Unpacking the Mental Load of Motherhood: Strategies for Balance and Self-Compassion

Have you ever found yourself scrubbing baseboards and questioned why you place so much pressure on yourself? As I prepare for my trip to California at the end of the month, that exact introspection led to a profound realization about the 'shoulds' in my life, a topic I eagerly explore with Erica Djossa, therapist and author of "Releasing the Motherload," on our latest Curious Neuron podcast episode. Together, we scrutinize the mental load that mothers bear, addressing the invisible tasks and the ever-elusive balance between self-care and parenting.

We offer you strategies for dealing with the intense emotional landscape that comes with parenting, ensuring that you feel seen, understood, and empowered to align your actions with your personal values. Wrapping up our conversation, we touch upon the cultural myth of the perfect mother, the critical importance of articulating boundaries, and how to advocate for yourself in an often overwhelming parenting journey. It's an episode for mothers and parents at any stage, tune in for a guiding light through the complexities of maternal mental health and well-being.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, my dear friend, welcome back to another episode of the Curious Neuron podcast. My name is Cindy Hevington and I am your host. I am a mom of three from Montreal, canada, and I have a PhD in neuroscience. I specialize in mental health and well-being and I'm here to share the science for you, parents, because I think that we don't have enough support out there and I think that we deserve the science of well-being and psychological and emotional well-being, so that we can make decisions, build habits, build skills that'll support us as parents. Some of the stresses we have are a little bit crazy, so we need some support and I'm here for that.

Speaker 1: 0:39

I want to take a moment first to thank the Tannenbaum Open Science Institute for supporting the Cures Known podcast, as well as the McConnell Foundation. Without these two organizations that support us, I would not be here right now. I want to also thank you, the listener, for downloading, for subscribing, for leaving a review and a rating for the podcast. If you haven't done so yet, please do so. It really helps the podcast move forward Not that it really helps, it actually helps. I need those in order for the podcast to continue, so please take a moment to make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast or click out and leave a rating or review. You can do it as fast as just rating it on five stars. That really helps me because I need those metrics to make sure that I get the funding. It doesn't pay me it's not my job but it pays the people that keep this going, because it's a lot of time, it's time consuming to have a podcast and I'm grateful that I can have that support. So thank you for doing that.

Speaker 1: 1:32

In today's episode we are focusing on moms. I have a special guest who has a book coming out, written for moms. So I want to invite everyone to take a moment, because I do think that what we talk about covers well-being, and so it applies to everyone. The mother load, which is what we'll be talking about, you know, taps into when we set boundaries and when we have to kind of step back and think about what we're doing and if we're doing too much, and how to ask for help and how to nurture our well-being. So it is an important one for all of you. I do want to take a moment before I begin.

Speaker 1: 2:03

I know that I don't often talk about things in my life. I had spoken to you about traveling a year ago and I'm traveling again, so I do want to talk about it and I'm also excited to share where I'm going. In case you are there, then you can come and visit me. So at the end of April I will be heading out to California. This is the first time that I visit the West Coast. I haven't visited the West Coast in Canada or in the States, so I'm flying all the way to the other side and I will be in San Francisco and Palo Alto for a few days, not very long, but just enough to go there and give a talk and to visit. I also have a friend who's joining me, my longtime friend from high school. We have been talking about you know doing, friend from high school. We have been talking about you know doing taking a trip together. We've been talking about this since we were in our 20s. We had looked at some point into taking a trip to California and when she found out that I was heading out to California to give a talk, she just just, she just joined. She didn't ask, she just joined. And I'm so excited because this will be my first trip with a friend. I've never done that before and we're going to take time to drive the coast a little bit and visit Napa Valley and just hang out and chat, and I'm so. There's so many reasons why I'm excited for this trip. So many firsts in this trip Just being with a friend and relaxing for the first time in a long time, work for a little bit, but not much. And the talk too. It's the first time that I'm going out into the West Coast to give a talk to a school and I'm really excited for that. So before I switch on to today's podcast, I just want to share with you that I will be in Palo Alto on April 25th at 7 pm so this is a Thursday at Preschool Family. So this is a preschool there in Palo Alto. If you are around, I will be at Cuberly Theater on the 25th. So if you want to register for this event, which you can, you could click the link in the show notes of this podcast episode or send me an email at info at CuriousNeuroncom and I will see you there in Palo Alto. If you work at a preschool or even at your workplace, if they offer lunchtime talks or well-being events. You can send me an email at info at CuriousNeuroncom or visit my website CuriousNeuroncom and click on contact. I do give talks at workplaces. I've done this for Airbnb and other local businesses and I also give talks at school. So this week I will be at St Vincent Elementary School twice one for the teachers, or once for the teachers and once for the parents and then next week I will be at the English Montreal school board training the preschool teachers will be talking about emotional development in the brain and how um you, a teacher, could support the development of a child when it comes to their emotions or social emotional skills. So I'm really excited to share all this knowledge with everyone. So please send me an email if you want to book a session or to at least get some information. We could jump on a Zoom, all right.

Speaker 1: 5:09

So my guest today is Erika Jossa and I'm excited to speak with her. She specializes. She's a therapist who specializes in mental health, specifically for moms. She has a book coming out tomorrow, releasing the Motherload. The link is in the show notes. I had the opportunity to read it and to talk to her about this and I really enjoyed the book.

Speaker 1: 5:29

It just felt like that sort of friend that was there for you, which is what her podcast, um, happy as a mother and her Instagram page has always been for me. It's where I started seeing more posts around um, mom rage, um, which you know that. You know that I like it's mom rage, but it's rage. Anybody can have rage. But it was the first time where I started questioning like, oh yeah, that can happen and that is something important for us to talk about. So she tends to find the little nuances or things that we don't want to talk about or things that we're not sure if we should talk about, and she talks all about it on her podcast and Instagram page and now in her book, where she gives you advice as well. So she is a fantastic resource and I absolutely love chatting with her. She's so calm and nurturing and just a wonderful human. So let's have a chat, shall we, with Erica, and I will see you on the other side. Bye, hi, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast, and I am here now with Erica. Welcome, erica.

Speaker 2: 6:31

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be with you.

Speaker 1: 6:39

Yes, I think this is your first time on my podcast. I've been on yours and we need to have this conversation. You know, I've been or we chatted a long time ago on Instagram and I've been following your journey and it's very clear from the start it's been very clear how passionate you are about helping moms and it's been truly wonderful to see you and mom all grow and now your book out being, you know, coming out. I'm just so excited for you. So first, congratulations on the work that you do.

Speaker 2: 7:04

Thank you so much. Oh my gosh, I never went to school to license as a therapist to think I'd end up here. The journey has been so interesting, but thank you, it's so exciting to finally have the book out in the world. Such a project in the background like two and a half years.

Speaker 1: 7:19

So finally, get to celebrate it, yeah, but you know, I got the same feeling from everything that you put out there, which was the feeling of being seen as a mom and finally feeling validated. So has that been part of the why behind everything that you do with MomWell?

Speaker 2: 7:35

Yeah, it's really interesting. You know, I went through my own postpartum depression and anxiety. I had been a therapist working with children and families for I don't know nearly 10 years. I had seven years of education. I hadn't even heard of maternal mental health as a specialty, like did not come up in all of that time, and so I didn't know to be on the lookout that it was a high risk time that I might struggle.

Speaker 2: 7:59

And so, as a clinician who does this for a living, going through postpartum depression and anxiety really threw me off in a number of ways.

Speaker 2: 8:09

And it wasn't until I dug in to understand and to specialize in maternal mental health that I began to realize that this is a vast problem for people. And not only is it a vast problem, but when they feel that way, they feel isolated in it, they feel like they are the only one. So we don't necessarily turn to each other. And then we might go to our general provider or to a general therapist, even who doesn't have any training, and then be told like, oh, this is what motherhood is. Or oh, you're just adjusting, you're just sleep deprived, you just need some rest. And women were being dismissed and gaslit kind of left, right and center. So what I do commonly here is what you've just said, where I felt so seen and acknowledged for the first time, putting my thoughts or experiences into words, and I feel like I'm kind of a translator of sorts, like I do just kind of put that language to that experience which can feel so validating, just to be seen in that way.

Speaker 1: 9:06

Just the post I remember a while ago you had posted and you still do posts about rage and I think for me, even reading the comments, it felt like people were wondering is everything okay with me? Am I normal? Is this common? And, like you just said, realizing that we're not the only ones already just in, that feels good and you're like, oh okay, she has it too. Or, you know, just getting to know yourself as well. So I'm assuming you know that you've heard a lot of this from your community in terms of I only through your post or through the work that you do realize that I'm not the only one.

Speaker 2: 9:43

And it comes up in a couple of areas. One major one is the invisible load post.

Speaker 2: 9:49

And that's where the whole releasing the mother load book came from, because invisible labor or mental load, mental labor is invisible and that's why it's so pervasive, like we can't quite put our finger on it.

Speaker 2: 10:03

I equate it to an invisible backpack that we're handed when our kids are born, that we feel the weight of it, we know it's there, we feel it Right, but I can't describe to you because it's no one singular little task.

Speaker 2: 10:16

It's not just the one doctor's appointment I have to book, it's not just the one little like the lunch I have to pack today, it's all the other things that go into that that really feel heavy to carry, especially when we feel like we're doing it alone. So that is a big one putting that into words and it's invisible. And then the other one is is anger and mom rage, because it's invisible in the sense that we don't see others talking about it and everybody looks very matching outfits, curated, beautiful highlight moments, and we don't know that they might be losing their cool at bedtime too, and so we go underground in shame with those feelings and they're not openly talked about a lot. So we bring that piece into it too and people often feel validated having that conversation to it too, and people often feel validated having that conversation Right.

Speaker 1: 11:09

And you know, the invisible load, and not just the invisible load but the load of motherhood. I love how you kind of broke that down into your book and the way I saw it is like the different hats that we wear that, like you said, we don't like consciously just stop and think about it all. And when you break it down the way that you did, I think it really helps us. And you know, I think back to the way that I am and kind of realizing, as I was going along, that I was putting a lot of pressure on myself for certain things and that in the end certain things didn't really matter. But I needed the house to be perfect. Just in case, you know, I needed the meals to be perfect because I put this pressure on myself. Do you think that part of this load are pressures that we place on ourselves?

Speaker 2: 11:50

It's such an interesting question I get when I was shopping the book around the concept of the book. I'm talking to mom and I'm talking about our beliefs and why we carry this load and how we carry this load, and I got a lot of. Why is this book being written for mothers and not for partners? Like partners need to be the ones to contribute and chip in 100%. That is true. And also we have grown up with images and ideals of motherhood everywhere, from the time that we were born through until we become mothers ourselves. And in the book I equate it to this drawer labeled like motherhood or mom, and everything that we ingest and take in throughout the years gets shoved into this drawer. And it's contradicting, it's maybe idealistic, it's all kinds of things. It's contradicting, it's maybe idealistic, it's all kinds of things.

Speaker 2: 12:48

And then we step into motherhood and like that's all we have to go off of was all of this junk we kind of like gathered and shoved in there and we haven't really like intentionally sorted through any of it. And much of what is put in there is expectations of others, value systems of others, social expectations and norms from others, and so little of it is intentionally ours. So it is so easy when we walk into motherhood or we enter into motherhood to feel pressure in every single direction because we don't have any clear guiding force. We feel the need to go everywhere right, like we feel the need to be perfect in every aspect of everything. And it is so common. It's such a common experience especially, I feel, like the first transition into motherhood, like that first time mom, because you start to find your identity and your groove a little bit more as you go. But it all kind of comes to a head and we've got, we're forced to, to let some things go, find our identity and figure out what works for us.

Speaker 1: 13:55

I think back to my question. Originally and I think you're right I was thinking about what we, I guess, the expectations of the pressures we put on ourselves. But that pressure of having that clean home in case somebody comes, or, you know, if somebody sees it or whatever it is, is because of others, not ourselves. So it really does come down to right, yeah, right, that's so good.

Speaker 1: 14:14

So let's say somebody is listening to this and they're like, yeah, I identify with all this, this is me. How do they begin some of this work, I guess, putting into thought or putting into context also the different hats that you talk about, right, like, how do we begin this work to kind of lessen this pressure that we have on ourselves?

Speaker 2: 14:32

Yeah Well, I will say the book is a guide to do that. It's the very intention of why it is written to walk you through. So you don't have to do that mental trying to navigate your way through. So you don't have to do that mental trying to navigate your way through. But one really tactical, like in the moment strategy is stopping when you feel that pressure and just asking where does this expectation or should come from right now?

Speaker 2: 14:57

An example that I have of this is I remember we were hosting I don't know family holiday, christmas something, and I found myself scrubbing the baseboards in my bathroom, like my powder room on my main floor. Scrubbing the baseboards. I'm like what the frick am I doing? I do not care about these baseboards being clean, like low on the priority list. And when I paused and just questioned what, what it was like this automatic reflex that just kicked in, I realized I felt a strong. My mom was very particular about how the house was kept, and so my way to show her that I'm being a good mom is by keeping house, let's say. And so that knee-jerk reaction was just because of something that I had observed. But do I really care about the baseboards being squeaky clean? I really don't. There are a million other things I care about before the baseboards. And so just catching yourself in that moment where you go into this automatic behavior or reaction but in it feels a pressure, like there's eyeballs on you almost, and questioning like what is guiding this for me right now?

Speaker 1: 16:13

I'm thinking of that, that scenario, and I know it's a very common one. I think common is like the keeping your house clean for the mother, the mother-in-law, but also how you're parenting your child. You know there might be people judging you and you especially. What I hear a lot from parents or moms is you know, when the child has big emotions or tantrums, that's really hard Cause, like you said, like the eyeballs are on you. But what if you know this not cleaning those baseboards leads to comments from your family. How can somebody, how can a mom, sort of learn how to cope? Do you cope with it or do you set a boundary? Do you let?

Speaker 2: 16:46

it go.

Speaker 1: 16:47

How do you do, how do you cope with that?

Speaker 2: 16:49

Yeah, there is no shortage of people who want to hand us their priorities and their value system.

Speaker 2: 16:55

It's everywhere we turn, it's on Instagram, it's in our interactions with our mother-in-laws and our family members.

Speaker 2: 17:03

And in the book, one of the foundational chapters at the beginning is taking you through understanding your own value system as a person and also as a mother.

Speaker 2: 17:12

Because when you understand what you value and what your family values and what is important to you, when somebody comes along and says something like why aren't you signed up for activities after school? You're like because right now it doesn't align with what's important to us, or about like you can see and recognize that they carry around their bag of values with them that they're trying to distribute to you for you to adopt and pick up Right. So when there's like clarity there, you can see that this actually isn't about me and my behavior. It isn't about the fact that I'm failing my child because they're not in afterschool activities. It's just about the fact that we have difference in values and approach and that's okay. I don't have to adopt that model, nor do you have to adopt mine, and we're just not used to living in that space. We have very pigeonholed thoughts and ideals for how things should go and boundary setting once you do know those values is definitely one of those pieces Like I appreciate that works well for you and your family, but that's just not our thing.

Speaker 1: 18:22

That after school activity, example, and the values is such an important one because I do know lots of people in my own surroundings that feel the pressure to put their kids in so much.

Speaker 1: 18:31

And, yeah, I was having breakfast with a friend of mine and she was explaining what her weeknights look like and what her weekends look like, and my response to that was when do you guys sit down at home and chill and just relax?

Speaker 1: 18:43

And she was like Cindy, like Friday nights, if there's no party, you know at somebody's house and and she seemed to have this sort of pressure of, well, we need to, I have to put them in this, I need to put them in that and it's, I think it's a really important conversation to have and to go back to our values, because that creates a huge um load on on us, you know, like, especially coming back from work and having to rush to do all these things. So I think it really is important. You know you mentioned values and I do think that it's something I talk a lot about because I think that sometimes we forget about them and we need to come back to them. Do you have any advice for somebody who has forgotten this and needs to kind of reassess, like what their values are. Is there like one or two questions that they can ask themselves?

Speaker 2: 19:33

Yeah, there's a couple of exercises even that are really tangible. I have a free download on my website, ericajosacom D-J-O-S-S-A and I can send that to you to distribute to your community.

Speaker 2: 19:47

And it's a value sort where you like cut out the cards, you put them out in front of you and it's kind of think it through, maybe talk it through with your partner process of elimination to find your way to your values. But I think one of the bigger issues is that when we enter motherhood, we're in a little bit of a transformation time right, like we're in matricence, where our values are getting a really big overhaul and reorganization and we're also reevaluating the shoulds that we have been put on us. Like there's just a lot of like existential identity things happening during this time, right. And one of the sneaky things about these shoulds and these internalized pressures that we were talking about is they can kind of feel like they're what we value.

Speaker 2: 20:40

Like when something is internalized and we haven't unlearned it or thought it through, it might feel like the knee-jerk reaction is because, like well, I care about this, like why do I care about this? Do I care about this because I'm trying to protect myself from judgment, because I'm trying to keep up with the parents around me, because I'm trying to prove that I'm a good mom to my mother or mother-in-law, or is this something that I truly love and want to do and is important to me and my family. So parsing out those knee-jerk reactions and just being conscious about it goes such a long way. And having the time it's like if you are sleep deprived in postpartum like you don't need to carve out your values right now, you just need to sleep. But then, when you do have the space to just begin to unpack it a little bit and a really tangible activity like the value sort or the list in the book can be a really great place to start, because sometimes we don't even have the language.

Speaker 1: 21:43

Yeah, it's true. It's not just about sitting down and saying, okay, what are my values. You really have to give it some thought and and like, compare certain things and, like you said, I think there are some that are ingrained in us and we don't realize that this might've been a value that I was raised you know with, but now my, it might have changed for me now as a mom. So I absolutely love that. We will share that link and and I hope everybody will get the book so they can see it as well I'm thinking about um, work life balance. I'm thinking about work-life balance. I don't personally like that term because I don't know if that exists. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that for parents or for moms who feel like it's a never-ending battle to balance both and that really adds to that invisible load that we have.

Speaker 2: 22:27

Yeah, I was doing a talk on burnout at one of the big banks here in Toronto with their women's group and digging into the stats. 50 years ago, 50 or 75 years ago Okay, don't, don't quote me 100%, I'm pretty sure it's 50 years ago Only 25% of women mothers worked outside of the home, and now it's nearly 80% in only 50 years. So we have this. We had one role and job, literally, which was to keep house child care. All of that was our role at the time, was our role at the time. Now, in a mere like 50, 60 years, 80% of us are working full-time and trying to do this full-time role because society hasn't adjusted to free us up from this previous role that we're just expected to carry. Still right. So we still have 100% of this work, which was a full-time job, by the way, and now actually work outside of the home or from home or whatever, part-time, full-time as well.

Speaker 2: 23:40

Is it any wonder we feel like we are fraying and coming apart at the seams? It is entirely unrealistic. So the concept that we can keep all these balls in the air and juggle them frankly enrages me, because it's so unrealistic to even expect that of somebody, right? It's just mind-boggling when you lay it out on paper. But there's also this interesting trend that's happening in motherhood right now, though, and it's called intensive mothering or the perfect mother myth, where we're seeing this and research is seeing and sociologists are seeing this push towards all involved, all consuming, all self-martyring motherhood.

Speaker 2: 24:26

That requires every piece of you or you're doing it incorrectly, so you have to give all your time, all your resources, all your energy, all your attention to your child in order to be a good mom and to be doing your job right.

Speaker 2: 24:45

And so, of course, when we work or have a project or miss a field trip that I'm going to miss next week because I have a work trip I have to do, or I'm going away for six days and the kids cried and had a meltdown and it's like sorry, I understand that's difficult, but mommy has a work trip. Anytime we start to put anything before motherhood, we are shamed back into our place very quickly. So it's this we're meant to still carry the housework and all the care work and to open the smile and dare not be angry, anything but patient and kind and loving, and be satisfied with that role and be satisfied with that role. But also, a lot of women want things outside of that role and it feels scary to talk about wanting that or just frankly economically need to go to work and do things outside of that role, right, so it is a cluster F of a situation.

Speaker 2: 25:49

Honestly, it's a really unfair sort of stacked against us role to be put in, and there's a lot of work being done about the household labor piece and just bringing this to the surface, because so much of this is unpaid labor off the backs of moms and women. So short answer is, cindy, that it's unrealistic and there is no such thing as keeping all of these things in some static balance state. It's just frankly impossible to do.

Speaker 1: 26:22

Exactly, I agree with you and I'm thinking now to the mom who's listening to this and feeling like, okay, I feel seen now, but what are my next steps? You know we talked a lot about what's outside the home and you mentioned a few times roles and within the home. How can we navigate that if within our own home, there is this struggle of how to divide the work and how to divide especially the parenting aspect, if the partner isn't stepping up and there are. I also want to talk about the other side, where there are partners who are stepping, you know, in and helping a lot, and we're seeing a big change in that. So I don't want to isolate those because I know that there are, but I do get so many emails from moms who are overwhelmed and are the only ones taking their sick days, you know, to go take care of their kids.

Speaker 1: 27:10

They are the only ones who are, you know, doing taking care of bath time or bedtime while the partner is home, so I know that that exists as well. How would you kind of support that mom that's listening to this in having that conversation? That will be an uncomfortable, maybe, conversation with her partner, but it's, but it's definitely needed.

Speaker 2: 27:38

I feel like this is a bit of a double-edged sword or sort of two-sided conversation, because on one hand, you've got, let's say, the willing partner who wants to contribute, and we're going to get the fair play method and the cards, and we're going to distribute the things in the home, and we're going to talk about ownership of tasks and responsibility, but then we still end up defaulting back into patterns. Why? Why does that happen? Our junk drawer like telling us that that's what it means to be a good mom. It's woven into our identity and our worth. So if it's not being done a certain way or the way we would do it, or we feel like we should do it, so the guilt kicks in. When my partner takes the day off to go get my kid who's crying and fell on the playground and it should have been mommy there to soothe them.

Speaker 2: 28:29

So there is a piece of this that we sort of unknowingly own, because everything in society tells us we need to be the one. That's what makes us a good mom. So letting go of that, if that's your measuring stick, is really difficult to do unless you're consciously doing the work, which is sort of what the book takes you through how to do that work. So there's that piece where we fall into this pattern, where we default back to old ways. If we don't unlearn the things that got us here, we can make lists all day long and it's not going to change our behavior. So that's a big piece of it. That's a really common piece because a lot of partners are willing and then when you have partners who are not willing, or you are not partnered or you're either a single parent or a solo parent by choice, there is a reevaluating of what is in that drawer still that you want to carry.

Speaker 2: 29:24

Like we can release and lessen the load in intentional ways when we evaluate whether all the things that we are carrying were consciously put there or not. So, for example, looking at the schedule and the activities and maybe reevaluating why we feel the need to do that and what's driving some of those decisions. Or am I sinking so much money into this birthday party and so much stress and time and planning to make it Pinterest worthy because I really feel I need to do that? Or my one-year-old, who isn't even going to eat the cake, really needs that. Or is that because I feel the need to do that because of all these external pressures and messages. So there's a way to be kind to ourselves and practice true self-care and self-compassion by doing us a favor and evaluating whether we even care about this stuff. Like, truthfully, us once we scrape away all the things that tell us that we should care and we can do a fair bit of lessening the load just by reevaluating those things that we're carrying.

Speaker 1: 30:37

I'm so happy you brought up the first birthday. This was, I remember, after my first child. This was a huge conversation because I actually, for those who are listening, who know me, they know I'm an extremely simplistic person and my daughter's first birthday was in the park. We had a picnic with family members. I made the gig. There were no decorations because we had a tablecloth from the dollars there that was just like pink and that was it, and that meets my own values, right, I didn't feel the pressure to do it and my kids now are four, six and eight and they get choices of like let's go to the store together and see what's out there and or what's on sale, and then we'll pick the Mario plate if it fits the budget, right, like, whatever it is is, it's not a big theme and I'm so happy you brought that because I, you know, I know so many of my friends have pressure because their friends are coming and their family members are coming and it has to look good.

Speaker 1: 31:33

And for us maybe it's because I married somebody Italian it's really about the food. It's just about having a good time with family and having good food and just like making it simple. So I know that's a huge pressure on a lot of people, but it doesn't have to be.

Speaker 2: 31:49

And it might be that you are just in love and the maker type right Like it might be that, like I tell a lot of stories in the book about my maid of honor and friend in my wedding, lives for making pies and baking and loves it. And if, once you evaluate why you're doing that, it's truly coming internally, go for it. Right, exactly. But if it is to you know, try to avoid judgment. And if it is to try and prove to others or ourselves that we're being a good mom, then we're doing it for the wrong reasons. And I talk in the book about how intensive mothering tells us that everything, everything needs to be big and expensive and all-consuming, that like high spend and high, like time, investment equals memorability and connection, and like all the things we think we're going to get out of it. But really, when I sit back and I think about my favorite birthday party, probably the only one I remember growing up, my mom had like eight of my friends over and she let us pick dresses from her closet, we put on heels and she turned the hallway into a runway. It had a curtain and we came out from behind the curtain, strutted down the hallway and then we're awarded like a rolled up certificate piece of paper for how great we did modeling the clothes.

Speaker 2: 33:26

This was the birthday party and it's the one that I remember and it probably costs very little and it didn't need bells and whistles. I can't even remember if there were balloons or not. None of that mattered. It was just really about her understanding me and my friends and what we would enjoy. It was novelty, it was memory making, it was fun, and none of those things have to be so smothering and draining on us. I didn't have. She didn't have to go and do a whole balloon art and then learn how to hand make the cake and then figure out all the decorations that we're going to coordinate and then the outfit for the kid to match. Like none of that, we just wore her clothes and her shoes and had a pageant and it was a great time and I think that that can be really freeing when we can take that concept away, that it doesn't have to be a production always.

Speaker 1: 34:23

I'm thinking back to the beginning of our conversation, where we just brushed a little bit on like what the rage is, or, you know, mom rage in particular.

Speaker 1: 34:32

I like saying rage because when I talk about mom rage I hear from dad saying well, I think I experienced this too, so I know my audience are both moms and dads, so I just want to be respectful towards that.

Speaker 1: 34:41

But the rage that moms, many moms, experience, I feel that part of that is us not being connected or attuned with ourselves and kind of powering through these days, you know, like with that load that we have, you know, on our shoulders, and then it just happens, like moms explain it, you know, from going from zero to 100. And I'll take it, I'll approach that from an emotional awareness piece, saying, well, there wasn't in between, it might have been fast, or it might have been that something happened during the day or the morning, or it's the accumulation. But that's my perspective, as you know, a nurse scientist because I feel that we are not aware of these micro emotions that we experience because we're always busy doing so much. How would you explain it from your end as a clinician, this rage? Where is it coming from and how can a mom who's listening feel that you know she can maybe gain a little bit of control over that, or what can she start doing to work on that?

Speaker 2: 35:39

Yeah, I spend a lot of time in this topic and really trying to parse it apart and the more that I learn and the more conversations I have and the more I spend in this space, I'm starting to put anger in two big buckets like big conceptual buckets. Like big conceptual buckets. When we're talking parental rage or anger, we are talking maybe new parents who are sleep deprived, who are going through hormonal fluctuations, who are trying to adjust to their new role, lacking support, maybe predisposed for some anxiety and depression based on their mental health or their history, and maybe even experiencing depression or anxiety themselves, because we know that anger is a common, overlooked symptom for anxiety and depression. So there is this individual, biopsychosocial, like a biological experience of anger that is impacted by our mental health and our sleep and our physical body and all of that which I believe is the anger that you're talking about, that regulation piece. But then there is this other bucket and it comes back to what we were talking about off the top, where we expect mothers to do everything and we give them not even like acknowledgement in return. There is this maternal anger or rage or frustration at carrying the entire like load mental, cognitive load of the home and feeling like it's not even seen or appreciated and feeling invisible because, like this isn't even classified as real work to people. And so when I talk about mom rage, I talk about it intentionally for a couple of reasons, because the expectations of mothers and their role is vastly different from fathers and the expectation for how they manage their anger is also wildly different. So our window of anger expression that we are allowed to have in motherhood is very narrow. We're meant to be kind and soft and nurturing and soothing and patient and all of these things soft and nurturing and soothing and patient, and all of these things.

Speaker 2: 38:06

So when we are angry or having negative thoughts about our kids or losing our cool, it goes against everything we've been told mothers should be, and so we're not even allowed to feel a human emotion or like express that we're feeling it.

Speaker 2: 38:18

We got to kind of smile and grit our teeth in and figure our way through it.

Speaker 2: 38:22

Of course we're going to explode, like if we can't, you know, if we're not allowed to feel it and deal with it and that doesn't mean lash out always, obviously, but if we're not allowed to like, allow it to be at the surface and talk about it and we don't learn the skills to manage it and we push it underground and then we do explode, whereas fathers, if they display anger, or like I was having a conversation with Dr Reem Asharina of Psyched Mummy and she was like, yeah, my son's coach will get on him and be like, oh, you guys didn't complete this correctly, so you need to go and do this and laps and pushups and all this stuff in like there's a really angry, frustrated tone, kind of reprimanding the kids, acceptable for a man to do, seen as oh, he just wants them to be excellent and he's just wants them to excel and he's just a disciplinarian or he's just whatever.

Speaker 2: 39:18

But if a mother was that coach, it would be entirely different. So one like I'm having this like existential questioning of anger in motherhood right now, being like is it even that mothers are actually more angry than we ever have been or than other parents are, or is it just that we're policed to be like such a small window of anger that anything feels jarring to people, you know? And then, of course, when we feel that we have to constantly stifle our anger, it leads to dysregulation.

Speaker 1: 39:53

We don't have the skills then in the moment or we can't become curious or accept or validate those emotions in the moment, because we're so badly trying to outrun them or avoid them what can a mom do if she recognizes this in herself and just feels a lot of that shame and guilt that she's yelling at her kids a lot and maybe even her partner, because she just feels that immediate rage in in these moments? Is there some quick I know that it's not a quick fix, but is there something that she can do in that moment? Is there some sort of reflection or thought or a pause perhaps, that she can do?

Speaker 2: 40:33

Yeah, it reminds me of a bit of an analogy that I was reading about. When you have a fire in the house, you know and you realize that there is a fire burning, you don't ignore the fire, you don't try and push it away, you don't try to ignore it. It is common sense to us that that will set the whole thing ablaze. Right, it's true. So if we are feeling a fire brewing, we better figure out how we're going to take some deep mindful breaths or step away from the situation for a moment. Maybe usually in my case, feed myself a snack that's like 90% of the time, my issue or have a good sleep and revisit it tomorrow. But what we're not going to do is just allow that fire to build and build and build until the whole place is burning down. Like that fire is much more difficult to put out than if we've paid attention to it initially, and that part takes some practice.

Speaker 1: 41:39

As you've mentioned, mentioned and I'm sure you teach a lot about is we're not so good at recognizing when the fire is like a little flame, and so that's a really great place to start and just notice how you're feeling, notice that that trigger or that small fire, it's a lot easier to extinguish and many, many of that, many of those, I guess, little fires that I think of come back to us not addressing our needs, right, like everything you just said now feeding ourselves, taking a nap, if we have to, trying to get some rest that night, going to bed early there are needs that we have that we are so quick to put to the side because, well, I can't go to bed now, I'm going to fold that laundry, or, you know, I'm not going to eat now because if I clean or if I do something or get ahead of you know, in my work, maybe it'll be better and we forget about that. And I have to say that's something I struggled with a lot and still do, because everything always seems to matter more than what I have to do for myself, and it's so hard. You're right, it's not something that's going to happen overnight, because we're going to have to keep reminding ourselves that we matter enough to go for a walk, you know, like, take that half hour and just go for a walk. It took me years to realize that that I had to go for that walk, um, so I just want to make sure that I say that because I know if there's a mom, especially a new mom who's listening. You might be hearing people tell you go for that walk, just go, you're home.

Speaker 1: 43:04

But I was home with three kids and one after the next. Every time I had three kids in under four years and for me it was just a matter of it's not the right time. Somebody needs me and I forgot that I needed me too and I wasn't in the right chapter of my life to understand that. I only kind of started putting the work into that after my third was about three years old and that's when things changed for me. And I had so much guilt for all those years because I kept saying like why can't I just do it? But then, after having my third, I realized it wasn't the right time and now I'm in the right mind space to do it.

Speaker 2: 43:45

So I want to put that out there in case somebody can relate to that, because you're not alone and it's very counter culture and counter intensive mothering to even validate our own needs and wants beyond caregiving and even in caregiving, taking care of ourselves right, because self-martyrdom is such the norm to be self-sacrificing and it is reinforced to be a good mom we're constantly putting others' needs before our own and that is the quickest way to burnout that we could like the fastest track we can ever be on right. We could like the fastest track we can ever be on Right, and it takes a mind shift for us to see that we are of the same value and worth as everybody in the house. And our needs and I think we talked about this briefly on my podcast it's like they don't need to be first, they don't need to be above everybody else's we're not talking about being superior or like meeting our needs first and then our children. Like that's probably unrealistic for most of us, but can they at least be a seat around the table on equal playing field?

Speaker 2: 44:52

So my kid eats and I'm going to also eat. Can we like in tandem, try and meet these needs? Or like keep like if my child benefits from Try and meet these needs or like keep like. If my child benefits from socializing and from play dates, is that also a need of mine? And can that be on equal playing field and priority as everybody else in the home and just practice being equal? That is in itself a step.

Speaker 1: 45:20

It feels like such a pendulum swing to go from last to first, but if we can just be like, you know the step in between where we don't need to go so extreme but we do need to factor ourselves in and take care of ourselves given the work that you did and the work you did to put your book you know to write your book what do you think we need to see in terms of changes in our society to start prioritizing, you know, a mother's mental health and her well-being?

Speaker 2: 45:48

The first thing that comes to mind is media literacy. I don't know why that's the first thing, but because so much of why we are struggling is because of the internalized ideals and pressures. If we had some literacy around how to critically evaluate the messages we are seeing, we wouldn't adopt them as truth, and that is a freeing principle and skill to learn right. If I can see somebody on social media who has a curated home with their six children in matching outfits and a sourdough loaf of bread being cut in the reel or TikTok, and know that that's literally that person's job they get paid to do that and it's highly curated. Nothing about it is realistic then I can be compassionate with myself. But without that literacy to understand and to critically evaluate the messages we're taking in, it becomes our new standard and source of truth. It's the new bar that we now have to achieve and that's a dangerous game to play with ourselves.

Speaker 1: 46:58

I do think of those posts where it's like hi, I'm a mom of four or five or six or whatever it is, and here are my perfect little dinosaur sandwiches that I've made for all six kids' lunches. If that's your thing, it's okay, but we need to let those go because, you're right, it just sets a standard that sets us up. It's not that it sets us up for failure, but we have that in our minds, thinking that that's what we have to get to and it's not, it's okay.

Speaker 2: 47:24

Whatever you send your kid with, it's okay, we don't have to put that pressure. That's realistically what other people are doing. It sure is not. It sure is not the reality for 99% of other people. Sending lunches to school, my lunches are shameful, but I honestly, it comes home anyways, so let's not write a whole other conversation. But yeah, it's just, it's. It feels aspirational, but it's really self-torture. It's really self-torture.

Speaker 1: 47:50

Yeah, what do you to end our conversation? What would you say? Are some of the two to three really take home tips that a parent, that a mom could listen to and say, okay, as of tomorrow, you know, these are the things I'm going to work on, to work on this invisible load that I have and to start that that work. I'm assuming values is one of them, because we spoke a lot about values, right.

Speaker 2: 48:12

Values are your anchor or your GPS or your guideposts. Like doing that work to understand what's really important to you is something tangible and it's fairly quick. You just dedicate a little bit of time to think it through and then that becomes something you carry with you, so it's not super involved or a long process. So that's a really great practical place to start. The invisible load and mental labor really has power over us when it remains invisible. And so I talk in the book about my aha moment where all of a sudden, I just could look around and see all the invisible labor that went with every task. It was just like it clicked and I just got it.

Speaker 2: 49:00

We all need to have that moment. We all need to be able to make that invisible labor visible, because we can't share it or redistribute it or let go of it otherwise. And that could just be as simple as writing down all the pre-tasks that have to go into making the lunch, as we were talking about Putting those things down. Start to make those pieces visible and how are we going to divide out all those pieces rather than just the making the lunch task? So visibility is it takes a lot of the power away when we can identify what we're really dealing with, clearly identify the problem.

Speaker 1: 49:38

So those lists matter. We do have to write it down.

Speaker 2: 49:41

Not a list, but I think you're right, not in the. I'm managing my partner and I have to write them a list because they can't do their own thinking, because that comes up in my community a lot. Let's just be clear we are not responsible to be making and handing the list over. That's not the type of list we're talking about, but like clearly having a bird's eye view of what this work really involves.

Speaker 1: 50:04

I agree with you and I think it just also I don't know if this links to what you're just saying but for me just to delegate, not not between me and my partner, but realizing that my three kids that are home, I don't need to find ways to not be with them to get certain things done within the home. They're getting older now and the more I include them and I let them know what my workload is, I've become a lot more verbal about it and I noticed that they get excited. They're like oh, it's Friday, it's laundry day, what can we do? You know, versus guys, I have a really heavy day today. I need you to stay busy as long as you can, because you know we're five people in the house and we need to. I need to get things done. I've noticed the more that I let them know about it, the easier it gets on me. So I think when your kids are getting older, it really helps to.

Speaker 2: 50:50

Again, it's not about delegating tasks but putting it out there and just talking about what your workload looks like and, yeah, I think that it's almost putting boundaries and structure to it or maybe we front load our time with them and we've been playing dominoes, chicken foot random game I played growing up. We've been playing that, and if I front load that on our day and we get that quality time in, then I know that I have a little bit more freedom also to do the things that I need to do or include them in them, because I'm not the default assumed person to fulfill these roles in our home. That's something that we're challenging. So getting them involved and not everyone doesn't automatically look to mom for a care or household task but they understand that they've got a piece in that division of responsibility that they too can own.

Speaker 1: 51:34

Exactly. Thank you so much, erica, for joining me today. Congratulations on the release of your book Releasing the Motherlode. I am so happy and can't wait for everybody to have a read and to get their copy. And where else can people follow you and find you? At your website or Instagram.

Speaker 2: 51:52

Yeah, I am momwell on Instagram momwellcom for therapy services, educational resources, workshops, courses, all the things, and you can find the book through there also, but the book is Releasing the motherlode, ericajosacom or anywhere books are sold amazon, any, anywhere you can find it anywhere. So thank you so much for having me. This was amazing, thank you I loved it.

Speaker 1: 52:14

I thank you for this conversation and thank you for listening to the podcast. Make sure you subscribe and leave a rating and review, and follow us on Instagram at Curious underscore Neuron. Visit the website at CuriousNeuroncom or come say hi at info at CuriousNeuroncom. And don't forget, when you do leave a rating review, send me a screenshot and I will send you a $10 discount for the Reflective Parent Journal. That is my new 100 page reflection guide on the website and it's $29.99 or you can have it for $19.99 if you leave a review. I hope you have a lovely and beautiful week. Bye everyone.