Jan McNamara(Personnel Manager)
I work and pay for a maid.
But when you're only talking about two people, it's not that much.
If I had children, I probably wouldn't be working because in Manhattan it's practically impossible to find someone to take care of your children.
And if you find someone, you can spend twice as much as you earn.
I would go bananas if I stayed home.
I tr}ed it for three months once, and it was a disaster.
I'm not the club type, and there's only so much cleaning you can do in a three-room apartment.
My husband is an account executive in another agency, and it's nice being in the same business - at least I know what he's talking about.
I don't feel pressured in my job.
I work late because I wait for my husband or because I have interviews at 5 or 6 o'clock.
My marriage suffered more when I wasn't working because I was so bored.
Organization is not my strongest point.
If my husband was one of those types who wanted his dinner on the table at 5 o'clock, it
would be a different story - but he's not. When he's cleaned uphis accounts, he'll say "Let's go catch a martini and maybe dinner on the way home.
" I do the cooking when we don't eat out. But we eat out a lot - maybe four nights a week.
I shop and do errands walking home after work.
And since I live in Manhattan, there's no problem because everything stays open until at least 7:00.
I promised my husband when we got married that we wouldn't have to move to the suburbs and have 2.5 children. Being a housewife is just not my bag in life.
I enjoy working.
I like having my own income.
I enjoy being around people.
I think it depends on the man.
There are men who prefer to have their wives stay home and do the housewifey things, but my husband knows that I'm happier working instead of sitting cooped up at home going out of my mind.
Ana there's enough time to get everyth ing done.
There really is.
Lore Parker(Copywriter, VP)
I don't combine my marriage and career.
I separate them. I do one at home and one at the office.
I think the trouble th so many housewives is that everyth ing they do is home oriented.
And with career women, everything they do is office oriented.
But if you separate the two, each one becomes a refuge from the other.
Also what helps me is that I love both these roles.
I'm not one of those copywriters who are ashamed of what they're doing.
I have no longings to write novels or short stories.
I think copywriting is a worthwhile, interesting, intelligent profession.
At home I'm a passionate cook and party giver - an international hotel keeper, if you will, because my husband and I do a great deal of traveling, and there's hardly a season that we don't have a foreign visitor staying with us.
Unfortunately we don't have children, and traveling has become a substitute which fills our lives and permeates everything we do.
I think it helps for a husband and wife to be in totally different kinds of work.
My husband is an electronics engineer and I don't know or understand anything about his work, and he doesn't understand anything about my work.
So for all he knows I'm the greatest copywriter in the world, and for all I know he's the greatest engineer in the world.
I don't think I could stand being married to another copywriter or anyone with whom I'd be in competition professionally as well as at home.
Because I work, I feel that I'm entitled to certain indulgences.
I send my laundry out.
I order my groceries by phone and have them delivered.
I have maids to serve at parties, a pick-up cleaner, a window cleaning service, a cleaning lady.
Anything that can be handled by a service I'll have a service do.
The cooking and decorating I want to do myself because I enjoy it.
Actually, after working all day, throwing myself into cooking is a depressurization - a kind of therapy. Another luxury I indulge in is taking a limousine to work every morning.
I find it helpful to have a routine that forces me into a structured kind of life, where I can get a lot done. Also I've learned to do everything very quickly.
If I have only until 9:30 in the morning to get everything done at home, I get everything done by 9:30. But if I have the whole day, let's say when I'm home with a cold or a day off, I'll spend the whole day just messing around.
It's inconceivable to me not to be working. If I had to sit home, I think I'd die.
I figure if Golda Meir can run a country AND cook a mean chicken soup, I can manage too.
"What it's like to work at Doyle Dane Bernbach"
Speech by Mrs. Lore Parker at Tokyo, Japan (Oct.15,1966)
