Motherhood and Identity

The hosts of YouTurns drop by to discuss the shifting phases of motherhood and identity.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and you're listening to stuff. Mom
never told you. Our guest co host today are Lisa
and Jill of the podcast You Turns. That's why, Oh

(00:26):
You Turns. Thank you both so much for joining us,
Thank you for having us. Yeah, it's so exciting. Thanks Annie, Yeah,
very excited. Could you tell us a bit about yourselves
and your show? Sure, this is Jill talking. You'll get
the difference between our voices as the podcast goes on.
So I am a content creator and a podcaster, as

(00:50):
we've said, um, and a good friend of Lisa's ever
since we met working on the OZ magazine Dr Oz
The Good Life, which was a partnership between hers and
Lisa's other half, dr Amadaz, and Lisa was the editor
at large and I was the editor in chief and
we were kind of partners in crime. And then the
magazine industry went through its troubles and essentially that that

(01:13):
monthly magazine got turned into a magazine. I left the project,
but Lisa and I stayed friends and we started this. Um,
we started this podcast together. So I've been going through
lots of kind of career focused twisty You Turns and
then thrown into the mix of it. This fall was
what I call um early onset empty nesthood because I

(01:35):
took my older daughter up to college with my husband, Robert,
and we dropped her off and then boom, my younger
daughter decided that she wanted to do a one semester
um boarding program, so we dropped her off too, and
came home to the emptiest, most early clean house I've
seen in eighteen years. UM and Lisa's spend a great

(02:00):
friend and sisterly handholder were that whole process. Well, it
was just sort of this is Lisa's speaking. Um. It
was sort of perfect because we found ourselves both in
periods of transition at the same time. So I was
going through being an empty nester um right before Joe was,
and trying to figure out what the next iteration of

(02:23):
of my career life would be. And so we started
speaking about how to navigate this period in the most
productive way, and neither of us really knew, and so
we thought we could if we started a podcast, we
could ask people who actually could give us advice on
how to to navigate those life changes in a way

(02:44):
that was that was positive. And UM looked for opportunities
and rather than sort of being resentful of life changes
that were thrust upon us, um so, and we got
the opportunity to work together. So it came together just
sort of perfectly that we got to spend time together
and got to explore our own personal evolution together. And

(03:08):
both of you have brought up this empty nest syndrome
or whatever, the empty nest thing that you experienced, and
that is relevant to the topic that we're discussing today
because you both pitched the idea of an episode around
motherhood and particularly the identity aspects of motherhood, and we

(03:28):
touch on this topic in a recent episode called Mother Destroyer,
And like I said in that episode, I am not
a mother, and I just want to say before we
dive into this conversation that for that motherhood encompasses so
much more than how it's traditionally been portrayed and talked about.
And also for some people that want children, that want

(03:48):
to be a mother and forever whatever reason, can't these
episodes are difficult, and we see you and we definitely
need to do a whole episode or probably multiple episodes
around at and there's so many different kinds of mother figures.
You know, we all have our you know our natural

(04:09):
birth mothers, and then we have a sort of a
collection of other kinds of mothers in our lives. And
you know, I mean I my mother's best friend was
a kind of mother to me growing up, and they're
just altern of mothers in in many many forms, UM.
And I think I think your identity gets shaped whether
that child is your you know, adopted child, or your

(04:32):
birth child, or your you know, or a child that
just means a tremendous amount to you. And I think
the energy around motherhood is not limited to people who
have given birth. I think any time that you create something, um,
so that you're giving birth to an idea or to
an art project. Any time that you nurture and care

(04:52):
for something, whether it's a pet or another human being,
you are you are embodying the archetypal mother energy. So
I think it's applicable to anybody listen and guys too, frankly,
UM who would be listening to this podcast. I think
there there is relevance around the archetypal mother image and

(05:13):
energy and and all of us. And I think something
that I heard a lot from after we did this
episode on motherhood, UM, is this identity crisis that women
reported experiencing after becoming a mother, and according to the Internet,
there are loads of folks that have experienced and or

(05:36):
are experiencing this very same thing. UM. One thing that
came up when we were talking about how we want
to approach this topic UM is identity in general, and
not just when it comes to motherhood. But how for women,
their identity so often is defined through other people, as
a function of others, and because of that, how often
it shifts. Women are often defined through their relationship to

(05:59):
usually male p rs someone's daughter, someone's girlfriend, and his wife.
And this trend is obvious in the way that we
speak um and the way that we we right. I
remember when I'm pretty sure it was Taylor Swift, Um,
someone a famous woman nonetheless was described as so and
so less famous person's girlfriend, and she made a statement
about how she found that writing problematic. It happens all

(06:22):
the time. And would the both of you like to
speak about that? Not necessarily Taylor Swift, but you can
if you want. But this whole idea around women and identity,
I actually have a famous husband or uh and and
my identity is a hundred percent gloamed onto his I
almost don't have a name, you know, in some respects,

(06:46):
which is okay in some days, some days, and some
days not okay at all. But I do think that
we more dangerous than having other people define us by
our relationships. I think we and to define ourselves by
our relationships to a certain extent, so we see ourselves
as someone's mother, or someone's wife, or someone's daughter. Uh.

(07:10):
And that's where I think it can be dangerous, where
we don't have the self determination I think that we
really need. Um. I don't know how we break out
of that. I think it's been cultural for so many
centuries that I think we have to actively fight against it.
And I think it's has to be something that's conscious.
I don't think we'll be able to do it without

(07:32):
paying attention to it. And and it's something that we
have to raise the next generation of women to think differently.
You know, every generation has got to make progress on
this problem. Because I think you're completely right. It's a
slot that we put ourselves in, but it's a slot
that society puts us in, you know, And it's just
unbelievably important that our daughters, you know, take a step

(07:53):
forward on this. Absolutely and questions around identity like this
are a huge part of motherhood and becoming a mother
and these phases of motherhood, it's a monumental shift. So
we thought that in this conversation we would look at
the phases of motherhood and talk about these shifts. And

(08:13):
I suppose the first is pregnancy. And to be clear, again,
not all mothers go through this stage, but it is
a part of the process for many. And you could
also think of it in terms of changing family dynamics.
Having a baby is an active creation. Pregnancy is more
than creating any human it's also creating a new family.

(08:33):
A baby is the catalyst that will open new possibilities
for more intimate connections as well as new stresses and
a woman's closest relationships with their partners, siblings, and friends.
How would the votes of you say that your identity
shifted when you became pregnant? Well, I found that with
you know you can't. I can only speak for myself,

(08:54):
and I know that there are people are very close
to who felt like pregnancy was the most blessed said
time of their lives, and they were so happy and
they just they loved the idea of some another person
growing inside of them and they could eat anything they wanted.
I really did not like being pregnant at all, and
part of it was because it is an identity shift

(09:14):
on every level. Because on the physical level, I'd always
much of who I was pre pregnancies was flirtatious. I
had a sexuality that enjoyed flirtation with people, and suddenly
that was out the window. So there was this physical transformation.

(09:35):
Um so my identity was that of blob, not a
not a flirtatious young girl anymore. And then there was
an emotional transformation because now you don't have the freedom
that you had post pregnancy. You have to be more responsible.
You can't go out and get drunk just because you
feel like it. So emotionally you have a level of

(09:56):
responsibility that you've never had before. And then spiritual you
suddenly have this purpose and meaning to your life. Even
if you don't do anything, don't even get out of
bed in the morning, there's some level of of doing
something worthwhile in the universe, and so everything, everything is
turned upside down. At least I felt like when I

(10:18):
got pregnant, Jill, what about you? You know, I can't
say everything felt different I was so fascinated by the
Petri dish that was my body, by this crazy experiment
that my body seemed to have become. UM, so it
for me. It was really just interesting to get granular
with the physical changes. I was at work, and I was,

(10:42):
you know, pretty much ignoring my pregnancy for much of
the time that I was at work. UM, I didn't
think about it. I remember being on the phone with
I was the executive editor at Glamour at the time,
and I remember being on the phone with a writer
at the very end of my pregnancy. He was actually
driving me absolutely nuts, and I finally, I think, I

(11:07):
said to him, in frustration, you know what, I'm going
to pick this phone call up at home. I'm eight
months pregnant and I got to get out of this office.
And I remember he yelled at me and said, what
do you mean your eight months pregnant? How could you
not have told me because we had a phone relationship.
This guy lived in Boston, and I just remember thinking,

(11:30):
what difference does it make? Why should it change anything.
He was furious with me, and you know, I do
remember thinking nothing has happened yet. My body is just
doing this extraordinary independent thing. And I'm continuing to work
and you know, it hasn't happened yet, this baby hasn't

(11:55):
happened yet. Um, but people the world, and it's not
just people touching your belly, which I know women freak
out about, but I never did freak out about it. Again,
I felt like a giant science experiment, so I had
no reason to be offended when people kind of wanted
to poke the experiment. But the world does start to
see you differently, and you see it in people's faces,

(12:16):
and you see it and how they behave towards you.
They see you as this somewhat delicate thing, even though
what you're doing is extraordinarily powerful. I think they also
on some level are a little intimidated by this powerful
thing that you're doing. Um. So, you know, in terms
of an identity shift, I don't think I felt anything
but physical shifts, which I was fascinated by. But the

(12:39):
world was definitely starting to look at me differently, and
I sensed that I like the description of your body
as a giant science experiment. That's fun. Well, that is
what it felt like, I will tell you, and I'm
with Lisa. I mean, I did not particularly enjoy pregnancy
after my second daughter was born, I remember within five minutes,

(13:02):
I looked at my husband and said, I am so
freaking excited to be done. I am never going to
have to do this again. And you know, I mean
the doneness the joy of having her was primary right
behind it was the joy that I was never going
to have to be pregnant again. Well, if we move
out of this pregnancy phase and this pregnancy identity and

(13:26):
we look at post pregnancy and sort of that immediate
aftermath um and going back to that identity crisis, I
was describing that a lot of listeners wrote in about
when they became a mother of not feeling like they
are a mother even though when they want, a nurse
or doctor hands a baby, their baby to them um

(13:47):
and she seems to be called her name and is
instead called mom um. And some people described it as
birthing two people, the baby and your new mom identity.
And one thing that both of you sort of, I
guess alluded to, is this mom body or a mom

(14:07):
uniform um. And I saw a lot of people describe
this feeling like their body didn't feel like it was
their own. They were having to wear looser clothes, and
they might want feeling a pressure to throw away what
one author called me boots. So you're losing this identity
as a sexual woman. People out there, don't throw them away,

(14:29):
put them on a high, invited the episode you might
need them again. Well, it's crazily ironic because you get
to this spot physically precisely because you were wearing blues right,
So at some yeah, the sex kind of makes you unsexy,

(14:51):
which is really unfair. But yeah, there's so many things
that go on in the early early days after giving birth.
You don't recognize yourself physically, and and you know, you
have that that sea of churning hormones that you don't
recognize either, and so you're a mix of madly in

(15:11):
love with this little creature next to you because of
all the oxytocin, and then incredibly depressed because you don't
know what the hell you're doing and no one's really
told you and you're kind of playing it by ear,
so you're full of doubt and UM and so I.
And then you look at yourself in the mirror and
then you're depressed on top of not knowing what the

(15:32):
hell you're doing. And then of course you the oxytocin
comes back and you're blissfully happy. So you it's like
this crazy schizophrenic phase. I think um all the time
because you're back and forth and back and forth. It's
it's absolutely wild. And you go from you know, I mean,
there are certain things that are kind of extraordinary. Breastfeeding
is an extraordinary if it goes well at all for you.

(15:55):
The fact that you can feed this little thing everything
it needs automatically. You are literally a food machine that
automatically produces exactly what is needed at exactly the time
it's needed. But I think a lot of women have
issues and then feels like they are a failure because
they produce milk and somehow it's they can't will it

(16:16):
into productions, so they hate their bodies. Oh it's but
it's like, you know, you you go from maybe you
have a successful breastfeeding session and you feel like, yes, yes,
this is the most important thing I have ever done.
I've fed my baby to you know, not being able
to diaper them and just feeling like such a total failure.
It's like this role that you're both you know, prepared for.

(16:36):
Evolution is prepared you for in some ways, but in
other ways you're just you're ridiculously behind the curve. And
I think, particularly now you know, women have tremendous competency
in the world, there's very there are very few roles
you get you get dropped into that you haven't had
some sort of preparation for except this one. And it's

(16:57):
not something at least now, I think, especially with a
lot of magazine articles and their support groups, people are
actually talking about it. But when you and I were
having our kids, it wasn't one of those things you
could just pick up the phone to say, I'm failing
miserably as a mom today postpartum. You know, I mean,
at least at least that's getting some discussion now. We
had a guest on You Turns recently who actually started

(17:21):
uh an app and a whole social network because she
was suffering from postpartum depression and she felt so unbelievably
alone and it took her quite a long time to
find anyone who would exchange with her honestly about struggling
around motherhood. And you know, I you know, she said
interestingly on our podcast. She was on you know, Instagram

(17:43):
scrolling around and there was one, you know, beatific picture
after another and here she was with bleeding nipples and
a wicked case of postpartum and you know, a belly
that was hanging over the top of her jeans by
four inches, thinking like, nothing about this picture is beautiful, Um,
and she it just made her isolation that much worse. Yeah,

(18:08):
we're going to come back to the whole social media
aspect of this, but I think this does echo some
things that we talked about in our Mother Destroyer episode
of the bifurcation of women into the Madonna or the
horror um and mothers into the perfect ideal mom or
the terrible mom. We don't really see or hear much

(18:29):
outside those experiences, although this is starting to change. And
something else that the two of you brought up when
we were discussing what we wanted to include in this podcast,
UM was not being able to return to work as
early as you'd like, or having to take on UM
a different work identity. Maybe not always, but could you

(18:50):
speak to that? UM? Well, I kind of bet. And
I'm going to shout out to my friend Laurence Smith
Brodie who wrote this amazing book called The Fifth Trimester
that's really all about you know what what she calls
the birth of a working mom, like it's a There
are all these transitions that you go through, and one
that doesn't get much attention is that return to work.

(19:13):
So maybe you've gotten your if you're lucky, you've gotten
your three months leave, and then bam, your back at work. Um,
and it's you know, they're I think they're amazing. There
are things to be grateful for. I used to exchange
with my with my boss when I had really little kids.
On Mondays, we would look at each other and say,
t G I am you know, because it's there was

(19:34):
a sense that at least we had returned to this
closed environment where we had some modicum of control where
we could ask for things and they would get done,
where people would ask things of us and we could
get them done within some kind of a time frame
that felt reasonable. It just was a sphere that was

(19:54):
run by adults, and there was you felt like you
had a modicum of control, and then you would get
home and all bets, we're off. I mean, you're totally
at the at the mercy of your kid. But at
the same time, you know, working motherhood is an identity
that it's yet one more identity that has to be
thrashed out, and you often have to negotiate it with

(20:14):
a boss and and um. Colleagues are all on the
spectrum from incredibly supportive and understanding too openly hostile, like, oh,
I get it now, you're gonna leave every day at
at five thirty, and I'm supposed to pick up the slack,
you know. I mean that's I got that. I saw
it dished out, UM, And I also understood it. I

(20:38):
really empathized with people because I had picked up the
slack and it sort of sucks, but you know, we
do have to propagate the species here. I wonder. I
wonder if it's you ever can make a choice that
you're not conflicted about when it comes to working and motherhood,
because either you're staying at home and you're feeling like

(20:58):
you're not doing what you could be doing you're living
up to your potential. And also there are many days
when your brain feels like it's turning into jello because
you're your intellectual stimulation consists of reading the alphabet books, um,
or you're at work and you're feeling like, oh, my
kid had a fever today and I had to drop

(21:19):
them off with the babysitter and I'm not being a
good mom and not being supportive, and it sounds like
I'm complaining about every like everything is negative, But it's
the joy always comes with a little bit of self
doubt and questioning when you're making decisions as a mom,
because there doesn't seem to be one decision that is right,

(21:41):
even for you. I honestly think that as we talk
about the stages of motherhood, what you are trading when
you become a mom, and this goes for taking on
the responsibility of being a step mom or playing a
really really strong and nurturing role in any child's life.
You are giving up, um, a certain amount of control.

(22:02):
I guess I keep coming back to that word you are.
You are taking on conflict and you are giving up control.
You're saying, it's I'm going to be okay with placing
my heart and my efforts and my love onto something
that is it's is its own independent little creature, and
I'm just I'm going to pour my heart into this

(22:23):
and I have no idea how it's going to go. Um,
you know, and and no, and now I'm not going
to be able to go to work and feel unconflicted
and I'm not going to be able to stay home
and feel unconflicted. It's basically just accepting an enormous amount
of ambiguity and static kind of in your life and
you just say, Okay, UM, bring it on. I wanted

(22:46):
to go back for a minute to UM, just to
bring back another past episode we've done about pregnancy discrimination
and UM, we've done one on the mommy taxs and
this kind of tight rope that you were both discussing
of feeling like a bad mom if you're not spending

(23:06):
enough time at home with your child and being judged
societally for that, but on the other hand, being seen
as a bad employee if you take off the time
to go and spend it with your child. And UM,
it's been really interesting hearing from people in different countries
where the attitude towards taking time off as a new

(23:29):
mother is different. But again, this is Yeah, it's this
conflict that I think a lot of mothers feel. Yeah,
we have not worked this thing out in the US certainly.
I mean, Sweden's another story. I would be interested to know,
Like you know, is that generally what you're finding is
that in other countries, UM, people are able to. I mean,

(23:50):
they get ample, ample time off in many other countries,
not all, but many other countries. Um. You know, we're
certainly like way down there in the in the Western world,
um for for amount of maternity leave, that's that's typical.
Um But and it seems like people just understand that
you In other places, there's way more understanding that you're
going to need time to adjust. And I think that's

(24:14):
part of it. Is just like slamming one one identity
up against the other, the mother versus the working person,
the you know, sexual person versus the maternal person. We're
just a bag of conflicts. The only thing that I
would say that makes it even more complicated is that
your responsibility to mother this child that you've brought into

(24:36):
the world doesn't end at three or six months. And
so you know, you feel like societally, if we had more,
even a year more maternity leave, it would somehow be resolved,
which it clearly wouldn't because toddlers need even more attention
than infants need, and teenagers sometimes need even more than that.

(24:58):
So you know, you can't take fifteen years off of
work unless you're not working with you I mean, one
of the things that I heard from a couple of
different women who were real influences on me when my
kids were tiny. Is you know, if I had had
this to do again, I would have taken off time
much much later. I would have gone straight back to work,

(25:18):
because when they're really little, lots of different people can
meet their basic needs and you're still mom at the
end of the day. But it gets way more complicated
when they're in middle school, when they're in high school,
there are things that you will feel. Man, I wish
I was home to help with that, you know, I
mean this just helping my daughter go through the ridiculous

(25:41):
college application process. Thank god I got hip checked out
of my job in time to help her with that,
because that that felt like a job, not a full
time job, but heavy duty job. It's just, you know,
it's the conditions of motherhood are as Lisa you're saying,
they change constantly. It's a job description that changes every
few months, like you're never going to keep up with it.

(26:02):
You're never going to feel like you're soup. You that
I got this feeling, you're never going to have that
as a mom. And it also trumps anything you had
at work, so even if you identify as with your
career and you are CEO of your company, if your
kid has an accident at school, you're leaving me out

(26:22):
of any meeting. It doesn't matter you your kid is
your Maybe not for everyone, I would hazard of women,
that's totally true, right, I mean I used to say
that I felt like my entire career was balanced on
the head of a pin and that was my kid's
well being and which I kind of was constantly looking
at and thinking, something's coming up. Is this the moment

(26:45):
where I make the choice where I say, like, no,
I'm putting it on, putting my job on hold, walking
away from this for a while. It didn't really happen,
but I did feel that precarious balance all the time.
It is so funny say that because lately I've been
watching a lot of holiday movies, and if I was
to judge from them, then the stuff holiday movies are

(27:09):
made from. Like of them is a dad who's in
a very powerful position, who hasn't been home for Christmas
Eve at Christmas and years, and then through some Christmas miracle,
realizes the importance of family and leaves in the middle
of a big meeting to go be with this child. Yeah,

(27:31):
Hollywood as usual. We'll catch up to us in about
I don't know what twenty years. How how old are
these movies you're watching? Um? Well, I I'm kind of
embarrassed to admit this, but I watched Jingle All the Way,
which I learned UM has a really funny legal history
behind it, um, involving a stolen script and ELF. So

(27:55):
Elf is pretty I guess it's like ten years old.
I suppose I love me some alf. I gotta tell you,
Santa Claus is the same plot. I'm telling you. Yeah,
busy busy daddy. Yeah, yeah, you know. The problem is,
if it was the mom, it could be any day
of the year. If it's the dad, it's only on Christmas. Right.

(28:21):
I don't know if anybody has been watching Big Little
Lies or has watched that series, but that was just
such an interesting kind of study in career women contrasted
with women who are staying home or are doing some
kind of half and half version. But you know, Laura
Dern plays the very high powered career woman and she's

(28:42):
just a bitch on wheels. And I remember, you know,
watching the first episode and thinking, oh, are you kidding? Wait?
Why can't we be nice and powerful? Why do we
have to be mean to be powerful? And you know,
Reese Withersmith is fantastic, but I just thought, come on,
this is meant to be a feminist, A meant this
series and it's I loved that that it was so

(29:03):
woman power at that show, But at the same time,
I felt like it's slung around a few cliches that
I could have could have done without. Yeah, I've seen
that over and over again, where women can only be
a R B, we cannot be both. But hopefully we're
moving away from that, um and and sort of moving
along and skipping. I would say it sounds like listening

(29:25):
to you both, that we could have a phase like
every couple of months of mother and shifts. UM. I
remember I used to edit this podcast called mother Ship
and UM. One of the co hosts described mother her
experience as being a mother as running through molasses. UM.
But if we jump ahead to adolescence, which both of

(29:50):
you sort of we're saying, perhaps is a time when
you wish you could have been been more involved, or
when there are these things that maybe we don't pay
as much attention to. When we're talking about identity and motherhood. Um,
could you speak about your experiences with this adolescence phase. Well,

(30:12):
you know, it's a funny thing. I remember reflecting when um,
you know, my kids were going through I would say
the grutchiest part of their adolescence, which thank god they're
they're definitely through. You know, there's this point when your
kids are really little and they just they keep you

(30:33):
in the moment and they bring you up. I mean,
it's just it's kind of a fantastic and miraculous thing.
And anybody who has a child they're close to feels this.
They just as soon as you're with them, they it's
like a happy drug. I mean, it just it just
really is. Maybe not when they're having a complete meltdown
in a parking lot, but for the most part, the

(30:55):
mood is just so abrilliant with young kids, and and
you know, the role sort of shifts. They get much
more independent obviously as adolescents, but your role, I think
is to bring them some kind of emotional stability because
their emotions are so whacked. Yeah. I don't know if

(31:17):
you found that, Lisa. Um, yes, yes, they got super moody. Um.
But in terms of my position, it was weird because
I always thought of myself as the cool kid. You know,
I was part of the cool crowd. And there's nothing
to smack you down to do t how uncool you

(31:37):
are than a teenage child who's like, you're really going
to wear that judgment? Um, And you see yourself differently too,
and there's a an attempt to cling to your youth,
um with your with your little fingertips as it slips
away from you. And then realizing that somebody in this

(31:58):
relationship has to be the grown up, especially when your
children it's not and it's not their job, so it
is yours. Um. But you suddenly feel like even when
I felt anyway and I had my kids pretty young,
I could still feel youthful with young children. When my
children became teenagers, I saw myself through their eyes, and

(32:20):
I was suddenly old. You see themselves through their eyes
because they tell you what they see. Yeah, I mean,
you know, I'll never forget my cousin once saying to
my aunt when she came down in the morning we
were all staying somewhere for a vacation. He said, would
you do my sleep on your face? I mean, it's
just you know, and he was actually a nice kid,

(32:41):
and they're just they're just heartless. Yeah, and they see
you as like someone who doesn't know I know, clue,
like a, you're stupid because you have no idea that
they were drinking right, uh so and you couldn't figure
it out. Um you're stupid, you have bad taste. Um,
you don't understand anything. So and the hard part as

(33:03):
a parent is that, because it is your job to
be the parent, you can't ever take anything personally because
when it becomes personal, it becomes a fight. And then
you treat your child in a way that's all about
ego and not about being supportive, because they that when
they're the worst is when they need the most support.
So it's this really hard place of being beaten up

(33:28):
your ego, being beaten up by all their criticism, and
having to step outside of your ego so that you
can retain that maturity to be a supportive parent. It's weird, Yeah,
it really isn't being you know, you come through this
phase where you're trying to raise you know, responsible upstanding citizens,

(33:50):
maybe not rule followers, but basic rule followers, and so
a lot of it is about discipline, and a lot
of it is about setting some norms, and then they've
become adolescence and you find yourself moving those boundaries so
far because you can't fight with them all the time,
you know, And and it's exhausting and honestly demoralizing to

(34:12):
try and do that. You gotta let a lot go
and and just kind of hope that the grounding that
you gave them when they little will stick. And more
complicated than that, I found was that I had to
be consistent with my values in the choices I was making.
Because when they're little, you can tell them we don't
tell lies, and we you know, we don't hit other people.

(34:34):
And then suddenly when they're teenagers, they are not listening
to anywhere, but they're watching everything you do. So when
you when someone asks you a question you're like, oh,
we can't make it tonight because and you make up
some terrible lie like oh yes, because the cat's sick
or whatever it is. They see your behavior and they
model that. So you have to really very careful about

(34:56):
walking your talk when your kids are adolescence while giving
them all kinds of room to sort of break some
rules and distance from you. Um yeah, I mean it's
it's it's very tough. And that's sort of that feeling
of closeness UM that I think many many people, many
moms and mom figures have as as they're like smaller

(35:21):
kids are growing up, they have to distance from you.
They absolutely have to. You are not going to have
that feeling of closeness, and it can leave you feeling
intensely lonely. Um. If you don't have closeness with your
partner through that, good luck to you. I mean, you know,
if you're not partnered, I think it's even tougher. It's
just it's a lonely time at best. You need a

(35:44):
lot of and you know, honestly, that's where other women
I found to be just hugely, hugely helpful. Thanks Lisa,
Thanks Joe. Yeah. I mean that there are always these
others identities you write that people have at the same time,
and one of those is, um it could be single motherhood,

(36:05):
and one of them could be LGBTQ motherhood. UM. So
we always have these multiple identities within as that shape
our experiences. UM. One thing I wanted to touch on
before we moved on from adolescence is I remember both
of you talking about this pitfall of defining yourself through

(36:28):
your child's accomplishments. And I feel like this would start
manifesting pretty hardcore around adolescents. Um somewhere in there. Could
you talk about that a little bit. Yeah. I think
that it happens in two ways. What one is that
you see your own faults in your kids, like your

(36:50):
weaknesses and your tendencies in me. You know, it's like procrastination, um,
emotionally eating the things that I straw go with myself,
I can see pop up in my children, and you
just don't want them. Two, You don't want them to
struggle in the same way that you've struggled. And it
makes it worse because you draw attention to it with

(37:11):
your kids. And then I think a lot of people
feel like they if they didn't achieve the success that
they wanted or somehow see their children as manifestations of
their own work. Um. Yeah, and worth they put so
much pressure on these kids, and that's not fair either. Yeah.

(37:34):
I mean, having just gone through the arms race that
is the college admissions process, you know there every parent.
Let me just proface by saying every parent is doing
the best they can in a really tough situation. But wow,
are there some Um, some people who you think, this
is not about your kid, this is about you, UM,

(37:57):
And I guess I just I feel like how having
watch so many parents get deeply, deeply involved in this
process trying to raise these uber kids who will get
into the best colleges. Even if that, even if your
wish comes true and you know your child does you proud,
which you know you is the operative word there. Um,

(38:22):
that kid is then going to go off and live
that life on their own quite immediately, and it's not
your life and you you know. To me, I feel like,
particularly for women, this is yet another moment where you
think that defining ourselves by others, accomplishments by others, identity

(38:44):
by others, the direction that other people are taking in
our lives is you do this at your peril. And um,
society maybe molding us into those partner figures, those booster figures,
those maternal figures. Um, but you need to know what
this means to you separately, and you need your own stuff,

(39:08):
you know, right, And because well, even if if they're
doing great, fine, you can bask in your own in
your kid's glory, but they're they're going to fail. Everybody
fails at some point and you do want to carry
that around us also, you know, it's it's just it's
not a smart way to go through life, getting your
identity through your child's accomplishments. But I think a lot

(39:29):
of people do it um subconsciously, not really for themselves,
or they're not aware. There's an aspect that it is
for your sense of pride and and and being a
good parent because you've gotten your kid to go to
an Ivy League school or something. But there's also the
feeling that you don't want your kid to suffer and
they when they fail in some level, they don't get

(39:50):
into their college of choice um or they don't feel
like they're measuring up to their peers. It's hard and
it's painful as a mother, everything your childe every little
pain is almost you can feel it in your own
body almost. It's like a little right, you know, you
have that little I remember times when my kids have
been had frustrations and failures and it just and and

(40:12):
they're so sad and there's nothing you can do about it.
As a parent, it just rips you apart. Well. I
think that that's part of the um sucker punch of
going through motherhood. I mean, one of the one of
the wonderful things, uh, is that feeling you get when
you can fix it for them, when there's something concrete
that you can do to make them feel better. But ultimately,

(40:35):
as your relationship with them matures, the best thing you
can do is not fix it for them and just
let and and be there right and feel how you know,
feel the feels with them. And it will hurt you,
possibly even more than it hurts them. Um, But they
will become resilient. They'll become resilient and they'll they'll realize

(40:57):
and you'll realize that they don't need you to do
and that's ideally, if all goes well, you will be absolute,
which is a weird part of the learning of motherhood right,
it's planned obsolescence and it's kind of upsetting well, which

(41:19):
I think so many of us are addicted to the
helicopter parenting method. You know it fix everything immediately, never
let them struggle, um, which you won't always be there
even if you try. At some point you're not going
to be able to fix everything for your kids, so wait,
far better to let them learn how to fix it
for themselves. Yeah, yeah, I mean I can't tell you

(41:42):
how many parents I talked to a new who went
through the horrible period where their child couldn't sleep unless
they were sleeping in their bed. You know, one of
the most important skills you can teach a kid is
to go to sleep on their own, which sounds ridiculously basic,
but it literally it will serve them every day of

(42:03):
their life. It's it's just one of the basic things.
And yet so many parents, I think, Um, you know,
a kids are really tough. This is one of the
toughest things. I've never experienced exhaustion like I did when
my kids were little, never ever, ever, and never will
I again. But you know that falling into that trap
of just come in my bed and I'll cuddle you

(42:25):
and you'll go to sleep and we'll be fine. It's
easier than fighting with them, it is, but ultimately, ultimately
you only have one kid because you never have sex again,
exactly because your kids in your bed with problem solved, alright, well,
new goal become obsolete exactly. This all reminds me of

(42:49):
once when I was in high school, I won a
very prestigious award and I bring it up at every
occasion that I can, but I had to give a speech, um,
and my dad before I went out, he kind of
kneeled in front of me. He said, Annie, here's what
just say that these teachers have been the architects of

(43:11):
my dreams. He goes into this very long and flowery
and beautiful speech, and then I get out there and
I just tell jokes the entire time, um, and I
imagine it as like the equivalent of just a very
heavy sigh. And then then he had to let go
and know that that was me being me and I

(43:31):
wasn't gonna give this speech. As much as he wanted
me to give it, and as beautiful as it was,
it wasn't gonna happen. Well, I'm sure he was hugely
proud of you eventually, but during during this speech, he
was probably tied in a pretzel of conflict. You know.
And here's where I think Lisa was right at the beginning.

(43:51):
This is not we're not just talking about mothers here.
He was super proud, loved that you were this individual,
loved that you had gone off on your own and
gotten this prize, hated that you were not accepting it
in the way that he would, hated that you you know,
didn't take his advice that you were clearly an individual
and probably terrified that she might mess up because she

(44:12):
wasn't doing that speech that he had planned, and what
if she had failed in public and then he would
have been shamed. Yeah, absolutely, so much at play. Well,
I mean, it's it was so interesting going through the
process with my daughter where I helped her. I'm an editor,
so I worked with her in her college essay. At

(44:34):
the same time, I also worked with lots of kids
from different institutions, UM and organizations on their college essays.
Is just like a volunteer part of my life. And
they were dream writer editor relationship partners. They loved my edits.
They were super happy to make my edits. They loved

(44:54):
our conversations. My daughter, oh my god, correcting a type
of I had to prove it to her that that
is not how the word was spelled. So, you know,
I mean, it's just it's a unique, unique relationship. And
yet you know what, her essay came out awesome. It
wasn't the same way that your speech wasn't the one

(45:15):
your dad would have given. Her essay wasn't the one
I might have written, But it was awesome and it
did the job. And I remember working with with a
friend's um, with a friend's son. She took me aside
and said, here's what he should write about. Here's I
know what he should write about. He's not writing about this,
so can you just talk to him? She was back
channeling with me. So I sit down with this kid

(45:37):
who I knew somewhat. We had a long, long, long conversation,
and her idea was was just balls out terrible for him.
And not only that he could barely remember, he could
barely recollect the event that she wanted him to write about.
So it was just it was there was nothing there.
There was nothing in the well. And and yet she

(45:59):
was so sure. His mother, who knows him better than whatever,
you know, she was so sure. And honestly, some of
the worst essay ideas I've heard in the course of
doing this work have come from moms. Yeah, I don't
know what that says, but I'm taking it to heart. Well,

(46:21):
we have many more phases to discuss with you listeners,
but first we're going to pause for a quick break
for word from our sponsor. And we're back. Thank you sponsor.

(46:41):
So now let's talk about this phase that you both
mentioned at the top the empty nest phase. When children leave,
what happens to this shifting identity of motherhood. Well, it's
funny because I think child rearing, even if you have

(47:02):
one child, is about eighteen years, and it's that's a
long chunk of time to do anything, and when you
have more than one child, it's significantly longer. But the
day they leave the house, you're still You're not not
a mother anymore. You're still a mother and you're still
mothering them. But all of the things that you did
on a daily basis, from making them breakfast, to checking

(47:24):
over their homework, to you know, making sure that they
had done their chores or whatever it was, that all
goes away and suddenly you have time that you've never
had before. And you also, it's not that you've become
a different person, but that you have the opportunity to
manifest a different aspect of yourself. And combined with all that,

(47:47):
you're really sad because you miss them terribly and your
husband is going, oh great now or alone, we can
have way more sex, which is exactly what happened to me.
I mean, it's yes, we have way more sex. It's wonderful,
but it. I you know, we dropped my older daughter off,
and we had dropped my younger daughter off at boarding school,
and my husband wiped away exactly one tiny tier and

(48:13):
literally in the car commenced grabbing my knee, and I'm thinking,
have you not noticed that I am crying so hard
that there is not running down my face, like I
haven't cried like this, and I can't remember how long.
All I can say is the turn on for him.
It didn't like he wasn't really noticing anything except that

(48:34):
we are alone and we are going to be alone
for the next four months and this hasn't happened in
eighteen years. And oh my god, this is going to
be so exciting. It was exciting, it is exciting. But
I just I'm going to say that I think men
and women experienced this extremely differently. And I've compared this
particular note with Lisa and many other women, and it

(48:56):
is incredibly consistent. The guys are like, I'm dating my
wife again. This is good. And the women that's maybe
the fifteen thing they talk about when their kids leave home. Well,
we didn't touch on that previously when we're talking about
the phases of motherhood, but definitely the way that your

(49:18):
relationship with your partner, whether it's you know, a LGBT,
another woman or another man, or whoever you are, a
romantic partner who's co parenting with you, whoever your sexual
partner is definitely that relationship changes once you have kids,
time exhaustion, um, prioritizing kids over over spouse, which happens

(49:41):
a lot. I see it all the time where kids
come first and then the sexual partner is an afterthought
um and not even thought of really as a sexual partner.
Well that too because the partner partner, like I would sink,
I would die without you. I couldn't keep these balls
in the air without you. Props to the goal parents
out there, because I don't know how you do it.

(50:02):
I really don't well imagine dating that level of the
work that would have to go in to finding someone
new when you are balancing baby care at home not fun, no,
it's a motherhood is a crazy balancing act. But I
think with the when when you hit that empty nest phase,
all of the frustration that your partner may have felt

(50:24):
all those years and that your sex life has taken
a back seat for nothing else but just the noise
control exactly because you're on top of each other, you know,
with the room, say next to whatever it is. Um,
it's it's like a rebirth of your physical relationship because
nobody's there. It is, it is, And I do not

(50:45):
want to downplay how awesome that is. And you, you know,
you you sort of I even feel like there are
moments when you look at yourself in the mirror and
you're just a little you see yourself bathed in a
little bit of a front light, which is which is
a nice thing. I mean, I'm not I don't want to.
I don't want to sort of cast this all as

(51:06):
just a horrible sobby moment because it's not. It's there's
so much to discover. Yeah, and you you know what, interestingly,
you are a different person, um after years of of
child rearing together and going through the ups and downs
of of life together. And that kind of intimacy does

(51:27):
have its benefits. Yeah. But I mean, you and I
are both married to famous talkers, and you know, mem
it is a literally famous talker. My husband is famous
in his circles for for all the talking that he does,
and yet there are silences, there are these moments and
you think like, wow, we haven't had we haven't sat

(51:47):
across from each other at a dinner table in our house,
just the two of us in you can't even remember
how long, and it's wonderful. And at the same time,
there can be a moment to reappraise the whole situation.
You know, I think a lot of relationships will fall
apart at that stage. Two, even if you aren't consciously
staying together for kids. You do get to that dinner

(52:07):
table and it's just the two of you looking at
each other, and you think the quiet you can be
a little weird than definitely, And yeah, and with this person,
you and you've got to start the conversation again because
you've been distracted and you haven't paid attention because it's
been a family and your identity as in the family
and not as a couple. And then when you have
to face the fact that you are a couple, maybe

(52:27):
you don't want to be that couple. Yeah, yeah, I
mean I also want to say that I've seen I've
seen some I've seen some dad's grieve seriously when their
kids go off to school. And I don't I don't
want to generalize too much, but um, crying maybe more
from mom. I haven't cried yet. I don't think that

(52:47):
has about being empty nesters, but it is. It is
a shift, and it's a shift in how you see
yourself and what how you spend your time as an
individual and what you're what you're now going to be
spending your time is. But it's also a shift as
the relationship identity I think is definitely different than it
is as a family at home identity. I'm sure there's

(53:09):
some reevaluating that that goes on, because, yeah, if you
haven't had much time alone together for the past eighteen
or so years anyway, Yeah, coming back to that and
kind of having to figure out what this new, this
new phases for for both people in that situation, you know,

(53:30):
and I think for a lot of women, there's a
moment where you think, how much do I want to
invest in this? Maybe there are other things I care
about more, um, and your relationship may dissolve because of
that or maybe okay, UM, But I do I do
notice this in in sort of a lot of my
peers and women I look up to here a little

(53:52):
bit further along on this road than I am, some
of them decided it's not going to be about my relationship.
I'm gonna you know, there are all kinds of adventures
I want to have and other kinds of relationships I
want to pour myself into, and they put in only
what they want to. But there are these all these
extra cycles that you have and they're gonna they gotta
go somewhere. Yeah, We've heard it from a lot of women. Uh,

(54:14):
and it's been wonderful who after their children left, they
started traveling, they started doing things that they didn't get
the chance to do before they had children. And a
lot of them that we've heard from our doing it
by themselves and then kind of having coming back to
relationship and discussing like what did I to go to
while I was solo and having like these new conversation topics. Um,

(54:37):
but that's been really lovely hearing from women going out
and doing that. I'm kind of having this conversation with
my mom right now because she wants to go start traveling.
I'm very excited for her. Yeah, and just she want
to do this on her own. Yeah, she does go
your mom. I think that's fantastic. I mean, you know,

(54:57):
this is it's the first time time you've had in
so many years where you didn't really have to compromise
and you really can focus on yourself and how you
want to grow and who you want to be and
what kind of experiences you want to have. You can,
and you can do it with a partner, but when
you have kids at home, you know it's more like
the family is the priority, not necessarily your personal growth,

(55:23):
you know, your sense of adventure. Where does she want
to go? She wants to go to either Ireland or
Scotland or Hawaii. So that's a big spread there. Yeah, yeah,
she's gotta She loves um hiking, and Hawaii is good
for that. But she also loves beer and her families

(55:45):
from Scotland, so Scotland and Ireland are good for das.
All right, she's got she's got two big trips. Yeah exactly,
I'm all for it, take both of them. Would she
let you come with her? Oh? Absolutely, she would love to,
just because I'm a big planner and I think it
would be a relief for her not to have to
plan something for once as well. Um, and I'm happy

(56:05):
to go. I'm super happy to come with her. Well, Mom,
if you're listening and he wants to go on this
trip with you cast an extra milefe whether you wanted
or not, Mom, I'm coming with um. This also reminds
me of another movie. I'm big on movies, if that

(56:26):
wasn't obvious, but there's a movie called What Lies Beneath
where Michelle Phifer's character Uh and her husband Harrison Ford
drop off their daughter. This is how the movie starts
at college and immediately as they turned out the door,
Michelle Phifer starts crying and Harrison Ford it's like, oh no,
you just start crawing right away. Um. Also he turned

(56:46):
out to be a murderer spoiler alert. But well, I
don't know. What Lies Beneath was a clue. Sounds like
a horror movie. It was one of my favorite horror
movies as a kid. I was a strange kid. I guess,
So what happens next? I've never seen this. It sounds good. Well,

(57:06):
I could go into a whole thing. But there involves
like a mystery and like watching your neighbor and judging
your neighbor, and they do. They do start having a
lot of sex, kind of like when you started talking
about um, and then there's a ghost involved in a
seance and um, wow, it hasn't been like this, I'll

(57:30):
tell you. I think this is a very specific experience.
I hope so. But it did have some similar themes
to what you were discussing. Definitely. I mean, you know,
on my phone, I have a Robin Jill list which
is like stuff, and I've been adding to it, you know,

(57:51):
for about a year now. And it's kind of interesting
that I was that I did find myself so struck
by this transition because I've been looking forward to it
for such a long time. I mean, you know, it's
a long list I've been keeping on my phone and
we've been we've been like it's a it's a bucket list.
We've been getting checked any off. Yeah, yeah, definitely like
hanging on the chandelier type things, or like going to

(58:14):
the Adirondacks kind of thing. More like, um, all right,
this is gonna sound so dumb and boring, but like,
there's this jazz guitarist that plays in our neighborhood. He
plays at ten o'clock on a Sunday night. That is
not when you have kids at home. Here jazz guitar
on a Sunday night, And now we do we do
stuff like that, you know, we like we'll grab a drink.

(58:38):
We work in the same neighborhood, we will grab a
drink after work and just figure dinner out later, or
I don't know, eat crackers when we get home. I
love not having to make dinners. God, it's such a
liberation because you feel compelled to actually feed your children.
If it's just your husband, you can say they're leftovers
in the fridge or exactly crackers. It's such a that

(59:00):
that is a real I didn't realize what a highlight
that would be some nights just to come home and
I forget it. I'm not even thinking about food. Yeah, yeah,
I mean certain routines. I don't know how other women
out there feel, but the making of the school lunch
was the straw that broke the camel's back for me
on a daily basis, and it just it just felt

(59:23):
like that one chore. There were many, many, many other
chores that went with being the parent of my two
kids when they were home, that one chore was the
one I just resented so much. And I would be
sitting there at you know, eleven forty five at night,
cutting carrot sticks and just thinking I want to carve

(59:45):
out my own eyeball, this is just this is just
a nightmare. And you know there're things are so optional
now yeah, yep, there's like there's nothing like that. So
I'm listening to jazz guitaris outing charasticks. It is funny.
Otherres not always that one shore that, for some reason

(01:00:06):
is the one that is too much. I don't know
why it was lunch for me, What was it for you, Lisa? Um?
It was not. There was never a chore, a specific
thing that that would repeatedly get under my skin. I
think it was for me, rather than being physical, was
an emotional It was the fact that no matter what

(01:00:30):
I was always the last priority. The kids needs would
come first, mements needs would come first. What I wanted
Sometimes Rosie the dogs needs the dog yeah, oh my gosh. Yes,
I would be like hungover and I'd have to get
a five and die dog out and it would be
me um because she was training as a you know,
as a puppy. But that would get to me sometimes

(01:00:53):
it was just like, you know, why, why is everyone
more valuable than I am in my own life? Um?
And I would think about that sometimes and I would think,
because that's what you've chosen and then you kind of
shift it and you don't feel like a victim anymore.
You feel like empowered because it is a choice, not
something being thrust upon you. But that that that would

(01:01:13):
sometimes be the thing that I would think about. Yeah, yeah,
and and try not to boil with rage. No no,
it was never rage. It was more a rageful mother.
No no, no, no no. Which is that was your
other podcast, the mother destroy Er any the rageful mother

(01:01:36):
who eats her her children? Um? No, but it sometimes
you just feel like there's never time for yourself. Yeah,
I mean, I do think again, this is not this
is not typical of you at all. But I do
think rage actually becomes a part of some women's maternal identity.

(01:01:56):
That's just so dangerous. Sense of resentment and just the
sense of being put upon. And they are so often
absolutely justified that that feeling. But when it but it
can become like a core piece of who you are,
it kind of calcifies. Um. Over the years, I've seen

(01:02:20):
it happen, I've felt it sometimes, have gone through through periods.
You know, when my kids were one and three, my
husband traveled all the time. He was you know, gone
roughly half the time, and I was just I was
so uh spread. Then it was were you angry at
him or them? I was angry at my life, okay.

(01:02:43):
I mean I knew he was doing the best he could.
I was doing the best I could. Um. I wasn't
angry at anyone in particular. I was rageful at the world. Um.
And I remember it coming, you know, just I just
felt like I just had daggers coming out my eyes
most of the time. I was like that, but it
was always directed towards amendments target. Yeah, I couldn't take it. Well,

(01:03:05):
he wasn't there either, So it's like you with Robert
where he was gone moment, was on call every either
every third or every other night, and having little kids
at home and being for all intents and purposes of
single parent. There was anger there, but never towards my kids.
It wasn't their fault. It was it was the whole
different ball game from two kids. I mean that is

(01:03:28):
just you were so outnumber, so I couldn't have been
because I kept getting exactly you wanted those four months.
Get a release from it. I read so many accounts
from women online describing exactly what you're talking about, and UM,
feeling secondary in their own lives and having to adjust

(01:03:49):
to that. UM, and we do have even more phases
of motherhood and a little bit of UM pitfalls to
avoid and tips. But first more quick break for word
from our sponsor M and we're back, Thank you sponsor.

(01:04:14):
So something else I found when I was researching this
that we thought we'd touched on briefly because they are
going to be their own episodes UM is the shifting
identity after divorce. And since like we touched on at
the top, women are often defined whether by themselves, are
by someone else, or both through someone else, UM, that

(01:04:39):
when they go through a divorce, they feel this identity
crisis that now they check single as opposed to married. UM.
And your kids might have a different last name than you. UM,
your friends might have chosen a side, necessitating you to
make new friends. And I think that is another thing

(01:04:59):
that a out of mothers might go through at any
of these phases that we've been discussing. Yeah, I think
while it changes how you see yourself completely and all
in all the ways that you mentioned, I think it
also changes your relationship to being a mother to your

(01:05:21):
children in a variety of ways in which it can
manifest either you become competitive with your X for your
child's emotions, or you can use your children as ponds
in the war against your ex. Joe, you are a
child of divorce, How did how did that affect your

(01:05:44):
relationship with your mom? And well, I mean, it was
kind of a scorched earth divorce. It was hellish, um
and I think if anything, we were closer than ever,
though not in the healthiest way because she relied on
me emotionally, very heavily. Um. But that was like a
that was a certain era of divorce where it was

(01:06:07):
that period of time where so many of my friends
were getting divorced and their father's basically left the picture.
I mean, maybe they were weekend dads. Maybe my father
moved to the West coast. I saw him on vacations
and very occasionally, and so my mom was suddenly, you know,
the soul soul support for us emotionally, not financially, but emotionally.

(01:06:30):
And I guess one of the things that I would
say is that divorce is a is a really rocky
and difficult identity shift. But I have seen people carve
out really wonderful mother identities as divorced women. And I
think in a really weird way. There is something about

(01:06:51):
the more modern custody arrangement, which is fifty time sharing,
that can be really healthy for moms. I mean, number one,
you cannot, no matter what, you cannot make yourself the
soul primary parent. It forces your husband or your partner
to step up. You cannot be the primary person. You

(01:07:14):
can't be the best at it, and I think a
lot of women find that a difficult transition. But ultimately
it's kind of great. You know, your partner develops all
kinds of competency, you learn to respect them, and then
you also have time. You shared custody means you have
time with your kids and time to yourself. When a

(01:07:36):
lot of that, you know where you do develop these
other sides of yourself that if your kids are with
you seven you may not have it. So I mean,
obviously I'm not recommending divorces, and shared custody is the
you know, the the new and beneficial social construct that
we should all be striving for. It's incredibly painful, but
um I've seen I've seen great co parenting examples amongst

(01:08:01):
my friends. I think divorce is totally different in this
day and age than it was when I was a kid,
and I've I've seen women you know, that sort of
post traumatic growth thing happened in an extreme way, partly
because they have time every other weekend, every other weekend
and half the weeks. Uh and sort of going off
of this, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned on the show,

(01:08:23):
but I am planning a deep dive on the evil
stepmother trope, and through my research, I've learned so much
about how this evil stepmother identity has bled out into
the real world and makes stepmothers doubt themselves and makes
step children distressed their stepmothers. Um. A lot of accounts

(01:08:45):
I've read described that the stereotype undermines their confidence when parenting,
and it starts as early as like whenever they can
watch Cinderella. Um, so we're definitely gonna come back to that.
But if there's anything you want to say before we
moved on, until you had a stepmother, I did. I did.
I lost her a few years ago. You know, she

(01:09:06):
was a fantastic figure in my life. She really was.
She couldn't have been more different from my mother, and um,
she was never really in a caretaking role with me
at all. She became my stepmom when I was thirteen
and she lived with my father on the West Coast.
She was significantly younger than my dad and so seemed

(01:09:29):
like a very young woman to me, much younger than
my mom. And she taught me by example all kinds
of things. She taught me what right up close, what
a different kind of woman who's made different kinds of
choices would was like. And it was. It was incredibly helpful.
The first few years weren't pretty. I won't I won't lie, um,

(01:09:54):
and you know, we laughed about them later, but eventually
it was. It actually really enriched my life, I would say, though,
And I think your research is absolutely right, And it
is such a thankless role because often you are pulling
just as much weight as any of the other parents
in this situation. Um. And yet you will never get

(01:10:16):
any kind of congratulations or appreciation um unless unless that
child singles you out and lets you know, um that
they care about you and that you're helpful to them.
The world will not give you that kind of acknowledgement.
The kid might, um, but but the world certainly won't. Yeah.

(01:10:37):
I think I think the reason that all the fairy
tales is not just Cinderella, the evil stepmothers in Snow White,
in um Hansel and Gretel, and I think on a
psychological level, it's a safer way for us to deal
with the dark side of the mother archetype, that devouring

(01:10:57):
mother that you talked about in your last part cast Um,
because it is so universal and um and I do
think it's something that we have to contend with in
our psyches. And so I do think making it a
stepmother rather than the archetype, you know, Madonna image is

(01:11:18):
just a way for our psyches to process that devouring
mother archetype. Um. So it's unfortunate that the stepmother gets
gets the that bad rap, but I think it's a
it's a bigger archetype than necessarily your your father's new wife. Yeah.
And it's so interesting that we don't have, you know,

(01:11:38):
the same roiling cauldron of associations with a stepfather. I mean,
I don't know, no, because fathers can just be straight
up negative. You can have the good dad and the
bad dad. But but archetypically the if it's your mom
in a fairy tale or mythology, she's she's usually protective,

(01:11:59):
whereas the step mom portrays that negative side, that could
be your real mother. It's a duality, but we don't
have the same duality associated with fathers. There is a
lot of really interesting history stuff and cultural stuff around it. UM.
I can't wait to talk about it, So keep anywhere
out for that listeners. Another thing that we're not going

(01:12:20):
to talk about a lot in this episode, but it
can and will be its own episode. Um. It's the
reverse of this of women whose identities shift when they
have lost a child or find out that they can't
get pregnant. Um. And of course adoption is an option
for most people anyway, not everyone, um, But from what
I've learned speaking to folks who are going through this anecdotally,

(01:12:42):
is it shifts how you view yourself and your body,
especially if you've always dreamed of getting pregnant and having children.
So that will certainly be its own conversation, absolutely, And
I wish that there was a channel, um way or
it's just it's a very difficult thing for women to

(01:13:03):
share with one another with the world. Um. You know,
we keep our pregnancies a secret so until we know
they're viable, and so when that loss happens, nobody knows
how much you hoped how much you how real that
child was for you? You said secret. It is funny.

(01:13:23):
It makes me think that, you know, In preparation for
this podcast, I was thinking, what's the literature around motherhood
and and identity? And there hasn't been a whole heck
of a lot on it, and there certainly Shakespeare didn't
write about it. And as everything is um from I
think partially because it maybe it isn't that interesting to men.
I don't know why there hasn't been more thought put

(01:13:44):
into it. But part of it, I think is because
we we as women, keep everything secret and have historically
done so. So you were we were talking about the
other day when we get our periods, there's something every
transition we make it feels shameful, like thing we can't
share with people around us, even our mothers and sisters.
We try to hide it for a while or very

(01:14:06):
rarely is it something that is like, oh yeah, I
just got my period. Thank god. Girls finally changing around
this and being a little more open certainly, you know,
but the same thing with pregnancy, with loss of pregnancy,
with struggles with fertility is not something you advertise or
even seek help on. Menopause when was the last time
someone's like, oh, yeah, I'm menopausal And I was like, oh,

(01:14:28):
they're so terrifyingly shameful, like bury me now, I can't talk.
So I think, as women, so much of what we
experience in our shifting identity we hold inside and we
don't because we feel either that we're going to be
judged by it on it or that no one can

(01:14:49):
relate to it, or that I don't know why, but
it feels like our whole lives are a little bit secret.
And I mean, you know, part of the reason we
we started you earns, was to try and bring those
transitions out of the closet and just make it make
it normal to talk about to talk about those transitions. Um,

(01:15:11):
but I do feel like, just getting back to loss
of a child, it's amazing how attached and how fully
formed of the idea of a baby can be before
a bump even appears, you know. I mean, I remember
my um kynecologist did some kind of a sonogram early
early on and announced that I was having a boy,

(01:15:34):
and so I was really surprised that we could know
this so early. And then immediately this was this boy
that I was having, and I he just took form
for me. And then about a month later she said, oh,
I was strong girl, And it was crazy how I felt.

(01:15:56):
I felt it as a loss. I was thrilled to
be being a girl, but I wasn't having that boy.
And in the course of a month, he was he
and he was you know, he was in our lives
and I was lucky I didn't ever have a miscarriage.
But it felt like a loss. And it made me realize, Wow,

(01:16:19):
what an extraordinary if that felt like a loss, how
big to lose your pregnancy. Yeah, it's just so overwhelming.
I think, um, because it's it's you, but it's somebody else,
you know, you have a relationship. Um. And and I
think within fertility to people really struggle and even if

(01:16:42):
they have never been pregnant or and just the inability
to get pregnant, I think it's it's something that is
way deeper than we you know. It makes me, It
makes me actually wonder. So the reason we don't you
don't tell anyone when you first find out you're pregnant
is because there's a high risk that you'll miss a
in the first trime master and you don't want to

(01:17:04):
have to tell people about that. Yeah, why do we
do that? I don't know. I think they're superstition too,
because you think, like if you told them in the
right like you always like, I just wonder how different
it would be if culturally we just said, yeah, I
got positive pregnancy test, fingers crossed, I'm pregnant, and then

(01:17:26):
and then, yes, you would have to tell people any
when you had told, you would have to tell. But
maybe then you wouldn't feel so alone. I don't know.
I mean, I'm just just tossing it out there world. Yeah,
and you have to do you have to do a
whole podcast on this because it's so big and it's
such a such an important, I think topic. So it's
it's up to you. Okay. I probably agree that, like,

(01:17:50):
these are conversations that we should be having more of,
UM and just to get a better scope of what
people are dealing with the experiences out there. UM. But
that is for a different episode, not this one. We're
going to wrap things up here with some advice and
the number one of which I read online was patients

(01:18:10):
UM and learning to be okay with not being perfect,
and you both touched on that pretty early on in
the beginning and then another one I would say is
be mindful of social media you consume and comparing yourself
to other parents. We've said it time and time again
on this show. You are seeing a very cultivated image

(01:18:31):
on social media, and that's what it's for. But just
you need to be aware of that um and don't
put yourself down. Don't use that step to put yourself down.
And this goes with like everything but mothering specifically in
this episode, and I found a quote from clinical and
maternal psychologist A really a Thon who coined the term matrescence,

(01:18:52):
which is sort of like the awkward mother heard version
of adolescence, and he describes mothering as an experience similar
to a layered cake, which I love. So she wrote,
mothering changes with experience with every child, there's a layer
cake effect, and there are different stories and mothering young
babies or children age or two three than there are
and how to raise young children or adolescents, and then

(01:19:12):
also emerging adults, and then the empty nest experience. There
are mothers of now grown children who continue to wrestle
with the very same questions. The story just deepens and
becomes all the more fascinating, and she's pushing for women
to talk about these realities of motherhood that we don't
hear about a lot with the hashtag made Trescent. So
if any of you listeners want to share these experiences,

(01:19:36):
there's a hashtag for you. And ultimately, like we were
discussing when we were planning this episode, we need to
find a way to think about ourselves and this question
of identity and multiple identities and how they coexist and
how external relationships impact how we see ourselves, which is
not a simple task, no, but we can start having

(01:19:57):
this these conversations and asking these questions of ourselves. Yes, definitely.
I mean that is not the catchiest hashtag I've ever heard,
but a fascinating term, and it's a fascinating idea. And
I do feel like, you know, women, the more open
we can be in sharing the you know, as I said,

(01:20:19):
it's a job description that seems to change every three
months or so, so you never get good at this.
Just that's that's the way. That's what being a mom is.
And sharing the sort of stumbles along the way that
we all experience kind of constantly is I think just

(01:20:40):
unbelievably healthy. I agree. I also think I think we
need to be more clear on who we are ourselves. UM,
as much as other people can be supportive and how
and necessary in our lives, I really do think that
we sometimes lose sight of our own north star. So
I think checking in every now and then to know

(01:21:01):
who you really are, who what your values are, will
keep you from being buffeted by all those things that
pull your identity in different directions. Take that trip, take
that trip to Hawaii. Yes, I love this. It's like advice,
official advice I can give my mom now. UM. And
I also think, UM, one thing that came up one

(01:21:23):
last thing before we head out here is UM being
real about the difficulties and feelings that you might experience
that are on the more negative side, but also being
real about the positive things and the winds, so that
it's a a more nuanced and accurate true experience. Yep. Yeah.

(01:21:46):
With with especially with motherhood, with every UM challenge, there's
always something, there's always a blessing. Children are are such
a blessing. So I just think being aware of that, UM,
that no matter why you're going through, there is an
element of blessing in that experience. Well, I think that's

(01:22:08):
a pretty good place to leave it unless either of
you have something to add. Oh no, thank you so much.
Has been a real pleasure, fascinating conversation. Thanks yes, thank
you both so much for joining us today and helping
out with co hosting. Where can people find you at
You Turns Podcast? There you go easy, it's y oh

(01:22:31):
you turns Well. Thanks again for joining us, and if
you listeners would like to share your experiences with motherhood
identity any of these conversations we brought up are really
anything at all, You can email as Our email is
mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com. You can
also find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast and
on Instagram at stuff I Never Told you. Thanks to

(01:22:52):
you for listening, and thanks as always to a producer,
Trevor Yaga, who's the for