My spirits would fall even further whenever I read one of the many magazine or newspaper features profiling superachieving, high-earning Americans who rose at four in the morning to answer e-mail before heading to the gym at five and then hitting the office by six to get started on their ninety-hour workweeks. Mothers in America seemed capable of miracles—returning to work just a few weeks after giving birth, pumping milk between meetings, and working at home on the weekends by managing children with one hand and their BlackBerrys with the other. I was certain I could never function at that
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