Having it all: The work-family balance debate continues

"I still feel bad that 15 years ago I left my kindergarten son and his carpool in the rain," she said. "I think several of those moms we carpooled with are still upset with me."

The difference sometimes between working fathers and working mothers, Thomas said, is that women tend to worry about family and balance all the time.

"We compare ourselves to the moms on the block that always seem to volunteer for everything. The ones who are overly involved," said Thomas, whose youngest is now 17.

Is having it all in reasonable balance doable while more mothers in the U.S. wait out reforms that would make their lives better? Things like flexible hours, working from home or working part-time while raising kids and keeping careers on track? Is having it all worth having until then?

"If you are defining it as living to your fullest potential in your field while also being present, both physically and emotionally, for your family at any time, of course it's a fantasy," said Meredith Persily Lamel, a professor in the business school at American University in Washington, D.C.

Persily Lamel, 40, is a graduate of a Top 5 MBA program (the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business) and also coaches high-achieving professional moms. In her 30s, she took a 25 percent pay cut to get off the road as a business consultant for a large, publicly traded firm because of an intense travel schedule when she wanted to get pregnant.

"All of the women I studied with continue working. Most of us who chose to raise a family have had major career changes since we graduated. We all moved to a more flexible work environment (entrepreneurship, contract work, academia). The men on the other hand haven't made the same shifts," she said.

Now the mother of two kids, ages 5 and 3, Persily Lamel continues as she did when she was younger to run leadership and training programs for chiefs of staff and legislative directors on Capitol Hill, seeing it as no accident that "so many staffers leave when they become parents."

Her husband was an attorney on the hill before kids but shifted to public affairs consulting to make their lives work.

Laura Musante, 41, in Suffolk County, worked at a pharmaceutical company while she completed her college degree part-time at night. It took 20 years. Ever since, and three kids later with a husband who works long days, she has contorted to her life into a blur of Plan Bs in her quest for work-family balance.

"Part-time work outside the home, full-time work, stay-at-home mother 24/7, first shift working from home, second shift working outside the home, telecommuting etc.," she said.

Her oldest 16 and her youngest a year old, Musante now works from home about 28 hours a week as a medical editor and a content provider for a mom website.

"I can tell you that every time I changed my work arrangement, I just changed how I was juggling all the balls without really changing how well I was juggling them," she said. "I've decided that more important than having it all is the philosophy of wanting what you have."

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