????這段記憶至今令我感到羞愧。5年前，我來到時代公司曼哈頓總部大樓25層，去和該公司時任網站總編談一個合作意向。我在她的辦公室剛一坐下，便見到寬敞的辦公室里到處掛滿了她孩子的照片，我當時就斷定，這位總編“媽媽病”太濃，沒法跟進這個意向。

????雖然我仍陳述了自己的提案，但走出她的辦公室時，我在心里暗下決心，再也不跟她聯系了。我曾經暗自鄙視過不少身為人母者的職業道德，她不是第一個，自然也不是唯一一個。在二十五六歲年紀，我曾先后在《赫芬頓郵報》和《華盛頓郵報》擔任管理者，也是在那段時間里，我曾經傷害過不少母親，或是在別人傷害其她母親時保持沉默。

????? 有一次，我的團隊中有一位母親由于沒法陪我們喝酒喝到最后，被我悄悄投以白眼，我還質疑了她的“奉獻精神”，盡管第二天她比我們這些喝得大醉的人早兩個小時來到單位上班。

????? 曾經有一名女性編輯說，我們要趕在一名女同事懷孕之前，抓緊時間炒她的魷魚，當時我沒有表示反對。

????? 我曾經當過一次面試官，一名男性老板質問一名前來面試的三個孩子的母親：“你怎么可能既干好這份工作，又同時照顧好你的孩子們呢？”那位母親是一名頂級新聞制片人，她直視老板道：“不管你信不信，我喜歡在工作日離開我的孩子……就像你一樣。”當時我卻沒有向她報以任何鼓勵。

????? 我經常在下午4點半下班的時候召開會議。我當時沒有意識到，這些年輕的父母可能要到托兒所去接孩子。我當時一門心思只想展示我對工作的“付出”，方法就是待在辦公室里加班，哪怕我每天都拖到10點半才開始工作，而那些有孩子的父母們早上8點半就到了單位。

????對于職場母親來說，這不啻于一種千刀萬剮似的酷刑折磨——何況有時沖上來割你兩刀的還是其他女性。但我一直沒有意識到這一點，也沒有意識當時我是一個多么糟糕的人，直到五年后，我生下了自己的女兒。

????在她出生的頭一個星期，我覺得我的職場生涯徹底完了。那種感覺就像懷孕前的我對現在的我說，你已經成了一個沒用的人，因為我沒法再在辦公室里每天坐十個小時了，當然我肯定也無法再喝酒到深夜了。

????作為一個女人，當時我只有兩個選擇：一是像以前一樣回到工作中去，永遠不去照看我的孩子；二是放棄工作，甚至放棄我花了十年時間苦心經營的事業。當我看著我的小女兒的時候，我知道我不想讓她陷入像我一樣的困境。

????我讀了桑德伯格的《向前一步》，希望它能夠激勵我，但讀完后我卻更郁悶了。在我看來，書中的信息是明確的：如果你想在一個男權社會中成功，就要忍受你做出的選擇帶來的后果。我又讀了一遍安妮?瑪莉?斯勞特的《為什么女人不能擁有一切》，它只是再次描繪了另一個現實，我曾是推波助瀾者之一，直到我自己也要面對這個問題。

????休產假時，我還是NowThisNews公司（這是一家由《赫芬頓郵報》的團隊成員創辦的公司）的員工，當時這些想法在我腦中整日縈繞不去。就在那時，現在的聯合創始人米利娜?巴利找到了我。她對我說，她打算成立一家公司，專門把女性與一些可以在家工作的技術職位進行匹配。我意識到了這家公司擁有巨大的發展前景，并且可以造福未來十年踏入職場的十億女性，于是我毅然辭職，并徹底退出了新聞業。

????如果開發者的職位適合女性在家工作，那么其它領域可能很快也會跟進。通過讓女性在家工作，企業將更尊重女性的生產力價值，女性也無需花大量時間坐班，或者去酒吧參加社交活動。從此母親們就有了第三個選擇，即留在職場或部分留在職場，甚至可以進入一些工作機會非常有限的領域。

????目前適合遠程工作的工具已經齊備了，比如Slack、Jira、Skype、Trello以及Google Docs等。研究顯示，遠程工作者的工作效率甚至可能更高。另外，哈佛大學的一項研究也表明，無論是有孩子還是沒有孩子的，“千禧一代”都喜歡更高的工作靈活性。

????I still am embarrassed by this memory. Five years ago I walked into an office on the twenty-fifth floor of the Manhattan headquarters of Time Inc. (which ownsFortune.) I was there to meet with Time.com’s then managing editor and pitch a partnership idea, but once I took a seat and surveyed the endless photos of her small children spread across the airy space, I decided this editor was too much of a mother to follow up on the idea.

????I still went through with my proposal, but I walked out sure I would never talk to her again. She wasn’t the first and only mother whose work ethic I silently slandered. As a manager at The Huffington Post and then The Washington Post in my mid-twenties, I committed a long list of infractions against mothers or said nothing while I saw others do the same.

????? I secretly rolled my eyes at a mother who couldn’t make it to last minute drinks with me and my team. I questioned her “commitment” even though she arrived two hours earlier to work than me and my hungover colleagues the next day.

????? I didn’t disagree when another female editor said we should hurry up and fire another woman before she “got pregnant.”

????? I sat in a job interview where a male boss grilled a mother of three and asked her, “How in the world are you going to be able to commit to this job and all your kids at the same time?” I didn’t give her any visual encouragement when the mother – who was a top cable news producer at the time – looked at him and said, “Believe it or not, I like being away from my kids during the workday… just like you.”

????? I scheduled last minute meetings at 4:30pm all of the time. It didn’t dawn on me that parents might need to pick up their kids at daycare. I was obsessed with the idea of showing my commitment to the job by staying in the office “late” even though I wouldn’t start working until 10:30 am while parents would come in at 8:30 am.

????For mothers in the workplace, it’s death by a thousand cuts – and sometimes it’s other women holding the knives. I didn’t realize this – or how horrible I’d been – until five years later, when I gave birth to a daughter of my own.

????Within her first week, I became consumed by the idea that my career was over. It was almost as if my former self was telling me I was worthless because I wouldn’t be able to continue sitting in an office for ten hours a day. And I certainly wouldn’t be able to get drinks at the last minute.

????I was now a woman with two choices: go back to work like before and never see my baby; or pull back on my hours and give up the career I’d built over the last ten years. When I looked at my little girl, I knew I didn’t want her to feel trapped like me.

????I read Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, thinking it would motivate me. It only depressed me more. To me, the message was clear: put up with the choices made by a male-dominated work culture if you want to succeed. I re-read Anne Marie Slaughter’s piece on “Why Women Can’t Have It All.” It just painted another reality that I had contributed to until it became my own problem.

????While I was on maternity leave from NowThis News (a startup funded by members of The Huffington Post team), still wrestling with these thoughts, I was approached by my now co-founder, Milena Berry. She told me she had an idea to launch a company that would match women in technical positions they could do from home. I decided to quit my job and leave journalism, realizing this startup had enormous potential for the one billion women entering the workforce over the next ten years.

????If the developer placements worked, then other fields might follow. By enabling women to work from home, women could be valued for their productivity and not time spent sitting in an office or at a bar bonding afterwards. Mothers could have a third option that would allow them to either remain in the workforce or be a part of it even from areas with few job options.

????All the tools exist for remote work – Slack, Jira, Skype, Trello, Google Docs. Research shows remote workers can be more productive. Furthermore, millennials – with or without kids – want that flexibility, a Harvard study found.