October 21, 2024 • 33 mins
As a gift to our listeners, Revolution Motherhood is offering 3 months free with the code RMMAMA at https://www.revolutionmotherhood.com
Rachel Welch, founder of Revolution Motherhood, emphasizes the need for a holistic approach to fitness and wellness that specifically addresses the unique physiological changes women experience from prenatal to postnatal stages. She critiques traditional fitness programs for being male-centric and highlights the emotional and physical challenges that new mothers face, particularly during postpartum recovery. Rachel offers practical advice on integrating mindful movements and utilizing tools like soft foam rollers to support healing and rejuvenation. She encourages women to embrace their emotions and prioritize self-education as a means to foster lifelong well-being. The conversation also explores the significance of holding values closely while remaining flexible in expectations, ultimately aiming to empower women throughout their motherhood journey.
Rachel Welch's insights into the intersection of motherhood and wellness challenge conventional fitness paradigms, advocating for a radical rethinking of how women approach their physical health. As the founder of Revolution Motherhood, she addresses the critical gaps in the fitness industry, particularly the overwhelming male-centric methodologies that often leave women feeling unsupported. Through her personal experiences, Rachel illustrates the complexities that arise during pregnancy and postpartum, highlighting the emotional and physical challenges that are frequently ignored. She emphasizes the need for a supportive, holistic framework that respects women's unique physiological experiences and empowers them to take charge of their health and wellness journeys.
The dialogue navigates the emotional landscape of new motherhood, where Rachel provides actionable strategies for integrating physical activity into daily life. She discusses the significance of mindfulness and gentle movement, encouraging mothers to tune into their bodies and respond to their needs. Practical advice, such as using soft foam rollers to relieve tension and reconnect with core muscles, underscores the message that fitness should be a nurturing and adaptive practice rather than a punitive one. Rachel's approach is rooted in compassion and understanding, promoting the idea that self-care is not only vital for physical recovery but also crucial for mental and emotional well-being. By addressing common misconceptions and societal pressures, she aims to redefine how women perceive themselves post-birth and throughout their lives.
Ultimately, Rachel's perspective positions motherhood as a transformative journey that offers profound opportunities for growth and self-discovery. She advocates for a narrative that celebrates the resilience and strength of women, encouraging them to embrace their multifaceted identities. By fostering a community of support and education, Rachel empowers women to rewrite the stories they inherited and to cultivate a life that is vibrant and fulfilling. This episode serves as both a guide and an inspiration for women seeking to navigate the complexities of motherhood while prioritizing their own health and happiness.
Takeaways:
- Rachel Welch emphasizes the need for fitness programs to be tailored specifically to women's unique physiological changes throughout different life stages.
- Traditional fitness methodologies have often overlooked women's specific needs, focusing instead on male-centric paradigms.
- Listening to your body during postpartum recovery is crucial for emotional and physical healing.
- Motherhood presents a significant opportunity for personal growth, impacting emotional resilience and strength.
- Integrating holistic wellness practices can help new moms navigate the complexities of postpartum recovery.
- Mindfulness and gentle movement, such as using a soft foam roller, can support healing and promote well-being.
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Revolution Motherhood
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:20):
Bianca Sprague.
She is the founder of Bebomia,which operates in 49 countries.
Is that right?
Yeah, 50 as of last week.
Oh, my goodness.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
I was waiting for that one.
It took way too long to breakthat 50.
(00:40):
I was like, I'm tired ofsaying 49.
It's not as sexy as 50.
50 does sound very complete.
Yeah, like a complete set.
Yeah.
We are in that many countries.
That's incredible.
It blows my mind.
Yeah.
It's bigger than I everimagined when I started this as a
(01:04):
under resourced, postpartum depression.
26 year old necessity is themother of invention.
Yeah.
It was very quickly after,which is something I don't always
recommend, that you have ababy and start a business at exactly
the same time.
However, a lot of folks feelcalled to do something because of
(01:29):
how change they feel afterthey have a baby.
I have a doula trainingprogram, and the number one reason
why, when I ask why are youhere on the first day of school?
They're like, because thisthing happened to me, and I have
to make sure nobody else hasthat happened to them.
So they're like, they are.
It's not uncommon.
Most of my students havebabies at their breast or chest while
(01:52):
they're in classes, andthey're doing all the parent stuff
because they feel changed frombirth and their parenting journey.
We do have a few that arelike, that was magical, and I hope
everybody has that.
And that's my goal.
But most of the time, it'speople feel harmed or that they're
like, I don't want to put mykids in daycare.
Like, the birth was a reasonwhy they're changing their lives.
(02:13):
Seems from the interviews thatI've done, and yours included, that
the day of birth, the day ofgiving birth.
That.
Experience in a hospitalsetting, they've all been in a hospital
setting.
That experience set the tonefor months and years, even of suffering.
(02:45):
Suffering.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's.
I mean, our system, it'sdestroying us.
And a lot of people keepcalling it a broken system, but it
was very strategicallydesigned by the patriarchy to break
us.
And I'm not going to get towomen's studies here.
I could, but really, byensuring people are broken in birth,
(03:07):
we then are broken into ourparenting journey.
And that is the mostdisempowering thing.
You're reading these stories,and how better do we repress and
control the most powerfulpeople on the planet, which are people
with the uterus?
We're magical.
But when we feel broken at ourmost, our most powerful essence,
(03:27):
which is our ability to givebirth and bring life forth.
It's an.
A really intense journey.
It changes us at a cellular level.
But if we feel like we failed.
So even the language used inthe hospital, failure to progress,
instead of just calling itlabor dystocia, or we're tired of
waiting for you, we are nowgoing in doubting, which is what
(03:49):
I shared in my previousinterview with you, is we've.
We feel like we failed our bodies.
We had to get induced.
We had to get augmented.
We couldn't get the baby out.
So there's something calledcephalopelvic disproportion.
So that's saying that thebaby's head is too big for the birthing
person's hips.
It is such a true CPD.
Cephalopelvic disproportion isso rare.
(04:09):
Like, it's so rare because bydesign, a birthing person's body
is going to know how big babycan get.
So very rarely, however, it'sin the top two reasons for c sections,
unplanned emergency c sections.
And I love, there's so manygreat videos.
If anybody had a CPD diagnosisas your reason, there's great videos
(04:32):
on YouTube that are, like,birthing people giving, like, the
middle finger to the medicalsystem because they'll have a bigger
second baby or third baby.
So they had a c section, butnow they'll have a pelvic birth with
a much bigger baby.
So it makes no sense.
Like, it's discrediting theirpelvic disproportion diagnosis.
And we keep thinking that ourbodies couldn't do this thing, and
(04:52):
then we go into.
Into feeding from our body orlactation, breastfeeding, all the
same thing.
And then we're failing at that.
Like, we've never had moresocial support in any other period
of history.
But the worst outcomes aroundinfant feeding, there's a whole bunch
of reasons why.
Big one being trauma, secondone being medications that are commonly
used that we don't knowactually stop the cycle for us to
(05:14):
ability to produce milk.
So, like, the pitocin thatthey give us in the hospital is actually
the historical use of it hasnow caused our body to not be able
to produce as enough milk tofeed our children.
And so we don't know thesethings, right?
But all we do know is that we failed.
So we're like, oh, I tried tohave a baby and it didn't work.
I tried to breastfeed, and itdidn't work.
(05:35):
And now we feel broken, andwe're so far behind, not to mention
just the PTSD.
So postpartum PTSD is now apretty common diagnosis, unfortunately.
And there's no wonder we'rehaving so many mood disorders in
the perinatal period.
Depression, anxiety,psychosis, because of how terrible
(05:56):
we experience pregnancy andbirth, which is why I do the work
I do, because I'm like, if wefelt empowered in birth, we would
now feel empowered in our bodies.
We would probably have lessdisordered eating.
We would vote.
We would say no.
We would leave crappy husbandswe would like, but we're tired and
we're traumatized.
So obviously, we keepcontrolling weird things like our
(06:20):
weight, which we have verylittle control over.
And then we're hungry andtraumatized, and then we stay in
crappy marriages, and we stayin crappy jobs, and we accept crappy
care from daycares, becausewhere do you even start?
I don't have data to back thisup, but I.
(06:42):
I have lots of.
You, if you want to.
Right.
Women tend to internalize more.
Yeah.
That's why there's moresuicide rather than homicide.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(07:02):
For sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Suicide is one of the leadingcauses of death in the perinatal
period.
Ironically, today is suicideprevention day, and I do.
I know I do a lot of work inthe suicide loss and prevention community
after losing my dad to suicidein 2012.
And I, like, dove into it, andI struggled with.
(07:25):
I don't want to say struggledwith suicidal thoughts.
I'm now very clear of andspeaking out around differentiating
suicidal ideation and suicidal planning.
They're two very different things.
And suicidal ideation is apretty common coping technique.
And so, especially for women,because it's.
We have so little control overour lives, I think if we were able
to talk more about thesethings, we could move through depression.
(07:48):
We could talk about our anxiety.
If we're like, I don't want tobe here.
I love my kids, and I don'twant to be here and be able to safely
say that and have ourcommunity see that as a.
This person needs help.
This person needs love, thisperson needs care.
Not institutional, not, let'sget you set up with a therapist.
But you.
You probably mostly need food,water, and sleep, and you would feel
(08:10):
a million times better.
But, like, all of this stuffhappens in the shadows, and we do
internalize it because that'show we've been taught to cope, because
we've been talked out oftrusting our gut.
Like, when we trust our gut,we're like, I don't like that daycare.
And you actually don't need to qualify.
Why?
You're just like, I don'tknow, something about it.
It just doesn't feel like aplace I want to leave my children.
(08:32):
Even if it was the best, thefanciest, close to your work, your
friends.
Kids go there and love it.
Like, you just don't want to.
But we are always feelings.
And so when we, you know, youcould go on a date with someone,
you're like, I don't know.
I just don't like them.
But your friends are like, oh,my God, they're so great and they
have such a good job.
And they would look.
You should have seen how theywere looking at you and all that.
(08:52):
And you're like, I just don'tlike them.
But then you're like, oh,that's true.
Yeah, they do have a good job.
I know.
And you should see how nicethey are with their dog.
And then we're like, okay, Iguess I'll go out with them.
And we do that for little tinythings and really big things.
Like, my husband's a jerk.
I don't have a husband.
I'm a lesbian.
(09:12):
But, like, saying thosethings, but, like, my husband.
And then you're like, oh, buthe's a good dad because they played
video games after school, andyou're like, wait, why am I talking
myself out of this?
He's not around.
He chooses his hobbies.
He doesn't know anything aboutyour children.
Go down the list.
If he knows all the sameinformation as you, then cool, he
(09:33):
gets a pass.
But so we do internalize.
So then we think, if I thinkhe's an asshole, it must be something
that I'm doing becauseeveryone else says what a good dad
he is because he drops thekids off in the morning and he's
the only dad that drops thekids off in the morning.
And so everyone's, oh, no, ifI could get my husband to drop the
kids off.
And so then we're like, oh, I might.
(09:55):
I must be too difficult.
I must be asking too much.
I must think I deserve too much.
And that's just the cycle for everything.
Because you think you are the problem.
Suicide is really complicated.
But even if we dial it backone and it's not a death of despair,
then we're in the bucket of addiction.
The jokes, all the mummy wineculture jokes, that's just another
(10:18):
coping technique, right?
Overmedicating some kind ofaddictive cycle, if not just self
loathing, depression,dissatisfaction with your life, ambivalence
like, these are the norm now.
These aren't like, thesearen't somebody you knew who had
this.
If people were honest aboutwhat was happening behind their closed
(10:39):
door, it would, I would put itwell above 90% of mothers in North
America would echo thesentiments in some capacity that
we're talking about right now.
Really?
Oh, easily.
But we're not allowed to saythese things out loud, which is why
when I say them, I speak likethis all the time about motherhood.
Obviously, it's my job and mypassion and my mission and life's
(11:03):
work.
And people are really shockedto hear me say that.
To say that I don't use.
So I don't talk about my roleas a mother, as even the top ten
most interesting things about me.
So if somebody's like, tell meabout you.
And then maybe at the end I'dbe like, oh, and I'm a mom too, Gray,
and she's 17.
Because it wasn't one of my identity.
(11:26):
Like, it didn't define myidentity because it's a thing I did.
Because, I'm sorry.
Let me rephrase that.
Most of the time we've got thetwo buckets, the work of motherhood
and the relationship of motherhood.
And unfortunately, most of thestuff we do is the work of motherhood,
which is laundry, dishes,changing bums, bath time, buying
(11:46):
birthday presents, registeringfor summer camp.
That's the work part, which iswhere we spend most of the time.
And the relationship part, itwould be like sitting and talking
to your kid for fun or like playing.
Not because you only have 15minutes before you have to drop them
to daycare and you feel guiltyabout that.
So you're like, I shouldprobably get some quality time.
But like, literally sitting inthe grass and just seeing what happens,
(12:10):
the way kids would freely bein relationship, the way we would
with any friend, where you'relike, flop on the couch and you catch
up or you go to a restaurantand you just chat for 3 hours.
Like, we don't get to do thatpart of it because we're mothered
out from the work and we don'treally have the time or the interest,
frankly.
Like when you have to do thecrappy parts of something, you're
like, I actually don't want tobe around you.
(12:32):
And I wouldn't fill my cupwith that.
Now, dads do the relationshipof parenting and very little of the
work, which is why kids arealways like, again, in a hetero context,
because they come home andthey haven't had to do any of the
work, even if even full timeat home dad do, like in a hetero
(12:53):
context, still do less of thatemotional and invisible labor than
their partners.
And when I thought of what isthe role of motherhood, I didn't.
I was like, if I say I'm amom, to me, I'm like, that's dishes
and summer camp and diapersand breastfeeding and.
But a lot of people, thatbecomes a really significant part
(13:13):
of their identity.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
It just means that you're in areally big roller coaster that has
a more direct line to impactyour mood and your mental health.
And this is work out of thehouse and in the home, paid, unpaid.
There's so many diets, right,of how families are structured, of
who's earning money and who'sdoing unpaid labor and where are
(13:35):
they earning me and where arethey doing unpaid labor.
So all of that.
But it's really terrible.
And when we bring it back topostpartum mood disorders, when your
identity is so tied to thisrole that's been assigned, and I
also want to highlight, thisis a product of capitalism that we
just, anything unpaid or carejust got lumped into women's work,
(13:58):
mother's work.
And so that is actually acritical pillar of our economy.
It's a trillion dollar free labor.
So the economy can't runwithout women doing this work that's
been dumb.
Dubbed care loving maternal,like these words, all you had to
do is link it to that.
And this was obviously a shiftfrom, in the industrial revolution
(14:20):
because before that, thefamily work and was everybody's work.
And you, it wasn't like, yougo get paid, you don't do this paid
labor.
So this is a shift wherevercapitalism became front and center
in our economy, whichobviously impacts the politic and
the family structure.
And when we have this closelylinked, we actually, the cycle is,
(14:43):
I have to do this to provethat I'm a good mom because this
is a critical part of my identity.
And so you don't give up thethings that you would need to self
preservation.
So when you're feeling reallyanxious or a little bit less with
depression, depending on thesymptoms of depression, but a lot
of times anxiety anddepression go together and so you
feel really anxious.
(15:03):
So you actually bring yourchildren in closer, so you have the
baby in closer, you won't letother people hold and you won't give
up any of those tasks becausegiving them up is actually giving
up a piece of your identity,then what are you?
If people start taking overthose jobs or providing care or cooking
or cleaning your home.
So sometimes I work withclients who are resourced, and I
(15:25):
was like, let's get you somehelp in here.
So.
So let's get somebody once aweek to come clean your home.
And these are folks who havethe privilege of being able to contract
some of that care work out.
And the resistance is sostrong because it's so much more.
If I took away that housecleaning or I took away that cooking
or I took away night nursing,and night nursing is somebody that
(15:47):
comes in and helps with thebaby and then brings the baby, if
the baby is feeding from theperson's body and then takes them
away, and it's really tosupport protecting the sleep of the
parents.
And.
But, like, the idea of takingany of that away is crippling because
that they need that.
And then we add on thisexhaustion as a badge of honor.
(16:07):
So, if you listen in a daycarelineup or school lineup, it's like
a race to the bottom.
Who could do the most andwho's getting the least sleep?
And when was the last time youate a meal?
And when was the last time you showered?
And these are the things thatwe boast about, because all the capitalism
and the patriarchy had to dowas say, a good mom would sacrifice
(16:29):
till she's literally crawlingon the ground.
And so we're like, I haven'teaten in three days, and I haven't
showered in seven.
And I don't know the last timeI even closed my eyes and I baked
these cupcakes, and I'mvolunteering in the class, and I,
like, went to the gym, and wejust like, the worse, the more you
can give, the better.
And the reclamation of ourtime in our bodies would be, like,
(16:51):
we could collapse.
And capitalism and thepatriarchy, if we all just decided,
I will no longer do free laborunless it's for my children, and
I feel called to it.
But, like, we do free laborfor other people to get better earning
potential, and they don'trecognize it, right?
Like, picking up somebodyelse's dry cleaning so that they
(17:11):
can go advance their careerand make more money and those kind
of things.
Like those.
That's the capitalism.
Free labor, I'm talking about.
But if we just said no tothose things, it would collapse our
industry.
Its foundation is women doingfree care work.
But the problem is, we wouldthen have to give up our identity,
right?
So every time we're like,yeah, we hate this.
We wish it wasn't like this.
(17:33):
The sacrifice is also reallybig because we do have to give something
up.
And when we're looking at mooddisorders, it's really complicated.
It's not.
Just get a therapist.
Have someone clean your house.
I'll take the baby.
You go to sleep.
Like, there's.
When we look at it from allthese angles, it's a really big beast.
And if we back it up and havepeople birthing and going through
(17:56):
their pregnancy feelingempowered and not harmed by a system
and then going into parentinglike that, that would be part of
the solution.
But that's massive.
That's a systemic correction.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's feeling disempowered fromthe get go.
(18:16):
Is it just completely disempowered?
From my personal experience,it completely made me feel disempowered.
As a mom.
(18:37):
Yeah.
As a woman.
As a citizen.
Yes.
As a citizen.
Yes.
Yes.
I felt like I almost had toprove that I was worthy.
No, I have twins.
(18:59):
Double the fun.
Yeah.
I felt like I had to provethat I was worthy of being, like.
Of getting the job, of beingtheir mother, even though I had given
(19:21):
birth to them.
Yes.
Yeah, I know.
Why did that feel threatened?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's all of these.
It's all of these things, and it's.
Man, there's just so littlespace for us to tell the truth, which
is what I talked about in myother interview.
(19:42):
Is that truth telling?
Like, in our heads, we havethese flickers where the truth comes
out of.
I hate this.
I wish I didn't do this.
I don't want this.
Like, those kind of things.
And it can be that loud andclear when we're in our real lows,
like, at 04:00 a.m.
with two grandkids who were,like, had just thrown up on the sofa.
Like, those moments were like,oh, I hate this.
(20:03):
But we're like, oh, it's justbecause it's so bad right now, but,
like, we have the flicker ofhating the work of motherhood a lot.
But again, we self, we bringit in, and we disarm ourselves, and
then we right away shameourselves because we're so ungrateful.
What if somebody.
The evil eye, like, whateveryour cultural, social, political
beliefs, like, whatever it is.
(20:24):
But we feel like we can't saythat because by saying, it's saying
we regret our children or wedon't love our children.
And that's why I keep wantingmoms to know that the work part sucks.
It's a 24 7365 job.
It's inhumane.
Nobody should have to worklike that.
And we can say we hate that.
(20:45):
And the more we say, I hatethe work of motherhood.
I don't want to do that.
I don't want to have somebody,like on me all the time.
We had a storm and my windowsblew in and smashed on the weekend.
And so yesterday, the glassguy came and he was like, a chatty
guy in my kitchen.
And he was like, oh, I had ababy, and I travel a lot.
(21:05):
So actually, your wife doesn'twant to be with your baby all the
time.
And he was like, oh.
I was like, I know youprobably think that, but she doesn't
like it.
It's not fun for her.
She loves your baby, but shewants you to be able to do things.
And he was like, I'm trying tobook her a trip away.
And I tried to tell her, like,you should go out.
And I was like, but I bet whenshe's out, you text her non stop
(21:29):
about, what's this?
Why is the baby crying?
Where is this kept?
What is this?
And he's like, yeah.
And I was like, so if you'regoing to send her out of the home,
you have to pretend that she'snot accessible and never text her.
And you figure out how yourown house works and where your baby's
things are.
And he was like, oh, okay.
And I was like, I literallyjust saved your marriage because
she's hating you every day alittle bit more.
(21:52):
And if you're still togetherwhen your child is nine, it will
be a miracle.
And I talk to men like thisbecause I don't owe them anything.
I'm speaking on behalf ofwomen who don't get to say this to
them.
And then I was like, and whenshe gets to leave and hands free
grocery shopping is nothing afun reward like, you taking the baby
(22:13):
so that she can go do morechores without the baby is not fun.
I was like, she needs to be afunctioning human, which means she
has to have at least a fewhours a day to go do whatever she
wants, which might be cry inthe car, it might be go see a movie,
it might be shopping, aleisure activity.
And he was like, oh, yeah, okay.
And I was like, and when shereturns, this poor guy just wanted
(22:36):
to fix my window and get outof there.
But of course she returns.
Your house had better be cleanbecause if she comes home and your
baby is still awake and thekitchen is a mess and it's chaos
and you couldn't get her tosleep and all of those things, she
might as well have not leftbecause she has to do more work that
she had to do anyway, but nowis up later.
(22:58):
And he was like, okay.
I was like, you're welcome.
You will probably be stayingmarried if you actually listen to
what I just said to you.
But, like, those are the realities.
And if I talk to most women,they'd be like, yeah, I don't leave
because it's too hard.
Or, yeah, I try to leave, buthe texts nonstop.
The kids are fighting.
They won't go to sleep.
(23:18):
Where do we keep their shoes?
I forgot the bag.
What do I do?
Where's diaper cream?
Is this normal?
Like, with kids crying in thebackground, calling?
And you're like, I just wantedto go for dinner with my friends.
Yeah, this was supposed to beleisure time because when they're
out, we don't need to textthem because we know where everything
is.
And so I was like, it's yourhome and your child.
(23:40):
You should know as much as she does.
Yes.
Give me a soapbox.
Thank you for coming.
You need a soapbox.
I have lots.
I have a very big platformwith my community.
I have a podcast which does.
I don't really promote it, butI do know I have a few thousand folks
(24:01):
that hang out and listen to me Rantin.
And then I have the menu.
Hot and brave.
Yes.
Yeah, it's right.
Like, we need our to be hotand brave.
Like, we need to be mad like this.
And it's easy for me to talkto other people's husbands like that
because I know I lived indomestic violence, so I couldn't
have gone home.
(24:21):
I did, but there wasconsequences to it.
I did say these things beinglike, why are you texting me where
diapers are?
Like, learn where the diapers are.
But there's a blowback whenyou're in an unsafe living environment
for talking to an abuser like that.
But to other people, I always scan.
I'm mindful of how people feelwhen they go home because more violence
(24:42):
happens than not.
If we actually look at thebucket of financial abuse, emotional
abuse, verbal abuse, physicalabuse, sexual abuse.
Like, there's lots ofdifferent ways that can happen.
And I would say most women areliving with one of those.
And so I am mindful of, Iassessed before terror strip out
of a husband.
But I do it all.
(25:03):
Like, very important.
Like, we need people telling this.
Like, this is information thatI know inside and out, but it's surprising
for people to hear.
Like, they're like, what?
Oh.
Like, he looked genuinelyshocked that he was like, oh, she
doesn't like when I text hernonstop when she's not at home?
No, she hates it.
She hates it.
(25:23):
It's terrible.
It's not fun.
So do you think.
Why do you.
So why do you think that isthat a husband hasn't thought of
that?
We've normalized it, right.
Because we considered our work.
They're not supposed to knowthat they made the money.
But the statistics show thateven when women are the financial
(25:46):
provider for a household, sothey make the most income, as far
as paid labor goes, the actualtreatment and disrespect and incompetencies
increase so it doesn't get better.
So no matter what, whetherwe're a financial dependency, because
we don't have any paid labor,which is the most precarious situation.
(26:06):
And it's the same if we makeall the money for the household.
And so because we'venormalized all of these things as
care work and women's work.
And so anything that men dofor it is considered, like, helping.
I'm helping you with your job.
Right.
And so they don't see it as a problem.
(26:27):
They think the fact thatthey're home with their child right
now is, you're welcome.
And interestingly, when theydid research of talking to families,
talking to hetero couples,we'll just put queer families to
the side.
I love you.
I see you.
And when we're talking aboutthe cis het, which is where the garbage
is happening, it's the tragedyof heterosexuality.
(26:47):
I feel so sad for all mystring friends.
I'm like, I'm so sorry.
That's what you like?
Because it sucks.
It sucks for you.
And when they talk to familiesthat would self describe themselves
as very egalitarian, so theywould say, we do a really good job
with our division of labor.
Like, we're 50 50 when theytalked to them, and they actually
(27:09):
had those folks track theirhours of work like their parenting
work.
So, like, log in.
How long for dishes?
How long for laundry?
How long for driving the kidsto school?
When they tracked it, familieswould, like, die on the cross of
50 50, and that is when it's60 40.
And so when they had hard datato be like, actually, she does 60%,
(27:32):
you do 40%.
Both parents would report 50 50.
Wow.
Yeah.
So there's really interesting research.
The stuff I'm saying is notjust, like, an angry lesbian.
No, there's amazing research.
One of my favorite books ispull this out.
It's called all the rage.
You can see I cite it all the time.
(27:52):
It's all the rage by Darcy Lachman.
I love her.
She was a guest on my podcast,she just spent a few years and gathered
all research around the sub.
The byline of the book ismothers, fathers and the myth of
equal partnership.
So the whole thing is allstudies that have been done on looking
at how there's just such amassive gap in family care.
(28:17):
And when I was interviewing onmy podcast, it was really fun because
at the end of, or close to theend of the podcast, she was talking
about that men think thatwe're all like very worldly or they're
very proud of themselves whenthey support women working out of
the home.
So they're like, yeah, forsure, you should go start your business.
For sure, go get a job.
Because never in thatconversation is it even cross their
(28:39):
mind that it means that thefamily part of it will now have to
be divided.
It's, they're like, go get a job.
Go be a CEO.
Climb that corporate ladder.
Like, I'm so proud of you.
Go open that gym.
Like whatever the thing isthat they want to do.
And it's because you willstill have to do all of the family
(29:00):
care, the home care.
And so the really big detailthat men would see themselves though,
as being really supportive.
So as long as we continue touphold this belief that women's work
and care work belongs to us.
And the bucket just keepsgetting heavier.
Like now we have to have freerange chickens in our backyard.
(29:22):
Like, it just like the bar ofwhat a good mom looks like.
And what's women's work?
It's getting, it's pretty mucheverything now.
And simultaneously, men aregetting less competent, they're doing
less anything around thehouse, like the number of mums.
So I talk to women on mass allthe time that they're like.
(29:43):
They also do the lawn mowingand the car repair and the trip booking.
And historically, those werethe things you women did in the house,
men did out of the house, andbig purchases were made by men.
But now if you talk moms booktrips and we do all the research
and we check what tv is goingto be the best that they can get
us here, and it will fit inthe cabinet like we're doing all
(30:04):
of those things as well,dropping cars off, checking the batteries.
Like, men don't know aboutthose things.
I feel very skewed now becauseI just left the city and I live rurally
and it's like, and like areally agricultural community I live
in.
And so they're those verycompetent man men.
But if you look at suburbs andcities we're seeing like this time
(30:29):
and we need to have space fromour children, period.
But when they also looked atthe research, if they looked at a
blueprint of the house, and ifyou tracked people through the house,
this has been done.
And so they tracked them andthey saw where people spent time
and in what diets.
The majority of time, momswere, like, never alone, essentially
(30:51):
any room, including the bathroom.
They had children with them on them.
So, like, every space theymoved through, they got into their
bed.
Children were in their bed,they were in the bathroom trying
to, like, everywhere.
And men spent the majority ofthe time in rooms alone.
And so that is so fascinating.
(31:13):
I know.
And so now if you look atthese things are happening even when
there's a PMAD, and a PMAD isa perinatal mood disorder, like anxiety
and depression.
And so you can imagine you'retrying, like, you're not well, and
these acts aren't changing.
And then the person, the otherperson is just alone, most likely
(31:34):
in the garage or the living room.
If we're going to look at twotypical gender, like, the tv room,
going to bed alone, thebasement, like those kind of things.
And I also just want to do aquick plug if we're talking about
mental health, that men arenot thriving in the patriarchy either.
So that being aloneness, thisis women, do not soften on your stance
(31:54):
and feel now like, you have todo care for these men, but they are
struggling, and they won'tgive up their power.
And until they give it up, wecan't have equity.
And so they are alone.
They don't.
Their parental brain is not changing.
So, like, it requires contactand care.
Work for your brain to change,to prioritize the well being of your
(32:18):
children, which is why men cando things like sacrifice their children,
or, like, when they leave,they don't pay child support, and
they don't consider them,like, all of these things because
they actually didn't gothrough the parental brain changes.
Yes, yes.
Yeah.
They're suffering in that they don't.
They feel isolated.
They actually don't like that.
They don't know anything aboutteachers names, friends names, friends
(32:40):
parents names, shoe sizes.
If you poll most dads, theydon't know any of those.
And people think they're funny TikToks.
And I'm like, this is asymptom of how sad and sick our society
is, that it's consideredindifference versus before the family
unit mattered.
But to have one parenthoodknow 100%, the other knows zero.
That's some bullshit.
(33:03):
Again, I'm bullshitting.
Especially it makes me thinkof a child with special needs or
special medical needs.
Yeah.
My twins were born early andthey both have different specialists
(33:23):
and they do physical therapy.
And it's a lot.
It's so much, so much.
Keep track of.
It's just added on top of whatyou would do with a child not living
with disabilities.
And while we're looking atPMADs, it looks, you can see how
(33:44):
impossible the situation is tohave movement and wellness.
I also think it would beremiss for me not to point out that
the conversation we're havinghere, there's a very, there's a line
where it's actually not safefor a lot of folks to even disclose,
to get help.
So, and until we're able totalk about our symptoms, like when
I put this workout, you wantto talk about how deep this hits
(34:07):
because it was used in familycourt, because essentially grace
hold life.
I was in a, I don't know why Ican call it a custody battle, but
it wasn't because I've never,I've done 100% of her care all the
time, but because mydisclosure of a PMAT was used even
still, when I publish and talkabout it, I do all the time.
(34:29):
My 26, 27 year old self isstill scared.
When I published that article,I was scared because I'm used to
those being used in courtexcerpts, photocopies of my blogs,
sound bites from my podcast,that there would be some kind of
blowback for me.
And so when I posted it, Istill had a flicker of, oh, he could
(34:50):
read this.
And my body felt scaredbecause it's a cycle of abuse.
Even though I haven't been init and I have had no contact with
him for over a decade, it'sstill, I still felt scared that I
was like, oh, what if they see this?
And I put in writing that Iwas like struggling and had suicidal
ideation and it was dark and Ithought I was a bad mom.
(35:12):
And these were all the thingsthat he said I was a bad mom and
the court said I was a bad mom.
And so I think that also needsto be talked about.
When we talk about familycourt as well as in the US, the US
and Canada for equity seekingfolks, the risk of apprehension goes
up like that.
That cannot be the consequenceof you reaching out saying you have
(35:32):
a PMAT, is that the risk isthey come and take your children.
But that's how the system isset up again, because it's a business.
And the more kids they grab,the more money they make in Canada,
the more kids they grab, theless money they make.
But they still tend to grab,especially indigenous children.
They're removed constantlyfrom their families and given to
(35:52):
settlers and colonizers.
The fact that I can familycourt I was impacted.
But I do know I have a lot ofprivilege as a white person with
the education I have and theclass markers I sit in or believe
to whole that I could go andtalk about mental health things and
get that support, family courtesy.
But a lot of folks can't.
(36:15):
And so we actually can't doanything about it besides live in
this really unjust family structure.
Suffering and suffering in silence.
And so again, it's no surprisethat we see death by suicide being
one of the leading causes ofdeath in the perinatal period.
And that window just folksunderstand this, it is not when you
(36:36):
have a newborn, the highestrate of a loss due to a death of
despair is actually nine totwelve months postpartum.
And that's.
That is the highest risk period.
If somebody is going to choose or.
I'm careful with my languagehere, but because I want people to
see suicide as a cause ofdeath like cancer or heart attack,
(36:57):
because it is, it's related toan illness.
And so I actually encouragepeople to just explore the language
and I'm trying to eradicatesomething like killed themselves
or committed suicide becauseit feels way more lucid and voluntary
versus it being perceived assomething that happens because they
(37:18):
lost the battle to aninvisible illness.
I just ask some final thoughts.
I think reaching out to peopleand providing the type of support,
especially if you've had thislived experience that you know what
you would have wanted andstarting to dialogue, even just you
and I saying I'm strugglingwith the same feeling so that we
(37:39):
can see that we are allstruggling with it.
Bianca Sprague.
She is the founder of Bebomia,which operates in 49 countries.
Is that right?
Yeah, 50 as of last week.
Oh, my goodness.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
I was waiting for that one.
It took way too long to breakthat 50.
(00:40):
I was like, I'm tired ofsaying 49.
It's not as sexy as 50.
50 does sound very complete.
Yeah, like a complete set.
Yeah.
We are in that many countries.
That's incredible.
It blows my mind.
Yeah.
It's bigger than I everimagined when I started this as a
(01:04):
under resourced, postpartum depression.
26 year old necessity is themother of invention.
Yeah.
It was very quickly after,which is something I don't always
recommend, that you have ababy and start a business at exactly
the same time.
However, a lot of folks feelcalled to do something because of
(01:29):
how change they feel afterthey have a baby.
I have a doula trainingprogram, and the number one reason
why, when I ask why are youhere on the first day of school?
They're like, because thisthing happened to me, and I have
to make sure nobody else hasthat happened to them.
So they're like, they are.
It's not uncommon.
Most of my students havebabies at their breast or chest while
(01:52):
they're in classes, andthey're doing all the parent stuff
because they feel changed frombirth and their parenting journey.
We do have a few that arelike, that was magical, and I hope
everybody has that.
And that's my goal.
But most of the time, it'speople feel harmed or that they're
like, I don't want to put mykids in daycare.
Like, the birth was a reasonwhy they're changing their lives.
(02:13):
Seems from the interviews thatI've done, and yours included, that
the day of birth, the day ofgiving birth.
That.
Experience in a hospitalsetting, they've all been in a hospital
setting.
That experience set the tonefor months and years, even of suffering.
(02:45):
Suffering.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's.
I mean, our system, it'sdestroying us.
And a lot of people keepcalling it a broken system, but it
was very strategicallydesigned by the patriarchy to break
us.
And I'm not going to get towomen's studies here.
I could, but really, byensuring people are broken in birth,
(03:07):
we then are broken into ourparenting journey.
And that is the mostdisempowering thing.
You're reading these stories,and how better do we repress and
control the most powerfulpeople on the planet, which are people
with the uterus?
We're magical.
But when we feel broken at ourmost, our most powerful essence,
(03:27):
which is our ability to givebirth and bring life forth.
It's an.
A really intense journey.
It changes us at a cellular level.
But if we feel like we failed.
So even the language used inthe hospital, failure to progress,
instead of just calling itlabor dystocia, or we're tired of
waiting for you, we are nowgoing in doubting, which is what
(03:49):
I shared in my previousinterview with you, is we've.
We feel like we failed our bodies.
We had to get induced.
We had to get augmented.
We couldn't get the baby out.
So there's something calledcephalopelvic disproportion.
So that's saying that thebaby's head is too big for the birthing
person's hips.
It is such a true CPD.
Cephalopelvic disproportion isso rare.
(04:09):
Like, it's so rare because bydesign, a birthing person's body
is going to know how big babycan get.
So very rarely, however, it'sin the top two reasons for c sections,
unplanned emergency c sections.
And I love, there's so manygreat videos.
If anybody had a CPD diagnosisas your reason, there's great videos
(04:32):
on YouTube that are, like,birthing people giving, like, the
middle finger to the medicalsystem because they'll have a bigger
second baby or third baby.
So they had a c section, butnow they'll have a pelvic birth with
a much bigger baby.
So it makes no sense.
Like, it's discrediting theirpelvic disproportion diagnosis.
And we keep thinking that ourbodies couldn't do this thing, and
(04:52):
then we go into.
Into feeding from our body orlactation, breastfeeding, all the
same thing.
And then we're failing at that.
Like, we've never had moresocial support in any other period
of history.
But the worst outcomes aroundinfant feeding, there's a whole bunch
of reasons why.
Big one being trauma, secondone being medications that are commonly
used that we don't knowactually stop the cycle for us to
(05:14):
ability to produce milk.
So, like, the pitocin thatthey give us in the hospital is actually
the historical use of it hasnow caused our body to not be able
to produce as enough milk tofeed our children.
And so we don't know thesethings, right?
But all we do know is that we failed.
So we're like, oh, I tried tohave a baby and it didn't work.
I tried to breastfeed, and itdidn't work.
(05:35):
And now we feel broken, andwe're so far behind, not to mention
just the PTSD.
So postpartum PTSD is now apretty common diagnosis, unfortunately.
And there's no wonder we'rehaving so many mood disorders in
the perinatal period.
Depression, anxiety,psychosis, because of how terrible
(05:56):
we experience pregnancy andbirth, which is why I do the work
I do, because I'm like, if wefelt empowered in birth, we would
now feel empowered in our bodies.
We would probably have lessdisordered eating.
We would vote.
We would say no.
We would leave crappy husbandswe would like, but we're tired and
we're traumatized.
So obviously, we keepcontrolling weird things like our
(06:20):
weight, which we have verylittle control over.
And then we're hungry andtraumatized, and then we stay in
crappy marriages, and we stayin crappy jobs, and we accept crappy
care from daycares, becausewhere do you even start?
I don't have data to back thisup, but I.
(06:42):
I have lots of.
You, if you want to.
Right.
Women tend to internalize more.
Yeah.
That's why there's moresuicide rather than homicide.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(07:02):
For sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Suicide is one of the leadingcauses of death in the perinatal
period.
Ironically, today is suicideprevention day, and I do.
I know I do a lot of work inthe suicide loss and prevention community
after losing my dad to suicidein 2012.
And I, like, dove into it, andI struggled with.
(07:25):
I don't want to say struggledwith suicidal thoughts.
I'm now very clear of andspeaking out around differentiating
suicidal ideation and suicidal planning.
They're two very different things.
And suicidal ideation is apretty common coping technique.
And so, especially for women,because it's.
We have so little control overour lives, I think if we were able
to talk more about thesethings, we could move through depression.
(07:48):
We could talk about our anxiety.
If we're like, I don't want tobe here.
I love my kids, and I don'twant to be here and be able to safely
say that and have ourcommunity see that as a.
This person needs help.
This person needs love, thisperson needs care.
Not institutional, not, let'sget you set up with a therapist.
But you.
You probably mostly need food,water, and sleep, and you would feel
(08:10):
a million times better.
But, like, all of this stuffhappens in the shadows, and we do
internalize it because that'show we've been taught to cope, because
we've been talked out oftrusting our gut.
Like, when we trust our gut,we're like, I don't like that daycare.
And you actually don't need to qualify.
Why?
You're just like, I don'tknow, something about it.
It just doesn't feel like aplace I want to leave my children.
(08:32):
Even if it was the best, thefanciest, close to your work, your
friends.
Kids go there and love it.
Like, you just don't want to.
But we are always feelings.
And so when we, you know, youcould go on a date with someone,
you're like, I don't know.
I just don't like them.
But your friends are like, oh,my God, they're so great and they
have such a good job.
And they would look.
You should have seen how theywere looking at you and all that.
(08:52):
And you're like, I just don'tlike them.
But then you're like, oh,that's true.
Yeah, they do have a good job.
I know.
And you should see how nicethey are with their dog.
And then we're like, okay, Iguess I'll go out with them.
And we do that for little tinythings and really big things.
Like, my husband's a jerk.
I don't have a husband.
I'm a lesbian.
(09:12):
But, like, saying thosethings, but, like, my husband.
And then you're like, oh, buthe's a good dad because they played
video games after school, andyou're like, wait, why am I talking
myself out of this?
He's not around.
He chooses his hobbies.
He doesn't know anything aboutyour children.
Go down the list.
If he knows all the sameinformation as you, then cool, he
(09:33):
gets a pass.
But so we do internalize.
So then we think, if I thinkhe's an asshole, it must be something
that I'm doing becauseeveryone else says what a good dad
he is because he drops thekids off in the morning and he's
the only dad that drops thekids off in the morning.
And so everyone's, oh, no, ifI could get my husband to drop the
kids off.
And so then we're like, oh, I might.
(09:55):
I must be too difficult.
I must be asking too much.
I must think I deserve too much.
And that's just the cycle for everything.
Because you think you are the problem.
Suicide is really complicated.
But even if we dial it backone and it's not a death of despair,
then we're in the bucket of addiction.
The jokes, all the mummy wineculture jokes, that's just another
(10:18):
coping technique, right?
Overmedicating some kind ofaddictive cycle, if not just self
loathing, depression,dissatisfaction with your life, ambivalence
like, these are the norm now.
These aren't like, thesearen't somebody you knew who had
this.
If people were honest aboutwhat was happening behind their closed
(10:39):
door, it would, I would put itwell above 90% of mothers in North
America would echo thesentiments in some capacity that
we're talking about right now.
Really?
Oh, easily.
But we're not allowed to saythese things out loud, which is why
when I say them, I speak likethis all the time about motherhood.
Obviously, it's my job and mypassion and my mission and life's
(11:03):
work.
And people are really shockedto hear me say that.
To say that I don't use.
So I don't talk about my roleas a mother, as even the top ten
most interesting things about me.
So if somebody's like, tell meabout you.
And then maybe at the end I'dbe like, oh, and I'm a mom too, Gray,
and she's 17.
Because it wasn't one of my identity.
(11:26):
Like, it didn't define myidentity because it's a thing I did.
Because, I'm sorry.
Let me rephrase that.
Most of the time we've got thetwo buckets, the work of motherhood
and the relationship of motherhood.
And unfortunately, most of thestuff we do is the work of motherhood,
which is laundry, dishes,changing bums, bath time, buying
(11:46):
birthday presents, registeringfor summer camp.
That's the work part, which iswhere we spend most of the time.
And the relationship part, itwould be like sitting and talking
to your kid for fun or like playing.
Not because you only have 15minutes before you have to drop them
to daycare and you feel guiltyabout that.
So you're like, I shouldprobably get some quality time.
But like, literally sitting inthe grass and just seeing what happens,
(12:10):
the way kids would freely bein relationship, the way we would
with any friend, where you'relike, flop on the couch and you catch
up or you go to a restaurantand you just chat for 3 hours.
Like, we don't get to do thatpart of it because we're mothered
out from the work and we don'treally have the time or the interest,
frankly.
Like when you have to do thecrappy parts of something, you're
like, I actually don't want tobe around you.
(12:32):
And I wouldn't fill my cupwith that.
Now, dads do the relationshipof parenting and very little of the
work, which is why kids arealways like, again, in a hetero context,
because they come home andthey haven't had to do any of the
work, even if even full timeat home dad do, like in a hetero
(12:53):
context, still do less of thatemotional and invisible labor than
their partners.
And when I thought of what isthe role of motherhood, I didn't.
I was like, if I say I'm amom, to me, I'm like, that's dishes
and summer camp and diapersand breastfeeding and.
But a lot of people, thatbecomes a really significant part
(13:13):
of their identity.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
It just means that you're in areally big roller coaster that has
a more direct line to impactyour mood and your mental health.
And this is work out of thehouse and in the home, paid, unpaid.
There's so many diets, right,of how families are structured, of
who's earning money and who'sdoing unpaid labor and where are
(13:35):
they earning me and where arethey doing unpaid labor.
So all of that.
But it's really terrible.
And when we bring it back topostpartum mood disorders, when your
identity is so tied to thisrole that's been assigned, and I
also want to highlight, thisis a product of capitalism that we
just, anything unpaid or carejust got lumped into women's work,
(13:58):
mother's work.
And so that is actually acritical pillar of our economy.
It's a trillion dollar free labor.
So the economy can't runwithout women doing this work that's
been dumb.
Dubbed care loving maternal,like these words, all you had to
do is link it to that.
And this was obviously a shiftfrom, in the industrial revolution
(14:20):
because before that, thefamily work and was everybody's work.
And you, it wasn't like, yougo get paid, you don't do this paid
labor.
So this is a shift wherevercapitalism became front and center
in our economy, whichobviously impacts the politic and
the family structure.
And when we have this closelylinked, we actually, the cycle is,
(14:43):
I have to do this to provethat I'm a good mom because this
is a critical part of my identity.
And so you don't give up thethings that you would need to self
preservation.
So when you're feeling reallyanxious or a little bit less with
depression, depending on thesymptoms of depression, but a lot
of times anxiety anddepression go together and so you
feel really anxious.
(15:03):
So you actually bring yourchildren in closer, so you have the
baby in closer, you won't letother people hold and you won't give
up any of those tasks becausegiving them up is actually giving
up a piece of your identity,then what are you?
If people start taking overthose jobs or providing care or cooking
or cleaning your home.
So sometimes I work withclients who are resourced, and I
(15:25):
was like, let's get you somehelp in here.
So.
So let's get somebody once aweek to come clean your home.
And these are folks who havethe privilege of being able to contract
some of that care work out.
And the resistance is sostrong because it's so much more.
If I took away that housecleaning or I took away that cooking
or I took away night nursing,and night nursing is somebody that
(15:47):
comes in and helps with thebaby and then brings the baby, if
the baby is feeding from theperson's body and then takes them
away, and it's really tosupport protecting the sleep of the
parents.
And.
But, like, the idea of takingany of that away is crippling because
that they need that.
And then we add on thisexhaustion as a badge of honor.
(16:07):
So, if you listen in a daycarelineup or school lineup, it's like
a race to the bottom.
Who could do the most andwho's getting the least sleep?
And when was the last time youate a meal?
And when was the last time you showered?
And these are the things thatwe boast about, because all the capitalism
and the patriarchy had to dowas say, a good mom would sacrifice
(16:29):
till she's literally crawlingon the ground.
And so we're like, I haven'teaten in three days, and I haven't
showered in seven.
And I don't know the last timeI even closed my eyes and I baked
these cupcakes, and I'mvolunteering in the class, and I,
like, went to the gym, and wejust like, the worse, the more you
can give, the better.
And the reclamation of ourtime in our bodies would be, like,
(16:51):
we could collapse.
And capitalism and thepatriarchy, if we all just decided,
I will no longer do free laborunless it's for my children, and
I feel called to it.
But, like, we do free laborfor other people to get better earning
potential, and they don'trecognize it, right?
Like, picking up somebodyelse's dry cleaning so that they
(17:11):
can go advance their careerand make more money and those kind
of things.
Like those.
That's the capitalism.
Free labor, I'm talking about.
But if we just said no tothose things, it would collapse our
industry.
Its foundation is women doingfree care work.
But the problem is, we wouldthen have to give up our identity,
right?
So every time we're like,yeah, we hate this.
We wish it wasn't like this.
(17:33):
The sacrifice is also reallybig because we do have to give something
up.
And when we're looking at mooddisorders, it's really complicated.
It's not.
Just get a therapist.
Have someone clean your house.
I'll take the baby.
You go to sleep.
Like, there's.
When we look at it from allthese angles, it's a really big beast.
And if we back it up and havepeople birthing and going through
(17:56):
their pregnancy feelingempowered and not harmed by a system
and then going into parentinglike that, that would be part of
the solution.
But that's massive.
That's a systemic correction.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's feeling disempowered fromthe get go.
(18:16):
Is it just completely disempowered?
From my personal experience,it completely made me feel disempowered.
As a mom.
(18:37):
Yeah.
As a woman.
As a citizen.
Yes.
As a citizen.
Yes.
Yes.
I felt like I almost had toprove that I was worthy.
No, I have twins.
(18:59):
Double the fun.
Yeah.
I felt like I had to provethat I was worthy of being, like.
Of getting the job, of beingtheir mother, even though I had given
(19:21):
birth to them.
Yes.
Yeah, I know.
Why did that feel threatened?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's all of these.
It's all of these things, and it's.
Man, there's just so littlespace for us to tell the truth, which
is what I talked about in myother interview.
(19:42):
Is that truth telling?
Like, in our heads, we havethese flickers where the truth comes
out of.
I hate this.
I wish I didn't do this.
I don't want this.
Like, those kind of things.
And it can be that loud andclear when we're in our real lows,
like, at 04:00 a.m.
with two grandkids who were,like, had just thrown up on the sofa.
Like, those moments were like,oh, I hate this.
(20:03):
But we're like, oh, it's justbecause it's so bad right now, but,
like, we have the flicker ofhating the work of motherhood a lot.
But again, we self, we bringit in, and we disarm ourselves, and
then we right away shameourselves because we're so ungrateful.
What if somebody.
The evil eye, like, whateveryour cultural, social, political
beliefs, like, whatever it is.
(20:24):
But we feel like we can't saythat because by saying, it's saying
we regret our children or wedon't love our children.
And that's why I keep wantingmoms to know that the work part sucks.
It's a 24 7365 job.
It's inhumane.
Nobody should have to worklike that.
And we can say we hate that.
(20:45):
And the more we say, I hatethe work of motherhood.
I don't want to do that.
I don't want to have somebody,like on me all the time.
We had a storm and my windowsblew in and smashed on the weekend.
And so yesterday, the glassguy came and he was like, a chatty
guy in my kitchen.
And he was like, oh, I had ababy, and I travel a lot.
(21:05):
So actually, your wife doesn'twant to be with your baby all the
time.
And he was like, oh.
I was like, I know youprobably think that, but she doesn't
like it.
It's not fun for her.
She loves your baby, but shewants you to be able to do things.
And he was like, I'm trying tobook her a trip away.
And I tried to tell her, like,you should go out.
And I was like, but I bet whenshe's out, you text her non stop
(21:29):
about, what's this?
Why is the baby crying?
Where is this kept?
What is this?
And he's like, yeah.
And I was like, so if you'regoing to send her out of the home,
you have to pretend that she'snot accessible and never text her.
And you figure out how yourown house works and where your baby's
things are.
And he was like, oh, okay.
And I was like, I literallyjust saved your marriage because
she's hating you every day alittle bit more.
(21:52):
And if you're still togetherwhen your child is nine, it will
be a miracle.
And I talk to men like thisbecause I don't owe them anything.
I'm speaking on behalf ofwomen who don't get to say this to
them.
And then I was like, and whenshe gets to leave and hands free
grocery shopping is nothing afun reward like, you taking the baby
(22:13):
so that she can go do morechores without the baby is not fun.
I was like, she needs to be afunctioning human, which means she
has to have at least a fewhours a day to go do whatever she
wants, which might be cry inthe car, it might be go see a movie,
it might be shopping, aleisure activity.
And he was like, oh, yeah, okay.
And I was like, and when shereturns, this poor guy just wanted
(22:36):
to fix my window and get outof there.
But of course she returns.
Your house had better be cleanbecause if she comes home and your
baby is still awake and thekitchen is a mess and it's chaos
and you couldn't get her tosleep and all of those things, she
might as well have not leftbecause she has to do more work that
she had to do anyway, but nowis up later.
(22:58):
And he was like, okay.
I was like, you're welcome.
You will probably be stayingmarried if you actually listen to
what I just said to you.
But, like, those are the realities.
And if I talk to most women,they'd be like, yeah, I don't leave
because it's too hard.
Or, yeah, I try to leave, buthe texts nonstop.
The kids are fighting.
They won't go to sleep.
(23:18):
Where do we keep their shoes?
I forgot the bag.
What do I do?
Where's diaper cream?
Is this normal?
Like, with kids crying in thebackground, calling?
And you're like, I just wantedto go for dinner with my friends.
Yeah, this was supposed to beleisure time because when they're
out, we don't need to textthem because we know where everything
is.
And so I was like, it's yourhome and your child.
(23:40):
You should know as much as she does.
Yes.
Give me a soapbox.
Thank you for coming.
You need a soapbox.
I have lots.
I have a very big platformwith my community.
I have a podcast which does.
I don't really promote it, butI do know I have a few thousand folks
(24:01):
that hang out and listen to me Rantin.
And then I have the menu.
Hot and brave.
Yes.
Yeah, it's right.
Like, we need our to be hotand brave.
Like, we need to be mad like this.
And it's easy for me to talkto other people's husbands like that
because I know I lived indomestic violence, so I couldn't
have gone home.
(24:21):
I did, but there wasconsequences to it.
I did say these things beinglike, why are you texting me where
diapers are?
Like, learn where the diapers are.
But there's a blowback whenyou're in an unsafe living environment
for talking to an abuser like that.
But to other people, I always scan.
I'm mindful of how people feelwhen they go home because more violence
(24:42):
happens than not.
If we actually look at thebucket of financial abuse, emotional
abuse, verbal abuse, physicalabuse, sexual abuse.
Like, there's lots ofdifferent ways that can happen.
And I would say most women areliving with one of those.
And so I am mindful of, Iassessed before terror strip out
of a husband.
But I do it all.
(25:03):
Like, very important.
Like, we need people telling this.
Like, this is information thatI know inside and out, but it's surprising
for people to hear.
Like, they're like, what?
Oh.
Like, he looked genuinelyshocked that he was like, oh, she
doesn't like when I text hernonstop when she's not at home?
No, she hates it.
She hates it.
(25:23):
It's terrible.
It's not fun.
So do you think.
Why do you.
So why do you think that isthat a husband hasn't thought of
that?
We've normalized it, right.
Because we considered our work.
They're not supposed to knowthat they made the money.
But the statistics show thateven when women are the financial
(25:46):
provider for a household, sothey make the most income, as far
as paid labor goes, the actualtreatment and disrespect and incompetencies
increase so it doesn't get better.
So no matter what, whetherwe're a financial dependency, because
we don't have any paid labor,which is the most precarious situation.
(26:06):
And it's the same if we makeall the money for the household.
And so because we'venormalized all of these things as
care work and women's work.
And so anything that men dofor it is considered, like, helping.
I'm helping you with your job.
Right.
And so they don't see it as a problem.
(26:27):
They think the fact thatthey're home with their child right
now is, you're welcome.
And interestingly, when theydid research of talking to families,
talking to hetero couples,we'll just put queer families to
the side.
I love you.
I see you.
And when we're talking aboutthe cis het, which is where the garbage
is happening, it's the tragedyof heterosexuality.
(26:47):
I feel so sad for all mystring friends.
I'm like, I'm so sorry.
That's what you like?
Because it sucks.
It sucks for you.
And when they talk to familiesthat would self describe themselves
as very egalitarian, so theywould say, we do a really good job
with our division of labor.
Like, we're 50 50 when theytalked to them, and they actually
(27:09):
had those folks track theirhours of work like their parenting
work.
So, like, log in.
How long for dishes?
How long for laundry?
How long for driving the kidsto school?
When they tracked it, familieswould, like, die on the cross of
50 50, and that is when it's60 40.
And so when they had hard datato be like, actually, she does 60%,
(27:32):
you do 40%.
Both parents would report 50 50.
Wow.
Yeah.
So there's really interesting research.
The stuff I'm saying is notjust, like, an angry lesbian.
No, there's amazing research.
One of my favorite books ispull this out.
It's called all the rage.
You can see I cite it all the time.
(27:52):
It's all the rage by Darcy Lachman.
I love her.
She was a guest on my podcast,she just spent a few years and gathered
all research around the sub.
The byline of the book ismothers, fathers and the myth of
equal partnership.
So the whole thing is allstudies that have been done on looking
at how there's just such amassive gap in family care.
(28:17):
And when I was interviewing onmy podcast, it was really fun because
at the end of, or close to theend of the podcast, she was talking
about that men think thatwe're all like very worldly or they're
very proud of themselves whenthey support women working out of
the home.
So they're like, yeah, forsure, you should go start your business.
For sure, go get a job.
Because never in thatconversation is it even cross their
(28:39):
mind that it means that thefamily part of it will now have to
be divided.
It's, they're like, go get a job.
Go be a CEO.
Climb that corporate ladder.
Like, I'm so proud of you.
Go open that gym.
Like whatever the thing isthat they want to do.
And it's because you willstill have to do all of the family
(29:00):
care, the home care.
And so the really big detailthat men would see themselves though,
as being really supportive.
So as long as we continue touphold this belief that women's work
and care work belongs to us.
And the bucket just keepsgetting heavier.
Like now we have to have freerange chickens in our backyard.
(29:22):
Like, it just like the bar ofwhat a good mom looks like.
And what's women's work?
It's getting, it's pretty mucheverything now.
And simultaneously, men aregetting less competent, they're doing
less anything around thehouse, like the number of mums.
So I talk to women on mass allthe time that they're like.
(29:43):
They also do the lawn mowingand the car repair and the trip booking.
And historically, those werethe things you women did in the house,
men did out of the house, andbig purchases were made by men.
But now if you talk moms booktrips and we do all the research
and we check what tv is goingto be the best that they can get
us here, and it will fit inthe cabinet like we're doing all
(30:04):
of those things as well,dropping cars off, checking the batteries.
Like, men don't know aboutthose things.
I feel very skewed now becauseI just left the city and I live rurally
and it's like, and like areally agricultural community I live
in.
And so they're those verycompetent man men.
But if you look at suburbs andcities we're seeing like this time
(30:29):
and we need to have space fromour children, period.
But when they also looked atthe research, if they looked at a
blueprint of the house, and ifyou tracked people through the house,
this has been done.
And so they tracked them andthey saw where people spent time
and in what diets.
The majority of time, momswere, like, never alone, essentially
(30:51):
any room, including the bathroom.
They had children with them on them.
So, like, every space theymoved through, they got into their
bed.
Children were in their bed,they were in the bathroom trying
to, like, everywhere.
And men spent the majority ofthe time in rooms alone.
And so that is so fascinating.
(31:13):
I know.
And so now if you look atthese things are happening even when
there's a PMAD, and a PMAD isa perinatal mood disorder, like anxiety
and depression.
And so you can imagine you'retrying, like, you're not well, and
these acts aren't changing.
And then the person, the otherperson is just alone, most likely
(31:34):
in the garage or the living room.
If we're going to look at twotypical gender, like, the tv room,
going to bed alone, thebasement, like those kind of things.
And I also just want to do aquick plug if we're talking about
mental health, that men arenot thriving in the patriarchy either.
So that being aloneness, thisis women, do not soften on your stance
(31:54):
and feel now like, you have todo care for these men, but they are
struggling, and they won'tgive up their power.
And until they give it up, wecan't have equity.
And so they are alone.
They don't.
Their parental brain is not changing.
So, like, it requires contactand care.
Work for your brain to change,to prioritize the well being of your
(32:18):
children, which is why men cando things like sacrifice their children,
or, like, when they leave,they don't pay child support, and
they don't consider them,like, all of these things because
they actually didn't gothrough the parental brain changes.
Yes, yes.
Yeah.
They're suffering in that they don't.
They feel isolated.
They actually don't like that.
They don't know anything aboutteachers names, friends names, friends
(32:40):
parents names, shoe sizes.
If you poll most dads, theydon't know any of those.
And people think they're funny TikToks.
And I'm like, this is asymptom of how sad and sick our society
is, that it's consideredindifference versus before the family
unit mattered.
But to have one parenthoodknow 100%, the other knows zero.
That's some bullshit.
(33:03):
Again, I'm bullshitting.
Especially it makes me thinkof a child with special needs or
special medical needs.
Yeah.
My twins were born early andthey both have different specialists
(33:23):
and they do physical therapy.
And it's a lot.
It's so much, so much.
Keep track of.
It's just added on top of whatyou would do with a child not living
with disabilities.
And while we're looking atPMADs, it looks, you can see how
(33:44):
impossible the situation is tohave movement and wellness.
I also think it would beremiss for me not to point out that
the conversation we're havinghere, there's a very, there's a line
where it's actually not safefor a lot of folks to even disclose,
to get help.
So, and until we're able totalk about our symptoms, like when
I put this workout, you wantto talk about how deep this hits
(34:07):
because it was used in familycourt, because essentially grace
hold life.
I was in a, I don't know why Ican call it a custody battle, but
it wasn't because I've never,I've done 100% of her care all the
time, but because mydisclosure of a PMAT was used even
still, when I publish and talkabout it, I do all the time.
(34:29):
My 26, 27 year old self isstill scared.
When I published that article,I was scared because I'm used to
those being used in courtexcerpts, photocopies of my blogs,
sound bites from my podcast,that there would be some kind of
blowback for me.
And so when I posted it, Istill had a flicker of, oh, he could
(34:50):
read this.
And my body felt scaredbecause it's a cycle of abuse.
Even though I haven't been init and I have had no contact with
him for over a decade, it'sstill, I still felt scared that I
was like, oh, what if they see this?
And I put in writing that Iwas like struggling and had suicidal
ideation and it was dark and Ithought I was a bad mom.
(35:12):
And these were all the thingsthat he said I was a bad mom and
the court said I was a bad mom.
And so I think that also needsto be talked about.
When we talk about familycourt as well as in the US, the US
and Canada for equity seekingfolks, the risk of apprehension goes
up like that.
That cannot be the consequenceof you reaching out saying you have
(35:32):
a PMAT, is that the risk isthey come and take your children.
But that's how the system isset up again, because it's a business.
And the more kids they grab,the more money they make in Canada,
the more kids they grab, theless money they make.
But they still tend to grab,especially indigenous children.
They're removed constantlyfrom their families and given to
(35:52):
settlers and colonizers.
The fact that I can familycourt I was impacted.
But I do know I have a lot ofprivilege as a white person with
the education I have and theclass markers I sit in or believe
to whole that I could go andtalk about mental health things and
get that support, family courtesy.
But a lot of folks can't.
(36:15):
And so we actually can't doanything about it besides live in
this really unjust family structure.
Suffering and suffering in silence.
And so again, it's no surprisethat we see death by suicide being
one of the leading causes ofdeath in the perinatal period.
And that window just folksunderstand this, it is not when you
(36:36):
have a newborn, the highestrate of a loss due to a death of
despair is actually nine totwelve months postpartum.
And that's.
That is the highest risk period.
If somebody is going to choose or.
I'm careful with my languagehere, but because I want people to
see suicide as a cause ofdeath like cancer or heart attack,
(36:57):
because it is, it's related toan illness.
And so I actually encouragepeople to just explore the language
and I'm trying to eradicatesomething like killed themselves
or committed suicide becauseit feels way more lucid and voluntary
versus it being perceived assomething that happens because they
(37:18):
lost the battle to aninvisible illness.
I just ask some final thoughts.
I think reaching out to peopleand providing the type of support,
especially if you've had thislived experience that you know what
you would have wanted andstarting to dialogue, even just you
and I saying I'm strugglingwith the same feeling so that we
(37:39):
can see that we are allstruggling with it.
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