What if the problem isn’t our ambition, resilience, or mindset, but a system rigged in ways mothers are taught to internalize as personal failure?
Corinne Low, PhD – Wharton economics professor, author of Having It All, and mother of two – joins Sara to unpack how becoming a mother blew up the script she was following and exposed the gap between the lives women are promised and the ones they are actually supported to live.
Drawing on rigorous economic research and deeply personal experience, Corinne names the forces that make motherhood feel so destabilizing at work and at home, even for highly accomplished women.
Instead of telling women to lean in or try harder, Corinne brings data to the quiet crisis so many mothers experience. She explains how workplaces are structured around an outdated model of family life, how gendered expectations inside marriages continue to shape women’s careers, and why exhaustion and guilt are often rational responses, not personal failures.
In this conversation, we explore:
why “utility” matters more than happiness
how mom guilt is often misnamed desire
why the so-called ambition gap is a myth
how workplaces lose mothers during “the squeeze” years
why choosing the right partner and where you live may shape your life more than anything
This episode offers a clearer, more honest way to think about work, motherhood, and what “having it all” can realistically mean.
📚 Purchase Having It All here and wherever books are sold:
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