May 6, 2020 • 36 mins
We know the trimesters of pregnancy, and that mushy period of transitioning into life with a newborn. But best-selling author Lauren Brody says we’re not paying enough attention to the struggles of The Fifth Trimester, when the working mom is born. In this episode, we chat about what this new identity meant for each of us as Lauren shares the best advice she collected from more than 700 moms about how to find your way to thriving at work and at home. @thefifthtrimester @LaurenSBrody #T5TMovement
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
They feel like if they like me, look in the
mirror and feel incompetent, then it's something wrong with them
and they feel guilty. It is nothing wrong with them.
You should honestly not feel great at that point, according
to all of the research. So instead of internalizing it,
we have to externalize, join together and ask for the
things we need and not hide our parenthood. Dad's too.
(00:22):
We can only fix a problem we can see, and
so we have to be visible about our needs. Thanks
for joining us on the road to somewhere where we
talk about exploration, adventure, major life change, and transformation is
about not necessarily knowing where we're going, but having the
(00:44):
faith that the journey will be worthwhile. I am Lisa
Us and I'm Jill Herzig and when you when you
tick down all those things we talked about exploration, adventure, transformation,
major life change. I think that probably having a baby
and any subsequent babies you have after the first baby,
that is just the mini life quake of them all.
(01:05):
And I cannot believe you did it four times. But yeah,
except I think we were great the first time. I
think is the big quick because it really you go
from your whole sense of identity is shifted um or
at least mine was. And from what to what? From
(01:26):
like a hot twenty year old to like lump. I
remember the lump stage well, but you just have to
say anyway, I just remember when I had to I
had this pair of black maternity pants that my neighbor
had given me, and they were just like such a
(01:48):
security blanket for me during my pregnancy. And I remember
finally realizing that I had to stop wearing them when Julio,
my daughter, was like six weeks old. It's like, I
gotta get out of these things that you have to
have to break up this week. So six weeks is
not that I mean to expect that you're gonna be
(02:10):
back into your skin so much. Is a psychological thing.
I had bonded with those effing pants, and I kind
of needed them to feel a good anyway pre Lulu.
Now you can just wear the same pants forever. But actually,
what we're talking about today is the fifth trimester, which
I've never even heard of before today, which is fascinating
(02:33):
because I think it goes on forever after you've had
a baby. It's not like like three months. The trimester
is three months. This is like the fifth forever. But
our guest today is the author of the Fifth Trimester,
The Working Mom's Guide to Style, sanity, and big Success
after Baby, and she's also a friend of yours, a
(02:54):
personal fast longtime friend, Lauren Brodie, thanks so much for
being with us today. Thank you, thank you for having
me on. I'm so excited you're finally here. I feel
like I remember those pants. I'm probably sure did you
wear them to work, probably when you were pregnant. When
I was pregnant, I think I wore them literally four
days a week. I came back to work in maternity
pants like absolutely jeans absolutely allowed. And and I don't
(03:20):
know if you felt, I mean, all these all these
women told me, oh, you're just gonna want to burn
those maternity clothes. First of all, I was like, I
can't afford that, right if I'm ever gonna have another baby,
put these away in moth balls. And second, these pants
make me feel a little better. Thank give you a
nice hug. But tell us define the fifth trimester for us.
(03:40):
So the first three obviously, you know, Lisa, you knew
the first three several times over, Jill a couple of times. Um,
I have two cents myself. So the first three year pregnancy,
the fourth trimester is something I didn't know anything about
until I was in it. And it's this notion popularized
by Harvey carp who wrote this really popular book called
The Happiest Baby on the Block is a pediatrician about
(04:01):
the idea that human babies are actually born three months
too early, and so to soothe a newborn baby, you
recreate the feeling of the womb. That's why we swaddle,
that's why we sway, shush, all these s verbs that
he uses. And as soon as you have a baby,
you recognize this thing is not cooked exactly, yes, and
your hips just you stand and you sway for three months.
And I remember reading his book and feeling comforted by
(04:23):
it but also alarmed because throughout it he says, and
we're friends now, so this is okay for me to
say this, but he says, you know, okay, mom, just
get to twelve weeks. Get to twelve weeks, and your
baby will wake up to the world and we'll give
something back to you. They'll start to get on something
of a schedule, of those clouds above your head will part.
And I thought, well, God, that's exactly when I go
back to work, and I did have postpartum anxiety with
(04:45):
my first son, not with my second, but it was undiagnosed,
untreated at the time, and I was really a mess.
And it did start to part just when I was
going back to work. But then I looked in the
mirror and saw someone I didn't recognize at all. I
was pretty far into my career um by the time
I had my first son, as many women are, but
since we're having our babies a little later, and yet
(05:06):
I felt incredibly incompetent and it felt like my first
day on the job as a new mom. I went
back to work. I am Jill knows me, and we
worked together because she knows I wear everything on my face.
There was no faking it till I made it. I
just that would have required, you know, sleep and energy
that I didn't have. I didn't have the energy to
fake it. So, with somewhat executive privilege because I was
(05:27):
already in a pretty senior role at that point, I
was really open and honest about what was hard. I
told people when I hadn't slept, I had my breast
pump on my desk, and I was really fortunate to
work around lots and lots of women. I worked at
Glamour magazine, and so people were really understanding and kind,
and yet people hadn't really been as transparent or bear
(05:47):
I felt as I had been. There was a day
when a colleague came into my office and she thanked
me for being so open and honest about working motherhood.
And I think I remember actually pausing and not knowing
what to say, because I thought, have I said one
many times that I'm tired in my unprofessional do I
smell like spit up? Like what's happening? But then she
went on to say because she was she was much
younger than I was, and and I think movie didn't
(06:09):
even have a boyfriend at that point. She now has
a baby, she just had her baby. Um. But she
said to me, I just want you to know that,
like I know, I'm going to have to do this
one day, and until you, I didn't really see anybody
doing it. It looks hard, but I also really still
look up to you, so so say thanks. And I thought,
oh wow, And I've gotten to a point in my
career where I had I learned how to be an editor.
(06:30):
I mean, we're always learning. But I felt I had
kind of maxed out on that skill set, and I
realized there was this whole other mountains, a climb of
learning to be a good manager in role model and
modeling the kind of human you know, management style that
that I wanted to and I want to. I wanna
make a confession here, which is that I'm not sure
(06:52):
that I, as the person in the on the level
just above you at that time mcclamor, I'm not sure
that I was modeling. I wasn't wearing on my sleeve
the craziness I was trying to conceal it. I mean,
I remember once we had a we had an ideas
meeting around how to shoot a working mother, UM for
(07:14):
an article photograph working mother. Sorry, sorry I'm missing magazine
speaking sounding really violent UM. And I just kind of
laughingly said, yeah, well, this morning I was wearing you know,
heels and trying to get both my kids onto the
subway into school and I had to put my two
(07:35):
year old on my shoulders and I looked like a
complete crazy woman, but she was melting down, and you know,
I had we had to move forward, that was the
only way. And everybody kind of looked at me and
I was like, Oh, I guess I sort of showed
my I showed my crazy, you know. But I don't
think your heroism is what you but I don't. But
(07:57):
I think that that I was not as willing to
be vulnerable, and vulnerability is something that is so much
more accepted now. And really it might have been when
I was coming up and when things were being modeled
for me. Absolutely, it's so true, so true, I will
say those so also, I was thinking about it as
(08:19):
I was on my way in. You know, you also,
this is going to sound like BS, and I don't
mean for it to be at all. It's not. You're
you're super humanly good at your job. So what I
see now because I took I took that feeling that
I had all those years ago. I had a second son.
I did a ton of research nationally, serving hundreds of
new moms with as many different approaches to career and
(08:41):
motherhood as I could come up with, so hourly wage
workers and you know, sea level moms, moms who worked
for themselves, adoptive moms, single moms, and found the things
we had in common working against us and for us,
so that we could all mentor each other and not
have to, you know, go through it all the hard
way the first time. And so now I've taken that research.
I wrote book which is called The Fifth Trimester, and
(09:01):
then I've turned it into a consulting business and a
speaking business, and I go into companies and I helped
them do a better job of retaining women by supporting
new moms, you got to keep them in. And So
one thing that I've learned that's not even in the book,
but is about exactly that. It's that actually, very very
often the women in leadership have this triple burden because
you are you are a natural subset, so you have
(09:24):
to do a very hard job, very well. You have
to do it exceptionally well if you're one of the
few women in that room with other men. And this
wasn't necessarily our case women. That was a wonderful and
exceptional thing. Yes, but at a certain level it would
have been you know. Um, So that's the second burden.
And then and then the third is that you also
bear this responsibility and opportunity to bring along all these
(09:48):
other women underneath you. So when I go into law
firms and we see that in New York, I think
the statistic now is that forty percent of the of
associates and Big law are female and only twelve percent
of partners are. If the partners are burdened to run
the Women's d r G and be on the committee
to choose the art on the walls, you know, and
do all say yes to all of these things, and
(10:09):
also remember to order the birthday cupcakes, which they are
still doing or even if it's they're asking their executive
assistant to do it, they're still remembering it. That's too much,
and it can read some resentment among women in leadership
who feel like I got through this, you know, come on.
But the truth is that those women had something working
in their favor. They had a partner who was home
with their kids, they had enough money to be to
(10:29):
make it a little easier, they didn't require as much sleep.
They're just super exceptionally talented whatever it is like, they're
not necessarily representative of the masses who are going through it.
And if we're trying to create policy for those masses
who are going through it, because we see their potential,
that's who we need to include in those conversations. And
so really it's been really eye opening from me to
(10:51):
go into businesses and understand that myself, this is not
just a survivor biased thing that's happening, Like, actually, these
women are triple e respond prinsible and it's a lot.
It's too much, actually, So when we come back, I
want to do a deep dive into how we actually
cope with this the stress of the fifth trimester. So
(11:20):
we've been chatting with Lauren Brody, author of The Fifth
Trimester UM about the just how difficult it really is
to go back into the workplace as a woman after
babies UM, and we talked about a little bit. You
touched on the institutional issue, but I also want to
talk about the personal responsibility and how because there are
(11:42):
a lot of women out there who are saying, yeah,
it's a problem, but I I personally can't change whatever
corporation I work for tomorrow. What do I do today
to deal with this stress that I'm feeling. I took
that approach in my book because I figured, you know,
the way who were reading it are the ones who
are in the thick of it, who are just trying
(12:03):
to put one foot in front of the other. And yes,
if you happen to feel really ambitious in this moment,
and you want to move up the ladder and negotiate
for everything that you deserve and have earned in this
moment and change policy from within. Yes, go go to it.
Bless you, thank you, and I'll show you how to
do that. However, you should also know that if you
were just putting one foot in front of the other
and showing up and being that person to the woman
(12:27):
who came to my desk and said, hey, thanks for
like making this look like it's hard but doable, that
actually serves a purpose too. And so as long as
we are showing up and I ask, I do ask
the women who I coach go one tiny extra step
further than you feel comfortable. One extra step isn't going
to get you fired. So you know, can I can
I flex my hours so that I am getting one
(12:51):
more breastfeeding session in at home, I'm arriving at the
office at ten instead of nine. I will make up
the hour at night. Ask for that, because you know,
if you have a drop off in your supply and
you feel you can't feed your baby, believe me, that
is going to distract you all day long and you're
not going to be as good at your job. Right
so yes, that is so true, right, that is so
true that where is going to be a mental ticker
(13:13):
tape saying, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,
my last pumping session, I got nothing. Yeah, And you'll
be in a meeting and no good ideas will come
to your head and you'll think, why, why why am
I so in your freezer? You know, you know a
lot we just don't really know what this meeting is about.
So then the other thing I tell these women is
(13:33):
and when you make that ask, first of all, I
have done your research, like know what's been available to
anybody else around you and before you, because that sets
precedent actually legally that you can take good advantage of,
and you should. But also go into it knowing that
this is not just an ass that you're making for
you in your personal life, Like this is very very
very often. I'm sure you guys have both seen this
(13:54):
a lot. New parenthood in the workplace is the first
time a lot of women have negotiated for anything, and
yet it comes with these incredible stakes. So try to
remember that when you ask for something, this is not
just about you having enough milk in your freezer. This
is this is you making change that actually will progress
your workplace, because your workplace is part of a bigger
(14:14):
industry that also needs to progress and be competitive. And
if you can attract the best people by having the
best policies, wonderful you're actually helping with that. I would
also add, taking it down from a policy level, your
company has already put a tremendous amount of resources in you.
When you came back to Glamour, we could not lose you.
(14:38):
There was nobody we could hire who would get up
to the speed where you were at in any reasonable
length of time. So even if I had no loyalty,
even if I was you know, had a flinty heart
of steel and solely made the decision based on the
economics of what we had invested in you, we should
we should flex? The answer would be immediately, we should flice. Right,
(15:01):
we can't lose Lauren. So do you know the numbers
on about attrition? So tip Typically losing an employee costs
an employer six to nine months of that person's salary
to lose them. The gap time the money spent replacing them,
you might have to pay somebody more be in that job.
For employees who make a hundred thousand dollars or more.
That jumps up to two hundred of their salary. It's
(15:22):
a huge investment. And that doesn't even account for anything
that you're talking about. That doesn't even account for putting
a dollar figure on the training in the good will
and all that good stuff. What do you do though,
about the majority of people who aren't in some glamorous
publishing industry and making six figures of driving a bus
(15:42):
or there, you know, a traffic cop. Absolutely, they can't
just say I'm going to step outside of the bus
and go pump right now. So they don't have the
luxury of being an assert of woman in a corporation.
And I know you interviewed people like that too, how
do you what would you get? Advice would you give
them for coping? So, shift workers actually do have more
(16:04):
coverage federally around breastfeeding than than salaried workers actually, which
is which is a good thing to know a lot
of people are not aware of that. Um so they
do have the right actually to take unpaid breaks. But
who wants to take an unpaid break? If you're working,
you know, potentially more than one job, or you're working
you know, paid by the hour um. So there we
see strength in numbers. And we've seen this at companies
(16:25):
across across this country that have set precedent for It's
funny this is rather than rather than federal policy sort
of blooming out to greater business. We're seeing the private
sector start redefining these norms. So when you look at
companies like Amazon or even the salad company Sweet Green Um,
(16:45):
they offer now the same benefits to their hourly wage workers,
the fulfillment center workers, as they do to their executives.
And it's really important as just consumers of news when
we see these headlines to wonder about that. When we
see that somebody has started offering, you know, eighteen weeks
of paid leave for you know, for all parents, all genders,
is that actually true for the person who's answering the
(17:07):
phone calls at three o'clock in the morning. It may
not be. And if it's not, it really doesn't count.
There's a real upstairs downstairs divide um. So their strength
and numbers banned together, you know, with other people in
similar situations and try I also advise trying to d
d uterus the situation. So if you can find someone
who doesn't have a uterus, like you can find a
(17:28):
man who's a dad, a partner who's who's a partner,
a someone who has elder care responsibilities, someone who has
an older child who has a developmental disability and for
which they also need some form of accommodation. Everybody is
a caregiver in one way or another. You'd be hard
pressed to find someone who doesn't say they take care
of someone. So you can find the strength and numbers
(17:50):
and go together to make that person an ally. Yeah,
hopefully get ten alis. So let's go a little that
this this feels like managing out word, what about managing in? Yeah,
you know, I really loved that you talked about being
post guilt, because a lot of what we take with
us back to work during the fifth trimester and what
(18:13):
hobbles us is our own baggage, our own guilt about
doing it. Yeah. So I mentioned the surveying and interviewing
I did. I hired one of the sort of luxuries
I allowed myself maybe the only in writing this book
was I hired a transcriber, single mom living outside of
Cleveland in Ohio, and she transcribed all my interviews and
they were hour long interviews, and they were a hundred
(18:33):
of them. Every single one of those interviews contained the
word guilt, and so I was able to see it
leap off the page at me guilt, A search on
the word, and I started eventually a word cloud. I
didn't But so what was fascinating was it actually it
meant really different things to different people. So there were
people who felt guilty leaving their baby before they were
(18:55):
ready to in the arms of someone who they felt
like wasn't as capable as they would have been themselves.
There are other people who felt guilty because they just
loved being back at work and didn't know what that
meant about them were they not maternal And so what
I realized is that if guilt is this common denominator,
and some of it is that I was sitting here
with my survey data, like doing seventh grade math on it,
and so I had common denominators in mind. But if
(19:17):
guilt is the common denominator, what you do with a
common denominator is you scratch it out. And what we
need to be treating for and advocating for is helping
with whatever feeling it actually is. If you feel, you know,
stressed out, if you feel like you haven't slept enough,
like treat that thing, don't. Don't just lump it all
together as this sort of sexist social construct of guilt
(19:41):
and the other thing that I've found fascinating because guilt
is based in the belief that you're not enough correct,
so not doing enough there if everybody's feeling guilty, there
is no other better, less guilty mom to be like
that doesn't help the individual like me or yes you, Joe.
You telling me that someone else has it too doesn't
(20:04):
help me deal with it myself. So what based No,
it's like, Okay, if I'm overweight, just because you say
that person there's fat doesn't make me feel less overweight.
So it doesn't. It doesn't really Let me give you
an example though, And I don't think I knew what
I was doing, but I recall when I had little kids,
I they're An editorial was published in the New York
(20:27):
Times and everyone was talking about it, and it was
about calculating how much time your child spends in childcare
versus with you, and it caused a big stir in
our office, which was heavily female and there were a
lot of working moms. And I came in and we
were chatting about it, and this woman who was on
(20:48):
our staff, who's terrific, said that every day she in
the margin of something, she would actually do the math
to figure out that day, and at the end of
the week she would add up all the hours and
that if she ever found that her child was spending
more time in childcare than in her own care, she
(21:09):
would cry. And I remember saying to her, why are
you doing this math? Why what makes you feel you
need to do this now? I don't think it made
it go away for her at all, And ultimately, I
would say a year later she chose to go freelance,
(21:31):
which was definitely I think the right choice for her.
But I think what that exercise, which she somehow felt
she believed she needed to do in order to be
a good mom, what that exercise was doing was it
was a self inflicted wound every day. So I don't
know if that If that helps with your questions. Someone
(21:53):
else has something doesn't mean it's not relevant for me.
I have I have an answer to that. So what
you're talking about is is what we all see culturally
as normal, and so that actually to try to go
straight back to the policy. But so the family and
Medical Leave Act, which guarantees your job to be held
for twelve weeks but does not pay you. Is you know,
(22:13):
it's it's the worst plan in the entire world. You know,
nobody else besides the United States has no unpaid maternity leave.
It was passed, it was signed into law, one of
the first things signed into a law by Bill Clinton
in which is great. But that was after nine years
of negotiations. And when it was originally proposed, it was
meant to be twenty six weeks have paid leave, which
is what even back then was shown by all the
(22:36):
research which has been replicated and replicated and replicated to
be protective of mom's mental health, mom's physical health, baby's
physical health, Dad and partner's bomb with the baby, mom's
ability to maintain her career, oodles, noodles and noodles of
research showing six paid months should be the standard. What
has happened is that was meant to be a band
aid back in that would be improved upon, and I
do believe it will be improved upon, you know, hopefully soon.
(22:57):
But we normalized it. And so now how many how
many times have you heard somebody say, did you get
to take your whole twelve weeks. You got all that time,
and so what we have are these women who are
coming back to work and they keep it with them
into that and Elizabeth rimester. You're talking about not just
that twelve week mark where they feel like if they
like me, look in the mirror and feel incompetent, that
(23:19):
it's something wrong with them and they feel guilty. It
is nothing wrong with them. You should honestly not feel
great at that point, according to all of the research.
So instead of internalizing it, we have to externalize, join
together and ask for the things we need and not
hide our parenthood. Dad's too. We can only fix a
problem we can see, and so we have to be
(23:40):
visible about our needs when we come back. I want
to talk a little bit more about that. We're talking
about the fifth trimester and you the fifth trimester. The
(24:00):
way you're defending is twelve the twelve weeks after you
come back to work. Of twelve weeks, it's the return
to work. For most people, it's about three months of
adjusting that. It can be six, it can be years.
But you mentioned coming back after twelve weeks like not
biologically difficult for a women, but you said for dad, too,
and I want to just transition a little bit too
(24:20):
outside the workplace. The toll that the fifth trimester has
on a relationship. Absolutely yes, So this is so real
and it is it is it can be a lifelong
problem that very often begins with unequal parental leave. So
you know, what we know is that on average, women
(24:41):
who have access to fm l A in the United
States take about eight point five weeks of leave. Is
not everybody can afford to be unpaid for longer than that.
Um Men on average take one to two weeks. And
even even this generation of new parents who come into
their partnerships truly with progressive intentions. See, you know the
effects of the gender wage gap. Dad probably makes more,
(25:04):
Mom probably makes less. And I'm being very binary about it,
but this is the research is mostly based on heterosexual couples.
And so Mom takes more time at home, and because
we're so professionalized in our parenting now, Mom learns all
the things on the job, wants to be the best
parent possible in this time that she's away from work.
Dad goes back to work, then Mom goes back. They're
both back. They get home at the end of the day,
(25:26):
and guests who knows how to do everything mom, and
not to blame the victim, but guests who wants it
all done her way? Me, I want it done my
way right because I've learned how to do it. So
the answer here is obviously, have your partner take as
much time as he or she possibly can. But if
you don't have access, or if your earnings are unequal
and you can't afford for that partner to be out
(25:47):
of work, have him or her take time at the
end of your leave when you're going back, so that
that partner can be home with baby learning everything on
the job, even if it's just ten days. So you see,
you can trust him with that kid. Bonding is happening.
Dad's fully cable. The only thing a dad can't do
for a baby is produced breast milk, and like they're
(26:08):
working on that. I don't think my children were survived
if I had left them alone with my husband and
no way, no way, Oh my god, I love that
one time, so I'll give you just a really quick
story one time after my second daughter, Arabella was born.
She was born in November and this was maybe she
was six weeks old and was the first time I
(26:28):
left her at all and I went to a writing
seminar Robert McKay, remember Robert McKay back in the day.
So it's a week long, weekend long seminar. Memit almost
killed her. It was the middle of the winter. He
decided he had to play tennis. It was a somewhat
sunny day. He left her in a stroller for an
hour and a half watching him play tennis in the
freezing january weather. So in Finland they do that. Oh,
(26:51):
she put their kids out of the cold. She didn't die, thankfully,
she was fine. But the lack of judgment around child
rearing was astounded. So I I just could not Did
he learn a lesson from that? Did he learn to
be just don't let my wife catch me doing things
that she doesn't think you're beneficial for the child. Being
hilarious about splitting up the nighttime wakings. So there's a
(27:14):
study it was done in Israel that showed that dads
who wake up in the night with their toddlers have
better marriages in spite of being in spite of being
extra tired, because they are the sleepiness is offset by
the fact that their wives are less resentful toward them.
So there's just all. There's an incredible case to be
(27:36):
made actually for splitting things basically just and it equals
more sex. That's you know, I hadn't even thought about
it in terms of sex, but yes, probably sure doesn't
everything about sex? Well, I think it's I actually think
sex places roll on this and I think we should
talk about it because I have to say, I do
feel like there's this moment where you your husband definitely
(28:00):
is ready to go, and if your doctor has given
you the white flag and you is it the white flag?
What's the flag? Let's you keep going. You can get
back in, you can get back in the race car.
But the race car is not is not in great shape.
And I just but I just remember feeling like, weirdly,
(28:24):
I had no libido. It hurts like how I I mean, wow,
I'm over sharing here, But losing my virginity was nothing, nothing, nothing,
nothing compared to that. I don't know what had gone
on down there, but wow, a baby came out, A
baby came out, A baby came out, and there was
like I was like, oh shit, this is crazy how
(28:48):
this feels. And yet I sensed on some level that
I had to get through it because if we couldn't
connect in that primal kind of efficient. It's like sex was.
It was what the sad desk launch is to a
(29:09):
three course meal at that time. But we just had
to get there, and I didn't know how to tell
other women without sounding like, you know, like I was
a pandery wife. Yeah, why it was so important? I mean,
but it did seem really important, and I think it
did really help. At the risk of simplifying things, transitions
(29:29):
are hard, right, Like, you don't go through a transition
because the transition is delightful. You go through the transition,
whether it is going back to work or having painful
new parents sex because you know that on the other
side of it is great sex and a great relationship
and potentially maybe even another baby being made one day. Right,
so you know this is gonna sound ridiculous. And also
(29:51):
sex that can bring you together when not a whole
that can is doing it, and you know, when there's
not like cozy Netflix time on the couch and more,
you know, because the baby's crying. Because the baby's crying,
I mean, I you know, I remember it was a
huge triumph from my husband when he could actually drink
alcoholic beer again at night because we had the most
(30:13):
disgusting non alcoholic beer and he's a total beer connoisseur,
and I think literally it was like something like six
years after we had our first kid where he was like,
I think I'm ready for alcoholic beero because it's just
like you never knew when you would be up in
the middle of the night for an hour and a
half and it would just like you'd just be wrecked
the next day. You know, we were just we were
(30:34):
just kind of it's back to the one foot in
front of the other thing. Um, it sounds like your
fifth trimester went on for a really long time the
other day. So my husband is one of three boys,
and so my mother in law said to me the
other day, she was like, your next book should be
the one million Trimester, because it never having ends. It's true,
you were saying that because it's just it's a different
(30:59):
type of response to ability. It's not as hands on,
but in some ways that's more anxiety producing because little
kids little problems, big kids big problems, and by the
time they're teenagers and you're worried about what they're getting
up to in college, it's just well, massively actually raises
something that I wanted to talk about. So one of
(31:21):
the things that you talked about in the book is
having a working mom mentor, and I had one and
I'm still very close to her, Lisa Bay, and she
was fantastic model for me and um and Lisa, you
work closely with her now. So Lisa Bain told me,
don't mistake the neediest time for the time when your
(31:43):
child is the most helpless and small. The neediest time
may have nothing to do with infancy. There are many
people who can meet your baby's needs now, but there
could be a moment in middle school or high school
when you are the only one. And for me, it
happened Julia's senior year, and as it turned out, I
(32:05):
have been relieved of my job. But had I not
been relieved with my job, I would have had to
quit my job because she developed a needing disorder. The
pressure of applying to college and dealing with all of that.
Just none of our kids come out of that thing unscathed,
and it a little bit broke her. And thank God,
thank God. Literally I'm talking to God if I have
any any direct line to God. She's okay now, she's good,
(32:28):
And in fact, I asked her permission to talk about
this today, and she said, sure, it's totally fine. I'm
open about it, and I try to tell people about
it so they can see, like another side to it. Um.
But it feeding her. Then, if I thought breastfeeding was
complicated and fraught, oh my god, feeding her when she
was in the throes of needing disorder was the hardest
thing I've ever done as parents, and I would have
(32:50):
had to quit my job. So I don't I don't
actually know where I'm going with this share, but I'd
like to know what you make of it, because the
fifth trimester feels like the most critical moment, but actually
it could come later. I think the whole the whole
point of it is it sets you up to know
that it's you're never going to feel in balance, You're
(33:10):
never going to feel like you're everything to everyone, and
so you may as well just get used to that
in fast No, seriously, and I and I agree. You
know when you when you were saying, you know, Lisa,
when you said you know, big kids, big problems, little kids,
little problems. There's no putting her on your shoulders when
she's seventeen years old and having the equivalent, you know,
breakdown and needing you. Um, My older son has dyslexia,
(33:33):
and so I now schedule my work day so that
almost every day I can be home by four or
forty five or five, because we're gonna have homework time,
and there's days when he has tutors and we have
an outstanding babysitter. But I also have another son, and
sometimes he just needs somebody to sit next to him.
And I'll do my work and he'll do his, but
he needs that, and and I'm I'm it is. I'm
(33:55):
the picture of privilege that I'm able to be there
and do that for him. It matters a lot to me,
and I really I'm grateful I can do it. I'm
grateful he wants me to do it. I just actually
wrote I Am a book review for The New York Times.
It's the first time I've done that about these two
books about boys sexual development through adolescence and the central
takeaway from both of them. Um, one of them is
(34:16):
Peggy Wenstein's Boys and Sacks, and one of them is
Karen Adderson's Decoding Boys. And the essential takeaway is when kids,
boys and girls sort of stop talking, that's when they
need us most, So don't let them stop talking. Just
you know, connect the dots for them on all the
sort of bad stuff and good stuff they're seeing in
the world, you know, everything from you know, gun violence
(34:39):
to you know, Harvey Weinstein, and help them talk talk
talk talk, talk through all of the things that could
potentially turn them into toxic people as adults, and help
them know they have your ear. You have it all along.
I'm sort of in the middle, I guess now the
messy medal of you know, eight year old and eleven
year old. Um, but I know it's going to get
even more complicated. I I have to say so far,
(35:01):
and I've always thought I was a baby person. Every
age I've liked more and more. I'm not sure my
mother says that necessarily about me at forty two, but
you know, but I think that's that takeaways so crucial.
You can love it more and more. But also you
need to be giving yourself slack. Yeah, at every point
along the way, because you're working hard at this thing.
You talked about that colleague of ours taking notes in
(35:22):
the margin of her paper about hours. My thought was,
is there anything in there for her? You know, well,
I think the takeaway is motherhood is not for the
faint of heart. So anyway, with that, the fifth trimester,
which goes on forever, it's important for everyone to read
and understand. So Lauren, thank you so much for being
(35:43):
with us today. Thanks for having me. You can connect
with Lauren on Instagram at the fifth Trimester, on Twitter
at Lauren S. Brody that's b R O d Y,
and our website is the fifth Trimester dot Com. Everybody
till next time. Thank you, Thank you guys. The Road
(36:04):
to Somewhere is recorded in New York City. Make sure
you share, subscribe, rate, and review us and let us
hear from you. Where are you on your journey? Connect
with us on Instagram and Twitter at pod to Somewhere.
Email us at road to Somewhere at iHeartMedia dot com.
Special thanks to our producer Alicia Haywood. Thanks for joining
us on the Road to Somewhere. Available on the I
(36:27):
Heart Radio app, on Apple Podcasts, where wherever you get
your podcasts.
They feel like if they like me, look in the
mirror and feel incompetent, then it's something wrong with them
and they feel guilty. It is nothing wrong with them.
You should honestly not feel great at that point, according
to all of the research. So instead of internalizing it,
we have to externalize, join together and ask for the
things we need and not hide our parenthood. Dad's too.
(00:22):
We can only fix a problem we can see, and
so we have to be visible about our needs. Thanks
for joining us on the road to somewhere where we
talk about exploration, adventure, major life change, and transformation is
about not necessarily knowing where we're going, but having the
(00:44):
faith that the journey will be worthwhile. I am Lisa
Us and I'm Jill Herzig and when you when you
tick down all those things we talked about exploration, adventure, transformation,
major life change. I think that probably having a baby
and any subsequent babies you have after the first baby,
that is just the mini life quake of them all.
(01:05):
And I cannot believe you did it four times. But yeah,
except I think we were great the first time. I
think is the big quick because it really you go
from your whole sense of identity is shifted um or
at least mine was. And from what to what? From
(01:26):
like a hot twenty year old to like lump. I
remember the lump stage well, but you just have to
say anyway, I just remember when I had to I
had this pair of black maternity pants that my neighbor
had given me, and they were just like such a
(01:48):
security blanket for me during my pregnancy. And I remember
finally realizing that I had to stop wearing them when Julio,
my daughter, was like six weeks old. It's like, I
gotta get out of these things that you have to
have to break up this week. So six weeks is
not that I mean to expect that you're gonna be
(02:10):
back into your skin so much. Is a psychological thing.
I had bonded with those effing pants, and I kind
of needed them to feel a good anyway pre Lulu.
Now you can just wear the same pants forever. But actually,
what we're talking about today is the fifth trimester, which
I've never even heard of before today, which is fascinating
(02:33):
because I think it goes on forever after you've had
a baby. It's not like like three months. The trimester
is three months. This is like the fifth forever. But
our guest today is the author of the Fifth Trimester,
The Working Mom's Guide to Style, sanity, and big Success
after Baby, and she's also a friend of yours, a
(02:54):
personal fast longtime friend, Lauren Brodie, thanks so much for
being with us today. Thank you, thank you for having
me on. I'm so excited you're finally here. I feel
like I remember those pants. I'm probably sure did you
wear them to work, probably when you were pregnant. When
I was pregnant, I think I wore them literally four
days a week. I came back to work in maternity
pants like absolutely jeans absolutely allowed. And and I don't
(03:20):
know if you felt, I mean, all these all these
women told me, oh, you're just gonna want to burn
those maternity clothes. First of all, I was like, I
can't afford that, right if I'm ever gonna have another baby,
put these away in moth balls. And second, these pants
make me feel a little better. Thank give you a
nice hug. But tell us define the fifth trimester for us.
(03:40):
So the first three obviously, you know, Lisa, you knew
the first three several times over, Jill a couple of times. Um,
I have two cents myself. So the first three year pregnancy,
the fourth trimester is something I didn't know anything about
until I was in it. And it's this notion popularized
by Harvey carp who wrote this really popular book called
The Happiest Baby on the Block is a pediatrician about
(04:01):
the idea that human babies are actually born three months
too early, and so to soothe a newborn baby, you
recreate the feeling of the womb. That's why we swaddle,
that's why we sway, shush, all these s verbs that
he uses. And as soon as you have a baby,
you recognize this thing is not cooked exactly, yes, and
your hips just you stand and you sway for three months.
And I remember reading his book and feeling comforted by
(04:23):
it but also alarmed because throughout it he says, and
we're friends now, so this is okay for me to
say this, but he says, you know, okay, mom, just
get to twelve weeks. Get to twelve weeks, and your
baby will wake up to the world and we'll give
something back to you. They'll start to get on something
of a schedule, of those clouds above your head will part.
And I thought, well, God, that's exactly when I go
back to work, and I did have postpartum anxiety with
(04:45):
my first son, not with my second, but it was undiagnosed,
untreated at the time, and I was really a mess.
And it did start to part just when I was
going back to work. But then I looked in the
mirror and saw someone I didn't recognize at all. I
was pretty far into my career um by the time
I had my first son, as many women are, but
since we're having our babies a little later, and yet
(05:06):
I felt incredibly incompetent and it felt like my first
day on the job as a new mom. I went
back to work. I am Jill knows me, and we
worked together because she knows I wear everything on my face.
There was no faking it till I made it. I
just that would have required, you know, sleep and energy
that I didn't have. I didn't have the energy to
fake it. So, with somewhat executive privilege because I was
(05:27):
already in a pretty senior role at that point, I
was really open and honest about what was hard. I
told people when I hadn't slept, I had my breast
pump on my desk, and I was really fortunate to
work around lots and lots of women. I worked at
Glamour magazine, and so people were really understanding and kind,
and yet people hadn't really been as transparent or bear
(05:47):
I felt as I had been. There was a day
when a colleague came into my office and she thanked
me for being so open and honest about working motherhood.
And I think I remember actually pausing and not knowing
what to say, because I thought, have I said one
many times that I'm tired in my unprofessional do I
smell like spit up? Like what's happening? But then she
went on to say because she was she was much
younger than I was, and and I think movie didn't
(06:09):
even have a boyfriend at that point. She now has
a baby, she just had her baby. Um. But she
said to me, I just want you to know that,
like I know, I'm going to have to do this
one day, and until you, I didn't really see anybody
doing it. It looks hard, but I also really still
look up to you, so so say thanks. And I thought,
oh wow, And I've gotten to a point in my
career where I had I learned how to be an editor.
(06:30):
I mean, we're always learning. But I felt I had
kind of maxed out on that skill set, and I
realized there was this whole other mountains, a climb of
learning to be a good manager in role model and
modeling the kind of human you know, management style that
that I wanted to and I want to. I wanna
make a confession here, which is that I'm not sure
(06:52):
that I, as the person in the on the level
just above you at that time mcclamor, I'm not sure
that I was modeling. I wasn't wearing on my sleeve
the craziness I was trying to conceal it. I mean,
I remember once we had a we had an ideas
meeting around how to shoot a working mother, UM for
(07:14):
an article photograph working mother. Sorry, sorry I'm missing magazine
speaking sounding really violent UM. And I just kind of
laughingly said, yeah, well, this morning I was wearing you know,
heels and trying to get both my kids onto the
subway into school and I had to put my two
(07:35):
year old on my shoulders and I looked like a
complete crazy woman, but she was melting down, and you know,
I had we had to move forward, that was the
only way. And everybody kind of looked at me and
I was like, Oh, I guess I sort of showed
my I showed my crazy, you know. But I don't
think your heroism is what you but I don't. But
(07:57):
I think that that I was not as willing to
be vulnerable, and vulnerability is something that is so much
more accepted now. And really it might have been when
I was coming up and when things were being modeled
for me. Absolutely, it's so true, so true, I will
say those so also, I was thinking about it as
(08:19):
I was on my way in. You know, you also,
this is going to sound like BS, and I don't
mean for it to be at all. It's not. You're
you're super humanly good at your job. So what I
see now because I took I took that feeling that
I had all those years ago. I had a second son.
I did a ton of research nationally, serving hundreds of
new moms with as many different approaches to career and
(08:41):
motherhood as I could come up with, so hourly wage
workers and you know, sea level moms, moms who worked
for themselves, adoptive moms, single moms, and found the things
we had in common working against us and for us,
so that we could all mentor each other and not
have to, you know, go through it all the hard
way the first time. And so now I've taken that research.
I wrote book which is called The Fifth Trimester, and
(09:01):
then I've turned it into a consulting business and a
speaking business, and I go into companies and I helped
them do a better job of retaining women by supporting
new moms, you got to keep them in. And So
one thing that I've learned that's not even in the book,
but is about exactly that. It's that actually, very very
often the women in leadership have this triple burden because
you are you are a natural subset, so you have
(09:24):
to do a very hard job, very well. You have
to do it exceptionally well if you're one of the
few women in that room with other men. And this
wasn't necessarily our case women. That was a wonderful and
exceptional thing. Yes, but at a certain level it would
have been you know. Um, So that's the second burden.
And then and then the third is that you also
bear this responsibility and opportunity to bring along all these
(09:48):
other women underneath you. So when I go into law
firms and we see that in New York, I think
the statistic now is that forty percent of the of
associates and Big law are female and only twelve percent
of partners are. If the partners are burdened to run
the Women's d r G and be on the committee
to choose the art on the walls, you know, and
do all say yes to all of these things, and
(10:09):
also remember to order the birthday cupcakes, which they are
still doing or even if it's they're asking their executive
assistant to do it, they're still remembering it. That's too much,
and it can read some resentment among women in leadership
who feel like I got through this, you know, come on.
But the truth is that those women had something working
in their favor. They had a partner who was home
with their kids, they had enough money to be to
(10:29):
make it a little easier, they didn't require as much sleep.
They're just super exceptionally talented whatever it is like, they're
not necessarily representative of the masses who are going through it.
And if we're trying to create policy for those masses
who are going through it, because we see their potential,
that's who we need to include in those conversations. And
so really it's been really eye opening from me to
(10:51):
go into businesses and understand that myself, this is not
just a survivor biased thing that's happening, Like, actually, these
women are triple e respond prinsible and it's a lot.
It's too much, actually, So when we come back, I
want to do a deep dive into how we actually
cope with this the stress of the fifth trimester. So
(11:20):
we've been chatting with Lauren Brody, author of The Fifth
Trimester UM about the just how difficult it really is
to go back into the workplace as a woman after
babies UM, and we talked about a little bit. You
touched on the institutional issue, but I also want to
talk about the personal responsibility and how because there are
(11:42):
a lot of women out there who are saying, yeah,
it's a problem, but I I personally can't change whatever
corporation I work for tomorrow. What do I do today
to deal with this stress that I'm feeling. I took
that approach in my book because I figured, you know,
the way who were reading it are the ones who
are in the thick of it, who are just trying
(12:03):
to put one foot in front of the other. And yes,
if you happen to feel really ambitious in this moment,
and you want to move up the ladder and negotiate
for everything that you deserve and have earned in this
moment and change policy from within. Yes, go go to it.
Bless you, thank you, and I'll show you how to
do that. However, you should also know that if you
were just putting one foot in front of the other
and showing up and being that person to the woman
(12:27):
who came to my desk and said, hey, thanks for
like making this look like it's hard but doable, that
actually serves a purpose too. And so as long as
we are showing up and I ask, I do ask
the women who I coach go one tiny extra step
further than you feel comfortable. One extra step isn't going
to get you fired. So you know, can I can
I flex my hours so that I am getting one
(12:51):
more breastfeeding session in at home, I'm arriving at the
office at ten instead of nine. I will make up
the hour at night. Ask for that, because you know,
if you have a drop off in your supply and
you feel you can't feed your baby, believe me, that
is going to distract you all day long and you're
not going to be as good at your job. Right
so yes, that is so true, right, that is so
true that where is going to be a mental ticker
(13:13):
tape saying, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,
my last pumping session, I got nothing. Yeah, And you'll
be in a meeting and no good ideas will come
to your head and you'll think, why, why why am
I so in your freezer? You know, you know a
lot we just don't really know what this meeting is about.
So then the other thing I tell these women is
(13:33):
and when you make that ask, first of all, I
have done your research, like know what's been available to
anybody else around you and before you, because that sets
precedent actually legally that you can take good advantage of,
and you should. But also go into it knowing that
this is not just an ass that you're making for
you in your personal life, Like this is very very
very often. I'm sure you guys have both seen this
(13:54):
a lot. New parenthood in the workplace is the first
time a lot of women have negotiated for anything, and
yet it comes with these incredible stakes. So try to
remember that when you ask for something, this is not
just about you having enough milk in your freezer. This
is this is you making change that actually will progress
your workplace, because your workplace is part of a bigger
(14:14):
industry that also needs to progress and be competitive. And
if you can attract the best people by having the
best policies, wonderful you're actually helping with that. I would
also add, taking it down from a policy level, your
company has already put a tremendous amount of resources in you.
When you came back to Glamour, we could not lose you.
(14:38):
There was nobody we could hire who would get up
to the speed where you were at in any reasonable
length of time. So even if I had no loyalty,
even if I was you know, had a flinty heart
of steel and solely made the decision based on the
economics of what we had invested in you, we should
we should flex? The answer would be immediately, we should flice. Right,
(15:01):
we can't lose Lauren. So do you know the numbers
on about attrition? So tip Typically losing an employee costs
an employer six to nine months of that person's salary
to lose them. The gap time the money spent replacing them,
you might have to pay somebody more be in that job.
For employees who make a hundred thousand dollars or more.
That jumps up to two hundred of their salary. It's
(15:22):
a huge investment. And that doesn't even account for anything
that you're talking about. That doesn't even account for putting
a dollar figure on the training in the good will
and all that good stuff. What do you do though,
about the majority of people who aren't in some glamorous
publishing industry and making six figures of driving a bus
(15:42):
or there, you know, a traffic cop. Absolutely, they can't
just say I'm going to step outside of the bus
and go pump right now. So they don't have the
luxury of being an assert of woman in a corporation.
And I know you interviewed people like that too, how
do you what would you get? Advice would you give
them for coping? So, shift workers actually do have more
(16:04):
coverage federally around breastfeeding than than salaried workers actually, which
is which is a good thing to know a lot
of people are not aware of that. Um so they
do have the right actually to take unpaid breaks. But
who wants to take an unpaid break? If you're working,
you know, potentially more than one job, or you're working
you know, paid by the hour um. So there we
see strength in numbers. And we've seen this at companies
(16:25):
across across this country that have set precedent for It's
funny this is rather than rather than federal policy sort
of blooming out to greater business. We're seeing the private
sector start redefining these norms. So when you look at
companies like Amazon or even the salad company Sweet Green Um,
(16:45):
they offer now the same benefits to their hourly wage workers,
the fulfillment center workers, as they do to their executives.
And it's really important as just consumers of news when
we see these headlines to wonder about that. When we
see that somebody has started offering, you know, eighteen weeks
of paid leave for you know, for all parents, all genders,
is that actually true for the person who's answering the
(17:07):
phone calls at three o'clock in the morning. It may
not be. And if it's not, it really doesn't count.
There's a real upstairs downstairs divide um. So their strength
and numbers banned together, you know, with other people in
similar situations and try I also advise trying to d
d uterus the situation. So if you can find someone
who doesn't have a uterus, like you can find a
(17:28):
man who's a dad, a partner who's who's a partner,
a someone who has elder care responsibilities, someone who has
an older child who has a developmental disability and for
which they also need some form of accommodation. Everybody is
a caregiver in one way or another. You'd be hard
pressed to find someone who doesn't say they take care
of someone. So you can find the strength and numbers
(17:50):
and go together to make that person an ally. Yeah,
hopefully get ten alis. So let's go a little that
this this feels like managing out word, what about managing in? Yeah,
you know, I really loved that you talked about being
post guilt, because a lot of what we take with
us back to work during the fifth trimester and what
(18:13):
hobbles us is our own baggage, our own guilt about
doing it. Yeah. So I mentioned the surveying and interviewing
I did. I hired one of the sort of luxuries
I allowed myself maybe the only in writing this book
was I hired a transcriber, single mom living outside of
Cleveland in Ohio, and she transcribed all my interviews and
they were hour long interviews, and they were a hundred
(18:33):
of them. Every single one of those interviews contained the
word guilt, and so I was able to see it
leap off the page at me guilt, A search on
the word, and I started eventually a word cloud. I
didn't But so what was fascinating was it actually it
meant really different things to different people. So there were
people who felt guilty leaving their baby before they were
(18:55):
ready to in the arms of someone who they felt
like wasn't as capable as they would have been themselves.
There are other people who felt guilty because they just
loved being back at work and didn't know what that
meant about them were they not maternal And so what
I realized is that if guilt is this common denominator,
and some of it is that I was sitting here
with my survey data, like doing seventh grade math on it,
and so I had common denominators in mind. But if
(19:17):
guilt is the common denominator, what you do with a
common denominator is you scratch it out. And what we
need to be treating for and advocating for is helping
with whatever feeling it actually is. If you feel, you know,
stressed out, if you feel like you haven't slept enough,
like treat that thing, don't. Don't just lump it all
together as this sort of sexist social construct of guilt
(19:41):
and the other thing that I've found fascinating because guilt
is based in the belief that you're not enough correct,
so not doing enough there if everybody's feeling guilty, there
is no other better, less guilty mom to be like
that doesn't help the individual like me or yes you, Joe.
You telling me that someone else has it too doesn't
(20:04):
help me deal with it myself. So what based No,
it's like, Okay, if I'm overweight, just because you say
that person there's fat doesn't make me feel less overweight.
So it doesn't. It doesn't really Let me give you
an example though, And I don't think I knew what
I was doing, but I recall when I had little kids,
I they're An editorial was published in the New York
(20:27):
Times and everyone was talking about it, and it was
about calculating how much time your child spends in childcare
versus with you, and it caused a big stir in
our office, which was heavily female and there were a
lot of working moms. And I came in and we
were chatting about it, and this woman who was on
(20:48):
our staff, who's terrific, said that every day she in
the margin of something, she would actually do the math
to figure out that day, and at the end of
the week she would add up all the hours and
that if she ever found that her child was spending
more time in childcare than in her own care, she
(21:09):
would cry. And I remember saying to her, why are
you doing this math? Why what makes you feel you
need to do this now? I don't think it made
it go away for her at all, And ultimately, I
would say a year later she chose to go freelance,
(21:31):
which was definitely I think the right choice for her.
But I think what that exercise, which she somehow felt
she believed she needed to do in order to be
a good mom, what that exercise was doing was it
was a self inflicted wound every day. So I don't
know if that If that helps with your questions. Someone
(21:53):
else has something doesn't mean it's not relevant for me.
I have I have an answer to that. So what
you're talking about is is what we all see culturally
as normal, and so that actually to try to go
straight back to the policy. But so the family and
Medical Leave Act, which guarantees your job to be held
for twelve weeks but does not pay you. Is you know,
(22:13):
it's it's the worst plan in the entire world. You know,
nobody else besides the United States has no unpaid maternity leave.
It was passed, it was signed into law, one of
the first things signed into a law by Bill Clinton
in which is great. But that was after nine years
of negotiations. And when it was originally proposed, it was
meant to be twenty six weeks have paid leave, which
is what even back then was shown by all the
(22:36):
research which has been replicated and replicated and replicated to
be protective of mom's mental health, mom's physical health, baby's
physical health, Dad and partner's bomb with the baby, mom's
ability to maintain her career, oodles, noodles and noodles of
research showing six paid months should be the standard. What
has happened is that was meant to be a band
aid back in that would be improved upon, and I
do believe it will be improved upon, you know, hopefully soon.
(22:57):
But we normalized it. And so now how many how
many times have you heard somebody say, did you get
to take your whole twelve weeks. You got all that time,
and so what we have are these women who are
coming back to work and they keep it with them
into that and Elizabeth rimester. You're talking about not just
that twelve week mark where they feel like if they
like me, look in the mirror and feel incompetent, that
(23:19):
it's something wrong with them and they feel guilty. It
is nothing wrong with them. You should honestly not feel
great at that point, according to all of the research.
So instead of internalizing it, we have to externalize, join
together and ask for the things we need and not
hide our parenthood. Dad's too. We can only fix a
problem we can see, and so we have to be
(23:40):
visible about our needs when we come back. I want
to talk a little bit more about that. We're talking
about the fifth trimester and you the fifth trimester. The
(24:00):
way you're defending is twelve the twelve weeks after you
come back to work. Of twelve weeks, it's the return
to work. For most people, it's about three months of
adjusting that. It can be six, it can be years.
But you mentioned coming back after twelve weeks like not
biologically difficult for a women, but you said for dad, too,
and I want to just transition a little bit too
(24:20):
outside the workplace. The toll that the fifth trimester has
on a relationship. Absolutely yes, So this is so real
and it is it is it can be a lifelong
problem that very often begins with unequal parental leave. So
you know, what we know is that on average, women
(24:41):
who have access to fm l A in the United
States take about eight point five weeks of leave. Is
not everybody can afford to be unpaid for longer than that.
Um Men on average take one to two weeks. And
even even this generation of new parents who come into
their partnerships truly with progressive intentions. See, you know the
effects of the gender wage gap. Dad probably makes more,
(25:04):
Mom probably makes less. And I'm being very binary about it,
but this is the research is mostly based on heterosexual couples.
And so Mom takes more time at home, and because
we're so professionalized in our parenting now, Mom learns all
the things on the job, wants to be the best
parent possible in this time that she's away from work.
Dad goes back to work, then Mom goes back. They're
both back. They get home at the end of the day,
(25:26):
and guests who knows how to do everything mom, and
not to blame the victim, but guests who wants it
all done her way? Me, I want it done my
way right because I've learned how to do it. So
the answer here is obviously, have your partner take as
much time as he or she possibly can. But if
you don't have access, or if your earnings are unequal
and you can't afford for that partner to be out
(25:47):
of work, have him or her take time at the
end of your leave when you're going back, so that
that partner can be home with baby learning everything on
the job, even if it's just ten days. So you see,
you can trust him with that kid. Bonding is happening.
Dad's fully cable. The only thing a dad can't do
for a baby is produced breast milk, and like they're
(26:08):
working on that. I don't think my children were survived
if I had left them alone with my husband and
no way, no way, Oh my god, I love that
one time, so I'll give you just a really quick
story one time after my second daughter, Arabella was born.
She was born in November and this was maybe she
was six weeks old and was the first time I
(26:28):
left her at all and I went to a writing
seminar Robert McKay, remember Robert McKay back in the day.
So it's a week long, weekend long seminar. Memit almost
killed her. It was the middle of the winter. He
decided he had to play tennis. It was a somewhat
sunny day. He left her in a stroller for an
hour and a half watching him play tennis in the
freezing january weather. So in Finland they do that. Oh,
(26:51):
she put their kids out of the cold. She didn't die, thankfully,
she was fine. But the lack of judgment around child
rearing was astounded. So I I just could not Did
he learn a lesson from that? Did he learn to
be just don't let my wife catch me doing things
that she doesn't think you're beneficial for the child. Being
hilarious about splitting up the nighttime wakings. So there's a
(27:14):
study it was done in Israel that showed that dads
who wake up in the night with their toddlers have
better marriages in spite of being in spite of being
extra tired, because they are the sleepiness is offset by
the fact that their wives are less resentful toward them.
So there's just all. There's an incredible case to be
(27:36):
made actually for splitting things basically just and it equals
more sex. That's you know, I hadn't even thought about
it in terms of sex, but yes, probably sure doesn't
everything about sex? Well, I think it's I actually think
sex places roll on this and I think we should
talk about it because I have to say, I do
feel like there's this moment where you your husband definitely
(28:00):
is ready to go, and if your doctor has given
you the white flag and you is it the white flag?
What's the flag? Let's you keep going. You can get
back in, you can get back in the race car.
But the race car is not is not in great shape.
And I just but I just remember feeling like, weirdly,
(28:24):
I had no libido. It hurts like how I I mean, wow,
I'm over sharing here, But losing my virginity was nothing, nothing, nothing,
nothing compared to that. I don't know what had gone
on down there, but wow, a baby came out, A
baby came out, A baby came out, and there was
like I was like, oh shit, this is crazy how
(28:48):
this feels. And yet I sensed on some level that
I had to get through it because if we couldn't
connect in that primal kind of efficient. It's like sex was.
It was what the sad desk launch is to a
(29:09):
three course meal at that time. But we just had
to get there, and I didn't know how to tell
other women without sounding like, you know, like I was
a pandery wife. Yeah, why it was so important? I mean,
but it did seem really important, and I think it
did really help. At the risk of simplifying things, transitions
(29:29):
are hard, right, Like, you don't go through a transition
because the transition is delightful. You go through the transition,
whether it is going back to work or having painful
new parents sex because you know that on the other
side of it is great sex and a great relationship
and potentially maybe even another baby being made one day. Right,
so you know this is gonna sound ridiculous. And also
(29:51):
sex that can bring you together when not a whole
that can is doing it, and you know, when there's
not like cozy Netflix time on the couch and more,
you know, because the baby's crying. Because the baby's crying,
I mean, I you know, I remember it was a
huge triumph from my husband when he could actually drink
alcoholic beer again at night because we had the most
(30:13):
disgusting non alcoholic beer and he's a total beer connoisseur,
and I think literally it was like something like six
years after we had our first kid where he was like,
I think I'm ready for alcoholic beero because it's just
like you never knew when you would be up in
the middle of the night for an hour and a
half and it would just like you'd just be wrecked
the next day. You know, we were just we were
(30:34):
just kind of it's back to the one foot in
front of the other thing. Um, it sounds like your
fifth trimester went on for a really long time the
other day. So my husband is one of three boys,
and so my mother in law said to me the
other day, she was like, your next book should be
the one million Trimester, because it never having ends. It's true,
you were saying that because it's just it's a different
(30:59):
type of response to ability. It's not as hands on,
but in some ways that's more anxiety producing because little
kids little problems, big kids big problems, and by the
time they're teenagers and you're worried about what they're getting
up to in college, it's just well, massively actually raises
something that I wanted to talk about. So one of
(31:21):
the things that you talked about in the book is
having a working mom mentor, and I had one and
I'm still very close to her, Lisa Bay, and she
was fantastic model for me and um and Lisa, you
work closely with her now. So Lisa Bain told me,
don't mistake the neediest time for the time when your
(31:43):
child is the most helpless and small. The neediest time
may have nothing to do with infancy. There are many
people who can meet your baby's needs now, but there
could be a moment in middle school or high school
when you are the only one. And for me, it
happened Julia's senior year, and as it turned out, I
(32:05):
have been relieved of my job. But had I not
been relieved with my job, I would have had to
quit my job because she developed a needing disorder. The
pressure of applying to college and dealing with all of that.
Just none of our kids come out of that thing unscathed,
and it a little bit broke her. And thank God,
thank God. Literally I'm talking to God if I have
any any direct line to God. She's okay now, she's good,
(32:28):
And in fact, I asked her permission to talk about
this today, and she said, sure, it's totally fine. I'm
open about it, and I try to tell people about
it so they can see, like another side to it. Um.
But it feeding her. Then, if I thought breastfeeding was
complicated and fraught, oh my god, feeding her when she
was in the throes of needing disorder was the hardest
thing I've ever done as parents, and I would have
(32:50):
had to quit my job. So I don't I don't
actually know where I'm going with this share, but I'd
like to know what you make of it, because the
fifth trimester feels like the most critical moment, but actually
it could come later. I think the whole the whole
point of it is it sets you up to know
that it's you're never going to feel in balance, You're
(33:10):
never going to feel like you're everything to everyone, and
so you may as well just get used to that
in fast No, seriously, and I and I agree. You
know when you when you were saying, you know, Lisa,
when you said you know, big kids, big problems, little kids,
little problems. There's no putting her on your shoulders when
she's seventeen years old and having the equivalent, you know,
breakdown and needing you. Um, My older son has dyslexia,
(33:33):
and so I now schedule my work day so that
almost every day I can be home by four or
forty five or five, because we're gonna have homework time,
and there's days when he has tutors and we have
an outstanding babysitter. But I also have another son, and
sometimes he just needs somebody to sit next to him.
And I'll do my work and he'll do his, but
he needs that, and and I'm I'm it is. I'm
(33:55):
the picture of privilege that I'm able to be there
and do that for him. It matters a lot to me,
and I really I'm grateful I can do it. I'm
grateful he wants me to do it. I just actually
wrote I Am a book review for The New York Times.
It's the first time I've done that about these two
books about boys sexual development through adolescence and the central
takeaway from both of them. Um, one of them is
(34:16):
Peggy Wenstein's Boys and Sacks, and one of them is
Karen Adderson's Decoding Boys. And the essential takeaway is when kids,
boys and girls sort of stop talking, that's when they
need us most, So don't let them stop talking. Just
you know, connect the dots for them on all the
sort of bad stuff and good stuff they're seeing in
the world, you know, everything from you know, gun violence
(34:39):
to you know, Harvey Weinstein, and help them talk talk
talk talk, talk through all of the things that could
potentially turn them into toxic people as adults, and help
them know they have your ear. You have it all along.
I'm sort of in the middle, I guess now the
messy medal of you know, eight year old and eleven
year old. Um, but I know it's going to get
even more complicated. I I have to say so far,
(35:01):
and I've always thought I was a baby person. Every
age I've liked more and more. I'm not sure my
mother says that necessarily about me at forty two, but
you know, but I think that's that takeaways so crucial.
You can love it more and more. But also you
need to be giving yourself slack. Yeah, at every point
along the way, because you're working hard at this thing.
You talked about that colleague of ours taking notes in
(35:22):
the margin of her paper about hours. My thought was,
is there anything in there for her? You know, well,
I think the takeaway is motherhood is not for the
faint of heart. So anyway, with that, the fifth trimester,
which goes on forever, it's important for everyone to read
and understand. So Lauren, thank you so much for being
(35:43):
with us today. Thanks for having me. You can connect
with Lauren on Instagram at the fifth Trimester, on Twitter
at Lauren S. Brody that's b R O d Y,
and our website is the fifth Trimester dot Com. Everybody
till next time. Thank you, Thank you guys. The Road
(36:04):
to Somewhere is recorded in New York City. Make sure
you share, subscribe, rate, and review us and let us
hear from you. Where are you on your journey? Connect
with us on Instagram and Twitter at pod to Somewhere.
Email us at road to Somewhere at iHeartMedia dot com.
Special thanks to our producer Alicia Haywood. Thanks for joining
us on the Road to Somewhere. Available on the I
(36:27):
Heart Radio app, on Apple Podcasts, where wherever you get
your podcasts.
Road to Somewhere News
Hosts And Creators
Lisa Oz
Jill Herzig
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