Suzanne Venker

Last week was big for the pull between work and family.

On Wednesday more than two dozen executives at companies such as Bank of America Corp. and LinkedIn Corp. signed a pledge to get more women out of the home and into our nation’s boardrooms. The goal of this initiative, entitled Paradigm for Parity, is to have women represent 50% of the “upper echelons” by 2030. Only then, these advocates believe, will America have achieved equality.

But gender parity in the workforce is futile. There will never be enough women who want that kind of life — not as long as they choose to have children. Indeed, children are “a key factor” in how women choose to structure their lives.

Ironically, political pollster Kellyanne Conway proved this to be true on the same day Paradigm for Parity was launched. At a Politico event in Washington D.C., Conway said she may not continue to advise President-elect Donald Trump — not from inside the White House, anyway — because of her kids.

“My children are 12, 12, 8 and 7, which is bad idea, bad idea, bad idea, bad idea for mom going inside [the White House],” said Conway. “They have to come first, and those are very fraught ages.”

It’s true: motherhood and politics don’t mix. Neither do motherhood and most big jobs — that’s why women don’t take them. In politics, your day begins at dawn and doesn’t end until midnight. And corporate jobs aren’t much better. This is the reason that even today, women represent a mere 19% of senior executives in North America.

Men to America — Thanks for nothing: Glenn Reynolds

To women like Ellen Kullman, former head of Dupont and co-chair of Paradigm for Parity, this is a problem that needs fixing. “We are driving actions that can make a difference in creating a step change because the progress for women is not there.”

Funny thing about progress: it’s a subjective term. According to the Free Dictionary, progress means “steady improvement, as of a society or civilization.” To gender equality advocates, society is improved when women make landing the corner office their raison d'être.

But that’s not how most women define progress. Most women value family more than they do power — and our children are better off for it. This is something to celebrate, not denigrate.

Women also believe, as do many of their husbands, that the needs of children require a parent at home. This concern was evident back in 2000, and it is still evident today. That it is Mom who chooses this role most often is hardly a conundrum. Her children want her to be there, and so does she.

And what of the truth about women’s progress? According to a 2009 report from the National Bureau of Economic Research, “As women have gained more freedom, more education, and more power, they have become less happy.”

That is hardly a sign women are clamoring for the C-Suite.

Several months ago I wrote a letter to my breadwinner husband that received an overwhelmingly positive response. I wrote it to acknowledge that I couldn’t do what I do — raise my children without the burden of being employed simultaneously, or become a writer, which often doesn’t provide a steady income — without a husband who brings home a steady paycheck.

Lilly Ledbetter: Time to end the wage gap for women

POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media

I represent the silent majority of married women, which I believe was the reason for the huge response. Most women with children in the U.S. are either not employed (29%), or, like me, work part time or have tremendous flexibility with their jobs — which was Kellyanne Conway’s point.

It is simply indisputable that most women with children want their lives to revolve around family, not around work. Money and power just doesn’t hold the same value to them as it does for a select group of women. That is not where their identities lie.

In America today, equal opportunity for women abounds — and that’s as it should be. But it will never result in equal outcomes.

As former U.S. Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce once said, “It is time to leave the question of the role of women up to Mother Nature — a difficult lady to fool. You have only to give women the same opportunities as men, and you will soon find out what is or is not in their nature. What is in women’s nature to do they will do, and you won’t be able to stop them. But you will also find, and so will they, that what is not in their nature, even if they are given every opportunity, they will not do — and you won’t be able to make them do it.”

Suzanne Venker is author of five books on marriage, motherhood and work-family conflict. Her latest book, The Alpha Female’s Guide to Men & Marriage: HOW LOVE WORKS, will be published in February 2017. Her website iswww.suzannevenker.com.

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @USATOpinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To submit a letter, comment or column, check our submission guidelines.