Make a Living But Remember to Live

SAN DIEGO -- Thank you, Shonda Rhimes. You've set me free.

The same goes for millions of other parents who spend their days chasing after what has to be the most overscheduled generation of children ever.

Freedom came in the form of a single paragraph in a recent cover story in The Hollywood Reporter, where one of the most successful producers in television is quoted saying something brave and brilliant. As an African-American woman with three shows on ABC -- "Grey's Anatomy, "Scandal," and the newcomer "How to Get Away with Murder" -- Rhimes has much to say about race, gender and fame.

But the quote that caught my eye was about parenting. Rhimes, 44, is a single mother and, as the article points out, she hates it when people ask how she balances the demands of three shows and three kids.

Silly question. Anyone who is trying to raise and care for one child in today's world, let alone three, knows just how ridiculous it is to suggest that anyone can balance it all. You're going to fail at something.

Rhimes wants parents to accept the hard truth: You cannot do it all. It's not that you simply need better time management. (Don't you hate it when people say that?)

Rather, as Rhimes points out, what you really need is a firmer grip on reality and an awareness of your own limitations.

This was a major theme of the commencement speech that the television producer gave last spring at Dartmouth, her alma mater. In her remarks, she said that people ask her all the time, "How do you do it all?'

"I don't," she told graduates. "If I am at home sewing my kids' Halloween costumes, I'm probably blowing off a rewrite I was supposed to turn in. If I am accepting a prestigious award, I am missing my baby's first swim lesson. If I am at my daughter's debut in her school musical, I am missing Sandra Oh's last scene ever being filmed on 'Grey's Anatomy.' If I am succeeding at one, I am inevitably failing at the other. That is the trade-off."

She has figured it out. There is indeed a trade-off to this balancing act that gets attempted every day in America by folks who are trying to be professionals and parents, and be successful at both. Too many parents are convinced they can do it all. Rhimes is telling them what they need to hear: It's not going to happen.

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