According to a recent survey by career website FlexJobs, an overwhelming majority of parents (96%) say having a traditional full-time job conflicts with important parts of taking care of their families, and two-thirds report frequent conflict.

At the same time, a whopping 97% of respondents feel that having work flexibility (such as working from home or having a flexible schedule) would help them be a better parent.

Much of that desired flexibility depends on your chosen career path, as some jobs easily flex to fit your lifestyle while others require endless travel, face-time and round-the-clock demands on your attention. Yet, ironically, these career trajectories are typically initiated in your early 20s or before, when you are less likely to have family responsibilities or to factor future ones into your career plans.

“I knew that someday I would have kids, but it didn’t factor into my career decisions,” says Merilee Brooks, 36, a mother of two based in Los Angeles, Calif. “At the time, I wanted to do something that was exciting and fast-paced. I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.”

Four years ago, Brooks was a top executive at entertainment marketing agency Bemis Balkind, working from sun up to sun down and coming up with campaign ideas in the shower. But when she had her first child, what once was fulfilling became overwhelming. She quit. “The deadlines were insane,” she says. “I had no balance. I was getting burnt out by the corporate hustle and not taking care of myself.”
After a stint freelancing, battling the same deadline urgency and frenzy that characterized her full-time job, Brooks decided to make a career switch to being her own boss. She and her husband Eric, a former music industry executive, launched online baby products retailer MyBlueBirdie in 2008. As an entrepreneur, she controls her own time and can invest it where she sees fit. “I decide when something is truly critical,” she says. “It gives me the ability to be here for my kids and still have that professional outlet.”

Her story is all too common. “I’ve talked to so many people who say, ‘if I had known this would be so difficult, I wouldn’t have chosen it,’” says Sara Sutton Fell, CEO of FlexJobs. “The good news is we are seeing many traditional jobs evolving to be much more flexible.”

Generally, creative and knowledge-based fields like education, design, writing and information technology provide the most flexibility, says Sutton Fell, whereas fields that require a consistent physical presence or billable hours offer the least. However, there are now a growing number of historically time-intensive jobs in sectors like business and health care that are also becoming available in part-time,work-from-home and flexible scheduling options.

Looking at current trends in the marketplace and based on FlexJob’s database of flexible job openings, Sutton Fell teased out the 10 best family-friendly careers based on flexible options, high earnings and expected job growth over the next decade.

Several business positions top the list, offering high wages and lenient schedules. Without the stress of chasing sales leads and digging up new business,account managers maintain current client accounts and frequently work from their homes. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the position earns a median annual salary of $99,000 or $47 per hour.

Also, more companies, particularly nonprofits, are beginning to hire part-time executives for roles like executive director, operations director, communications director and regional vice president. These employees can work a reduced or flexible schedule and earn approximate $40 to $42 an hour. Project managers and business analysts also have more scheduling flexibility, less stress than more traditional financial workers and can sometimes work from home.

In the already flexible education sector, more high-level jobs are cropping up that offer good pay and work-from-anywhere perks. Curriculum developers are typically full-time telecommuting jobs, earning a median of $59,000 per year. Most positions require a master’s degree and several years experience, but they are expected to remain in demand over the next decade. Similarly, online adjunct faculty positions offer flexibility in both hours and geographic location.

Other top family-friendly careers include software developers, earning a median of $90,000 per year or $44 per hour and available in freelance and telecommuting positions; speech pathologists, making $67,000 per year or $32 per hour, with part-time and full-time options; and online tax advisors, who earn $61,000 per year or $30 per hour and can work from home.

While work-family balance is a top concern for working mothers, Sutton Fell says they aren’t the only group looking for more flexibility. Working fathers who are juggling parenting responsibilities, military spouses who are frequently uprooted, older workers who are less interested in the corporate grind but still able to work, and millennial workers who grew up in the connect-from-anywhere digital age are all seeking better ways to fuse their work and their lives.

Sutton Fell says job type determines a good portion of the flexibility you can expect and suggests using key words like “remote,” “part-time” or “flexible schedule” in your job search. Additionally, the company and manager you work for makes an enormous difference, she says.

More and more businesses seem to be waking up, with a push from increasingly vocal leaders like former banking executive Sallie Krawcheck. In a recent article for career network LinkedIn, she offered her big idea for 2013: “flexibility without shame.”

“Smart companies will allow movement among different workstyles during the course of a career without implicitly penalizing individuals for their choices, as so often happens today,” writes Krawcheck. “They will recognize that technology enables flexibility, productivity and team formation in ways not previously possible… They will recognize that having employees fully engaged in part-time work can be better than their being distractedly engaged in full-time work (or, of course, opting out completely).”

And if companies aren’t willing to adapt, there’s always the option to, like Brooks, be the boss rather than report to one.