Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 2: and speaker.
Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
Speaker 3: and course creator. We are two working parents who love
Speaker 3: our careers and our families.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds.
Speaker 1: Here we talk about how real.
Speaker 2: Women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring
Speaker 2: out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1: Term career goals.
Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds, This says Laura. This
Speaker 2: episode is airing in early August of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: Sarah is going to be interviewing doctor Jennifer Reid, who
Speaker 2: is an academic and expert on guilt. Why don't you
Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about her, Sarah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's actually a psychiatrist, and so she comes from
Speaker 3: that mental health background and these patients actively and guilt
Speaker 3: was one of the common themes that she noticed. So
Speaker 3: she decided to explore it further and write about it,
Speaker 3: and so we talk all about that in this episode.
Speaker 3: I was curious, Laura, because I feel like you might
Speaker 3: have a rant around mom guilt, and also that you
Speaker 3: might be so much impervious to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean it's more that why nobody talks
Speaker 2: about dad guilt, because I feel like there should be
Speaker 2: way more dad guilt if we're gonna have mom guilt,
Speaker 2: because mom guilt tends to be pitched as this idea
Speaker 2: that you are not doing enough for your kids, you
Speaker 2: are not spending enough time with your kids, and on average,
Speaker 2: dads are spending way less time with their children than
Speaker 2: mothers are. And as part of that, dads tend to
Speaker 2: be doing less sort of organizational things, less planning stuff
Speaker 2: out for the kids, all those things than moms do
Speaker 2: different in different families, but if you look at sort
Speaker 2: of population wide time use, that tends to be the case.
Speaker 2: So from that perspective, it feels like there should just
Speaker 2: be a ton of literature talking about how dads can
Speaker 2: feel less guilty about this minimal time that they are
Speaker 2: spending with their children because they're off doing other things,
Speaker 2: and how you should feel about that and ways to
Speaker 2: combat that or whatever, and yet there's none. There's like
Speaker 2: almost zero out there about dad guilt. And I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: well that's interesting. So if there isn't, if this is
Speaker 2: not like the cover of every magazine pitched to men
Speaker 2: who have children. Why is it given to women as
Speaker 2: like a thing we should even be thinking about. I
Speaker 2: am sure that there are circumstances where people should feel
Speaker 2: guilty about things. I mean, every mother is not perfect, right,
Speaker 2: and we certainly do things that are not awesome. I
Speaker 2: would say in general, guilt has a sort of social purpose.
Speaker 2: Guilt is what you feel when you have wronged someone
Speaker 2: and you feel bad about it, and so you want
Speaker 2: to repair the relationship. And as such, it's kind of good,
Speaker 2: right in that if you have caused a rift with
Speaker 2: a close family or friend, like for the good of
Speaker 2: the tribe, you need to repair that, and so you
Speaker 2: feel bad until you repair it. But in most of
Speaker 2: these cases, like nobody has been harmed, like nothing happened.
Speaker 2: If your neighbor was at the basketball game for the
Speaker 2: kid and took them home and you were not, like
Speaker 2: there was no harm, Like nothing bad happened, right, And
Speaker 2: so that's not an appropriate use of the guilt social emotion.
Speaker 3: Well, Jennifer reagrees with you wholeheartedly, and so all right,
Speaker 3: good her entire book. I mean, it could be entitled
Speaker 3: why mom guilt shouldn't be a thing, so I think
Speaker 3: you will, especially.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure there's circumstances where it could be
Speaker 2: like if you accidentally deleted your kids like minecraft thing
Speaker 2: that they spend hours creating, Yes, you should feel guilty
Speaker 2: and you should try to like make amends with them
Speaker 2: or whatever. It's just that's not usually what it is, right,
Speaker 2: That's not like, oh my god, I broke your lego
Speaker 2: set that you spent hours creating, Like, yes, then you
Speaker 2: should feel guilty and like try to apologize and make
Speaker 2: it up to the kid. It's stuff about like you
Speaker 2: were working and earning money so your kid could do
Speaker 2: fun things like how dare you?
Speaker 3: And unfortunately, we have this weird social construct where many
Speaker 3: of us, myself included, feel those things even though you're
Speaker 3: absolutely one hundred percent right. Like I was like, when
Speaker 3: do I feel mom guilt? So I actually think I
Speaker 3: feel less mom guilt than average, maybe partly because of
Speaker 3: this wonderful podcast and our listeners and the time I
Speaker 3: spend with you. But when there's like a school party
Speaker 3: and they're like, who wants to bring stuff? And I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, it's in two days and I don't
Speaker 3: want to bring stuff, and why don't you just ask
Speaker 3: for money? It would be so much easier. And then
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm not doing it, but I feel really
Speaker 3: guilty about it. I feel guilt. And then I will
Speaker 3: feel guilt, like the kids are on screens and I
Speaker 3: know it's like, oh, they're acting like jerks because I
Speaker 3: let them be on screens, and like, oh, better parent
Speaker 3: would have taken them on it outing or something like that.
Speaker 3: Those are my sad examples of feeling some mom guilt
Speaker 3: that I would like to not feel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say in general, I don't fill out.
Speaker 2: I mean, there are a few specific circumstances where I have,
Speaker 2: like quite obviously screwed up in a way that was
Speaker 2: problematic for a child in that I would feel guilty about.
Speaker 2: And one that I'm remembering was when one of my
Speaker 2: kids was wrestling and I had to fill out the
Speaker 2: forms because it was a tournament that wasn't officially sponsored
Speaker 2: by the script, and I had no idea how wrestling
Speaker 2: weights work. I mean, this is stupid for little kids anyway.
Speaker 2: So in my mind, he's fifty pounds, I put fifty pounds.
Speaker 2: And then I learned later that everyone who's fifty pounds
Speaker 2: puts forty nine, right, so that you wrestle in.
Speaker 3: The not in the fifties.
Speaker 2: And so that was he was with bigger kids, and
Speaker 2: then he lost his matches, and that was my fault
Speaker 2: because I didn't know, Like I'm not a wrestler, but
Speaker 2: you know, I.
Speaker 3: Don't think you could.
Speaker 2: Probably there you go.
Speaker 3: But you can't feel guilt for something you didn't know about.
Speaker 2: Well, I yeah, I guess maybe if i'd thought about
Speaker 2: it longer, read more about resuing.
Speaker 3: My kids were on screens and I knew I wasn't
Speaker 3: giving the school the thing because I was like, I
Speaker 3: categorically refuse to bring some random, like decorative gift with
Speaker 3: a two days of notice, like I'm not doing it,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be guilty about it.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, well there you go.
Speaker 2: So things that you can feel guilty about that are
Speaker 2: slightly ridiculous. I don't think my kid has thought about
Speaker 2: their wrestling thing at ages.
Speaker 3: They're okay, but they're okay.
Speaker 2: They've moved on, as have mostly I. But if I
Speaker 2: ever have another child wrestle, I will keep that in mind.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's hear what doctor Jennifer Reid has
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 3: Well, I am so excited today to be chatting with
Speaker 3: doctor Jennifer Reid, who is a psychiatrist. She is an
Speaker 3: academic who has published multiple books. Her latest on guilt
Speaker 3: called Guilt Free, which is already out wherever books are sold.
Speaker 3: She's affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania and she has
Speaker 3: done a lot of thinking about guilt. Welcome to the podcast, Jennifer.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to
Speaker 1: talk about it. All right.
Speaker 3: So I did read your book. I thought it was excellent.
Speaker 3: A lot of practical tips and takeaways in there. And
Speaker 3: you go in the beginning and you're very clear because
Speaker 3: you want to define what is guilt, because we throw
Speaker 3: that term a lot around, maybe loosely, but I guess
Speaker 3: give our listeners a chance to understand what is guilt
Speaker 3: versus maybe some of his cousins, shame, regret, things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is really important to define it. Because what's
Speaker 1: surprised me since the book came out in January is
Speaker 1: so many women will come up and say, I didn't
Speaker 1: think I had guilt. It wasn't how I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this. But when I really learned about the concepts
Speaker 1: or the ideas or some of the thoughts that women
Speaker 1: were having in your book, I realized how much guilt
Speaker 1: I was feeling. So it's like, well, that's really interesting
Speaker 1: that we don't always know what those emotions are, right,
Speaker 1: What is guilt? So the way I defined it was
Speaker 1: just to try and make it as simple as possible.
Speaker 1: That was important for me, it's important for teaching, I think,
Speaker 1: to break it down that it really is the difference
Speaker 1: between our xbectations of ourselves in a particular role minus
Speaker 1: our perceived reality, which is minus what we believe we're
Speaker 1: already doing and doing well. Perhaps, And you can see
Speaker 1: that when perceived means it may not be accurate, right,
Speaker 1: it may not be what's actually the reality. But I
Speaker 1: think sometimes often we underplay or underestimate contributions. So guilt
Speaker 1: lives in that gap between what we think we should
Speaker 1: be doing and what we believe we are doing. And
Speaker 1: so I think that just is a way to kind
Speaker 1: of break down those thoughts. And it's different than shame
Speaker 1: because guilt is more of I've done something wrong right,
Speaker 1: or I've omitted something I wish I would have done,
Speaker 1: where is shame is broad or it's more generalized a
Speaker 1: sense of I am wrong, like my whole being, my
Speaker 1: whole entity is bad or wrong, and they create different
Speaker 1: reactions from us. Guilt, when it's adaptive in a very
Speaker 1: specific setting, causes us to move toward that person to repair,
Speaker 1: to apologize, make up for it right. Shame, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, and causes us to pull back like hide.
Speaker 1: We want to sort of tuck away and not let
Speaker 1: that other person or those people see us, because Shane
Speaker 1: really evokes that withdrawal reflex, so you can see how
Speaker 1: it causes us to move in different directions in a sense,
Speaker 1: but constant guilt, which so many women experience, can turn
Speaker 1: into shame.
Speaker 3: Oh, very interesting. It's funny when you said the expectations
Speaker 3: versus reality phrase. I always think about how they talk
Speaker 3: about how suffering can be expectations versus reality. But I
Speaker 3: think the difference there is that guilt has to do
Speaker 3: with the shoulds that should be that I should be
Speaker 3: doing this versus what I think I am doing, or
Speaker 3: is the suffering. It's more like what I think is
Speaker 3: happening versus should be happening, maybe but less personable, but
Speaker 3: kind of interesting there. I also have a question which
Speaker 3: is like a spinoff from this, which is like does
Speaker 3: guilt have to involve another person. Can there be guilt
Speaker 3: in a vacuum or no?
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting it is described as a social emotion
Speaker 1: that maybe it came on sort of after our very
Speaker 1: primary emotions like happiness, sadness, fear. So often it is
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a type of guilt called in our
Speaker 1: personal guilt. But no, it doesn't have to be. It
Speaker 1: can be kind of you within yourself, right that you
Speaker 1: feel guilty, that you sort of let yourself down in
Speaker 1: some way, like you've made a goal for yourself or
Speaker 1: a plan for yourself. And then if you're like me,
Speaker 1: you like rebel against it, You're like, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: listen to that goal, right, I'm gonna do what I
Speaker 1: want to do. So certainly guilt can happen within ourselves
Speaker 1: and not in relation to someone else. But so commonly
Speaker 1: it is in those dynamics with others.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you did mention briefly how guilt might have
Speaker 3: some positive features can we focus on We're going to
Speaker 3: go into a lot of the negative and why we
Speaker 3: should all probably have less guilt in our lives. But
Speaker 3: I guess what can guilt do for us? Or how
Speaker 3: can it be harnessed in a positive way.
Speaker 1: Do you think, Yeah, that's so interesting on studying it
Speaker 1: is that there's some idea that guilt is part of
Speaker 1: those social emotions that actually allowed us as a species
Speaker 1: to really thrive and grow and build communities, because it
Speaker 1: does say, I fie that I see that something has
Speaker 1: happened to you, and that i've I noticed that I'm
Speaker 1: to blame for it, and because I care about you,
Speaker 1: I'm going to try and do something right. Guilt because
Speaker 1: we care, We wouldn't feel guilty if we don't care.
Speaker 1: So that's why it's important that some guilt exists. The
Speaker 1: total absence of guilt is pathological. But what I write
Speaker 1: about with Guilt Free is how do we relinquish this
Speaker 1: kind of constant guilt that's so broad, that's so generalized.
Speaker 1: It's not oh, I've made this one mistake I need
Speaker 1: to apologize. It's I'm getting everything wrong right, or I'm
Speaker 1: not doing anything right, to sort of hyperbole in language.
Speaker 1: You hear a lot where there shoulds come out or
Speaker 1: I never, I always. That tells us that this is
Speaker 1: the kind of maladaptive guilt that's really causing a lot
Speaker 1: of suffering.
Speaker 3: That makes sense. And there's kind of like a pain
Speaker 3: analogy there too, right, Like pain is useful up to
Speaker 3: a point, it might tell us get your hand off
Speaker 3: the stove, but chronic generalized pain has definitely passed the
Speaker 3: point where it's doing anything good for anyone. I also
Speaker 3: just wanted to circle back and mention that it is
Speaker 3: pathologic to never feel guilt, and that makes sense, I guess,
Speaker 3: like a narcissist or a sociopathic personality. I don't even
Speaker 3: know if those are appropriate terms anymore, but they might
Speaker 3: not have any guilt.
Speaker 1: Is that accurate? Because we know that children as young
Speaker 1: as three, maybe even younger, we're always learning new things,
Speaker 1: start to learn that they are a separate entity from
Speaker 1: someone around them, right like your kids starts to recognize
Speaker 1: that they are not the only being in the universe.
Speaker 1: It takes a while and it's hard fought, but they
Speaker 1: also start to learn empathy, or the ability to understand
Speaker 1: and sort of feel what someone else is feeling. And
Speaker 1: so the absence of guilt may mean that someone really
Speaker 1: is lacking in the ability to empathize, to sort of
Speaker 1: feel what someone else is feeling, and that itself is pathological.
Speaker 1: That can be a sociopathy that someone is unable to
Speaker 1: feel what another person is feeling, and therefore harm that
Speaker 1: they give to them it doesn't affect them because they
Speaker 1: just don't resonate in that way. So that would be
Speaker 1: kind of that abnormality. But I think you find people
Speaker 1: who aren't sociopaths who maybe don't feel as much guilt
Speaker 1: as others. Even men and women are very different in
Speaker 1: that way. I've certainly seen in my practice.
Speaker 3: Ooh, and I definitely want to get into that, but
Speaker 3: first let's just like kind of go as we just
Speaker 3: went down kind of the positive side a little bit,
Speaker 3: But on the negative side, you talked about it being maladaptive,
Speaker 3: especially when it is more generalized, when it is more chronic.
Speaker 3: Is that more about the fact that it just is
Speaker 3: going to make us feel behind because I assume that
Speaker 3: living with a constant sense that you are doing guilty
Speaker 3: things can lead to shame or just lead to general
Speaker 3: negative feelings or you also kind of mentioned and hint
Speaker 3: at this in your work, it can actually drive some
Speaker 3: pretty poor decisions.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, when guilt isn't making the decisions, it's not
Speaker 1: based on what we need, what we want, what we desire.
Speaker 1: It really is based on what we believe we should do,
Speaker 1: and I think that can lead to things like resentment
Speaker 1: or disappointing ourselves, certainly in those situations. So yes, guilt
Speaker 1: makes us feel badly by design, because then it drives
Speaker 1: us to do something about it, right, because it's uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: The trouble is, I think, particularly women working moms, especially
Speaker 1: though many many other women in other areas, when they
Speaker 1: feel guilty, it drives them to do more, and so
Speaker 1: they take on more, and they do more tasks, and
Speaker 1: they become sort of hypercompetent in taking care of everything,
Speaker 1: managing everything in front of them, all the cognitive load
Speaker 1: of appointments and I need to schedule this, and I
Speaker 1: need to remember this. And I think guilt can drive
Speaker 1: us to take on more and more until we're just exhausted.
Speaker 1: We're still feeling guilty, so we still feel like we're
Speaker 1: not doing enough, and it pushes out other things that
Speaker 1: we might want to feel joy, fun, silliness, relaxation, connection,
Speaker 1: all those things, because guilt tells us you're an inward girl,
Speaker 1: and fix it, make it better, do something more as
Speaker 1: opposed to look outward, connect with others, or I'll see
Speaker 1: that the problem might actually be out there, not necessarily
Speaker 1: one that we can fix by ourselves.
Speaker 3: And I know people are listening to this and kind
Speaker 3: of already thinking about their own scenarios and how this
Speaker 3: might apply. We're going to take a quick break, and
Speaker 3: then we're going to get back specifically into the concept
Speaker 3: of mom guilt. All right, we are back, and Laura
Speaker 3: and I couldn't help but discuss as we kind of
Speaker 3: thought about this topic, the fact that mom guilt is
Speaker 3: like a very common catchphrase, like you hear it, Oh,
Speaker 3: I've have mom guilt. And I even kind of thought
Speaker 3: about for myself, what are the instances in life that like,
Speaker 3: give me quote mom guilt, and like, for example, one
Speaker 3: of them was when the school asks last minute for
Speaker 3: some kind of food item to be picked up at
Speaker 3: the store, and I'm just like, oh my god, like
Speaker 3: why couldn't this have come earlier? And I don't want
Speaker 3: to do it, And honestly, what I typically do is
Speaker 3: I don't do it, but I feel guilty about it.
Speaker 3: So I guess that's in a way that's good, right,
Speaker 3: because I'm not using it to make a decision that
Speaker 3: really doesn't serve me. But then I also still end
Speaker 3: up feeling bad or things like I don't know, back
Speaker 3: in my like pumping and breastfeeding days, I'd feel weird
Speaker 3: amounts of guilt around, like I can't make enough milk,
Speaker 3: which is crazy because like that's literally your physiology. So
Speaker 3: how can you feel guilt about something that you don't
Speaker 3: even have very much control over, like you're already trying
Speaker 3: very hard. So we started talking about mom guilt and
Speaker 3: how these things are so common, and then she was like, well,
Speaker 3: why is dad guilt never really brought up in the zeitgeist?
Speaker 3: And I don't know, tell me all you know about
Speaker 3: mom guilt, why it exists. We'll talk about how we
Speaker 3: can fight it in a little bit, But why is
Speaker 3: this just so common, so ubiquitous even in women who
Speaker 3: have reasonably high self regard self esteem, They like, I know,
Speaker 3: I'm doing a pretty good job at life, but I
Speaker 3: definitely still get plagued with mom guilt.
Speaker 1: Mom guild is so huge, just that some book, really
Speaker 1: and I remember my editor kept saying, like, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of good mom guild here, let's broaden this. I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: I know, it's absolutely huge, and I think there are
Speaker 1: many factors. I mean, one is the way that the
Speaker 1: young girls, and then throughout our lives that we're socialized
Speaker 1: to believe that this is what a good girl or
Speaker 1: a good woman does. Right, This idea about sort of
Speaker 1: the maternal instinct and how that can kind of be
Speaker 1: twisted and turned against us, as if that means we
Speaker 1: should be able to do all of this effortlessly. We
Speaker 1: should be able to breastfeed and produce just bottles and
Speaker 1: bottles of milk. I had the same issue I was.
Speaker 1: I think I was a stressed out resident. I really
Speaker 1: wasn't producing much milk, and I was thinking I should
Speaker 1: be able to gain this somehow, Like what can I
Speaker 1: do to make this better? Because I'm getting it wrong?
Speaker 1: So I think we are there's a sense of what
Speaker 1: is natural, and that if we don't feel like we're
Speaker 1: living up to what is natural, and that's really bad. Right,
Speaker 1: Like I should just be able to do all of this.
Speaker 1: I should love my child unconditionally from the very moment
Speaker 1: it comes out. We know that can take some time
Speaker 1: for women to connect with their new infant. I shouldn't
Speaker 1: feel depressed or anxious after babies, well most of us do, right,
Speaker 1: Just those are small examples. So I think the expectations
Speaker 1: that women to face to be constant caretakers. It's one
Speaker 1: of the sort of four big categories I write about,
Speaker 1: because we're really expected from a very young age. We're
Speaker 1: the babysitters, We're the caretakers. We're the one who look
Speaker 1: after others as if that's our natural desire, and for
Speaker 1: some they really enjoy that, and that really is who
Speaker 1: they are. My mom is just this nurturing woman. She
Speaker 1: still like volunteers at an animal shelter and she brings
Speaker 1: too to friends. That's just who she is. But not
Speaker 1: all of us are that way. And that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that we're not wonderful people or a good mother, right,
Speaker 1: that we have different things that are important to us
Speaker 1: and that we want to value. So expectations are absolutely huge,
Speaker 1: and we exist in a society where the mother is
Speaker 1: the one who receives that email typically saying hey, last minute,
Speaker 1: can you drop off some food or we really need
Speaker 1: a chaperone or someone sick. My sister is a surgeon,
Speaker 1: and she is still the one that gets all the
Speaker 1: phone calls that kids need to be picked up, where
Speaker 1: there's she's the one scrambling to bake something for bake sales.
Speaker 1: I mean, to her credit, she comes up with these
Speaker 1: creative ideas which I'm like, why are you doing this?
Speaker 1: And it's guilt. It's like, well, I've gone a lot
Speaker 1: for work, so I need to do this to make
Speaker 1: up for it. And that's just the sense that we
Speaker 1: can truly have at all without effort, without help, when
Speaker 1: we used to raise our kids in communities and now
Speaker 1: we're trying to do this in isolation all ourselves. Like
Speaker 1: I could go on and on about this, but there's
Speaker 1: just so many different factors at play.
Speaker 3: Well that's a great, I mean segue, though, because I
Speaker 3: do feel like just thinking about this, I don't think
Speaker 3: mom guilt existed as much. Well, it probably existed in
Speaker 3: different forms in the generation before us, Like I'm sure
Speaker 3: that to some extent, any mom who worked outside the
Speaker 3: home felt more like an outlier. I might have felt
Speaker 3: some guilt for that, even if it was needed to
Speaker 3: keep the power on in the family, which is interesting.
Speaker 3: But then I think today I have a friend who
Speaker 3: is a single parent, and they were talking about how like, oh,
Speaker 3: I don't get any time for myself, and I feel
Speaker 3: so bad. I feel guilty if I put my child
Speaker 3: on a tablet for a few hours, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: why your child is like borderline genius, Like they will
Speaker 3: be fine. There's no like objective reason why you can't
Speaker 3: just disappear for a little bit of time. But we
Speaker 3: have this I guess societal picture that not only are
Speaker 3: we supposed to be leading a series of time blocked
Speaker 3: craft projects every weekend day, but we're.
Speaker 1: Supposed to like it.
Speaker 3: I guess guilt is actually really what drives a lot
Speaker 3: of that behavior. And I didn't really think about it
Speaker 3: that way until your stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I think that guilt is a way for
Speaker 1: us to have a sense right. It tells us, Okay,
Speaker 1: I just need to be better or do more. I
Speaker 1: shouldn't give the tablet, I should make some plan for
Speaker 1: my child that's educational. But I think what it does
Speaker 1: is it steps in when we do feel a lack
Speaker 1: of control. And I think in modern society there's this
Speaker 1: constant feeling of uncertainty and lacking control that we can't
Speaker 1: control truly the health and wellness and happiness of our children.
Speaker 1: We can try our absolute best, but I think guilt
Speaker 1: comes up because each of these they seem so fraught.
Speaker 1: If my kid has a tablet. Maybe that means that
Speaker 1: they will not be optimally et cetera, etc. So it's
Speaker 1: our way of controlling a situation where we don't really
Speaker 1: have control, and so guilt becomes the way to do that.
Speaker 1: And it would be fine if guilt didn't feel so
Speaker 1: awful and didn't drive us to make decisions that are
Speaker 1: bad for us and cause us to neglect ourselves. But
Speaker 1: it does, but it does.
Speaker 3: Can you talk more about these four furies that you
Speaker 3: talk about in your book? And I think we mentioned caretaking,
Speaker 3: but there's a few others, the perfectionism, the hyper accountability,
Speaker 3: and trying to have it all. Can you talk about
Speaker 3: all of those?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was important for me to give these categories
Speaker 1: because I wanted women, ideally, when they're talking to each other,
Speaker 1: to be able to point out how they all are
Speaker 1: having these kinds of experiences, that this isn't just something
Speaker 1: we're coming up with ourselves. This is the water we're
Speaker 1: swimming in as women. So expectation areas. The furies are
Speaker 1: constant care taking, and not just as a mom, but
Speaker 1: as a daughter, as a friend, as a colleague, even
Speaker 1: right at work, we might be at tasked with doing
Speaker 1: this hyper accountability is this idea we are taught that
Speaker 1: we should and we can control other people's emotions, that somehow,
Speaker 1: if I say the right thing, they won't be upset,
Speaker 1: or they won't be disappointed, or if I can make
Speaker 1: this party the absolute best, they will feel loved and
Speaker 1: feel happy on their birthday, when some of us just
Speaker 1: always feel sat on our birthday.
Speaker 3: Who knows.
Speaker 1: So I think that hyper accountability is something that women
Speaker 1: are really socialized to experience that I don't think men
Speaker 1: carry in the same way. And part of that might
Speaker 1: be adaptive in that it protects us right there might
Speaker 1: be situations where if we anger someone, there could be
Speaker 1: really dangerous situations. It's adaptive in some ways, but boy,
Speaker 1: it's brunned far beyond that. So that hype we're accountability
Speaker 1: seeking perfection of course with body image, of course, with
Speaker 1: motherhood and parenting, but across everything, all these aspects of
Speaker 1: sort of self control that we're supposed to have. What
Speaker 1: are our moods, How do we handle having our periods
Speaker 1: and how that makes us feel? Expressing our moods, our
Speaker 1: appetites for food or alcohol or sex or shopping or
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. We're supposed to demonstrate sort of
Speaker 1: perfect self control and kind of have it all balanced right,
Speaker 1: that we can have a wonderful career but still be
Speaker 1: able to maintain our emotional stability and come home and
Speaker 1: be fun and engaging for our partner. And then the
Speaker 1: final one is just having it all, which is killing us.
Speaker 1: This idea that we, yes, we can do many different things,
Speaker 1: and women are capable, and women have more opportunities now
Speaker 1: than we have ever had, but with that has not
Speaker 1: come a change in our expectations of ourselves or others
Speaker 1: of us. Like my mom stayed at home with us,
Speaker 1: my dad was a physician. But I carry both of
Speaker 1: those sets of expectations. I think I'm supposed to do
Speaker 1: both of those things right unless I really work on it.
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be a doctor to everyone and a
Speaker 1: mother who's always available and makes so many dinners. I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't do that right. We're not super human. So
Speaker 1: those are the four areas that I really hear women
Speaker 1: struggling with, and I know I personally have every single
Speaker 1: one of those that I feel regularly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and listeners of this podcast know that we love
Speaker 3: to come back the myth of doing it all ourselves
Speaker 3: or having it all like. We love talking about work
Speaker 3: and life and enjoying both. And I've talked many times
Speaker 3: about how I've continued to have full time. I'm a
Speaker 3: physician as well. I do the podcasting two days a week,
Speaker 3: but I practice three days a week, and I don't
Speaker 3: really cook or do much laundry because we have to
Speaker 3: make choices. And actually that's an area where I don't
Speaker 3: have any guilt, which is good. But maybe some people
Speaker 3: even would have guilt there. I don't know. It probably
Speaker 3: depends on how you grew up and what you rationalize.
Speaker 3: But it's so interesting. We're going to take another quick break,
Speaker 3: and then I'm going to get some tips on since
Speaker 3: we've now talked about how tough this is, how can
Speaker 3: we fight some of it? We'll be right back. All right,
Speaker 3: we're back, And I think everyone listening now knows exactly
Speaker 3: what doctor Reid means when she's talking about guilt, and
Speaker 3: probably many of you, like me, have thought of your
Speaker 3: own places in your life where you would love to
Speaker 3: have less of it. So your book has a lot
Speaker 3: of practical tips for working on this. Can you share
Speaker 3: a few of those with our listeners?
Speaker 1: Well, there's a whole process I call it speak, which
Speaker 1: is about learning how to pay attention to your own thoughts, feelings.
Speaker 1: As you said, like you don't feel guilty about the
Speaker 1: laundry the cooking piece. That's not a trigger for you,
Speaker 1: and that's great. It might be for someone else, And
Speaker 1: that's why it's so important for us to know our
Speaker 1: own unique triggers to pay attention to when guilt is
Speaker 1: coming up. What are the environments where it's are common,
Speaker 1: and then what are specific areas. For example, some of
Speaker 1: the areas that I really talk about in the tips
Speaker 1: in a book are how to manage disappointment and allow
Speaker 1: disappointment in other people, and even that there might be
Speaker 1: certain roles in your life where it is really really
Speaker 1: hard to imagine causing disappointment. I mean, we as physicians
Speaker 1: are very much socialized to never do that right because
Speaker 1: it could really be career affecting and affect patient satisfaction
Speaker 1: scores and your practice numbers. So it's learning how to
Speaker 1: allow disappointment, which you and I both know is a
Speaker 1: very human emotion, a common emotion, and one that we
Speaker 1: can all handle. It's not deadly, it's not dangerous in
Speaker 1: great majority of situations. But when we frantically try to
Speaker 1: prevent it or fix it right away. We're signaling to
Speaker 1: those other people, often our kids, that is dangerous. I
Speaker 1: don't want you to feel disappointed, like I'm sorry you
Speaker 1: can't go to our friend's house, so let's go get
Speaker 1: ice cream, Like let's immediately try and fix that. So
Speaker 1: allowing disappointment is a really important one. Learning how to
Speaker 1: set reasonable boundaries. You hear a lot about boundaries, and
Speaker 1: I do like to frame them as sort of helpful,
Speaker 1: supportive scaffolding to help bring you closer to other people.
Speaker 1: I don't see them as a wall between I see
Speaker 1: them as sort of these are kind of the rules
Speaker 1: of engagement, so to speak, in how we can connect.
Speaker 1: And I know you're not going to ask much more
Speaker 1: of me than I can give and then make me
Speaker 1: feel awful. Really learning those boundaries and being consistent about them,
Speaker 1: which is hard. It might be hard in particular situations.
Speaker 1: I'm really boundaried at work, and then I get home,
Speaker 1: my parents call me and I'm immediately running over to
Speaker 1: help them with something because I don't want to disappoint them,
Speaker 1: because that means I'm a terrible and ungrateful daughter. Right
Speaker 1: These stories that we tell ourselves. So that's an important one,
Speaker 1: and learning how to delegate. It's funny because I think
Speaker 1: the Gruth Bader Ginsburg talked about in a marriage, and
Speaker 1: it's helpful to be a little bit deaf sometimes to
Speaker 1: not hear the tone of your partner like their response.
Speaker 1: And I think about that a lot as a wife
Speaker 1: and as a mother. If I'm like, could you help me?
Speaker 1: Could you unstack the dishwasher, and you get the like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, okay, great, I hear the word, I
Speaker 1: don't hear the tone right, So that the idea of
Speaker 1: learning how to delegate is really important too. I just
Speaker 1: know that people get to have feelings about that, whether
Speaker 1: it's disappointment, frustration. I don't have to fix it for them.
Speaker 3: Ooh, I love that, and that could be appropriate in
Speaker 3: multiple spheres of life, I can imagine.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: I wanted to also make a note to ask you
Speaker 3: a little bit about seeking out mental health because I
Speaker 3: read that's also something you're incredibly passionate about. And I
Speaker 3: know that the times that I have reached out to
Speaker 3: get professional assistance with mental health issues, I have never
Speaker 3: regretted it, And every single time I'm like, why did
Speaker 3: I not do that sooner, And the reason is because
Speaker 3: it's hard, and there's a lot of stigma, and there's
Speaker 3: a lot of Oh, I should be able to deal
Speaker 3: with this myself. So what tips do you have for
Speaker 3: listeners that are maybe this conversation triggered something like maybe
Speaker 3: they're like, you know what, I have a lot of
Speaker 3: things I need to process. What are your tips births
Speaker 3: helping somebody else to seek help that they need, or
Speaker 3: encouragement on.
Speaker 1: That right, well, even just the guilt up front, right
Speaker 1: the idea that I should be able to X, Y
Speaker 1: or z. And I think we think about things differently
Speaker 1: in the mental health sphere than we do in the
Speaker 1: physical home health sphere, even though they're the same thing.
Speaker 1: Let's be honest. So I think one is in recognizing
Speaker 1: that the goal of mental health treatment is not to
Speaker 1: sort of change who you are. I think people worry
Speaker 1: that there's something about like I'm going to go in
Speaker 1: and they're just going to change what I'm who I am.
Speaker 1: It's to actually remove the layers, like excavating, like cleaning
Speaker 1: a painting, It gets covered in layers. If there's layers
Speaker 1: of anxiety or depression or addiction, that's interfering with you
Speaker 1: being your real self. So our job as therapists, as
Speaker 1: a psychiatrists, whether it's with the medication or with psychotherapy,
Speaker 1: is to try and remove those layers that are causing
Speaker 1: the suffering. Right, That's what I'm able to try in
Speaker 1: my practice, and to not say I won't do medication
Speaker 1: or I won't do therapy. That really finding someone that
Speaker 1: you could trust to have a conversation about what is
Speaker 1: it that really could be helpful. This might be your
Speaker 1: primary care provider, a nurse practitioner, a physician, it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be a psychiatrist per se, but we're going
Speaker 1: to get started and really being able to talk through
Speaker 1: these things and keep an open mind for the types
Speaker 1: of treatment that might be effective. I know people who've
Speaker 1: done beautifully on medication and other people who've really struggled
Speaker 1: with it. Right, it's finding the right fit for you
Speaker 1: so that you get to have the life back that
Speaker 1: you really want.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's not always easier convenient to fit in,
Speaker 3: but honestly, I can imagine it's one of those things
Speaker 3: that kind of pays dividends because if you address these issues,
Speaker 3: the whole rest of your life is going to feel
Speaker 3: more worthwhile. And you'll honestly not that we need to
Speaker 3: link everything back to like productivity or being there for others,
Speaker 3: but if you don't take care of yourself, it is
Speaker 3: hard to do other things very well.
Speaker 1: It is. And there is such a magical thing about
Speaker 1: seeing someone who's really been struggling coming out of that
Speaker 1: and sort of the brightness in their eyes, the way
Speaker 1: it just changes their entire being, their posture, their speech,
Speaker 1: their engagement, their interests. It's a beautiful thing to see.
Speaker 1: And I think if more people could be on my
Speaker 1: end and see that, there would be more people seeking
Speaker 1: the kind of treatment relief that we can provide. Awesome.
Speaker 3: Well, I know you listen to a few episodes of
Speaker 3: this podcast, so you might know or not that we
Speaker 3: do a love of the Week segment every week where
Speaker 3: you just name something that you are happy or excited
Speaker 3: about in a given week, and it can be a
Speaker 3: piece of nature, something that happened, a song you heard,
Speaker 3: a stationary item that happens a lot because I like,
Speaker 3: look around my desk and I'm like, oh, I love
Speaker 3: these pens or whatever. But I will go first to
Speaker 3: give you a minute to think through it. I love
Speaker 3: that I'm almost done with my invisile line treatment. So
Speaker 3: I started in visile line like almost a year and
Speaker 3: a half ago, and you can see my teeth are
Speaker 3: really straight now. I had braces as a kid. But
Speaker 3: I'm just really glad I did it. I did it
Speaker 3: at like a dumb time, like so much other stuff
Speaker 3: was going on in my life. But I figured, you
Speaker 3: know what, this can't be that bad. I ended up
Speaker 3: not minding it at all. I know some people really
Speaker 3: don't like it. The hardest part is it I always
Speaker 3: have to take it out to podcast because I don't
Speaker 3: think my s's are perfectly crisp. But thankfully I don't
Speaker 3: spend like ten hours a day podcasting, so it all
Speaker 3: worked out. So that is my love of the week.
Speaker 1: How about you. That's great. I both of my boys
Speaker 1: are having braces, and so I know that some of
Speaker 1: the challenges there. We were away last week and we
Speaker 1: came back and I refilled my bird feeders with like
Speaker 1: we love the sunflower seeds, and they all came back.
Speaker 1: I can look out my window now and see them,
Speaker 1: and for a moment they weren't here, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, they've given up on me. But they've
Speaker 1: all come back and they're just such a beautiful, happy
Speaker 1: sight that it just helps me to take a moment
Speaker 1: and look out there when I'm feeling stressed or overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: So that would be my love of the week.
Speaker 3: I love it. Well, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 3: Can you remind listeners where they can find you and
Speaker 3: the full name of your book.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the book is Guilt Free Reclaiming your Life
Speaker 1: from Unreasonable Expectations. It's available broadly. My favorite is probably
Speaker 1: bookshop dot org because that supports local independent booksellers. And
Speaker 1: then I have a podcast and a substack called a
Speaker 1: Mind of her Own, so you can find me there
Speaker 1: or my website JENNIFERREIDMD dot com.
Speaker 3: Awesome, thank you so much for coming on, Thank you
Speaker 3: for having me.
Speaker 2: All right, well we are back. That was a great
Speaker 2: interview Sarah did with doctor Jennifer Reid talking about guilt,
Speaker 2: how people feel about guilt, and whether we should at all.
Speaker 2: So this week's question comes from a listener who says,
Speaker 2: how do you handle it if your kids are up
Speaker 2: before you want to be. I'm sure that's never happened
Speaker 2: in anyone's household. How old did they have to be
Speaker 2: before you could generally sleep until you wanted.
Speaker 1: All right, Sarah, how about you?
Speaker 3: My two older kids, like I could sleep till noon
Speaker 3: and they probably would not bother me like a they
Speaker 3: sleep in because like the hormonal thing is real and be,
Speaker 3: they would just not feel like they needed to wake
Speaker 3: me up. I don't think Jennevieve is eight, and on
Speaker 3: the rare occasion that I'm like I just want to
Speaker 3: sleep in, she does sometimes tiptoe in there at like
Speaker 3: seven thirty and it's like I'm gonna make breakfast and
Speaker 3: it's like, okay, thanks for telling.
Speaker 1: Me, thanks for the update.
Speaker 3: So but obviously that is a far cry from when
Speaker 3: the kids were younger and they weren't just telling me
Speaker 3: that they were going to go get a yogurt or something.
Speaker 3: It was like I have to get up, I have
Speaker 3: to breastfeed, I have to get their stuff, I have
Speaker 3: to make sure they don't kill each other like et cetera.
Speaker 3: So I mean, I feel like the age how old
Speaker 3: did they have to be? Six to seven maybe, and
Speaker 3: then I think it's six to seven was the magical
Speaker 3: age where like if I really really wanted to sleep in,
Speaker 3: I could preemptively say I left a cereal bar out
Speaker 3: and you're allowed to watch cartoons until I wake up
Speaker 3: on Netflix or whatever, and then I could probably sleep
Speaker 3: till the whole day, the whole day if you want.
Speaker 2: Although the problem is, of course, when your kids start
Speaker 2: sleeping in as when you stop right like many of
Speaker 2: us lack the ability to sleep in all that long.
Speaker 2: I mean, how late would you actually sleep in? No,
Speaker 2: I'm talking about like eight thirty, but I mean that's late.
Speaker 2: I think i'd have a caffeine headache by about eight
Speaker 2: thirty nine in the morning if I hadn't had my
Speaker 2: cup of coffee by nine am, I'm pretty sure that
Speaker 2: it would not be a good That's what would wake
Speaker 2: me up, Like I would need my meds.
Speaker 3: Your lack of coffee would wake you up. Well, do
Speaker 3: you feel like you're at a point where you can
Speaker 3: sleep as long as you would like?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean for the most part, yes, because so the
Speaker 2: older kids, like the three teenagers, Yes, we'll sleep sort
Speaker 2: of eternally if allowed to. Alex is something of an
Speaker 2: early bird. He will get up, but he often just
Speaker 2: gets up and entertains himself, like he'll go grab his
Speaker 2: phone out of the room quietly and then we'll go
Speaker 2: watch it to go play on the computer or whatever.
Speaker 2: He's not going to come seek somebody else out. If
Speaker 2: he is up, Henry sometimes will come find an adult,
Speaker 2: but sometimes he will just decide to get up on
Speaker 2: his own and go downstairs and get my laptop out
Speaker 2: of my office. He knows how to start it up,
Speaker 2: and we'll get himself watching videos on it. Probably he
Speaker 2: should be a bit more supervised, but on the other hand,
Speaker 2: it's kind of nice not to have to get up
Speaker 2: and deal with it. So it won't last forever because
Speaker 2: eventually he still hasn't got to the point where he'll
Speaker 2: get his own food. So when he's hungry, he will
Speaker 2: come find an adult, but that wouldn't happen necessarily till
Speaker 2: eight am or later. So yeah, I mean it's I
Speaker 2: would say age six is about when you can start
Speaker 2: being more certain that your sleep is going to be
Speaker 2: more determined by you than by other people.
Speaker 3: There you go. If you're listening to this and you're pregnant,
Speaker 3: you only have to wait six years. If you're only
Speaker 3: happy one child. Yeah, if you're having five, you're gonna
Speaker 3: have to wait a little longer. But that's on you,
Speaker 3: all right. Well, this has been best of both worlds.
Speaker 3: Sarah has been interviewing doctor Jennifer Reid. We will be
Speaker 3: back next week with more on Waking Worth and life
Speaker 3: fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah
Speaker 3: at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox
Speaker 3: on Instagram.
Speaker 2: And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 2: This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please
Speaker 2: join us next time for more on making work and
Speaker 2: life work together.