Glass Ceilings and 100-Hour Couples: What the Opt-Out Phenomenon Can Teach Us about Work and Family

THIRTEEN. Creative Strategies for Making Work “Work”

163 chapter thirteen  Creative Strategies for Making Work “Work” All around the country, the women were waking up. meg wolitzer, The Ten-Year Nap, 2008  Women are resourceful, and whether they work full-time, part-time, or according to some other arrangement, they employ creative strategies to manage their situations. For the most part, women herald flexibility as the number one job characteristic to help them balance work and family. Flexibility can take many forms, with varying benefits to the employee, including reduced hours, flexible start and end times, and telecommuting. Flexible work arrangements do not necessarily equate to part-time work, however. A flexible employer might require a full-time work commitment, but allow the work to be done outside of the office or during nonstandard work hours. Earlier we explored the lives of at-home moms; here we focus on the strategies women use to balance paid work and family. These strategies include sequencing, reducing work hours, forgoing advancements at work, reprioritizing nonwork time, choosing to live in family-friendly communities, and, for those who continue to “hit it hard” at work—making the most of flexible work arrangements. Sequencing: Having It All, Just Not All at Once Feeling torn between their careers and their families, some women feel that they just can’t do the quality of work they expect of them- 164 Chapter Thirteen selves and have the family life they desire at the same time. Not wanting to “just get by” either at work or at home, for some of these women, sequencing career and family is a way around the quandary. Coined in the late 1980s by Arlene Cardozo, “sequencing ” has come to be understood as a way that women can balance work and family by ordering or “sequencing” child-raising and career .1 Cardozo’s argument of “having it all, just not all at once” has gained traction in the past decade, resonating with American women who want to spend time as an at-home mom without losing their professional identities. Sequencing can be accomplished in different ways. In one sequence , a woman might focus on family concerns while in her twenties and then begin her career after the children have gone to school. Famous examples of women who have successfully navigated this type of sequencing include former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, the first woman to hold that office and at that time the highest-ranking woman in the history of the United States government ; Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female Supreme Court justice ; and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to lead an American political party. An alternative sequence might entail finishing college and graduate school, pushing forward on a career, and then once established, leaving work to tend to family. Once the children are older, this sequence continues with a return to the paid labor force. Of course, women’s lives are more complicated than the black-and-white description of these sequences. Some work fulltime when their children are small and then sequence home when the children reach middle school. Others continue to keep some attachment to work even when “at home” by doing freelance or consulting work. In fact, the concept of sequencing has evolved to include women who reduce work hours to part-time or change careers for family reasons, in addition to those who quit their job. That said, most of the women in our study fall into this second type of sequencing—women who established their careers first, and then sequenced home. Creative Strategies for Making Work “Work” 165 Reducing Hours at Work Sequencing is not always a feasible or desirable option. For these women an obvious way to relieve the stresses associated with juggling a high-powered career and a family is to reduce the time spent at work. These reductions might include eliminating overtime, such as the woman who reported, “I still work full-time, but now I work forty hours per week instead of sixty-plus.” Others move from fulltime to part-time positions, and the designs of part-time arrangements vary widely. Firms are now more likely to have part-time options for their employees than ever before. One lawyer credits her law firm for providing “excellent flexibility to work on various parttime schedules for many years at 80 percent of a full-time equivalent while advancing professionally. Still a...