Shonda Rhimes Says Working Moms ‘Can’t Do It All at Once’

Between raising kids and creating hit TV shows, Shonda Rhimes says she’s found comfort in accepting that something will always have to give.

During an appearance on Wednesday’s episode of “Call Her Daddy,” hosted by Alex Cooper, Rhimes spoke about the realities of balancing motherhood and her career.

“I think the relief was realizing that you can only do so much at once,” Rhimes told Cooper. “I mean, I think that the struggle and the way we’re told like, lean in or you can have it all or all these things — it’s such bullshit.”

Rhimes said that working mothers are often “conditioned” to believe they need to give their all at work and still be perfect at home, when in reality, “it does not work that way.”

“My job is amazing, but there are times when I’m going to have to say, OK, I let that slide because my kids needed me. And that is OK,” the “Grey’s Anatomy” creator said.

The pressure to be “perfect” in every part of life sets women up to fail, since no one can give their all to everything at once, she added.

“It’s never going to happen. You’re never going to feel amazing at both. It’s always going to be a little bit, you know, shaky. So let it be shaky,” she said.

She added that she’s accepted that she’ll always have to prioritize some things over others: “It’s not that you can’t do it all. It’s that you can’t do it all at once.”

“People used to be like, ‘How can you say that?’ I’m like, it made me feel so much better to think like, ‘OK, I’m failing at work right now. That’s OK.’ To give myself that permission made it so much easier,” Rhimes said.

This isn’t the first time Rhimes has spoken about finding balance as a working mother. In a 2014 Dartmouth commencement speech, she shared that she, too, has to make trade-offs between her personal and professional lives.

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“Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means I am failing in another area of my life,” Rhimes said.

A representative for Rhimes did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours.

The concept of how women should “lean in” to their careers and ambitions was popularized by Sheryl Sandberg, then Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, in her 2013 book of the same title.

In a 2025 memoir, former Meta executive Sarah Wynn-Williams revealed how the workplace’s “lean in” culture often left working mothers feeling unsupported and exhausted.

Rhimes is far from being the only Hollywood star who has spoken about the challenges they faced trying to balance work and motherhood.

In 2024, Keira Knightley said she had to step back from her career because she chose to start a family.

“I couldn’t go job to job [abroad] now. It wouldn’t be in any way fair on them, and I wouldn’t want to,” Knightley told The Times. “I’ve chosen to have children, I want to bring them up, so I’ve had to take a major step back.”

During a May appearance on the “Armchair Expert” podcast, Michelle Williams said that balancing her career and motherhood is like figuring out “which master you’re going to serve.”

“Because the truth is, if work is going well, somebody else is taking care of the kids. And if you’re in a high point with your kids, the work is shoved to the side,” Williams told podcast host Dax Shepard.