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XX. Hello and welcome to the Double X podcast for Thursday, October 4th, the Moomoo Edition. I'm Hannah Rosen,

editor of Double X. I am joined in the New York

studio by Noreen Malone of the New Republic and Alison Benedict, another editor at Double X,

and our special guest, Jess Gross, back for a return appearance. Hi, guys. Hi, Anna. Today we are

going to talk about three things. The first is Marissa Mayer, the new CEO of Yahoo, and her decision not to really take maternity leave. And the second is one so-called cool dad's approach to his 13-year-old son surfing a lot of porn on the web. And finally, we're going to talk about Jess Gross's new novel called Sad Desk Salad, which is out this week and mostly about how proud I am of my Jessica Gross and how awesome it is that she has a novel.

Okay. Let's jump in immediately with Marissa Mayer. She became the CEO of Yahoo in July. And this week, she finally had her baby a moment we've been waiting for. And this sparked a

huge debate because she then said that she was going to work through her maternity leave, not take a lot of

maternity leave. And many people were very critical of this. I am not one of those people. And Alison

Benedict is sort of one of those people. Alison, I loved your bog post, even though I completely disagree with it.

But I will let you explain why you think that Marissa Mayer, as you put it, is making a huge mistake.

First, let me say that I think it's awesome that she has this position. I think it's awesome that Yahoo hired her knowing that she was pregnant and that she herself, you know, didn't feel like that was something that could hold her back.

However, her statement and the statement from Yahoo has been that she will be working remotely throughout, meaning like from day one after having this baby.

From the delivery table, possibly.

Correct. And that she'll return to the office as soon as possible. Likely, the quote is in one to two weeks. This is Mommy Wars judgment here. And I hear myself being that person. But it just seems like a mistake. First of all, I don't think she has any idea. And this sounds incredibly condescending. But she doesn't know what her baby's going to be like, what she's going to feel like. So it seems premature to make that promise and make that decision before she's even come home from the hospital. And I'm not judging her professional or her business decision, but I think personally, you decide to have a kid. Your life changes. It doesn't just go back to normal right away. And this is one instance. I'm not saying she should be a stay at home mom. I'm not a stay at home mom. But this is one small time in a mother's life or a parent's life when it's both socially acceptable and I think emotionally and physically necessary to be close to your baby. I mean, I understand if you're making a more

global social policy, like she's a model and, you know, she's setting a bad example. I totally disagree with that too. But like what business is it of yours if she's like her body needs to heal? Like when I read all that stuff, like there was a babble post, like her body really needs to heal. how the hell do you know if her body needs to heal?

Like I've had three pregnancies and in one of them I felt like hell and another one

I was like closing a piece like from the delivery table. Like it's just different. Like what do we

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