It strikes me that journalism by its very nature is a shallow art. Which state does NIA does not follow the journalist by their nature are shallow people. I say that as a preface because I think it is rare indeed to find that journalists who somehow raises her or his craft to the level of insight to the level of wisdom to the level of something that is critical for us all to read all the time. I read newspaper columnist with some regularity and I can usually stay with one for a year before finding out that that person has in fact drained him or herself. I've been reading Ellen Goodman longer than that. And I have not seen the bottom of the well yet Allen has also written a book recently entitled turning points. I think it is. Not only astounding that Ellen Goodman is a consistently good writer as a journalist. And as a columnist, she also writes a good book and that's a different kind of an art from right, So it is with a great deal of admiration that I introduced you this morning Ellen Goodman. Thank you. I think I was just introduced is the least shallow either that or is be near bottom of the well. Actually Dennis forgot to mention that I'm here as part of your affirmative action program. I am the token non-expert. And I gather that virtually all of you have many more initials after your name and that a lot of you are at my foot and I think I got to begin by saying right away that I am only an AB or a boss if you prefer. But what I really am and what many of my horrendously shallow colleagues really are. Are observers of change in a sentence every journalist as we are in the business of newness and that is our craft to follow what is going on and I have been most intrigued by the changes in our public and private relationships in my own career and I've written most consistently about the single major change of my own lifetime, which is the women's movement. And I tend to think of the women's movement quite literally as the movement of women from one life Pat and too many and especially the movement of women into the workforce and the effect this is hat on our families to me. It's still remarkable how much the attitude toward working mothers is changed in the ten years. I have been one. I'll just tell you a little bit about my own personal history in that regard. I became a mother it in the usual way. And I decided to stay at home in order to give my daughter a good start in life. So I went back to work when she was six and a half weeks old. Well at that time I was the only working mother of a preschool child in my office and I remember clearly going back and everyone would say to me. Oh and who takes care of your child and who takes care of your child and I was somewhat defensive and they were somewhat offensive and about the 10th time. This happened to me one day. I just turned around and said, oh, I just leave her at home with the refrigerator open and it all works out. Well today 48% of the women with children under 18 of working and only 70% of the families are what we tend to think of it the traditional family with a wife Homemaker husband Breadwinner in a couple of kids and the questions have changed even last some of the Bureau of census even stopped asking who is the head of household. I think that the only mother in all of this who really hasn't changed is that wonderful woman in the ring around the collar at My sister by the way has a theory that the revolution will be here the day that she turns to her husband and ask him why he doesn't wash his neck. I will tell her you were great. But the people who were once critical eye now questioning, how do you make it work? What are the compromises? What are the conflicts and there is in general less challenging and more sharing and Lifestyles just aren't fighting words these days the way they once were this fact I think is often misinterpreted. The late seventies are being regarded as a. Of reaction regression in All Quiet on the campuses. And the only thing that people are supposed to be worrying about right now is whether white rats have got cancer. Personally, I think we should work on developing a white wrap that doesn't get cancer, but that's a story for another day. But I don't see this. As willfully reactionary as an observer of social change. I see something else going on. I see the x is conflicted ambivalent. We've all turned kind of ambidextrous in the search for answers for the difficult questions. We can answer them now is on the one hand this and on the other hand that and occasionally we end up clasping hands in prayer and and I think doubt this paralysis of a particularly acute in regard to our feelings about the family people today are seeking to change both their lives and Society still but carefully we want to do it now without tearing ourselves out of our histories. We're looking now for the kinds of changes that offer a reintegration of the values of the past in the present and offer a resolution of our conflicts rather than Russian and I think that the changes we will make our those that will will bring us together rather than pull us apart. And this will be particularly true for the changes in our family and family coffee. Let me just go back a little bit and then go for it so that I can tell you something about how I've learned about how people change and specifically how they been going through this changes and sex roles at a book on how people change. How much or how little but how I thought that we were right about this all the time without really understanding it and I also had a sense that we have gone through a period when we had a great deal of discussion about life cycle changes the sorts of changes that you go through just by the process of Aging for example, and in in passages Yoshi, he's booked we had looked alot at the switch forties phenomenon, and I tended to think that while we may all go through a crisis at 40 the nature of that crisis depends very much on the society that we living in. The times that we're living through and particularly that switch voice crisis struck me as a crisis that came about through the women's movement. In any case I wanted to write about how we respond to social change and what the internal processes are when we are faced with it. So as I went around the country interviewing people for my book, the first thing I realized was the simplest thing which is a change is one of those words that I have 38 different definitions. For example, we say that people resist change and yet we don't resist all change. There are changes that are as easy as a change of clothes and changes that are as refreshing as a change of state. What is radical to one person is simple to another and I think we have to look at change not by how it appears on the surface. But by how it feels to the person going through it the most difficult changes. The crises are those that threaten us with a lot of meaning in our lives and I'm sure that many if you see this daily in your work, but in talking with people I learned that they deal with critical changes with disruptive change with two contradictory urges. They had both the desire to beat a hasty Retreat to the Familia pass or to even a nostalgic version of that pass and on the other hand, they had an urge to take a giant leap into the future a shortcut if you will and they all had the urge to avoid the lengthy and difficult process of change. We responded sort of like kids were faced with a long car trip. Why don't we don't want to go or want to close our eyes and be there right away in the early 70s we went through this. Family life and insects rolls when the movement women's movement really hit us and societies seem to be full of all sorts of messages about what men and women are and worse yet. What they lives should be and at the time we divided into two camps very much in terms of these urges to extremes on the one hand. We had the radical feminist. They were the ones who call for a great leap into the future and and seem to have a very anti family were anti children messages and on the other hand with the radical reactionary my favorite radical reactionary by the way is Helen andelin. Helen andelin is to the right of marabel Morgan. She Advocates such a helpful Notions is getting women off the highways. But beyond that my favorite quote from her book is when you are having an argument with your husband stamp your feet and beat upon his chest men. Love this. Never worked out for me. Pretty some ways both of these Extreme as presented to the rest of us with a conflict conflict between having to go back to a very traditional family or to go onto no family at all. And for most of us in a time of Crisis these choices when either very possible know very palatable and it was scary. Well now it seems to me what's emerged out of the public argument between these two extremes is something called a new majority are new middle. If you will. I've been intrigued for example of looking at the leadership of the anti change and pro change movements now Phyllis Schlafly is the leader of the stop. You are a movement. For example, Schlafly, by the way, once told me that her greatest pleasure in life was breastfeeding her six children, presumably not at the same time. but she is a but she is a lawyer and an activist and a politician and her followers always use her credentials as a non-traditional woman and then say and look she is defending the traditional role and on the other hand. We have LH meal who is the leader of the largest feminist organization in the country the National Organization of Women of women, who is a housewife and here we can we have a woman who is coming out of a what we consider a traditional roll leading a non-traditional organization why I think these groups both inherently know how to appeal to the new middle and I think they say something about where the new middle is that they recognize that the majority of us now have the desire to both achieve in the world and the desire not to jettison. Our home lies. We want to keep the best of the past and get the best of change. In the argument that we've been going through between the past and the future the new middle, isn't it kind of averaging out of the total woman and a new woman but they are people with evolving set of allegiances reasons and commitment and their people who are trying to change conservatively and I use the word conservative them both in my book and in my head now and not in the political sense, but in a psychological sense because when people are going through change, I think you have to ask what is it that they are trying to conserve and what is it that they're willing to risk and they are generally trying to conserve something so simple that we often overlooked at which is the meaning of life that web of relationships and ideals mean the most to them. I often refer to this middle Group by the phrase. I still hear more commonly than any other these days. I'm not a feminist but it seems to me that every first woman bus driver every first woman construction worker Every Woman suing for sex discrimination begins her newspaper interview with a phrase. I'm not a feminist but this by the way, let a New York at times editorial writer to fantasize about the inaugural address of the first woman president. She began by denouncing uppity women. But when you really listen to the list of but switch is my job. I think there is a clue to how people feel about this social change. I'm not a feminist thought I believe in equal pay for equal work. I'm not a family spot. I believe in displaced Homemakers rights. I'm not a fan of the spot. I believe in Social Security for housewives. I'm not a feminist, but I believe in equal admissions to college and even Phyllis Schlafly is a senior at Princeton. There is a parallel there is a kind of I'm not a feminist but male whose attitudes range from the man who says I think every woman should be liberated, but my wife. Yuck yuck if they always advise lever. To the man who is truly proud that his wife can also work. The clothes that we here in these messages suggest the people in the middle are sorting out what it is they want and what it is they fear and it's clear that we seek gross gross and fearless from virtually any major change in our lives. We want more and not less. I think probably a Maslow so I called just said it best in 1960 when you wrote it is best to think of the discontented woman is wanting to hang on to everything that she has but like the labor union organizer simply wanting more. On the other hand the lost the fear of the crucial things New Majority is worrying about this the family and family relationships as the role of women and men changes. We don't want two-factor sacrifice our family our children marriages yet. We all seem to want our own sense of Independence and our own private security. We want the excitement that comes from changed and the safety that comes from famous insurance. We want it all I think that a lot of a transitional Lifestyles that can be seen as an attempt to have it all to have the best of the old rolls and the best of change just look for a minute. If you will at the new social ideals running around in this country in my own lifetime, for example, we have gone from the notion of super mom to the notion of Superwoman. Super mom for those of you who aren't one or didn't have one or never heard of her. She was the one who used to send her kids off to school with pumpkin shape sandwiches with Raisin eyes and carrot teeth. Her children always had homemade Halloween costumes and she always had something loving in the oven. And you know, she was always nurturing always thoughtful and she had her entire wardrobe consisted of a large assortment of aprons. She wasn't sure what that woman. We carried around in our heads just for the guilt of it. But now we have replaced her with superwoman and I have struggled at different times to try and give a portrait of Superwoman. The only have come up with this to give you a day in the life of Superwoman Superwoman wakes up her 2.6 children. And goes down to breakfast which she serves a grade A nutritional meal and her children eat. handcuffed her children, then go off to school for getting nothing. She then goes upstairs and gets into her $300 and $5,350 and Klein suit and goes off to her $30,000 a year doing work, which is creative and socially useful. Are with their children because after all it isn't the quantity of time, it's the quality of time. She then goes into the kitchen and makes a fit 60 Minutes Julia Child Gourmet recipe of the United States the children and go to sleep and she and her husband spend time on their meaningful relationship. At which time they go upstairs and she is multi-orgasmic until midnight. Tomorrow of course is another day. And I did not make her up. You can find her everywhere. I will not give you a day in the life of Super Dad. But let us say the super dad now is supposed to be open caring supportive able to LEAP tall emotional buildings in a single bound while becoming Vice President of General Motors. Well in both of these messages there is a lot of guilt women are supposed to be guilty. Now. He's been not working and guilty if they're also not super mom men are supposed to be guilty if they're not feeling and achieving and attending a children school plays. We're guilty. Not only if we're not fulfilling the old rolls, but if we're not fulfilling the newer ones we have innocence attempted to make change without loss by adding one expectation on top of the other. In the midst of all this growing pressure. We have the early childcare experts. I tend to think that the best thing that happened to my relationship with my own daughter was that she was for before I found out it was all over at 3. This is made life much easier for us. But how many young parents are now told that if they don't hang the right mobile over the crib, that kid will not get into Harvard. Words that they can expect to be sued by their children from Al parenting a lot of fear fear women ask their husbands to help their husbands will run off with the secretary, you know, all those juggling articles never mentioned the the the women asking their husbands to share. It's always women doing everything with their hands tied behind their back and I also think there is a fear on the part of both men and women of letting go of their old rolls. There's a fee or two among married women of really taking responsibility for themselves economically. It's nice to have the option to work, but it's not always nice to have the day-to-day responsibility for the rest of your life. I have seen both men and women more interested in equal rights than and equal responsibilities, and I have seen more who want the choices but not necessarily the obligations. I think all this is natural. I think we all look for the goodies from change form and lakutis are clearly a closer relationship with the children and some help with the economic burden, but they're not sure about sharing. What is so charmingly called the shift work. This tune is very understandable at the same time in the societies become much much harder to be a housewife or a woman at home. I have a friend in Washington who is at home at the time in her life taking care of her children, who told me the other day that being a homemaker in Washington with someone less socially acceptable than being a transsexual. She's exaggerating but not by much. See all thing is that we're living in a. Now we're Choice has become the watchword. How many articles have we read or written about New Life Choices for men and women New Life Choices for Family Health Choice is a funny word because it describes both the options we have and the decisions we have to make and options are easier than decisions. We're really living in a time when men and women are told that we can have it all and we know we can't because time is the ultimate pie and it is the pie that families gobble choices now are the tough ones. I think sometimes about what Rollo May once at without new possibilities that can be no crisis. There can only be despair. What I wonder is if one Generations despair does to breed the next Generations crisis. Despair of men and women of many years ago is this all bread change. This change has brought new options, which have been turned produce new conflicts. What are some of those, but I think we're into a. Of conflict between workaholism in the family. We started come to terms with the conflict between work in the family, but not workaholism for Deborah member Jimmy Carter when he first got into the office and he said that we want you all to go home at 5, and I don't want to divorce his be good to your children talk them all in at night will guess who's left at the White House the Workaholics and the single people. Mrs. Carter is press secretary left there been two voices in The White House many of the new leaders are bachelors and bachelorettes a bachelor's campuses to the next generation are feeling these choices as conflicts. For the people I meet on campus has it's pretty clear Now That We're Men are going to work 25 years. That's the average Lightworks band of a woman what work which was once and no now and then an option is now a requirement and motherhood which was once a require hood and then an option now looks too many young women as a kind of and men as a kind of Herculean feet. Am I thinking on the whole my own generation is oversold the difficulties of children and I'm just sold the pleasures there is two on the campus of kind of Hysteria about careers. Someone recently who is waiting to see whether she had gotten into graduate school and she was truly panicked about whether she would get into graduate school and suddenly I had this vision of here. She is graduating right above her return PA is a PhD who is waiting anxiously to find out if you will become an assistant professor about him is an assistant professor waiting anxiously to find out if you will get And way up there at the top of the heath is a fully tenured professor who has just grown sideburns and run off to a communist Vermont with a graduate student. I think there is another conflict that we have to look at. We have moved in a sentence from a time when there was a crisis and rolls to a time when there was a crisis in values, for example, the values of self-sacrifice versus self fulfillment in American history. It wasn't me. It was women who maintain the value of self-sacrifice and men who were awarded the value of self-fulfillment. It was a lousy deal for women, but it did in a sense of balance of decided now that women are joining men in a quest for self-fulfillment. We can't hide the split and I National psyche anymore. We can't hide the need for caretakers as well. As for Achievers my feelings about the values of all this taken care of all this comes out in Alden talk about the new narcissism in the Me decade and everything else and I think that we have to find a way without looking at this is regressive without putting women back into their traditional roles. To deal with the needs for about caretaking an achievement and this is particularly true and then our concern about family life. Well, all these things are coming to the surface. Stay in the country is really a kind of paralysis of ambulance and conflicts not at this point in any speech. I'm supposed to offer Solutions. Well, I'm more of an observer than a solver. How about jogging? I'm really not good on Solutions. So that means that off for a couple more observations. We do live in a time when we have new choices and that's always both tough and exciting and the match of the conflict we feel is because we are in transition one of the real problems. I'm afraid that we face is that the country is being suckered into the sink into thinking that the problems of families are 100% psychological and personal people are jogging instead of joining and they are into self-help instead of mutual help. It bugs me. However that the anti change people have managed to grab the family has their issue. William profile and I think it is the pro change people who are responsible for it saving if you will be American family because many of our problems. More social change Margaret Mead once said that the only way to solve the disruption that comes from change is more change and I think that's true. How many of the so-called personal problems of the people we know would be solved with public Solutions flexible hours equal pay daycare or some new kinds of help to go through the transitions of our lives and we need to push for the kinds of changes that don't disrupt our private lives, but support them the changes that enhance rather than deny choices and the growth of men and women. We also have to do more than just care for our families even under the new tyrannical myths of Superman and Super Dad. We have to construct a world in which they not only flourish in childhood, but in adulthood we have to not only raise them, but give them something more to look forward to than a midlife crisis. Can we have it all no never, but we can with some help. I think have a very rich sampling. This won't happen overnight. I'll leave you with one last thought about you. It's slow Jack Kerouac the beat poet generation Beat Generation. Poet probably said it best when he wants road walking on water wasn't built in a day. Thank you.