As Seen On TV ...
Finally! Art actually does a relatively decent job of imitating life by portraying the "balancing act" that women perform everyday managing home and work -- whatever forms they come in!
As a busy mom with a busy business to run, I don't get much of a chance to watch television these days. Not that I'd want to if I could, but it sure is interesting to note that all of the shows I might watch if I had the time are shows that are making reasonable attempts to accurately reflect the lives of mothers like me all over the country.
Today's USA Today focuses on several of these shows:
~ Medium, featuring a wife and mother with two kids and a job as a psychic crime detective of sorts
~ Commander in Chief, featuring the first woman president of the United States, also a wife and mother
~ Desperate Housewives, with former stay at home wife and mother, now balancing a traditional 9 to 5 job
Regardless of whether the shows' content is appeealing, it's clear that the people responsible for creating shows' concepts, writing scripts and inventing characters are trying to reflect more realistic notions of what real life as a real mother is like. In the case of Desperate Housewives, the former at home mom went back to work because her husaband lost his job. The moms in the other two shows seem to have proactively chosen more traditional jobs even though they didn't have to. For example, if the character in Medium really is any good at catching criminals, surely she could open up her own home-based consulting business. And any woman who has what it takes to the president could operate a political lobbying or consulting enterprise out of a home office.
Whatever the case, it is invigorating and affirming to see that all facets of life as a mom are being explored on the small screen. And it shows that we have options. We can work wherever we want to -- inside or outside the home -- and have a family too. For me, because there are far more benefits to working from my home, the choice is a no-brainer. Even if the only benefit was saving myself two hours of rush hour traffic each day, I'd choose working from home any day to both provide for my family and create the life I love.
Mom, whoever you are, wherever you are and whomever you work for or with, I applaud you for being a renaissance woman who infuses pride, joy, passion and good old fashioned hard work into every day in an effort to provide a secure and nurturing environment for your family. What's your story? How do you balance work and home? Is it easier if you have your own business? Do any television shows resonate with you or reflect your life more accurately than past shows?
Comments
Donna Maria:
Like you, I don't have much time to watch TV, but I have found it interesting over the years that more of the home-based entrepreneurs on TV have been men, not women. Mostly writers like the sportswriter dad on "Everybody Loves Raymond" or the humor columnist based on Dave Barry (can't remember the name of the show). Of course, there was Julia Sugarbaker who ran her "Designing Women" interior design firm from her very tasteful Atlanta mansion (with four employees, to boot).
I always wonder where on earth these folks hid all the PAPER! Even though we do so much of our work on a computer, I find my home office still drowning in paper - the worst kind of clutter, because you can never just chuck the whole lot. You have to sort through it to make sure you aren't pitching anything valuable. I do all the tricks like sorting the mail next to the recycling bin, color-coding my file folders, etc., but it still gets away from me. There are just too many important things I need to do to run my business and too many fun things to do with my kids to waste time on filing!
I long for the day when my office is free of the paper tiger. Anyone have any great suggestions for how to handle this?
Best,
Katherine
Posted by: Katherine Hutt | November 28, 2005 08:57 AM