The Washington Post is holding a contest to see who can become "America's Next Great Pundit," and voting ends at 3 p.m. today. We can't say their editorial board is always right, but it clearly recognizes talent because it's selected our own columnist Courtney Martin as one of the finalists. Here's a short sample of the sort of work she'd write for the paper: Though my dad retired over five years ago now, his ankles are still hairless and skinny, as if they can't quite get over the 40 years that he squeezed them into dress socks befitting a man going to the office. In fact, my father's lawyer identity is like a phantom limb. Without his daily doses of e-mail and ego-boost that the firm provided, his self-image aches and spasms. He lies on the hammock for hours at a time, bicycles in embarrassing spandex outfits, drives my mother crazy.My mother isn't having the same trouble adjusting. Like most women of the supermom '80s, she juggled her clinical practice with community activism, caretaking, and even founded a film festival. For my father, the line between work and the rest of life was always thick and black. For my mother it was porous -- everything was life and work, some of it better compensated in dollars and hugs. I thought of these two, bumping into one another in the kitchen, when I heard that women are now officially half of the workforce. Despite all the recent hogwash pitting the sexes against one another, the Center for American Progress reports that three-fourths of people see this new reality -- women comprising 50 percent of American workers -- positively. The women of my generation -- the entitled, earnest Millennials -- are not "opting out" of the workforce, as claimed by Lisa Belkin and others. In fact, I don't know a single one who isn't committed to having a career. Perhaps even more important, I don't know a single young man who isn't committed to being an involved father someday. My guy friends, late in their 20s and starting to spend fewer nights on bar stools, talk about the struggle to balance their careers with their interests and relationships. They want to do meaningful work, have love, to measure success by passion, not paychecks. It seems that the real revolution is not that women are working as much as men; it's that both women and men are starting to crave the porous kind of life that my mom led, instead of the compartmentalized version that my father has left behind. That's good news for everybody, even my dear old dad who has at least a decade or two left to figure out who, not what, he wants to be when he grows up.While -- selfishly -- we would hate to lose Courtney or even share her with anyone, we would love for her to have as wide an audience as possible. So, please -- if you've enjoyed her wit and insight here, consider voting for her. --The Editors
