Description
Career or motherhood? Do you have to sacrifice one to be truly successful in the other? And if you’re trying to do both, will you have to compromise your career path or your child’s needs? Is “having it all” even realistic, or just plain fantasy? Leading Stanford University psychologist Dr. Laraine Zappert draws upon her twenty years of clinical and research experience to answer these questions and create a road map of innovative solutions. Through her findings from a landmark study of more than three hundred female graduates of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, Dr. Zappert addresses such critical concerns as: choosing between career and family, handling the job stress and the demands of parenting, the best time to have children — and what effect they’ll have on a career, keeping relationships healthy, feeling confident about the decision to tackle the challenges of home and work. CONTENTS Introduction Chapter 1 The Stanford Survey Part I Professional Women and Children Chapter 2 Is Having Children the Right Decision for Professional Women? Experience: What Professional Women Say About the Decision Lessons Learned Action Plan: Five Steps to Making the Decision Chapter 3 Are Professional Women Good Mothers? Experience: What Are the Priorities of Professional Women? Lessons Learned Action Plan: Taking a Parenting Reality Check Chapter 4 Is Guilt the Cost of Doing (or Not Doing) Business? Experience: Professional Women and Guilt Lessons Learned Action Plan: Eight-Step Plan for Dealing with Guilt Part II Children and Careers Chapter 5 Do Professional Women Have to Choose Between Career Success and Having a Family? Experience: How Professional Women View Their Options Lessons Learned Action Plan: Seven-Point Strategy for Enhancing Options Chapter 6 Now, Later, or Never: Is There a Right Time in a Career to Have Children? Experience: What Professional Women Say About Timing Lessons Learned Action Plan: Deciding on Timing Chapter 7 So Who’s Doing It Right Anyway? To Work or Not Experience: What Professional Women Say About Working and Having Children Lessons Learned Action Plan: Three Strategies for “Getting It Right” Chapter 8 If I Work, What’s the Best Way to Do It? Experience: Evaluating Work Options Lessons Learned Action Plan: Finding What Works Chapter 9 Once I Have Children, What Do I Do with Them? The Best Child Care for Professional Women Experience: How Professional Women Rate Child-Care Options Lessons Learned Action Plan: Securing the Right Child Care Part III Children, Careers, Relationships, and You Chapter 10 The Right Partner Experience: Attributes of the Right Partner for a Professional Woman Lessons Learned Action Plan: Relationship Chapter 11 Okay, So What Are the Essentials of a Successful Life? Experience: What Matters to Professional Women and Why Lessons Learned Action Plan: Assessing the Essentials Chapter 12 Balancing the Equation Experience: Pulling It All Together Lessons Learned Action Plan: Balancing the Personal-Professional Equation A Final Note
