Would-be parents must navigate the decision to have children amidst a daunting combination of cultural expectations and hard facts. And new parents find themselves struggling to reconcile their elation with the often exhausting, confusing, and expensive business of child care. If parenting is making Americans unhappy, if it's impossible to "have it all," if people don't have the economic, social, or political structures needed to support child rearing,...

Publisher Annotation: When the sun sets, Dad?s job as a school custodian is just beginning. What is it like to work on a Friday night while the rest of the city is asleep? There?s the smell of lilacs in the night air, the dusky highway in the moonlight, and glimpses of shy nighttime animals to make the dark magical. Shooting baskets in the half-lit gym, sweeping the stage with the game on the radio, and reading out loud to his father in the library...

Explores how the growing number of professional women have impacted society, considering controversial perspectives on how the definition of female success has changed in ways that may not be supporting a woman's best interests.

"After the birth of her second child, marketing and advertising executive Lisen Stromberg did something she never imagined she would do: she opted out and chose to stay home with her children. But her career didn't end there. Stromberg paused, then pivoted to become an award-winning journalist writing about women, work, and life in Silicon Valley. Along the way, she met many highly successful women who told her they never "opted out" but had, in fact,...

"Finding fulfillment in both love and work isn't easy--but it's possible. The majority of couples today are two-career couples. As anyone who's part of such a relationship knows, this presents big challenges. Yet most advice for two-career couples fails because it treats the challenges as a zero-sum game in which one partner's gain is the other's loss. This pits partner against partner and frames solutions in the language of sacrifice and trade-offs....

"Bestselling author, motivational speaker, entrepreneur, and life and business coach Romi Neustadt has a message for women: You CAN have it all--just not at the same damn time. Romi Neustadt is a mom of two, a wife, a daughter, bestselling author, speaker, entrepreneur, and coach. What's more, she's achieved these things without a staff of 10, the ability to sleep two hours a night or driving herself batsh*t crazy. She's figured out the key to having...

"Meredith Masony founded That's Inappropriate in 2014 as an innocent and humorous way to chronicle her chaotic days as a working mom, child wrangler, and busy wife. It soon evolved into a massive, dynamic community of parents-now nearly three million strong-brought together by their shared belief that parenthood and marriage don't have to be perfect. Now, in 18 to Life, Meredith shares her collection of witty essays on the universal frustrations of...

"The transition to parenthood is one of the most life-altering and destabilizing life events that adults experience, even those with significant financial and social resources. We commonly hear about dual-career, professional couples coping with the wage penalties associated with new motherhood or a woman's career being derailed on the "mommy track." But we know much less about how low-wage, employed mothers and fathers manage the demands of full-time...