All

I read an article in the July/August 2012 Atlantic Magazine discussing why women cannot have it all.  I worry this pits the stay at home mother against the employed elsewhere mom.  Instead of fighting we might collectively assert that all is a false idol we determine to reject.

Dictionary.com offers two entries for the noun all.
1.  one’s whole interest, energy, or property
2.  (often initial capital letter) the entire universe

Employees need flexible work options.  Gender should not determine salary.  A living wage is morally imperative.  However, the myth of happiness in having it all can undermine what may be a pretty good life, like a carrot held just out of reach.  It makes a mule plow and plow but I wonder how many tasty tufts of grass are trodden over by that hungry work animal unnoticed and tilled under instead of eaten along the way.

There are facts.  People cannot be both married and not, cannot simultaneously run a meeting and read a book to a child.  Money is essential.  Females bear babies.  Having a parent at home full time puts financial pressure on the employed partner.  Women sometimes have dreams beyond motherhood.  Men and women both parent.  Life with people in it is complicated.  We benefit from one another’s happiness.   

Folks have outside employment part time, full time, not at all.  Every situation has bumps.  A parent with a satisfying career may, just before stepping out the door to a fabulous daycare hear from a freshly potty trained toddler, “I have to poop.”  In a meeting one might watch time tick past the start of gymnastics.  A contented telecommuter may have a child puking relentlessly and won’t finish their work until staying up all night.  One might find in the tenth year of homemaking that finances force a return to work outside the home and they are behind in earning potential.  A married person might long for space, a single person for companionship.  Night nursing a baby knowing your entire financial future depends on someone else can be scary.    

The problem with all may be its antonyms:  none, zero.  If we don’t have all do we feel we have nothing? 

Utter

If the universe was me would I have to keep it clean
behind the scenes, floundering papers properly filed
find freelancers and fresh faced full time tellers to count
money, monkeys, mountains, mates, and metronomes
making enough cash to cover calculated costs alone

If the universe was you would you organize origins
set vacations with family holiday feasts gulped, gutted
grate ginger for stomach acid, acetaminophen for pain
pat tiny tushies after succeeding in races, tests, taxes
collect fine wine, sedated sacrificial lamb sleeps alone

If the universe is us to share we might portion parts
freckles, feces and fetid failures, sunspots and sonatas
cries and sighs and words of love languished long
even if gone sate souls striving in constant hunger
need not if we nourish, flourish, know beings all one