It's incredible, unbelievable and simultaneously not at all surprising that in her article about womens struggle to balance family and career the author doesn't mention the role of men. This has been the problem all along. Men's role in raising children and keeping house is always being discounted, to everyone's detriment, most importantly children's.

Here's the facts as I see them: having a fulfilling career and being a good parent and running a happy home is only possible if it's shared. That means that, right from birth, a father gets as involved and invested with his children as the mother does. That earning money is shared, that housework and all other jobs are shared. Most particularly, and the one that I personally find the hardest to handle alone - responsibility for it all is shared. This can only happen if women reach economic equality with men so that earning can be shared. And yes, this means taking work seriously, right from the beginning.

I know women who are basically single mothers in terms of the support they enjoy let alone the equal participation of their menfolk in childrearing. By the same token I was shocked, when having a baby recently, at the exclusivity of the culture that marginalises and disrespects men's role in family life right from the beginning.

Women and men need to change and raise their expectations of what is possible when all the roles - caregiver, breadwinner, homemaker and careerist - are shared.

>I want to make a difference, create something I'm proud of (a book, I've always assumed), leave a legacy.

Cary nailed it - write that book!

Also, forget about your potential. That's a kid way of speaking. All your life people have been talking about your potential becuase you were a child. You're an adult now and the time for potential is over. The time for judgements like that are over too. You've made the investment in yourself, as have others no doubt based on that potential. Now it's payday. Time to take action and prove yourself.

Based on my experience and the experience of many others around me it isn't until you actually have to start doing things - rather than demonstrating how well you may do them one day - that failure becomes a real and terrifying prospect. Here's my prediction: you will fail. Anyone who tries to do things that are hard will fail. But they'll also succeed, at least some of the time.

So I say get out of that sheltered workshop job you're in. Stop thinking of yourself as a CV on some university administrator's desk and take ownership of your own life. It's your own adventure. You couldn't be better equipped and yet still there will be highs and lows and failures and achievements. That's a good thing. It makes life exciting.

But put all talk of potential in a drawer, lock it and throw away the key. You're just a normal person now with dreams and realities like everyone else.

I'm not American, I'm Australian, but since the Free Trade Agreement with the US was ratified and since we're just about the only country to have gone to war in Iraq with you guys I'm as affected as any of you by who becomes the US president.

From my point of view here in the Rest of The World Hillary would be a great president. What's she done to deserve it? Got a first class education, worked her butt off as a lawyer, had a child, learned all about the White House from the inside during her husband's tenure and now has spent the last eight years there on her own account. What more do you want? Are you trying to say Bush is more qualified? At least Hillary is smart, hard working and dedicated.

People say she's arrogant/cold/blah blah blah. Tell me, what woman in power has ever had anything but adjectives like these used against her? It's almost impossible to imagine a woman in power who wasn't arrogant because if she wasn't how would she ever feel like she had the right to do something so unfeminine as to say 'make me no.1?' In a man these qualities of Hillary's would either be celebrated or simply not commented upon. They're only noteworthy in Hillary because it's just so weird to see a woman with that much power in the first place, and it makes a lot of people really uncomfortable.

I'd love to see Hillary win. I think she's super bright, super personable (by the standards of world leaders) and she knows how to play the game. The world would be a better place if Hillary were to become President.