<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  When I was growing up, hearing my own mother talk about her work experience was akin to something out of Mad Men. After finishing graduate school in 1971, my mom went to work at an advertising agency on Madison Avenue \u2014 she worked in marketing research and was part of the wave of Peggy Olson 2.0&amp;#039;s. While not among the first women to break out of the secretarial world and into the business side, she talked about her generation of female employees facing sexual harassment and a new form of fear and resistance from male executives increasingly worried about losing their jobs to women. I couldn&amp;#039;t believe that my own mother, one of the smartest people I know (with an Ivy League degree to boot), was treated like such a second-class citizen as recently as the 1970&amp;#039;s.  My mom left work to care for my brother and me in 1985 and chose to never go back (at least not until we went to college, and by then she thought it was &amp;quot;too late&amp;quot; to get hired in her field because of the massive gap on her resume). In the eighties, the female executive path was still being paved, and it was pretty much assumed that once a woman &amp;quot;dropped out&amp;quot; to have children, she was down for the count. Pretty uninspiring, especially for the child of a feminist who saw way too many fifties housewife stereotypes coming to life in our house. While we were lucky enough to have a parent whose income supported the family, growing up hearing stories like hers makes a particularly compelling case for me &amp;quot;leaning in,&amp;quot; Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg&amp;#039;s new book and website that are the discussion du jour in the media.  After reading this CNN article about seven modern families&amp;#039; struggle for both parents to balance work and family, I asked REDBOOK editors to share their own stories. What does &amp;quot;leaning in&amp;quot; really look like? Is it really a question of \u2014 as Sandberg asserts \u2014 females selling themselves short and pulling back because of sexism and social conditioning? It&amp;#039;s been almost 30 years since my mom stopped working in the eighties, and while I&amp;#039;ve witnessed many coworkers making the whole work-life balance thing work (pun intended), was it a cognizant decision that they made with their spouses? Is &amp;quot;leaning in&amp;quot; to upward mobility and success at work something women need to do on their own? &amp;quot;After going to a women&amp;#039;s college and now working in a field where women are usually the bosses, I think I&amp;#039;ve had more than my fair share of great &amp;#039;lean in&amp;#039; role models. I&amp;#039;ve learned from them that it may be hard to be the boss and be a mom, but it isn&amp;#039;t scary. And that&amp;#039;s a big difference, because I&amp;#039;m not afraid of hard work. But it still has to be shared: In my life, I can work full time and have a darling baby boy at home thanks to what my mom has dubbed &amp;#039;Team Peter.&amp;#039; She&amp;#039;s here taking care of him, my aunt helps out in myriad ways, my husband will soon be going part-time at his job to be home with him, we&amp;#039;ve found a flexible daycare provider, and we make certain financial sacrifices to have a housecleaner and an occasional dog-walker. It&amp;#039;s really &amp;#039;Team Sarah,&amp;#039; because I could not sit at my desk and write this without every one of them. Or I could, but I&amp;#039;d lose my mind. It might sound like a lot of trouble, but I&amp;#039;m grateful to Sheryl Sandberg for insisting, assuming, reminding us that it&amp;#039;s worth it.&amp;quot; \u2014 Sarah Smith, Deputy Editor &amp;quot;I love my kids more than anything, and I want the world for them \u2014 they&amp;#039;re the reason I get up in the morning, and the last, sweet thing I see at night, when I sneak back to their room to make sure they&amp;#039;re perfectly tucked in. My work is the thing that makes me feel smart, complete, and safe \u2014 like an equal financial partner in my marriage, and a powerful person in my own right (even if that power is pretty minor, most days). I&amp;#039;m lucky enough to have a husband who supports my choice to work, and who is dedicated to being a great, hands-on dad. It&amp;#039;s hard: nothing about balancing parenting and work is easy. But I want to show my two little boys that Mommy has as much right to a life outside the home as Daddy does. I completely understand why women stop working once their children are born \u2014 it&amp;#039;s a valid and honorable choice, and there&amp;#039;s no tougher job on the planet than staying at home with your kids. That said, I agree with Sandberg that the more women we have in powerful positions in the workplace, the better the workplace will be for all women.&amp;quot; \u2014 Meredith Rollins, Executive Editor &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s a big payoff for the struggle of balancing two demanding careers with a sane, happy home: my daughter has grown up seeing first-hand how important and satisfying work is for me \u2014 I bring her to the office with me every chance I get. Home-wise, it helps to have an neatnik husband who can&amp;#039;t look at a pile of laundry and not tackle it. He absorbs most of the cleaning duties, whereas I do the cooking. And even if it means we don&amp;#039;t sit down for dinner until eight p.m., a home-cooked meal gets on the table more nights than not. What we give to our jobs and to our family, we lose when it comes to a social life. There just isn&amp;#039;t time for one, because [my daughter] Claire gets us pretty much 100 percent on the weekends, but that&amp;#039;s the sacrifice we choose.&amp;quot; \u2014 Audrey Slater, Fashion Director How does Sheryl Sandberg practice what she preaches? She shares her real-world wisdom with us right here. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/mom-kids/news/a15087/lean-in-sheryl-sandberg/>