Lean In

still nearly twice as many women as men enter the workforce anticipating this stumbling block. Even in 2006, 46 percent of the men who anticipated this conflict expected their spouse to step off her career track to raise their children. Only 5 percent of the women believed their spouse would alter his career to accommodate their child. 13
    Personal choices are not always as personal as they appear. We are all influenced by social conventions, peer pressure, and familial expectations. On top of these forces, women who can afford to drop out of the workplace often receive not just permission but encouragement to do so from all directions.
    Imagine that a career is like a marathon—a long, grueling, and ultimately rewarding endeavor. Now imagine a marathon where both men and women arrive at the starting line equally fit and trained. The gun goes off. The men and women run side by side. The male marathoners are routinely cheered on: “Lookin’ strong! On your way!” But the female runners hear a different message. “You know you don’t have to do this!” the crowd shouts. Or “Good start—but you probably won’t want to finish.” The farther the marathoners run, the louder the cries grow for the men: “Keep going! You’ve got this!” But the women hear more and more doubts about their efforts. External voices, and often their own internal voice, repeatedly question their decision to keep running. The voices can even grow hostile. As the women struggle to endure the rigors ofthe race, spectators shout, “Why are you running when your children need you at home?”
    Back in 1997, Debi Hemmeter was a rising executive at Sara Lee who aspired to someday lead a major corporation like her role model, Pepsi-Cola North America CEO Brenda Barnes. Even after starting a family, Debi continued to pursue her career at full speed. Then one day when Debi was on a business trip, she opened her hotel door to find
USA Today
with the startling headline “Pepsi Chief Trades Work for Family.” The subhead elaborated: “22-Year Veteran Got Burned Out.” In that moment, Debi said she felt her own ambitions shift. As Debi told me, “It seemed like if this extraordinary woman couldn’t make it work, who could? Soon after, I was offered a big job at a bank and I turned it down because my daughter was just a year old and I didn’t think I could do it. Almost a decade later, I took a similar job and did it well, but I lost a decade. I actually saved that clipping and still have it today. It’s a reminder of what I don’t want another generation to go through.”
    If a female marathoner can ignore the shouts of the crowd and get past the tough middle of the race, she will often hit her stride. Years ago, I met an investment banker in New York whose husband worked in public service. She told me that over the years all of her female friends in banking quit, but because she was her family’s primary breadwinner, she had to stick it out. There were days when she was jealous and wished she could leave, days when there was just too much to do or too much crap to put up with. But she did not have that option. Eventually, she landed in a position that had less crap and more impact. Now when she looks back, she is glad that even in the hard times, she continued in her career. Today, she has a close relationship with her children and now that they have grown up and moved away, she’s especially grateful to have a fulfilling job.
    Although pundits and politicians, usually male, often claimthat motherhood is the most important and difficult work of all, women who take time out of the workforce pay a big career penalty. Only 74 percent of professional women will rejoin the workforce in any capacity, and only 40 percent will return to full-time jobs. 14 Those who do rejoin will often see their earnings decrease dramatically. Controlling for education and hours worked, women’s average annual earnings decrease by 20 percent if they are out of the workforce for just one year. 15 Average annual earnings decline by 30 percent after two to three years, 16 which is the average amount of time that professional women off-ramp from the workforce. 17 If society truly valued the work of caring for children, companies and institutions would find ways to reduce these steep penalties and help parents combine career and family responsibilities. All too often rigid work schedules, lack of paid family leave, and expensive or undependable child care derail