如何在家庭和事业之间自由游走

    随着孩子们日渐长大，我越来越确信，当初我坚持工作下去的选择是正确的。他们现在每天都要在学校里待一整个白天，我也非常庆幸多年的兼职工作使我现在有能力胜任一份有挑战的、有意思的工作。我有时也会觉得筋疲力尽，觉得脆弱无助，觉得别人对我的要求太高了；有时也觉得我的生活本来可以更简单一些。但是对于我的大多数女性朋友来说，只要她们做了母亲，她们无疑都经常有和我一样的感觉，不管她们对职业生涯做出了怎样的选择。

    作为一个母亲，这样的时刻不可避免。人生很长，而我们的孩子整天需要人照顾的日子其实很短，这就是矛盾所在。这段岁月无论对我们的孩子、对于我们的事业、还是对于我们的人生，都不可能再来一遍。我不认为对于这样一个掺杂着复杂情感的问题会有一个简单的答案，我也不想妄言对别人来说哪种选择是对的。不过对于我自己来说，当初没有彻底“退出”是值得的。

    当孩子还小、需要人照料的时候，我通过干兼职工作，一直没有远离职场。因此等他们上学之后，我也不必经历重返职场的种种困难。上周日，我读到朱蒂丝•沃尔纳的文章时，我对我的选择深感庆幸。

    我还想起了我的女儿在小学四年级时读过《追逐维米尔》（Chasing Vermeer）一书后，花了几周时间写的书评。她在“关于作者”一栏中写道：“作者布鲁•巴莉叶特花了五年时间写了《追逐维米尔》一书，因为她要一边教书，一边照顾她的孩子们。”我很喜欢读这一段，因为我发现，她已经意识到，在人生的某些阶段，有些事或多或少会占用我们的时间，但是我们永远不必完全放弃其它的事情，因为正是那些千头万绪的事情塑造了我们。

    本文作者林赛•梅德是一位母亲，也是一位作家兼猎头顾问，她与丈夫和子女生活在马萨诸塞州的剑桥。她毕业于普林斯顿大学英文专业，还拥有哈佛商学院的MBA学位。梅德每天都在www.adesignsovast.com上发表文章。（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    As my children grow older, I feel more certain, not less, that it was the right decision for me to keep working. They are in school all day every day now, and I am grateful that my years of part-time work enabled me to ramp up to a challenging and interesting position now. Do I feel exhausted, and overwhelmed, and as though there are too many demands on me? Yes. Do I feel that our lives could be simpler? Yes. But do most of my friends who are mothers, regardless of the choices they've made about their careers, feel the same way? Without doubt, yes.

    It seems unavoidable, the paradox that life is long and the years when our children are at home full-time are vanishingly short. These are years we can't get back, with our children, in our professions, in our lives. I don't think there's a single answer to something so fraught with emotion, and I don't presume to know what's right for others. For me, it was worth it never to opt out completely.

    By staying in the workforce, albeit in part-time roles, when my children were small and at home, I never had to opt back in when they went to school full-time. When I read Judith Warner's piece last Sunday, I felt grateful for having made my choice.

    I also thought about what my daughter wrote in the "about the author" section of the book she spent weeks writing in fourth grade: "It took Blue five years to write Chasing Vermeer, because she was teaching and also taking care of her kids." I loved reading this, because I saw that she recognized that life has seasons when certain things take more or less of our time, but that we don't ever have to let go entirely of the various strands that make up who we are.

    Lindsey Mead is a mother, writer, and executive search consultant who lives in Cambridge, Mass. with her husband, daughter, and son. She graduated from Princeton with a degree in English and has an MBA from Harvard Business School. Mead writes daily at A Design So Vast.