Flex and the City

EP 32 - Guilt Trip: Moms Ride for Free

• Ghada Odeh & Lisa Wasonga • Season 1 • Episode 32

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Hey Flex Fam! 

Welcome back to another episode of Flex and the City! In today’s episode, we’re diving into something that hits home for a lot of us – Mom Guilt. From feeling like you’re never doing enough for your kids to questioning your every move, mom guilt can be a total mindf*ck. 

We get real and raw about our own experiences with mom guilt, the pressures of trying to be the “perfect mom” (spoiler alert: she doesn’t exist), and how societal expectations just make it worse. We also talk about how the system was never built for moms to succeed – and why it’s time we stop trying to fit into a broken mold. 

If you’ve ever felt guilty for taking time for yourself, doubted your worth as a mom, or just felt overwhelmed by it all…you are NOT alone. 💯 

Listen in as we unpack where mom guilt comes from, how we can start letting go of these impossible standards, and why it’s so important to remember that you were a whole person before you became a mom. 

Oh, and don’t miss our announcement at the end – we’ve got an exciting guest lined up for the next episode! 👀🔥 

✨ Key Topics:

  •  What is Mom Guilt and Why It Happens 
  • Personal Stories of Guilt, Burnout, and Trying to Be Perfect 
  • Societal Pressure & Unrealistic Expectations of Motherhood 
  • Why Self-Care Isn’t Selfish 
  • How to Rediscover Yourself Outside of Being a Mom 

🚨 Have you struggled with mom guilt? How do you deal with it? Drop your thoughts in the comments below – we want to hear from you! 

👀 Next Episode Teaser: We’re bringing on our first guest – Ben Neil, a fitness and lifestyle coach, to talk about health, growth, and building a better life. 

Don’t miss it! 

#momguilt #motherhoodjourney #flexandthecity #selfcareformoms #mindsetcoach #rediscoveryourself #podcast#mentalhealthmatters #parenting #motherhoodunfiltered

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Disclaimer: We’re two coaches—Ghada, a mindset coach, and Lisa, a fitness coach—here to share our thoughts and experiences. But remember, we’re not licensed therapists, doctors, or medical professionals, and this podcast isn’t a substitute for professional advice from a physician, therapist, or other qualified expert. Sound good? Great. Let’s dive into the episode!

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Follow us on Instagram:
@flexandthecity__
@kenyabella
@ghadaodehcoach


0:00
alright lets go
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[Laughter] okay hey flex fam welcome back to
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another episode of Flex in the City i'm Ghada and I'm Lisa and this is episode 3
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32 how are you i'm good how are you i am
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good um Yeah yeah i'm good you had it i'll leave it at that
0:34
i'm good weather is a bit better yes temperature- wise I'm feeling it i'm feeling like
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spring is coming there's a new energy new you know new vi new beginnings new
0:46
vibes rebirth i love it yeah it's the only thing that makes winter actually worthwhile is this like rebirth after so
0:53
many months of like dreary like yucky deadness like it's transition transition
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is so beautiful cuz it's just like you can literally breathe yeah honestly
1:07
I'm sure the trees too are like girl you go that was a tough one and yeah we're
1:14
complaining like bears have to be like in a hole for like months they're used to it it's like in their DNA looking
1:24
tragic like when they come out of hibernation [Laughter] [Music]
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like thin like oh my god oh my god oh man it's nice to know that spring is
1:36
coming for you guys maybe you might see some future episodes back on the balcony like Oh my gosh that we need to do again
1:43
that that was fun was so good should we just get into it let's dive in
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let's dive in we are talking today about something that I think is in the is in
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the back of women's minds [Laughter]
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no I need to get my intro right in my head we are talking today about a topic
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that definitely affects a lot of women and I'm talking about mom guilt and this
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feeling of never feeling good enough or or that whatever we do is never enough
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and I and it's could range from a lot of things this guilt of wanting to take time for ourselves always feeling like
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we're never doing enough for our kids um feeling like we're dropping the ball
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somewhere in all areas of our life from work to family to I mean the list goes
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on right yeah and so I think in this conversation there's a few things that
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we want to get across is one you're not alone like we feel you we're there we've
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we understand what you're going through and also we want to just kind of like unpack where this guilt comes from why
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it comes on comes on so strongly and just kind of really learn to step away
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from this impossible standard that has been put in place that we should never
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have been carrying in the first place shouldn't have taken it on so question for you can
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you recall a time when you felt that mom guilt guilt like creeping in and not
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just like a like ago like like a passing thought but really actually where it
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affected how you saw yourself how you looked at yourself yeah I I can
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definitely point out one of the first times that I felt it because it was such a foreign concept at the time um was
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with my first pregnancy when I first came um from Australia back to Kenya
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with the baby and my parents were like "Oh she's coming with the baby like we've set up the room we have a nanny
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like and all of this." And remember I told you the nanny ended up quitting because she'd be like "Can I like Oh
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yeah you know change his diaper." And I'm like "No I got it." Like "Can I give him a bath?" I was like "I got it that's good." And she's like "Can I like
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literally the only thing I let her do I was like "Ah you can like wash his clothes you can like clean up
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after I've like fed him." And so essentially I wouldn't really let anyone
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do anything and I think the reasoning was twofold one because obviously I had been essentially doing everything on my
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own for the first three months of his life but also the fact that I was like if I hand over like this task that
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is the essence of my motherhood like like what am I doing like you know this is my role failing as a mom then exactly
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and I think it's because I had completely redefined myself as I am the mother of this child i am nothing else
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right now um which is is a normal reaction to have when you become a mother especially a new mother for the
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first time but that is there's an element of something unhealthy in there
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because now you're denying your identity you existed before motherhood and um and
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I didn't know any of this stuff i was just kind of like you know what my kid is fed he's happy he's healthy he's
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clean he's moisturized you know he's not ashy so I'm doing good like that's all I
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need to make sure about and and that was really difficult also because as you know like my whole backstory there right
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I was in such a mental like an emotional emotionally broken state at that point
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that even the idea of tending to that and healing that was like completely
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like definitely not going to happen because I have to be a mother first there's no time for me to heal there's
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no it's not it wasn't even like back of my mind it was like nah I'll just get
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better like with time so the guilt was not only something that I felt or like a
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lot of mothers feel when you do something for yourself it's a guilt that I think in my case and I think a lot of
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other mothers can identify with it stops you from doing things for yourself um
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it's like a preemptive guilt and uh yeah that was my first sort of feeling of
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like you know oh I can't really like do this stuff like even when I went out with my
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friends for the first like year they knew Lisa's coming with the stroller and the baby like the good thing is my son
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my older son sleeps through anything right so by the time the car ride is done and I put him into the stroller and
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we get to the restaurant where I'm having lunch with the girls he's knocked out and he's sleeping through the whole lunch so I was like listen I could still
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do it it's 100% but the baby's going to be with me like this is my like one of my friends even says like he was like
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like my appendage like there was nowhere you would he went absolutely like when I was
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in CrossFit they knew that he would be there so it's um yeah it it took me a
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while to sort of realize that there needed to be space and time for for self
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as well i'm still figuring it out yeah and I think that self-care also is so important that's so necessary for us as
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moms like this whole concept of where people are always like men are always like happy wife happy life kind of idea
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I think it actually also like once you become a mom like you
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need to play into the whole happy mom happy happy wife happy life like that is
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really I think when a mom is happy in the family then there's peace in the
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house you know harmony and when there's And when the mom is taking care of herself and really making taking that
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time to take care of herself like it makes such you can show up for your children in such a different way in such
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a calm Yeah in a calm way you know and not like this person that's on edge and
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disconnected from the kids and you know just going through the motions but actually show up as a mother for your
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kids i agree and I know I I also know with you and like your backstory like
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because it was so chaotic like you needed some element of control and stability
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and that was your way of doing it you know I was like this I can completely foresee and predict and know exactly how
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it's going and also because I was a single mother I was like he ain't got nobody else like I have to be so on
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point for him that you forget that if you're not on point like you're you can't pour from an empty cup yeah and um
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Yeah so that took me a while to to learn that so yeah well how about you um I was
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your first my first encounter with mom guilt i was actually pregnant and that's
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the funny thing is with mom guilt can actually creep in before the baby has even arrived so I remember being seven
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months pregnant and living in Jordan and in Jordan um we've mentioned this before
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like you send your kids to private schools you don't send them to state schools and I went to one of the top
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tier private schools to register um my oldest yeah at seven months and the
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seven months pregnant seven months pregnant and the and the woman in the registars's office was like "You're
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coming now." And I'm like "Yeah." Like I'm so excited seven months like and she's like "People come as soon as
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they've taken the pregnancy test but we'll take your application." And in that moment I felt so guilty because you
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know you want only the best for your child you only like you want to give them the best you want to give them the best education the best opportunities
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and all of that and in that moment I was like [ __ ] I I've failed like where am I
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going to send them to school now and imagine I was I wasn't even a like a mom
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yet i was seven months pregnant and that like that hit home so hard but of course
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like I mean in that moment I didn't even know you didn't even know what it was what it was but I just felt guilty and I
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felt like I failed you know so but that was that's such like a cutting feeling
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as well like it's just also because the the double down on it is that you feel
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guilty and you feel guilty for or self-indulgent for entertaining the
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thought of that guilt to the point where you're like I'm not even going to tell anyone about this because it's self-indulgent like I'm a mom i need to
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be focused on my kids how dare I talk about how I feel how I feel is irrelevant you know and and that also
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how that also plays into me having gained so much weight while I was
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pregnant okay like at some point I stopped counting 40 plus kilos i don't know i
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don't know how much I which is already like 90% of your regular body weight like I found I didn't take any pictures
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while I was pregnant i think maybe they managed to sneak in a photo or two you said your sister found one one yeah she
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found one and it was like it was she had they had pulled out this like little
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pink cardigan out of my closet and they were like the look this was like your
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cardigan before you were pregnant and it was like a crop top cardigan and I put it on over my clothes and I swear to you
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if you can picture Chris Farley and Tommy boy putting on David Spades uh
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David Spades jacket like that guy in a little coat like That's literally the
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what it was i was a whale okay and
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instead instead of thinking "Oh I have a healthy I have a healthy baby growing
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inside of me," I was like "I'm a [ __ ] whale i am a literal whale."
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I'm not laughing at how you feel by the way because because I I identify with that so much and it's actually so sad
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but that reference is one of the f that is still one of the funniest movies out
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there yes and rest that's literally what I looked like
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and I was I felt so Why did they make this i don't know like even my family
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was taking like you know what the hell did I have to do get the stress out
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and I think I mentioned like I was so like so upset with myself for having gained all
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that weight that even when I saw people I think I hibernated the entire nine months to be honest but even on bed rest
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yeah i had to be on bed rest at some point and not like bed bed rest but like I just couldn't do much like I was
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spotting at some point and the doctor was like no heavy duty activities no lifting of anything just do the you know
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the minimal yeah the bare minimum and so but when I would see people like they were obviously going to see like a
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completely different person i would just be like as soon as I'd see them be like "Yeah I took it I took eating for two a
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little too seriously." That's how you're like "Let me see laughing at myself you know?" Yeah like preempting it because
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you're like "It's easier if I can control the the narrative before the attack." Yeah oh my god that's so like
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And again not something that you could feel comfortable talking to someone about because they'd be like "Listen
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like grateful that you have but there's so many women who want to have babies and you're here having one you should be
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grateful you're worried about how you look what kind of mom are you going to be when No oh so you can't even like
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take that moment to legitimize a feeling legitimate that's that's Listen mom guilt is a real
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thing like it's not like it's actually even been coined a term now you know like by psychologists like it is a real
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thing and maternal mental health is such an important factor like they say like
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if if moms were to go on strike tomorrow the world would be in chaos
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would stop it would stop absolutely like absolutely and there's just and I think there's there's something to say about
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there's not enough attention that goes into the mental health of mothers
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parents yeah parents in general yeah sure but yeah certainly motherhood because it is such a a different and
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like unique experience that you go through as a mother and it is different like from one mother to the next but
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there are certain things that you experience with these these hormone spikes that that bring about behavior
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thoughts feelings that if you sometimes you're not even sure you're like is it
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just me that's going through this and is this normal in it is this and then normal becomes this again lofty
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unattainable thing that makes you feel worse because you're like wow I should be totally for example the guilt of not
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being like naturally maternal which is an a it's a it's a term called the natural mother like we as women should
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be instinctively or we should have instinctively these motherly qualities
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already because we are which I mean one thing that I have said
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over and over again is listen natural birth and like C-section
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birth or non-natural i'm like first of all there's nothing natural about
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birthing no a child because if you really really understand read about watch what happens to a woman's body
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during and after birth like there's nothing that is like oh this is so
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natural and like perpetuating this idea that like you know first of all if you
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try to avoid for example splitting your paranneeium when you're having a birth
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like that is alreadyating yeah oh my god you're like that's weak like you're trying to
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deviate i was like no I'm just trying not to be like one orifice from bum hole
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to breakfast there's nothing wrong with that you know or you know trademark bum
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hole to breakfast or you know like too posh to push like if you have if you schedule a cesarian
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section and I'm just like there's so many nuances as to why women choose the birth plans and and and journeys that
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they choose and there has to be so much grace given to that but part of the guilt comes from yes this expectation
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that like you should be pulling your own baby out of yourself in a in a in a room
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temperature bath in your in your house and you know no drugs involved with a
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drummer in the background and nothing but a doula on call and you know and then like if you're not doing that
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you're made to feel bad for it and it's like no like you're bringing a baby into the world in a natural way and the
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natural way is whatever is safest and most com comfortable for you and the
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child that's it that's it that is what's natural and like yeah we've all been
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victims to it i remember that um when I was um having my first child they make
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you like write out like your birth plan because they're like "Okay when you're in labor do you want like drugs do you
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want an epidural like if you know [ __ ] gets escalated how do you want it to go and I was
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like I've been through [ __ ] like pain threshold high i was like no drugs
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that's what I also I literally went in to be induced with nothing but a CD yeah
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and my laptop yeah i was watching games in New York and I was like in labor and I was like I got this like I'm all right
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i'm just gonna be chilling damn let me tell you that how long did
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that last
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about 12 hours in when they were like "Your contractions 30 seconds apart and
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you have zero progression." And I was like "I'm sorry what been here for 12 hours and nothing's happening it's got
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to be something." They were like zero zero centimeters i was like same with me
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that's when I broke everything broke everything broke
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give me the gas give me something and in that moment you're like "Your
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body is not doing what it's meant to be doing." Exactly it There's nothing natural about our deliveries it wasn't
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Our bodies weren't performing the way that they were supposed to be performing i know for me also breastfeeding didn't
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come natural naturally with with the first child second and third I finally figured [ __ ] out but like it was like
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suffer through that breastfeeding process but like the body I'm like my body nothing about this is natural 50
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years ago we or our children wouldn't have survived that first pregnancy yes
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you know what I mean yeah and that's crazy to think it's because of things that people consider unnatural or you
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know invasive procedures that we are here to talk about it because one of us would not have survived either between
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our child and ourselves or neither and so like the fact that you know you would
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you would downplay or dilute a woman's experience by saying it's not natural is
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in fact natural I would say I would wager to say is the easier way yeah
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because you don't have the concern about wow there's a needle this long going into my back and if they hit the wrong
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nerve I might not be able to walk again could be paralyzed it might not work and I might still feel all seven layers as
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they're cutting through as some people do or feel like there's no going back we
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just got to keep going keep going breathe through the pain it's like breathe through the
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[ __ ] pain are you kidding me right now it's so good that you told me that story
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and also another friend of mine Flo told me that story she had a baby a year before I had um my second child and she
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was like I felt the whole thing girl and I was like "What?" So I had that fear already in my mind when I went in there
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and they gave me like five shots in and I was like "I still feel my toes i'm
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still doing it do not start cutting do not." They were like "All right we just going to have to knock her out." And I
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was like man and again like that is not the easy way out because you would want to be
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conscious and present and everything just happened the way it's meant to happen but like these are things beyond
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your control and you do what you can for the safety of your child but and and the
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your own survival as well yeah but it's just it's hard that we put this pressure
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on ourselves and largely like on each other as women you know it's not men who
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are like you should have a baby the regular way like how weak are you i mean there's probably some men who said that
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but I mean if you think about it most doctors that were delivering babies were
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men yeah so that also has that there must be something about that too if you
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think about it m although there are I mean I don't know when doulas came into play and when gynecologists started
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coming into play like that's a whole other level of history that we would need to look into but we've we know for
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a fact now that male doctors and that you know they're just now starting to
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study the female body that male doctors under like just assume that we can
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handle or go through the pain and that everything is okay you know they have no idea what it's like i have no idea i
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don't even know what a period cramp feels like they're just like walk it off also you make a good point what you said
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before which is the fact that there's so much like research that is lacking in
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this area like you know literally we can you know give an 80-year-old a 4-hour
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erection through medication and there's research and funding put behind that but
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women behind lacking for the mental anguish that a lot of mothers go through with child birth with having a child
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with postpartum depression like there's so little research and so little effort
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that's put behind that it's it's it's really it's it's heartbreaking that it's something that it's considered just you
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know women y'all can get through it harden up and I think like you said also
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that women aren't very we're not they're like we're not easy on each other either i know like my mom for example like she
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didn't take any epidurals for any of the kids that she's had and she's had five of us okay so I remember when I was like
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giving birth and I was like give me the drugs now like I really wanted to be you know a super mom like my mom and we can
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get into the supermom myth in a bit um but she was like I thought you took
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Lamas training what about your breathing exercises huh don't do [ __ ] i was like "Fuck the breathing give me the drugs."
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But even that like then I felt guilty i was like I felt guilty and it was coming
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from another woman you know you still feel Yeah absolutely i still feel that like oh here's another here's another
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way that I'm failing i'm weak like I'm failing my child cuz he's coming into the world completely drugged up and you
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know which he's not but I understand it was the good stuff though i mean yeah or
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even like pain medication afterwards it's like you know maybe I shouldn't because you know I'm breastfeeding and
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man it's it's it's really difficult and it's um and it's hard to break out of
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that because I think also we are now coming into an environment where we think we're
23:48
so progressive in society because oh we have measures in place for working
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mothers like no they're still not adequate but because we have some as
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opposed to none we still feel like okay that's that's a step in the right direction so we should be able to cope
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because women were hoping without it yeah and then that creates a pressure when you're like well I have maternity
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leave for more than the minimal amount so I should be able to go back to work and not have to leave work in the middle
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of the day i should be able to figure out how I'm going to pump my milk and not let anyone at work know or sit in a
24:26
meeting and not let my boobs leak through my blouse through my blouse in front of like you know um and the fact
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that the work environment or the corporate world largely doesn't really recognize still
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even with these measures taken the the fact that there's so many
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more needs that we have to be able to do both proves we can't actually you cannot excel at both no you can be good maybe
24:54
on these days at some better and you can on another day be better at at this but
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being 100% great mom 100% great employee at work you cannot do both 100% of the
25:08
time absolutely not because we are literally trying to do that in a system that has been that was not set up for us
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to succeed and um what I was reading is that so these corporate structures that
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have been put into place were put into place in the 1950s with this idea that there is constantly going to be someone
25:28
at home taking care of the kids and that usually fell on the women's you know the
25:36
women's head so now those same structures are still in place i mean we're talking there are countries that
25:42
still don't have maternity leave or they have maternity leave like in Jordan maternity leave was like six seven weeks
25:50
it was something ridiculous weeks is insane i think it might have been seven weeks but it's just like you're
25:55
literally going back to work and I don't think at that point I don't think your child even recogniz
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still doesn't even recognize who you are you know you're they're still tiny they're still tiny and so there's this
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system that's in place that doesn't have the structural support for us so we have
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women that are doing full-time jobs and then they come home and they're still
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doing a full-time job at home yes you have you know the partners are maybe in
26:26
this day and age and I know our partners definitely help us out a lot more than the average man but it still falls
26:36
largely on us and you have a lot of women who don't have the luxury of a
26:41
partner so there's still not a mechanism to support them if they also want to work and they need to work even more
26:47
because there it's a single income home yeah caregiving is expensive we just said maternity leave is is maybe it
26:56
doesn't even exist in some places and the thing with maternity leave as well by the way is okay if you have the
27:01
average which is three months you go back most women are still breastfeeding for example you have a highly dependent
27:07
child anyway at that at that point in time if you want to be a breastfeeding mother work and the corporate world just
27:15
assumes that I'm back at work yeah i'm not leaking like a faucet anymore yeah
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i'm not feeding another person i have nothing to do except be here for my job
27:28
i'm back now like it doesn't assume that wow I need it started a little bit now
27:33
where you have mother's rooms where mothers can go and pump and you have refrigeration where they can keep their milk but that's still like historically
27:39
speaking such a recent concept and it's still not across the board the assumption is still that if you're back
27:45
at work you back at work yeah i don't care what happens at home deal with that at home if you're here we pay you to do
27:51
what you do here and we're not going to make that easier for you to do what you need to do at home so that's really
27:56
difficult also in the fact that we have a community or society that's moved away
28:03
from this whole it takes a village like this community structure where you're
28:08
close to people who are of support and like grandparents family aunties sisters
28:13
whoever it might be is a collective and you know what's weird to me like that we as the intelligent
28:23
beings or animals on the planet as we hold ourselves out to be would move away
28:28
from something like that and then you have like deeply intelligent
28:35
matriarchal like animal groups like elephants that the community of when a baby is
28:43
born is so strong mhm that not only do they celebrate the birth as a herd but
28:50
like they visit the baby like everyone has a role
28:57
and the fact that aside from like [ __ ] poachers and idiots like aside from the fact that
29:03
their numbers have diminished like this is this is this is an animal group that has like existed for so long and they
29:10
live long and they're incredibly intelligent emotionally intelligent and that like they would have perfected
29:17
something that prolongs their existence and their herds better than we have
29:24
right that's crazy to think about that yeah that they're like "Listen our instinct for survival tells us we all
29:30
need each other." And that [ __ ] has worked for centuries and we're like "Yeah." Yeah but we're going to try
29:37
something else yeah and I I think we need to go back to that concept it takes a village i think we need to somehow
29:44
embrace that a little more and I know from my own experience like I live I
29:50
lived in Jordan on top of my my in-laws so they were heavily involved in helping
29:56
us with the kids but each time each time they said "We'll we'll take the kids
30:03
we'll do this we'll help you out." You felt guilty i felt guilty i felt like
30:08
I'm not do I'm not a good enough mom like for them to say "We'll help you out." I didn't translate it as we'll
30:14
help you out i translated as you're not doing a good enough job for your child
30:19
we'll take over and that was like relinquishing that power was so hard and I just thought but why like now
30:28
in hindsight I can look at it and say I'm so blessed that my kids were able to
30:36
have a close relationship with my with their grandparents my in-laws especially that my we've not we lost my
30:42
mother-in-law a year ago so for them to have had that time with her is so important but in that moment I was just
30:49
like and I resented them i literally resented and my sister-in-law is like a second mom to
30:55
these boys and I just thought but I'm the mom what are you trying to do yeah like it's it's my job yeah stop moving
31:03
in on my territory yeah and that's how I took it just like how women always feel like even in the corporate setting if
31:08
another woman comes in who's as talented as you or maybe a little as has a little more you know a little more anything you
31:16
feel like oh [ __ ] she's encroaching in on my territory i need to be an [ __ ] i need to be a [ __ ] like this is not
31:22
cool i went into you know attack mode not like thank you so much supporting
31:28
yeah yeah and it's hard because like that's also a discussion that we're not encouraged to have as women mhm to be
31:35
able to say to someone when you're in it to be like you know I really almost
31:40
resent my in-laws for coming into my space and d and like the reaction would be most people would be like you're so
31:47
lucky like you have help and d even now I can say at sometimes I do feel that
31:53
I'm really quite hesitant to reach out i in fact don't yeah um to my in-laws for
32:00
that help i'm really really really I would say I have an aversion to it because I'm just like well yeah okay
32:07
I can understand if it was my parents you know they took care of Dante for so long and but there's still a guilt of
32:14
that well why should I be doing things in my life that take me away from my
32:22
task of motherhood what is it that I'm doing I'm going to a basketball game
32:27
with my man I feel guilty about that because now someone else has to watch my child why am I going to a basketball
32:32
game is it life or death no i should be at home with my kids like that's the
32:38
knee-jerk reaction but and on the flip side you know that it's necessary to do
32:44
things for yourself but but we have to look back then and say where did that
32:51
pressure originate from like is that something that because it's patriarchal
32:57
societies like it was in like put in place
33:02
by our forefathers our ancestors whatever you want to call it that we're like the women stay at home women take
33:09
care of the kids like that's your job and nothing else like where and why is
33:14
it that we're still feeling that now in like 2025 we are perpetuating it as the women but I think the originators of it
33:22
were men as you mentioned before you had these doctors back in the day most of the men who dealt with women's issues
33:28
were doctors like and if you read some of like old medical journals about what
33:34
men these male doctors presumed women were dealing with and what they consider them like they
33:41
classified like a woman being sexually unfulfilled as like erratic
33:47
erratic behavior i won't even talk about the remedies that they like that they
33:53
applied in some cases but like in some cases they even drugged women and were like "You need to calm down." I'm like
33:59
"So is it her fault that her man is just not hitting the spot for her?" like you know women going through menopause were
34:06
labeled as um hysterical hysterical and needed to be put into like insane
34:11
asylums or something just to like institutionalize or like put on like like some heavy duty medication like
34:18
yeah like or labbotoies I don't know if labbotoies were performed on them for that but I wouldn't be surprised
34:24
I think labbotoies were the solution for everything at one point just cut a piece out let's see and yeah the weird Part of
34:32
it is that like these people were trusted like unequivocally like women were like "Oh well you're a doctor a man
34:38
says it it must be true must be true this guy in in a white lab coat is talking about it it must be true." And
34:44
so like women would and because we're so like adaptable I think women were like
34:49
"This is the way it is we have to find a way to survive within these confines okay fine we are in a patriarch
34:56
patriarchal patriarchal i can't talk last week this happened to pick your pick that one society and
35:05
we have to find a way to survive within it we are in a society where no one's going to give a [ __ ] about how I feel
35:11
emotionally my emotional well-being is irrelevant i need to find a way to
35:16
survive i'm not going to get any sleep sleep is important but I'm not allowed
35:22
to sleep and I'm not allowed to talk about it so I need to find a way to survive and um and as we were just
35:27
talking before like your body is so adaptable in that it says "Okay you're
35:33
not giving me what I need but if we can only do it with 50% I'm going to find a
35:38
way to try and survive with 50%." And so we're pushing through and all the while
35:44
we're getting sicker we're getting more tired we're getting more irritable and all that medicine or science tells us is
35:50
you're getting crazier you're getting more erratic up your meds up your this
35:55
up your dependency on you know the healthcare industry and ultimately
36:00
there's no research actually put at finding the root of it and then we perpetuate it because we say well
36:07
there's that mom who survived it why can't I yeah or you're lucky at least
36:13
you have da da da da could be worse harden the [ __ ] up always got to take so we take not only like survive within it
36:20
but we like fly the flag for it as well we're like okay we got to do it like and
36:25
I got to tell my girls you got to push through it too and then we become like
36:31
the reason that it still exists and yeah that's that's really difficult to try and dismantle because yeah ultimately we
36:38
can try and dismantle it from our end but it's so deeply rooted so deeply
36:43
ingrained even even in us as we have this discussion there's still mom guilt that we discuss sometimes like randomly
36:49
during the week and we're like we can't escape it as and we're the problem is is that we're aware of it you know what I
36:56
mean like we're aware of it and we know that we need that self-care we know we need that time out for ourselves and I
37:03
feel like we maybe need it more sometimes than men that we could also argue that
37:09
too but um I think maybe also men are better at taking it yeah i think they and we
37:17
almost feel like we have to ask for it for permission yeah and I think there's
37:22
a more forgiving reception for men taking it yeah and we talked about this a while
37:27
ago when we were saying that men like a man who stays at home with the kids
37:35
bravo oh my god oh he's babysitting the kids this week no he's not he's the father you don't babysit your kids
37:42
they're your people you're taking care of them like fathering you're fathering but he gets a round of applause for that
37:47
whereas generally and I'm I'm generalizing whereas women we you know are expected to just you know and and
37:56
I'm guilty of it too like if I see a kid that's like unckempt I'll be like what's his mother doing like I judge the mother
38:03
yeah i like when I see an like a a kid who's an [ __ ] I honestly I blame the
38:09
mom too because a lot of the kid is probably spending
38:14
and this is a broad assumption but is probably spending a lot of time with the mother so if you've got like a a kid
38:21
that's not well behaved that isn't very nice to and not by kid I mean like older
38:27
older kids if we have like teenagers or you know 20-year-olds who are [ __ ] to women I immediately go to what was
38:33
the mother doing while she was raising her child you know what I mean or not raising and not I feel guilty for saying
38:39
that but that is my that is my go-to assumption and I it's just it's just goes it just
38:46
shows how tough we are on each other so deeply ingrained yeah and that same like
38:52
really strict yard stick we apply to each other we apply to ourselves because
38:57
like for example even with discipline when it comes to like gentle parenting
39:03
versus how we were brought up non-gentle parenting like obviously
39:11
you're you have an inclination to bring your kids up the way you were brought up but also if you've done some of your
39:17
work and grown you're like maybe I won't be taking a leaf out that book and I'll apply something else but you also now
39:25
tend to judge yourself even with that because let's let's face it you're it's on the job training you're bringing up
39:32
your kid and every kid is different you can't apply the same rule to all your kids so you're always on the job
39:38
training with parenting and you're like "Well does this work does this not work?" And you're hard on yourself when
39:44
maybe you're such a disciplinarian and you're like "Oh my god like should I have not said that should I have not
39:50
and so at the same time that you're dealing with that moment of self-reflection life happens where you
39:57
can't finish that thought and you're required to respond before you've even resolved whether or not how you
40:04
responded to the last incident was appropriate you're required to respond to the next one you're required to know
40:10
exactly how to you know like fix that problem navigate yeah and god forbid that's
40:17
something else that you're like I'm not sure how I handle that now you have this pileup of all these things that are
40:23
question marks and you're like meanwhile I don't know like am I got to
40:29
smile through it yeah i got to smile through it because we say the the man is
40:34
is the head of the household so he's the roof but the woman is the four walls so
40:40
without her the roof can't stand up and she's the one that creates the warmth and everything and insulates the
40:47
whatever vibe you have in the house so if you're unhappy guaranteed it's it's felt it's felt
40:55
through the house yeah and so you're like I have to
41:00
like you know keep it together but at the same time how what what is the
41:05
expectation when do those unresolved things then get dealt with and then what happens with that buildup and at the
41:11
same time you're trying to tell your kids "Let it out share it with me don't let things build up it's not healthy
41:17
don't mind that I'm doing the same [ __ ] back here." But that's irrelevant irrelevant
41:23
irrelevant but please like and then you know let me take on your pressures give
41:29
them to me so that you don't have to deal with it while I'm still carrying my own and it's very difficult it's and
41:35
that's where I think the community comes into it so much and not so much like you
41:41
know yes it can be immediate family sisters mothers brothers aunties who what have you but really really close
41:48
trustworthy people and what I I want to start calling your herd because like a
41:54
lot of a herd are not genetically related but they become like family they
41:59
become literally like they see each other as blood family um with elephants
42:05
not every herd but um and I think that's just such a good example of how we
42:10
should interact where there's trust there's mutually like assured benefit
42:16
for everybody what whatever I'm doing I'm doing for the benefit of everyone because I know everyone else is doing
42:21
the same thing so everyone thrives collectively and and lean lean into it
42:28
because it's really is such a blessing when you have that yeah and asking for
42:33
help there's it's not a sign of weakness and I know I'm saying it and I don't really fully believe it as I say it like
42:39
I know it but like Yeah i don't feel it either a lot of the time also because we
42:46
spoke about this too delegation is a task in and of itself
42:53
i mean we want honestly honestly at this point it's it's not just about sharing
43:02
tasks like I think we want also people to just take on the task
43:08
without us having to tell them what they need to do right you know because just having to organize all that like and
43:15
it's called there's a term for it called cognitive labor so as women we take that
43:21
t we take that on because we are organizing the household planning um you
43:27
know uh um trying to organize birthdays and lunches and playdates and uniform
43:34
and dinner and are you going to get to this on time and then you have that and be attentive to everyone's needs and you
43:41
know and it's just and still look cute for your man and still like find time to like you know and it's so much that goes
43:48
into that that even when we're delegating tasks we're still thinking
43:54
what's going to happen tomorrow and how do we how do we do tomorrow better than
43:59
what we did today like you know our partners will put their heads down on their pillows and just like pass out in 5 minutes and be
44:05
snoring and we're just still replaying the day in our heads i'm looking at him snoring like
44:12
deeply we love you guys we love you to go it's just the jealousy i wish I could sleep that deeply um there's just that's
44:20
just But yeah even in the delegation you still have to think about how to break up those tests so you still have to
44:26
think okay well is this something that can be done without my supervision and in most cases the answer is
44:32
no and so that because you find that out the hard way because you delegate it
44:37
then it doesn't get done and now you have double yes cuz you have to rectify and then still do the task so sometimes
44:43
you're like you know what even delegating it is just not worth it i'll just do it myself
44:49
so there's a little power control maybe maybe maybe but like the point is
44:56
like there's it's there's legitimacy in those feelings of
45:04
of overwhelm like there is legitimacy to it and the fact that we as women
45:10
especially are really insensitive to each other and ourselves about it has to change because the mom guilt thing it
45:18
only has one purpose it makes everything harder yeah there's nothing else that comes from that even if you're like "Oh
45:24
well the mom guilt made me you know get all this stuff done and and push myself harder." No because now you're going to
45:29
burn out now you're not going to have the capacity to be patient with your family you're not doing something that
45:35
you needed to do for yourself which is ultimately depleting your emotional or physical well-being like there's always
45:42
going to be a repercussion and so like doing away with that being aware of it
45:49
being sensitive and kind and graceful to ourselves and each other about it um
45:54
and and being I can't even say it
46:01
let's hear it come on you can do it you can do it
46:06
being okay with asking for and accepting help
46:13
whatever whatever it looks like it comes in yeah whether it's a therapist whether it's talking to
46:21
a friend whether it's sharing something that might be really difficult for you
46:27
to share at the risk of being judged whether it's embracing a meddling
46:34
in-law whether it's you know we're not calling anybody out no this is just
46:39
hypothetical yeah and you know it comes in many different ways like understanding that
46:46
um help comes in in many different forms in many different packages and being okay to ask reach out or accept that is
46:54
really important and that's so important yeah you were an individual before you
46:59
were a mother that's what we forget and that's I think that's another struggle that we go through is that
47:05
identity that we as soon as we become mothers we completely change i mean we
47:12
as women go through several milestones in our lives that where we're constantly changing you know everything from you
47:19
know changing schools to graduating to getting your first job as an adult and
47:26
then getting married and then having kids like we're always going through different milestones where we're and the
47:31
same goes for men but there's something about once we become a mother we are no
47:36
longer we're no longer celebrated and we become
47:42
and we become just moms that's that's the thing that I think as women also is
47:48
that we struggle with sad and I think there's also what happens is
47:53
that we also try to cling to who we used to be as opposed to embracing who we are
48:00
now and rediscovering a new version of ourselves so you're never going to be the same
48:07
person i'm not the same person I was when I was 5 years old when I was 10 when I was 18 i'm not the same person i
48:13
have changed i have evolved along the way and so I don't know why it is that once I had the babies I was like "Oh but
48:19
I still want to be the old me." No like I am a new me and I need to embrace that
48:25
and love that but I also don't want to forget that I'm not just a mom like
48:32
don't just I had friends I don't know if you went I'm pretty sure you went through this because not all your friends had kids at the same time that
48:38
Yeah you did even currently yeah yeah yeah I had friends who were not were not moms and I made it a point and it it
48:46
could be like this was a negative and a positive i made it a point not to talk about my kids when I was around them
48:53
friends that don't have kids and then I've even adopted that tactic with my friends who are moms
49:00
because I don't want to be just a mom there's so much more to me but my friends who didn't have kids only saw me
49:06
as a mom so the only thing they'd ever ask me about was my kids and I'm like "No like ask me about my dreams ask me
49:12
about my aspirations ask me about my goals ask like I still have those but because I was never asked about that I
49:19
literally was pigeonholed into this mom box." And it's like you lose yourself
49:26
you completely lose yourself that's a good point as well that I hadn't thought about is yeah people will also just see
49:32
you as a mom so like literally only like communicate with you in that context and
49:39
when you're hanging out with your girls that's your escape you're like "This is me being me." Like I'm not trying to
49:46
Yeah i'll maybe like "Thank you for asking about the kids they're good they're great they're cute all right." Yeah like I need to
49:53
talk to you about my own [ __ ] as well so that's actually something Yeah i not thought about and yeah it also is part
49:59
of the grace it's not just from other mothers or mothers towards each other it's also like women who are part of
50:05
that community who don't have kids that need to also help you like reclaim not
50:12
reclaim retain retain retain your identity of who you are and that's
50:17
exactly right you're never going to be the same person that you were before but you are somebody outside of being a mom
50:24
you are you're you have a dimension of motherhood that helps you evolve into this woman that you're becoming who's a
50:32
mother who's still someone who has hopes dreams aspirations likes dislikes you
50:38
know you're still like a person even when I say it it's almost like absurd in
50:43
my in my conscious brain it's like wow like yeah when's the last time I asked myself what are my aspirations now most
50:50
of mine are like I want to be somewhere that's good for the kids i want to do this for my kids yeah i want to make
50:55
sure this happens for the kids i wanna like for the kids it's like it's like
51:01
where's where's Lisa in there where's in there you know and it's just so important i think that's another thing
51:08
that you can take away from this is it's so important for you to
51:14
reddiscover or reinvent who you are because
51:20
there's you're there's so much more to you than just being a mom there's nothing wrong with you having that layer
51:27
of being a mom but there is more to you there are some women I know who say "I'm
51:32
I'm a mom and this is it my I live for my kids." And that if that works for you that works for you but I'm telling you
51:38
my I don't know how many people it truly genuinely works for and I'm like we're
51:43
being real and honest with you like it's not enough for us just to be I don't think it's really enough for anyone
51:50
truly and honestly yeah i think there's something that's lacking and maybe they're just accustomed to living
51:55
without but and they're trying to convince themselves maybe and like I said women we're adaptable as [ __ ] like
52:03
we don't make it work you see some of the of the shoe looking busted ass men
52:08
that women will marry like women are adaptable we make it work
52:14
i'll learn to love him you know you're killing me it's just the first
52:20
example that came to mind but really on the on the on the on a serious note like
52:26
women are the ones that have to learn to adapt and we do we make it happen we make it work because we we're nurturers
52:34
we do and um and that's like a double-edged sword in some cases you are better at all aspects when you have
52:42
healed all aspects and acknowledged all aspects um rather than saying well I have to like suppress this for this and
52:50
I know there's only 24 hours in a day i really wish we had like 30 it would make it much better i think even if we had 30
52:56
we'd be wishing for 40 like there's always just we always feel like there's not enough time in the day there's not
53:02
there's not and so I know that like you can't always do everything that you want to do right by your family by yourself
53:09
in a day it's just not possible yeah yeah it's also like a beautiful thing
53:15
because I think kids learn so much by um imitation and um observation more
53:23
than what we say to them so if your kids see that yes you're you're a present
53:29
parent but you're also like giving importance to things that you love that you're also pursuing passions like
53:36
you're inadvertently instilling that in them and letting them know listen you should pursue your passions you should
53:42
you know respect what it is that you love and and put work into it and have acknowledgement for your mental health
53:48
and your emotional well-being i love that you said present parent because I think what we are trying to do is be the
53:55
perfect parent and in being the perfect perfect parent I think that's where we as moms
54:02
as women suppress all of what we might be feeling just so that we
54:07
can kind of get [ __ ] done and do it perfectly regardless of how we are
54:14
feeling or what we're you know what's going on inside of us perfectly and when we take perfection and add it to the
54:23
equation I think we stop being present because there's something about
54:28
perfectionism that really just like kills the joy of motherhood because
54:36
honestly like and I know motherhood will tear that ass up if you try to be perfect it'll be like "Oh really you
54:42
think you got this hold my beer." And I know that because I am a recovering perfectionist and if [ __ ] didn't go
54:50
perfectly like it w it it it rocked my world like I was always so stressed out
54:55
and when I was stressed out I was disconnected from the kids like I couldn't I couldn't feel or I couldn't
55:03
be with the kids the way that I should be and that in turn just put me kind of
55:08
like in a zombie state like okay let me just make sure that everything is at least set up for them perfectly that
55:14
they have their playdates their their lunches their dinners their meals they go to bed at the same time everything is
55:20
perfect but whatever is going on inside of me like just suppress it and that's okay but I started to like I
55:28
I don't know if resent is the right word for my kids but maybe started resenting myself and I just was not I was
55:36
completely disassociated from my kids contempt yeah it really makes you look at your life and you're like "Is this Oh
55:43
my god this is it." And that for me was so unhealthy the rest of my life
55:48
that's Yeah it's not healthy so I'd rather be a parent who is present and is
55:54
failing all the time and lets my kids see that like I've broken down in front
56:00
of my kids i've you know like they've seen they've seen the rainbow of
56:05
emotions you know um from me and I'd rather that that they see like the real
56:11
raw that you're human that I'm human yeah that you're human and that you know what you can break and rebuild yeah that
56:19
they know that you know what ma broke down that time but damn she picked
56:24
herself up and she got it together and she did this and I can tell her about this thing that broke me because she's
56:30
going to help me know how to fix it cuz and that I think is such an important way to bond as well that's courageous as
56:37
hell it's cou because it's scary it is scary it's scary i agree
56:44
um okay so I think I think what we can take away from all of this is that just
56:50
remember that you are you are functioning inside of a system that was
56:56
not was never built for you to succeed and that guilt and that pressure and
57:03
that burnout that comes like I think what you need to take away from that is
57:08
you're doing the best that you can with what you've been given and you know what
57:14
you're allowed to want more for yourself you're allowed to ask for help you're
57:20
allowed to redefine what a good mom means and not what society has told you
57:29
what a good mom means for looks like and to understand that you're a mom and
57:37
a woman yes or whatever you identify as you're an individual and you're a mom
57:43
and motherhood is but one aspect and yeah just remembering that you're an
57:49
individual beyond beyond motherhood i think that's beautiful i love that um
57:55
before we um end this episode we did want to tell
58:00
you about our upcoming episode um we said you want to give them a a
58:06
heads up about a synopsis so um we have um one of our I think we
58:13
mentioned before that we were going to have a few guests on the show as well so we have um planned to have one of our
58:19
first not one of our first guest um speaker on our next
58:26
show so in the following week um who is a coach and also a fitness coach um but
58:35
I think also a lot of what he does is is is lifestyle coaching as well and um
58:40
he's someone I actually know from high school back in Kenya but um he's based in the US now and uh have followed a bit
58:47
of his um journey as a fitness um coach
58:52
now building a business around what he knows and his knowledge and coaching um other people into a better healthier
58:59
lifestyle so he's incredibly inspiring great great um be a great
59:04
platform actually if you want to check him out before he's on the show um his uh handle I'll put that right here um
59:12
Ben Neil is his name and he will be on our show um next week and that will be
59:19
uh that will be a good one I think to uh to tune into yeah we're excited about
59:24
that so thank you for tuning into this week's episode if you feel this resonated with
59:30
you and you want to share it with somebody who needs to hear you know um
59:36
that she's not alone in this journey of motherhood please do you are not alone
59:42
you are not alone motherhood i love you
59:48
and as always keep showing up for yourself not perfectly but powerfully like if
59:56
that's something that we can leave you with yeah nice so until next
1:00:01
time bye bye bye