Here is an open letter to all the parents, aunts and uncles who write to me asking for advice about the twentysomething  in their life who is an incorrigible underachiever:
Lighten up! No one should be labeled an underachiever in their twenties! The first thing you should ask yourself is whose standards are you using? This [...]

The skills that help us most in life are not the skills we learn from homework.  In fact, Time magazine reports that homework is wasting kids' time on a number of levels, and in his book "The Homework Myth," Alfie Kohn rails against the massive amount of family time that's lost to homework. Finally, Harris Cooper, who studies [...]

Harvard just announced that it will change the timeline of business school enrollment as a way to attract "a wider range of applicants" Read: Women. Right now women start businesses at two times the rate of men and women do better in school than men do, but women make up less than one-third of the [...]

I loved listeing to this interview with Sallie Krawcheck so much. I have been following Sallie's career for years, and I had no idea I was going to see her in person until I showed up for the Forbes Executive Women's Forum for a speaking engagement, and there she was, speaking right before I did. [...]

Every generation revolutionizes something, and Generation X is revolutionizing the intersection of family and work. There's a new emphasis on keeping families together over career aspirations, and it's what makes me most proud to be a part of Gen X.
Generation X knows that the belief that both parents in a family can have demanding, time-consuming [...]

For those of you who don't know what's going on in my marriage, please read My First Day of Marriage Counseling, and maybe you will want to leave a comment about how if you were my husband, you'd divorce me for blogging about my marriage.
My husband, in fact, has brought up divorce for other reasons. [...]

I went to Tampa this past week. I've been traveling a lot to promote my book. The first time I left the kids to promote the book, last month, my five-year-old said, "No! You can't go! Why do you have to go?"
I said, "Because it's my job. My boss wants me to."
I said this to [...]

By Ryan Healy – I have read that my generation grew up with constant change and amazing new technologies like cell phones and the Internet which caused us to not appreciate patience and experience.
I don't buy that.
Surely there are a variety of social and cultural factors influencing impatience, but as far as I'm concerned, the [...]

Recently, Wellpoint dismissed its CFO, David Colby. Wellpoint cites personal reasons. The LA Times tells us that it's the numerous mistresses he was leading supposedly exclusive relationships with. The problem here is not that executives cheat on their wives. They do it all the time. What we can take from the Wellpoint dismissal is that [...]

Here's what it looks like to have a flexible schedule for kids and work all day: A computer with a broken K key.
Usually I can tell people I can't talk after 1pm. It's when I take care of my kids, and I know better than to think I can have a serious conversation with them [...]

The biggest difference between the workplace today and the workplace twenty years ago is where the friction is. It used to be that the frontier of workplace change was feminism. Today it is time.
Women pushed for equal opportunity, equal pay, equal respect at home. Men pushed to hold their ground, hold their sense of self, [...]

For many young people today, the most trusted source of career advice is their parents. Unfortunately, a lot of parents are giving a lot of misguided advice to their kids.
Today's workplace is very different from the one baby boomers navigated. But often they don't realize that, and think the "classic" advice still applies. It doesn't. [...]

The topic of should women work or should they stay home is a baby boomer fetish topic, with Leslie Bennetts being the current poster girl.
Joan Walsh, writing at Salon, points out that we are generally sick of baby boomer women telling younger women what to do and what not to do. But we are also [...]

I loved Ryan's post about helicopter parents because, like many changes generation Y brings to the workplace, helicopter parents force me to see how much the dynamics of the workplace have changed and how what's appropriate at work today is different than what was appropriate only two or three years ago.
The hardest parts about writing [...]

By Ryan Healy — Recently, I have seen a slew of articles about helicopter parents. Parents of millennials are becoming very involved in the job search process. These parents feel they have the right to call their child's company to discuss benefits and relocation packages and even negotiate salary. I think this [...]

Yesterday Ryan posted about creating a blended life. His post makes me think a lot about my own set up. I am pretty sure people would say I have a blended life:
1. I work from 8-1pm and 8pm to 12pm seven days a week. Except when I don't, because my two young sons need something.
2. [...]

Climbing to the top of corporate America requires near complete abnegation of one's personal life, not in a sacrificial way, but in a child-like way. In most cases, when there are children, there is a wife at home taking care of the executive's life in the same way she takes care of the children's lives.
This [...]

A couple of months ago, two people sent me the same thing: A womens' magazine was looking to interview a woman who was doing a good job balancing kids and a freelance career.
"You should respond to this!" said one of the emailers. "This will be great publicity for your book!" said the other emailer.
Articles that talk about [...]

Most of my girlfriends who make more than $100K a year were cheerleaders in school. We are from all over the United States. We are from all different types of companies. Only a few of us can do the splits. Yet we all bounced in short skirts and cheered for boys.
I chalked this up to [...]

I moved to Madison without knowing anyone here. So I found a babysitter through the University of Wisconsin graduate program in early education. The woman I found was great. But she said that she was really busy, and could her boyfriend babysit instead.
I squashed all my sexist stereotypes of babysitters and asked for his qualifications. [...]