Opting in between: Strategies used by professional women with children to balance work and family

Child care and housekeeping have satisfying moments but are not occupations likely to produce a flourishing life. Gender ideology places these tasks on women’s backs; women must demand redistribution. —Linda Hirshman, author of Get to Work...A Manifesto for Women of the World I only eat lunch at home with my mommy. —Nicholas, age 3, day care hunger-striker son of coauthor of this article Professional women with children are inundated with conflicting messages about how tomanage their careers andpersonal lives andwhether they should ‘‘opt in’ ’ or ‘‘optout’’ of the workforce. Using in-depth interviews with 23 professional women, this study focused on the career choices that women make after having children. The authors found that manymothers neither opt in or opt out but successfully function in betwee