'How Can I Justify Working Part-Time to My Daughter?'

Nothing makes you a better feminist than showing her how to pursue joy.

Flowers (1901), Pablo Picasso

Dear Polly,

Here’s the deal: We have a three-year-old. I don’t need to work full-time (or at all). I would prefer to not work full-time. It took several years of therapy to get me off the hamster wheel of a traditional career track. I currently work part-time, but stress levels for me and our family feel unnecessarily high.

I believe that downshifting to working even less, tending to our daughter and our home, and focusing on my writing would be infinitely better for my health and wellbeing, and thus better for the wellbeing of our family — especially given the fact that I am only two years out of a severe postpartum mental health crisis caused by years of trying to prove that I cou ld be a normal, neurotypical person in corporate America.

My husband agrees and is supportive. In fact, he raised the idea of making this change in the first place because he can see how stressed I still am. He does daycare drop-off, cooks dinner every night, grocery shops, bathes our daughter, and does as much as he can to alleviate my stress, but his own work demands are at an all-time high due to A.I. craziness. I still carry most of the mental load, but I feel like my husband and I now have a good “Fair Play” type system for communicating and dividing this stuff; I also don’t mind carrying that load and enjoy being the “primary” parent.

Here’s the problem: I’m a feminist. I recognize that the women’s movement was not, at its core, about women being able to make the individual choice between #girlboss careers and tradwifery, but rather about ensuring women as a class can obtain the rights and independence necessary to have real self-determination and not be trapped in abusive marriages. I therefore feel like I have a moral imperative to model for my daughter my ability to be financially independent from her dad. I feel like choosing not to model this makes me a hypocrite, and more importantly, I worry about the expectations it will set for her as it becomes harder and harder for families to get by on a single income.

Growing up, my mom always encouraged me to work part-time while raising kids, like she did, because she thought it was ideal from a health perspective, and because she was a boomer living at a time where this was actually tenable for more people. Early in my career, I pursued choices that would give me these options: building experience in-house in an industry where freelancing is common, and gaining teaching experience in a related domain where adjunct jobs are plentiful. This work was aligned to my interests and passions. Meanwhile my then-boyfriend, now-husband pursued work aligned to his passions that was and is extremely lucrative.

I figured it would be fine for me to pursue part-time options, but I didn’t communicate these desires very well to my husband, and it caused severe issues in our new marriage over a decade ago: a mix of severe anxiety on his end around being the breadwinner and resentment that he couldn’t also consider part-time options. This nearly led to divorce. Eventually my husband grew more comfortable with the setup, but these issues were never fully dealt with until we pursued couples therapy a year ago following my aforementioned crisis. In the interim, I went running back to a traditional full-time job hoping to put the whole thing behind me, only to accrue years of stress and burnout and infertility (still for far less pay than my husband earns) all of which eventually landed me in a psych ward away from our daughter just before my first Mother’s Day.

I don’t want my daughter to go through any of this, or expend so much energy hemming and hawing over how to arrange her professional life when men *still* aren’t encouraged to do the same. I want it to be a given for her that she pursues a full-time career and expects to be able to support herself if single and contribute roughly equally to expenses should she marry. It kills me knowing that our society still offers so little social support for working parents, and that so many men don’t pull their weight, and that the stress levels of working moms are so infuriatingly high, but, hey, better that than her being vulnerable to destitution should her husband leave her or pass away, right?

But back in the here and now, my husband is under boatloads of stress at work, our daughter still doesn’t sleep through the night, I deal with various chronic health conditions and I’m only two years out from a severe mental health crisis. And now, after being back at the grind following a month of almost no paid work in between freelance projects, I’m noticing already how much more stressed I am from spending every hour she’s at daycare doing work. The month where I was barely working, I was so much calmer and more present with her in the evenings. I had time to run errands solo. I had time to take care of laundry before she got home and to partially dig myself out of a mountain of life-admin that had piled up from months of working. I had time to read and breathe and just be and I pursued my own writing for the first time in over a decade. I wasn’t bored. I felt balanced and healthy.

I work on classroom curriculum, and I’ve been feeling a desire to get back into the classroom myself. The last time I taught, I was addled by anxiety. But I’ve spent the last few years working with an amazing therapist and I want to see what it would be like to teach without that anxiety consuming me. I could conceivably take on a section per semester adjuncting and have a balance that I believe would feel healthier than my current setup doing hourly remote work. I would be able to get out of the house and have human interaction, both of which help keep my depression at bay. I would have time in the summer to decompress and write and maybe keep our daughter home part-time. But it would mean taking *another* pay cut. We could deal with that financially, and my husband is now not only supportive but encouraging, but this change would mean making a commitment to part-time work when, up until recently, my plan was to go back full-time and model said feminist values to my daughter.

It is important for my daughter to see me engaged in meaningful work. But teaching writing *is* incredibly meaningful work to me, and hell, if she could see me really make a commitment to my own writing? And prioritize my health and wellbeing by having time to exercise, tend to our garden, volunteer, and just be human? That would be amazing. We aren’t having more kids so perhaps I could pick up more teaching or take on freelance work again, or maybe my writing will take off in unexpected directions. But it’s all a risk, and when push comes to shove, none of it shows our daughter the model of two parents with equal careers and roles that exist independent of gender.

So what do I do? I feel like I’m being forced to choose between caring for my well being and modeling my values to my daughter. And I’m finding it a really shitty and impossible dilemma to face. Am I thinking too long-term here? Should I do what feels right for me and our family right now and then trust the process (and trust myself)?

Polly, I’d love your advice.

Wannabe Role Model

Dear WRM,

The most important thing you model for your daughter is how to find joy and fun and pleasure in each day.

That sounds delusional because our planet is locked in a state of delusion. That’s why the second most important thing you model for your daughter is how to unlatch from the global market’s distorted value system permanently. You can’t measure value in money or power or status or popularity if you want to feel sane and happy. You have to cultivate your own values and block out the warped noises coming from outside.

There’s no better way to achieve both of these goals than by following your own unique path to joy and fulfillment. I know you have the resources to experiment and that puts you at an advantage, but this advice still applies to everyone reading this: You have to experiment to find the life that works for you. You have to work hard to set up the right balance of work, side projects, hobbies, socializing, exercising, and leisure.

WE ALL NEED A LOT TO BE HAPPY.

When I read the subject line of your email (which is the title of this column) I thought, “Oh Jesus, this woman feels guilty for not staying at home with her kid full-time!” Instead, you were expressing the opposite sentiment. So I want to salute you for being so committed to demonstrating that women belong out there in the world, doing meaningful and important work.

That said, YOU are the only person who knows what’s meaningful for you. And that message — that we all have to find what feels right and works well for us, no matter what anyone else has to say about it — is very important for your daughter, too.

One of the most glorious aspects of being raised as a woman in a broken, sexist culture is that we have the ability to cast off STUPID in so many forms, every single fucking day. We have to cast off stupid in order to survive and feel confident in this twisted world. I mean, this is part of what makes oppressed classes of humans so much more attuned and creative on so many levels, see also: Towards a New Psychology of Women by Jean Baker Miller. When you’re the subordinate class, you have to observe and be strategic in order to survive. But you also KNOW MORE about the world than those who can sit on their asses and feel smug without overthinking things.

Your husband’s job is full-time now, but it sounds like he might eventually want to work part-time as well. It also sounds like he does a lot of housework to make up for his absence during the day, and he’s very engaged with your daughter’s life. You’ve been vocally advocating for an egalitarian marriage for years. Give yourself some credit for that!

The world is so fucking sexist and that never seems to change. Are you listening, women? So do yourself a favor and commit to advocating for an equal partnership every step of the way. This is something you will absolutely have to do, even now, even if your partner is a true feminist. Don’t fall into a downward spiral of blame and rage ten or twenty years down the road. Instead, COMMIT TO BEING A REAL BATTLE AXE ABOUT SHARING THE DOMESTIC WORK EQUALLY, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW! This is one of the most important things you can do to insure your future happiness as a married woman.

You know this, WRM. You’ve laid the groundwork for showing your daughter that two parents work together to run a household and raise kids. They play to their strengths. They take different roles based on what they like and don’t like, based on how much money they can make and where, based on where their joy and pleasure lies, based on how they feel when they’re home and how they feel when they’re at work. They experiment, switch things up, and talk about all of it. As I often said whenever my husband complained about some aspect of his schedule, “Let’s not bicker. It’s just a conversation. We can make adjustments and figure out what works for both of us.”

No one wants to feel oppressed by their spouse. Each partner needs to experiment with their careers at different times. But if you want the freedom to live that way, I want to strongly recommend that you save as much money as possible now, while you’re doing well financially. You need a safety net if you want flexibility. I also think it’s very important not to inflate your lifestyle when you’re young. Don’t get used to fancy shit right now. You and your husband both want to pursue happiness above all else, and that takes thoughtfulness and restraint when the money is flowing.

Here’s another important point: What matters less than who’s bringing in the money is whose name is on the money. If you’re not saving equal amounts for retirement, you have to try to equalize it. If you’re not personally managing the money or at least paying attention to how it’s managed, that’s not good for you. Personally (gender bias alert!) I think it’s smart for women to manage the money! But either way, remember that true equality in a marriage sets up BOTH partners up to thrive regardless of whether the relationship lasts or not. Brutal but true!

That means you both need to pursue your passions and develop your skills. It’s often better if each partner keeps their own personal ambitions rolling forward even when they’re working less, working from home, etc. Slowing down is good for most of us, but dropping out of life is bad for all of us! Playing to each spouse’s strengths should never mean that one person stagnates without apology.

Likewise, mental health is crucial. When one partner is depressed but won’t talk to anyone, seek treatment, exercise, or discuss it? That’s a failure to honor, love, and respect the person whose welfare is tied to your ability to thrive.

Obviously it can be challenging to get the balance right all the time. You get some things right for a while and then you fuck up. You work too hard and flame the fuck out. You slack and regret that, too. You try to find the right mix of work and family, ambition and leisure, but when kids are young, it’s very VERY easy to feel like you’re not quite nailing it.

No one ever really nails it. I have a dream job and I still find new ways to grind myself into the ground on bad days. Writers are so good at innovating new paths to misery! But I’ve always been open with my kids about my struggle to feel good and do work that I love.

At first they were so young that they had zero idea what I was talking about. But they did see me spending money we didn’t have on an ocean of Legos and then building fancy Lego houses with them for hours. They did watch me play Stardew Valley for three hours a day for an extremely satisfying and ridiculous string of months after my third book was published. They’ve watched me retreat into my office almost every Saturday and Sunday morning to write. They witnessed me dancing like a fool to their favorite pop songs, and after that I would critique which pop stars were artistically worthwhile and which ones were a little empty and false in my opinion. I taught them the difference between alternative and mainstream when they were way too young to understand what the hell I was talking about. In other words, I shared what was important to me, even when I knew that it was a little dated and stupid.

In other words, I didn’t create a world that I thought they would like, that I thought they could respect, that I thought that they would eventually see as RIGHTEOUS and UNIMPEACHABLE. I created a world that I loved. I did what I loved. I was joyful because I gave myself permission to be my ridiculous self, without shame, in their presence.

My relationship with my kids is a testament to the power of doing what you love without overthinking it, without demanding that every influence be pure and every moment be one of a role model laying down big important lessons. The things you tell your kids are far less important than the things you do. I don’t know if many of my opinions and ideas have taken hold in them. I do know that the fun we had together — the many times I let loose and laughed and goofed around — will be alive inside them long after I’m gone. That’s the part I valued the most, and I can see reverberations of it in their behavior, their words, their friendships, their pursuits, their priorities.

Boy am I bragging today! Hot damn, what is going on? Must be the springtime air! I guess I’m just trying to tell you to relax and love your life as much as you can. Hug your life close! You’ve got it going on and my god, what a comeback! As a mother, it’s so incredibly important that you do whatever it takes to feel good.

But that’s important for EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US, every single day.

You’re a perfectionist. You’re way too hard on yourself no matter what you’re doing. You’re an idealist who’s been advocating furiously for your ideals for a long time. But the truth is, when you think you’re slacking, you’re still working your ass off.

Now you need to learn to respect your limits and truly, deeply embrace imperfection. I want you to stop crawling into these rigid, perfectionistic, idealistic spaces inside your head as much as possible. Your life is YOUR CREATION. You can be the most righteous feminist role model in the universe just by being what you are and chasing exactly what you love and being TRANSPARENT about it.

I remember this one absurd moment from My Year of Stardew Valley when I was not really at my best. My husband was in the kitchen trying to find something to make for dinner, and I was playing Stardew and half-watching something on TV with the kids at the same time. My husband was getting frustrated, but I had finish a farming task before I paused my game. Finally he said, “What are you doing?! We need to make dinner!”

Now listen. He had every right to feel frustrated. But I did so much for the kids around the clock. I picked them up from school and hung out with them after achool every day. I walked the dogs and shopped for groceries. I cleaned a lot. I attended so many daytime school events that he couldn’t make.

So I was mad. “NOPE. NO WAY!” I yelled into the kitchen from the couch. “I FINALLY FOUND A GAME I LOVE. YOU HAVE TONS OF GAMES YOU LOVE! NOW I AM A LITTLE TOO INTO IT. WELL, THAT’S JUST HOW IT’S GOING TO FUCKING BE FOR A MINUTE. I DESERVE THIS!”

These are not the words of a feminist role model. They’re the words of a real person with her own sometimes ridiculous desires. That’s what we all are. We are all a little ridiculous. Our strongest desires are often embarrassing. Joy is supporting yourself even when you know you’re being a little bit absurd. Joy is standing up for dumb things you love much more than you can explain.

You stand up for what you love, and when your partner respects that — like my husband did — you feel grateful for it. And when your partner wants something and loves something and needs your help to pursue it, you show respect for that and honor their desires, too.

Kids are smart little witnesses. My kids know that I can be a stompy, impetuous nightmare sometimes. They also know that their dad sometimes deserves better and other times needs a little kick in the ass. My husband used to struggle to solve the problem of dinner on his own without me talking through what we could make. Now he tackles dinner alone regularly. When I loved making dinner, that muscle was weak for him. Then I got bored and he was forced to step up a little.

You’re not here to give your daughter the perfect picture of the perfect life. You’re here to show her how to reach for joy — messily, clumsily, inadequately. You’re here to seek sunshine.

So relax a little. Step out of the shadows and into the sunshine. Your life is so beautiful. Savor it. Lower the bar. Do less. Be sloppy and clumsy and ridiculous more often. You’ve been on the path to joy all along, can’t you see that? Keep trusting yourself. That’s the most feminist move of all.

Polly

---

Thanks for reading Ask Polly! Please subscribe to keep this column running!

Send your letters and subscription inquiries to askpolly@protonmail.com.