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Pamela Gozo '97 and Patrick Gutmann '96 with Noah. "Dividing up responsibilities makes things run a lot smoother," Patrick says. PHOTO BY STEVE LEONARD '74

A good role model

Pamela always figured she would work. "My mom worked when I was younger and I felt it was good for me. She was a good role model. It helped me to see [my parents] as separate individuals with their own goals."

But after having Noah, she realized she wanted a flexible job that she could feel passionate about. That's why the native of Zimbabwe is making a career switch, from commercial banking to managing the African Leadership Foundation, a nonprofit that is raising money to build a school in Capetown, South Africa, and creating scholarships for the school's graduates to attend colleges in the U.S. and other countries. While she acknowledges that her new job will likely demand a full-time schedule at first, she hopes to eventually work less. "I think my ideal number [of days to work] is three. The family part would be more balanced. But in a lot of jobs three is not enough to be effective." She thinks being more focused and putting 100 percent into the job during work hours is the key to getting the job done in a shorter work week.

For Patrick, working has changed since Noah's birth, even though he's kept the same job doing product management and strategic planning for a commercial bank. Before Noah he often worked 50-plus hours a week. But now he tries to work no more than nine hours a day. "I've become more disciplined about leaving."

A young child changes so much from day to day that you can almost see each development. The feelings that parents have about work-life balance seem to change nearly as much. One of the toughest issues for many working parents to deal with is accepting that in a dual-income household, they won't always be the one tending to scraped knees or hearing a new word for the first time.

Pamela is no different. It took a while, but "I came to terms with the fact that I thought it was healthy to have my son spend time with other people for certain parts of the day. When I go there, he's always happy. He's developed relationships with these teachers that are different from what I give him. Now I do feel like I spend enough time with him."

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