"It."

Recently, I read this (a post on Terrible Mother which makes reference to a now-notable accusation made by Alice Walker's daughter that she was a bad mom), then this (an article on Salon that talks some more about that accusation, following through to a consideration of the question about whether a mom can be an important writer and an attentive mother--the answer the author comes up with is, "Trust me, a woman really cannot do both. The myth that we can is a dangerous one."), and I have ever since been wondering about this question:

when women ask, "can women have/do/be it all?" what is "it"?

This is a serious question. Now that I am officially old, I really do look at my life with a different filter. For instance, when I look at my 20s, I think, there were people who could have, or maybe should have, given me advice about, say, how to "do" grad school, and maybe I could have learned from others how to focus and sharpen my ambitions beyond, say, getting good grades and keeping my scholarship. But, and on the other hand, if I had become a different kind of person--a person with sharpened and more focused ambitions, or a person who made more of her grad school experience--my life might have turned out quite differently than it had. At this point, I'm not sure that would be all that much of an improvement.

What if "it" is "a rich, full life"? Is that so impossible? (As you can see, I am conducting an argument with myself. Feel free to jump in at any point, though I can't promise you I will yield the floor.)