In this provocative work, Betty Holcomb offers a fresh and thoughtful analysis of the real costs and benefits of women working outside the home. Puncturing popular myths, she takes a hard look at decades of research and shows that working mothers suffer stress, fatigue, and guilt, not as a natural outgrowth of juggling a job and family, but because of stereotypes, hostile workplaces, and policies that have yet to catch up with real life. With the right support, she argues, the revolution of the working mother could lead to richer and more satisfying lives for women and children -- and men -- alike.

Betty Holcomb, a distinguished journalist, has appeared on CNN and CNBC-TV and has been interviewed by newspapers including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times. She has written for Working Mother, Parenting, Parents, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and Glamour, and lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with her two children.

Acknowledgments

9

(4)

Preface

13

(6)

Introduction

19

(10)

Supermom's Daughters: The Birth of a New Pessimism

29

(11)

Homeward Bound? The Feminine Mystique Circa the 1990s

40

(27)

Marketing the Mystique: For Profit and Ideology

67

(27)

What About Your Kids? Stigmatizing Ambition

94

(27)

Mothers Not Welcome Here: How the Myths Fuel Discrimination

121

(26)

You Had the Baby, It's Your Problem! Justifying the Inflexible Workplace

147

(25)

Will Only Mommy Do? The Power of Scientific Myths

172

(30)

In the Care of Strangers: Day Care's Enduring Stigma

202

(17)

The New Math: Does It Pay to Work? The Myth of ``Choice'' About Working

219

(18)

Women's Puny Paychecks: How They Got So Small

237

(16)

It Does Take a Village to Raise a Child: The Myth of Personal Responsibility

253

(16)

Whose Family Values? The Politics That Devalue Working Mothers

269

(28)

Yes, Families Are Changing---For the Better

297

(25)

Not Guilty! From Angst to Anger

322

(17)

Endnotes

339

(30)

Index

369

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Preface from "Not Guilty!"

This book was born the day I walked up the steps to my daughter's first child care center, wondering if I was doing the right thing.

As I mounted the dark and dreary staircase to Basic Trust Infant and Toddler Center on Manhattan's Upper West Side, I was nearly certain that all the horror stories I had heard about day care would be true. The paint in the stairwell was peeling; the gates on the door were locked tight. It almost felt like a prison, hardly a place I'd want to leave my three-month-old infant. I had arrived here only out of desperation, when I could find no other alternative.

Yet once I crossed the threshold, a new world opened for me -- one that called into question everything I had ever been told about child care. Although the stairway and the setting were institutional, nothing else about this center was. And the "strangers" who would look after Rachel soon turned into extended family and confidants. At the time, I did not know that Basic Trust was a national model, a very special place in America in 1984. As a new mother, I did not realize the staff were unusual -- trained as they were in early childhood development. I only knew that the moment Rachel and I walked in, we both felt at ease.

With its well-worn couches, toys, and books, this place was like home -- except that the adults in charge seemed to know a lot more about babies than I did at the time. I sank down in the couch to watch and knew that my idea of child care would never be the same. Rachel, even at a mere three months, was clearly enthralled. Although she could not yet crawl, she thrust her whole body and arms out toward the other two babies on the floor, eager to join in the fun.

Rachel did thrive at Basic Trust, or "B.T," as we and the other families called it. But my doubts and questions about Rachel's care dogged me for the next two years, often inspired by friends, neighbors, and relatives. "Isn't it a long day for her?" was one of the most frequent queries. "Couldn't you find anyone to come to your apartment?" was another. And over and over again, people would say, "Too bad you have to work."

There were many days, of course, when I'd rather have been with my new baby. Indeed, I didn't leave her in anyone else's care even once in the first three months. As a first-time mother, I couldn't bear the separations. And even though I loved B.T, I delayed starting her in the program until six months after my initial visit. As luck would have it, I found a part-time caregiver, a Brazilian woman named Cacilda, the very week I needed to resume work. She came to me highly recommended from a family I knew. Cacilda was an experienced mother herself, a grandmother, in fact, who relaxed me about leaving Rachel for a few days each week. She cared for Rachel at home until I was ready for B.T.

But there were also plenty of times when I knew that both Rachel and I were better off when I had a few days for writing and she had a few days at B.T. She was attached to the other babies and to the caregivers, and she was happy. We sang the songs she learned there; we played the games at home. We got to know the other families there, through monthly gatherings and potluck parties.

The same year that Rachel started B.T., I began to get my education about the difficulties mothers were having in the workplace. An editor atSavvy,a monthly magazine aimed at working women, asked me to write about the new generation of moms juggling professional jobs and families. Back in 1985, such women were still rare.Savvywanted a practical story, tips for moms on how to survive on the job after the baby was born. So that is what I served up, and what the magazine printed at the time.

But what stayed with me over the years was something else: the anger and pain I heard in women's voices as they described the choices they had to make between work and family. The feelings came pouring out in interview after interview, as if they had just been waiting for someone to ask. They wanted to talk about the hostility they met in nearly every quarter, but most especially on the job. A vice president at a New Jersey-based brokerage house, for example, confided that her boss threatened to fire her for taking an extended lunch hour to see her five-year-old son in the hospital. "My son had a fever of one hundred and five. He had pneumonia, and I was afraid to take the day off. All I did was take an extra hour for lunch. And my boss wanted tofireme," she said. She spoke, like so many women, only on the condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisal. The lesson she learned was a simple one: she began to lie to her boss, "After that, whenever I had a family problem, I just told them I was with a client."

In the decade or so since then, life has unquestionably improved for many working moms. New laws provide for some time off when a child is hospitalized, a growing number of companies offer flexible work schedules, and a few even help parents with the cost of child care. But such support is still painfully rare. And there is still plenty of indignation in women's voices. "I laugh at all the articles that tell me how to make a slick presentation to my supervisor to win a flexible schedule. It's just not going to happen where I work. The big bosses just won't allow it. Or if they do, it's done on the sly, for just one person at a time. Their attitude is 'You had the baby; it's your problem!'" a radio producer confided in the fall of 1995, a full decade after mySavvyarticle. The irony is that this producer was telling me this even as she prepared a piece for listeners on how to win a flexible schedule at work. She was interviewing me as an editor atWorking Motherfor the piece she was taping for later that day. The story did run, and to a market of millions of listeners in one of the nation's largest cities. "It's a joke, isn't it?" she said.

As the editor at the time forWorking Mothermagazine's annual list of family-friendly employers, I didn't want to agree. I didn't want to feed her cynicism. But I knew in my heart that all too many women shared her frustration. I knew from the letters and faxes and interviews and even from my own friends and my own life that mothers still faced capricious bosses and hostile work environments. I knew how hard it was to find a place like Basic Trust, a child care center where children can thrive. Mothers told me how they worried over the compromises they were forced to make, both on the job andat home.

In the years since I first climbed the stairs to that child care center, I have also come to understand just how complicated the issues are for working parents. I have come to understand the issues on both a personal and professional level. In those thirteen years, I've had another child, a son, Daniel, who is seven as this book goes to press. My experiences with him are so utterly different from what they were with Rachel. I've changed jobs, changed towns twice, and had to switch child care arrangements several times. I learned that it didn't get easier as the kids got older, it just got different. Now I am involved in the public schools, have to make after-school arrangements and search for summer programs, and worry about what to do when the schools shut down for snow. Rachel is pushing into adolescence and Daniel is rebelling against elementary school.

For most of those years, however, I was one of the top editors atWorking Mothermagazine. That perch gave me access to leading experts on child care and child development, the changing workplace, and family and women's issues. I've been at ground zero of many of the great debates over women's changing roles in the past decade, from the uproar over the "mommy track" to Zoe Baird's nomination for U.S. attorney general to Marcia Clark's custody fight. I've talked to hundreds of moms, read their letters, and analyzed their responses to surveys about their lives. Most of all, I've listened to them.

And I admire them. They are creative and resourceful as they patch together their daily approach to integrating work and family life. At times, I am astounded by their energy and persistence as they invent brand-new ways of living and working. "Shortly after my son's birth, I decided to go back to school to earn my paralegal certificate. Not because I had such an interest in the law, but because I needed a stable job with good benefits," Lisa Marshall, from Elk Grove, Illinois, wrote in response to a recentWorking Mothersurvey on women and ambition. "I don't mind saying that I'm very proud of myself, as well I should be," she said. She acknowledged that it was also a demanding life. "Sometimes it amazes me that I manage to get up every morning, get my son and I dressed, fed and off to school and work, let alone anywhere close to on time and looking presentable."

Yet the question that puzzled her most is the one that is central to this book. "Men pride themselves on their ability to earn a good living in order to take care of their families. Why is it that woman must be made to feel guilty about doing the same thing?"

This is the book I wanted to read after I had Rachel. It is angry and it is an affirmation. Those are the sentiments I hear in women's voices today I see that, still, there is nothing simple about becoming a mother.

Excerpted from Not Guilty!: The Good News for Working Mothers by Betty Holcomb
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.