We need to be assertive in negotiating with our men around the shared care of our children. It is a negotiation, not a fight. It is a conversation, but an important and crucial one if you both want a career and a family. So how do you start that conversation?

1. Chose an appropriate time to initiate this important conversation.

Timing is all important with these types of conversations. You both need to be relaxed and able to focus. You need to choose a time when you are unlikely to be interrupted. Sometimes it can be good to foreshadow the discussion by saying early in the week: "Over the week-end I'd like us to find some time when we can talk about how we can work together in sharing our work and the children." That way, it is not sprung on him.

2. Approach the discussion with a positive attitude.

Believe in what you are doing. Believe in yourself. Believe that the two of you can work this through and that the outcome will be good for everyone.

3. Be clear about your position.

Get clear within yourself what it is you want here. You want to go to this breakfast meeting once a month. You believe this is reasonable. You want your partner to be responsible for the children that morning. This, however, is not just about this event. It is about the two of you working more together as a team. You want to feel that you are both helping one another to be who he/she wants to be, and to achieve your respective hopes and dreams. You want to feel that your hopes and dreams are equally as important as his. You want to develop a way for the both of you to work through issues like this as they arise.

4. Aim for a win/win outcome.

If you "win" here and your partner feels he has "lost", then it is a hollow victory because your relationship has lost also. What you want is an outcome where the relationship wins. To achieve this, the thoughts and feelings of both of you need to be considred and discussed and the outcomes need to meet as many of your individual needs as possible. Use the word "we", rather than "I" in your discussions. "We need a solution that is good for our relationship. At the moment what is happening is not good for the relationship. We need to be supporting one another as far as possible to feel fulfilled in our work and our family life." If he objects to change: "We have a problem then because I am not happy with the way things are." Make it clear that problems like this are problems of the relationship, not of the individual.

5. Seek first to understand and then to be understood,.

This was one of Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. If you are having to discuss this, it probably means that the two of you have built your relationship around a lot of assumptions about whose work is most important and who looks after the children. You are now wanting to change this (even if you initially were happy about it). You will have done a lot more thinking about it than he has. It is very possible therefore that he will be very challenged and threatened by you wanting to change the unwritten "laws" of the relationship.

5. Stay with the issue. Don't attack the personality.

No matter how provoked you are, don't get into attacking his personality. Avoid using "You...." and telling him what he doesn't do, or doesn't care about, or what failings he has. That's an attack and he will defend himself with the same personality attack on you. All of a sudden you are side-tracked. Stay with the issue. "We both love our work and our children and we need to talk together about how we can both be good parents and help one another be successful and fulfilled in our work. All I'm wanting right now is for you to take care of the children one morning a month so that I can go to this breakfast meeting." If he does side-track, don't follow him down that path. Bring it back to the issue.

6. Stay with it when the going gets tough.

If he presents arguments for why he can't do it, take each argument seriously and talk it through with him. You'll probably find that most of them aren't real obstacles to him at all. What's hard for him is having to change. If there is a genuine reason why he can't do it - e.g., he wants to go to the same breakfast meeting - then don't give up. This is a good place to remind him that you are not just about what you want, but rather about having a relationship where the needs of both of you can be met. Rather ask: "So what can we do about that then?" - "We could each go alternate months." - "We could get someone in to look after the children and get them to school." - "We could get up early and drop the children off to their grandparents on the way." - "We could explore other networking events to see if there is one that would equally serve the purpose for one of us."

7. Challenge in a way that will grow your relationship.

He may recogise that you have every right to go to the breakfast once a month, and will grudgingly, or resentfully, agree. Challenge this response in a non-threatening way because it is not the team response you want. "Are you angry with me for asking you to do this?" He'll probably say "no". "You don't seem happy about doing it?" See if you can get him to talk about what he is feeling, but let him own his feelings. Don't take them on to yourself. He will be struggling with the realisation that there is a new agenda in your relationsdhip. He is not sure about it. Part of him may sense that this could be good for you both, but the other part may be quite anxious about it because it is the unknown. Reassure him at this stage by telling him that if you both work together to help one another achieve his/her goals you will both be happy.

8 If the going gets tough, have a break, but don't give up.

If you are getting nowhere and one or both of you are getting angry or very negative and the discussion is no longer productive, suspend it. "This is not helpful. We are getting nowhere here. Let's leave it for now, but this is very important to me and I want to come back to it and continue this discussion in the near future."

Few women will persist like this with their men. It is very important to do so. The modern workplace is very geared to the needs of men rather than women or families. Only when women persist in seeing that their needs and of those of their families are met will anything change.