My office is marking National Work and Family Month this October by offering two uplifting (not!) programs on work-life balance issues: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Employee Assistance Program and The Sandwich Generation: Caught in the Middle. I much prefer the upbeat festivities we usually have for Women's History Month, Black History Month, and the like. Lots of food, entertaining speakers, films, or music, and a sense of celebration.
My employer's decidedly downbeat approach to National Work and Family Month, though, echoes the media's message about work, women, and family. Instead of recognizing the ways that women are changing the American work force (well, trying to) and applauding the emergence of new work and family initiatives, most of the news has focused only on the negative. Mainly,that American women increasingly are unhappy. Markedly morose.
The unhappy news was touched off by a study released in May, "The Declining Paradox of Women's Happiness" by the non-profit National Bureau of Economic Research, which found that women are less happy, both absolutely and relative to men, than they were 35 years ago. Since then, there's been no let up in the media's focus on our decline into despair.
According the Paradox report and other happiness studies, women are reportedly unhappy across almost all demographic groups. Extracting from the numbers, lots of theories have been tossed about to explain why we're so gloomy. Here are a few:
We are unhappy because we are single.
We are unhappy because we are married.
We are unhappy because we have kids. (But we are not unhappy if we don't have kids!)
We are unhappy because we work.
We are unhappy because we don't work.
We are unhappy because of feminism.
We are unhappy because of discrimination in pay.
We are unhappy because we haven't achieved equality at work.
We are unhappy because we haven't achieved parity at home.
We are unhappy because we have too many choices. (And too many obligations.)
We are unhappy because of Roman Polanski, David Letterman, and Jon Gosselin. (Wait, strike that last sentence, that's a whole other topic!)
The dreary dispatches seem to have gone into overdrive just in time for National Work and Family Month. (Never mind that measuring happiness is elusive and that women may not, in fact, be any less happy than men as some new research shows.) Maureen Dowd's Blue is the New Black op-ed in The New York Times, which points to "choices" as the cause of our collective despair, and Marcus Buckingham's What's Happening To Women's Happiness? (and its followup) in his blog for The Huffington Post, are two of the most recent and most-talked-about pieces in this genre. I won't summarize them here but you'll see that they paint an unappealing picture.
Reading all this makes me unhappy. Sad. Miserable. Grim. (Of course, I've spent the last week removing lice from our home and nits from our heads so that might be influencing my outlook.)
How does this supposed happiness deficit relate to working moms? Well, according to the Paradox study's authors, working women are no less happy than non-working women. Employment and low-down emotions are not necessarily linked.
This makes sense to me. My current mood aside, I and many working moms I know are happy. Yes, we are tired, weary, exhausted, frazzled, and harried, but we are not - as a group - unhappy all or even most of the time. It's often hard to juggle work and family obligations, but we are not sad. At least not any sadder than other women.
Although there are some very real issues about the emotional (and other) effects of our society's lack of social support for working mothers (and fathers) as this article by Sharon Lerner in double X points out, I reject some of the implications others are drawing from the downward trend. To me, the new narrative of women's unhappiness - and the companion conclusion that women today have "too many choices" - gives fodder to reactionaries who want to push woman back into the "barefoot and pregnant" box. Many of the comments posted in response to these articles and blogs I link to in this post blame women generally - and feminists in particular - for the happiness downturn. They attribute the decline in women's happiness since the 1970's to women's desire to work, build some financial security, and play a role in the the wider world.
I don't agree. Although it may be fair to consider (and the Paradox researchers do) whether some portion of women's unhappiness might be attributed to the fact the reality of our lives may not comport with the expectations created by women's movement, it's foul to argue that women would be happier if only they returned to their traditional roles. The end of statutory discrimination against women and the opening up of many professional and personal opportunities for them just doesn't seem to be a cause for mourning.
One of the best pieces I've read in this whole discussion of women and happiness comes from Leslie Morgan Steiner's Two Cents on Modern Motherhood blog on Mommy Tracked. In an "open letter" responding to Maureen Dowd's op-ed, Steiner writes movingly of her mother, a 1956 Radcliffe graduate, who raised her five kids " without benefit of an involved husband, disposable diapers, carseats or even regular use of a car, a microwave, a breast pump, childcare, a computer, the Internet, or even a cordless phone."
Steiner's dad, a prominent lawyer, worked long hours, pursued his intellectual and sports interests when he wasn't working, and eventually dumped her mother. Steiner, looking back, observes: "I saw every day how lonely, and frustrated, and demoralized our culture made Mom feel as a stay-at-home mom and later as a working mother. I don't know if I could survive being belittled, disempowered and diminished every day the way Mom was throughout her life."
Her conclusion: Lack of real choices is much worse than unhappiness.
I agree. Steiner's piece made me think about my maternal grandmother who was a bright, talented, and unhappy woman. Her own mother died (after giving birth to 14 children) while my grandmother was still a young girl. My grandmother didn't have the opportunity or means to further her education, and her husband - a compulsive gambler - left her when my mother was a teenager. She didn't have the same opportunities to go to college and graduate school and work in a professional capacity that I've had although she managed to excel at her jobs and raise her daughter alone. I know that whatever stress or weariness I sometimes feel from the juggle (and from staying up late writing this blog), I am certainly happier than my grandmother and countless other women who did not have the choices that the women's movement opened up for me.
There, I feel happier already! How about you?
Photo courtesy of The Commons on Flickr.com
Hi Stace. This is an excellent post and a very interesting topic. I remember a friend once told me we're in love when we decide we're in love, which has always stuck with me. It just gets me thinking that maybe we need to take a more active role to be happy -- it's not just something that happens to us, but something we have to make happen on a daily basis. good post. makes me want to read more on the topic.
Posted by: Dave | Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 04:10 PM
Great piece, Stace. I wouldn't trade my choices for anything!! I've been thinking a lot about this lately too and agree with Dave that we have to take an active role to be happy but this may be a learned skill and some people didn't have the opportunity to learn it very well. They suffer because of that. Exposure to people or methods (such as meditation or Cognitive behavioral therapy) that can teach them this can help but the individual has to be willing to learn and practice. Even people with this awareness have to find time to practice!
Posted by: Krissie | Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 04:40 PM
This is intruiging. I can see both sides of the coin, definitely. I echo your sentiment and the other comments about choices. The choices we have and opportunities presented to us have come leaps and bounds from 20 years ago. My take on the ever-present "unhappiness factor" is two-fold. First, we decide when we are unhappy. Even if our days our pressure-filled or doom-and-gloom, we are the ultimate authority on whether that super-charges us or makes us unhappy. Second, unhappiness does not occur in a vacuum. Other people are around that can support, listen, offer feedback, and even solve issues. My co-workers are an extension of my family. I spend an incredible amount of time with these people. Frankly, they are flattered when I reach out to them, as I am flattered when someone reaches out to me. Even if we can't solve each other's problems, it helps to voice a concern and/or just listen. The win-win is that if they help me achieve my goals, we all go home feeling good.
Posted by: Gail | Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 07:56 PM
I can’t help but think that the happiest working moms are those with flexible schedules. When I think of the working mothers I know, most have some sort of part-time, flexible, or at-home arrangement. I am thankful for my career, but if I had to clock in at a nine-to-five job, my happiness level would plummet.
And, as for choices, we’re lucky we have so many – but they are just that, choices. Perhaps American women's ‘funk’ can be attributed to us not making choices . Too many of us feel we need an interesting career , active, involved super-children, community participation...and a body that can pass as 30. Our teeth must be whitened, our hair dyed, and our triceps sculpted by 6 am bootcamp classes. And forget about grabbing take-out after a busy day, dinner must be home-cooked, (from organic, locally-grown food, of course). The post-dinner stroll will have to wait, too; there’s bookclub to read for...homework to oversee...and a work presentation to prepare for... No wonder the U.S. happiness meter is sagging!
Posted by: leci | Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 09:34 PM
Personally, I think our expectations are a huge part of the problem. We need to sometimes forget what we think we should do or have or be and just let ourselves experience more joy in what is.
Posted by: Meredith | Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 08:45 PM
I'm glad to hear from all you happy readers. I think everyone makes excellent points - about unrealistic expectations, the importance of taking charge of your own happiness, and the role of close relationships with co-workers and friends in happiness. I think there's a lot going on here that I know I'll be thinking (and perhaps writing) about some more.
Posted by: Stacy | Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 09:13 PM
I love the way you phrase it -- that people are trying to put us back in the "barefoot and pregnant" box. I certainly can see that both women and men have greater stress when we pursue "non-traditional" gender roles, such as the male homemaker and female breadwinner. (Although it's increasingly difficult to argue that women who work are non-traditional -- we are the majority, after all.) But I would say that it's worth it to buck the historical trend and pursue our passion, for both genders. Why shouldn't women enjoy the satisfaction of work and men cherish the joys of home and family? The potential reward: a full life.
Posted by: Katherine | Friday, October 16, 2009 at 12:05 AM
My problem with the 'happiness' study is that it could have been used as a way to criticize women and feminism *no matter how* it turned out.
An excellent post on Echidne of the Snakes (http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html#4219230311369285050) went through the other possibilities --
"Let's pretend that we don't know what the happiness survey tells us about the period from 2004 to 2006, and that we only know women came across as somewhat happier than men in the early 1970s...
1. Suppose we find that the results are unchanged from the early 1970s: Women are still somewhat happier than men. How would you use that to attack feminism, hmh?
You could argue that feminism didn't do anything for women! They feel the same although their lives are supposedly so much better! Feminism was wasted, and it is time to focus on men's unhappiness.
2. Or suppose that the results from 2004-2006 show that women are even more happier than they were in 1970s. What does that mean? It means that we are ignoring the poor, poor men who are getting increasingly less happy while we focus on just women and girls. Time to change!
3. What if the more recent results show that men have caught up or even bypassed women on the happiness ratings? What would we write then? Well, feminism obviously failed to make women happier so let's scrap it.
4. Even absolutely equal happiness figures for men and women in 2004-2006 wouldn't do, because they would show a relative drop in female happiness. Thus, feminism failed again.
There you are."
Posted by: Steve B. | Friday, October 16, 2009 at 09:03 AM