The feminist revolution brought with it great change and opportunity for women. But it left in its wake a crucial dilemma. Can a 21st-century woman have it all? Can she be a successful career woman, the perfect mother, a supportive wife and a trusted friend? And where does she fit into all of this? And, does it really matter?
Valley Woman decided to investigate how the women of the Wood River Valley tackle this challenge. We gathered together a group of them to discuss their experiences and address what it is about living here that makes juggling these demands easier or more difficult.
All mothers and all, at some point, having pursued a career, the six women sat in a sunny East Fork home one Sunday afternoon and, over pizza and wine, bravely divulged their personal struggles.
At one end, mother of four Julia Briscoe bailed out of a high-powered, high-paying role to stay at home and raise her four daughters. At the other, Rebecca Kinman had to make the decision to put her son in full-time daycare at 5 months old to continue her successful career in marketing.
Jamey Allsop Greene grapples with the demands of a 7-month-old baby, a husband who travels extensively and a burgeoning business. School teacher Janet Salvoni is passionate about her vocation, but feels she doesn't have the option of staying at home with her two boys.
As CEO of the Wood River Community YMCA, Teresa Beahen Lipman jokes that she's had three children: First came Lizzie, then came the Y, then came Winston. For her, quitting her job would be like giving up a child, sacrificing a part of herself. Lipman's colleague, Suzanne Buchanan, made the choice six years ago to put her career as a teacher on hold and focus on her son. Now, with two more children and a husband embarking on a new career, she is happy to have found a way to combine being a full-time mother with keeping her foot in the door of the workplace.
Each woman has their unique struggles and their personal perspectives on being a mother and having a career.
But one thing is clear. The women of the Wood River Valley are not simply staying at home in floral aprons, baking apple pies. Contrary to a view sometimes expressed by their big-city counterparts, a career and motherhood can go hand-in-hand in rural Idaho. The question is, what do they sacrifice along the way?
Julia Briscoe: Mother of four girls, 9 months, 4 , 5, and 7. A stay-at-home mom, she quit a high-paying job for L’Oreal cosmetics following the birth of her second child. Her husband, James, is in mergers and acquisitions. They have lived in the valley for a year.
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Suzanne Buchanan: Mother of three, Braden, 5, Elise, 3, and William, 2. Works 10 hours a week as youth and family coordinator for the Wood River Community YMCA. They have lived in the valley since 2006.
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Teresa Beahen Lipman: Mother of two, Lizzie, 5, and Winston, 2. CEO of the Wood River Community YMCA. Husband, Dave, is an independent contractor and currently finance director for Clearwater Landscaping. They have lived in the valley since 2004.
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Janet Salvoni: Mother of two boys, 5 and 18 months. Works full-time as a teacher and early childhood coordinator at The Community School. Husband, Frank, is in real estate development. They have lived in the valley since 2002.
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Rebecca Kinman: Mother of a 17-month-old boy, Holden. Works full-time as senior marketing associate for ESS in Ketchum. Husband, Shane, is art director for “Transworld MotoCross” magazine. They have lived in the valley since 2004.
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Jamey Allsop Greene: Mother of a 7-month-old baby girl, Anja. Runs her own business, Allsop Home & Garden, based in Ketchum. Husband, Adam, works for Scott USA. They have lived in the valley since 2007.
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Valley Woman: There is a lot of pressure on women to be the perfect mother/wife/employee. Is it possible to do all that and still have your own life? Do any of you feel like you have it dialed in?
Rebecca Kinman: Absolutely not. Not even close. There will be days or weeks where you've got one thing really mastered, say, work's going great. But on the other hand, I haven't had a date with my husband in five months. It's always a juggle—I never feel I have it perfect.
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VW: Is there an added pressure or an added benefit because you live in the Wood River Valley?
Teresa Beahen Lipman: There are some things that make it tougher and some things that make it easier. For me personally, my family is not here, that makes it much tougher. You have to build that support network from co-workers or friends—or you have to pay.
RK: Or you have to sacrifice something—where you're home for a week not getting paid because you ran out of vacation and sick days.
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VW: How "family friendly" do you feel the Wood River Valley is?
Janet Salvoni: When it comes to daycare options, I don't find it family friendly. When I was pregnant with my 5-year-old, I knew I would need to find daycare. I went right to Grandma Judy's (now closed). She didn't have room and this was at least eight months out. I kept looking around. I tried to get into any of the nanny co-ops but nobody had room. Eventually I had to put him in the only daycare at the time for infants. Two weeks later he came down with pneumonia. It was a $5,000 visit to the hospital.
Now we have a woman who comes to our home in Ketchum, and she works with five families in a daycare co-op. It's much more flexible and you have more control. But the cost of childcare in Ketchum is about $1,000 a month. As a first-time parent, it was huge sticker shock.
RK: My son's in full-time daycare and has been since he was 5 months old. But he's only a block from my office. I could go over twice a day and feed him, and hang out. I don't think I could do that in the city.
Jamey Allsop Greene: Our lifestyle here is so enhanced because we are not commuting two hours each way. I have friends in Boston and if something holds them back, their daycare charges them by the minute. It's really stressful for them.
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VW: How did you make the decision to choose to put your child in daycare, versus staying at home with your child and not working?
Julia Briscoe: I've worked my whole life, since I was 16. I never thought I would stay home. When I had my first baby I remember sitting at work and writing "Quit. Quit. Quit." I felt like my legacy at the company would last maybe six months after I left, but my baby growing up... . So, I just quit and the shock waves went through the company and my family because I had devoted so much and I was giving up a lot. But something in me just switched and I didn't want to do it anymore.
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VW: A lot of women consider quitting work for five years and then plan to go back. After all, there's only a short time to spend with your children when they are young. Is it worth giving up just five years of your career?
JS: I considered it, but in this valley it's really hard to get a teaching job. And I'm not sure we could do it on one income, especially here.
TBL: I've thought about part-time or a job share. But then I was honest with myself. I realized I would still work the 60 hours a week. It's just my nature. I would work until it got done—so why give up half your salary?
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VW: How accommodating do you find your employers are to the plight of the working mother?
TBL: The Y is a very family-friendly place to work. Child Watch is there. But I think what makes it family friendly, too, is that a number of us are moms and dads, so we support each other.
RK: My company (ESS in Ketchum) is the complete opposite. There are only a few people there that have kids, so they just don't get it. They've been accommodating, letting me work from home when Holden is sick. But at the same time, everybody's working until 6 p.m. and I'm leaving at 5:15 because I have to. It's definitely hard.
JAG: Running my own business, it's my own internal struggle. I constantly feel like I'm short-changing everything. Short-changing my business, short-changing my daughter, short-changing myself. It's my biggest struggle right now. Also, my husband travels a lot. I hate to say it, but I feel like a single parent.
Suzanne Buchanan: That seems to be true of this valley. No one works here, they're always on a plane. There are a lot of "single moms" because their husbands are on a plane somewhere.
TBL: I'm really lucky that way. My husband is a really active and engaged husband and father. He's an independent contractor, so if Lizzie or Winston are sick, he's the first one to say "I'll stay home." I was thinking about what we would talk about today and I thought, "good husband, good dad."
RK: My husband is gone a lot and he feels he's missing out. It's been really challenging for us, as I travel a lot as well. Being a working, traveling person in this valley is never quick and never easy.
JAG: We had that nightmare scenario when we were both gone and we flew my mother-in-law in. She was dealing with a 5-and-a-half-month-old and it did not go well. When I got back, my child was so off, off all around. My mother-in-law fed her every two hours, as it was the only way she could deal. Basically my daughter turned into a giant beefcake while I was gone.
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VW: It's obviously difficult when your partner is gone a lot. But when they are on hand and it's you and them, joint parenting, do you feel like it's evenly split?
RK: Oh, heck no! I mean—come on! Well, especially when they're so young.
JS: Frank has a different recollection of how helpful he was during that first year. He literally said the other night, "I used to get up in the middle of the night." A: I was breast-feeding and B: No, you didn't. In the morning he'd be like, "He got up last night?" And then, "Just because I'm not out of bed doesn't mean I'm not awake." Really? Are you sitting in a chair freezing? But it gets much easier when they get older.
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VW: In order to maintain that balance with your partner—sharing the load and working—what have you changed in your lives? What have you added or taken away in order to fit it all in?
JS: I let it go. Like the laundry. Laundry really is a four-step process: wash it, dry it, fold it, put it away. But, uh, I have some in the dryer right now, some folded, some sprawled around. I don't think there's any dishes in the sink at the moment. Yes, it bothers me, but now I just have to let it get to a point where it really bothers me, then I'll set aside an hour and do it.
JAG: We're trying to divide the load a little bit more. I've always been the person who cooked and totally took care of the domestic side. And we had to have that discussion: "Here's all the things I'm doing and here's the things that you're doing and it's just not really working." We had to make a list. That really helped a lot. Also, he's going to take two days a week to cook and grocery shop. It's a small start.
RK: My husband says he can't read my mind and he needs me to just tell him what I need of him. And that's OK. That's just the way we operate, but we had to do a similar thing—have a real good chitchat about how I wasn't doing so well and needed help.
JB: That first year I completely lost myself. I was working full-time, I had a brand new baby and I still cooked, I still cleaned, I still did everything.
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VW: Losing yourself is something that can easily happen. You're 25 percent mother, 25 percent wife, 25 percent career woman, 25 percent house worker. How do you feel about where yourself fits in—your hobbies, your friends? How have you managed to hold on to that?
JAG: Lunchtime. I go outside and do whatever I can, anything. That's my time, my hour.
TBL: I'm just getting that!
JS: Lunch? Don't you eat at your desk?!
JB: I don't get a lunch hour. I haven't got myself back yet. I don't have a minute to myself. Have you ever seen me without the baby? I just have perspective. I just know that this is not my time of life. I know that I have many, many years when I will have more time to myself. I really do just cling to these days.
RK: We do a lot of trading off. I go skiing one day, he'll go the next. It means we are sacrificing time for ourselves but sometimes you just need to go be with friends.
TBL: Dave and I go out at least once a week. We get a sitter and we always do the monthly YMCA's Parent's Night Out.
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VW: What is the one thing that you feel you have learned, really mastered, in the quest for a work/life balance?
TBL: My laptop does not go on until the kids are in bed. I remember the first year, I'd get home and get Lizzie fed and start working again. Dave was doing the same thing. One day we just said, "Laptops are off until the kids are sleeping."
SB: I turn off as soon as I'm home, I'm a stay-at-home mom—that's what I do.
RK: The only thing I feel I do really well is I cook dinner every night. We all eat together. It's important to me and I love to cook. It's therapeutic.
TBL: There is research that shows that one of the behaviors which helps young people develop self-promoting behaviors is dinner at the table with a parent or parents. They've found that is the single most influential action you can take as a family.
JS: I find if I take my Sunday and dial in my meals for the week, it makes my week run really smoothly. Then from 4-6 p.m. each day you can enjoy your children, and then maybe your spouse when he comes home.
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VW: As working mothers, how guilty do you feel? Do you feel like you should be at home or do you feel that this is the right choice, this is how it should be—that it's fine to have other people looking after your children?
JB: Motherhood and guilt go hand in hand—there's no separating those two. I feel guilty and I'm a stay-at-home mom. I have four kids and I'm constantly questioning, "Did Sierra get all my time today? Was all my talking to Rhianna just duty oriented?" The guilt is far and wide, because we are women and we carry that along with us always.
Whether you work or not, it will always be with you. Don't think that "I'll just quit and it'll be gone." No. It'll always be with you. You'll never feel you're a 100 percent anything. You're still the mom, you're still the wife, you're still the friend, the sister, the daughter. You still have all these different relationships. It's just the way life is.
JAG: I felt really guilty going back to work, even though I wanted to go back badly because it's my own business. I said to a friend of mine, who is also a working mum, "Gosh, I'm missing out and I wish I was at home with her." She said, "You know, I feel like that all the time. But here's how you should think about it—you're setting such a good example for your daughter as a working mom. You should be proud of what you're doing. She's going to grow up with those ideals."
TBL: I thinks it's natural to feel some guilt. Some days I'm really proud of how productive I was and what I've got accomplished at work. Other days I'm like, "Gosh, I miss Lizzie."
RK: Literally there is not a day or an hour that goes by that my heart's not aching because I'm not with my son. But at the same time, I personally feel I am a better mom because I have that outlet. I'm not cut out for that constant "kidness."
JS: For me, I love my job. If I didn't, that would be a different question to answer. I feel guilt some days, but I feel like what I am doing is really important. I feel I'm paving the way for them and I'm providing a role model for future men. I have so much respect for mothers and daughters. I don't know how best to raise a daughter in this society to make these choices and not feel guilt. I'd want her to feel so proud of who she is, no matter her path. Some days I feel like I am a slave. Did I go through all this schooling and do all these things to still do everything domestic? I wouldn't want my daughter to see that. I would really want her to see a partnership.
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VW: Does anyone here feel like they've got it all? And if not, what is the one thing that is the biggest void?
JB: I miss my girlfriends
JAG: I miss the flexibility that I had, to say, catch a movie on whim—I really miss that.
RK: I miss sleep the most. I fantasize about sleeping.
TBL: It's changing for me, but I remember the first year Lizzie was born. She was 8 or 9 months old and I looked at Dave and I said, "I miss us." But it comes back—it takes awhile and you have to make it a priority, but it will come back.
