Be Unapologetic!

small_4441155157It’s hard to write about being “unapologetic” when uttering “sorry” is a close second to guilt to me. Like many women, I think everything is my job or my fault. The reasons behind this are myriad, but sorry I won’t elaborate because I’m sure you are a woman if you are reading this, so you get it. So, it was remarkably refreshing that, at a conference last week run by two amazing women Carol Fishman Cohen and Vivian Steir Rabin (look them up) who launched a movement on relaunching after a career break, stated that “if you want to get back out there, be unapologetic, that’s your past and this is what you are intent on doing now.” This gets better, human resources personnel from Morgan Stanley and Bloomberg concurred with this strategy and the moral of the story: taking a career break isn’t the road to professional suicide it once was.

This message has been percolating in my mind because I just sent my daughter off to college and my son will follow in two years. Though I’ve primarily been a stay-at-home mom (SAHM), I have worked as a freelance writer for the past five years on my own terms and setting my own pace. There is a little voice that’s now asking “what’s next” and “how would it look if I carried on like this?” Why should I care what others think? I’m conditioned.

In America women, are the most scrutinized, dissected, judged group, and that’s a movement that has to end. Worse yet, women judge each other – for the type of snacks doled out to our kids, staying at home, going to work, the type of work we do, our clothes, our hair and let’s not even start with our bodies.

There is a smorgasbord of articles popping up on the intent pondering what SAHMs with children in school “do all day?” I hear traces of this in conversations I’ve had over the recent weeks. I’d just like to go on record as stating that raising a family is one of the most devalued professions in the modern world. I too wondered, when I first moved to the suburbs, what exactly moms did all day as I ran to make a train. When I found out, it wasn’t pretty. I learned I could calm down an angry client but a crying baby was another story. A newfound admiration was formed.

Whether you are a SAHM were a SAHM, didn’t have the opportunity to be a SAHM our collective ire should be propelled against our country – which in my opinion is one of the most unsupportive for parents in terms of workplace flexibility, subsidized childcare and maternity leave – part of the reason many women opt out.

It’s your life and if you are content with your choices create a quirky little one liner, “a la Ann Landers,” to use when someone hurls one of those questions at you.  If you’ve always been a working mom, or a SAHM or a SAHM with a newfound mission to relaunch a career, volunteer, tend to your garden or help raise your grandchildren – it’s your life.

There are no fixed rules, that our paths must be linear. I say be unapologetic about your choices and here’s a dose of Nora Ephron on the ubiquitous topic of “having it all” to send you off with a smile (unapologetically): “…surprises are good for you. And don’t be frightened: You can always change your mind. I know: I’ve had four careers and three husbands.”

photo credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/camdiluv/4441155157/“>Camdiluv ?</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com“>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/“>cc</a>

 

 

Comments

  1. Joan Cardona says

    Enjoyed this article. “Never apologize for showing feelings. When you do, you apologize for the truth.” ~ Benjamin Disraeli . . . . . . . . . . . . . “I do hunt, and I do fish, and I don’t apologize to anybody for hunting and fishing.” ~ Norman Schwartzkopf

  2. Thanks for reading Joanie!! Love the quote!

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