by Tina Fey in The New Yorker, February 14, 2011
What is the rudest question you can ask a woman?
"How old are you?" "What do you weigh?" "When you and your twin sister are alone with Mr. Hefner, do you have to pretend to be lesbians?" No, the worst question is: "How do you juggle it all?"
My daughter recently checked out a book from the preschool library called "My Working Mom." It had a cartoon witch on the cover. "Did you pick this book out all by yourself?" I asked her, trying to be nonchalant. Yes.
We read the book, and the witch mother was very busy and sometimes reprimanded her daughter for messing things up near her cauldron. She had to fly away to a lot of meetings, and the witch's child said something like "It's hard having a working mom, especially when she enjoys her work."
In the heartwarming conclusion, the witch mother makes it to the child's school play at the last second, and the witch's child says she doesn't like having a working mom but she can't picture her mom any other way. I didn't love it. I'm sure the two men who wrote this book had the absolute best intentions, but this leads me to my point. The topic of working moms is a tap-dance recital in a minefield.
"How do you juggle it all?" people constantly ask me, with an accusatory look in their eyes. "You're screwing it all up, aren't you?" their eyes say. My standard answer is that I have the same struggles as any working parent but with the good fortune to be working at my dream job.
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