This is a post mainly for those professionals who are passionate about their careers and are considering having children but wonder/worry what impact it might have on their life and their career. I’m going to talk about my own experience finding an identity as a working mother over the past year. Remember that your mileage may vary — there is no telling what you’re going to feel when you have a child and how that will impact your life and your feelings about work.

This was one of my biggest concerns before Adam and I decided to get pregnant, and, unfortunately, the women I talked to about being a parent didn’t fill me with confidence that I’d be able to balance work and family well. I heard from women who told me that they’d become less ambitious once they had children; women who hated leaving their child at daycare but didn’t have a choice; women who worked 9-to-5, took care of their children and never did anything else; women who could count on one hand the number of times they spent alone time with their spouse in years; and women who chose to stay home with their children. Since Adam and I both had mothers who stayed home with us, we didn’t have many exemplars of mothers who successfully and happily balanced work and family. My mother was actually horrified at first that I was going to send Reed to a daycare. I felt like I couldn’t win.

My biggest worry when I had Reed was that I would want to stay home with him forever when that simply wasn’t financially feasible. I was envious of my former colleague (who had her baby a week before I did) who decided to quit her job and stay home with her daughter. I felt like I would miss so much time with my son and wouldn’t be able to bond with him as well. While, at first, it was hard to comprehend being away from him, I am so glad that I go to work and that he goes to daycare.

A good daycare is one of the best things for a child’s social development. When I get the chance to watch Reed at daycare, I see all of the opportunities he has to learn about sharing, about interacting with other children and adults, about bonding with people other than his parents, and about social play. Just today, I saw him and a little girl trying to play with the same toy — learning how to deal with this simply isn’t something he’s going to get from being home all day, and (most) playgroups are often play mediated by mothers. I’m fortunate that Reed immediately took to being in daycare when we started him in it at 4 months — he’s an incredibly social and high-energy little boy, so being around different people perfectly suits his personality. I very quickly felt comfortable leaving Reed at daycare, because I didn’t feel like it was a second-best/no-other-choice option for childcare — I really do think he’s better off there. That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with staying home with your child; this is just what works for us.

I also realized that I need my identity as a professional. I like going to work, interacting with adults and working on projects. I like giving talks, writing articles and taking part in professional conversations. While I think about Reed when I’m at work, I don’t wish I was home with him. Any concerns I had about my losing my ambitions after having a child went out the window shortly after going back to work. My priorities have not changed. Family was always first — I chose not to write a second book a few years ago because I didn’t want to put such a burden on my husband in taking care of the household. I’m still passionate about my work and it’s just as important to me as it was before. I think the only thing that’s changed is how I manage my time. I don’t have the luxury of coming home from work and writing a blog post or working on an article — I have a sweet little boy play with, feed, bathe and put to bed (and, frankly, I wouldn’t trade that time with him for anything, no matter how tired I am when I get home). I have to find little pieces of time here and there (naps, after Reed goes to bed, Monday mornings since I work a night reference shift, etc.) and obviously can’t do as much as I used to. But I’ve lost none of the passion I had before for technology and our profession.

With all of the (bad) advice being thrown at new mothers, it can be incredibly difficult to find your identity as a mother. I found that many mothers were all about guilt-trips and one-upsmanship. You don’t use cloth diapers? You don’t breastfeed exclusively? You feed your child baby food from a jar? You leave your child with someone else so you and your husband can spend some alone time together? I got the sense from reading books, articles, and (especially) discussion boards that my entire life should revolve around my child since one wrong choice could have terrible consequences, and that having a child would require me to be completely selfless and put my own desires at the bottom of the pile. And I bought into it for a while.

The hardest thing about the first few months after having Reed was letting go of all the expectations I put on myself because I thought that was how a mother was supposed to be. I made myself so miserable trying to be someone I’m not and trying to do things that simply weren’t working for any of us because I thought I had to. Part of it was crazy post-pregnancy hormones and postpartum depression (an issue I never talked to anyone about at the time other than my doctor and my husband), but I feel strongly that a lot of it was my unwillingness to let go of this idea that I had to martyr myself to my child’s needs. I have to wonder how much postpartum depression is caused by these unrealistic expectations people have for themselves as new mothers and what happens when their expectations don’t mesh with the reality.

If anything, I’m more selfish now than I was before having a child. I’m very protective of my time and say “no” to doing a lot of things that I would have said “yes” to a year ago. I work hard to ensure that my husband and I make our relationship a priority, even if it means leaving my precious child with his grandparents while we spend a night at a hotel (which is exactly what we’re doing this Sunday — woo hoo!). And I do things for myself or buy things for myself that make me happy. I realized after that very scary episode with postpartum depression (my first major depressive episode since I was 19) that I need to make myself happy to be a good mother to Reed. Happy mommy = happy baby. So I’ve learned how to balance taking care of me and my marriage with taking care of my little boy. And judging by how happy and mellow he is most of the time, I’d say I’m doing an o.k. job at it.

I’ll also say that having a good work/family/fun balance depends greatly on having a supportive partner (with an emphasis on the word partner). My husband is a partner in every sense of the word — we parent and take care of the house 50-50. He is so wonderful with Reed and there’s nothing I enjoy more than watching Reed climb on his dad and seeing the smiles they both have when they look into each other’s eyes. Without Adam, I can’t imagine making this all work. Thanks hon!

I wish someone had told me all these things when I was thinking about having a child. Yes, you can still be ambitious in your career — you may have to spend less time speaking at conferences and writing books, but you don’t have to give it up altogether. It’s not only ok for you to send your child to daycare, but it might actually be the best thing for him or her. You can be selfish and still be a good mother. If you decide to get an extra hour of sleep instead of making your child’s baby food yourself, he or she won’t be irrevocably scarred by eating food from a jar. That what’s most important is that your child is loved and well cared-for and so many of the other things you think are important when you read baby books or magazine articles really aren’t.

So if you’re on the fence about having a child because you feel like you might have to give up being who you are, realize that choice is up to you. You can still be the passionate, hard-working professional you are and be a great parent — the only thing you’ll absolutely have to change is how you allocate your time. I also wish that someone had told me how much fun it is to have a child. Everyone tells you it’ll change your life, you’ll never sleep again, you’ll never go out to the movies again, etc., but you never hear enough about the awesomeness of parenthood. Reed is really the most fun person I’ve ever known and I treasure every minute I spend with him. I feel so lucky to be his mom. Parenthood isn’t for everyone, but it’s a far more fun and awesome adventure than I’d ever expected.

A lot of people have written about Clay Shirky’s post “A rant about women” and I’m here to give my two cents FWIW. First of all, who in their right mind entitles a post “A Rant about women”? While he made some valid points in his post, the title and his gross over-generalizations really made it difficult to see anything good in the post. Shirky describes his concern that “not enough women have what it takes to behave like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks” like the men he sees taking his classes. He feels that people who lie, who are narcissistic, who promote themselves aggressively are the people who are going to be successful, and women just aren’t willing to do that. According to him, “there is no upper limit to the risks men are willing to take in order to succeed, and if there is an upper limit for women, they will succeed less.”

I guess I see a difference between risk-taking and compromising one’s values. I’m not a liar. I’m not a jerk (at least I don’t think I am). I won’t use people to get ahead like I’ve seen a couple of people do even in our profession. And yet I’ve had great success in my field, far beyond what seems reasonable given my limited years of experience. How did I achieve that success? By doing good work and taking risks. I’m not an aggressive person. I suck at asking for money and advocating for myself. I never overstate my qualifications. I’m just one of the many, many, many people in the profession who have good ideas and an interesting way of presenting them. The one thing that sets me apart from many of the other people out there with great ideas is that I’m not afraid to put myself out there and face possible rejection or failure. i have enough chutzpah to suggest to the head of ALA’s publishing wing that he give me a column in American Libraries since the worst thing that will happen is that he’ll say no. I write blog posts talking about how much I’d like to teach for an LIS program since the worst thing that will happen is that no one will be interested. I don’t risk incarceration or my con being discovered (as Shirky describes); I just risk my heart. And that seems to be enough.

The simple fact is, I’m not willing to compromise my values to get ahead. And if that makes me weak, if that holds me back, so be it. I’d rather go to bed at night feeling good about myself and knowing that the people I like like me too. Compromising my values would keep me up at night and would make me worry that I’d be found out (is impostor syndrome still called impostor syndrome if you are, in fact, an impostor?). There are lots of things I wouldn’t do to get ahead. I wouldn’t take a job I know I wouldn’t like but that would pay really well and would be a huge boost for my career (and, in fact, I turned down a job just like that a couple of years ago). I wouldn’t take a job in an area my husband would hate or where I wouldn’t feel safe raising my child. I would not be a happy person if I wasn’t true to who I am.

Where I agree with Shirky is that self-promotion and risk-taking are important skills that women too often lack. I barely spoke in class in college until I took a course called Women and the American Experience, which was entirely populated by other women. For once, I felt comfortable expressing myself and realized that my ideas were actually pretty good. I hate that Shirky seems to think that confidence or the ability to promote onesself are male traits. That’s B.S. I don’t think confidence is something born to men and not to women; I think it’s something that we learn (or not) along the way through our families, the education system and society. However, whether we are naturally confident self-promoting risk-takers or not, the fact is that we need to be to be successful. I know so many talented women who are afraid to put themselves in a position where they might fail or be humiliated. However, I also know a lot of men like this too. Men who are uncomfortable fighting for themselves or for their ideas. One of my colleagues has given two talks in the 2 1/2 years since getting his first professional position; both of which I arranged for him. He’s a smart cookie and a great speaker, but he just doesn’t put himself out there. This isn’t just a gender issue; it’s an issue for a lot of talented individuals out there who don’t seem to realize that they’re as awesome as they are.

Another thing that really bothers me about Shirky’s post is that he seems to reward jerky self-aggrandizing behavior. If you think there’s something wrong with the system as it is and you’re in a position of power, wouldn’t it make sense to change it? How about encouraging and trying to build up talented women in your classes so they feel more comfortable promoting themselves? I was very lucky to have a mentor like Roy Tennant, who believes in nurturing and promoting young, talented individuals in the profession. He has given me so much great advice and encouragement that I likely wouldn’t be where I am today without his wise counsel. He is a well-known and respected librarian and uses his position to promote people around him. I completely agree with danah boyd who writes -

We need men as allies, men who both encourage women to speak up and who consciously choose to spotlight women who are talented. But, more importantly, we need men (and anyone with privilege) to consciously and conscientiously account for their own privilege and biases and to actively work to highlight and embrace diverse voices of all kinds. Your interpretation of others is just as (if not more) important in creating change as their efforts to impress you. The privileged cannot expect the disenfranchised to assimilate, as tempting as that may be. And even if that were possible, it wouldn’t give us the society we want anyhow.

I’ve used my limited success to promote others who I think are awesome — both male and female. Some of these people would be great self-promoters on their own and others just aren’t comfortable in that role. Like Roy, I’m trying to create the sort of world I want to live in, where people are judged more by their talent than by their ability to promote themselves.

I think Clay Shirky’s thinking — his promotion of basically being a d-bag — is just the sort of thinking that on Wall Street got us into the global financial crisis. Because it was a system that rewards “self-promoting narcissists” who make risky decisions for short-term personal gain that created this whole mess. And while most of those same people who created that mess are still making their $500,000 (or more) bonuses and can sleep at night just fine, I couldn’t. And, frankly, I’m glad about that. I’m glad that I have a moral compass. Are those the kind of values you want to promote in your profession? In your world? I refuse to bend so much to the world around me that I become someone I can’t respect; I’d rather try to make the world bend to my values. We can change things, bit by bit.