Must Have Balance

"Must Have Balance"

Margaret Ann Colleran, English 101-22 Final, spring 2010, R. Keevy

One of my favorite movies of all time is "The Karate Kid" in which a wise old Japanese karate master befriends an awkward, lanky teenage boy under assault from the "popular" boys who have been trained in the art of karate. Throughout the movie, the old karate master conveys nuggets of "life-wisdom" as he trains the unlikely young hero for battle. "Must have balance" is one of my favorite nuggets of the karate master's wisdom. Balance is vital to our physical, mental, and emotional well-being. We must maintain balance in our daily lives, including the schedules we keep and the commitments we make. When we get out of balance, our bodies' alarm system goes off. Biological stressors induce stress, which causes our blood pressure to rise and all sorts of other unhealthy things. Before my father ultimately lost his battle with cancer, he remarked to me that he could pinpoint to within several months of when the cancer invaded his body, and it was because he was under the most intense stress of his life. Stress will kill you.

Common sense tells us to listen to wisdom that comes from life experience, and make conscious choices to apply that wisdom to the choices we make. "When the American colonists declared independence from Great Britain in 1776, they launched an experiment in government that we are still conducting more than two centuries later." (Jefferson) Among the greatest of "experiments within the experiment", spanning the past five decades is the role of women in our society. It took women in America from 1776 until 1920 to be recognized as citizens and given the right to vote, so it should come as no surprise that it took almost fifty years from that milestone to demand equal recognition in the workplace.

In the early 1960s, Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" challenged the traditional role of women as wives and mothers and thus began The Feminist Movement in the United States. Friedan, along with an ever-swelling army of discontented women declared war on the male-dominant "world of work"; and simultaneously began to degrade the role of wife and mother to that of an indentured servant. While the feminist movement has succeeded in opening doors to the world of work for women, it has utterly failed to provide a solution for balancing the demands of a career with those of parenthood. (Macklem) The most compelling challenge for women with children today is the decision to be an on-site, hands-on "stay-at-home mom" or to hold down a full time job outside of the home.

My own life is an excellent case study in the effects of the feminist movement. I was one of those women that "went to work in droves in the '70s and '80s". (Macklem) After one year of college, I made the decision to marry rather than return to school. I had worked in various part-time jobs throughout high school and college and never dreamed of being a "woman of leisure" or "kept" by a man. Not that it's a bad thing! I am after all, a Southern Lady. I just happened to be living the feminist movement as opposed to watching it from the sidelines. At 21, I had a husband, a baby and a fast-tracked career, but no college degree. At 25, I was the youngest stockbroker on Hilton Head Island, the only woman, and I had miraculously managed to have a second baby in the process. I was the poster child for the feminist movement.

Working as a high-powered executive has its benefits, and its cost. For me it meant long hours, a lot of time away from my family, and all of the enticements and trappings of wealth and influence. My father had drilled into my head that "success in this life is money and power"; however, when I arrived at that place at such a young age, with no college degree or experience, it was overwhelming. I was the classic "Conflicted Working Mother".

In researching the role of women in society, specifically working mothers and the impact of the feminist movement on women, children and families, I have read volumes of material ranging from the most conservative to the most liberal. There are a number of similarities and there are a number of differences. The two major threads of divergence in opinion include whether or not working mothers are genuinely happy, content and at peace leaving their children in the care of an alternate primary-care provider; and, how involved government should be in resolving the social dilemma created by working mothers, i.e. child care, career advancement and equal pay for equal work. "The balance between work and family has become an important issue in the United States and abroad as traditional female roles, primarily child rearing, have changed dramatically over the last century. The balance of work and family involves the responsibilities of employers, the role of government in assisting and protecting families, and the societal roles of women and men in childrearing and domestic management." (Issitt) At one extreme is the thought process that government should be more responsive to the voids created by mothers who work outside the home by providing free state-run childcare or tax incentives for married couples with children that cause qualifications for welfare to pale in comparison. At the other end of the spectrum are the family advocates who decry governmental intrusion into the private lives of families, citing bigger government as the problem.

"Society should adapt itself in order to enable mothers to work and take care of their families." (Lee) In this article, Lee insists that working mothers are now a "common part of society" and "reflect both economic necessity and new-found freedom for women." By assuming this position, Lee supports the expansion of governmental institutions, such as more accommodating school schedules, for working mothers. In Lee's perfect world, children would be dropped off at school on mom's way to work and picked up on her way home. In other words, Ms. Lee wants to relegate the rearing of our children to the school system, aka the government. I personally find that thought disconcerting based on the performance of the public school system over the past fifty years.

In the counterpoint article entitled, "Families Need to Make Tough Choices When Balancing Home Life and Work Life", (Jacobs) Jacobs and Finley argue that overscheduled lives are the result of choices that we make, and that the one responsible is the one looking back at you in the mirror. We, as a society have shifted away from the mindset of stay-at-home and make-it-yourself