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JEFF SALKIN: Local writers making their mark on the publishing world.

I'm Jeff Salkin, and welcome to a special program featuring the best of our conversations with leading writers.

We begin with "Having It All," written by Corinne Low.

She is an economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Thank you so much for joining us.

The promotional line for the book says the odds are still stacked against women.

We have the data to prove it, and we have the power to change it.

So let's start with the odds being stacked against women.

You're thinking economically.

LOW: Yes, exactly.

I mean, what we're seeing is that women are facing unsustainable demands at home and at work, and I always point to the fact that gender roles have converged in the workplace, so we're trying to define career success according to the same terms as men, and yet at the same time, women are still facing discrimination, and we're still facing other problems in the workplace.

And then at home, we don't have the same support because men's time doing housework has actually stayed the same since the 1970s.

Then you add to that, that we now spend twice as much time with our kids as our own mother's generation did, and it just doesn't add up.

SALKIN: All right, I do not have data on how much time I'm spending on housework.

I apologize, but what do the data show and how do you get data on this?

LOW: So I actually used something called the American Time Use Survey, and so they ask American households to document how they're spending their time, and they've done this for a long time.

What we see is that men's time doing housework has been stagnant.

Then we also see that within couples, when women start earning more, men's time doing housework doesn't respond by increasing.

So women end up in this position of winning the bread and baking it too.

And so, you know, for the women out there who are feeling like, why am I so tired?

Why am I so stressed out?

It's not you.

It's not in your head.

It's in the data.

And my book, then facing that reality, tries to give some strategies for women to reclaim their time and hopefully their happiness.

SALKIN: Well, tell us about the strategies, because the last part of the promotional material said, we have the power to change it.

LOW: Yeah, so I think once you know that it kind of just doesn't add up for women, you have permission to navigate this however works for you.

And I think there's a lot of potential win-win solutions available.

You know, I think we're scared to get a good deal for ourselves because we don't want to give someone else a bad deal, but it doesn't have to be that way.

So I think, you know, your husband, or your spouse does not want to be a low-level junior employee at home either.

So promote him to co-CEO so you can take real joint ownership of the work to be done and you can let go of some of the mental load.

And I think even with our kids, all this time we're spending, we have to ask, where are we actually getting the return on the time that we're putting in?

And so, you know, for me, the biggest cure for my mom guilt was seeing the relationship with my son blossom.

Once I set some limits and I started getting my own needs met, because I was able to be a calmer and more patient parent.

And so, you know, your kids would rather have you be able to be calm and connected and patient with them and sit on the floor and play a board game rather than make yourself crazy because you're just doing too much and you're driving this way and that way to 8 million activities.

You're trying to make them homemade baby food or hand-decorated birthday cupcakes or whatever it is that you think that they need.

So the time doesn't add up.

We need to say no, and we need to reclaim more time for ourselves and the book has strategies to do that.

SALKIN: I heard you say that the hand-decorated cupcakes and that may be a relic of people's childhoods.

They grew up with maybe a grandmother doing something special, feel like they have to do it the same way.

LOW: Yeah, I think it's that.

I think it's looking to reference points of women who maybe weren't trying to achieve the same thing in their careers, right?

And so this idea that we can be, you know, a super 80s career woman and we can also be an Instagrammable trad wife at home.

Those are two separate full-time jobs and they don't add up in a 24-hour day.

And so, you know, I think the influences it could be, you know, women from the past who maybe didn't have a career, but it's also the women on Instagram, who are projecting as though this is something you should be able to do in your domestic life when in reality, this is their career.

So for them, there's not a trade-off between those sort of aesthetic markers of this beautiful life and the career they're trying to pursue because it is their career.

SALKIN: I'm hearing a little bit of an indictment of today's men, not pulling their weight at home.

Is that universal, do you think?

LOW: Well, I don't think that I want to blame men, but I do think that we need a little bit of a wake-up call, and I think data can be really important for doing that.

And so, you know, one of the things that I recommend that couples do is they actually try tracking their time and getting some data within their households because a lot of times, I think dads and men, they want to do half, but they're doing half of the things that they know about, which is kind of the tip of the iceberg, and then there's that whole big iceberg underneath the surface, right?

So Dad says, I'm doing half of the school drop-offs, but mom knows that in order to even get to the drop-off, she's had to buy the clothes in the right size.

She's had to pack the school lunches, she's had to set up after-school care and playdates.

And so there's all of these things kind of underneath the surface.

So tracking your time, getting data in the household, can make that invisible labor visible.

So I don't want to blame men.

I think that it's just about acknowledging some realities, and then maybe shifting them.

SALKIN: Sounds like an opportunity to design the "Having It All" app that tracks the housework that you're doing and your spouse.

LOW: Yeah, I love that idea, so maybe there's a business idea in there, but I do have on my website, corinnelow.com.

I have this time tracking spreadsheet that you can use if you want to kind of get this data within your own household.

And, you know, I think it's a great exercise for couples to try.

And I think even for individuals themselves, thinking about how do they spend their time and how does it align with their objectives?

When I ask people to picture, you know, if money were no object, how would you spend your time?

They very rarely say, you know, well, make sure to get those reports done for my boss.

And they often say that they would spend time, you know, in pursuits that they enjoy, hobbies, leisure activities, or spending time with their loved ones, right?

Well, what that tells me is that you could be productive just by spending your time that way.

So one way to be productive is to work and get money and buy something that brings you value.

But if spending time in certain meaningful ways brings you value directly, it's also productive to spend time that way.

So I'm an economist telling you it's productive to spend your time on leisure and the things that you enjoy.

And I think it's mandatory for us to kind of take care of ourselves and, you know, not be so exhausted and so unhappy because the data also shows that women's happiness has been in decline as they've been trying to juggle so many things.

SALKIN: Well, that's fascinating, and goes back to the title of "Having It All."

Is it possible to have it all?

LOW: What I say in the book is that, you know, if having it all to you is this perfectionist ideal that, you know, you're going to be perfect in the career domain, you're going to be perfect in the home domain.

There's never going to be any trade-offs ever, it's not possible to do that because we only have 24 hours in the day, but we can get what we need.

We can get close to that by kind of really focusing on what we value.

And so I call that "having it almost."

And I think that that is possible and it's possible for every woman, and I hope my book helps them get there.

SALKIN: When did you decide there was a book to be written here, and how much of the inspiration for it was academic versus personal?

You're a new mother.

LOW: Yeah, so both of these things.

So I'm a new mom, but I'm also an old mom in the sense that I have an eight-year-old and I have a four-month-old.

And when I had my eight-year-old, I felt like I was in the thick of what I call the squeeze, where work pressures and home pressures were pushing down all at once, and I was exhausted and felt like I was dropping every ball.

And when I started looking at these data in my work as an economist and seeing the way our time use has changed over time and seeing this fact that, as I said, we spend twice as much time with our kids as parents a generation ago.

I realized, oh, it's not just me, right?

There are these structural forces making me feel that way.

And so then I felt like, I need to get this information out there to every woman who's feeling this way because they should know that, you know, it's not that they are uniquely failing.

It's that we are trying to do something that's really impossible.

And as I said, that then gives you permission to navigate it in the way that works for you.

And so that's why I do have a new baby also and this time around, you know, I'm making some different choices and it really feels different.

SALKIN: I'm feeling guilty taking 10 minutes of your time over Zoom.

This is okay, right?

LOW: Yes, absolutely, because, talking about this work and getting this work out there to women who can help, that is part of what I value.

So this is bringing me joy right now.

SALKIN: Well, I'm glad to hear it's joyful.

You know, I remember hearing a very senior Wall Street executive, a woman years ago talking about, and you're focused on the domestic side and maybe assuming the work side is equal.

Her point was that she, before she even got to the office, she had to invest a lot of time in hair and makeup, which the men in the office did not.

And it may sound like it was a frivolous thing, but you need to look your best.

You sort of need to be in character, especially in the Zoom age.

Is that part of the equation?

LOW: Yeah, I think you're exactly right.

There's all of these kind of double standards for women or places where women do have to put in more effort.

And, you know, appearance is certainly one of them.

And there's other areas that I talk about in the book where for a long time, the advice that we've been giving to women in business books is lean in, act more like a man, you know, be a more aggressive or a stronger negotiator.

And what the evidence shows is that because women are going to be treated differently, that's not necessarily good advice.

And so the advice that I try to give instead is for women to, find the areas that they excel, find what are their own unique superpowers, and not be afraid to bring that to the table because the data does not support that we need to kind of act like men to get ahead, nor as you bring up, is that really possible given that we do face these different constraints and these different expectations?

SALKIN: And before we go, I know we want to sell books here, but give us a little bit of bottom-line advice for women.

What should they consider doing differently?

LOW: Yeah, what I want you to do is to figure out what makes you happy, what brings you value, what's most important to you.

And then I want you to be relentless in trying to negotiate a good deal for yourself at home and at work, because you deserve to have your needs met.

I talk about women forgetting that they are a member of the household, and I lived that in my own life.

I was making everything work for everybody else.

It didn't work for me.

Well, if it's not working for you, it's not working for the family.

So I need you to embrace that you are a member of the household who deserves to have your needs met and find ways to do that.

SALKIN: Corinne Low is the author of "Having It All."

Professor, we appreciate your time.

Thank you very much.

LOW: Thank you so much, and the book is out now, and I hope we can continue the conversation there.

SALKIN: Now, Nancy Yamada spoke with the author of an award-winning guidebook about the experiences of being a mother to boys.

YAMADA: Joining me is Susie Shaw.

She's an MPT alum, a podcaster, an author of an award-winning book, entitled "Mothers of Boys Survival Guide."

Welcome, Susie.

I'm a mother of two, so I am all ears and I want to find out why this subject is near and dear to your heart and why you decided to write the book.

SHAW: Thank you, Nancy.

I am, and you are, a member of the MOB, which I call the Mothers of Boys.

It's a community that we all, I think, need to lean into as moms of boys.

I have two boys, and I nickname them in the book Ernest and Exuberance.

And I have a sense of humor, so I share some funny stories, some true stories, some of the challenges of raising boys in the book.

And our goal, my husband and my goal, was to raise happy and independent boys, and I thought it was a story worth sharing with other moms.

YAMADA: For you, what do you think was the key?

What kept you guys close and your boys on the straight and narrow, so to speak?

SHAW: Well, I'm not sure they were always on the straight and narrow.

You know, it is an adventure.

And I really enjoyed the boys because I found that I could come up with systems to make it a little bit more predictable.

So, for example, I believe that I could fix the majority of things in my house with one of three things.

And I called it the three-legged stool.

And that was food, exercise, and sleep.

So the way it worked in practice was people were starting to fall apart, I'd be like, "Hey, can I get you a snack?

And that often just fixed it.

If that didn't fix it, it's like, "Let's go out and do something."

If they were little, I'll time you as you run around the house.

It didn't have to be complicated.

And then, you know, the third thing was, if you just can't make it all work, it's time for them to go to bed and try again another day.

I mean, just tap out and be nice to yourself.

YAMADA: Yeah, hit the reset button, right?

SHAW: Right.

And could that have been your experience, too?

YAMADA: Absolutely, and you know what?

It's been challenging, chaotic, but also so rewarding, because I think, you know, in so many ways, there's a lot of misconceptions about boys as not needing as much affection or, that sort of thing.

But I have found that to be completely untrue.

SHAW: I totally agree.

In fact, I believe they're even more sensitive, and I think science has teased that out over the years.

And one of the reasons I wanted to do the podcast in addition to the book was so I could bring experts onto the podcast and talk to them about different topics.

And recently, we had a psychologist talking, and this has broken out into two podcasts, one on communicating with littler boys, which gets into this sensitivity and understanding.

She gives them great tips, like, get down on their level so that you can really understand and make them feel safe and comfortable, and then they'll open up to you.

And then we have another podcast, which will be shared next Wednesday, with the same psychologist, and she'll be talking about the older boys, the teens going through puberty.

And I call that age group "Man Cubs" because they are man-sized and they are still developmentally, you know, babies to some extent.

But they are looking you often right in the eye.

And so that's just a whole other way to parent.

YAMADA: Sure, and how important is it, do you believe, for mothers of boys to have and build their own community?

SHAW: I think it's very important.

And I think in this day and age of social media, where people are worried that they're not, keeping up with status with the Joneses or their neighbors, that having a group of friends and women that you can be honest with is really, really important.

And it helps, especially if you're a working mom, but I think for all moms, to be able to fact-check your boys doing what they say they're doing.

YAMADA: For you, what were the most rewarding years as a mother?

SHAW: I would say I was better with the older Children than with the babies.

I found the babies to be an exhausting period for me.

And I enjoyed the teen years, really the adulting, the young adult years have been really super, super fun.

But all stages have been rewarding.

I call that first stage the "death wish stage" from zero to three, because it feels as though they have a death wish.

Like they are doing headers down the stairs.

They are busy, busy people, but suddenly when they turn three, they stop trying to hurt themselves.

SALKIN: That was Susie Shaw, author of the "Mothers of Boys Survival Guide."

SALKIN: A new book helps pet owners deal with the deep pain of losing a longtime companion.

Joining me is Beth Biggler.

She's the author of a new book entitled "Honoring Our Animals," and I read, Beth, that you used to be a Hollywood development executive.

You did a complete 180, and now you're a pet loss grief counselor, which is super fascinating, given that it's a subject so many of us are familiar with if you've ever owned a cat or a dog or even a lizard.

But a lot of us just haven't heard people talk about it.

Welcome, and talk to us about what led you into this field.

BETH BIGGLER: Well, my soulmate cat, Arnie, led me into this field, and my cat, Arnie, was my whole heart.

He was with me for so many ups and downs of my life.

When he received a terminal diagnosis, I absolutely thought my world was going to stop.

I didn't feel like I could go on.

And so I reached out, I found my own pet loss grief counselor, started doing that work.

I found it incredibly transformative, life-saving for me, and life-affirming for him.

We also then got a very lucky remission on that diagnosis he had, and he lived another year.

But unexpectedly, a different cancer swooped in, and he transitioned very unexpectedly for me.

But because I had done that grief counseling work, I knew how to show up and give him a good death.

And when that happened to me, I thought, I must change my whole life and go on to support other guardians going through this anticipatory and post-loss phase.

So I did my training, I opened my practice, and now I serve -- grieving guardians from all over the world, helping them before, during, and after the loss of their beloveds.

YAMADA: Yes, exactly.

I help guardians navigate the anticipatory grief, the loss itself, and the post-loss grief.

It's such a deeply personal and emotional journey, and I want people to know that they are not alone in this.

BIGGLER: Absolutely.

Pet loss grief is considered a disenfranchised grief, which means it's not widely recognized or supported in our society.

People often hear dismissive comments like, "It was just a dog" or "only a bunny," which can make them feel ashamed of their grief.

But the truth is, the bond with a beloved is often one of the most intimate relationships in their lives.

Pets provide unconditional love, non-judgment, and a sense of safety and acceptance.

That's such a huge foundation.

So many guardians build lives around our beloved and so when t are no longer earth side, they have this question of who am I, what is my life?

This kind of grief is deeply impactful for people and made even harder because it is not recognized in our society.

YAMADA: Often the person going how can we support ourselves through it can dismiss it too, almost embarrassed, so how do we support ourselves and others going through it and support others?

>> Well, you know, one of the things that we want to really emphasize with people is the feelings that you're feeling are real, they are profound and valid, it is okay.

Absolutely common that you're having these big grief feelings.

First thing is validate our feelings and let everybody know it is all right that I'm having these feelings or if you see someone grieving, it is okay.

And we have to really step into this space of what can I do to support my grief and supporting our grief looks different for different people but reaching out to others who have similar experiences.

You know, reaching out like in my Instagram community, people come from tall over the world because we're talking about this, taking it seriously and validating ourselves and reach out for support in your community, a good friend.

And I people too, if it is too much and you don't have someone to go to don't feel bad to reach out to professional help.

There are many grief counselors like me and other therapists and members in your religious community who can be a support for you right now.

There is no shame in receiving help and feeling these feelings.

YAMADA: And I know for a lot of pet owners, their sense of grief really starts before their dog or cat or guinea pig passes, because for a lot of us, we see signs of aging over the years.

So I understand that's called anticipatory grief.

Is that right?

BIGGLER: Absolutely.

Many go through this period of anticipatory grief It's the emotional rollercoaster of dread or uncertainty, not knowing when or how things will happen.

For many guardains, often the looming decision of euthanasia.

Those people who are going to be facing that type of decision.

How do I do that, when do I do that.

Many things go on in that grief appeared are very challenging.

And most people don't know there is a name for it but there is a name for it.

It is called "anticipatory grief" and it is a type of grief that you're experiencing at this time.

Naming it as "anticipatory grief" can be incredibly helpful because it allows people to recognize what they're going through and seek support.

If you're experiencing this, treat it as you would any other grief.

What you're experiencing is valid and look for support.

Anticipatory grievers are many care giving and feel they can't leave their house because they don't want to leave their beloved and financially it can be draining so there is a lot happening here so if that is you and you're going through it, recognize this is a tough grief experience that you're having and, you know, seek support, seek support around you and feel those feelings, allow those feelings to move with you.

YAMADA: Tell us more about your book.

I understand that there are daily meditations, essentially.

BIGGLER: Yes, my book, "Honoring "Honoring Our Animals," is designed to be a resource for grieving guardians.

It's also a wonderful gift for anyone you know who is going through this.

The book includes daily meditations, each with a short reflection and an action step to help you process your grief.

The book really focuses on three things and one of those is, Coping with grief symptoms like anger, guilt, longing, and comparison, jealousy.

and another big part is supporting ourselves in terms of identity and bringing self compassion to our experience.

Helping us to rediscover who we are in this strange new normal and number one thing is, keeping our connection vibrant and alive with our beloveds.

In my view, the relationship did not end with their transition, it is only the beginning of a different time with them so the book helps guardians connect with beloveds, keep relationship evolving and expanding, stay in collaboration your beloved, even if they are not earthside So that's another big theme in the book.

And grievers cannot digest big thick chunks of information.

It is hard to sit down and read a big book, but meditations are very brief and give you a lot to think about for your day.

So I think of it as a boost or pep to talk you through your experience.

YAMADA: Thank you, and again, the book is called "Honoring Our Animals."

Beth Biggler, thank you so much for talking about something that clearly we all do need to talk about more.

BIGGLER: Thank you so much for having me.

SALKIN: And that is our program for this week.

Join us every Monday evening at 7:00 for "Direct Connection," And your chance to connect with newsmakers.

Friday evenings at 7:00, we bring the state house to your house on "State Circle."

Our recent programs are online at video.mpt.tv and available through the free PBS app.

You can find us on social media at MPT.

For all of us at MPT, thank you for watching.

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