The Myth of Having It All

Summary

Infamous Podcast: "The Myth of Having It All"

Date: January 15, 2026
Host: Vanessa Grigoriadis (B)
Guest: Dr. Corinne Lo (D), Economist and Author of Having it: What Data Tells Us About Women’s Lives and Getting the Most out of Yours
Producer Introduction: Lily Houston Smith (C)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the concept of "having it all," a phrase often associated with modern working women attempting to balance high-powered careers, caregiving, and domestic life. Host Vanessa Grigoriadis sits down with Dr. Corinne Lo, an economist who specializes in gender and labor, to dissect why societal expectations, historical inertia, and economics make "having it all" an ironic myth. Lo provides both data and personal anecdotes to reframe how we think about time, guilt, and the value of care work. The conversation is candid, practical, and at times both funny and poignant, offering listeners a new lens for the start of 2026.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Myth and Irony of “Having It All” [02:40–04:21]

• Irony of the Title: Lo explains that the concept of having it all is used ironically in her book, which depicts the chaos of modern life for women (e.g., "dinner on fire...your inbox exploding and your coffee spilled and your baby crying" [02:52]).
• Workforce vs. Home Roles: While women’s roles in the workplace have expanded, men's contributions at home have not increased proportionally. "Gender roles have converged at work... but we don't see men's time at home go up." [03:21]
• "Two-way Player" Dilemma: Women are expected to perform in both professional and domestic spheres, often partnered with men who do not reciprocate at home.

2. Unchanged Male Domestic Labor [06:00–06:18]

• Data Insight: Despite more women working, men’s time on household chores is "flat" since the 1970s, except for a slight increase in parenting time, which nevertheless is still inequitable.
  • Quote: "The time we spend with our kids has just massively increased... because it's increased more for mothers than for fathers..." [06:18]
• Generational Expectations: Men compare current contributions to their own fathers, not their partners.

3. Increased Parenting Intensity [07:29–08:43]

• Parenting Culture Shift: Modern parents, especially mothers, are more involved, leading to higher stress and time demands (e.g., shift from “bedroom kids” to “living-room kids”).
• Cultural Humor: "The prisoners are running the asylum 100%... It's a whole...child-rearing industrial complex." [08:43]

4. Breadwinning Women and Housework [09:33–09:56]

• Key Statistic: Even as women approach primary breadwinner status, the amount of domestic labor done by male partners is unchanged. "As the woman's income goes up, the man's time doing housework is just flat...he does the same amount." [09:33]
• Deep Gender Coding: Tasks outsourced without guilt (car repairs, plumbing) are male-coded; outsourcing groceries or cleaning is stigmatized as "bougie." [10:22]

5. Rethinking Labor, Outsourcing, and Guilt [10:22–12:29]

• Reframing Outsourcing: Lo argues that outsourcing should be viewed similarly across tasks, regardless of gender coding, and our guilt is rooted in undervaluing women's time.
  • Memorable Analogy: "If you were hiring yourself as a freelancer...are you hiring yourself for too many jobs?" [10:22]
• Limits of the Time Basket: Modern mothers perform new parenting tasks (breastfeeding, travel sports, bedtime rituals) while retaining old expectations, leading to overload.

6. The “Second Shift” and “Third Shift”: Care for Aging Parents [15:00–17:45]

• Sandwich Generation Reality: Grigoriadis introduces the idea of a “third shift” added to parenting and career—caring for aging parents simultaneously with young children. [15:00]
• Structural & Demographic Shifts: Aging populations and delayed childbearing mean caregiving for both children and parents often overlaps, stretching women universally thin.
  • Quote: "I literally say, throw out your houseplants... You might even have to let go of holiday decorations..." [18:36]

7. The Cost of Caregiving on Women’s Careers [18:10–21:04]

• Workforce Squeeze: Many women reduce or leave employment due to impossible care demands, but Lo clarifies she doesn't advocate leaving jobs, but encourages viewing work as a tool.
  • Quote: "Why would that be the solution? But what I advocate is to think of your job as a technology to convert your time into money." [21:04]
• Lean In Critique: Lo critiques the "lean in" philosophy as a boss’s agenda: "Lean in sounds like it was written by your boss. And...Sheryl Sandberg is your boss." [21:01]
• Utility Over Maximizing Career: The goal is to maximize "the sum total of our joy, fulfillment, and contentment over our lifetimes," not just career progression. [21:04–24:23]

8. Redefining Caregiving and Value [24:23–29:22]

• Language Matters: Grigoriadis wishes for more nuanced language, preferring “producer” or “manager” to “caregiver.”
  • Quote: "I'm the producer. I'm the manager. You know, what's a better way of talking about caregiving...?" [24:23]
• Economic Value of Care: Lo reframes care labor as economic value: "You're producing economic value for yourself because you get meaning...and for [your parent], because her life works better." [25:05]
• Meaning vs. Happiness: Utility, not happiness, is the true reward of caregiving, especially when the work is "profoundly meaningful but not joyful." [27:30]

9. Social Policy, Labor Markets, and the Future [29:24–31:49]

• Structural Barriers: Society’s design (nuclear family model, geographic separation, lack of paid care) exacerbates individual burdens.
• Care Economy and AI: With demographic shifts and AI advancement, the care work sector is poised for growth—but needs to be better compensated.
  • Quote: "Home health aides...is a actually very...quickly growing job. And yeah, I would like to see us as an economy value them more." [31:49]

10. Personal Choices and LGBTQ+ Family Dynamics [32:44–36:16]

• Lo’s Story: After divorcing her husband (partly due to unequal labor), she now co-parents with her wife.
  • Quote: "I joke that it was an evidence based decision, but importantly, that's a joke..." [33:09]
• Division by Preference, Not Gender: In a same-sex partnership, tasks are divided by skills and preference, not gender: "She does more of the cleaning ‘cause she cares more...I do more of the cooking because I care more." [35:35]
• Even so, the squeeze persists: Two careers, two kids, an ailing parent. "It's still just really freaking hard to juggle it all." [36:16]

11. Balancing Family, Work, and the End of Life [36:16–39:18]

• Economic Rationality: Prioritize meaningful memories rather than delay engagement or ignore finite opportunities.
  • Quote: "This period will eventually pass, right? Your parents will be dead and you will be grateful for the plane ticket that you bought..." [36:55]
• Smoothing Time and Money Use: Don’t wait for a crisis to spend time/money on loved ones—plan and prioritize throughout life for maximum meaning.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Quote & Attribution | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:52 | "Having it all is sort of too much. And the reason it's too much is...gender roles have changed in the workforce and… not at home." — Dr. Corinne Lo | | 06:18 | "As more women begin working...the amount of time that the men spend...has not increased since the 70s." — Vanessa Grigoriadis | | 09:33 | "As the woman's income goes up, the man's time doing housework is just flat." — Dr. Corinne Lo | | 10:22 | "If you were hiring yourself as a freelancer...are you hiring yourself for too many jobs?" — Dr. Corinne Lo | | 13:25 | "All of these new things can't fit in there with all of those old things and we might need to take something out." — Dr. Corinne Lo | | 21:01 | "Lean in sounds like it was written by your boss...Sheryl Sandberg is your boss." — Dr. Corinne Lo | | 25:38 | "You can be productive through care labor...and that care labor can be particularly meaningful..." — Dr. Corinne Lo | | 27:30 | "Sometimes we do things that absolutely do not feel happy or joyful, but they serve our values." — Dr. Corinne Lo | | 31:49 | "Home health aides...is actually a very, you know, quickly growing job. And yeah, I would like to see us as an economy value them more." — Dr. Corinne Lo | | 33:09 | "I joke that it was an evidence based decision...but his expectation was still like 50, 50. And that's 5050 of the visible tasks." — Dr. Corinne Lo | | 39:18 | "Your message is also like really positive...your life is about creating meaning making moments." — Vanessa Grigoriadis |

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Opening and Episode Context: [00:32–02:34]
• Introduction to Dr. Corinne Lo and “Having It All”: [02:34–04:21]
• Data & Gendered Labor Dynamics: [04:21–10:22]
• Parenting, Caregiving, and Societal Pressure: [10:22–13:25]
• The Sandwich Generation & Workforce Impacts: [15:00–21:04]
• Reframing Jobs and Career Utility: [21:04–24:23]
• Redefining Care, Value, and Language: [24:23–29:22]
• Policy & Future of Care Work: [29:24–31:49]
• Personal Stories & Queer Family Strategies: [32:44–36:16]
• End-of-Life Logic, Rationality & Memory Making: [36:16–39:18]
• Closing Reflections & Final Thoughts: [39:18–40:17]

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Episode Tone and Language

• Warm, Candid, and Pragmatic: Both Grigoriadis and Lo engage with humor and deep empathy, using personal anecdotes balanced with hard data.
• Direct and Unsentimental: Lo brings an "economist's rationality" to emotional territory—often to clarifying or surprising effect.
• Critical of Societal Structures: Both speakers critique capitalist and patriarchal frameworks, but offer agency-focused responses.

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Useful for Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In

• This episode clarifies why the dream of "having it all"—juggling high-level career, caregiving, and domestic perfection—is both historically and structurally infeasible for most women.
• It reframes conversations about outsourcing, guilt, and time, encouraging listeners to reprioritize meaning and agency over impossible standards.
• Personal stories from both the host and Dr. Lo underscore the emotional stakes and prevalence of these issues, making the data come to life.
• Practical advice is woven throughout, from reconsidering outsourcing decisions to giving oneself permission to prioritize joy, meaning, and rational trade-offs during life’s squeeze periods.

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Further Reading & Resources

• Having it: What Data Tells Us About Women’s Lives and Getting the Most out of Yours — Dr. Corinne Lo
• Lean In — Sheryl Sandberg (for contrast and critique)
• If you like the show, leave a review and follow the hosts for more behind-the-scenes content.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[A]

What's up, rich people? It's me, Haley, aka Mrs. Dow Jones. Money is juicy. That is why I have taken it upon myself to start a new podcast called Financial Tea. Every single week, I will break down what is happening in money right now. Plus, I'm going to bring on experts, entrepreneurs, and influencers to spill their financial tea. Think of it as your new weekly financial gossip column. Listen to Financial Tea wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.

[B]

Campsite media.

[C]

Hey, infamous listeners. Producer Lily Houston Smith here. So you might have gotten on this train years ago, but for me, 2025 was the year I finally got into grocery delivery. And no, you are not listening to an ad right now. This is the episode. But I will say it's kind of magical. You tap a few buttons and like an hour later, your groceries are at your door. And you pay for it. Of course, something along the lines of 20 or $40, depending on where you live and how you tip. But I live in a neighborhood that doesn't have a lot of good grocery stores, which means that grocery shopping usually means getting on a subway, which also costs money and means a bunch of stairs. Plus all the stairs it takes to get into my apartment, which is a fourth floor walk up. That's how I justify the expense. But the question is, why do I feel like I have to be defensive about spending this money? Well, the conversation that you're about to hear might explain why Vanessa's going to talk to Dr. Corinne Lo, an economist who studies gender and the author of Having it what Data Tells Us about Women's Lives and Getting the Most out of yours. We wanted to play it for you because I know right now in the new year, we're making all kinds of resolutions, maybe to save money by not getting so much food delivered. But Corinne helps us reframe this and think about it totally differently. Maybe a better resolution is to think about getting the most out of our time. She explains how there's so much more stigma around outsourcing certain female coded tasks like grocery shopping or cleaning, even though we outsource male coded ones all the time. Like, you don't think twice about paying someone to change your oil or fix your leaky pipes. She argues that this guilt is a holdover from an earlier era when women's time outside the home was not valued that highly. But the world has changed, which becomes really clear when you look at the numbers. I found this conversation to be really eye opening and inspiring for 2026. I hope you do too.

[B]

Welcome, Corinne.

[D]

Thank you so Much for having me. I can't wait to dive into this.

[B]

So here's the question. In your book, you say, well, it's not really having it all. It's having it all almost. So is there such a thing as having it all?

[D]

Yeah. So that is when we chose the title. We chose it to sort of be ironic, and we wanted to show that irony a little bit. And so if you've seen the book, the COVID of the book has like dinner on fire and like your inbox exploding and your coffee spilled and your baby crying.

[B]

I did notice that. Yeah. There's also like a chicken is on fire, the actual chicken in the oven. And a broken heel, like a broken stiletto heel is also illustrated on the.

[D]

COVID which is so me right now because I decided to have a baby and a book baby at the same time. And so I've been like, pumping in planes, trains and automobiles, running through the airport, spilling breast milk, you know, all of those things. So having it all is sort of too much. And the reason it's too much. There's a reason. The reason it's too much is that as gender roles have changed in the workforce and they haven't changed at home, so we are now able to do the same things at work as men. And so we think there's no reason I shouldn't be as successful as my male colleagues. I'm just as good. Right. Gender roles have converged at work. We see women's time in the workplace go up, but we don't see men's time at home go up. So then when it comes to those gender tasks at home, you named them, including taking care of our aging parents. Men's roles haven't changed. So we are trying to be a two way player, play offense and defense. Well, meanwhile, we're partnered with people who are just like, well, I'm just gonna stay over here on offense. You handle all blocking all those shots. Right?

[B]

Right. But what you do is basically apply these economic principles to the way labor is broken up in the household. So, like, obviously a big problem that family caregivers face is burnout because they're not just taking care of their parent, they're taking care of their kids. They have a job, they're doing all sorts of domestic labor on top of everything else, that chicken is always on fire. But why? Why do these jobs fall primarily on women?

[D]

I don't have the answer fully of, like, why men's gender roles haven't changed, but I actually think part of the reason lies in the history of how we got here in the first place, which I think it's easy to tell this happy story of like there was a feminist revolution and that allowed women to go into the workforce. And that should have then transformed all of us. It should have transformed society. And I don't really quite think that's what happened. I think that women partly entered the workforce out of necessity, partly partly because families needed two incomes to survive, but partly also because of what I call the bottom falling out of the marriage economy. So we went to college, we entered the labor force, and we thought that that was a gender revolution. But nobody was telling men anything. Nobody was telling them that they needed to change, Right? So it was just a super one sided gender revolution. And it's kind of now it's leaving us in this really tough situation because it means that we are trying to fit what used to be two separate full time jobs doing all of the home production at home, which is still economic work, it's still labor and producing in the market at the same level of our male colleagues. So how would we not be burned out?

[B]

Totally. I mean, it's an untenable position. But what is unbelievable in your data is that as more women begin working outside the home, the amount of time that the men spend doing this household production, these household chores, has not increased since the 70s.

[D]

Yes, it hasn't increased at all. The one place where we do see a little bit of a change for men is in parenting time. But that's because parenting time has exploded for everyone, right? So the time we spend with our kids has just massively increased since a generation ago, since when we were kids. Okay. But because it's increased more for mothers than for fathers as men. Feel like, I'm doing a great job. I do so much more than my dad did. I read a bedtime story, I dropped the kid off at school, right? They're comparing themselves to their dads. The fact that we're literally trying to do more, which I think is so important for everyone listening this to understand, because also you're caring for your parents, but meanwhile your parents are telling you you're just too anxious. You need to just let the kids put themselves to bed and play outside and just do things the way we used to do things. And it's like, okay, well, because you did not have the research that said that like, the time that we invest in our kids is actually crucial for their child development, for their healthy neurological development, for their later life cognitive outcomes. And that's why we need lots of therapy at the Same time as we're, like, taking care of you. Right?

[B]

That's very true. Yeah. I mean, it is unbelievable how much more time we're spending with our kids. There's like, a meme going around saying millennials were hang out in the bedroom kids. And we're now taking care. And by the way, I'm a Gen Xer, but, like, I think you're a millennial.

[D]

We're now taking care.

[B]

An elder millennial. Very cool. But we're now taking care of living room kids. Right? Like, kids who are just like, you know, they're in the living room. I mean, my son follows me around the house, so if I'm in the kitchen, he's in the kitchen. If I'm in his bedroom, he's in his. If I go downstairs to try to, like, read a book for a second in the living room, he's right there with me. Because that's the way the relationship is.

[D]

I mean, even. I'll even go beyond that to say that, like, yes, I was hanging out in my bedroom, but if I wanted to see my mom, I had to go to her bedroom. It was like, if I wanted to see her, it was like, okay, knock on basically the office door. Or like, if I want to hang out with her, it's watch what she's watching on tv. And in noticing that, that we used to watch what our parents were watching on tv, and now that we are parents, we're watching what our kids are watching on tv. Notice who is the protagonist in our households. Who's the center of gravity in our households has shifted.

[B]

Oh, no. Definitely. The prisoners are running the asylum 100%. It's really. Yeah, it's a whole. It's an industrial complex. But the child rearing industrial complex is its own thing of, like, you have to have this baby seat and this thing and that thing and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's all about just like, you know, everything. You have to have to be the mom that's gonna help your kid along the way. And by the way, there's not gonna be any jobs for these kids in about two seconds. So they might be too smart for the economy that's on its way. But, I mean, I really am amazed by the stat in there that the women who are breadwinners, those husbands, actually do the same amount of housework as when the man is the breadwinner or less.

[D]

Yeah, it's shocking. So I have this graph, and it's, like, showing that, like, as the woman's income goes up, the man's time doing housework is just flat. And so if you go to the man where you're like, oh, he earns 80% of the household income, and then you can let him off the hook, you're like, okay, it makes sense that he doesn't do the dishes, he doesn't cook dinner. But if I follow the graph all the way to where he makes 20% of the household income, he does the same amount, he does not change.

[B]

Yeah, it's crazy. And I also think the way that you sort of reform the idea of paid labor within the household is really fascinating. The idea that you take your car to have the oil changed or the muffler changed, or you get AAA or whatever to change the tire, which, by the way, when I was growing up, my dad did all of these things.

[D]

Exactly. And I think the aha moment for me was it was like, if you just list a lot of the things that we outsource and we outsource guiltlessly, they tend to be male coded tasks. Right. It's okay to call the plumber, it's okay to call the mechanic, but paying somebody to get your groceries, paying somebody to do your laundry, paying someone to organize your house, now you're kind of like this bougie, out of touch monster, right? And I think in that way you talked about how men's time is the same as it was in the 1970s. There's a mindset where we're still stuck in the 1970s, where we haven't gotten used to the fact that our time has equal value now outside the household, the same way that men's time has value outside the household. And that's why your husband might say, look, it's gonna cost me much to hire somebody, but it's going to take me so long to do it, even though I can do it, it doesn't make sense for me to do it. Right. And so I kind of want everyone to think of themselves. Like, if you were hiring yourself as a freelancer, Right. Would you hire yourself for this task? And so, you know, Instacart, like, I actually had to do the math in this because I was like, someone who's also resistant to Instacart. And then I was like, what's the premium that I actually pay to do Instacart? And it's like to do Instacart versus to go get the groceries myself. Okay. But for like, let's say about $100 in groceries. Okay. The premium that I Pay is like $17. Okay.

[B]

Right.

[D]

And so the Fact that I was devaluing my time so much. I want us to reframe not outsourcing as hiring yourself for a task and just ask are you hiring yourself for too many jobs? And so I just want us to notice that asymmetry of like how we treat hiring a mechanic or hiring a plumber versus how we treat hiring somebody to do a female coded task and recognize that there's a mentality piece of it of it being us feeling guilty because we're supposed to be able to do this ourselves. And I call BS on that because when you look at how time use with our kids have changed, it's not possible to both do all of those new things we're doing and do all of the old things we were doing. Right?

[B]

Right.

[D]

So yeah, maybe our mom did have time to go to the grocery store and to do the laundry and to make the home baked cookies or to make something that we're remembering is like a special way that she showed her love when we were kids. But that's because she was not tucking us into bed and reading bedtime stories. She was not driving us back and forth to travel, soccer and sitting there on the sidelines and being like woo, yeah, you scored a goal. So the ways that we invest in our kids now. And by the way, also, she was not breastfeeding and pumping when she went back to work. Like the data on the rates of breastfeeding at six months used to be like less than 10% of the population was still breastfeeding at six months. So we are making those other investments. So if our time basket is only so big, it might be that like all of these new things can't fit in there with all of those old things and we might need to take something out.

[E]

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[A]

What's up, rich people? It's me, Haley, aka Mrs. Dow Jones. Money is juicy. That is why I have taken it upon myself to start a new podcast called Financial Tea. Every single week I will break down what is happening in money right now. Plus, I'm going to bring on experts, entrepreneurs and influencers to spill their financial tea. Think of it as your new weekly financial gossip column. Listen to Financial Tea wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.

[B]

Now, let me just throw this curveball at you, which is what about caring for your old parents? Because I am a professional lady who has two kids and that felt totally unmanageable. Right. And it's what has long been called the second shift. You go to work and then the second shift is you come home and you take care of your kids and you cook and you clean and you do this and that. Crazy. So that's 16 hours out of your day, leaving very little for anything else. You put in aging parents that I can call the third shift. And now we are in a 24 hour day with no time to sleep.

[D]

Yeah. And this is another. It's a structural change. So as the gap between generations gets better, bigger, you go from having help from your parents when your kids are young to at the same time as your kids are young now you have aging parents. Right? So like I just had a baby at 41. So you know, if I had had a baby at 20, right. Then you have spry grandparents who are able to kind of come in and help you out. But when you have a baby at 41, well, now you're dealing with, oh, you've got the Parkinson's diagnosis, you've got, you know, potentially dementia starting. Right. And you're. The caregiving is going the other way. And so now if you just think about that, if you think about the math of that, that used to be like, all right, from here we were getting an input and that was going into this output of childcare giving. Now childcare giving has doubled. Our time with our kids have doubled. And instead of receiving an input here, we've got another output here.

[B]

Meaning the output is labor for taking care of your parents.

[D]

Our labor going towards our parents instead of their labor coming in. Right. Because for actually our parents generation, right. They were able to have help from grandparents. Oh yeah.

[B]

And my parents, my husband's parents took care of our kids a lot before my parents got sick, you know, like a lot, a lot. So I do think a lot of people are benefiting from that care from the grandparents is just a question of how long does it last and when does it shift?

[D]

Exactly.

[B]

Do you have to take care of them?

[D]

Exactly. And I think that shift is coming earlier. And so for some people it is the sandwich generation of it's hitting while their kids still need a lot. Right. Versus hitting once they're empty nesters. And then you would say like, okay, now I have bandwidth for this, but it's like, oh, okay, whoa. And I don't know if you feel this way, but for me it's like, oh my God, your parents just age all of a sudden. Right? Like you just all of a sudden wake up and you're like, wow, this happened. I was not ready for this. Right. And so it appears the phase of your life where you're still feeling like, oh, I was still trying to make all of that add up and now I've got to introduce this to it. And it's gendered. It's gendered, right?

[B]

Okay, so talk to me about that.

[D]

No, in the time use data we just see women doing so much more of this caregiving labor, just drastically more of this caregiving labor. And it's even, it's the in laws. Even when it's taking care of his parents, the women are doing a lot of that labor. So that is, it's not just, it's not in your head, it's not a feeling, it's backed up by the time use data that women just spend more time on this.

[B]

I'm not surprised to hear that. And what about, where do you get the time to do this? I mean, I have noticed, you know, some data saying like the 49 year old woman is sort of in trouble, is dropping out of the labor force is not. What do you know about women around that age? Which I assume is the age. Maybe it's about skills, getting out of date, but maybe it's about like, oh no, I have to help my parents now too, and my kids.

[D]

Yeah, I think of it, I talk about this period in life that's like a squeeze, right. Which is when, you know, our kids are young. And I think the aging parents create like a second squeeze on women. And it is because of systemic failures because we don't have real support in society to be able to like provide long term care to our parents or assist us with that, that it ends up falling on kind of individuals to close that gap. And, and so yes, it is going to affect your time in the labor market. And that's where one of the things I try to do in the book is to say, even if the systems don't change, because I can go on and on about how I want systems to change, but even if the systems don't change, I want to empower women to get back in the driver's seat of their own lives. And you do that by really recognizing it's a 24 hour day. That's the constraint. And so I've got to figure out where I'm going to invest my time and where I'm going to invest it when over the course of my life. So there are going to be chapters in your life where you are caregiving for aging parents, for example, where you've got to let go of what the garden looks like. About taking care of your houseplants. I literally say, throw out your houseplants. Okay? You've got to let go of whether there's home baked treats for the kids, you know, soccer games or school parties. You might even have to let go of holiday decoration. You might have to, for the first time order takeout Thanksgiving dinner because you cannot do everything. And if what goes is your health and well being, well, then that's all the sooner that your kids are going to end up having to take care of you, right? So when you invest in yourself, getting real rest, sleeping eight hours a night at minimum, right. Those things are investments in your kids too. Because if you think about the way that this is squeezing you right now, you don't want your kids to be hitting that before they have to. You want to be able to be there and be the helpful grandparent for your kids.

[B]

But that's, but that's very, very hard. I mean, you do realize like that that is, I mean, you're basically advocating for people to leave their jobs. You tell me if I got this right. The way that you advocate for women to get through this squeeze, meaning the sandwich generation, the aging parents and the kids, is to think about not the money you're making today, but your future self in five years. And how is that future self going to feel about the choices that you made today?

[D]

So I definitely, I don't, I, I am not advocating for people to leave their jobs, but I do advocate.

[B]

Wait, what if you're the professor who's like, everybody should just leave their job?

[D]

Well, it was so funny. I just did an interview with a male Journalist because I talk about in the book how like, I was juggling and I felt like I was dropping all these balls. It was really hard. And he goes, well, if you were struggling to balance home and work responsibilities, why didn't you just leave your job? And I said, have you ever asked a man that? You've got to be kidding me. Like, you're only talking to me because of with my job. So, like, why? Why would that be the solution? But what I advocate is to think of your job as a technology to convert your time into money. I advocate for people to think about their job a little bit more dispassionately, especially in those squeeze years, because I think there's a tendency or a temptation to be like, I have to get fulfillment through my job, especially as women, because that's like we've been programmed. Like, that's feminism, is me being like self actualized through my job. And I kind of think that that's a little bit of like a trick of capitalism. Because it's like when you think about lean in, I say that lean in sounds like it was written by your boss. And it's like, yes, Sheryl Sandberg is saying lean in because Sheryl Sandberg was the CEO of Facebook. She is literally your boss. And her objective function is for the employees to lean in to work, right? But there might be periods in your life where you say, these investments at work are not serving me. So it's not the leave your jobs. It's just think about your job transactionally and make sure that you're really getting a return in terms of what you need from what you're putting in. And so it might be that these periods, the chapter of your life, because I say, think about your career as a book with many chapters. And the chapter of your life where your parents are old and your kids are young might be the chapter where you can't be the world's best mentor at work, right? Or you can't be the world's best volunteer. And that doesn't mean that's not something you value. And it doesn't mean that you might not do that later, but it means you might not have room for it right now. And the same with even thinking about career advancement and saying, like, am I going to lean into this new opportunity or am I going to pursue this opportunity that might be fulfilling to me? And it's like, well, is it going to be more fulfilling than knowing that I spent this scarce time with my parents when they really needed it, Right? And so just if we understand that our goal in life is to maximize our utility. Utility function. To go back to the kind of Econ 101. Right. Our goal in life is not to maximize career success. It's our utility function. It's the sum total of our joy, fulfillment, and contentment over our lifetimes that when we are in the position that our parents are in. So when we're 80 years old and sitting in a rocking chair and looking backwards and saying, was that a life well lived? Did I invest my time where I wanted to invest my time? Right. So it's saying, I don't want to end my life with regrets. And sometimes the things that we've been encouraged to do are meaningful, kind of on paper to us right now. But when we take that long view, we're like, you know what? I'm not gonna care whether I got the promotion. I'm gonna care whether I was able to spend time where it mattered, when it mattered, because I can't get this time back. So I would say there's a little bit of that quiet quitting that I'm advocating for, which is not leaving your job. Because money is really important. Right. Like, money helps us in a lot of ways, too. And we, like, we need money, but it's. How do you make sure that you get what you need out of your job and you're not just trying to kind of put time in because you've been programmed to say that, like, well, success means being successful at work. Yeah.

[B]

I think it's just hard because women who are successful, who are professional and successful, that is very much their self image in a lot of ways. And then you're asking them to grab onto these caregiver roles. I mean, I wanted to ask you. I hate that word, caregiver. Like, I really don't think it represents at least what I do for my mom, which is more like, I'm a producer of her life. I'm the producer. I'm the manager. You know, what's a better way of talking about caregiving in a way that you think could break out of the sort of Hallmark card trap that we're in where nobody really wants to talk about it? Cause it sounds. First of all, it's depressing and icky. Second of all, it's got, like, the wrong branding.

[D]

Yeah. Well, I think it's. We should think about all these things as creating economic value. Right. And so when you are taking care of your mom, you're producing economic value in two ways. One is that you're helping her have higher utility because you're helping her have a life that works better for her. Right. And you're producing economic value for yourself because you get meaning, you derive meaning from the time that you spend with her and from seeing her be better off. Right?

[B]

Right.

[D]

So I think understanding that you can be productive through care labor, through helping people. Right. And that, that care labor can be particularly meaningful because it produces this dual value of value for the person we're caring for while also serving our values.

[B]

Right. I think the problem is, is that first, some diseases and some people, it's extremely depressing and you feel like you're maybe making some value, but everything is moving the wrong direction. Right. So for people who are very used to fixing problems, sure, it does feel meaningful. It definitely does feel meaningful. But I almost want to switch the words. Like, I think my mom's aide should be called her caregiver. Cause she's the one who lives with her. Right. And then I am my mom's aide. I am her person who, who does all the bills, who comes to visit, who brings the grandchildren, who makes the dinner. I am the aide to like the aide de camp. Like the person who's really there as her right hand. People have all sorts of different care situations. As you know, some people are in nursing homes, some people are in assisted living, some people still have spouses alive, some people don't. Some people have money, some people have no money. Like, and everything is so mixed up under this care umbrella. And it looks different for almost everyone. You. What is true is almost none of it is paid. And a lot of it is quite painful. And yes, a lot of it is meaningful. It is an incredibly profound experience to have your parents get old and die on you. What? Why are they doing this to me? But like, it is a profound experience. So of all I just said, how are we going to get the government to pay for this? Like, WTF? Hello, this is a job.

[D]

Yeah, 100%, all of that. And I also, I'll say, before we get into the, you know, what do we do about it? Piece of it. That's why when I talk about utility, I say, like, you can't actually equate utility and happiness because sometimes we do things that absolutely do not feel happy or joyful, but they serve our values. They're meaningful. So on this book tour, I was really glad it brought me to a stop where I have an aunt who has dementia who I haven't seen for a long time. And I, you know, got to spend an afternoon with her and you know, it might be the last time that I get to see her. And I spent that time crying and telling her stories and telling her that I loved her. And you know, if you were looking from the outside and you said, if I think of utility as happiness, I would be like, this obviously doesn't look like happiness or joy. And that's my problem with. There's a lot of pressure on us to like maximize happiness and like be happy and joyful and live a life that has more happiness. And I'm not sure that that's the goal. And so that's why I think utility is a useful term because what you are doing when you bring your kids to your mom, you're making meaning with them, right? You're serving your values, you're teaching them values. You're making meaning for your mom that you know is in her utility function and that then shows up in your utility function because you value that, you value her well being. And so that's why I just think utility is such a useful framework because it helps us to see that things that feel bad can be good and it makes us feel less trapped. Even though not to take anything, I don't want to gaslight anybody about how hard it is because like, oh my God, is it hard? Right? But just to understand, to say instead of feeling trapped, seeing this as. No, this serves the reason I'm doing this, the reason I'm investing so much in this is that I do value this person's well being and I do value the meaning of this time together. So I think it's a helpful way to give ourselves back agency to like understand that framework of, of utility.

[B]

No, it's a very good way of thinking of it. Yeah.

[D]

And this is so unfair. And it's structurally unfair. And it's like, then you have these huge disparities between the people who have kids or have spouses and who don't and that, you know, this should really be something that we can solve collectively as a society. And we've made it harder as a society because we have the nuclear family and because people move away from their natal home. You know, me and my siblings are all in different situations, states and then our parents are in different states and it's like, well, whose job is this? Right? Like, how do we figure this out? So that I think we need to be thinking about what are the long term solutions here?

[B]

Yeah, there's no question, right? When you look, I mean, insofar as I have looked at any data, home health aides, nursing care, all of this stuff is, I would also think in the new AI economy, going to be maybe even better paid or maybe, I don't know, it's certainly going to continue to be in demand. How do we redirect society to pay these people better to say, look, if you're a beautiful person who wants to take care of old people and you really know how to talk to them, and you're really willing to do the sort of gross hard labor of changing diapers and all of that stuff, we're realizing in this new economy and with the demographics of the boomers getting older, we need people like you. It's sort of like a country going to war like this. You're the people we need. But how do we do that?

[D]

Yeah, I was just thinking in my head that there's this study showing that because women tend to choose jobs that have social meaning that we feel like are impactful, that we are actually penalized in our wages because, you know, they're like, oh, well, partly you're getting paid in this sort of intrinsic reward of doing this. And so I was just going off in this direction of being like, it's so depressing. But I feel like we almost penalize people for kind of loving what they do because then it means you can get away with paying them less. Right, but exactly as you said, with the AI boom, I think we recognize that real human caregiving is something that is completely irreplaceable, Right. Being able to be kind to somebody, but then also the physical labor, because a lot of caregiving is also really arduous physical labor. And that physical labor, it has to be done in person. It has to be done, you know, by a human being.

[B]

And so until the robots do it. But yes.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And so I think that these are jobs that are growing. And that's what we see, right? Is that home health aides, for example, is a actually very, you know, quickly growing job. And yeah, I would like to see us as an economy value them more. And I would like to see the wages reflect the value that they bring.

[A]

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[C]

Experian.

[B]

So you and your husband got divorced. Ex husband, excuse me. And it sounds like it was partially because the domestic labor was not equally divided. And now you're married to a woman and you made this choice to date women instead of men. Like, how did you make that decision? Are things going better now or are you still doing a lot of labor?

[D]

How does it all happen? I joke that it was an evidence based decision, but importantly, that's a joke, right? I think this is also a very personal decision, but I think a part of my divorce, it was not just, this isn't working for me individually. It was that from a gender perspective. I just felt like it was. It was so unfair, right? And I felt like gender roles were making decisions that I felt like we should have been making as individuals. And what that came down to is I have this paper called Winning the Bread and Baking it Too that shows that when women are breadwinners, they still do so much more. And that was me, is that my ex husband left his job at some point. And then in this case, it wasn't that he didn't do anything. I'm not gonna make him a caricature. He did do stuff, right? But his expectation was still like 50, 50. And that's 5050 of the visible tasks. And then I'm doing the inv in the home management and I'm the default parent, right? But his expectation was 5050 when I was the only one earning a paycheck. And so then when Covid hits and suddenly we have no childcare, I'm watching for my male colleagues down to a 1. Their wives are taking this hit, right? Their wives are the one who are putting their work to the side and doing childcare because he's a professor at Wharton. Obviously he needs to work. And yet there is no assumption of that for me, right? And you know, I was pre tenure and how many papers I published was going to determine whether I could keep my job that was importantly paying all of our bills. And yet there was no sense that like, oh, my job should be treated as sacrosanct and like we should be leaning into it. And that meant that I should be doing less of the childcare or the domestic labor. So to me, it wasn't just that relationship that wasn't working. It was something about these heterosexual gender roles. And so I just was so burned out on that that I decided to try something new when I got divorced. And and then luckily did meet somebody who I loved and ended up having a second baby who's now six months old at the same time as I'm on book tour. So I was out of the squeeze and then just decided to dive right back into it just in time for my dad to get diagnosed with Parkinson's. So I am very much. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry. On the same page as your listeners.

[B]

Yeah. Although that's a slow grower.

[D]

Yeah. Right.

[B]

So, you know, my dad actually had Parkinson's and his doctor did famously say to him, this is not what's gonna kill you. Something else is gonna kill you. And they were right. Cause he died of cancer. So, you know, let that be some comfort.

[D]

Yeah, some cold comfort. Yes, some cold comfort. So what's interesting is that, yes, it was like, I feel like me and my wife, we do have a division that is more based on skills, on fundamentals, on availability. It's not based on gender. Cause it can't be based on gender. So it's like, you know, she does more of the cleaning. Cause she cares more if stuff is of clean. And like, I do more of the cooking because I care more about what we eat and people like my cooking. And then I'm not resenting that. I'm cooking because it doesn't feel like I'm cooking because I'm a woman. It's like I'm cooking because this makes sense. And it's still just really freaking hard to juggle it all because we are in a period of like, we have two careers and we have a baby and like, life is demanding.

[B]

So how will you do this? I mean, I will leave you on this. I want your tips because you're going to want to spend more time with your dad. Right? So how will you do this? How will you do the two kids and the job? And now, you know, even if your dad is not in active dying or something, where you're like, oh my God, I gotta get there and wring every single minute out of this, you're gonna wanna spend more time with him. What will you do? Will you just go with your kids and make that okay? This is family time. Instead of just staying home, playing with the kids tonight, I don't know how close he is to you as well, like. Or of course, for every holiday, there's no more going to Florida, where all always gonna go to my dad's. What's your move?

[D]

This is where as an economist, it's important to try to be like, a little bit rational. About things, even though that can feel hard. And so just an example of this was that my wife and I got married last year, but we were having a wedding celebration this year and my dad was like, and he's in a different state. And so he said he didn't wanna come because. And luckily he can still travel, like physically. But he was like, he didn't wanna come because he's realizing, like, he needs to save for future care. And so he's being more careful with money. And so for me it was like, no, I want him there and I want him to get to meet my infant daughter who he hadn't met yet. So it made more sense for me to like, use my points to like, book his plane ticket, right? This period will eventually pass, right? Your parents will be dead and you will be grateful for the plane ticket that you bought, even if it was the last minute plane ticket, right? To spend time with them during the time that they were alive, because you need it more now. And I thought of that. It was very ironic. My grandmother passed away during COVID and I hadn't been able to see her for months beforehand. And then when she was actively dying, I went and I spent a week by her side. And it was really ironic in that sense. I literally couldn't have gone for the prior six months to that because there was no plane travel. And I only got the exception to go to her nursing home because she was actively dying. And that's how I could enter her nursing home. But it really drew into stark relief that it was like, we make this mistake of crowding our expenditures, both time and money, right at the end of a person's life, right when we should be smoothing those out during these earlier periods, when we're gonna be able to create more memories and more meaning with that person. And so just being a little bit rational about saying, like, if they were dying, would I buy this plane ticket? Well, then it means maybe I should buy this plane ticket right now, right? And so trying to make time and space for that. And that is what we're going to be doing. But he is in a different state. And so we're also like, in April, like me and all of my siblings, we're gonna all meet up. Like where my dad grew up, it's not where he lives right now, but he's gonna come and we're all gonna kind of meet up there because it's a fun place for our kids to be and, you know, so trying to figure out ways to. And if it's the Florida vacation. Yeah. Maybe you bring your parents to Florida. Right. So how do you figure out to get what you want out of your life while also creating this meaning and memories together?

[B]

Yeah. Okay. I really have loved this conversation because you are so cold blooded about the way you talk about these things because you're just like, just think about it like it's a business, you're a business and how are you going to do these things? But your message is also like really positive to say that your utility value, I'm not sure if I'm using that correctly, but you, you are. Your life is about the pursuit of happiness. Your life is about creating meaning making moments. You've also gotta focus on these deeper stores of meaning making in order to have a life well lived. So it's a beautiful message, really interesting antidote to lean in and all this talk about like self care. Put a, you know, $50 moisturizer on your face, which is just such crap. And I love this book. I hope everybody gets it. Having it all. Really interesting. Very smart read.

[D]

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

[C]

That's it for Infamous. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a rating and review and tell your friends.

[B]

If you want to follow me on.

[C]

Instagram, you can find me at Natrobe. That's N A T R O B E. And if you want to support Vanessa's work, you can, you can buy her book, Blurred Rethinking Sex, Power and Consent on Campus. See you next week.