I’m wondering about pregnancy. There are, of course, the obvious questions like: how will it feel to be making a person inside me, who will this so-called person be, how will he or she change me, will giving birth be the scariest thing ever in the history of ever?
But there’s also this question about timing. And how we lean into or out of our evolving careers as they happen to manifest themselves in that precious early-30s era. God knows, a lot has been said about Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In. From the how-dare-she’s regarding the position from which Ms. Sandberg offers her advice (advocating for dual hat-wearing moms as a member of the childcare- and personal chef-affording elite… how rich!) to the what-if-we-don’t-want-it-all’s regarding her presumption that every one of us ladies should engage in the great balancing act instead of choosing one or the other (what if we want to be a stay-at-home mom?! Back off!).
The problem with most of these accusations is that Sheryl Sandberg is a really smart lady, and she wrote a really thoughtful, researched, generous book. She knows she writes from a place of privilege but she also knows her audience; she knows she’s advising the have-it-all approach, but it’s only advice for women who actually want to balance better. As Rebecca Traister at the New Republic wrote in an article about Lean In last week, “while I vehemently do not believe that women should give each other any kind of sisterly pass on stuff we differ on, I do think it’s important that we not make false enemies of the other women we’re actually fighting alongside!”
But the beating heart of Lean In, the idea at its core that’s meant specifically for women my generation who want to become leaders and might only be able to achieve those goals if we use these child-rearing years wisely, that beating heart isn’t meant for me.
Because I’m a creative. I’m a freelancer. I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a collaborator who teams up right and left with fantastic kindred spirits to make great big group things but who, nonetheless, ends each day as a solo artist. Sheryl Sandberg writes for all different kinds of women, from all over the world, with all different kinds of ambitions – so long as those ambitions can be fulfilled within a hierarchical structure.
I’m certainly not blaming Ms. Sandberg for this; I rather enjoy fighting alongside her. I’m just reconciling Lean In’s sound advice with the world I inhabit, that’s unrecognizable from the one she describes. What do creatives do when they want to have a kid, but rely on their craft for funds and their craft is unreliably funded? Or their image is part of their brand, and that image will necessarily change with a burgeoning baby bump (to say nothing of the sleep deprivation thereafter)? Or, to put it even more bluntly, if they don’t get maternity leave because there’s nothing to leave but their own hustle? We all know – we writers and actors and freelance hair/makeup artists and indie producers and directors – we all know we chose a career with all that ridiculous instability baked in. I don’t mean to suggest otherwise, or to disingenuously aim for pity, because we also all know that there are insane, soul-singing benefits to this choice we made.
I just mean, how do we navigate this leaning in, leaning out thing?
I have friends in the arts who are choosing not to have kids. I have a friend who got pregnant shortly after moving out here with her husband and though she’d planned to give Hollywood a go she hadn’t established herself enough by the time the baby came for it to make sense to stay, and ended up moving back east to be closer to family, in a smaller town where the industry already embraced her. I have another who makes a living blending home and family, booking commercials with her ridiculously cute kids. I have another whose writing career took off after giving birth – perhaps the result of a newfound artistic wisdom in motherhood, or maybe just that a ‘leap and the net will follow’ fearlessness has its plusses in life as well as in art. There are a gazillion stories. Every one is different. Every one is valid.
What’s yours? How did you or a friend of yours navigate this strange but utterly natural making-a-person thing while also, somehow, pursuing a creative path? I’d love to know.