Super-Stressed Super Moms Learn to Juggle Lives

At 35, Kristine Jablonski has a husband, 7-year-old twins, a toddler and a career. All she needs now is a 30-hour day.

“The women’s movement did wonderful things, but it also created problems for women because it gave us the idea that it’s possible to have it all,” Jablonski says.

Now that the Yorba Linda resident is raising three children, she says she knows better. She’s decided to work part time until they’re all in school because, she says, that’s the only way she can maintain a sense of balance between her roles as wife, mother and career woman.

Jablonski, a registered nurse, has lost some momentum in her career, but something had to give because, she discovered, the superwoman of the ‘80s was nothing but a fantasy.

“A lot of women still struggle with this mythical idea that there’s a perfect mom out there who is doing it all. But there’s no one like that, though some people put up a pretty good facade,” says Jablonski, who has a master’s degree in psychiatric nursing.

In the support groups for working mothers that she leads in her private counseling practice and at St. Jude Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in Fullerton, Jablonski meets many women who don’t have the options she had. They may want to spend more time with their children but cannot afford to cut back their work hours, and many are essentially working two full-time jobs because their husbands never learned to change a diaper, scramble an egg or scrub a sink.

For those who find themselves doing it all and not feeling very good about anything they do, Jablonski has this message: “Embrace your limitations; it’s OK not to be a perfect human being.”

She would like that to become the motto for women in the ‘90s--and so would the working mothers who attended a recent support group session at St. Jude.

Jablonski started the group because, she explains, “I wanted women to know they’re not alone out there. They need to feel cared for and nurtured because they’re doing so much nurturing and not getting much in return.”

During eight weeknight sessions held over a six-month period, she helps working mothers understand the unrealistic expectations that make their complicated lives so stressful. She started a recent meeting by coaching four women through some breathing exercises to help them unwind, then asked them to define the perfect wife, mother and career woman.

One woman said the perfect wife keeps her house immaculate and does all the cooking--the way her mother did. But unlike her mother, this woman works outside the home.

“I feel guilty when I’m on the floor with the baby and dinner isn’t on the table and my house isn’t perfect,” she said.

The women defined a perfect mom as a Donna Reed type, who spends every spare moment with her children, has cookies and milk waiting for them after school, never loses her temper and keeps up on the latest child-rearing theories.

Their ideal working woman is willing to work late and take on extra projects, hardly ever takes time off--and never admits when she does stay home that she’s caring for a sick child.

As long as women measure their performance against standards like these, they are setting themselves up for disappointment--and guilt, Jablonski says.

“Be gentle with yourself,” she advised the women in her group. “You are doing the best you can in a tough situation.”

Working mothers should not only expect less of themselves but also should ask more of their husbands, Jablonski says.

Although she acknowledges that many men are doing far more in the home than their fathers did, she says 50-50 partnerships are almost nonexistent. When a man wants a night out, he just goes; a woman usually has to ask her husband to “baby-sit,” Jablonski says. And usually, a woman has to ask her husband to do specific tasks at home or she ends up doing them herself.

Vicki Lewis, a 31-year-old La Habra resident who participates in the St. Jude support group, says her husband is “very supportive” but doesn’t anticipate their 2-year-old daughter’s needs the way she does. She’d like him to pack Briana’s bag for the next day, but she worries that he’d forget that extra outfit the toddler is sure to need.

“He helps me out quite a bit, but I still take on more responsibility with Briana,” she says.

Jablonski says some women make life harder for themselves because they aren’t willing to let go of control so their husbands can take on more responsibility.

“Obviously, if he’s going to put bleach in the dark load, he needs to be educated,” Jablonski said. “But a lot of times we don’t allow our husband to do it his way because we think he won’t do as good a job as we would.”

Julie, a 32-year-old Yorba Linda resident who asked that her last name not be used, wants her husband to do more around the house, a suggestion resents because he already takes charge of the outside chores. Sometimes he helps with the cooking, but that doesn’t give Julie a break because he wants her nearby so she can help him find whatever he needs to put the meal together.

Jablonski suggests that Julie tell him: “I’m fully confident that you can cook dinner on your own. I’ll be in the living room if you really need me.”

Julie, who works full time as an aerospace engineer and has a 2-year-old daughter, joined Jablonski’s support group and sought additional private counseling because she felt overwhelmed by her responsibilities at home and work.

“I was spending all my free time taking care of the house and my daughter. It seemed like there was no time for me,” she says, admitting that she had become depressed and was having frequent crying spells.

Now she realizes that “one reason I don’t get help around the house is that I never ask for it.”

The support group has also helped her see that she’s not alone in having mixed feelings about being a working mother. She loves her $40,000-a-year job and feels she’s providing a strong role model for her daughter by succeeding in a technical field. But she would prefer to spend more time with her child.

She asked to take a six-month, unpaid leave of absence after her daughter was born, but her employer refused and she went back to work six weeks after giving birth. There are few women at her level in the aerospace industry, so her company has not been pushed to develop a sensitivity to the needs of working mothers, she notes.

She’d like to be able to do some of her paperwork at home, but she’s afraid to ask because requests for flexible hours from her male co-workers have been turned down.

Julie admits she feels a lot of guilt over the amount of time she spends away from her daughter, especially when the baby-sitter is the first to see a major step in the little girl’s development.

Vicki Lewis struggles with guilt, too, especially when she and Briana are both tired and grouchy at night and she loses her temper when she feels she should be patient and understanding.

Lately, she’s also been troubled by some setbacks in Briana’s toilet training. “Automatically, I think, ‘If I was home with her, it would be different,’ ”

“Give yourself a pep talk,” Jablonski advises. “Tell yourself, ‘It’s her job to have accidents, and it’s my job to be patient and accept that there are going to be accidents, and it has nothing to do with the fact that I work.’ ”

Underneath the guilt, working mothers often feel a sense of loss because they are missing out on many of the joyful moments in their children’s development, Jablonski notes.

“Even when they’re happy in their work, they feel a lot of guilt and remorse about leaving their children and missing out,” she says.

The guilt is eased when women allow themselves to express their sadness, but it never goes away entirely.

“They just have to struggle with it and hope they can give the best of themselves to their children and find some peace with that.”

Jablonski believes the degree to which working mothers in the ‘90s will be able to find peace will depend on how successful they are at finding the courage to say “no” at work, getting husbands to do their share of the work, making time to nurture their marriage and making the most of every moment with the children.

“Each one of us needs to decide what we want and how to get it in the context of balancing our lives,” she says.

Julie is working toward that: “As a woman, you want to have it all--family, a home and career. But you can’t do it all at the same time. You have to make choices about what’s important to you at different times in your life. Now, when my daughter is young, I’m putting off getting a master’s degree. I used to work a lot of extra hours, but now I just put in the minimum. When this phase of having a young child is over, I’ll put more energy back into my career.”

Vicki Lewis has also clarified her priorities while trying to find balance.

“I need to work, and I like to work,” she says, “but Briana’s well-being is more important than any job.”