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Shumita Basu, Narrating: This is "In Conversation" from Apple News. I'm Shumita Basu. Today, for our "Think Again" series, reconnecting with your sense of self in parenthood.
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Basu, Narrating: I read this article a couple of months back about millennials struggling to make their way through adulthood, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. It was by Jessica Grose, who writes about parenting and all things affecting the American family today, for the "New York Times." And it wasn't a knock on millennials. It was a smart analysis of all the bigger societal changes that have made everything from buying a house to raising a family fundamentally different than it was for past generations. Jessica says there was one statistic in particular that made her want to write that piece.
Jessica Grose: The Silent Generation, who are in their 80s and 90s now, when they were at 40, around 70% of them lived with a spouse and a child in a household. And the comparable percentage for Millennials is 30%. That's a huge shift over not a very long period of time.
Basu, Narrating: That insight, for her, unlocked a new way of thinking about the challenges of modern parenthood.
Grose: And I think a lot of people were sold this idea that if you just follow the right steps, you will have the stereotypical American dream. And it's not to say that that's not still possible. It just doesn't look like what it used to look like.
Basu, Narrating: The milestones are moving, goalposts shifting, and that makes the personal transition into parenthood, as well as our shared vision of what parenting should look like, even more unclear. It's like we're working with an outdated roadmap.
Grose: I never want to look at these massive changes as all bad or all good. They're just changes, and society sometimes has to catch up with these big changes and how our lives don't look like the lives of our parents necessarily.
Basu, Narrating: Along with her writing at the "Times," Jessica is also the author of the book, "Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood." So, I wanted to talk to Jessica about this particular transition into parenthood for a lot of reasons. One of them is I am pregnant right now. I'm about to become a parent for the first time, and I feel both really grateful to be pregnant at a time when people are being so open about the tough parts of parenthood and, admittedly, kinda freaked out by the whole thing. Sort of "honesty overload," you know?
So, I asked Jessica to share what she's learned from speaking with so many parents about how to worry less about the supposed script and instead define your own roadmap for the person and parent you want to be.
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Grose: I think we are in a unique moment in the transition to parenthood only insofar as we are just getting a firehose of information 24/7, and even someone like me whose literal job is parsing this information, I find it confusing and overwhelming, and it's often contradictory. And even people with expertise don't always agree. But I think sort of stepping back, there have been expectations on mothers and what mothers are supposed to be for hundreds and hundreds of years. And there's this cultural notion that motherhood is supposed to be transformative. And it's supposed to transform you into this better person who never gets angry and is just the perfect angel all of the time.
And that is not a reasonable expectation because you're still a human being. You are still you. You still have the range of emotion that you had before you were a parent.
Basu: Sure.
Grose: And so, just accepting that… I spoke to so many women for my book who felt that not only did they have the same feelings, the same negative and positive feelings that they had before being a parent, but having the negative feelings caused them an additional layer of guilt.
Because they felt oh, I must be unnatural. I must be aberrant. There must be something wrong with me because I don't feel 100% joy 100% of the time about being a mom. And so, if we can just accept that we have all of the feelings and access to all of the feelings we had before we became a parent and not feel that additional layer of guilt, that's even a big step in the right direction 'cause you shouldn't feel bad about feeling bad. It's normal.
Basu: I like that you've arrived there because it's funny how early those feelings of guilt can actually enter the room. It makes you realize how early on the narratives are sort of placed on you, or how much you've really internalized just yourself. You know, in your book, you write about how, when you were pregnant with your first child, only about six weeks along, you already felt like you had failed at motherhood before you even started. I mean, what did you feel like you were failing at, at that point?
Grose: I got really sick. I had hyperemesis, which is extreme nausea and vomiting, so I couldn't keep down any food. And as a result, or alongside it, I just felt like I was physically and emotionally falling apart. And I felt so much guilt that I was so sick, and I felt like, oh, this must be my fault. You know, hyperemesis is the most common complication in the first trimester that lands pregnant women in the hospital. So, this is not some rare thing that I'm a freak for going through. It happens. And so, even knowing that intellectually, I still felt this sense of complete failure. I had to leave a job that I had just started because I was too sick to continue, and in retrospect, it was the absolutely right decision. But I just… I remember feeling like roadkill. Like [LAUGHS] I had just been run over by a car and left by the side of the road. And that sounds very dramatic, I know, um, but it is really how I felt in that moment. And so, as I sort of emerged from the worst parts of that sickness, and I got through the pregnancy, and I had a beautiful, healthy daughter, I was able to really start not only emotionally processing it, but also because I'm a journalist, reporting it out. Trying to get at the roots of well, why did I even have this idea that you're supposed to feel amazing during pregnancy when manifestly, many people feel pretty crummy? [CHUCKLES] And they will tell you about it.
Basu: You know, I would say that if I had to characterize the sort of dominant narrative around parenthood is, I guess, these competing tensions. One is you are now a minor character in your life, right? Child is the center of your life. Child must be the center of your life. And then the second tension is maybe coming from your work, if you work, or even maybe your friends. And that's the idea that you are exactly the same person you were before. Nothing has changed. Nothing should change. And everything should go about as usual. So, between these two competing ideas and expectations, how do you find space for yourself?
Grose: So, there's certainly a recalibration that happens. And I find that often, a lot of it is just the details of your life are very different. In general, you are just much more tired. You have less free time. Those are just facts, right? And it doesn't mean that your interests, your desires are completely not what they were before. So, I think it's finding time and space to do the things that you enjoy doing, while also recognizing that there is limited time. You have to become way more efficient, and it's also a recognition that in some ways, everything is a phase. You're constantly changing. Your relationship to the kids is changing. If you have a partner, your relationship to them is changing. And so, just acknowledging that none of this is fixed in amber. And it's also acknowledging that the systems around us are not welcoming to these changes. And I'm speaking now especially about workplaces. There is a term coined by the gender scholar Joan Williams, the Ideal Worker. And our workplaces expect all of us to be the Ideal Worker at all times, which is to say that you have no responsibilities outside the office. You are available. Both your mind space and your physical body should be there 24/7 for use by your employer. And that's just not feasible for basically anyone, but I think especially for parents because something as simple as the workday and the hours of the workday are not compatible with the American school day, which ends at least two hours before most people get off work. And so, you have to do the effort and make the work to figure out how you're going to cover that if you continue working. And almost 80% of women between ages 24 and 54 are working or looking for work. That is the vast majority of people in this country at this point. And so, it is normative to be a working mother, and yet the systems around us just are not there. We don't have 'em. And that is uniquely American.
Basu: Yeah. I mean, can I tell you that that reminds me of a real anxiety that I have that I'm already having at this point, which is I know for a fact that I will not be the kind of mother that my mom was. And that kind of stresses me out. I mean, my mom stayed at home until I was in middle school. And even though I know in my mind that that's just not the script that I've chosen to follow for myself, I'm already feeling anxiety about what kinds of losses that means for my child because I know firsthand how much I got out of my mom being exactly who she was. I don't know how to grapple with that.
Grose: Well, I mean, this is something that actually has been very comforting to me. Your kids are not you, and they're going to be their own people with their own experiences, and they'll get something else out of your relationship. And, I mean, you can just see all of your peers who had moms who worked and are thriving. So, it's not going to be exactly the same. You're right about that. But it might be better in some ways. It might be worse in some ways. You'll provide other things. I mean, again, with my own mom, I can speak from my experience. My mom was a doctor. She went back to work when I was three weeks old, which is… You know.
Basu: Oh, wow.
Grose: Because she didn't have any paid leave. That's also in my book that many doctors and dentists still do not have paid leave, which is appalling. But she always worked. I always remember her working, and I really admired her. I thought it was so cool. I remember her getting, you know, going into her closet and watching her get dressed for her workday and just thinking it was so glamorous and interesting and so inspiring. And I don't feel like she gave any less of herself. She was still available and emotionally present for me, and so, there's just not one right way to do anything.
Basu: Yeah, I get that. I hear that. It's hard not to compare with what you already know.
Grose: Of course.
Basu: I think that's what makes it harder about, you know, marching into the unknown [CHUCKLES], and, uh, and knowing you're going to have to forge it for yourself and figure it out.
Grose: Yeah, and I think it's so important for all of us to not assume the negative, not assume that just because something is going to be different for our kids that it will necessarily be worse.
Basu: Yeah. Can we talk about dads and non-birthing parents? I feel like dads often get shortchanged in this conversation or maybe the conversations about early parenthood because they're not going through the same kind of physical transformations. But this is also a time when their identity and their sense of self is going through a lot of upheaval. And I feel like in some ways, we've left dads to their own devices to figure it out much more than we've left moms. And we're still doing better at having those conversations around what moms go through. But, um, I really feel like dads don't have that same kind of space.
Grose: I think that's right, and their lives, especially for dads who are involved and want to be involved, are changing almost as radically as their spouses or partners. And I think in some ways, at least in the workspace, it's a little harder for them because they are punished more severely for taking time with their families because it's sort of going against gendered expectations. So, it is at least expected, oh, they might mommy track you, but that's what moms are supposed to do. And you'll see it in the research about corporate-sponsored paternity leave. Many men do not take all of the paternity leave that is on the books that they are allowed to take, and the reason that they don't take is not because they don't want to be with their families. They do want to be with their families. It's because they believe that they will be punished, and there is evidence that that they will be. They will be seen as less committed. They won't be promoted in the same way. And so, they have unique challenges in some ways that women are not facing in quite the same ways. And I do think that they're in sort of a transitional moment where many of them are much more devoted and spend a lot more time with their kids than previous generations. But again, the systems around them haven't fully caught up. So, who does the school call when there is something wrong with the kid?
Basu: Right.
Grose: Even if you tell them to call the dad, they usually still call the mom. And in their defense, the reason that they still call the mom is because the dad won't answer.
Basu: The mom is still more likely to answer the phone. Right?
Grose: Yeah. In many relationships, we're still sort of negotiating it both privately and publicly. And men, I do think are more starting to talk about it amongst themselves. And so, I think we are moving forward, but we all suffer when we don't treat dads as equal parents. You know, I do think that there's a way in which the larger conversation about caregiving needs to include almost everybody, especially at the workplace, because nearly everyone in the world is going to have to give care to somebody in their life at some point, so whether it is for an older family member, whether it is for a significant other, you know, a friend, all of us are going to have health needs and care needs that will not allow us to work a full time job. And I think just including more people in this conversation will make it a lot less fraught because there's been many articles written about how there's resentment if parents are given special privileges at work, and I understand it. It feels unfair. And so, I think making the conversation broader will make it more inclusive and better for everyone because everyone deserves to have a personal life. Whether or not you choose to be a parent, you deserve some space in your life to deal with the life part of your life.
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Basu, Narrating: We asked you, our listeners, to give us a call and tell us how becoming a parent changed you, and we got so many voicemails. It was really nice to hear.
Listener 1: I waited until I was 27, and I'm glad I did because I felt like there was quite a bit of life to live, uh, before feeling like I had to take care of somebody else.
Listener 2: Motherhood at 42 meant curtailing these professional and recreational pursuits to prioritize my daughter, Jenna, who is now a ferocious and feisty toddler.
Listener 3: I do find myself going to bed at night sometimes and waking up in the morning practically with amnesia trying to remember who was I exactly before this all started.
Basu, Narrating: A lot of you told us how challenging it all is, but also how rewarding it can be.
Listener 3: It's taught me and shown me a level of love and compassion and gratitude that I've never known before.
Listener 4: I had such low self-esteem my whole life, but when I look at how perfect my son is, I'm filled with pride that something so beautiful and wonderful came from me.
Listener 5: I feel like you give up things, but the things you give up pale in comparison to what you gain. I mean, to steward and to shepherd and to love these little lives and to care for them, it's just been a joy.
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Basu: So, Jessica, I wanna play you a listener voicemail we got. This one is from Ben in Miami.
Listener 6: When I was 35, my wife and I had twin sons, which… [EXHALES DEEPLY] Drastic, drastic life change. On the con side, definitely miss, uh, rest and sleep. Not being interrupted is another big one. And also, I think patience. I thought I had patience. I thought I was one of the most patient human beings on the planet. But, um, kids taught me that I lacked a certain different type of patience, that I needed to recalibrate, reassess and rebuild, you know. The baby years were cute, but I found them to be very difficult in terms of what I was getting out of it, and just my well-being. But now, the boys are five, and they're… You know, they're like my little buddies.
Basu: I like hearing Ben reflect back on where he's been over the past five years because you can hear how truly difficult the early phase was, and it sounds like he's just in a different place.
Grose: I mean, and twins. Anybody who has multiples, I'm just like, how do you live? Like, it's so hard. So really, my heart goes out to that man. That… Especially in that first year, you are not sleeping, and you are not doing anything than keeping those two little sweethearts alive.
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So, it's a roughie, and I do think we don't talk enough about the exhaustion as something that not just affects your life, but it affects your mood. I was the first of all my friends to have kids, so I was often the person that people were coming to for practical advice. And if people were having a really rough time in those first six months, first question I would ask… When was the last time you got four continuous hours of sleep?
Basu: Ooh. Even just four.
Grose: Six continuous hours of sleep? And often, you just need to go into a separate room and actually sleep for as long as possible, and you will wake up and feel like everything is actually totally manageable. [LAUGHS] And I know that sounds so basic, but it is… There's a reason they use sleep deprivation as actual torture for people.
Basu: A hundred percent.
Grose: To not get a full block of sleep will just make you feel like everything is falling apart.
Basu: [CHUCKLES] Let's listen to another call from a listener. This one is from Madison, and she told us about getting sucked into this kind of cycle of guilt and how tough that was.
Listener 7: I am a first-time mom to a bright and brilliant three-year-old son. In those first couple years after he was born, I found myself silently teeter tottering back and forth between feeling resentment for the loss of [SIGHS] autonomy, time, my career, and sleep, my own hobbies, or friends or the way I looked. But the moment I started to spiral in that direction, I immediately felt a feeling of guilt. But ignoring those feelings really prevented me from seeing that change is not a loss and accepting that my life is and will forever be changed, but will also forever evolve. This change is hard, both bad and good, but incredibly important to explore and hopefully find acceptance in, so you can, you know, can heal and find ways to still be the you you desire to be in the chaos of parenthood.
Basu: I really like how she says that, like figuring out how to be the you that you desire to be in each stage of parenthood.
Grose: Yeah. And I mean, if she has a three-year-old now, she also was becoming a mom in 2020. And I think we just need to point out that that was especially challenging. And I do think that guilt is so pervasive, and it's okay to miss your old life. I think for new parents, one thing is just to manage expectations about what that first year as a parent is going to look like. I think trying to just take things day by day and not trying to plan too far in advance… The example I'll give from my own life, because I was so sick during my first pregnancy, I was expecting to feel pretty bad, uh, immediately postpartum. And I didn't know when I would get back to work. But it actually turned out that the second the baby was born, I felt so much better. Like clearly, the hormones of pregnancy just do not agree with me, and once they flooded out of my body, I was like, oh my God. I feel like myself again. And my brain was ready for and excited to get back to work, which I was not anticipating at all. I thought I'm going to need six to nine months to even start thinking about that. And so, I surprised myself in that way. And it wasn't what I was expecting. And so, I think it's allowing yourself to have a different reaction to things than what you might have thought you wanted. And I think that there's so many things in the first year, where you think oh, this is the right thing to do. This is the best thing to do. And your instincts go against that. So, I think it's just, as much as you can, listen to those instincts and what you want and how you feel in the moment and not try to project ahead about how you're gonna feel, especially if it's something you've never done before.
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Basu, Narrating: Jessica says another way to sort of manage your own expectations when you become a parent is to really think about what boundaries you need to set, especially on social media.
Grose: I talk to so many moms about social media and how it makes them feel inadequate, and even though they know that it's the highlight reel and that it's not real reality, those images are still incredibly influential in your brain.
Basu: Absolutely.
Grose: And so, if someone's making you feel less than, unfollow them. Mute them. It's not necessary. You don't need it to survive.
And at the same time, I think saying, "Oh, just don't be on social media at all" is reductive because there's so many ways social media connects us, and many of us need it for work. So, I think finding a way to curate your experience, so it's not making you feel worse than you need to.
The transition into parenthood can also strain your friendships, especially with friends who don't have kids. And Jessica says it's so important for you to keep your friends close while acknowledging that things might look a little different, especially in the beginning.
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Grose: Make sure that it's not all about you. It's not all about the baby. You're asking them about their lives, that you don't change the terms of your relationship so drastically. And at the same time, people who don't have kids or don't want kids certainly need to be mindful that especially in that newborn period, they're just not going to have time. They're not going to be able to leave the house for a while. And I think you might feel you are losing a friend when they become a new parent, but there are ways to forge that bridge even in that newborn period. I remember so many times my friends would come over, and we would just watch crappy TV and eat snacks. And it was awesome. It was so fun. I mean, I have to say that's like my favorite thing to do in life anyway.
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Basu: I see. So, that's really the pinnacle for you was… Yeah.
Grose: Yes.
Basu: That's you reconnecting with your sense of self.
Grose: We used to call it couch melting.
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My best friend and I would call it… It's like, do you want to come over and couch melt?
Basu: That's great.
Grose: I became a parent before she did, and she would come to me more. You know, you might have to make a little more effort and understand that they'll reciprocate.
Basu: Yeah. Yeah.
Grose: Now that, you know, she has the kids, I come to her. And even if someone didn't have kids, you know, I think it is impingent on the parent to be mindful, like, okay. I'm going to pay it forward at some point when I am able to. Again, these friendships should be long, ideally, right? So, yeah. You can still couch melt at any time.
Basu: [CHUCKLES] I love that. That's a great expression. [CHUCKLES]
Grose: It was great. Yeah.
Basu: You know, I feel like a lot of what we have talked about today has been about like, triaging in a moment, you know, when you're really just… You're like at capacity, and things are so difficult. But what about the more existential side of it all, which is who are you? Who am I right now? Who am I in this stage? What's your advice for people on how to make sure that they are checking in with their sense of self?
Grose: I think it's just to remember the things that you enjoy doing and the things that light you up. So, for me, that's always been reading. And it was just always making sure that I had time to do those things that excited me and made me feel passionate. Another thing for me was exercising. It is absolutely imperative that I do it for my mental health, for my sense of well-being, and it did mean waking up earlier. I hate waking up early, but sometimes, you have to acknowledge that there will be more required sacrifices to do those things that light you up than there were before you were a parent.
Basu: Jessica, any other advice you have for new or soon-to-be parents?
Grose: Do less. Find one thing in your day that you don't have to do, and don't do it because I think we put so much on ourselves and say oh, I have to do this tremendously long to-do list, or I'm not going to be a good parent or a good worker or a good spouse. And most of the time, there is at least one non-essential thing that you're just doing out of a sense of obligation or because you think you should be doing it. I often give this example of I am not crafty, and I used to feel really guilty about this because my older daughter has a best friend whose mom is like, incredibly naturally crafty, and she would volunteer to, like, make her costumes and do… 'cause she loved it. That lit her up. She was excited to do it. And instead of feeling guilty about it, I was like, oh, no. This is actually a blessing. Like, how lucky that you have a best friend whose mom can do this thing that I suck at? [LAUGHS]
Basu: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just reframing it.
Grose: Exactly. It's reframing the things, but also realizing it's like, I don't have to be crafty. That's just not a thing that I do as a mom. And that's fine. I really love cooking. So, I cook dinner for my kids pretty much every night. So, I'm doing something else. But just saying like, okay, this one thing that I have told myself is a requirement today. Which part of it is not? And there might be some days where you can't. But you might find that a lot of days, there is something you can get rid of.
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Basu: I like that. That's really good advice for anybody. Can I start doing that now even though I'm not a parent yet?
Grose: Yes. Absolutely.
Basu: [CHUCKLES] Just start doing one less thing.
Jessica, this was really enjoyable. Thank you so much.
Grose: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Basu, Narrating: Jessica Grose is an opinion writer for "The New York Times." Her book, "Screaming on the Inside," is available on Apple Books. We'll link to it for you on our show notes page.
Next week, for our "Think Again" series all about big life transitions, dealing with one of life's hardest transitions, losing a loved one. I talk with Anderson Cooper about finding gratitude in grief.
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Anderson Cooper: You can still have a relationship with somebody who has died. And you can get to know them in new ways and different ways, and you can become closer to them even in death. And I think that, to me, was a revelation and a beautiful one.
[END APPLE NEWS IN CONVERSATION CLIP]
Basu, Narrating: Don't miss that episode. You can follow "Apple News In Conversation" on Apple Podcasts.
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