Brigid Schulte Quotes

I take solace in knowing that some of the steps I took can help other people.

But the majority of mothers work - and are responsible for taking care of the kids and home. And more fathers are spending more time doing child care and housework, and still working long hours. That work-life conflict is weighing on everybody.

Time studies find that a mother, especially one who works outside the home for pay, is among the most time-poor humans on the planet, especially single mothers, weighed down not only by role overload but also what sociologists call "task density" - the intense responsibility she bears and the multitude of jobs she performs in each of those roles.6

What often matters more than the activity we're doing at a moment in time is how we feel about it.

The prejudice is against men and women - assuming men stay at work. That's the reason why we don't have enough women in the halls of power - the prejudice is pushing women to go home.

As long as you're pushing men to stay at work, you're pushing women to stay home.

I'm a big believer in education. If people learn the truth, they'll see the benefit if they have gender neutral policies.

I'm optimistic. I really believe people in power want to do the right thing.

The best thing a society can do is ensure its children are taken care of.

Grit isn't something you're born with, Carter says. It's something you can learn and exercise, like a muscle. If you're a parent, you can teach grit. How? Let your children struggle. A little challenge, a little anguish, even, is good for them. When children learn to resolve their own conflicts, without Mom or Dad swooping in to the rescue, they build grit, self-confidence, and the creative problem-solving skills that lead to higher academic achievement.14 Teach them to try new things, she says, to take risks, follow inklings, see if they turn into passions, work hard, maybe master something, maybe make mistakes, but love the journey itself, not the reward.

Busyness is now the social norm that people feel they must conform to, Burnett says, or risk being outcasts.

Our perception of time is indeed our reality.

As work weeks get longer and leisure time shrinks, people are becoming sicker, more distracted, absent, unproductive, and less innovative.

A gift, like a good friend drawing a personal road map out of the crazy busy swirl of our overloaded lives.

Researchers have found that the way people feel about the stress in their lives is a far more powerful predictor of their general health - whether they're more likely to be depressed, anxious, smoke cigarettes, or overeat - than any other measure.

What if I hadn't worked so hard? What if ... I had actually used ... my position to be a role model for balance? Had I done so intentionally, who's to say that, besides having more time with my family, I wouldn't also have been even more focused at work? More creative? More productive? It took inoperable late stage brain cancer to get me to examine things from this angle. - Eugene O'Kelly, former CEO, KPMG

I think that was one of the biggest revelations is that leisure is really in the eyes of the beholder.

We work to have leisure, on which happiness depends. - Aristotle

The brainless rushing about makes us feel time starved, which, he writes "does not result in death, but rather, as ancient Athenian philosophers observed, in never beginning to live."6

I have trashed the to-do list to help my brain.

In the Middle Ages, the sin of sloth had two forms," he said. "One was paralysis, the inability to do anything - what we would see as lazy. But the other side was something called acedia - running about frantically. The sense that, 'There's no real place I'm going, but by God, I'm making great time getting there.

Time-use researchers call it "contaminated time." It is a product of both role overload - working and still bearing the primary responsibility for children and home - and task density. It's mental pollution, one researcher explained. One's brain is stuffed with all the demands of work along with the kids' calendars, family logistics, and chores. Sure, mothers can delegate tasks on the to-do list, but even that takes up brain space - not simply the asking but also the checking to make sure the task has been done, and the biting of the tongue when it hasn't been done as well or as quickly as you'd like. So it is perhaps not surprising that time researchers are finding that, while "free time" may help ease the feeling of time pressure for men, and in the 1970s helped women a little, by 1998 it was providing women no relief at all.15

Multitasking makes you stupid - dumber than getting stoned.

What this intensive mothering culture tells us is valuable is at discord with what really is valuable: Love your kids. Keep them safe. Accept them as they are. Then get out of their way.