Speaker 1: True to life. This is not the first thing that
Speaker 1: I woke up, Just like every other thing that I
Speaker 1: have been supposed to do since I have had this kid.
Speaker 1: I am late coming to this, so yeah, I'm recording
Speaker 1: this at ten thirty. So far today I have already
Speaker 1: got up with the baby at six thirty, dropped off laundry,
Speaker 1: moved the car, picked up a bunch of rice because
Speaker 1: we were out of rice, made breakfast for the family,
Speaker 1: put the baby, tried to get him to nap by himself. Failed,
Speaker 1: put him down for a nap on my lap, changed
Speaker 1: his diaper a few times, and yep, have him all
Speaker 1: day today, but Thursdays and Fridays he's with a nanny.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: We can do this. He's looking very calm and very
Speaker 1: cute right now in this stroller. Yeah, that's it. This
Speaker 1: is finally a show about a first time mom and
Speaker 1: first time author. I'm Stephanie Fou. I am a journalist
Speaker 1: and an author of a book called Oh Don't Touch That,
Speaker 1: Let My Bones Know, and I am a new mom
Speaker 1: of a almost six month old baby. My baby boy,
Speaker 1: it's really fixated on this sausage looking microphone wants to
Speaker 1: eat it.
Speaker 3: He is.
Speaker 1: His name is well, we call him baby E and
Speaker 1: he is just about the cutest baby you'll ever see.
Speaker 1: And I think that's objectively true. Even my friends who
Speaker 1: don't have kids say that that's true, and so I
Speaker 1: believe it. And then they send me pictures of other
Speaker 1: babies that they think are ugly, so then I really
Speaker 1: believe it. So yeah, he's the cutest ever. He's very social,
Speaker 1: he likes people, he likes his baby Jim. He is
Speaker 1: a very very large eater, and he yeah, he's very
Speaker 1: large in general. He's almost twenty pounds, which is he's
Speaker 1: very heavy, and he's been his whole life, very active
Speaker 1: and strong. Even in the womb, he was nine pounds almost.
Speaker 1: I think when he was born, I'm five to one.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the easiest pregnancy. My first trimester, I was
Speaker 1: very nauseous, my second trimester, I was very constipated. I
Speaker 1: was hospitalized for being too constipated. And then my third
Speaker 1: trimester I lost the ability to walk. So it was
Speaker 1: hard and it was really scary too. I think that
Speaker 1: was probably the hardest part, was just being scared about
Speaker 1: becoming a mom, what that meant, what kind of mom
Speaker 1: I would be, and if I would hate it, or
Speaker 1: if what if I'm like an abusive nightmare mom, or
Speaker 1: what if I don't love him?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: And then he came out and he's great, so cute.
Speaker 1: So I wish I had known that when I was pregnant.
Speaker 1: I wish I had known that he was gonna be
Speaker 1: the best baby. I really didn't want to be a
Speaker 1: mom ever. And then I married somebody who really wanted
Speaker 1: to have kids, and then he went on a long
Speaker 1: campaign to convince me to have kids, and then we
Speaker 1: had kids. Before we have a kid, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't want kids because I think I have complex PTSD
Speaker 1: and from a really abusive childhood, and there's a lot there.
Speaker 1: I think part of it is I had to do
Speaker 1: so much caretaking for my parents when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and I don't particularly or I didn't particularly enjoy doing caretaking. Therefore,
Speaker 1: as an adult it was kind of triggering. And he
Speaker 1: was basically taught at a young age because both my
Speaker 1: parents abandoned me that you just fend for yourself, you
Speaker 1: take good care of yourself, and you get yours and
Speaker 1: don't trust anyone and that's it. And taking care of
Speaker 1: a kid is pretty much the opposite of that, you
Speaker 1: have to be totally selfless and you also have to Sorry,
Speaker 1: he's just kicking you. I hope you don't mind that
Speaker 1: you have to be totally selfless and you have to
Speaker 1: also rely on other people. You have to rely on
Speaker 1: a whole village. And that concept was really frightening to me.
Speaker 1: And I also was really afraid of you know, all
Speaker 1: I know of being a parent is how my parents
Speaker 1: parented me, and so I was afraid that I was
Speaker 1: just going to pass that down to him. So that's
Speaker 1: why I was very hesitant for a very long time.
Speaker 1: My mom, I think didn't like me very much. Maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think that she felt really trapped
Speaker 1: being a stay at home mom. I think she felt unfulfilled.
Speaker 1: I think maybe she was not parented very well. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but she was pretty extremely physically and verbally abusive.
Speaker 1: And she left when I was thirteen and I have
Speaker 1: never seen her since. So you know that again, that's
Speaker 1: the image I had of mothers of motherhood. And we
Speaker 1: have this book actually called good Night Edgar that we
Speaker 1: got for Christmas, and it's like the crow from never More,
Speaker 1: Like gir Allan Poe and his mom is telling him
Speaker 1: to do things, and he's like never more and never more.
Speaker 1: And at the end he's like, oh, don't pull the
Speaker 1: cat's hair.
Speaker 3: No, everybody, gentle, Okay, chaos, you want to look at
Speaker 3: the worm?
Speaker 1: Okay? What was I saying? I was talking about my
Speaker 1: abusive mother. No, okay?
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: And at the end he's like, do you love me, mom?
Speaker 1: And she's like forever more? And I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I probably will love him forever. And I was that
Speaker 1: was like complete surprise to me and a complete foreign concept,
Speaker 1: isn't that? And then I realized that that's like really
Speaker 1: fucked up and said, but yeah, I still don't really
Speaker 1: like any still don't really like anybody else's baby. Oh.
Speaker 1: I mean they're okay, they're fine, but I like them
Speaker 1: more than I used to. But I really like my own.
Speaker 1: And I'm surprised by the fact that I think I'm
Speaker 1: actually a pretty decent mom. I've never held a baby
Speaker 1: before I had my own. And but you learn on
Speaker 1: the job and once you're you know, feeding them like
Speaker 1: sixteen times a day, twenty four to seven, ye like,
Speaker 1: you get pretty you get the hang of it.
Speaker 2: Ah, we.
Speaker 1: Slogs, which slot do you want.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So in twenty eighteen, I think I was diagnosed with
Speaker 1: complex PTSD, and I had never heard of it before,
Speaker 1: so I googled it and I found that it was
Speaker 1: a pretty serious condition that is different than from classic
Speaker 1: PTSD in that it occurs when the trauma happens over
Speaker 1: and over and over again many times over the course
Speaker 1: of years, and mine comes from extreme child abuse neglect.
Speaker 1: And I was pretty floored with the diagnosis, and it
Speaker 1: explained a lot of the troubling patterns that had occurred
Speaker 1: throughout my life, and so I decided that I really
Speaker 1: really wanted to heal from this. And I also learned
Speaker 1: that there were no real firsthand accounts, no like memoirs
Speaker 1: about living and trying to heal from complex PTSD, and
Speaker 1: so I told myself that if I was able to
Speaker 1: feel better and to heal, then I would try and
Speaker 1: write that account. I also was turning thirty, and I
Speaker 1: had realized that I had been sad for a very
Speaker 1: very long time, and so I asked my therapist, like,
Speaker 1: am I bipolar? What do you think is wrong with me?
Speaker 1: And indeed that's when she told me that I have
Speaker 1: complex PTSD. The diagnosis of complex PTSD helped me help
Speaker 1: me to understand that my diagnosis helped explain a lot
Speaker 1: of my mental health struggles, my struggles and relationships. It
Speaker 1: helped me understand that my job, my workaholism, my relationships
Speaker 1: with friends, with lovers were all influenced far more than
Speaker 1: I had thought by my abusive childhood. I had thought like, well,
Speaker 1: I grew up and I'm successful now and I have
Speaker 1: you know, an ira, and it's all good. I'm healed.
Speaker 1: But I was not. It was affecting me every day
Speaker 1: far more than I had thought. I definitely feel envious
Speaker 1: when I see friends who have maternal support. I think
Speaker 1: the times that are hardest for me is when I
Speaker 1: really don't know what to do, Like with sleep chaining.
Speaker 1: He's always kind of been a bad sleeper, and so
Speaker 1: sometimes there are times when I'm just like, do I
Speaker 1: go in? Do I not go in? Do I pick
Speaker 1: him up? Do I not pick him up? And I
Speaker 1: get paralyzed. I'm just so overwhelmed and the sound of
Speaker 1: him crying is so painful, and I get overstimulated, and
Speaker 1: I'm just I don't know what to do, and I
Speaker 1: just really wish somebody was here who was a mom
Speaker 1: who would just tell me what to do like an
Speaker 1: experienced mom, my mom. But so those are the moments
Speaker 1: where it feels most, I feel the most longing. And
Speaker 1: then sometimes hearing from friends who you know, we have
Speaker 1: some friends who her mom is coming for three months
Speaker 1: and going to live down the street in a sublet,
Speaker 1: and so they're letting go over their nanny so that
Speaker 1: the mom can just help out for three months. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of a bummer for sure, But then again,
Speaker 1: you hear some other stories too, about parents who are
Speaker 1: more of a hindrance than a help and who make
Speaker 1: incessant comments about your weight or that's not the way
Speaker 1: I would do it, or why isn't the baby wearing
Speaker 1: a hat or that kind of thing, And we don't have.
Speaker 2: Any of that.
Speaker 1: So and we do have familial support in terms of
Speaker 1: Joey's siblings.
Speaker 2: He is now.
Speaker 1: Snort, he's sleeping on me. He would not go onto
Speaker 1: his mattress. So we're continuing the interview with him in
Speaker 1: my lap. You know, I think I was alright with it,
Speaker 1: and then it got annoying, and then it now is
Speaker 1: just it's just a normal part of Honestly, I kind
Speaker 1: of like it because it's like comforting to me because
Speaker 1: I know he's going to go to sleep, so it's fine.
Speaker 1: What was really surprising for one is that, like I've
Speaker 1: even seen Joey or other family members get like irritated
Speaker 1: at him and sort of like mad at him when
Speaker 1: he's you know, refusing to go down or stop screaming
Speaker 1: or whatever. But I've like never gotten mad at him before,
Speaker 1: and that's been very surprising to me. I thought it
Speaker 1: would be very hard to practice a lot of this
Speaker 1: gentle parenting stuff that I like was watching on Instagram
Speaker 1: for months in preparation. I was like all of the
Speaker 1: ways that you have to talk to them in terms
Speaker 1: of like affirming their feelings and if they're crying because
Speaker 1: they're being changed, you don't say, like, stop crying, it's fine.
Speaker 1: You have to say, like, oh, I know it's cold
Speaker 1: and it's uncomfortable. I'm sorry. I'm affirming your experience, you know.
Speaker 1: I thought that would be like a constant thing on
Speaker 1: my mind that I would have to force myself to
Speaker 1: do all the time. But it really just came naturally.
Speaker 1: I don't really even need to think about it. I
Speaker 1: don't know why. Maybe it's biological I mean, I have
Speaker 1: a lot of I have a lot of friends who
Speaker 1: do not have great relationships with their parents, and so
Speaker 1: I thought that was the default. And then I have
Speaker 1: some friends friends who had great relationships with their parents,
Speaker 1: and it's like, what, wait, that's possible. It's so messed
Speaker 1: up to think that, to have this weird default assumption
Speaker 1: in my head that families just hate each other, and
Speaker 1: I'm having to untrain myself of that. Obviously, I definitely
Speaker 1: feel anxiety. I mean, I definitely feel like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is great now, But that's because he's a baby, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, wait till he's twelve and he's like, I
Speaker 1: hate you, mom, You're the worst, or I mean he
Speaker 1: doesn't even need to be twelve. Three year olds do
Speaker 1: that all the time. But I have more faith in
Speaker 1: myself to be able to handle that than I did.
Speaker 1: A lot of parenting is just having to be very,
Speaker 1: very present all the time. So that's what it is.
Speaker 1: I'm also accepting that A couple of the best pieces
Speaker 1: of advice people told me is that a everything changes.
Speaker 1: So when there's a phase that you hate or whatever,
Speaker 1: write it out because they change in like a week
Speaker 1: or a month or whatever. It is, and another is
Speaker 1: that I mean I remember hanging out with my friends
Speaker 1: like five year old or something like that when I
Speaker 1: was like twenty seven and just being like, I don't
Speaker 1: know how I could ever do this. I don't know
Speaker 1: how I could parents get like this. And she was like, well,
Speaker 1: you don't start with a five year old. You get
Speaker 1: a baby, and then you learn how to do a baby,
Speaker 1: and it's like you get trained along the way basically
Speaker 1: for every new stage. And I think that has that's true.
Speaker 1: My CPTST makes me kind of still hard on myself,
Speaker 1: but it's complicated, like I'll feel like the worst mom
Speaker 1: for doing something or like letting him cry it out
Speaker 1: or whatever. And then I'll go in in the morning
Speaker 1: and I'm like, have I traumatized you? And the first
Speaker 1: thing he does is he looks at me and he
Speaker 1: just gives me this huge smile like a It's like, well,
Speaker 1: you don't seem very traumatized. You know they need you,
Speaker 1: And I think I know that the parental brain. I've
Speaker 1: been reading this book What Their Brain, and it talks
Speaker 1: about how like after I have a kid, you become
Speaker 1: more hyper vigilant and the sound of babies cries you're
Speaker 1: very hyper attentive to them, you know, like your brain
Speaker 1: focuses its attention on your child to the detriment of
Speaker 1: literally everything else in your life kind of. And I've
Speaker 1: definitely felt that focusing and that absolute like inability to
Speaker 1: do anything else when the baby is crying or think
Speaker 1: about anything else. It's like a full body sensation. The
Speaker 1: bad side of CPTSD is that I think it can
Speaker 1: aggravate that hypervigilance and make you be like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: my baby. Like in the beginning, I was always like,
Speaker 1: he's not sleeping, he's not sleeping. He needs to sleep
Speaker 1: like they say they need to sleep eighteen hours of
Speaker 1: the day. He's only slept like eleven hours today. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, is he gonna die? He's gonna die? And
Speaker 1: then Joey it, I told be like, I don't think
Speaker 1: he's gonna die from I think he just didn't sleep
Speaker 1: well today. And I'd be like, but but but I
Speaker 1: think he's gonna die. So like, that's the bad side
Speaker 1: of CPTSD. They say that in parenting a child, that
Speaker 1: gentle parenting, that being able to say like it's okay
Speaker 1: to have your big feelings. That makes it easier to
Speaker 1: apply that to yourself and for me to say it's okay, Stephanie,
Speaker 1: for you to have your big feelings right now. And
Speaker 1: I think sometimes I'm able to do that. I think
Speaker 1: generally I'm pretty bad at it still, but I hope
Speaker 1: that in time that I will get better at that,
Speaker 1: because I do I also I really do want a
Speaker 1: model not talking about myself in front of all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, I miss my selfish self that like my
Speaker 1: selfish self was able to in some ways build the
Speaker 1: life that we have now because I was able to
Speaker 1: work on myself and I was able to go to
Speaker 1: therapy and have a great career and you know, learn
Speaker 1: all these skills like cooking or French or whatever it
Speaker 1: is that are useful in my life now. But when
Speaker 1: you're caregiving, you that part of you sort of you
Speaker 1: have to kill it and you have to at the
Speaker 1: end of the day look at like the blank word
Speaker 1: docum and just say it, this is fine. Because making
Speaker 1: sure somebody that you love has a comfortable last year
Speaker 1: of her life, or making sure this baby that you
Speaker 1: love feel safe, and it's really hard to balance that
Speaker 1: and taking a shower, and like Joey will sometimes be
Speaker 1: like oh, you smell like sour milk. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh God, well, yeah, of course, time to wake up,
Speaker 1: time to wake up. Hello.
Speaker 2: I have thought about how I'm going to talk to
Speaker 2: him about my relationship in my family.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think, you know, for a long time,
Speaker 1: it's going to be pretty simple. Just like you know,
Speaker 1: Mommy's parents were not so nice to her, and that's
Speaker 1: why we don't see them.
Speaker 2: But you are lucky.
Speaker 1: Your parents love you very very very very very much.
Speaker 1: Oh and so you don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 1: But in time, I think, yeah, he's going to know
Speaker 1: the full story. He's going to read my book eventually.
Speaker 1: Probably you don't want to read what reading is hard
Speaker 1: and lame and you're tired.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those little eyes.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think anyone has to have kids.
Speaker 1: Like if I different life, I wouldn't have had kids,
Speaker 1: and that would have been fine, you know. But I
Speaker 1: think if you're not having kids because you're terrified of
Speaker 1: being the parent that you were raised by, you are
Speaker 1: not them, and you can be anyone. You can be
Speaker 1: the parent that you want to be because you know
Speaker 1: exactly what not to do. There's been some feelings of
Speaker 1: bewilderment and sadness about my parents just not.
Speaker 2: Understanding. You know.
Speaker 1: My mom used to say that, like, it's okay to
Speaker 1: spank your kid when they're in diapers because it softens
Speaker 1: the blow and it doesn't really hurt them. I was
Speaker 1: like potty trained by the time I was like, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have so she's like she's banking you, and she's
Speaker 1: I was his age. It just doesn't I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god. But I also have some appreciation for how
Speaker 1: much work goes into parenting. I don't know, it's and
Speaker 1: I definitely feel sad a sadness that they're so profoundly
Speaker 1: uninterested in their grandchild. But that's not surprising at all.
Speaker 1: I've been able to be proud of myself for certain things,
Speaker 1: and that's nice. It's really validating to be able to
Speaker 1: look at this giant, cute baby and be like, he's
Speaker 1: me entirely out of my milk. Like what, that's such
Speaker 1: a trip.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm about to voice bed. It's eight forty five,
Speaker 2: and the reason why I've forgotten to record this every
Speaker 2: single night up until that hour was usually right before
Speaker 2: I go to bed. It's because, like I tiptoe in
Speaker 2: and the baby's crying and I lie there and associate while.
Speaker 1: Listening to him.
Speaker 2: But he's not crying tonight, and that's great because he's
Speaker 2: mad chill baby. And I don't know how he got
Speaker 2: so lucky to have such a chill baby with two
Speaker 2: very anxious people, but we did. And yeah, I kept
Speaker 2: him home for an extra couple hours this morning to
Speaker 2: give him a bath and cuddle a little bit more,
Speaker 2: and he was happy the whole time because he's our
Speaker 2: chill ast baby. I need a giant boop. Wow. Anyways,
Speaker 2: I'm tired. Good night
Speaker 1: Never I need to real