Maybe you have not said all of these phrases, but you have said one of these, and you need to own up to it. Because all the #metoos of the world are not going to change things without you taking personal responsibility for the ways you put down other women. Read more
The first round of auditions for Juilliard’s pre-college program is by video. From December to March my son practiced for three hours a day to prepare. At the end of March we recorded him playing Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33, by Saint-Saëns, and we sent it off to Juilliard. Read more
We were playing Cards Against Humanity, which, by the way, is a great way to educate kids about everything important, and we have a rule that if you don’t know what a card means you can trade it in, but you have to ask what it means.
So my son says, “What’s a desk job?” Read more
I told Matthew it’s time to take the kids apple picking. “Do you want to come with us?” I said. “We’re going to a place in Illinois.”
“What? What’s wrong with the apple trees here?”
“We have apple trees?”
So the kids and I got in the back of the truck, and Matthew drove over hills and through gates to a pasture full of apple trees. Read more
I’m at my son’s cello lesson, thinking about this week’s Time magazine. Sheryl Sandberg’s on the cover.
I never used to write about women on my blog. I wrote for three national magazines about careers before I even acknowledged that I was a woman aside from saying
1. I got the column because I was a woman running tech companies. (Rare back then.)
2. I got a promotion because I leveraged the sexual harassment my boss dished out in order to climb the ladder (around him).
Other than that, I tried very hard to not mention women. I could see that women who had kids got very little respect at the office and I stayed away from them. I only hired men. Even after I had kids, I only worked with men. Read more
You cannot pick a husband to have kids with until you know if you want to work full-time while you are raising them. Some women will say they know for sure that they do want to work full-time. Most women will say that they don’t know for sure. But there are actually only two choices: be a breadwinner or marry a breadwinner. Then, within those two choices, there are a few strategies you can use.
Scenario 1: Be a Breadwinner
If you want to work full-time when you have kids then you had better plan on having a huge job that you love. Because nothing else will seem worth it to put yourself and your family through what they will have to go through.
If you are on the fence about this, here’s a good way to get off the fence: if you’re not an INTJ or an ENTJ you probably won’t be able to compartmentalize enough at work to choose this scenario. You will feel bad about not being with your kids. You cannot control this. It’s how women are wired. I’m sorry. INTJ is the most uncommon score for a woman. ENTJ is the second most uncommon. You can look around at all the big job, high-powered women and see that almost all of them have one of these scores. Sometimes an ENFJ slips in, but they are tortured and don’t last. The F kills them. They feel bad that they are not fulfilling their duty as parents. It’s not peer pressure, it’s internal pressure. It’s how an ENFJ is wired. Read more
