Guilt and regret are part of the parenthood package. Along with the joy and the sweet memories of bringing home the baby from the hospital and baby's first steps comes the twinge of regret. Maybe I should have had a touch more patience when my son was struggling with Algebra. Maybe I should haven't said X when I was so angry. Maybe I should have spent more time playing board games with my daughter. Everybody has those thoughts. 

At the same time, the world is not yet set up to allow two parents to work and to manage all the demands of the family without a certain amount of craziness. At the Y on Wednesday, the moms talked about how they were trying to remain employed, while managing their families. This group of moms were the parents of special needs kids, so the constraints were even larger. These moms, like all moms, wanted to work during the school hours. They needed a flexible schedule to attend parent-teacher conferences and to watch an ill child. They couldn't afford to take a job that paid less than the expenses for the babysitter and gas.  Those jobs do not exist. 

The parenthood package also involves boredom and sacrifice. Presumably if one decreases one's personal boredom and sacrifice, then one increases the guilt factor. If one decreases one's guilt factor, one increases the personal boredom and sacrifice factor. (The guilt factor is always there, BTW, if you work or you don't. I'm full of it. Of course, I'm a neurotic, so maybe don't go by me.)

Virginia Postel says that Hollywood still portrays women leaders as consumed with the first kind of guilt. They subscribe to the Anna Quindlen doctrine which is that family time is always more meaningful than any career. This Quindlen doctrine skews the Margaret Thatcher movie with 

The problem, rather, is that grafted on to what could be an affecting story of greatness and decline is an invidious, and gratuitous, moral. Call it the Gospel According to Anna Quindlen, the writer and columnist who enshrined its maxims in a commencement speech she wrote in 1999 and eventually turned into the best-selling book “A Short Guide to a Happy Life.” “No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time in the office,” she instructed. “Don’t ever forget the words my father sent me on a postcard last year: ‘If you win the rat race, you’re still a rat.’”

I have no idea what I'll think on my death bed. My regrets might be that I didn't use enough sun screen in my teen years. Or that I ate too many Big Macs over the years. Or that I never bought those tickets to see Nirvana. I can't live my life trying to figure out what I'll be thinking years from now. I am just trying to make the most of the cards on my table at this moment. 

But back to the Postel piece, I'm not sure that she's right. There are plenty of movies about successful, happy working women. Erin Brockovich comes to mind. But there must be more, right?