I was at a memorial service recently, the most moving and beautiful service I’d ever been to. Fortunately, I haven’t been to too many — although I know that will change in future years.
My friend’s husband was a famed illustrator and a beloved art teacher, and the speakers — whether friends, fellow teachers and artists or former students — spoke of his dedication, passion, rare talent (not only as an artist, but as an inspiring teacher), joy for life, love of family and genuine kindness. There was so much I learned about him — we rarely know the full spectrum of a person, and all of us have several identities — that I was sorry I never cornered him at a party to ask him more about the creative process; instead, I always sought him out because he was never without a good story and because he was always laughing. I am drawn to people like that.
What also struck me so deeply was that every speaker spoke not only of him, but also of his wife — she was the loving support that enabled him to enter the creative process fully, deeply and passionately. They were a true team, a partnership, and I couldn’t help but think — isn’t that the essence of a great marriage? Isn’t that what we all want in a relationship, to be that couple in which each partner can be the best he or she can be because we’ve got each other’s back? 
Well, that’s certainly what I wanted although I don’t think I had named it so succinctly for myself when I married husband No. 2 (please don’t ask me why I married husband No. 1; he was cute and sweet, and I was very young, stupid and in love and that was pretty much that!). But I always believed that that was how I behaved in my marriage. See, I, like my friend, was a stay-at-home mom whose “job” was to care for the kids, cook and clean and handle all of life’s niggling details. It was a decision my then-husband and I had made together; we wanted one of us to raise the kids and since he made more than I did and I had more interest in staying home than he did, it seemed like a no-brainer. But I also was a support for his career.
As I wrote in a Mommy Tracked column awhile back:
(A)t the same time that I threw myself into full-time motherhood, my husband was starting to climb in his newspaper career.
He asked me to help him, and I was happy to do it. Not only did it put my writing skills and creativity to good use, but it also felt like we were a team — not just husband and wife, not just mom and dad, but journalist and photojournalist.
Plus, a grant I had researched and written before just before we got married not only sent him to Japan for six weeks — the only photojournalist to win it — but also led to his being named as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. What could stop us?
Nothing. In fact, we could have been the poster couple for “Beside Every Successful Man: A Woman’s Guide To Having It All,” conservative commentator Megan Basham’s new book that advises women to opt out of the 9-to-5 grind and put their energy into making their husbands be more successful in their careers.
Now, I’m not a conservative gal who believes women should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen while hubby goes out to conquer the world. Nor am I suggesting that men shouldn’t marry women with careers, as was the topic of a highly heated discussion between Forbes writers Micheal Noer and Elizabeth Corcoran a few years back. Each couple has to decide for themselves how they’re going to make marriage and parenting work, and they shouldn’t worry too much (or, better yet, at all) what anyone else thinks. Plus, I always worked, either part-time for papers or on my own fledgling business or freelancing; that was important for my sanity if not exactly our financial health.
From the outside, my friends’ relationship probably seemed to be a throwback to some other era because we still don’t put as much value on those who stay at home, even if it’s working for the couple, even if it’s increasingly the dad who stays at home. But we don’t live in the ’50s anymore — people didn’t have choices back then and now we do. Nowadays we choose if we have a career or stay at home (well, we did until the recession switched things up). And, yes, staying at home can be fraught with risk if the couple divorces and the SAHM suddenly has to find a job (I’m not being sexist, but I don’t think most SAHDs would have as much trouble). What made my friends’ relationship work is the respect and appreciation they gave each other for what each was doing. He valued her role in the home, and she knew that he relied on her to do it the best she could — and she did. And because of that, he was able to become the brilliant artist and teacher that he was. His success was truly their success.
In my interviews with some high-powered women, sometimes working in a traditionally man’s world such as Kate Thorp, founder of Real Girls Media and DivineCaroline, I have been struck by the fact that their husbands are often stay-at-home dads or at least have flexible jobs. Someone, as Basham would say, is opting “out of the 9-to-5 grind” and putting energy into making his or her spouse “be more successful in their careers.”
All of which makes me wonder if a couple with two high-powered careers can enjoy the same sort of relationship as my friends did. If they are busy building their careers, as they must, and caring for their kids, ditto, is there also enough time and energy to be nurturing each other?
What do you think?
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