November 17, 1994

WITH the first of the high-stress, end-of-the-year holidays only a week away, there is no question that caricatures of the overburdened working wife and mother, harried husband and coping children are not exaggerated. A number of studies have confirmed that more women are working, that 70 percent of working mothers are employed full time, that almost half of working women have children under 3, and that both men and women are working more hours each week. Clearly, something has to give. So overwhelmed parents opt for potluck Thanksgiving and order Christmas presents by mail. It's no wonder that this delicate balancing act by high-octane adults trying to manage home life, marriage, work and holiday celebrations looks precarious, at best.

WHEN Eugene V. Thaw first encountered American Indian art as a graduate student at Columbia University in 1948, "it was a nonevent," he said. "I paid no attention to it." These days, Mr. Thaw and his wife, Clare, live here in what many people call the land of the first Americans, surrounded by the extraordinary objects of their most recent collecting interest: 600 surrealist Eskimo masks, geometric-patterned Pueblo pots, Rothko-like Navajo blankets and colorfully beaded Blackfoot shirts.

National retailers of consumer electronics have squeezed smaller competitors out of one American city after another in recent years, following a pattern set by discount department stores and mammoth supermarkets. But New York City, with its high rents, low margins, costly advertising and savvy local competitors, has intimidated big chains like Circuit City Stores and Best Buy, despite the $9.5 billion spent on consumer electronics here each year, a sizable share of the nearly $80 billion spent nationally.

The General Motors Corporation said yesterday that it had reached outside its ranks -- outside the auto industry, in fact -- to fill what may be one of the toughest jobs in Corporate America: G.M.'s top North American marketing post. In the position, an executive is responsible for whipping G.M.'s fractious and overlapping car and truck divisions into line, convincing its independent dealers to sell vehicles more effectively and luring back customers burned by quality problems in the past. And for the job so crucial to G.M.'s success, the company chose an official who has been marketing sunglasses and contact lenses.

President Clinton and a parade of the fallen and the survivors in Congress vowed today to plow ahead with House and Senate votes on a world trade agreement after Thanksgiving despite some bipartisan opposition. They argued that if the votes were put off until next year, the agreement, which took 12 years to negotiate with 123 nations, would certainly die.