Fleishman Is in Trouble

by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

When I told people what I did, they’d say, “Being a mother is the hardest job there is.” But it wasn’t. The hardest job there was was being a mother and having an actual job, with pants and a commuter train pass and pens and lipstick. Back when I had a job, no one ever said to me, “Having an actual job and being a mother is the hardest job there is.” We had to not say those things so that we could tiptoe around all the feelings of inadequacy that we projected onto the stay-at-home mothers; in fact, you couldn’t even ask a woman you suspected of stay-at-homery what she did because there was no not-awkward way to ask it. (“Do you work?” I once asked a woman back when I had a job. “Of course I work,” she said. “I’m a mom.” But I was a mom, too, so what was what I did called?) But also: No one had to tell me it was harder to have a job and be a mother. It was obvious. It was two full-time occupations. It’s just math. Because having a job made you no less of a mother; you still had to do all that shit, too.