This was in Sunday’s NY Times. Awesome article, touching on so many things that I (and probably most of you) think about when trying to achieve that elusive work/life balance.

An excerpt:

A  FEW weeks after I started my new approach, I read an article by Erin Reid, a Harvard Ph.D. candidate who studies men’s professional identities. A large proportion of the men she studied bought into the traditional ideology, the one that requires a partner — that is, a wife — to hold down the family fort. A second, smaller group did not subscribe to this ideology and were looking to change careers to align their lives with their values.

More interestingly, she found a third category of men, who were successful in terms of performance evaluations and compensation, but who actually worked fewer hours and were unavailable for the office on evenings, weekends and vacations. These men subtly and skillfully chose the projects and clients that would allow more flexibility — and surrounded themselves with kindred spirits who would cover for one another. But they had also learned that it was better for their careers to remain discreet about their strategy, and so they weren’t role models for the rest.

Much research has shown that women bear the brunt of today’s “extreme job” work culture. In her book “Selling Women Short: Gender and Money on Wall Street,” Louise Marie Roth reports that while parents tend to work fewer hours than nonparents, fathers are seen as more effective and committed to their work than mothers and so much better able to pull off an unconventional schedule successfully, free of suspicion that they are coasting toward a mommy track.

As an academic, I’m lucky: I can come and go as I please as long as I keep publishing my work. I wish that there were a way to extend this flexibility to more men and women.

Our work practices and cultures were built during the time of the single-earner family. We expect modern workers in a variety of life situations to conform to this traditional standard, as if it’s the only way to stay motivated. Maybe it’s time to change that expectation — especially as executives try to stem the loss of talented people at the middle and upper levels of their organizations.