Naomi Schaefer Riley

Naomi Schaefer Riley

Opinion

Extended families are like gold for working moms

In a column that went viral a few weeks ago, former Washington Post reporter Allison Klein explained why she quit her job to become a stay-at-home mom:

“I cobbled together a delicate system to make things work. . . Fit 10 hours of work into eight hours, and secretly spend two of those hours doing something kid-related; come home harried and then try to find the reserves to play with the kids, make dinner, give the kids a bath and put them to bed, and secretly spend some of that time tying up lose ends at work. Then clean the kitchen and pass out from exhaustion as your husband walks in the door. . . Repeat. Day after day.”

Working mothers understand the drill. For the cover of the new book “Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has Time,” Brigid Schulte (another Washington Post reporter) says she merely copied her actual to-do lists — “chicken cutlets,” “mortgage refinance,” “find geometry tutor.”

The minds of working mothers are a constant jumble of responsibilities, each demanding our attention at the same time. And it often seems as if there is no backup plan. If we don’t do it — or work hard enough to afford to pay someone else to — it won’t get done.

You know who doesn’t live in this same state of constant frenzy? People who live near their extended families — people who can call grandma when things get too much.

That’s how it seems to me, anyway. I recently interviewed a couple, Lisa and Adam. Five years ago, they were both professionals working in Washington, DC, thinking about how they wanted to raise kids, when the answer came to them: They quit their jobs and moved back to the town they both came from in rural upstate New York, where Lisa’s parents still own the dairy farm she grew up on.

Today, Lisa has gone into business for herself; Adam’s firm continued to employ him as long as he came to the DC offices two days a week. They have three daughters under the age of 5.

Lisa says she has “achieved the cliché,” explaining: “It actually does take a village to raise my children.” Though her mom isn’t their regular source of child-care, Lisa often gets help from her parents and her in-laws. Her three older sisters, who all moved back home to raise their families after they got their college and professional degrees, are also an integral part of the family’s life.

Her children are growing up with any number of adult role models, not to mention ready-made playmates. And Lisa is “much less stressed” thinking about her aging parents and in-laws. “To be able to do the little odds and ends for them is important. And we can have an impact on the decisions they make about the long term.”

I see Lisa’s story played out wherever couples are living in close proximity to extended family: Working mothers don’t feel the same weight of the world on their shoulders; husbands and wives fight less about dividing the responsibilities, because there are more people to help shoulder the burdens.

One woman I interviewed in Westchester told me she refers to her father as “the super” because he fixes things around the house when her husband, who works long hours, can’t be there.

Kids in these families seem to have more of the fun and spontaneity missing from the overscheduled lives of their peers. Adult children can share responsibilities for parents as they get older.

If you ask the experts what will change the situation of stressed-out working moms, you typically get one of three responses: 1) America needs universal child care. 2) Men need to do more. If we divided child care between men and women 50-50 (there’s even a book, “Getting to 50-50”), then women wouldn’t feel so pressured to do it all. And some will suggest, 3) Women need to cut back on their careers.

The problem is, none of these solutions is particularly viable. Most families have become used to the income they have and don’t want to cut back. Uncle Sam is hardly on the verge of giving everyone free day care. And though women may say they want a 50-50 split, most women don’t trust their husbands to do half.

What’s left then is looking outside our nuclear families and the pols in Washington for help.

A few weeks ago, I attended a retirement party for my mother. She doesn’t live around the corner from us, but she’s already spent a week here helping out.

After 28 years of running a think tank, her colleagues and the city she worked to improve will surely miss her. I, on the other hand, am looking forward to finally having a backup plan.