Working Families: Navigating the Demands and Delights of Marriage, Parenting, and Career

by Joy Jordan-Lake

Overview

Who hasn’t heard a lot about juggling, balancing, and surviving? Navigating parenthood and professional life is all those things. But amidst the struggle, a life of kids, careers, and busy-craziness can be a privilege–and a tremendous reward.

Working Families shows you how.

Joy Jordan-Lake, a woman passionate about her kids and career, gives you examples from the lives of real people, some famous and some you’ll meet for the first time in these pages. Drawing upon her background as a college professor, writer, mom, and wife, she helps couples and families navigate life together for joy and purpose. Along the way, the insight, gentle humor, creative ideas, and encouragement of Working Families will help you sail through oceans of demands with confidence because you can change the world–and not in spite of your children but because of them.

Includes discussion guide for individuals or groups.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307550484
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/19/2009
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Joy Jordan-Lake, adjunct professor at Belmont University in Nashville, is the author of several books, including Grit & Grace: Portraits of a Woman’s Life. She served as a Baptist chaplain at Harvard University and has taught writing and literature at Tufts University and Baylor University. An enthusiastic advocate for micro-enterprise loans, she helps the impoverished begin their own businesses to support their families. Joy and her husband are the parents of three children.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction: Mistakes under Sail     1
Sailing and the Three-Career Marriage: Two High-Energy Sports     9
Against Wind and Tide: Changing the World, the Diapers, and the Printer Cartridge     15
Launching Out: Finding a Sense of Calling and Purpose     29
Spectators on Shore: Dealing with Others' Opinions of Your Work and Family Decisions     43
Charting the Course as You Go: Navigating by Grace     55
Loving the Big Wind: Learning to Live with Peace When It's Never Calm     69
Avoiding the Shallows: Creating a Family Culture of Compassion and Service     81
Man-and Woman-Overboard: When the Marriage Capsizes     97
A Slowing-Down Season: When the Time Comes to Step Back Together     113
Taking Turns at the Tiller: Relocating for Your Spouse's Work-and It Hurts     129
When Work Is Away from Home Port: The Four Universal Laws of the Traveling Spouse     145
Letting Go That Whale of a Goal: You Can't Do It All at the Same Time     153
All Hands on Deck: Supporting and Celebrating One Another     169
Help for the Hopelessly Seasick: Some Tools for Survival     185
Conclusion: Well Worth the Bide     209
Questions for Discussion     213
Notes     221
List of Personal Interviews     225

Editorial Reviews

After penning three books and having three children, Jordan-Lake writes of juggling the demands of two holy callings-hers as a writer, her husband's as a pastor-with raising kids. What distinguishes this book from the other Christian family-balancing guides that crowd the shelves is its emphasis on the fundamental equality of husband and wife, even while it recognizes that women often bear a greater psychological burden than men when they try to follow their bliss careerwise. The book is also refreshing for its social conscience; Jordan-Lake, who has worked with the urban poor and is an advocate for micro-enterprise loans, is all too aware that merely asking these questions about family and work is a luxury that few women in the world will ever afford. Writing with sharp humor and snappy prose, she draws heavily on her own experiences as well as interviews with other women about how they manage the competing expectations of career and family. Although the book's repeated sailboat metaphors grow tiresome, this stands out as one of the more thoughtful guides to Christian family life for the 21st century. (Mar. 20) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

How writer Jordan-Lake and her pastor husband keep things going--and keep things equal.

—Graham Christian

Library Journal