Yes, women want it all: a family, a rewarding career, a balance between the two. Workplaces that recognize that are embracing family-friendly policies. This Mother's Day we take a look at how some firms recognized for being mom-friendly are making things better for all employees.

Last year this time, Sandra Coles found herself sometimes working a full night shift and then spending much of the next day getting her mother, Betty Ellis, to doctor's appointments.

Coles, a registered nurse at the VCU Treatment Center for Children, was also worried that her mother, unable to drive, was spending too much time at home alone.

When Virginia Commonwealth University opened an adult day-care program for employees taking care of elderly or disabled adults, Coles saw another way to help her mother and herself.

"It has taken a lot of the worry off of me," Coles said. "She is active again, meeting a lot of people, doing things, more than just staying at home."

Mother's Day 2008 finds approximately 59 percent of women in the labor force -- with many pulled in different directions as they mother young children or, increasingly, have to care for aging parents.

To respond and to stay competitive, many companies have adopted family-friendly policies that accommodate employees' various roles as parent, caregiver and even volunteer or community leader. Part-time schedules and being able to work from home are some of the more traditional benefits, but other benefits include educational and financial-management help, sabbaticals, elder care and expanded scheduling flexibility.

Working Mother magazine every year recognizes companies for being mom friendly, but the benefits firms are honored for are not limited to just women with children.

"We see the recognition as validation that we are doing the right thing by all our employees," said John Duval, chief executive officer of MCV Hospitals, which is part of the VCU Health System, recognized by the magazine last year for family-friendly policies.

Other local firms named to the list include Capital One, Bon Secours Richmond Health System and CJW Medical Center.

On a separate list, the magazine recognized McGuireWoods and Hunton & Williams as best law firms for women.

"I am really committed to my career, but I am also committed to being a mom," said Christine Mehfoud, 32, an attorney with McGuireWoods.

McGuireWoods offers employees the option of flexible hours working from home, all while staying on the partnership track.

Mehfoud occasionally finds herself working on a legal brief while daughters Diana, 3, and Lily, 1, play within earshot. An office in her Henrico County home is near the girls' playroom. A nanny watches the girls, but Mehfoud likes being near.

"Technology is a wonderful thing. I can work when and wherever I want," said Mehfoud. A BlackBerry and a laptop let her stay connected.

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According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 71 percent of women with children younger than 18 are in the labor force.

"I appreciate it if my manager recognizes that I have a family and that it may not be the best thing to request me to attend a meeting at 10 o'clock at night," said Shavonne Gordon. Gordon, 34, is a senior operations manager at Capital One, where she has worked for the past 7½ years.

"To me, that's respectable that my manager would recognize that," she said. "However, my manager also makes it clear to me that I have the exact same opportunities as everybody else on my team, regardless of if I have a child, if I am married, if I am single."

Gordon, whose husband is an assistant principal, is mother to Kennedy, 3, and stepmother to Marcus, 17. She has a home office and all the technological tools to allow her to work at home or on the go.

"I try to work from home whenever my day permits, if I have a day light on meetings," Gordon said.

Many working mothers are better educated and better paid than working women a few decades ago -- and they expect more.

"There is a pretty bright outlook for people who are professionals," said Sandra Peart, an economist and dean of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond.

"They have a great deal more flexibility in terms of the jobs they take or whether to stay in them. They are well-educated. They are more mobile than the rest of the population."

At the same time, said Peart, mother of two school-age children, "there are still a large number of people who don't have the same flexibility in the workplace. They cannot go to their boss or manager and say, 'My child needs to go to soccer tonight, can I come in early tomorrow and leave early tonight?'"

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The firms recognized by the magazine offer policies such as flexible schedules, paid maternity leave and career counseling.

"Law firms are starting to realize that in order to keep your brightest women attorneys you are going to have to rethink how you structure the partnership track," said Kimberly Q. Cacheris, mother of two daughters, ages 7 and 5, and a partner at McGuireWoods. Cacheris is chairwoman of the firm's women's leadership forum, which provides networking opportunities for the firm's employees and clients.

Generally, new attorneys work for seven or more years at a firm before they are eligible for equity partner with ownership stake in a firm. Changes allow men and women to make nonequity partner while working part-time hours or flexible schedules, and additional time to make partner, Cacheris said.

"People understand now if they go into one of these alternative arrangements, that's not going to preclude them from making partner, " she said.

The firm also has a track for those who don't want to make partner. "We want to keep them, and so we now have a senior counsel and counsel position," Cacheris said.

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With a work force that is 75 percent female and a market where nurses are in demand and heavily recruited, it makes good business sense for the VCU Health System to pay attention to the needs of working mothers. Flexible hours, tuition assistance, on-site child day care and adult day care, added last year, are some of the benefits.

"We have always wanted to do intergenerational care," said Maria Curran, VCU Health System vice president for human resources and family care. "We didn't have some of the compelling data until we started asking our employees. We had no idea how many of them had adults that they were taking care of until two people in one of the focus groups just started crying. They were so overwhelmed, and they thought they were the only ones dealing with a sick parent and trying to call at lunch time to make sure they took their medicine, stopping by and doing grocery shopping after work."

Coles was worried enough about her mother that after her mother fell a few times while home alone, she moved her in with her. Coles also switched from the night shift to working 12-hour, three-day weekend shifts.

"When [adult day care] came up at VCU, I talked to them. They said she would be a perfect candidate. She really enjoys it. She goes three days a week. That helps me out a lot, too. . . . On the weekends, that's when I can find a lot of people, family, somebody, to be home with her."