海角大神

Anne-Marie Slaughter鈥檚 article in the July/August issue of The Atlantic, entitled 鈥淲hy Women Still Can鈥檛 Have it All,鈥� has become the most popular piece the magazine has ever published.聽

And no wonder.

Slaughter, a Princeton professor, former dean of the school鈥檚 Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, former director of policy planning for the US State Department, (and many other things, all of which is part of the point of ), has tapped into one of life鈥檚 most controversial and tormenting questions for young women of The Atlantic鈥檚 reading demographic.

How the heck do you 鈥渉ave it all?鈥�

Or, how do you 鈥渂alance鈥� a fully satisfying work life, with professional advancement and workplace accolades, with an equally full family life, with time for children and spouse and maybe even sometimes yourself?

The answer, Slaughter suggests, is, well, you can鈥檛.聽 At least not with the way the US workplace is structured.

And not only that, she says, but the idea that anyone possibly can have 鈥渋t all鈥� has been harmful for a generation of younger women who are increasingly seeing through the myth of feminist completion and have decided to give up either on families or on the high powered professional careers that they might otherwise enjoy.

I read Slaughter鈥檚 article with interest.

I am her target audience: relatively privileged, Ivy League educated, 30-something, trying regularly to figure out how to make 鈥渋t all鈥� work. I skate between diapers and deadlines; I regularly feel guilty either about not writing enough or not putting my baby to bed, despite the cries of 鈥渕ama鈥� coming from her room. I worry about taking time after dinner to work rather than spending those precious toddler-free moments with my husband, who has a heavy work-family load of his own.

You might say, actually, that I have no real problems.

And to that I would agree.

Because here鈥檚 the thing:聽 I realize that compared to about 99.99 percent of the women in the world, and even in the US, I have no problems. I am safe. I am not hungry. I have a beautiful child and a wonderful partner and even a couple of really cute pets that I have the financial ability to feed. (This sounds minor, but think about it 鈥� what a global luxury.) I have work I enjoy and that I even find meaningful. (Again 鈥� when did people get so privileged that we expected work to provide meaning, not just food? It鈥檚 awesome that I can even worry about it.) 聽I expect my daughter to have choices 鈥� maybe not 鈥渁ll,鈥� but听肠丑辞颈肠别蝉 鈥� and this, in the grand history of the world, is pretty incredible.

I realize this, and it makes me feel blessed. Happy. Fortunate.

Having 鈥渋t all,鈥� or whatever that means, sort of doesn鈥檛 matter.

I don鈥檛 write this to sound preachy, or to take away from Slaughter鈥檚 important and insightful points. The US work culture is problematic when it comes to families; her suggestions for modifying policies and attitudes would be a welcome relief for scores of women.

But I wonder whether a good bit of my generation鈥檚 apparent 鈥渙pting out鈥� comes not from frustration and disillusionment, but from a global recognition of our incredible good fortune. Or from a different sense of happiness, which Slaughter writes about at the end of her piece, and perhaps even an intellectual skepticism of the economic reasons behind our society鈥檚 melding of 鈥渨ork鈥� and 鈥渓ife鈥� for its most educated citizens.

(Even, I might venture, a more worldly understanding that this blend is not universal. I remember during my first months as a reporter in South Africa offending not a few high-powered executives for calling them after 6 p.m. The workday, they pointedly told me, was over.)

Slaughter admits that she decided not to return to the fast-paced professional life of the high ranks of the State Department because she believed her teenage children needed her at home. 聽And, she writes, she realized she wanted to be at home; that this choice would make her happiest. ("At home," here is back to a full-time tenured professor position at Princeton.)

And perhaps this is the lesson that my generation has already absorbed. That you might be blessed enough to love work, but work will never love you. It doesn鈥檛 even depend on you 鈥� no matter how much you might think otherwise. And sometimes, it feels like the right thing to do 鈥� the happiest thing to do 鈥� to put priority on those for whom you do, truly, matter.

This sounds, as I write it, incredibly conservative. But I don鈥檛 think it needs to be seen as such. There are scores of reasons why women and mothers should be in leadership positions, in boardrooms and hospitals and Congress.

But perhaps the question of 鈥渉aving it all鈥� should be placed on society, not individual women. How can we, as a culture, have "it all" 鈥� educated women who have what seem to me to be quite reasonable, healthy priorities but who also have the ability to contribute to public life, broadly defined?

That鈥檚 a conversation that Slaughter has stared, and that we should continue.