For at least the last ten years, the media have been focusing on the question of whether women can have a career and children at the same time, but no one has asked, Can men have it all?

It may appear that they can and they do.  They run our society and they are held up as scions of perfection in balancing a successful home life and a fabulous career.  But my answer is a resounding NO!  They cannot have it all either.  And in fact, they don't.

The divorce rate is 50% and that tells a lot.  There are less single men out there to date than there are divorced once, twice or thrice men (and many of those have kids).  It's rare to meet a man who hasn't gotten his feet wet in at least one unsuccessful relationship on his way to building his great career.  In fact, many end up as elderly bachelors, such as  Bloomberg; and others find themselves in serial divorces, like Perlman, Turner and Soros.

The so-called successful marriages are the ones in which the wife has accepted (some, happily) that she will only see her husband a couple hours a day and when he shows up to social gatherings when obligated or when it's helpful to his business career.  She basically raises the children alone, and a lot of women prefer this control.

But it doesn't let men off the hook.  The fact that they're absent from their home lives means they are not successful there and that they can't groom both a career and a Norman Rockwell family life at the same time.

No one can have it all. Families and careers need much attention and nurturing to survive and to thrive.  A person can only be in one place at a time.  Men may think they have had fantastic careers and beautiful families, but somewhere in time, there is a child or wife who remembers his absence more than his presence in their lives.