You and I Are WAY Too Old to Believe in the Lie of "Work/Life Balance"

Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society

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F*CK work/life balance. I stole that from another writer.

Okay not really. I stole the F*CK part; fellow writer

Annie Scott

was attacking toxic gratitude. I appreciated that article very much, and it inspired this one. Here’s why.

My Millennial sisters, as well as my Gen Z sisters, were brought up with all the same lies I was. As a Boomer, my generation purportedly burned bras (an urban myth long disproved) and fought for all kinds of equality.

That generation also gave women the idea that we could, should have it all, our way.

Like life is a Wendy’s burger, right?

The problem is that attached to having it all, our way, was the parasite of shame if, in fact, we failed at achieving that goal.

We marched into corporate America with fat shoulder pads and attitudes, as though acting like men was going to make it all better. Too many of us became the same corporate assholes as the men to keep our jobs.

Vastly too many of us ended hurting our sisters to protect the tiny crumbs we’d been offered.

We most especially hurt our Black sisters, all our sisters of color in our headlong, wholesale, brutal selling of our souls to step up to the top.

What did that get us?

Look around, nothing’s changed. If anything our progress has been decimated, our assumed rights erased, and worse. I might argue, not without reason, that had we worked to include ALL our sisters, we might have made more progress. But I digress.

We Boomer -mostly White women- ushered in the idea of having it all. Heady with what we thought were all our new freedoms- they weren’t but it felt that way- we assumed the shackles were off.

From that the idea of work/life balance grew into a major theme. Or rather, another high bar to reach, something to be achieved along with everything else. If we haven’t established the elusive work/life balance, we’ve failed.

Work/life balance doesn’t exist. The same way that toxic gratitude, enforced gratitude, does little more than embed resentment.

Toxic as hell, because nothing’s changed. Young women are still expected to be perfect, get the education, find the partner, punch out the perfect babies, get the perfect job, have the perfect body even after childbirth, look gorgeous for her entire life and be All That to her friends and family.

Oh and the children end up perfect, valedictorians and then Ivy League top grads, off to lead perfectly-balanced lives just like mommy.

Balance? Frankly, f*ck balance.

You and I are WAY Too Old to believe in the fairy tale of work/life balance.

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Women still do all or most of all the household work. Still carry the burden of the babies and child care. Still earn a fraction of what men make. Still aren’t in the corporate boardrooms and CEO suites in the numbers which reflect our half of society, even with all the work we’ve put in.

We still get little to no respect (quadruple that if you’re a woman of color).

And if you’re single? Baby-free? Oh please. No matter how successful you are otherwise, where are your babies, dearest?

You could achieve world peace and the world would still castigate you for being childless.

We’re working full time, maybe three jobs and a side hustle or two, while hubby/partner comes home too tired to be with the kids, take out the garbage….same as my generation. Previous generations.

There are some changes, but not enough, and not fast enough. Above all, we still believe that balance is available. Worse, just like those idiot wellness programs at work to help with our mental health, if we’re still stressed out, then by god WE are the problem.

WE are the problem if we haven’t mastered all that shit and more by twenty-five.

Photo by Minh Pham on Unsplash

Themes and memes continue to browbeat us if we haven’t yet achieved that magical moment that we’re then expected to maintain….forever.

Hustle culture, which dogs today’s younger generation, is just another word for the same compulsive workaholic tendencies my sisters and I sucked up in the Eighties, believing that ninety-hour workweeks would somehow get us Elysium.

Got a lot of us on Valium, but not Elysium.

Back in the day the Rolling Stones sang about Mother’s Little Helper, the yellow pill that got her through. Today it’s wine and a smorgasbord of drugs and diversions and disorders which do little more than distract us briefly from the failure of never achieving what is not achievable.

If the level of alcoholism discussed on Substack and elsewhere is any indication, today’s Mother’s Little Helper lives in a pretty bottle.

This ten-year old Time article lines out a whole bunch of wisdom which, especially in light of our post-Covid world, still sticks a serious hole in the Holy Grail of work-life balance.

Hustle and grind are simply this generation’s version of the same thing. How we are still made to believe that if we just work harder and longer and better, look perfect (perfect hair face nails teeth toenails skin) and have this perfect body, if if if if if ONLY, then we would have the Holy Grail life. The balanced life.

BULLSHIT.

Here’s the real truth. You and I can indeed have it all, if you will, but just not all at the same time.

We may, if we are patient, work hard and dedicate ourselves, have seasons.

Seasons of being sexy, in our unique way. Of being a mother, an auntie, a volunteer mommy. A season of successful work/career. Some of those may overlap. Some will not, simply because the extraordinary demands of motherhood do not allow us to keep one foot in the perfect body space.

If you need a reminder of just how dedicated certain folks are to keeping us in line, you only have to remember this monumental fail from early Covid years: the MAGA-inspired, utterly horrific and ridiculous MAKE WOMEN GREAT AGAIN Conference.

Well, f*ck that, too, while you’re at it, assholes. Just saying.

Photo by Loic Leray on Unsplash

Finding balance: is it even possible?

You get it. Balance is mental, it’s attitude. It’s that space of grace inside us which chooses what is better for us in any one situation, not driven by outside demands. That one thing which eludes us when we are running so hard on multiple gerbil wheels that we cannot possibly function.

Let’s talk about how that might work in real life.

An example: I am up every day at 3:30. Not by choice. When I was 63, my circadian rhythms shifted from my normal automatic wake-up at 5:30 to two hours back. Annoyed as hell, I researched it.

A certain number of folks my age or thereabouts see their sleep patterns shift two hours earlier or later. Mine, well. I’ve learned to love it, but it has consequences. I have to be in bed by 7:30 pm.

Last night, after a very very very long day, I had one more thing to do: a horse riding lesson that began, for me, VERY late in the day, at 6:30 pm. Look, by 3 pm, my nose is already embedded in my keyboard. I’ve been up nearly twelve hours.

Still, I was on my way at 5:15 pm because you have to tack up your horse. At the first major red light near my house, I made a turn on red just as the opposing traffic was turning into my lane with a green light. I damned near got myself killed.

My first thought: you need to get the hell off the road.

A few minutes later I was stuck in traffic with red lights as far as I could see. I called the stable, told them to please eat the fee, and I would instead find a daytime class. They were gracious. I got home safely and collapsed.

That is a mini-lesson in self-care. I am not Superwoman. I do not have endless stores of endurance. I’d already done 14k steps and a five-mile hike that day.

Others may have kids, a demanding husband, a phone full of texts and demands from work and friends.

What. The. Hell, right?

I believe that balance is the choice to do what is right for you right now, as best you can. To set boundaries. To say no more often. To make space for your needs right now, to protect your energy, your body, your brain.

Not to leap on yet another gerbil wheel and chug wine to help you cope. Or worse.

We don’t have to get angry at society. Nor do we need to get angry at ourselves for allowing ourselves to be sucked into yet another Wellness Industrial Complex idea that operates at the expense of women’s mental health. And men’s. Let’s be fair.

You and I get to choose not to be driven by the idiot ideal of balance, which is impossible. Many of us have side hustles because we have to survive. The last thing we need is to be made to feel like a failure if we don’t have time for ourselves, time for bubble baths, time for the spa, blah blah blah.

Balance begins with boundaries. It’s taken me a lifetime but I’ve learned to be better. So can we all.

You and I are WAY Too Old to be whipsawed by unrealistic expectations.

We deserve a life, lived as best we can in the conditions we’ve created and those which are given to us. Let’s spend our time free of the additional, unrealistic burden of trying to find what will never truly be found: work/life balance. Let’s learn to say no more often which is a yes to us.

Let’s play.

Photo by Cleyton Ewerton on Unsplash

Thank you for spending your time with me today. Thanks in particular to

Annie Scott

for inspiring this article. I love calling out societal stupidity especially when I’ve been stupid enough to get caught up in it. If this was valuable to you, please consider

If you have someone in your life who is struggling with this kind of thing, please also consider

Either way, thank you for reading my material. Go have fun today, your way.