The Day Women Took Over Harvard Business School

Dear Harvard Business School,

Celebrating 50 years of women MBA graduates is a major milestone and please accept my sincere thanks for inviting me to the big bash.

Here is what I loved about last week’s “W50 Summit:”

*I spent time with 800 women, 99% of whom I had never met before. We struck up conversations at every opportunity and discovered the varied paths each of us has taken since graduation. Women in their 20s, their 70s, married, single, gay, straight, SAHM, moms who have worked every day since they graduated – all in. There was no judgement, no mommy battles, just deep curiosity and respect.

* We listened to Drew Gilpin Faust, the first female President of Harvard University, welcome us and speak of how educating girls around the world is “fair, smart and transformative.” The standing ovation we gave her was the first of many.

* I met women from the first class (‘65) and imagined what it was like to be one of the eight who studied beside 676 men. Unlike the men who resided in dorms on campus, they lived across the Charles River. Barred from the campus dining room, they brought their lunches and used makeshift ladies rooms still equipped with urinals.

* We listened to Sheryl Sandberg (‘95, COO, Facebook) remind the SRO crowd, “to believe in ourselves, to keep raising our hands, to take a seat at the table.” And, if anyone describes a little girl as “bossy,” correct them, saying that she has “early leadership potential.” These were words every one of us could have used when we were still in your classrooms.

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11 Ways Social Media is Turning Us into Teens

Posted on 1/17/13 by Grown and Flown

Lisa writes: Facebook was developed by teenagers, for teenagers and I wonder if it, and its cousins Pinterest, Twitter, Reddit and Google+, are not turning us all into adolescents. Adults conduct their social interactions differently than teens and young adults but social media invites us to sound like our youthful selves. Social media is caught in time, in the student years, when most of us cared desperately about others’ opinions and were far less secure about ourselves.

With maturity we have less need to brag, and more need to deeply connect with others. Our ability to communicate has evolved and improved but the constructs we use in social media have not. Even as adults, we are using the tools of teens to communicate as we venture into social media, not always to the best effect. Here is the challenge to keep social media from turning us into teens:

1. On social media we clamour for the attention of those we barely know while, because of its allure, we can overlook those seated at our own dinner table. The last time I ignored the people I lived with I was fifteen years old, the next time was when I got on Pinterest.

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At Midlife, Why I Would Never Want to be 30 Again

Posted on 12/10/12 by Grown and Flown

Lisa writes: Being over 50 is not a moral failing. Hitting life’s halfway point is certainly not something to be ashamed of or to try and keep hidden. Yet in looking at media aimed at the boomer demographic, it would not be hard to conclude that the post-50 years were one long desperate attempt to recapture the better days of youth, as if we had carelessly left them behind.

It turns out that for most of us, those pre-50 days were not better, by almost any measure, and advertisers should probably rewrite their copy to read, “30 is the new 50.”

There is an apologetic quality, an almost defensive posture, to much of what is written about midlife. Yet it is misplaced because research confirms that the decline in our overall happiness, that begins at age 18 and continues steadily downhill, reverses course as we enter our sixth decade. In every country, every income group, whether employed or not, a parent or not, the downward drift in our happiness level reverses course as we approach our 50th birthdays.

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Reading on Your Mind with these Best Books

Posted on 12/8/12 by Grown and Flown

Lisa writes: December is book month whether buying gifts for others or just looking for something to curl up with over the holidays. So in the spirit of the season, here are a few titles that we want to share, ones we put in the category of “best books.” Some are new, some are not. There is fiction and fact and the only common ground is that we loved them all.

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (2012)

I love small stories writ large, tiny worlds carefully constructed by truly gifted writers in which, as the reader, I can transplant myself. Helen Simonson’s first outing gives us such a world and that rarity of rarities, a true midlife love story. Major Pettigrew is stuffy old Britain, a man who finds it easier to show his love for his treasured Churchill rifles than his son. Mrs Ali is the new Britain, worldly, industrious and passionate in her love of family. These two characters, the embodiment of two eras, bring out the very best in each other. Simonson’s sense of humor emerges in a very funny undercurrent as we see her American characters through very British eyes. As an American who long lived in England, I did not know whether to blush or apologize. This is a book without artifice. If you are tired of reading books of contrived youthful passion and instead want a tale of real adult love, Major Pettigrew and Mrs. Ali will not let you down.

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The Tragedy Behind my Class Reunion

Posted on 10/20/12 by Grown and Flown

Mary Dell writes: There are reunion people and non-reunion people and I am one of the former. The invitation arrives and, almost immediately, I add my name to the list of attendees. I returned for my 30th class reunion last weekend, like I have done every five years, not only to see my former classmates, but also to revisit the painful and tragic memory of one friend, in particular. She is the reason I think I will never miss a gathering. For her, in memoriam, I can only offer tears.

We were members of a post-graduate program that was large, 750-people large, and far away from our hometowns. It took us southerners just about one week to find each other. We created a social island, several dozen strong, where it felt like home – Atlanta or Austin - instead of the banks of the Charles River.

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Spinning Class – Exercise for the “Lazy”

Posted on 9/21/12 by Grown and Flown

Mary Dell writes: In the realm of athletics I am a dud, both coordination and motivation-challenged. When I attended BlogHer’12 this summer and heard Katie Couric describe herself as “lazy” (regarding exercise) yet willing to ride a stationary bike in a spinning class, I began to wonder if this might be a good workout for me since I’m a little lazy, too.

As if the gym gods were sending me a message, I picked up More magazine’s September issue and found an article on spinning inside. I read about SoulCycle, a small but growing chain of spinning studios that happen to be Katie’s choice. Continue reading →

I Love Hate Blogging

Posted on 8/9/12 by Grown and Flown

We were blogging virgins. Neither of us had any idea what a blog was and had never read one, let alone written one. But as we have dipped our toes into this corner of the social network and are now up to our knees, I have realized a few things:

I love:

Thinking about parenting issues with the clarity that writing imposes.

Meeting people all over the world. I guess I could have done this with an airplane, but my computer, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and our blog are so much easier.

Trying to think of something original to say. On the rare moments that it happens, it makes my brain sing. Continue reading →