You built the career. You earned the title. You became, fully and completely, the thing you worked so hard to be.

Then you got pregnant — and felt something no one warned you about. Grief.

Dr. Pria Anand is a Yale and Stanford-trained neurologist practicing at Boston Medical Center, Assistant Professor at Boston University School of Medicine, and author of the award-winning The Mind Electric — a PEN America Literary Science Writing Award finalist and Best Book of 2025.  

And she is a mother of two under four.

She spent a decade pouring everything into medicine. "I was a neurologist and nothing else," she writes. It was her whole identity. It was more than enough.

Until it wasn't.

In this conversation, she gets honest about the identity shift no achievement prepares you for, the residency system built around a cocaine-addicted surgeon who didn't sleep, writing her book somehow during maternity leave, and what she never saw coming: that motherhood wouldn't shrink her world. It would finally let her see it in color.

This one is for the woman who has spent years becoming someone — and is now quietly asking: who am I now?

Purchase The Mind Electric here and wherever books are sold: https://a.co/d/01K1StMN

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The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

Amber Coleman-Mortley is a Culture, Community & Equity Leader, former Senior Director at The Female Quotient, longtime civic engagement strategist, and mother of three. A three-sport NCAA athlete turned educator and workplace equity leader, Amber has built her career at the intersection of justice, community and institutional change.

But this conversation isn’t about titles. It’s about steadiness.

When Amber was caught in a round of layoffs, she invited her teenage daughters to listen in on the call. No shame. No spiraling. Only learning. What followed was a masterclass in holding two truths at once: personal responsibility and systemic injustice.

We talk about single motherhood, structural barriers, and the very real scarcity shaping our culture right now and how to resist letting that scarcity harden us.

In a moment when everything can feel tight, fearful and uncertain, Amber models something different: integrity without bitterness, generosity without naivety, and the quiet discipline of staying steady.

Her north star is simple: you always have something to give.

And that may be the kind of abundance we need most.

*****

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The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

What happens when the psychologist becomes the patient?

Dr. Emily Guarnotta is a licensed psychologist, perinatal mental health specialist, co-founder of Phoenix Health, and mother of two. Early in her career, she focused on anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. Maternal mental health wasn’t on her radar until she experienced postpartum depression herself and encountered just how hard it was to get help. In launching Phoenix Health, she built the solution she wishes she’d had.

A trained clinician who believed she “should have known better,” Emily found herself pushing through the fourth trimester pretending she was fine. Going back to work made one thing clear: this wasn’t sustainable.

What followed wasn’t just healing, it was the discovery of what may be her life’s work.

In this conversation, we talk about the gap between screening and support, why prevention deserves as much attention as crisis response, how telehealth has become a lifeline for postpartum care, and what a modern-day village actually looks like.

If you’ve ever thought, “Why does this feel so hard?” this conversation is for you.

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The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

What if the problem isn’t our ambition, resilience, or mindset, but a system rigged in ways mothers are taught to internalize as personal failure?

Corinne Low, PhD – Wharton economics professor, author of Having It All, and mother of two – joins Sara to unpack how becoming a mother blew up the script she was following and exposed the gap between the lives women are promised and the ones they are actually supported to live. 

Drawing on rigorous economic research and deeply personal experience, Corinne names the forces that make motherhood feel so destabilizing at work and at home, even for highly accomplished women.

Instead of telling women to lean in or try harder, Corinne brings data to the quiet crisis so many mothers experience. She explains how workplaces are structured around an outdated model of family life, how gendered expectations inside marriages continue to shape women’s careers, and why exhaustion and guilt are often rational responses, not personal failures.

In this conversation, we explore:

• why “utility” matters more than happiness

• how mom guilt is often misnamed desire

• why the so-called ambition gap is a myth

• how workplaces lose mothers during “the squeeze” years

• why choosing the right partner and where you live may shape your life more than anything

This episode offers a clearer, more honest way to think about work, motherhood, and what “having it all” can realistically mean.

📚 Purchase Having It All here and wherever books are sold:

https://a.co/d/0fHBOX8T

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Learn more about Sage Haus: helping busy households hire vetted, professional House Managers, Family Assistants, and Meal Prep Chefs – whether you need 10 hours a week or 40+

👉 Get started at https://themothers--sage-haus.thrivecart.com/hiring-services-deposit/

*******

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The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

Cindy Brown, CEO of the iconic Boston Duck Tours and Mother, joined the company more than 30 years ago after leaving a fast-track career in finance to take a chance on what she calls “the duck thing.” 

She never looked back.

In this conversation, Cindy reflects on building a deeply rooted, wildly successful business without chasing scale. And how designing her life around proximity, partnership, and values made both leadership and motherhood more sustainable.

We talk about:

🚀 leaving the finance fast-track for an unconventional career leap

🌊 why “bigger” isn’t always better and when depth wins

🗓️ what a 4-day workweek has looked like since 1994

🏙️ how city living and a 5-minute commute have been essential to making it all work

🧠 the moment every mother knows: when a partner realizes “wait, that this doesn’t just happen?”

A thoughtful, grounded conversation about success, ambition, and building a life that actually works.

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*******

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💼 Find Sara on LinkedIn

The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

Jennifer Breheny Wallace – NYT bestselling author of Never Enough and her new book Mattering (out today!), journalist, and Mother of three – joins The Mothers for a conversation about achievement, worth, identity, and what it really means to feel like you matter.

Jennifer’s work explores a question many Mothers carry: how can we be doing essential, important, and meaningful work – at home, at the office, and beyond – and still feel like it’s not enough? Like we’re not enough? And sometimes… like we don’t even matter? In this conversation, we look at how motherhood exposes the limits of achievement culture – and why relying on success to supply a sense of mattering can leave us feeling empty instead.

Other highlights:

• Building an “accordion” career – expanding and contracting across seasons of motherhood

• The difference between shiny success and sustaining success

• Why achievement is a poor stand-in for self-worth

• How friendships function as essential infrastructure, not a luxury

• What it looks like to live in alignment with intrinsic values in an extrinsic world

This is a grounded, generous conversation about choosing values over validation and designing a life that can flex, evolve, and endure.

Pick up Mattering today at https://a.co/d/axcH4mn

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Learn more about Sage Haus, helping busy households hire vetted, professional House Managers, Family Assistants, and Meal Prep Chefs – whether you need 10 hours a week or 40+

👉 Are you ready to hire a house manager? at https://sagehaus.com/quiz-readiness

👉 Get started at https://themothers--sage-haus.thrivecart.com/hiring-services-deposit/

*******

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💼 Find Sara on LinkedIn for more perspectives on work, life, and meaning

✍️ Subscribe to Sara’s Substack (coming soon!)

The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

Kelly Hubbell – founder & CEO of Sage Haus and Mother of three – joins The Mothers to talk about the moment “doing it all” stopped working and how she turned her breaking point into a business.

After baby #2, the math no longer worked. More than 22 hours a week of invisible labor sat alongside a demanding career – and the cost was showing up in her marriage, her energy, and her sense of self. Shaped by growing up with a single mother who carried everything herself, she refused to accept burnout as the price of motherhood.

In this conversation, Kelly shares how hiring a house manager changed everything – and how applying an operator’s mindset to the home led to the creation of Sage Haus, a fast-growing startup built around one simple idea: families need systems, not martyrdom.

Highlights:

⚖️ the real cost of the invisible load – even in households that look “equal” on paper

🧩 why two capable partners are still not enough without systems and support

🛠️ building Sage Haus on the side with two young kids and a full-time job

💡 reframing help as an investment, not a failure

🕊️ the freedom on the other side of building (and often hiring) your village

This episode challenges the quiet assumptions holding mothers back – and what becomes possible when we decide it doesn’t have to be this hard.

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Learn more about Sage Haus: helping busy households hire vetted, professional House Managers, Family Assistants, and Meal Prep Chefs – whether you need 10 hours a week or 40+

👉 Are you ready to hire a house manager? at https://sagehaus.com/quiz-readiness

👉 Get started at https://themothers--sage-haus.thrivecart.com/hiring-services-deposit/

*******

⭐️ Follow the The Mothers and leave a 5-star review if this resonated

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The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

On this episode of The Mothers, Sara talks with Dr. Allison Mell – pediatric physical therapist, founder of Tots on Target, and Mother of four (including twins).

Allison set out to build a career that could coexist with a big family. She studied art history, chose a “practical” path in healthcare, and assumed pediatric physical therapy would offer flexibility – until four kids in 5.5 years made the traditional model untenable.

As she scaled back, she began to see a pattern: parents who sensed something was off, but were being brushed off by rushed appointments and rigid systems. Instead of asking families to contort themselves, Allison built care around real life. Through Tots on Target, she now supports hundreds of thousands of families worldwide with virtual developmental care – offering education, observation, and practical guidance for babies and young children, especially when parents are told to “wait and see.”

This is a conversation about instinct, authority, and remembering that when it comes to your child, you’re the team leader – everyone else works for you.

➡️ Learn more about Dr. Mell and the Tots on Target "Tot Spot Membership" at totsontarget.com

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This episode is sponsored by Sage Haus, helping busy households hire vetted, professional House Managers, Family Assistants, and Meal Prep Chefs – whether you need 10 hours a week or 40+.

Learn more at:

👉 https://themothers--sage-haus.thrivecart.com/hiring-services-deposit/

The Mothers earns a small commission from Sage Haus.

⭐️ Follow the The Mothers + leave a 5-star review if it resonated

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✍️ Subscribe to Sara’s Substack (coming soon!)

The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

Amil Niazi is the writer (and Mother of three) behind The Cut’s parenting series “The Hard Part,” exploring the intersection of work and motherhood. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Washington Post, and her new book LIFE AFTER AMBITION: A ‘GOOD ENOUGH’ MEMOIR is out now!

In this episode, we talk about authenticity at work, the myth of meritocracy, motherhood as a fast track to self-trust, and what comes after ambition stops being the answer:

Highlights:

• “So many mistakes, fumbles, failures”… and somehow they were the point

• Leaking breast milk at the BBC, nursing in dark corners & realizing she was in the wrong life

• Motherhood as the thing that finally gave her the nerve to choose herself

• Why authenticity matters most when power doesn’t look like you

• The moment meritocracy cracked – and why it never really applied

• The relief (and grief) of redefining “enough”

Purchase Amil’s memoir LIFE AFTER AMBITION here & wherever books are sold! https://a.co/d/6VAWUCN

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This episode is sponsored by Sage Haus, helping busy households hire vetted, professional House Managers, Family Assistants and Meal Prep Chefs – whether you need just 10 hours a week or 40+. A one-time flat fee, white-glove process, and totally customized to your family’s needs. Visit Sage Haus at https://themothers--sage-haus.thrivecart.com/hiring-services-deposit/

Yes, The Mothers earns a small commission on a purchase from Sage Haus. And, YES, we believe in their vision!

Please subscribe & review The Mothers on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and follow us on Instagram ⁠@themotherspod⁠

The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

Laura Green, perhaps better known as @LauraMcGreen, joins Sara & Vee this week. And honestly thank goodness because it’s been a cold & dark few days in New England and we need some sunshine and levity!

Laura is a comedic content creator in the run space, producing reels that make fun of herself as a lifelong runner and all the quirks that come with that. She loves writing and producing short skits, hosting events, and hanging out with her husband and 3 kids. Oh, and running. She runs a lot. 

In this conversation, we talk about:

- going from a physical therapy career to content creation

- how she was absolutely rocked mentally and physically by the arrival of her first kid

- why she’ll never put her kids in her content (mostly)

- the importance of finding opportunities to take RISKS as we get older

- where she gets the “confidence of a white man” (Kelly, this one’s for you)

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This episode is sponsored by Sage Haus, helping busy households hire vetted, professional House Managers, Family Assistants and Meal Prep Chefs – whether you need just 10 hours a week, or 40+. A one-time flat fee, white-glove process, and totally customized to your family’s needs. Visit Sage Haus at https://themothers--sage-haus.thrivecart.com/hiring-services-deposit/

*Yes, The Mothers earns a small commission on a purchase from Sage Haus. And, YES, we believe in their vision!

*

Please review & subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and follow us on Instagram ⁠@themotherspod⁠

*

The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.