New York Times Letters to the Editor - March 4, 2006
(I blogged on this same article on March 2nd, see "Stepping Into the Fray." This is definitely a topic that everybody has an opinion about. -sg)

Women on the Early (and Late) Shift (6 Letters)

To the Editor:

Re "Stretched to Limit, Women Stall March to Work" (front page, March 2):

I wonder whether the balancing act required specifically of working mothers wouldn't be better studied, measured and reported using a broader concept like family management rather than household chores.

Rote and routine chores like laundry, garbage, vacuuming and carpooling steal time away from both parents. But I would venture that the most challenging and harder to quantify family responsibilities borne by women are the planning, organizing, scheduling, coordinating, monitoring and adjusting that make the smooth flow of children's lives possible, particularly when their every minute must be accounted for to allow both parents to work.

These are the "thinking" chores that you can't easily ask or pay others to do and that women, more than men, seem saddled with performing all hours of the day and night — hours that I suspect aren't accurately reflected in the research statistics.
-Molly Fraker - Berkeley, Calif., March 2, 2006

To the Editor:

The closing comment from Cathie Watson-Short — "We really didn't get equality at home" — points to the essential problem: family life is not woman's work; it is everyone's work.
Just as professional responsibilities are now shared between the sexes, so must domestic duties become universal efforts.

As an editor in her mid-20's who lives in Manhattan with three roommates, all men, I've seen this concept of domestic cooperation put into action daily.

We share grocery shopping and cleaning chores and do our own laundry. Nothing more is expected of me than of anyone else.

If a group of college classmates can do this, shouldn't a couple who choose to take on the responsibility of parenting be able to demand of each other the same level of equality that is now part of the workplace?
-Kathleen Brennan - New York, March 2, 2006

To the Editor:

Enough already with how hard it is to be a mother in this day and age! You're depressing all of us who are just managing to pull it off. (Every time I read one of these articles, I wonder, "Is there something wrong with me that I'm not more miserable sending my child to day care as I tromp off to work every day?")

You quote Cathie Watson-Short saying: "Most of us thought we would work and have kids, at least that was what we were brought up thinking we would do — no problem. But really we were kind of duped. None of us realized how hard it is."

But when upper-middle-class women choose to have three children, they should consider how that might affect their careers.

Part of adult life is facing hard choices and living with sacrifices and compromises. If you believe that you can "have it all" without any pain, you've been watching too much TV.
-Debbie Berne - San Francisco, March 2, 2006

To the Editor:

As a working mother of four sons, I agree with Cathie Watson-Short about feeling "duped" about working motherhood.

The messages we now give to girls make it seem as if the only barrier to women's success is convincing girls that subjects like math and science are interesting.

But if these girls get their science or engineering degrees, they have this to look forward to: getting up at 5 a.m. to make lunches and start getting kids ready for school; going to work at 6:40 a.m., returning home at 6 p.m. to help make dinner, spend time with everyone and help with homework, put kids to bed, then work from 9 to 11 on stuff that didn't get done at work during the day and that you couldn't stay late to do, as your male colleagues did.

Can anyone come up with something better? I don't know, but I do know that I am still in it for the long haul. And in case you are wondering, this is the only article I had time to read on the train because I was working the rest of the time.
-Maria Race - Elmhurst, Ill., March 2, 2006

To the Editor:

Two changes must occur for mothers to enjoy an equal chance at a fulfilling work life outside the home: men have to take equal responsibility for child care, and the workplace has to offer more help, in flex time and on-site child care.

Until that happens, women will continue to bear a greater proportion of a family's domestic burden.
-Elisabeth Israels Perry - St. Louis, March 3, 2006

To the Editor:

We will never reconcile the tug between being a working mother and a stay-at-home mom until both sexes understand that a woman who chooses to stay home and raise the next generation of mothers and career blazers often works harder and longer hours than her office counterpart. In other words, she is a "working mother" as well.

Raising two boys and having also worked in an office, I speak from experience when I say "The Apprentice" looks like child's play.

Have Donald Trump send his upstarts over to my neck of the woods on Monday morning. Starting at 6 a.m. until 9 p.m. every day for the next 10 years or so. Bring lots of Kleenex, driver's license, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, aspirin, imagination and infinite patience.

Oh, and did I mention that there's no starting salary?
-Susanna Salk - Roxbury, Conn., March 2, 2006