Women face enough pressures and challenges in a workplace that is still depressingly biased against a female’s success. Add to that, the fact that the very thing many women I know find most rewarding (having kids) is now frowned upon.

Brzezinski contrasts two overlapping burdens many women encounter: persistent workplace sexism and the cultural penalty attached to motherhood. The quote argues that professional environments can remain structurally biased against women’s advancement, while also treating caregiving—especially having children—as a liability rather than a valued part of life. By calling motherhood “the very thing…most rewarding” yet “frowned upon,” she highlights a double bind: women are expected to succeed at work but may be judged for choices that make that success harder under existing norms. The passage implicitly critiques institutions that fail to accommodate parenting and urges a revaluation of motherhood as compatible with ambition.