Mommy Wars Stay-at-home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families

Neither Here nor There Sandy Hingston People often ask how I found this book's contributors. In truth I could have stood outside my house and flagged down the first twenty-six minivans driving by; every mom has a unique story about why and how she combines work and family. But I found our first contributor via one of womankind's most tried-and-true methods of connecting with other womenan old boyfriend. I asked one about his favorite female writers, and he recommended Sandy Hingston. Sandy lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two teenage children. She is a senior editor at Philadelphia magazine and the author of nineteen historical romance novels, including The Suitor and The Affair. In 2004 and 2005, her parenting column, "Loco Parentis," was recognized with the Gold Award from the City and Regional Magazine Association; it has also won the Clarion Award from the Association of Women in Communications. Some of us working moms find ourselves caught in a gray zone between work and home. We are working but have scaled back our ambitions. Our employers, our colleagues, even our husbands, may not comprehend what we've given up in order to have more time and energy to devote to our children. But we know. Sandy's essay brings to life the pros, the cons, and the frustrations of having it all and ending up in the middle of nowhere. Eight years ago, when my son had just turned three, I went for the first job interview I'd had since quitting work the week before he was born. The woman who conducted the interview was funny and charming. I felt an instant bond. I aced the copyediting test she gave me. We spoke about the magazine I'd be working for if I got the job, and she pumped me up. We went to lunch in the company cafeteria and discovered that we both loved egg salad and were Lithuanian American (which doesn't happen often). Things were moving right along. Then, over cups of herbal tea, the woman said, "You say your son is three. What makes you sure you're ready to go back to work now?" I was prepared for the question. I'd practiced my answer. I held my hand up and ticked off my fingers: "Jake's in prenursery school two mornings a week now, and doing fine there. The same school has full-time day care, so that transition should be smooth. His sister just started kindergarten, and he's jealous of her 'big-kid school' anyway. He's very verbal, so he'll be able to express himself if something at day care is making him unhappy. Andwell, this job just seems perfect for me. It's time to go back." That was all five fingers. But the woman wasn't looking at my hand. She was staring at my face. Because right from the word prenursery, I'd been crying, silently crying, great fat slobbery tears rolling down my cheeks and throat and onto my neatly pressed blouse. She handed me a tissue. I dried my eyes. We both knew it was the end of the interview. Two years later, different interview, different magazine, different job offerone I could say yes to without sobbing. For one thing, my male predecessor had structured the position to accommodate his novel-writing aspirations: He was in the office the first two weeks of every month, when the magazine was in the throes of production; the last two weeks, when things were slower, he worked from home, via computera setup that sounded heavenly compared with conventional full-time. And no one could say I'd asked for special consideration because I was a mother; I was simply inheriting the status quo.[read more]