I am a semi-retired journalist in a different male-dominated field: financial technology rankings and reviews. In my tiny little niche, I was one of the very first, writing a piece ranking online brokers in 1992. Then I worked for Barron’s as a freelancer for 23 years, and founded their online broker ranking series. After I left, it was turned over to a man. I was on staff at Investopedia 2018-2020 and when I left, the job was turned over to a bunch of men since no single person could do what I had been doing.
Your comments about releasing things that do not serve you are so spot on. I managed to find a good balance between my family and my work, having started my writing career in my mid-30s when my youngest was 3 years old. I made a list of all the things I had been doing around the house while holding down a full-time job with my office in my home, and handed it to my husband saying, “I will take 5 or 6 of these. Could you take 5 or 6, and we will hire out the rest or just let them go.” That system worked and is still working today, more than 30 years later, with our kids grown and gone.
There is a lot of good advice here, relevant at so many stages of life. As I am getting older (76 now), I find I can’t continue to “do everything” without exhausting myself. Since cooking and reading are joys in my life, I have to get help with some of the things I used to be able to tackle on my own to make sure I can continue to do these things I love with joy.
My Christmas present to myself was The Secret of Cooking by Bee Wilson, which I am reading like a novel, not for the recipes but for her attitude about enjoying yourself in your kitchen. It’s a lovely book that was a brave undertaking when you learn the backstory of how it came to be written.
What a wonderful bit of advice. I’m sending it along to my daughter and the other young mothers I know. And now that I think about it, I’ll also send it to the young women without children. And the young men as well! And come to think of it also to those of us who are perhaps past that age but still getting up every morning thinking about how to live our lives...thank you and happy new year!
I worked in the guest services industry at one time and I remember the GM telling me about a friend of his who had lost his wife and had to do all the things necessary to raise his children and work too. He was in awe of this man and said, "Can you imagine?" Well...yes. Good speech.
I read La Briffe not just to learn about food but to learn about how to live a good life. Thank you for today’s edition and for all of them throughout the year!!
Loved this post. Thank you! You articulated women's struggle so well. When I was in my thirties, I worked for a very well respected tech company, and after my (long-awaited) daughter was born I was promoted while I was on maternity leave. (No interview, just a phone call to tell me "Congratulations! You now have the Americas, not just the U.S. Please find some time to hire four regional managers" I loved my job, but was quickly strung out by the conflict. When I decided I wanted to leave, my boss proposed that we try a job share, and it was approved, and it was better. But pretty soon, they treated us like two people working full time (two brains! Two different people to go to two different meetings scheduled for the same time! And for half price! What a deal!) For them. We were able to push back but only because we pushed back. That's when I learned the lesson (immortalized by Anne Lamott, maybe?) that "No." can be a complete sentence. Thank you Ruth! Also loved your interview with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Cheers~!
They are, indeed, the real deal. Susan posted this on Instagram and I think it's worth sharing:
"How the hell did Susan and I do all that? And the Café hours? Breakfast, lunch and dinner – till midnight or 1am?!?
It almost feels superhuman in retrospect. No walk in, 10’X10’ kitchen with almost no storage except the crawl space above the only bathroom accessed by a ladder. We made all the pates and pastries by hand in that tiny kitchen. And gave up the parking space to house 3 or 4 home refrigerators in a shed. It didn’t matter because we only drove Honda scooters to and from work. I Bungie corded a huge sack of dirty uniforms to my body on my day off to scooter to the laundromat – or if I was feeling flush, I had the fluff and fold launder them for $1/lb.
Yep! Those were the days. OK….. now I sound like an old lady."
I'd like to add that the comments (especially from other chefs) on Susan's IG account make excellent reading.
I started teaching when my daughter was 4 and she was in my class so we "went to school" together. Three years later I was still sorting (judging!) the moms of my 3-5 year old students as "working mom" or not, and... all of the sudden I realized "I am (me! I am!) a working mom!" Funny, right? That certainly upped my empathy for the women I saw every day, making hard decisions - I realized I'd been walking the same difficult balance beam and feeling the same unadmitted guilt. I took the opportunity to tell to parents - most of the time they came as a couple to the regular conferences - that I understood and feeling guilty didn't help anyone, and that loving our children sometimes means letting go of perfectionism! P.S. Happily, my husband took over the kitchen and my parents picked up my daughter when I had meetings and our mutual attachment is still sustained.
Regarding your hiring practice as a manager, I have always felt if I was the smartest, best, strongest person then why was I hiring these other folks? I also finally learned to not just ask for opinions and ideas, but not to express my own. I learned to state the problem which needed to be solved and then listen to how other people, with other perspectives and other experiences, and who I hired because they were smarter and better than me, came up with better solutions I would never have imagined. Very liberating. Love your stuff.
Honestly, this is the post I didn't know I needed in my life. I'm grateful for the reminder of the load motherhood bears and how wonderful letting go of guilt can be. I can't look back at a career in this industry and feel sadness that I wan't at home. I'll embrace, instead, the joy of the weekend I cooked in the Dean and DeLucca basement kitchen supporting my friend and honoree chef prepping for a James Beard dinner. And, City Cafe! What a happy place with incredible flavors. I'm grateful to have entertained clients in their skinny space. Thank you. Thank you. I'll read this again. And again.
Thank you for this advice, which I will share with all the young women in my life. Unlike the woman in your audience who said she didn't want to be you, I always wanted to be like you and admired your boldness and honesty.
Ruth, thank you so much for this post, I really needed to hear a strong woman tell me I can let go of a few things and still be fantastic. I'd forgotten that for a while and I'll keeep this advice with me in 2024. We all need to allow ourselves not just forgiveness but some grace--love, empathy, and acceptance. Happy Ner Year to and all of us strong busy fabulous women!
I am a semi-retired journalist in a different male-dominated field: financial technology rankings and reviews. In my tiny little niche, I was one of the very first, writing a piece ranking online brokers in 1992. Then I worked for Barron’s as a freelancer for 23 years, and founded their online broker ranking series. After I left, it was turned over to a man. I was on staff at Investopedia 2018-2020 and when I left, the job was turned over to a bunch of men since no single person could do what I had been doing.
Your comments about releasing things that do not serve you are so spot on. I managed to find a good balance between my family and my work, having started my writing career in my mid-30s when my youngest was 3 years old. I made a list of all the things I had been doing around the house while holding down a full-time job with my office in my home, and handed it to my husband saying, “I will take 5 or 6 of these. Could you take 5 or 6, and we will hire out the rest or just let them go.” That system worked and is still working today, more than 30 years later, with our kids grown and gone.
There is a lot of good advice here, relevant at so many stages of life. As I am getting older (76 now), I find I can’t continue to “do everything” without exhausting myself. Since cooking and reading are joys in my life, I have to get help with some of the things I used to be able to tackle on my own to make sure I can continue to do these things I love with joy.
My Christmas present to myself was The Secret of Cooking by Bee Wilson, which I am reading like a novel, not for the recipes but for her attitude about enjoying yourself in your kitchen. It’s a lovely book that was a brave undertaking when you learn the backstory of how it came to be written.
Happy New Year to you and to Bee Wilson!
Such a poignant reminder of the need for balance in life. Thank you.
And accepting balancing!
You can publish that speech every year! It hits all the points. Thank you. And for the cheese toasts as well.
What a wonderful bit of advice. I’m sending it along to my daughter and the other young mothers I know. And now that I think about it, I’ll also send it to the young women without children. And the young men as well! And come to think of it also to those of us who are perhaps past that age but still getting up every morning thinking about how to live our lives...thank you and happy new year!
I worked in the guest services industry at one time and I remember the GM telling me about a friend of his who had lost his wife and had to do all the things necessary to raise his children and work too. He was in awe of this man and said, "Can you imagine?" Well...yes. Good speech.
This poignant and consummate advice will never be outdated. You hit the ball out of the park!
Happy New Year Ruth!!
I read La Briffe not just to learn about food but to learn about how to live a good life. Thank you for today’s edition and for all of them throughout the year!!
Loved this post. Thank you! You articulated women's struggle so well. When I was in my thirties, I worked for a very well respected tech company, and after my (long-awaited) daughter was born I was promoted while I was on maternity leave. (No interview, just a phone call to tell me "Congratulations! You now have the Americas, not just the U.S. Please find some time to hire four regional managers" I loved my job, but was quickly strung out by the conflict. When I decided I wanted to leave, my boss proposed that we try a job share, and it was approved, and it was better. But pretty soon, they treated us like two people working full time (two brains! Two different people to go to two different meetings scheduled for the same time! And for half price! What a deal!) For them. We were able to push back but only because we pushed back. That's when I learned the lesson (immortalized by Anne Lamott, maybe?) that "No." can be a complete sentence. Thank you Ruth! Also loved your interview with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Cheers~!
Thanks for the Mary Sue and Susan memory. They are the real deal in so many ways. I adore them both.
They are, indeed, the real deal. Susan posted this on Instagram and I think it's worth sharing:
"How the hell did Susan and I do all that? And the Café hours? Breakfast, lunch and dinner – till midnight or 1am?!?
It almost feels superhuman in retrospect. No walk in, 10’X10’ kitchen with almost no storage except the crawl space above the only bathroom accessed by a ladder. We made all the pates and pastries by hand in that tiny kitchen. And gave up the parking space to house 3 or 4 home refrigerators in a shed. It didn’t matter because we only drove Honda scooters to and from work. I Bungie corded a huge sack of dirty uniforms to my body on my day off to scooter to the laundromat – or if I was feeling flush, I had the fluff and fold launder them for $1/lb.
Yep! Those were the days. OK….. now I sound like an old lady."
I'd like to add that the comments (especially from other chefs) on Susan's IG account make excellent reading.
I started teaching when my daughter was 4 and she was in my class so we "went to school" together. Three years later I was still sorting (judging!) the moms of my 3-5 year old students as "working mom" or not, and... all of the sudden I realized "I am (me! I am!) a working mom!" Funny, right? That certainly upped my empathy for the women I saw every day, making hard decisions - I realized I'd been walking the same difficult balance beam and feeling the same unadmitted guilt. I took the opportunity to tell to parents - most of the time they came as a couple to the regular conferences - that I understood and feeling guilty didn't help anyone, and that loving our children sometimes means letting go of perfectionism! P.S. Happily, my husband took over the kitchen and my parents picked up my daughter when I had meetings and our mutual attachment is still sustained.
Regarding your hiring practice as a manager, I have always felt if I was the smartest, best, strongest person then why was I hiring these other folks? I also finally learned to not just ask for opinions and ideas, but not to express my own. I learned to state the problem which needed to be solved and then listen to how other people, with other perspectives and other experiences, and who I hired because they were smarter and better than me, came up with better solutions I would never have imagined. Very liberating. Love your stuff.
Honestly, this is the post I didn't know I needed in my life. I'm grateful for the reminder of the load motherhood bears and how wonderful letting go of guilt can be. I can't look back at a career in this industry and feel sadness that I wan't at home. I'll embrace, instead, the joy of the weekend I cooked in the Dean and DeLucca basement kitchen supporting my friend and honoree chef prepping for a James Beard dinner. And, City Cafe! What a happy place with incredible flavors. I'm grateful to have entertained clients in their skinny space. Thank you. Thank you. I'll read this again. And again.
Thank you for this advice, which I will share with all the young women in my life. Unlike the woman in your audience who said she didn't want to be you, I always wanted to be like you and admired your boldness and honesty.
A lovely speech from your wisdom- “take a bite and let it go”, do your best at what you”, BE KIND! Thank you. Happy New Year. The best is yet to come.
Ruth, thank you so much for this post, I really needed to hear a strong woman tell me I can let go of a few things and still be fantastic. I'd forgotten that for a while and I'll keeep this advice with me in 2024. We all need to allow ourselves not just forgiveness but some grace--love, empathy, and acceptance. Happy Ner Year to and all of us strong busy fabulous women!