My interview with Penelope Trunk
On the Huffington Post. We talked about generation at work, hard choices, and women and work. Sample:
Q: What about the media story that women are scared to take maternity leave?
A: “Was there a time women weren’t scared to take maternity leave? Women should always be scared because it’s a door closing. You decide if you want to be on partner track, you decide if you want to be a stay at home mom. You decide your choices- it was always a door closer. It is not news. Being an adult is about making difficult choices, and we’re really lucky that we have a wider range of choices today. It’s not a recession issue that choices in work-life are difficult. I just think it’s the dumbest news story ever- if it weren’t hard to take maternity leave it would be ridiculous. Maternity leave should be a hard decision. You’re choosing not to work as hard as the people who are going to get the farthest in corporate life. You have to decide if that’s what you want. School does not teach us how to make those decisions. You have to teach yourself how to make decisions. It’s very scary, it’s very intimidating, and it’s what our job is as adults is, is to make decisions about what matters to us and what doesn’t. Adult life is about shutting doors- your whole childhood your parents say, ‘you can be anything, you can do anything.” And being an adult is about the whole process of learning that you can’t.”
“It’s self-knowledge, not resiliency. It’s testing yourself all the time and being honest. We don’t need to be limited by what people have done before us, only by what we can think of. Understanding that is really helpful in understanding yourself. Then you understand yourself in a more true way. You’re not limited by social tropes. I think it’s very scary to do things other people aren’t doing.
What I’m doing while I’m not at BlogHer
I’m not going to the BlogHer conference, the first time almost since it started. I’m really sad about it, in a way I haven’t felt since high school. I feel like there is a big party and I am grounded. Even though I could have brought the baby…I had a scheduling snafu.
For those who say online community doesn’t measure up to offline groups, what’s the explanation for this feeling? And I know I’m not alone.
There are a fair amount of posts under the topic, “I’m sad I’m not going to BlogHer.”
Anyway, I’m going to try to distract myself from feeling left out. I’m going to:
- Make a healthier red velvet cake (courtesy of my amazing client, the American Cancer Society. The recipe is here if you’re interested.
- Organize the baby’s clothes
- Fill in entries in the baby book!!
- Stay off the internet, because it will make me feel sad
Anyone else? What are you doing when you’re not at BlogHer?
Undecided- my new favorite blog
Written by Shannon Kelley and Barbara Kelly, Undecided covers “Analysis paralysis, grass is greener syndrome, longing for the road not traveled: How the success of the women’s movement has left us stumped in the face of limitless options — and how to get over it.” It’s really smart and not whiny at all.
Thinking about non-traditional maternity leave
I just posted this on the MomsRising blog.
My friend Lisa Witter is Chief Operating Officer of Fenton Communications, a leading progressive communications and branding firm. Lisa is also the author of The SheSpot, which is the book on why women are key to achieving social change.
Lisa has two little boys, one just turned two, and one is three months old. She told me recently of her novel approach to maternity leave and flexible working. Lisa brings insight about what works for her as a mom, but also what works for her business as COO. Here’s what she did for her second leave:
“I found taking three and a half months off was isolating and didn’t work for me the first time.
With the second baby, I took 6 weeks formal leave, during which I checked in on email and sat in on conference calls. My parents and in-laws stayed with us during that time.
After six weeks, I worked 5 days in the office- I don’t have to, I choose to. I work better at the office. I’d bring the baby in whenever I felt like it. My older son would stay with the nanny, sometimes I’d meet them both in the park and she would take the baby home with her and I would go back to the office.
Now, I’m taking 2 weeks in August off, and all of December. At first I felt guilt about not taking a longer leave but I though, ‘If I’m not happy my child isn’t happy.’
This arrangement is a really good option for an employer too, if you can work out where you’re slower times are. It works better for me in my business because August tends to be slower, as does December.”
For me, I’m self-employed and need to engage in both business development and client services. For me, a long maternity leave was out of the question, but I structure my life at work to fit my parenting needs by working a flexible schedule year round. I took about two months and then started to jump in slowly to work.
What other non-traditional—but satisfying— maternity leaves have you seen?
Women leading the charge in the financial mess
I wanted to share this piece from my friend Joe Costello, whose listserv Archein is an invaluable resource and sure to stir the blood. There’s been a lot of research on the role of women as organizational whistleblowers. Women, outside of the majority power structure, have felt more comfortable stepping outside groupthink and speaking up. Make of this what you will. Ironically, Stanford Law Professor Deborah Rhode said in 2002, during the Enron mess (!): “”If you’re not one of the good old boys to begin with….it makes it easier when you see something flat- out wrong to raise your voice.” So here is Joe’s piece on the outstanding role of several women in calling the financial crisis before it happened.
In a recent piece, I talked about women leading the charge on the financial mess. I was asked in an email to, “Write a piece and send it around or something.” Ya’ll didn’t know I take requests did you? So, in my best Wayne Newton, and I could pull this off if I shaved my goatee and took off the top 3/4 of my mustache — “This one’s for the ladies: ”
1) First, I’ll start with Yves Smith, who I came across end of last summer. A bio of her states she has 25 years in financial services, worked for, amongst others, Goldman, McKinsey, and Sumitomo, and a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Business School. Her blog is Naked Capitalism. She has shown great knowledge and greater courage, from my experience, these two traits are too rare together. Her writing is exceptional and if you want a good overview of the financial mess and what’s gone on over the past year and half, I couldn’t more highly recommend, paging through her blog’s archive. The president should replace Geithner with her. Time we had our first woman Treasury Secretary.
2) Next, Elizabeth Warren. Either mistakenly, which I believe is the case, or purposefully, in which case I’d have to reevaluate my opinion of Harry Reid, Warren was appointed by Reid to head the Congressional Oversight Panel for all the money being handed to the banks. Warren is Professor of Law at Harvard and wrote the excellent book The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke. So, she documented the great underbelly of Wall Street’s debt bubble, that is, its destruction of a big chunk of working America. I don’t know if when Reid appointed her, he thought he was getting some doddering academic, but instead he got a strong and energetic public advocate. There’s been a pretty hard effort to discredit Ms Warren, and Yves Smith takes a look at the hatchet job done by NPR here. Here’s a good interview with Bill Mahr. I’ve been nothing but impressed when I’ve heard her talk and strongly second the motion by Greider to give her subpoena powers.
3) In October 2007, working for Oppenheimer, Merdith Whitney wrote a report calling Citi the pile [of] junk it is. Amazingly, she was pretty much the only one in the whole industry to do so. Since then, Whitney has been straight at the big banks, holding nothing back on what bad shape they’re in. She’s the Anti-Geithner. In the middle of latest pop in the stock market, which has gotten the banks $50 billion in new capital over the past couple months, Whitney appeared here on CNBC,(excellent) and called the banks’ profits “manufactured” by the government, and stated things would begin heading south again. She’s an eagle above the weasels scurrying below on Wall Street.
4) Gretchen Morgenson writes for the NYT business section. In the last year and half, she has written far and away some of the best coverage of the financial crisis in the mainstream media. Most importantly, she put Mr. Blankfein at the meeting with Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke when the bailout of AIG was decided to the advantage of Goldman for at least 14 billion. By the way, Goldman hasn’t returned that 14 billion! Again, if you want to read some good things on the last year and half, scroll through her articles in the Times’ archive. The Nation just did an ok piece on her. Unfortunately, it suffers from the author’s “objective journalism” disease.
5) Finally, I’d throw in Sheila Bair, who was appointed head of the FDIC by none other than George W. Bush. Ms Bair has frequently tangled with the boys in the government, taking on Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner, and Summers. She’s stated repeatedly the banking crisis is not over, tried to slow the foreclosure tsunami, and most recently stated again Citi is a pile of shit and needs to be placed into receivership.
These women are inspiring! Citizens all, helping breathe life into this old republic.
About Me
Morra Aarons-Mele utilizes social media strategies to help employers, employees and communities connect. She also consults with leading organizations on how women can use the internet for professional and personal development. In her spare time, Morra enjoys blogging about women and politics. Read her full bio >>
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