Can working women have a high-powered career and raise a family. Absolutely not, according to former General Electric Co. chief executive Jack Welch (pictured), quoted in a Wall Street Journal story today. The notoriously tough Welch told the Society for Human Resource Management's annual conference in New Orleans on June 28 that women have to make tough choices and that they lose out if "you're not there in the clutch."

While taking time off to raise the next generation "can offer a nice life", once you've done it you can't catapault yourself to the upper echelons to spend time with grand poobahs like Welch.

One female CEO told the Wall Street Journal that it is possible to take a few years off and still make it to the top. "But if you take a decade off, you probably aren't going to make it to the top."

Some attendees agreed with Welch, saying he was just articulating what nobody wants to say: you have to be in it to win it - not doing fingerpainting and playdates.

But others thought his comments showed the attitude of an older generation out of touch with women in the workplace today. They tend to launch their careers and entrench themselves in management before taking time off to parent. That makes it easier to pick up where they left off. It also ignores the influence of men who also want time off to parent without being "mummy tracked" and sacrificing their careers.

I think there's a kernal of truth of Welch's comments that no one wants to acknowledge. But maybe not acknowledging them is a good thing. It used to be accepted that women who took time off to become mums "naturally" left the fast track. It's not perfect, the way we cope with maternity leave, but it strives toward a workplace that doesn't automatically downgrade women's abilities simply because they perpetuate the human race.