An anonymous question on Quora asked if it was feasible for a woman to combine the roles of mother, wife, and homemaker with a professional career without any external help – in other words – can we do it all ourselves.
I looked up the word “feasible” after I considered, “Is this a question about it being possible, or it being feasible?”
Feasibility means “possible to do easily and conveniently.”
The scenario posed: being a mother, a spouse, a career professional, and a homemaker — each are roles that if desired to excel, are an entire field or industry in its own right.
To combine all these roles means you get to only pick and choose what you are physically, mentally, and emotionally able to achieve within a 16-18 hour period (depends on how much sleep you need per day to go the distance).
This combination is not “possible to do easily and conveniently”.
Even if you were to ask, “is it feasible to do all these WITH help?” I’d still say “No.”
I’m doing all these without help, right now. Someone always suffers, whether it’s me, my husband, my child (and I only have one!), my career (which I will put here as a person, to make things more interesting).
The suffering comes from not getting from me what that person desires the most, which is a combination of quality and quantity of time and attention and presence and interaction and engagement.
I find myself sectioning a file of thoughts running in the background about how I can create viable career futures for myself while I watch my son play wooden blocks.
I find myself thinking about how I should be watching my son play or how I should be writing all the letters I’ve wanted to write my son about our life together in his early years while I’m on the computer performing activities (like this one) that I hope paves another tile in a mosaic of things I want to do with my life.
I find myself feeling guilty about how I don’t spend as much time with my husband anymore, where we find watching a DVD together at night in bed while our son falls asleep next to us is now how we spend couple time.
I find myself somewhat embarrassed that the house is a mess, and there are corners I haven’t cleaned or dusted in years. Yes, years.
I’m at home, but I don’t feel like a homemaker.
I have businesses, but I don’t feel like a business woman.
I’m a mother, but I don’t feel like I’m doing “the whole of mothering”.
I’m a spouse, but I don’t feel like I’m as thoughtful or attentive of my marriage as I’d like to be.
So I find myself splintered in identity, in time, in how I can get things done, in what I can say when people ask me what I do.
Because right now, I really don’t know.
