I had been avoiding this book because of all of the hype, but your thoughtful comments are making me reconsider and give it a try.

Thank you.

Being a working mom is HARD. Way harder than I ever thought it would be. Besides the general "busyness" of it - I'm always feeling guilty, stressed or pulled in too many directions. And I only have one kid AND I had a whole year of paid mat leave (thank you Canada!).

I do NOT believe you can have it all. There is only so much time/energy/focus and it can not go equally and 100% in all directions. I believe you can do it all, but something(s) will have to give.

I am not going to be a stay at home mom. My circumstances are such that it isn't an option. But if I could freeze my career and pick it up where I left off with no negative effects in a few years I would do it in a heartbeat. Being a mom is intensely satisfying to me. Unfortunately the world will not stop while I'm at home - and I will have many working years ahead of me when my son is in school.

I think you're smart to continue working and take the year off you are legally allowed to. My "issue" is more with the women who aren't staying home for the sake of the kids, it's because they just don't want to work. Men really don't get that option and it drives me nuts when women start going on about feminism and the like without stopping and think of the "advantages" women here for the sheer fact of being a woman. Could you imagine what society would say or think if a guy with kids just decided to quit work because he was tired of it and expected his wife to foot the bill? People would have a field day with it - and rightly so. Stay home for your kids, not because the rat race sucks because the rat race will never change if folks quit and don't demand the change. Men also should have a work/family balance and I don't see that all that often.

Sorry, projecting more than anything. I live in a society where women want to be treated as equal but still expect to be able to stay at home once married without even thinking about what finances - that's the man's job. I see it more and more back home and I feel like some women really are taking the piss. Nothing wrong with staying for the kids and wanting to go back to work but these women need to understand that they have been out of the game and have to start below where they think they should be - my sister is a case for this. She wants to take five years off and go back to the level she is currently at. I laughed and told her to get real as she's be five years behind and why should she be able to waltz back into the same position and pay when someone would have to train her on all the new and different things. She doesn't get it. Many women don't. Protect the jobs but certainly don't expect to take years off and be right where you started. Weight lifting/exercise/training analogy. You don't maintain with five years off. Work is the same.

I do NOT believe you can have it all. There is only so much time/energy/focus and it can not go equally and 100% in all directions. I believe you can do it all, but something(s) will have to give


In the book this is mentioned very briefly. Sandberg asks, why aren't men told the same thing? I thought that was an excellent point. We are always saying this about women, I've never heard it said that men can't have it all. Why? Because traditionally women take on a majority of the at home work. Still. I'll have to find the numbers but a study came out a couple years (?) ago that said women still do the majority of housework. Why is that? I don't have kids and I still found that when I was married I did almost all of the work around the house including tracking the finances.

Ultimately this is a complex issue. Why there aren't more women in leadership roles doesn't have a simple answer. What I found disturbing is the number of women in corporate leadership roles is falling.

In fact, only 9 percent of U.S. Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are female, down from 11 percent in 2011 and 12 percent in 2010, according to a survey of 450 IT leaders by Harvey Nash Group. Also, about 30 percent of those polled said their information technology (IT) organization has no women at all in management. Ironically only about half of survey respondents consider women to be under-represented in the IT department.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...tm_hp_ref=technology


I've been in tech for 17 years so that is where my experiences will be based.

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Jen

"In order to keep a true perspective on one's importance, everyone should have a dog that worships him and a cat that will ignore him." - Dereke Bruce

The truth is - men can't have it all either. But I agree, no one tells them that. Perhaps because seeing your kids for a quick kiss goodnight & some time on the weekend is considered enough for men? I know that my husband HATES it when he works late and only gets a little time with our son before bed. We aren't good corporate types though - we both want just enough money so we can do the things we really love (and have the time to do them). Neither of us have designs on going up the ladder (although I wouldn't mind a step or two up, I am not on the EX track).

Ivanka Trump & the lady at Yahoo both got slammed for heading into the office when their children were only a couple of days old. My husband went back to work 3 days after our son was born and no one batted an eye. He certainly never got the comments that I did. When I went back to work after my 14 months off, my father-in-law told my son "you don't want your mom because she abandoned you at daycare". I guess it's okay for men to "abandon" their kids for work??

re: last comment - wow. :-(

I'm in Canada too and I went back to work (half-days) after 5 1/2 months of leave (back to full days by 9 months). K's dad took the rest. I was the breadwinner so it made sense for us at the time and if I could have stayed p/t, that would have been pretty close to the ideal situation. I like work, I like to work, and aside from my mat leave, I have not worked for a total of 3 weeks since I started working at age 14 (vacations don't count - this is time that I wanted to work but either didn't have a job or wasn't able to do so). A big part of what defines me as a person is what I do at work - getting paid to solve really tough problems - and not working at all would have mentally and emotionally killed me - the 5 1/2 months almost did. The very idea of not being able to work when I want to makes me almost sick to my stomach.

When I returned after leave, yeah there were a few snide remarks from family members about how short it was. It was not worth the time nor energy to try to debate with them about their opinions. I knew I was making the right decision for me and my family.

AP

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"How bad could it be?" - SimpleS

I'm nearly done with the book, and honestly I don't see what all the controversy is about. I think her main point is women should pursue their careers until they are absolutely ready to step away from it. Many women base career decisions on personals factors that may or may not happen down the line. "I can't take this promotion, because I might have kids in 3 years," sort of thinking.

She also gets into the division of labor at home and that "done is better than perfect." I struggle with this as I think most of us do. Does my hubby clean the kitchen as well as I do? Nope, but I need to appreciate the job that he does and go with it.

Other topics are mommy guilt, gender bias from men and women in our culture and women's tendency to undervalue ourselves.

It's a good book. A fast read and very thought provoking.

Perhaps us "wiser" (read: older) chicas who sort of know this (even if we struggle to truly believe it) are not the intended audience - maybe she's thinking more of Millenials...I mean think about it, she's one half of the leadership at Facebook, who is Facebook's target audience? So perhaps "controversy" for the younger generation? Just a thought. AP

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"How bad could it be?" - SimpleS

When I went back to work after my 14 months off, my father-in-law told my son "you don't want your mom because she abandoned you at daycare". I guess it's okay for men to "abandon" their kids for work??

Wow. Just wow. Unreal. Does your FIL actually think such comments is good for anyone at all? How did your husband react to that comment? I think this is it though isn't it? Two sets of "rules" for moms/dads and women/men. Women are horrible moms if they work and put food on the table while a guy is "bringing home the bacon". Mom is a great women if she stays home and cooks and cleans for the family but if dad stays home, everyone talks about how odd he is, how lazy he is and how unemployable he must be.

And indeed, men don't get told they can or can't have it all and frankly I think that's because they know better. They know they aren't going to get a decent work/family balance and frankly, they don't expect it.

I'm pretty sure he thought it was funny - maybe. I said I didn't think it was funny & my husband and MIL agreed. That said - no one jumped in to defend me. They have a weird/dysfunctional family.

I think you NAILED it...it's her overall vision & concern for the regression that's the underlying current. Her observation of the inequalities that STILL exist & the general acceptance thereof (indicated by the "laziness" & the "not wanting to work hard" that's becoming more & more prevalent in the younger generations) and how that is contributing & will cause a backslide into the further division of gender roles.

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AW

Please tell me his not like this towards you and your job on a regular basis! Insane.

Just a question but are other people also thinking the younger women just don't have the drive that the women in the 60s/70s/80s had with regards to work? I'm all for sorting out a life balance with work and family but I can't see how that will happen with so many women quitting to stay home with the kids - and like I said, there is nothing wrong with that if that is what they want to do, not just doing it because they're fed up with work.

This really resonated with me. I've always been a pretty driven Type-A person - multiple undergrad degrees, law school, Ironman, blah blah blah ... When I joined the working world I purposely took a job that was pretty high on the quality of life scale (and pretty low on the pay scale ...) so that I would have a lot of time to pursue my other (mainly athletic) passions. I didn't feel guilty about that.

Then I had a baby. I expected that I would take my 12 week maternity leave and then happily drop my kid off at his (awesome!) daycare and return to work. While I'm not really driven to climb any sort of corporate ladder I do love my job and really and truly enjoy working. That I would return to work was a total no brainer for me ... until it was time for that to happen. I realized I wanted more time with my kid and that our life at home, as a family, would be a lot easier if one of us was more available. I never in a MILLION years thought I would want to do anything other than work full time ... but that all changed. And I was a little shell shocked by the whole thing.

After several months of agonizing and many, many tears I made the decision to "lean out" and go part time at work. I'm REALLY happy with that decision now and think it was the right one for me and our family but please believe I STRUGGLED with it for many reasons, including the feeling that I was somehow not doing my part for women's equality in the workplace. I had some serious guilt for a long time about it. There is a lot of pressure in many circles, including mine, TO have it all ... and it's easy to feel like stepping back is somehow not living up to that expectation.

Let's be honest about work - most women work outside the home for the same reason men do - to pay the bills. At one time a middle class family could live quite comfortably on one salary but not in this day and age. I like my job but if I won the lottery neither my wife or I would be going to work the next day. We'd be buying a big sailboat and planning our extended holiday in the tropics.

Work is over rated. Sure there are some people who live to work and have no life outside of that, but most men and women work because they have to. My sister in law has never worked, mainly because my brother made a lot of money and she's never felt bad about it. I know my ex and current wife would prefer to work even if they didn't have to, but would only do something they loved and probably only do it part time.

My ex wife had a good situation when our kids were small because she worked as a chiropractor on reduced hours in a home office. It was like having your cake and eating it to because she was working at home when the kids were there. It has to be much tougher for women with small kids who then have to return to an office full time. I think employers in many cases could try to do more to accomodate these women.

Personally I think the workplace is uneven because women have not been in the workforce as long as men. How could parity exist when the model of family life has continued to evolve over the last 50 or 60 years in the U.S.?

Here is a viewpoint on the book that hasn't been fleshed out so far from a "sassy" but brilliant friend of mine who is a sought after public speaker.

http://erikanapoletano.com/...th-sandberg-lean-in/

also read the anti-lean-in, by Kate Losse who worked at Facebook for several years..

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/...wins-from-leaning-in

Note the 'Lean In' website is sponsored by Wal-Mart, the subject of the largest class-action discrimination lawsuit ever, for sexism.. which was dismissed on the grounds of the legal quibble that women workers don't share enough interests to constitute a class..

this isn't feminism, it's neo-feminism: the same relationship as between liberalism and neo-liberalism..

Haven't read the book, but read the past2 critiques provided by the previous posters. I will say I feel very fortunate in my position. Currently own my pediatric practice with other partners and it has been a great place to work for the past 13 years. Did I have to work hard yes and do I still work hard yes but this has been my choice. Work is rewarding to me by and large and my spouse has been quite supportive, he is a great partner in my life. He has really had a large hand in helping with our 2 children and in the fall am looking forward to having him all to myself as we will be empty nesters. I think to a large degree my happiness and successes in life have been due to a good work ethic, making good choices and just generally being happy with what I have in life. Like Gandolf said in the Lord of the Rings sometimes we don't have a choice in how long we will be on his earth but we have a huge hand in how we spend our time while we are on this earth. Enough said.