True it is that it is Sunday morning here, but in cyberspace everyday lasts 48 hours and it’s still Saturday somewhere – hello to all my West Coast US readers!

Earlier this week, I wrote about Nigella Lawson and how she seemed real to me as a domestic goddess. Nigella is in stark contrast to Martha Stewart who is about as real to me as a set of silicone implants. I am not talking about Martha’s appearance rather her approach to domesticity. With all due respect to Martha and her followers there is no way I am spending two hours a day folding my towels and sheets so that they form colour coordinated, scented sentinels at the ready. My linen cupboard, as a place for storing functional material, is a semi-organised lucky dip.

This got me thinking about the role models I have had and the women who have been seemingly trotted out to me as role models during my life. As most of you know, I am in my 40’s. I have read various articles which place the year of my birth anywhere in the late Baby Boomer category to the early Gen X basket and if that were not already confusing enough within something called “Generation Jones”. What is Generation Jones? I regard myself as a Gen Xer but whatever the label, I am amongst that generation of women who were led to believe we could have it all. Just how we were to have it all was the $64 million question.

I have spent my working life in a male dominated industry. When I started my career there were very few women in senior power positions and those who were did not seemingly have it all. They had parts of it, but never the whole box and dice. Even now, some two decades later, the statistics are sadly lacking in terms of senior women relative to the percentage of women in the industry as a whole. I will be upfront and say that I have never placed much credence in the view that there is a glass ceiling. There are a whole lot of reasons as to why the statistics are the way they are that have nothing to do with a glass ceiling – I won’t bore you with those reasons. Let’s just say the statistics are now trending in the right direction, albeit at a pace that is certainly not hare-like.

In all fairness to my industry they have tried to grapple with the lack of senior power women. Some of the measures employed include women’s networking functions, skilling and reskilling seminars for women and even affirmative action. I will be upfront again and say I am not a fan of any of these. The answer to me lies more with a change of culture and attitude towards flexible working practices – an issue, that with an aging population, will increasingly affect women AND men. But’s that’s a whole other blog post.

Time and again, I have sat at these functions listening to these supposed power women role models and thinking that people need to keep it real. There was one female executive who was paraded as a role model who indeed had reached the dizzying heights of corporate success whilst being a mother to three children. What became evident as she spoke was that she had a passel of nannies and other paid help and a schedule that enabled her to sleep four hours a night. Whilst I am very pleased that it worked for her, how many of us can function fully on only four hours sleep a night? I know I can’t. Also how many of us can afford paid help, especially at the start of our careers?

Yet another woman who travelled the world in her corporate guise had been married three times and had the reputation of a pit bull ball breaker. After hearing her story, not only was she not someone who I wished to model myself on, but she was someone with whom I could not identify. In saying that I make no judgement call on the reasons for remarriage/divorce or the state of being divorced. All I know is that it is not something to which I aspire.

Show me a woman who has a successful career, a family, gets at least seven hours sleep a night, is involved in her family’s lives, is personable and approachable and possibly has a bit of baby spit on the shoulder of her business suit and I am on board. I appreciate that everyone is different and that the issue is quite subjective, but it’s important that we keep it real for those that are coming behind us. There is way too much spin in the world already. Maybe the lesson here is that one can’t really have it all.

Right now my hands are fully occupied juggling balls that don’t include a perfect linen cupboard. Maybe by the time the perfect cupboard comes under my radar domestic science will have evolved to a degree where I can have my colour coded scented linen sentinels at the ready in under an hour. One can only hope.