In this week’s episode of Best of Both Worlds, Sarah interviews Nancy Reddy, author of the new book The Good Mother Myth. They talk through many of these myths — those that apply to the early years and the later parenting years too — with a nod to where they came from and where we might go next.

In the Q&A we tackle a question on how to find babysitters. Please give the episode a listen! And please consider joining our Best of Both Worlds Patreon community. This week we’ll be gathering by Zoom on Wednesday at 2 p.m. eastern to discuss “The Adventure Project” — little ways to keep life more interesting.

On Friday, he and I drove into NYC. Despite living in NYC for 9 years, I basically never drove there. I didn’t own a car and when we rented one for weekend excursions, my husband would drive. But, having driven in NYC a few weeks ago for my TBT In Real Life filming, I decided it wasn’t that bad. And thus I drove through the Lincoln tunnel, and parked in a garage near our mid-town hotel.

We walked around Times Square, got Starbucks (of course!), and ate at a burger place. Then I got myself mentally ready for 3.5 hours of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

For anyone familiar with this play, apparently it originally ran something like 6 hours over two nights. To make this more doable in an American theater context, it was shortened to 3.5 hours and one night. A few parts still dragged a bit, but I appreciated that whenever something was getting too sappy or dramatic, they’d throw a funny line in there. That made the length less noticeable. And the special effects were pretty good! Not to spoil anything, but my son really enjoyed the Dementors.

In the morning, we walked to Central Park (after getting Starbucks again!). We circled the pond, taking in the sights. Then we checked out of the hotel, stored our luggage, and headed (via cab) downtown to the World Trade Center.

When my son and I visited NYC a few years ago together we had gone to the top of the Empire State Building. So this time, it was to the top of One World Trade Center. After paying our respects at the footprints of the old towers, we got in the elevator and rode (fast!) up to the top. The observatory was lovely on a clear day, and we could see the building where we lived until 2011. We had lunch in the cafe, then headed back uptown to collect our luggage, and our car, and I drove back out the Lincoln Tunnel without incident.

It was fun seeing NYC through my son’s eyes. He loved the theater district and the bustle of Times Square at night. He’s now decided he wants to do a summer program in NYC next summer. I remember going to see Phantom of the Opera when I was 18 and feeling just as enamored with the city…which is why I wound up moving there in 2002.

Now I just need to figure out one more Mommy Day for the 7-year-old. He has requested Chuck E. Cheese. Something of a different vibe! But hey, it’s about what the kid wants…

By Jennifer D. Sciubba

One of my prized possessions is a 1967 Teen Guide to Homemaking textbook, found years ago in a successful dig through the thrift store shelves. On the cover is the side profile of a sweet strawberry blonde with a pink bow in her bobbed hair. Inside, girls and boys learn the basics of ironing and good nutrition—including plenty of then-in-vogue canned food. In the section on career advice, the authors explain that boys and girls might have different goals when it comes to a career. They say that a girl “can be pretty sure that she will have to know how to be a homemaker and mother,” and so her career outside the home likely won’t be as important as it would be to a boy.

The world teens live in today is radically different from the world in 1967 when the Susans and Tommys of America were reading the Teen Guide to Homemaking, but has the gender revolution completely freed women from those societal constraints? Is the struggle over?

Sociologist Arlie Hochschild tried to answer those very questions. She studied married women working full-time, with husbands who were also working full-time and who had kids ages 6 and under; in other words, me when I was writing the first draft of this book. She watched them come home from work, fold laundry while on the phone, give the kids baths, and so on. She chronicled her observations in her book The Second Shift, in which she argued that although there had been a lot of changes in gender roles across the decades, there were still larger societal issues making some women question whether getting married and having kids was worth it. Working both a first shift outside the home and a second shift inside it was exhausting.

Multiple pressures on women is a global issue. Researchers Mary Brinton and Dong-Ju Lee find that post-industrial societies that encourage women to work outside the home while also painting them as natural caregivers have lower fertility because they impose conflicting narratives on women. We can see this difficult dynamic in East Asia. In much of East Asia, it’s the norm that men are breadwinners and women are responsible for household and child-rearing duties, but women are also welcome to work. With this gender-role ideology, women struggle to reconcile work outside the home and family responsibilities. As a result, they often have only one or two children or forgo childbearing altogether. In low-fertility Japan, a 2009 survey by the East-West Center showed that Japanese wives of reproductive age did 27 hours a week of household duties while their husbands only did 3—and most of those wives worked a paid job, too. Having a family continues to be incompatible with work for Japanese women. An OECD study of 18 member countries ranked Japan second from last “in terms of coverage and strength of policies for work-family reconciliation and family-friendly work arrangements,” and pointing out that “Japan’s childcare coverage and parental leave offered by employers are both especially weak.”

In contrast, when women are discouraged from working, their role as homemakers and mothers is clearer, and fertility is higher, but it’s the interaction between gender norms and labor-market conditions that affects fertility, not just one or the other. Fertility is actually lower in countries where men and women have equal roles, because these norms lock women into a particular lifestyle rather than give them a range of socially acceptable choices about how to combine work and family. Countries that have more flexible arrangements, rather than strict equality, have higher relative fertility, as we see in Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Finding ways to reduce the pressures on women and share household tasks can be an effective way to support women who do want children.

How does that play out in the United States? At first glance, it seems like mothers in the US have perfect freedom to choose whether or not to work outside the home, and the US does have a higher fertility rate than many countries, but if we look deeper we must acknowledge those choices are highly constrained. “Flexibility” without supportive social structures (like affordable and available childcare before school ages) means that some women who might want children will choose not to have them, and those who might want several might settle for smaller families.

The answer isn’t to prevent women from working, it’s to put policies in place to meaningfully support their choices, policies that are likely to result in higher fertility overall, with benefits to the size of the working-age population in the long run.

Pumping takes a lot of time. Nursing mothers who choose to pump at work generally need to stop what they’re doing multiple times during the work day for some amount of time (often 30 minutes or so, plus pump assembly and milk storage takes time…). Some folks are able to continue working while pumping, but this doesn’t always work. Pumping also isn’t a particularly pleasant experience, especially if you are aiming for a certain number of ounces and seem to feed a child more easily than you fill a bottle. (Cue watching the drops…)

Sarah and my advice was to let a lot of other things go, and recognize that these rough months wouldn’t last forever, but some people noted that we could have mentioned that pumping is optional.

So, in case anyone is wondering, pumping is 100 percent optional! Breastfeeding itself is optional, but pumping is especially so. This listener was a few weeks back at work after a 5 month maternity leave, so the baby was pretty much old enough to be starting solid foods anyway (at around 6 months). It might be possible to scale down the pumping (to maybe once a day), have the baby scale up the solids during the work day and nurse in the morning, and after work and more on demand on weekends. Or the listener could skip pumping entirely, and use formula during the work day and nurse when she wasn’t at work. All of these would be ways to continue breastfeeding without some of the time pressure.

However, I do know from long experience talking with new parents that the belief is out there that feeding breastmilk exclusively (whether nursing or pumping or some combination thereof) until age 12 months is what a good mother “must” do. I can disagree with this story — plenty of amazing moms do not do this — but I know it can be a deeply held belief.

Less fraught: There are also a number of moms who do enjoy breastfeeding and would like to keep it up as long as possible, and who find it easier to nurse at night/mornings/weekends when the supply is high, which pumping frequently does facilitate.

In any case, if you do want to breastfeed for a while, and intend to go back to work before a baby is 12 months old, there are a few options.

Obviously extending a maternity leave as much as possible helps. A three month old baby needs to be fed more frequently, and can only have milk/formula. A six month old baby is a different story. (Of course, our listener had already done this, so it’s not a fool proof answer for lowering breastfeeding stress.)

Working from home as much as possible for the few months after returning to work is also a good way to have the best of both worlds. If you have a nanny (or other parent/relative) caring for your baby, you can have that person bring you the baby at feeding times. I have found it possible to edit or type one-handed or be on some phone calls while nursing (you start dividing your contacts into People I Can Call While Nursing A Baby and People I Cannot Call While Nursing A Baby). Since you’re not commuting, this can also make for a shorter day away from the baby.

Post-Covid this is an option for a lot more jobs than it used to be. It doesn’t have to be either/or — working from home 2-3 days per week and from the office 2-3 days per week would still reduce the total number of feedings that must be pumped.

I know not all jobs can be done from home. For those that can’t be, negotiating for a temporary part-time schedule if you want to breastfeed exclusively might make the first few months back at work feel more doable (though it is going to involve a pay cut that might make life feel less doable…so your mileage may vary). If the organization knows this is not forever, but just for 6 months or so, that might make it easier to get to yes. Then this would reduce the number of feedings away from the baby too.

As for the pumps themselves, I know that some people have had luck with Elvie and Willow and other such “wearable” (and theoretically quiet) pumps. I bought one and was planning to try it out with my fifth kid during long airplane rides and such — and then Covid happened and I didn’t leave the house for months, to the point where the baby refused to even take a bottle. So! I welcome reports of other people’s experiences with whether that made it possible to work while pumping. Again, not all work is the same — it might be possible to do a phone call with a wearable pump but potentially not lead a class of first graders…

If you worked away from home and pumped, what tips would you add for the listener?

In other news: I thought that my trip to Paris might lead the toddler to lose interest in “mommy milk.” I did not bring my pump, though (perhaps TMI) I did express milk daily. I returned home Thursday night, took him upstairs with some “baba milk” and rocked him. He drank the bottle for a while, then looked at me and said “Me want mommy milk.” I guess he didn’t forget. It’s fine. He won’t still be breastfeeding while learning to drive.

In other other news: Friend of the blog Camille Pagán has a brand new novel out this week! It’s called Everything Must Go, and it’s got her trademark witty take on women’s relationships with family and friends. Plus, the main character is a professional organizer, so the “everything must go” concept takes on multiple meanings…If you have a Kindle Unlimited account, then the book is free. Please check it out!

So, for instance, Monday morning I drove the teenager to school with the 2-year-old in tow. I woke up the 12- and 10-year-old before leaving. They were in charge, and needed to get themselves ready. I came home, woke up the 7-year-old, and then loaded all of them in the car to drop the 12-year-old at school and the 10-year-old at a before school activity. Then I came home for 20 minutes before driving the 7-year-old to school (with the toddler). Then the toddler and I hung out together until he could go to his care. In the afternoon I picked the 10- and 7-year-old up at school, brought them home, left 30 minutes later with the 12-year-old for fencing (leaving the 14-year-old in charge), dropped him off, drove to get the toddler from his care, drove back to fencing, picked the 12-year-old up and drove home. I put on the Dinosaur Train “Classic in the Jurassic” in the minivan DVD player and we managed to get through the entire DVD on Monday.

The big kids have helped out. For instance, I was able to leave the toddler with the 14-year-old for about 50 minutes so he didn’t have to go to the 10-year-old’s karate belt testing. But the poor little guy has had to go to a lot. He came to the 7-year-old’s parkour class last night (7:15 to 8:15 p.m., a great time for a toddler!) and we colored the picture that is accompanying this post. Drawing each circle and then letting him color it in (I did some of the coloring too, as you can probably guess…) took about 30 seconds apiece, and enough of them fills an hour…

On the work front, I managed to get done what I needed to get done in the compressed hours — but it was very much an intense push. I guess there are just some days where hours need to give whatever you ask of them. I was glad for little things, like that my daughter’s karate class got out early last night, so I was home at 6:20 instead of 6:30, which made cranking out grilled cheese sandwiches for the whole crew a slightly less rushed enterprise before I was back in the car at 6:55.

There’s no real larger point to this post. Potentially we need some more driving and logistical support, but given that the older 2 kids can stay home with younger siblings, it is doable. I did get about 5.75 focused hours each day to do things. And theoretically there shouldn’t be too many days like these. They just aren’t so fun while they’re happening…

This past Saturday was the only day that was going to work. Cherry blossom experts predicted the peak would be March 22-25. Next weekend is more problematic. Sunday tends to be church and activities, plus it was a lot chillier. So I was watching the bloomcam that’s on the top of the DC Mandarin Oriental like a fiend, seeing whether the blossoms would be out. A handful of 70 degree days last week meant that many were!

So we decided to go. It was not the world’s easiest trip. We hit traffic and the toddler screamed for quite a while because he was having trouble going down for a nap in his carseat (and, it turns out, may have been getting sick — he vomited all over me and him on Sunday late afternoon. Yikes…). We stopped at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum first, and while it was fun to see the rockets, half the museum was closed for renovations. The 7-year-old just could not stop complaining about the walk down to the Tidal Basin and the 2-year-old had to be carried much of the way (he doesn’t do well in the stroller). On the way home our van’s tire air indicator started blinking alarmingly, and so we had to stop at a gas station and use the air machine.

But the blossoms were indeed beautiful! Even if they weren’t quite at peak puffy gorgeousness yet, a great many were out, and because we were a day or two early the crowds weren’t too intense. I’m glad we went — remembering self and all that.

Anyway, the point of this post: Obviously this trip had to be planned into our family’s weekend schedule. Very few things can ever happen spur of the moment — hence my stalking of the bloom cam. With five kids and their stuff, we always have activities or friend get togethers that need to be built into the model. We needed a day where we had open space within a few days of the peak forecast. We had a limited window to get down to DC after the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby in the AM and before the Air & Space museum closed. Much of my life has to be meticulously planned to hit windows like this.

Theoretically, planning seems like it would be in opposition to spontaneity. There is planning things out, and then there is being open to what comes. These are different personality types! There are those of us who like to structure things, and those of us who dwell in possibility, or however you want to characterize it.

But I think the two tend to work hand in hand. We have spontaneous fun experiences because we have plans. For instance, because I planned the DC trip, with two anchors in it (Air & Space museum + cherry blossoms) we were there on the Mall, where a lot more interesting stuff happens than at our house. We all got to pick snacks from the dozens of food trucks lined up near the Smithsonian museums. It’s always an adventure to be able to pick freely between snow cones, Mexican food, falafels, and so forth! Then we walked past an agricultural exhibit and got to stop and see some really tricked out tractors and other farm machinery. This was incredibly exciting for certain members of the family (the toddler called one combine harvester a lawn mower, which I guess is true in a way…). We had no idea that would be there but it was certainly a bonus.

Now I suppose it would have been possible to plan a DC trip that didn’t allow for any spontaneity, but that’s not my style. (An upside of driving is we had the flexibility to leave when we wanted). Or perhaps seven people would have just wound up spontaneously somewhere fascinating without any planning whatsoever, though that tends not to happen in my life. Maybe in someone’s? It’s probably more possible if there’s only one of you.

In my case, having a reasonably thought through plan for the weekend increases the chances that we can do stuff other than kid sports and lessons. When we do our planned adventures, we tend to experience some spontaneous fun along the way that helps keep life interesting. So I tend to think the two aren’t really in opposition. They can work together to create memories. 

In other news: This weekend’s baking project was vegan banana chocolate chip muffins. They turned out pretty well!

I ran the Frostbite 5-miler, and while my time was not spectacular (10:57 min/miles) it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was in the middle. I also went (by myself!) to a chamber orchestra concert in downtown Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon. Some other combinations of people went to a movie on Friday night. We had some friends over at one point, there was night skiing, the 14-year-old got to meet up with friends at the mall AND he cashed in his Christmas present to go see Wicked in NYC. He and I got tickets, and then my husband and two other older children came in to go see the American Museum of Natural History. We ate lunch at the Carnegie Diner and did a lot of reminiscing as we walked through Central Park. Wicked was pretty fun — a good Broadway musical to bring kids to. I forget how close the city is (1 hour and 50 minutes with no traffic, which there really wasn’t on the way there). Now that some of the kids are older we should probably go in more often.

But perhaps not with the toddler. My most vivid memory of the weekend may be taking my 2-year-old to the grocery store on Saturday. I have five kids, so I’ve had a reasonable number of grocery-store-with-toddler experiences, but this one was one for the books. I’m talking throwing bottles of mustard off the shelves, lying down in the middle of the aisle and screaming. Wow! I just had to laugh because it was so ridiculous.

Photo: From lunch at the Carnegie Diner & Cafe

And the legacy system is…interesting. Most notably: It starts beeping on the minute, every minute, three times per day. Those times are 8:00 a.m., 6:00 p.m., and 9:00 p.m. (Well, to be precise, according to my phone, 7:59 a.m., 5:59 p.m., and 8:59 p.m., but the system thinks it is on the hour). It is simple enough to turn it off when it starts beeping, but it does not appear to be a simple matter to turn off those 3x day alerts.

I have gone through various states of mind about this. At first I was confused — thinking the beeping was just random. Then, once I realized it was happening every day at the same times, I was incensed (9:00 p.m. is often less than 30 minutes after I have gotten the baby down and when the big kids are going to their beds and an every-minute-on-the-minute beeping is not exactly a welcome addition to that situation).

Of late, I have become more resigned. I view it as a way to mark the hours, much as the medieval monks had a certain schedule of chants and services. Lauds. Complines. Vespers. They provide structure to the day. By 8 a.m., the day should be ready to start (even on weekends). At 6 p.m. the workday is done and dinner should be in process. At 9 p.m. people should be drifting toward in-room quiet time if they are not actually asleep. I could be doing something else, but then I will hear the chime, and realize what time of day it is. Oh yes. It is 6 p.m. again. Time to go do my little ceremony of turning off the beeping. I usually get it before the third beep.

(Interestingly, the other two adults who might be in the house at some of those times are not nearly as bothered by a once-a-minute beep as me, nor are the kids. On the days when I have been out at one of those times, I will come home and occasionally find at, say, 6:15 p.m. that the beep is still happening every minute and everyone is just happily going about their lives.)

Anyway, there is no larger point of this little essay, though I’m sure we all have certain markers we put in the day. In the deepest days of lockdowns, this could actually be a coping strategy. Lunch precisely at noon, outside time at 4:00, dinner precisely at 6:30 to keep the day from being a complete wash of space, inviting existential angst.

As it is, I will be happy not to have the beeping soon. But I have made my peace with it (mostly) for now.

The work continues at the house. A carpet crew was coming to finish the playroom — a room that was originally going to be carpeted a month ago, but due to some under-measuring, and thus under-ordering, was not. They were to come between 9 and 10, but somehow wound up at the wrong house, and did not arrive until 11 or so. I had been looking out the window every 10 minutes trying to find them, since the doorbell isn’t working. Then in the afternoon, some furniture was supposed to be delivered between 1:30 and 3:30. To make sure I found that crew, I was also looking out the window every 10 minutes, hopping up to make sure they would get to the right door. They never came. They claimed to have knocked on my door for 20 minutes, but it wasn’t my house, because out of morbid curiosity I reviewed the outside security camera footage and, nope. Dispatch confirmed the address, so I have no idea what happened.

Anyway, all this was pretty frustrating, as my entire day was taken up with these waiting windows, and at the end of the day, I still didn’t have the furniture.

On the other hand, in the few minutes in between checking for trucks, I at least knocked a bunch of smaller tasks off my list. I managed to write/edit all my weekly Before Breakfast scripts. I worked on podcast notes for Best of Both Worlds. I answered a few time log emails (I am now approximately halfway through the emails I received on January 17th, so I guess that’s progress?) I edited and turned in a book review. I worked with my TBT statistician on updating some numbers. My expectation was that I was going to get nothing done, so with that as the baseline, I kept thinking well, let’s see if I can do a little something. Several somethings add up to a bigger something. Not a full workday, but something.

And then to try to cheer myself up, I put a few little treats into the day. My teenager is taking finals, and only had one yesterday, which was done by 9:30. So we ordered lunch together from a local Asian fusion place (chicken dumplings and rice for him, sushi for me). I watched the sunset from my bedroom window. I took a short soak in my tub. I read in front of the fireplace at night (so nice to be able to turn on a fireplace with a remote control!)

And now today is another day. We have a wallpaper crew here, but they arrived exactly when they said they would, and there are no furniture delivery windows. Some day this house will be done. The kitchen is almost box free at this point! It helped the process when I declared something a “drawer for stuff that has no other home.” Maybe every room needs one of those…

Photo: A clock. I know I have used this before but I’m trying to get this posted before a call and so I am re-using art. 

Over the weekend I did cross a major parenting milestone. The 2-year-old can now reliably sit and watch a video like Peppa Pig or the wide variety of YouTube offerings (“Hazel’s Mom” is a particular favorite). So when my husband took the 10-year-old and 7-year-old out for the afternoon, I left the little guy in the care of the two older boys while I went for a run in the neighborhood. He sat at the computer with the video on, and I had the 12-year-old sit in the same room with him (watching his phone), and basically neither moved for the 30 minutes I was gone. Success!

Speaking of the 2-year-old, he has been on a strike against napping in the crib. So over the weekend, I gave in and let him nap in my lap both days. In related news, my screen time totals on my iPhone are quite high…

I’ve been showering at night because it makes getting ready in the AM much faster. Unfortunately, I’m sometimes cold at night (though we’ve now set the bathroom heat to come on around my shower time). So I’ve come up with the strategy of hanging two towels over the shower door. When I turn the water off, I immediately wrap one around me. Then I can use the other for my hair without getting too shivery.

I also found my real towels this weekend, so I’m no longer using beach towels, though I did like that they were very large.

The 7-year-old recently celebrated a birthday. Since writing is a source of real tension, we had him record video thank yous to the people who gave him gifts. This inspired far less resistance.

We now have our “real” fridge and freezer, which is great, because we have more capacity. One current helpful life strategy is having set meals for certain nights. Wednesday, for instance, is always breakfast-for-dinner day. This tends to be pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, and fruit. Easy, and everyone eats it. Friday is pizza night. This will be make-your-own-pizza night again once we get our oven but for now I’m ordering in. We do Sunbasket kits on Monday and Tuesday (usually) as a way to have some variety. We often have steak one night over the weekend, which only leaves two days to sort out. In the morning, I almost always give kids toaster waffles plus fruit. (Some people add milk, or yogurt, and the occasional handful of chocolate chips). Most people have one toaster waffle, though my daughter has two. If you do the math this means we go through a normal box of toaster waffles in two days. This explains the appeal of Costco!

Photo: Ice on a trail from one of my weekend runs.