October 16 blog


Today while on vacation for a few days I had a revelation. The reading material I was passing my time with represented the Grand Trine of my life at the moment. By the pool, I read with interest the November issue of Oprah Magazine which is full of a great number of how to gems. I didn’t pause long on How to Tell a Joke or How to Be Sexy. What really caught my eye was How to Bake a Killer Vanilla Cake and How to Be a Good Listener. I am not a baker and am an even worse listener, but I aspire to improve at both!

When I came to rest on the cool patio out of the sun, I picked up Mary Lou Quinlan’s right-on tome of the successful woman businesswoman who can’t quite figure out how to step gracefully off of the gerbil wheel, Time Off for Good Behavior. http://www.timeoff4goodbehavior.com/pages/aboutbook.htm This book is a running description of everything I have been doing and thinking since I was in elementary school! How did she get her hands on my journal? Not that I was that self aware until recent years. Quinlan diagrams the journey of us Type A good girls who came of age with the woman who brings home the bacon, cooks it up and looks gorgeous all the while. We didn’t know then what we have come to know now. Woman’s corporate travels have completed the phase of getting our foot in the door and are now focused on contributing in the ways we know best and keeping the pressure on change for the better at work.

The third and least uplifting of my reading material sat heavily at the bedside where I dipped into it only late at night and before an afternoon nap. The Overachievers, The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by New York Times best selling author Alexandra Robbins, chronicles the burdens our high school students heave in the name of getting into a “good” school. See www.alexandrarobbins.com/theoverachievers We have two teenagers in a very competitive private high school where ivy aspirations are the norm and the students and their parents are in concert trying to achieve the right resume for early admission to the very best schools in the country. It was our headmaster who mentioned the book as required reading last month at the Parent Association Meeting. He truly understands what the kids are going through and what role the school plays in supporting the current admissions paradigm (i.e. AP classes, Yearbook Editor, Athletic lettering and four digit Philanthropy hours).

Yup, that about sums it up for my life at the moment—have we passed the workaholic gene on to the next generation? How well did it serve us to keep our focus on the job and forgo vacations, personal time and our children’s early days? I know my wake up came when I became caregiver to my parents at the end of their lives. Who knew when I left for the coast at 23 that it would be 25 years until I spent good quality time with my folks? Will one of my daughters yearn to bake a killer vanilla cake when she turns 50 or can we hope the next generation will figure out work life balance somewhere between college and middle age?