Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza)

00:00:00.000 Hey, y'all. Jo here, and you are listening to Under the Influence.

00:00:11.800 When I had my first baby, I completely bought into the myth that I would immediately not

00:00:19.000 just fall in love, but know exactly how to be a mother. And neither of those things were

00:00:26.540 true. I had no idea what the hell I was doing with this baby. And yes, I loved him, but it wasn't

00:00:37.660 that kind of all-consuming, glowy, just angelic kind of love that culture and pretty much everyone

00:00:48.220 tells us that we're supposed to have for the baby the minute it comes out of our bodies.

00:00:54.840 And even though I loved my baby, I didn't know exactly how much I liked him because

00:01:02.920 nothing was the way that I thought it would be. And it was so, so much harder than I thought it

00:01:11.000 would be. I want to talk about that today because even though a lot of progress has been made since

00:01:17.720 I had my first baby nearly eight years ago, I still don't think that we talk about it enough.

00:01:24.100 I think that motherhood is still filtered and polished, and it's still very easy to fall into that trap of thinking that we're just going to know exactly what to do, and we're going to feel incredible once we hold our baby in our arms. 0.84

00:01:42.440 And it's just not the case for most women.

00:01:44.940 It's so important for us to close that expectation gap, because when we know what we're getting into, it's so much easier to handle it. 0.99

00:01:53.840 That's one of the things that Sarah Hoover wanted to do in her new book, The Motherlode.

00:02:00.260 Sarah had a traumatic birth, followed by postpartum depression, which manifested in self-loathing,

00:02:07.860 apathy for her baby, and a rage towards her husband that I can so relate to.

00:02:14.860 She felt like she was never going to be herself ever again, but she was completely unprepared for it.

00:02:22.260 and that's one of the reasons she decided to write her book. We're talking about all of it.

00:02:26.840 Both of us are going to be very raw and honest about what it actually feels like

00:02:30.860 in the days and months after having a baby. Hi, Sarah Hoover. Well, hello. Thanks for having me,

00:02:38.480 Jo. Thanks for being here. I want to start out with this line in your book that I love so much.

00:02:46.100 you're you're describing you're describing your child okay and you say the kid was objectively

00:02:52.360 a tiny worm even worse a worm with my nose i did say that you did and i love it because

00:03:00.040 after i had my first baby i just kept thinking you're just you're an alien like there's what

00:03:06.320 what what even are you what is this this it it was like nothing that i thought a baby would look like

00:03:13.240 because when we see babies in movies they're nine months old like they're they come out like

00:03:18.520 puffy like normal cabbage patchy right and this this was just a little like like you say like a

00:03:25.900 worm a little a little worm that looks kind of like you but also kind of like nothing they're

00:03:31.300 so funny looking when they first come out especially if you birth them the way i did

00:03:35.160 out of a hole in my body because they're all like it looked like his head went through a 0.95

00:03:40.240 frozen yogurt machine because it did because it did because because the vagina does not expand 0.95

00:03:46.060 that much they squeeze they squeeze through that that tube we don't need it to do anything more

00:03:51.020 than it's already doing down there no we sure do not we sure do not i had a second kid recently

00:03:55.840 last year and i had a very different experience and when she came out i'm sure she was messed up

00:04:02.640 looking too but i felt so much more connected to her because my birth was so different

00:04:08.040 and my perspective was so different and i felt like

00:04:13.940 immediately so much more curious about her and like so much more attached that

00:04:20.680 she was it's like it's not like she came out and i was like look at this child model right

00:04:28.720 but i i thought it was like funny the way she looks messed up like my son looking strange at

00:04:36.380 the newborn like you're right i had rarely seen anything depicted in like a movie or something of

00:04:42.260 a kid three minutes after it's three minutes after it's born it's weird yeah which is a weird look

00:04:48.380 but it's it's a weird look but i think uh my reaction to his looks had more to do with my

00:04:56.000 own devastation than him literally looking like a worm right right uh because you can get over

00:05:05.460 you can get over a worm a cute and like i mean they're kind of cute worms too like a grub

00:05:11.740 you know but yeah i want to talk about that devastation because you write that you just

00:05:18.380 weren't prepared for to to to have the baby to feel what you were going to feel after childbirth

00:05:24.340 and i talk about this so much women aren't warned we're not warned for what can happen we're not

00:05:30.640 warned about postpartum depression it's getting better it's still not great and so talk to me

00:05:35.800 about that devastation and this despair that you felt um yeah there were so many reasons why i felt

00:05:43.060 it you know i think like having a birth that felt really traumatic was certainly a catalyst

00:05:47.580 um and a birth where i felt really out of control of my own body and disrespected and um kind of

00:05:55.400 like assaulted yeah certainly didn't set me up to be happy once the baby came out because i was so

00:06:01.860 detached already like my brain had kind of shut down that it was really hard to

00:06:06.480 feel like an immediate sense of connection but i also was so devastated by

00:06:14.280 what felt like an immediate identity rupture like there was the me on october 1st where i like

00:06:23.720 went to work and took phone calls and got a sense of fulfillment and joy from the identity I had

00:06:33.960 cultivated out in the world where I had a job that was really important to me and I was interfacing

00:06:38.100 with people I respected and then all of a sudden on October 3rd I was only a mom and I like knew I

00:06:47.060 had to take time off of work and knew I had to focus on this new little being that was so

00:06:53.760 dependent on me. And that rupture was like, I had no, I think partially due to my depression and

00:07:01.420 partially due to the fact that I had never done it before. I felt like that was my life for the

00:07:05.260 rest of time. Like I didn't know that that phase would kind of end and I could enter the real world

00:07:10.680 again. I thought that it was just all over for me and that my only identity, I rationally knew I

00:07:16.760 would like go back to work eventually but I felt very much like my identity that I cared so much

00:07:24.880 about that meant so much to me was over yeah yeah and I think that happens that happens to a lot of

00:07:31.500 us for our listeners who haven't read the book yet who were you before before you had this baby

00:07:37.500 what was your job what were you doing how were you living as a fully realized human being in the

00:07:42.220 world? I worked in an art gallery and a big international art gallery from the time that

00:07:47.860 I was in graduate school until in my mid thirties. And I was, you know, married. I grew up in Indiana

00:07:55.480 and I moved to New York in the early 2000s to go to school. And I pretty much stayed there

00:08:00.940 aside from like two years outside of the city, but I pretty much stayed there in between.

00:08:06.620 and i was like really devoted to the culture of new york and i worked on museum exhibitions and

00:08:13.760 gallery shows and um i love the ballet and i love the symphony and i spent a lot of time doing all

00:08:21.400 of those things that made me really happy and all of a sudden i just felt like i was never going to

00:08:27.640 work with an artist or have a night off to go do things that made me happy again you know

00:08:34.100 Right. I mean, I was convinced, you know, I was a journalist and an author. I had written

00:08:40.940 five books before I had my first baby and was convinced in the weeks after that I would never

00:08:47.600 write another book ever again, that I was just never going to be able to put pen to paper.

00:08:52.420 Well, your brain, at least for me, like my brain really didn't function in the weeks and months

00:08:56.700 after I had a kid. I had severe aphasia. So much so that like I remember trying to make a grocery

00:09:02.180 list and being unable to remember how to make lists like I could not remember that the numbers

00:09:07.820 went sequentially I had a real it was like a real problem and there's a lot of science behind

00:09:14.980 the phenomenon of mom brain and why it happens and what for the first time I think in 2024

00:09:21.040 scientists mapped the brain of a pregnant woman through all of her gestational period

00:09:26.320 which it's amazing that it was the first time yeah that that that signed that science thought

00:09:33.460 hey maybe this is maybe this is an important thing an important thing to take a look at

00:09:39.280 yeah um and i think it's like really revealing too i mean i'm not a scientist but i think the

00:09:44.620 results are really revealing as to like how human brains are capable of functioning under these

00:09:49.620 times the like incredible stress in a way because when you make your own baby your body and your

00:09:57.660 brain are taxed your nervous system is taxed in ways it almost isn't in any other capacity in life

00:10:02.900 like you know in any other stressful scenario and so i think it i think that kind of science

00:10:09.160 like beyond being applicable to women and helping to explain how our how our brains work is really 0.54

00:10:15.620 important to like brain science in general you know yeah so yeah they took their sweet time

00:10:20.840 getting around to doing that kind of research they really did they really did and they're still

00:10:25.640 not enough it's almost like they don't care about women you know i would say that out loud yeah i

00:10:32.540 just you know if if i thought that could be pot how could you not care how could we live in a

00:10:36.920 country that doesn't care about women that seems really that seems bananas to me it does it does

00:10:43.960 so what going into motherhood what did you expect because the culture around motherhood

00:10:51.640 what i thought was oh my gosh you're gonna love this baby right away you're gonna love it more

00:10:56.780 than you've ever loved anything in your entire life what did you think it was gonna be like

00:11:00.820 i thought that too i thought that um some natural like hormonal response some biology would take

00:11:09.340 over you know I had never like I wasn't like dying to become a mom it's not like I was one of those

00:11:15.700 kids who loved playing with baby dolls and played house and I never thought of myself as someone who

00:11:21.500 would whose end goal was motherhood and domesticity like I have friends who have always felt a really

00:11:29.840 natural urge to have children and I had never had that but I loved my siblings and I loved growing

00:11:35.100 up in a big family and I thought okay well this feels like the right next step to me um but all

00:11:43.860 through my pregnancy I was like kind of depressed it was I felt really alienated from my body and

00:11:49.100 you know any change I think from a life that you've carefully curated and built feels um

00:11:54.320 difficult so I wasn't thrilled by pregnancy I didn't have that like desire to nest and you know

00:12:01.200 I wasn't getting so excited for the baby to come like I was just sort of like I don't know what's

00:12:05.440 happening and I felt really out of sorts but I had this expectation that when the baby was born

00:12:11.060 and they like handed him to me that I would have this explosive feeling of love and protection and

00:12:17.620 and that therefore all the ensuing work like all the day-to-day and all the mundane tasks of

00:12:24.000 caring for a child like diaper changing and whatever would be really fulfilling

00:12:28.680 because I just loved him so much right and that like it would be really fun and that getting to

00:12:36.760 know him would be a joy and I'd be like naturally curious and naturally really excited for all of

00:12:41.540 it and unfortunately when they handed me my baby I just felt absolutely nothing I was like dead

00:12:46.160 inside and I immediately as like women are trained to do you know kind of had imposter syndrome I was

00:12:55.660 like well i guess i'm not meant to be a mom and i'm not good at being a woman if i don't have

00:13:01.620 these immediate maternal instincts and immediate like explosive love for my kid it's got to be my

00:13:06.980 fault like i'm bad and wrong and i did have a very different experience with my second so i know that

00:13:15.120 that love those love feelings are possible but i i felt none of it when when my first was born

00:13:22.700 and I and I I think if someone had just said to me like look it's really possible that you

00:13:28.880 are not gonna love your baby at first like it's a stranger and it can be like any other relationship

00:13:34.840 and eventually you will fall in love with him it just may not be right away that would have

00:13:39.920 given me like a lot of solace and I would have felt you know calmed by that but I just had no

00:13:46.640 idea I thought I thought that it indicated that I was just an absolute failure right that there

00:13:52.080 was something wrong with you because of that huge expectation gap, which makes it which makes a bad

00:13:56.080 situation even worse. Totally. Like I thought that it would be so fun when he came and so exciting

00:14:01.880 that like the trauma of birth was erased and all of the trauma of pregnancy gets erased because I

00:14:07.740 mean, I hate pregnancy. I hate being pregnant or not a good pregnant person. I would love to have

00:14:13.980 a third baby, but I really don't think I can do it again. My third was awful. I'm not going to say

00:14:18.600 that it gets any better because my third pregnancy was the worst out of all of them i mean my second

00:14:23.540 was so bad that i'm i you know i'm not traumatized this time because a i let myself complain as much

00:14:30.640 as i wanted and i didn't think that that was an indication of being a bad person the way i did

00:14:34.600 the first time like i thought i had to suck it up you know and that that was just part of being a

00:14:39.820 woman so the second time i complained a ton i was also in therapy which helps it always does turns

00:14:47.960 out it helps yeah and I like had perspective because I really worked hard for that baby I

00:14:52.460 had to do IVF like I really but I was very clear that like it sucked and that it was okay to say

00:14:57.820 that it sucked you know and the first time I like pretended the whole time yeah that's the thing the

00:15:02.840 first time I think it was so much for me faking it till I made it like oh my gosh no I love being

00:15:09.100 pregnant is so great but no one had no one had told me that I could say that it wasn't great

00:15:14.660 And that was eight years ago. And I really literally I'd never heard that I could be like, I don't like this thing. Right. I'm not glowing. I'm disgusting. I'm just sweaty. So hot and wet all the time. Yeah. Not cute. All right. Let's take let's take a quick break. And when we get back, I want to talk about how you found your way out of this despair, because I think that can really help a lot of women.

00:15:44.660 okay we're back you you felt this way for a while after your first child was born

00:15:57.980 what finally helped you to move through it yeah i felt that it got worse like at first i was just

00:16:06.600 really i was devastated but i was it felt really surreal and i kept thinking things are going to

00:16:12.560 get better when I can work out again. Things are going to get better when the baby's a little older

00:16:18.540 and I feel less tethered to my house. Things will get better when I'm back at work. Things

00:16:25.480 will get better when I'm back in the flow at work. Things will get better when I get to go out and

00:16:32.280 go to the ballet by myself and do something that I love. I kept having these milestone moments

00:16:37.460 after which I anticipated my life to kind of normalize but I just got like more and more

00:16:42.500 depressed and it took a really long time to figure out that those feelings of depression

00:16:47.800 were not an admission of failure and just me being about it being a parent but that they were like an

00:16:53.300 actual mental illness that was treatable and one of my like huge symptoms that I had that

00:16:59.120 I've been learning on this book tour a lot of women have so I had like incredible rage I think

00:17:04.420 in the moment looking back I was depressed like I cried a lot and got sucked into sadness over 0.57

00:17:12.080 things that on a normal day wouldn't make me wouldn't feel so heavy but a bigger problem for

00:17:20.860 me was that I was like enraged and hated my husband and hated anyone who I sensed had like

00:17:26.380 wronged me and hated anyone who had lied to me about motherhood and hated my doctor and I just

00:17:33.180 I had a lot of hate in my heart and I was really mean to my husband and like screamed at him for

00:17:39.380 all sorts of mundane things that weren't really what my hatred was about. And also felt like

00:17:45.860 completely overwhelmed with how useless he seemed. Yeah. Yeah. That is that I was also 0.81

00:17:55.800 very overwhelmed by the uselessness of my very good husband, of my of my the good man that I

00:18:02.520 chose to marry yeah when i was 35 years old knowing what i was getting into still amazed 0.68

00:18:10.580 at the uselessness yeah and by the way like they are useless and i wasn't ross to be annoyed by it 0.91

00:18:15.900 but uh and they're useless because they're like allowed to be culturally and they're trained by 0.96

00:18:20.840 our culture to not be good partners and not understands what it feels like to be a woman 0.93

00:18:25.940 like i don't know they've probably never read a book from a female perspective because 0.97

00:18:30.500 that you don't learn them in high school like all the books i read in high school were like

00:18:34.420 the odyssey or whatever it wasn't like i was reading about women's i never read prozac nation

00:18:38.600 you know i didn't read about women's emotions so like i don't think men have the as a whole

00:18:43.580 have like the greatest grasp on the female experience no anyway no okay and also and also

00:18:49.300 i mean men men men don't read women's stories no i mean a lot of men don't read like the

00:18:56.220 you know these demographics have been studied and like by women read much more than that is

00:19:04.580 yes yes yes my my husband reads wikipedia and i think i think he's read my books but i don't even

00:19:10.120 know and there's 13 i used to say really i mean you know he's i'm sure he's very busy but um sure

00:19:16.440 sure the thing is like okay so i just had my symptoms didn't match what i thought postpartum

00:19:22.620 depression would be. So I wasn't like, oh, my God, I need to call a therapist and get

00:19:27.460 antidepressants and go on to treatment for postpartum depression. I was just like,

00:19:30.480 something's wrong with you. You're a psychopath. Your husband is so annoying and useless and must 1.00

00:19:36.240 be murdered. And your mom's not here for you. I was just like on a warpath at all times. And then 1.00

00:19:42.080 I finally, almost a year after my kid was born, went to a doctor who just kind of like listened

00:19:50.180 to me for the first time and asked the right questions and was like I think you're in a real

00:19:54.420 crisis and I'm really scared you're gonna blow up your lights unless you deal with the crisis

00:19:58.600 and something about the way she said it really helped it was the first person who had said

00:20:04.060 anything along those lines that I felt like I could listen to and um her empathy just like

00:20:09.940 really surprised me she was the first person who had really asked me careful intentional questions

00:20:17.500 that clicked like instead of being like are you sad do you cry sometimes to which in my head i

00:20:23.540 would be like of course i'm sad and i cry sometimes i'm a new mom everyone said this would be hard

00:20:28.160 like duh but it's not out of the ordinary i'm just bad at things but she asked me things like 0.87

00:20:33.580 do you enjoy playing with your kid and i was like no i fucking hate it and i'm so boring 0.87

00:20:40.720 do you are you fighting with your husband does he seem particularly like a burden to you right now 0.99

00:20:46.960 are you angry with him like she just asked me all the right things and really listened to me

00:20:50.960 when I answered and I thought she was gonna say something to the effect of yeah being a mom's

00:20:55.900 hard everyone will tell you that and especially this first year is really hard and instead she

00:21:00.500 like looked into my soul and was like you are in crisis and you're gonna blow up your life if you're 0.98

00:21:04.800 not careful so you gotta fix shit and I was like whoa okay and I immediately was like I'll take 0.98

00:21:13.660 that information and I was I listened I was open to it but I didn't know like what to do 0.96

00:21:18.780 and then a while later I was having really dark thoughts not that I wanted to

00:21:24.240 tell myself necessarily but that I wanted to like not exist anymore which is different which is 0.99

00:21:31.240 different and I think they ask you the wrong questions on those stupid questionnaires that 0.98

00:21:35.880 we get asked at the postpartum checkups and I lost my mind at one of the postpartum checkups 0.97

00:21:42.180 when when I had to mark it down in like the erasable marker on the sheet because I was like

00:21:47.380 these are not the right questions no also no mother is ever going to say I want to harm myself

00:21:51.860 or my baby because we don't want our babies taken away from us no one's going to be honest

00:21:55.300 when you you know a lot of women when they're honest about that they do lose their kid and

00:22:00.900 they get institutionalized so like that felt dangerous but those I mean that that questionnaire

00:22:05.900 to me and I don't think this was the intention when it was you know it was written originally

00:22:11.500 by two women i don't think the genesis of it is this cynical but it felt to me like boxes that

00:22:17.020 the insurance companies needed me to check so that i was no longer a liability to them so that if

00:22:21.580 something bad happened to me they could be like well she filled out the form so it's not our

00:22:25.140 problem she she lied how are we supposed to know and the questions just like weren't right so

00:22:31.800 finally i had someone who asked the right ones you know just and i remember leaving her office

00:22:38.300 and she was like i think you should go on a low dose of antidepressants it's not gonna like

00:22:41.700 rock your world it won't change it'll just help you get over this hump and i was like oh i'm not 0.84

00:22:46.280 doing that like that's severe yeah why why didn't you want to do that at the time because i'm dumb

00:22:53.120 and i had some i had some stigma about them in my head like who knows where i got it from rfk

00:22:58.320 jr i was like probably yeah yeah i was like you know honestly i think a lot of what he does is

00:23:04.420 parrot these really niche sort of idiotic but easily repeatable ideas that like people believe

00:23:13.540 and so that so it's appealing to them but like i have this idea that if i went on antidepressants 0.98

00:23:18.300 they would fundamentally change my personality and i would never be myself again i thought that

00:23:23.540 it was giving up i thought that it would just make me different enough that like my husband

00:23:28.480 wouldn't feel connected to me anymore and I would be able to ever find my real self and I'd be like

00:23:34.980 disconnected from my own soul kind of and I was really scared that it would I thought if I were

00:23:41.700 good at being a woman that I could like pull myself up on my own bootstraps by working out

00:23:48.440 and going to yoga and writing my journal and meditating and doing all the things that like

00:23:52.740 tiktok tells you to do for self-care and so i sat on that prescription for a while but i in the

00:24:00.880 meantime started having these like really dark thoughts about wanting to leave my life and i was

00:24:04.320 like i knew on some level that that was very bad and an indication of something very sinister

00:24:10.500 happening in my brain so i got a new therapist i like you know it turns out therapists are wonderful

00:24:16.580 as a breed but like any other relationship um you have to find the one that works for you

00:24:23.620 yes yes yes and and yes therapists and also antidepressants the first one i think it was

00:24:30.140 prozac that i first tried and i puked my guts out okay or like people gain weight or they lose their

00:24:35.180 sex drive or this or that and like everyone people to me often are like what antidepressant are you

00:24:39.620 on i want to go on one and i'm like oh it doesn't work like that it's not me it works for you like

00:24:45.980 it's so so specific to your own body chemistry i mean you try one and you see what the effects are

00:24:52.500 and like i felt the effects very quickly of the first one i went on was like a i think the generic

00:24:56.920 for lexapro and i thought in a very small dose and i felt the effects within days i don't know

00:25:01.700 if that's always the case but it was for me and and then after like maybe six months the effect

00:25:07.920 it kind of changed and i had to try different ones and like it's a huge um it's like a big

00:25:15.360 puzzle that you have to figure out for yourself which is like you know what it means to be an

00:25:18.840 adult it's yeah it's spending that much energy on on yourself but um but it's not a once i spits

00:25:25.400 all thing and it just it like once i got on them and coupled that with a therapist that i really 0.85

00:25:30.920 trusted who like spoke my personal language i was well on my way to figuring my shit out but

00:25:38.280 you have to have the resources to do all that and it's expensive yeah it costs money

00:25:45.260 prescriptions cost money finding doctors who are empathetic enough and care enough and think

00:25:51.280 outside of the box enough to thoughtfully prescribe you medicine and follow up with you

00:25:59.020 and make sure the medicine is appropriate and working costs money and costs time for all parties

00:26:04.240 involved and like that's not easy so it it's not like lost on me that my recovery is like a huge

00:26:10.740 gift. You know, it's not a given for everyone. I was very, very close to something catastrophic

00:26:17.100 happening. And I like there's no day that I'm not like, oh, the only reason I wasn't

00:26:25.060 institutionalized with my kids being taken away from me is because like I had the resources to

00:26:29.320 handle that. Right. And even so, it took me a year. It's not a year. It's not like, yeah,

00:26:34.820 Exactly. I mean, this can happen to anyone. I think it has happened to so many more women than will ever admit it because of the stigma of us saying, oh my gosh, I don't love my baby right away. I'm a terrible mother because we've been told that the myth of a good mother is that you immediately love that baby and you know how to do this.

00:26:56.940 And I also think that the word postpartum depression, the way we talk about it, sucks. Because like you said, for me, I had postpartum anxiety and rage. I wasn't depressed. I wasn't actually sad after the birth of my first baby, but I was anxious all the time and I was pissed off all the time.

00:27:18.680 And so I thought the postpartum depression didn't actually apply to me because I'm like, I'm not oh, I'm not down. I'm not sad. In fact, I'm so up and so enraged and so anxious all the time that that's not what this is.

00:27:31.140 Yeah, I felt that same. The rage can be really, it's like such a driver that it almost gave me, I felt like energized by it.

00:27:41.840 Yeah, yeah, same, same. And so I just didn't know that, you know, whatever mental health shit I was going through after having a baby. 0.94

00:27:51.020 And I mean, maybe that's just what we call it, the quagmire of mental health shit that happens to you after a baby instead of postpartum depression, that it could encompass so many things. 0.98

00:27:58.400 I thought it was just like the baby blues where it's like you're a little sad and tired. 0.98

00:28:02.200 Yeah, but you know what?

00:28:03.020 You didn't know that because like not enough people have told their versions of it.

00:28:07.080 Exactly.

00:28:07.620 Exactly. 1.00

00:28:07.960 Because we just don't tell women's stories.

00:28:11.140 And it's really crazy because I something I've noticed is I've been on my book tour and been like talking up hundreds of women.

00:28:17.320 You know, I've been in 10, 10 plus cities.

00:28:20.440 and women i think on a whole feel like incredibly not seen and not acknowledged for what is

00:28:28.300 considered a really everyday thing having a baby and it is a really everyday thing happens every

00:28:32.920 second of the day somewhere in america someone's having a baby right but like despite it being

00:28:41.220 common it isn't easy or normal under any circumstances it's always profound and it's

00:28:48.320 always somewhat of a miracle and i don't think women en masse feel like respected for

00:28:54.060 what they're doing no no nor i mean they shouldn't because they're not respected for

00:29:00.240 what they're not respected exactly almost every woman i mean and this is you know it's anecdotal

00:29:05.060 evidence because obviously the woman i'm women i'm interfacing with are seeking me out like

00:29:09.120 they're coming to my book signings but all of them have a story of how they felt

00:29:15.560 slighted ruined devastated sad anxiety whatever because of birth pregnancy and having a little

00:29:24.240 kid and how they feel their husbands don't see them their partners don't see them the medical

00:29:29.000 system doesn't see them no one ever gives you a pat on the back a gold star a performance review

00:29:35.700 a thank you for for you know perpetuating the species and guess what we all got here because 0.98

00:29:42.780 some woman sacrificed her sense of self and her safety to do this shit so i'm like kind of amazed 0.98

00:29:52.160 that we haven't all rioted in the streets because like where do we get to share our stories where do 0.99

00:30:00.580 we get to talk about all this so that it doesn't keep happening to women over and over that they're

00:30:05.420 so like saddened by their experience that should be really spiritual and cool yeah no and so much

00:30:12.720 of it is like we said earlier because we we haven't heard those stories right like had you

00:30:18.240 had you known going into this that you could feel that way had you known oh okay i can ask for this 0.97

00:30:23.600 kind of help or oh this happens to women all the time it's totally normal your experience would

00:30:28.340 have been totally different yeah let's take one more one more quick break uh and when we get it 0.65

00:30:33.360 back i want to hear more about the women that you're talking to at your events and also in the

00:30:38.920 comment sections of some of the interviews with you because I'm just seeing women open up and

00:30:46.580 explode about their own stories and their own fears and insecurities because we're hungry for 0.99

00:30:53.400 a fucking outlet. Whether life serves you an ace or an unexpected backhand, the high-protein 0.98

00:31:05.660 yogurt oikos pro is there to feed your strength and help you turn every challenge into a smash

00:31:10.680 oikos pro helps build strong muscles and support muscle recovery with high protein and contains

00:31:16.320 no added sugar because true strength isn't about being able to take the hits it's about being able

00:31:21.960 to bounce back oikos pro feed your strength visit oikos.ca for more details

00:31:27.780 okay we're back you've been you've been to 10 cities now what i imagine that people are

00:31:39.960 swarming you after these events what are people saying to you um i've had some really sad moments

00:31:47.440 because there have been women who are much older like you know in their 70s probably who

00:31:54.100 who have said, my experience was like, you're really similar to yours. And I never had the

00:32:01.220 words to describe it. But I've been feeling these feelings that I've been unable to define

00:32:05.820 since I had my kids in my 20s. I've had women say to me, I didn't connect with my child when

00:32:16.360 he or she was born. But because I never had any outlet for that, never had any therapy around

00:32:22.920 that was never able to say it without feeling like a total monster and often like lied to myself for

00:32:28.680 years um i never was able to connect with my kid they're an adult now and i still feel totally

00:32:34.960 disconnected and that to me is tragic and such a loss and such a loss for like humanity and so i've

00:32:43.000 had some really sad moments about that where i've just thought to myself women are just so underserved

00:32:52.080 by our culture. And it's so hard. It's impossible to be a wonderful mother when you're not a happy

00:32:59.900 mother. And, you know, it's actually it's like bad for society. Like you can't raise productive

00:33:06.460 members of society with good jobs who care about their values, who are good neighbors and, you

00:33:13.260 know, make money for our economy and all of the things that all of us would define as being

00:33:18.540 successful if your mom can't love you because she's been so like damaged by her experience as

00:33:26.820 a woman so i've had really it's from like very heartbreaking to your stories like that

00:33:31.600 yeah i've heard from a lot of younger women like you know in their 20s and 30s who are still in

00:33:36.560 their childbearing years who are like feel very seen but they still have time to like adjust things

00:33:44.360 in their lives but it's been very sad to hear from much older women who never had the benefit

00:33:50.400 of feeling like they could be honest right right and also who probably had it even worse you know 0.73

00:33:57.820 with a husband who was again my husband was useless despite being a lovely feminist man who

00:34:05.060 read all of the judy bloom books as a child like i mean the husbands back then were don draper who 0.61

00:34:11.540 were just completely checked out. And we're not just useless, we're absent. And so, yes,

00:34:20.120 I feel like women have been going through this trauma for just so long. And I don't know if our

00:34:25.780 culture is getting better. I'm seeing more, right? Like I'm seeing more literature that talks about

00:34:33.280 motherhood as something other than this angelic transcendent experience. The fact that Night Bitch 0.99

00:34:39.980 got made into a movie so quickly and that that book caught fire in a world where I think everyone

00:34:45.880 in publishing was shocked that that book caught fire because of what it talks about. I think it's

00:34:51.200 getting better. I also don't think we're there yet. Yeah, the government seems pretty dead set

00:34:57.500 on backtracking us, despite what the more radical fringes of culture are talking about.

00:35:03.440 yeah yeah i mean i'm served more and more trad wife make 10 babies and stay at home and make

00:35:10.380 your bread content every day i mean more and more in my feed uh not nearly enough women talking about

00:35:17.980 what we're talking about right now which is that motherhood is great and also hard and it can be

00:35:22.300 all of the things and it's gonna it's also gonna change with every single birth i like you my second

00:35:29.260 birth was way easier to handle because I was ready for it. And my third was a dream because

00:35:33.880 my vagina was the size of a Grand Canyon. And so it helps when your cervix is a catcher's mitt. 1.00

00:35:39.760 Yeah, exactly. Fall out. She just fell out of me. And I also didn't go off my antidepressants that

00:35:45.560 time. Smart lady. Right. Some of the fingers you didn't they? Sure did. Sure did. So totally

00:35:51.720 different birth. But again, if we're not having those conversations and I was so afraid to tell

00:35:56.100 people that i didn't go off my antidepressants even though my doctors were like it's totally okay

00:36:00.260 yeah i was terrified to talk about it because i didn't want to be like judged as a bad mother

00:36:04.560 but if i had talked about it maybe i could have you know saved a lot of women a lot of trauma

00:36:08.280 yeah well it's not it's not your i don't think you have to feel obligated to talk about anything

00:36:13.380 you don't want but it's like the most studied cost of drugs in science history so if your

00:36:20.400 doctors are telling you you're safe i think we think plenty of proof but um yeah i the thing

00:36:28.760 about the trad wife content i know that there are women out there for whom being a mother is like

00:36:35.240 second nature and who really enjoy it and are totally fulfilled by it and i'm sure that the

00:36:42.520 venn diagram of those women and women who are trad wives does overlap you know some of them also love

00:36:49.560 baking bread all day and like don't have aspirations for a career outside of the home

00:36:53.960 and stuff like that and i feel like really glad for them that they have found their niche yeah 0.99

00:36:59.540 however i know of a lot of examples of child wives who are not forthright about the level

00:37:10.200 of health that they have and are not forthright about how do i say this i think sometimes the

00:37:19.700 religious context in which trad wives are raised in um perpetuates a culture that rewards tradwifery

00:37:30.820 and the that doesn't seem to be part of their story you know and i'm very very curious about

00:37:38.540 all of those things and i just don't think that level of like not giving context and telling the

00:37:45.260 full story and kind of like dishonesty in some cases doesn't help serve the cause like if you

00:37:50.180 love being a mom that's awesome i'm totally awesome for you i am jealous i wish i connected

00:37:56.580 with newborns so much that i wanted to have 10 of them like cool but i don't think like most of the

00:38:03.960 tribewife content that i've seen i'm like well this doesn't exist in a vacuum this exists because

00:38:07.760 you have this amazing community because you like grew up in this church and you have like eight

00:38:13.120 sisters that help you with your kids and all this stuff that like most women don't and you're so

00:38:17.640 you're just like perpetuating these myths that don't apply to anybody else yeah anyway i mean

00:38:24.280 i can go on i can go on all day long about the dangers of the trad wives and and also hey girl 0.95

00:38:30.860 if like this is genuinely making you happy but most most women i think everyone is pretty much

00:38:36.460 lying to you yeah yeah yeah oh big sigh big sigh i'm gonna go pop my antidepressants now 0.94

00:38:44.360 so can you shoot have you tried snorting them you know i haven't tried snorting them 0.88

00:38:49.640 and it's not the worst idea i'm curious i'm curious how fast it would get how fast it would 0.87

00:38:54.500 just like get right up there yeah yeah uh tell everyone where they can find your wonderful book

00:38:59.340 you can buy it anywhere you buy books and i'm on all the book places right on all the book places

00:39:03.860 the motherlode. But by the way, I recorded the audio myself. So if you're an audiobook person,

00:39:09.240 you don't hate the sound of my voice. I put a ton of effort into it. And I've heard that

00:39:14.280 people think it's fun to listen to. And that is all we have for today. Thank you for being here.

00:39:19.840 I loved having you. Go do something nice for yourself and for someone else,

00:39:24.580 if you have the bandwidth. And I'll see you next time.

00:39:33.860 We'll see you next time.

00:40:03.860 You

Having a Baby Can Break You with Sarah Hoover

Episode Stats

Transcript