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American Morning

For Working Moms, Challenges Endless

Aired October 30, 2002 - 09:45   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: For working moms, the challenges are endless, trying to stay one step ahead of the career while nurturing family at home. Can working mothers really do it all and be happy? Well, that's not the subject of two bestsellers. One is a novel called "I Don't Know How She Does It" by Allison Pearson. The other is a collection of essays called "The Bitch in the House," by Cathi Hanauer. I sat down with both authors, and I asked Kathy how she settled to the colorful title of the book.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CATHI HANAUER, AUTHOR, "THE BITCH IN THE HOUSE": When I started the book, I was in my mid-30s and I had it all. I had a great husband and two great little kids and a career I'd worked hard on for many years that was essential both of our family income and to my sense of self. And yet, and I was grateful for all of it and happy and yet, instead of -- and yet I found myself constantly overwhelmed by the juggling act that my life had become. I was stressed out and exhausted, and I was basically the bitch in the house.

And the more I talked to other women, the more I realized how many of us were defining ourselves this say, and saying, we looked in the mirror, we didn't like what we were seeing. So that was the first reason.

The more literary reason is that it's in response to Virginia Wolff's famous speech about the angel in the house, and she talks about the angel being intensely sympathetic, immense charming, utterly unselfish. If there was chicken, she took the leg. If there was a draft, she sat in it. And I think the women in the book would not sit in the draft unless they wanted to. They would eat the chicken leg if they wanted, and if not, they would certainly -- they're women with strong wills, and desires and needs of their own, and don't want to -- they want to be good people, too. They don't want to be a bitch to those they love.

ZAHN: Isn't the bottom line here that women have been fed a bunch of bunk? You can't have it all. You certainly can't have it all at the same time. Is that what you found when you talked to 40 women whose composite sketches turned into a fictional account of women's lives?

ALLISON PEARSON, AUTHOR, "I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT": You certainly can't have it all, given the kind of very rigid structures that a lot of the women work in. My character works, she's a hedge fund manager, and works in a testosterone-rich environment, and she has to hide the fact she's a mother. One of the woman I talked to said that in her law firm, you got more sympathy if you came out as a cocaine addict, because there was a program for recovering addicts. There was no program for recovering mothers, because motherhood is a lifelong condition. And I felt it seems an incredible shame that society can't incorporate that women not only are they the men in work, but then they have to go home and be a mother.

And the book is, I hope, full of hilarious scenes, because I'm sure Paula, as a working mom, you know that kind of feeling of charging out of the house and then getting to work and realizing you're wearing mismatching shoes.

ZAHN: Happens all the time.

PEARSON: Yes, there's a scene in the book where Kate is giving a presentation, and she thinks it's going really well. All the men are really focusing on her, and she looks down, and she got dressed in the dark in the baby's room that morning, and she's wearing a bright red bra under a white blouse, and that's why she's commanding such attention and respect.

ZAHN: But I wonder if you think at some point women put too much pressure on themselves. I was talking to a woman who runs PepsiCo, and in a speech, she was saying, look, some days I'm a great executive. Some days I'm a great mother. Some days I'm a great wife. Some days a great lover. And some days I can't get any of those right.

HANAUER: Right, I think we do put pressure ourselves. It's internal as well as external. Some people say doesn't your husband help? That solves some of the problems, but not all, because I was raised by a mother who was the angel in the house, who baked cooked the cookies and went to the PTA meetings, and so when I'm not doing that, I feel guilty, and then the guilt leads to resentment, which leads to stress, which leads to anger.

PEARSON: One of the reasons I think it doesn't work is because women carry the puzzle of family life on our heads. Even if your husband is really helping out, the mother is the one who's remembering to take the lasagna out of the freezer, and he needs a new pair of sneakers.

ZAHN: Multitasking.

PEARSON: Multitasking, except I looked up the definition of juggle in the dictionary, and it says to do many things at once, and at the end, it says, a fraud. So Kate, my character, is basically fraudulent, because she feels she's a fraud in work, and she feels she's a fraud at home.

ZAHN: I'm told it may become a movie.

PEARSON: Miramax is full-steam ahead. So they're going to make it next year, I hope.

ZAHN: See look you do the movie, and then maybe you don't have to worry about all these complications.

PEARSON: Yes, but I think I'm so impatient around the home. I mean, talk about the bitch in the house. My husband actually said he would pay me to go to work; he thought I would become so grumpy around the house. So I don't think I'll give up permanently.

ZAHN: There are a lot of husbands of working wives who feel the same way. Congratulations to both of you, Kathy and Allison, I appreciate your dropping by. Good luck with trying to do it all.

HANAUER: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Allison Pearson, Kathy Hanauer.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired October 30, 2002 - 09:45   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: For working moms, the challenges are endless, trying to stay one step ahead of the career while nurturing family at home. Can working mothers really do it all and be happy? Well, that's not the subject of two bestsellers. One is a novel called "I Don't Know How She Does It" by Allison Pearson. The other is a collection of essays called "The Bitch in the House," by Cathi Hanauer. I sat down with both authors, and I asked Kathy how she settled to the colorful title of the book.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CATHI HANAUER, AUTHOR, "THE BITCH IN THE HOUSE": When I started the book, I was in my mid-30s and I had it all. I had a great husband and two great little kids and a career I'd worked hard on for many years that was essential both of our family income and to my sense of self. And yet, and I was grateful for all of it and happy and yet, instead of -- and yet I found myself constantly overwhelmed by the juggling act that my life had become. I was stressed out and exhausted, and I was basically the bitch in the house.

And the more I talked to other women, the more I realized how many of us were defining ourselves this say, and saying, we looked in the mirror, we didn't like what we were seeing. So that was the first reason.

The more literary reason is that it's in response to Virginia Wolff's famous speech about the angel in the house, and she talks about the angel being intensely sympathetic, immense charming, utterly unselfish. If there was chicken, she took the leg. If there was a draft, she sat in it. And I think the women in the book would not sit in the draft unless they wanted to. They would eat the chicken leg if they wanted, and if not, they would certainly -- they're women with strong wills, and desires and needs of their own, and don't want to -- they want to be good people, too. They don't want to be a bitch to those they love.

ZAHN: Isn't the bottom line here that women have been fed a bunch of bunk? You can't have it all. You certainly can't have it all at the same time. Is that what you found when you talked to 40 women whose composite sketches turned into a fictional account of women's lives?

ALLISON PEARSON, AUTHOR, "I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT": You certainly can't have it all, given the kind of very rigid structures that a lot of the women work in. My character works, she's a hedge fund manager, and works in a testosterone-rich environment, and she has to hide the fact she's a mother. One of the woman I talked to said that in her law firm, you got more sympathy if you came out as a cocaine addict, because there was a program for recovering addicts. There was no program for recovering mothers, because motherhood is a lifelong condition. And I felt it seems an incredible shame that society can't incorporate that women not only are they the men in work, but then they have to go home and be a mother.

And the book is, I hope, full of hilarious scenes, because I'm sure Paula, as a working mom, you know that kind of feeling of charging out of the house and then getting to work and realizing you're wearing mismatching shoes.

ZAHN: Happens all the time.

PEARSON: Yes, there's a scene in the book where Kate is giving a presentation, and she thinks it's going really well. All the men are really focusing on her, and she looks down, and she got dressed in the dark in the baby's room that morning, and she's wearing a bright red bra under a white blouse, and that's why she's commanding such attention and respect.

ZAHN: But I wonder if you think at some point women put too much pressure on themselves. I was talking to a woman who runs PepsiCo, and in a speech, she was saying, look, some days I'm a great executive. Some days I'm a great mother. Some days I'm a great wife. Some days a great lover. And some days I can't get any of those right.

HANAUER: Right, I think we do put pressure ourselves. It's internal as well as external. Some people say doesn't your husband help? That solves some of the problems, but not all, because I was raised by a mother who was the angel in the house, who baked cooked the cookies and went to the PTA meetings, and so when I'm not doing that, I feel guilty, and then the guilt leads to resentment, which leads to stress, which leads to anger.

PEARSON: One of the reasons I think it doesn't work is because women carry the puzzle of family life on our heads. Even if your husband is really helping out, the mother is the one who's remembering to take the lasagna out of the freezer, and he needs a new pair of sneakers.

ZAHN: Multitasking.

PEARSON: Multitasking, except I looked up the definition of juggle in the dictionary, and it says to do many things at once, and at the end, it says, a fraud. So Kate, my character, is basically fraudulent, because she feels she's a fraud in work, and she feels she's a fraud at home.

ZAHN: I'm told it may become a movie.

PEARSON: Miramax is full-steam ahead. So they're going to make it next year, I hope.

ZAHN: See look you do the movie, and then maybe you don't have to worry about all these complications.

PEARSON: Yes, but I think I'm so impatient around the home. I mean, talk about the bitch in the house. My husband actually said he would pay me to go to work; he thought I would become so grumpy around the house. So I don't think I'll give up permanently.

ZAHN: There are a lot of husbands of working wives who feel the same way. Congratulations to both of you, Kathy and Allison, I appreciate your dropping by. Good luck with trying to do it all.

HANAUER: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Allison Pearson, Kathy Hanauer.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com