Brave, Not Perfect: An inspiring read for fans of Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg

by Reshma Saujani

Women are the ones who give away all of our “me” time to our partners and our children. But let’s be brutally honest here: we often bring this on ourselves. Could our partners pack the diaper bag and make the kids’ breakfast and make arrangements with the babysitter? Absolutely. Will they do it exactly the way we want them to? Probably not. But if we assume they won’t do it 100 percent right, we figure we’ll just do it our damn selves. A national survey designed by the Families and Work Institute revealed that much of the time pressure women deal with is self-imposed because they have trouble delegating or letting go of control.

Reminder

Dads, for the most part, don’t feel that same pressure. They don’t feel the same soul-crushing guilt if they don’t nail the parenting minutia, because they never aimed for that perfection marker in the first place. I laugh every time I see the Pedigree Dentastix commercial featuring a young dad supervising his very messy toddler eating in the high chair. The child ends up with food all over his face, so the dad runs out of the room to get a wet towel to clean him up. By the time he gets back, the family dog has licked the baby’s face clean. Dad pauses, assesses the situation, then shrugs and cheerfully responds, “That’ll work.”

Dad

“The work here isn’t to figure out why they didn’t like you, or who’s right and who’s wrong,” Rha told me. “It’s to practice being okay with the idea that there are some people who will get you and some people who won’t . . . and that’s fine.”

If you failed, it means you tried. If you tried, it means you took a risk. Celebrate the fact that you put yourself out there and dared to go for it. That’s damn brave, woman! Take time to honor that. Celebrate the fact that you got a result, even if it wasn’t the result you’d hoped for, because it means you saw something through to its conclusion and can now pivot to your next move.