Women can balance challenging interesting careers with motherhood so long as their employers are willing to look at different arrangements in terms of work practices.
Since joining then workforce in the mid 1980's, I have often experienced the mindsets and assumptions that are barriers to combining work, family and flexibility - often through recruitment processes.
In 1988, I was shocked when in an interview for my first role in HR and I was asked if I planned to have children and what did my husband think of my working if I had a family.
I was saddened when 15 years later in 2003, these questions were asked again. I was being reference checked for my role at Mallesons and a referee was asked if having a young child (Ben) had hindered my efforts or quality of work. My referee explained that I had volunteered to go on secondment to London for five months with Ben (who was 2.5 yrs at the time) to work on that major project.
I think they got the message.
And I was really furious (which of course I didn't show at the time) when again this year, yes 2008, I was approached by a search firm about a role and in the first meeting I was asked if was I married, did I have children and ‘How did I make that work in a senior role?" Why does this still happen? It can only aid as a barrier to working mothers advancing their careers!
Subscribe to the RSS feed 
There has to be an element of "user pays", otherwise, the system will be ripe for abuse. 
Keeping children's interests at the heart of family policy debates 
