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If you properly Lean In, you'll turn into Sheryl Sandberg, or one of the power women featured on her website, if you don't, then you'll (maybe) end up like the sad women featured in this week's New York Times Magazine story by Judith Warner that continues the tradition of magazine stories about women in general, based on a few women's stories. The "opt-out" generation, as featured in a Times Magazine story by Lisa Belkin ten years ago, did everything the Facebook COO warns against, by dropping out of the work force and choosing motherhood over a career. "I don't want to be on the fast track leading to a partnership at a prestigious law firm,'' said one of these women, who left that exact track to stay at home with her kids. ''Some people define that as success. I don't.'' Now, ten years later, some of those women are getting divorced and struggling professionally — just like Sandberg warned.

"When woman work outside the home and share breadwinning duties, couples are more likely to stay together. In fact, the risk of divorce reduces by about half when a wife earns half the income and a husband does half the housework," Sandberg wrote, urging women to stay committed to their careers. A few of the poster women for the "opt-out" generation now find themselves in or approaching that situation. Sheilah O’Donnel, who left a lucrative career at Oracle, divorced her husband in part because of the tensions of her dependence on him. Carrie Chimerine Irvin, who has attempted to add work back into her life after years of being a mom, finds herself neglecting her husband. "I think a big issue is that we both want to be taken care of at the end of the day, and neither of us has any energy to take care of the other," she said.