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Natalie Morales: Barash recently completed a study that defines what she calls the "New Wife". Who is she? A young educated woman in her twenties who decides that while a career is important, marriage and family come first.
Susuan Sharpiro Barash: She wants to stress free marriage, she wants to have time with her children and her husband.
Natalie Morales: So they see women who have tried to have it all as having failed in summer garden, their personal and professional lives?
Susuan Sharpiro Barash: I don't know about fail, but I think very disappointed. And I think that is a myth of having it all.
Music: Love and marriage, love and marriage,
Natalie Morales: Marlene Mcmahon and Rachel Driling are exactly the kind of women Barash says are examples of the new wife. Marlene put herself through college before starting a career in medical publishing. She met her husband Michael when she was 24, they now have 8-week-old MeKeller.
Music: What a world! What a life, I am in love...
Marlene Mcmahon: Being able to, you know, take her to school, and go to PTA meetings and beat every dance with sidle and make her lunch, I can't even imagine not being able to do that.
Music: Lucky me, can't you see I'm in love...
Natalie Morales: Marlene planned to work part time at some point, but for now she leaves the heavy financial lifting to her husband.
Marlene Mcmahon: We compliment each other, so he is more successful having, knowing that I can take care of our children, and I am more successful knowing that I don't necessarily have to worry it as much, because he's gonna make sure our hot water has got turned off.
Natalie Morales: What does this mean then for the trailblazers who did pave the way for many of us who have careers and have families?
Susuan Sharpiro Barash: The trailblazers were not able to get rid of that second shift that remains today, studies show us that women who work all day still come home to the second shift for their children.
It's hard to put that together.
Natalie Morales: Rachel D's mom Linda Chambers was a baby boomer who tried to do it all as an accountant and mother of 2.
Linda Chambers: I really love my job, I love what I do, and I didn't wanna give that up to be a permanent stay-at-home mom, and I had a lot of stress, you know.
Natalie Morales: That stress made daughter Rachel resolve to do things differently.
Music: Baby, love. my baby, Love. I need you, I know I need you...
Natalie Morales: Married at 26, she stays home with son Dashwood and works just 4 times a month as a nurse practitioner.
Rachel: I would much rather sacrifice material items, myself, I would, my husband and Dashwood...and to be old for us to have me stay at home with our son.
Miss Magazine senior editor Michele Kort finds Barash's trend troubling.
Michele Kort: It will be a step backward if women blame this choice on their hardworking mothers, and didn't look at the societal situation that creates that kind of stress
Kid: No, no, no...
Natalie Morales: The harsh reality is there is no easy answer for joggling career and family, especially for women in demanding professions. Doctor Grace Kang is an unmarried 37-year-old pediatric cardiologist with 14 difficult years of medical training finally behind her.
Grace Kang: I think it would have been very difficult to have a husband and a family and to do well in my training, to succeed, really succeed at it.
Natalie Morales: Doctor Kang has no regrets and feels confident that a marriage and a family are in her future.
Grace Kang: I don't think it's too late,
Natalie Morales: So then we talk now the 21st century wife, what does she represent?
Susuan Sharpiro Barash: She is probably the smartest of all, because she is willing to scrutinize, the recent past, and to take the best from each decade.
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