Previous Year Questions

Question :

Directions : Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

"Work-life balance is a lie," according to Thasunda Brown Duckett, president and CEO of the financial services company TIAA, and she thinks she's a better mother for giving up trying to give her children 100% of her time. The Wall Street titan recalled the light bulb moment came after breaking down in tears when another long day at work meant missing out on seeing her children that evening. Her husband, who's an engineer, Marine, and a stay-at-home father, advised her to simply quit her job. Instead, she said she quit striving to do and be everything, all of the time.

"Here's what I learned: Work-life balance is a lie because I was trying to reconcile it, and the math wasn't mathing," Duckett explained. "The truth is I only have 100% of me, not 110%. Understanding that I am not 100% allocated to being a mom, they only get 30%, allows me to be more intentional. So my children don't get 100% of all of me. But within that allocation, they get 100%." Instead of simultaneously trying to devote 100% of herself to motherhood and 100% to being the boss of a $45-billion-a-year financial firm, Duckett said that she tries to think of the time she has like a diversified portfolio. "If you live your life like a diversified portfolio, just like with your money, over time you will outperform," she explained. "On any given day, I may not feel like I'm the best mother when I'm travelling. There are days I don't feel like I'm a great CEO. There are moments I don't feel like I'm a great daughter," she added. "But over time, I'm a really good mom. And over time, I believe that I'm on purpose as a leader and I'm doing a great job."

She's not the first to admit that it's impossible to give motherhood and a bustling career equal attention - and thrive in both roles. Whoopi Goldberg has even candidly admitted that it ultimately meant she had to choose her career over her child. Holly Wilbanks, the founder of the Wilbanks Consulting Group, echoed that idea earlier this year: "The concept that we can do it all, I think many of us have realized, is not a realistic concept." Instead, what women today are trying to do is figure out what's important to them, what they value, and how they can structure their focus and their time around those things - and quite frankly, for a lot of women, that means making choices, such as trying to set clear boundaries between work and personal life. For some, these choices involve taking time off from work and going for a vacation to reset and recharge, while for others, it may include considering the aspect of switching the company in case of increased workload. Recognizing early signs of burnout is crucial, and being able to spot when work is negatively affecting personal well-being can help individuals make necessary adjustments before reaching a breaking point.

It was Cosmopolitan magazine that came up with the "You can have it all" mantra - the corner office, children in tow, and not a hair out of place. But even its former editor-in-chief admitted that not only is that unrealistic, it's also a "very dangerous" norm to perpetuate. If even those with huge incomes to chuck at childcare are admitting it's hard to excel at both motherhood and work at the same time, then what hope does the regular working mom have? About a quarter of a million mothers in Britain have left their jobs in recent years because of the difficulty of juggling a career and childcare, according to the Fawcett Society. Meanwhile, women who do remain in the workforce after having children are financially punished: Mothers experience a 60% drop in earnings compared to fathers in the decade following the birth of a first child, according to PwC. Over 40% of the mothers the Fawcett Society surveyed had turned down a promotion or career development opportunity because they worried it would not fit with childcare arrangements.

What concern does the passage raise about the "You can have it all" mantra popularized by Cosmopolitan magazine?