For Gen X Moms, Early Career Years Meant Work-Life Survival, Not Striving for “Balance”
Generation X never could have imagined the ‘Future of Work’ would look like this.
To many Gen X women, trying to achieve work life “balance” in their early careers demanded a good amount of discretion, a whole lot of planning, and playing things pretty close to the vest. I am happy moms of kids today have more flexibility (and I know they have their own set of struggles). But all the latest buzz about soft skills in the workplace makes me remember just how we Gen Xers built ours so well along the way. We grew up with grit and resilience at home and school and took those right into work. I feel like my Generation X colleagues and I innately sing Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” with a special kind of gusto. We survived a kind of Whack-a-Mole approach to work and life. Here is how we dealt with all we needed — and wanted — to do at work and home.
Put on a Happy Face
So, you had a bad day? The mentality was “suck it up” — and we did. Mental health awareness in the workplace was…not a thing. Companies didn’t want to hear about struggles at home, personal frustrations or feelings. Taking a “Mental Health Day” was decades way. Many of my mom friends and I would have settled for a mental health “moment!” I remember one friend couldn’t stop crying in the office because she’d just discovered her husband’s affair that morning. She had to tell her boss her sister died in order to feel like she had a legitimate reason to cry — and go home. Heater broke, toilet clogged, sofa delivery schedule shifted to midday? Wait for Saturday — for all of it.
Moving Hell and High Water to Get to Morning Meetings
No matter what generation mom you are, you know that getting your kid/s and yourself out of the house in the morning on time and with every necessary item is one of life’s little miracles. Back when some of us Gen X girls were trying to be responsible grownups and moms, we simply had to make organization and logistics work like magic. There was no app for reminders, no Zooming into early meetings from home. On the plus side, though, I think we saved time because a nice healthy breakfast wasn’t a huge expectation the way it is now. Thank you, Life cereal and 2% milk. (Gen Z, if you’re wondering, YES — we did at least have microwaves. I think. Yes — yes, we did!)
The Printer Put Us Through the Ringer
Remember the days when we had to print, well, everything…and how we dreaded everything about the printer? Waiting for the printer when someone else was always using it. Fighting with paper that got stuck; talk about a time suck! Seeing the “low on toner” light come on and praying your print job would make it through. Searching for a package of paper when you got the unlucky timing to refill. Trying to collate, staple, sort, stack, grab and run the piles to meetings, to turn in on deadlines, to hand out to team members. I hated the printer with a passion I thought was only reserved for the fax machine.
“Close of Business” Always Meant Cutting it Close
…because cutting out early wasn’t an option then. We watched the clock and had to get ourselves up and out the door. There was no “working from home” to meet the school bus on half-days, beating rush hour traffic, or bravely leaving late afternoon for your kid’s soccer game. Moms moved mountains and mounds of paperwork to fly out of the office at a “reasonable” hour. Picking up your kid from basketball practice? You had better be there on time, because Uber did not exist to save the day.
Dinner Was a Real Dilemma
Between trying to meet all deadlines and deal with commutes home, getting to the grocery store or starting dinner without feeling frantic was impossible. Remember — we couldn’t order same day grocery delivery or arrange for someone to shop for us so we could just pull up in a “Pick Up” space. No Uber Eats, either. I honestly don’t know how we did it — or how our kids survived some late suppers.
We Held the Whole World in Our Hands with Our Laptops — Literally
These were the days before we used collaboration tools for drafting documents. I will never forget when, at a company a few years out of college, I was put on a cross-functional team for a critical corporate privacy project. Huddled in meeting rooms with colleagues from Legal, PR, Government Affairs, Analyst Relations and more, I found myself the owner of a critical Microsoft Word document that included everyone’s Track Changes. We had worked on this initiative for months and everything was coming down to the wire. The document was ONLY on my laptop. I remember nervously driving home that night. All I could think about was…what if I am hit by another car or in an awful car accident and my laptop breaks? Perhaps that would be the end of my career and maybe even the end of the company (thinking back now, my role wasn’t THAT important)! The fact that I factored all that in before realizing such a crash could actually be the end of my life… well, that says it all. We Gen Xers take our sense of responsibility seriously! We still do.
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