The balancing act of career and family is one that a lot of Americans work at every day. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has come out with a book called Lean In with advice to women for how to succeed. Former Lehman Brothers CFO Erin Callan is now adding her voice to the conversation with a warning label about what happens when you “lean in” and go after the top job. At the age of 47, Callan is now trying to get pregnant and start a family because she says she missed out on kids due to putting her career before her personal life.
Cycle co-host Krystal Ball believes that part of the problem with “why women aren’t leaning in as Sandberg puts it is because they know they feel that they would have to be the Erin Callan in order to achieve that level of success. They would have to give everything up and be the perfect career woman, perfectly dedicated, meet this impossible bar and that doesn’t sound so great.” So is there is a happy medium? Krystal believes if women are told they don’t have to be perfect all the time and meet an unrealistic goal if they take a promotion, or stay in their current job then they can achieve both the high profile job and the family life that these woman strive for.
As Krystal put it, women should strive for their own goal and not believe that “if I’m not Hillary Clinton then I shouldn’t be running for office.” Every woman should do what is best for her and does not have to “lean in” in order to achieve her goals.
But this isn’t just a women’s issue, it is a family issue. According to a new Pew Poll, half of all working men are also struggling to balance work and family. According to the poll, 46% of fathers say they spend too little time with their kids. As Toure put it, the “balancing act for dads is extraordinary difficult as well.” Toure says, “Being a man, to me, is about providing for your family,” but that means that you miss a bed time here or there and it hurts when you hear your kids miss you.
Abby Borovitz