Don't Say "Bossy"

I like this picture going around FB, even though the quote is sloganny and simplistic.

My firstborn is a boy, and was an only child for 6 years. During that time, I noticed some patterns in what “boys’ moms” tended to say and what “girls’ moms” tended to say, and one of them was: moms of daughters frequently described their girls as “bossy.”  I think I noticed it initially because I never thought of my son as bossy.  Then, when I thought about this more, I realized I never heard a mother of a son call him  “bossy.”  But it was common hear among mothers of girls. I immediately wondered: if I had a daughter, would she seem bossy to me?

And I noticed that almost always, the girl being described didn’t seem bossy to me at all. Granted, I had a distance on this because I had only a son, but I was often surprised when “bossy” was handed out because mostly the girl seemed to be acting opinionated, charismatic, enthusiastic, but not “bossy” in the sense that “bossy” also involves a real failure of empathy, an inability to “get” when it is time to keep your opinion to yourself, listen and follow. 

Or — sometimes her grabby, want-to-get-my-way, inconsiderate routine was really unempathic and truly out of line, but even then, typically, I’d think, well, that’s annoying, but it’s actually just “childish” behavior.  And this person is a child.

Meanwhile, the boys also did the grabby, want-to-get-my-way, inconsiderate routine, the very same routine, and it was equally annoying from them, and all too often the adults around them didn’t call them names, but also didn’t teach them how to do it any better.  All too often, when boys got “bossy”, their grown-ups expressed pride in the young tyke’s cojones, or else apologetically explained that he couldn’t help it because that’s how boys are.

I think it’s worth being careful with our language.  It’s important for all kids to learn to express their opinions with a little charisma and a good sense of audience.  They’ll all mangle it for a while – some will be too hesitant to express opinions until they find their voice, and others will steamroll over everyone else’s opinions until they learn some moderation.  In the end, helping them learn this is important because these are leadership skills.  We owe it to a daughter not to suggest that venturing an opinion (and risking doing it boorishly) is so horrible that we’ll call her names for having a personality.  It’s exactly in the low-stakes world of the playground that she should learn to do that stuff with our help.  And we owe it to a son to do right by him, too, to be sure that when we admire and encourage budding “leadership,” we’re also teaching him to be mindful of his audience.  Acting like he’s not capable of basic empathy is treating him like an idiot. It’s not fair to boys or to girls if we give up on them.

"Leaning Back" isn't always "Holding Yourself Back"

The pre-release media buzz around Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In has sparked a barrage of essays about women and ambition and career. In this one on the Daily Beast, journalist Mary Louise Kelly describes how and why, after considerable distress, she left a very high powered, full-time career to be mainly with her kids, and writing part-time.

She comments:

And yet—with sincere and enormous respect for the accomplishments of superwomen like Sheryl Sandberg—I wonder if there isn’t room for a more expansive definition of female professional success. So many of the women I know are blending work and family in ways our mothers and grandmothers never dreamed possible. This seems to me worth celebrating, not sniffing at. Dare I confess that I feel I’m accomplishing something just as meaningful now as when I spent my time scurrying between Pentagon press briefings? Or, to use an example from Sandberg’s world, should we automatically assume that the woman running the company is doing more with her life than the woman who has negotiated a three-day week?

Indeed.  

There are many ways to succeed professionally over a lifetime, just like there are a lot of things you could call a “great dinner.”  Personal taste, access to resources, time and skill are all factors; it’s silly to compare them. 

But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to discuss.  The larger point is, if you’re not “leaning in” to your current career, why?  

• Is it because you’ve been conditioned not to take yourself seriously?  Not to take risks?  Not to grab the spotlight?  Not to “go for it”?  Only to worry about the logistics?  Never to say you’re great at something?

• Have you been taught to take criticism so hard that you lose sleep over it even when the person criticizing you is clearly in the wrong?  To feel like a fraud and an imposter when you do well? 

• Has everyone failed to teach you how to negotiate, how to ask for a raise, or how to identify the person in your work community who is most likely to shepherd your career?  Have they, instead, taught you that negotiating and asking for a raise is “pushy,” and that looking for help is “weak”?

• Were you indoctrinated to forgive a spouse who is better at getting out of domestic and childcare tasks than you are at saying, “share this stuff with me or leave” because “that’s how men are”?  Do you and your spouse tacitly agree that if he takes a job that leaves him no time for home and family that’s “sad for him” but that if you take the same job, it’s sad for all of you?

• Have you been taught, over and over again, that if you don’t feel guilty or inadequate you probably ARE guilty and inadequate?

If those are the only reasons you are leaning back, they are a shame, and there are things that help.  

That these are the motivators for so many of us reflects systemic problems that began to color our views in childhood. They lead to women holding themselves back, and men holding women back.  It’s time to push back against that, hard, starting with what we teach young girls and boys, and I hope that the “movement” afoot is about that. And to the extent that any of it can be re-learned in adulthood and allow women to take more control of their lives, I am all for it.  Not just for mothers.  Not just for women.  For all of us.

But let’s not conflate any of that with something separate, which is:  for reasons that have nothing to do with the above, many people feel a very strong pull to be substantially with their kids while they are little. They want to be with their babies not because they’ve been taught to hold back by a sexist culture, not because their work isn’t interesting enough, but because they want to be with their babies.  And that’s a good thing.

Although leaning towards our babies when they are babies is not what feels right for everyone, is not practically possible for everyone, and is not a profession, it’s right for many and it should be possible for more of us, just as access to affordable childcare should be possible for more of us who need that.  

A mother who feels called to be with her young is not unfeminist.  In fact, it’s misogynist to suggest that there’s something wrong with her for wanting to use her body to do female things: gestating, birthing, lactating, nurturing the baby she has grown with her body. 

It’s also not a permanent state:  babies grow, and when they’re big kids most people have moved back to the workplace. 

Meanwhile, whether you’re staying in or leaning back from the career path you were on before your kids were born?  Learning to negotiate, take risks, partner with your spouse and develop appropriate confidence will help you dive back in to whatever it is you do in the next chapter.  It will also help you parent your children.

I hope we’re at the beginning of a flood of thoughtful discussions that lead to real changes for women, not a slide into the old, divisive, unproductive arguments that folks call the Mommy Wars.  There’s no war, and it’s time we stopped using that term and built systems that help more of us succeed.

"If I lean back, can I lean back in eventually?"

There’s been a lot more commentary on Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” in the past week; here’s a piece by a mom who returned to work full time after her baby was born, but later chose to leave her career, and be, for now, substantially with her child.  She vividly expresses the mix of concerns and joys she feels, including an honest admission that she worries about how and *whether* she’ll “get back in” when, eventually, she wants a career back.

I like this essay for its honesty. It takes character to acknowledge your reservations and not just cling fiercely to a defensive “I did the right thing that all mothers should do” or “what I did was dreadfully wrong so don’t make my mistake!” mentality.  Especially on this topic.  So first of all, congratulations to Ms. Morison and I’d love to see more of this, everywhere, not just at my working moms’ groups, where moms can be brave because they know they can lean on each other (and there’s wine!).  

Second, and importantly, to all folks who have stepped out for a few months or a few years.  To the extent you are wondering, can I ever get back in?  The answer is yes.  I don’t know what your job is, and I can’t promise you you can return to your exact same job.  Truly, after a hiatus where you’ve been doing something profoundly different, you may not want the exact same thing you wanted before anyway. 

But yes, when you are ready to be done with what you’re doing now and rejoin the workforce in a more ambitious or earnest or focused or unambivalent way than you feel now — yes, you will be able to do it. I have watched it happen for clients and for friends.  They are not CEOs of mega corporations.  But they are outstandingly successful, fully engaged, bettering the world, inspiring their kids and their friends, and bringing in money.  They are stressed by childcare issues and parent-teacher conferences sometimes, and by their work, sometimes.  But that’s because they’re human.  In the main, they are happy.  You can do it, too.  You’ll need to have a lot of creativity and confidence, and there will be moments where you have to be courageous or do something scary or uncertain, and that’s where peers and colleagues who love you can help a lot.

Last:  Ms Morison brags

I was great at my job – before I became a mom, and after. I have trouble even typing that statement — which perhaps gets at some of what Sheryl Sandberg is talking about to begin with — but I was.

YES.  I don’t know, yet, whether that’s what Lean In is about, but getting to a point where women can be proud and confidently tout their own awesomeness when they deserve it:  that has to be one of the most fundamental parts of any movement that seeks to reinvigorate this very old discussion.

That and adequate affordable childcare and an understanding that corporate success is not the only type of success.  

Family-Work balance is not a "woman's issue"

“I love the abstract ideas I’m seeing in the “Lean In” concept. I long for us to get to a point where we see family-work balance issues as human issues, not as women’s issues. I dream about changes in American culture that would allow more people to feel — over the course of their lives — stimulated, challenged and engaged with their work and also deeply, humanly connected to each other and their families. I wish that “work” and “life” were parts of each other, not mortal enemies. And I am sick to death of conversations about this stuff that return to the old, clunky tropes. But I also think it’s easier for me to talk in abstraction now without taking it personally than it was a decade ago, when my kids were babies and these questions were new to me. Anyone who embarks on this stuff has to be mindful of their audience.”

— Hey folks — here’s an excerpt from my piece on Huff Post today about my take on the Lean-In book/movement that’s in the news these days.  Check it out!

Marissa Mayer has a nursery in her office suite; says employees can't work from home, tho.

I’m miffed again about Marissa Mayer.  The Yahoo CEO sparked online rage this week after announcing Yahoo would no longer allow employees to work from home.  Last year, she pissed people off by announcing in a way that sounded rather cavalier that she would take “a couple weeks” maternity leave.  I blogged, at the time, about how her comments made it seem like she didn’t understand that the transition to motherhood is more than just learning how to wipe a butt (which women like Mayer can farm out.)

I actually feel kind of bad for Mayer — as the world’s most prominent CEO/New Mom she’s got to be under tremendous scrutiny to prove herself in a thousand ways, and it must feel like a minefield.  But whether she’d wished to be this or not, she’s the Working Mom In Power, who everyone is looking at right now, and she’s handling it badly, over and over.  I don’t know the right answer for Yahoo! in terms of work flexibility arrangements (and some online have suggested that flex time was abused within the company and/or that the scheme is a way for Yahoo! to achieve mass layoffs without having to do a public reduction in force), but a blanket ban on working from home seems outdated and monolithic in response.  

This isn’t just about mothers, it’s about all parents, and to be expansive, it’s about all workers.  Flexibility can be abused, for sure, but it can also allow workers to do better, cleaner, more efficient work and be happy with their lives.  As long as it’s managed well.  And what we expect in a CEO is excellent management skills, right?

But it gets worse.  Apparently, Ms. Mayer paid to have a nursery built into her office during her maternity leave.  This way, she can see her baby when she needs to, without having to work from home.  How nice for her!  She’s so lucky to work for a company where that kind of work-life flexibility is considered importa— oh.  Wait.  

Somehow I’m doubting she’s about to unveil Yahoo’s plan to provide on-site nurseries with childcare for the rest of its employees.  Everyone is a hypocrite sometimes, but this example is pretty egregious.  

It’s a shame; I was hoping she’d use this position and the timing of her motherhood as an opportunity to lead.

"Reclaim Your Wife"

Have you seen the recent ad campaign for Bittylab bottles?  Last week they tweeted to new dads:

The idea is that the bottle is so much like a breast that your baby won’t know the difference and you can get your wife “back.”

Um, ew.

As this blog post at Ms. so aptly notes,

When wives aren’t feeding their child, they shouldn’t be expected to be “reclaimed” by their husbands. Women aren’t property waiting around to be used by babies, husbands or anyone else.

Obviously, when you have a baby, your relationship with your partner has to readjust — as you find a new balance, there is less time for everyone.  And it’s totally normal for non-nursing partners to feel, among their feelings, some jealousy of the new baby, even some resentment at the lessened attention from his mate.  There are a lot of ways to cope with the big relationship changes that happen when you add a baby to your life.  

It’s just … ‘reclaim’?  Was she his chattel before the baby annexed her?  

Bittylab touts the bottle as “mom-invented” as though this undoes the annoying misogyny of the “Your Body And Attention Actually Belong To Your Dude And Your Baby Is An Interloper” message.  But the idea of a bottle as “liberating you” from your baby is all wrong — it sets up the mom as a slave to her baby, instead of what she is: an adult caring for him and calling the shots.  

I am not saying it’s wrong to use a bottle.  I’m saying the idea of the bottle as something that “sets you free” implies that breastfeeding is a kind of slavery.  You may indeed, sometimes, feel like a slave.  We all have our hyperbolic moments.  I suggest you keep these thoughts to a minimum and try to reframe it, and think of motherhood as demanding, but not demeaning.

And when we suggest that the bottle sets you free so that you can take care of your man?  

WTF year is it?!  

It reminds me of that essay last year by Erica Jong protesting the way that new moms get involved with their babies (rather than going to parties, as she apparently did after her daughter was born) and saying, reproachfully, that when a woman “breastfeed[s] at all hours” her mate feels that her “breasts don’t belong to him,” and this is bad. 

Your breasts don’t belong to your mate.  Your body is yours.  If you’ve chosen to have a baby, there are difficult moments and wonderful moments.  You’re entitled to find it hard or complicated; you’re entitled to want a break; you’re entitled to think creatively about what might give you a break; you’re entitled to try to design a life where you get what you need in order to meet all your responsibilities.  None of that is wrong or inappropriately selfish.

But don’t support a company that tries to get your money by telling you you’re a slave and that your real job is to service your man.

Freebies

“In an era when many feminists are (in my opinion rightly) dismayed by the suggestion that a woman’s right to an abortion should be subject to conditions, I have been shocked by the high level of acceptance when it comes to the notion that women who formula feed should be forced to justify their choice … I have witnessed a sizeable number of women, some of whom are self-declared feminists, debating on one another’s social media profiles and calling for formula to be made illegal.”

—

The quote is from a piece by Lorrie Hearts, at the f word., which I found on Jessica Valenti’s blog from a link at The Feminist Breeder. 

This argument entirely misses the point, and it’s completely wrong to equate this issue with assaults on reproductive liberty. 

Here is why:

First of all, the post is about a hospital that has decided to stop giving free formula samples to new mothers.  Formula is still available.  Unlike the abortion analogy, here, no one is taking away anyone’s right to choose anything.  The only thing going away is FREE samples.  

This is totally unlike a legislative or judicial attack on women’s reproductive liberty.  When governments make it impossible for a woman to make decisions about her body, it is ILLEGAL for a woman to choose not to become a mother.  When a hospital stops providing free formula, it is LEGAL for a woman to choose to give formula, you just have to pay for it like you pay for everything else.  In fact, women now have more choices, because they can choose any brand they’d like to buy, and not be stuck with whatever the hospital got in free samples that week.  And when “a sizeable number of women” criticize your motherhood choices in a way that makes you feel lousy, it is of course still LEGAL to do what you’d like to do, and I suggest seeking friends who aren’t critical of you, and remembering that other people’s opinions are only that, and that ranting about infant feeding choices on Facebook is a far cry from taking your rights away.

Moreover, I so don’t get why formula feeding moms support the free-formula-giveaways.  The formula industry spends mega-dollars on all that freebie placement and marketing.  Where do you think that marketing budget comes from?  How do they make back what they spend giving away free samples everywhere?  They make it back by jacking up the price of formula.  Moms who buy formula pay for everyone’s freebies.  If less was spent on all the give-aways, moms who were buying it would pay less.

I hate when the language and ideals of feminism are perverted this way.  The formula industry is not “feminist.”  It does not exist to advance the cause and plight of women.  It exists to get your dollars.  They do not give away the free samples because they care about you and your sore nipples, they do it because they hope you’ll use their product and spend your money on them.  Period.  

Hospitals can do way more than they currently do to improve the care of new moms.  I have blogged about this before; we need systemic change that recognizes that new mothers need individualized, evidence-based, compassionate care.  But this particular thing is not an example of it.