Book excerpt: Contrary to popular belief, there is no work-life balance. If you are working and you have children, your life is a three-ring circus. But you can be the Ringmaster, deciding what goes into each of your three rings: work, life, and you. You decide when and where the spotlight shines. In Ringmaster, author Jennifer Folsom explores the real work-family conflict-a long-term problem in which the inputs and outputs change more frequently than most of us would like to admit. You will likely be working for a very long time, and you'll probably be parenting for the rest of your life. What you need is a framework for evaluating the daily-and sometimes hourly-decisions and trade-offs between your personal and professional lives. This guide for working parents demonstrates that together, by lifting each other up, sharing strategies, and building our villages, we can successfully grow our careers and our families.