Working without a net.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome--you've arrived just in time for the annual U.S. CATHOLIC women's issue. To begin, pull up a couch and let's watch an Oprah rerun: the one where Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, confessed to having the same kind of conversations that any two-career couple with kids has. Barack described calling home from Washington one day to tell his wife about arms control legislation he was crafting. Michelle in turn briefed him on the battalions of ants invading their Chicago home.

"I'm thinking, 'Is John McCain stopping by Walgreens to grab ant traps?'" said Barack. "If he's not, he should be," said Michelle. You're grinning, right?

A historical tidbit: Although Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor graduated third in her class from Stanford Law School in 1952, no firm would hire her--except as a legal secretary. Fast forward to this issue's cover story, "Redesigning women: Is the church's 'new feminism' a good fit?" (pages 12-17) and a young woman's comments on feminism: "Feminism was important then, but do we really still need to be talking about this stuff? Women have equal voting rights--isn't that all we needed from that?" Try to imagine a conversation between Justice O'Connor and this young woman. Are you grinning again?

Women in the childbearing years who work inevitably find themselves on the front lines of the work/family balance issue (which of course is not just a women's issue). Justice O'Connor, for example, stayed home for five years while raising her three sons. "Two things were clear to me from the onset," she said. "One was I wanted a family, and the second was that I wanted to work--and I love to work."

In this month's Expert Witness interview ("Women and children first," pages 18-22) this year's U.S. Catholic Award winner Sharon Daly describes lobbying for health care and children's issues while working for Catholic Charities and the U.S. bishops' conference. As a single parent for 12 years, "I knew what it was like to miss days of work because there was nobody to take care of the kids," she says.

Finally, Margin Notes columnist Kevin Clarke ("They can do it," page 38) wonders if women in developing countries, as they forge their own feminist victories, might be able to teach us all a bit about work/family balance.

In the end, all of us are making this up as we go along. God is in the details of all these family arrangements, the small and not-so-small give-and-takes. No two are alike, yet each involves its own brand of sacrifice, of loving response to God's gift of a child in one's life. Walking the family high wire without a net is a spiritual exercise well worth the effort. Let's thank God for the opportunity.