New Roles Bring New Rules
Featured Guest Blogger June 29th, 2009
In 2008, Christina Barlowe founded LifeWork Alliance. The organization was formed to address the paradigm shift that is reshaping today’s workforce. The mission is to institute and promote open dialogue between organizations and working parents. Nearly two decades of professional corporate experience, coupled with an MBA and a Masters in Social Work, form the well-rounded skill set necessary to head the innovative organization that is LifeWork Alliance. Christina has a four-year-old son and a newly adopted little boy who have reshaped her life and been her source of inspiration. Please note that the views of our guest bloggers do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sloan Work and Family Research Network.
I had this bright idea about how I would build a life with my partner and how things would become bigger and better as our careers grew and our family grew. Sure, I would work, but I would be able to scale back during those tender early years for my children, because of course my husband’s career would be blossoming. And then it happened– 2007, that is. Most people didn’t speak the word “recession” until late 2008. For those of us in the New York area, however, the decline in stability and rise in fear happened about a year in advance. My husband lost his job, as many people did, and we saw it as the opportunity that would allow us to explore other options for him and for us. We quickly discovered a few problems with this plan: 1) We still needed to pay the mortgage as we were “exploring,” and 2) Things become increasingly harder at home because our usual roles had changed greatly. As much as we like to think that we are not gender role-specific in this day and age, it is a simple fact of conditioning that we still are bound to these roles, however loosely. We have slowly adapted to me being the primary breadwinner and he being the primary caregiver. Sure, there is jealously and resentment and even envy at times from both sides.
What has been more challenging than either one of these roles, though, have been the roles within the marriage. Who are we now? It is clearly different that what we were when we married and what we imagined we would become. Do we like these new people? Do we have a choice? I have found that communication, as clichéd as it sounds, is the key to mental and emotional survival in these circumstances. My husband is a wonderful father, and men in general are more involved with their children today than they were in the past, which is a blessing for all involved. Even if there are new rules that have been bestowed upon us in this new economy, the rules will always shift. It is an individual’s ability to adapt to those new roles; that is the necessary skill for survival.
