Ambition is not a Dirty Word

Staying True To Our Dreams Makes Us The Best Parents We Can Be

Dear Debra: Regarding your prior post, life is not, I repeat, not long. At best you have
about 74 years on this planet. Your children, however, will not be young forever. If you want
them to be around you when you are 74, you may want to invest as much time and energy into
their upbringing as necessary to gain and secure their unconditional love for those years when
you will need them down the stretch. 10 year olds really don't care about your career, or how
much money you make. My wife's mantra, when I was obsessed with my career was this: your
children are only young once.

Jim, you are buying into a socially-sanctioned, common-but-false assumption that
ambitious people face an either/or choice: either we strive to get the education we need and
devote time to create opportunities that move us toward meaningful, challenging work that
pays us well and allows us to make the contribution we were born to make, or we scale
back our dreams—because to do otherwise requires shortchanging our children and being
rotten parents. This is a false choice.

Finding Fulfillment Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Dear Debra: I’m working full-time while finishing an advanced degree. My company is paying for grad school, so taking advantage of that benefit is smart. But I’m spending way less time than I’d like with my ten-year-old. My husband works from home and is happy doing most of the carpooling, play dates, and homework. Working crazy hours is temporary and will benefit us long-term, but still I feel like a shitty mom and wife.

Don’t beat yourself up for not having a perfectly balanced work and home life, all at the same time. Write this down on note cards: Life is long.

Balance or Not, You are Normal

Dear Debra: I ordered pizza for dinner for my kids twice this week-and last; the house is a wreck, I brought home a mountain of work last weekend and barely made my daughter's school play.  What's wrong with me?  Does everyone else have their act together?

Here's the truth that no one tells us, especially glib work-life balance evangelists: Once you get out into the world of work (and even before that-in college, for example) you should just expect that your day-to-day life simply isn't always going to flow smoothly.

Balance Is Bunk: Either/Or Is False Choice for Women

Dear Debra: I'm 29.  My husband and I have an amazing 3-year-old.  I've worked part-time since he was born.  Now, not only do we need my full-time income, I'm dying to dive back into my career.  But I feel guilty, like I'm abandoning my son.  Plus, we want another baby someday.  I just can't see how to balance ambition and mothering

Working Moms Look Back with Mixed Emotions

By Maya Dollarhide Lucca. CNN.com. July 14, 2008

• Story Highlights
• Decision for moms to work or stay home is fiercely debated, rarely easy
  
• Psychiatrist: Children who are put in day care feel a real loss
• Author Dr. Debra Condren: Keeping yourself from your own ambitions can be "soul destroying"

Is It Honorable For Women To Give Up Their Ambition? Part II: Let's Get Real

 

When it “sunk in that mainstream schools shortchanged her severely autistic son”, Amy, 39, closed her thriving medical practice to help start charter school. For a long time, it seemed to be working out. “Then I found my husband in bed with a woman on the school committee. We went through a horrific divorce. I had to try to revive my career; at 49, it’s finally starting to take off again. But at my age, with everything I had to deal with, it was f_­­_g hard.” 

 

What If? Could this be you?

Is It Honorable For Women To Give Up Their Dreams?

Debra: You preach ambition for women. Aren’t you forgetting something? What about life balance? Mothering? –32, with better values than “just career”

Say your ambition is to be a great wife, mother, friend, or fair-minded coworker who refuses on moral grounds to educate herself about office politics. That doesn’t bother you, does it? No, because that’s socially sanctioned ambition. You’ll likely regard the following women as having chosen “honorable ambition”.

When Joining Mom and Pop Is Good Business

Last week we talked about the cons of joining the family business (review my CONS advice at www.AmbitionIsNotADirtyWord). Now let’s talk pros.

The Day My Son Almost Died

I make my living teaching women how to unapologetically own their ambition in a society that has a double standard. It’s our prevailing cultural paradigm: ambitious men are go-getters, but ambitious women are the b-word.

I define ambition as that which drives our creative existence, provides an outlet for our talents and passions, defines who we are, and allows us to earn our full worth without apology. I walk my talk.

But just like you I take hits.

In a moment of trauma, I too succumbed to those deeply ingrained cultural beliefs about how women are supposed to behave. It happened to me when my son almost died.

The S.O.B. Diet: Silda Spitzer & The Sisterhood

We women always try and look on the bright side. Case in point: a friend who was going through a painful divorce and custody battle said to me, “Well, at least I’ll lose a few pounds—I’m on the Son of a Bitch Diet.”

Her husband—father to her children, ages two and four—had been having an affair. She kicked him out. He begged her to try again. She took him back. Several months later, she discovered he was back with his mistress.  He couldn’t help himself, he tearfully explained to his wife, his mistress was “the best friend I’ve ever had.” (Not surprisingly, he didn’t end up with the mistress after their divorce.)

After all that stress, my friend had shed her Mom jeans and was back in her skinny jeans.  She was right—the so-called Son of a Bitch Diet is the one surefire diet that works.