Sequencing, schmequencing
A friend of mine sent me a link to the Redmond chapter of Mothers & More today and I could not help but notice the tagline: The Network for Sequencing Women.
I had to Google ‘sequencing women’ because I thought it was an association for women in genetics. Of course, the first hit was a definition by Mothers & More itself.
Mothers & More represents women who – by choice or circumstance – alter their participation in the paid workplace over the course of their active parenting years. We recognize the needs of the growing number of mothers who move in and out of paid employment and/or opt for a variety of flexible work arrangements in order to balance successfully their work and family responsibilities. This fluid work pattern, which occurs over a number of years and at various stages of motherhood, is known as “sequencing”. The term sequencing was coined by Arlene Rossen Cardozo in her 1986 book, Sequencing.
Here are some actual definitions of the word ‘sequencing’:
- Determination of the order of nucleotides (base sequences) in a DNA or RNA molecule or the order of amino acids in a protein
- Reading, listening, expressing thoughts, describing events or contracting muscles in an orderly and meaningful manner
- Sequencing controls the order and time delay for output voltage appearance as well as dropout when power supplies are turned on and/or of
- Dividing information into smaller, numbered pieces, transmitting it, and reassembling it once it has been received
- In human behavior, doing things in a logical, predictable order.
The last one had me chuckling. Note that this was the definition provided by the Alzheimer’s Association. So unless you have Alzheimer’s, you’d know that choosing to quit your job to be a full-time parent isn’t really logical nor predictable. Rather, most of the time, it starts out as a naive, idealistic choice. That’s because most of us imagine sunny days spent watching our kids play independently in the backyard. We imagine lazing back in our Adirondack chairs, our slim, golden bikin-clad bodies roasting gently in the summer sun, a tall, cool glass of lemonade (or a festive mojito) in one hand, laughing contentedly as our kids act all cute running through the high, fine spray of our sprinklers. The skies are always blue, the grass always green, diapers always changed, laundry always done, dinner always ready, pantries and fridges always stocked, carpets always vacuumed, glass always full and hormones and body in perpetual harmony.
Sequencing. Besides being a funny big word to mean a very simple thing, I question its need. Americans, I think, love coming up with (or blatantly borrowing) new terms to politically-correctly (is there such a word?) describe what they think are 21st-century circumstances when in fact, working class women in Asia have been weaving in and out of work and parenthood since…there were women. Back when Indonesian maids were mainly still in Indonesia, Malay and Chinese and Indian women worked in the fields or in the mines or as servants in the houses of rich families or help their husbands in their own little family businesses to put food on the table. If they got pregnant, they worked through the pregnancy, and when the baby (or often, babies) is/are born, they stayed home to care for their kids, along with grandma or grandpa or whoever, whichever older relative was living in the same house. Whenever these women felt they were up to it, they’d go back to work. Often, they were presented with only one of two hard choices: Stay at home and your kids will starve. Go to work and leave your kids to the elements. Do whatever it takes and try not think too much about it.
Were they sequencing? Yes. Did they need NOT to be judged and to be acknowledged for their efforts? Hell, yea. Did they care? No.
With all the books written about opting out and opting back in again and whether women stupid for wasting their opportunities and lives by quitting their jobs just to parent full-time, or if they’re selfish, irresponsible career-obsessed men-wannabes for wanting to chase their dreams of fame and fortune, it all comes down to one thing. Well, I think it does. And the thing is, what makes you happy? If you enjoy your work, and are the type of person who needs to stay busy and earn money to be fulfilled, then go for it. If you enjoy being there with your kids all day, even through the unpredictable bowel movements and illogical temper tantrums, then do it. If you like a mix of both, then open an Internet business. There is more to technology than Google and Solitaire, ladies. Open an eBay shop. Blog for money. Play poker. In my case, I opened a cooperative preschool because, well, I’m insane.
It can be as simple as that.
Because when it comes down to it, happy people make happy parents.
No need for some big, convoluted debate about who’s right and who’s right-er.
No need for therapy.
No need for fancy new-old words.
DJ
As a matter of fact, sequencing isn’t a new word. It was, as you mentioned, coined in the early 1990s. Moreover, it’s usage was simply to describe a phenomenon – pattern – of women’s relationship to the paid workforce.
Since that time, other words have been used – caroseling (Miriam Peskowitz) and on- and off-ramping (Sylvia Ann Hewlett).
I think the need for language is enormous because the need for society to recognize that mother’s caregiving work has value is enormous – which is why 60% of mothers, when asked recently, cited their desire for part time work. What the term reflects is the desire to give voice to the lives of real women – to not render how they live their lives invisible, or their contributions invisible. Sometimes using a lot of words to describe something really simple leaves the thing itself aside, as if it were unimportant and as if the needs that go with that thing were unimportant as well.
Mothers & More has a membership of over 6,000 women – about half work caring for their families at home, and nearly half work in the paid workforce. When they make that first step into or out of the workforce – they are ‘sequencing,’ making a transition.
It may seem easy without a need for new language but isn’t there a need for a common language before one can be understood? Thevarious books you describe are an effort at this articulation, the beginnings. Cardozo’s work was an early example of this…and it goes on…
Sep 26, 2007 @ 2:13 pm
jennemede
I guess my point is that this acknowledgment women who sequence seek is as frivolous as the word itself. We seem to want to be acknowledged for everything: as caregivers, career professionals, sexual equals, saints. And now as do-it-alls (there’s more frivolous coining for you), albeit at different stages of our lives.
Without this attention and acknowledgement, it seems we barely have the energy to get up each day. Adversely, the more attention and acknowledgment we are given, the more we want.
Still, networks like Mothers & More have their uses and, I believe, serve more than merely stroking the collective egos of an entire ethos, that of women in transition. If nothing else, I believe in the technology that enables the support and acknowledgment.
Sep 26, 2007 @ 4:17 pm
DJ
Technology isn’t really support and acknowledgement. Real people provide that, face to face, in Mothers & More meetings across the country, coast to coast.
It’s not as “wiping the brow” as all of that, as you might think.
It would all be really frivilous if there were only a keyboard a monitor to create meaning, rather than real mothers and real lives, lived largely day to day, working, caring for others, and being part of communities.
Things like: proportional pay and benefits for part time work, restructuring our workplaces so that there is time to care, and recognizing and valuing the caregiving work we all do and need…these are not frivilous things.
Though I’m wondering if the semantics of this conversation is…
this month alone one of our chapters will be hosting a meeting on part time work options and mothers, another will be hosting a meeting breast cancer awareness and still others will be celebrating Mothers & More’s 20th Birthday. Begun in the have it all era – and ringing in our birthday in a climate of increasing awareness. Not bad for using language well through the media, our chapters and our members over 20 years….
Sep 26, 2007 @ 7:27 pm
YvonneO
Oh, I so agree with you, Jen.
There’s really no more need for words to describe what women do in a day. Especially women with families.
Supermom, Career-home juggler, Working mom … aiyoh! Maybe that’s just me feeling that all these labels are just to make us feel special for what we do. (Not that we’re not special!)
Sometimes that’s just too much ego-stroking. I realised this one day when a woman at work (grandma status) looked at whiny me pointedly and said, “When my husband left me, I had to work and take care of my children. I just did it. Why is it so hard for you?”
Urgggg… felt really, really small then. To think that I thought I was the only person who had to figure out how to have it all.
Maybe we should realise that giving ourselves these labels and what-have-yous, only serves to give us the opportunity to complain – ” I can’t get ahead in my career because I have to bake cookies from scratch for my little ones.”
At the end of the day, what you hope to achieve (as a mom, as a working woman) is a responsibility you’ve chosen to undertake. Whatever you want to call it, it’s still your responsibility.
Granted everyone needs a supportive word or social network – but c’mon, can we just get the job done with minimal fuss?
Sep 26, 2007 @ 7:33 pm
jennemede
DJ: I think real support, real help, real change is not frivolous. I think support groups – some of them – are crucial. And from what you say, your community is spearheading some very substantial and meaningful events.
But so are other women support groups without coining new labels.
I dunno. The term ‘sequencing women’ just sounds contrived and smacks of, well, clever copywriting. And that, to me, trivializes your cause somehow and gives off an impression of trying too hard. I guess The Network for Women or The Network for Mothers just does not have the same zing to it.
Sep 26, 2007 @ 8:47 pm
Ammon
Nice post, Jenn! I don’t have anything to add, but I like this post because it has it all — mothers, society, linguistics, technology, and DNA.
Sep 26, 2007 @ 10:25 pm
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