What Lean In Left Out
I love Lean In, the women’s empowerment sensation started by Sheryl Sandberg in 2013. But I am also conflicted with Lean In. The book validated much of my life and career. Yet why did I feel so depressed after I read it? I am leaning in surely. I negotiate my compensation much like a man and I have an equal partner, without whom I could not have the career nor the family life I enjoy. So why do I feel bad? If I leaned in any further, I would fall over. I am the Lean In poster child.
I am a risk-taker. At age 20 and with about three-months rent in my pocket, I moved across countries from Ontario, Canada to the West Coast of California. Santa Cruz, the land of surfers and pot smokers, was my first landing spot. I worked my way through the community college circuit while bagging groceries at Safeway, working at a sleazy bike store, and serving tables at a drug-infested restaurant with views of the beautiful Monterey Bay.
When a letter came from UC Berkeley that I was accepted into its chemical engineering program, I knew my work had paid off. My dream came true.
From college to Corporate America, Ms. Sandberg would be proud of these accomplishments. Yet as I lived it day-to-day, something was missing.
I studied in a predominantly male environment. As one of three “white chicks” in a class of 200, I was clearly in the minority. Unlike many of my brethren, I needed to work part time to pay my way. I tended bar at an upscale hotel, missing study groups and office hours. I have to say I felt disadvantaged, constantly behind and out of the loop. But in the end, I overcame it all and graduated with a GPA I could be proud of from one of the most prestigious chemical engineering programs in the country and arguably the world.
Well before graduation, I landed a high-paying job as a process engineer. Applied Materials is the world’s largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer located in the heart of Silicon Valley. I was accepted into it’s prestigious New College Graduate program. At the time, it would have been difficult to be more high-tech than that. I continued in this male-dominated field for more than three years – a career lifetime in Silicon Valley – then took another risk. I pivoted into public relations starting at a firm of less than 20 people serving high-tech companies in the valley. Truly I can feel Sheryl smiling as she reads this. But still I didn’t feel right.
My college sweetheart and I got married and had our first two daughters in San Francisco at UCSF (University of California, San Francisco) with view of the beautiful San Francisco Bay.
Both my maternity leaves set my career back but not because “I left before I left.” It was because of what happened while I was gone and what I came back to…but yet I pushed on. I challenged the CEO of the firm, landed a new role as COO, and continued to build my career in public relations over the next several years.
My husband and I moved our family to Minnesota to be close to his family so I worked remotely as a senior vice president at one of the largest public relations firms in the world. I founded and grew a new sustainability practice at this firm, and continued raising my girls with a very willing and more than equal partner.
At the height of my career at the firm, I took another risk with a completely new job at a Fortune 50 company in the midst of my pregnancy with daughter number three. I was interviewing at seven months pregnant, got the job and the company even waited almost four months for me to have my child and take a maternity leave. One might say I was living the “lean in” dream.
So what was wrong with this picture? What’s was I missing?
For me it was the comedy of it all; the sheer madness that leads to a crazed sort of laughter.
That’s what was missing.
The humor – a certain kind of it that came up again and again as I lived my life day-to-day and as I connected with other women, some single parents by choice, some in dysfunctional marriages, others in good marriages or somewhere across the spectrum. Some women I connected with were divorced or had begun the process. Others had mixed families with a combination of biological and adopted children or all adopted. It didn’t matter. What I noticed was a constant in all of our lives.
We were doing day-to-day amazing things to make it all work and look good.
Whenever I think about the lengths we professional working moms go to make the mess look pretty I am always mystified.
But it’s time to stop covering up the mess. We need a good laugh instead.
Some of the women who show up in my stories are leaning in, but some are leaning out. They, like me, don’t have many, if any, safe places to show vulnerability, vent, or just share.
I write for them.
The women I know, the women I don’t know, and also the men (yes, men) who need a safe place to have a laugh.
I have made an attempt through this blog and my upcoming book to share my most vulnerable moments. So far, I have had an incredible journey and one I hope you too can connect with and enjoy. I would like to hear about your journey and so would many others. Our lives can sometimes feel so heavy.
So sit back, grab a glass, and have a good laugh (and maybe even a cry).
