"a hat for a cat, or a cat for a hat...
but, nothing for nothing."

I can think of only two women that I know (or haven known) that were really willing to put in the time. One was wholly incompetent. She was a Sr. Project Manager but rarely had projects and instead had special assignments. The only reason would could come up with that she got hired and that position was because she was good friends with CEO's wife in college.

The other was hard charging until about 37 when all of sudden she had to have kids too. That didn't work out too well.

The sharing or part time thing has not worked out to well in my experience. Too many times when the person is not available to the rest of the team when needed... or you have to explain the situation to the person doing the job today which you had already done with the person filling the job yesterday.

Also, cost to the company when sharing. Do they both get healthcare? Some prorated healthcare? neither?

I know two couples where both parents work 4 days a week (with different days off each) to spend more time with their children.

For one of the couples not only are both their salaries prorated (we don't have health insurance via work here so that doesn't come up, but the husband moved to a public service job with predictable hours. He's not making anywhere near what he was in private industry, but it's enough.

The other male partner works in IT and he's managing an outsourced team in India in any case, so he can work from home with stuff all difference.

TFB, I agree with you on job-sharing, unless it's something SSDD like reception or admin. But part time is not that hard to work around with mobile phones and almost ubiquitous data access. I'm on site or in meetings half the time anyway, it's not like people can reach me at a moment's notice when I am at work. I'm probably *more* accessible from home because my computer will be on and I can access email and all my files if something urgent comes up. All the employer has to do is write something like "may be reasonably required to be available on the phone and participate in phone/video conferences where necessary" into the agreement, maybe with time in lieu or an adjustment to the prorating of their salary. So if they check with you the day before "can you phone into this meeting at 10am", fine, but if you out shopping and someone calls you with 5mins notice they're SOL. Hell, I attend meetings by phone just to avoid a half hour drive sometimes. If I were presenting or something, of course I'd go, but if I'm just included to keep up to speed with what others are doing, why not?

It works quite well where I work. My immediate colleagues and I will sometimes work at home for a day (getting something fixed, kid sick, whatever), as long as we sort out or rearrange any meetings we might have to everyone's satisfaction and let the boss know there's no problem. Back in the days when you couldn't access your email or file servers remotely it was sub-optimal, but I can do virtually everything from home now that I can do by travelling, unless it's site related. Face to face is still better for communication, but one day a week away hardly matters.

Certain careers work well part-time, others don't.

I worked as an IT project manager 80% for a while; this was the absolute minimum that could work, and even then was not ideal. Things happen in your absence that you have to catch up on, decisions sometimes have to be made "right now", customers need to talk to you. Meanwhile, you are trying to limit your hours and defend that 20% family time. In the end, it was too stressful (for 80%) and it was actually a relief to work 100% again.

Of course, what a lot of "mommy track" women do is take on "non-career" work. By that I mean jobs that don't necessarily involve any sort of career ladder; jobs where you can just do the work, then go home and forget about it. Whether a receptionist works 40% or 80% doesn't really matter, because the job doesn't require much coordination with other people. The same for retail sales, cashiering, call-centers, waiting tables, etc.

Of course, all such "non-career" jobs tend to be lower paid. Which is part of the perceived "wage gap". However, as our hostess points out, it's all about choices. This is not the answer that the rabid feminists want to hear...

"until about 37 when all of sudden she had to have kids too. That didn't work out too well."

I saw a high powered high earning woman at 37 do the same thing. For a while she was obsessed with kids and when her assistants would get pregnant /married she'd get weird. I don't know shit about babies but she knew it all. Also she had a loser boyfriend and eventually got "accidentally" pregnant.

She confessed she hated it all or something along the lines of it was now too hard especially since she became a single mom. She wanted to be a stay at home mom.

I like the idea that you can't have it all....

I'd be willing to take a lower salary and no benefits for a "contract" type position and a phone at my hip where I could go in or work from home (remote) based on a schedule.

If you are good at what you do - there is a price point that can be reached. Otherwise, find one that does.

My boss travels all over the world and is in the office MAYBE, maybe (!) a couple days a week average. On planes, at dinners, lunches, meetings etc and while all completely necessary - is still out of the office a lot and manages to do a great job and take care of business on the road.

The majority of my job does not necessitate me there and if it does I am 20 minutes away.

I was just telling my husband that these companies are really leaving money on the table because I'd probably be working twice as hard for half as much for the flexibility (within reason) to change a diaper and throw in a load of laundry from home.

I don't think it would be "easier" by any means - but corporate arrangements treat everyone the same - mostly like children. I'd be willing to forgo even the job security piece by becoming a 10-99. That is how confident I am it would work out.

Let me be an adult! If it doesn't work out, then send me on my way.

But what I've heard is that the company doesn't get the tax breaks etc that they do when you are sitting at your desk punching a clock during Core hours. It's just less expensive also for everyone to be treated the same.

And by the way, I would only take 3-4 weeks off for maternity leave if they would let me work from home the remaining weeks at a reduced hourly schedule (with no benefits) but they won't. It's the dumbest thing ever. Because those are the rules!

My first daughter has a degree in business administration. While in college she learned on her own whatever the skills are that enable her to work as a software engineer (my daughters were home educated, so they are very good at acquiring the knowledge and education they need to do whatever they want to do) In that work she earned more than $100K a year and was able to travel in the U.S. and Western Europe.

My second daughter has a degree in political science. In her early 20's she worked as the communications director of a conservative public policy and research organization (a "think tank") She also earned a good salary - not as much as her sister, but at the time more than I'd ever made.

Both girls (young women actually, but they're my girls) got married and left their careers to raise families. That has been their dream since they were little girls. In spite of all my efforts to encourage them to become influential writers or olympic athletes or statesmen or entrepreneurs, they dreamed of getting married and having babies. I now have eight grandchildren ages 1 to 6, all of whom will have home based educations like their mothers did.

Besides working as homemakers and child wranglers both daughters are able to use their professional skills and educations at/from home to contribute to the financial stability of their families (first daughter and her husband own a business and invest in rental property; second daughter does occasional writing and editing for her former employer and two other organizations) thus enabling their husbands to spend more time with their families and participate in the work and responsibilities of home.

Im so proud of them! I rarely see my daughters, sons-in-law or grandkids without smiles on their faces. And they're always so freakin' nice to me! Daughters are the most wonderful people on earth.

My daughters and their husbands work together as partners to create the kind of lives they dream of - the kind of life I used to dream of but due to various shortcomings was not able to pull off so well. I suppose in a feminist's mind they would be considered losers or victims of male oppression. But shouldn't their success be measured by the happiness they've created for their families and themselves, rather than by the size of a paycheck, or how many people they can fire, or how far they're able to claw their way up some corporate hierarchy?

So, I have been a working mom, a part-time working mom, and a stay-at-home mom (so I've sorta seen it from most of the possible perspectives).

Part-time in a full-time environment SUCKED. I was supposed to work, say, M/W/F, but then somebody would want a meeting on Tuesday, so I'd have to rearrange my schedule. Since I was home some, it was like I was expected to be able to do things as if I was home all the time (not by my husband, but others). Since I worked some, I was expected to make work my priority. Nobody wanted to sit in their spot & stay there! That said, if I got sick on Monday, I could make the work up on Thursday, which was nice.

As for 4 day a week arrangements, I think those CAN be very good. Some parts of the government allow it. It's still 40 hours (4 10-hour days), and it works quite well - especially for places that want to have longer "open hours" but not hire extra people.

That said, I agree that much of the "wage gap" has to do with personal choices. If you choose to go into elementary education (almost entirely female field) you'll earn less in most cases than, say, an electrical engineer. Those are choices. Of course I earned less when I was part-time. It was my choice (and by not letting me continue past a year, my employer lost me so I could stay home). They made a choice, and so did I.

I am a web programmer. I was looking for extra money to save for my pregnancy that I was planning. Ended up with a job offer from one of the gigs...full time remote. Jumped at it.

Lateral career move, and in terms of tech, maybe a step behind but I got pregnant the first week I started with them. And as a courtesy, I told my boss when I was interviewing that I was planning it.

I will be doing my maternity leave 4 weeks off...then start slowly 10/hrs a week. And I've realized if we cut back, I can probably afford to work 30 hrs/week for a while. That spread out, will allow lots of time with baby.

The funny thing is, long before I ever wanted kids, I always wanted more flexibility. Never wanted to be in a hard-core career, never wanted management.

I will still probably have to do some side work to keep other skills up that I am not directly using here (though I have learned a lot of things while here).

Feebie is right. There's so much opportunity for companies to be flexible with their employees at no cost to themselves (and some savings), but they aren't doing it because they're stuck on the rules.

Everyone could use more flexibility, whether it's to take care of children, parents or spouses, or to travel or take up a new hobby. I had a job a few years back where I worked four days a week, 10 hours a day. I put in a full week and got Fridays off. I didn't even ask for it; that was just the schedule they gave me. I would have stayed at that job forever if I hadn't been forced to make other choices.

I can't count how many times men have looked at me funny for doing a "man job". Working part time at my father in laws moving company got me out of some very sticky situations. Being almost as strong as alot of men, and skinnier and more flexible besides, I went out on the trucks when I wasn't on the phones. Out of all the jobs I went on, I'd say about 60% of the guys all said the same thing when I hopped out of the back. Either "You're a girl!" or "Need some help sweetie?" GAH! It was enough to make me wanna spit.

I have worked from home, and I wouldn't do it again. I never got to leave the house, always had to answer the phone no matter the time, and the pay was not great. All in all, I think I would actually rather take the hit to my schedule and get the frack outta the house every day.