In this episode of \"Parenting, apparently,\" Esther and Melissa sit down with Amil Niazi — whose viral essays and national bestselling memoir have made her one of today's most talked-about parenting thinkers. The conversation grows out of the premise behind Amil's book, Life After Ambition, and her column, The Hard Part, for The Cut: what role does parenting play in our relationship with ambition and selfhood?
How much of who we are should be defined by our job, versus everything else that makes up a life? Is \"balance\" a myth, or does it just work better as seasons than as a pie chart? And what does \"good enough\" actually look like on an ordinary morning — first day of school included?
Drawing on her own winding path — from producing at CBC and BBC, to bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Washington Post, to finally settling into writing on her own terms — Amil shares hard-won lessons on letting go of the millennial \"do it all\" script. She also opens up about a small but telling choice: she tells her three kids she writes, rather than that she is a writer. It's a distinction that gets at the heart of her conversation with Esther and Melissa, and it raises a bigger question for the rest of us: does how we talk about our own careers shape how our kids will frame theirs?
Read Amil's work at the cut:
https://www.thecut.com/tags/the-hard-part/
And pick up a copy of her book Life After Ambition: A \"Good Enough\" Memoir:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/750349/life-after-ambition-by-amil-niazi/9780771005213