Earlier this summer, the blogosphere buzzed with discussion of Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” (Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2012).

It’s not an article about working mothers in general, but about highly educated married mothers working in professional jobs.

Since no magazine offered to interview me about my thoughts on the topic, I decided to interview myself. 

Can a woman “have it all”? For purposes of this question, “all” is defined as (1) a high-powered professional career and (2) enough time with children to be a good-enough parent. Please reframe the question. If this is all you have in your life, you will die. Your body or mind will rebel, and carry you to dangerous edges. You also need friends or extended family, exercise, time alone to reflect, something you enjoy that is not a responsibility. Time to go to the doctor, time to rest if you are sick, time to deal with death in the family, time to respond to household emergencies, time to untangle interpersonal problems.

Can a professional woman achieve “work-life balance”? No. Balance is not possible. Continuous juggling is as good as it gets. You will drop some balls. Eventually you will stop saying to yourself and to others, “Sorry; this has been an exceptionally stressful year.” With the load you are carrying, every year will be an exceptionally stressful year.

Does it get easier when my children become teens? No. It just gets different. You can’t leave young children home alone, so they fill your time. But you know this, so you prepare for it. Teens, on the other hand, go through phases. In some phases, they can be home alone, and in others they can’t. This changes every few months, and you can’t easily prepare for it.

With young children, you set the household schedule, and they adapt to your structure.  As they become teens, you allow them more autonomy over their schedule. Then you are at the mercy of their poor planning skills – and sometimes their poor judgment. You need to do fewer things for them, but you usually find out about them at the last minute.

And no matter what age your children are, health problems and emergencies arise. These do not follow any schedule.

Doesn’t the system need to change? Yes, of course. Communal institutions could socially support parents in many ways. We could have better laws and workplace policies (especially in the U.S.), with more generous personal leave. We could bring more arts, physical education, and special education into schools, so that children could actually tolerate a longer school day.  We could have better after-school programs, and better collaboration between community centers and schools. We could have better public funding for such programs. We could have better public transit, so older children could safely get themselves to good programs.

Society has stacked the odds against working mothers. So why do I feel personally guilty? You are a driven person. Rarely do you measure up in your own eyes. When you reach a goal, you set another one. You believe you can never do enough. When you think about everything you didn’t do, you feel guilt.

Even if you move through life with the utmost care and consideration, some bad things will happen on your watch. You will not create a perfect life for your children. But neither do parents who are with their young children 24/7.

How come other women seem to do it better than I do? They only seem to. Sure, go ahead and compare yourself to another working mother. Because your juggling is never perfect, you will imagine she is a better juggler. Once in a while you may think, “What can I learn from her?” But mostly, you will privately criticize the success you imagine she has. “She was born into privilege.” “She has a more flexible boss.” “She has healthier children.” “Her partner is more helpful than mine.” “She has more household help.”

Forget it. Life is tough. You have better things to do with your psychic energy. Don’t waste it beating yourself up – because that’s what you’re really doing when you dwell on what others have that you don’t.

But I feel so ambivalent about my work as a mother.  Of course you do. You also come from a family. You learned how to raise children from those who raised you. They did not do a perfect job. As you parent, you sift through your own past. You act by rote; you reflect; you change. How could you feel anything but ambivalent during this process of experimentation?

What “juggling” advice do you have? Don’t voluntarily negotiate away the workplace flexibility you need for family commitments. Set aside sacred family time, even if you have to become religious to do it. Invest time in communal institutions; they will help you raise your children.

Laura, what’s your story? For the last 32 years, I have worked mostly full time, while earning five graduate degrees. My children are now 16 and 19 years old. I have raised them together with my husband, also a professional in education/human services. My jobs have included university professor and administrator, as well as congregational rabbi. These are flexible jobs; you can work any 60-90 hours you want. (That’s a joke; they only have limited flexibility.) When the children were very young, they attended a church daycare, before moving to a preschool. We had no nannies or babysitters. Household help was 4 hours of cleaning help per month.

For many years, I left the workplace mid-afternoon with a full briefcase and worked at home every night for hours. Did my co-workers resent me? Some did, some didn’t. Did I experience sexism and salary discrimination? Of course I did, during the early years at the university. But I found my allies, and with their help restored pay equity.  I worked hard to excel and be valuable.

Any regrets? I didn’t manage to stay healthy. Am I a failure? No, I’m just human.

Image: LDK & Eli at Purim, c. 2003; photo by Charles Kaplan