當媽不是工作 但母親是管理人員
Around the time I returned to work after the birth of my first child I went to visit a lawyer friend who had also just had a baby and had decided to stay at home to look after him.
The lunch was going fine until I said that I envied her not having a job: it must be nice to be with her son all day. She looked at me with something close to loathing. She did have a job, she snapped. Bringing up her child was most definitely a job, and a much more worthwhile one than anything to do with corporate law.
我們的午餐本來進行得很順利，直到我說我羨慕她不用工作——整天陪兒子肯定棒極了。她白了我一眼，氣惱地說，她有工作，撫養孩子絕對是工作，而且這份工作比與公司法打交道有意義多了。But was she right? Is motherhood a job? Margaret Thatcher thought it was — according to her, bringing up children was a management job. The Queen apparently thinks so too and told Kate Winslet that it was “the best job” there was.
她說得對嗎？做母親是份工作嗎？瑪格麗特•撒切爾(Margaret Thatcher)生前認爲是的，用她的話來說，撫養孩子相當於一份管理工作。女王顯然也這麼認爲，她告訴凱特·溫絲萊特 (Kate Winslet)，撫養孩子是世上“最棒的工作”。
Yet it now seems that middle-class mothers have changed their minds. The same sort of women who used to get furious with anyone who implied that raising children was not a job, are now equally indignant with those who say it is one. Last week Mumsnet, the social network for parents, put out a press release laying down the new law: “Motherhood is an emotional journey, not a job.”
然而現在看來，中產階層的媽媽們已經改變了觀念。過去只要有人暗示養孩子不是份工作就會生氣的那些人，現在同樣憤怒於有人說養孩子是份工作。育嬰網站Mumsnet不久前發佈了一條新聞，制定了新的金科玉律：“爲人母是一次情感之旅，不是一份工作。”This is the right answer, but for the wrong reason. Bringing up children is not a job, and never was one. Parenting is work — sometimes extremely hard work — but is not a job, as you do not get paid. The deal with a job is that you opt to do it and can resign whenever you like, but while you are doing it you must toe the line.
這句話後半句是對的，但前半句是錯的。養孩子不是工作，而且從來就不是。養育孩子是一份天職（有時還是份極難完成的天職），但它不是工作，因爲它是無薪的。工作的定義是，你選擇做這份工作，不想幹了還可以隨時辭職，但只要你在做這份工作，你就必須履行職責。As a columnist, I have to write this column because it is my job. As a parent, I can decide that I can’t be bothered to cook and order takeaway instead. At home in extremis I can shout and throw things; if I did that at work I would probably get fired. No matter how much my children think I am making a poor fist of bringing them up, they can’t get rid of me. Parenting is for life. Jobs are not.
作爲一名專欄作家，我必須寫這個專欄，因爲這是我的工作。作爲一名家長，如果我懶得做飯我可以決定叫外賣。在家的時候，極端情況下我可以大聲喊叫和丟東西，如果上班時我這麼幹，多半會被炒掉。不論我的孩子們認爲我對他們的撫養有多麼失敗，他們無法解僱我。養育是一輩子的事，工作不是。Yet motherhood is not an “emotional journey” either. A journey is something that involves travelling from A to B, whereas mothering tends to be pretty static, in my case, happening almost entirely in the kitchen. Neither is it a journey in any cheesy metaphorical sense. Motherhood starts at full emotional throttle and proceeds in the same vein forever.
但爲人母也不是一次“情感之旅”。旅行的定義包含從A地前往B地，然而養育孩子往往是原地不動的，以我爲例，我的養育時間幾乎全都花在廚房裏。當母親也絕不是任何俗氣的比喻意義上的旅行。爲人母一開始就要付出百分之一百的情感，並且要永遠保持這種狀態。The worst thing about describing raising children like this is not that it is brainless, but that it is exceedingly off-putting. If someone had told me at the outset that what I was embarking on was an “emotional journey” I would have gone off the idea altogether.
這類關於養孩子的比喻最糟糕的地方不在於它的愚蠢，而在於它讓人望而生畏。如果一開始就有人告訴我，我將踏上一場“情感之旅”，我可能早就徹底打消了這個念頭。So why have mothers changed their minds about the job question? I suspect it is because we no longer think of jobs in the way we used to.
那麼，爲什麼媽媽們會對養育孩子是不是工作的問題改變看法呢？我猜想這是因爲我們對工作的看法與過去不同了。Twenty years ago a job was a sign of status; now it is seen as drudgery and suggests a lack of imagination. Anyone who likes theirs has to pretend that they don’t view it as a job at all, but as an outlet for their passion and creativity.
二十年前，工作是身份地位的標誌，現在則被視爲苦差事，而且有乏味之嫌。那些喜歡自己工作的人，還得假裝他們完全不將它看作一份工作，而是將它視爲釋放他們激情和創造力的一個出口。Mothers used to insist on calling what they did a job because it made them feel better; now it does the reverse. Yet both reactions are daft. Jobs and parenting are equally vital to the survival of the human race, but the two activities exist on different planes and moral comparisons ought not to come into it.
媽媽們過去堅稱養孩子是份工作，因爲這會令她們感覺好點，現在卻正相反。不過這兩種反應都很傻。工作和養育子女對人類的生存同樣重要，但這兩種活動處於不同的層面，不該對其進行道德比較。Saatchi & Saatchi has just done some research for Mumsnet on what the non-job of bringing up children is all about. It has concluded that mothers play eight different emotional roles, five of which I more or less agree with — carer, fan, friend, hero, safe house — while the remaining three — partner in crime, coach and rule breaker — make me feel very worried indeed.
盛世長城(Saatchi & Saatchi)剛剛爲Mumsnet做了一項關於養孩子都包含哪些非專職工作的研究，其結論是：媽媽們扮演着八種不同的情感角色，我基本贊成其中五種——保姆、崇拜者、朋友、英雄、避難所，但我對其餘三種深感擔憂，它們是——共犯、教練和規矩破壞者。Rule breaker? Partner in crime? What happened to nag or rule enforcer? What am I meant to say to my teenage son when he comes home from school with a bag full of trigonometry homework? Sod that, here is some fake ID — why not go to the pub instead?
規矩破壞者？共犯？難道不應該是嘮嘮叨叨的人或規矩執行者？當我十幾歲的兒子從學校揹回家滿滿一書包的三角學家庭作業，我該說什麼？難道我應該說：別管功課了，我這兒有些假身份證，幹嘛不去酒吧呢？This soppy list of roles tells us that there is one thing modern parenting has in common with modern jobs. Both have gone so far from the Theory X view of motivation — that everyone is basically lazy and so a little authoritarianism is called for — that they now shy away from ever saying: I am in charge.
這份肉麻的情感角色名單告訴我們，現代育兒與現代工作確有一個共同之處。“X理論”認爲，每個人本質上都是懶惰的，因此一點點獨裁是必要的。現代育兒和現代工作都對這一理論進行了如此大的發揚，以至於它們現在都避免說：我是負責人。Managers have to pretend that their greatest skill is as a coach; parents have to do the same. It’s all for show: very little coaching goes on in most companies; even less happens at home. Coaches have to have distance, patience and objectivity — hard to feel any of that towards your maddening, beloved child.
經理人必須假裝自己最大的本事就是當教練，家長也一樣。這都是做樣子而已，多數企業裏很少有上司爲下屬當“教練”，爲子女當“教練”的家長就更少了。教練必須要有距離感、有耐心和客觀，而對於令你惱火、讓你深愛的孩子，你很難做到上述任何一點。The pretence that motherhood is one long, democratic, emotional, jolly jape is a far worse lie than the one that says motherhood is a job. In the end, I am with Margaret Thatcher — who insisted that being a mother was a management job. She was wrong about the job; right about management.
虛僞地說做母親是一次快樂民主的漫長情感“旅行”，是個比說做母親是份工作更拙劣的謊言。歸根到底，我還是同意瑪格麗特•撒切爾的觀點，她認爲母親是一份管理工作。關於工作這點她說錯了，但關於管理她是對的。
