The Unknown Candidate: Prioritizing Family Over Work

Monday, July 31, 2006

Prioritizing Family Over Work

Mom's Balancing Act
By Judith Warner
The New York Times

The little media tempest over Katie Couric’s non-refusal to go to Iraq is, in news cycle time, long past. Yet, I’m still hearing echoes about her “wimping out” from male journalist friends. And I’m still feeling that, by having the honesty and courage to publicly admit that there are limits to what she is willing to do as CBS’s new evening anchor, she has done all of us a great service.

Couric did not categorically refuse to report from war zones. But she did say, in late May, when asked if she would go to Iraq after the CBS news correspondent Kimberly Dozier was badly wounded there, “I think the situation there is so dangerous, and as a single parent with two children, that’s something I won’t be doing.” She later said she’d resolve questions of travel on a “case-by-case basis ... it really depends on the situation and what’s happening.”

In other words, if her CBS bosses told her to jump, Couric, unlike most ambitious journalists, wouldn’t immediately answer, “How high?” Family considerations would come first.

It seems to me that Couric — in her mind, at least, as the situation under discussion was hypothetical — was drawing a line in the sand: There are work demands that are appropriate and those that are inappropriate. There are tradeoffs that are reasonable and feasible, and others that simply can’t be reconciled with a life of sole parental responsibility.

Many people have said they believe that Couric is out of line. Being a top journalist, they say, is an if-you-can’t-take-the-heat-get-out-of-the-kitchen situation. Others — and these people seem, generally, to be increasingly vocal these days — feel that Couric’s sense of entitlement, her self-given right to even think “no” to a job demand, is typical of today’s parents, who are always looking for an easy out from job responsibilities that the childless end up having to shoulder.

I disagree very strongly with these people. But I would, on the other hand, qualify my glee at Couric’s statements with the recognition that the freedom to say — or even think — “no” to potential job demands is a privilege enjoyed by very, very few working people. To do it, you either need to be so desirable as to be all but indispensable or so financially well-cushioned that you can afford the fallout from the worst-case consequences of your actions. Couric, of course, is both. Most of us are neither.

Extrapolating from what Couric was able (at least verbally) to do to what most women and men might or ought to do would be a disservice; it would steamroll over the realities of most people’s lives. But still — let’s just fantasize for a moment. Imagine that more women like Couric — women of influence and means, women who have choices and the freedom to live comfortably with the consequences of their choices — started throwing down a gauntlet at work to say: This I will do (my job, all that it reasonably requires), and no more.

No jaunts abroad just to “show the flag.” No less-than-essential meetings or face-time lunches. No excess evenings out wooing clients, no night-time heroics. No posturing. No preening. Just the essentials.

It might be deemed a trend. It might — like all trends involving women of privilege — be perceived as a new norm. Imagine that: Ten-hour days boiled down to eight. Eight-hour days boiled down to six. It’s what working mothers already do — when they can get away with it. It’s what working fathers ought to do — if they’d dare.

I’ve never been a big believer in male or female essences (though discussions of them amuse me to no end). I’ve never quite bought into the notion that if women ruled the world they would change it, making it greener, and nicer, and more peaceful, life-affirming, collaborative and zen. But I do think that working mothers have a mode of operating that is different from that of the cultural mainstream and that ought to be more widely emulated. Born of necessity, it’s about priorities and efficiency and cutting to the chase. If we’re lucky — and if the attitude polls showing that the rising generations of fathers want to spend more time with their kids prove true — it might well spread in the future.

A future in which work and family could be put in the proper perspective would be a fantastic thing. If only we could make doing so viable for people less privileged than Katie Couric.

Judith Warner is the author of "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety" and a contributing columnist for TimesSelect. She will be on vacation during the rest of August, and return in September.

Photo credit: Judith Warner. (The New York Times)