(00:00:01):
Are mothers supposed to be vending machines?

(00:00:04):
Because that's sure what it feels like.

(00:00:06):
You put in the right coin and immediately get whatever response you want.

(00:00:09):
And if you don't, you get to punish them.

(00:00:12):
I am tired of the impossible expectations.

(00:00:15):
It is literally not possible to be a perfect mother in this culture,

(00:00:19):
or even really to be considered a good mother.

(00:00:21):
Meanwhile,

(00:00:22):
my ex-husband gets praised for producing the sperm to make our children and

(00:00:26):
occasionally showing up and not beating them in front of everyone.

(00:00:29):
I love my kids.

(00:00:31):
I love being a mother.

(00:00:32):
I hate the institution of motherhood.

(00:00:36):
Hi, I'm Zonda Lines, and this is the Liberating Motherhood podcast.

(00:00:40):
As always,

(00:00:41):
I'm going to ask you to help support this podcast by sharing it on social media,

(00:00:45):
by leaving positive reviews on your favorite podcast platform,

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by heart reacting it on Substack,

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and by leaving comments,

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sharing,

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otherwise engaging.

(00:00:55):
As you probably know by now,

(00:00:56):
because I'm constantly talking about it,

(00:00:58):
social media algorithms are trying to drive away feminist and leftist creators.

(00:01:03):
They are very punitive with us.

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And the most effective way to push back against that is not to boycott social

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media,

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but actually to give the algorithm what it wants,

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which is engagement.

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So the more you engage with my work and with the work of other creators you love,

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paid subscribers get at least one bonus podcast episode a month.

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All of these actions to promote the podcast really do help.

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And paid subscribers are the sole reason I am able to do this work.

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So your support and promotion really, really matters.

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I will not allow this work to be censored.

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And that means I am solely dependent on you, my listeners.

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Thank you for being here.

(00:01:50):
This month, October, 2025, just in case you're listening sometime in the distant future,

(00:01:55):
I am experimenting with a different model.

(00:01:57):
I'm doing a podcast episode every week instead of my usual twice monthly schedule.

(00:02:02):
I want to see if this pace feels sustainable,

(00:02:05):
if podcast episodes still seem high quality,

(00:02:08):
and if listeners like it,

(00:02:09):
if you're able to listen to that many podcasts.

(00:02:12):
So I'd love your feedback on whether I should keep up with this pace.

(00:02:16):
You know, feedback also comes in the form of sharing, commenting, all of that.

(00:02:22):
Increased visibility is feedback.

(00:02:24):
So

(00:02:25):
please let me know what you think.

(00:02:27):
I am so excited about our guest today,

(00:02:30):
Alex Bolin,

(00:02:31):
because she can speak directly to the construction of the good mother and how it

(00:02:35):
renders motherhood impossible,

(00:02:37):
demoralizing,

(00:02:38):
and just completely miserable in a patriarchy.

(00:02:41):
Hi, Alex.

(00:02:43):
Hi, Zolan.

(00:02:44):
Thank you so much for being here.

(00:02:45):
I'm going to tell listeners a little bit about you now.

(00:02:50):
Alex Bolin is the author of Motherdom, Breaking Free from Bad Science and Good Mother Myths.

(00:02:55):
She was a director of the research agency Ipsos and is now a freelance researcher.

(00:03:00):
Alex is also a postnatal practitioner with the NCT,

(00:03:05):
the UK's largest parenting charity,

(00:03:06):
and has run groups for new mothers in London for over a decade.

(00:03:10):
Motherdom is Alex's first book.

(00:03:12):
She was inspired to write it because she felt incensed about all the guilt-inducing

(00:03:16):
garbage which is peddled about motherhood.

(00:03:18):
God, isn't that the truth?

(00:03:20):
So Alex, we're just going to get started.

(00:03:22):
I...

(00:03:24):
Love your book.

(00:03:24):
I told you that before we started recording.

(00:03:27):
It's such an amazing book that brings so many different strands of feminism and

(00:03:32):
motherhood together.

(00:03:33):
It really felt sometimes like you were in my head.

(00:03:36):
And I know we both share an interest in the construction of motherhood and how

(00:03:41):
patriarchy uses motherhood as a tool of women's oppression.

(00:03:44):
I argue that I think it's one of patriarchy's primary tools.

(00:03:50):
So tell listeners a little bit about your book and also a little bit about

(00:03:56):
motherhood as a feminist issue and why it's just so important.

(00:04:00):
Yeah, thank you, Zorn.

(00:04:01):
I'm so pleased to be speaking to you today.

(00:04:04):
I've been so inspired by your work.

(00:04:07):
And I think the way in which you write and think about motherhood really chimes with how I do.

(00:04:14):
Motherhood and feminism, as I've sort of said in the book, they're symbiotic.

(00:04:20):
There's more to motherhood than feminism.

(00:04:21):
There's more to feminism than motherhood, but they are intertwined.

(00:04:26):
And I think a really important reason for that is this spectre of the good mother.

(00:04:31):
haunts all women, not just mothers.

(00:04:35):
And the good mother who's supposed to be selfless and nurturing, puts everyone else before her.

(00:04:40):
All women are expected to behave in that way and are punished if they don't.

(00:04:46):
I know, like me, you're a great admirer of Kate Mann's work.

(00:04:49):
And when I read her work and she talked about women being givers and men takers,

(00:04:56):
it really just set off a light bulb in my head.

(00:04:58):
I was like, yeah, that's it.

(00:04:59):
That's what the institution of motherhood is.

(00:05:01):
It posits women as giving without any regard for them or their needs and men as taking.

(00:05:11):
So I think tackling the institution of motherhood should be a central plank of feminism,

(00:05:18):
And like you,

(00:05:19):
it makes me quite dismayed when we see motherhood being marginalized from sort of

(00:05:25):
broader feminist struggles.

(00:05:28):
So I think often about this myth of the good mother.

(00:05:32):
And I think that sometimes when I talk about the myth of the good mother or when

(00:05:37):
you do or when anyone does,

(00:05:38):
people kind of get their backs up against the wall because they're like,

(00:05:41):
oh,

(00:05:41):
whoa,

(00:05:41):
whoa,

(00:05:41):
these women are talking about how you shouldn't be a good mom or you shouldn't

(00:05:45):
follow research or you shouldn't follow science.

(00:05:47):
But that's not really it.

(00:05:49):
What this construction is really about is that no matter how you mother,

(00:05:54):
someone is going to criticize it.

(00:05:56):
Someone is going to say it's wrong.

(00:05:58):
And in patriarchy, the very worst thing you can be is a bad mother.

(00:06:04):
And all mothers are eventually constructed by someone as a bad mother.

(00:06:09):
Tell me how that like controls us and keeps us in line and just keeps us

(00:06:14):
Feeling guilty and second guessing ourselves and just endlessly working.

(00:06:18):
Yeah, endlessly working.

(00:06:20):
Well, I think it's through what I call good mother myths.

(00:06:24):
And these good mother myths can be very broad.

(00:06:29):
You know, the good mother is self-sacrificing.

(00:06:31):
The good mother puts herself first.

(00:06:33):
The good mother wants to be with her children all the time or they can be very narrow.

(00:06:38):
For instance, you know, the good mother stares into her baby's eyes when she's breastfeeding.

(00:06:43):
These good mother myths are myths.

(00:06:45):
They're not based on what it means to be a good mother.

(00:06:48):
And that's why they're so harmful, I think.

(00:06:52):
I'm interested in sort of unpicking what's beneath them.

(00:06:56):
So, for instance, I've just written about Trump's recent kind of linking autism and Tylenol.

(00:07:02):
So why are people even saying that?

(00:07:04):
What's that all about?

(00:07:05):
Well, I think that's about policing pregnant bodies.

(00:07:08):
It's about trying to persuade women that they shouldn't be putting things into

(00:07:12):
their bodies like contraceptive pills.

(00:07:14):
So it's chipping away at reproductive justice.

(00:07:17):
It's about underpinning a sort of natural view of motherhood,

(00:07:20):
which then feeds into sort of rigid gender roles.

(00:07:24):
So I think we need to understand what these good mother myths are,

(00:07:28):
who is using them,

(00:07:29):
who's exploiting them and why.

(00:07:31):
And I think a really important part of that is to understand,

(00:07:35):
well,

(00:07:35):
what is the evidence behind this?

(00:07:37):
Why are people saying this?

(00:07:38):
Is there anything to this?

(00:07:40):
Because I think we all want to be good mothers.

(00:07:43):
And that's where the power of good mother myths come from, because we want to be good mothers.

(00:07:48):
We care about our children.

(00:07:49):
And so if someone says to you,

(00:07:51):
you're going to harm your child if you do this,

(00:07:53):
you're going to harm your child if you don't do that.

(00:07:55):
You're going to hurt your child if you feel this way or if you go to work or if you

(00:07:59):
do this or all sorts of things.

(00:08:02):
And because we love our children so much,

(00:08:06):
that gives these good mother myths such power.

(00:08:08):
And that's one of the things which makes me so angry about them,

(00:08:12):
because they trade on women's love for their children.

(00:08:17):
So one of the wildest things that happened to me in early motherhood with my oldest

(00:08:23):
daughter was she was a newborn newborn,

(00:08:26):
like less than a week old.

(00:08:28):
And we had one of those

(00:08:30):
like baby mats that has all the toys hanging from it that they can,

(00:08:34):
you know,

(00:08:34):
whack at and look at and all of that.

(00:08:37):
And we put her on it,

(00:08:38):
but because she was a newborn,

(00:08:39):
she couldn't grab anything and really had no idea what was going on.

(00:08:43):
So we started like pulling the toys down and showing them to her because,

(00:08:45):
you know,

(00:08:46):
that's what you're supposed to do.

(00:08:47):
You teach them things.

(00:08:48):
And one of the toys was a little mirror.

(00:08:52):
So my husband pulled the mirror down and like held it in front of her face.

(00:08:55):
And I took a picture of her looking into the mirror because she just like looked cute.

(00:09:00):
Just cute picture, totally uninteresting.

(00:09:04):
And then I posted on Facebook and my cousin's father-in-law said,

(00:09:11):
wrote like 3000 words about all you women are just staring into your image.

(00:09:17):
And that baby doesn't even understand what a mirror means.

(00:09:21):
And by the way,

(00:09:22):
you need to put down your phone and stop taking pictures and look her in the eyes.

(00:09:28):
And it was, it was just wild.

(00:09:30):
Like, I just thought I was being

(00:09:32):
a good mom playing with my baby.

(00:09:34):
I'm like, we've checked all the boxes.

(00:09:35):
We're playing with her together.

(00:09:37):
We're taking cute pictures.

(00:09:39):
We're doing like, and this dude's writing 3000 words about what a terrible parent I am.

(00:09:44):
And he's also citing quote unquote science.

(00:09:49):
So I wonder if you could talk a bit about kind of this fake silence.

(00:09:54):
You know,

(00:09:54):
the Tylenol is an example of that,

(00:09:56):
but there's so much of it where there's this like one study that shows this one

(00:10:00):
thing might have a modest effect

(00:10:02):
And then suddenly everybody latches onto it and it's just another way to control what we do.

(00:10:07):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

(00:10:08):
And I have to say my mouth, my jaw was dropping as you were just telling me that story.

(00:10:13):
And I think it's such a good example of the fact that mothers can do nothing right.

(00:10:18):
You're always going to be found at fault.

(00:10:20):
And I think...

(00:10:21):
and I've written about this a lot in the book,

(00:10:23):
science is one of the pillars of good mother myths because science has authority.

(00:10:30):
And it's quite interesting with the sort of Make America Healthy Again movement,

(00:10:33):
although it's kind of based on,

(00:10:35):
you know,

(00:10:35):
scare quotes,

(00:10:36):
everything being natural,

(00:10:37):
they are still invoking science to justify their arguments, like with the Tylenol piece.

(00:10:46):
So,

(00:10:47):
yes,

(00:10:47):
so science is taken out of context,

(00:10:49):
sort of small studies which haven't been replicated are treated as if they're

(00:10:56):
gospel,

(00:10:56):
basically.

(00:10:57):
If you, you know, you must do this otherwise.

(00:11:01):
And I've written about it quite a lot in the book, but attachment theory,

(00:11:05):
Attachment theory means to put it in its crudest terms,

(00:11:08):
insensitive mothers screw their babies up.

(00:11:12):
So you're supposed to be really sensitive.

(00:11:14):
to your baby you're supposed to interact with them all the time and if you don't

(00:11:18):
they're going to grow up to be unhappy now I'm exaggerating a bit but that is

(00:11:23):
essentially what is sort of out there in the ether and if you sort of look at the

(00:11:26):
research base and the evidence base it just doesn't say that at all and what's

(00:11:31):
quite interesting about attachment research is the people who actually do

(00:11:34):
attachment research have really distanced themselves from these kind of popular

(00:11:38):
interpretations of it

(00:11:41):
But it is still used to sort of hit mothers over the head.

(00:11:45):
I think that's a really sort of well-known example.

(00:11:48):
Another thing which I've written about in the book is neuroscience and the idea

(00:11:51):
that we sort of need to build our children's brains.

(00:11:54):
And again, the science that that is based on is so flimsy.

(00:11:58):
There's so much about the human brain we still don't know.

(00:12:02):
And so the idea that you need to interact with a baby or a child in a certain way

(00:12:06):
to sort of build their brain is just nonsense.

(00:12:09):
It really is nonsense.

(00:12:10):
But it causes so much guilt and doubt amongst parents, which is just completely unacceptable.

(00:12:20):
The attachment parenting thing,

(00:12:22):
I want to talk about that a little bit because I went hard on attachment parenting.

(00:12:27):
And it

(00:12:29):
I did it knowing that it wasn't entirely scientific and also wasn't the only way to parent.

(00:12:35):
It just sort of aligned with my parenting values.

(00:12:38):
And so I want to kind of point out that anytime you hear us criticizing a

(00:12:43):
particular parenting style,

(00:12:44):
it doesn't mean that parenting style is bad.

(00:12:46):
It doesn't mean it's a wrong way to parent.

(00:12:49):
It just means there's a more expansive view.

(00:12:52):
But what I saw with the attachment parenting is I was in all these attachment

(00:12:56):
parenting groups and

(00:12:59):
Over time,

(00:13:00):
a theme emerged that there actually wasn't that much discussion of here's how you

(00:13:05):
emotionally connect to your baby.

(00:13:08):
Here's how you understand your baby's needs.

(00:13:11):
There were instead two other focuses.

(00:13:13):
One was on aesthetics.

(00:13:15):
How do you show people you're an attachment parent?

(00:13:17):
What's the right way to wear your baby?

(00:13:19):
What's the right way to sleep with your baby?

(00:13:21):
Because people have to see you doing this.

(00:13:23):
And so that means you're spending money.

(00:13:26):
you're feeding capitalism and you're doing this like really intensive performative parenting.

(00:13:32):
And the other even darker thing I saw was this notion that mothers must never be

(00:13:38):
away from their babies and they certainly must never work.

(00:13:41):
And to me,

(00:13:42):
that seems like the real reason that in a world where like 80% of mothers do work,

(00:13:48):
attachment parenting has become so popular because it's a way to shame them.

(00:13:51):
It's a way to make pretty much every mother a bad mother.

(00:13:56):
Yeah, 100%.

(00:13:56):
And I think attachment parenting and that way of sort of parenting a baby just

(00:14:03):
really works for some people.

(00:14:04):
And I would never sort of judge or criticize someone for doing that.

(00:14:07):
I think for some people,

(00:14:09):
like you say,

(00:14:09):
it really chimes with their values,

(00:14:12):
with their family life,

(00:14:14):
with their baby's personality.

(00:14:15):
And I think the agency of babies and children in how we parent is so important.

(00:14:20):
And I think that often gets forgotten.

(00:14:24):
But equally, as you rightly say, it's used as a stick to beat people with.

(00:14:29):
So people will sort of say about attachment parenting that this is the biological norm.

(00:14:32):
This is what we do.

(00:14:33):
This is the evolutionary norm.

(00:14:36):
And babies and children aren't supposed to be apart from their mothers.

(00:14:40):
And that is just not true.

(00:14:42):
I mean, it's a good mother myth that mothers have only recently started to work.

(00:14:47):
Mothers have worked...

(00:14:48):
since the dawn of time um and this idea that mothers spend all their time at home

(00:14:54):
on their own with a baby or a child actually that's not the norm that's the weird

(00:14:59):
thing um but i think because we want to be a good mother a good parent because that

(00:15:07):
need and that drive is understandably so strong we are really

(00:15:13):
really vulnerable to any kind of criticism so what you know i sometimes see with

(00:15:19):
attachment parents is um wanting to ward off criticism and warding off criticism by

(00:15:24):
then being critical of others and how they're parenting differently and it means

(00:15:29):
that no one wins it also means it diverts our attention from who the real bad guy

(00:15:34):
is here which as you as you say is patriarchy

(00:15:40):
Well, and that's, I mean, I think that's always it, is patriarchy.

(00:15:44):
It's like the Wizard of Oz, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

(00:15:48):
It's always, how can we pit mothers against one another?

(00:15:51):
How can we get women to fight for the few scraps patriarchy gives us?

(00:15:58):
Rather than looking at the horrible systems that we occupy and also

(00:16:04):
Why are we criticizing the mother who's spending,

(00:16:06):
you know,

(00:16:06):
12,

(00:16:09):
14,

(00:16:14):
18 hours a day with the baby and not the lazy man sleeping in the next room?

(00:16:14):
Doesn't he have to attach one parent too?

(00:16:16):
And all of these systems target mothers.

(00:16:21):
There's never anything that is like, here's the very intensive stuff that fathers have to do.

(00:16:26):
Yeah, 100%.

(00:16:28):
And the standards to which mothers and fathers are held are so different.

(00:16:32):
So a dad takes their kid to the park.

(00:16:35):
He's a great dad.

(00:16:36):
Okay.

(00:16:38):
That is good parenting, you know, fabulous.

(00:16:40):
Well done.

(00:16:41):
But whereas with the mother, anything a mother does wrong is fast.

(00:16:45):
So all the many,

(00:16:46):
many things that mothers do for their children are not acknowledged and not valued.

(00:16:51):
And I think that's partly linked to the other pillar of good mother myths,

(00:16:55):
which is this idea of mother as being natural.

(00:16:58):
So we're just following our animal instincts.

(00:17:00):
There's nothing clever or smart about what we're doing.

(00:17:05):
We're just following our hormones or our urges or whatever.

(00:17:08):
And it's so devaluing to the work of motherhood.

(00:17:11):
And you've written about this quite a bit, that motherhood is intelligent work.

(00:17:15):
It's hard work.

(00:17:16):
There aren't easy answers in a lot of cases for dilemmas we have about our

(00:17:20):
children,

(00:17:20):
for decisions we need to make,

(00:17:22):
for situations that we're in.

(00:17:23):
But we don't recognise that.

(00:17:25):
We don't value that.

(00:17:26):
it's so hard.

(00:17:27):
I,

(00:17:27):
I had this moment when I,

(00:17:30):
so I was really involved with like maternal activism long before I had kids because

(00:17:36):
my mom was really involved in that activism.

(00:17:38):
And I just like, I thought it was interesting.

(00:17:40):
I thought motherhood was interesting and I wish that more people felt that way.

(00:17:43):
But as a result of that,

(00:17:45):
I had spent a lot of time around a lot of different mothers and,

(00:17:50):
you know,

(00:17:50):
I had spent a

(00:17:51):
A lot of time around some mothers that like I didn't necessarily like or respect.

(00:17:56):
And I remember when I was in labor with my oldest child,

(00:18:00):
it was like,

(00:18:00):
you know,

(00:18:01):
a long labor,

(00:18:02):
like first babies.

(00:18:03):
And I remember I thought about one of the mothers that I knew who I didn't really

(00:18:09):
like all that much,

(00:18:10):
who had had like nine kids without any drugs and

(00:18:14):
And here I was struggling to do it with just one.

(00:18:16):
And I just thought, wow, like maybe she's more impressive than I realized.

(00:18:20):
Like maybe she has some skills that I don't.

(00:18:24):
And my journey in motherhood has just been a continuous process of being like,

(00:18:28):
oh,

(00:18:29):
this is really hard.

(00:18:30):
Like those women that I've judged before,

(00:18:33):
they're actually really smart because a lot of them are doing things that like are

(00:18:36):
really hard for me.

(00:18:39):
Yeah, 100 percent.

(00:18:41):
I really agree with that because it's very easy to not see the labour and the

(00:18:48):
thought and the emotion that can go into mothering.

(00:18:52):
And I think particularly mothers living in poverty.

(00:18:55):
So the amount of ingenuity and skill you need if you have hardly any money.

(00:19:01):
to feed and clothe your kids that's a different level of skill than if you've got a

(00:19:06):
good income and we should well we should be giving those mothers enough money um

(00:19:11):
but we should be applauding those women who are able to sort of bring their

(00:19:16):
children up in really difficult circumstances and what we actually do is good

(00:19:20):
mother myths weigh even harder on those women um

(00:19:25):
bringing children up in an unequal racist society and all the challenges that

(00:19:30):
brings to those women's children,

(00:19:32):
it's their fault.

(00:19:34):
You know, it's the, you know, the good mother, they're not good, good mothers, scare quotes.

(00:19:39):
And that's why their children have less chances and less opportunities than other children.

(00:19:42):
Yeah, absolutely.

(00:19:44):
My mom worked in child protective services for her whole life.

(00:19:48):
And toward the end of her career, she was like the director of our local CPS organization.

(00:19:54):
And I would go down and volunteer with her.

(00:19:56):
They would have events for foster kids and stuff.

(00:19:58):
And the thing that stuck out to me is that most of the kids who were in custody

(00:20:04):
were actually not what you stereotypically expect.

(00:20:07):
They weren't kids who were being sexually abused by their parents or who had been

(00:20:12):
violently physically abused or anything.

(00:20:15):
They're kids whose parents were considered neglectful.

(00:20:18):
And

(00:20:19):
The thing that my mom said to me is like, what all of these parents need is money.

(00:20:23):
And rather than giving them money,

(00:20:25):
we're spending 10 times the amount they need on taking their kids and litigating,

(00:20:30):
taking their kids and,

(00:20:31):
you know,

(00:20:31):
keeping their kids in custody.

(00:20:33):
And it's just always stuck with me.

(00:20:35):
Like,

(00:20:36):
why can't we give them $20,000 rather than spending $150,000,

(00:20:37):
you know,

(00:20:38):
fucking up the whole family?

(00:20:39):
Yeah.

(00:20:43):
Yeah, yeah, 100%.

(00:20:44):
I think Dorothy Roberts has written about this brilliantly.

(00:20:47):
And I've sort of talked about this a bit in my book.

(00:20:49):
I've talked about what I've called unmothering,

(00:20:52):
which is a term I've borrowed from black feminist scholars who use the phrase in

(00:20:58):
the context of slavery.

(00:20:59):
You know, central to the institution of slavery is, you know, the ripping of.

(00:21:04):
children from their families but unmothering is a central pillar again in good

(00:21:11):
mother myths because the threat of losing your children is one of the things which

(00:21:15):
keeps people conforming to these myths but some people do use their children they

(00:21:20):
have their children taken away and okay sometimes that is going to be the only

(00:21:25):
solution but it you know in the UK in the US too many families lose their children

(00:21:31):
because they're living in poverty and what's

(00:21:34):
classified as neglect is actually just being poor.

(00:21:39):
And there's a Dorothy Roberts quote I've put in my book,

(00:21:42):
exactly,

(00:21:42):
you know,

(00:21:43):
as your mother was saying,

(00:21:44):
it's like,

(00:21:44):
we don't want parenting classes.

(00:21:46):
We don't want, we just want money to be able to feed and clothe our children.

(00:21:51):
And I think for rich societies like the US and the UK,

(00:21:56):
the fact that children go to sleep hungry,

(00:21:59):
it should be a matter of huge national shame.

(00:22:03):
But we seem to be OK with it.

(00:22:06):
Yeah, it's terrible.

(00:22:08):
And here again,

(00:22:09):
what we see is we take a political problem,

(00:22:13):
which is exploitation and wealth inequality and all of that,

(00:22:16):
and we pretend that it is an individual problem.

(00:22:18):
We pretend, well, that mother didn't do a good enough job.

(00:22:22):
You know,

(00:22:22):
she should have gotten this job and she should learn how to manage her money and

(00:22:26):
all of that.

(00:22:27):
But then what's so horrific in those instances is we don't even punish the mother.

(00:22:32):
We punish the children with starvation and deprivation and poverty.

(00:22:38):
And a large segment of the population is like, yeah, that's fine.

(00:22:42):
That's good.

(00:22:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

(00:22:46):
Yeah,

(00:22:46):
a report just came out,

(00:22:47):
I think,

(00:22:48):
yesterday from National Academies,

(00:22:49):
just looking at the impact of during the pandemic of sort of family support and the

(00:22:56):
impact that had on on child poverty.

(00:22:59):
And it's not rocket science in terms of what kids need to sort of grow up.

(00:23:05):
in sort of financially secure way.

(00:23:09):
It's money and we make parenting so much harder than it should be because people

(00:23:14):
grow up in poverty.

(00:23:17):
And you have people growing up,

(00:23:19):
children growing up in poverty whose mothers,

(00:23:22):
fathers are working.

(00:23:23):
So it's not like people aren't working and they're just not being paid very much

(00:23:26):
because of the way in which our society is set up.

(00:23:30):
Yeah.

(00:23:31):
Yeah.

(00:23:31):
It's just, it's so, so dark.

(00:23:35):
One of the things that I find working with women is that patriarchy and white

(00:23:40):
supremacy and capitalism and all of these hierarchical systems.

(00:23:44):
leave us all exhausted.

(00:23:46):
It's just exhausting to be human.

(00:23:48):
And the effect of that is that it tears down communities.

(00:23:51):
And so women tend to really be isolated from other women.

(00:23:56):
You know,

(00:23:56):
lots of my readers tell me that they don't really have a single close friend,

(00:24:01):
let alone like a network of women friends who can model mothering to them and help

(00:24:05):
them out.

(00:24:06):
And so women don't often know what other women's lives are like.

(00:24:12):
And now, particularly with social media,

(00:24:15):
there's this pressure to reform motherhood.

(00:24:17):
So everybody is pretending that it's easy and pretending that they're great at it

(00:24:22):
while they're falling apart behind closed doors.

(00:24:25):
And what this means is that the people falling apart behind closed doors,

(00:24:29):
which is basically all of us,

(00:24:31):
think that it's an individual failing.

(00:24:34):
They think that they're bad at it.

(00:24:36):
But in reality, it's a political problem.

(00:24:39):
And it begins with, I think, the separation of women.

(00:24:42):
What do you think about that?

(00:24:44):
Yeah, I completely agree.

(00:24:47):
I think the way in which motherhood is constructed is to make us look within

(00:24:54):
ourselves instead of looking.

(00:24:56):
We sort of say,

(00:24:57):
oh,

(00:24:57):
we are failing instead of saying,

(00:24:59):
actually,

(00:24:59):
we are being failed and everything.

(00:25:04):
I think inner capitalist society is about making us focus on ourselves.

(00:25:07):
It's like,

(00:25:08):
oh,

(00:25:08):
I just need to read this book or sign up to this course or buy this product and

(00:25:13):
then everything will be OK.

(00:25:14):
And I think those communities of mothers, I'm really passionate about this.

(00:25:18):
I see from my postnatal work,

(00:25:20):
which is sort of groups of new mothers coming together,

(00:25:23):
how transformative it is for women to talk.

(00:25:27):
about their problems and their issues and to realise, hey, it's not me.

(00:25:31):
You know, it's just that this this is hard.

(00:25:35):
And also to realise that there aren't any sort of easy answers to some of the

(00:25:39):
things that we struggle with.

(00:25:41):
So,

(00:25:41):
you know,

(00:25:41):
you have a baby who wakes up a lot of the night and that happens to lots of people.

(00:25:47):
There isn't a magic solution to that.

(00:25:49):
You know, there can be things you might try and they might work, but they might not work.

(00:25:53):
So being able to sort of share those experiences with other people,

(00:25:58):
I think is really important.

(00:26:00):
That's on the personal level.

(00:26:01):
On the political level,

(00:26:02):
I completely agree that we don't have those networks that we should have.

(00:26:07):
And this is about the marginalisation to go back to what we were talking about

(00:26:10):
earlier about sort of mother's issues.

(00:26:12):
It's like,

(00:26:12):
oh,

(00:26:12):
they don't really,

(00:26:13):
those little fluffy issues around kind of childcare and schooling and they don't

(00:26:19):
really matter.

(00:26:21):
Other things are more important.

(00:26:23):
So that kind of marginalization of women's issues as well.

(00:26:27):
So yeah,

(00:26:27):
I think on a personal and a political level,

(00:26:29):
having those communities,

(00:26:31):
those networks,

(00:26:32):
those conversations,

(00:26:33):
those sharing of experiences is really important.

(00:26:37):
Oh my God, this depiction of mother's issues as fluffy.

(00:26:41):
This is a soapbox I've been getting on a lot lately.

(00:26:43):
So I'm gonna try not to have like a rage seizure while I'm talking to you about it.

(00:26:49):
I get probably,

(00:26:51):
I would say at least twice a week,

(00:26:53):
a question from someone that's like,

(00:26:56):
why don't you talk about current events?

(00:26:58):
Why don't you talk about politics?

(00:27:00):
And it's like, this is the future of humanity.

(00:27:03):
Like this, this is a current event.

(00:27:06):
And, but we've just depoliticized everything pertaining to mothers.

(00:27:11):
Yeah, absolutely.

(00:27:13):
And it comes back to the sort of the good mother who's almost like a kind of blank canvas.

(00:27:17):
She's almost like a sort of cipher for her children.

(00:27:19):
And she doesn't matter.

(00:27:21):
She's a two dimensional person.

(00:27:23):
And the same about mother's issues as well.

(00:27:25):
But you know what?

(00:27:26):
Mother's issues are everyone's issues.

(00:27:29):
As you say,

(00:27:29):
it's about the next generation,

(00:27:31):
but it's about the neighborhoods we live in,

(00:27:32):
the houses we live in,

(00:27:33):
the air we breathe,

(00:27:35):
the food we eat.

(00:27:36):
These are issues for everybody.

(00:27:40):
And to try and sort of pigeonhole them as being,

(00:27:43):
you know,

(00:27:43):
mother's issues,

(00:27:44):
I think is just outrageous.

(00:27:46):
It's so frustrating.

(00:27:48):
So you kind of,

(00:27:50):
you have an,

(00:27:51):
I think,

(00:27:51):
interesting anthropological sociological perspective because you have spent a lot

(00:27:56):
of time working with postpartum women and new mothers.

(00:28:00):
What are you seeing on the ground that is not getting talked about or not being seen?

(00:28:09):
That's a really good question.

(00:28:11):
And what's been interesting for me is it hasn't really changed,

(00:28:14):
even though we have social media and more openness,

(00:28:18):
in inverted commas,

(00:28:19):
about mothers' issues.

(00:28:23):
But people struggling with things,

(00:28:25):
finding things difficult,

(00:28:27):
not liking being a mother,

(00:28:30):
finding it challenging,

(00:28:31):
looking after their babies.

(00:28:34):
These are things which people are really frightened to admit.

(00:28:36):
And it comes back to this fear that you will have your baby taken away.

(00:28:39):
That's such a kind of powerful...

(00:28:42):
fear in the early days.

(00:28:43):
And I don't think it ever goes away,

(00:28:45):
but I think it's particularly acute in those early days and weeks where you're

(00:28:49):
almost in a state of sort of hyper vigilance.

(00:28:51):
It's so new, this new role, this new person in your life is so new and seems so vulnerable.

(00:28:58):
I mean,

(00:28:58):
a newborn is kind of almost like a sort of curled up little animal and you don't

(00:29:02):
necessarily have a sense of who they're going to be as a person.

(00:29:07):
and you fear that you might break them or hurt them and and so the level of um of

(00:29:14):
fear of guilt of shame people yeah they don't talk about it nearly enough and i

(00:29:22):
think if you have a safe space so you know like the postnatal groups that i do

(00:29:27):
people will open up and it's such a relief

(00:29:30):
to hear that other people are feeling similar things.

(00:29:33):
And it doesn't mean,

(00:29:34):
of course,

(00:29:34):
if you're feeling this,

(00:29:35):
it doesn't mean you don't love your babies.

(00:29:37):
It's this idea that maternal love is this very sort of two dimensional thing.

(00:29:42):
So you either love your baby and love every moment with your baby or you don't.

(00:29:47):
It's kind of like, actually, it's a really complex, nuanced, rich relationship.

(00:29:50):
And I don't think we give mother children relationships enough credit for how rich

(00:29:56):
they are and how they change and evolve as well.

(00:30:00):
Yeah,

(00:30:00):
I think often about how I've been a lot of different mothers to like a lot of

(00:30:05):
different children.

(00:30:06):
And my kids are young, like they haven't even been here that long.

(00:30:10):
And it just shifts constantly.

(00:30:13):
But the shame and guilt bit.

(00:30:16):
And I remember when we had our first,

(00:30:19):
there's this moment,

(00:30:20):
and I think it's something a lot of new parents experience,

(00:30:23):
where sort of the magnitude of it all hits you,

(00:30:25):
that there's never going to be downtime like there was before.

(00:30:29):
And there's never really going to be a reprieve from the responsibilities.

(00:30:35):
But also there's like a longing to do trivial things.

(00:30:39):
And my husband and I had this system because we like really had and have an

(00:30:45):
equitable partnership where in the very early days,

(00:30:48):
we would each give each other like an hour a day to just do whatever.

(00:30:53):
And like cooking and cleaning didn't count.

(00:30:55):
It was like just go in the bedroom and, you know, read or sleep or whatever.

(00:30:59):
And it was wonderful.

(00:31:01):
But I started feeling like I needed more.

(00:31:04):
like an hour in a day was not enough.

(00:31:07):
And I wanted to like sit down and,

(00:31:09):
and like play with my planner and stickers or like scroll the internet for like

(00:31:14):
three hours.

(00:31:14):
And I felt so guilty that like I wanted to do this and,

(00:31:19):
but I have this baby and why do I want to take time away from her?

(00:31:22):
And, you know, finally there was this like big dramatic confession of, you know,

(00:31:28):
I really need four hours where I can cut pages for my planner and put stickers on them.

(00:31:32):
And I know that's stupid, but that's what I want.

(00:31:35):
And then my husband was like,

(00:31:36):
well,

(00:31:37):
okay,

(00:31:37):
so why don't we do like an hour a day and like four hours a week?

(00:31:42):
And then you'll be like an even better mom because you'll get to do the things that

(00:31:45):
like your brain wants to do.

(00:31:47):
And it was so wonderful,

(00:31:49):
but it's also something that I think almost no new mothers get because they don't

(00:31:55):
have partners who participate in

(00:31:57):
And they don't have anybody to validate that,

(00:31:59):
like,

(00:32:00):
you're actually allowed to have a life outside of motherhood and that that can make

(00:32:04):
you a better mother.

(00:32:05):
Yeah, 100 percent.

(00:32:07):
And I don't think it's stupid at all to want to do that.

(00:32:09):
I mean,

(00:32:09):
I think it's completely normal and completely understandable,

(00:32:12):
but we don't allow the space for that.

(00:32:14):
And,

(00:32:15):
you know,

(00:32:16):
it's great that you that you,

(00:32:17):
you know,

(00:32:18):
you have a supportive partner who's like,

(00:32:20):
yeah,

(00:32:20):
OK,

(00:32:20):
let's do this.

(00:32:21):
Let's make sure that this happens for you, because a lot of the time, as you say, people don't.

(00:32:27):
And I think like one hour or four hours or, you know, in a whole week is nothing.

(00:32:32):
It's nothing.

(00:32:33):
It's such a small amount of time.

(00:32:34):
And it's exactly, you know, what I was saying earlier, that we just don't give ourselves credit.

(00:32:40):
Instead of saying,

(00:32:40):
I'm spending all this time with my baby and I'm doing all these things for my baby

(00:32:44):
and with my baby.

(00:32:46):
We're just like,

(00:32:46):
oh,

(00:32:46):
I feel really bad because I want to spend one hour or four hours doing something

(00:32:50):
for me.

(00:32:52):
um and i think that is a really good example of yeah the good mother kind of

(00:32:56):
beating us over the head um i always say to people to new mothers it's like think

(00:33:02):
about your red lines like what are the things you need to do that's really going to

(00:33:06):
make you feel like you it's really important that you prioritize that and try and

(00:33:09):
make time for that if you can and you know if you can't pull in your partner to

(00:33:13):
help them maybe you know your mom or your friends um

(00:33:18):
I remember I had one woman in one of my groups and she just said,

(00:33:20):
if I can make the bed in the morning,

(00:33:22):
then I just feel OK.

(00:33:23):
I feel like I'm kind of in control.

(00:33:25):
And some people want to tidy up their kitchen or read or whatever it is.

(00:33:29):
But it is just about being you and connecting back with you again,

(00:33:33):
because the demands on your time and your energy when you're looking after a

(00:33:36):
newborn or looking after a baby are huge.

(00:33:38):
And of course, you need to look after yourself.

(00:33:42):
Talking about the need for self-care has me kind of wanting to circle back a little

(00:33:46):
bit to how we weaponize science against mothers,

(00:33:50):
because we always do this thing where we pit the needs of mothers against the needs

(00:33:55):
of their babies and children and act as if mothers and children are natural enemies

(00:34:01):
rather than,

(00:34:02):
you know,

(00:34:02):
the mother is almost always the primary caregiver and taking care of her means

(00:34:06):
taking care of the child.

(00:34:07):
I think, you know,

(00:34:10):
even if the like fake science that we read were true,

(00:34:15):
even if the ideal environment for a child was that they are never,

(00:34:19):
ever separated from their mother,

(00:34:21):
like that's just one fact in isolation.

(00:34:24):
There are other facts like, well, what's good for the mother?

(00:34:27):
And then how does that influence the mother's ability to care for their child?

(00:34:32):
But we never look at that.

(00:34:34):
And we never look at

(00:34:36):
Okay,

(00:34:36):
is this thing that offers a tiny benefit to the child,

(00:34:40):
hugely to the detriment of the person who's caring for the child?

(00:34:44):
Yeah, I think 100%.

(00:34:45):
And I think actually breastfeeding is quite a good example of that.

(00:34:50):
I think breastfeeding is really important, it matters.

(00:34:54):
And if a woman wants to breastfeed,

(00:34:56):
then I think we should be supporting her,

(00:34:59):
we should be encouraging her,

(00:35:00):
making sure that she has what she needs.

(00:35:02):
to be able to do that.

(00:35:04):
But equally, I don't think we should be pressurizing women to breastfeed either.

(00:35:07):
And I think when you're sort of weighing up someone's mental health versus

(00:35:13):
them trying to breastfeed it not working out or them having sort of breastfeed a

(00:35:16):
baby throughout the night and not getting any sleep.

(00:35:19):
I think we have to take the mother into account.

(00:35:22):
And that is partly for the baby.

(00:35:24):
And, you know, people say happy mother, happy baby.

(00:35:26):
And I agree with that.

(00:35:27):
But it's also because the mother is still a person.

(00:35:30):
She still matters.

(00:35:31):
She matters in and of herself, not just because she's a mother.

(00:35:36):
And for me, that is a really important thing for us to not lose sight of.

(00:35:41):
Yeah.

(00:35:41):
I mean, the breastfeeding, oh God, the breastfeeding is such a perfect example.

(00:35:46):
So I'm probably a breastfeeding zealot in that I'm really supportive of

(00:35:52):
breastfeeding and breastfeeding parents,

(00:35:54):
but would never like push it on anybody.

(00:35:56):
And in my own personal life,

(00:35:57):
I have been continuously breastfeeding at least one baby for eight years,

(00:36:03):
not breastfeeding one until they were eight years old,

(00:36:05):
but just having a baby who is breastfeeding.

(00:36:07):
I'm

(00:36:10):
I think a lot of people do not understand how exhausting,

(00:36:17):
demoralizing,

(00:36:18):
and absolutely miserable breastfeeding can be when it's not easy and it's not going

(00:36:23):
well.

(00:36:25):
Or when you're just unsupported, which most mothers are in a patriarchy.

(00:36:28):
With our

(00:36:30):
First child, I had terrible supply issues.

(00:36:33):
And the things we did to increase my supply were insane.

(00:36:37):
I was doing something breastfeeding related literally 24 hours a day.

(00:36:42):
You know, you wake up.

(00:36:44):
you know,

(00:36:45):
four times a night and you use the supplemental nursing system to like pump and

(00:36:50):
nurse the baby and it usually doesn't work and the baby's screaming and then you

(00:36:53):
have to pump before and afterwards.

(00:36:55):
And then by the time you've done that, the baby's back awake.

(00:36:58):
I look back on that time and I truly don't know like how we survived.

(00:37:03):
Like I just,

(00:37:06):
how we could live on like an hour of sleep,

(00:37:10):
an hour of interrupted sleep every night for months and months and months while I

(00:37:13):
try to get my supply up.

(00:37:15):
I'm just like, God, why?

(00:37:16):
Like, why?

(00:37:20):
Yeah,

(00:37:21):
and I think so many of the contradictions about motherhood kind of reside in

(00:37:26):
breastfeeding.

(00:37:28):
And in terms of you're never able to do anything right.

(00:37:33):
And I think actually you wrote that brilliant piece you've written and kind of touched upon it.

(00:37:37):
Is it, fuck you, welcome to motherhood.

(00:37:40):
Welcome to motherhood, fuck you.

(00:37:42):
Which is like, I won it on a shirt.

(00:37:43):
Like that's been my experience of motherhood.

(00:37:47):
It's like, welcome, fuck you.

(00:37:48):
Yeah, yeah, 100 percent.

(00:37:49):
And it's kind of like,

(00:37:50):
yeah,

(00:37:51):
you must breastfeed,

(00:37:52):
but,

(00:37:53):
you know,

(00:37:53):
but don't enjoy it and don't make a big deal out of it.

(00:37:55):
But yeah, formula feed.

(00:37:56):
And it's kind of like whatever you do, however you feed your baby, you will be criticised.

(00:38:02):
And yeah,

(00:38:03):
and we sort of say our breastfeeding is natural,

(00:38:05):
you know,

(00:38:06):
as if to say it's going to be really straightforward.

(00:38:07):
And it really often isn't, you know, for most women in my experience.

(00:38:11):
Most breastfeeding parents, it is not straightforward.

(00:38:15):
And, you know, there's support needed.

(00:38:17):
And I think one of the reasons for that is because breastfeeding is sort of shut

(00:38:20):
away in our society.

(00:38:21):
So we don't grow up watching babies being breastfed.

(00:38:25):
So we don't really understand that.

(00:38:27):
Actually, they need to feed a lot and it's really common.

(00:38:30):
And if they're feeding all the time, particularly the newborn, that's normal.

(00:38:33):
We just, you know, we just don't as a culture, we don't really understand breastfeeding.

(00:38:38):
And that makes it so much harder for women who want to breastfeed.

(00:38:43):
I remember when I was in the hospital, you know, they send a lactation consultant to, you know,

(00:38:48):
do whatever it is they do, lecture, guilt, shame.

(00:38:53):
And they want you to keep a breastfeeding log, which is like an additional layer of labor.

(00:38:58):
And the figure that they always give you is that babies should breastfeed eight to

(00:39:01):
12 times a day.

(00:39:01):
And it's like, that's how much mine was breastfeeding like at night.

(00:39:05):
Yeah.

(00:39:06):
And I remember,

(00:39:07):
you know,

(00:39:08):
calling my mom crying and being like,

(00:39:09):
there's something wrong with her.

(00:39:11):
She needs to breastfeed 12 times a night.

(00:39:13):
Like, what's wrong with her?

(00:39:14):
And she was like, I am sorry that the lactation consultant sold you on this being easy.

(00:39:20):
But no, that's common.

(00:39:22):
Like, I go, okay.

(00:39:26):
Yeah.

(00:39:26):
And actually with breastfeeding, we just treat we treat people like like idiots.

(00:39:31):
It's like, let's let's let's pretend that this is natural and easy and blissful.

(00:39:35):
So they'll do it.

(00:39:36):
And it's kind of like, no, let's just be honest about there are great things about doing it.

(00:39:40):
And you'll have times when you might really enjoy it.

(00:39:42):
And then you have other times when you feel really frustrated and claustrophobic.

(00:39:45):
You know, it's really again, it's a kind of complex, rich experience, breastfeeding.

(00:39:50):
And I think it's either portrayed as kind of like you're in this sort of

(00:39:54):
Madonna-like state of bliss or you're really miserable and your nipples are

(00:39:57):
bleeding.

(00:39:58):
And actually there's lots of states in between those.

(00:40:02):
And again,

(00:40:03):
I think that's where having other people going through something similar is really

(00:40:07):
helpful because it's kind of like one day you might love breastfeeding and the next

(00:40:11):
day you might find it really frustrating and think,

(00:40:13):
oh God,

(00:40:13):
I wish I could stop doing this.

(00:40:15):
And that's just really normal.

(00:40:17):
It's really understandable.

(00:40:18):
It's such a commitment, I think.

(00:40:19):
to another part to feed another person and we should recognize that that's a huge

(00:40:23):
commitment yeah it really is well and and i see in my own breastfeeding journey um

(00:40:31):
how i've kind of experienced like every end of the stigma which i think is true for

(00:40:37):
like every mother really you know it's like first you're you're trying to

(00:40:40):
breastfeed and it's going poorly and it must be your fault it must be because

(00:40:44):
you're doing something wrong

(00:40:46):
And,

(00:40:46):
you know,

(00:40:46):
now I'm breastfeeding a toddler and,

(00:40:49):
you know,

(00:40:49):
that makes me a crazy person and I'm doing it for my own benefit.

(00:40:53):
And,

(00:40:54):
you know,

(00:40:54):
I,

(00:40:55):
I'm definitely starting to feel that pressure to stop,

(00:40:57):
even though we're at the point now where it's finally easy.

(00:41:01):
So it's like,

(00:41:02):
once it's actually easy,

(00:41:04):
well,

(00:41:05):
then it has no value because the whole purpose of everything is for it to be hard.

(00:41:09):
Yeah.

(00:41:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(00:41:11):
And it's just like, and it's just nobody's business, but yours and your child.

(00:41:16):
And yeah,

(00:41:17):
this idea,

(00:41:18):
and I think this very sort of,

(00:41:20):
this squeamishness we have about bodies and breasts and wombs.

(00:41:24):
I mean, I think it's all related to that as well.

(00:41:28):
Yeah.

(00:41:28):
And again, you can never win.

(00:41:32):
You either don't breastfeed enough or you breastfeed for too long, you know, that you, yeah.

(00:41:36):
Yeah.

(00:41:37):
Yeah.

(00:41:37):
I mean,

(00:41:37):
the most important thing for every mother to know about motherhood is that they're

(00:41:40):
doing it wrong.

(00:41:41):
And if they do the opposite, that's wrong too.

(00:41:44):
Exactly.

(00:41:45):
Exactly.

(00:41:45):
And I think that's why having other women around you is really helpful because you see

(00:41:55):
okay,

(00:41:55):
they're doing it differently for me,

(00:41:57):
but they are,

(00:41:58):
I would say they are a good mother with a loving relationship with their child.

(00:42:02):
I understand why they're doing things differently for me.

(00:42:04):
And I think that's,

(00:42:05):
you know,

(00:42:05):
and this is a bit sort of pipe dreamy,

(00:42:07):
but that is my ideal that we sort of,

(00:42:09):
we look at what other people are doing without judgment,

(00:42:12):
with curiosity and with compassion.

(00:42:15):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

(00:42:18):
When you were writing your book,

(00:42:20):
was there anything that you learned or stumbled across that surprised you?

(00:42:27):
Such a good question.

(00:42:28):
I don't think so,

(00:42:30):
because I think it's sort of,

(00:42:33):
as I dug into things,

(00:42:34):
it sort of confirms what I suspected.

(00:42:36):
Yeah, so I don't think I was surprised by anything really.

(00:42:46):
I think it was more,

(00:42:48):
okay,

(00:42:49):
right,

(00:42:49):
this kind of,

(00:42:50):
yeah,

(00:42:50):
this kind of underlines what I thought about this.

(00:42:54):
So no, so that's quite a boring answer, isn't it?

(00:42:56):
Well, it's not boring.

(00:42:58):
I'm kind of glad that you didn't tell me that you actually stumbled across research

(00:43:02):
that proved to you that feminism is not real and everything is mother's faults.

(00:43:07):
And we just need to accept what we're told by, I don't know, Donald Trump or whoever.

(00:43:12):
Yeah,

(00:43:13):
I think what was interesting for me,

(00:43:14):
actually,

(00:43:14):
was particularly digging into the historical examples is how

(00:43:19):
many echoes of what's happening now we see in the past.

(00:43:22):
So this mother blaming has very long roots.

(00:43:25):
It just shapeshifts according to the era we're in.

(00:43:31):
Yeah, well, it's like the, what was it, the refrigerator mothers with autistic children?

(00:43:35):
I guess now it's the Tylenol mothers.

(00:43:38):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

(00:43:39):
Yeah.

(00:43:40):
And I just wrote a piece,

(00:43:41):
the piece I just wrote about,

(00:43:42):
and I've kind of speculated about whether or not

(00:43:45):
Donald Trump,

(00:43:45):
who was a boy and a young man,

(00:43:47):
when this idea of the refrigerator mother was at its zenith.

(00:43:51):
So the idea that children were autistic because their mother was cold and emotionless.

(00:43:58):
Because it was really interesting how he fastened onto it,

(00:44:01):
you know,

(00:44:01):
and he kept going,

(00:44:02):
if you can't tough it out,

(00:44:03):
you know,

(00:44:03):
he said that nine times,

(00:44:05):
if you can't tough it out.

(00:44:07):
you know, don't take Tylenol.

(00:44:09):
And so for me,

(00:44:10):
that's a real echo of a previous good mother myth,

(00:44:14):
kind of like,

(00:44:14):
yeah,

(00:44:15):
leaping up from the dead again.

(00:44:16):
And here we go again.

(00:44:17):
It's all mother's fault.

(00:44:20):
Well, and the tough it out language.

(00:44:22):
I mean, that's kind of what we tell mothers for everything.

(00:44:26):
And,

(00:44:26):
you know,

(00:44:27):
the thing that everybody who has any sense knows is that the more resources you

(00:44:32):
have,

(00:44:33):
the easier it is to deal with something.

(00:44:35):
I think childbirth is a really good example of if you want to have an unmedicated

(00:44:41):
birth,

(00:44:41):
which a lot of women do,

(00:44:43):
if you have a supportive partner and a doula and you're giving birth in a calm

(00:44:48):
environment,

(00:44:49):
whether it's a hospital where they honor your wishes or a birth center or whatever,

(00:44:54):
Then it's going to be easier for you to tough it out because you have more things

(00:44:57):
to draw on versus if someone's yelling at you and shaming you and your partner's

(00:45:02):
telling you to shut up and you don't have any support.

(00:45:05):
But what these right wingers want is they want us to tough it out while providing

(00:45:10):
us with evidence.

(00:45:10):
absolutely zero support we're just supposed to like what is it we're supposed to

(00:45:14):
draw on magic and also you kind of just think well actually is the tough app saying

(00:45:20):
you deserve to suffer you know because i think there's a really cruel streak in a

(00:45:25):
lot of this discourse absolutely kate mann wrote an amazing piece about this um a

(00:45:32):
couple of weeks ago that that the suffering is the point yeah and and that's what

(00:45:37):
they want because

(00:45:39):
you know, if you're suffering as a woman, then you don't have the energy to do anything else.

(00:45:45):
Yeah.

(00:45:45):
Yeah.

(00:45:46):
And it's the punish.

(00:45:46):
And this is another thing which Kate sort of writes about brilliantly.

(00:45:48):
It's like this idea of punishing women and just punish,

(00:45:52):
punishing us for being mothers,

(00:45:54):
punishing us for not being mothers.

(00:45:55):
We will just be punished whatever we do.

(00:45:59):
We should just, we should have brought Kate Mann on this with us.

(00:46:01):
And it's funny because I'm interviewing her later today about something completely unrelated.

(00:46:06):
And now I'm just going to show up for the interview with like,

(00:46:10):
a bunch of questions about this and she's going to be like did you prepare like

(00:46:13):
what are you doing yeah I mean I think she writes with such clarity um about all of

(00:46:22):
this it's you know I think you know I love your work and her work I think and

(00:46:25):
actually going back to what you were saying about not dealing with current events I

(00:46:28):
think all you need really is a feminist is your work and her work because Kate does

(00:46:33):
deal with you know like the

(00:46:34):
She's written a couple of brilliant pieces about Charlie Kirk's death, for instance.

(00:46:39):
So I think, yeah, I think that's all we need as a feminist, you know, you and Kate.

(00:46:44):
And I think we cover we cover a whole gamut of of what's going on in the world.

(00:46:49):
Well, that's that's very flattering.

(00:46:50):
But I think we've got to bring you and some other people into the fold.

(00:46:53):
But yeah,

(00:46:54):
I also,

(00:46:55):
you know,

(00:46:56):
when people ask me that,

(00:46:57):
one of the things that I want to say is like,

(00:47:00):
well,

(00:47:00):
look at Kate Mann or look at all of these other women who are writing brilliantly

(00:47:05):
about this topic.

(00:47:06):
Go read them.

(00:47:07):
I'm going to write about my thing rather than snatch a bit of material from their space.

(00:47:13):
Yeah.

(00:47:13):
And I think that having that whole,

(00:47:18):
yeah,

(00:47:18):
many sort of voices and many perspectives,

(00:47:21):
I think is really important.

(00:47:22):
And one of the,

(00:47:24):
I think it's really,

(00:47:25):
I think there's various strands of your works on which are interesting.

(00:47:27):
I think one of the strands is about kind of

(00:47:30):
yeah,

(00:47:30):
feminists not being mean to each other and like having that respect,

(00:47:34):
even though you might have different points of view about things,

(00:47:38):
but like fundamentally,

(00:47:39):
I think we all want the same thing.

(00:47:41):
So let's not kind of fall out over small things.

(00:47:44):
Let's kind of read and learn and hear from each other so we can move forward.

(00:47:51):
So that's actually,

(00:47:53):
that's the last thing I wanted to talk to you about is building solidarity,

(00:47:56):
you know,

(00:47:58):
Your book talks so beautifully about how these motherhood myths convince us that

(00:48:03):
the problem is always located in the individual and that political issues are

(00:48:07):
actually personal failings.

(00:48:08):
And so what ends up happening is women keep running on this hamster wheel of

(00:48:12):
self-improvement rather than rallying together to build solidarity with one

(00:48:16):
another.

(00:48:17):
And then when they occasionally get a glimpse of how other women's lives look, they often just

(00:48:23):
criticize each other so that they can feel good about themselves.

(00:48:28):
How do we break this cycle?

(00:48:30):
How can we come together with women we maybe disagree with,

(00:48:35):
women maybe we don't even like,

(00:48:38):
and build some common ground for a common cause?

(00:48:43):
I think it's recognising what we have in common and I think it's recognising that

(00:48:47):
we all want to build a better world,

(00:48:50):
not just for ourselves,

(00:48:51):
but for our children and for all the children in the world.

(00:48:54):
I know that sounds a bit cheesy,

(00:48:56):
but I think recognising our common humanity,

(00:49:00):
recognising the ways in which society is letting down the most vulnerable people in

(00:49:07):
society,

(00:49:08):
which is babies and children,

(00:49:10):
and to have that as a common...

(00:49:13):
common ground between mothers.

(00:49:16):
And then I think between sort of mothers and non-mothers,

(00:49:18):
I just don't think there should be any dispute at all because,

(00:49:26):
again,

(00:49:26):
we both suffer from good mother myths.

(00:49:29):
These myths are bad for all women, whether or not you have children.

(00:49:33):
So I think it's about recognising the common ground,

(00:49:36):
understanding who is the bad guy here,

(00:49:40):
understanding that actually we are serving children

(00:49:43):
patriarchy if we have fights with other women instead of with the systems that are

(00:49:49):
oppressing us and I know that's easier said than done because we're all human and

(00:49:53):
we get wound up and we get angry but yeah it's just trying to focus on that yeah I

(00:49:59):
mean I think that's great advice and yeah I mean I certainly get wound up and angry

(00:50:04):
constantly but I think you know learning to control that to whatever extent we can

(00:50:09):
has a lot of value

(00:50:12):
Alex, thank you so much.

(00:50:14):
It has been such a pleasure having you.

(00:50:16):
Oh, thank you.

(00:50:18):
I've so enjoyed talking to you, Zorn, and I just love your work.

(00:50:22):
And I think it's great that we have this energy and this passion to make things better.

(00:50:30):
Well, I love your work.

(00:50:31):
I hope everyone will buy your book.

(00:50:33):
It's so, so, so good.

(00:50:35):
I started highlighting in the first chapter and then I just stopped highlighting

(00:50:38):
because I would have highlighted everything.

(00:50:40):
It's amazing.

(00:50:40):
So go out and buy it.

(00:50:43):
I will put it in my bookshop.

(00:50:44):
I'll put it in the show notes.

(00:50:45):
I'll put all of Alex's information there.

(00:50:47):
I will be back next week with an interview with Kristen Pascucci from Birth Monopoly.

(00:50:52):
And I will talk to you then.