Overwhelmed maps the individual, historical, biological and societal stresses that have ripped working mothersâ�� and fathersâ�� leisure to shreds, and asks how it might be possible for us to put the pieces back together. What followed was a trip down the rabbit hole of busy-ness, a journey to discover why so many of us ?nd it near-impossible to press the â��pauseâ�� button on life and what got us here in the ?rst place.

So when Schulte met an eminent sociologist who studies time and he told her she enjoyed thirty hours of leisure each week, she thought her head was going to pop off. Realising she had become someone who constantly burst in late, trailing shoes and schoolbooks and biscuit crumbs, she began to question, like so many of us, whether it is possible to be anything you want to be, have a family and still have time to breathe. It's a map of the stresses-individual, historical, biological and societal-that have ripped working mothers' leisure to shreds, and a look at how it might be possible to put the pieces back together.In her attempts to juggle work and family life, Brigid Schulte has baked cakes until 2 a.m., frantically (but surreptitiously) sent important emails during school trips and then worked long into the night after her children were in bed. Overwhelmed is the story of what she found out. And then she sought out insights and answers and inspiration: investigating companies, travelling across Western Europe to meet families and researchers, and seeking out the sages of the age for their wisdom on how to manage time.

She talked to neuroscientists, sociologists, and above all, other working mothers in order to tease out all the factors contributing to our collective overwhelm. She explored everything from the wiring of the female brain to male–female income distribution and the current state of gender equality in the workplace and home. Schulte interviewed working mothers and examined how not just individual pressures but biological, societal, economic and cultural ones were splintering their days into slivered messes. But what about that term women's magazines are so fond of: 'me time'? Was there anything working mothers could do to make their lives feel less like a treadmill gone haywire? Anything they could change? They weren't complaining they chose to have children and to work, and they made the best of it.

Few of them were really enjoying 'leisure' time. She was relieved to discover that most working mothers felt as crazed as she did. As journalists do, she decided to find out if she was alone in this feeling and how she could fix it. An award-winning journalist and a mother, Brigid Schulte was feeling overwhelmed by the demands of her work and home lives.

Overwhelmed work love and play