Sorry to start the week with such a BIG question, but it’s been on my mind lately.

I’m in my mid-30s (AHHHHH!) and it seems like I am not the only one among my friends to be asking BIG life questions like “What do I really want to achieve in my life?” I guess it’s one of the things you do in your mid-30s — think about your life, your career, your goals, the goals you had ten years ago, before you had kids and mortgages and responsibilities beyond yourself, and ask big questions.

Among my friends there seem to be two camps. The first group are friends who are married and have kids. The big questions most of them are asking — and I am squarely in this group — have more to do with their career and personal achievement. (Am I on a career path I find fulfilling? What do I really want to achieve professionally?) The second group are friends who are either not married or don’t have kids and their questions tend to be family-focused: When should we have kids? Do I even want to get married? You get the idea. It seems that if the family part is figured out, career and personal achievement step up into the questioning spotlight and vice versa.

OK, so of course there are no simple or short answers to life achievement questions, I know that. But I am insanely curious to find out how you guys think about them (and if you do, actually). Where I find myself looks something like this:
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I was catching up on email earlier today and got a message from one of the moms in my daughter’s kindergarten class about the upcoming teacher appreciation luncheon. She was reminding the parents in the class to remember to bring some food for the luncheon and for the kids to make teacher appreciation cards. I had completely forgotten about this luncheon (even though yes, it is marked on our family calendar) and was so thankful to get this reminder.

A few weeks ago I’d signed up to come and help out in the kids’ art class but the day before my schedule changed and a non-movable meeting was now conflicting with the time of the class. I was stressing about this when I dropped off my kiddo at school and one of the moms kindly offered to step in and take my spot.

I have endless examples like this. And here’s the thing — most of the time, at least in the very subjective case study of one class in one school, these amazingly helpful, never-forgetting and class-parent organizing moms don’t work.
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This weekend we visited our friends in New York City. They have a daughter who is six — about the same age as ours —  and the two of them have been BFFs (as they affectionately refer to each other) since they were about four months old.  They are also expecting a family addition in a month or so and going through the usual preparations of buying endless baby stuff and trying to figure out how to add another person to their non-palatial New York apartment.

Over dinner my very pregnant friend and I started talking about how she was going to juggle her full-time pretty intense job with two kids. Somehow as part of the conversation we started adding up the number of hours we each spend with our daughters now, during an average workweek. I’m not going to write the numbers here because I came to the realization that doing that kind of math is an absolutely sure way to make yourself feel like crap and accomplish nothing productive in the process.

I really do buy into the quality vs. quantity of time argument when it comes to spending time with kids.
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The short answer to the question of whether as women, we ask for permission more often than we should is yes. The reason I know this is because I’ve read about it, I’ve done it, and I’ve observed countless women at companies where I worked do this over and over and over again. At several of my jobs I’ve also had several women tell me that they are aware that they are doing this.

So the real question is why we asking for permission too often if we’re aware that we’re doing it? I clearly remember one instance from two jobs ago where I observed two of my colleagues, a woman and a man, approach the same exact situation in two very different ways. We’d gotten direction about our projects and both of them thought there was a better way to get to the final goal. The guy just did it. He changed the plan we were given and went ahead with his initiative. No talking to the boss, no socializing the idea first within the bigger team to get feedback and agreement. The woman wanted to do the same thing. She mentioned it in a meeting and then told us that she was going to email our boss to see if that would be ok. She also later came up to me to ask what I thought of the idea and if she should include me on the email (I assume to give the email more convincing power because it would be more than one person voicing this opinion.)
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I’ve had a few different jobs during my evolving career and I can’t think of one of them that didn’t require some type of outside-of-work networking. Each one was a bit different. When I was in venture capital, a lot of networking happened during lunches, after-work events or business dinners. As an entrepreneur, there are quite a few after hours and weekend conferences that are worth attending. Networking at my current gig is mostly about events, some of which happen during the day, but many of which require travel or staying late after work.

It took me a while to realize this but networking isn’t something extra, something optional — it’s a part of most every job I can think of. It’s a way to connect with people in your industry, build relationships with colleagues and people from your company with whom you might not work directly, get exposed to new ideas, and make important contacts. But as much as I knew how important networking was, it was the first thing I cut down on significantly after my daughter was born. There was no way I was missing bed time so that I could go to some after-work conference or dinner!

I did this for a few years. And then I came to my senses:
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