What’s Changed for Working Moms — and What Hasn’t — Since 1971

In this exclusive clip from “Joyce at 34,” a 1971 documentary now available to view in full on the SundanceNow Doc Club, the filmmaker Joyce Chopra’s mom discusses the difficulty of balancing motherhood and a career. (Courtesy of SundanceNow Doc Club)

For new parents, work-life balance may seem like relatively fresh topic. But a classic 1971 documentary short, “Joyce at 34,” provides a startling window into just how well worn — and endlessly complex — the never-ending struggle is. The 27-minute film, co-directed by now-veteran filmmakers Joyce Chopra and Claudia Weill, was at the time a groundbreaking, feminist example of cinema verité, with 16mm film capturing Chopra’s candid attempts to balance motherhood with her burgeoning career. It was rare not only because of how it delves into the topic, but also because the film, aired on PBS, includes live footage of Chopra giving birth to her daughter Sarah.

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The New York Public Library preserved the film in 2010, lauding it for its “persistent timeliness,” and for making public “the private frustrations a woman has when she encounters the conflicting nature of two great and powerful loves — the love for herself and the love for her offspring.” Now, in honor of Mother’s Day, the SundanceNow Doc Club is making “Joyce at 34” available for public viewing for free, through Jun. 8. Yahoo Parenting spoke to the still-working Chopra, 78, about its messages, then and now.

Filmmaker Joyce Chopra with her mom and daughter in a scene from “Joyce at 34.”

Yahoo Parenting: What prompted the documentary? Did you mean for it to be a look at working mothers?
Joyce Chopra: No. I had a friend who was a sociologist at Harvard who was researching the question, “Would my relationship with my mother change once I had a child?” So that’s how it started out. We knew we were going to start with the birth, and that the next thing would be my going home [from Cambridge] to visit my mother in Brooklyn. [That topic] did turn out to be part of it — work and mothering, and fathering, and also different generations.

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YP: Right — that scene [viewable above] with your mom sitting around the table and discussing work and motherhood is a gem.
JC: I mean, I had no idea what was going to happen when I filmed those ladies, my mom and other retired schoolteachers, having lunch. Can you believe they’d had lunch for 30 years and had never talked about these things? But that was 1971. I couldn’t believe my good fortune when we were filming that scene.

Joyce Chopra today. (Photo: Sundance Now Doc Club)

YP: You gave birth, quite graphically, on film. How was that for you?
JC: It was fine. But it was on PBS, and it was a big shocker because I think it was the first live birth. I was aware that this was something unusual that we were going to make. My favorite story about [that scene] is that [afterwards] we had rented a house on Cape Cod, and my husband and I and Sarah were very brave and went to a nude beach. We lay down very far from the ocean. And I see, walking along the shoreline, [my filmmaking partner] Claudia’s parents, who were Swiss French and very proper, completely nude. They spy us and we start covering ourselves, but the father says, “Why are you covering yourself? You showed everything on public television!” [Laughing]

YP: What strikes you most when you watch the film now?
JC: I know that the issues haven’t changed very much, and that’s what people usually say. But it’s personal for me. I get involved with looking at my mother’s hairstyle, and thinking that I’m now older than my mother was then — she must have been no more than in her early 60s. Mostly I feel for my mother when I watch this, how hard she worked.

Chopra flying, with baby Sarah, to visit her mother in a scene from the film.

YP: Where is your daughter Sarah now?
JC: I’m visiting her right now. She’s at the University of Virginia, where she teaches in the English department and is also a dean of the honors program. She’s not a mom, probably never will be. Part of it has to do with health issues that would make it difficult for her. I came across an essay she wrote for class 20 years ago, I only found it a few weeks ago, and it said something like, “I was born on film. I was born repeatedly at film festivals.” She made it very active, like she was constantly being born. [Laughs]

YP: So how did motherhood wind up impacting your career?
JC: I was very lucky because my husband Tom, who died six years ago, was a freelance writer. So the film was highly praised, but there was one review that I thought was very apt, which said, “Well, she’s just fortunate because she has a husband who can share the housework with her, she’s not suffering economically.” So [the film] was accurate but very narrow in a certain aspect; it raises all the issues, but not the issues of women who don’t have help. I had help.

YP: In the film, with Tom feeding Sarah and carrying her around and going food shopping, it seems like you were both quite ahead of your time.
JC: Possibly. It was all in the air, it was all negotiated. In fact he talks about our arguing about going food shopping, and he did learn to cook a couple of dishes that were his specialty, and I’d have to say, “Oh, that was just great!” My father thought he was really helping out by drying dishes.

YP: In that scene with your mom and her friends, one of the moms says, “You aren’t really liberated if you walk around with feelings of guilt.” What do you think?
JC: I remember she also says [adopting a Brooklyn accent], “If you stay home, that’s not good for [your kid]. If you go to work, that’s not good either. Whatever we do is wrong.” Yes, ma’am. Exactly.

YP: In 1971, giving birth at 34 was late, right?
JC: Very — and my mother said she couldn’t believe it! At such an age! And that I was nursing the baby! [Laughs] I mean, what did she think of me? Now the age is very normal, isn’t it? So that’s a big change.

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