Caveat Emptor: POWERFUL CAREER MY ASS

A touchy subject, a sensitive issue even to broach, especially for someone who isn’t yet subjected to the one double standard our society has set. Instead of pondering such debilitating and often painful truths I tried to rummage up something cutesy or funny, I even came up with this: Picture this: Blond hair (desperately needing to be highlighted) windows down, driving on University Boulevard in my 2008 Escape, I’m singing, pumping my fists, swaying my body to Flo Rider’s “Right Around”, which is the hottest rap song to hit high schools and subsequently waspy white girls’ hybrids.

Parallel parking in between a Jeep and a Jetta, both pimped out with ski and bike racks at Washington Park I’m reminded I’m in twenty-to-thrity-ville Colorado. The first day of spring and everyone including the birds and the bees, and the yellow and chocolate labs skipping alongside their taut owners, is happily bopping to their iTunes, a 2009 version of the first scene of “Sound of Music”. While a serious republican, I’ve finally fallen victim to believing in this whole scientific frenzy dubbed, “global warming”. The sixty-degree weather I’ve enjoyed since last March now has me concerned.

Boring right? Who gives a hell about global warming except for the mountain folk (and condolences to the mountain folk). Well I’m not in the mood to write about the sunny afternoons 90210 style, in fact dittying that diatribe only makes me want to get a personal trainer and locate a husband and/or burgeoning career pronto. So often I’ve said (and meant), “Oh if only I could be gender neutral, only if I could be A-sexual,” and my favorite, “My goal is to be so narcissistic I won’t want anyone.” Simply with the objective of avoiding this whole nasty, but sociologically fascinating conundrum… the two biological clocks. The female clock, which ticks disturbingly loud with a quota of “snoozes” and then the male clock, which is infinite as it is silent.

My Mom (who spent twenty years in television journalism, had her own company and her stories were syndicated nationally, oh right and now she is a portrait artist painting a president), but she is a freak example of someone who could pull off both the business card and the diaper bag. And those women I have SO much respect for... to love your kids enough to role model a career - but it isn't everyone who can pull off such a daunting feat. Not that anyone is holding a gun to my early-twenty-something brain demanding I give notice of my breeding intentions, but I’m witnessing my closest cohorts around me drop like flies, caring less about creating a “knock-em dead PowerPoint” which has now been substituted with, “he is obsessed with his nieces and neither of his sister-in-laws work. Isn’t that great!” again, choke, check out reflection, and proceed to vomit. But, I’m trying not to judge. Because I’m just praying my clock will wait quite awhile to turn on.

A friend (who owns his own company) mentioned that he cannot help but consider if a twenty-something employee will cut and run once a diamond has been cemented on her finger, but would he have the same hesitation about a man, no... And, even in the most equal opportunity of companies, how can an employer neglect the fact when an applicant vying for an engineering position (100-hour weeks) walks in pregnant? And the whole Sarah Palin thing? Do not get me started! Fascinating how 35,000 books have been written on the subject, and more than 211,000 websites pop up when googled, “Balancing work with motherhood.” What does this tell us? There is clearly a problem deeply entrenched in working America, and it isn’t if women can work and have kids, but rather how.

My concern isn’t the “Mompreneurs”, or the women fortunate to have husbands with the income to provide for her and the kiddos, but my real ethical concerns remain with the women who have worked their asses off in corporate America. Now in their late thirties and early forties they’ve reached the pinnacle, a point in their career when they can focus on something other than climbing the vicious ladder. And once surfaced (and callused) from heels and pantsuits they're ready to dive into the “sea of fish”, aka: the men their same age, who have a genuine desire to get married, produce 2.5 beautiful children and build a picket fence. But this sea might as well be a pitiful fish tank. And the men in the same position, well they’re just hitting up the twenty-something, fresh and eager to settle down with the more established men (who have toiled so they could financially provide). So what is an educated woman with drive, a passion to make a difference in her industry, and enjoys having the ability to independently take care of her own needs do? Logically, if it takes 10-15 years to get to the top… which is about the same time your clock will start running out…. That said, the women who care enough about their career to shove estrogen aside and bite the bullet - make it.

But, before you buy into your dream of becoming a powerful CEO of a major company, beware. The truth about having it all down the road is only as pretty as it appears...