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Recently Marissa Mayer announced that she is expecting twins. As the CEO of Yahoo, a high profile but flailing internet company, it was necessary to announce it with formal press release she used, culminating in:
"I’m extremely energized by and dedicated to both my family and Yahoo and will do all that is necessary and more to help both thrive. The future looks extremely bright on both fronts." (Marissa's Tumblr • Happy personal news). She took on a tough role at Yahoo, but, now over 3 years in, she has not yet set it on a strong enough recovery that allows her to take more time away than is physically necessary to deliver the twins. Even if she wanted to.
As with previous actions from her around working from home, this kicked off a lot of media swirl globally. For example,
Why Yahoo's CEO may be sending the wrong message to women in tech - Fortune: "As a female CEO, I would urge Marissa Mayer to consider the recruiting repercussions of her decision to skip maternity leave."How to take even less parental leave than Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer - The Washington Post: "We need to stop judging women for making choices that appear to put less emphasis on parenting, or we need to start judging everyone."
Our culture around this is changing, but also struggling to adapt. Unsurprisingly, the so called Millennials seem to express the most egalitarian views, yet even they often push to more traditional roles once they start families
Millennial Men Aren’t the Dads They Thought They’d Be - The New York Times: "Millennial men — ages 18 to early 30s — have much more egalitarian attitudes about family, career and gender roles inside marriage than generations before them, according to a variety of research by social scientists. Yet they struggle to achieve their goals once they start families, researchers say. Some researchers think that’s because workplace policies have not caught up to changing expectations at home."
Is this because rather than changing the game, this is still based on a perception of the 'male' 'breadwinner' and the 'female' 'homemaker', whether or not they actually be male and female or the reverse. Ms Mayer could just be acting as a male CEO would, while her husband/family/hired help plays the role of the 'female'. For the rest of us, whether the man or the woman is the breadwinner, child care/rearing and home/life balance is still difficult. Is this the equality we want, or is there a missed opportunity to change the rules rather than reverse the roles?
Changing the rules and the game itself may be the answer to a culture that currently has elevated expectations both on the work and family fronts. As the New York Time article notes, "The obstacle is that even as young men and women say they want to share responsibilities, work and child rearing have both become more demanding...
“Rather than creating more flexible notions about what a career means, there’s increasing pressure to have to put in more time at work,” she said. “Another paradox of the 21st century is that even as the caretakers of the past, women, have gone to work, the standards we apply to parents are greater than ever.” (Millennial Men Aren’t the Dads They Thought They’d Be - The New York Times)
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