"If alpha moms are rolling, professional alpha women are stalling," according to Maureen Dowd, in her wonderful new book Are Men Necessary? Rather than trying to survive the serious humiliation heaped upon successful women like Hillary and Martha to make way for Success, Part 2, Dowd claims that women are choosing to focus their considerable talent and attention on their family life. Every culture on the globe has it's methods for keeping women down. American women are professionally beaten down and then allowed to rise up and be rewarded with a second chance. For those who get beaten down at about the same time that they start their families, opting out is common and the family becomes the arena for their organizing and managing talents.

These days when an alpha woman marries it is often to an alpha male. When children arrive, she becomes an alpha mom who sports alpha muscles while driving her alpha SUV ferrying her alpha kids to their scary number of organized activities. Her alpha husband flourishes in the alpha zone of corporate culture.

Imagine, if these women were able to work a reduced hours schedule in their established professional careers. What if these women and mothers parsed out their attention units equally between kids and careers? Perhaps the battlegrounds -- both office and home would break out in peace. Mom, no longer guilty and worn out, would not surrender to her picky toddler's demands for mac and cheese at every meal. Professional women would no longer be abandoned by the other women in the office who work full time and overtime hours. Their commitment would not need to be measured by their corporate climbing but by the quality of the work delivered.

Another by- product would be that the men and fathers would benefit too. If men like to run things because they are left brain dominant and full of testosterone, they will always be more assertive, willing to take risks and will continue to walk off with the prize. Many writers have pointed out the stats on women who are willing to trade rank and money for the ability to be excellent parents to their kids. Most of these women would like to cycle in and out of their careers while they manage their caretaking roles. Several companies have already succeeded in supporting women managing their schedules flexibly. The stats on men balancing work and family obligations show the men are a no-show. Fathers reap the benefit of being able to focus at work rather than awkwardly trying to remember if this is their night to pick up the dinner and kids. The family unit benefits when the duties are distributed to eager participants.

I am a feminist and I truly believe that Carly, Bernadine, Geraldine, Jill and Diana are all professional women of true power and leadership. I also know that women trying to make a mark in corporate culture are still rapelling a steep cliff face. If women are willing to collaborate at work, billions of dollars of productivity are at stake. As a result, women will advance at a steady pace -- something that is creeping along so far. The ramifications for business, men, women and children are just mind boggling. Guys! Are you listening? The sexes can each do it on their own terms!

My self worth isn't tied up in my achievement. This was my mantra when I first adjusted my professional life to fit in raising a few kids. What I meant at the time was that I wanted to work and to continue to contribute professionally and I believed I was capable of doing so. What I was willing to forego was some prestige, a promotion and my pride. I exhibited a fair amount of desire to control both my work and personal lives. In all my years of going full throttle I had never caught up with all the things I wanted to do. My outlook was realistic. I was just redistributing the pie.

The first dozen years of raising a family found me directing my inner chaos as follows: school board (preschool, of course), Girl Scout cookie chair (three years in a row), professional golf lessons for the seven year old, a university professor to instruct my 11 year old in writing, a home based business (for "pin money") and domestic skill building (folding fitted sheets with the corners tucked into each other), a kitchen remodel ( and a magazine feature to go with it), care for my aging parents ( doctors, dementia and cross country relocation) and lots of spiritual questing (kaballah, meditation, flower essences). Still not close to catching up but with a workaholic's sense of destiny, I became a whole person.

What I have discovered is that I am very invested in my achievement -- both the internal and external. It is who I am as well as what I do that defines my achievement.

It has been suggested recently that perhaps women have hit a wall in the amount of work they can stuff into a week. The combination of paid work and personal and family time has brought with it a moving target of third party support. Fathers have stepped in to help with the children and household help has been hired to do the housework. One of my personal contributions has been reducing the number of hours I sleep each night. I figure that adds a couple of hours to my day and I try to catch up by sleeping in on weekends when there isn't a soccer game on Saturday morning. This, of course, isn't exactly as I had planned it. My earlier view of the schedule included lots of household help, some childcare help and me firmly grasping the corporate ladder. I studied, worked and married later to provide for this vision. My participation in the labor force was restrained only when I published my view of how my work would be configured. The proposal was a sound one. For a period of five years, I would reduce my hours and pay between 35 and 50%. Even the benefits could be prorated. Only slightly daunted by corporate reluctance to read my proposal, I shopped it around until I finally found a buyer. I changed departments gladly and got to work. And it did work. There were many naysayers both in management and among my peers. But the plan succeeded for two reasons. The first is that I exhibited a Pollyana attitude when objections to my "deal" arose. As my mother would have suggested, I just kept a positive attitude and my nose to the grindstone. The second critical success factor was that I worked in a job where measurements and metrics reigned. I had numbers to achieve and if I hit them my performance review was good. Each fiscal year, I prepared a substantial plan and negotiated my numbers. It paid off. I worked in my chosen profession continuously for 20 years and half of it on a flexible schedule.

Today I've been thinking about professionalism. I learned from my dad whose profession was accounting at one of the big three accounting firms. Some of the things he taught me have been brushed off the table for professionals today. My father and mother were expected to socialize with the other members of the firm. They were each expected to have hobbies like golf and gardening to share with the other couples they knew. I can rember my dad looking over my first effort at writing a resume and suggesting that "reading" shouldn't be the only hobby listed. I needed to add something group oriented. A quick search through resumes posted today yielded no mention of persoanl interests.

My father was never expected to yield his vacation time either. Those two weeks each August were sacrosanct. We did often vacation with other families from the firm but it was my impression that the bonding of friendship was the only business of the trip. I believe my dad was passionate about his profession. During tax season we saw very little of him in the evening or on Saturday. He poured it on during those couple of months but could be counted on to be home by 6 every other evening of the year.

As I entered the work world intent on acting the professional, I did not distinguish general white collar corporate work from "the professions" - medicine, law or accounting. In retrospect this was around the time the MBA became the ticket for white collar professionalism and my corporate employer paid for mine. In return I did what my dad had done, I respected my company and industry. Shortly I had paid back my $20K worth of tuition several times over to my employer. Imagine my suprise then when I came to work with the expectation that I could slow my career down to focus for a few years on my child.

The U.S. Department of Labor reports that our labor force is growing less than 1 percent annually, and the number of available workers between 25 and 44 will actually shrink in 2006. The need for qualified people forces companies to rethink their recruitment efforts, productivity incentives, benefit plans, work schedules and work processes, most of which were designed for a different generation of workers with different lifestyles and working conditions.”--When Work Works, Families and Work Institute.

Welcome to my first post on the subject of achieving some balance in your professional life. I have spent fifteen years working flexibly at large and small companies; as an employee and an independent contractor. While it wasn't always a graceful exercise, productive work got done and business objectives were met. At the same time, my personal objectives were also met. After investing years in my career, I was able to continue as a valued contributer at work without sitting in a 9-5 cubicle. I hear every day how reduced hours and flexible work schedules "can't work around here." My response is always the same -- what nonsense!