Karoline Leavitt announced this week that she’s stepping down as White House press secretary at the end of the month, and the reason she gave was that she wants to spend more time with her kids. Fine. Maybe that’s true. But I’ve heard this exact line so many times from so many people leaving so many high-powered jobs that I’ve started keeping a mental tally, and it almost never holds up once you look at it closely.
Think about how this actually plays out. Someone gets forced out, or sees the job about to blow up in their face, and within hours a statement goes out that reads like the same ghostwriter wrote every single one. “I’ve decided to step down to focus on my family.” “This wasn’t an easy decision, but my kids need me.” It’s not really a resignation, it’s a script, and everyone in the building knows it’s a script, and somehow we all nod along anyway.
Here’s what bugs me about it. The excuse only ever shows up from people who could have chosen “family time” at any point during the job and didn’t. Nobody spends eighteen months doing eighty-hour weeks in a role that requires being camera-ready and combative on live television every day, then suddenly discovers parenthood the week reporters start asking uncomfortable questions. If the kids mattered that much, the math would’ve caught up sooner than this.
I get why it’s the go-to line, though. It’s basically unassailable. You can’t push back on someone for wanting to be a parent without sounding like a monster, so reporters ask one soft follow-up and move on, and the real reason stays buried under a headline about priorities. Burnout. A boss about to throw you under the bus. It’s a great exit strategy. It’s just not usually the truth, or at least not the whole truth.
And look, sometimes it probably is true. People do burn out. People do miss their kids. I’m not saying everyone who says this is lying. I’m saying the phrase has been used as cover so often, by so many people in so many industries, that it’s basically lost all meaning. It’s the corporate and political version of “it’s not you, it’s me.” Technically possible. Almost never the real story.
What would actually help is if people just told the truth more often. “I got tired of defending things I didn’t believe.” “I saw the writing on the wall.” “This job was eating me alive and I wanted out.” Any of those would land better than the family line, because at least they’d be honest, and honest excuses tend to earn more respect than polished ones.
My two cents: if you’re leaving a job, just say why. We’ll respect you more for the honesty than for the talking point.
Photo by CIPHR Connect via Openverse, licensed CC BY 2.0.