In this era of digital communications, "face time" has expanded to mean availability to respond immediately and then jump into the assignment. That's what employers and clients want.
And that's not what many mothers can or will do. In the current issue of THE ECONOMIST a Mommy lawyer laments that before she had children she would "give blood" to get ahead. Now, although she is time-efficient and gets her work done, when she leaves the office in Paris to tend to the little ones, the perception is negative. Those who hang around after official hours and provide "face time" are the ones who are viewed in a more favorable light.
The reality, no matter how face time is delivered, is that it has to be delivered. Professionals can't get ahead if they can't deliver. Decades ago Helen Gurley Brown recognized that children represented a burden in a career. In the biography "Bad Girls Go Everywhere," Jennifer Scanlon recounts the COSMO's founder childhood in which her mother, a depressive, regretted the sacrifices she had made for family. It wasn't until after she had solidified her credentials that Brown married. Then she took on the burden of a teenage stepson but didn't have her own children.
No one can have it all. Men who are preoccupied with interests other than giving enough face time, whatever form it's in, don't make it to upper rungs of The Professional Class. Maybe that's not what they want. Whatever. The bottom line is that they are not going to get too far.
Note: Years ago when I was working full-time for the Fortune 100 and contemplating adopting a child, my mentor told me "get two dogs." The two will keep each other company when I worked crazy hours.
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