“How can I balance work and life?”

Ah, the perennial issue for among high-performing adults. At first glance, the dilemma makes sense. The “balance” question is the plaintiff cry of working folks who care about their career and their family (or their lives away from work). But it requires more than a cursory glance to give this issue proper attention.

What is really going on here?

Once upon a time, in the land of the post-war Boomers, there was no such question. The man worked and the woman raised the children. This was just understood; it had always been such and as such it would continue. It was the expected cultural norm.

It was a matter of shared sacrifice. The man valiantly provided for his family, as it had been since ancient times. He understood that his care and concern was thus demonstrated even though work meant time away from spouse and children. This ethic was reinforced in times of war: “Daddy has to go fight the bad guys,” was a commonly referenced refrain, a display of love for both country and family.

The issue was more complex for women. Women had the capacity to work, as did men, but also had the ability to create life, which men did not. And women did work, even in those times of the distant misty past, if they decided not to (or perhaps were unable to) bear children. But this situation was not common.

It is also important to note that it was understood that there was an emotional aptitude for child-rearing that favored the mother. It wasn’t just the biological ability to have kids that set women apart as the care-takers. The woman’s sacrifice, then, was to forego career in favor of homemaking and caring for children.

So, for reasons obvious and subtle, dad made the money and mom raised the kids. The term “stay-at-home-mom” would have been redundant: what other kind of mom was there? (Stow the hate mail, keyboard warriors. This is not a value judgment, just a reminder of how it was “back in the day.”)

Times have changed

There was a seismic shift in the work/life balance landscape in the mid 1980s, for reasons far too diverse and nuanced to comprehensively address in a blog post. Suffice to oversimplify by saying that there were two primary drivers of change to the status quo.

In the mid 1940s, a woman named Simone de Beauvoir began to write about the role of women in society. This was a logical continuance of the suffragette movement of the late 19th century. By the 1960s, the women’s liberation movement was in full swing. Bra-burning and ads proclaiming, “You’ve come a long way, baby!” were commonplace. “Housewife” became a derogatory term that connoted a subservient role that kept women from their full potential.

In addition, the 1970s brought recession and hyper-inflation and altered the financial landscape forever. As a result, it was no longer feasible for a middle-class family to survive on one income.

Women were encouraged to enter the workplace by the former, and forced to by the latter.

By the 1980s, young, upwardly-mobile professionals were cultural celebrities. “Yuppies” were the social icons of the day, proof that gender was no barrier to the “grind” and subsequent financial success. An MBA and 80-hour workweeks were proof of “hustle,” similar to today’s “bro – do you even lift?”

For better or worse, family and career were at odds in terms of resources and time.

How to balance work and life

Today there are a multitude of approaches to the challenge of juggling family and career. “Stay-at-home-dad,” and “remote worker” have become new roles.

Put a play-pen next to your desk and laptop in the front room and there you have it: work/life balance!

Or consider the ever-popular “opposite shifts” paradigm: one parent works days, the other works nights. Of course, the caretakers never see each other, but the income level is maintained and the kids aren’t left alone. Work/life balance, right?

Perhaps the saddest solution of all is the “put the kids in day care, I have to work” option. The realization that the “day care” option has been necessitated for so many by a massive, multi-generational epidemic of single motherhood is sadder still. This disastrous failure of men (and of the men who were absent from their lives) has wrought destruction far too consequential to address in a blog post.

Ironically, the yuppies of the 1980s are now grandparents who find themselves raising their grandchildren while their kids are working or in rehab or prison.

I don’t have a one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how to balance work and life, but I do have a message of hope. While it is true that, “you gotta do what you gotta do,” the right mindset can make this a temporary solution.

The way forward

The way forward lies in personal responsibility and a sense of purpose (which I have written about here and here and elsewhere).

The personal responsibility part comes in the realization that it will take a lot of hard work to free yourself. But how hard are you working now?

Here’s the thing: you can continue to work hard doing what you’re doing and end up in the same place you are now. Or you can work hard to acquire knowledge and skills beyond those you currently possess. This can give you resources and opportunities that will lift you out of your current situation.

Yes, you will still have to find a way to manage both family and career and no, there will be nothing resembling “balance.” But one path is a treadmill that leads to exactly where you are. The other path leads to additional possibilities that may allow you to actually integrate family and work responsibilities.

Both will make you sweat, but only one has a payoff.

Integration is the goal

So let’s say (and I hope!) that you choose the path of personal responsibility and commit to working for a better tomorrow. How do you know what tomorrow to pursue? This is the part where a sense of purpose comes in.

When you develop an idea of what your life is about – why you are here – the road ahead becomes much more clear.

The decision brings freedom. You see, it doesn’t matter if you decide your purpose is to become a civil-rights attorney or a contractor or a business owner. Whatever you can envision as your highest good is worthy of your effort. And when that effort pays off, you will be able to grab the pot-‘o-gold at the end of the hard-work rainbow: integration.

In the end, the only way to successfully answer the question of how to balance work and life is to integrate them. If work and life are the same, there is no longer anything to balance. When you are working in alignment with your purpose, “work” and “life” become merged as “living.”

Those in your care become part of the vision, at least until they are able to pursue their own purpose. Of course there will still be logistics to be considered (“Who’s taking Suzanne to volleyball practice?”) But overall, daily life is less fractured.

And maybe most importantly, when hard work towards your purpose puts you in charge, you can decide when to take time off for that dance recital or soccer game.

When you move towards being a decision-maker, you move away from being a victim.

As always, I welcome your thoughts. You can reach me through the comments section on my Substack or Medium accounts or the blog section on my website. If this article as of value to you, please follow my Instagram and Twitter accounts. And be sure to subscribe to my River Of Creation podcast – The Podcast for Creators! – coming later this year.

Be well; do good!

• JWW