Wow! TORN is hitting a few nerves on Amazon.com and GoodReads, where a handful of critics are claiming the book to be “essay after essay of whiney [sic] wealthy women.” As the author and editor, I recognize that it’s impossible to please everyone. My goal in putting together this collection was to be inclusive rather than polarizing; open-minded rather than dogmatic. I do respect the opinions of critics who have read my book and present a valid argument for disliking it, which is the right and responsibility of any good reviewer.

TORN highlights the experiences of a variety of mothers today who are trying their best to harmonize family life and employment in a world where a balance struck either way is risky. The stories in TORN include those of:

• a military mother spending a year tour of duty in Iraq, apart from her two little girls;
• a former high-school drop out and welfare mother who put herself through college to become a professional woman, but still shops for her family’s meals at a food bank;
• a documentary filmmaker who put career before motherhood and is now struggling with infertility;
• a woman who chose to put her medical career aside to pursue the job of stay-at-home motherhood;

… and many, many more. Yes, there are some women who have studied and worked hard to become professionals– bankers, lawyers, doctors and teachers. But the majority of women in the book are far from “wealthy” and, in my view, far from “whiny.” Honest and raw, yes. Whiny, no.

Motherhood is the real subject of TORN; more specifically, how women today are trying to be the best mothers possible in light of the many other demands being placed upon them—work being one.  While a majority of the women in the book NEED to work to help support their families, others have chosen the noble, and challenging, path of stay-at-home motherhood. And many celebrate this choice — stating outright that there is no more important job in the world than being a mother.

One of the key messages of TORN is that there isn’t a right or wrong way to “do” motherhood. As women, we have far more to gain by joining forces to help one another than by falling into the trap of judgment and dismissal.

As an ex-Silicon Valley techy, I was alarmed to read– and watch– Sheryl Sandberg’s commencement address last week (5/17/2011) to the Barnard College graduating class of 2011. Her message– that her generation of career-focused women/moms have “blown it,” and it’s up to the next generation to enact change– has left me reeling. She goes on to say that her cohorts– women in the 40s, which includes me– haven’t dreamed big enough, that we “lack ambition.”

“Lack ambition”? These words are infuriating. I graduated from Princeton in 1990– Phi Beta Kappa– and went on to get my Master’s from the University of Virginia. I’ve juggled career and motherhood for 12 years, and hearing someone tell me that I “lack ambition” is out of line, and just plain wrong.

The scarcity of women in positions of leadership has little to do with any inherent “lack of ambition” on the part of women. Women today face innumerable obstacles when they have children– in the workplace, in the home, in their communities and in society. Perhaps we don’t have a fleet of housekeepers, house managers and nannies like Ms. Sandberg has. Perhaps we don’t have grandparents or family nearby to help pick up kids after school and bring them to their games and practices. Perhaps we can’t afford to hire somebody to do so for us. Perhaps we have to do our own laundry. Does that mean that we are less ambitious?

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