Women CEOs Who Are Moms

11.02.2010

A few weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal on-line published an article about women CEOs and 12 out of the Fortune 500 companies are led by women, 11 of whom are mothers.[1] This caught my attention because I’m constantly worried about what happens to women and their careers once they have children. It’s still hard to climb the ladder, as the article mentions, but it’s much easier than it was even just 15 years ago.

I’m somewhat disappointed that the article wasn’t as good as I thought it was going to be though I couldn’t tell you what exactly I was looking for in it. Answers, maybe? But to what question(s), I don’t know. Maybe it was to let me know that it’s OK for a woman to want a career and to pursue one while having children. One CEO mother said that you have to plan on not having guilt about missing certain activities and not being there for every single milestone. She also suggested that, “When you walk in the door, you should be ready to say, ‘I am home now,’ and not check email until later.” This makes sense. You compartmentalize your life. Work is work and home is home. Each deserves your attention separately. I can buy that.

What a couple of women said is that being a parent has made their decision-making skills at work much sharper and more compassionate toward others in the company. BJ’s Wholesale Club CEO, Laura Sen, said that, because of her kids, she brought in employee wellness and weight-loss programs because investing in the workforce was important to her. She said that being a mom makes her “have a more maternal view in terms of how” people are treated.

The saddest part of the article, though, is that since 2000 women CEOs still make $0.79 on the dollar where their male counterparts make the full $1.00 and climb the ladder faster. Change in the right direction sure does happen at slow increments, doesn’t it?

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[1] http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/111055/the-corner-office-and-a-family?mod=career-leadership

Not Music To My Ears

05.08.2010

What was supposed to be me dropping off some stuff for my sister today turned out to be going out to lunch and hanging out in the afternoon which was so much fun. We had a yummy lunch, chatted, laughed, and reminisced. We’re truly becoming friends and, given the kind of relationship we had 3 years ago and in the years preceding that, I’m very grateful that our relationship has veered away from the direction that it looked like it was heading.

While hanging out at her place, she popped in a DVD of Fleetwood Mac and we proceeded to watch a little and talk about the music industry and the life of a creative person. Stevie Nicks is known to be a creative force and the talent that she has is unparalleled. But, as a trade-off, she has no kids. She’s apparently very close to her sister and two nieces, but has no children of her own.

I remember reading an article some years back about her and she talked about the choices that she made in life and that she regrets never having children but given her schedule, her life, and her drug habits at one point, that it’s actually better she didn’t bring any children into this world. For as grateful as I am for this woman being honest and not having children for some selfish reason, this is the very thing that I keep talking about and an issue with which I consistently wrestle.

Early on in my relationship with Rob, we had an argument about why there are more men in Hollywood than woman. Both of us got frustrated; I don’t feel I was able to express myself clearly and Rob kept saying that all I was doing was stereotyping.

But here’s my argument. When you’re in a creative mode, hours could go by before you realize how much time has gone by. When I’m writing, I could start at 10 am and the next thing I know it’s 3 pm and I haven’t even had lunch yet. Time just flies by. So let’s say that you put in an 8-hour day of writing. Let me ask, who makes your lunch for you? Who is going to do the laundry for you? Who is going to make dinner? What if a room needs cleaning? Who is going to clean it? What if you have no food in the house? Who’s going to do the shopping? What about kids if you have them? Who takes them and picks them up from school? Who helps with the homework?

It’s one thing when you’re living alone. But it’s a different thing when you’re living with someone. Between a man and a woman, it’s the woman who runs the household. So, for me, I often sacrifice my writing time so that stuff can get done around the house. I have seen an entire weekend go by without Rob coming out of his room because he’s doing one thing or the other. He, as a guy, is perfectly fine eating out, skipping meals, or not really being concerned with what’s going on outside the realm of his four walls. And if food shopping doesn’t get done that week, it’s, like “Oh, well. I’ll eat out at lunch all week.”

This certainly isn't an attack on Rob and he definitely has his days where he picks up the slack of the household chores. But, in general, I have always found that men have an easier time “checking out” and I think it’s more difficult for women to do that because of all the things women think about all at once. I think that a man doesn’t have a problem putting in 10 hours of creative time whereas it’s much more difficult for a woman to dedicate that much time to something AND clean the house AND do the shopping AND cook dinner AND put the kids to bed, etc. It’s just not possible or it puts a huge strain on the woman and relationships with the spouse and children suffer.

I know that it all comes down to communication and talking over with your partner about your needs. But I still have a problem with the fact that women have to choose between career and family. Men do, as well, to a degree, especially these days when there is a lot more divided labor in the home, but when you break it down, it really is the woman who has a deeper stake in the choice and it’s unfair.

Baby vs. Job, Part II

03.24.2010

I’ve been working so hard on my school project that’s due on Friday and all this time that I’m forced to dedicate to it makes me grow resentful of the whole thing. I discovered last night that the last time I felt this exhausted in being “creative” was when teaching particularly that second year. Having to put together art projects or creative assignments for the students meant that I had to go through the project myself to try and see what was appropriate and useful, as well as to work out any kinks. I’m not working toward a credential or anything but this amount of time, effort, and dedication for the art program has brought out these negative emotions in me again.

It’s made me re-evaluate what are my short-term goals. I’m so constantly focused on the long-term goals that I put myself in these positions that I find myself in now having lost sight of what I want now and, in doing so, have derailed from my long-term goals. Thus, I am wasting time. Precious, precious time.

This crazy thought ran through my head this week. If I’m so miserable in the art program, through no fault of my own (it’s run horribly and most classes are set up for the student to fail; I guess it’s some sort of a test to see who can “tough it out”). So if I’m so miserable, what next? We all know my challenges with: job or baby, so…why not baby? I was trying to be my own devil’s advocate and was trying to see it from a perspective that I haven’t looked at yet. I may be scared, I may have all these questions, I may worry, etc. etc. etc. But in regards to the goals and dreams that I have career-wise, I may never achieve any of them or I may achieve only 1, neither of which would make me necessarily happy. So at the risk of never achieving a career goal I’m putting aside an opportunity to have a child because I’m hell-bent on making it as a writer, something that, at 35 and as a woman, I have every odd against me. There’s a part of me that wants to “Dare to dream” but there’s another part of me that’s pointing a finger and saying “Show me the odds in your favor and then have a baby”. I don’t know which side to listen to and I wish I had my own guru. It’s always so easy in the damn movies.

Baby vs. Job, Part I

03.21.2010

Despite being happy for the most part with where I am in my life, when it comes to the topic of planning a family, I’m getting increasingly frustrated and I’m curious if anyone feels the same way, similar to, or has felt the same way as I.

Very recently, I made the decision that after this semester, I won’t continue with the program that I started last fall. This decision has been several months in the making and, for all intents and purposes, I wish I had made this decision before the semester started but, nonetheless, I didn’t and now I have to wait it out. But the thing that’s becoming increasingly frustrating is how do we, as a family, proceed with our family planning?

Rob’s company is being sold so his future with the company, once it’s officially taken over by a new owner, is unclear. And with me not continuing with my program, the question becomes, Do we start a family now while I’m still unemployed or not? A few days ago I realized that no company is going to hire a pregnant woman so if I get pregnant now, I can’t expect to be hired until after the baby is born. But then I should probably wait a few months past that because I shouldn’t jump into a job right when the baby is born.

If I get a job now, I have to wait to get pregnant until I’ve worked long enough to accrue the necessary time to get maternity leave, and that’s assuming that the company for which I work even has that option.

An even bigger wrench thrown into the dilemma is that there is absolutely no guarantee that I’d get pregnant in time for either situation to pan out. If I look for a job now and get pregnant in the next 3-6 months, I’m “cooked”; no one will hire me. But if I don’t look for a job hoping to get pregnant in the next 6 months and I don’t, I’ve lost the time that I could’ve been looking for a permanent job.

The other side of the coin is that if put off just starting to try to get pregnant for another 18-24 months, I will be around 37-years old and my chances of getting pregnant drop immensely. Do I want to take that risk? And if we’re going ahead with our own biological children, I don’t want just one; I’d like the child to have a sibling. Therefore, we’d have two children under the age of 5 at the same time because I don’t want to be in my 40s trying for a second child.

I’m so incredibly frustrated and I, again, find myself in a situation where I totally resent the fact that, as a woman, I have to face this decision. Men don’t have to face this choice. And I also resent the fact that because I chose to have a life in my 20s, I’m now being penalized for that decision. I chose to do different things while in my 20s and am now ready to “settle down” with a permanent job but I’m faced with having to choose between a job or a baby. I wasn’t ready for either choice in my 20s but it’s almost like I feel like it’s too late for either. Or at least I’m at the point where I feel like it’s getting to be too late for either.

I mean, I talk about how important it is to know yourself and stay true to yourself as an individual and I didn’t have that in my 20s so adding a child to that mix would have been very detrimental to both of us. How is this fair? It’s as if women have this small window of opportunity to do the “career thing” but then, you better rush off to have a kid because, if anything, your body is going to start shutting down and all you’ll have to show for yourself is a career. I don’t agree that women should be having kids in their (late) 40s and 50s but I really do feel the physical pressure of having a kid and the pressure of finding a satisfactory job. I just wish there were some happy medium because I can’t see it now and it angers me.