After trying hard to change Evan, Nancy Holt reluctantly cut back her hours at work. As she’d all along planned to do after her second child, Carol Alston willingly cut back her hours at work. After a hopeless succession of quarrelsome baby-sitters, Ann My — erson quit her job. To some women, cutting back felt like a defeat, as it did to Nancy Holt and Ann Myerson. To others, it felt like a triumph, as it did to Carol Alston.
Women often prepared emotionally for cutting back hours at work by detaching themselves from work-centered friends, by renewing friendships with family-centered friends, and in general by gathering support for entering a more solitary life at home.
For women in high-powered careers and even for those in ordinary jobs, one major emotional task was to buoy their flagging self-esteem. After taking time off for her first baby, Carol Alston felt depressed, “fat,” “just a housewife,” and for a while became the supermarket shopper who wanted to call down the aisles, cTm an MBA! Fm an MBA!”