Hire a Nanny

Naturally, at a women in capital markets seminar you would expect the talk to address balancing career and child rearing, and that it did. Hiring a nanny would be one of the most emphasized pieces of advice that was shared by the panel of women. One even hinted at having two nannies, one for the morning, and the other for the evening. Now, imagine the audience all made up of young women with a mountain of student debt thinking.. how can I afford a nanny? I thought I heard a couple snickers at the mention of the first ‘hire a nanny’ line, the snickering quieted down when it was obvious fairly soon that they were ALL dead serious. One of the speakers told us that if you didn’t hire a nanny you were jeopardizing your career.. well ok, she didn’t use that word.. however she did say that if you don't have a nanny, you are sending a signal to your employer that your job isn’t important enough. Daycare isn't good enough to balance work and career. Well, I don’t have to worry about nannies for a while, and I won’t go into my opinion on the topic.
All in all, it was a very informative session. All the women that attended worked in capital markets, and at one point in time were investment bankers, traders. Interestingly, their backgrounds were so diverse. One woman did her undergrad in german (the language); another was a genetic scientist! However they all did have either a business undergrad, mba and/or designations and were extremely qualified. They had a mingle session after the talk, but I wasn’t in the mood to really chit chat. My mind couldn’t come up with any questions to ask as they had already told us about themselves, and the thought of talking about (read: selling) myself wasn’t appealing. A shame really because the ratio of women professionals to women students was 2:1!! Hopefully, I will feel more up to it the next time. I really do enjoy hearing people talk about their career path. It always re-emphasizes the fact that there is never one path to success, and that it is always a mix of preparation and luck.