My thoughts today are about Mother’s Day and all the moms out there, working at home, chasing a career, or doing both. My favorite high school teacher, Anne Johansson, once said, “Feminism will be successful when a woman can choose to have a career or to stay at home to raise a family and be equally valued and respected regardless of her choice.” I have thought a lot about that quote over the years as a professional, a husband, and a father to three daughters. I have a little experience with both options, as I stayed home for two six-month stints when our kids were young.
For me, staying home was tougher than working for pay. The social isolation for this extrovert was brutal. One moment in particular stands out. In 2002, I deployed to Afghanistan as part of the National Guard’s 19th Special Forces Group. Our unit was mobilized two weeks after the birth of our second child, Abigail. My wife, Carrie, was working as a financial analyst for IBM at the time. IBM thankfully allowed mothers to take up to a year of unpaid leave so as soon as Carrie got out of the hospital and was cleared by her doctors, we moved her, our 21-month-old, Lexi, and Abby back to Ohio to live with Carrie’s parents while I deployed.
When I returned from Afghanistan eight months later our roles changed quickly. Within days of redeploying, I was off active duty. With no paycheck, a mortgage, and two young kids, Carrie returned to crunching numbers and I became a stay-at-home Dad until law school restarted.
The transition was rough. The kids were decidedly unsure about me and all the changes and I had to decompress. I had gone from one of the most intense environments of my life — commanding a Special Forces military intelligence detachment helping search for high-ranking Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders — to changing diapers, playing peekaboo, and being given the evil eye by the stay-at-home moms in the neighborhood.
Three weeks after I got home, I hit the wall. I was trying to get the girls dressed to go for a walk. We’d made it through the diaper change, the clothes, and the socks, but when it came to the final step of putting on shoes, our 2 ½-year-old, Lexi, refused. She was having none of it. No amount of cajoling, begging or pleading was going to change her mind. As the minutes ticked by and each of my different tactics failed, my sing-songy mood soured into frustration, which morphed into exasperation. I finally gave up. I found myself sitting on the floor of our living room, pointing Lexi’s tiny shoe at her like a pistol, shaking my head while tears welled up in my eyes. I remember thinking to myself, “What the hell has happened to me? Three weeks ago, men willingly risked their lives at my command. I had the authority to order them to their potential death. Now I can’t get a 2 ½-year-old to put on her &*$&%#! shoes!”
Raising kids is tough. It is tough if you stay home and it is tough if you work. Stay at home and you get a massive energy drain, isolation, intellectual starvation, and managing a reduced budget. Head to work for pay and you get the stresses of the job, the crush of time, the guilt of not “being there” for your kids, and the mad scramble to do everything for them to make up for the fact that you weren’t there during the day or during the week. And for all that, you get to send a huge chunk of your paycheck to a crazy-expensive daycare if you can find it. It’s rewarding as hell but tough.
The reality is that most of that challenge falls to mothers. Right or wrong, nurture versus nature, changing too fast or not changing fast enough, repeated studies tell us that the vast majority of child rearing and household management continues to fall on moms. Whether it is getting the kids up and dressed, caring for them in the middle of the night, changing diapers, cooking, shopping, making the appointments, signing the permission slips, taking time off when a kid is sick, or helping with homework, we men may be doing better, but if we’re honest (a) the historic bar was pretty low, and (b) we could probably do better.
My gratitude this Mother’s Day goes first to my own mom and the incredible role she has played (and thankfully continues to play) in my life. She was my first role model. She balanced working at home, working for pay, and volunteering in so many places it was hard to count.
My thanks also go to my wife, Carrie, who has tried to balance her career, starting and running her own business while raising three amazing daughters. I think about my career changes and our family’s many moves, my travel schedule, and the repeated sacrifices Carrie has made to allow that to happen. I would not be in this role today without her efforts.
My final thanks go to all the mothers out there at GreenPoint and beyond making tough choices every day about how best to raise their families. Whatever your thoughts on feminism, I hope you can agree Mrs. Johansson had a point. Moms deserve equal respect for whatever choice they make. All of us that help raise children — men and women alike — know the sacrifices and love behind those choices and are grateful for the struggle. So thank you mothers! Being a mom in whatever role works for you matters not just for your kids, but for your family, your community, and this great country.
Happy Mother’s Day.
Onward!
Jeff
