Women's Work
Writer Megan Stack's residence in Beijing coincided with some of my own years here, but our paths never crossed. She had been a war correspondent, and her first book, Every Man in this Village is a Liar, was published during the time we both lived in this same city. The day she was probably notified that her book was a National Book Award Finalist, I was eating leftover cauliflower and millet quiche and looking at a clear view of the Great Wall from my kitchen, far from where Beijing's foreign correspondents live. Stack's social circles and mine were mutually exclusive on the Venn Diagram of China expat life. Yet after reading her book, Women's Work: A Reckoning of Work and Home, I was grateful we never met. I loved this book so much, and I love gushing about it. I am certain, though, that had I met Stack when she lived in Beijing, she would have been pretty dismissive of me. At that time I would have sensed it, and it would have stung. I would probably still hold that against her to this day. On page 143 of Women's Work, she admits, "I shamefacedly realized I'd unfairly written [them] off as dullard housewives." And this is an example of what I loved most about Stack's memoir. Her brutal honesty about everything--her domestic help, her friendships, her husband and, most importantly, herself.
I hadn't known about Women's Work until Stack herself tweeted about the imminent publication one night in April. I could hardly contain my excitement. I had no clue yet how she would tackle the Reckoning of Work and Home. By referring to herself as a "mother who hired other mothers," she convinced me that this book was going to be worth further investigation.
I ordered it immediately for my Kindle and stayed up much too late reading it. I finished the book within 24 hours of downloading it. Absolutely Women's Work was the book I wanted to read but never believed someone would write it. I kept thinking to myself Finally! Someone else wants to talk about all this stuff I have struggled with since I started having children myself (and especially since moving to China).
It didn't take me long to settle into a near-manic level of reading. In the author's note (page 3) came this:
This war correspondent had a poet's heart, and now, like me some years before, she was adjusting to a different view of herself and a new dynamic in her marriage. But then what really hooked me was how she put it all out there in the starkest of terms. She introduced the other new presence in her home.
They were important to me, primarily, because they made me free.
In that same author's note
Can you see why I couldn't put it down before she even got into the meat of the book? Her descriptions danced even while she hinted at the uncomfortable and at times ugly truths lurking on the periphery. These were the truths I craved. It's a heck of a system, trickling down from one mother to the next until eventually you have children minded for practically free by some other family member, like a grandparent. At each narrowing of the economic passage come fewer options and increased chances for exploitation in the lives of the women in that chain.
The book is, after the introductions, divided into three sections. The first covers her time in China, leading up to her first pregnancy, the first year or so of her older son's life and ends with her becoming pregnant again but needing to relocate with her husband's job to Delhi. The next section is about her second son's birth and their life in Delhi. While in the first two parts is mostly Stack's memoir, the third part is where Stack turns journalist again, and interviews the women she employed as domestics in both Beijing and Delhi. She probes them about their lives, their circumstances, and even what was really going on with them when they left her employ (either of their own accord or because they were fired). There is heartbreak, to be sure, in these chapters, but also survival and endurance. Stack is thorough in her investigations, as much as the subjects (her former nannies) let her. I wondered how much further Stack could have gone, if she had the time and the resources, to explore from where her Delhi nanny Mary really came (it may involve Central American drug runners who died in a plane crash, leaving their orphaned daughter in a refugee camp in Bhutan. Maybe).
Throughout the book, I continued to be blown away by how Stack persisted in reminding her readers how illusory this all was, how everyone knew it, but no one would want to admit it. On page 117
Stack is just as open about how these new arrangements affect her husband and her marriage. Often the struggles centered on how to view these women who now worked for them. Were they employees, that could be hired and fired at will? But they were in their home, caring for their children, preparing their meals, keeping the family clean and fed? So were they family, or like-family? But they were paid money, and there had to be expectations and consequences, and boundaries. If the women hired to free them both from housework couldn't get it all done, which spouse is then responsible? Who is the maid really here to help?
By the way, in her acknowledgments, Stack thanks her husband Tom who "did not flinch at the prospect of an honest (but inherently biased) account of our most fraught and challenging days." Her portrayal of Tom, especially during their China days, is not flattering at all. I had to keep checking various internet sources to see if they were still married. While a friend of mine was reading this book, I texted her spoilers: "They're still married!" and "They have two kids now!" It was uncomfortable reading in those passages, but for the whole of the book, they still felt essential to establishing Stack's commitment to understanding how domestic life becomes such a source of tension between otherwise loving people. Since I am praising Stack for her honesty, I will admit that there were a few times I cheered her in the book, as words tumbled out of her mouth that I had sometimes swallowed myself in the interest of keeping peace.
Stack has offered for us readers a candid look into her own experiences in understanding why we call what we call Women's Work remains, regardless of a women's position outside the home, almost exclusively women's business. Stack describes her own childhood as the daughter of a League of Women's Voters activist. Even in a home where her mother gave her T-shirts that read "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle," where the girls were encouraged to be bold and curious and never doubt their capabilities, even there (!) the sisters baked and ironed while their brother mowed the yard and raked. Her mother never saw this as antithetical to the other values she intstilled in her children. Decades later somewhere in Asia, Megan Stack, war correspondent and National Book Award Finalist, would be reminded of her feminist mother's caution against squabbling over household chores with her husband. "Ask yourself....is this the hill you want to die on?"
Even though the responsibilities within the home remain Women's Work, some women still bristle at the suggestion that they certainly must rely on other women's help at home to be the person they are outside the home. Towards the very end of the book, Stack relays this about Sheryl Sandberg:
How do you manage to be out in the world, and if you are here, who is there?
A few months before I read this book, I attended a panel discussion of Women in STEM. The panelists were excellent, talking a lot about being bold, and finding mentors, and being mentors when they are older. There was even the "work-life balance thing" brought up. Two of the panelists had children. I desperately wanted to ask about domestic help. I wanted to beg them to be honest to the younger women in the audience and their mentees about how much their success depended on domestic helpers or stay-at-home husbands or what? "If you are here, who is there?" I didn't ask, because I knew it could come across as an insult or challenge. Only when women and men can entertain Stack's question without offense will we recognize there is value in that work of the home.
Have I done this book justice? I know I was a receptive audience, ready-made to accept whatever Megan Stack had put to paper (er, Kindle screen) after she called her self a "mother who hires other mothers." Women's Work, for me, was a gratifying read.
In case you need to see more before you commit to this book, there are excerpts available here and here, interviews here and here, and many of the major news publications ran reviews. Stack also wrote this essay introducing her interest in domestics.
I hadn't known about Women's Work until Stack herself tweeted about the imminent publication one night in April. I could hardly contain my excitement. I had no clue yet how she would tackle the Reckoning of Work and Home. By referring to herself as a "mother who hired other mothers," she convinced me that this book was going to be worth further investigation.
I ordered it immediately for my Kindle and stayed up much too late reading it. I finished the book within 24 hours of downloading it. Absolutely Women's Work was the book I wanted to read but never believed someone would write it. I kept thinking to myself Finally! Someone else wants to talk about all this stuff I have struggled with since I started having children myself (and especially since moving to China).
It didn't take me long to settle into a near-manic level of reading. In the author's note (page 3) came this:
This war correspondent had a poet's heart, and now, like me some years before, she was adjusting to a different view of herself and a new dynamic in her marriage. But then what really hooked me was how she put it all out there in the starkest of terms. She introduced the other new presence in her home.
They were important to me, primarily, because they made me free.
In that same author's note
Can you see why I couldn't put it down before she even got into the meat of the book? Her descriptions danced even while she hinted at the uncomfortable and at times ugly truths lurking on the periphery. These were the truths I craved. It's a heck of a system, trickling down from one mother to the next until eventually you have children minded for practically free by some other family member, like a grandparent. At each narrowing of the economic passage come fewer options and increased chances for exploitation in the lives of the women in that chain.
The book is, after the introductions, divided into three sections. The first covers her time in China, leading up to her first pregnancy, the first year or so of her older son's life and ends with her becoming pregnant again but needing to relocate with her husband's job to Delhi. The next section is about her second son's birth and their life in Delhi. While in the first two parts is mostly Stack's memoir, the third part is where Stack turns journalist again, and interviews the women she employed as domestics in both Beijing and Delhi. She probes them about their lives, their circumstances, and even what was really going on with them when they left her employ (either of their own accord or because they were fired). There is heartbreak, to be sure, in these chapters, but also survival and endurance. Stack is thorough in her investigations, as much as the subjects (her former nannies) let her. I wondered how much further Stack could have gone, if she had the time and the resources, to explore from where her Delhi nanny Mary really came (it may involve Central American drug runners who died in a plane crash, leaving their orphaned daughter in a refugee camp in Bhutan. Maybe).
Throughout the book, I continued to be blown away by how Stack persisted in reminding her readers how illusory this all was, how everyone knew it, but no one would want to admit it. On page 117
Stack is just as open about how these new arrangements affect her husband and her marriage. Often the struggles centered on how to view these women who now worked for them. Were they employees, that could be hired and fired at will? But they were in their home, caring for their children, preparing their meals, keeping the family clean and fed? So were they family, or like-family? But they were paid money, and there had to be expectations and consequences, and boundaries. If the women hired to free them both from housework couldn't get it all done, which spouse is then responsible? Who is the maid really here to help?
By the way, in her acknowledgments, Stack thanks her husband Tom who "did not flinch at the prospect of an honest (but inherently biased) account of our most fraught and challenging days." Her portrayal of Tom, especially during their China days, is not flattering at all. I had to keep checking various internet sources to see if they were still married. While a friend of mine was reading this book, I texted her spoilers: "They're still married!" and "They have two kids now!" It was uncomfortable reading in those passages, but for the whole of the book, they still felt essential to establishing Stack's commitment to understanding how domestic life becomes such a source of tension between otherwise loving people. Since I am praising Stack for her honesty, I will admit that there were a few times I cheered her in the book, as words tumbled out of her mouth that I had sometimes swallowed myself in the interest of keeping peace.
Stack has offered for us readers a candid look into her own experiences in understanding why we call what we call Women's Work remains, regardless of a women's position outside the home, almost exclusively women's business. Stack describes her own childhood as the daughter of a League of Women's Voters activist. Even in a home where her mother gave her T-shirts that read "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle," where the girls were encouraged to be bold and curious and never doubt their capabilities, even there (!) the sisters baked and ironed while their brother mowed the yard and raked. Her mother never saw this as antithetical to the other values she intstilled in her children. Decades later somewhere in Asia, Megan Stack, war correspondent and National Book Award Finalist, would be reminded of her feminist mother's caution against squabbling over household chores with her husband. "Ask yourself....is this the hill you want to die on?"
Even though the responsibilities within the home remain Women's Work, some women still bristle at the suggestion that they certainly must rely on other women's help at home to be the person they are outside the home. Towards the very end of the book, Stack relays this about Sheryl Sandberg:
How do you manage to be out in the world, and if you are here, who is there?
A few months before I read this book, I attended a panel discussion of Women in STEM. The panelists were excellent, talking a lot about being bold, and finding mentors, and being mentors when they are older. There was even the "work-life balance thing" brought up. Two of the panelists had children. I desperately wanted to ask about domestic help. I wanted to beg them to be honest to the younger women in the audience and their mentees about how much their success depended on domestic helpers or stay-at-home husbands or what? "If you are here, who is there?" I didn't ask, because I knew it could come across as an insult or challenge. Only when women and men can entertain Stack's question without offense will we recognize there is value in that work of the home.
Have I done this book justice? I know I was a receptive audience, ready-made to accept whatever Megan Stack had put to paper (er, Kindle screen) after she called her self a "mother who hires other mothers." Women's Work, for me, was a gratifying read.
In case you need to see more before you commit to this book, there are excerpts available here and here, interviews here and here, and many of the major news publications ran reviews. Stack also wrote this essay introducing her interest in domestics.
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