I can see being shaken up by something like that, especially as a new mother. But what Meghan is describing is exactly what most people who work would have to do in the same situation: the baby’s fine, everyone else is fine, you’re in the middle of a tightly scheduled and high profile business trip so - back to work you go.
I think career ambition is great, for both men and women, but often the more ambitious you are, and the more successful you become, the more your time is no longer your own. Meghan’s definition of ambition seems to include aiming for the sort of success that lets you take a step back or change course whenever you want. But I don’t think that’s how things work for the majority of ambitious people, and it’s definitely not how things work for the British RF.
In itself this topic of ambitious women is a great start of her podcast; i would indeed say that ambitious men also do get their share of criticism but Meghan is well known for taking the women's angle to a story, and that is fine, every podcast has it's target demographic.
And the story about the fire/smoke scare could really have been a great example of the difficulties that an ambitious woman faces, like you mention above, your intuition is to go home check on your family, but you can't always do that, certainly not when very quickly it is clear that nothing actual dangerous happened, everybody is unharmed (not even been in danger at all),the situation has been dealt with by people who work for you or who help you, and sometimes then indeed you go do on with your ambition...because people expect you too, people depend on you, people need you to take a first step...whatever reason.
It would have been great, and very relatable, if she had told the story like "we had a scare, as a mom i really wanted to be with my kid, but i knew people were expecting me, had been waiting for me to visit them, so after i made sure, double double sure, that my kid was okay, i did the engagement anyway, and it warmed my heart to talk to people, some turned out to have experienced something similar..." etc etc "...but was i glad to see my boy again that night.."
If Serena Williams played a US Open final, and a few hours before she got a family call "there has been an issue, it has been handled, no oneis hurt"...do you think the organisation would postpone the final for her? I think not, she would either play, or give up, making her opponent the winner.
But Meghan seems to have focused on the story that others 'made' her do the engagement, nasty people against a 'poor little vulnerable me that couldn't do anything about it' (my words, as it comes across).
i've met a lot of ambitious people in life, men and women, but one thing they all had in common is i rarely heard a 'take pity on me' story from any of them...
While i'm writing this i remember a situation about 10 years ago wheni worked in a company that due to reorganisation had the employees worried they would loose their jobs. Lot of fuss, lot of worry, lot of gossip, until the company decided to organise an all employee meeting so everybody could talk about their worries, fears and anger, and someone high up in the company would tell them what would happen (in the end it turned out no one got fired). All planned in advance, so everybody (who wanted) could attend.
Well this person who would answer all the questions kept the people waiting for almost half an hour (people fretting even more) then showed up late and just said 'well i had to have breakfast with my family', and then sat back with a bored face, and only half listened.
Such a person might think they were criticised for being ambitious or 'high up in the organisation', but that wasn't the reason..
