Why I don't want to be a Tiger Mother

I read the famous (or is it more correct to say 'infamous'?) book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother not so long ago.  I'm sure you've heard of it: Amy Chua's articulation of why many Western parents are failing their children by being too soft. I suppose part of her philosophy is in the name; she's a self-described Tiger Mother, not a Rabbit Mother or Butterfly Mother. Tigers are badass and scary. The philosophy of tiger parenthood is as well - children have to study and work, but not play and go to sleepovers. They're not allowed to do subjects like art, and anything less than an A is not good enough. Participation couldn't be celebrated for its own sake: the only thing that matters is success. Being a Tiger Mother is, according to Chua, the way to raise successful children who aren't "soft and entitled".  Apparently Chua's two girls were brought up this way - they played their instruments for hours and hours, weren't allowed to go to sleep-overs, and were called 'garbage' if they failed i.e. came second in something, 

For me reading the book was like watching a bad reality TV show: watching someone live their life in a way I never, ever want to copy myself. I was appalled and enthralled in equal measure. Here are my biggest issues with the idea of tiger parenthood:

Firstly, who gets to define success? The whole time I was reading, I was struck with Chua's narrow interpretation of what success looks like. Academic success, getting a degree, getting to Carnegie to play your violin - these are only some markers of "success" in my book. There are so many other things that make for being a well-rounded person: resilience, empathy, social skills, the ability to not act like an a-hole in the workplace. Her daughters may have studied more by not going to sleepovers, but I wonder what other experiences they missed. 

The other question I have is - does pushing kids even help them? Some kids respond well to being pushed, some don't. Some kids who are pushed by their parents make it to great career heights, and some live their entire lives feeling like a disappointment and a failure. Besides, what happens if you try your very hardest and still don't succeed? Character is formed by failure as much as success. I want my kids to do their best and to achieve something that brings them joy, but I don't want them to feel like they have let me down if they choose to be penniless poets instead of astrophysicists or the like. 

Lastly, it's not rocket science to say that different kids are different. Some might want to play the violin, but some might be better suited to maracas and a conga line. I don't see how any one-size-fits-all approach is a good thing.

I'm glad I read the book - it was interesting, as also a good reminder at the value of not giving up on things too quickly. But, tiger motherhood isn't for me. I don't agree with it, and I am glad my own  mother wasn't one. After all, I used to love sleep overs. And to me the idea of depriving a pre-teen of all of those gloriously scary ghost stories you tell at them is just too cruel to comprehend. 

Do we working mums actually have more time than we think?

A little while ago I blogged about a book that argues working women have more time than they think, entitled I Know How She Does It. In my earlier entry, I kept the red haze of rage at the very idea of having more free time than I realise at bay by deciding to actually read the book myself. Which I now have, and here are my thoughts: 

1. We all work less than we think!

The author argues that most people aren't as busy as they think they are and have more free time than they realise. When asked, most people will say they are busy. But, when they actually log their time, they forget about the hours they spend vegetating in front of The Block - during which time they clearly are not busy at all.

Of course, there are different levels of busy. We've all worked with that person who moans about how busy they are while drinking a cup of tea in the work kitchen, without stopping to think that if they really were busy, they would be at their desks, doing work. Some people think being busy means you can't have a sneaky internet surf during the day and pop out for a decent shop in your lunch break. To some people, though, busy means not finding time to eat lunch until 4pm.

I take the author's point. Sometimes it's easy to think I'm too busy to do something productive, but if I combined all of the time a spent on Faceook over a week I could probably do something worthwhile. BUT - and this is where I didn't totally agree - sometimes being busy makes me so knackered my brain seeps out my ears and I am barely coherent. I often need to do nothing, to give me the energy for being busy the next day. I might not be at work, but if work renders me useless, the time spent in a post-work blob haze isn't exactly leisure time as such. I don't think of it as free time.  It's recovery time.

2. Look over a week, not at each day.

The book argues that you shouldn't look at how much time you spend with your children each day, rather over the entire week, as for most people it evens out.

I really like this idea. When I thought about it, I realised that some days I might not see as much of my kids as I'd like, but I do little else than spend time with them in the weekends. When I was a stay at home Mum I was with my kids more in theory, but didn't necessarily spend more quality time with them - when home I spent more time doing laundry, cleaning the house, and obsessing about weird housekeeping things I don't even think about now. Looking at things over a week, rather than each day, makes me feel far less guilty, and anything that reduces Mummy Guilt of Doom is a good thing.

3. Let work and life bleed into one another if it makes things easier. 

I've always been as careful as I can to keep work and the rest of my life separate. Before kids, this was easy.  If I had a deadline to meet at work, I'd just stay later, then go home to my work-free house. Sometimes I worked weekends, but I did this at work, not home. Home was my sanctuary, declared free of work related cooties. Technology in terms of remote working has also improved a lot since the Times of Before, when I didn't have a Blackberry or work laptop.  But, that was fine. After all, isn't it conventional wisdom that keeping home life and work as separate as possible the path to that Nirvana of Work Life Balance? Isn't that what everyone says?

This book, though, changed my mind. When you leave work early to pick up children, work has a way of bleeding into the rest of life, and this just added to my stockpile of Things I Feel Like I am Doing Wrong in the  working-mum juggle. This book pointed out that if you are spending time outside of working hours doing work that you actually enjoy, it'll increase your overall job satisfaction. Work satisfaction can only be a good thing, especially if it makes the Sunday Dreads go away. And nothing brings on the Sunday Dreads more than that feeling of things spinning out of control due to falling behind at work.

The book also pointed out that we notice the hour or so we might work from home in the evening once the kids are in bed, but forget about the personal appointments we may take during work time. We also forget that one is often a trade off for the other. And, that's OK. Working for an hour in the evening is fine if it's the price for meeting a friend for lunch, or run an errand. Especially if it's an errand that can't be run at night time.

I do maintain, though, that we still need to have some boundaries between work and life, for our own sake. I may work in the evenings, but try very hard not to do anything moderately work-related when with my kids, and don't use my Blackberry when they're in the room. I don't want them to ever feel like they come second to my job, because they don't. But, maybe doing the odd thing in the evening isn't the end of the World if it makes for a nicer working day the next day.

So - my thoughts are that this book is worth a read. While I didn't agree with all of it, it still contained some real gems. And if you don't have time to read the book, well - apparently we all do have more free time than we think, so maybe you will have time after all!

"Leaning in" in practice - how on earth to do it?

This evening, I listened to Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In TED-talk while cleaning the toilet. It's all very interesting and thought provoking, and I appreciated what she had to say. Women need to lean in more? Sure! Men need to be real partners? Of course! And women need to stop leaving work before they've left work? Makes perfect sense to me. It's a bit late for me now as I'm now at home with two children, but me of three years ago would have benefited from her words of wisdom about that one. Although, to be perfectly honest, such was my pregnancy-addled mind in the final stages of pregnancy, it would have taken a lobotomy to stop me leaving work mentally before I left physically. But, I take her point. That's different from needing a lobotomy to remain committed to work while trying for a baby. 

I found myself nodding along with her as I scraped the brush inside the bowl. Then, I realised what I was actually doing. I was listening to a well-informed piece about women in the workforce, while fulfilling my domestic duties. When, technically, I am currently a stay at home mum.  Right at that moment, the only thing I was leaning into was the toilet. 

That got me thinking: where does advice like Sandberg's leave women like me? Women who had jobs they loved, but now have children they love even more. Women who would dearly love to make both work life and family life work out, but have no idea how to actually do that in practice. Women who already have children, so if they do work they don't have the time or the mental energy to do all of that leaning in anymore, as there are meals to cook, children to collect from nursery, and washing to be done. So much washing. Piles, in fact. Washing that breeds while we sleep and quadruples its amount before you can get it anywhere near a machine. 

The hard thing is, I think, that we women are far too dependent on other people to make it work. First and foremost, as Sandberg points out, we're dependent on our partners to pull their weight and contribute equally to household chores. I have one friend who's husband said recently that looking after children "wasn't in his DNA", and there are a number of women who don't have partners at all. I know plenty of others with husbands who would win a gold medal at the slacker Olympics, and plenty of women who don't expect them to help in the first place. 

Second, we're dependent on our employers. We're dependent on them for flexible arrangements, and for not holding us back when we can't travel or work long hours. Leaning in is great in theory, but hard when you've got children. Last year I was on a work trip while 28 weeks pregnant, and the most important meeting of the trip happened to occur at 9 pm. I attended, but had to leave at 10.30. With a toddler at home and a baby in my belly, I was far too tired to stay up any longer. I certainly wasn't able to lean in on that occasion. Unless you count leaning into the pillows in my hotel room, harbouring that awful feeling that many working mothers have that we're not doing anything well. Can't be a good mum as I'm away from my son, and can't be a good worker as am too tired to stay at meeting. Lose lose all round. 

Yet, in spite of us being so dependent on those other factors, the decision whether to work or not seems to sit on our shoulders more than anyone else's. It's heartening to see change in how many families perceive women's work, but there is still a long way to go. Phrases like "the mother should be at home," "women can't have it all", "all of my wage will be eaten up by childcare" (rather than part of the household wage) and "what's the point in having kids for someone else to raise?" are still commonly used. Just last week someone said to me that they thought women should be at home, as no kid deserves a "part-time Mum". Sadly, though, I can't conjure up a perfect part-time solution out of the air that will both allow me to advance my career and spend time with my children. When faced with this decision, rather than lean in, many women lean out. They lean out so far they're no longer in the traditional workforce. Which, according to recent studies, leaves the women harbouring as many regrets in the future as women who went back to work full-time.

I'm glad that Sandberg has said what she did, as it's useful. At the very least, it's provided some interesting conversation fodder with other mothers I know. I also want to "Lean in" and have a good career. But I want to spend time with my children too. So, while I agree with Sandberg in theory, I still don't know where to start.

And until I figure that out, at least I can still do some leaning in while cleaning the bathroom.