Mom as Metaphor : Women: Not all are born nurturers, but that doesn’t preclude their having a happy family life.

“At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal,” Barbara Bush advised the Wellesley graduates. “You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend or a parent.”

It would be lovely if all women’s lives were that clearly defined, but they are not. There are, for better or for worse, different kinds of women, just as there are different types of men. Progress for women in the ‘90s will require a more subtle look at the problems that continue to weaken and dishearten working mothers in the real world.

There are indeed some women who are able to put a finger on their clear internal priorities, as Mrs. Bush suggests; they realize that they are truly happiest when they are nurturing their families. They feel relatively unambivalent about being home full-time, working very hard to take care of family life, often facilitating a very demanding career for a husband.

It is convenient for everyone when this is the case; the woman has her dreams and aspirations fulfilled, the man has love and support for a career that usually well needs it, and the children grow up with a life in which their needs represent the raison d’etre of someone else’s life. Fulfillment of these women’s passions and attending to their family’s daily needs are fortuitously synonymous.

In reality, however, many women cannot say that about themselves. While they do derive profound pleasure from their family and marital life, they also take great satisfaction and a sense of esteem from the work they do outside the home. Their talents and temperaments are such that their being home full-time to nurture is not the best thing for anyone.

Our history is replete with examples of great writers, business executives, litigators, scientists and the like whose passions took them away from family life for periods of time. Had they forgone an expression of these talents, at the end of their lives there would indeed have been regrets.

It has been difficult for our society to face this dichotomized female identity for several reasons. First is the collective American fantasy that posts “real” women at home every day, waiting for the children as they arrive from school, lending an immediate ear, offering yummy snacks and otherwise attending to them.

This fantasy demonstrates the difference between wishes and needs. While we may all wish for the metaphorical Mom who will satisfy our every need promptly, what we actually need in a mother is a woman who knows herself, listens to her own internal cues and strikes a balance that will accommodate both her needs and those of her family. It has been tough for us to admit that for women to realize their potential, often other members of the family, society and outside help may be necessary to aid family life.

It has been all too convenient for our society to hold women to the family identity alone. In the many years that women were literally disallowed from practicing professions and denied admission to institutions, society was allowed to avoid its own responsibility to provide support for such necessary programs as maternity leave and flexible work hours.

In current American society, basic protections to aid family life are still not provided. It is Barbara Bush’s husband himself who purportedly plans to veto the Family and Medical Leave Act, should he be given the chance. First it must get through Congress, of which 96% of the members are men who, no doubt, have relied on “nurturers” for maintaining family life. This is the persistent double standard with which we live.

There is yet another group of women in the real world, those for whom entanglements with children are not a primary priority. They choose not to be parents, but to make contributions in other ways. This should be neither unimaginable nor the object of needless and wasteful value judgments. The fantasy that all women are created to have the ultimate and complete joy solely in family life is just that: a fantasy. Women, their families and society all stand to gain from a more complete view of women.