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	BALANCING WORK AND HOME LIFE Katherine Benziger, Ph.D. (Part IV for the July/August Exponent, the journal for the Women's Business Group, the group of women MBA graduates from the University of Chicago's Business School.) First off, women who have a natural lead in the Basal Right feeling function tend to get married early in life, unless they are highly introverted. Part of the reason they marry is because they want children to nurture and care for. Basal Right women are quite happy being mothers and homemakers, they find inner balance using their gifts to nurture, care for their children and husband. Many Basal Right women resented the women’s movement – feeling that it diminished what they loved and valued and diminished them for being satisfied as mothers and homemakers. Quite often, Basal Right women don’t choose to go to work unless they are forced to until their children have left home. When they do, they often find that the only jobs they qualify for require them to falsify type as a Basal Left – and may find themselves preferring instead to volunteer in a school, hospital or nursing home where their nurturing skills are rewarded. Such volunteer work is as well something which they can easily do part time so that their family time – with husband, partner or children and grandchildren is not diminished. Basal Rights, who have to work because they or their family need additional money, tend to prefer jobs which allow them to meet and greet people. Very often, they see a job as a necessary fact of life, but not a career. Thus, they interview for a get a job, in sales or personnel, but may leave after a year. It is merely a job, a source of money to allow them to earn the money they need. Basal Rights who are Eldest or Only children may be more interested in succeeding – as an office manager, or personnel manager. The more extraverted Basal Rights tend to be interested in hotter jobs – commission sales jobs but not necessarily as high ticket as an extraverted Frontal Right. In summary, Basal Rights given the option will marry and have children and commit their time and life to raising a family. Their job is being the best mother and / or the best wife. When they do go to work, it tends to be in a field which allows them to extend their nurturing and as well often involves them developing skills is one of their auxiliary functions – the Basal Left or Frontal Right. If they are forced to develop these auxiliary skills at the expense of their natural gifts because they have never married, they have been widowed or divorced and need money to support themselves and their children, they will falsify type more readily if they feel it is necessary to obtain a higher paying job, which they want to earn enough money to send their children to a private school, which they want to do, so that they see themselves as being a good mother. By contrast, women who have a natural lead in the Frontal Right intuitive function are more likely to find themselves drawn into a career – unless they have been lead to falsify as a Basal Right to be accepted as female. If they do not abandon their natural lead as a Frontal Right, they tend to become involved in careers before they marry simply because they are independent and like novelty and travel and may not feel like settling down. And as well, their seeming independence, may cause men to see them as not available. This would be particularly true if they were introverted. If they find or build a career using their natural lead, Frontal Right women may well find themselves encouraged to develop their Frontal Left auxiliary in business – which will foster their success, but diminish their interest in making time to ‘have a family.’ Such women may find themselves suddenly aware of their body’s biological clock, and be confused about how to make time for a family. The more the Frontal Right woman has ‘sold out’, by adopting more and more Frontal Left business values and skills, the more difficult it will be for her to balance having a career and a family. Often, the only solution is to stop work, stop her daily performance in the Frontal Left. When she is not longer pulled to perform as a Double Frontal, using her lead to support Frontal Left goals, she has an easier time opening to her feeling auxiliary and open developing her nurturing skills to have and raise children. The challenge in balancing her work and family life for any Frontal Right will always include the challenge to deliver dependable and regular care and performance (cleaning, cooking, shopping, etc) which demand her to actually get into the Basal Left – her greatest weakness – unless she and her family have enough money to hire a nanny and servants. Frontal Right women who have been raised, socialized or educated to abandon their natural lead and falsify as Basal Rights may well follow an early adult pattern similar to that of a Basal Right – having a family and focusing on being a good mother and wife. As soon as the children are in school, however, the natural Frontal Right will begin to look for opportunities to get back in touch with her true nature, to work as an artist or designer or commission sales person. By contrast in today's global business society most women with a preference in either left mode find they are able to enjoy success on the job with relatively less pressure to falsify. This being the case very often they don't feel the need to achieve balance at the end of the work day. Quite the contrary they may find that it is their home life - with its pressure to connect on a feeling level and nurture those around them - that causes them discomfort. A few exceptions might be noted. Specifically women who have a preference in either of the two left modes are likely to be uncomfortable in times of uncertainty and change. When they feel their own jobs or careers are subject to uncertainty they may look to their home life to provide balance, in the form of dependable routines and habits.
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