On working, or not. Or partially. Damned if you do...

I finishI unpublished this post for a while while I thought about it, and rewrote a bunch of it (cutting out part of it which delved into a separate issue which I thought was distracting from the original intention of the post) before posting it again. The original post was pretty negative, which I acknowledged in the text, and a couple of commenters called me on that negativity (I also discussed this issue with some friends outside of the blog, some of whom had a similar opinion[2]). The feedback was along the lines of 'the intention of the person saying something is the important issue; if someone intended something they said to be nice, then finding negativity in that statement is just mean spirited.' (If I misinterpreted you, please correct me in a comment.)

Side note: I thought it was interesting that the first commenter said that I should stop caring what people thought, and then went on to tell me my negativity is "a serious problem." Well, here you have evidence that A) I do care what other people think whether or not I should, and then B) you tell me something bad about myself. So, Mr. Anonymous, you knowingly said something hurtful to me. Tsk tsk, that's so negative! :-) I also think it's funny for someone to whine that a blogger is whining. What, you've never seen that before?

So anyway, here are my thoughts again on one of the issues (comment interpretation; I'm saving the other of who-cares-for-child for a separate post), rewritten:

Economom posted recently about the struggle many women (ok really what I mean is moms, no offense dads, but I just don't think that most of you struggle with this on the same scale[1]) face when deciding to work - or deciding not to.

Late last year, I did some soul searching and realized that although I loved my job, I was unhappy with the amount of time I was able to spend with my son, and wanted more. I was happy with our childcare situation, this decision was entirely about my desire to spend more time with him for my benefit. I thought my only option was to quit my job, and I spent some time deciding within myself (and discussing with my husband and figuring out the financials, of course) that if that was what it took to get more time with him, I was OK with that. It turns out that my company and my group in particular and my manager in particular is pretty darned cool and they offerred me part-time in order to keep me around. I accepted. I was very happy with the way the whole thing went down... I felt comfortable with the choice I was making and looked forward to an improved work/life balance.

I told a variety of people about this change, and got a variety of responses. Many of the responses were along the lines of "Congrats for getting what you want out of your employer." Others were things like "You're making the right choice for your child."

In the original incarnation of this post, I wrote about my internal reaction to the comments of the last type: "Oh, so if this is the right choice, then it must have been the wrong choice to ever work full time?" This negative interpretation of the comment was what several people called me on, saying I was too negative and since the intention was positive, that's how I should react. But the more I thought about it, I still think that whether or not those people intended those comments to be positive (which I'm sure they did) is not the important issue, it's still a negative comment.

To put it another way, say a person you know loses a lot of weight. If you were to say to them "Wow, you look fantastic, you lost a lot of weight!", it's a natural reaction for the recipient to then think "What, so you're saying I was really fat before?". Whether or not it's true, it's not something most people want to have called out. Obviously the "you look fantastic" is intended positively, but it's not just the intentions of the speaker that matter, but the consideration of the recipient's reaction.

Which is why the title of this post has "Damned if you do..." in it.  I don't know of a way for the speaker to "win" in the weight loss case, for example. Perhaps it's a scale: "You look nice today" versus "Woweeee, you've lost a lot of weight." Of course since my point is that it's in the ear of the beholder, who's to know where the scale tips for that beholder? I don't have a solution other than to consider the recipient's reaction and, if there's risk of a negative reaction, err on the side of saying nothing, i.e. be politically correct, as annoying as that is. It's the same reason so many people are scared to ask if a woman's pregnant - it's so hard to know if it's a pregnancy or just weight gain, especially with certain body shapes.

Not that I'm suggesting constantly walking on eggshells (although boy, the lawsuit and diversity training atmosphere is certainly causing that). More part of the golden rule: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." The trick is how you interpret 'nice'.

So then that leads to the question: Why be so negative on a blog? That's not very nice, is it? In addition to the cathartic benefits of just getting one's thoughts out there and feeling like you've been able to say what you're thinking, the main reason I rant or post negative things on this blog is really two sides of the same coin: #1 I like to know that I'm not alone in the way I feel about some things (who doesn't?) and so I always appreciate it when I get comments or see other bloggers agreeing with me[3] and #2: if someone else is thinking similarly and wondering if they're alone and comes across a post of mine that they identify with, then they will know that they're not alone, and that's goodness. When I reflect back on the first major issues I struggled with as a new mother, such as breastfeeding, and how incredibly difficult it was and how the books I was reading were not at all helpful... what I really wanted was to find other people who were or had once been in the same situation, to help me understand how they made it through or just to commiserate. The first several months of my new mom's group were mainly bitch sessions, where the collaborative complaining formed a support structure. We eventually moved past that as we became more confident and capable, but it was a very helpful resource at the time.

I also wanted to link to this post on Chocolate and Peanut Butter, her take on this was about how challenging it is sometimes to be a mother in this society as we are constantly judged (often by each other :-) by the decisions we make and are expected to be light and positive creatures. I agree.

[1] I.e. a smaller % of dads struggle with it compared to moms. I also believe that this is a result of the society we live in (i.e. America in this case, but perhaps it applies to more societies, I just don't personally have experience with them) and how we raise our sons and daughters, and nothing to do with any "biological relationships" or "mothering instinct" or any of that crud. The relationship I have with my son is one I chose, and my choices were strongly shaped by my upbringing. And this is not about how my parents raised me (damn fine, I might add! ;-) but rather about my growing up in this society and being bombarded with these types of messages from every direction. I just don't think boys get those same types of messages, with the same intensity, as girls, and thus I believe it shapes the type of people they grow into and the choices they make about their own lives.
[2] One person went through my last several posts at the time and pointed out how they were all negative, and in fact the entire title of the blog is negative. I guess he didn't read back far enough to the last time I blathered on about the cute thing my kid did. So I had a string of critical posts in a row - what a shocker for a personal blog.
[3] Which doesn't mean that I don't appreciate comments disagreeing with me. It's always helpful to hear other sides. And so although I changed the content of this post based on comments where the commenters disagreed with me, one of the changes I made was to remove identifying information around the original comments i.e. not quote individuals and call out their specific comments. Also, there are ways to disagree with people respectfully, which dbt and daddychip did, and there are ways to disagree with people disrespectfully, which anonymous did. I'd like to think I handle the former well but I admit I lack skills in handling the latter.

Comments

[Anonymous friend]

Have you considered that taking EVERYTHING as negative, complaining that it's unfair that somewhere, there's someone who thinks you're wrong, or that EVERYTHING someone says to you even when it's positive is really just a veiled slur, is a serious problem?

It's one thing to be analytical, but I think you've taken it too far.

Enjoyment of life happens when YOU enjoy your life. Go live it, and be happy with yourself. If you don't like the way you're living it, change it so that's fixed. But don't worry what someone else thinks.

[dbt]

Footnote 2: Whiny men really suck too.

And regarding your general article, I do think you're wrong. It is good for him to get to spend more time with his mom. You are going to be a part of him for a long long time.

No matter how nice his day care is, he'll never see most of the caregivers there again once he turns 5. I think it's good for him for you to be there.

As for the people who think you're doing the right thing, well, maybe you feel like you have to sell it to yourself as selfishness? And even if it is purely selfish, maybe they were telling you "good for you" because it was, you know, good for you. Which dovetails nicely with your supposed motive.

I know the feeling you have, though. I've always felt like an outsider for as long as I can remember, and that usually meant that established ideas in the mainstream were, to me, wrong. So your natural reflex when a group of people agree is to immediately take a contrarian position. It's just that, in this case, it's not warranted. Sometimes the mob is right.