You Don't Have to Carry It All

Award-winning journalist and mom-of-three Paula Faris gives insightful and practical steps for better working, momming, and living to the millions of overwhelmed and depleted working moms.

Being a working mom should work. Instead, it is a thankless, incredibly difficult job, marked by impossible contradictions and unreachable expectations.

American moms are more burned out now than at any other time in history. We believed we could have it all— fulfilling work, and a healthy and happy family. We pick up responsibilities wherever we go— on the job, at home, in our communities. We try to carry it all—and we can. Because moms are superheroes with superpowers! But at some point, our shoulders grow tired tired from carrying around the expectations and the mental load, tired from juggling the constant conflict between working and momming, tired of how our work— whether at home or at the office—isn’t valued equally, and tired of workplaces that treat us like risks instead of assets. 

Paula Faris offers a declaration of hope to all working moms— things are going to get better! There is another way forward that frees us from the barbaric conflict of mom-guilt and the bone-weary exhaustion of carrying it all and feeling like we’re failing everywhere. Through the lens of her personal experience and interviews with working women, men, leaders, and experts across the country, Faris dismantles the cultural expectations and toxic traps that American moms experience. She also gathers insightful and actionable steps toward a better way of working, momming, and living.  The problems we have as a country and culture are not insurmountable.  Besides, we’ve got working moms on this job. And there are literally no hands more capable than ours!