Are You Closer to Being Glenn Close or Glenn Close’s Mother?

By Jacey Eckhart

One of the dangers of having kids and a career is someday they will look upon ye works and judge ye harshly. I forgot that part was coming. When Glenn Close won the 2019 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture for The Wife, she got a standing ovation when she reflected on the life of her mother.

“I’m thinking of my mom who really sublimated herself to my father her whole life. And in her 80s she said to me, ‘I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything,’” she told the audience.

Close went on to say even though women are expected to be nurturers, we are still supposed to find personal fulfillment. “We have to follow our dreams,” Close said. “We have to say, ‘I can do that, and I should be allowed to do that.’”

The audience got to their feet, tearful over the assertion of deserved independence.

I, of course, was still stuck on the whole mom thing.

For one, I’m pretty sure if you give birth to a child who grows up to win three Tony Awards, three Emmys, and three Golden Globes and is nominated six times for an Oscar, whatever you did is going to seem kind of insignificant in comparison. It is paralyzing to compare our own accomplishments to those of other people. Which is why I do it every day.

For two, I’m worried it still seems like we are all going to be judged as either a Glenn Close or Glenn Close’s mother, (whose name, BTW, was Bettine, an animal lover who has a gorilla named after her at the Bronx Zoo). Either you had a stunning, glorious, award-winning career, or you are a cautionary tale in a housecoat forever fetching Archie a beer.

Which is damn silly. For every Glenn Close in the world, there are eight billion people who are not Glenn Close. Or Glenn Close’s mother. Public accomplishments are lovely things. Please, bring on the Oscar. But being a superlative, being able to point to some giant mound of accomplishments, is not really what life is made of for most people.

The real accomplishment turns out to be the bazillion negotiations women and men go through to make a marriage and a family work. It ain’t easy. We each are who we are and we need what we need. Expect this to be in conflict with what everyone else needs. Getting everyone in a family what they need at the same time is the ultimate Sudoku.

Bettine Close’s generation, the Greatest Generation, took the societal shortcut of making whatever the mom wanted always less important. That did not work out so well and led to a lot of bra burning.

Our way has its own problems. Glenn Close is so right when she says to women, “We have to say, ‘I can do that, and I should be allowed to do that.”’

Because, yes, we women have to say that to make this work. We must say it out loud. To our families. We own our ambitions or we are owned by them. When I was writing my first book, my husband, my teenage daughter, and I all had to work together to figure out where the time would come from to write. There were tears. Brad was not the only one who cried. But my family could see I needed my turn, too. And I ran with it.

We get so distracted every day by stories of people accomplishing much more than we do. We forget the goal is not to become a Glenn Close or Glenn Close’s mother. The goal is to get Close and then to get Closer. To look at the members of our family as if each of their ambitions were necessary to our own survival and to figure out how we can all move forward with it together.

In the end, the successful life is not usually met with a standing ovation from strangers. The successful life ends with a family circling close and then closer, clinging to each other for dear life for years and years and years to come.

Why My Resume Makes Me Sick

By Jacey Eckhart

There are three documents guaranteed to send your stomach on a plunge into gastric hell: 1) your college application, 2) your mortgage paperwork, and 3) your resume.

These things should be happy papers. Yay! Going to college! Yay! Buying a house! Yay! Finding a better job!! But something about these three documents is guaranteed to send you running for a peppermint schnapps shot with a Pepto-Bismol chaser.

Or that might be a family recipe, so never mind.

Anyway, when you submit to creating these three documents, you know in the deepest reaches of your soul that you will be in competition with all those other people who have been out there taking AP Calculus and living on baked beans and discovering cures for skin cancer while you were watching all 100 million eyebrow tutorials on YouTube.

No matter how sick those documents make you feel, you must complete them or you will never make it through the Next Door. Since I’m in the middle of looking for a new job, I must put together a resume, even though I am quite sure no one ever got a job online only by uploading a resume. 

I dug out my most recent resume. It is uglier than I ever dreamed possible. Hagfish ugly. Birthwort ugly. Acid-washed pantsuit ugly.

So after I took to my bed with my Pepto, I made an appointment with Lee, a resume counselor.  She invited me to come in even after I warned her how very ugly my resume would be. Lee only laughed and told me that in addition to the Ugly One I should also bring in listings for jobs I might want. I found three and printed them up and put them in a snappy new folder so that Lee would know I was super professional applicant. Woo hoo. I also brushed my teeth.

I thought we would look at my ugly resume first. Not so much. Instead, Lee put my resume face down on her desk. In the most pleasant tone of voice you ever heard she asked, “What job are you looking for?”

My eyes bugged out and my jaw dropped in classic hagfish fashion. Crap. I hate this question.

“Can’t we just look at my resume and then you could tell me what job I should be looking for?” I asked.

Lee laughed again. Lee has a very odd sense of humor. “Seriously. What’s the job?”

After about half an hour of hemming and hawing, we got around to my truth: I’m looking for a training job and I prefer a part-time gig so I still have time to finish the book I’m writing.

I thought I was gonna pass out from so much truth-telling. After all, good people want 80-hour-a-week jobs writing code or drawing blood or studying just what makes that hagfish so by god ugly.

Lee explained that the mistake she sees most often is that people don’t get specific enough about what job they want—even with themselves. Every time you apply to a job, the resume needs to be shaped toward that goal and only that goal so you better know what that goal is.

Then we got to the second biggest mistake. “I don’t see any numbers here,” she said.

“I have numbers. Those numbers are years right there,” I said, pointing to my boldface type.  “There are the dates I worked, and the growth in readers we had, and the number of events we put together.”

“These are the wrong kind of numbers. What the resume robot is looking for is the number of years. Like, 12 years of experience training military audiences.”

“Oh. Is that all? That’s a stopper?”

Apparently yes. Lee gave me a bunch of other tips, and I went home and made another resume. It was a lot easier the second time around with some outside support. No Pepto necessary.

Now my resume is, I admit, kind of pretty. Like purple petunia pretty. And new pencil pretty. And pink prom dress pretty. 

It will never get me a job all by itself. It does not begin to show what I can do for a potential employer. After all, that’s just me on paper, not in person. But it is a knock on the door, a symbol that I’m here to do business and that I’m moving forward bit by bit all the time. Just like you.

No Work for Squirrels

By Jacey Eckhart

At this very moment, I fear evil resume robots are scanning my work history with my 18 moves and endless list of clients and spitting me out onto the squirrel pile. 

We squirrels are the ones who don’t quite fit into the desirable applicant mold. We have all the cheerful, industrious, darting-in-front-of-traffic skills of a squirrel, but we are not people who have stayed in one place or worked at one job or developed a ton of sexy “job-specific tenure.” Thus, the indignity of the squirrel pile.

Oh no! Don’t they know that NEW JOB is the Next Door I want to open most this year??

I know there are squirrel jobs out there. I have had a career full of ‘em. For me, this job is called “being a trainer in front of an audience.” I’m the squirrel who brings the energy to the room. Even when I am teaching a standardized curriculum, I can always get the participants on my side so we are all learning together and storing that nut away. Because that is how we roll in squirrel world. 

The problem is that resume robots are not set up for squirrels—or anyone else. You can meet all three pages of requirements for a job description, miss one, and never, never make it out of the computer and onto the desk of a potential employer. It starts to feel like the world does not want or need the services of even the finest squirrel. Which is terrifying.

The thing is, we—the unemployed and underemployed and misemployed—all secretly know that human beings are required to participate in the world. We know we are designed to work with each other and use our talents because our brains fire off little sparks of reward when we do. When we don’t have a “work” of some kind or another—paid or unpaid—we shrink a little every day. So we know we have to do something. 

Yet all the somethings we have to do to find a new job are so soul-crushing. I know if I want this door to a new job to open, I’m going to have to do all those things I HATE TO DO, like ask for help with my resume and work my network and request informational interviews. Bleh. I’m really going to have to change the way I relate to rejection. And I know all of it is going to hurt like crazy.

It would be so much easier to wait until “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” to do anything about finding a job. It would be so much easier to wait in this hallway and tell myself that eventually a door will open to me while I am standing out here watching all 154 episodes of The West Wing, or discovering which celebrities were ugly in middle school (all of them—everyone is ugly in middle school), or scheming how I can get a Paul Hollywood handshake when yeast hates me. 

This is not the work, squirrel.

The work is admitting that there are only two choices: I can do the painful work of finding a job the hard way or I can suffer the painful consequences of not working (or, worse, working at the wrong things). We squirrels have work to do in the world. We just have to gird our furry little loins and get out there and do it.

How to Measure a Mother-in-Law: Little Helper, Momsplainer, or Heinous Judger

By Jacey Eckhart

  My son calls it “momsplaining.” I call it my magical ability to be a Little Helper in the mother-in-law world. This month in the Next Door Project, I am knocking on the Mother-in-Law Door. I find I don’t only want to be measured only by my inclusiveness or exclusiveness. I also think I should get some credit for where I stand on the Little Helper to Heinous Judger scale.

After all, I spent the past 31 years learning mom skills like how to run a household. How to earn some money without losing my mind. How to keep one gorgeous creature head-over-heels in love with me. And the biggie—how to raise kids nice enough to marry.

Why did I spend so much time learning all this if not to share it oh-so generously with the next generation??

I asked my son, Sam the Soldier, about it because people in this family tell him things they do not tell me.

“You know how you hate ‘mansplaining’ and how condescending that is?” he said in his SUV on a recent visit. “Well, you moms all have your ‘momsplaining.’ Just because you know how to run your life and your household doesn’t mean you know how to run mine.”

            Whaaaa?? Pretty sure that how to cook a perfect chicken breast has not changed. Kitchen cleanup requires a system, not a Siri. Doesn’t he know patent attorneys pound on my door begging for my secret to the perfect Christmas tree? Besides, did my son not read my paragraph about wanting to be a Little Helper?!!

            Riding along with Sam, I suddenly felt like Ma Bell. I felt like an IBM Selectric. I felt like an outtake from that 1977 Kodak film commercial “The Times of Your Life.” Sob!!! (Notice how the helmet-headed mother in her Adorn hairspray is probably my age. Gosh, we are looking awesome, girls. Pass the forming cream!)

Okay, now that I’m done having my little nostalgic moment, let’s get back to that Next Door of successful Mother-in-law-hood. As much as I acknowledge that the whole MIL/DIL thing is a two-way street, I don’t wanna be chalked up as a Momsplainer. I definitely do not want to qualify as a Heinous Judger. I want to be a Little Helper. Can’t the next generation hear me knocking and let me in?

Well, no. This is why mother-in-law articles always remind you that no one wants your advice. Somehow, the stuff we moms say to help gets coated with criticism and condescension on the way to the ears of our adult offspring and their mates, whether we want it to or not. My own mother-in-law could freeze a room telling me the correct direction to pass the gravy.

The point is, it doesn’t matter how helpful we are trying to be when passing on our prodigious mom skills. What matters is the way the in-laws take it. Getting to Little Helper status is going to take some communication skills—the icky kind where we actually have to say what we think instead of getting in a snit. Which is a shame because I snit so beautifully. Ask my MIL.

So I’m using a scale of one to ten to ask my kids and my in-laws if what I am doing qualifies as Little Helper, Momsplainer, or Heinous Judger. Maybe it will involve saying, “I see you only own five forks. I’d love to be your Little Helper and buy you some new flatware. Or are you happy with the way things are so that would be Momsplaining? Or (oh no) Heinous Judging? What would help you most?”

I have no idea if this will work. All I know is that I don’t want to waste one more minute on the outside of the Mother-in-Law Door. Because these are the times of our lives.

Hey! Because I am your Little Helper too, I made this handy dandy worksheet so that you can figure out where you stand in your MIL quest.  

How to Measure a Mother-in-Law: Inclusive or Exclusive?

By Jacey Eckhart

Would you rather have an inclusive mother-in-law who opens the door to family right away? Or would you rather have a more exclusive mother-in-law who opens the door to family only for the select few?

While I am knocking on the In-Law door, I’m noticing that the inclusive/exclusive axis may be one of those hidden keys to extended family happiness.

            Personally, I’m all for inclusion. I always expected my own mother-in-law to fling open the door and jump up and down like a squirrel on nut crack when I rolled into town for the holidays. Why? Two words: Unconditional Love. I loved her son so much that I kept the spring in his step and the naughty gleam in his eye and his children had all their teeth. (Well, most of their teeth.)

            In my family, we often like our in-laws more than our blood relations. My own ultra-inclusive mother has only one rule for in-laws: As long as you make my child happy, I’m happy.

            She means it. During the holidays, she spends the same amount on in-laws as her own children (and has the receipts to prove it). Like her mother before her, she believes grandchildren from previous relationships are 100% her own grandchildren. Vegetarian? She will keep her bacon-lovin’ fingers to herself and feed your children soy dogs and seitan sticks with aplomb. Inclusivity all the way.

            My in-laws were on the opposite side of the spectrum. They came from a long line of people who believe family is for blood relations only. Please present your 23 and Me DNA results at the door. My mother-in-law once introduced me as Brad’s first wife, as if I represented a youthful mistake that would soon be remedied by the presence of a much better second wife.

            We were married 26 years at the time.

            That made me cry at back then. Now it is hilarious to me because I am a mother-in-law and so are my friends. I’ve found people think differently about family, and it is not always as personal as we think it is. Most families fall somewhere along the inclusive to exclusive spectrum. 

10------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1

Super               Mostly                       Inclusive &                  Mostly                    Super

Inclusive          Inclusive                      Exclusive                 Exclusive                Exclusive

On a scale of 10 to 1, which of these statements best describes your MIL?

SUPER INCLUSIVE

10.  MIL feels so close to you she overshared details of her sex life or finances. Oh, happy day. Not.

9.    MIL calls you on the phone for fun because she genuinely likes you.

8.    MIL remembers your birthday, your middle name, and your favorite restaurant. She stocks your beverage of choice.

7.    MIL displays your photo in her house in which you are wearing something that is not a wedding dress.

6.    MIL invites you to contribute a dish or pick the movie or watch the game.

5.    Sometimes MIL treats you as a daughter! And sometimes as a stranger off the street.  Depends on the day.

4.   MIL limits conversation to the weather and everyone’s health. Sighs when you speak.

3.   You are not included on the family group chat because “your husband will tell you what you need to know.”

2.    You did not realize everyone went on family vacation until you saw the pictures on Instagram.

1.    MIL and you have never met. Or have not met in a long, long, blessed time.

SUPER EXCLUSIVE

I bet families work best when both the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law agree on where a family should be on the inclusivity/exclusivity spectrum. And what is the likelihood of that??

When I was a daughter-in-law, I was hoping for at least a 8 in inclusivity. My mother-in-law would have been happier with an 3 or a 2. We settled on a 4. 

I plan to do better with my own son-in-law and daughter-in-law. I’m going to ask them where they would like us to be on the spectrum. Maybe if I go too far with my inclusiveness, they will lean over gently, pat my hand and remind me, “We aren’t friends like that.”

Which will be okay with me. Because this time it will be different. I promise.

Where do you think the ideal spot is for family happiness?

The Mother-In-Law Door

By Jacey Eckhart

I always mark the beginning of the holidays with a desperate Google search about my mother-in-law. Gifts that will finally make your mother-in-law happy! Why does my mother-in-law hate me? Ten magic phrases to get your mother-in-law off your back. How to hide an old lady’s body before the cops arrive.

            As you can imagine, this search really puts me in the festive spirit—especially if that festive spirit is a really smooth Scotch. 

Until this year. 

My  mother-in-law passed away last December. (I had nothing to do with it, honest.)

Unless I someday decide to cougar it up and take on a much younger, hipper, second husband, the door to being a daughter-in-law is closed to me forever. Locked. Bolted. Nailed shut. With a sigh.

Because that did not go well.  

I was the type of daughter-in-law who wanted us to be bestest buddies, trading recipes, analyzing our deepest thoughts, and sharing our most poignant feelings!!!

She was the type of mother-in-law who thought I should shut up and go away. She used to roll her eyes so far back in her head whenever I spoke that I worried she would cough up an eyeball. And choke on it.

Maybe it is a good thing that some doors close before the cops are called, right?

But this year I have a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law of my own. The Next Door—the Mother-In-Law Door—is officially unlocked. Yet I have no idea what to do to make it open in a good way.

This is not a problem for my son-in-law. He treats me like an amusing squirrel with her own Easy Bake oven. I have his complete approval. That Son-In-Law door is a dream.

But the whole mother-in-law/daughter-in-law thing? Gah. I know I mean well, but I’m finding out that meaning well is not enough. I’m often failing. I see it in my daughter-in-law’s averted gaze, her suppressed sigh, the roll of her eyes. (Don’t worry—she is just a beginner at the eye-rolling thing, so there is no danger of choking.)

So I Google. Gifts that will make your daughter-in-law happy! Magic phrases to show your daughter-in-law that you approve! Fifteen types of mother-in-law no one wants! How to hide the axe so that she never finds it!!!

            I read these articles for help, but all of them seem to assume that my daughter-in-law is a terrible person and that I am worse. They forget that she loves my son maybe even a little bit more than I do. These writers think of us as two women on the opposite sides of the same door, struggling for control. 

            That never works. Instead, I picture her in the same hallway I am in, knocking on the Daughter-In-Law door while I am knocking on the Mother-in-Law door. Both of those doors open into the same room, one that is full of what we both want—happy holidays, warm memories, easy visits. Finding our way in is a lot harder than it looks.

If you have some insights on how to be a better mother-in-law or daughter-in-law, please post them here.

The "Don't Let It Hit Ya" Exercise

When I was a kid and threatening to run away from home, my dad would say nonchalantly, “Don’t let the door hit ya on your way out.” 

 Little did I know that doors would hit me on the way out with some regularity all of my adult life. Because that’s what doors do to everyone. Doors close—professionally, emotionally, physically—whether we want them to or not.  

Today could be the last time you will ever zip up a pair of size 6 jeans. (I last zipped up a pair of size 6 jeans when I was six years old and those were, in fact, a 6X.)  

 Today could be the last time your boss steals your lunch from the office fridge because the company is about to be underbid and everyone in your department will be unemployed. (You luck out on this one because you are so happy to be free of that demeaning salad thief that you dance a Paso Dobleon the hood of your car and get picked up by the cops for excessive glee.)

 Post Paso Doble,my point is that doors close. Once they are closed for good, we have to start moving down the hallway actively looking for the next door we want to open. I call this process the Next Door Project. Because I am clever like that.

 So to get us started, I made up this easy worksheet for you. On the three red doors, write down the last three doors that closed to you. Weep a little. You can’t move on until you admit those doors are closed for good. (Seriously, let the jeans go.)

Next, think about what could be behind those six white doors and write a possibility on each one. Maybe you are wishing for a different kind of job, one you wouldn’t dread every day. Maybe you are new to the area and have no one to meet for coffee. Maybe your love life needs a boost or your spiritual life is a desert or you dream of baking an orange layer cake that would make Mary Berry gnash her teeth at the very thought of you.

Click here to get our handy dandy worksheet. Next week we will take a look at the results and make an itty bitty to do list.

Next Door Project Coming Soon

Door: “Why it's simply impassible!
Alice: Why, don't you mean impossible?
Door: No, I do mean impassible. (chuckles) Nothing's impossible!” 

Alice in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll