when self help doesn’t help

the book overpromising a movement for mothers

Written by Lisa McGann. Edited by Annie Straka.

POV: target demo for a particular brand of self-help

A few weeks ago, we included Mother Untitled as an account to follow, and I just finished Neha Ruch’s book, The Power Pause. Each chapter of the book begins with a “false belief & new narrative.” This is the one that made me buy the book:

“False Belief: I’m leaving my job, and I may never be able to find another one as good.

New Narrative: I’m shifting my career temporarily, and I trust I will learn about myself, develop skills, and build connections that lead me to even more meaningful paid work in the future.”

I had to believe the new narrative. That false belief was my very real fear.

I actually didn’t leave my job, I lost it. I didn’t know at the time, but I was pregnant when it happened. The thing that jolted me out of being angry about being laid off was learning my daughter had Down syndrome and a limb difference following the 12-week ultrasound. I cringe writing and reading that truth about myself - that it took something so serious for me to reframe what matters - but it is what it is. It took weeks to get over the shock of my daughter’s diagnosis to articulate a plan: instead of looking for full-time work right away, I planned to pursue part-time consulting and teaching during this period of high uncertainty for my family.

So when I heard there was a book focused on career breaks from a Stanford MBA, I was going to read it. I wanted someone to tell me, “Here’s how you do it!” when I was ready to return to full-time work. However, this book is not that. I’d hoped for more empowerment - yes, give me the tools to come back stronger! What part of networking am I doing wrong, and how do I get this transition right? Instead, I wound up feeling like I need to temper my own expectations in order to feel content, which is the opposite of feeling powerful or strong.

Where Mother/Untitled Succeeds

I don’t want to just slam Ruch’s work because this book has reignited a conversation about work and modern parenting - and that is good for all women. Also, it’s not zero sum. This book can have merit without being everything I hoped it would be. Here’s what the book does really well:

• Sets a good tone for the conversation. If we were raised during the mommy wars, this premise is a much more progressive backdrop. Ruch writes,

  “Staying home with your kids isn’t a virtue, and neither is working. Instead, this book is here to help you tune in to what feels right for you through each phase of parenthood.”

• Makes women feel less alone during what can be an incredibly isolating time of changing professional identity. It begins with a cursory history of women’s work, which gives context to a nagging thought: “why am I feeling so torn between home and work in a way my husband isn’t?”

  Feminists began looking at the careers of their brothers, husbands, and fathers. “They were thinking, Why can’t we have that? We have things to contribute. And they were right,” says Vandenberg-Daves. But the intensity of their frustrations and their fervent denigration of stay-at-home mothers fostered an unfortunate side effect: a distinction between “working” and “stay-at-home” mothers grew in the popular discourse.

  Looking back doesn’t change the current reality, but some historical and sociological explanation for how we got to this place is mildly comforting. And she delivers anecdotes of real women struggling with identity, like journalist Audie Cornish (even nerd celebrities can feel adrift!).

• The biggest win of all is a very clear demand for updated rhetoric. I love this because it’s immediately actionable. Three terrific examples:

  • She challenges why we ask kids what do they want to be when they grow up: “It’s a bit of a strange question, given that an elementary schooler cannot fathom the options on the other side of college and graduate school. And it’s also profoundly problematic—a question that assumes every person grows up to follow one career path and that depicts a career as a state of being rather than how a person earns a living.” Even a small reframe of saying “what’s a cool job?” could do the trick here.

  • “Don’t say—don’t even think—‘I’m just a mom.’ Motherhood is intellectual and emotional work that demands creativity, organization, communication, empathy, and more.” A THOUSAND TIMES YES. For starters, this is insulting to my own mother, who managed to be a million things at once in our family: nurturer, teacher, decorator, seamstress, party planner and - last but not least - a co-CFO/financial wizard who paid for three daughters’ 12 years of private schools, college and weddings on one income. Everyday at 5pm I think “I cannot believe my mom made dinner every. single. day. HOW?!?!” Personally, I have been saying “I downshifted into part-time work after I had Eliza, and now I’m looking to ramp up again.”

  • Ban “dependent” from marriage conversation. We should talk about marriages as “interdependent,” which is both true and healthy.

So why the disappointment?

The promise of the book’s title - The Power Pause: How to Plan a Career Break After Kids--and Come Back Stronger - is not fulfilled. Contrast that with a more nuanced definition in the text:

“A power pause is your chance to discover who you are for the long haul, and to build an even more robust, nuanced, and sustainable identity in which no single role—paid or unpaid—dominates.”

I agree that a sustainable identity is not one single role, for anyone, not just mothers. But I take issue with “power pause” because a pause means there’s a return. Ruch goes on to contextualize her meaning:

“Pausing your career is not like pausing a Netflix show—the goal is not to eventually press play and pick up right where you left off, as if no time has passed.”

But what if that IS the goal? Why aren’t women allowed to think that picking up where you left off is possible? Although Ruch attributes the cause of tension between motherhood and career as the patriarchy in the beginning, she largely ignores addressing that bigger issue in drawing conclusions.

“Should you list this title on LinkedIn? Probably not. But you can write it down in your journal, post it on your refrigerator or bathroom mirror, or list it in your Instagram bio—and then see what magic transpires.”

You cannot tell women to subsist on magic.

Maybe an optimistic riff on this sentiment is something like “be the change you wish to see in the world.” But that means challenging the system from within, not just figuring out how to make peace with the decision to opt out of it. For women who do want to return to full-time work, she offers:

“Getting over the fear of future unemployability is as much about learning to package yourself for the job market as it is about developing a fervent belief in your abilities.”

This direction is not enough. This is a big reason for Lean In backlash: telling women to pull up their bootstraps instead of addressing systemic problems like inadequate childcare, inequitable household labor, and unequal pay. Why tell women that all they have to do is believe in themselves to reenter the job market, when there is zero evidence to support that? She knows it’s not enough, or she wouldn’t be so blunt about being thoughtful about choosing organizations to join after a career pause. On this topic, Ruch writes:

“That’s something you can’t negotiate—respect for parental responsibilities either exists in an organization or it doesn’t, and it will make your transition back to the workforce a whole lot easier if you don’t have to hide who and what you care about, or where your priorities are.”

It’s not that I disagree with this. It’s totally true. I’m not rooting for women to enter hostile environments. But shouldn’t the goal be that all organizations respect parental responsibilities? That’s when women and men could take career pauses and actually come back stronger than ever.

That reality feels really distant. And feeling that way brings me back to reading Anne Marie Slaughter’s book, Unfinished Business. Which remains a contemporary title, a decade later.