Executive Mothers

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The Wall Street Journal had an article about women in the workplace this month.

Here are some excerpts:

You would think the problem would be solved by now…”Almost nine in 10 CEOs agree that tapping female talent is important to ‘getting the best brains’ and competing in markets where women now make most of the purchasing decisions.”

…Companies are still bleeding female talent at an alarming rate…”

One executive they interviewed urges women:

“For God’s sake, nominate yourself for promotions. You’re holding yourself back.”

What are we waiting for, ladies? Corner offices, benefits and high pay are just begging for us to take them.

Right? Why on earth are we not jumping at these goodies?

Deep in the story, after we had to flip to page B9, they go on to say:

There is evidence that the U.S. is losing ground. Women are making huge strides in emerging economies such as India and China.

What could possibly be different between America and India and China?

You can wipe off the sarcasm I am dripping all over this post and see the answer here.

All the commenters mention childcare, or dependent care as the big reason to opt out.

I am pretty sure that China and India have a better system for providing childcare than America does. Maybe it is cheaper, maybe it is easier to obtain, maybe there is a greater social acceptance for an educated mama giving the children to the care of another person, but I am pretty sure that most of the reason “Companies are still bleeding female talent” is the very very female concern of the children.

There was mention of male executives having to learn to listen to female voices during meetings. However, there was no mention of the more obvious problem of how to adjust the workload to better accommodate female childcare concerns.

If we are in such demand, come where we live and figure out how to make it worth our while to run your companies

tipping point

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I was describing recently, my last job. How when I arrived, the users were very skeptical of the conferencing technology i was serving up. But after I straightened it out, the heads of the firm were expanding their usage of the stuff and requesting me specifically.

I said, we came to the point where the people who used to say “THis never works!” would say, “Oh, ignore that little hiccup. This stuff works great.:”

The tipping point was when people stopped looking at a working model and seeking flaws and began looking at a flawed model and seeing that it worked. That makes all the difference.

But it is true in so many other things. Faith. Trust. Hang-in-there-itude.

This is true for relationships too. When I am friends with someone, and they are flawed as all people are. I have a good friend right now who is ignoring my email requests for us to get together. But that’s okay. I trust him. I know he is my friend and that he does indeed want to get together.

But there are times, sad times, when I have had to take a relationship over the tipping point and cut it off. Not enough benefit to the parties involved. When after a series of “Oh, she couldn’t have meant it that way” remarks. Or when there just isn’t reciprocation. Or a number of thing.

The tipping point heads it off into looking for reasons to find good instead of excuses covering the bad.

The Bible says love covers a multitude of sins. That’s what I mean. if you love something or somebody, the flaws are almost invisible. But in this life, it is possible to make enough withdrawals from the love bank to run a deficit.

When it goes into the red, and the 30-60-90 day grace period runs out. Then it takes a lot of deposits to get back over into the grace zone.

January 2009

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this is the part where my writing falls off a cliff.

The blog is about to record my parenthood.

I’m dreading how I will be.

Maybe I’ll still have things to say.

Regardless, i guess I have things to say now.

starting off behind

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I find myself, once again, in a position of being behind on my assignments before i knew the work had begun.

Teachers will do this. “As you see from the syllabus, this first class is when we will discuss the final chapter of Moby Dick. You all read it, right?”

No. No I didn’t realize I would be expected to handle this work before I knew I had been given the job.

But I’m excited. I have a lot to do, and not nearly enough time to do it all right. I guess I”ll have to do it the way i do it and hope it will be good enough.

time in despair

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in Death Valley, there is a place where the rocks travel. Slowly, so slowly.  We can tell this only because the hot and dry desert shows the trails of the stones dragging themselves. It’s miraculous!

It makes me think of time. When I have been in despair, time moves like those rocks. When I am sad and overwhelmed past counting, the seconds move like those rocks.

“Okay. Is it done yet? Am I past the part where I am going to feel this way? Come one. Where is the part where I get to be possible again?”

That rock doesn’t intersect with our time. And in despair, my life and me don’t work together.

Here’s another way to show what I mean:

Psalm 22

14  I am poured out like water,

And all my bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
It is melted within me.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
And my tongue cleaves to my jaws;
And You lay me in the dust of death.

I wrote about this, when my baby was very new.

Perhaps those moments, which I recently named apocalyptic-adjacent events, deserve a different name. Overwhelmed is not right.

Outwhelmed? when all the ‘stuff’ ebbs away and you are left high and dry with nothing to hold onto or hold you up?

Time ticks differently in those moments.

Don’t call it a comeback….

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I have had this blog, in one form or another, for more than ten years.

One of the forms the blog has taken is the email mailing list, called

The Wonder Weekly

Many of my readers were part of this. I liked that format, but I found it intimidating to have a blog that I sent out to people rather than one that I just posted up on the open space of the internet.

But I did like it. I was just scared of it. I would like to have the WonderWeekly be in concert with the wonderblog.

So, I will give that a try. I’ll try to pick my favorite blogpost and send it out to my email list. It’s sort of a way to sneak up on myself and trick me into picking something to send to my fans.

Imagine…it’s easy if you try

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most of the time when I tell people that I’m from alaska they say “Oh, why did you ever leave?!”

One man asked me “How come it took you so long to leave?”

“I couldn’t imagine a way to get out for a long time”

And that’s the way of it. If you can’t imagine, if you cannot concieve of what the next step is, you don’t take steps.

I know someone who wants to be a “public speaker.” I will be honest, I think of that as almost impossible. A public speaker? what? How does someone set out to *DO* that?

Reading over my blog, I see again and again how I am wrestling with how to be an artist. I am sure, so very very sure, that I will never make any money as an artist. So my current plan has been to find a way to fit art into my life in between making money.

Or maybe becoming independently wealthy.

On the other hand, I might be going about it the wrong way. As much as I hated my life in Alaska, I couldn’t imagine anything else at the time. I think back now and wonder how come I didn’t climb out the window and hit the road. I suppose it was a long walk to Anchorage.

But if I knew then what I know NOW, I would have found a way. It was not impossible.

So back to what I know now NOW, what could I do? How is it I really want to live my life? What am I doing, here? Could I imagine another way of doing and being?

What if I COULD be a public speaker? What if I COULD sell my art and make money?

…i wouldn’t need a lot…

One of the things I have learned to do to protect myself, a defense mechanism from a long time ago, is to arrange my art so that it didn’t take anyone else’s help. If I had to rely on someone else to get this stuff DONE, it wasn’t going to happen.

And just producing something, just producing a sentence or a melody, that was enough.

But I’m confident now that I can do sentences. I have ten years of sentences in my past. And that’s just since I started tracking it.

Now, I want more. I want an audience. I want a bigger audience. I want more than the people who happen to walk by. To be self-referential, I think Miriam needs to get her lute playing off a deserted alley and sell out stadiums.

The agony and the angst

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I’ve been re-reading the wonderblog, and remembering what I was thinking back then.

I have spent a lot of time writing on this blog about writing. I have spent a lot of time wishing and whining that I want to be an artist and creative and write and do beautiful things and think beautiful thoughts.

I have railed against the necessity of having a job.

However, I haven’t gotten to the part of the blog where I have a kid yet.

I love having a job because I am not a good stay-at-home mom. I am NOT a stay at home mom, and the days when it is required that I stay at home and take care of Veronica all day are excruciating.

It’s better than it was, but it’s still exhausting.

I wonder what I’ll have written come the birth?

Because right now, I am jealous of me in January 2004. I am also remembering my struggles with my job then. I have a greater patience with my job now, sort of. It fills more than my personal need to feel useful and be fed. I have to keep my child fed too. And have a reason to brush my hair every day.