[apl]

  > Nothing specific to Academia there.

I disagree. Many highly skilled professions (software development, engineering, medicine) offer a sustainable career path for people who don't have the drive, ambition, focus, whatever to play at the top of their respective game. For instance, it's entirely possible to make a decent living as a mid-level engineer who puts in 40 hours a week for 40 years. Similarly, you can reconcile life and job as a doctor by shunning the race to the top and becoming a GP with absolutely acceptable salary. (This is all written from a German/British background -- things might be different in the US, but the point still stands.)

In academia, there's no such thing. It's up or out. Prestigious professorships and research positions pay very well, but there's nothing between that and drowning in a sea of mediocre scientists fighting for a very limited number of government grants and internal funding. In most comparable professions, this woman could have simply accepted her low-trajectory-career and continued while emphasizing kids and private life. As a scientist, you get fired.

[arethuza]

From what I hear in the UK if you are something like a good heart surgeon you can pretty much name your conditions - if you are a mother with school age kids that might be to only work two days a week. And why not! I think if I was being operated on I might prefer a rested and unstressed surgeon to one who is working 80 hours a week...