Harvard Business Review hides behind data about extreme jobs

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This month the Harvard Business Review has an article titled Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek (subscription required). This article presents all the research to show that the destruction of the family comes faster in situations where both parents work long hours, but the authors, Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce, refuse to draw this conclusion. Instead they harp on what is now a baby-boomer fetish topic: Women getting equal treatment at work.

The research shows that full-time jobs are increasingly extreme jobs (more than 60 hours a week). The authors point out that most people who have extreme jobs have chosen them, and they tend to be very exciting jobs. Other reports show that some people are so smitten with their extreme jobs that they brag about how stressed and overworked they are. (Thanks, Ben.)

Hewlett and Luce write that “the extreme-work model is wreaking havoc on private lives.” However most of the reasons cited (e.g.kids watching too much TV and no one taking care of the house) would be alleviated if one parent were at home. So the extreme-work model is actaully fine, as long as women (it’s almost always women) are willing to drop out of the workforce to stay at home. And, in an article that enraged many of the readers of this blog, Lucy Kellaway writes in the Economist that yes, in fact women are more than willing to leave the office to take care of kids.

Hewlett and Luce try to make an issue out of gender: Extreme workers are mostly men, women in extreme jobs are most likely to say they want to leave the job in a year, and the people who thrive in extreme jobs either do not have kids or have someone at home taking care of their kids. But who cares? There are plenty of jobs people can take if they don’t want extreme jobs.

Hewlett and Luce try to get us alarmed that the trend toward extreme jobs is increasing, but most people who are in extreme jobs are baby boomers, and Sharon Jayson, wirting in USA Today, shows that most young people don’t want extreme jobs. And young people are adept at finding work that fits regardless of what companies are offering.

I am tired of the baby boomers thinking all their research about themselves applies to everyone. I am also tired of every researcher jumping on the battle-cry-for-women bandwagon. Hewlett and Luce spend a lot of time writing about how moms cannot do extreme jobs. But who cares? If people who don’t have kids want to work tons of hours, let them. If men want to marry stay-at-home moms to take care of their kids, let them. What is the big deal here? There is plenty of work in this world for people who don’t want extreme jobs. There are plenty of men to marry who will do their part with the kids.

The real problem here is that two parents with extreme jobs are neglecting their kids. What about that? Baby boomers have been doing it for decades, and it’s terrible for kids, and people need to start admitting that. For starters, Hewlett and Luce could come out and say this, since their research supports it.

For example, the most scary part of the article is the snowball effect of working long hours while leaving kids at home:

“As household and families are starved for time, they become progressively less appealing and both men and women begin to avoid going home…For many professionals ‘home and work’ have reversed roles. Home is the source of stress and guilt, while work has become the ‘haven in the heartless world’ — the place where successful professionals get strokes, admiration and respect.”

The research also highlights one of my pet peeves in career news: “It’s extremely rare for parents to admit having problems with their children.” I cringe every time I read an interview with a “Successful Mom” who works a 70 hour week and can miraculously balance her kids and husband’s 70-hour week as well. All of this womens magazine BS is self-reported, and what mom or dad is going to stand up and say they are destroying the kids by working long hours? The only one’s who pipe up, like Brenda Barnes, quit their job before they start talking.

Here’s what the Harvard Business Review article should have said: The long-standing practice of baby boomers to have dual-career families with no one home for the kids is bad for the kids, even if the parents are enjoying themselves. Fortunately, the post-boomer generations recognize the problem and plan to not repeat it.

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Game plan for peaceful coexistence of kids and career

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When Carin Rosenberg and Erik Lawrence got married, they had already done a lot of planning. They had a plan for a baby (lots of hands-on parenting) and careers (no out-of-control hours), and while each were earning advanced degrees, they had no plans for high-powered jobs.

For Generation X, super careers are out and shared parenting is in. What used to be mistaken for a “slacker” work ethic (by media dominated by workaholic boomers) is actually a generation-defining concern for work-life balance. A report from Catalyst says that professionals in Generation X “place more emphasis on personal goals than on those related to work.” Both parents expect to be closely involved with the children, and full-time childcare is widely rejected as not consistent with the core values of the generation.

When children enter the picture, there are three possible paths for dual-career couples:

First path is where one partner leaves the workforce to run the household. This is the path that made men’s careers soar for years, and it was the most popular choice when women had no choice. The second path is where both partners work full time and outsource running the household. This was a popular choice when women thought they could “have it all.” But the women entering the workforce today know better, and most want no part of that lifestyle which now appears to be impossible.

The third path is what Generation X aims for: Reconfigured work around the needs of family. According to Lisa Levey, Director of Advisory Services at Catalyst, most people starting out in their work life say they want a union of equal careers and equal parenting. But most people are unrealistic about what this setup requires. “This is a tough situation to establish because the paradigm has shifted but the jobs have not.”

Most career-worthy jobs are prepackaged for a 40 hour (or more) workweek, which makes little room for two careers and dual parenting. According to Levey, “Five years after business school, only 60% of women are working outside the home. Women look ahead and the path seems impossible. You can’t have two people gunning in their careers, and women are more likely to quit when there’s a problem.”

Phyllis Moen, professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota and author of the Career Mystique: Cracks in the American Dream, warns that “What happens with two high powered folks is that it becomes impossible and one bails out, typically the woman.” But she offers encouragement in that, “Cracks provide an opportunity, a way to rewrite the script. And Generation X is poised to do that.”

Levey offers a game plan: “You need good planning that starts in one’s mid twenties. You need to have a very substantial conversation about it.” When it comes to choosing a third path, “you have to really want it – seek it out, plan for it over a long period of time.”

That last piece of advice is difficult. Rosenberg and Lawrence know they both want to have family dinners, but neither is sure who will be home at 6pm to do the cooking. “We’ll talk about logistics when we are ready to have a baby,” says Rosenberg. But for optimum chance of success on the third path, the couple should talk about it way before they’re ready for a baby.

Here are some guidelines for early conversation and planning:

1. Build expertise to gain flexibility.
Moen reports that a lot of young people “Say they won’t go for high level jobs but will go for one that allow them to have more time. But that is shooting themselves in the foot because all jobs are demanding but some have more resources than others. If you think you are taking a job that would give you more time, talk to people in that job. We have in our mind that lower status or lower paying would be easier to balance, but this is not the case.

Levey recommends that you focus on building value. “It’s very hard to get a part time job off the bat. If you’re pregnant it’s late to think about part time. Usually you have to earn the opportunity to work part time. Work at the same company for a while, and develop a certain niche. Over time, you can craft something that will work for you.”

2. Live below your means and forget the big house.
If you choose an unconventional path then you need to expect your income to oscillate as each partner steps on and off different career tracks. Levey warns: “People get stuck because they can’t imagine decreasing their financial lifestyle.”

Moen zeroes in on the house: “The one thing that people seem to equate with adulthood is buying a house. In the past – for boomer generation especially – advice was to buy the best house you can afford. But now that house is an albatross, especially because today that purchase is based on two peoples’ salaries.”

Jessica DeGroot of the Third Path, and non-profit that coaches couples in creating a work-life balance says that in addition to homes, people also scale back vacations and maybe even family size in order to afford to reduce work hours.

3. Marry someone whose career aspirations are consistent with yours.
“If one person has a 60 hour/week job and one has a 40 hour a week job, the person with fewer hours at work will do most of the work at home,” says Moen. Similarly, if only one person has flexibility to come home when a child is sick, then that person will come home every time.

4. Talk all the time.
Most people know if the person they’re dating wants to have kids, and they have some sort of idea of how many and how soon. Most people also find out the career aspirations of the person they’re dating. But the intersection of kids and careers is usually in a don’t-ask-don’t-tell paradigm.

People say they can’t talk about how to manage kids and careers until the kids come because they don’t know what they’ll want. But you could say that about everything. And you don’t. So when it comes to the combination of kids and careers, you don’t have to have the perfect answer, but you have to have something you’re shooting for, together, or you won’t have any control over the direction you’re going.

This is true when you are dating, but it’s also true during the course of your whole relationship. An ongoing, engaged discussion of kids and careers is the best way to make sure they work well together for your family.

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Save what matters by delegating what doesn’t

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I am a huge fan of delegating. Part of what makes me good is that I love time management advice, and I’m constantly asking myself what is most important to me. I keep my list to about five things, and everything else is fair game for delegation. Also, I am lucky to have many traits of a good delegator, including:

1. Little interest in details
Perfectionists are the worst at delegating. They are delusional and might die early from obsessive fixation on detail if they are lawyers.

2. Strong sense that time matters more than money
I am willing to sacrifice money to buy time whenever possible. Often, even when I overpay I feel good about not having had to do the task. And you can generally tell how much money I’m making by how many people I have helping me because that’s always the first thing I spend money on.

3. Young kids at home
There is no such thing as “free time” when you have toddlers at home. There is only time to parent and time to do the whole rest of your life. So time management is figuring out what you’ll either give up completely or delegate.

People who have a long list of things they won’t delegate are really just making excuses. I never regret having tried to delegate, even when things don’t go that well. I delegated my whole move from New York City to Madison and found out in 20-degree weather that I don’t have my winter coat. But so what? It’s worth it to have been able to do things that really matter to me instead of spending a week moving my stuff.

I delegated buying my mom flowers once. I decided that if it’s the thought that counts, it was enough that I thought to tell someone to do it. My mom wasn’t crazy about that idea, but the world is not the judge of what is okay to delegate. You are.

I got used to FreshDirect, the amazing online grocery delivery service for New York City (whose successful business model includes $600,000 in parking tickets a year.) In Madison, I was not about to start going to the store when I had already tasted the excitement of delegating the walk through the aisles. So I ordered online, but the Madison store didn’t save my grocery lists. And pointing and clicking 70 times to buy 70 items is not that fast.

But then I discovered that our local food co-op, Willy Street Co-op, has a great delivery system. No point-and-click ordering, just email them a list. So I started writing my list. But then I realized that not only does conjuring brand names and quantities takes a long time, but it takes a lot of brain power plan a family’s food for a week.

So I wrote list items like:
A few treats for kids –stuff that looks fun to eat
6 things that are microwavable that I didn’t think of.
Dinner stuff. Surprise me.
Fruit that’s in season. 4 servings

The food I got was healthy, appropriate and fun. (Thank you, Kelly). And this brings up overlooked benefits of delegating: you get to see things done another way; you learn from someone else about what is available; you get to have a surprise. If you are not a control freak, these are good experiences.

You spend so much time food shopping. Don’t tell me it is an integral part of your family life. It’s not. Sitting at the table together is what’s important. You don’t need complete control over what you eat. You probably don’t have the luxury of controlling as much as you are trying to control. And for most of us, the way to preserve and celebrate what is most important in life is to off-load what is not.

Look at your life for the things that are not at the core. Admit that the core is small. Question everything you think you need to do yourself. It comes down to how much are you willing to give up control, and how much you value your time.

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A peek at the office of the future

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I was checking out the information about the upcoming conference Office 2.0. I wanted to get a sense of what the future workplace would look like. There’s not much information there, but I got a bit from the list of speakers:

1. There are two links next to every speaker name: blog, and profile. If you think you don’t need a blog, you need to look at this list. It’s long. And every person on it has a blog. Blogging is essential for big thinkers, serious careerists, and anyone who wants to be part of a wide-reaching conversation.

2. The list of photos is pretty unremarkable, mostly men, mostly headshots. There are a lot of visions for what the future of the office will be. Our computers will have no client application other than a web browser, for example, and virtual collaboration will be easy.

But maybe the most wide-reaching vision of Office 2.0 emerged before the conference even started. The image is on the speakers page, where David Young, CEO of Joyent, makes room in his own small square headshot for his baby’s head, too. Because Office 2.0 must make room for children.

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Why I like seeing women at war with each other

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Jenn Satterwhite has been ranting in my comments section, which has made me very happy. She is bringing up difficult issues and she is making me nervous about posting responses. This seems good.

One thing Jenn brought up is that she wishes women would stop arguing among each other about the stay-at-home vs. career issues. I think Jenn imagines a very supportive environment where everyone makes a decision that is best for them.

I imagine an environment where it’s okay to rip each other to shreds.

Here’s why: Back in 1994 when I was writing about myself online before everyone else started, American Book Review asked me to review online writing. In my review I stated that most of the writing sucked. The editor told me that you can’t trash people who are on the forefront. “They are trying something new,” he said. “Be kind.” So I found nice things to say about generally tiresome writing.

Today, everyone is an online writer and criticism runs rampant. Similarly, in the 1970s it would have been completely uncalled for to throw stones at a female CEO. and today, throwing stones at Carly Fiorina is progress.

We will have more progress when we can throw stones at moms who make decisions we don’t agree with. For example, there is some point at which a high-powered, dual-career, nanny-run family is treading on neglect. Let’s mark that point and start throwing stones. Who is protecting the kids? Who is protecting society? Stone throwers. So take a stand.

I will be happy when the war is not between stay-at-home moms and working moms but between parents who refuse to put up with neglect and those who convince themselves it’s okay. In a world where men and women are sharing care and creating careers that accommodate family, this will be a genderless discussion with bombs exploding. That’s what I want to see.

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Friday smorgasbord

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Here are three tidbits I’ve collected that haven’t fit in other places over the week.

Condoleeza has a workplace crush
Maureen Dowd brings to light the evidence that Condoleeza Rice has a crush on the Canadian Foreign Minister Peter McKay. Scroll down in Dowd’s column to see a great photo of the two of them looking at each other, which reminds me of all the times I’ve fallen in love — how exciting it is. The photo also reminds me of all the crushes I’ve had with people I worked with. In each instance, unfulfilled sexual tension at the office made my work life more productive. Really. Probably due to some sort of synergy and that I was so in tune with how the other person was working. Side note: Peter McKay is so cute.
(Hat tip: Ben from AMVER)

Homework in grade school encourages bad habits in the work world
Doing more than 90 minutes of homework a night in middle school means lower test scores, according to Claudia Wallis writing for TIME magazine. She shows why excessive homework is ruining kids’ childhoods and family lives for no purpose. One expert suggests extending the school day so kids get all their homework done before they get home, because home is for family. My friend Mauri points out that when we encourage kids to bring school work home and do it at the expense of family, we set those kids on a path to bring office work home at night and do it at the expense of family.

How to make useless career lists useful
CareerJounal has published what seems like their five thousandth list this year on which are the best careers.What can we learn from this list? First, lists with juicy titles get linked to a lot, and I should have made this post “Three essential things for September”, or something like that. Second, the criteria someone uses to come up with the best career list is more useful than the list itself. Some editor decided that the question to ask is, do you have these things in your job:

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9/11: Digging myself out of the debris

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I was at the World Trade Center when it fell. At each anniversary that passes I write my story, and each year it changes a little. This year, I have been thinking about that moment when I accepted death.

I was at the corner of Liberty and Broadway when the first tower fell. I was too close to the building to be able to see what was happening. It sounded like a huge bomb, and it felt like a snowstorm of dirt. Everyone ran. But in just a few seconds, the world became dead silent and no one could see. I crawled over piles of people. My mouth was full of dust and I could barely breathe. I had no idea where I was or how to preserve myself. I thought I might be the only person alive. As breathing got more difficult, I settled into the idea of dying.

Time got very slow and I seem to have had an hour’s worth of thoughts in seconds. At first I worried that my family would be sad. But then I was disappointed. I would not see my brothers as adults. Would not know what I was like as a mom, or what it was like to grow old with my husband. My to-do list was overflowing with things I wanted to achieve, things I had been looking forward to. But the minute I thought I was going to die, that list didn’t matter. I was sad that I would not get to hang out and watch family life unfold.

It’s surprising because like almost all New Yorkers, I was not the hang out type. And in case it’s not clear from the obituaries and essays that have come from 9/11, the World Trade Center did not attract the slow-lane types.

Like many New Yorkers, I went to a World Trade Center recovery group. The groups were divided into the kind of trauma you experienced. People who watched the scene on TV were not in the same group as people whose spouse died. I was in a group with people who were there the ten minutes or so before the Tower fell. Some of the people in my group felt the impact of the plane while sitting at their desk. Some of the people ran from their building and were splattered by body parts from jumpers. All of us felt lucky to be alive.

All of us vowed to make life more meaningful after 9/11. Almost all of us changed jobs to do something that gave us more personal time. The few of us who could, had a baby.

Now I know that if I die tomorrow, what I’ll regret is not getting to watch my life unfold. So I have been changing my life, a little at a time, to give myself more time to watch life go by. I made a career change from Wall St.-based business development to home-based writer, I had two kids, and I encouraged my husband to reject jobs with long hours. We vowed to cut back our spending 70% to create a more simple life.

But cutting spending is not so easy, especially in New York City. It required making a lot of difficult choices. Finally we decided we could not reach our goals without moving. So this year, on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, I am making a new home in Madison.

Sure, I’m still competitive and ambitious when it comes to my career, but what 9/11 gave me the strength to make the scary decision to slow things down. Slowing down means missing opportunities, missing a chance to shine or a serendipitous meeting. It’s hard to simplify life because a complicated life is so stimulating. But nearly suffocating in the rubble showed me that what I want most is to be present: Consciously watching while my life unfolds.

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Taking good care of a family is relative

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In response to my musings about what it means to be a blogger who is just a blogger, Alexandra Levit sent me an article about bloggers who support themselves blogging. I read it twice. Then I started checking out all the blogs, trying to uncover the secret of the million-dollar blog.

Here is what I uncovered: Heather B (who is truly a wonderful writer) is cited in the article as “bringing in enough money to allow her family to live comfortably.” But it turns out that she and her husband recently participated in a study where they get injected with whooping cough so that they can get $50 and a free tetnaus shot.

I know that everyone has a different idea of living comfortably. But I happen to know the guy who wrote the article for Business 2.0 — he’s my old editor. And I’m certain that he would not be comfortable in the whooping cough study.

This reminds me of something I hate: Articles about women that focus on the dual acheivment of doing well at work and with kids. We never hear from the kids. We never see the inner workings of the household. What does it mean to do a great job with kids? It’s all relative. All self-reported. It’s all BS.

In fact, I did a followup on one of these stories. I looked up an article from Working Mother from a few years back — one of those articles about “How I successfully balance home and work.” I called the woman to find out how things are going with her business and her three school-age sons. I interviewed her and her teenage son.

I was appalled at how little time she spent with the son. And then he said he’d never want to be like his dad because his dad (Fortune 500 COO) was always at work. I couldn’t even bring myself to write about the family using their names because it was so bad. And the woman continues to believe that she’s doing a great job balancing work and family.

I put these topics in the same category: Reports about bloggers who live comfortably and women who do a good job at both work and home. It’s all subjective and relative and hearsay. Useless information.

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The new stay-at-home dad paves new paths for moms

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As more men call themselves stay-at-home dads, they redefine for both men and women what it means to stay home with kids. Men have learned a lot from watching women struggle with home life. The super-woman syndrome of the 1980s has squashed the desire to juggle committed parenting with a sixty-hour workweek, and Rolling Stones lyrics about Valium as “mother’s little helper” do not fall on deaf ears; 24/7 with kids for eighteen years is too hard.

So today’s stay-at-home dad probably has some kind of work outside of the kids. He might not be earning much money, but he has the wisdom of generations before him to know that the money isn’t what matters. Ted Castro is a stay-at-home dad with his daughters, Giselle, six, and Claudia, eighteen months, while his wife, Nicole Faulkner works full-time managing a genetics lab. But if you ask Ted, “What else do you do?” he’ll say, “I’m an artist.”

Since the onset of feminism, stay-at-home moms have been incensed by the question, “What else do you do?” as if being home with kids were not a full-time job. But today, few people question how difficult and full-time taking care of kids is. So stay-at-home dads welcome the question. “I think the question really means, What did you do before you had kids?” says Castro. “Everyone went through a certain amount of schooling. So the question really means, What was your other choice?”

Castro’s other choice was making stained glass. After a degree in fine arts and an apprenticeship, he built up a business making stained glass commissioned by architects. Now he “makes only two or three pieces a year,” but he still calls himself a working artist.

After at least a decade of feuding between stay-at-home moms and working moms, the argument about which is better is dissipating. And in part, this is because men add a fresh perspective to the decision-making process. For dads, staying at home is not so much political as practical. “It just grew that way,” says Castro of his family setup.

In fact, most men do not set out to be stay-at-home dads. They just want to make sure they get to spend time with their kids. A survey by American Demographics revealed that eighty percent of men ages 18 to 39 said that a flexible job to accommodate kids takes a higher priority than doing challenging work or earning a high salary. The new stay-at-home version of dad is how they reach this goal.

On web sites such as slowlane.com, which cater to dads who put family first, stay-at-home dad and work-at-home dad are used almost interchangeably. And it’s a gray area as to how many hours per week a dad needs to work outside the home to disqualify himself as an at-home dad. (Stay-at-home dad Jeff, for example, designs stay-at-home dad apparel and operates the store that sells it.) Most significantly, though, the dads don’t seem to care about that number.

Some people will say, “Big surprise. Men staying at home with kids is just like men vacuuming — they do the living room and bedroom and never get to the kitchen and den before they get distracted.” But others will see a synergy of the sexes: Just as women in the workplace show men how life can be better there, men at home show women a few means of improvement as well.

So both men and women can benefit from learning how to create a life that is conducive to the new stay-at-home and accommodates a new sort of work.

1. Think part-time. Lisa Levey, Director of Advisory Services at Catalyst says, “Usually you have to earn the opportunity to work part time. Work at the same company for a while, and develop a certain niche. Over time, you can craft something that will work for you.” She would know: For years her husband has worked an abridged work schedule so he can be home with the kids.

2. Aim for high-level. “We have in our mind that lower status or lower paying would be easier to balance, but this is not the case,” says Phyllis Moen, professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota. “If you think you are taking a job that would give you more time, talk to people in that job.”

3. Save, save, save. Castro buys clothes at thrift shops and even frequents garbage dumps. “I got a Concept-II Rowing machine off the street,” he says. “I’ll never pay for a piece of exercise equipment again.”

4. Have faith. “People say my husband is so lucky,” says Levey, “But he negotiated and made compromises. Fear dominates the work world now. People need to push back and try to get what they want.”

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Your family would be better off with a housewife (so would mine)

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Men should not marry women who have careers, according to an opinion piece at Forbes.com. The statistics are clear:

“Marrying these women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Social Forces, 2006). You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2001). You will be more likely to fall ill (American Journal of Sociology). Even your house will be dirtier (Institute for Social Research).”

There is a response from a woman, who, big surprise, has a big career. But to me, she just sounds like she’s whining. And she’s definitely missing the point.

The point is that marriage and family work best when one person is taking care of them full time. Duh. Everything in the world is best off when it is cared for very carefully. I wish everyone would stop trying to deny this. It’s barking up the wrong tree.

There is little evidence that the role of housewife is any more frustrating than the role of housewife and careerist rolled into one. (I have done both roles and both are very difficult and not totally satisfying.)

The conclusion, that marriages and families work better with a full-time housewife, is hard to swallow but hard to deny. It’s just that not every woman wants to take care of a family and marriage full time, and even fewer men do. And increasingly few people want to give up almost all child-rearing responsibilities in order to be a single breadwinner. So this is a piece of advice that’s useful to only the small percentage of households in the world. But still, the advice is good.

Many people will say they’d rather face the challenges of a dual-career marriage than the challenge of a stay-at-home-spousedom. Fine. Just know the statistics are not in your favor.

Before I get accused of throwing stones from a glass house, let me come clean with the fact that my husband and I are constantly restructuring our work life in response to these statistics. Also, I believe that the woman being the primary caretaker of both family and marriage is BS, but I don’t see many marriages working any other way, even with two, powerhouse careers.

Please, do not send me emails about your perfect marriage because I don’t believe it. In my marriage we have tried everything, and everything is hard in its own way.

Meanwhile, it’s good advice to men to pick a woman who will be a full-time housewife, but I have some advice for women who are shopping for husbands: To find a partner who will support your choices both financially and emotionally and who will be around enough to participate as an equal parent, marry someone with a very large trust fund.

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