A friend and Scripps 2012 alum recently posted an article on Facebook written by the president of Barnard College, Debora Spar, entitled “Why Women Should Stop Trying to Be Perfect.” In the article, Spar touches on a variety of issues and draws a lot from personal experience as a working mother, but her main point is that women today need to stop trying to “do it all” – be the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect business executive – because sometimes there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything perfectly. Spar made some really good points – there is no way for women to “do it all” but they shouldn’t have to, they should have spouses and friends and family there to support them. She is really arguing for the return to (or creation of?) strong support networks, and also subtly suggests that perhaps moving to a new city where you don’t already have the beginnings of a network can make it even more difficult to try and find ways of balancing work and personal life, especially if that personal life includes having children.

I did have the privilege of growing up with a strong support network. We had neighbors on either side of my house who I knew I could go to if I was locked out of the house, and even had friends of close age all around my block for a few years. My parents specifically began attending a Quaker meeting when I was around eight years old because they wanted to provide another support community to me and my sister should we want it as we were growing up. For my sister, who was much older, it didn’t help as much, but growing up Quaker has had a huge influence on my life, and nowadays my Quaker community is one of the most loving and supportive places I know (see my earlier post about the Quaker camp where I work).

In college I think it’s easy for us to lose track of our support systems because we’re away from home, in a new place, and with new people. When you get here for the first day of your first year orientation, you are starting with a blank slate, but that blank slate can also mean a feeling of loneliness. But hopefully you come here, you make friends, you join some CLORGs, and you begin to build up that network again. As so many of us here have heard over and over again, women are not equal in the workforce. And Spar is convinced that part of that is because we spend so much time trying to be perfect, that we forget to support each other.

So while, as Spar puts it, we might need to “stop trying to be perfect” (something I think many Scrippsies might have trouble accepting, whatever ‘perfect’ may mean to them), hopefully the next time you see someone looking a little extra stressed, you can reach out to them, maybe offer them a cute video of a puppy, or a meal together at Malott, or even just a hug. We’re each other’s community here, and it’s important for us to support each other.