Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: I had had such a grueling day with my son,
Speaker 2: and I was exhausted, and when I sat down for
Speaker 2: the first time all day, having just put him to bed,
Speaker 2: what came almost flooding in was the sensation of longing
Speaker 2: for the life I had before he was born. And
Speaker 2: then I very quickly had an experience of shame about that,
Speaker 2: Like what kind of person misses the life she had
Speaker 2: before she had a baby that she loved so much.
Speaker 3: Molly Millwood is a clinical psychology who counsels new moms.
Speaker 3: She's also a mom herself, and she's made it her
Speaker 3: mission to say the quiet part out loud, to share
Speaker 3: just how challenging and profound the transition to motherhood can be.
Speaker 2: I think motherhood sort of ushers in for most women,
Speaker 2: this chapter of reckoning, of confronting illusions about ourselves that
Speaker 2: we sometimes didn't even know we had that we are
Speaker 2: then forced to let go of, and that process of
Speaker 2: letting go can be very messy and very painful.
Speaker 3: On today's episode, Real Talk about the transition to motherhood,
Speaker 3: I'm Maya Shunker and this is a slight change of plans,
Speaker 3: a show about who we are and who we become
Speaker 3: In the face of a big change. Mollie's a psychology
Speaker 3: professor and a therapist who works mostly with new mothers
Speaker 3: and parents. She wrote a stunningly honest book about the
Speaker 3: experience of entering motherhood. It's called To Have and to Hold, Motherhood,
Speaker 3: Marriage and the Modern Dilemma. I recommended it to many
Speaker 3: of my friends who've recently become moms. One of my
Speaker 3: friends in particular, is struggling with mom guilt and other
Speaker 3: disorienting feelings. She said she felt like Mollie had written
Speaker 3: the book just for her. The book is full of
Speaker 3: insights from Mollie's work as a therapist and an academic,
Speaker 3: but she also shares her own challenges as a mom,
Speaker 3: struggles she simply wasn't expecting because before having kids, she says,
Speaker 3: she was a very even, keel person.
Speaker 2: I even got the nickname as an adolescent Molly feel
Speaker 2: Good because I just seem to be generally feeling good
Speaker 2: and making other people feel good, not in a sort
Speaker 2: of loud, overly exuberant or cheerful way, but just quietly
Speaker 2: calm and content. And because of that, I think I
Speaker 2: had this idea that I was going to have a
Speaker 2: deeper well of patience than the average person, and that
Speaker 2: that sort of emotional stability that characterized me my whole
Speaker 2: life until then would not only continue in motherhood, but
Speaker 2: would also serve me very well as a mother and
Speaker 2: serve my children well.
Speaker 3: Right in your book, you write about how after you
Speaker 3: had your first child, you had to let go of
Speaker 3: illusions that you had about yourself and what you thought
Speaker 3: mothering would look like.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me what you meant by that.
Speaker 2: I think the illusion that I had to let go
Speaker 2: of was that emotional calm and balance was some kind
Speaker 2: of ultra healthy zen state that I was fortunate to occupy,
Speaker 2: when instead what it was was that I really wasn't
Speaker 2: fully in touch with the whole array of emotion that
Speaker 2: my existence rings, that every human's existence springs, until in
Speaker 2: motherhood I was bursting at the seams with those emotions.
Speaker 2: I would say that there were emotions within me in
Speaker 2: the realm of love and ecstasy and bliss because of
Speaker 2: this new human being that I treasured so deeply. And
Speaker 2: it was fun, you know. I was having more fun
Speaker 2: than I'd ever had before engaging with my baby, and
Speaker 2: in all these things that we would put in the
Speaker 2: category of good stuff, I felt all of those much
Speaker 2: more strongly than I ever had before. And then on
Speaker 2: the other side, there were episodes of intense anger, maybe
Speaker 2: borderline rage, not that we'rever acted upon. When my baby
Speaker 2: wouldn't stop crying, I would have these layers of despair.
Speaker 2: You know, it hurts so much for your baby to
Speaker 2: be crying and to be unable to console them, like
Speaker 2: why will my baby not stop crying, and in a
Speaker 2: sense blaming him, this innocent little baby, which makes no
Speaker 2: logical sense. But I know that that's such a common experience.
Speaker 2: And I wrote in the book about resentment, you know
Speaker 2: that sometimes moms even resent their babies, which is sort
Speaker 2: of a more insidious emotion than just anger. Sure, it
Speaker 2: bruis for a while and kind of culminates over time.
Speaker 2: So I think motherhood just sort of puts us on
Speaker 2: the outer bounds of these emotions that we experience in
Speaker 2: the rest of life. Most of the time, they're not
Speaker 2: totally foreign or alien to us. They're just so much
Speaker 2: more intense in the context of motherhood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you write in the book that at one point
Speaker 3: your husband felt like he couldn't even recognize you. I mean,
Speaker 3: what was it like to run up against that in
Speaker 3: the throes of new motherhood where you're already feeling overwhelmed,
Speaker 3: and then suddenly you find yourself unrecognizable, not just to
Speaker 3: your husband, but what I'm hearing is to yourself.
Speaker 2: Yes, he said I was hostile and cold. It was
Speaker 2: really really hard to get that feedback, and at the
Speaker 2: same time it resonated. It's like he was speaking a
Speaker 2: truth that neither one of us could deny. He was
Speaker 2: the one who was just a little more ready to
Speaker 2: put it into words. I don't love the words he chose.
Speaker 2: I think there are probably more gentle ways that he
Speaker 2: could have given me that feedback, but it was such
Speaker 2: a pivotal moment because it meant that I couldn't keep
Speaker 2: denying there.
Speaker 1: Was a problem.
Speaker 2: But here's where I want to be really careful to
Speaker 2: say that it's not as if I was clinically depressed,
Speaker 2: and it's not as if I look back on that
Speaker 2: period of my early motherhood and remember myself being deeply unhappy.
Speaker 2: I absolutely was not.
Speaker 3: I think it's very powerful that you mentioned that you
Speaker 3: didn't have postpartum depression. What I hear when you say
Speaker 3: that is for even those fortunate enough to not suffer
Speaker 3: from serious mental health conditions following a pregnancy. The road
Speaker 3: forward is still very fraud yea, and very hard. And
Speaker 3: I think it's important to say that out loud, because
Speaker 3: I imagine there are many women listening to this who
Speaker 3: really felt off and went to their physicians and didn't
Speaker 3: get the formal diagnosis and then thought, well, then, what
Speaker 3: the hell's wrong with me? Why am I like this?
Speaker 3: This is horrible, Like I must be damaged or flawed
Speaker 3: or not meant for motherhood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really one of the central reasons I wanted
Speaker 2: to write this book because I knew that there were
Speaker 2: so many women. There are so many women who are
Speaker 2: aware of the symptoms of postpartum depression, and who would
Speaker 2: go to their doctor for their six week checkup and
Speaker 2: be told, you know, you passed the screening, you don't
Speaker 2: have depression. And I knew that that in itself would
Speaker 2: bring about a kind of suffering. Well, then if it
Speaker 2: isn't depression, what is it.
Speaker 3: Let's dig a little deeper into your decision to write
Speaker 3: this book. You said that at the time there were
Speaker 3: lots of books on how to be a good mother,
Speaker 3: had a parent kids.
Speaker 1: Well, what kind.
Speaker 3: Of book did you feel like you needed in that
Speaker 3: moment that was harder to find.
Speaker 2: I needed a book that would help me make sense
Speaker 2: of all of what was changing in my internal world,
Speaker 2: Like the emotional landscape that I was now inhabiting as
Speaker 2: a mother was so I almost want to say treacherous,
Speaker 2: you know, like I didn't exactly know what to expect
Speaker 2: on a given day or a given hour, such a
Speaker 2: you know, sense of upheaval internally, even if externally I
Speaker 2: was doing all the things and appeared to be handling
Speaker 2: the experience of motherhood, and I was. I was so
Speaker 2: changed internally. As you said, all the books were about
Speaker 2: how do you do mothering, you know, in pregnancy and afterward,
Speaker 2: how do you perform this motherhood gig that you're signing
Speaker 2: on for? You know, because I was studying this, because
Speaker 2: I was sort of on the front lines with other
Speaker 2: women having a hard time in motherhood, I knew that
Speaker 2: my experience was not unique. I was hearing almost identical
Speaker 2: words coming out of the mouths of multiple clients, and
Speaker 2: they all sounded like they could be words that I
Speaker 2: was speaking, And yet everybody was thinking that they were alone,
Speaker 2: that there was something wrong with them.
Speaker 3: It's a very cutting observation from you that in part,
Speaker 3: the dearth of books on the internal shifts that happened
Speaker 3: in motherhood speaks to cultural values. We value a mom's
Speaker 3: ability to parent well versus her well being as a person,
Speaker 3: as an individual.
Speaker 2: Well, I think we need look no further than the
Speaker 2: woefully inadequate infrastructure in our society of supporting women who
Speaker 2: are about to become or have recently become mothers. It
Speaker 2: really doesn't. It barely exists. The notion of sacrifice in motherhood,
Speaker 2: I think, is just so embedded, like it's just understood.
Speaker 2: It's taken as a given that a mother will sacrifice
Speaker 2: quite a lot for her child, including her own well being.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're so anchored to think of introducing a baby
Speaker 3: into our lives as just something that adds to our life.
Speaker 3: And you make it a point in your book to
Speaker 3: talk about you shine a light really on all that
Speaker 3: mothers lose in the process. And there's a story that
Speaker 3: you share in your book where you're confronting exactly this,
Speaker 3: and it starts with you sitting on the steps of
Speaker 3: your home with a beer in your hand, contemplating your
Speaker 3: life pre kid.
Speaker 2: I had had such a grueling day with my son,
Speaker 2: who was a colligy baby, and I was exhausted, and
Speaker 2: when I sat down for the first time all day,
Speaker 2: having just put him to bed, what came almost flooding
Speaker 2: in was the sensation of longing for the life I
Speaker 2: had before he was born. So it wasn't just the exhaustion,
Speaker 2: it wasn't just the muscle tension from carrying him around
Speaker 2: all day and trying to get him to stop crying.
Speaker 2: It was really clearly a feeling of missing what my
Speaker 2: life was like and what I felt like inside before
Speaker 2: he was born. And then I very quickly had an
Speaker 2: experience of shame about that what kind of person misses
Speaker 2: the life she had before she had a baby that
Speaker 2: she loved so much? And you know, it's hard even
Speaker 2: to reminisce. It's hard to think back to that moment
Speaker 2: because it was so painful, And I think it also
Speaker 2: really gave rise to this conviction to break out of
Speaker 2: this constricting mental framework that I was made to have
Speaker 2: by the lack of honest discourse about what motherhood is like.
Speaker 2: If somebody had told me ahead of time, it's okay
Speaker 2: to miss the life you had before you had a baby,
Speaker 2: and of course you're going to miss the life you
Speaker 2: had because there were so many great things about it that,
Speaker 2: at least for now, are gone. If somebody that I
Speaker 2: trusted had told me that, I like to think I
Speaker 2: wouldn't have felt the shame. When we're grieving a more
Speaker 2: obvious loss, the death of a loved one, for example,
Speaker 2: we have all sorts of permission to feel sad, to
Speaker 2: feel that longing for what was before, to be in pain.
Speaker 2: New moms are not given that same permission, because the
Speaker 2: narrative around motherhood is that it is it's a gain,
Speaker 2: it's an expansion, it's a beautiful addition to your life,
Speaker 2: which it is all of those things, and it's also
Speaker 2: a whole lot of loss, and people just don't have
Speaker 2: the framework for that.
Speaker 3: What are examples of things, Molly that get lost when
Speaker 3: people become mothers.
Speaker 2: I think there's a loss of any semblance of order
Speaker 2: and organization and to a large degree, control over the
Speaker 2: things that prior to the baby you sort of took
Speaker 2: for granted, like your time and how you use that time.
Speaker 2: My husband jokes that kids are entropy machines, you know,
Speaker 2: So there's just this utter chaos and degree of messiness,
Speaker 2: you know, literally and figuratively, and I learned that my
Speaker 2: you know, the premium that I placed on keeping things
Speaker 2: organized and tidy and orderly was really a liability in
Speaker 2: motherhood as opposed to a strength.
Speaker 1: Not an asset.
Speaker 2: Right, there's a loss at a social level because the
Speaker 2: conditions of early motherhood are just so isolating with the
Speaker 2: way that we do it in our society, which is
Speaker 2: not the right way to do it, you know, which
Speaker 2: is that you send a new mom home with her baby,
Speaker 2: and if she's lucky, maybe she has a partner who's
Speaker 2: around for a little while, but likely that partner goes
Speaker 2: back to work before she does. It's not typical anymore
Speaker 2: for women to have family nearby, for women to have
Speaker 2: even friends who are actually checking in on them in
Speaker 2: a kind of consistent in person way. If you were
Speaker 2: accustomed to having daily sort of social interaction and then
Speaker 2: suddenly you have none or almost none, and the only
Speaker 2: person that you're interacting with at length as your baby. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think for many people there is a loss of identity.
Speaker 2: And this is another place where it's so tricky, because
Speaker 2: you could argue you've gained a dimension of your identity,
Speaker 2: which is now you're a mother, now you're a caregiver.
Speaker 2: But what happens for most women in this statement I'm
Speaker 2: about to make is grounded in research, is that other
Speaker 2: aspects of identity get sort of snuffed out by motherhood.
Speaker 2: So it becomes much more difficult to be a friend,
Speaker 2: a daughter, a partner, an artist. And if there isn't
Speaker 2: a difficulty maintaining them, there's usually really pervasive guilt about
Speaker 2: choices that are made to do anything other than caretaking.
Speaker 2: I would say something that comes up so commonly in
Speaker 2: the women that I work with is, no matter what
Speaker 2: your arrangement is in terms of work and or staying
Speaker 2: home with a baby, you feel guilty about it. So
Speaker 2: there's that phrase that is rightfully very popular now about
Speaker 2: how you're supposed to work like you don't have a
Speaker 2: child and parent like you don't have a job.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, I hadn't heard that.
Speaker 2: That's the pressure that women feel.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that you talk about in
Speaker 3: your book is that men and women don't tend to
Speaker 3: experience the same identity shifts in parenthood, and that disconnect
Speaker 3: can put a really big strain on the relationship.
Speaker 2: There is such a difference in how men and women
Speaker 2: experience the transition to parenthood, and that creates many of
Speaker 2: the struggles that go on in couples who are new parents. Interestingly,
Speaker 2: same sex couples don't take quite as much of a
Speaker 2: hit in terms of their relationship satisfaction as heterosexual couples do,
Speaker 2: and not coincidentally, same sex couples across the transition to
Speaker 2: parenthood have a more equitable division of labor. The reason
Speaker 2: I chose to focus on what goes on in heterosexual
Speaker 2: couples is that it tells us quite a lot about
Speaker 2: what ails us at the society level, meaning it tells
Speaker 2: us just how far we still have to go in
Speaker 2: terms of equality. There is this terribly unfortunate reverting to
Speaker 2: traditional gender roles for heterosexual couples, and suddenly, even if
Speaker 2: a couple had worked very hard to have a sort
Speaker 2: of egalitarian arrangement, suddenly they've lost that when they're new parents,
Speaker 2: and suddenly the division of responsibility around the house and
Speaker 2: with childcare is not equal. So I really wanted to
Speaker 2: illuminate just how much it matters that the strain of
Speaker 2: new motherhood is greater than the strain of new fatherhood.
Speaker 2: And again, I want to be careful to say that's
Speaker 2: not speculation or opinion, that's there. You know, the research
Speaker 2: on this is robust that women experience the transition to
Speaker 2: parenthood in a very different way from how men experience
Speaker 2: the transition to parenthood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what are working theories around why this is so?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 3: It's obviously a very very challenging question to answer empirically,
Speaker 3: but I'm curious to know what theories exist out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I would say the prevailing theories that
Speaker 2: this has everything to do with socialization and the ways
Speaker 2: in which men are even now discouraged from taking on
Speaker 2: too fully the role of caregiving at the expense of breadwinning,
Speaker 2: and the opposite would be true for women. That you know,
Speaker 2: sort of the pinnacle of being a proper adult woman
Speaker 2: is to become a mother and to fully adopt that
Speaker 2: into your identity. So largely I think this can be
Speaker 2: explained by these profoundly different ways that men and women
Speaker 2: are socialized. And there is all kinds of really interesting
Speaker 2: neuroscience research that suggests there are biological bases for some
Speaker 2: of this, and that you know, women's brains are wired
Speaker 2: to be highly attentive to their offspring, and that explains
Speaker 2: the very aggravating situation of baby cries in the night
Speaker 2: and somehow dad doesn't hear it, and mom hears it
Speaker 2: and has to go.
Speaker 1: Deal with it.
Speaker 2: I saw a really, really funny Instagram reel a while
Speaker 2: back that was a woman getting in bed on her
Speaker 2: husband's side. Like the husband was not in the scene.
Speaker 2: She's getting in bed on his side, and she says,
Speaker 2: I thought I'd try sleeping over here tonight since apparently
Speaker 2: the baby's cries can't be heard from here.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so fun. I love it.
Speaker 3: We'll be back in a moment with a slight change
Speaker 3: of plans. Ambivalence is a word you come back to
Speaker 3: over and over and over again in your book book,
Speaker 3: and you talk about so many of your clients in
Speaker 3: therapy being shocked by the conflicting emotions that they have
Speaker 3: towards motherhood. After becoming a mother.
Speaker 2: I think oftentimes there's this experience of just profound, fierce
Speaker 2: love for your baby coupled with boredom, feeling bored by
Speaker 2: your baby, pulling your hair out because you can't figure
Speaker 2: out what your baby needs, or because you're so exhausted
Speaker 2: and frazzled that they're not sleeping for longer than twenty minutes.
Speaker 2: True mental health is about the freedom to feel whatever
Speaker 2: there is to feel, the being awake to all of
Speaker 2: what is beautiful and wonderful in life and also all
Speaker 2: of what is ugly and painful. That is well being,
Speaker 2: that is mental health. So in some ways, that ambivalence
Speaker 2: that new moms feel is you know, you could kind
Speaker 2: of argue that that's like the height of mental health
Speaker 2: to be feeling like all the channels are open and
Speaker 2: they're feeling all of these emotions even when they conflict.
Speaker 2: But it is really important to say that that array
Speaker 2: of emotion, it's not just that it's a bunch of
Speaker 2: different emotions that can kind of fit neatly together. It's
Speaker 2: that they often are in direct opposition to each other.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: So for example, I have worked with so many women
Speaker 2: and I felt this myself, who say, I am so
Speaker 2: desperate for breathing room, I'm so desperate for space from
Speaker 2: my baby, and I can't bear to leave my baby,
Speaker 2: you know, like it's really makes no sense on the
Speaker 2: face of it, Like, wait a second, if you're desperate
Speaker 2: for breathing room, then leave your baby with someone else
Speaker 2: and go get it. That's where that tortured state comes in, like,
Speaker 2: how can this possibly be.
Speaker 3: A lot of the time you hear people say with
Speaker 3: a caveat my child, but or I love my partner butt,
Speaker 3: and we feel almost compelled to justify that love before
Speaker 3: we criticize any part of the relationship or the process of,
Speaker 3: in this case, raising a child.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a little bit more about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a tension that exists when you
Speaker 2: use the word butt between two feeling states that you're expressing,
Speaker 2: and the tension says one of these needs to be resolved,
Speaker 2: one of these is more true than the other, one
Speaker 2: of these is more socially sanctioned, and so I'm going
Speaker 2: to make sure I say it before I say this
Speaker 2: other more risky one. And I love my child that
Speaker 2: comes before so many other statements. I think that just
Speaker 2: goes back to this whole problem of the taboo, you know,
Speaker 2: incredibly strong taboo against revealing the challenges and the hardships
Speaker 2: of motherhood. Hm.
Speaker 3: There's actually a passage from your book that I would
Speaker 3: love if you could just read for us, Molly, And
Speaker 3: it's a statement that you make about being a parent
Speaker 3: to a second child.
Speaker 2: Okay, when my boys were younger, there were times I
Speaker 2: felt pretty certain that I would have been better off
Speaker 2: with only one child. I know some readers are thinking, what,
Speaker 2: how can she say that? Doesn't she know her younger
Speaker 2: son could read this someday and be devastated. Well, I'm
Speaker 2: not worried about that. I have faith that my second
Speaker 2: child will recognize the enormous difference between believing I might
Speaker 2: have been better suited to be the mother of an
Speaker 2: only child and regretting his existence. It was never him
Speaker 2: I sometimes wished weren't around. It was the dynamic of
Speaker 2: my two children together and the sheer degree of stimulation
Speaker 2: in my immediate environment that sometimes made me think this
Speaker 2: isn't the greatest fit for me. If anyone is disparaging
Speaker 2: me for having felt that way and for putting it
Speaker 2: down here on the page, that is a reflection of
Speaker 2: the very reason I wanted to write this book. The
Speaker 2: complex truths of motherhood will continue to make everyone uncomfortable
Speaker 2: and ashamed until they're articulated readily and repeatedly. My love
Speaker 2: for Quinn, my second son, is deep and fierce. I
Speaker 2: do not favor Noah over him. There is nothing I
Speaker 2: wouldn't do to protect him, and there is no threat
Speaker 2: more ominous than the threat of losing either one of them.
Speaker 2: It's silly that I'm even saying all this, but therein
Speaker 2: lies the problem. We are afraid that if we give
Speaker 2: voice to the darker, less acceptable feasts of our experience
Speaker 2: as mothers, this will somehow render the prettier, acceptable facets untrue.
Speaker 3: I love that you just double down in that moment
Speaker 3: and said it like it was. You were like, I
Speaker 3: know y'all are judging me right now, and I'm just
Speaker 3: going to keep saying it anyway. And that's a powerful
Speaker 3: mic drop moment that I'm just grateful that you didn't.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure it was really hard to write. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that took a lot of courage.
Speaker 2: Yes, it was hard even to put the words on
Speaker 2: the page, and harder still to publish it. There's such
Speaker 2: a taboo against exposing, you know, the dark side of motherhood,
Speaker 2: and a really common thing that people say when they
Speaker 2: hear about some grievance that a mother has about motherhood
Speaker 2: is well, then maybe you shouldn't have had kids. And
Speaker 2: this just fascinates and sort of bewilders me, because nobody
Speaker 2: says that about any other realm of life in which
Speaker 2: there are mixed feelings, Like if you have grievances about
Speaker 2: your husband, people don't say, well, then maybe you shouldn't
Speaker 2: have gotten married. Right, It's just assumed that marriage is
Speaker 2: hard and that occasionally you're gonna have problems with your partner.
Speaker 2: Or if you're complaining about some aspect of your work,
Speaker 2: nobody says, well, then maybe you shouldn't be employed. You. So,
Speaker 2: in every other realm, there's permission to have the good
Speaker 2: stuff and the less good stuff. But if you give
Speaker 2: voice to the less good stuff in the realm of motherhood,
Speaker 2: it's risky. People say, then why do you sign up
Speaker 2: for this as if it's supposed to be purely wonderful
Speaker 2: at all times.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: There's an expectations problem here, which is the expectation society
Speaker 3: sets around what the experience of transitioning to motherhood will
Speaker 3: be like. Tell me a bit about how expectations broadly
Speaker 3: lead to suffering. In the context of motherhood.
Speaker 2: Pain is inevitable, both emotional pain and physical pain. We
Speaker 2: do not get through life without experiencing pain. Suffering is
Speaker 2: when there's pain plus some kind of resistance to the pain,
Speaker 2: and that Resistance could take many different forms. It could
Speaker 2: be that you're wishing it away. It could be that
Speaker 2: you're telling yourself this shouldn't be happening to me. It
Speaker 2: could be that you're racking your brain trying to understand
Speaker 2: why it's happening to you. So I'm using that term
Speaker 2: resistance very broadly. And what I have wished for so
Speaker 2: much in the realm of motherhood is that we could
Speaker 2: all just feel the pain of it, without the suffering,
Speaker 2: because there is no getting around how hard it is
Speaker 2: to be a mother. I think offering comes when we
Speaker 2: believe everyone else is having an easier time, and therefore
Speaker 2: we start to wonder what's wrong with us. Maybe I'm
Speaker 2: just not cut out for this. Maybe motherhood isn't a
Speaker 2: good fit for me. I missed an important memo. You know,
Speaker 2: all the things you might say to yourself if you're
Speaker 2: under the illusion that other people are having an easier
Speaker 2: time in motherhood.
Speaker 3: There's a beautiful metaphor that you paint at the end
Speaker 3: of the book, Molly, about what that shift in identity
Speaker 3: in motherhood is and what it looks like. So there's
Speaker 3: this scene where your son, Quinn, who's four and a
Speaker 3: half of the time, has a nightmare in the middle
Speaker 3: of the night, and he comes to join you and
Speaker 3: your husband in bed. Do you mind sharing that story
Speaker 3: with us?
Speaker 2: Yeah. He used to do this very funny thing, which
Speaker 2: was that rather than climbing into bed between my husband
Speaker 2: and me, he always wanted to lie down where I was.
Speaker 2: And his way of putting that was let me trade
Speaker 2: places with you. So he would come to my side
Speaker 2: of the bed and say, let me trade places with you.
Speaker 2: And what he meant by that was you scooch over
Speaker 2: so that I can lie down write where you were.
Speaker 2: As I write in the book quote, it's as if
Speaker 2: he needs to sink his little body into the imprint
Speaker 2: of mine and rest his head on the exact part
Speaker 2: of the pillow where mine left its mark. And once
Speaker 2: he has done so, he is asleep in an instant.
Speaker 2: And I think this is the beauty and the curse
Speaker 2: of motherhood, displaced by the person I love so fiercely
Speaker 2: that I don't mind, and I do, you know, I
Speaker 2: want to be really careful to say that I did
Speaker 2: mind for quite a while, and that was part of
Speaker 2: the way, was part of the struggle. And I think
Speaker 2: most women feel that way. That There's something really really
Speaker 2: difficult about having to kind of create space for two
Speaker 2: where there once was only one. And maybe what I
Speaker 2: had earned over time was a kind of confidence that
Speaker 2: even though I wasn't in my same exact place where
Speaker 2: I was before, I would be okay in this new place.
Speaker 3: Hey, thanks so much for listening. We'll link to Molly's
Speaker 3: book in the show notes. Next week, join me for
Speaker 3: my conversation with psychotherapist Alan Gordon. He has a radically
Speaker 3: straightforward and accessible approach to treating chronic pain. And if
Speaker 3: you enjoyed this conversation, we on the Slight Change team
Speaker 3: would be so grateful if you shared this episode with
Speaker 3: someone you know, it helps us get the word out
Speaker 3: so we can keep making more episodes for you. Thanks
Speaker 3: so much. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written,
Speaker 3: and executive produced by me Maya Shunker. The Slight Change
Speaker 3: family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate
Speaker 3: Parkinson Morgan, our senior producer Trisha Bbida, and our engineer
Speaker 3: Eric o'bwang. Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and
Speaker 3: Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of
Speaker 3: Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so a big
Speaker 3: thanks to everyone there, and of course a very special
Speaker 3: thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow a slight change
Speaker 3: of plans on Instagram as doctor Maya Shunker See you
Speaker 3: next week.