book that I write in with an actual pen. (In the tech world,
this is like carrying a stone tablet and chisel.) But when it comes to integrating career and family,
planning too far in advance can close doors rather than open them. I have seen this happen over and
over. Women rarely make one big decision to leave the workforce. Instead, they make a lot of small
decisions along the way, making accommodations and sacrifices that they believe will be required to
have a family. Of all the ways women hold themselves back, perhaps the most pervasive is that they
leave before they leave.

The classic scenario unfolds like this. An ambitious and successful woman heads down a
challenging career path with the thought of having children in the back of her mind. At some point,
this thought moves to the front of her mind, typically once she finds a partner. The woman considers

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how hard she is working and reasons that to make room for a child she will have to scale back. A law
associate might decide not to shoot for partner because someday she hopes to have a family. A teacher
might pass on leading curriculum development for her school. A sales representative might take a
smaller territory or not apply for a management role. Often without even realizing it, the woman stops
reaching for new opportunities. If any are presented to her, she is likely to decline or offer the kind of
hesitant “yes” that gets the project assigned to someone else. The problem is that even if she were to
get pregnant immediately, she still has nine months before she has to care for an actual child. And
since women usually start this mental preparation well before trying to conceive, several years often
pass between the thought and conception, let alone birth. In the case of my Facebook questioner, it
might even be a decade.

By the time the baby arrives, the woman is likely to be in a drastically different place in her career
than she would have been had she not leaned back. Before, she was a top performer, on par with her
peers in responsibility, opportunity, and pay. By not finding ways to stretch herself in the years
leading up to motherhood, she has fallen behind. When she returns to the workplace after her child is
born, she is likely to feel less fulfilled, underutilized, or unappreciated. She may wonder why she is
working for someone (usually a man) who has less experience than she does. Or she may wonder why
she does not have the exciting new project or the corner office. At this point, she probably scales her
ambitions back even further since she no longer believes that she can get to the top. And if she has the
financial resources to leave her job, she is more likely to do so. ┆┆思┆┆兔┆┆文┆┆檔┆┆共┆┆享┆┆與┆┆在┆┆線┆┆閱┆┆讀┆┆

3
The more satisfied a person is with her position, the less likely she is to leave. So the irony—and,
to me, the tragedy—is that women wind up leaving the workforce precisely because of things they did
to stay in the workforce. With the best of intentions, they end up in a job that is less fulfilling and less
engaging. When they finally have a child, the choice—for those who have one—is between becoming
a stay-at-home mother or returning to a less-than-appealing professional situation.

Joanna Strober, co-author of Getting to 50/50, credits a compelling job for her decision to return to
the workforce after becoming a mother. “When I first started working, there were lots of scary stories
about female executives who ignored their kids or weren’t home enough,” she told me. “Everyone in
our office talked about one executive whose daughter supposedly told her that when she grew up she
wanted to be