The other week, I was a guest on the Working Motherhood daily podcast, hosted by Dr. Portia Jackson, aerospace engineer and mother of two. Each week, this savvy host interviews mothers who produce income, be they CEOs, teachers, entrepreneurs, real estate investors, or cashiers. For a taste, check out Portia’s interviews with Rachael Ellison, Gloria Feldt –or any one of 130 more.

I enjoyed this opportunity, very much. Like guests before me and guests after, I shared my family-and-career journey, insights on how I manage the multiple responsibilities, tools that help me, advice I’ve received that has helped me along the way. We only had half an hour. And there’s so much more to say.

The interview kept me thinking long after Portia and I hung up. In the spirit of continuing the conversation, always, here are some of my favorite “things to say about working motherhood” that I didn’t have a chance to share on air.

1. Working fatherhood — say what?

I’d love to see a Working Fatherhood podcast. Period.

2. There’s a conversation behind the conversation here.

Any conversation about working motherhood in the US necessitates a conversation about the embarrassing lack of high quality, universal, subsidized day care. The case is clear. For an investigative analysis of the challenges of finding good care, check out Courtney Martin’s piece in the New York Times last week; Avital Norman Nathman’s recent roundtable on Debra Harrell’s arrest (for leaving her child in a park while working her shift), motherhood, and race at The Frisky; and Alissa Quart’s inside look at the crushing cost of childcare, from last year.

3. Working motherhood — not just about individual solutions, anymore.

In the absence of said high quality, universal, subsidized day care, working mothers are left to seek out our own individual solutions. Again. We experience a political problem as personal, 40 years after the women’s movement re-surged. When things fall apart, we again find the fault in ourselves. (Heartfelt shout-out, and visible recognition here, to all-around assistant Melissa Shoemaker, whose intelligent, compassionate care for my four-year old twins while I work helps me keep it–mostly–afloat.)

3. Non-traditional is where it’s at.

Shout out to the caregivers, but shout out, too, to non-traditional arrangements in marriage. As the Council on Contemporary Families reports, new research suggests that in marriages formed since the early 1990s, men and women are much more happy with non-traditional gender arrangements than in the past.

4. Working motherhood is hot.

Yes, research shows that sex is better and divorce less likely for egalitarian couples. And for more on that, see our own Virginia Rutter’s incredibly informative Psychology Today cover story, Love & Lust. So there.

5. Not a choice.

For so many of us, and in the wake of recession, working motherhood is not a choice. It’s a financial necessity. But even if it weren’t my necessity, I’d choose it—or rather, it would chose me. I come from a long line of working mothers. Because it’s the air that I breathe, pondering how I feel about “working motherhood” is like a fish saying “water, works for me.” At the same time, not a day goes by that I don’t think about what a broken system we live in, filled with inequitable expectations and skewed assumptions based on outdated gender roles.

See again number 1, above.

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