"After many long and confusing years climbing higher and higher in my career and struggling to be everything to everyone, having it all ended up feeling like having nothing. Today, my goal is to sculpt a profession that allows me to spend most of my time with my family, the people I love the most. Our children's childhoods are over in a fingersnap and it is important to be there to savor the wonder, the love, the moments that come but once. In our Militant Mama columns, I'd like to help other women realize that as the mothers of small children there is no mission more urgent, or more joyful, than creating work-family solutions that favor your families."

Photo: Iris and Jack

Iris Krasnow is the author of Surrendering to Motherhood: Losing Your Mind, Finding Your Soul, (Miramax-Hyperion, 1997), a book about her journey from globe-trotting journalist for United Press International into the heart of motherhood and her home with four sons, ages 4 and under.

This woman -- who at the height of her career used to interview such subjects as Billy Graham, Yoko Ono, Queen Noor of Jordan and Ted Kennedy -- is adamant that, despite the highs in exotic places with famous people, the deepest joy and fulfillment she has ever felt comes from spending time with her sons (now ages 9 and under). This precious, fleeting time parents can never get back.

Krasnow strongly believes that once a woman makes the choice to have children, she has made an elemental commitment to be there as much as she possibly can, thus her own decision to leave the consuming field of daily journalism and begin a more flexible career as an assistant professor of journalism at American University.

Krasnow also has a flourishing freelance career, specializing in relationship and family issues. Her work appears regularly in The Washington Post, and her articles also have been featured in Life, Self and The Wall Street Journal. Krasnow -- and Surrendering to Motherhood -- have been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, The Today Show and NPR Radio's All Things Considered. She is currently writing a second book -- on the challenges of marriage -- to be published in fall 2000 by Talk-Miramax Books.