Even when Claudia Morrell's three daughters were small, she logged 60-hour workweeks, nights and weekends included, as a technology executive.
Not feeling "perpetually guilty" was her biggest challenge. But never once did she consider herself an unfit mother.
"My kids always knew I loved them, what I was doing was important and would help their futures and that mothers need to have lives, too," says Morrell, who lives in Perry Hall.
"My kids turned out OK, and I think I'm a role model for them."
In blogs and coffee shops and at the office, women are looking to their own personal histories and family schedules to debate the challenges awaiting Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, should she be elected.
Some argue that even raising the question is sexist.
But Palin's high-profile visibility and story - she has five children, including an infant with Down syndrome and a pregnant teenage daughter - has renewed an already-testy debate among women about the expectations to have and do it all.
Opinions have ranged from admiration to criticism that she should not be taking on the additional demands of a campaign while also parenting a child with special needs.
"It's interesting how all of a sudden we could be united as working women and something like this happens, and .... we just get so judgmental of each other sometimes," says Julie Lenzer Kirk, a mother of two, who runs a training and consulting firm for entrepreneurs in Damascas and a Republican. "There are two camps. The one that says, 'Go for it.' The other that says, 'You're crazy.'
"I happen to be in the go-for-it camp. Not that it's going to be easy. She's going to need a lot of support."
While debating Palin's choices as a mother, some women also are expressing frustration that few male candidates, if any, face questions about balancing fatherhood and a career.
"The language of juggling and balancing is so gendered because men are not worrying about 'can I balance or juggle it,' " says Shira Tarrant, an assistant professor of women's studies at California State University at Long Beach.
Morrell wonders why nobody's asking about the role of Palin's husband, Todd. He is on leave from his job as an oil field worker to be a full-time father, according to The Washington Post.
And why nobody's questioning Barack Obama's parenting skills.
