Title: Can Women (And Men) Have It All?

With my son @John Jay Park in New York
Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote an article a decade ago called Why Women Still Can’t Have It All? Knowing that I have left my corporate job and am working on my startup full-time, while having two young kids, my friend asked me, “Fei, what do you think? Can women have it all?”
One of my biggest regrets in life is my relationship with my son. He is two and a half years old now. And most of the time, he only wants daddy.
When he was about one year old, I was having a crazy job. I would wake up around 3am, breastfeed him, and start working with our team in China organizing a big forum (I’m based in New York).
For several months, I was entirely absent from my son’s life, despite the fact that it was COVID and we were physically in the same house. How is that possible, you may ask? Yeah, because I was glued to my computer and phone. Sometimes holding multiple conversations at the same time, via call and texts on whatsapp, iMessage and WeChat.
After that period, my son only wanted daddy. “Daddy come with me to go to bed” “Daddy get me some milk” “Mommy can help you too!” “No, no want mommy.”
That, broke my heart.
I started to rethink what I really want. In life.
“What is your definition of having it all,” I asked my friend. He is a father of two. He has a big day job and runs a consulting business on the side. His wife also has a big role, managing hundreds of people. He told me that he always supports his wife with her career, because “it’s much harder for her to climb the ladder” than him.
I understand the lure of asking this very question. Can women have it all? This kind of rhetoric most conducive to fostering debates, as a means to achieve policy advancement for women. This is all positive.
And it’s not just women. Men also. The choice between family and career. Between being with your kids and reading one more book to answering your boss’ call or fixing clients’ requests at 11pm. The struggle between biological clock counting down and losing the golden year for building a meaningful career.
Is it fair? What is the right choice? How to balance or integrate work and life? All that jazz.
I believe, a better question to ask is, why do you even want it all?
It’s like kids walking to a candy store and say “Can I have all the candies? I’m gonna take every single flavor home!”
Or my son visiting the Apple store on 74th and Madison, wanting to buy the entire wall of iPhone cases home. When I started counting how many iPhone cases there were, how many we would have to carry home if we do end up buying the entire wall, my son started laughing.
I feel he cares more about the “feeling” of having it all, and not actually “having it all.” I mean, what do you do with that many of iPhone cases (aka having it all)? To show off? I thought we passed that a long time ago. Or at least, it’s not worth the sacrifice to pull off a big show off.
Coming back to the definition of having it all:
You want to have a successful career. To be the President of United States. Well not actually, but you know what I mean. A successful career comes with many sacrifices.
I was talking with someone who used to be a successful investment banker and now mother of one. She said, the reason why she climbed the ladder in banking so quickly were one, she pulled all nighters and worked all weekends while others were having fun, and two, she swallowed a lot of others’ doubt to her identity as a woman, Asian, and now mom. She kept her mouth shut and just let her work shine. “I would have been more vocal to those straight-to-your-face bias, have I had the chance to tell my young self,” she told me.
You want to be that star mom who bakes beautiful birthday cakes. Who shows up at every parent teacher conference. Who cheers for your son at his soccer practice “Go Max!”
And you want time to do yoga, meditation, go to retreats, dine and wine with friends, visit your parents often… Wow even writing all that down is tiring.
What if we shift the thinking from asking whether we can having it all to asking “What do we really want? At this moment”?
Stop long term planning. Start living.
It’s like asking your son to choose whether he wants a shiny new fire truck or go and have an ice cream under the tree. It’s not that you can’t have both. It’s more important that you know exactly what you want, because having two things at the same time, by definition, means one of them will end up in the background. And you can always have more in life.
Finally, the best things in life are simple.
People always discuss with me on how to be happy.
The happiest moments in life are simple. Not on the stage performing, winning big competitions, getting big paychecks, millions of people cheering for you. Okay, some people want that. Why not.
But, there’s more to life.
I wrote about my trip to Silicon Valley and how it gave me my second life. You know what I enjoyed the most during my time in California?
A trip to Safeway with my kids and husband at 5am. We landed in California, jet lagged, all up by 4am. That’s 7am in New York. We were all hungry and went to Safeway to hunt something to eat.
Safeway was not open yet. I remember the drive in the dark. The excitement of my son, bouncing up and down in the back seat. The quiet stars on the dark blue sky canvas. The summer breeze. The smell of morning dew. My daughter’s chubby face in the shadow. It was, just lovely. In moments like this, you feel complete.
So, I said to my friend.
It’s not about having it all. It’s about having what you want. And knowing what you want is often the first step.
My company Loving Life is an education and media platform empowering everyone to be the best version of ourselves. Loving Life Conversation Series is bringing the best of entrepreneur and VC ecosystem to the world.
My only job in life is to create, create fresh life, create stories that bring wisdom and impact. And knowing exactly what I want and pursue those, is key to my job as a creator in life.
I was born and raised in China, came to the U.S. for college. My English is not perfect, as one of my professors at Stanford pointed out. So please excuse my mistakes in my writings or better, help me fix them by commenting! (Thank you!)
For those of you who are curious about my relationship with my son, it’s a working relationship… I’m creating “mommy and son” days intentionally to make up for my “mistake”. If you want to support my journey, send me more ideas of mommy and son activities!
Written with lots of love,
Fei Bo
我的Linkedin链接：
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fei-b-7102001a/
原文发布在我的英文博客medium：
https://medium.com/@lovinglife7/can-women-and-men-have-it-all-50f4fe5425a0
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