Working Moms

I am not currently working, mainly because we moved for my husband's job to a foreign country that appears reluctant to award me the right to work. But I would like to work again (and am currently in the process of awaiting the outcome of my work permit application), and becoming pregnant has inevitably brought up myriad thoughts and feelings about what it might be like to work as a mother.

I remember meeting with a female managing director when I started working in investment banking about ten years ago. How exactly the meeting came about, I can't precisely remember. But I imagine it had something to do with my asking the HR director (a hot-to-trot, suspiciously tan babe whose presence tended to inspire not only the admiration but also crass commentary of most of the male analyst and associate recruits) about "work-life balance." And, really, what a funny thing to ask about, on my part. After all, I was single and only 21, had just graduated college and moved to New York, and becoming a mommy was really not any kind of top priority. But, still, it seemed like something worth inquiring about - and in a conceptual way, even important. In the end, it did result in a fairly interesting conversation.

This particular female M.D. appeared to be in her late 40s/early 50s and told me she had two young children. I asked her how she did "it" - managing two kids and climbing to a top spot at a middle-market investment bank. She took a long, meaningful glance at one of the undoubtedly very expensive baubles she was wearing before answering, "I should say I've had a lot of help." And while this came as no surprise - help makes things happen, as my mother-in-law always reminds me - everything she said seemed to imply that, really, she almost never saw her children. She had multiple nannies, and her kids were enrolled in multiple "programs." Basically from their births on, she had not had to forsake any of her investment bank duties for child care. I left her office feeling somewhat deflated and hardly encouraged, consoling myself only with the knowledge I wasn't planning on having any tots in the foreseeable future.