Tuesday, February 02, 1999
Quindlen urges women to find balance
Writer to speak in Sharonville Wednesday
BY SUE MacDONALD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Former New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen keeps two sayings in mind as she juggles her life as a writer, mother and lecturer.
The first, offered by a friend 15 years ago and most recently attributed to the late Sen. Paul Tsongas: “No one ever said on his deathbed, "I wish I had spent more time at the office.'”
The second, sent by her father on a postcard: “If you win the rat race, you're still a rat.”
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IF YOU GO
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• Who: Anna Quindlen, author and former New York Times columnist, and Dr. Kathleen King, member of the American Heart Association's national task force on women's heart disease and stroke.
• What: Today's Healthy Woman: A Heart-to-Heart Talk program.
• When: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.Registration begins at 6 p.m.
• Where: Radisson Hotel, 11320 Chester Road, Sharonville.
• Cost: $20, includes light refreshments. Call TriHealth Women's HealthLine, 475-4500. Tickets will be available at the door, but reservations are requested.
• Miscellaneous: Ms. Quindlen's topic: “Women in the 90s: Maintaining a Healthy Balance.” Dr. King's topic: “Women's Hearts Are Not Created Equal.” A panel of cardiologists will offer heart-disease prevention advice.
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Ms. Quindlen will speak during “Today's Healthy Woman: A Heart To Heart Talk” program Wednesday at the Radisson Hotel in Sharonville. Her focus will be “keeping a healthy attitude toward life, which is a sense of balance and sense of what really matters,” she said during a phone interview last week.
“I think with all of the different "shalts' and "shalt-nots' for women, it's really important for us to stop and say to ourselves, "When we're 65 years old, what are the things we've done that really mattered?'”
Ms. Quindlen, 46, is the mother of three (Quin, 15; Christopher, 13, and Maria, 10) and winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize. Her latest book, a tale of domestic violence called Black and Blue, is to be released today in paperback.
Her decision to leave newspapers and become a full-time novelist was fueled by a childhood desire to write books and the need to spend more time at home with her children. Women, she says, tend to be fairly adept at making such lifestyle changes as they mature and evolve.
“I think we have to take the long view of life. One moment we're these little girls and then the next moment we've changed and we become something completely different,” she says. “In 10 years, I'll be alone a lot. I think one of the things that women are good at, and I hope our male counterparts learn it because I have two sons, is realizing that we can have serial lives. You can wake up at age 50 and say, "I can be something different now.'”
Ms. Quindlen admits to a certain sense of excitement after reading an article about growing numbers of senior citizens entering the Peace Corps.
“I read that and said to myself, "That's what I'll do when I'm 70 years old! I'll go to Madagascar and teach English!'”
Women continue to find that taking care of themselves often is last on their list of priorities. The “Superwoman” myth, Ms. Quindlen says, lives because women continue to perform a variety of seemingly super-human roles as friends, wives, mothers, workers, careerists, organizers, cooks and movers-shakers.
Case in point: She just turned down a one-week book tour in Germany because it falls in the middle of her sons' basketball season. But she doesn't regret the limitations on travel now, she says, because she knows in another decade she'll be able to spend two weeks in Germany if she wants.
At the heart of happiness, she says, is a willingness to face issues, accept change and look for meaningful balance.
“For a long time, far beyond the feminist revolution which benefited me so richly, we were faulted for everything,” she says. “If dinner wasn't on the table at a certain time, if the kids' grades were bad, it was our fault.
“I think that taking control of our own lives in the way that we've done has taught us that other people have to take control, too.”
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