Paradise Lost: How My Family Vacation Exposed the Myth of Having It All

Stay-at-home mom I am not...

There should be another word for traveling with kids because “vacation” is simply inappropriate if not oxymoronic. The term “vacation” suggests that there will be peace, relaxation and perhaps even, dare I say, sex. But traveling with my husband and our two young children without the comforts of our home, the stability of our daily routine, and, most critically, our nanny was anything but a vacation and more like an abstinent episode of White Lotus. 

Prior to our departure, I knew that I would not be parking my cellulite-ridden ass on the beach for hours on end with numerous multi-thousand calorie cocktails and a smutty book as I would have done pre-children. However, I did have nauseatingly sweet visions of me and my babies luxuriating in the ocean, giggling as we built sandcastles and me boarding my flight back to New York with a reignited urge to stay home full-time with my little ones. Well, while my borderline delusional mirages of me and my happy children at the beach did, on rare occasions, come to fruition, they were sandwiched between 4:45 A.M. wake-ups and tantrums that would drive Mother Teresa to search the Ganges for a Klonopin. In short, I spent five days at a luxury resort in the Cayman Islands and my main takeaway is the sheer certainty that I never want to be a stay-at-home mom. I practically threw my children at my nanny and ran the second she rolled in at 8 A.M. the following day upon our return.

I make this proclamation with two important caveats: First, I have a deep respect for stay-at-home moms—and I mean deep. In fact, I have never been more sure that being solely responsible for your offspring while simultaneously maintaining a household may be one of the most demanding and thankless jobs there is. Even the most high-maintenance partners at my former law firm required less deliverables than the tiny tyrant that is my toddler at the peak of his terrible twos. That brings me to my second caveat: it’s not exactly ideal to affirm so concretely that you have no desire—and rather, a visceral aversion—to staying home with your children when you just exited your high-salaried Big Law job. Whoops.

Herein lies my dilemma: I’m adamantly convinced that I’m neither satisfied by a corporate job that renders my hours unpredictable and, thus, my freedom to be with my kids heavily restricted nor by the prospect of being stuck as their sole caregiver. But why is that? Why am I so desperately searching for an in-between that simultaneously allows me to spend more (but certainly not all) of my time with my children and also feeds both my torturous ego and, perhaps even, my passion? Why do I feel wholly unfulfilled by doing either/or?

The problem, I’ve determined, is two-fold and it’s not unique to me. First, I have fallen victim to the trap that was packaged and sold to millennial women as modern feminism: the idea that I could do it all. The myth of doing it all suggests that women, now freed from the confines of domesticity, can be both idyllic mothers and professional leaders all at the same time: think Martha Stewart, before her Netflix biography outed her for being a less than stellar mom. And we women, driven by our own (misguided) stubbornness and encouraged by, perhaps, our even more misguided mothers took the bait. I, like so many women, had been promised that I could have it all, so, naturally, I want it all. 

But the second prong of this dilemma is, of course, that having it all doesn’t actually exist. This is not a revolutionary or even new determination. Rather, it has become widely accepted among women that while this phrase was once viewed as an empowering call to action for women to strive and flourish in the modern era with the option to have a simultaneously enriched family life and fulfilling career, it has since morphed into an oppressive demand more fantastical than the world of Harry Potter. What the proponents of the “having it all” movement failed to say, or maybe even recognize, is that while women would now be expected to take on the demands of the corporate world and excel in it, their duties at home would remain largely the same with mothers maintaining their positions as the primary parents and homemakers. Moreover, while there would be some policies implemented (in very recent years) in the corporate sphere to meet the needs of working mothers, they would not be sufficient to actually facilitate their ability to simultaneously be dedicated moms and wives and reach the positions of power predominantly occupied by their male peers: one role would always need to be sacrificed in favor of another at any given time. Thus, what originated as an exciting ideology beckoning in a new age of liberating alternatives to housewife-life for feminist idealists became an impossible mandate. You can have it all turned into you must do it all. Optionality of either became the expectation of both.

This increased burden placed on women is, in many respects, even more pronounced among the population of mothers that have to do it all. For women who must work out of financial necessity, the "having it all" narrative becomes almost mockingly irrelevant—their reality is not about choosing to "do it all," but rather surviving by doing everything required of them. This is a markedly different, although inextricably intertwined, struggle than the one faced by women, like myself, who grapple with the tension between having the privilege to choose and the personal desire to both work and parent. While both groups of women ultimately find themselves "doing it all," the paths that led them there and the options available to them differ dramatically.

The conversation surrounding women who do not want to work but are obligated to do so is a distinct, albeit important, can of worms worthy of its own discussion and, thus, reserved for another day. However, it is worth acknowledging here that while both sets of women’s experiences of these demands—and their ability to address them—vary significantly based on their socioeconomic circumstances and support systems, women across the two groups often find that the burdens placed on working mothers are overwhelming and, arguably, unsustainable. 

And yet, even equipped with this disillusionment, I am still holding out hope that there is a way to be present with my babies—to watch them learn, grow and thrive, the way I so desperately want—without completely abandoning my need for intellectual stimulation beyond finger painting and Paw Patrol. Because, the truth is, one without the other isn’t enough for me. Thus, I am stuck in an agonizing dilemma that begs the question that has been eating at me since my son’s conception: is there a career that meets these needs?

At this point, I have no clue what I want to be when I grow up. What I do know is that I want more time with my children, just not all the time. I want a career that provides me with a sense of accomplishment and excitement but also a predictability and flexibility that lends itself to motherhood. In other words, I still want it all. And I’m going to make it happen. I just have no idea what the fuck that looks like. 

Stay tuned.

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