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.

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.

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

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