Yesterday I attended a six-year old “Eloise at the Plaza” birthday with my daughter. While I wouldn’t want her to think every day is like that, I found it fun, charming, and surprisingly gracious. Nevertheless, there was one moment when I found myself stifling a very self-conscious belly laugh — the moment seemed almost surreal. The girls, about 15 of them, had gotten to dress up into fairy and princess dresses, then came out from behind a curtain and did a catwalk, one by one, while the parents cheered and took photos. The mom and girl in me thought it was all good fun. I caught my daughter’s eye when it was her turn, and gave her a thumbs’ up.
It was the professional woman in me who was blushing red. We fight so hard to be taken seriously, and yet I can hardly deny that even at a very young age, so many of us love the attention that comes from physical beauty, pageantry and the social graces. How do we reconcile the different roles we play?
Let’s put aside, for a moment, the pay and power gaps we are still working to reduce and eliminate. The reality is that so many high-achieving women today are having to synthesize the demands of very different roles. At work we need to be unemotional and authoritative, but many of us crave the cherishing attention that comes from being more emotional and less authoritative in our personal lives. To me, there is learning here. It’s true, we have to manage outside impressions to come across as professional. But when we only focus on those, we don’t get in touch with what really resonates for us.
There is an exercise I do with many of my clients, where we take a long look at different perspectives on work, relationships, motherhood, or whatever is important for them. It is a great way for them to get in alignment with their core values, even the girly-girl stuff that doesn’t fly at work. I find that this exercise can ease so much of the stress of pressured lives. We will always need to bounce between our various roles. If we can do it by being true to ourselves, it can make all the difference.