The Two Career Tango

Ever since I started this blog, I have wanted to write about finding balance in a two career family. I think about it all the time. I have not written about it because it is messy and raw and does not make for a nice tidy post. There are a lot of Big Issues in play here. Equality. Power. Tradition. Ambition. Marriage. Happiness.

I could probably write half a dozen posts on this topic and still have more questions than answers. And I’d probably leave it all alone and write about something simpler if I could. But we have this decision to make, and these issues are right in the middle of it.

This morning, just as I was getting up the gumption to grapple with this topic, I found comfort and wisdom in an unlikely place: the White House. Jodi Kantor’s profile of the Obamas’ marriage in the New York Times magazine is fascinating and intimate. She captures the ongoing negotiation behind the glossy fairytale that is their public image. Through this article, you see the hard work that it takes to sustain a marriage between two ambitious, uncompromising people. You see the cost of the tradeoffs that they have chosen, and you especially see that although Michelle plays her part with grace, she is not entirely okay with the sacrifices she has been asked to make. Which is reassuring to me, because I’m not entirely okay with what’s being asked of me either. And somehow it makes me feel better to know that as our family works through these issues, we do it in good company.

A bit more background here: I am about to become what you might call a “trailing spouse.” My husband’s career is specialized and geographically restrictive. He loves his work, and he’s good at it, and we have known all along that we would come to a point when following his career would be the only sensible option. I signed on for this and have had nearly a decade to get used to the idea. And still I’m not entirely okay with it.

I guess I have been spoiled by equality. Up to this point, we have made all major decisions on equal footing, so I have no experience in sacrifice, and my feelings about it are all muddled. One script in my head says that all kinds of people—men and women both—follow their partners’ careers at some point. (And probably most of them do it with a lot less angst than this.) Two careers cannot take equal precedence simultaneously. I believe that a solid marriage is built by striving for equality whenever possible and taking turns leading when necessary. I know that it is my turn to follow. But there is this raging feminist inside of me who is so totally not okay with that, and who rails against all the structural forces that have brought us to the point where this decision is inevitable. I don’t know what to do about her.

Let me be clear here: My husband has been tremendous through this whole process. He is wholly on my team and doing everything in his power to make sure that my career and happiness are well-served by any move we make. I have absolute veto power over any opportunity I am not comfortable with, and he would be okay if I used it.

I should also be clear that I’m not being asked to move to a godforsaken outpost. The opportunity in front of us is, in fact, quite romantic. (My friends get these quizzical looks when I express any doubts about it.) I’m fairly sure that this move would prove to be a great adventure for our family, and maybe in the long run a boon for my career too.

But I’m being asked to leave a good job in a city that I love to move to a place where most business is conducted in a language I do not speak. I have no guarantee of a job there, and in fact not much notion of how to find one. And I’m scared. I’m scared that my career will get derailed. I’m scared about having my identity revolve around home and family as I try to make friends and build a network in a new place. And I’m scared because this feels like a pretty major alteration in our life course, and I’m not sure when I will get my turn to lead on a decision of this significance.

But then I think about the Obamas and I feel better, because, jeez, if they can work it out, anybody can. As Michelle Obama said at the close of her New York Times interview, the equality of any partnership “is measured over the scope of the marriage. It’s not just four years or eight years or two. We’re going to be married for a very long time.”