Just Close Enough to the Sun
Fair warning: this is a longer post. Skip to the end if you’d rather just hear my recommendation!
As I’ve written before, I listen to a lot of podcasts. They fit my life well because I can listen to them while I’m doing 500 other things and still feel informed. Lately I’ve been listening to one called Tiger Sisters. It’s made by two Asian American sisters who went to Ivy League schools and are now successful businesswomen. They are a little younger than my generation (more TikTok than MySpace), but they are highly entertaining and insightful on life, love, and money.
On their latest episode, they talk about a moment in 2021. They were both in graduate school and saw Bumble’s founder, Whitney Wolfe Herd, on TV ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange during Bumble’s initial public stock offering. This sight was remarkable to them for two reasons. One was the fact that Wolfe Herd was another young businesswoman like them (and after that IPO, became the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire.) It made them think, “Yes! Someone’s broken through the glass ceiling for us! It’s possible!”
The other reason was that she was holding her baby while she rang the bell. What a powerful image for girls and women everywhere! But the Tiger Sisters saw that image in a slightly different lens. Their reaction was “Girl, you ok? Even though they were not mothers themselves, they could imagine the amount of grit and sacrifice it took to get a company to that place while raising a child. Maybe it was lived experience as women that allowed them to recognize invisible struggles in others. That is definitely a real phenomenon.
On the podcast, the Sisters wondered if having a baby WHILE having a public company was “girlbossing too close to the sun.”
That phrase has been rolling around and around in my mind since I heard it. After thinking about it, no, I don’t think that’s actually possible. Maybe because I recognize my own ambition in Wolfe Herd, but also because, would we ever ask if a MAN “bossed too close to the sun?” Probably not. I don’t think a man would be standing at the bell holding his baby in any case.
Lofty, But Realistic, Expectations
My role model growing up was my grandmother, an amazingly multi-talented person of many achievements (see my post “Women with ADHD”). In short, she raised six children while working full time as an anesthesiologist in the Philippines in the 1950s and performing opera on TV in her spare time. Pretty amazing resume, even if the time frame weren’t incredible in itself. All the grandkids grew up feeling that this level of achievement was just expected.
Not only was it expected, it’s what I genuinely wanted. I always wanted a big family with lots of kids. I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to play rock star on the side when I could. (There may be a longer post about that in the future, but it did actually happen.) I wanted to start a company to change people’s lives. I wanted to be an instructor in a med school.
“Too close to the sun”
When I was a young physician with my first baby, a male mentor asked me, “What do you want to be? Where do you see yourself in 5, 10 years?” And I told him the truth. “I want to be a doctor, but I’m also bigger than this hospital. I want to make a major change in people’s lives. I want to teach. I want to scale a business that I’ve started (well, I didn’t have that vocabulary at the time, but it’s something I felt). I want to have a bigger reach, because I have a big voice.” And do you know what he told me? “No, no, no. You can’t possibly have all that.”
Just because some men don’t understand the level at which most women are able to multitask and hold multiple roles doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still DO IT. Because we all do, out of necessity as well as desire. The Sisters’ reaction to Wolfe Herd speaks volumes about the antiquated gender roles that we internalize. Even when people are partnered, even when a woman is working full-time, she often carries a lot of responsibility of managing the household, the “second shift.” I’ve struggled with balancing that expectation for my whole career.
It’s never easy. I feel the pressure of being an entrepreneur/doctor/inventor but also feel the pressure to be emotionally available for all my kids, take them to their dentists’ appointments, be there for their dance recitals. I have a lot of help doing this, but I can’t personally be at every place at every time.
Playing all these different roles has been hard, and it is a struggle. But I don’t know that it’s as much of an internal struggle as it is a systemic struggle, where through my example I’m trying to change the definition of who a businesswoman / physician / inventor / mom is. I have a big voice. I have never minded being the first one on the dance floor, to try new things without an example.
Not afraid to fly too high
I know I have to stay balanced to get this all done. I have a lot of help, my village of moms who help me make it happen. I know I have to take time to rest, which is why we booked a lastminute beach vacation for our kids’ winter break. I need that reset button of the ocean frequently in the year.
There are those trailblazers, like Wolfe Herd, or like our former Vice President, who could not prepare because they just had to jump in. Someone has to be first on the dancefloor, first to step onto the moon. And then we can shine the light for other people who haven’t been there before. We can sponsor other women by spreading our own knowledge and skill. We can be the loudest voice for someone else, by flying just close enough to the sun.
So, yes, it’s a struggle, but I will keep flying this high. I’m learning to fly just close enough to the sun to stay aloft without melting down.
Dr. Braden’s Recommendation
This week I’m recommending Ali Wong’s first book, Dear Girls. Along with being a hilarious look at life as an Asian American woman, this book is very real. Wong is incredible at mixing the experience of motherhood with her own brand of raunchy humor. Her special made my Filipino mom blush, but she talks about growing up as the Asian-American daughter of an Asian woman in a relatable way. And beyond that, her stories of being a mom (exhaustion and love and all) are gold for any mother. Go check it out!
