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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you want to continue to advance in your career - DO IT!!!  Once you get into more senior level types of jobs, the opportunities for advancement shrink and shrink.  And if you end up in the job you are in for a while without moving if you are in a more junior job to have gotten back into the workforce, it is very likely you will stagnate there. (ie. imagine yourself in your same role 10 years from now... or longer. When you are going up a career track you think it will keep advancing forever, when you get higher on the pyramid of whatever field, it no longer works like that).   AND, once you've established yourself in a more senior role, more flexibility (and financial rewards that help afford more life flexibility/options) will kick back in.  BUT if you think you are not planning in even some balance of 'career focus' moving forward in life, then stay.  And, if you do have some career focus - don't take job advice from those who are not in the game.  There is a certain set that will always tell you to stay home as much as possible & balance - and don't get that you can be a very engaged parent and also have a career too.[/quote]

This seems like some good advice.  I don't actually think that you can be a very engaged parent and also have a career, but I am not really sure that every child needs a very engaged parent.  I don't know the names of every kid in my sons' classes, don't go to every sports practice and game, and only see their teachers at parent/teacher conferences.  I do read with them every day, do their math homework with them, and listen to their middle of the night worries, and know their friends, so I am not disengaged, but not DCUM level engaged.

But my kids have white skin, high SES, a team of great teachers and educators available to them, every book/technology/extra curricular activity they could need, 2 parents, four grandparents, and a nanny who obviously love them, and penises.  If they can't make it with those advantages, there is probably not much that my giving up my career would have done for them.

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I agree with this, that the kids have certainly enough advantages in life to be fine either way. 
And I agree with the PP that if this is now or never I would probably choose to do it.
Also being present is something else than spending every night with them: one night with a nanny every month is not going to make a difference. If you travel more but have shorter days when you don't it is not clear to me that this means less presence for the kids.

BUT I personally refused a similar opportunity as it was both more traveling but also much longer hours. I would have been much less present and I am not sure that it would have hurt the kids but I would have missed on some of the best years with them. 6 and 8 are such perfect ages and my hopefully mistaken belief is that it goes to hell around 13. So this means 5 years with the elder which goes in a blink.  I would have missed on this amazing years with them. I decided that I would take these opportunities later (they may not arise all the time but in my field it is not a now or never) when the kids don't want to talk to me anyway. I love my work and am very clear that the kids leave soon enough so I would not do anything that would harm my career (leaving for a few years would have been a no no in my field) but am ok with slowing things down a little bit if it allows me to enjoy both my work and my precious time with the kids.

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