I have been wondering, how many other women have “leaned away” from full-fledged career ambition and toward a perceived “safer” path in anticipation of someday motherhood—before children were even on the radar?
It is unlikely anyone would have ever pegged me for one of those women. From high school on, I threw myself into an array of high profile activities and leadership roles, often justifying to myself that the high stress and lack of sleep were necessary by–products of being “well–rounded.” My graduating high school class voted me “Most Likely to Succeed.” On the outside, I had it all: an excellent student, interesting and plentiful extracurriculars, great friends and boyfriend. On the inside, I questioned what it all really meant.
In college, I started to wrestle with what it meant to be “successful.” If success meant the super–human pace at which I lived every day between academics, relationships, extracurriculars, leadership positions and the other countless commitments, no thank you. There was no escaping that I was born driven and ambitious, but I also had an idealistic vision of a stable nuclear family. Even as a single, college–student, an ambitious, high- powered career and hands-on parenting did not reconcile easily in my young mind.
By the time I graduated from college, I was unclear on a career direction that would allow me both. Looking back, I realize that I did exactly what our inaugural Wixii™, Kyoko, advised against…I started leaning away and hedging my bets. I was afraid to pursue international business, which was my passion, because of the likely long hours and frequent travel, and I feared the implications it might have on my someday future family.
Instead I earned my law degree from a top school, followed by several years as a reluctant professional at a top firm. On the outside, I did Lean In and acquired career success. But, it was not the success I wanted. Somehow, I traded my potential dream career for a safer path and still ended up working 80–100 hours/week. At that point, rather than figuring out how to create the work–life mix that I really wanted before kids, I then focused exclusively in the opposite direction: starting a family.
Unexpectedly, the road to motherhood was a long one and not at all what I envisioned. Looking back, I am thankful that I experienced more career opportunities before having children as I firmly believe that every parent brings her/his full personhood (in terms of experiences, personality, etc.) into parenting. At the time, I had idealized and idolized motherhood.
After years spent leaning away from a truly fulfilling career in anticipation of being a more flexible and available mother to my someday children, the realities of motherhood surprised me. I was grateful for the opportunity to stay–at–home with my first son. But, I struggled both with a yearning to return to a full–time career and a sense of failure in not taking to motherhood more naturally (only after became a mother did I realize that I had never spent much time around children!). I read incessantly to bring myself up-to-speed only to discover that it was untenable to expect to achieve “success” as a mother in the same way I had achieved “success” as a student and professional. But, children defy logic, which was a tough realization for me to grasp. During that time, it felt like I constantly swam against the current, and a “good day” was one in which I showered before 5:00pm.
Many of my wiser friends had advised me that I would only know how I would feel truly feel about working versus staying-at-home after I became a mom. I had always assumed that I was one of the few who already “knew.” I was wrong.
Stepping back from my career enabled me the time and space to realize I have the power to create the work–life mix that I want and it is not too late. I now realize that it does not have to be all or nothing and that many women are blending all of the things that matter to them into a healthy and thriving mix. As Judy Bolton–Fasman writes, “I have faith that your generation will finally tease apart the false morality and promises of ‘family values.’” (Read: A Letter to My Daughter on Balancing Work and Life). I now believe that it is possible to value family without idolizing my family or expecting that I will find complete fulfillment in any one role. While I recognized this possibility in the abstract, reading the stories of other women in the mix of work and life has made this possibility concrete.
Believe it or not, I wrote the thoughts above before the release and media hoopla of Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In. However, the so-called “feminist manifesto” has refueled my belief that choices are nuanced and individual, but that thriving work-life mix is an attainable reality if we continue to support each other and strive to make changes that enable all people – women and men – to thrive in work and life.
Please continue reading below for more stories from women who generously shared the choices they have made along the way. I hope that our collective stories will inspire you to think about your own life and how you can truly “lean in” to your life to create the work-life mix that you want.
Kathryn – Pediatric Cardiologist:
My first reaction is for me personally, these things don’t apply, actually the opposite – I leaned in to career and almost couldn’t have family. When I was going through medical school, residency, fellowship, I was fully integrated in my training and actually did not think so much about life after training. My husband was working insane hours as well. We were both busy, focused. Then when I finished all my training in my mid 30’s, I shifted and turned toward family. It was time to shift from focus on career to balance career and family. And what happened – infertility. I didn’t realize I was trading career for family all those years. Suddenly, I was faced with the very real possibility that we couldn’t have children. I know of myself plus at least 3 other women with similar type stories – and what we all went through in terms of years of infertility treatments, miscarriage, loss of an infant, or significant prematurity. Those were some very stressful and very trying times – at the same time we were really just beginning our careers! I always felt that women in business or law had it easier because they started their careers so much earlier than women in medicine. In medicine, the timing is 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, 3–4 years of residency, 3–4 years of specialty training, then the real start of one’s career. In my time, one didn’t think of having children during training.
My delayed reaction is yes – [Sheryl Sandberg] has something there. If you look at women in medicine in general, more women go into primary care areas (which have less pay and less prestige than specialties) and fewer women go into surgical specialties. Now, some of this is wise – these specialties take many more years of training and longer hours during the years that women usually are most fertile/consider having children. There also is a generational shift going on – I think women and men entering medicine now are more focused on lifestyle and hours working. When I chose what I wanted to do, it was about passion for my job, passion for helping these kids in this particular way. Now, people choose their careers based on what they think the lifestyle will be like. I also see that women are starting their families during their training years (which of course could bring other challenges).
Jina –Lawyer, Stay–at–Home–Mom
It makes me step back and take a look at the choices that I made along the way. Based on the way she defines “leaning in/out”, I have a hard time deciding whether I was really leaning in or out when I made the decision to leave the law firm associate position, and take a legal analyst job at Bloomberg. I don’t think it is as simple as that. Ultimately I decided to leave the workforce to support my husband in his career as a foreign service officer and I made a pretty convenient excuse that I had to take a break from work and focus on motherhood. But I truly believe if I found a fulfilling job I may have decided to keep my career going.
I also believe that motherhood in and of itself is a career choice, and not every woman (or man for that matter) has the same ambitions/goals that they had when they were younger–– and there is nothing wrong with that. I would rather regret a career choice than regret not truly being there for my child when he/she was young.
Jen –Former Law Firm Associate
I had to step back and think about this myself as well. My initial reaction was defensive – why are we trying to peg women to male standards of working hard, when the male standard isn’t great to begin with? Christina Aguilera did the same thing during her “Dirrty” phase when she defended her literal dirtiness (the video includes a muddy boxing match) by saying that when men do it, no one complains. But she overlooks the fact that only the worst of men are dirrty, and we shouldn’t hold ourselves to a flawed standard. I also hate to say it, but the corporate workplace still inherently favors men – more male mentors, hours which make it harder for women to work with a family.
But thinking about it for a few minutes more, I kind of agree with her positive thinking, work until the very end approach. Women tend to sabotage themselves so they have a reason to bow out, rather than being direct. It’s uplifting to hear that perhaps we can have it all, by changing our mindset a bit, but going back to my first thought, we can’t overlook the fact that the system is skewed towards advancing men. It’s good to encourage women to toughen up and aim high, but we have to be careful not to place all of the blame on them in a system/standard that inherently favors males.
I left the firm not because I thought I couldn’t make partner (though no one was making partner during the financial downturn), but because I looked at the lives/multiple broken marriages of the partners, and knew I didn’t want that. I wanted to enjoy life, blackberry–free.
