The best way to make room for both life and career is to make choices deliberately-to set limits and stick to them.

I believe we need affordable child care. I believe we need flexibility. I believe we need institutional reform and public policy reform.

But the upside of painful knowledge is so much greater than the downside of blissful ignorance.

Trying to do it all and expecting that it all can be done exactly right is a recipe for disappointment. Perfection is the enemy.

I'm not pretending I can give advice to every single person or every single couple for every situation; I'm making the point that we are not going to get to equality in the workforce before we get to equality in the home. Not going to happen.

And in situations where a man and a woman each receive negative feedback, the woman's self-confidence and self-esteem drop to a much greater degree. The internalization of failure and the insecurity it breeds hurt future performance, so this pattern has serious long-term consequences.

Social gains are never handed out. They must be seized.