Tradwife or Girlboss

How a binary story about women became a blueprint for broken policy

Women are sold a false choice: be a tradwife or a girlboss. Raise a family or raise capital. Bake cookies or build companies.

Culture loves a binary — especially when it comes to women — and motherhood is no exception.

We’ve designed our systems around two extremes: women who stay in the workforce without pause, and women who leave it entirely. That binary shows up everywhere — in what we reward, what we stigmatize, and what we make possible.

We know how to reward “total career focus.” We know how to romanticize “full-time motherhood.” But everything in between? Confusing to navigate at best — penalized at worst.

If you’re a working mom, you’re expected to handle a full-time job and a full-time caregiving load — without structural support. Childcare is unaffordable. Paid leave is a luxury. Flexibility is treated as a perk, not a baseline.

The message is: you chose this, figure it out.

And if you step away from work, even briefly, you're met with skepticism. Resume gaps raise eyebrows. Promotions stall. Opportunities vanish.

The message then is: you stepped off the path, so don’t expect to pick up where you left off.

No one should have to cobble together three backup plans just to make it to a Tuesday meeting. And no one should have to explain a resume gap created by raising a human or surviving a life transition. Caregiving doesn’t cancel out competence.

We need a reset — in policy, in workplace design, and in cultural mindset.

That means paid leave, so new moms don’t have to trade their income for their recovery. It means affordable, high-quality childcare, so working doesn’t become a financial wash. And it means building a workforce that actively welcomes women back in — not as a favor, but as an investment.

I want to live in a world where the woman walking into a job interview seven months pregnant is the most in-demand candidate in the room, not in spite of her pregnancy but because of it. Where the mom coming back from leave has six offers waiting for her. Where no one feels forced to choose between their ambition and their family — because we’ve finally built a system that makes room for both.

My tabs this week…

ICYMI: Claire Cain Miller kicked off her new Upshot series on boys with It’s Not Just a Feeling: Data Shows Boys and Young Men Are Falling Behind. I read it first thing this morning and I’m already waiting for the next one. A must-read if you're thinking about gender, power, and what happens when systems fail our kids.

More from My-So-Called Midlife: Zarna Garg needed a change. After 16 years as a stay-at-home mom, Zarna had lost her own ambitions and knew it wasn’t sustainable. She attempted – and failed at – a long list of businesses before she found her calling as a stand-up comic. She cracked me up with stories about how soccer socks drove her to the brink of madness and shares advice for midlifers looking to make a change in their own lives. Listen here.

Moms First in NYT: Thanks to The New York Times' Caroline Kitchener for including me in her story on how many of those who are talking about boosting the birth rate are leaving out one critical piece: child care.

With love,

Reshma