Anonymous wrote:As a woman, I admire successful women. I work PT and have "stepped down" from a more prestigious route b/c I have two young children. My neurotic tendencies have made me do so - honestly!

I have a friend in some unique (a real niche) IT position. She has two kids, a flexible schedule, and paid travel btw. DC and CA where her company is headquarted.

Her kids are fine. They understand mom travels and are often under the care of their father and/or relatives during her travel time. Eventually, when they're older, they'll travel with her, I'm sure.

I won't push my daughter, but I'll definitely encourage her to break that glass ceiling. If it were not for these women who broke barriers, we'd still be expected to stay home and to manage the household. I certainly want more for my daughter - and I would hope that my son would admire a women who was driven to succeed. Only then can we find true equality - when both men and women are on equal footing in the workforce.

So if there's a "Stephanie Jobs" out there, I'll be cheering her on!

Anonymous wrote:As a woman who is doing what most people will view as stepping down the career ladder to spend more time with family, I've been doing a lot of thinking about these types of issues.

My question is why is it important that there someday will be a female Steve Jobs? I guess what I'm saying is if there really is no woman willing to give up enough family time or whatever to get to Steve Jobs' level, isn't that okay?...as long as women have the choice.

I certainly won't push my daughter to be the next Steve Jobs (or even on a smaller scale, partner of a law firm) if she would prefer to spend more time with her kids.

But it seems mothers always want their daughters to be the glass cieling breakers even if they themselves did not want to. My mom was this way...a HUGE feminist (like me) but chose to "mommy track" herself because she wanted more time at home. This was completely her choice and she was happy. Nevertheless, she "encouraged" me to go to law school and stay on partner track to break those glass ceilings. She was disappointed for a few weeks when I told her I was changing career paths. I had to remind her to think back to when her children were young and how she felt. Now she's totally on board and supportive but for some reason she had this idea that her daughter would break through even though she didn't want to - turn's out I didn't want to either. Oh well. So I'll support my daughter in whatever she chooses but I don't want to sacrifice her life so that the world gets a Stephanie Jobs.

So, is this a thinly veiled post for Steve Jobs -bashers? I know plenty of idiots who can't pay attention and raise their kids on a good day. What about them, OP?

Really, Jobs contributed to our society in a way the bashers NEVER will. Just because he didn't find the cure for cancer doesn't mean he did not have a tremendous contribution to our society. You don't have to be a fanboy/girl to know he was a true innovator.

He was press savvy and chose his words wisely, as any good business owner does. So what? Let it go people, and worry about your own inept parenting. Stop picking on people who are so obviously out of your league, Steve Jobs or not.

Concur with the statement that: "I wasn't always there for them" DOES NOT mean he didn't raise them. I think even SAH parents can think of situation where, in retrospect, they weren't there for their kids (perhaps due to a medical condition, personal issue, etc etc).

His cooperation with a biographer is also understandable. I imagine there will be things I will want my kids to know about me that I may never find the right way to tell them, or feel they aren't quite at the right age yet, etc etc.

Steve Jobs knew he was dying but only quit work 6 weeks ago. If I was his kid, I'd be pretty resentful about that.

I would be thinking, my dad cared far more about his job than he did with me and he gave his life to the company and old quit when he couldn't physically do it anymore, instead of maybe quitting 6 months ago and spending more quality time with me before he died.

But, I'm a pessimist.

As a woman, I admire successful women. I work PT and have "stepped down" from a more prestigious route b/c I have two young children. My neurotic tendencies have made me do so - honestly!

I have a friend in some unique (a real niche) IT position. She has two kids, a flexible schedule, and paid travel btw. DC and CA where her company is headquarted.

Her kids are fine. They understand mom travels and are often under the care of their father and/or relatives during her travel time. Eventually, when they're older, they'll travel with her, I'm sure.

I won't push my daughter, but I'll definitely encourage her to break that glass ceiling. If it were not for these women who broke barriers, we'd still be expected to stay home and to manage the household. I certainly want more for my daughter - and I would hope that my son would admire a women who was driven to succeed. Only then can we find true equality - when both men and women are on equal footing in the workforce.

So if there's a "Stephanie Jobs" out there, I'll be cheering her on!

Anonymous wrote:As a woman who is doing what most people will view as stepping down the career ladder to spend more time with family, I've been doing a lot of thinking about these types of issues.

My question is why is it important that there someday will be a female Steve Jobs? I guess what I'm saying is if there really is no woman willing to give up enough family time or whatever to get to Steve Jobs' level, isn't that okay?...as long as women have the choice.

I certainly won't push my daughter to be the next Steve Jobs (or even on a smaller scale, partner of a law firm) if she would prefer to spend more time with her kids.

Anonymous wrote:As a woman who is doing what most people will view as stepping down the career ladder to spend more time with family, I've been doing a lot of thinking about these types of issues.

My question is why is it important that there someday will be a female Steve Jobs? I guess what I'm saying is if there really is no woman willing to give up enough family time or whatever to get to Steve Jobs' level, isn't that okay?...as long as women have the choice.

I certainly won't push my daughter to be the next Steve Jobs (or even on a smaller scale, partner of a law firm) if she would prefer to spend more time with her kids.

I agree with you 100%. I work a low key low stress job. I'm bright and have a lot of potential, I could run circles around many people who hold a higher title than I. I've frequently been asked by managers why I don't want to move up and why I have expressed disinterest in taking on more responsiblity. I have no desire to bring on the stress and extra hours. I'm happy to make a decent salary and work with people I like. My employer is happy to have someone smart, consistent and reliable in my position, whereas there normally would be turn over. I really enjoy the flexibility I have and chances to do everything I want to do with my children. My job can be mundane, but I really enjoy not running around exhausted like a lot of people juggling high level careers and family responsiblities.

My DH has ambition. Good for him, he can rule the corporate world if he wants. I think we are a great team and balance each other out nicely.

I think the argument could be made that while brilliant, Jobs was somewhat schizoid, and also unabashedly selfish. The latter two qualities will make it difficult to parent effectively, genius or not.

I alway slook at it this way, what will my kids say at my funeral, I am glad they will not have to knwo me this way, money and success are not worth not knwoing your parents:

CUPERTINO, Calif. — Steve Jobs, in pain and too weak to climb stairs a few weeks before his death, wanted his children to understand why he wasn't always there for them, according to the author of his highly anticipated biography.

"I wanted my kids to know me," Jobs was quoted as saying by Pulitzer Prize nominee Walter Isaacson, when he asked the Apple Inc. co-founder why he authorized a tell-all biography after living a private, almost ascetic life.

"I wasn't always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did," Jobs told Isaacson in their final interview at Jobs' home in Palo Alto, Calif.

Isaacson said he visited Jobs for the last time a few weeks ago and found him curled up in some pain in a downstairs bedroom. Jobs had moved there because he was too weak to go up and down stairs, "but his mind was still sharp and his humor vibrant," Isaacson wrote in an essay on Time.com that will be published in the magazine's Oct. 17 edition.

Jobs died on Wednesday at the age of 56 after a long battle with a rare form of pancreatic cancer.

As a woman who is doing what most people will view as stepping down the career ladder to spend more time with family, I've been doing a lot of thinking about these types of issues.

My question is why is it important that there someday will be a female Steve Jobs? I guess what I'm saying is if there really is no woman willing to give up enough family time or whatever to get to Steve Jobs' level, isn't that okay?...as long as women have the choice.

I certainly won't push my daughter to be the next Steve Jobs (or even on a smaller scale, partner of a law firm) if she would prefer to spend more time with her kids.

He did have an interesting life - finding his birth parents, becoming close to his sibling - and then fighting cancer.

So I imagine that by facing (and overcoming at times) so many obstacles, it becomes hard to be there 100% for your kids. It's hard for the non-Jobs who work a 9-5!

OP,
I didn't see that as a contradiction, but as an aspect of his life he'd never discussed publicly and therefore one we'd never contemplated. My sense is most super successful parents feel they weren't there enough for their children.

i kid with one woman and 3 with his current wife i believe

Didn't he have a few kids with different women?

"I wasn't always there for them" does not translate into "I was never there for them". Besises, Mrs. Jobs probably had a plethora of hired help to watch over the kids when she couldn't and hired help to do all the menial tasks that simply weren't worth her time.

Dean Ornish was quoted in a NYT article on Steve Jobs: “I once asked him if he was glad that he had kids, and he said, ‘It’s 10,000 times better than anything I’ve ever done.’ ” That really surprised me because I have always considered the exercise of genius and raising children as mostly incompatible. In the same article Jobs is said to have cooperated with his biographer, despite his famous penchant for privacy, for his kids. “I wanted my kids to know me,” Mr. Jobs replied, Mr. Isaacson wrote. “I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.”

I am fascinated by that apparent contradiction -- kids are the best experience ever but I won't be the one to raise them -- and its implications for ambitious women. Mrs. Jobs is an accomplished professional but she clearly was expected to handle the lion's share of parenting. Why do we continue to make these choices despite living in an era of unprecedented freedom for women? If we keep making them how will we ever produce a female Steve Jobs? As a SAHM I am not criticizing the Jobs family but wish to start a constructive discussion.