The Tired Superwoman (How to Avoid the Mommy Trap Part 3)
By Julie Shields
Excerpt from How to Avoid the Mommy Trap. Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 4. Check back over the next several weeks to read the final excerpt.
In my interviews and talking to friends and co-workers, I've noticed that many mothers employed outside the home have bags under their eyes. These women seem awfully tired. The feminist Naomi Wolf reportedly told Bill Clinton in 1996 that whichever candidate convinced American women that he understood their exhaustion would win the presidential election. A day in the life of Lauren and George Martling shows why.
Previously divorced, Lauren believes she must maintain her career in case things don't work out with George. Petite, with jet-black hair, blue eyes, and pale skin, she works as a graphic artist out of her home office. Pilar, a warm Bolivian mother of three, takes terrific care of the Martling's eighteen-month-old son Dan from eight to four, Monday through Friday.
As soon as she hears the creak of Pilar opening the front door, Lauren jumps into the shower, and heads upstairs to her third floor office. She works straight through the day, sneaking downstairs for lunch when she knows Dan has fallen asleep. After Pilar leaves, Lauren takes Dan to the park and supermarket. She cooks and feeds him his dinner at 6:30. While Dan eats, she makes the dinner for herself and her husband George.
George arrives home at seven o'clock. He and Lauren dine while Dan plays near them. George clears the table, leaving the dishes in the sink for Pilar the next morning, while Lauren gives Dan his bath and gets him ready for bed. George watches the news, then comes in to roughhouse with Dan (something Lauren has asked him not to do so close to bedtime) and kiss Dan good night.
George and Lauren flop down on the couch to watch television. She decides to set the alarm for five thirty so she can finish a brochure, due at ten the next morning, before Dan gets up. She won't get it done otherwise because Pilar doesn't arrive until eight-thirty, after seeing her children off to school. Lauren dozes off, tired from a sleepless night, working, spending time with Dan from four-thirty until now, and making two dinners. She wakes with a start, anxious to set the alarm before she conks out for good in front of the television, just as George says, "You know, it's so great having Dan. And he really hasn't changed our lives much at all."
Now, George isn't a bad guy. He actually is very nice. But, he has no idea what Lauren does each day, or the toll it takes on her. He has never spent more than an hour or two alone with Dan, and then with much instruction. Lauren wants to throttle her husband after hearing his version of "Life With Baby," but laughs it off instead. She relates the story to a friend the next day.
"Sometimes I can't help feeling resentful of my husband. His life is basically unchanged. He loves Dan, but my life is so different now and his isn't. Everything I do is centered around Dan. The afternoons can be so long."
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"Sometimes I can't help feeling resentful of my husband. His life is basically unchanged."
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Tired all the time, Lauren has too many responsibilities. She knows that when Dan gets older things will get easier. Lauren has decided to have only one child so she does not have to disrupt her career and life again.
She doesn't give her husband as hard a time, or resent him as much, as Mary does Mark Clayton. But Jeffrey Clayton, who has just met Dan at the neighborhood park, will always seem to Lauren more content and more advanced than her son. She views her difficulty getting Dan to sleep through the night as the price she pays for maintaining an identity apart from her family.
Lauren believes she has proof that Dan would do better if she spent more time with him. The Martlings recently went on a two-week vacation to California. Lauren noticed that Dan seemed happier and more confident during the trip. He seemed turned on, more alive. Dan's eyes were brighter. He didn't wake up once at night. Lauren explains
"As good as Pilar is—and she knows so much more than I do—Dan prefers us. I know he would do better with his milestones, and sleep better, if I spent more time with him. But I also know that I would go out of my mind if I had to take care of Dan full time."
Many mothers have told Lauren about "Ferberizing," a method for getting a child to sleep through the night by allowing him or her to cry for progressively long periods of time. She's always felt too conflicted about her absence during the day to lay down the law when she's with Dan. Mary Clayton read the book when her son was two months old, strictly "Ferberized" him at three months, and has enjoyed twelve hours of quiet every night since.
As Lauren Martling she sees it, she has only two choices: work, not spend as much time with Dan, and suffer some consequences; or stay home, spend more time with Dan, and become dependent on her husband, and possibly depressed. In light of her disastrous first marriage and her enjoyment of work, Lauren will not sacrifice herself completely to the family effort. Guilt, exhaustion, and a presumption that her husband should not make any accommodations for fatherhood have brought her into the Mommy Trap along with her neighbor Mary Clayton.
When they became friends at the park, Mary Clayton and Lauren Martling instantly engaged in The Conversation, where mothers, fathers, childcare workers, grandparents, everybody, discuss the seemingly impossible equation of parents, children, and work. Mary envied Lauren's lunches out and ability to work but also noted with pride Jeffrey's confidence and mastery of his immediate world. Lauren appreciated Jeffrey's exuberance and security, but reveled in the knowledge that the next day at eight-thirty she would do a creative project while Mary had no outlet. They didn't know that in a few weeks they would meet Mike King at the sandbox, and that he would greatly enliven The Conversation.
If you are interested in learning how families can create more balanced arrangements, click here to purchase or read more of How to Avoid the Mommy Trap.
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