Listen: A new story from Cape Up with Jonathan Capehart

"It's real real real. It's in all right. We're laughing. This is no laughing matter. I mean this is serious. It's a little bit of time that we have left. I want to bring you back to the book you were writing about trying to juggle everything being a working working. Mother and I failed to note the page number here. So my apologies but you talked about the fact that at that time women were all about in the workplace all about showing. How you're you just like the guys like nothing else was different? You're just like the guys and you take and you write about your science not saying anything. My silence stemmed mostly from my shame feeling alone as though I were the only overwhelmed working mother. I told myself that if I was just smarter more organized and more efficient if I just tried harder and slept let less. Perhaps it all wouldn't be so hard. As women of my generation fought to gain equity in the workplace. We made an unspoken pact to pretend even to one another that we had added all under control. We didn't we couldn't possibly. WHAT IS THE HOPE A? Here's a smattering of golf applause. But working mothers what what do you say to. Or what did you say to Laura. What do you say to Laura's friends? This next generation of young women who are trying to juggle it all. Are they more aware and more open to no longer being silenced or has that been carried over generation. You weren't with any millennials any lls. Oh yeah they're not so quiet about the stuff which is good. I obviously have a great relationship with my daughter and I've always talked very openly and I told her the mistakes I made made trying to like Ginger Rogers and Fred astaire dancing backwards with high heels on and I thought that it was important to prove my worthiness by pretending there was no life outside and I thought that if I didn't do that then the guy's wouldn't take me as seriously and when I started verbalizing what was going on in my life. Can I was in an environment where people actually cared. They responded to my needs. I mean I had a great mentor. Who supported me in crazy way? She'd come to my home after work so I could put lowered a better than we would work after Laura went to sleep. Most people aren't going to do that for you but if I had never told her I was a single mom and I needed to get home for bedtime. Then how would she. She has ever known. And so I am encouraged that the next generation is a little bit more willing to first of all to expect more from the partners their spouses says in terms of contributing. I know my daughter and her husband have had many a conversation about their expectations. Parenting we just gave him a baby shower yesterday and it was co coed and people were like well. Why are the guys coming to the shower? And I said from the beginning. They're starting. This is a partnership. And they're doing this together. He laugh you chocolate show. It was fun no games. We didn't play games but I think part of my message is look the question is can you have it all well. We set an unrealistic expectation to having it all means doing everything thing to perfection. And I thought I was super human and I could do it off could work all day. I could come home. I could put Lord Abed a work some more and then I would make baby food it from scratch in the middle of the night what was I thinking. Don't do that to yourself. Don't set yourself up to think that everything has to be absolutely absolutely perfect and I think the best example of that would be Laura. When I started my book tour? Laura flew out to Chicago and interviewed with me and the person who was moderating in the conversation asked Laura what surprise you in the book about your mother and my daughter said I had no idea she felt so guilty. She said she was a perfect mom from vervins point not from mine from mine. I was a lousy mother and I and I was lousy everything when she was really young. And that's not how she saw the world and so I think I want working the parents to give themselves a little bit of a break to realize that you are doing a great job and don't let perfection be the definition the Almighty comparison exactly but also to remember that life has multiple chapters and they each have trade-offs and you make decisions and then you have to live with the consequences of those decisions but for me. Okay what I realized when I started listening to my voice and I started realizing how much power I could have if I spoke up and I started making decisions where I listened to the gut inside of me as opposed to what everybody else was defining as my life. That's when the adventure began not craving the comfort of the straight line that I had charted out for myself but the exhilaration that comes from taking advantage of opportunities at knock at inopportune moments and the exhilaration that comes from being scared to death about trying something new and then figuring out. Oh I can do that and conquering and then swerving again. So Zigzag Jack Is my message to young folks. Your word is embraced zagging in Michelle Obama's book. It's a brace to the swerve. All of the above because of of Michelle Obama and I both had not swerved out of what was expected of us into public service. Who knows where we would all be today right right you might be married Chicago? You decided not to run for Mayor Chicago because you didn't want to be an elective office. I thought about it long and hard at one point in my life I thought about throwing my hat in the ring to replace President Obama when he was first elected in the Senate and I think in the end I have come to appreciate that there are many ways to serve and you have to do a gut check before you do elected office and just as I described my early days isn't city government where it's twenty four seven and people come up to the grocery store in the dry cleaners and lobby your daughter. All of that is what you have to be prepared for when you run for office US and at this stage of my life. Don't hate me but I wake up every single day and I do exactly what I want to do right. I mean I worked really hard to get to this point and I work. I think as hard as ever but on issues I care about and I define them is at the time I I said the place I determine the agenda and I also really looking forward to being a grandmother and I don't want to be a public official when I'm trying to be a gramma Emma. Let's just me. Everybody has to make their own decision. So we started this conversation by talking about the mantra of your parents about your willingness to work hard and be resilient and have a little luck and you can only take advantage of luck if you are fully prepared and it's right right after. President Obama has been elected on election. Night there's a sixty minutes interview you're sitting with your parents watching this and I'm going to read what you wrote at the end of the interview. My mother looked over at me. How did you know that he could win? She asked not that he would but even that he could because because of you too I said a bit surprise in my voice because you both raised me to believe that if you work twice as hard as anyone else and sacrifice for what you believe leave in and luck is on your side. The Sky's the limit. She shook her head and said softly. I never believed any of that. And the kicker my dad chuckled and said he agreed with her Valerie. The Best Party lift the rest o houses i. I'm sorry. I stared at them in disbelief. For the first time I realized my parents had raised me. ASPIRATIONAL instilling in me. Said of core beliefs that they didn't actually hold themselves elves that. Here's the best line that I did. Underline this their gift to me was not to shackle me with their."

Cape Up with Jonathan Capehart

A new story from Cape Up with Jonathan Capehart

Cape Up with Jonathan Capehart

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