The Work/Life Balance

There is a “striking” contrast between the winter cover (“Striking a Balance: Work and Family) showing a woman single-handedly (with four hands) doing it all successfully and the interviews of real-life successful working women. The common themes that emerge from the interviews are the importance of a helpful husband and a reliable babysitter and workplace flexibility. The Orthodox Jewish community is taken to task by many of the women for not making yeshivah schedules more accommodating and for having workplaces that are worse for working mothers than secular places of business. A number of women say they wished they had frum female mentors. But the message depicted on the cover, that balancing work and family is entirely a woman’s responsibility, is a dangerous myth that undermines working women and their families.

Marina Goodman
West Orange, New Jersey