it's the follow-through that always gets me

Today was the last day of second grade.



I don't know how it's possible that the second grade went faster than the first grade, which went faster than kindergarten. But it's true that these years are incredibly fleeting and I am in awe at how fast the time is going past.  Next year, they will all be in separate classes for third grade and I'm going to really miss the lovely convenience of having them in one class, with one incredibly magnificent teacher, who has been with them since first grade.  Time just keeps marching on...



We now have eleven (11!) blissful summer weeks ahead of us and in the Spirit of Seizing the Moment because my babies are growing up before my very eyes ... when I asked the children what they wanted to do this summer, they rattled off all kinds of things ranging from strawberry picking to visiting family and friends and Niagara Falls.

We've already started a list and I'm fully planning on executing as many of the activities as humanly possible.   To kick things off, this weekend, we're hosting three of the children's friends for a spend-the-night event (our first ever) while their parents head up to the mountains to celebrate their wedding anniversary.  I've been thinking that it would be really cool if we camped in the back yard, after we cooked dinner over an open fire and had a raucous game of night-time laser tag. We'd wear camouflage and paint our faces to match. This sounds like an amazing thing to do and I'm sure the kids would love it and remember it forever.  But I won't mention it to them just yet, because when the time rolls around to actually do it, I'll probably be exhausted after watching seven children all weekend and decide that the mosquito bites and tripping hazards associated with running around in the dark just aren't worth it. So it's likely that I'll instead make a huge bowl of popcorn and host a nice quiet Superman movie marathon.

See, my challenge is that I have the mind of a very hip mom.

And the stamina of a sloth.

DAD = darn awesome dude

My husband epitomizes what it is to be a gentleman.



When we first started dating, Charlie would open the car door for me, and hold my chair when I would sit down. While I was certainly smitten with his chivalrous demeanor, I thought it was a behavior that would eventually fade. But 22-years later, unless I'm at the table or in the car before him - I can expect that my husband will be holding the chair or door for me .... and it still makes me weak in the knees. 



Whenever Charlie enters a building, he'll always hold the door open for others with a kind smile. He shakes hands firmly and looks people in the eyes when he talks with them. For women, the elderly, or handicapped, he'll willingly give up his seat on a full bus or train - and will not hesitate to help others load their suitcases in to overhead compartments on a plane.  And earlier this month, when he called his subcontractor to let him know that he had been charged $4,000 less than what he actually owed, he demonstrated that he is a man of integrity.  



Each day, I can see little things that my young boys are doing to emulate their father's behavior and it warms my heart.  It has been said that if you keep company with good men, good men you will imitate. So to Alex, Charlie's Dad, I say thank you for raising such a gentle man and for positively influencing your descendants.



Charlie spent his Father's Day at the lumber store where he bought all the supplies to construct a tree house and zip line ramp in our backyard.  I'm not really sure who is more excited about this project - Charlie or the children.



Mencius wrote, "The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart."



Oh, how lucky I am ... that the father of my children is such a great man!

favorite thing friday: the quest for world peace (alternatively titled, the war against road rage)

This morning, I had to be in the office at 8:00 for a meeting.  Because I didn't return home last night until midnight (after having been on a business trip to Houston), I was feeling a little less than stellar when I woke up today.  But after I smothered the kids in hugs and kisses, I darted off to work.   On my less than nine-mile drive in to the office, I heard honking - no less than five times. Not just a "toot-toot" but a HOOOOOOOOOONK! If those horns could speak, they would be saying, "Get off the road, you bumbling fool!"  

At one juncture, the man in the car next to me was laying on his horn and honking so aggressively at the person in front of him, who had merely slowed down because she realized that she was in the wrong on-ramp to the freeway and needed to merge, my blood pressure instantly went through the roof and I started to honk at him, for honking at her, before I stopped myself and instead started yelling the Lord's Prayer.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us! And lead us not in to temptation! Please, please, please deliver us from the evil that would occur if I forced this dope off the road and into a ditch!!

Oh, I know better than to let other's reactions behind the wheel upset me. I've taken defensive driving for the past several years through the Smith-System Program, which I can not recommend highly enough.  And while I know that the horn has a purpose on the car, I very, very rarely use it because I think it is rude and obnoxious and stress-inducing. Why, I dislike horns so much and was so inflamed by all of the people that used them when we first moved to this area, this is my license plate:



If I'm sitting behind someone at a light and the light turns green, I'll give the person a few solid seconds before I tap my horn. And if someone is merging in to my lane, of course I'll slow down and let them in. Why would I speed up and honk my horn? What if the person inside is sick or sad or dealing with a terrible loss? What if they are a brand new driver and nervous, or what if they are elderly and tentative?  Or, what if they are transporting a brand new baby?  Or, what if they don't feel comfortable making a turn on green because the cars are coming a bit too fast from their perspective?

What do you think of that, over-zealous horn honker?

Two months ago in Virginia, just down the street from our house, there was a situation where a 57-year old man was driving a car and a 63-year old man behind him, was (purportedly) honking his horn.  He honked at him once when the 57-year-old didn't accelerate fast enough once a light turned green, and then he did it again at the next light.  As fate would have it, the 57-year-old man, who was a Religious Education teacher at a local Catholic school, really didn't appreciate being honked at and perhaps didn't think to recite the Lord's Prayer.

Instead, he allowed the 63-year old to go in front of him, and then he followed him in to a parking lot, climbed out of the car, approached the man and said, "One day, you're going to get your ass kicked...." before he PUNCHED him in the head.  Long story short, the 63-year old died a few days later from a brain bleed resulting from the punch to his head. Resulting from him rudely honking his horn at a stranger who wasn't going fast enough through green lights. Resulting from a general acceptance of behaving uncivilized on the roadways.  Resulting from a civilization that unquestionably needs more fiber and general kindness in its diet.

Here's what I think:  I think that driving is the most dangerous thing I do all day. And I think there's a rage in a lot of people that lays just below the surface, manifesting itself once people get behind the wheel.  This rage especially brews when people are busy and stressed. I think that in more crowded areas, people can completely lose track of their humanity. And I think that this rage, this scary rage, can make us do things that we might never even believe that we would be capable of doing. I know that my neighbors whose daughter goes to the Catholic school, certainly never thought that their education director would be facing homicide charges because of road rage.

It comes as no surprise to me that the drivers of Washington, DC (and the surrounding area), are among the worst drivers in the United States of America.  While I try to allow three to four seconds of lead time between myself and the car in front of me,  I'm always stunned at how fast and close people around here drive and how not a day passes that when I'm out driving, I'll witness some kind of altercation on the road.  As a result of those factors, drivers in this area are 107.3 times more likely to have an accident than the national average.  People are generally overworked and overwhelmed and so they take out their frustrations during their long and busy commutes.

Because I'm striving for a better world for my children, in addition to honing my defensive driving skills and demonstrating graciousness to fellow drivers, I'm adding a few of these Shticks to my car...



Already, I expect they will be a favorite thing. I figure, if they add any levity to the insanity that is driving in this region, I think their purchase will be money well spent.  I'm just hoping I don't inadvertently hold up the "Jackass" of "WTF!" sign when I meant to hold up the "Thanks!" or "Have A Great Day!"

I anticipate that snafu might cause some trouble.

yet another moral dilemma

So Louie. Our dog?



We adopted Louie almost two years ago during a trip to South Carolina. Whereas our previous dogs, Monty and Molly, were pure bred AKC Labrador Retriever puppies ... Louie is a conglomeration of who knows what.  When we adopted him from the shelter, we were told he was a Cocker Spaniel - Mountain Cur mix but I'm sure he has some other breeds in there, too.  From what I've researched online, Mountain Curs were bred specifically for treeing small game but they have also been known to tree bears. I'm not surprised.  Louie will spend hours every day peering out the kitchen window whimpering at the squirrels and deer racing around our backyard and whenever the door opens, he'll fly around the yard like a banshee. I'm surprised - no, shocked - that he hasn't caught a squirrel yet.

Surely it's just a matter of time...

Last year, we took him with us to Michigan and things were great. A few weeks later, when I (sternly) corrected him for eating a stick of butter off the counter, he cowered away and then came at me with teeth bared, growling and snapping.  For several weeks afterwards, I was ready to take him back to the shelter.  But I instead, blamed his response on MY behavior, and read Cesar Milan's book, cover-to-cover with the goal that I would be a more calmly assertive (emphasis on the "calmly") dog owner.

I'm sure Louie sensed that his future with our family was uncertain because his demeanor changed almost instantly. Perhaps he realized that he was on thin ice because he became more keen to listen and please. Except for when he's on leash and then, even with the gentle lead, he's awful.  But he ceased snapping at the kids and became more playful and fun.  Things were certainly going better and I again began to imagine him with us forever.

Then he turned on me again, albeit not nearly as bad. It happened when I was trying to get him to roll over so I could put medicine on his stomach for a rash that he'd developed running around the backyard. I was trying unsuccessfully to flip him on his back and was beginning to get cross. He snarled. I backed off, petted him gently, and told Charlie I had a job for him to do.

(My husband's much better at flipping dogs on their backs than me.)

This past March, our neighbor Tom had to put down his nine-year-old pure bred German Shepard.  This was his fourth German Shepard that he's had to put down before they reached the age of ten and he was devastated.  While his wife was trying to convince him that at 72-years of age, the last thing he needs is another dog ... Tom did not agree with his wife and brought home his new 8-week old AKC German Shepard puppy last month.  Tom really knows his way around dogs and told us that once the puppy was a bit bigger, he'd like for him to meet Louie.

Today was that day.

And here's how it went...

But wait .... first I have to tell you how we took Louie to go fishing today. In my mind, this would be a FUN thing to do. A beautiful day with the dog at the lake, what could be better?  I'll tell you what could be better: A beautiful day with NO dog at the lake. For two hours straight, Louie was yanking on his leash, whimpering, yanking, whimpering, yanking, whimpering. Like it's not challenging enough to go fishing with four children who nearly gouged themselves (and others) as they were casting their lines ... now add a hyper dog to the mix. Sometimes I wonder how I've survived this long without medication? When I felt like hanging Louie from a tree, Charlie scowled and asked, "Remind me again why we have him and not a LAB?"



So then we arrived home and less than an hour later, Tom is at the door asking if we'd like to introduce Louie to the puppy?  Sure I thought. Maybe Louie can redeem himself in our book of good graces. We walked Louie over to meet the new puppy who has doubled in size and is now slightly bigger than Louie.  Louie, who typically does well with other dogs once he realizes that they are much bigger and more dominating than him, wagged his tail. Things looked promising. Until we put them in the fenced yard together and the puppy started to jump around and chase Louie.  That's when Louie said in dog words, "Me Not Like You."

Looking back, I see that once again it was my fault and I should have immediately taken Louie out of there. But I thought that he'd warm up to the puppy, because isn't that what dogs do?

Well, I thought wrong.  After the puppy tried to leapfrog over Louie's face, Louie went primal. He turned on the puppy, snapping, and once the puppy started shrieking in pain from an obvious bite, Louie went even more primal - running after him, snapping.  I jumped in to the fray and grabbed Louie - who immediately looked guilty - put him on leash and had the children take him out of the yard.

Meanwhile the puppy, who was still shrieking, ran and hid behind a garden hose. When Tom and I went to the puppy, we saw that Louie had taken a chunk out of his face.  The beautiful AKC puppy now only has one and three quarters of an eyebrow.

So. Um. 

Yeah. 

Tonight I went online to read about what provokes dogs to attack puppies. And the next thing I know, I'm on a website that is selling pure bred AKC Labrador Retriever puppies.



There's a part of me, a big part, that says, "We tried. We really did. It's time to give Louie a shot at life with another family that might be a better fit."  But there's another part of me, an equally big part, that says, "You can do better. You owe it to Louie. You owe it to the Universe."

So I jotted down the pros and cons.

Here are the Louie pros: 

He's smart. He's cute. He's good with our children. He's a nice size and can be transported easily. He's finally housebroken and doesn't chew things that he's not supposed to chew.

Here are the Louie cons: 

He's skittish. He's jumpy. Even with different collars, harnesses and leashes, he's very difficult and frustrating to walk. He can be extremely hyper / obnoxious around other people and dogs. He has a track record of snarling and snapping when provoked. He bites harmless puppies in the face and takes off chunks of flesh.

Unlike the situation I posed on Thursday, this time I'm really conflicted on what to do.  Charlie, not so much. He'd be perfectly content bringing him to a no-kill shelter first thing tomorrow. As an aside, regarding that situation on Thursday, Charlie took my advice and called the subcontractor Friday morning and told him about the incorrect invoice. The subcontractor was enormously grateful and said he owes Charlie one.  

Ah yes... Perhaps the SUBCONTRACTOR would like a mixed breed Cocker Spaniel - Mountain Cur that sometimes responds to the name of Louie. 

a moral dilemma

So Charlie.  My husband?

He has a little business that he started a few years ago and his little business has grown. It hasn't grown tremendously, but it's been a nice supplement to our revenue.

Charlie recently completed a job for his client and on that job, he had a subcontractor working for him. The subcontractor does "niche" work which means that it is highly specialized and there aren't very many companies that provide this exact service. Because there is relatively no competition in the region, Charlie is limited with who he can work with and so this niche subcontractor has worked with my husband for the past two years. For the most part, the subcontractor does fairly good work. Although, they tend to be a bit sloppy in their reporting.

For example, with almost every analytical report that Charlie receives from this subcontractor, there are errors.  Some of the errors are significant enough that the results would indicate his client has failed critical testing and would need to pay substantial governmental fines for non-compliance.  However, because my husband is very thorough with numbers and is quite handy with a calculator, during his reviews of the draft reports, he'll usually identify that the subcontractor forgot to carry a one, or is off by a decimal.  And nine out of ten times, that simple error will make the difference between a passing test and a failing test.  Or, the difference between compliance and non-compliance - the latter of which is accompanied by fines with lots of zeros.

A few months ago, Charlie received a cost proposal from his subcontractor to do work for him. And Charlie scanned the proposal briefly and thought it looked in line, so approved the work.  He did not go back and look at previous proposals to evaluate if the cost was consistent. Last month, Charlie executed the work and today, he received the invoice from his subcontractor for services rendered.

It was only tonight when my husband sat down to pay the invoice that he realized the invoice was off by several thousand dollars relative to what the invoice had been during the last sampling event.  But when he compared the invoice to the cost proposal, he saw that they were identical. It would therefore appear that the subcontractor had made an error in the cost proposal, by potentially underbidding the work, and either didn't notice the error, or noticed it but decided that it was too late because the proposal had already been approved.

Needless to say, Charlie is conflicted with what to do.

Does he call the subcontractor and let him know that it looks as though he underbid the project in the proposal and then, didn't invoice him the amount that Charlie was expecting from previous events? Or does he not say anything because the invoice is consistent with the proposal?

We were discussing what all of our former consultant employers would do, and without question, we know that they would pay the invoice as is, even if they recognized the possible error, and pocket the extra money with a smile on their face. That's life in the business world ... your mistake is my gain.

My recommendation is that he call the subcontractor and tell him that from one business man to another, he'd like to point out that over the past few years, he's observed a lot of errors that could have significant negative ramifications for his clients.  And now, he's noticing that there are errors in his bookkeeping practices that could have significant negative ramifications for him (the subcontractor). Then, I'd tell the subcontractor that it appears he has underbid the project based upon past invoices and ask if he'd like to submit a revised invoice?  Heck, that might be a good segue to suggest that the subcontractor hire Charlie as a quality controller to review all of his future reports and proposals.

Win-win! 

As my husband "sleeps" on his options, please tell us ... what would you do?

my haagen daze

Tuesday was an amazing day. Simply amazing. I'd had a nice long weekend and was energized when I returned to work on Tuesday morning.  That afternoon I had a nice, healthy lunch which I ran down eight flights of stairs to purchase, before running back up eight flights of stairs to my office ... instead of taking the elevator.  I drank no less than 64 ounces of water and felt refreshed.  By 3:30, I'd accomplished everything I'd wanted to accomplish that day, so I left work to meet Charlie and the children at the gym. My husband and I worked out, while the children ran around and played basketball. We came home and enjoyed dinner as a family. In the evening I patiently did homework with children and enthusiastically applauded their awesomeness in learning.  The kids were in bed, sleeping soundly by 8:30. As they slept, I sat down and tried to write a post that has been on my mind.

Then came Wednesday.  

On the heels of a great day came a not-so-great day. Probably because I was up too late the night before, on Wednesday morning I overslept which means the children overslept.  After having been tardy 16 times this school year, we vowed that we would be tardy NO MORE.  So we were in a frazzled state as we ran about looking for shoes, library books and other second grade school necessities. I arrived at work almost an hour later than normal because the traffic which had been virtually absent on Tuesday was in full force on Wednesday.  With back-to-back meetings, I skipped lunch and instead ate a squashed banana that was at the bottom of my purse. I never once took the stairs and didn't drink nearly enough water throughout the day. When I came home, I couldn't get through a single page of homework without putting my head on the table and moaning. Once the children were in bed, I thought that because I'd had such challenging day, I deserved a little pick me up.  If you could compress heaven in to a pint-size, it would look like this:

I'm quietly savoring my rare heavenly treat when Charlie arrives on the scene and upon seeing me polishing off the entire contents of my itty bitty tiny little pint, advises me that 1 pint = 3.5 servings or the caloritic equivalent of three hours on the treadmill.

OK. So some days are like that. 

But to my beloved, every so often, it's just best to not say anything. Or, better yet, don't even bring that stuff in to the house in the first place because the only way I could eat one serving... 

Is if this was my serving spoon.

the path (xv)

Thinking back, I don't think I ever really explained much of what has happened with me at work. For that matter, I think the last I wrote about it was in October when I drafted up that post about surviving severe weather.  Let's see, what's happened since then?

Well, I can't really go in to the details. 

But ... I can say that my situation has improved dramatically for which I am extremely thankful. I'm fortunate to work for a great company, with a lot of wonderful people, and I was very disappointed at the prospect of leaving.  It was quite unexpected that on November 1st,  I was assigned a (new) temporary manager and on January 1st, I was moved in to the "Think Tank" with a group of scientists, the majority of whom possess PhDs and more than 30 years of experience. As the only woman in this group of 12 mostly gray-haired men, I often find myself wondering why in the world they selected me?  Do they not realize that I had a significant learning disability in grade school and am still sometimes stumped by fractions? Thankfully, I haven't had to deal with too many fractions as I've been working on some of the most environmentally complex projects that face our corporation.

(Phew.)

Meanwhile, my former manager, who helped me to become a stronger and more spiritual person, was moved out of our organization and to a heavily guarded location in the Asia-Pacific region.  I sincerely wish him the very best in life and hope that he grew from the experience of working with me, as much as I grew from the experience of working with him. Now that it's over, I can truly say I'm a better person because of it.

Due to my experiences in the workplace over the past few years, particularly since I've become a mom, I've had an especially keen awareness of stories regarding women trying to navigate the path that often straddles motherhood and career-hood. These stories are seemingly everywhere - in the newspaper, books and film.

Last week I watched the movie Mona Lisa Smile.  This film came out two (um, make that 10?) years ago but I saw it for the first time last Tuesday.  When Katherine Watson [Julia Roberts] realized that her female students from the 1953 graduating class had it in their minds that they were destined to be homemakers and wives to their husbands, and not the scholars or professionals that Katherine thought they were in school to become, she angrily told her Wellesley College Magnum Cum Laude students, ".... you physics majors can calculate the mass and volume of every meatloaf you make."   

She then flashed up slides of women modeling brassieres and irons and told her class, "You can be so much more." Towards the end of the movie, one of her students, Joan Brandwyn [Julia Stiles] is accepted to Yale Law School, but turns it down because she wants to start a family instead. Her decision is unfathomable to Katherine, who implores her that she can have both her career and her family.  Joan's reply is that she would regret not having a family and being there to raise them, more than she would ever regret waking up one day and realizing that she could have been a lawyer.

(This was the most poignant part of the movie for me.)

The expectations - and demands - that so many women set on themselves to be academically successful and then successful in the workplace can be so high.  Joan probably could have had both ... her career and her family.  But from my perspective, it's not always "that" easy and I think that a lot of women in this day and age are fooled in to thinking that it is or should be.  While I believe that it certainly could be easier than it is to raise a family and maintain a career, a few things need to change within our own mindsets (and corporate environment) and that isn't going to happen overnight.

Consider, neither of my grandmothers worked out of the home; nor did either of Charlie's and both of our mothers were home with their children full-time until they went to school. Generationally, working mothers in the professional environment is still a relatively new occurrence and yet, there are a lot of women today who take grave exception to any notion that mothers are not as capable and focused as men in the business environment.

Last week, I read an article in The Washington Post.  The title of the article was, "Billionaire investor's take on motherhood roils U-VA."  The article was about Paul Tudor Jones, a hedge fund billionaire, who said during a symposium at the University of Virginia that as long as women continue having children, the hedge fund industry is likely to be dominated by men. He was quoted as saying, "As soon as that baby's lips touched that girl's bosom, forget it."

He was referring to two women who worked with him and once married, became mothers, and no longer had the intense focus needed for macro trading.  His comments caused an uproar among women educators and those in the business world.  WHAT ROILS ME is the outcry to his comment and that Jones has since released an apology for stating what I consider to be The Obvious.

Women, if they chose to have children, will likely discover that they have a bond to their children that is greater than any bond the world of chemistry has ever known.  In 99.999% of the female population, once a woman has a baby, everything changes: her waist, her bosom, and yes, even her intense focus.

Several years ago, Johnson and Johnson launched a brilliant ad campaign built upon the truth, "Having a Baby Changes Everything."  One of my favorite phrases in this campaign is, "You were always destined for big things. So who'd have ever thought the biggest thing to ever happen to you would be the smallest?" 

Why in the world should we attempt to cover up that a woman's focus has shifted after the biggest thing to ever happen in her life?  It's not a handicap or a function of inequality .... it's a reality.  And the more that people try to argue against this fact that a woman's life is no different after she's become a mother (particularly in the workplace), the more challenging and longer it's going to take to have POLICY in place that is going to more readily allow mothers the flexibility (and desire) to continue with their careers if they so choose, or need.

At least in my case, I was on a rapidly upward mobile career track, until I had children. And then things slowed down.  It should come as no surprise that taking almost a year off for maternity leave, and then working part-time for a year, before taking off another year for maternity leave, followed by another year of part-time work would put the brakes on my accelerating career.  Before children came in to my life, there weren't distractions such as school plays and swim meets and sick little ones that only allowed me to get two hours of sleep at night. There certainly weren't pictures on my desk that would prompt me to daydream about what they were doing and what I might possibly be missing between the hours of 8 AM and 6 PM.  And there wasn't the sometimes gut wrenching guilt that can derail me when I'm packing for a week-long business trip.

Some women love to work. Some women have to work. If you're in the latter camp, it's nice when you enjoy what you do and don't feel bitter about being away from home.  I'm fortunate in that I thoroughly enjoy my day job, but I'm a mother first and foremost. And even now, as a 20+ year veteran in the prime of my career, I wouldn't hesitate giving up a week rubbing shoulders with executives, to instead spend a day at Disney Land with my children on their birthday.  My focus, like most of the working women I know, shifted once I had children. 

I've lost count of the number of women who, if given the option, would give up their full-time, hard-earned careers to have the ability to spend more time home with their children at various points in their child's life.  Even for those women who were the most gung-ho career women to ever live and have hired full-time nannies so they can continue on with their gung-ho careers ... yes, even for THOSE amazing go-getter women, it's irrefutable that their focus has shifted from what may have once been an all encompassing career to the little beings that they are now blessed to raise.

Very few of these women would like to give up their careers completely.  But all of them, crave some degree of flexibility.  What I've discovered is that you're either lucky enough to work for a company (or manager) that allows flexibility, or you're not.  There is no policy governing flexibility because flexibility is dictated by business need. This makes sense economically, but there are other factors that could be considered which may include job sharing and/or work place and/or work hour flexibility.

Time and time again I see highly qualified women stepping down (or stepping aside) from promotions because the pull to be a mother is greater than the pull to be an executive. It's not that she couldn't be a CEO, it's that she wouldn't be a CEO under her current work demands or arrangement.  What a woman brings to the table is often so different than a man and that skill set cannot be discredited. Most woman that I know offer communication, collaboration and coordination skills that are an integral part of continuous improvement in an organization.  And as I've written before, allowing employees to find a healthy balance at dictated by their life circumstances (i.e., children), will ultimately yield a more productive, energized, loyal, healthy and diversified work force.

So my response to Paul Tudor Jones would be this...

"Women aren't going to stop having children. So until such time that there are policies surrounding improved flexibility in the workplace - the hedge fund industry; nay business world, is likely to be dominated by men. If we want to see more women in the workforce, especially at higher levels, we must allow them the flexibility to attend to their #1 priority - their family. "  

It's because so many women come back to work on the premise (or under the expectation) that they are going to accomplish all that they accomplished before they had children (and then some), there is a tremendous amount of anguish among the working mothers I know and their numbers in the upper echelons of management are lacking.  Most women who have children bow out of the game, or turn down the promotions because of the impact it may have on their time at home.  There aren't enough hours in the day, fuel in the tank, or years that our children need us. As Phyllis Schlafly so eloquently wrote, ".... maternal tuning-in never turns off."  So it's simply a choice most of us have had to make regarding where our best energy will go.

Understanding the sacrifices that I'm willing to make, and those that I'm not ... our family has found a balance which for the most part, works. As fate would have it, I have a husband who is incredibly supportive of my career and was able to establish a career for himself that allows him the flexibility to be home with our children. It's safe to say I wouldn't have reached my current level, in the well respected "Think Tank", if I wasn't focused in the workplace. But I'm definitely not as focused as I was before the four biggest things to ever happen in my life, arrived in less than three years. I made the conscious decision to have children; I made the conscious decision that I wanted to be a mother.  It was a choice.  But without Charlie willing to make the choices that he's made, it's unlikely that I'd be at the level I've achieved in my professional life, especially given the general lack of workplace flexibility I have, which is comparable throughout today's corporate America.

Last month, I told my current supervisor, a man whom I've truly admired, that one of my career ambitions is to move in to a role of management. After a lot of soul-searching, I've determined that the primary reason I'd like to move in to this type of role is so that I can be better positioned to understand, and hopefully remove, some of the barriers that are deterring other women from advancing professionally within our organization.  So I told him that from a diversity and inclusion perspective, it is important that there are more mothers represented at the leadership level.

Little did I know how quickly the corporation would respond to my request.  Next week, I'll have someone assigned to work for me for the first time in my 12-years with the company.  I'll be the direct supervisor of a young woman pursuing an engineering degree. She will be coming to work for us and I'm sure that when she comes in to our office that has a 20 / 80 ratio of women to men, she is going to quickly realize that her gender is outnumbered 4:1. (Look at that ... two fractions in one sentence!)  

I'll admit, I've been somewhat conflicted expressing my interest in management because I feel like I'm toeing a very fine line between "The Professional" and "The Mom" and I don't want to fall too far over to "The Professional" side.  However, it's clear that there needs to be more working mothers at the management level who are balancing careers and family and visibly demonstrating that sometimes the balance works and sometimes it doesn't.  People need to see and understand that, while also seeing the value that working mothers continue to bring to the table.

There are days I still struggle with our arrangement and question if it should be me that is home with our children - while Charlie is in the office. (I don't know if my guilt or maternal instinct is stronger?) But more often than not, I see my children looking at me as a woman who is capable of supporting her family and my employer looking at me as a dedicated employee who has her priorities in the right place. As a result, I feel empowered to lobby for policy on flexibility in the workplace, while also continuing to demonstrate the critical business need for women in the workforce today....



For those women who will be in the workforce, tomorrow.

*****

(Post Script: I'm trying to scratch the itch of something I've been meaning to write for quite a while and am not sure if I grazed the mark or missed it completely. Forewarning, chances are moderate to high that this will be edited several times after it's posted.)