Please revise title to "Why successful upper middle class women can't have it all."<p>I am a single father (part time, 50/50). My job prospects where I live are abysmal. If I moved a mere two hours away and left my son with his mother I could increase my job satisfaction and income. I remain here because I can provide a higher quality of life for my son. At seven he has approximately 10 more years before he will prefer my wealth to my love.<p>This is not a gender issue. This is what it means to be a parent. That this is being presented as a gender issue is testament to how contemporary feminism is failing.
<p><pre><code> "Having control over your schedule is the only way that women who want to have a career and a family can make it work"
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One of the major assumptions of modern day work - especially working for a start-up - is the assumption that a worker has a 8, 10, or 12+ hour block open every day to focus on work. We need to change this assumption and empower workers to set their own schedules and gauge them by performance and work accomplished - not by number of hours spent in the office or slinging code in front of a computer.
Because <i>no one</i> can have it all:<p><blockquote>
<i>You can have anything you want</i>: No dream is too big to achieve.<p><i>But you can't have everything you want</i>: We live in a finite world for a finite period of time, but with infinite imagination.
</blockquote><p>- - Peter McWilliams, <i>Do It! Let's Get Off Our Buts</i>
I don't think this is a gender issue. You can be a parent who's there or not. Men have the same dilemma.<p>Now some people EXPECT women to be there more, but that's a societial expectation. Both sexes have to balance parenting and childrearing, and choose which is more important for them.