Marissa Mayer - President and CEO of Yahoo!
Recently, Yahoo!, Inc. introduced Marissa Mayer as their new President and CEO. Mayer is a brilliant, 37-year old former Google executive who’s–get this–six months pregnant.
Naturally, everyone wants to know how the young, charismatic leader will balance her role as head of a struggling company and that of a new mom.
In an interview with Fortune Magazine, Mayer summarized her plan, “I like to stay in the rhythm of things . . . My maternity leave will be a few weeks long, and I’ll work throughout it.”
[Cue the eye rolling, judgmental stares, and cries of outrage from offended people the world over who won’t be impacted in the least by this perfect stranger’s decision.]
Some critics complain that Mayer has a naive approach to managing the demands of career and family. Others assert she’s setting a bad example for working mothers. They fear women will be pressured into fulfilling their duties as employees instead of establishing enduring, emotional bonds with their infants.
Not that anyone asked for my opinion–and I assure you, you’ll never need to–but here it is.
It’s not like Ms. Mayer is a Walmart greeter. She’s the fifth CEO in five years of a troubled, multi-billion dollar corporation. And as it happens, Mayer also has a net worth of $300 million. Presumably, she can and will hire help.
“But, but, but, women need time to physically recover from childbirth.”
That’s true. If you told me you wanted to go back to slinging boxes for UPS a few days after passing an eight pound mass through your cervix, I most definitely would encourage you to wait. But unless you’re not getting enough sleep, answering emails and sitting in on conference calls likely won’t put any undue stress on your body.
Maybe it’s totally obvious, but for my own selfish reasons, I’m hoping Mayer kicks butt as the top box on Yahoo’s org chart.
Countless women have mastered child rearing. I wanna see more accomplished female CEOs.
But even if Mayer went on maternity leave, realized she couldn’t tear herself away from her baby, and decided to become a stay-at-home-mom, I’d respect her decision. Admittedly, I’d be disappointed, but still, I’d respect her decision. After all, she doesn’t owe me anything.
Besides herself, Mayer is beholden to her family and the Yahoo! stakeholders. That’s it.
During exciting times like these, the can-women-have-it-all debate really heats up.
Until recently, when asked, “Can women have it all?” my response would’ve been “No.” But I’ve given the question a lot of thought over the years, and finally, I have the correct answer.
Without defining what’s important to you, the only answer to this recklessly, vague question is, “It depends.”
First, tell me what “it” is, and I’ll tell you if you can have all of “it.”
If you aspire to
- maintain a 15% body fat percentage,
- home school three kids,
- have sex with your husband five days a week,
- bring home the blue ribbon every year for your county’s largest tomatoes, AND
- head a fast growing start up you co-founded two years ago . . .
Maybe you can’t have it all.
But if your bucket list reads something like this
- become CEO of a Fortune 500 company
- squeeze in the necessary amount of time (and not a second more) to raise healthy, well adjusted children
Or this
- make lesser moms feel like ants in my shadow
- refuse any work arrangement that interferes with motherhood . . .
You’re well positioned to “have it all.”
And you know what? Regardless of what others think, your list is your list, your desires are your desires. Don’t delete, add to or modify your priorities to conform to societal pressures.
Many stay-at-home-moms contend that they don’t feel valued by society, that their work is under appreciated or that people look down on them for not attaining career success outside the home. To that I say, “Who gives a crap?” The only people whose opinion matters about the work you do as a SAHM are you, your children, and your partner.
Likewise, if you drop off your baby at daycare and back flip through your office door every morning, you shouldn’t care what other people think about that. You feel called to do something besides parent for a large chunk of your day. So what?
We’ve got to stop apologizing for our choices. If you can’t have it all, more likely than not, it’s because you want too much. Of course, sometimes we genuinely want to achieve a long list of lofty goals. Other times, I think we convince ourselves that we should want certain things. Strangely, not obtaining something we never really wanted in the first place makes us feel like failures–and that’s just stupid.
Photo Credit: Giorgio Montersino
Shawanda Greene is a free thinking, frugal gal whose only vices are boxed wine, lip balm and money grubbing. You can find more of Shawanda's musings at 
I love this article, but I am inclined to agree with the comments that have pretty much said that we can’t really have it all. There is no such thing. There are trade-offs and repercussions to every decision we make. Just like we can’t have it all before we have children, we can’t have it all once we do. If we are burning the candle at both ends something will give. We just have to be willing to accept that, and as the author says, be happy in our own decisions. We also have to be willing to make changes in our lives when we see things need to be changed. A lot of women, prominent women, have been slaughtered publicly for that. I think it is horrible that we are ok with society choosing what is right and good for us and our families, and worse yet, that we feel it is ok for us to choose and judge what is right for someone else and his or her family. I see families who have chosen a different path than I have. I may not want the path they chose, but if it works for them, great.
Wow Shawanda! I think you really nailed it. What’s important is that women stop apologizing for their choices. I wonder if it is really societal pressures or more the pressures of the people around them that women feel the pressure.
Know why you made the decisions you made and don’t apologize for them. Everyone’s life is a different.
Wow, I agree with the fact that people shouldn’t care so much what other people think. Personally, I don’t really care but there are always going to some people who can be crippled by how society views them.
I hope Marissa makes it too. Having money should help her a lot.
I love this article! and I agree….don’t apologize for your choices. We all have to do what works for us. My SIL made some very nasty judgemental comments about us putting our first in daycare (you know like we don’t love him, etc.). I worked hard for my degree and to get my carreer where it is and at the pay scale I was at. We had a good balance of work/home with our schedules and it worked for us. Anyway guess who now has not 1 but 2 of her kids in daycare?? I don’t judge her choice but I did roll my eyes when my hubby told me. Guess she doesn’t love her kids either 😉
I’ve been following these “Can you have it all” stories on the Atlantic as well. What bothers me is why people expect that you should be able to “have it all”. We are not able to have it all in any other aspects of our lives – we can’t eat everything we want, because we’d probably be overweight and unhealthy; we can’t buy everything we want, because we would not save enough, etc. So why should mothers aspire to “having it all”? I think people need to just be happy with their choices.
Love your response. I was getting a little tired of the holier-than-thou attitude of some other bloggers/award-winning journalists (meh). If a male CEO just got hired by Yahoo! and is also expecting a child, he would not get open letters written telling him how to manage his life. Women can be so patronizing to other women. Honestly, sometimes I think it’s women who tear other women down.
I’d like to see her succeed, too. And if her decisions make her and her family happy, that’s great. The toll of having a child is extreme, though, and I’m willing to be she WON’T be getting enough sleep, unless, as you suggested, she hires some serious help. I hope her recovery goes quickly enough that she’s able to return to work as quickly as planned, but every woman/pregnancy is different and sometimes it can take a lot longer than a few weeks to get your mind/body back.
Thank you! It’s time we all realized that if WE are happy with our choices, if our partners and children are good with it, then we’re doing OK, and no one else gets to decide for us.
I’m the primary earner in our family, and for four years my husband stayed home with our youngest son. (childcare for 3? ridiculous). Then he got an offer he wanted to take. Did we talk about it? Of course. Did anyone judge him? No way. Had it been me? People might have judged. Which is so wrong.
I admire Ms. Mayer. I hope she rocks Yahoo’s world. I’m thrilled to see another powerful woman named CEO.
I’ve read lots of articles about the “can we have it all” in regards to Marissa Mayer and this is the first really WELL THOUGHT OUT piece I’ve read. Kudos to you, Shawanda I think you wrote this masterfully.
Solid post. I too especially like the statement “stop apologizing for our choices”. I want her to succeed but what “success” looks like is going to be a compromise. Something has to give: either her work, her baby, or her. But a work-life balance is healthy, nannies are cool, and everyone deserves a break from their workload — how the rest of the world interprets these things might be a very different opinion though.
Personally I would love to be in her position, but I would also be hesitant. If this is her first child, she doesn’t know herself as a mother yet. I think it’s difficult to make the decisions of how you will act or what you will think when you don’t know yourself in that role yet. Everything MIGHT change, but then again, everything might not.
There’s really nothing to do but wish her the very best and wait & see.
Totally agree with everything here, but especially the Stop Apologizing For Our Choices part. That is the salient point.
Bravo!! 🙂 Great post!