Re-imagining Our Lives

Caterina has done a wonderful post below about knowing early on that she wanted to be a writer, reading books about women writers and getting the fairly well-informed opinion that being a woman writer and having kids was a tough act to pull off. I agree completely, but ironically, just as she read a book about being a woman writer in her youth which suggested being childless was the best path to follow, I read a book in my youth about how many successful women writers had one child! Colette, the French writer comes to mind as one of their examples. This book did have an influence on my life.

For this reason and many others, I've always been so glad I did have a son and I would say he has probably improved my writing ten fold, although as Caterina reasonably discusses, having a child has probably hindered my writing career in many ways too. There's no point in comparing one way to the other. I make no judgements. I know what worked for me. I would be very sorry not to have become a parent, but I really don't believe that's the best path for all people (men or women).

But when I saw the cover the of The New York Times Magazine yesterday, I bristled. I had read a very interesting book called The Price of Motherhood which argued the idea that women "choose" to be worker bees or at home mother bees or completely exhausted worker/home non-stop drones is a wrong-headed way to look at the situation. They argue that women still don't have a lot of choices -- but rather are forced to choose from a set of not-so-great options and, as women have always been good at, make the best of a bad situation. I still haven't read the Times piece, but from Caterina's description I might like it better than I first imagined.

Are men really forced to choose between parenting over work? Of course not. Men at work with kids are often seen in a better light -- more serious, more mature -- than men without kids. There are still societal pressures at work that make him the "loving dad" when he rolls out of the office at 3PM to catch his son's little league game and she's the "work shirker" if she pulls out of the office at 3PM to take care of a sick kid with an earache. There is still a dreadful double standard which we all reinforce.

And all of us should be using technology -- DUH -- to be both efficient workers and excellent parents. That's the thing that gets me completely crazy. If we can use technology to do anything -- isn't this a reasonable aim? I remember the launch of a new line of products a few years back, that were essentially appliances with embedded monitors -- if you were in the kitchen you could have a monitor in your refrigerator or microwave to check your email, get on the Net. These were laughed off the market. I didn't think they were funny. I thought they were smart. I want to buy and use any product that lets me be connected to the outside world and my kid at the same time.

Isn't it time to re-imagine our lives using technology as an infrastructure for balance, intelligence, connection and productivity?