That said, I do think it’s important to empathize with people who are not like that, even those who on the surface seem to be in a good position in terms of income, family, etc. As Laura/Sarah said, you never really know what is going on in a marriage, etc. From my experience with close friends and relatives, I just don’t think it’s possible to successfully advise someone to be less anxious and lower the standards that they have for themselves. Maybe over a long period of time it’s possible – I don’t know. Similarly, I don’t think I’m likely to become *more* anxious, etc – I am the way I am and I don’t see that changing. I take pride in doing good work, but I feel no pressure to do more than I need to or climb the corporate ladder higher than I have. It’s just not something I’m interested in. Maybe if you are a person who has a deep ambition to excel at the highest levels of your career, you’re more stressed and conflicted overall.

Perhaps the more important lesson learned is to not assume you fully understand someone’s situation (based on some posted rant and Google searching) but rather invite a conversation around topics and take the time to empathize and see others’ points of view. This would’ve been a much better episode if you were actually having a discussion with the original poster (might not be a bad idea to invite her on a future podcast so she can respond with a fair chance instead of being attacked). Essentially, this episode ended up being a rant against a rant.

Sadly, for as much as I’ve learned from this podcast, I may be done listening. I can’t get over the consistently harsh/judgmental tone for people’s “choices” … it is so much more complicated than that. You’re both educated women — did you really never take a sociology or women’s studies course? This issues have a long tail and are systemic; there is only so much an individual can do to change a situation that frankly sucks for lot of families.

Husband and I have professional careers and earn good salaries for our region, but I can no longer deal with some of the tone-deaf suggestions on this podcast. Jobs don’t grow on trees, and neither does child care.

I wish you the best and think you serve an audience that’s hungry for good information about work/life balance. But I can no longer deal with the dismissive attitude, so I’m done.

Hi Chelsea,

Thank you for this post! As the person who asked the question, the way you described the situation is spot on. I made the decision after months of talking with my spouse, we had spent the first five years of our marriage saving as much as we could to allow for situations like this one, and I just needed a break to figure everything out (which is hard to do when you are exhausted and in crisis mode).

Also, I actually had my next job lined up when I left the previous one (I was just able to negotiate the start date so I could take a few months off), I got paid out for vacation leave which covered about a month, and did some contract work during the remaining time which did bring in some income.

All that to say – things are much better now. I sleep at night and haven’t been sick (knock on wood) in three months :0)

However, I agree with the previous comment that some of this is bad feminism. We are raising children as working mothers in a patriarchal society – we should do everything we can to support one another! Katherine Goldstein of the “Double Shift” from the previous episode very clearly and articulately makes this point and even directly states that “society” doesn’t treat working mothers fairly. I didn’t hear any dubious feedback about “society” during this episode and it made me wonder why all the sudden it became an individual’s choice to self-impose these issues a mere week later. Marriage and motherhood (not mothering) are decidedly patriarchal institutions. Katherine Goldstein’s co-producer, Amy Westervelt, has written another eye-opening book on the subject (Forget Having it all) – society is unfair to working mothers and it has been unfair to women and mothers for centuries. (Thanks to previous commenter for the article!)

The woman who wrote this post on Facebook and was “given a pass” for that very likely did not want to become the subject of GMA or this podcast. At the very least, I think she should have been invited on (as an invited guest in advance). She was never given the chance to respond to any of the takedowns here or provide any context for why she was posting. She was obviously exaggerating to make her points and the fact that it went viral indicates we are all feeling this, these are systemic problems. The focus on her comment to “lean out” seemed to drive most of the backlash, and this could have easily been bypassed if she had been given a chance to address all of this herself directly, as a guest. If your goal is to keep women in the workforce and have them reconsider “leaning out”, I believe there are better ways.

I was frustrated when Laura said, “the fact that you’re listening to this podcast is probably an indication that you’re not married to a misogynist.” (And the previous comment that casually suggests that if your husband isn’t helping “just upgrade.”) I think everyone in this society could do some self-examining on the messages we internalize – myself, my husband, my “social circle”, my coworkers included. Blatant misogyny is so much easier to call out than the universe of unconscious gender bias we all unintentionally hold about men, women, mothers, fathers, families, gender, etc. I applaud Darcy Lockman for “throwing her husband under the bus” and writing articles and a book that challenges all our expectations about trying to co-parent on the front edge of the second wave of feminism that finally is trying to tackle motherhood. And while I am critical in this post, it’s the first one I’ve ever written for this or any other podcast. Please don’t take a break from this subject, talk about it more! I believe it’s the one that matters the most to working mothers.

Women are constantly being told what and how to change and the rant reflected that. I understand that Laura is in the self-help genre and so the burning desire that some of us feel to change “society” rather than oneself doesn’t completely fit the demographic or the goals of the podcast, but please don’t lose sight of the systemic problems. There is room to adjust and self-improve or tweak schedules or outsource or whatever can work for you. But there is also a need for some big improvements in our society with respect to working families. I would honestly love to hear more about that from this or any other podcast!

We are in the same boat! We make decent salaries, especially for the area we live in (very low cost), but their outsourcing suggestions are honestly laughable to me. There is NO way we could save for retirement/kids’ college and outsource everything they suggest. I know I am perhaps not the targeted listener because I’m not a “high earner”, but I wish they would broaden the conversation to include women of different income brackets.