Tom & Sherry: How to Have It All

By Elisabeth Glas

It used to be so easy. To be a good dad was to be the Breadwinner, to be a good mom was to be the Caregiver. Fathers ruled at work, mothers ruled at home. Today, we have a choice. Mothers can also be Breadwinners, and fathers can also be Caregivers. Yet, fathers still rule at work, and mothers still rule at home. Is there simply not enough time to have it all?

Gender has become the go-to explanation to justify how we spend our time. But a closer look at how our parents spent their time reveals the true reason for our choices: Today's working mom spends as much time with her kids as a stay-at-home mom did in the sixties. And today's working dad spends as much time at work as a career dad did in the sixties. Why would we increase the burden instead of sharing it?

Guilt is the true driver behind our choices. Guilt has turned both, home and workplace, into cultures of over-delivery. The good news, however, is that guilt is man-made and can be overcome: We only feel guilty if the majority around us perceives us going against the standard. If a minority does the same, we couldn’t care less. Today, working moms are the minority at work, and working dads are the minority at home. The moment working moms and working dads decide to join forces, working parents will be the majority.

A process philosophy that has been developed many years ago in Japan, and since has conquered the world, provides a powerful tool to get out of the guilt trap. The book spells out the process philosophy and makes it applicable to our daily lives, allowing us to finally be the parents we always wanted to be.

The author facilitates the reader’s discovery process with short sketches throughout the book, featuring working dad TOM and working mom SHERRY.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elisabeth Glas
• Release date: May 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9780996564823

Elisabeth Glas

Elisabeth Glas is a trained historian-turned-management consultant and the mother of a 6 year old. She believes in the power of Working Parents. In her book TOM & SHERRY she encourages Working Moms and Working Dads to join forces and create the environment they want. In CICERELLO she expands the concept of free choice to theirs little ones by providing a new fairy tale for everyone who is tired of reading Cinderella. Born and raised in Switzerland, she divides her time between Milan and Zurich.

Book preview

Tom & Sherry

How to Have It All

By Elisabeth Glas

Copyright © 2015 by Elisabeth Glas

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Information can be obtained through elisabethglas.com.

First edition, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-9965648-6-1 (ebook)

Cover design: Alessia Cerra

Ebook formatting: ebooklaunch.com

To Marta,

without whom I would not have

started writing this book;

and to Reza,

without whom I would not have

finished writing this book.

Contents

Opening: It used to be so easy

PART I: WHY TOM KEEPS FIGHTING SHERRY (AND VICE VERSE): THE HIDDEN FORCES OF GUILT

1. Why Guilt Matters

2. When What We See Is Not What It Seems

3. When High Performers Underperform

4. The Grand Delusion We All Fall For

PART II: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TOM AND SHERRY JOIN FORCES: THE RISE OF A NEW MAJORITY

5. What We Have in Common with Smokers

6. What We Really Want (But Are Afraid to Ask For)

PART III: HOW TOM AND SHERRY MAKE IT HAPPEN: THE POWER OF SEEING THE OBVIOUS

7. If You Want Something, Say So…

8. The Morning Routine—An Everyday Case Example

9. Learning to See the Obvious

Outlook: The shape of things to come

Acknowledgements

Notes

About the Author

Opening

It used to be so easy

It used to be so easy. To be a good dad was to be the Breadwinner; to be a good mom was to be the Caregiver. Today, both parents want it all—to be the successful Breadwinner and the involved Caregiver. But it seems my grandmother was right after all when she used to say: Elisabeth, you can’t dance at two weddings. The fact is: we don’t have it all, although we have tried many things.[1] We’ve tried to stretch the roles; we’ve tried to lean into each other’s roles; we’ve even tried to flip the roles.[2] But did we ever try to get rid of the roles, simply abandon them altogether?

That’s exactly what we should do if we are serious about having it all. Let’s stop dreaming. Caregivers will never fully integrate into the corporate world, and Breadwinners will never get fully involved at home, because the roles don’t allow for it. Each is highly specialized—one is meant to deal with home, the other meant to deal with the workplace. And each is intended to complement the other, a kind of mutual support system. Furthermore, the roles were never meant to reflect our individual skills or preferences because who would do which role was predetermined. Traditionally, in a marriage, it went without question that the man was the breadwinner and the woman the caregiver. So it should come as no surprise that these roles offer little flexibility.

Bottom line: the concept of Breadwinner versus Caregiver is very rigid. And as long as we continue to think in terms of Breadwinners and Caregivers, we will never be able to have it all. We will never be able to fully embrace and enjoy the rich opportunities available to us today. So why then are we so attached to these roles?

• • •

Tom, 41, a senior partner with the management consulting firm of Szabo-Davis, sits at his desk working on his laptop when he hears a short knock at his open office door. Glancing up, he finds Sherry, 35, dressed in a dark business suit.

Hi Tom… You have a moment?

That depends… He looks her over, likes what he sees. Sherry, right?

She nods. I’m only in for the day. Flew in from the Chicago Office.

Right. The interview this morning. She nods again. What can I do for you?

Nothing. Actually, I wanted to do something for you.

All right. Well, tell me.

This morning’s debriefing following the interview with Madeline Gaines. It was disturbing.

Excuse me?

Your refusal to vote was frankly unacceptable.

Really? I thought I made myself quite clear. Beautiful women make poor executives. It’s not her fault. But her looks are an unnecessary distraction. Her beauty made me biased, so I decided to abstain. Simple as that.

That’s exactly the problem, Tom. Because she is a beautiful woman, she didn’t get a fair chance to receive an offer from us. No wonder we don’t have more women at this firm.

Sherry, I don’t want to be rude, and you seem to be a nice and intelligent person, but I’d say you’re jumping to conclusions.

Am I? Let’s look at the facts. There were two ‘yes’ votes against three ‘no.’ You, being the most senior person in the room, could have turned the decision around.

Who says I would have voted ‘yes’?

Nobody. All I’m saying is that your bias prevented her from getting a fair chance.

Listen, Sherry. If the interview team would have felt strongly about her, we would have organized another interview, and perhaps she would have gotten the sixth vote you are insisting on. But nobody on the team was impressed enough to pound the table for her, not even you.

Point taken. We both should have spoken up.

"So let me ask you a question, my dear."

I’m not your dear.

You know, you have a beautiful smile.

Yes, I do. But it has nothing to do with your question.

Why do you women always blame men for the situation? I do my best to recruit and promote as many women as men. But there are simply not enough qualified women. And I’m not willing to compromise on quality.

And you shouldn’t. Neither do I. But there is a reason why the recruiting and promotion pipeline for women is so thin at firms like ours.

Really…?

Really. Let me tell you a story. When I decided to get pregnant, I was so sure and enthusiastic about going back to work after my maternity leave that the idea of compromising my career never even crossed my mind.

Of course, that’s what I would have expected from somebody like you.

But while I was pregnant, I kept being asked the question: did I plan to go back to work, and if so, would it be part-time or full-time?

By whom? By your mother?

No, by pretty much everyone who saw me with my belly out to here. But that’s not the point. What struck me was: nobody ever asked my husband that question, although he was earning less than I did.

"True, now that I think about it, I would never ask a man if he plans to stay home or work part-time once his wife has a baby. Why would I?"

Sherry’s cell phone rings. Glancing down, she recognizes the number.

Sorry, I have to take this call.

Sure.

Sherry begins to speak into her cell phone as she steps out of Tom’s office. Tom leans back in his chair, hands behind his head. A soft smile creeps up his face while trying to make sense of this unexpected exchange. Then he goes back to his laptop.

• • •

Why are we so attached to the roles of Breadwinners and Caregivers, roles that rigidly constrain the way we spend our time? They might have made sense in the immediate post-war years, when men were still better educated than women and hence were predestined to be breadwinners.[3] But that’s no longer the case.[4] Then why don’t we spend time the way we want, each family in its own way, the way that suits them best?

To answer this, we need to take a closer look at how we actually spend our time. Given that every day is limited to 24 hours, spending more time on one activity means spending less on another. Back in the 1960s, when moms started entering the workforce and spending more time on paid work, they had to spend less on something else. And that something else had to either be picked up by somebody else, or they had to give up a third activity for it, or they had to let go of it completely. And then of course, the same was true for the other side of the equation, dad. If he wanted to pick up activities from mom, then he had to spend less time on something else. Understanding how parents decided to spend their time since then, should give us a clue as to why we continue to insist on the roles of Breadwinners and Caregivers.

Ladies first: Nationwide time-use studies covering the period from 1965 to 2008 show that the weekly hours mothers spent on paid work has increased dramatically since 1965.[5] This has resulted in fewer hours spent on housework, a phenomenon supported by technology and the development of a variety of timesaving innovations. However, it did not impact the time they spent on childcare. On the contrary, the weekly hours mom spent with her kids increased in parallel. This is true for both stay-at-home and working moms. In fact, a working mother in 2008 spent as much time with her kids as a stay-at-home mom did in 1965. As mom had already traded the hours she used to spend doing housework for paid work, it left her only one category of time in which to find these extra hours to spend with her kids: Her private time.[6] And that's exactly what she did. She tapped into her own time to spend more hours with her children.

Now why would mom do this, especially if we consider that over the same time period dad increased his time with the kids as well?[7] In fact, if we combine the additional hours spent by dad with the extra hours devoted by mom, parents in 2008 spent nine more hours per week on childcare than their peers of forty years ago.

Let’s look at dad now. We have already learned that between 1965 and 2008 dad gradually increased his time with the kids. He also picked up a few hours of housework from mom. To compensate, he was forced to reduce his hours spent on paid work. Over time however, in parallel with further increasing his time with the kids, he once again began to increase his time at work. As dad had already traded the hours he used to spend on paid work for hours he now spends on childcare and housework, he had only one category of time left to find these extra hours for paid work: His private time. And that's exactly what he did. He tapped into his own time to spend more time at work.

Why would dad increase his workload just as mom’s contribution to the household income began to significantly increase? In 1960, only 25% of married couples with kids were two income families. By 2011, the number of married couples with kids and two incomes had more than doubled to 60%.[8] Given this substantial increase in mom’s contribution to the family income, why would dad not decide to relax, at least a little bit?

• • •

I’m sorry… That was not very polite—but the client always comes first.

Sherry reenters Tom’s office with an apologizing smile. Tom looks up again from his laptop.

No problem at all.

I just wanted to finish my story.

Ah, I thought you already had.

Not really. Because what’s important here is understanding why our recruiting and promotion pipeline for women is so thin.

And what makes you think you have the answer?

Because after being repeatedly asked if I planned to return to work, I began to question going back or maybe only going back part-time.

You can’t be serious. Given your track record? Why would you even think that?

Because I was suddenly confronted by what society expects from a good mom.

That’s not true, Sherry. Today, the majority of moms work. I’m sure you know the statistics better than I do.

Then why did everybody ask me that question?

No idea.

It’s because of that romanticized ideal of a loving and caring mother who would never leave her newborn child to return to work. And the more people keep asking, the more you start questioning yourself: What if my baby needs me? Am I being a bad mother? Do I even know what a baby really needs…? And unfortunately I couldn’t ask the baby, himself.

Yes, but that’s just guilt.

"Just guilt?"

"Yes, just guilt. You are an intelligent woman. You can decide for yourself what you want to do, and what is best for you and your baby. Why listen to anyone else?"

Ever heard of peer pressure? The week before I went back to work, I started receiving messages from friends and family to wish me ‘good luck’—

What’s wrong with that?

It wasn’t what they said, but how they said it. For some reason they all felt the need to warn me—that I will feel terribly guilty for leaving the baby, but that I will eventually get over it.

Are you serious, Sherry? That’s terrible. I’d say you need a new set of friends. What do they know about how you will feel?

I guess they thought they were being supportive… In any case, on my first day back at work something strange happened to me: I felt guilty for not feeling guilty.

What…? You women are crazy! If there is nothing to feel guilty about, you invent something.

Please, Tom.

Sorry, but I have no patience for things like that. If what you’re suggesting is true, then I can’t help with the pipeline problem.

You never feel guilty… ever?

No. I mean I feel bad when I haven’t reached out to my parents for a while, but I don’t feel guilty for anything. I’m proud of my career. I earned it. And I’m proud of my kids. Have I made mistakes? Of course, who hasn’t? But nothing to feel guilty about.

How many kids do you have?

Three.

That’s nice. Your wife is taking care of them?

Tom hesitates, trying to decide how to answer her. At last:

We’re divorced, but yes. She has custody and I support them. In any case, I always did what I felt was right.

I’m sure you did. But I’m also sure you feel guilty sometimes, you just don’t admit it… Or let me give you the benefit of the doubt: You don’t realize it.

"Thank you, Sherry, that’s generous of you. But believe me, I do not feel guilty. I make conscious