I'm in the camp of choosing to work fewer hours because I have young children. If I worked full time I would earn a lot more but that would be at the expense of being there for my kids. I need to work, and enjoy it, and fortunately earn enough that we have a comfortable life. But we would have a lot more money for things like holidays and treats if I worked more. It's a trade-off but I believe that the right choice for us is for me to work less. Everyone has to make their own choice on this and I don't judge those who choose to work more.

Effective delegation from the higher levels will leave them able to work less hours, rather than if they try to do it all themselves. Very few jobs should require someone to put all their time into it; unfortunately this is the expectation in a lot of places. We need some change in the world.

"But are we – and more importantly our children – actually any better off?"

No - but then I don't think we're necessarily worse off either. Things are just... different.

Great blog and fully agree with the points you make but the definition of "successful career" is of course subjective.

We have made pro family choices. We are probably worse off financially than friends where both parents work but feel we are much better off lifestyle wise. Our kids seem to be more settled too.

My wife looks after our 3 kids and the house and I work full time in a senior position for a good employer with only occasional long hours.

I could certainly gain a better, more senior job and have had offers, but invariably this would mean longer hours. We have3 had to do this in the past but realise it's a price we are unwilling to pay.

We may consider a change once all the kids are at school but in the meantime we choose to live in a modest house without today's "necessities" such as an ipod, LCD tv, two cars etc.

Let's face it - whose last words will ever be "I wish I had spent more time at the office"?

iainh #4 - that's basically our scenario as well.

We were also fortunate in that we bought a house in the late 90s before the prices starting going way up. Mind you I think that half the escalation in prices is due to dual incomes, so its a kind of circular thing really.

I don't know about glass ceiling - I have no great aspirations of being a high powered manager or whatever - I don't really care about career progression and all that nonsense - I enjoy my current job a lot - and it pays the bills - and it allows for hours such that my family life is not massively disrupted by work.

My husband had been looking forward to cutting down to part time hours as he had arranged this with (what was) his current job so he could pick-up and drop off our son to school. We have both always known one of us would do it. Low and behold two weeks out from the start of school date his job said "take backsies" and said he had to work for them full-time or be made redundant. He now works for another company who have allowed him to work part-time around the school hours. I work a forty hour week and don't want it to be any longer otherwise I would never see my kids. #4 is right we are definately financially worse off than others but we and our kids are happy which is better. We both could certainly get better jobs but then what was the point in having kids? Certainly not so someone else could raise them...

Government can pass all the laws they want encouraging employers to respect work life balance and encouraging negotiation on flexible hours etc, but the reality I (and others) face, is that some managers treat those staff as leeches.

Ideally, I'd like a more senior position, earning more $$$ in the time I am at work, but it seems that the more senior the position, the less flexibility employers are prepared to show. A 9.00am start, enaling me to get kids to school and daycare, and then commute to town, is just too much to ask for. And the competition for those jobs are often applicants who can start earlier because they don't have kids.

As a single mum trying to raise two boys, pay a mortgage, and work 37.5 hrs a week, I definitely sense grievance from my employer, and have come up against an extreme lack of flexibility in the current job market whilst looking for a new opportunity.

Meanwhile, our workplace doesn't replace natural attrition, and we all have to absorb more and more into our working week. So, back to it the grindstone for me :)

Both my husband and I work fulltime. As a result I can see our kids while happy because we have grandparents as our secondary caregivers are missing out on quality parent time. Its the sad reality of having to have two incomes to pay for our home, bills and food. Could we survive on one, yes but at the expense of our home.

I was raised by two parents who one worked and one looked after us. I would give anything almost to be able to provide that for my children and I envy those that can.

We are currently facing this dilemma, we have managed to live on one income for a while but we are starting to go backwards financially now. I am gutted about leaving my child but we have no option other than selling our house. I would have taken a part time job if I could have found a decent one that pays above minium wage!

I work full-time, and I sometimes find the work-life balance a little difficult. Especially as we live far from family. I often find my children get sick when there's something crucial on at both mine and my husband's work, and because his job is the more important job, I often have to take a lot of time off work to accommodate the children and him. I do wonder what my colleagues think about it all sometimes, "She's not here again", "her kids are always sick". I can only do so much work from home, as my job is a support role, and depending on what sort of mood my manager is in, it's either 'okay if you must' or the 'worse possible thing in the world'.

We don't own a flashy house, we don't own ipods, iphones, a plasma or LCD tv (in fact it's not even a flat screen), any sort of playstation/nintendo device, Sky, most of our furniture is second-hand, so it's not like we are living beyond our means. Both working full-time is more of a necessity than a desire to do so. Yes, I do wonder what effect this will have on my children, some things are positive - for instance their language skills are impressive compared to other children of the same age who stay mostly at home, but I do wonder about their emotional development. I have found myself wondering why we do it, but as one reader has written, it's that or no house. :(

The other side of the coin is, I'm not exactly Martha Stewart/Mum of the year so the thought of staying at home all day with the kids would probably be detrimental to our family's mental health also.