For the first time in years my husband and I are enjoying an extended time together, on vacation, no kids.  And it’s great.  There’s no talk of who’s pulling their weight around the house.  No bickering over whose turn it is to be “on” parenting-wise.  Just getting back to remembering what we always liked about each other and still do.

As a parent, I knew this week would be great for us.  And I knew it would be great for my little one.  As an only child she is used to the adult world.  She is used to putting a toy down and having it unmolested when she gets back to it.  She is used to being the center of the universe with lots of adults rushing to her aid for the simplest thing.  Not this week.

She has been spending this week with cousins.  Ranging from teenagers to 1st graders and it is no longer all about her.  And from the reports I’m hearing she is loving her independence and taking to it well.  Doing things for herself that we typically help her with at home.  Learning give and take.  Asking questions when she’s unsure.  And gaining great self-confidence.

By letting go we are strengthening our marriage, and helping our little one learn and grow.  The lessons for this in the work/life struggle juggle is by giving up some control, we are all gaining much more.  So many parents and managers in the workplace focus on “control” and “trust.”   Instead I think they should lose control and presume trust and ability of kids/workers to do it themselves – there is more to be gained than they can possibly imagine.

Many in the work/life movement talk about how, in the end, it is the totality of your life’s accomplishments that matter.  And while work is certainly part of that it is often not the most important part.

I agree.  And I have seen it personified this week as my family is mourning a great loss for us and this community.  In fact in this nice article about my little one’s Grandpa Todd there are only 22 words out of 604 dedicated to his job…many more speak to his life.  And it is his because of how he lived his life that we have gathered and why the phone and doorbell have not stopped ringing.

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Lappin helped ‘Make-A-Wish’ dreams come true

He was also a leader in Milwaukee’s Jewish community

By Meg Jones of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: May 23, 2010

After Todd Lappin was diagnosed with cancer he would tell people that the kidney doctors removed was never his favorite kidney.

It was with humor and compassion that Lappin dealt with kidney cancer, attributes he used to make a difference in other lives through philanthropy and by participating in clinical trials to help scientists searching for a cure.

Lappin died Friday of a heart attack at his Mequon home. He was 70.

After Lappin was diagnosed with pulmonary lymphoma and kidney cancer in 1991 he received contributions from many friends and searched for the best way to use the donations. He chose the Make-A-Wish Foundation and became chairman of the board of the local organization.

“It just sounded like a perfect fit,” said his wife, Muriel Lappin.

Through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Lappin met a 6-year-old boy with a brain tumor and granted his dream to visit Disney World. Muriel Lappin said the boy was so ill doctors worried he might not survive the trip, but the boy lived for six more months and bonded with Lappin.

“He had an incredible ability to touch people in a way that was very important to them,” said his son Michael Lappin.

A Duke University graduate, he ran Lappin Electric Co., a wholesale electrical supply firm started by his grandfather in 1919, until it was sold in 1997. Lappin, whose sister Sue is married to Bud Selig, was a leader in Milwaukee’s Jewish community and was president of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Milwaukee.

He served on the boards of the Milwaukee Boys and Girls Club and Gilda’s Club and was chairman of the capital campaign committee of Milwaukee College Preparatory School. Lappin was president of Brynwood Country Club and was active in the American Cancer Society and the University of Wisconsin Paul P. Carbone Cancer Clinic.

Through the cancer clinic, he volunteered to participate in medical trials including one study where he was Patient No. 0001, which turned out to be an international study that resulted in FDA approval of a drug.

“It was not easy to be on that particular drug, but he was a fighter and really tried not to complain,” Muriel Lappin said.

After his cancer diagnosis in 1991, doctors removed one of his kidneys and then prepared to start chemotherapy for the pulmonary lymphoma. After further testing, a radiologist told Lappin’s doctor that the chemotherapy must have worked because he couldn’t find the lymphoma.

“And the doctor said, ‘What do you mean? He hasn’t started it yet.’ Sure enough, the lymphoma was gone,” Michael Lappin said.

The kidney cancer was in remission for about a dozen years when it metastasized. Still, Lappin stayed positive and threw himself into his charitable work.

“He never took himself too seriously even though he was dealing with a serious illness and was actually writing a journal about it, which now will have an abbreviated ending,” his wife said. “Whether he published it or not, it was with the hope it would lend some levity to someone else going through the same thing.”

Bill Appel, a close friend who went on several fund-raising trips to Israel with Lappin, said his quick wit and timing made him a popular choice to emcee events in the community.

“Part of it had to do with his involvement in the community and knowing so many people, and part of it had to do with his comedic timing,” Appel said.

Survivors include his wife, Muriel; four children, Michael, Laura, Kathy Konik and Gary; two stepchildren, Bradley Sax and Larry Chase Sax; and one sister and one brother.

I’m writing this on a day when I couldn’t be more thrilled that I choose to outsource some responsibilities.  It’s been a rough few nights with limited sleep and the cavalry arrived today at 8am.  And I was blissfully asleep and was able to stay that way for a little longer this morning.

Outsourcing is the only way I manage.  Because I simply cannot do it all and I do not want to.  That’s my secret to survival and sanity and I highly recommend it.  I’m not into the martyr thing.  I’d rather ask for help.

Many friends, colleagues, contemporaries look at me and exclaim “I don’t know how you do it.”  They’re talking about my husband’s constant and unpredictable travel schedule leaving me to tend to the home, the child and my work alone during the  week.  But the key is, he hasn’t left me to go it alone. As he and I both know how that would go and it wouldn’t be pretty.

So after two nights being up with croup and getting little, fitful sleep, I am happy to say the nanny is here early today.  I have no problem with the fact that I have a nanny.  She is not mommy.  The last two days certainly proved that.  She was there during the daytime, too, but the only one that mattered to my sick little one was me.  No guilt, no questioning if it’s the right thing, just an understanding that this is the childcare situation that works for us.

The other outsourcing I choose is housework.  Why?  Because it’s not my job alone.  And my partner in crime has his own bathroom to clean but just can’t manage to clean it and honestly just doesn’t want to.   Sorry June Cleaver, it’s not my job to pick up after him in his own space.

Why am I mentioning all this, because there is frequent debate about how women are the ones who work and still do the housework and the child rearing.  And I agree that is true to a point.  Unless of course you say, “sorry not my job” or “not my job alone.”  Because you do not have to go it alone.  Men are perfectly capable of cleaning, parenting & cooking.  They just don’t do it intuitively…it’s not something they think to do…unless you ask.

You see that discussion happened in stages in my family.  First came the house cleaner.  Once we went to a larger condo and more bathrooms, bedrooms, etc.  I declared cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming, dusting was not my job alone.  I already had a full-time job and I did not need more on my plate.  He grumbled that we didn’t need a house cleaner.  He said he’d help.  Every other week it would be his turn to clean.  And I said, “Great!” But it didn’t happen, he acknowledged he just wasn’t willing to do it, we hired a cleaner.

So it didn’t come as much of a surprise when I was pregnant that we would find a nanny.  Again we both worked and neither of us considered child rearing to be the sole responsibility of mom (except for some tasks like nursing which is exclusive to mom).  He has never questioned whether my income is enough to pay for the help.  Because it is a household expense.  We have a total combined income and out of that income there are bills to pay.  Whose income pays for what is moot.  So I also don’t buy in to the “I only work to pay childcare” debate.  It’s a household expense, you have a household income to pay those expenses, the end.

And I just don’t understand when I read the articles about how women “have” to do it all.  No we don’t.  Speak up.  Outsource.  Ask for help.  It just might be the best thing you can do for yourself, your marriage and your family.  And who knows if enough men end up doing more maybe like my husband they will simply admit that they don’t want to and then outsourcing household chores will make it into the benefits column at work.  A girl can dream.

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And as one who has never been taught how to manage, communicate with and forge relationships with household workers I am intrigued by this survey http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MediationMama and a new service to help improve the relationship between household employers & workers.  Because goodness knows it is a different dynamic than the office world – some of these people spend more time in your house than you do and it becomes a more personal relationship that many have a hard time managing.

A year and a half ago as I started this blog I considered the terms flexibility and balance in the work/life debate.

Now, I realize it’s more complicated than just being about those two words.  There is lots of confusion and debate about what is in your employer’s control and what is personal responsibility.  So here are my new thoughts on these two terms:

Workplace flexibility.  It’s important to workers.  Whether it be to sign kids up for school, to be sure houses are drying out properly post-flooding, to skip a harried commute, to continue working despite the weather gods, or because workers have more faith in themselves than in the employer contract…flexibility at work is yearned for more and more.

And obviously this plea is being heard.  You can’t ignore that something is afoot when the White House gets in on the conversation, when hourly workers are envied for their more flexible schedules and generous benefits or when there is general malaise about time spent at work and work interfering with other interests.

More work and less play makes for bad business. So workplace flexibility is an issue today and I do believe that is the right term.  And I hope to continue to see just a general overall flexible attitude to work.  Where getting the work done is more important than when, where & how it is done.  I mean c’mon, if hourly workers can have flexibility – what’s stopping the rest of the workforce?  One thing my be the misconception that everyone wants a flexible work arrangement – which is not a one-size-fits-all-solution easily implemented at companies.  It is a more individual discussion and decision and where an individual’s personal needs and responsibilities come in.

Work/life balance.  And here is where I think some people get mixed up on what is within the workplace’s control and what is not.  You see, if you are feeling a personal imbalance because your spouse travels and someone needs to be home, but your job requires that you travel…that is not for the workplace to solve.  That is for you and your spouse to solve.  You have agreed to do this job, the job requires travel, your spouse’s job requires travel…you need to work that out.  If work asks you to come back in when you are on your way home, and you agree to do so…you should not then complain about your lack of work/life balance.  You need to instead set boundaries and expectations.  If work gives you a smartphone and you are responding to emails 24/7 of your own volition or boredom…again not your workplace’s problem.  You need to decide what works for you and manage it.  It is not the responsibility of your workplace or HR to do that for you. (Somewhere I know Kris Dunn is smiling right now.)

My thinking has grown and expanded thanks to this wonderful community, thanks to some amazing people I’ve met, thanks to just listening and asking questions at networking events and of course due to my own journey through this maze of flexibility and balance and wanting it all.

What do you think? Is your work/life stress due to your employer & rules enforced by HR or because you want it all, all at once?

This mother’s day I want to celebrate the balance I’ve achieved.  And it is the balance within myself.  That I know I’m a good mom.  That I know I’m a good worker.  And that I whole-heartedly acknowledge many days I’m better at one than the other.   It is.  That’s my life.  It’s all good.

Happy Mother’s Day to you all.  May you struggle/juggle less today.  And may you appreciate all that you achieve each and every day more.

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And as for the mom-guilt crap…get over it!  I can assure you that tonight as I sit at Fenway Park at my first Red Sox game in far too long (vs. the Evil Empire!) I will be thinking neither of being a mom or being a worker-bee.  And I am so good with that!