(00:00:00):
My ex-partner knew I was about to leave,

(00:00:02):
but I still needed a couple of weeks to furnish my new apartment and move.

(00:00:06):
He seemed to accept it.

(00:00:08):
Then one night he provoked a fight with our three-year-old,

(00:00:11):
yelled at him until he cried,

(00:00:12):
and then locked him in his room.

(00:00:15):
I wanted to go to him, but it was a trap.

(00:00:17):
My ex blocked me and kicked me out of the apartment.

(00:00:21):
I called the police and they told me to do as he tells me or they cannot guarantee my safety.

(00:00:26):
Of course,

(00:00:26):
I don't get that in writing,

(00:00:28):
so the official version will be that I decided to leave our child out of my own

(00:00:31):
free will.

(00:00:32):
In the following days,

(00:00:33):
I went to the police,

(00:00:35):
the child protection services,

(00:00:37):
tried to get my empty place ready,

(00:00:38):
even though I had to leave all my belongings behind,

(00:00:41):
struggled with chicken pox,

(00:00:42):
consulted with lawyers,

(00:00:44):
booked therapy sessions for me and my son,

(00:00:46):
and went on with my day job.

(00:00:48):
My ex sabotaged everything I did,

(00:00:51):
even though I still did almost all childcare,

(00:00:53):
and he got to decide when he spent time with our son.

(00:00:56):
I didn't get much help during this period.

(00:00:59):
I had to do whatever he wanted to avoid escalation.

(00:01:02):
A few months later,

(00:01:03):
my ex casually revealed that all he had to do was change his administrative status

(00:01:07):
to single,

(00:01:08):
and he was automatically assumed to be sole custodian,

(00:01:12):
with all of the tax and other benefits,

(00:01:14):
and on top of everything,

(00:01:15):
he was offered free consultations with a therapist to help him deal with the

(00:01:19):
separation.

(00:01:21):
Hi, I'm Zahn Valines, and this is the Liberating Motherhood Podcast.

(00:01:25):
Today,

(00:01:26):
we are going to be talking about the experiences of mothers across cultures,

(00:01:30):
how culture,

(00:01:31):
how religion,

(00:01:33):
how legal systems all influence the experience of motherhood,

(00:01:37):
but also how the overarching culture of patriarchy is thematically similar across

(00:01:41):
cultures.

(00:01:42):
I'm here today with Abigail Leonard,

(00:01:44):
who will be talking to us about her new and truly amazing book,

(00:01:48):
Four Mothers.

(00:01:48):
Hi, Abigail.

(00:01:50):
Hi, thank you for having me.

(00:01:52):
I'm so glad to have you here and so excited to talk about your book.

(00:01:55):
But before we do that, I'm going to tell people a little bit about you.

(00:01:59):
Abigail Leonard is an award-winning international reporter and the author of Four

(00:02:03):
Mothers,

(00:02:04):
an intimate journey through the first year of parenthood in four countries.

(00:02:08):
It follows women in Japan,

(00:02:10):
Kenya,

(00:02:10):
Finland,

(00:02:11):
and the United States during their first year as mothers and was named an Amazon

(00:02:15):
Best Nonfiction Book of the Year so far and a Sunday Times Book of the Week.

(00:02:20):
Abigail was previously based in Tokyo,

(00:02:23):
where she was a frequent contributor to NPR and New York Times Video,

(00:02:27):
and where she had her own three children.

(00:02:30):
Before we get started,

(00:02:31):
just a friendly reminder that social media algorithms are increasingly making

(00:02:35):
feminist and minority creators invisible,

(00:02:38):
even as they continue to profit off of our work.

(00:02:41):
You can fight back against this by giving the algorithm the engagement that it wants.

(00:02:45):
Please consider helping to support this podcast by leaving a comment on social media and

(00:02:50):
sharing,

(00:02:50):
telling a friend about the podcast,

(00:02:52):
or leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform.

(00:02:54):
Reviews are especially important,

(00:02:56):
and they help the podcast continue to grow and to also get great guests like the

(00:03:00):
guests we have today.

(00:03:02):
So let's get started.

(00:03:04):
I just actually reread Four Mothers for the first time,

(00:03:07):
and as I was telling you before we started recording,

(00:03:10):
the storytelling is just masterful.

(00:03:13):
It reads like a novel, and I'm just so excited to get to talk about it.

(00:03:18):
So there's that.

(00:03:20):
Thank you.

(00:03:21):
I mean,

(00:03:21):
really,

(00:03:21):
thank you for saying that because it was a goal of mine to make it read like a

(00:03:25):
novel.

(00:03:25):
And it took a lot of sort of working and smoothing and figuring out sort of the

(00:03:30):
narrative arc of each story.

(00:03:31):
So I do appreciate that you read it like that.

(00:03:34):
Yeah.

(00:03:35):
And if you're listening and you're not really into nonfiction,

(00:03:38):
I think you'll still be into this because it doesn't have that reporter vibe of

(00:03:43):
like,

(00:03:44):
we're trying to fit this story into a narrative.

(00:03:47):
It's just like really telling stories.

(00:03:48):
And I love that.

(00:03:50):
So, okay, so years ago, I became obsessed with this movie called Babies.

(00:03:56):
I don't know if you've seen it, but it followed the lives of four babies around the globe.

(00:04:01):
And the focus there was on the babies.

(00:04:02):
I think they actually maybe even cut the adults' heads off so you could just,

(00:04:07):
like,

(00:04:07):
see their legs.

(00:04:09):
The adults were, like, not people in any meaningful way.

(00:04:11):
Yeah.

(00:04:12):
And I loved the idea,

(00:04:14):
but I remember that I really wanted to see what was happening to the mothers and

(00:04:19):
really not liking how the mothers became these just like disembodied people.

(00:04:23):
And so now you've kind of done what that movie did.

(00:04:27):
And I was just I was so excited about that.

(00:04:29):
So tell me what inspired you to write this book?

(00:04:33):
Yeah,

(00:04:33):
I mean,

(00:04:34):
it is interesting sort of the parallels to baby and sort of just the way that we

(00:04:38):
view,

(00:04:40):
you know,

(00:04:40):
parenting in general and sort of focusing on the baby.

(00:04:42):
And then the mother is sort of this like stagehand just coming in and out of the

(00:04:46):
picture when really I think most of the drama is probably happening with her.

(00:04:49):
So I came to this...

(00:04:54):
project because I myself had three children in Tokyo, Japan.

(00:04:59):
And I think one of the mothers and babies was actually in Tokyo.

(00:05:05):
I moved there when I was six months pregnant with my first,

(00:05:09):
and my husband was working,

(00:05:12):
sort of going back and forth from the U.S.

(00:05:14):
to Tokyo.

(00:05:15):
And it made sense, or so we thought at the time, to move there and have the baby.

(00:05:21):
And I thought we were going to stay for a year, and we ended up staying for almost seven.

(00:05:25):
And so, like I said, I had my three kids there, and I sort of

(00:05:30):
you know,

(00:05:31):
learned about that country and also just about sort of motherhood in general and

(00:05:35):
what it meant and what it meant there,

(00:05:39):
which was different from sort of the experience I'd had in the U.S.

(00:05:42):
and sort of reflecting on that and the ways in which

(00:05:46):
that society supports new moms and babies or, you know, in some ways doesn't.

(00:05:51):
And then coming back to the US and just seeing really how hard it is here for women

(00:05:57):
with children because of the lack of support,

(00:05:59):
sort of public support and traditional supports.

(00:06:03):
It just, it was so clear, like how much harder we make it for moms in the US.

(00:06:08):
And,

(00:06:09):
you know,

(00:06:09):
just having had this different experience,

(00:06:11):
I just got really curious about what it was like

(00:06:14):
um for women in other places and sort of like you you take on all of this identity

(00:06:19):
as a mom and you think so much of it is your responsibility how it plays out for

(00:06:23):
you but in fact so much of it is really you know sort of predetermined by where you

(00:06:28):
happen to give birth so i just wanted to to sort of explore that so i found four

(00:06:32):
women and followed them through their own first year of motherhood in those

(00:06:36):
different countries

(00:06:37):
I love it.

(00:06:38):
And I just,

(00:06:40):
my own work has shown me that no matter where you talk to women,

(00:06:44):
motherhood is really hard.

(00:06:46):
And it's made needlessly hard by political forces.

(00:06:50):
Like I think that there are some themes that are consistently the same,

(00:06:53):
pretty much no matter where you are.

(00:06:55):
But then when you compare European and some Asian countries to the United States,

(00:07:01):
the United States really begins to look like a hellscape.

(00:07:04):
And it's just...

(00:07:06):
You know, I've only ever lived in the United States.

(00:07:08):
And so it's very normal to me.

(00:07:10):
But when I post podcasts or articles about things in the United States,

(00:07:16):
I have women from other countries saying that I must be making this up.

(00:07:20):
This can't possibly be true.

(00:07:22):
And it is true.

(00:07:24):
Yeah.

(00:07:25):
Yeah.

(00:07:25):
No, I mean, that's totally true.

(00:07:26):
And it was the same way when I was raising kids in Japan and my Japanese friends

(00:07:29):
would say similar things like,

(00:07:31):
is it true that you,

(00:07:32):
you know,

(00:07:33):
have to leave the hospital after a day or two or whatever,

(00:07:36):
because there you stay for five days and,

(00:07:38):
you know,

(00:07:39):
there's no paid leave and there you get a year and all of this stuff there.

(00:07:44):
They have these incredible community centers.

(00:07:46):
I mean,

(00:07:46):
there's a lot of ways in which it's very hard to be a mom in Japan because there's

(00:07:49):
a lot of sort of

(00:07:51):
societal pressure on women there.

(00:07:52):
But I do think that when you're on the outside looking in at the U.S.,

(00:07:56):
you just really it's sort of unbelievable what women here do.

(00:08:02):
We provide like the country's social safety net, essentially.

(00:08:05):
I mean,

(00:08:05):
all of the stuff that the government there is providing because they see it as a

(00:08:09):
social good to provide care to new moms and particularly babies.

(00:08:14):
It's just sort of it's all born by the, you know, the mothers and the parents in the U.S.,

(00:08:21):
Yeah, it's just totally wild.

(00:08:23):
Okay, so you have these four women in these four countries.

(00:08:27):
How did you find these women?

(00:08:28):
And how did you decide which countries to do?

(00:08:32):
Yeah, so the US and Japan were sort of obvious to me.

(00:08:34):
I knew them really well and I thought they were interesting.

(00:08:38):
I wanted to do an example of a place that always sort of gets held up as having

(00:08:43):
figured this out to some extent.

(00:08:45):
And so I went to Finland, you know, Northern Europe has a lot of really good social programs.

(00:08:50):
And the other piece that they don't,

(00:08:52):
that Japan doesn't have,

(00:08:53):
that they have is this sort of egalitarian sense in relationships and sort of how

(00:08:58):
that

(00:08:59):
um would affect motherhood sort of how the the partners were involved how the

(00:09:03):
fathers were involved so um so I chose Finland and then Kenya um I mean I thought

(00:09:11):
it was really important to sort of be get a sense of the whole world and Africa is

(00:09:15):
obviously you know um a huge piece of that and also you know it's growing

(00:09:22):
demographically in a way that like

(00:09:24):
you know,

(00:09:24):
Western Europe and Asia and these other countries are sort of shrinking as people

(00:09:29):
have fewer kids,

(00:09:30):
you know,

(00:09:30):
Africa and Kenya,

(00:09:32):
it's the opposite there.

(00:09:32):
So like, what does that look like on the ground?

(00:09:34):
And,

(00:09:35):
you know,

(00:09:37):
as that country sort of rebuilt from colonialism,

(00:09:40):
how much of it,

(00:09:40):
you know,

(00:09:41):
sort of the pre-colonial stuff,

(00:09:42):
could they bring in those traditions and sort of how were they building and looking

(00:09:46):
at the future?

(00:09:47):
So I sort of selected generally where I wanted to go.

(00:09:51):
And then

(00:09:51):
I worked with local reporters.

(00:09:53):
So I had been, I was a news producer for PBS for a long time.

(00:09:58):
And we would often do documentary work in different countries.

(00:10:02):
And so you would work with a local,

(00:10:05):
you know,

(00:10:05):
they would call them fixers or reporters and they would be on the ground and they

(00:10:08):
would help you.

(00:10:10):
They helped me in this case, find those women.

(00:10:13):
And I had these really specific parameters for what I wanted, which like, yeah,

(00:10:18):
they delivered on, but it's sort of crazy in retrospect to think about it.

(00:10:21):
I wanted,

(00:10:22):
you know,

(00:10:22):
first time moms having babies in January 2022,

(00:10:26):
you know,

(00:10:28):
in these different countries who are willing to be followed for a year and like,

(00:10:31):
tell me everything about it.

(00:10:32):
And they found really incredible women.

(00:10:36):
And then since they were there,

(00:10:38):
like they were in country,

(00:10:39):
they followed them and they helped me,

(00:10:41):
you know,

(00:10:42):
through the whole year,

(00:10:43):
just like keep up with them.

(00:10:46):
Yeah, I was struck by like how much I really liked each of the women.

(00:10:51):
And I think in some ways that makes it challenging to talk about them and what

(00:10:56):
they're experiencing because you don't want to seem like you're criticizing them

(00:11:00):
or,

(00:11:00):
you know,

(00:11:01):
presenting yourself as an authority on their lives.

(00:11:03):
So I'm just kind of keeping that in mind as I ask you about what you saw.

(00:11:08):
And I imagine, you know, you developed a really meaningful relationship with them.

(00:11:13):
Mm-hmm.

(00:11:14):
Why don't you tell me about each of these four main characters?

(00:11:20):
Sure.

(00:11:22):
So I'm thinking about where to start.

(00:11:24):
So in Japan, Tsukasa is she's a first time mom.

(00:11:31):
She actually had

(00:11:33):
you know, sort of a difficult process coming to motherhood in some ways.

(00:11:37):
She had several miscarriages before she had a successful pregnancy.

(00:11:44):
She also revealed to me that she had some abuse in her childhood that sort of was

(00:11:47):
impacting her thinking about,

(00:11:49):
you know,

(00:11:50):
raising children and all of this stuff.

(00:11:53):
And so she had sort of a lot of stuff going into it that I really commended her

(00:11:58):
for,

(00:11:58):
like,

(00:11:59):
talking about.

(00:12:00):
And then she...

(00:12:03):
In Japan,

(00:12:04):
the sort of traditional way of doing this is that you return to your parents' house

(00:12:08):
for the month after you have the baby.

(00:12:10):
So she did that.

(00:12:11):
And,

(00:12:12):
you know,

(00:12:12):
it was it was good,

(00:12:15):
but it was sort of there was like a fraught relationship with her mom,

(00:12:17):
as you can imagine,

(00:12:18):
like spending that much time with your mom and in that sort of

(00:12:22):
difficult moment in your own life it was hard for her um but yeah so so she sort of

(00:12:28):
went through that and then re-engaged with her husband when she returned home to

(00:12:32):
Tokyo with him um but he like a lot of Japanese men just worked like all the time I

(00:12:37):
mean this is a real problem like the men are you know sort of expected to work all

(00:12:40):
the time and earn the money and the women are expected to like a 100% do the

(00:12:43):
domestic work

(00:12:45):
mostly that's sort of how it is even if they're also working so they struggled with

(00:12:49):
that and it was just sort of interesting to see how they dealt with it I think they

(00:12:54):
both wanted it to be better but were sort of stuck in this place that was making it

(00:12:57):
really hard for them and then Chelsea is in Kenya she's the youngest one of all the

(00:13:05):
moms she was only 24 when she had a baby and it was with a man who she wasn't

(00:13:09):
married to and that sort of

(00:13:13):
caused a lot of problems because he was from a different ethnic community than than she was.

(00:13:18):
And so they didn't get the sort of traditional kinds of support that like her own

(00:13:23):
mom and her grandmother got when when they were raising children.

(00:13:28):
And, you know, sort of the other

(00:13:32):
thing about her,

(00:13:33):
and I don't want to like give too much away,

(00:13:35):
but it sort of happens at the beginning,

(00:13:36):
you find out that she also lost her own parents sort of shortly before getting

(00:13:40):
pregnant.

(00:13:40):
So for her, having a baby is, you know, this

(00:13:46):
period of like renewal in some ways,

(00:13:47):
she's sort of putting her life back together with this new life after,

(00:13:50):
after experiencing so much loss.

(00:13:52):
And so sort of following her as she deals with that,

(00:13:56):
um,

(00:13:57):
and just tries to be a single mom in Kenya,

(00:13:59):
which is incredibly difficult.

(00:14:01):
Uh, and then let's see in Finland, um,

(00:14:06):
Anna is, she's actually the only one who already had a child.

(00:14:11):
And so she has a 10 year old girl and she has this current baby who I'm following

(00:14:18):
her with,

(00:14:19):
with a man who she's also not married to.

(00:14:22):
And they sort of only recently met,

(00:14:24):
but they're sort of excited to have a child,

(00:14:26):
but it's his first.

(00:14:28):
And he really struggles with fatherhood and sort of his role.

(00:14:32):
And it's really hard for her because he's,

(00:14:35):
he is not finished and sort of doesn't understand when she wants him to be like an

(00:14:40):
equal partner.

(00:14:41):
He sort of seems to put a lot of the, um, child raising responsibility on her.

(00:14:47):
And so they sort of negotiate that throughout the year, um, and their relationship, um,

(00:14:53):
sort of struggles as they're navigating parenthood together.

(00:14:57):
But she also just has an incredible amount, as you can imagine, amount of support in Finland.

(00:15:01):
And so seeing sort of how that helps is pretty remarkable, just public support.

(00:15:07):
And then finally, Sarah in the U.S.

(00:15:09):
is... She is a former Mormon, as is her husband, Brian.

(00:15:16):
And they...

(00:15:20):
They sort of rejected the church in some ways because they wanted to live their own

(00:15:25):
life and sort of set their own rules and not sort of she didn't want to be like

(00:15:30):
just the sort of homemaker like her mom was and sort of subscribe to all the ideas

(00:15:36):
about women and men and how they're supposed to operate in the home.

(00:15:39):
But sort of as the year goes on, you start to see.

(00:15:43):
that it's really hard to sort of make your own life if you don't have the support

(00:15:49):
of like the church or any other institution like that community group in the U.S.

(00:15:53):
because there's no public support to fall back on.

(00:15:56):
So, you know, she's a teacher, he's an Amazon delivery driver.

(00:15:58):
They really...

(00:16:00):
you know,

(00:16:00):
it's hard in a lot of ways and they,

(00:16:03):
they struggle,

(00:16:04):
but you know,

(00:16:05):
she's,

(00:16:05):
I don't know,

(00:16:06):
she was wonderful and she's also really funny.

(00:16:07):
And so I just sort of loved like chatting with her.

(00:16:09):
She always, she was great.

(00:16:12):
All of them were really wonderful, but yeah.

(00:16:14):
And they each have their own sort of interesting, interesting dynamics as the year goes on.

(00:16:20):
One thing I noticed and it kind of crept back up for me while you were talking

(00:16:24):
about the Japanese family and sort of the gender norms there.

(00:16:30):
is that it feels to me,

(00:16:31):
and I may just feel this way because I'm an American,

(00:16:34):
so if it's that,

(00:16:35):
you can tell me that.

(00:16:36):
It feels to me like in the United States,

(00:16:38):
we have a really distinct culture around gender norms and gender roles too that's

(00:16:43):
actually very much like this Japanese thing where it's expected that the man will

(00:16:46):
work and it's expected that the majority of the labor will fall to the mother

(00:16:51):
regardless of whether or not she's working.

(00:16:54):
But we don't make that explicit.

(00:16:55):
We pretend that it doesn't exist while everyone...

(00:16:59):
knows that it exists.

(00:17:00):
And I feel like there are a lot of norms here like that,

(00:17:04):
where it's like we pretend that we don't have a culture.

(00:17:07):
And in some ways, it makes it even harder to grapple with the culture we have.

(00:17:11):
What do you think about that?

(00:17:15):
Yeah, that's a really interesting point.

(00:17:18):
I think you're right.

(00:17:19):
I think

(00:17:21):
a lot of these norms extend here and extend to places you wouldn't necessarily

(00:17:25):
expect to find them.

(00:17:28):
So I, I think in, in Japan, there is, you feel it, you know, you do feel it.

(00:17:34):
It's somewhat more oppressive in some ways, but also here you're right.

(00:17:38):
It's this sort of insidious version of the same thing.

(00:17:43):
And I think that,

(00:17:45):
one of the things about the US is we tell ourselves a lot of myths about sort of

(00:17:49):
who we are and who we aspire to be and like how far we've come and how much

(00:17:54):
progress we've made when in fact,

(00:17:57):
a lot of those things are untrue,

(00:17:59):
you know,

(00:17:59):
that women can work and they can sort of,

(00:18:02):
have all these things but you know the price you pay is that yes there is this

(00:18:06):
expectation that you will also raise the kids um and and we don't say it but men

(00:18:12):
are you know applauded in a completely different way for uh

(00:18:19):
participating in domestic life.

(00:18:22):
So yeah, and I think it's interesting to see too how slow it is to change here in some ways.

(00:18:29):
Whereas in Japan, it is more explicit, but perhaps because of that,

(00:18:35):
It's sort of fully confronted in some ways, like in public life.

(00:18:39):
There's a lot of discussion around it right now,

(00:18:41):
particularly because the birth rate is dropping.

(00:18:42):
So people are saying, like, what can we do to change society?

(00:18:46):
And women have really responded like we don't want all of this burden.

(00:18:50):
And so there is a lot of sort of explicit talk about how to change that and,

(00:18:55):
you know,

(00:18:56):
ideas around how to.

(00:18:58):
get men to take paternity leave and they've actually been pretty successful at

(00:19:01):
doing that um in just the past two years like by getting companies to publicly

(00:19:06):
disclose how many men are are taking leave and stuff and you know some of those

(00:19:10):
things you just like right there's it's so gendered but in other ways you know

(00:19:16):
they're

(00:19:18):
they're sort of moving forward.

(00:19:20):
Like, you know, they're trying to find ways to make it better.

(00:19:24):
And it's sort of a more nimble society because they can actually,

(00:19:27):
you know,

(00:19:28):
put these policies in place to move forward.

(00:19:29):
Whereas we just like sort of pretend it's not happening and pretend that there's equality.

(00:19:33):
When in fact,

(00:19:34):
as you said,

(00:19:35):
like we all sort of know,

(00:19:37):
especially once we become parents,

(00:19:39):
how sort of untrue that is.

(00:19:42):
Yeah.

(00:19:43):
I mean,

(00:19:43):
it makes me think a lot about how,

(00:19:46):
you know,

(00:19:46):
you can't solve a problem if you don't identify it.

(00:19:49):
And I feel like in the United States,

(00:19:50):
there's like a whole industry around pretending this problem doesn't exist around

(00:19:55):
telling women,

(00:19:56):
well,

(00:19:56):
it's not really inequality.

(00:19:58):
It's a communication problem.

(00:20:00):
And have you tried trying?

(00:20:01):
Like, just try.

(00:20:04):
And so we can't even get to the part where we admit that we have a problem because

(00:20:08):
as soon as you say there's a problem,

(00:20:10):
it's this massive gaslighting.

(00:20:12):
Um,

(00:20:13):
so I think something relevant to that is you have this amazing quote in your book

(00:20:17):
where you say,

(00:20:19):
the role and responsibility of a mother might even be described as a belief system

(00:20:23):
upon which other aspects of a culture and policy are based.

(00:20:27):
And the agency each mother feels and how to be a parent is derived from those beliefs and

(00:20:32):
It's such like a succinct summation of what I believe about motherhood is sort of a

(00:20:36):
political role.

(00:20:39):
How do you feel about expanding on that a little bit?

(00:20:41):
We have this thing that we do where we pretend all of the problems of motherhood are individual.

(00:20:47):
You know,

(00:20:47):
it's your own individual shortcomings and you just need to be a better advocate or

(00:20:50):
whatever.

(00:20:50):
And

(00:20:53):
that's not true.

(00:20:54):
There are political forces influencing what we want, what we can do, what we do.

(00:20:59):
So can you talk a little bit more about how you've observed that in this book?

(00:21:04):
Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right.

(00:21:06):
I think, you know, in the US, there's a few things going on.

(00:21:10):
There's this idea of like personal responsibility, and it's sort of up to you to sort of

(00:21:17):
deal with the choices that you've made,

(00:21:18):
whether that's,

(00:21:19):
you know,

(00:21:20):
to have kids or not to have kids.

(00:21:21):
And once you have kids,

(00:21:22):
it's sort of on you to figure out how to provide for them,

(00:21:26):
how to,

(00:21:27):
you know,

(00:21:28):
make sure that there's childcare available,

(00:21:29):
all those sort of things that in other places are that burden.

(00:21:34):
is societal, you know, it's communal.

(00:21:37):
There's an idea that the society is in it together and there's an investment in the

(00:21:41):
next generation.

(00:21:42):
And so,

(00:21:43):
you know,

(00:21:45):
there should be public childcare and there should be paid leave because that's,

(00:21:49):
you know, the best way to keep women in the workforce.

(00:21:51):
So there,

(00:21:52):
you know,

(00:21:52):
there's just sort of this broader thinking rather than it falling on the person to

(00:21:56):
sort of do the best they can.

(00:21:58):
And that comes in all these different ways.

(00:22:00):
I even see it sort of when you're like looking at Instagram and there are all these

(00:22:04):
tips for how to,

(00:22:07):
you know,

(00:22:09):
like make sure you get the healthiest food for your kid or whatever it is,

(00:22:13):
the organic food and stuff.

(00:22:14):
And these are just all things that in other places people think less about because

(00:22:20):
society has already thought about them for you,

(00:22:21):
I guess.

(00:22:22):
And so,

(00:22:24):
These ways that we feel responsible and guilty,

(00:22:29):
and like it's our burden and maybe we're failing,

(00:22:33):
which I think is inherent to motherhood anyway,

(00:22:37):
it's so heightened by the fact that our political system has failed us as mothers

(00:22:43):
and as parents and as caregivers.

(00:22:46):
So it's just much bigger.

(00:22:49):
than we are.

(00:22:49):
And I think my own personal experience sort of going from Japan to the US and then

(00:22:53):
also seeing these women sort of struggling with both the same things like,

(00:22:59):
you know,

(00:23:00):
the sort of mundanity of early

(00:23:03):
you know,

(00:23:04):
babyhood and the sleep deprivation and,

(00:23:07):
you know,

(00:23:07):
all the sort of basic difficulties of having a baby.

(00:23:10):
But then on top of that, just how much harder it was for Sarah in the U.S.

(00:23:15):
and similarly for Chelsea in Kenya.

(00:23:17):
I mean,

(00:23:17):
I sort of saw their narratives running in parallel a lot of times because they just

(00:23:22):
didn't have really any public support.

(00:23:25):
It was very flimsy.

(00:23:27):
And they also, the sort of,

(00:23:30):
community support that may have existed at one time,

(00:23:33):
like for Sarah,

(00:23:34):
that was through the church and for Chelsea in Kenya,

(00:23:37):
that was through,

(00:23:38):
you know,

(00:23:38):
the ties to her ethnic community,

(00:23:40):
all of those things were fraying with modern life.

(00:23:44):
And so there was sort of nothing for either one of them.

(00:23:47):
And so, but each of them became

(00:23:51):
like obsessed in the same way with their baby's weight and i thought that was also

(00:23:54):
really interesting it was something that they could control you know by feeding

(00:23:57):
more like is my baby gaining enough weight and they would be you know measuring it

(00:24:02):
and thinking about it and asking the doctor about it and never feeling really like

(00:24:06):
satisfied with the answer i mean both of them it was just like on different sides

(00:24:09):
of the world and it just sort of occurred to me that it's like this was the thing

(00:24:13):
they were fixating on the same thing but it was really because they were just

(00:24:18):
being failed by the greater society, you know?

(00:24:21):
And so just thinking about ourselves in the political context,

(00:24:27):
in the historical context,

(00:24:28):
I think it alleviates a lot of the sort of feelings of that guilt and personal

(00:24:32):
responsibility,

(00:24:33):
but it also sort of instills in,

(00:24:35):
at least in me,

(00:24:35):
it did like a lot of anger about the fact that women and mothers don't get the

(00:24:41):
support that they deserve in our country and in other countries

(00:24:47):
compared to places that have these much stronger social safety nets.

(00:24:54):
Yeah, absolutely.

(00:24:55):
Well,

(00:24:56):
and there's kind of a double victimization there because there's the part where

(00:25:01):
you're not getting the support and all of the really meaningful resources that come

(00:25:05):
from that.

(00:25:06):
But then there's the second part where we individualize it and we pretend either

(00:25:11):
that she's not getting support because she's done something wrong.

(00:25:14):
You know, she hasn't built a village like these women left their communities or, you

(00:25:19):
Where we pretend these are just like individual struggles,

(00:25:22):
like,

(00:25:22):
well,

(00:25:22):
you haven't done enough to produce your breast milk,

(00:25:24):
you know,

(00:25:25):
you haven't communicated well with your spouse.

(00:25:28):
And,

(00:25:28):
and so it just compounds the like awfulness because not only are things harder than

(00:25:34):
they need to be,

(00:25:35):
we have so many cultural messages telling women that it is their individual fault

(00:25:40):
that it's hard and that it's easy for lots of other people for better people.

(00:25:44):
Right.

(00:25:45):
Right.

(00:25:46):
Right.

(00:25:46):
And if you just worked harder or,

(00:25:48):
yeah,

(00:25:49):
made better choices,

(00:25:51):
then,

(00:25:52):
you know,

(00:25:52):
you wouldn't be in this position.

(00:25:54):
But I think really the other thing in my book,

(00:25:58):
I sort of saw through the stories of these women was just sort of how universal the

(00:26:01):
struggles were and that it is none of these women's fault that it's hard.

(00:26:06):
It's just hard.

(00:26:07):
But it's also like really beautiful and really important to...

(00:26:12):
you know,

(00:26:12):
the future of humanity in each of these countries that women are able to have kids

(00:26:17):
and able to sort of like have as many kids as they want.

(00:26:19):
So,

(00:26:20):
yeah,

(00:26:20):
I do think it's really important to sort of think about it and deconstruct like

(00:26:26):
those messages that we're getting and internalizing in ways that I think we don't

(00:26:33):
even sort of realize we're internalizing.

(00:26:35):
I mean,

(00:26:35):
and the other part of it is like thinking about safety and,

(00:26:39):
you know,

(00:26:39):
if you're in a place where there's

(00:26:41):
like a lot of potential violence,

(00:26:45):
which both Sarah and the US and Chelsea and Kenya sort of felt at different times.

(00:26:50):
I think that also is destabilizing.

(00:26:53):
And,

(00:26:53):
you know,

(00:26:53):
Tsukasa in Japan,

(00:26:55):
like said,

(00:26:56):
at one point I wanted to leave Japan because it felt sort of oppressive.

(00:26:59):
But in other ways,

(00:27:00):
I feel like,

(00:27:00):
you know,

(00:27:01):
things are just so violent out there and the US is violent.

(00:27:03):
Like I wouldn't, I'd rather sort of stay here in the safety of Japan.

(00:27:06):
So there's, there's just different ways that like the,

(00:27:10):
place that we are is affecting us and that it's not sort of our fault if we feel,

(00:27:16):
I guess,

(00:27:19):
like nervous or anxious or whatever,

(00:27:21):
you know,

(00:27:21):
all those feelings that come along with it.

(00:27:22):
There are just sort of these bigger forces going on.

(00:27:25):
I think identifying them is really is helpful.

(00:27:29):
Yeah.

(00:27:29):
So, I mean, one of those forces, as you say, is violence.

(00:27:32):
And I really want to highlight what you've just said,

(00:27:35):
because I think a lot of us,

(00:27:38):
especially like white,

(00:27:39):
relatively affluent people living in the United States with our ethnocentrism and

(00:27:44):
our racism,

(00:27:45):
have this idea of other or browner countries as like really dangerous places.

(00:27:52):
Whereas other countries view us as a really dangerous place.

(00:27:55):
And we objectively...

(00:27:58):
are um tell me what it's like in places where it's not like that yeah it's really

(00:28:06):
remarkably different I found in Japan just sort of like being in a female body and

(00:28:11):
walking down the street like at night I never felt that sort of like I need my

(00:28:16):
spidey sense on to make sure that

(00:28:19):
you know,

(00:28:20):
nothing's going to happen to me because there,

(00:28:21):
there are,

(00:28:22):
there pretty much is no gun violence.

(00:28:24):
I mean, it's like very rare, like maybe single digits.

(00:28:27):
And so there just isn't that in the same way.

(00:28:31):
I mean, they had, there's plenty of issues sort of like domestic violence behind closed doors.

(00:28:35):
And I don't want to minimize any of that,

(00:28:36):
but existing there just feels there's,

(00:28:40):
you've just sort of let that down.

(00:28:41):
And I remember coming back to the U S and,

(00:28:44):
you know,

(00:28:44):
just feeling like I sort of needed to rebuild a little bit of like just,

(00:28:48):
you know,

(00:28:48):
sort of a street sense,

(00:28:49):
like knowing where I was and that kind of stuff.

(00:28:52):
And then particularly when it comes to kids,

(00:28:55):
it's totally true that,

(00:28:57):
you know,

(00:28:58):
I had a lot of,

(00:29:00):
I had friends there who were Japanese or maybe they were

(00:29:04):
British or whatever they were,

(00:29:05):
they were European,

(00:29:05):
and they just were sort of saying,

(00:29:07):
like,

(00:29:07):
are you sure you want to move back to the U.S.?

(00:29:08):
You know, there's a lot of gun violence, and there's also all the shooter drills and da-da-da.

(00:29:13):
And,

(00:29:13):
you know,

(00:29:14):
sort of when you're in the U.S.,

(00:29:15):
you are somewhat able to ignore it and say it's not going to happen.

(00:29:18):
But,

(00:29:18):
I mean,

(00:29:18):
just the pervasiveness of it,

(00:29:20):
it's sort of everywhere,

(00:29:21):
and it seeps in in a way I think you don't realize.

(00:29:25):
it's doing and every time one of those things happens you think about your own kids

(00:29:28):
and then it could happen to them and I think if you're in a different country you

(00:29:32):
look at it and you say that is so tragic and so strange you know but there's not

(00:29:38):
the same feeling that like oh at some point that could be me you know and I think

(00:29:44):
that living that way in the U.S.

(00:29:47):
is hard for parents.

(00:29:49):
And I do think there is this thing we have where we think,

(00:29:53):
yeah,

(00:29:54):
there are all these other countries out there that are sort of,

(00:29:56):
like you said,

(00:29:58):
more violent or worse off or whatever,

(00:29:59):
but certainly there are countries that look at us that way and,

(00:30:03):
you know,

(00:30:04):
for good reason.

(00:30:06):
Yeah.

(00:30:07):
I mean,

(00:30:07):
while you're saying this,

(00:30:08):
I'm just thinking about the fact,

(00:30:10):
you know,

(00:30:11):
my kids are really privileged in a lot of ways.

(00:30:13):
You know,

(00:30:13):
they get to go to like a private,

(00:30:14):
like progressive nature school and we have,

(00:30:18):
you know,

(00:30:18):
a safe neighborhood and it's walkable and all of that.

(00:30:21):
But in their short lives, the amount of violence they have been exposed to is stunning.

(00:30:25):
Like they...

(00:30:26):
witnessed a road rage event and there was like a shooting down the street from their school.

(00:30:32):
You know,

(00:30:32):
friends of friends who have been involved in like violent altercations with the

(00:30:36):
police.

(00:30:37):
And like,

(00:30:38):
we look at that and we're like,

(00:30:39):
oh,

(00:30:39):
that's like pretty good for just a couple of years in the United States.

(00:30:43):
And that's not pretty good.

(00:30:45):
Yeah, no, that's absolutely true.

(00:30:48):
And I felt that with my oldest son who was six when we moved back.

(00:30:52):
I mean, he was just...

(00:30:53):
there was just such a sort of like innocence and sweetness that I don't know.

(00:30:58):
He had growing up in Japan in some ways.

(00:31:00):
And then he came to the U S and he definitely remarked on it.

(00:31:03):
Like there's more sort of like,

(00:31:05):
I don't know,

(00:31:05):
just our,

(00:31:06):
our culture and our myths are sort of different,

(00:31:08):
you know,

(00:31:08):
there are,

(00:31:09):
they are more violent and what we kids are exposed to is,

(00:31:12):
is more violent.

(00:31:13):
And I mean, he also like remarked on how dirty the,

(00:31:18):
the streets were compared to Tokyo, which like any city is going to fail compared to Tokyo.

(00:31:22):
But it's really amazing what you can sort of get used to in six years and then

(00:31:25):
everything else seems strange.

(00:31:27):
But yeah,

(00:31:29):
the violence is,

(00:31:31):
it's just like woven through in this way that we don't even see it anymore.

(00:31:35):
And I thought it was interesting, Sarah, the woman I profiled in

(00:31:39):
Utah she's a teacher and so she would go through these like active shooter drills

(00:31:42):
and but she had been doing it since she was a kid and she was like well you know

(00:31:46):
it's just what we do and now we're like doing it with the next generation of kids

(00:31:49):
and I don't know it just becomes sort of normal in the culture once it's been there

(00:31:54):
for long enough that is what it is and it

(00:31:58):
it's hard to unravel, I guess.

(00:32:01):
But this is like the water we're swimming in,

(00:32:04):
you know,

(00:32:04):
when we,

(00:32:05):
when we raise kids here and it's really,

(00:32:07):
it,

(00:32:07):
yeah.

(00:32:09):
I mean, it has to change their psyche in some way as well.

(00:32:12):
Yeah.

(00:32:13):
So there's another type of violence might be an overstatement,

(00:32:17):
certainly aggression that mothers and children in the United States experience that

(00:32:22):
I feel a lot when I go out with my kids and

(00:32:26):
And I'm going to try to describe it.

(00:32:27):
And hopefully you'll know what I'm talking about.

(00:32:29):
It's encountering people who are very eager to be aggrieved by children,

(00:32:35):
very eager to judge and shame children who have like significant problems with just

(00:32:40):
like kids being present in public and who really want to blame mothers for that.

(00:32:47):
And so I've only ever lived in the United States.

(00:32:49):
Um,

(00:32:50):
I've traveled abroad, not when I had children.

(00:32:53):
What is that dynamic like abroad?

(00:32:55):
Is that everywhere?

(00:32:56):
Or is that an American thing?

(00:32:57):
Or tell me about those dynamics.

(00:33:02):
Yeah, I mean, I think I'm trying to think about the different countries.

(00:33:07):
I think there are two pieces of it.

(00:33:09):
There's the piece that's

(00:33:13):
with the kids and how much kids are sort of accepted in sort of everyday society

(00:33:17):
and how much society is child centered.

(00:33:19):
And so like in Finland, it's fairly child centered.

(00:33:22):
I mean, they have these parks where it's, there are people there who can sort of help mine them.

(00:33:28):
And there's also a, a,

(00:33:30):
coffee and maybe like place you can get a drink or something right next to it like

(00:33:33):
there's a thought that like parents are people too and want to do this and the kids

(00:33:37):
have their life and they all sort of coexist in a way and the other thing is just

(00:33:42):
how sort of normalized fatherhood is there and you know you would really see I did

(00:33:48):
notice it like just how many dads on the street looked very comfortable being with

(00:33:52):
their kids and I think part of that from what I've

(00:33:55):
understood through the reporting of the book was like they get really long parental

(00:33:59):
leave so they are alone with their babies for a long time and so they develop into

(00:34:03):
really good capable caregivers in a way that like maybe American dads aren't ever

(00:34:07):
allowed to do because they don't get as much time off and so they don't get to do

(00:34:12):
it and they sort of just always look to their

(00:34:15):
I mean,

(00:34:15):
you know,

(00:34:16):
a heteronormative relationship,

(00:34:18):
but like look to their wives to sort of be the experts and that's their domain.

(00:34:22):
And so they don't get to be the experts in that domain.

(00:34:26):
And so there's that as well.

(00:34:28):
That's like, you really feel it.

(00:34:31):
I felt like that was really different.

(00:34:32):
And then, whereas in Japan, I mean, it's completely different.

(00:34:38):
There is not an expectation that men will sort of take care of kids.

(00:34:43):
And so I remember once when my,

(00:34:45):
my husband was wearing like the front pack with the baby in it.

(00:34:48):
And I mean, people were like, what?

(00:34:50):
Like, you know, the idea that a man would be wearing the baby was like a big, really big deal.

(00:34:55):
And they were, they were sort of like congratulating him, but it was just a remark.

(00:34:57):
It was something people remarked on.

(00:34:59):
And, and I, you know, following Sukasa, that was just sort of how it was totally like that.

(00:35:04):
So there was both amazing ways in which like, there were these baby rooms in every, you know,

(00:35:13):
public building or mall or whatever with all sorts of stuff like breastfeeding rooms and stuff.

(00:35:18):
So like for moms,

(00:35:19):
there were,

(00:35:19):
it was wonderful,

(00:35:20):
but you know,

(00:35:21):
there was nothing really to support dads being as involved.

(00:35:25):
And so dads weren't as involved and like dads, they're,

(00:35:29):
are entitled to even longer paternity leave than they are in Finland,

(00:35:32):
but they just historically never took it because culturally it was sort of

(00:35:36):
unacceptable and they would fall behind at work.

(00:35:37):
And so there are these,

(00:35:40):
yeah,

(00:35:40):
there are these ways in which like just the built world,

(00:35:43):
you can think about how it's encouraging gender roles in one way or another and

(00:35:48):
encouraging children to sort of

(00:35:50):
be part of the world or not.

(00:35:53):
In Japan,

(00:35:54):
there's also these incredible community centers that are basically free and staffed

(00:35:58):
by retired people.

(00:35:59):
And so moms always would go there,

(00:36:02):
but like every day for the year and they would meet other moms and then develop

(00:36:07):
sort of a social group,

(00:36:08):
which is really important.

(00:36:10):
So, yeah, I mean, it was really, really set up for children to be integrated into society.

(00:36:15):
The subway all had like working elevators for strollers,

(00:36:18):
all that kind of stuff was great,

(00:36:20):
but clearly set up for women and not men.

(00:36:24):
Yeah.

(00:36:24):
Gosh, you're you're really making me want to move.

(00:36:27):
I have to say, like, I'm just listening to this and feeling.

(00:36:30):
You didn't need another reason.

(00:36:31):
Yeah, I know.

(00:36:33):
It's just really, really heartbreaking.

(00:36:36):
OK,

(00:36:37):
so one of the things you talked about is fathers in Finland getting all this time

(00:36:41):
at home with their kids.

(00:36:43):
And there's something that just drives me nuts where we pretend that motherhood is

(00:36:48):
like not skilled labor and that,

(00:36:51):
you know,

(00:36:51):
a mother can mother for 10 years.

(00:36:53):
And then,

(00:36:54):
you know,

(00:36:54):
if they get divorced,

(00:36:55):
you can just send the kid to live with their dad and they'll be just fine.

(00:36:57):
It doesn't matter that he hasn't done any of the work.

(00:37:00):
It's irrelevant.

(00:37:01):
And I like the idea of men like learning the skill of parenting.

(00:37:08):
Um,

(00:37:10):
I guess I kind of like lost track of what my question is there.

(00:37:15):
What do you think needs to happen or could happen in the United States and in other

(00:37:23):
countries to help us acknowledge that like parenting is a skill and to support men

(00:37:28):
to really develop this skill?

(00:37:31):
Yeah, it's a really good question.

(00:37:33):
I mean, I think

(00:37:35):
Probably it's sort of like circular.

(00:37:37):
It's like once men do it, it will be seen as a skill.

(00:37:42):
But I think it does come back to some of this policy stuff.

(00:37:48):
I'm trying to,

(00:37:49):
what's interesting is always comparing like Finland and Japan because they have

(00:37:52):
similar policies,

(00:37:54):
but Finland has just a lot more sort of equality in this way.

(00:37:57):
But they, you know, once you create the policy, so you have like paid leave

(00:38:06):
for both women and men and women, you know, both of them are encouraged to take it.

(00:38:12):
The way they do it in Finland is it's like a set block of time and they can divide

(00:38:15):
it between the two parents,

(00:38:17):
but it has to be somewhat equal.

(00:38:19):
It can't like all go to the mother or something.

(00:38:23):
And having that and then having it sort of

(00:38:28):
transition smoothly into public childcare is really helpful because then,

(00:38:32):
you know,

(00:38:33):
women can transition back to work and men.

(00:38:36):
And there's just a certain amount of acceptance at work that people are going to

(00:38:40):
take time off and they're going to come back.

(00:38:45):
And then having that childcare available so women don't have to make the choice

(00:38:48):
about whether and how much to return to work and all that sort of stuff based on,

(00:38:53):
you know,

(00:38:53):
financial need.

(00:38:56):
is really important.

(00:38:57):
So I think paid leave and childcare are just like hugely important policies to start with.

(00:39:02):
And the hopeful thing is that states that have done this,

(00:39:07):
they're actually seeing a lot of pickup from

(00:39:11):
women and men as far as paid leave.

(00:39:13):
And when California,

(00:39:14):
you know,

(00:39:15):
got its own paid leave program,

(00:39:18):
like a big number of the people who took it were men.

(00:39:22):
And so there just sort of had to be this permission structure that that men could take it.

(00:39:28):
And it sort of had to be built in.

(00:39:30):
And I think in Japan, this is sort of what they're working on.

(00:39:32):
It's like they have the policy and now the culture has to catch up and say,

(00:39:35):
like,

(00:39:36):
you have a year to

(00:39:38):
And you should take it like it is appropriate for you to take it.

(00:39:41):
It is good for you.

(00:39:42):
You're sort of like seen not as less manly,

(00:39:45):
but more manly or whatever,

(00:39:46):
you know,

(00:39:46):
like whatever the sort of gender role reconfiguration around that policy needs to

(00:39:52):
be.

(00:39:52):
But sort of just thinking about the intersection of of culture and policy in that way.

(00:39:57):
But yeah,

(00:39:59):
I think I think some of it is just like we keep saying the same stuff,

(00:40:01):
but it's really basic.

(00:40:02):
But once you get paid leave and child care and sort of equitable

(00:40:08):
maternal health care a lot of these other things are actually downstream of those

(00:40:14):
yeah yeah i mean i just can i make one more point oh yeah go ahead so i thought it

(00:40:19):
was also interesting in finland how they um there there's this idea of like latte

(00:40:23):
papas and they were these like cool fathers who were um like on paternity leave and

(00:40:30):
at cafes with their kids and they're sort of seen as

(00:40:34):
like aspirational for men and, you know, attractive for women.

(00:40:38):
So there's this idea that like men on paternity leave who are good caregivers,

(00:40:43):
that sort of like an attractive thing and something you would look for in a man.

(00:40:48):
You know, I think in the U.S.

(00:40:50):
there's all this, like, we think about this and what's attractive in men.

(00:40:53):
And sometimes we talk about, I don't know, you know, when you think about men who have

(00:41:03):
you know, careers that are able to provide it.

(00:41:06):
The U S is so expensive for raising a family.

(00:41:08):
Like there's so much need for wealth in some ways,

(00:41:13):
because there's just such a difference in experience.

(00:41:16):
So where am I going?

(00:41:19):
So just the priorities of like who you choose and a mate are different,

(00:41:22):
but once you sort of have the basics covered,

(00:41:24):
then you can look for sort of,

(00:41:26):
you know,

(00:41:26):
other things that maybe you do want,

(00:41:28):
like the caregiver aspect of it and sort of someone who is going to be an involved

(00:41:31):
dad and all of those things,

(00:41:32):
because,

(00:41:33):
sort of you have childcare and you have everything sort of built into the system.

(00:41:37):
So then everyone sort of finds their role in it.

(00:41:43):
Yeah, that's a really interesting point.

(00:41:45):
So I did a survey about a year ago where I asked women what initially attracted

(00:41:51):
them to their partners.

(00:41:53):
And like the majority of these women were now in relationships that they considered

(00:41:56):
catastrophically unhappy.

(00:41:59):
And I was asking because my theory was that

(00:42:03):
women would choose partners based on criteria that weren't really long-term

(00:42:07):
predictors of like how happy they'd be.

(00:42:09):
Like you're saying, like they weren't looking for good caregivers.

(00:42:12):
And sure enough, that turned out to be the case.

(00:42:16):
But in reflecting on that, you know, it is so much more expensive here.

(00:42:20):
And like, it kind of doesn't matter if someone's not a good caregiver either.

(00:42:24):
If you're homeless or if you can't afford for basic health care for your child.

(00:42:31):
So it's I don't know,

(00:42:32):
it just seems like it involves a lot more work and a lot more vetting to be a woman

(00:42:37):
in the United States.

(00:42:39):
Yeah, no, I think that's true.

(00:42:40):
I think there's all these ways in which it's true, you know.

(00:42:43):
being a parent,

(00:42:44):
being like a fully realized human,

(00:42:46):
you know,

(00:42:46):
getting to choose a job,

(00:42:47):
not for the healthcare,

(00:42:48):
but for,

(00:42:49):
you know,

(00:42:49):
because it sort of speaks to you.

(00:42:50):
Like in Japan,

(00:42:51):
you would see that these like little shops with,

(00:42:53):
you know,

(00:42:53):
specializing and who knows,

(00:42:55):
you know,

(00:42:55):
some very specific thing that someone was into,

(00:42:57):
but they could do that because they didn't have to worry about,

(00:42:59):
you know,

(00:42:59):
healthcare or childcare provided for a family.

(00:43:02):
So they could sort of realize their,

(00:43:03):
their dream in a way that I think,

(00:43:05):
you know,

(00:43:05):
we think of the U S as being,

(00:43:07):
where you can make your dreams come true.

(00:43:09):
And to some extent that's true,

(00:43:10):
but there's another way in which it's just,

(00:43:12):
you know,

(00:43:12):
it's a grind.

(00:43:13):
And so you're,

(00:43:14):
and I heard this too,

(00:43:15):
when I was doing research about sort of the paid leave efforts at the state level.

(00:43:19):
So it was like when Minnesota was trying to pass paid leave,

(00:43:23):
a lot of the supporters were small business owners and they were,

(00:43:28):
and I talked to one and they were saying like,

(00:43:30):
I can't hire anyone to work in my coffee shop because they just want to go out

(00:43:35):
work for target once they get pregnant and have a kid because they're guaranteed

(00:43:38):
benefit there or something,

(00:43:39):
you know,

(00:43:39):
it's like,

(00:43:40):
there's all these things that are downstream of it.

(00:43:42):
And so it's,

(00:43:43):
whether it's like which partner you can choose or which career you're sort of able

(00:43:47):
to pursue,

(00:43:48):
you know,

(00:43:49):
the,

(00:43:49):
just the things that make you,

(00:43:51):
you and like,

(00:43:52):
you're so constrained by not having that safety net.

(00:43:56):
Yeah.

(00:43:58):
I'm also thinking about how in the United States,

(00:44:01):
I think,

(00:44:02):
you know,

(00:44:02):
everywhere,

(00:44:03):
the balance of physical work of becoming a parent,

(00:44:08):
if you're having your own biological children,

(00:44:10):
falls to the woman because she grows and births the baby.

(00:44:13):
And that's hard and challenging and dangerous.

(00:44:16):
But in the United States,

(00:44:17):
it's a lot worse because our maternal mortality and morbidity rates are

(00:44:22):
skyrocketing.

(00:44:23):
And, you know, I just think about the statistics on

(00:44:29):
And it's so it's now 50,000 women in the United States every year are

(00:44:34):
catastrophically disabled by childbirth.

(00:44:36):
Tens of thousands have near misses where they almost die.

(00:44:39):
You know, hundreds are dying and something like 20 percent end up with PTSD from birth.

(00:44:46):
And it's just not like that in any other way.

(00:44:50):
wealthy country so it's like we we enter behind because we're injured and

(00:44:55):
traumatized and then we have less time to recover from those injuries and traumatic

(00:45:00):
experiences and less community support and then it's like six months later and

(00:45:06):
everyone's like well you know you've got postpartum depression when maybe you just

(00:45:10):
have like really serious injuries and a total lack of community and you had to go

(00:45:16):
back to work while you were still bleeding from giving birth

(00:45:20):
Yeah, I think that's very true.

(00:45:25):
And I saw it with Sarah, who I followed in Utah.

(00:45:30):
She just had a very tough time because she

(00:45:33):
to go back to work and she had to deal with the pumping and you know brian was

(00:45:37):
working at amazon delivery you know doing delivery driving so he wasn't sort of

(00:45:41):
available to help and she was very lonely because there wasn't um sort of the

(00:45:47):
network of new moms the way i saw in japan and finland encourages and all of these

(00:45:52):
things so like her mental health really suffered and then you know she was reading

(00:45:56):
online about she wanted to make sure she was exclusively breastfeeding for six

(00:46:00):
months which is totally great and then you know

(00:46:04):
you know,

(00:46:04):
she wanted to do it her way,

(00:46:05):
but there was just a sense that it was no thought given to like her mental health.

(00:46:13):
Whereas in Finland,

(00:46:14):
you know,

(00:46:15):
Anna goes to the local clinic and she's having trouble breath feeding and they say

(00:46:19):
like,

(00:46:19):
it's important that the mom is happy,

(00:46:21):
the baby's happy and like,

(00:46:22):
you know,

(00:46:23):
you need to take care of yourself.

(00:46:24):
And no one sort of ever said that to Sarah,

(00:46:26):
but you know,

(00:46:27):
so like then,

(00:46:29):
like you said,

(00:46:29):
like six or nine months later,

(00:46:30):
I can't remember how long it was into her life.

(00:46:33):
you know, year, she got diagnosed with postpartum depression and was put on antidepressants.

(00:46:40):
And,

(00:46:40):
you know,

(00:46:41):
it's good that she was able to get medical care,

(00:46:43):
but you also just think about all the failures that led up to that point and the

(00:46:47):
ways that,

(00:46:48):
you know,

(00:46:49):
if she'd had,

(00:46:49):
like you said,

(00:46:50):
a community or,

(00:46:51):
you know,

(00:46:51):
all these sort of traditions,

(00:46:53):
there were similar traditions in Japan and in Kenya,

(00:46:58):
which are very different places,

(00:46:59):
obviously,

(00:47:00):
but they both,

(00:47:01):
you know,

(00:47:03):
there was this idea that the woman would stay inside for 30 or 40 days after birth

(00:47:07):
and be cared for by the women in her community who would all come with gifts and,

(00:47:11):
you know,

(00:47:11):
food and healthy stuff and she would rest.

(00:47:13):
And, you know, all of that stuff that has just really disappeared in a lot of places.

(00:47:19):
And if it's not replaced by paid leave or like,

(00:47:24):
you know,

(00:47:24):
some,

(00:47:25):
some other support system like that,

(00:47:27):
some structure,

(00:47:27):
I guess it's just a structure,

(00:47:30):
then you have,

(00:47:31):
Yeah,

(00:47:31):
like people like Sarah who are just kind of on their own and trying to struggle,

(00:47:34):
figure it out and do the best they can and reading online about how to breastfeed

(00:47:38):
and,

(00:47:39):
you know,

(00:47:39):
then ending up depressed and just sort of stuck.

(00:47:44):
I felt like there were so many ways that she just seemed like she was sort of stuck.

(00:47:48):
in her life because there's so little wiggle room,

(00:47:51):
like with what we're talking about,

(00:47:52):
the financial pressures of being a parent.

(00:47:54):
And,

(00:47:55):
you know,

(00:47:55):
she said to me,

(00:47:56):
like,

(00:47:56):
my parents,

(00:47:56):
I don't think it was this hard for them a generation ago.

(00:47:59):
My dad,

(00:48:00):
you know,

(00:48:00):
I can't remember,

(00:48:01):
he like went back to college later,

(00:48:02):
but he was able to raise six kids on like one income.

(00:48:05):
And it just does feel like things are at this sort of crisis point.

(00:48:10):
And yet, like women are still supposed to do it all.

(00:48:15):
It's just, it's really,

(00:48:17):
it's it's really hard and you can see it when you look at just yes the day-to-day

(00:48:22):
experience of that versus what it's like in places that um just prioritize the

(00:48:28):
mental health of the mother yeah in some ways and the other thing i was sorry just

(00:48:32):
one last thing that i thought was really interesting in finland like not only are

(00:48:36):
they doing the mental health of the mother but they have this new they're doing a

(00:48:41):
um

(00:48:42):
So let me back up.

(00:48:42):
So in Finland,

(00:48:43):
they have a program where a new mother,

(00:48:46):
before she gives birth,

(00:48:47):
like a month ahead,

(00:48:48):
will meet with a therapist and talk about sort of what she wants to bring to

(00:48:52):
parenthood and stuff from her own childhood that she wants to replicate or not and

(00:48:57):
sort of think about intergenerational trauma and not bringing it to the next

(00:49:01):
generation and all of these really wonderful things.

(00:49:03):
And now they're doing,

(00:49:04):
I mean,

(00:49:05):
those aren't wonderful things,

(00:49:06):
but wonderful to explore before you have a kid.

(00:49:09):
And then...

(00:49:10):
they're thinking about doing it for men now so that husbands,

(00:49:13):
you know,

(00:49:14):
new fathers would get this kind of a session and think about the fathers they want

(00:49:18):
to be and,

(00:49:19):
you know,

(00:49:19):
what they want to bring from their own childhoods.

(00:49:22):
And just the idea that we would like think about men in that way.

(00:49:26):
I mean, it's just so far ahead.

(00:49:28):
It's like another, you know, planet or something like that.

(00:49:32):
Men's mental health.

(00:49:32):
Like we're talking about women's mental health and they've sort of like worked

(00:49:36):
through that in some way and are still thinking about it.

(00:49:38):
And now we're extending it to men.

(00:49:39):
It's,

(00:49:40):
um,

(00:49:41):
I mean,

(00:49:41):
what's good is that there are all these models and,

(00:49:43):
you know,

(00:49:44):
we can start to think about them and maybe incorporate them,

(00:49:47):
um,

(00:49:47):
you know,

(00:49:48):
like in the,

(00:49:49):
in the best circumstance,

(00:49:50):
we could use some of that research and thinking,

(00:49:52):
but,

(00:49:52):
um,

(00:49:53):
it just,

(00:49:53):
again,

(00:49:53):
makes you realize sort of how far behind,

(00:49:55):
how behind we are.

(00:49:56):
Yeah.

(00:49:57):
I mean, a lot of that just doesn't even sound real to me what's happening.

(00:50:01):
And, and we know, when I was reading Sarah's story, it was,

(00:50:07):
It was kind of predictable.

(00:50:10):
You know,

(00:50:10):
I remember when I was pregnant,

(00:50:12):
they would talk to us about the cascade of interventions where like you get this

(00:50:16):
intervention and it helps this one thing,

(00:50:18):
but it causes another problem and you get another intervention and that's kind of

(00:50:22):
how it goes.

(00:50:23):
But there's also this kind of like cascade of trauma after you have a kid where

(00:50:27):
this thing goes wrong and it causes this thing and,

(00:50:29):
you know,

(00:50:30):
then it affects the relationship and then you can't support each other.

(00:50:33):
And

(00:50:34):
I felt like that spiral is what was happening to her.

(00:50:38):
And, you know, when, when you're in it, I think it feels like, well, it's just me.

(00:50:43):
It's just us.

(00:50:44):
I have to try harder, but it's happening to like the majority of women in the United States.

(00:50:51):
So there's that, but also I want to switch a little away from the United States because I

(00:50:57):
This is an international audience.

(00:50:59):
And a lot of the feedback that I get,

(00:51:02):
especially from men when I write about these issues,

(00:51:04):
is that's just you stupid Americans.

(00:51:07):
We've ended sexism everywhere else where it is now perfect.

(00:51:12):
And I think even some women are dismissive of like, well, not in Finland, surely.

(00:51:19):
But actually the woman I know who's in like the most abusive relationship I've ever

(00:51:22):
heard of lives in Finland.

(00:51:25):
You know,

(00:51:25):
I know lots of women in countries with strong social safety nets who can't leave

(00:51:31):
their relationships or who are being abused or,

(00:51:34):
you know,

(00:51:35):
it's not perfect.

(00:51:36):
So could you talk a little bit about that?

(00:51:40):
Yeah, no, that's definitely true.

(00:51:41):
And I think I'm glad you made that point because I don't want to sort of like idealize Finland.

(00:51:48):
Sometimes it's just by comparison,

(00:51:49):
you know,

(00:51:49):
sort of these ideas are sort of forward thinking,

(00:51:52):
but it's true.

(00:51:55):
One of the things I heard women say there was that because there's this sort of

(00:52:00):
idea that everything is perfect and that you're sort of taken care of,

(00:52:04):
that it

(00:52:06):
you're sort of not allowed to complain or have problems and you're just sort of

(00:52:10):
supposed to get through it and everything is set up for you.

(00:52:12):
So what are you whining about?

(00:52:14):
So I do think, yeah, certainly there's that aspect of it.

(00:52:20):
And then,

(00:52:21):
you know,

(00:52:21):
even with Anna in my book,

(00:52:25):
she and her partner,

(00:52:27):
you know,

(00:52:27):
have a really pretty difficult relationship at some point that does sort of verge

(00:52:33):
on

(00:52:34):
I mean, it's not sort of what you're describing, but it's not healthy.

(00:52:39):
And I do think it's true that there are, you know, sort of relational dynamics everywhere.

(00:52:49):
And the way that you're sort of able to move through them,

(00:52:55):
you know,

(00:52:55):
it's not,

(00:52:57):
there are a lot of factors that influence it,

(00:53:00):
of course.

(00:53:02):
Um,

(00:53:02):
but I guess I also just within the,

(00:53:07):
you know,

(00:53:08):
sort of like bounds of the book,

(00:53:09):
I felt like her relationship was,

(00:53:13):
was really fraught,

(00:53:14):
but in the end she sort of was able to,

(00:53:17):
to extricate herself from it.

(00:53:18):
And,

(00:53:18):
um,

(00:53:19):
in a way that I just couldn't imagine Sarah doing and Sarah had some stuff going on

(00:53:23):
in her relationship with,

(00:53:24):
with Brian,

(00:53:24):
like that we haven't talked about yet,

(00:53:26):
but she,

(00:53:27):
um,

(00:53:28):
he was,

(00:53:29):
this is in the U S he

(00:53:31):
is bisexual and wanted to sort of date outside the marriage.

(00:53:34):
So this is like a subplot of their story.

(00:53:37):
But I felt like,

(00:53:38):
you know,

(00:53:39):
there were things that she felt like she was going to just sort of accept because,

(00:53:44):
I don't know,

(00:53:46):
the alternative would be pretty hard.

(00:53:48):
But

(00:53:51):
that doesn't mean that Anna in Finland and her relationship was perfect all the time.

(00:53:55):
It wasn't, and it was very, was very difficult.

(00:53:58):
So I guess,

(00:53:59):
you know,

(00:54:00):
people struggle in different ways in different places,

(00:54:03):
but it was nice to see that like,

(00:54:04):
she was able to sort of get out of that and,

(00:54:07):
you know,

(00:54:07):
find a way to sort of make the most of,

(00:54:11):
of where she was.

(00:54:12):
Well, I think that's something that's really useful to emphasize is

(00:54:16):
So I will just say I was 0% a fan of any of the men in the book.

(00:54:21):
Two thumbs down.

(00:54:23):
It's funny.

(00:54:25):
Sorry, I interrupted you.

(00:54:28):
Do you want to do that again?

(00:54:30):
Oh, no.

(00:54:30):
Well,

(00:54:31):
just like looking at Finland,

(00:54:33):
I actually I had it in my notes that they ended up with a custody agreement where

(00:54:38):
she had the child like five days a week and he had the child like two days a week.

(00:54:42):
And she was happy with that.

(00:54:44):
And she was also like able to extricate herself from that situation.

(00:54:48):
And that's not really how it goes for women in the United States who are often like

(00:54:54):
handing over 50-50 custody to like potentially dangerous men and child supports a

(00:55:00):
problem and social safety net's a problem.

(00:55:01):
And so, you know, they're either not allowed to leave, not able to leave, I guess, or

(00:55:07):
leaving becomes really catastrophic so even there even though it was not a great

(00:55:11):
relationship and that was not good for her she was able to move forward in a way

(00:55:17):
that a lot of women are not yeah no she was and i think she felt somewhat more

(00:55:23):
freedom to do that i thought it was interesting um she described it this way and

(00:55:28):
then i sort of did some research on it but

(00:55:30):
a lot of these laws, they sort of think about what's in the best interest of the child.

(00:55:34):
So having a relation,

(00:55:36):
I mean,

(00:55:37):
I guess they would do that here too,

(00:55:38):
but just the idea that like the child deserves a relationship with the mom and with

(00:55:42):
the dad and the dad sort of deserves a relationship with the child as well.

(00:55:45):
And so thinking about,

(00:55:47):
yeah,

(00:55:49):
it may not be exactly equal,

(00:55:51):
but it's sort of what's,

(00:55:54):
what's going to be healthy long-term and it's also sort of changes over time and

(00:55:59):
they have different sort of

(00:56:00):
parental education program.

(00:56:02):
So as he sort of becomes more comfortable and a better father,

(00:56:05):
maybe like custody will change and he'll get more of it.

(00:56:07):
So again,

(00:56:08):
it's not,

(00:56:10):
it's not perfect,

(00:56:11):
but it's refined in a way that's just felt like thoughtful.

(00:56:16):
Well,

(00:56:16):
I think what we see in the United States with kind of custody is a little bit of

(00:56:21):
what I talked about at the beginning,

(00:56:22):
where we pretend that cultural norms that we have don't exist.

(00:56:26):
So we're like, okay,

(00:56:27):
if we make it equal, it will be equal.

(00:56:30):
If we do 50-50 custody, it will make an equal society.

(00:56:34):
And what it really means is that in a lot of cases,

(00:56:38):
it's not preserving what the child's accustomed to.

(00:56:40):
And one parent is really poorly equipped to parent.

(00:56:44):
And the parent who was the primary caregiver is,

(00:56:47):
you know,

(00:56:47):
separated from their child and not getting appropriate child support and all of

(00:56:50):
that.

(00:56:51):
So, you know, I see...

(00:56:53):
I see that nuance in the Finland story that I don't see here.

(00:56:57):
And I just, I like seeing it that like, it's possible.

(00:57:00):
Yeah,

(00:57:01):
no,

(00:57:02):
I mean,

(00:57:02):
it's helpful in that way,

(00:57:03):
I guess that,

(00:57:05):
yeah,

(00:57:05):
there are,

(00:57:05):
there's just,

(00:57:06):
and I really did think of,

(00:57:09):
my book maybe doing some of that,

(00:57:11):
like providing sort of these like case studies,

(00:57:13):
like here is sort of a better way to do it.

(00:57:16):
And I think there's a lot of resistance to the idea that we could incorporate

(00:57:20):
those,

(00:57:21):
those policies here.

(00:57:22):
It's like,

(00:57:22):
well,

(00:57:22):
Finland is small and it's homogenous and there's no way that that could work here.

(00:57:26):
And I think to some extent,

(00:57:28):
of course,

(00:57:29):
that is true,

(00:57:30):
but it also is,

(00:57:32):
it lets us just sort of sit where we are and not,

(00:57:37):
I don't know,

(00:57:37):
sort of,

(00:57:38):
really push for what we deserve as parents which is what you know parents in other

(00:57:43):
countries already have and just sort of think about the ways to get there and it's

(00:57:47):
not as if Finland or Japan always had these these policies I mean they were sort of

(00:57:52):
they came out of

(00:57:54):
tragedy in both cases.

(00:57:56):
I mean,

(00:57:56):
it was really like post-war when those countries were completely decimated and they

(00:58:00):
had to rebuild their societies and they literally needed to like repopulate and

(00:58:05):
then just started to think about ways to support families.

(00:58:08):
And the other thing that happened in Japan that I thought was so fascinating in

(00:58:12):
World War II was these mothers who,

(00:58:15):
you know,

(00:58:16):
they would have to send their sons off to war with like no tears.

(00:58:21):
That was what the Japanese sort of

(00:58:24):
national ethos was that you were just supposed to,

(00:58:27):
you know,

(00:58:28):
send your kids off and some of them would go on,

(00:58:29):
you know,

(00:58:30):
like kamikaze missions.

(00:58:31):
I mean, it was just really horrendous stuff that these moms were dealing with.

(00:58:33):
And so after the war,

(00:58:36):
the idea was that they were sort of like resting back control of motherhood.

(00:58:40):
And they said, no longer are we going to produce kids for the state.

(00:58:43):
The state's going to help, you know, us support us, have kids.

(00:58:47):
And so they asked for a lot of these reforms.

(00:58:50):
And so it was feminism with motherhood.

(00:58:52):
at its core in this way that I sort of hadn't understood,

(00:58:55):
I think,

(00:58:55):
before I sort of learned that history.

(00:58:58):
I never really,

(00:58:59):
you know,

(00:58:59):
there's a certain like reverence around,

(00:59:01):
around motherhood and that,

(00:59:03):
you know,

(00:59:03):
it deserves this kind of support.

(00:59:05):
And, and some of that did come out of the war.

(00:59:07):
And I, I just thought that was such a, so interesting.

(00:59:10):
So I guess, I guess the idea is like, these things do change.

(00:59:14):
Sometimes it can take like a major societal or,

(00:59:18):
you know, geopolitical moment to do it.

(00:59:21):
But it's not as if we're stuck where we are.

(00:59:23):
And it's not as if we can't have better things.

(00:59:26):
I mean, I sort of want to believe that.

(00:59:29):
I think you should believe that.

(00:59:31):
And I think that's true.

(00:59:32):
Things change because we change them.

(00:59:34):
It's not magic.

(00:59:36):
And we can get there.

(00:59:38):
So I think that's a hopeful note to end this on.

(00:59:41):
Maybe we can start looking at where we can refine things at least around the edges

(00:59:46):
a teeny,

(00:59:47):
teeny,

(00:59:47):
tiny bit.

(00:59:49):
Yeah.

(00:59:50):
Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

(00:59:51):
And just sort of like orienting ourselves toward something for something better and

(00:59:58):
hoping that like from,

(01:00:00):
you know,

(01:00:01):
from this destruction,

(01:00:02):
there are seeds of something better will come.

(01:00:05):
I think it's coming because I have to believe that it's coming and change is always happening.

(01:00:10):
And sometimes it's in the wrong direction.

(01:00:12):
But I think that we can get there someday, I hope.

(01:00:17):
So thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

(01:00:19):
This has been wonderful.

(01:00:21):
Listeners, I will put Four Mothers and all of the other information in the show notes.

(01:00:27):
I highly, highly recommend this book.

(01:00:30):
It is so wonderful.

(01:00:33):
Thank you so much for having me.

(01:00:34):
It's been a real pleasure to talk to you.

(01:00:36):
It's been great.

(01:00:37):
And listeners, I will be back next week.

(01:00:40):
So thank you.