Why We all Need a Dave Goldberg to ‘have it all’ as Women?
It is with great sadness we hear about Dave Goldberg, Sheryl Sandberg’s husband’s passing away.
We have heard so much about Dave Goldberg. Not as much as the CEO of SurveyMonkey but more so as the spouse of the famous COO of Facebook and Lean-In champion, Sheryl Sandberg. I see Dave Goldberg as the man who could make ‘Lean-In’ possible and as a huge advocate for women by not preaching it but practicing.
As Sheryl Sandberg acknowledges fully, it would have been impossible for her to be so committed to her job without her husband’s full support. He spent time with the kids every evening according to his colleagues. What I admire about Dave Goldberg is that he took equal responsibility to take care of his children and be supportive of his wife’s career.
It is not just about taking care of the kids. You need your spouse’s emotional support to do well and push forward. We need the encouragement and support to be able to not only keep our commitments but do it well without feeling the guilt of a neglected child at home. This is why we all need a ‘Dave Goldberg’ in every woman’s life.
I am very fortunate that my husband has always been supportive of me and my husband supports me in every which way possible. There have been innumerable occasions when he has helped me out.
Having worked in corporate environments in IBM, Oracle, Sun and a number of other startups and mid sized companies, I have gone through the entire work-life balance issues.
As a programmer or manager of software products, releasing a product required some marathon hours. For no matter, what we did, there was always something that needed a last minute effort. In these times, I needed to stay with my team to keep them motivated. I never believed in remote management as a team leader. My husband always responded and picked up our boys to take care of them.
My husband has been my sounding board and personal advisor. While I am emotional and can get very caught up in the moment, he is more mature and sees it better from a more detached angle.
We are equal partners in raising our children. I am the ‘chef de cuisine‘ at home and the kids will always look to me for their meals, he has been the one who taught them everything from Chess to Electronics to Swimming and more. Our home has always had Science experiments brewing cultivating their curiosity and their fertile minds.
We all need a ‘Dave Goldberg’ in our lives to flourish and enjoy what we do, getting the support we need to create a balanced life for our families. Thanks to Dave Goldberg for being a role model. I am sure there are millions of Goldbergs out there who are critical to our lives!!
