Chapter One

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Preventing the Work/Life Collision

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When Women Work

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“In Dreams Begin Responsibilities"

I can start with a proposition or a story. But the story's more engaging, as stories tend to be. Besides, it foretells what's illustrated, tabulated, verified, axed at times, expounded in the rest of the book. 

So let's cut to a real‑life protagonist, one of several you'll meet along the way. She's a lawyer and the mother of a three year‑old. A heroine, but not the destined‑for‑success kind. More your average female college grad who muddles through her twenties, dating the wrong guys, unsure about what she's doing with her life (aside from paying back student loans). But one who gets a grip. She figured out who she was, what she wanted, and how best to get it in the light of workplace realities. Not so much acted upon as acting, changing the rules as much as playing by them‑and thus, changing them for everyone. In other words, she planned her life well and is making a personal workplace revolution.

Carol Ann and Greg Kalish 

That said, meet Carol Ann Kalish, a 36‑year‑old litigator at the most prestigious law firm in Sarasota, Florida, where she lives with her husband of ten years, Greg, a 45‑year‑old cardio‑rehabilitation therapist. A year after she became a mother (at age 33), she described her life to me in an e‑mail: 

         --a willing employer who offers flexibility and part‑time

         options; 

         --an energy level to perform demanding office work on a

         few hours sleep despite nursing Ben at night; 

         --a mellow, healthy baby; 

         --and a second set of adoring grandparents living close             by.

 Carol Ann is lucky. But she also lined her ducks in a row before plunging into her future. She made some clear decisions, such as living near her mother, whom she knew would help. She married a man who never put his work above hers. She chose an employer whose stated priority, after excellence, is "family comes first." All three are choices that require the courage to buck substantial social pressure. 

A lot of high achievers Carol Ann's age live far from their families, leaving home in order to strike out on their own and go to "the best" school they can get into or take "the best" job offer, wherever it may be. Carol Ann was very tempted to do the same. After graduating from the University of South Florida at Tampa, she came close to choosing one of the great law schools. As she tells it, "My L.S.A.T.'s were so high that I got courted by everyone. I felt a sort of intestinal pressure to go somewhere important. But I just didn't. I stayed local instead. With hindsight, it was the best decision I could have made." 

It may have helped that Carol Ann took plenty of time to make the decision. After college, she worked for three years as an assistant buyer for a local department store before settling on law school. Her conscious motive was to save money, an excellent strategy in itself. But as you'll see from a lot of the real‑life stories that follow, people who take a break to think about what they're doing with their lives often get a better perspective on crucial decisions. In Carol Ann's case, she realized how much she liked her hometown, and what an advantage it was to have deep roots in a place. Alone in her early twenties, she also understood the value of a supportive family nearby and friends from as far back as fourth grade. Having grown up relatively poor, she wanted the opportunity to enjoy Sarasota's middle‑class pleasures and to participate in the community at a leadership level. She chose law because of the community's ready acceptance of lawyers as leaders. 

In the planning department, Carol Ann had learned the hard way. Her father, who died when she was ten, was a successful lawyer. But because he had made no provision for his family, his early death plunged them from the middle class to a much humbler existence. With barely restrained emotion, Carol Ann said, "I learned that you don't do that to yourself or others." 

When she finally graduated from Stetson Law School in St. Petersburg, chosen because she knew she wanted to practice locally and because she could commute to live with Greg in Sarasota, she faced another great temptation: a job in a big Atlanta firm where she could easily have gotten a starting salary of $70,000 instead of $50,000 in Sarasota. The bigger offer was particularly appealing because she had $82,000 in school debt. Also, as she explains, "law school is so competitive, kids take the `plum' job because it's the prize, not because it's what they want to do or at a law firm they like." But when she interviewed for those plum jobs, she found herself uncomfortable with the high pressure and the competitive atmosphere. She knew that the young associates worked night and day, which she didn't want, particularly because she'd just married Greg. 

Then she interviewed at Williams, Parker, Harrison, Dietz and Getzen in Sarasota and loved it. "They were collegial, not competitive. They were interested in me as a person, not just as a lawyer. They told me that a lot of firms will give you a Disneyland clerkship, taking you drinking. and dining every night, but you have to wonder, where are their spouses while they're out till all hours? They said, we don't do that. Family comes first here. Everyone goes home at night. Once a year, the whole firm goes on a family weekend." 

Being a smart cookie, Carol Ann didn't believe them so she drove by the parking lot on Saturday morning: an excellent strategy, and a good outcome. The lot was empty. It would be well worth the forfeit of $20,000, in her estimation. 

Seven years later, Carol Ann can say the firm is what it seemed. They really do grow young attorneys. They don't want anyone to burn out. They want all of the associates to make partner, which is rare elsewhere. Usually two‑thirds drop out or don't make it, she tells me. That's why other law firms are so much more competitive. 

She was the first woman in the litigation department, but her mentor helped and listened: "I was comfortable revealing my insecurities and asking for direction. He was generous and reasonable. Later, when I was pregnant and told the senior partners I was going to work from 5:00 A.M. to noon and bring the baby to the office, they said, `fine.' They trusted me as an attorney and simply went with my plan." 

And why shouldn't they? "It's not like there's a law that workplaces have to be a certain way," asserts Carol Ann. "Some are, the largest, maybe, but in many others you can go in, find a like‑minded mentor who believes in a decent work ethic, and help to make the office reflect your beliefs. Most lawyers leave the field instead of trying to change it." 

Carol Ann is now the lead outside counsel for the firm's premier client, an important Sarasota hospital. It's a very demanding job, but she's got it under control: "I think about my job all the time. Inspiration for strategies can come in the shower or at lunch. It's a career, not a job. But I'm honest about what I can deliver. I do excellent work, but I won't be on call after hours or on weekends." She has also never worked on a case in which she felt the hospital wasn't right, nor would she be pressured to; they all respect her judgment. As for the money, Carol Ann now earns $100,000 instead of the $150,000‑$175,000 she'd be pulling down in Atlanta‑with no regrets on her part. And she was just made a shareholder. 

She told me about a new recruit from the University of Virginia Law School who accepted a job at her firm (over the more "plum" possibilities), explaining her choice to Carol Ann by saying, "I don't want to always be trying to get somewhere. I want to love where I am." 

When I visit the law offices, I can see why a new recruit would love WPHD&G (as they call it). Despite it's staid colonial exterior, thickly carpeted hush corridors, and formal Ethan Allen furniture, the firm is filled with friendly people, all of whom come to meet me, to be interviewed, or just to tell me something I might not know about Carol Ann.

Carol Ann introduces me to the senior partner, the man re­sponsible for setting the tone, explaining that he had custody of small children while he went to law school, so he really un­derstood the importance of family. I meet another partner who took a month off when he and his wife adopted a child. "Now, he does mornings with his son Henry," Carol Ann whispers. I meet Susan, a very pregnant tax attorney (wear­ing one of Carol Ann's hand‑me‑down velvet‑trimmed silk maternity suits), who is planning to take six weeks off, then work from home for a while. Susan says that the senior part­ners told her to wait and see how much she can do so she won't feel pressure. "If I'm less productive, they'll adjust my salary. They won't penalize me professionally." 

The firm is "reasonable," Carol Ann says, but Carol Ann also scouted for work within it that helps her to maintain a work/life balance. Though it can be different in big cities, in Sarasota litigation gives her more control over her time than standard transactional work would. Here the courts have es­tablished rules for how long lawyers can take to do things; they create clear deadlines. However, she still has a big say over trial dates. In her view, attorneys who work with big business clients seem to have hysterical deadlines when they're closing a deal. It's very hectic because the clients choose the dates and drive the work. Again, Carol Ann de­signed her life thoughtfully.

Her most thoughtful decision, though, may have been her choice of a husband. An awful lot of women find security in marrying someone more ambitious or higher salaried than themselves. It's what feels "normal" and is all too often en­couraged by parents who often still ask their daughters, "how will he support you?

Before she met Greg, Carol Ann lived with a successful bro­ker. "He was everything I wanted‑on paper. It was the go‑go '80s. He was doing great. But in reality, he was a mean‑spir­ited person with very little self‑confidence, a disappointment to his dad, who expected him to be a billionaire. He was all work, with no real life. I think I realized all this when he never even visited my dying grandfather, whom I was very, very close to." 

On her first date with Greg, she saw what she really valued: 

We were caught in a rainstorm so we went to his house and I was charmed. It was a real home, with Mexican tiles and plants and pictures of people in his life: family, friends, himself with three basset hound puppies, him on a dive. I saw he had passions, he wasn't waiting for someone to give them to him. When I got to know him, I saw that he wasn't running around with his hair on fire trying to accomplish. He was living his life. That, to me, was so appealing. I liked that he talked about people lovingly and with respect. I felt I could learn from him to put life first. He was living in a way I really admired. 

As Greg is quick to point out, he "makes as much in a day as Carol Ann spends on panty hose." But work was never the center of Greg's life. He thought a lot about finding work he genuinely loved, but he earned money just to "go on his next dive." Graduating from Michigan State in fine arts, he took a graduate degree in therapeutic recreation. "I loved art, but working so introspectively, in isolation, was not for me. I was also very athletic and enjoyed helping people, so I decided on physical therapy." 

Eventually, he found cardio‑rehabilitation, which was very satisfying to him. In six weeks, he'd see post‑op bypass patients transformed. "I could really help them to live healthier lives." 

Greg liked how intimate the job was, how well he got to know his clients. Now he monitors patients on pacemakers, a job with less of the patient contact that he likes so much. But he works closer to home and has less rigid hours so that he can be more available in Ben's early years. 

There's not a lot of money in the helping professions. And though he wishes it were otherwise, it's something he can live with in order to do what he likes. "It doesn't bother me that Carol Ann makes more money than I do. It bothers me that I don't make more money doing the work I do. I make less than anyone I know, anyone I went to school with." 

Does he regret his choice? Was this a bad life design? 

"I have my moments," Greg says, "but I'm comfortable with my choice. I enjoy the hell out of my life." 

I was thinking that Greg must take it on the chin from men who make so much more than he does. But when I ask them how men react to Greg, Carol Ann blurts out, "They're fascinated by him. Everyone talks about `the Greg and Ben' show. It's Greg with Ben at the store, at the park, at a playdate. The other cookie‑cutter men envy Greg's relationship with Ben. They tell him, `I wish I could do that,' meaning take off early and go to the beach with their children, have lunch, stroll around town as a dad." 

I wonder if Carol Ann isn't playing the cheerleader here. Especially when Greg adds that it's hard to find friends who are like him. "Other guys here like to play golf or watch football. They sometimes treat me like I'm gay because I cook and take care of my son. But I have my family. I swim. I run. That's enough." In fact, Greg has more friends than he acknowledges, as I learn when one of the attorneys in Carol Ann's office introduces himself to me as Greg's "best friend." And some genuine admiration. The husband of Susan (the very pregnant tax attorney), a builder, is so taken with Greg's lifestyle he's modeling his parenthood on him. 

People tell Carol Ann how lucky she is that Greg's such a great father, but both of them know it wasn't luck. Some men‑some people‑are naturally great with small children. But great parents are mostly made, not born. Greg was quite fearful of fatherhood and unusually honest about it. "I never liked babies or kids. I had no experience. The only reason I agreed to have one was that I thought I should have this experience before I died. But we were very close to never having children." 

Nor did he take to fatherhood immediately. "Infancy horrified me. I remember thinking, this is as close as I'll get to being air‑dropped into Vietnam. There I was with this screaming, pooping larvae. I couldn't relate."

But unlike many men (who may suddenly have an awful lot of office work to do), he persevered because he'd agreed to, and he "tag teamed" with Carol Ann, taking care of Ben when she wasn't. "I got to be alone with Ben. Carol Ann totally ceded him to me on my days. She never criticized me. We each took turns, doing what had to be done." 

Then Ben smiled. "I remember the day. That's when I knew he was actually a little person and that's when I bonded. I never thought I'd have those feelings. Now it's as if I'm seeing life through a child's eyes and getting so much insight into my own childhood. I never felt so loved by anyone, or have loved so much." 

If any two people have been true to their dreams, it's Greg and Carol Ann, and it shows in their happiness. Neither regrets their major choices. Neither feels stuck, or as if life's been unfair or they've had to give up too much. They have lives, not just livelihoods. But we can't forget how much they each sacrificed for their dreams. Greg relinquished standard male salary and status, for which he's paid a price. Though not the price men fear they'll pay: rejection by women (he's always had great girlfriends) and derision from other men. She's given up the big‑city fast track and the role of big‑status breadwinner. 

However, that's them. As much as we may admire how Carol Ann and Greg designed their lives, as much as we all know we should be true to our dreams, it's hard to do. And yet this is the first generation in which both women and men really can design their lives‑and should if they want to work and also have a life. 

Renaming Gen XY, Claiming Its Powers 

In combining the polar opposites of dreams and responsibilities, poet Delmore Schwartz' mysterious phrase, "in dreams begin responsibilities," conveys what we all, deep down, suspect: If we don't take responsibility for our dreams, we betray them, and ourselves. We know we're our own worst enemies in the dream department. Especially women. 

Most Y Gen women coming of age in this new millennium, as well as the so‑called Gen X'ers between the ages of 25 and 45, do dream what women have rarely dared to before: of having rich work and personal lives. Just as unprecedented, they have a good shot at getting both if they design their lives thoughtfully. But there's much more to life‑design than individual happiness, not that I'm knocking individual happiness. There's potential for a cultural revolution here. Think of it this way: the cumulative effect of each woman creating a balanced life (by demanding decent work hours and flexibility and insisting spouses do the same) will restore a sane work ethic to America's current obsession with ever‑greater productivity. 

What makes this sound more pipe dream than possibility is that no one's yet stated the obvious loudly enough: Women who are now of childbearing age are the first generation with the training needed to compete at every level in the market place. They are the first to create predominantly dual‑income marriages‑more than 30 million, compared to 11 million with a male earner only. They are also the first to live rich (no pun intended) lives as singles, more than half of whom own their own homes. Single women not only dominate the formerly male home renovation market, they dominate other formerly male upscale markets, such as adventure travel. 

The economic position of women today is strong enough that simply by planning to work in a way that ensures personal time they will save us from marching lockstep into what San Francisco Chronicle columnist, Jon Carroll, has called "the Stepford economy," where people unquestioningly work every waking hour. Which is why X and Y are such misleading names. 

Calling the 51 million people born between 1960 and 1980 by the dismissive moniker, Gen X, was clearly a misnomer that stuck. But, then, who's had the last laugh? Where would the new economy be without Gen X? And where would Gen X be without the women of Gen X? 

The women of Gen X have had so much impact on our culture and our economy that if we're as committed to throwing around alphabet letters as we seem to be, the generation should rightfully be called Gen XX after the double XX chromosome that creates the female. This could be the women's generation, the first time in history when women live up to their full economic potential and implement policies based on conventionally female values such as caring, connecting, and celebrating life. 

If any group is to reform our workaholic materialist culture, it will probably be women because most aren't prepared to forego a personal life or children for remunerative work or positions of power. Most men would rather not have to but give in more easily to work pressure. Although in the case of Greg and Carol Ann, it was he who encouraged her to put life before work, they are unusual that way. In most couples, it's the women who must encourage men to make time for their personal lives, especially if they've had a child. This is what's happening according to the cutting‑edge people who describe their lives throughout this book. More than anything else, it's what solves the "life factor" problem that most twenty‑somethings ruminate about. 

THE LIFE FACTOR 

The electronic revolution sent the American economy into orbit, but it's also produced a backlash. As much as we love our Palm Pilots and Nokias, we all see our private life slipping away with each technological advance. Clearly, the now quite common cry for "balance" is part of the attempt to preserve our personal lives before we find ourselves permanently plugged into work. But balance requires a cultural revolution to accompany the economic one, and that means a whole new way of thinking about work. Which, as I said, depends on women and their dreams. 

It's scary to explore personal dreams for fear that if we look too closely we will glimpse their painful impossibility. The dream of combining work with family‑or any kind of satisfying personal life‑may seem impossible. Especially with a chorus of skeptics chanting in the background, "Women can't have it all. Who wants to be an executive anyway? Your husband's going to leave you for someone who cooks." Yet it's a reasonable dream for women today, who have been schooled to live full economic lives as well as raised to be mommies. 

Pick a twenty-something woman at random and you'll find a helter-skelter version of the dream. It's floating through high schools, colleges, professional schools, and workplaces all over America. You'll also find the one in twenty‑five who, without any extraordinary advantage, lives her own version of the dream. It doesn't mean everyone should race headlong down her particular path. But like Carol Ann, her strategy can serve as a blueprint for achieving balance in today's driven workplace, or an inspiration, or even a glimmer of hope. And remember, Carol Ann and her ilk are the law partners of tomorrow, as well as the CEO's and the entrepreneurs and the scientists and the heads of the Senate Finance Committee. They will be among the people who run things. 

Unfortunately, there aren't yet enough of them. Carol Ann and Greg are exceptions, even in their own world. Most of the young attorneys at Carol Ann's firm and the doctors at Greg's cardiology clinic have wives who stay home with the children, though they all worked before the children were born. Carol Ann and her colleague, Susan, tell me that most of those women didn't like their jobs all that much and quit when they became mothers. 

That's an all too typical path. It's as if there's a fork in the road for women, though not for men. One sign says: "Job," often "Boring Job" or "Exhausting job"; the other, "Motherhood." This is how it looks through the eyes of 24 year old Margaret Lamont, marketing associate at Perseus, the publisher of this book: "Nobody knows what they're going to do about the life factor. It's hard to meet people after college. If there's kids later on, no one seems to want to stay home with them." Her colleague, Lissa Warren, 28 year‑old Publicity Director, says, "The more I work, the more a family becomes either/or. I can have this career and work really hard. Or I can quit and raise kids. For a decade, I'll have given work my all. I can't imagine how I could do as good a job if I didn't give my all." Their conflicts echo throughout their peer group. 

Peggy Orenstein's book, Flux, has shown this so vividly with its medley of young women's voices. In a section she calls "The Crunch," Orenstein reports that "nearly all of the women I spoke with liked children; that wasn't the issue. Their ambivalence pivoted on a lack of conviction that even under the best of circumstances they could navigate motherhood with their essential selves intact." As she shows, the conflict isn't limited to job versus family, but encompasses identity versus family as well. 

Their apprehension is based on the very real evidence they see around them of mothers struggling, and often failing, to work as hard as they do. And it might be justified if neither they nor the workplace were to change in any way. However, single women in their twenties rarely consider how much children can empower you to be more yourself. Or how a desire to be with them can motivate you to do your job more efficiently. And you have so much more time when you're not putting prodigious energy into finding yourself, let alone a companion in life. Children enrich you in ways you can't anticipate. Ann S. Moore, President of People magazine, succinctly explained one: 

I probably use less of what I learned at the Harvard Business School and more of what I learned as a parent. The single best thing to equip you for management in the Fortune 500 is good parenting skills. Everything from "Nobody loves a whiner" to "Look both ways" or "Do your homework" or "Say thank you." 

That is, in some ways children can help make a work life easier. 

Another short view: Margaret, Lissa, and other twentysomethings don't factor in their own power to change the way work gets done. They don't realize that men can be their allies in parenting, exerting their influence as well to change our work ethic. Often, I find, they don't believe in their power to shape a relationship. 

Margaret's boyfriend wants to make a lot of money. She knows that will affect their lives, should they stay together, but isn't sure where to go with that one. He probably assumes he can just go for it without ever having to fret about the life factor. Men, well, they're just different, a lot of women seem to think. If they have jobs they don't like, they either make their peace with them or find others. They don't opt out when they become parents. They're not tortured about how they're going to "have it all." But, then, they're also not pulled by tradition, by family, by those inner voices to quit and stay home with children. They don't have to relinquish work in order to prove that they're good fathers the way women think that good mothers have to do. For men, it's harder, not eas­ier, to give up even a little work. In fact, as Greg points out, putting life before work can make you a bit of a freak.

Sadly, men and women don't seem to be talking a lot to one another about what this all means. Growing numbers are making the perfectly reasonable decision not to have children. But mostly, they're obsessing about the Life Factor in isolation. They tell themselves they'll think about it later, or they'll just drop out for a while when they do have kids (as if that course will be a breeze), or they'll just forget about kids, not because they wouldn't like them but because they're ambitious and that means working just as much as men do. Great.

However irrelevant children, or studying Buddhism, or ex­ploring the world, or serving on the local zoning board may seem while you're in your twenties, by your thirties most women do want a life outside the office. So you can let life happen to you, or you can design your life so that you'll end up with what you really want. The trick is to be proactive, to understand the consequences of each choice.

This book isn't aimed at convincing you to have children or not or explaining the virtues (or vices) of staying home with them. It's about thinking strategically about your life choices. But the stark truth is that, for women, motherhood is "the crunch," the choice that has the greatest consequences and needs to be made wisely. As we'll see, the dirty little se­cret of today's version of equality is that men and women have very similar lives‑and options‑until women have children. It's mothers who are not equal to others, either to women without children or to men. Mothers are still way behind by every measure of professional success, and it's not because they don't care any more. They pay a big price for being mothers. Literally. While childless women earn wages close to men's, mothers earn up to 15 percent less and single mothers, up to 40 percent less. Mothers handle the lion's share of housework and childcare, letting their husbands off the hook. Often, these women end up without the work they trained for or the paychecks that are their due. They know it but they don't know what to do about it, so they keep on scaling back or opting out or accepting the mommy track.

No one's talking about what it means that most women, because most are mothers, can't remain major players in the world of work. Or that their reverting to the traditional division of family labor "frees" their husbands to continue working 60 hours a week. If you ask them, and a lot of researchers have, she'd actually like to work and he'd like to work less. Mostly, this arrangement is the result of letting life happen. 

Carol Ann and Susan tell me that most of the women who left work to mother seem to have "lost part of themselves." Carol Ann wonders about the organizations cropping up, like the Young Mothers League. She tells me that they have a board of directors and daily activities, including play groups and sibling groups. "They attend to children with such exacting detail, it's as if children were a job." That's because they've been trained not to be housewives, but to work, so motherhood becomes their work instead of being a part of their lives. 

Carol Ann and Susan sense something borne out by the research: Women who give up work for motherhood mostly chose what seemed the lesser of two evils instead of doing what they really want. "Women fear that combining work and family responsibilities is a big problem," confirms Cornell University medical sociologist Elaine Wethington, the coauthor of a recent study on the subject. But the study found that new mothers who left full‑time jobs to care for their infants were more psychologically distressed than their counterparts who returned to work. These are the dilemmas considered in chapter nine. For now, suffice it to say, women are mostly reared to work these days. That's not the problem. The problem is how to work without "giving everything to work," as Lissa put it. 

The men who give everything to work often don't like it either, but they can't risk change, especially if they're the sole support of their families. And here's the catch‑22: The more they work, the less fulfilling family life (or any personal life) becomes. If you don't see kids much, it's much harder to know how to enjoy them, or they you. Said differently, if you don't practice the piano, that Scarlatti sonata will never get any easier. 

The best defense against workaholism is a rich personal life. When people have a great personal life‑with or without kids‑they rarely allow work to push it aside. But of the various ingredients in anyone's personal life, kids are probably the most demanding. They can't be left in an empty apartment, like a cat. They make incredible messes. They need affection, attention, visits to Grandma, doctors, dentists, schools, playmates, soccer teams, all of which require quantity time. So I can see how tempting it would be to assume they just don't combine well with work as we know it. Yet work as we know it has pushed people to their limits, which has made an increasing majority pretty angry. 

Women may have the most obvious motivation to humanize the workplace. But if women alone try to do it, the workplace will continue to marginalize them, creating separate work tracks, paying them less, maintaining the glass ceiling. That's in fact what's happening in medicine, where men are still working the 80‑hour weeks demanded by the highest professional strata while women are choosing 40‑hour‑a‑week work in clinics and hospitals they often wouldn't go to themselves. But, then, most of these women, just like the women who opt out of work to take up traditional motherhood, haven't figured out what else to do once they have kids. 

Yes, women today are setting out with their great expectations but they don't always have the savvy to maximize their opportunities. Carol Ann designed a life with one kind of balance. There are infinite versions. The women whose portraits I've drawn in this book are wildly different in lifestyle, in values, in backgrounds, and in ages that range from 25 to 45. Some have children; others don't. But what they have in common with Carol Ann is strategic planning. They all planned their paths carefully, sticking to their real values, compromising lesser goals for more fulfilling ones, and turning mistakes into learning experiences. None had the advantage of special connections, deep pockets, genius, or glamour. All are activists in their own lives, making up the rules as they go along. 

One "Gen X" expert, Heather Neely, a 32‑year‑old organizational psychologist who helps older managers to handle her generation of workers, characterizes her peers as largely "reactive." Their strong suit, she feels, is in adapting to the work situation, not in creating or changing it. "We came into this workplace thinking the boomers had it all figured out. Boomers created this workaholic life. We inherited it, and their dissatisfaction with it. We haven't really generated leaders the way they did; we accept their rules instead of creating our own. We see ourselves as rebuilding their world, but we do it without any dialogue. It's each person doing it quietly, on his or her own." 

But Heather worries about rebuilding without any "big picture," any clear sense of what the generation as a whole faces today. She recalls how she graduated college in 1989, during the recession, and couldn't find any job except as a temp. "Everyone was so contemptuous of Gen X, muttering about what slackers we were, only taking temp jobs or working at coffee bars, how we had short attention spans, no company loyalty, no clear values. I felt awful, as if I'd personally failed, until my father made me realize it wasn't me, it was the changing economy and different generational outlooks." At that point, she began to use her temp experience to size up companies, to form ideas about who her contemporaries are and how people can adapt to different work situations, which eventually led to her present consulting career. 

Heather's on to something. Only with this overview of work can individuals think aggressively, creatively, and fully in their self‑interest. Only with an overview can women take the lead in creating a new work ethic and a more caring culture. As Heather says, "If we don't start talking about ourselves, we fall into the trap of just doing what we're told." 

As Carol Ann pointed out, "It's not like there's a law that workplaces have to be a certain way. In many you can go in, find a mentor who believes in a decent work ethic, and help to make the office reflect your beliefs. Most lawyers leave the field instead of trying to change it." 

That's true of every field. Women, especially, leave or adapt rather than try to change the way work gets done. They accept their spouses following the status quo instead of encouraging them to change the way work gets done. Yet, the more that this generation of women know about who they are, how much they've already accomplished, and what they are worth in today's marketplace, the easier it will be to create new options for themselves, along with everyone else.

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