If you look at television shows, which of course are fictional so you don't expect them to be real, but they're constantly showing career women who are also successful mothers and also look gorgeous. And we fall into believing that these fictional lives are somehow accurate depictions of what our real lives should be about.
Debora SparI think what women are doing to themselves is that they're seeing these different images of perfection - the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect career person, the perfect movie star - and they're somehow thinking that they should be all of these things, and that's the problem.
Debora SparI think one thing that women can do is to just be more honest, with themselves and with their friends, and be more willing to say I'm really excited about this part of my life, but I'm screwing up over here, or this is a mistake I've made, or this is something I've given up on.
Debora SparThey're coming out of high school exhausted. The pressure in high school is killing these kids. By the time they get to college, they have been fighting for three or four years to get the perfect SAT scores and get into A.P. classes.
Debora SparIf two people have a couple of kids, somebody does have to take care of the kids. Somebody does have to cook dinner; somebody does have to do garbage duty. We need to take some time and give some thought, without being angry, to just thinking about what these new structures are going to look like.
Debora SparYou have to learn to say no not just to things you don't want to do, you have to say no to things that you want to do, things that are good to do. You have to realize that every time you say yes to one thing you've got to take something else off the plate. Critically, I think you have to realize that it's easier to say no than to say maybe.
Debora Spar