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Pressure Proof
Strategies and stories for busy, complicated lives.
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Paula Davis-Laack, J.D., M.A.P.P., is a stress management and work/life performance expert providing strategies for a healthier, more resilient you.
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Current Issue
The High Art of Handling Problem People
How to handle difficult people.
Men dont have the option
Men don't have the option of burning out. Women do; they can always, with great societal defensibility, shift over to childbearing and childrearings.
You cannot imagine the number of women with graduate degrees that gather by the swings in Brooklyn's Prospect Park every warm afternoon. Burnout? Maybe. But no doubt that actually spending time with your offspring and watching them grow is consistently more rewarding and interesting than any climb-up-the-ladder white collar borefest.
Workplaces need to step up or lose talent
Good for these enterprising and independent women. America is way behind the rest of the world in creating family-friendly workplaces. People are not just machines and when you can't bring your whole personhood into the boardroom, you lose vitality and creativity. Small business is a great answer and the issue the country needs to grapple with is healthcare for these innovators.
*Behind* the rest of the world?
Outrage mounts as Forbes Woman tries to export Millennial Burnout Syndrome (MBS) globally(!):
The point of work is to provide goods and services to sell in a competitive marketplace, not to provide “work-life balance” to privileged females who are obsessed with their pointless careers fashioning paper-clip sculptures at Encorpera.
Not one or the other
I don't see work-life balance and creating valuable goods and services as being in opposition. It's not only how many hours you work, but how much passion, positive energy, and creativity you put into it. The more you bring yourself as a whole person into the workplace, the better relationships you build the more you can support others. Being able to create and innovate is a privilege, as many jobs are boring. However, doing a boring job with a feeling of connection to your colleagues and workplace and a desire to do your best because of good relationships is also what this is about. And not only privileged women are taking this stand. There are a whole bunch of mothers out there who make financial and personal sacrifices, do their work after 10pm and all weekend and put their families and work responsibilities before their own needs.
Yes, but
The "frequent new challenges" that high achieving women seek might also to be a contributing factor to "burnout", as you point out. Maybe some of these women don't know what they really want. But that's what experience does. It teaches.
"Freedom to be themselves" would seem to be highly desirable. But how do you define and measure that freedom? And if you can't define or measure it, how can you control it?
When people are at work, their freedom is necessarily restricted. That's why it's called "work" and not "playtime". Maybe what the women are saying is that they need leisure, too.
And sorry, but I must have skipped over your definition of "burnout", too. If a woman leaves the work force, is she counted as "burnt out"? She might have "discovered a passion" or be "pregnant" or any number of other things.
Finally, I completely miss the logic leading to your final paragraph. Why is it not a problem for the women? And why does it benefit the "economy"? Are you an economist? Maybe these women will fail as entrepreneurs, too.
The title of your piece turns out to be a misleading "grabber" which is unsubstantiated by facts or logic.
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