Leaning in, Falling Down

I've calmed down on the whole Sheryl Sandberg Lean In thing. In fact, once the book is available at the library, I will go check it out. So my familiarity with the book is really based on on what other people are saying about it and my own biases about what I think she is saying. OK. But this doesn't keep me from writing about what I think. It is my own blog, after all.

Sheryl Sandberg is enormously gifted, powerful, rich, smart. But her life story is so unrelatable to me. A gifted child with a leader's temperment. Supportive family and extensive network. Stellar education, lucky breaks, harmonious chore-free home life, and self-effacing style to boot, at least on 60 Minutes. She always knew what she was about and how to get where she wanted. And most critically of all, she had the right mentors. Who can blame her for telling the rest of us what we have done wrong?

To restate generalizations we've all heard before, women are programmed to be less assertive than men. They are passive agents in life, taking what is given to them, but not asking for more. If  women are assertive, then they are labeled bossy and worse. Sandberg says that women should go full bore until they have children. Climb as high as you can and then manage your work-life balance.

Thing is with me, without children, I might never have become engaged in my work the way I did. Having my first child provided the spark, not only because I needed to provide for us, but because I wanted to strive for him. I'm just an n of one, but I don't think I'm unusual. I want to believe there is path different from the one Sandberg lays out.

As time goes on, I see less of what she says through the lens of a woman who has ostensibly failed at this whole leaning in thing and more as a mother considering what are the essential lessons my children need to learn while in my care. Overtly, her commentary is about how women conduct themselves in the workplace. To me, the core issue is in creating that person who eventually works. No amount of preaching to lean in is going to change that person underneath. That's attending to the symptoms, not the cause.


If you don't develop the self assurance and confidence to be engaged with life and decisions, it's not a trivial process to attain it. The core issue is how anyone finds that spark early on and how that spark is nurtured to become a fire. From there, how will you find good mentors and make good decisions? Those decisions come back to the values you develop at a child: What is valuable to you? What is right and wrong? Who are you? I believe if you address those questions, the rest falls in to place. Leaning in without knowing who you are just makes you fall down.

I've been fascinated by this Mr. Money Mustache. Now, here is someone who understood what he was about from day one in the workforce. He and his wife were able to retire at 30 before having a child! How's that for work-life balance?