After 10 long years of work, I have released my second book on Amazon. At the Massachusetts Conference for Women held in Boston in December, I was introduced to Dr. Brene Brown, a wonderful speaker. Her new book, "Daring Greatly," got its title from a quote by Theodore Roosevelt in 1910. Paraphrased he said: "It is not the critic who counts....the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena....who if he fails, at least fails daring greatly..." I knew as she spoke that my book would be released in January, and I knew I was "daring greatly." Humbly, I offer to you the opening:
Chapter 1
20/20 Hindsight
If anyone could be successful at being a
dedicated, deeply-immersed mom while simultaneously working full-time (and then
some) at a hard-driving career, naively, I thought it was me. In my twenties, I believed I had the drive,
ambition, commitment, and energy to pull it off.
Work is a significant part of my life, not
something I would give up easily. I went
into college expecting to work my entire life and give back something
meaningful to society. At that time, I
never considered part-time work, having a “job” instead of a career, working
just for money, or being a stay-at-home mom.
I thought I had so much to offer the world…and then, I had my first son.
Initially, I absorbed all that came with
motherhood and integrated the demands into my busy days. Both my husband and I ran hard to keep up
with our work lives while managing our home life. My weeks were full and physically daunting,
but my love and devotion to my son took over all aspects of my thinking and way
of being. He came first and mattered
more to me than I mattered to myself.
This full life became challenging, but for so
many years, I just kept going. I had a
second son. Parenting two sons while
working full-time required even more of me, and yet I gave up nothing. Some years in, I began to have doubts and
concerns, but still I kept on that path.
Of the women I know in
my age group, I am one of the few who has worked full-time all the way through
her child-rearing years. When I began my
parenting journey, I was in the minority of the women I knew. The Shriver Report, a study by Maria Shriver
and the Center for American Progress, published in October 2009, says in its
preface, “We are in the midst of a fundamental transformation of the way America
works and lives.”1 It
prompted Maria Shriver to conceive the phrase “a woman’s nation.” It compelled me to write this book.
I married in 1986 at the
age of 24 to a man I began dating at 13.
We are still married after 26 years.
We had our first child in 1991 and a second, four years later. My sons are now 21 and 17. If The Shriver Report is accurate, women
trying to do what I have done for the last 21 years may now become more
prevalent and could soon be the norm in America. The report says we’ve hit this “major tipping
point in our nation’s social and economic history: the emergence of working women as primary
breadwinners for millions of families at the same time that their presence on
America’s payrolls grew to comprise fully half the nation’s workforce.”2
I was compelled to write
this book because, with 20/20 hindsight at the age of 50 and knowing what I
know now, I would have made a couple of different choices. If parenting while working full-time as I
have done is becoming the norm for women and their families, I feel a
responsibility to speak up and show what that looks like, because I don’t
believe it’s the best way. What I would
change is not major and is very do-able; small changes can have a huge impact.
Brown, Brene, Ph.D., LMSW, Daring Greatly. New York: Gotham Books, 2012, p.1.
