I tried: My wife and I both got Ph.D. degrees intending to have two careers, do well financially, and, with money in the bank, have a family.

In four words, it did not work.

A longer description is, eventually the evidence became overwhelming: Mother Nature and Darwin were there long before we were and very much did not want us doing that, and they were very strong minded about this: She struggled and struggled; the struggles caused stress, eventually the stress caused depression; the depression made the struggles and stress worse and caused severe depression; and that was fatal. No joke. Her Ph.D. had been a big investment that got 'written off'.

Or couples that could have done what we tried just were not among our ancestors. All this is in spite of what is commonly said would, could, and should be.

Thus, I suggest: In simple terms, Mother Nature and Darwin have arranged that without certainty but with high probability in practice and significantly on average a 'professional woman' is a weak, sick, or dead limb on the tree. Sorry 'bout that. Wish I'd known that earlier.

How could this "weak, sick, dead" stuff be? Here's a guess: In our 'culture' from the past few thousand or ten thousand years, women nearly never had opportunities to pursue a 'profession' and became wives and mommies whether they really, consciously or otherwise, wanted to or not. So, our 'nature', 'nurture'. 'social and psychological capital', and 'culture', or whatever, from the past kept the tree growing while, still, a significant fraction of the women didn't want to be just wives and mommies.

So, what's different now? Now the US society and economy have changed giving many women an opportunity to pursue a career or profession, and, with significantly high probability, these women are removing their genes from the gene pool.

E.g., in Finland, women are encouraged to pursue careers, and on average the number of children born to a woman in Finland is about 1.5. So, let's see: For some simple arithmetic, with one generation of 25 years, after 150 years the population will fall by

100 * (1 - ( 1.5 / 2 ) ** 6 ) = 82.2%

So in the last 150 years or so Finland beat back the Swedes, Nazis, and Soviets but in the next 150 years are on track to lose out to careers for women!

This situation is common across Europe: The gene pool is being severely pruned. In simple terms, Europe is rapidly going extinct.

My guess is that the European gene pool is now in the period of most rapid change in at least the last 10,000 years.

Darwin stands to win this one: What will be left will be women who really, REALLY want to be mommies in good families.

Darwin has more to say: The situation for men is not easy, either: For the tree to do well, men have to be good providers, good enough that their wives can concentrate on doing well in motherhood. Some men are successful, and some are not -- Darwin again!

Without some big and chancy changes in work and families, thoughts about would, could, and should be pale to insignificance as Darwin wins again.

Or, it's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature!

Maybe in Finland and most of Europe, by the time the population falls by, say, 75% from now the new gene pool, 'culture', etc. that emphasizes motherhood along with the more favorable ratio of land to people will cause the population to stabilize and, then, start to grow again. Maybe.