Choosing our career directions

I keep thinking about this eloquent post by Pseudostoops about how she left a prestigious, high-paying job for a more family-friendly job:

And now…well, my life is smaller, but in a really good way. 

But I no longer have a place at the “whose career is more demanding/intense/upwardly mobile” table- because my work life isn’t demanding/intense/upwardly mobile at all. And that’s a good thing, it is, I wouldn’t trade it, but – it’s strange to no longer be a part of that conversation. I meet my law school friends for lunch and they’re all killing themselves and I don’t want to be them, exactly, but I feel a little bit like I’ve sold out the sisterhood by stepping off that path. My whole life my self-worth has been largely defined by working hard, striving, achieving – and it’s a little disorienting to suddenly no longer have that laid out before me.

The post itself is well-written and thought-provoking and you should go read it. What really gets me about it, though, is the comments. Over 20 comments, and EVERY ONE of them is a woman saying, "I agree, trading off a demanding job to have more time for your personal life is totally worth it," or "I'm so happy I made this choice," or "I hope to make this choice too."

I am not knocking the commenters. I am one of the commenters. But... is something wrong here? I know the statistics. About 15% of big firm partners are women, despite a few decades of having plenty of talented women in the pipeline. I know about all the hand-wringing about why women leave. And even though you can't say that women CHOOSE to leave without making people angry, well... all of the intelligent and accomplished women who responded to that post, and the intelligent and accomplished woman who wrote that post, support exactly that choice.

I was lucky enough to hear Judge Nancy Gertner speak recently at the National Association of Women Judges conference. She said that the revolution she was a part of wasn't about giving women the choice to work or stay home. It was about transforming both home life and work life to give everyone a viable choice, and that hasn't happened. At least, the work part hasn't happened -- I'd argue that men are more involved than ever at home. But it's still true that most men don't even consider all the "work-life balance" options that are crucial to work satisfaction for many women (flexible schedules, part-time, telecommuting), let alone choosing a job that pays less and is less prestigious.

I've argued before that if work-life balance remains a women's issue, we're doomed. But trying to enlist men and say, Hey, give up some of your power, you'll be happier, results in sort of a prisoner's dilemma. So now I'm thinking that institutional change -- acceptance of "balance" as an issue for everyone, not just women -- probably needs to happen before men can realistically make it a priority.

Meanwhile, it seems like women have a choice beyond working and not working. We can work and be less powerful, but be more satisfied with non-career aspects of our lives, or we can work and be more powerful, but not be available for our families. It's a step in the right direction, but it's still not a great choice either way. And it's easy to shrug and say you can't have everything, but I bet we could do better.