When Today Show host Matt Lauer sat down with General Motors’ (GM) CEO Mary Barra in late June, he asked the automaker’s first female leader: 
 
 You said in an interview not long ago that your kids said they’re going to hold you accountable for one job, and that is being a mom. Given the pressure at General Motors, can you do both well? 
 
 Barra graciously answered the question, telling Lauer that she has a great team, a wonderful family and a supportive husband. Notably, she didn’t turn that question back on Lauer to ask how he handles his demanding work schedule at NBC and still manages to be a good father. 
 
 Male executives almost never hear that question. MongoDB’s now-former CEO Max Schireson can attest to that. 
 
 The head of the database company decided to step down Tuesday after asking himself how he can balance the dual demands of fatherhood and running a company. 
 
 “As a male CEO, I have been asked what kind of car I drive and what type of music I like, but never how I balance the demands of being both a dad and a CEO,” wrote Schireson in a blog post explaining why he decided to step down as the chief executive for MongoDB. 
 
 Women are still the focus of the “having it all” debate and questions of whether or not they can be wildly successful at both a high-powered job and day-to-day parenting. Now their male counterparts are asking the same question of themselves. 
 
 Schireson, who helped grow the database company into a billion-dollar business, is on pace to fly 300,000 miles this year between the normal CEO travel duties and commuting from his home in Palo Alto, Calif. to the company’s New York City office. 
 
 All that time on the road adds up to many hours and days away from his family, including three kids. 
 
 “During that travel, I have missed a lot of family fun, perhaps, more importantly, I was not with my kids when our puppy was hit by a car, or when my son had (minor and successful, and of course unexpected) emergency surgery.” 
 
 He credits his wife for helping to pick up the slack when he was away. Not an easy task considering her high-pressure role as a doctor and Stanford professor. 
 
 “Friends and colleagues often ask my wife how she balances her job and motherhood,” Schireson wrote. “Somehow, the same people don’t ask me.” 
 
 Questions like these have gnawed at women, who openly debate the value of work and family. Sheryl Sandberg has encouraged women to “lean in.” Cover articles in national magazines have delved into the minutiae of making the right choice as a mom and a professional, not to mention the countless blog posts in response to both. 
 
 While it’s enviable that Schireson can step down as CEO to simply work “normal full time” as vice chairman, the fact that a male CEO is asking the same questions that a female CEO might ask is an important step towards leveling the playing field for top executives, regardless of their gender. 
 
 It’s time for the “having it all” debate to move beyond gender. The math is the same, as Schireson concludes, whether you’re male or female: ||||| Earlier this summer, Matt Lauer asked Mary Barra, the CEO of GM, whether she could balance the demands of being a mom and being a CEO. The Atlantic asked similar questions of PepsiCo’s female CEO Indra Nooyi. As a male CEO, I have been asked what kind of car I drive and what type of music I like, but never how I balance the demands of being both a dad and a CEO. 
 
 While the press haven’t asked me, it is a question that I often ask myself. Here is my situation: 
 
 * I have 3 wonderful kids at home, aged 14, 12 and 9, and I love spending time with them: skiing, cooking, playing backgammon, swimming, watching movies or Warriors or Giants games, talking, whatever. 
 
 * I am on pace to fly 300,000 miles this year, all the normal CEO travel plus commuting between Palo Alto and New York every 2-3 weeks. During that travel, I have missed a lot of family fun, perhaps more importantly, I was not with my kids when our puppy was hit by a car or when my son had (minor and successful, and of course unexpected) emergency surgery. 
 
 * I have an amazing wife who also has an important career; she is a doctor and professor at Stanford where, in addition to her clinical duties, she runs their training program for high risk obstetricians and conducts research on on prematurity, surgical techniques, and other topics. She is a fantastic mom, brilliant, beautiful, and infinitely patient with me. I love her, I am forever in her debt for finding a way to keep the family working despite my crazy travel. I should not continue abusing that patience. 
 
 Friends and colleagues often ask my wife how she balances her job and motherhood. Somehow, the same people don’t ask me. 
 
 A few months ago, I decided the only way to balance was by stepping back from my job. MongoDB is a special company. In my nearly 4 years at the company, we have raised $220 million, grown the team 15x and grown sales 30x. We have amazing customers, a great product which gets better with every release, the strongest team I have ever worked with, and incredible momentum in the market. The future is bright and MongoDB deserves a leader who can be “all-in” and make the most of the opportunity. 
 
 Unfortunately, I cannot be that leader given the geography of the majority of the company in New York and my family in California. 
 
 I recognize that by writing this I may be disqualifying myself from some future CEO role. Will that cost me tens of millions of dollars someday? Maybe. Life is about choices. Right now, I choose to spend more time with my family and am confident that I can continue to have an meaningful and rewarding work life while doing so. At first, it seemed like a hard choice, but the more I have sat with the choice the more certain I am that it is the right choice. 
 
 In one month, I will hand the CEO role to an incredibly capable leader in Dev Ittycheria. He will have the task of leading the company through its next phase of growth (though thankfully not of commuting across the country while doing it!). I know the company will be in great hands; his skills fit our next phase of growth better than mine do. And I will be there to help (full time, but “normal full time” and not “crazy full time”) in whatever areas he needs help. More about the announcement can be found in today’s press release. 
 
 I hope I will be able to find a way to craft a role at MongoDB which is engaging, impactful, and compatible with the most important responsibilities in my life. As great as this job has been, I look forward to creating one which is even better. 
 
 — Max ||||| In a blog post on his personal site Tuesday, Max Schireson, the CEO of the software company MongoDB, announced that he was leaving his position because he couldn't continue to properly run the company in New York and support his family in California. 
 
 "Friends and colleagues often ask my wife how she balances her job and motherhood," Schireson wrote, citing recent high profile interviews with the CEO of GM or the CEO of Pepsi. "Somehow, the same people don't ask me." 
 
 "As a male CEO, I have been asked what kind of car I drive and what type of music I like, but never how I balance the demands of being both a dad and a CEO," Schireson added, explaining that he loves spending time with his kids but doesn't love what he's missing when he's away from them because of his job. He also discussed the amount of work his wife – herself a doctor and a professor – does when he's gone. 
 
 Schireson will remain with the company as Vice Chairman, supporting MongoDB's new CEO. In an interview with Forbes, he said that choosing to spend time with his family (which is often a code phrase people use when they've been forced out) "is not a euphemism." 
 
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 "I hope that me telling this story in my position will help others feel more comfortable in making similar choices," Schireson told The Today Show. "And help people in senior leadership roles be more public about it." 
 
 On his site, Schireson wrote that he's aware that this decision might put him out of the running "from some future CEO role": 
 
 Will that cost me tens of millions of dollars someday? Maybe. Life is about choices. Right now, I choose to spend more time with my family and am confident that I can continue to have an meaningful and rewarding work life while doing so. At first, it seemed like a hard choice, but the more I have sat with the choice the more certain I am that it is the right choice. 
 
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 The responses to his blog post are overwhelmingly positive; even his daughter wrote in to say, "I'm glad you will be able to spend more time with us at home. yayyyyy." 
 
 It's somewhat fascinating, however, to consider what the response would be if a woman did the same thing as Schireson; she'd probably be at the receiving end of concern from other women that she was giving up her career. (Though as Schireson touches on, women who focus too much on their careers are judged just as much. Women: they can't win.). But with regards to work-life balance, men and women are struggling to each be accepted for doing the thing the other one has traditionally done without notice or praise. Maybe eventually we'll meet in the middle.
– Until now, the public debate of work-vs-family has focused more on female workers than male ones. So Max Schireson's decision to demote himself at a major software company and move back home with his family is turning a few heads, Jezebel reports. "Friends and colleagues often ask my wife how she balances her job and motherhood," wrote Schireson in a blog post. "Somehow, the same people don't ask me." His 19-month stint at the helm of MongoDB in New York City has been successful—he helped turn it "into a billion-dollar business," Fortune notes—but the time away from his wife, children, and puppy in Palo Alto, Calif., has proved just too hard. Among his reasons: "I have 3 wonderful kids at home, aged 14, 12 and 9, and I love spending time with them." His "amazing wife" has "an important career" as a doctor and Stanford professor. "I love her, I am forever in her debt for finding a way to keep the family working despite my crazy travel. I should not continue abusing that patience." "On pace to fly 300,000 miles this year," he's missed a lot of family fun plus his son's minor surgery and the puppy being hit by a car. A turning point came when his plane made an emergency landing in Tucson and he slept through the whole thing, he tells Forbes: "In that moment, I realized, 'What am I doing?'" "Will that cost me tens of millions of dollars someday?" he writes. "Maybe. Life is about choices. " Reactions on his blog are mostly enthusiastic, but Jezebel notes that a woman couldn't do this without people getting concerned. On a positive note, Fortune says it may be a "step towards leveling the playing field for top executives, regardless of their gender." One reaction was definitely favorable—a blog comment from Schireson's daughter: "I'm glad you will be able to spend more time with us at home. yayyyyy."