The most pernicious lie I believed about motherhood was a lie of omission.

No one told me that having ambitious career goals while raising children required significant help. By help, I mean any or some combination of: a stay-at-home spouse, accessible and helpful relatives, reliable childcare, a housecleaner or cook.

It was a mystery to me how everyone else managed to keep a clean house, their families fed healthy meals, and themselves maintained while still advancing at work and having time for a social life.

I'm sure there will always be the 1 percent of superwomen among us who pull this off without hired help or extraordinary support systems. But I'm talking about the 99 percent -- the rest of us. We're human: Our minds can only carry so many to-do items at one time. (That would be around seven, research shows.) Our bodies have a minimum requirement for sleep.

I learned this after years of wondering why I was so tired, so rushed and always feeling so behind: The ones who are "leaning in" full-tilt have someone else putting away a lot of laundry and preparing a fair number of meals. Even the ones who can barely afford it, outsource it. If it's a choice between a pricey summer camp for the children or a weekly cleaning service, pick the maid!

No working mother shared this advice so explicitly with me until recently. It's not just a matter of choosing peace of mind or an extra few hours of rest for yourself. Paid help at home can make the critical difference of getting by at work or getting ahead.

Brigid Schulte exposes a few of these truths in her recent book, "Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time." The research bears out these facts: More mothers today work outside the home, spend more time taking care of their children, do a greater percentage of household chores than their spouses and have less time for themselves than in years past.

One of the time-use researchers Schulte interviewed remarked: "Employed mothers talking about sleep is like a hungry man talking about food."

Now that, right there, is truth.

"You can't add work and do more child care without getting enormously time-stressed. You can't have it all unless other things shift in other people's behavior -- unless men actually reduce their working hours and increase their time doing housework and child care, unless cultures change and we're prepared to give social support to parents," says Lyn Craig, a sociologist and time-use researcher from Australia, in Schulte's book.

As a product of a working-class childhood, the idea of needing another person to keep my home as clean as I would like it or relying on prepared meals to feed my family seemed indulgent and lazy. I had watched my mother, raising six children, manage to run a functioning household.

I never saw her sit still. I never saw her take a nap in the afternoon, or sit down to simply watch a television show or read a book. The woman was (and is, to this day) always in motion. From her, I inherited the notion that the best mothers are continuously working.

It is an impossible standard to set for myself, as she didn't work outside the home when we were young. We didn't have multiple activities to which she drove us. The work was no less time consuming, but she had prioritized what was most important and sacrificed the rest.

My youngest sister, a powerhouse attorney with a baby and another on the way, still has ambitious career goals she hopes to achieve. I texted her recently: "You need a full-time nanny, who you can teach to cook, plus keep Mom on standby. Also, up your maid's hours. This is the best career advice I can give you."

I'm done with the lies.

I stood on the front step of my house and closed the storm door behind me to greet these visitors. I was not about to let them in without a warning.

"You might get the shakes," I said. Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, both 32, are the authors of "Everything That Remains: A Memoir by the Minimalists," the story of their path to living with less -- much less.

My house was in the middle of a major renovation project, so the entire contents of my kitchen were piled in the dining room and basement, with a makeshift eating area in the family room. It was the most antithetical display to minimalism that I could imagine.

We've seen worse, they assured me. We've lived worse, they said.

Cautiously, I allowed them in.

Both of them, childhood friends from Dayton, Ohio, quit six-figure jobs nearly four years ago and got rid of most of their fancy possessions in the quest to live happier, more fulfilling lives. They were recently in St. Louis as part of a 100-city tour promoting their latest book.

So, how's this new way of life working out?

"I really don't have anything I miss," Nicodemus said.

"There's nothing I couldn't replace right now," Millburn added.

They had been working 60 to 80 hours a week in corporate jobs. Now, they write, blog, speak, are making a documentary and have started their own press. They say they are physically, mentally and financially better off.

Millburn realized this when his mother died the same month as his marriage ended in 2009. He had to deal with his mother's 65 years' worth of accumulated things. At first, he wanted to box everything and put it in storage. But then he realized that she was not in her "stuff." He took pictures of the things that mattered to him and got rid of it all.

"I was so tied to my things emotionally," Millburn said. "Our possessions can be triggers to memories, but we can set up other triggers."

He applied the same principle to his own life.

"I was using the past as a weapon to batter my present self," Millburn said.

Nicodemus noticed how much happier Millburn seemed soon after this difficult time and asked how he was managing.

"Do they have you on Prozac?" he asked. His friend told him he had discovered minimalism. It appealed to Nicodemus. "I think the material possessions in my life were a physical manifestation of internal clutter," he said.

Both men had a realization that the things that matter most -- health, relationships, giving, writing -- got the least of their time.

It's a message that has resonated strongly with their millions of readers. "We are shifting from a culture of consumption or ownership to a culture of access," Nicodemus said. You don't have to own something to appreciate it. Books, music, art, memories can all be stored in a cloud.

"Since the economy crashed, people have been reawakened. They are not buying into the ideology that you have to consume to be happy," Nicodemus said.

"People are experiencing a lot of discontent, with either their finances or time. I didn't feel like I had control of my finances or time," Millburn said.

In that old life, Nicodemus said, "we had $6,000 worth of shoes between the two of us."

Today, there are rules they live by.

"If I haven't used something in 90 days, I will seriously consider whether I need to live with it," Nicodemus said. "I am constantly asking the question: Does this thing bring me joy or is it adding value to my life?"

He also doesn't have a TV. "I would watch it all the time," he said.

Readers often share their own techniques for keeping excess stuff at bay. A mother of young children told them that she keeps a "one in, one out" rule for any new toy her children want.

For these two, the books and blog are not about converting anyone else to a lifestyle that works for them, but about sharing ideas that may be useful to others.

"Ultimately, this journey is about you. When other people in your life see the benefits, they are compelled to take action in their own lives," Millburn said.

In my case, the most common hurdles I've faced in getting rid of things are the sentimental attachment, the possibility of future use, and the genuine joy that can come from infrequently used but beautiful items.

"There were three words I had a very intimate relationship with: just in case," Millburn said.

We hang on to things: just in case.

They pose a challenge on their website, TheMinimalists.com, in which you find a a friend or family member willing to get rid of some excess stuff. Each person gets rid of one thing on the first day of the month. On the second day, two things. Three items on the third. So forth and so on. The items can be clothes, furniture, electronics, tools, decorations, anything. You can donate, sell or trash them.

Whoever can keep it going the longest wins. You both win if you can make it all month.

For those doing the math, you end up with 496 fewer items by the end of a 31-day month. Their visit inspired me to start this challenge, and I've already shed 100 excess items.

It's a useful reminder of how easily less can seem like more.

Jackson Judd knew months before he asked his date to prom that his invitation was going to be over-the-top -- literally.

The senior at Mary Institute Country Day School earned his pilot's license when he was 17 and had set sky-high expectations the previous year: He'd taken his girlfriend, Abby Desai, to fly with him last spring and had her read the flight checklist aloud.

Judd had inserted "Will you go to prom with me?" as one of the instructions.

"The promposal has turned into such a big deal," he said. "There's totally a one-upsmanship."

After that first successful run, Judd took note of which promposals his girlfriend admired on Instagram. She seemed to appreciate one in which a boy had spelled out "prom" in lights on his date's front lawn.

He got the idea of spelling out "Prom?" on a field and flying over it with her.

The simple idea required some complex planning.

First, he looked up sizing for plastic sheeting he could use to make the message. Then he figured out how much he would need to create the display by drawing a grid. He bought 600 feet of black plastic sheeting from Home Depot and cut the strips in his basement.

He found a friend who had a family farm near Hermann, Mo., about 75 miles from St. Louis. Judd checked the forecast for two clear days, and drove out to the field to set it up. He held the plastic sheeting in place with firewood from the farm. The four letters and a question mark covered an area about the size of a football field. It would be visible from 4,000 feet in the air.

Desai didn't suspect a thing when Judd asked her to go flying with him two weeks before the big dance. They headed west, and for 15 minutes, Judd flew around trying to figure out exactly where he had laid out the tarp. He finally found the right field, tilted the plane wing down and flew by it for Desai to see.

"I was shocked," Desai said. "I never expected something so huge ... I was amazed he would make that much effort. I was over-the-moon happy."

Mission accomplished, Judd.

"I know I beat my personal best," he said, "but I wouldn't say I'm the king of promposals."

The couple, who have been dating for a year and a half, attended their prom earlier this month, and both reported having a fabulous time.

The first thing Desai's father said when he heard about Judd's promposal was: "Is your marriage proposal going to seem really lame compared to prom?"

The generation that has popularized a new tradition of asking a prom date in a big way -- and, of course, sharing that experience through social media -- may not hear another proposal for at least a decade after.

The median age for a first marriage has risen by six years during the past two generations. Nearly 60 percent of adults ages 18 to 29 were married in 1960. Now, it's 20 percent in that age group. The process of finding that life partner has also evolved for a sizable number of young people.

For millenials, dating, in its traditional sense, hardly exists. Interested singles are more likely to hang out than dress up and go on a dinner date. There are growing doubts in this cohort about monogamy. While fewer teens are sexually active now than in the '80s, the ones who are active are more likely to experience a fluid, hook-up culture.

Yet the vast majority of college students report a desire to get married one day. The Pinterest popularity of anything wedding-related remains strong.

So, if the fantasy still exists but the reality seems unlikely in the near future, why not create a bridge? Many modern prom rituals, from the professional photographer to the designer dress, resemble a wedding day. Costs and expectations keep escalating.

Some may criticize the promposal as a yet another narcissistic display by a generation that constantly needs to broadcast and be reassured that they are special.

But the promposal may also tap into another impulse: It may be a grand, romantic gesture by a generation holding on to a bit of innocence about what it means to be a loved in a commitment-phobic era. Even if there is an element of competition, going to the trouble to plan and execute a sweet surprise for someone is thoughtful and memorable.

It's useful to bear in mind, however, that no one should want the best night of their life to unfold in high school.

Kind of a bummer for the next 60 years if it was.

CAPTION 01: Jackson Judd created a football field-sized "promposal" for girlfriend Abby Desai.