True Stories of Kids, Career & the Collapse of the "Do It All" Mom

Mothers everywhere, rejoice!! The era of "doing it all" has come to an end. Finally, after years of trying to be everything to everybody-- the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect professional, and more-- women are realizing that it was all an impossible dream... and moreover, it was a mistake. When Gloria Steinem and her cohorts threw off their bras and fought for women's rights, their purpose was to create equal opportunity in the workplace and schools for women. Herein lay the misunderstanding: When women were told that they COULD do it all, they took it to mean that they SHOULD do it all. A big difference. One that has caused women to suffer from feelings of failure and inadequacy for decades.

As Gloria Steinem clarifed to Oprah in 2008, "today's feminism it isn't about women doing it all. It's about women not having to do it all."

I began buying into the myth of "doing it all" at an early age. In my 20s, I had my checklist life in mind: start a lucrative career right after college, meet someone, fall in love, get married in my mid-20s, get my career to a successful enough point that I can take some time off without loosing footing and/or work part-time from home, and then of course get pregnant and have my first child before the age of 32. It seemed like a realistic timeline of expectations and according to the tenants of Feminism. Not only could I do it all, it was my right and even duty as a woman.

With age, wisdom, and each successive child (I have 4), I learned that by trying to do it all at once, I was not doing anything at a level of 100 percent effort or enjoyment. There was simply too much to do and accomplish to feel 100 percent about anything other than my stress level. So in my 30s when each item on my checklist that I accomplished did not create a sense of fulfillment or relief but rather more longing, I admitted to myself that doing it all was not all it was cracked up to be. I made the difficult decision to put my career on hold and stay home to raise my children.

I felt like a failure.

After agonizing over my inability to "do it all," I decided to do some market research on the subject. I reached out to women who were seemingly able to balance kids, career and family life, and ask them how they did it. What I learned was that so many of them were so tired and overburdened that they did not seem to be enjoying anything. And then I reached out to others who had given up on the "do it all" dream and were just trying to do their best, rather than chasing after all the "should's" in life. These women seemed far more peaceful and actually quite happy.

So, women. Let us breathe a collective sigh of relief as we delete "doing it all" from our hard drives and gracefully slip into a state of being true to ourselves- Hopefully for good. Let's join one another in embracing the imbalance, the imperfection and the chaos of motherhood.

The past has been about participating more fully and equally in the world. The future will be about changing the world.