Balancing work life issues: a two dimensional/two generation perspective

Summary form only given. A key issue for technical and professional women that is raised year after year is the necessary trade-off between devotion to spouse and family vs. to career. And, year after year, we learn of unique solutions to help balance this trade-off-from women who have been there and done that. We are now even beginning to hear about how men are considering and responding to this balance. The article identifies a number of issues that need to be dealt with to achieve a desired balance. These include business demands like travel, working hours, stress and others as well as domestic demands like quality time for spouse and children, child care, family illness, home management, educational decisions and others. For each issue, a mother with 22 years of experience, who is also an electronics industry executive with over 30 years, presents actual solutions to these issues, along with her judgment on how suitable they were. For the second dimension, her daughter of 18 years, herself the living subject of these solutions, will provide her perspective (and those of her two brothers) of suitability. The daughter will be entering a university this fall, contemplating a career in science herself