This is a question that's been on my mind a lot lately: Can we really have it all?

A couple of generations ago, most women were stay-at-home moms. If the men they married respected them as partners, then they were lucky. With their girlfriends, they drank iced tea and discussed men. (I get all my information about this from episodes of Mad Men and all those Rebecca Wells novels about ya-yas, so I'm not swearing to its accuracy.)

And then all the bra-burning happened and women could go to work and leave their kids in daycare. I spent time in daycare, as did most of my friends. Of course, my mom was from the South; she wore a bra .. and a slip ... and hose. But she went to work.

Ours is the first generation of moms to try to truly do everything. Some of us have decided we're gonna be full-time moms with our own home businesses. We're mommy bloggers and Pampered Chef hosts and consultants and public speakers. I know a candle maker, a personal shopper, several journalists and a physical trainer who are also full-time moms.

We also insist on being married to our best friend while maintaining fierce Sex-in-the-City-type girlfriendships so that we can go out, glammed up and sip martinis at least once a week. And thanks to friggin' technology and Kate Hudson movies, we're led to believe it's all going to be one hilarious romantic comedy from beginning to end.

Our mothers raise their eyebrows (and our grandmothers, if they're around, are just confused), while we try not to look as exhausted as we feel.

I was discussing this with friends both online and in the “real” world recently, because I've been doing a lot of soul-searching lately. I heard Ayelet Waldman, the author of the memoir Bad Mother, interviewed on this very subject on National Public Radio.

Waldman had a mom who was apparently a devout feminist. And the author said that after she had her children and realized how hard it was to juggle everything, she felt like her mom – and the entire generation – had lied to her. To all their daughters.

Not on purpose. She suggested that they were, perhaps, naïve, believing that if women just had the same opportunities as men, everything else would just work itself out.

I don't feel like my mom lied to me or pushed me towards trying to juggle multiple writing jobs and full-time motherhood, including all the ins and outs of parenting an autistic preschooler. I feel like most of the time, my mom thinks I'm slightly crazy for trying to do all the crap I do.

And I think she's kinda right. After being a mother for almost four years now, I'm still trying to define myself. I passionately love being a wife and mother. And I passionately love writing ... though not as much as being a wife and mom.

This summer has been harder in some ways than I expected. There have been speedbumps that I hadn't prepared for: Hand-Foot-Mouth virus followed by family-wide pink-eye. Keeping Willow happy while I try to give Billy a handwriting lesson has been harder than expected. And by the end of the day, when I'm supposed to turn the kids over to Dave and start my work, all I want to do is collapse on my bed, play online Boggle or catch up on The Good Wife.

I may have to scale the writing back – at least through the summer. I'll still be here, just less often. And probably slightly less coherently. The most important right now is that I save what few brain cells I have left for the kids.

So I find myself somewhere between Mad Men and Sex and the City – with none of the fashion sense and less of the sex (it's hard to feel sexy with pink eye). I wear pajamas until the afternoon way too often, and if I manage to brush both my hair and my teeth on the same day, I consider myself a success. The kids are another story.

I rarely get it all done – or even get close. I'm constantly “spinning plates” and desperately trying not to drop anything. Can we have it all? I don't know. But I'm gonna try.

(Look for this post on Southern MOMentum on July 14 when I'll be guest blogger!)