Hi everyone, I'm Susie Weiss, and I've noticed there's just simply not enough podcasts in the world. So I'm launching my own. Let's go. Let's go, baby. Second Thought is a weekly show about pop culture. The stuff everyone's been binging, arguing about, obsessing over. Here's the thing about heated rivalry. I mean, even the most devoted swifties, I think we can agree, not our best work. We'll be hosting thoughtful conversations with culture's most important figures. Talk about genius.

Talk about generational talent.

Coming to headphones near you on

April 17th with a first guest you won't want to miss. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I am a mom of two, a wife of one. And my question is going to this new year, I feel like I'm on a hamster wheel, just trying to do what I love, but also juggling being a mother.

And I feel like there's no right answer.

And I'm so sick of the toxic positivity telling me I can do anything I dream of when the reality is, as a mother of two very busy boys and a wife

of a very busy husband. I can't do everything I want to do. Welcome to how to. I'm Amanda Ripley.

So in 1982, Helen Curley Brown published a book called Having It All, Love, Success, Sex, and Money.

It became a huge bestseller and an enduring cliche.

Ever since, as we know, women have been trying to have it all and failing.

Even Brown herself actually hated that title, but it's been really hard to shake. So today, we're going to

try to forcibly retire this idea and figure out, if we can't have it all, what can we have?

What is possible in a society that, let's be honest, offers pretty threadbare support to

working parents? Our listener, Janie from Arizona, who you just

heard from, she carved out some time in her frenetic schedule to workshop this problem with us.

So I got married very young, about three months after I graduated high school. I had my son about

two years later. You know, I went back to work when he was five weeks old and I was

19 and I had no idea how to take care of a baby, no idea how to have a full-time job as an adult.

So I was divorced on my 22nd birthday and then I remarried about two and a half years later.

When I had my second son, I had to go back to work when he was two weeks old. And I feel like since they both were born, I've never stopped.

Her sons are now five and twelve. And by day, Janie works as a pediatric occupational therapist.

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