Parenthood Juggle: Wanting it All

From the backseat of the car comes the tiny voice of my four-year-old daughter, Zoë, reciting the list of what she wants to be when she grows up: “dolphin trainer, jockey, doctor, mom . . .” Motherhood is the constant in this otherwise evolving series. Along with a career, being a mom always made my list too. When I was a teenager, I imagined myself working in a high-powered law firm, wearing the latest fashions as I strolled to my NYC office. But that vision coexisted peacefully with an equally clear vision of myself as a mother of two or three kids, who I would be at home to raise, as my mom was. From the age of 10 when ran to tell my best friend “the best news you can imagine!” (that my mom was pregnant again), I had dreamed of babies. While we were dating, my future husband often wondered aloud how I would react to my own babies considering I couldn’t help but giggle with joy every time I was around someone else’s (it hasn’t been all giggling, by the way, though there is plenty of it). But as I progressed through college, I became more practical, maybe even defeatist, about the juggling that motherhood and a career would entail. My freshman plans to shoot for a career in the Foreign Service were quickly tempered by doubt that I would find a husband willing to follow me to remote and uncomfortable corners of the globe and fears about what raising a family in such circumstances would entail. In fact, my major at the time, International Studies, seemed entirely too unpredictable to square with a family. Would it bring me a job? One with a kid-friendly schedule? Would it require moving when it wasn’t convenient for other members of the family?

I started dating my future husband, Josh, my sophomore year at BYU. I was barely 19. He was 21, freshly returned from a mission, and an aspiring filmmaker. We had gone to the same high school and had many mutual friends who were getting married, the female halves of the couples often dropping out of college in the process. We wanted none of that, so even though we both knew we were destined for marriage by the end of our first date, we tried to slow things down. We didn’t admit to ourselves that we were a serious couple until we had seen each other exclusively and daily for several months. And it would be nearly three years before we would marry. In the meantime, I earned straight As in school, Josh studied and worked in film, making connections and honing his skills, and we tried to figure out how to have it all-the careers and the family we wanted.

I first switched my major to English teaching, thinking that it would be a safe choice and would work with my future kids’ schedules once they were in school. But it turned out it was too safe; I wasn’t interested in spending the rest of my life in junior high or high school, institutions I had gratefully left for the more intellectually stimulating life of college. I dropped the teaching degree, decided to minor in political science as a nod toward my love of all things international, and-the year after we were married-opted for a super-senior year that would allow me to finish BYU’s newly introduced editing minor. I was intent on having career (not just job) options with my humanities degree, no matter what educational step I took next.

The question of what to do next was difficult to answer. PhD? Law school? I had the grades, the smarts, and the work ethic to get into a top school and become that high-powered attorney I had envisioned being as a teenager. But the prospect of amassing debt that would enslave me to 80-hour workweeks terrified me. I knew I wanted a career, but I still wanted to be as much of a full-time mom as I could be. I didn’t want to be bound by a decision made before the transformation that I knew would be motherhood. I settled on an English MA, also at BYU. I got a full-tuition scholarship, Josh continued building his film resume, and I thrived in graduate school. I also thrived in the copy editing job I had started with an academic publisher. Promoted to associate editor after a year, I loved the current events research, international correspondence, and writing I was doing for the educational cultural guides I worked on. Happy at work and ready to start having kids, I did not apply for PhD programs after I graduated, despite several professors strongly urging me to do so. After a blissful year of regular work hours (no research or teaching prep hanging over my head), time to work on the small house we had purchased, and traveling with Josh, I got pregnant with Zoë.

I had the luxury of working from home for the first year of Zoe’s life. After nursing her at 5am, I would log a couple of hours, work intermittently throughout the day in-line with her schedule, and wrap up my work day around 11pm. I may not have had time for hobbies, to clean the house regularly, or even shower daily, but I was staying strong in my career (which can and has at times supported us by itself), and I wasn’t missing a second of my sweet baby’s life. When I finally did go back to work, I again benefitted from enormous flexibility-I went into the office for 4 hours of my choosing, while Josh watched Zoë, and I worked the rest of my full-time hours during her nap and after she went to bed. This pattern continued after the birth of my son, Nico, who is now 2 years old. Josh largely works from home, and for the most part we’re able to juggle our schedules such that one of us is always with the kids. If not, we have two sets of grandparents and a great-grandma who regularly help with babysitting. When Josh is away for weeks at a time on a shoot, family and my work flexibility become indispensable.

On paper, it seems like the dream of our dating years has come to fruition-we are able to have it all. I never miss a dance recital or weekday swimming lessons, I have a career that combines everything I have studied and love and which I thoroughly enjoy, and Josh has become an increasingly successful filmmaker. But there have been plenty of sacrifices we didn’t foresee. For one, there is the nagging feeling that I could have been more ambitious in my educational and career choices and that Josh’s career would have benefitted from a move to LA (away from the stability and flexibility of my job and from the village that helps raise our children, our families). Though I love being in the thick of international news, surveying photography of other countries, and corresponding with freelance journalists, I often feel the pull to be the freelance journalist or the recipient of that consulate assignment. There is also the feeling of never having enough time. Weekends are for piled-up dishes, catching up on laundry, and paying the bills. Time for recreation is very limited, as is quality time with Josh. Though we work as a team throughout the day and into the night, we are very rarely fully present when we’re together, and that can take its toll on a marriage. But we’re getting better at factoring our less obvious needs into the careful balance that is our lives and being grateful for the chance we have to enjoy fulfilling careers, time as a family, and a future that forever allows for the possibility of reinvention.

–Submitted by Rachel Ligiari

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