Every October, National Work and Family Month gives me flashbacks.

When I became pregnant, I was a manager at a high-tech company. My job was at least fifty hours a week and, given a recent merger, would now include coast-to-coast travel. With my husband working crazy hours as a new associate at a law firm, we knew something had to give.

No problem, I’m a valued employee. I’ll just propose a part-time schedule for myself. So I did my homework and put together a proposal to go part-time based purely on business reasons. Doing my best to hide my queasy stomach, I flew to the East Coast and met with my new boss. I pointed out the advantages of having me part-time on the West Coast and hiring someone else part-time on the East Coast: lower travel costs, someone available in person in both locations, and the ability to hire two people with complementary skill sets and experience for the same money.

When my husband and I started talking about having kids, I tossed and turned over the implications it would have on my career. I’m just starting to get into a groove of “up and to the right” in my field and since I’m part of a pretty tight team at my job each one of us depends on the others to bring about success for the company. I worried that I’d be letting them down by not being able to give them 100%.

I worked with a woman with whom I had been very close personally and professionally who, when she got pregnant, suddenly determined that she had to work twice as hard to prove herself. She was almost paranoid in her certainty that she had to focus only on her career and work more hours than anyone else to show that she could still contribute, to the point where she actually undermined her own contributions to the team, ignored her family, and alienated her friends. I worried I would end up like her.

For many young working women, retirement security rests at the bottom of a lengthy priority list loaded with seemingly more pressing concerns. These include  finding a satisfying, well-paying job, negotiating a raise and, for many, juggling family responsibilities with career advancement. Social Security, a government program associated with older Americans, might seem even more abstract to demographic whose retirement years are quite a few decades away. But as a panel of experts explained to an engaged crowd of young professional women recently, women face unique challenges in retirement and, for women of all ages, the future of Social Security is a shared concern.

by Caroline Dobuzinskis

In political debates and media reports, the dialog on Social Security has recently focused on budget numbers. The program is often mistakenly tied to the deficit despite the fact that by law it cannot borrow money to pay for benefits and thus cannot contribute to the deficit. But the bigger story is being missed: the fact that Social Security directly affects the lives of many Americans including seniors, the disabled, and widows and children who are eligible for survivor benefits.