Two facts are often obscured in the public conversation devoted1 to women, work, and family. First, the vast majority of married mothers don't want to work full-time2. Second, married mothers who are able to cut back at work to accommodate their family's needs tend to be happier.
在公众对女性、工作和家庭问题的讨论中，人们总会掩盖两个事实。首先，大多数已婚母亲不想全职工作。第二，在工作方面做出牺牲，花更多的经历照管家人的已婚母亲幸福感更强。
Mothers and fathers were asked by Pew if they had made family-related sacrifices for work -- from quitting their job to turning down a
promotion3. Pew found that 65 percent of mothers had made such a family-related sacrifice, compared to 45 percent of fathers.
Women married with children were more likely to be "very happy" with their lives if they made a family-related work sacrifice. By contrast, the happiness of married men was not significantly related to making work sacrifices for their families.
What does this data really tell us? These results do not prove that spending less time at work makes women happier. It could be, for instance, that happier women are more likely to make work sacrifices, in the first place. Or it could be that more
affluent4 mothers, who are more likely to be happy above a certain level of income, can spend more time with their families than poorer moms.
Most (married) mothers would prefer not to work full-time, and the most popular option for women, when it comes to
juggling5 work and family, is part-time work. A New York Times/CBS Newssurvey this year found that 49 percent of mothers wished to work part-time, compared to 27 percent who wished to work full-time.
This data suggests that one reason married mothers who make work sacrifices are happier is that they would prefer to scale back at work -- at least for some portion of their lives as mothers -- and are happier when they can do so.
This reality is often
glossed6 over in the public conversation about work, women, and family, but as Catherine Rampell at The New York Times observed: "Not everyone
aspires7 to be an executive at Facebook, like [Sheryl] Sandberg, or to set foreign policy, like Anne-Marie
Slaughter8" (author of "Why Women Can't Have It All")." Instead, as K.J. Dell'Antonia put it, most women are "striving for
flexibility9 and balance" when it comes to juggling their
aspirations10 for success at home and work.
Again, in the public conversation and the formulation of public policies regarding work and family, let us not forget that the happiest married mothers are those who are able to lean homeward（在归途上）, at least for a season in their lives.
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