Children Helping

I have vivid childhood memories of sitting on the damp concrete steps leading down to the kitchen door with a paper bag full of peas, lima beans or corn and a metal bowl.  It was my job to husk the corn or shell the peas or beans.  I remember learning to break the backs of the pods and scrape out the peas, along with the satisfaction of the perfect split of the pod and anticipation of the size and number of peas hiding inside.  Peas were fun (in the scheme of things -- being a child I didn't like these chores), but lima beans were really hard.  Even as I child, I loved lima beans, so it wasn't about the vegetable, but about how difficult it is to get lima beans out of their tough shells.  They don't break open neatly like peas.  I also learned how to iron a pillow case when I was six, was expected to make my bed every day, set the table, even sometimes help with dusting, weeding, washing the car, mowing the lawn, or sweeping the terrace.  I imagine these expectations were pretty typical for children in my baby boomer generation.  But they are not what we expect of our child and, while there are some parents whose resolve I admire enormously, I don't think that my husband and I are unusual in our relative lack of expectations.

There are a lot of reasons for this.  At least in my household, we have a wonderful woman who cleans and does laundry, relieving us family members of duties that my mother primarily, with some help from my siblings and me, performed.  It's also because as parents we have less time and patience for enforcing unpleasant responsibilities.  And I should be very clear -- I did not like doing chores and like any normal kid I resisted, procrastinated, employed avoidance tactics, so while I may have nostalgic recollections of shelling peas, I was none too happy at the time.

Over the last eighteen months or so, I have decided that we need to demand more from our now 15 year-old son in the chore domain.  I'm sure you'll say this is a little late to get started, but it's still better than never.  He has always had to set the table for dinner, but there is much more he could do.  It would be good for him -- he would learn how to do things that would be useful to him and helpful to me.  Plus there's the possibility that he could feel accomplished.

So several weeks ago, I was making pesto.  I love pesto, but pinching all those leaves off the stems can only be described as tedious.  Suddenly, I thought, my son loves pesto, too, so why doesn't he come help me.  He did so reluctantly, but we got through the process much faster and had time to chat while we worked.  It was a much pleasanter experience that working alone.  While he wouldn't admit it, I would like to believe that when he ate the pesto (which he puts on everything imaginable from pasta to hamburgers to sandwiches), that felt a small sense of satisfaction.

As my campaign has progressed, he has gotten to be a reasonably good dishwasher which means his father and I can relax a little after dinner.   He even took laundry off the line and folded it quite well the other day, saving it from an afternoon squall.  Now, if I can only get him to pick his clothes up off the floor. . . .

4th of July Parades

I grew up in a town where no one would have considered the 4th of July properly celebrated without the parade.  This was quite a formal event with high school marching bands, the volunteer firemen (we had two competing brigades) and police in dress uniforms, veterans groups, and  fraternal organizations all marching in step.  Then we moved to the next town east, and there the parade was a community affair.  Everyone dressed in red, white and blue, children decorated their bicycles with streamers, and dogs were expected.  The leisurely walk through winding lanes allowed for plenty of conversation among neighbors and friends.  The parade spilled onto a large lawn where the Good Humor truck failed to entertain squirmy children while a local dignitary gave an appropriately patriotic address. 

As an adult, I have lived in New York City, Southern California, north central Connecticut, and suburban Maryland, and I can tell you that a good 4th of July parade is hard to find.  However, I can happily report that on Block Island, they have a 4th of July parade that perfectly combines the two  versions I grew up with.  Anyone can create a float for the parade and entries range from a very professional looking replica of the ferry that transports people and goods to and from the mainland to vintage cars and trucks to a distinctly home decorated trailer whose intended theme was obscure.  This being the 350th anniversary of European settlement on Block Island, historical and birthday themes prevailed.  The entries are judged, with the Grand Prize awarded to a large group amusingly depicting important events in the Island's history: the cows who came off the ship at Cow's Cove in 1661, the Native American who greeted the cows, the arrival of tourists two hundred years later, and finally the 1994 founding of Froozies, the smoothie shop which sponsored the clever float.

The parade started at 10:30, but people claimed prime viewing spots with beach chairs as early as 8:00AM.  The assembled crowd, many waving flags and dressed in red, white and blue, cheered as the floats slowly progressed along the parade route led by, yes, the trucks belonging to the volunteer fire company.  Bagpipers in kilts, a fife and drum group  in shorts, the Norwich (CT) Free Academy marching band, a motley rock band, and a drum circle interspersed among the floats, members of the local American Legion post, and a very small contingent from the Rhode Island National Guard, played appropriately rousing music.  And don't forget the requisite unicyclist whom we saw arrive on the first ferry. 

This was a community event, wholeheartedly enjoyed by all generations, tourists, summer people, and Islanders alike.  When we stopped by a nearby bait and tackle shop later in the day, John Swienton asked me where we were watching the parade -- as it turned out, just a few hundred feet from where the Sweintons "always" watch the parade.  Likewise, friends from Dallas, renting a house for a week made sure they came to watch.  We legitimately worry about a disintegrating sense of community in the US.  But no one was "bowling alone" on Block Island this morning as we joined together to celebrate our nation's birthday with creativity, humor, and a little solemnity.  Maybe we should have more parades.

Lean In

Last week, I mentioned that while I was writing about Lisa Belkin’s thinking, I came across Sheryl Sandberg’s commencement address to the Barnard College class of 2011.  Currently, the COO at Facebook, Sandberg is married with two children.  She began her career at the World Bank, did a year’s stint at McKinsey, and then became Chief of Staff for then Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers who had been her professor while she was an undergraduate at Harvard.  She went on to work at Google where she was Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations before being lured to Facebook.  Sandberg, who has clearly faced the challenges of being a woman in the male dominated high tech world, exhorted the Barnard graduates to take on what she calls “this generation’s central moral problem, which is gender equality.”

Speaking to the all-female class, Sandberg declared, “we have to admit something that’s sad but true: men run the world.”  She went on to cite the litany of dismal statistics:

Of 190 heads of state, nine are women. Of all the parliaments around the world, 13% of those seats are held by women. Corporate America’s top jobs, 15% are women; numbers which have not moved at all in the past nine years. Nine years. Of full professors around the United States, only 24% are women. 

And, of course, that doesn’t include the 17% of Congress who are women and the 6 female governors. 

“You are our hope,” she proclaimed to her audience. And she was very explicit about how she wanted to the graduates to fulfill their promise.  She wanted them to “lean way into” their careers because, “We need women at all levels, including the top, to change the dynamic, reshape the conversation, to make sure women’s voices are heard and heeded, not overlooked and ignored.”  And this is my point about Belkin.  She certainly aids the cause by writing about these issues, but if change is going to occur so that her “emotional and economic tug-of-war” will not remain the “central story” for another generation, I agree with Sandberg that we must have women as part of the conversation. 

Sandberg offered some very pointed advice to her audience.  First, she asked them to shoot high, to aim for top level positions as their male counterparts would.  She makes that point citing studies indicating that “in the college-educated part of the population, men are more ambitious than women” from the time they graduate from college and throughout their careers.  In my favorite sentence from her speech, she pronounced, “We will never close the achievement gap until we close the ambition gap.” In a call to action, she challenged the graduates, “But if all young women start to lean in, we can close the ambition gap right here, right now, if every single one of you leans in. Leadership belongs to those who take it. Leadership starts with you.”

She went on to urge that the women not underestimate themselves, as we so well know girls and women are wont to do, giving credit to others or luck when they do well, blaming themselves when they don’t.  “Women,” she declared, need to “own their own success.” 

She’s not naïve.  She admits that career success is difficult for women.  As she learned firsthand, people still display hostility towards female successes.  And then there is the whole issue of the “second shift” that I talked about last week.  Her advice about equity at home so a woman can succeed at work is this:

the most important career decision you’re going to make is whether or not you have a life partner and who that partner is. If you pick someone who’s willing to share the burdens and the joys of your personal life, you’re going to go further.

Sandberg honors those women who have made the choice to raise their children full-time, work part-time, or work in a less demanding job (though, I have to say she’s not very convincing).  But she wants to make sure that the young women in her audience make those choices consciously.  With a thought-provoking angle on this issue, she observes that

Women almost never make one decision to leave the workforce. It doesn’t happen that way. They make small little decisions along the way that eventually lead them there. Maybe it’s the last year of med school when they say, I’ll take a slightly less interesting specialty because I’m going to want more balance one day. Maybe it’s the fifth year in a law firm when they say, I’m not even sure I should go for partner, because I know I’m going to want kids eventually.

She points out these women often don’t even have the responsibilities (like a partner or children) yet, but they are already “quietly leaning back” instead of leaning in. 

And if you lean back, she warns, you’ll be “bored” and soon you’ll feel “undervalued” because your full talents won’t be used.  And then you won’t really be interested in working (if you have that choice).  You also may question the whole “rat race” and someone else’s definition of success.  If that’s how you feel, she suggests that you need to question whether you are in the right field. Are you doing what you love?  You need to find work you’re passionate about (the way Belkin was about her job at The Times). “Try until you find something that stirs your passion, a job that matters to you and matters to others. It is the ultimate luxury to combine passion and contribution. It’s also a very clear path to happiness.”

So she pleads, “Do not lean back; lean in. Put your foot on that gas pedal and keep it there until the day you have to make a decision, and then make a decision. That’s the only way, when that day comes, you’ll even have a decision to make.”

I think Sandberg has great advice.  What she leaves out is that once her listeners are in a position to influence policy, they need to do so.  They need not just to accept the system as it is now, but they need to work to make workplaces friendlier to families, so both men and women can find more balance and more satisfaction.  They need to recruit male allies in this effort, and there’s indication that the men in their generation are willing to help.  They need to encourage revision in processes like academic tenure and law partnership.  They need to fight for better childcare and more support for parenting responsibilities.  And they need to find ways to do this that is economically and financially advantageous.  But to that I would say, at this point, because the women most able to “opt out” are the most educated, we are currently wasting a huge portion of our human resources because so much of our worklife is so unsupportive.  That seems to be a compelling economic argument right there.

However, it would be completely unfair to place all the responsibility for change on the shoulders of the next generation entering the workforce.  The Business Insider headlined Sandberg’s address, somewhat unfairly, “The Women Of My Generation Blew It, So Equality Is Up To You, Graduates.”  We need to stay in this fight, keep working towards more family friendly workplaces, and continue to provide leadership for these younger women to emulate.  As importantly, we need to mentor these younger women.  If we want them to lean into their careers, they need to feel supported, and we are the ones to support them. 

If we need a role model, we need to look no farther than French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, Holton class of 1974.  When Lagarde visited Holton in 2007, quoting Madeleine Albright she said, “there should be a special place in hell for women who don’t support other women.”  On principle, when she has left a management position, she has replaced herself with another woman.  She believes that every woman should have the “accountability and responsibility” to do that.   Should she become the new Director of the IMF, Lagarde will have the opportunity to exercise that responsibility on an international scale.  We are keeping our fingers crossed.

The link for Sandberg’s speech:

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-coo-sandberg-the-women-of-my-generation-blew-it-so-equality-is-up-to-you-graduates-2011-5?utm_source=twbutton&utm_medium=social&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=sai

Fishing

There’s a lot about fishing I don’t like: 

The pounding of the boat as we make our way out and back in;

• It’s often cold;
• The possibility of seasickness
• Disappointment (when we, especially my son, don’t catch any fish or we lose a fish before landing it)
•  Boredom

But I have to admit that, even though I never actually fish, on balance, I like going fishing.  This is probably why, when my husband and son go fishing, I almost always join them.  So what do I like about fishing?

• Being on the water
• The excitement when someone actually catches a fish
• Watching my son do something he loves and about which he has developed a certain level of expertise
• Boredom

My whole life, I have loved the salt water, and can’t truly imagine living too far away from it.  I love the smell, I love its beauty, I am in awe of its power.  Out on the water, you are away from land (obviously) and its cares and responsibilities.  Instead, you have a solitude and a sense of you and nature, and you against nature.  It can be scary, exhilarating, breathtakingly beautiful, boring, tedious and even miserable.  But regardless of the circumstances, when you’re on a boat you’re limited in what you can do (I think it’s sad that big boats now have internet connections – a cell phone seems like plenty and way more than we used to have when a radio was the only communication to land).  But there are also always things you have to do.  You have to pay attention, even if you’re not driving, and this requires you to focus. 

Once we get to our fishing grounds, I drive the boat.  Here’s where I like the boredom.  I drive the boat slowly in big ovals, back and forth over a wreck, back and forth past a green can.  I have to pay attention enough to keep us on course, and very occasionally to avoid other boats, but mostly I am free to think.  My mind wanders freely, usually about work, but sometimes about projects for the house or planning meals or a party.  The vast ocean spreads out to horizon.  Depending on the weather, we can see the Rhode Island coast, but to the east, the next stop is Ireland.  It’s usually a steely blue and somewhat choppy, though sometimes gray and sometimes there are waves of several feet (in which case we don’t stay long) and sometimes it’s even quite calm.  But it’s always there, breaking on the deserted beach  where sandy colored cliffs rise to meet the sky.  The cliffs slope down to a point that disappears into a bar hiding under the waves.  A stone light house has warned mariners of the dangers for 144 years, but countless ships have still failed to heed the warning, only to run aground, often with grave consequences, especially in winter.  Always there extending to the horizon – you can understand why ancient sailors thought they would fall off the edge of the earth.  Sometimes I just keep driving in those slow ovals, watching the electronic chart and thinking, listening to my husband and son talk about lures and rods as you listen to someone speaking a foreign language, until it gets too late and we have to head back.  More often than not, at some point, suddenly the fishing line will start to hum.  A fish is on the line!  I put the engine in neutral.  The person’s whose rod it is picks it up and goes through the rhythmic process of reeling the fish in, bring it in, let it out, bring it in, let it out, the rod rises and falls, the fisherman straining amidst general speculation about the size of the fish, and as it gets closer to the boat, the variety.  They always hope for striped bass; a bluefish, despite the sport of the fight they put up, is always a disappointment (though, to be honest, I’m not sure why).  Once the fish is by the side of the boat, the person without the rod leans over to grab its mouth in the boca.  The fisherman takes hold of his prize, we note the weight on the boca, and as it flaps desperately we document the catch with a photo.  Then someone carefully removes the hook and throws the fish back into that endless expense of deep blue sea, to swim for another day.  The fisherman returns home triumphant.

Balance: Impossible

Last week, I mentioned that I had attended a workshop entitled, “Forget Balance, Try for Sanity Instead” led by Lisa Belkin, the author of The New York Times “Life’s Work” column and now a blog/column called “Motherlode.”  Belkin also wrote the controversial 2003 New York Times Magazine article, “The Opt-Out Revolution,” in which she chronicled a number of well-educated, successful women’s decisions to leave the workforce to concentrate on their families.  She is the author of several books including Life’s Work: Confessions of an Unbalanced Mom. 

Belkin began the workshop (which it turns out was much like her book) by sharing her personal history, beginning with growing up in a Long Island suburb with her working mother (teacher first, later a lawyer) and her orthodontist father.  After college, she landed a highly coveted job as a “clerk” at The New York Times.  In between answering the phone, fetching coffee, and filing, she could write articles that the editors might accept.  She LOVED this job and soon propelled herself into a real reporter position.  She worked 24/7 -- her work was her life and she couldn’t imagine anything different. 

Then she met Bruce and they quickly fell in love.  Bruce was a medical student soon moving to Houston for a fellowship.   Belkin tried to persuade the Times to hire her in their Houston office, but when they refused, she quit and moved to Houston with Bruce.   She freelanced, discovering in the process that you don’t actually have to be physically in the same place as your editor. 

She and Bruce got married, started a family, and moved back to New York, this time to the suburbs.  After trying various unsatisfactory arrangements, she decided to quit The Times again and work freelance from home.  Technology helped, but this solution also failed fully to satisfy.  Recounting stories familiar to all of us who have ever been working mothers, she describes editing an article with a deadline simultaneous to a pediatrician’s appointment that included shots; she poured over the galleys in the waiting room while another mother glared at her.  Another time, she conducted an important interview (by phone) in the midst of potty training her son; you can imagine his background commentary. 

Her bottom line: big surprise, having children changes your worklife.    All the babysitters, au pairs, nannies, home offices, flex time, and technology cannot make it possible to work the way she did when she began at The Times and be an even moderately effective mother.  We can’t be fully present for work at the same time we’re fully present for homelife. “Not a one of us seems to be able to give 100 percent of themselves to their job and 100 percent of themselves to their family and 100 percent of themselves to taking care of themselves. . . .  No one can do it, because it can’t be done.”[i]  So we have to make some choices about how we allocate our time and energy.

I’ve often talked in this column about not worrying about being perfect, about choosing what we like to do, and only making the homemade cookies if we actually enjoy that excercise.  We can’t be all things to all people.  Belkin would certainly agree.  “. . . let’s start forgiving ourselves when we cannot do it.” [ii]  We need to give ourselves license to eat take out, have an untidy house, offer storebought whatevers, both because it is simply impossible to do everything and because we need to prioritize what’s important. 

I would add that the 1950s, when many women devoted themselves to household management, were in many ways stultifying.  The feminist movement grew out of this period for a reason.   We should be grateful that we have choices, and make them, rather than trying to be both June Cleaver and Murphy Brown simultaneously. 

Which brings me to one of Belkin’s most interesting and important points: gatekeeping.  We all know the statistics about how much more time women spend on household chores than men.  Working women and equal rights advocates bemoan this state of affairs and often implicitly blame men.  However, several scholars, including Naomi Cahn at George Wasthinington University Law School and Berkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild whose book Second Shift pioneered its eponymous concept, argue that women themselves bear part of the responsibility.  There are responsibilities we insist on keeping for ourselves, clinging to the belief that only we can do them.  Belkin cites shoe shopping as her example – only she ever took her sons shoe shopping.  But, as she points out, her husband wears shoes, shoes he purchases for himself.  He’s probably just as capable of buying shoes for their sons as she is.  Belkin claims the shoe shopping and then criticizes her husband for not knowing their sons’ shoe sizes.  As Hochschild explains, “Certain acts of motherhood become hypersymbolized and we have to learn to let that symbolism fall away.” [iii]  I had quite a long list of tasks I kept behind the gate; shopping for my son’s clothes was one of them.  However, I can say that, over time and mostly out of necessity rather than humility, I have let most of them go (though, of course, not all – my son’s haircuts absolutely require my attendance).  While I don’t always agree with everything my husband does, he is an enormous help and I try to hold my tongue and appreciate all his support.

What led GW professor Cahn to this topic was a realization that “workplace change will be hampered until women relinquish some of the power that they have at home.”[iv]  Belkin believes that the “emotional and economic tug-of-war” that comes from “collisions that happen daily at th[e] intersection . . . of life and work” is “the central story of our generation.”[v]  Whether it’s the central one, I don’t know, but I’ll grant her that it is an important one.  I covet my family time, and dearly wish I had more time for them and for myself.  However, I also recognize that I have the job I do out of choice; I could do something else with the same earning power that would give me more time.  Plus, and this is even more important, I quibble with the distinction between life and work.  Those of us who work outside the home spend a great deal of time doing it.  If our work is not part of life, then we are wasting a huge percentage of our lives.  I would hope that everyone would be able to find some sources of satisfaction in their jobs, if only in a task well done and the companionship of colleagues. 

Most of us do not have careers that allow us to go freelance and work at home.  I’m all for creating equality at home, but we also need to continue to work on workplace reforms that allow us to remain economically competitive while giving both men and women better quality of life  -- meaning work and family.  And this is only going to happen if women keep pursuing these issues while rallying male allies to help us.  Belkin pointed out that academia and the law are two areas where the process for advancement are most disadvantageous for women because the timing for tenure and partner decisions conflict with women’s biology.  Yet these are both areas where there are large numbers of women – as we all know, half the students in law schools are female.  And even though the sheer number of women in these fields has been significant for some time now, little has changed.  As a result, many women “opt out,” to use Belkin’s phrase.  While this may prove a good personal decision, these choices are disadvantageous economically; we lose too many well-educated, talented women from the workforce.  In addition, we lose the people who might fight for change. 

In the midst of thinking about all Belkin has to say, I came across Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO’s commencement speech at Barnard College.  She challenges the class of 2011 to take on what she calls “this generation’s central moral problem . . . gender equality.”  She offers another angle on the same issues, and one we need to consider.  Which we will, next week.

               

---

[i] Lisa Belkin, Life’s Work: Confessions of an Unbalanced Mom (New York 2002), 16.

[ii] Belkin, 16.

[iii]Belkin, 73.

[iv] Belkin, 72.

[v] Belkin, 14.

She Roars: A Women’s Weekend

Several weeks ago, I travelled up to Princeton to attend a conference entitled “She Roars: Celebrating Women at Princeton.” I will admit that I am still on a high from this exhilarating experience. I have several takeaways from the weekend, and also some specific topics I’d like to address in the future. With 1300 women returning, representing fully 5 percent of all female graduates, the Alumni Office could count the weekend a success based purely on numbers. A far more important measure, however, was the fact that, as one of my friends said, “Everyone is beaming.” That response says much about the University’s careful planning and what women want and need. And that, of course, is why I’m writing about an experience that might seem quite irrelevant to you, my faithful reader.

First, the Alumni Office didn’t presume to know what the University’s female graduates would want from a women’s conference. Instead, they decided to ask. They scheduled planning sessions in cities all over the country, inviting anyone who had ever volunteered for the University to dinner. I attended the Washington planning session which proved a fun opportunity to catch up with friends and acquaintances but also an effective way to collect input while simultaneously promoting the conference. Each dinner table had a note taker and we had specific questions to answer. Nothing was left to chance though there was ample opportunity for wide ranging conversation and a variety of perspectives. It was especially interesting to have alumnae from the 1970s to the 2000s at my table. While I doubt our thoughts differed markedly from those gleaned in other cities, it was nice to see the actual conference schedule reflect our suggestions.

We wanted to hear from some of our most notable female alumnae, especially Sonia Sotomayor ‘74 or Elena Kagan ’81; we wanted to learn about women’s experience on campus today; we wanted to talk about the balancing of work, career and family; and we wanted to be able to network. Lesson #1: women liked to be involved and have a say in the activities in which they are involved; likewise the activities will be more successful if the planners get input. Lesson #2: educated women share the same interests and concerns the nation-round.  We like hearing from prominent women; we are concerned about work, career and family balance issues; we seek opportunities to network; and we care about the women who follow us.

The conference offerings featured a series of workshops and keynotes, all echoing the input from the planning events. There were sessions on undergraduate women and leadership, work-life balance, children, literature environmentalism, parenthood, women in the nation’s service, STEM, athletics, journalism, the arts and business—you name it. While all the sessions had an element of presentation, they were structured to include significant interaction. As women from the first coeducational classes in the early 1970s to recent graduates shared perspectives, questions, and concerns, we experienced the true essence of the weekend.

One of the highpoints was interactive, but didn’t involve the audience. University President Shirley Tilghman and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor ’74 had a conversation before an audience of 1000 plus. Responding to questions as wide-ranging as how she ended up at Princeton and relationships among justices on the Supreme Court, Sotomayor came across as humble, warm, funny, diplomatic and determined. We all fell in love with her. And again, the structure was distinctly female: the justice didn’t stand before as and give a speech. Instead, she and President Tilghman had a conversation, with all of us eavesdropping. We got to know the justice through the context of their relationship.

Justice Sotomayor was sitting near us at dinner and I introduced myself. She warmly invited our students to visit her. But one of the highlights of the weekend occurred after dinner when familiar 1970s music got us to our feet. Soon we were all dancing with a Supreme Court Justice! That was sisterhood we won’t soon forget!

By the way, orange pashminas were draped over the backs of each of our chairs at dinner. The next day, the orange wraps were the fashion statements. If I could, I’d figure out a way to wear mine every day.

Meg Whitman ‘77, former eBay CEO and California gubernatorial candidate, was most gracious as she spoke on Saturday in the courtyard of the college that bears her name. Whitman made her gift of $30 million—at the time the largest gift in Princeton’s history  —very early in her tenure as a trustee. It was also early in President Tilghman’s tenure. Whitman explained that she was motivated in part to make such a generous donation to help Tilghman, Princeton’s first female president, as fundraising is often a measure of a university president’s success. Whitman didn’t originally want the college named for her, but Tilghman persuaded her to abandon her modesty. Naming the college in her honor allowed Whitman to serve as a more effective role model for female philanthropy, all the more important since women tend to be less financially generous than men. It was notable that Whitman didn’t speak about eBay or about her campaign for governor; instead, she used her bully pulpit to talk about philanthropy and about leadership. We, especially those of us in female institutions, need more women to generously and publicly support the institutions that have made a difference in their lives. By doing so, we will ensure that the same opportunities exist for the generations that follow them.

Perhaps my favorite part of the weekend was a Saturday morning discussion entitled “Forget Balance, Try for Sanity Instead” led by New York Times writer Lisa Belkin ’82. You may be familiar with Belkin from her “Life’s Work” column or her “Motherlode” blog. You also might recognize her from her controversial 2003 New York Times Magazine article, “The Opt-Out Revolution,” in which she chronicled a number of well-educated, successful women’s (many of them Princeton graduates) decisions to leave the workforce to concentrate on their families. Women eager to receive Belkin’s wisdom and share their own experiences filled the large lecture hall (where Belkin remembered dropping out of Econ 101). I will delve deeper into this discussion in a later column, but I want to share my primary takeaway from this session: women crave these opportunities to bond through shared challenges, sorrows, joys, and triumphs. However, unlike men, who play golf or basketball together or who, as a classmate of mine pointed out, go out for drinks after work, we do not have natural gathering activities – especially working mothers who are so constantly pressed for time and feel that every moment free from work should be devoted to their families. I mentioned this observation to the woman sitting next to me who agreed and credited the popularity of book clubs to this need.

So I have challenged my readers intentionally to create sustained opportunities for this kind of bonding --  be it a book club, a giving circle, an investment club, a singing group—you name it.  And think about girls schools as great venues to host your group.  Let’s build our sisterhood, and if we’re lucky, maybe we’ll arrange for pashminas in a color of your choosing!