Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Is Motherhood Hard Everywhere, or Just in America？

00:00:00.220 I didn't like what you said, Odin pauses, about the future.

00:00:05.900 This is the love story of real hinge couple Odin and Edward,

00:00:09.900 written and read by me, Curtis Garner.

00:00:12.640 Listen to the free audiobook now.

00:00:27.320 Hey, Joe here.

00:00:30.000 I just got back from five days straight with my kids after about eight days straight without them.

00:00:35.960 So I gotta say, I'm just, I'm happy to be back at work.

00:00:38.880 I'm happy to be back at my computer.

00:00:40.760 I am not an all-or-nothing mom.

00:00:43.500 I like joint custody in my caregiving, whether or not that joint custody is with my actual husband, with an au pair, or with my mother.

00:00:51.960 Full frontal parenting is a lot.

00:00:53.700 It really is. 0.98

00:00:54.780 We talk a lot on this show about how completely shitty it is to be a mom in America. 0.94

00:01:01.420 The lack of paid leave, the lack of affordable childcare, 0.94

00:01:04.700 the lack of just general society's support or respect for mothers and women.

00:01:09.560 But I wonder a lot about whether it's actually easier in other countries, in other places,

00:01:15.400 or if the first year of motherhood in particular is just universally hard.

00:01:21.740 And it's been about 10 years since I wrote and published the book How to Be Married,

00:01:26.320 which was about traveling around the world, figuring out this weird, wonderful thing called

00:01:31.720 marriage. Because at the time, when I was 34 and single, being with another human being all of the

00:01:39.140 time and sharing space with them and sharing a life and finances and ultimately children with

00:01:44.120 them. That seemed weird. I could not picture that. So I reported how people actually did marriage

00:01:51.320 around the world. And since having babies, I've been thinking a lot about how do people be parents

00:01:58.040 around the world. And I've thought maybe I should do a sequel to How to Be Married.

00:02:02.260 But other books just keep getting in the way. Everyone is lying to you. Still available for

00:02:07.240 pre-order, my friends. Still available. And luckily, I actually don't have to write this book

00:02:12.580 because my friend Abby Leonard wrote this book.

00:02:15.580 I went to college with Abby

00:02:16.860 and I haven't seen her in a really long time.

00:02:19.000 And she emailed me about a year ago

00:02:21.140 to tell me about this reporting

00:02:22.800 and asked if I might want to read it

00:02:24.980 and might want to blurb the book.

00:02:26.700 And I said, hell yeah, this sounds great.

00:02:28.820 Now I don't have to write it.

00:02:30.380 And her book, Four Mothers, is wonderful.

00:02:33.160 In this episode, I'm sitting now with Abby

00:02:34.480 to talk about her global journey

00:02:36.080 to explore what it means to be a mother

00:02:38.420 in a bunch of different countries.

00:02:41.080 Some things are very different.

00:02:42.580 in other cultures. In Finland, new mothers receive a baby box filled with essential things that you

00:02:48.300 need, and they also have a robust social safety net that includes paid parental leave and

00:02:53.160 accessible health care. Japanese moms observe a postpartum confinement period where they stay 0.99

00:02:58.820 indoors for a month to rest and bond with their newborns. And in Kenya, community support plays

00:03:05.100 a really vital role, with extended family and neighbors actively participating in child-rearing.

00:03:11.500 Through these diverse experiences, Abby uncovers both the unique cultural approaches to motherhood

00:03:16.320 and the universal challenges that all new moms face.

00:03:20.400 Whether it's navigating societal expectations, dealing with the emotional rollercoaster of caring for a newborn,

00:03:25.220 or just dealing with men. 0.81

00:03:27.660 All men seem to be the same.

00:03:30.480 All over the world.

00:03:32.880 So join us as Abby and I delve into these stories,

00:03:35.820 examining how different cultures support or fail to support new mothers

00:03:39.460 and what we can do to improve the experience of motherhood everywhere.

00:03:47.420 Hello, Abby.

00:03:49.740 Hi, how are you?

00:03:51.200 I'm good. I'm good. I haven't seen you in forever, by the way.

00:03:55.000 I know. It's so funny. It's good to see you, though.

00:03:57.020 It's good to see you. And, you know, for people who are listening, we both showed up in striped shirts on this podcast

00:04:05.140 because, as I was saying, women of a certain age tend to have a uniform.

00:04:09.460 It's true. It's true. We got the memo.

00:04:11.700 We really, really did.

00:04:14.280 So I blurbed your book, Four Mothers.

00:04:17.880 My name is on the cover of it, which is so fun.

00:04:20.580 I know. Thank you.

00:04:21.680 Thank you. I really appreciated that.

00:04:23.200 And what I said is this is real motherhood on the page.

00:04:27.780 I'm so glad that you wrote this book so that I didn't have to.

00:04:31.420 Because after writing How to Be Married,

00:04:34.660 where I traveled to countries on six continents

00:04:38.020 trying to figure out how to be married I've always said that I would write a sequel called 0.99

00:04:42.540 how to be a parent where I do the same thing but I just don't have the fucking time and and you

00:04:48.700 filled that gap for me you filled that hole for me so thank you you're welcome yeah it was uh it

00:04:55.300 was a lot of work you're not wrong it's a lot of work and I'm just like I'm so happy that you took

00:05:00.720 this off my to-do list really because I would I would have just kept thinking about it and obsessing

00:05:05.580 about it and i would eventually do it because i'm a psychopath but the book the book for mothers

00:05:11.760 you follow for mothers in in different countries to see how the newborn experience is different

00:05:19.720 and it is it's strikingly different in so many ways and also similar in so many ways because

00:05:27.400 becoming a mother is such a universal experience tell the audience where you went and who you

00:05:34.600 talked to. Yeah, exactly. It was both universal and completely different sort of depending on

00:05:41.960 where I was. So I went to Japan, Finland, Kenya, and then I profiled a woman in the U.S. who lives

00:05:50.780 in Utah. And this whole project started actually because I had my own three children in Japan.

00:05:57.840 I moved to Japan when I was six months pregnant with my first, which was sort of a wild leap of faith.

00:06:06.420 And in retrospect, maybe a little crazy.

00:06:08.840 But yeah, so I my first year of motherhood was actually in Tokyo.

00:06:13.720 So I was sort of navigating like both new motherhood and a new culture, a new language, a new way of raising kids.

00:06:23.420 You know, Japan has a ton of really great social services for families, but it's also pretty gendered. So like it's all moms pretty much doing the caregiving work. So that was, you know, it was just really different. 0.94

00:06:39.840 And then I came back to the U.S. and saw what it was like here and not, you know, in many ways, it's great.

00:06:47.400 There's a lot of professional opportunity for women, but there's not a lot of support from others in the way that, you know, Japan provides support.

00:06:55.300 So that was sort of how the whole thing started.

00:06:57.920 And then, yeah, I decided I wanted to, like, understand what this looked like in different countries around the world.

00:07:02.460 And if there was really sort of like best practices for how to do this, for how to support new moms.

00:07:08.140 So that's how the book came about. And then, yeah, I spent a year following them. It was totally fascinating to watch them sort of progress from not knowing what they were doing to, you know, really like becoming moms. It was yeah, it was great.

00:07:23.120 Well, I feel like that is one of the things that's universal with your first baby, is that you just have no idea what's going to happen.

00:07:31.620 I mean, I was so terrified.

00:07:34.360 I felt helpless.

00:07:36.360 I felt like a failure all the time.

00:07:39.240 And now on the other side of it, I'm like, I could do anything.

00:07:41.720 I'm great.

00:07:43.840 Yes, it's totally true.

00:07:45.580 You're like a superwoman after this.

00:07:47.060 I mean, like nothing phases me.

00:07:49.140 Nothing phases me.

00:07:50.720 lot it's like well it's not like giving birth to a child and then suddenly being its mother

00:07:56.180 like yeah no it's totally it's totally true and then you do it again which is the other wild

00:08:02.180 thing you sort of go back and have a second um maybe so maybe and a third i know it's just like

00:08:07.520 all right fine i can do this thing talk to me about some of those similarities

00:08:12.440 um it really started like very early i mean they're the woman in kenya and the woman in the

00:08:20.200 West like said pretty much verbatim you know in the moment after they had the kid their response

00:08:26.400 was like I cannot believe I am someone's mother and it was that totally resonated with me just

00:08:31.780 that there was you know that sort of like shock of the transition um and and then you really see

00:08:38.640 what it's like as far as you know the community coming in and supporting people and how much of

00:08:44.680 difference that makes like in japan the woman um goes home to her her mom and stays basically

00:08:50.680 inside for a month which is sort of how it's done in asia you know you sit the month and you like

00:08:55.280 sort of do nothing you're not supposed to i mean you take care of the baby but just like physical

00:09:00.140 exertion you really just like recover and you eat these sort of medicinal foods and um you know

00:09:06.520 people women in your community come visit you and i thought it was really interesting that in kenya

00:09:11.540 they have like almost identical postpartum traditions and some of that stuff's breaking

00:09:16.560 down. But like it seems like that's the way to do it, you know, to like prioritize rest and

00:09:22.400 prioritize eating well and then just like having enough social interaction so you don't feel

00:09:26.860 totally alone. Because you also see how like the woman in the U.S., she she was pretty much alone.

00:09:35.940 She didn't have a lot of social interaction. She was like online a lot. And you just didn't get 0.98

00:09:40.700 this sense that there was, I don't know, a lot of resources in the U.S. that help new mothers just

00:09:47.640 find other mothers to kind of hang out with. Like when I was living in Japan and also this woman I

00:09:52.860 followed in Japan, she went to a community center and I went to this community centers like almost

00:09:57.800 every day. They were so great. There were like, you know, people there to help you take care of

00:10:02.920 your kids. And sometimes midwives would come and give you advice. And it was like a good place to

00:10:08.660 meet other mothers and i ended up making friends um through like the birth group and this woman i

00:10:14.860 followed made friends at the community center and there was there's actually like you know

00:10:18.080 government programs that are supposed to connect new parents so i don't know just stuff like that

00:10:23.700 you sort of get a sense that there is a way that um this can be made easier uh but it really takes

00:10:31.340 like some amount of prioritizing that um by the culture and and through policy

00:10:36.600 yeah i think it does take prioritizing that through the culture i've been thinking a lot

00:10:42.980 and this is kind of a diversion but also not about the recent uh happiness index release

00:10:49.600 and you know finland once again is the happiest country there have been like nine stories about

00:10:54.580 it in the new york times and all of them mentioned the saunas and they're like is it the saunas and

00:10:58.860 I'm like, it's not the saunas.

00:11:00.680 It's the fact that the saunas are just a place to go.

00:11:04.240 Yeah.

00:11:04.540 That they just have this third space where literally everyone goes once a day and you 0.71

00:11:09.940 have an excuse to see the people that you love, the people that are also totally middling,

00:11:15.040 but like, you know, interesting additions to your life and the people that you hate,

00:11:18.440 like the people that grade on you, but maybe make you think things like in America, we

00:11:23.180 no longer have those third spaces, especially for parents.

00:11:27.780 That is one thing all of the parents in my neighborhood here in Philly say all the time.

00:11:32.640 We have a roving beer garden that travels around the city and it was in our neighborhood last weekend and it was packed.

00:11:39.820 Those lines were like 30 minutes long and yet everyone was there because we're like, I just I kind of knew everyone would be here.

00:11:46.580 And it's so great to have a place where we know everyone's going to be.

00:11:49.960 Yeah, yeah, totally.

00:11:51.680 No, it makes sense.

00:11:52.360 I mean, Finland definitely prioritizes that they have parks where there's like professional, you know, child minders, essentially, that are like next to coffee shops.

00:12:01.000 And there's just a sense of urban planning around families that, yeah, it makes socializing so much, so much easier.

00:12:09.880 And it's so it just seems obviously better for people's mental health.

00:12:13.800 I mean, the other thing is like, you know, the public health care system is totally dependable.

00:12:18.180 There's all these things that it's like you're not really going to like fall so far if if things go wrong.

00:12:23.460 Like the woman I profiled in my book, she she has a sort of difficult breakup with the father of her child.

00:12:29.760 And they go through all these like really contentious arguments and stuff.

00:12:32.940 But she decides that she just doesn't want to be in that relationship.

00:12:36.500 And it's fine. Like she can be a single mother and there's enough public support that it's not really a consideration.

00:12:42.380 um so yeah i feel like there's it's like happiness but it's also just sort of a sense of safety and

00:12:48.380 contentment that you have living in a in a place like that that um yeah we don't we don't really

00:12:55.240 have here in the u.s and you sort of don't realize you're missing it until you see it like in action

00:12:59.740 somewhere else yeah no exactly exactly and i want to dive in a little bit more to finland about that

00:13:05.380 social safety net, because I think that is very, very true. It is difficult to be a mother who

00:13:12.460 feels secure when, if you lose your job tomorrow, you might not have a roof over your head.

00:13:18.280 Right. Exactly. Which is the case in America. I mean, I think about it all the time. I hustle

00:13:24.200 so much because I'm like, I'm the family safety net. It's me. It's just me. So what is it like

00:13:32.620 to be a mom in Finland when you know that you have that public support? Yeah, my sense is that

00:13:39.040 it gives you a lot more agency about how you want to be a parent. Like, you know, if you want to go

00:13:45.020 back to work full time, that's possible. And there's universal daycare. And, you know, there's

00:13:51.280 just sort of a seamless transition there. There's some flexibility about going back to work.

00:13:56.680 And yeah, I you don't feel like you're going to fall as far. You're not like saving for college

00:14:02.480 in the same way. There's not student loan debt. Just all the sort of little things that we think

00:14:07.560 about medical debt that like are all of a sudden there's some emergency. And here in the U.S.,

00:14:13.000 I do think it's interesting. There's like the income inequality, but there's also this inequality

00:14:17.300 of benefits. Like you have some people in the U.S. who work for big companies or work for tech

00:14:21.440 companies and they have really good benefits that are sort of similar in some ways to what

00:14:26.000 like a mother in Finland would get. They might get six months of paid leave and maybe they can

00:14:31.120 afford child care. Maybe their employer even offers them child care. But then you have people

00:14:35.120 that are, you know, most people don't have that and it's totally tenuous and you're not sure of

00:14:41.420 anything, really. The woman I profiled in the U.S., she couldn't afford child care anywhere near her.

00:14:46.160 So she asked her parents to take care of her kid and they were really, you know, generous and they

00:14:52.780 they did. But they're in their 70s and they're taking care of this infant and they're also

00:14:56.960 taking care of her disabled brother you know it's like a lot of pressure on them too they were happy

00:15:02.180 to do it but it just felt like a real strain that sort of like went down through the generations

00:15:07.260 and there was a real sense of you know um economic insecurity around something sort of as basic as

00:15:15.760 child care and it it meant for sarah that's the woman in the u.s um that she wasn't sure she was

00:15:22.200 going to have another kid. Um, so she was considering it, but then she said like, I'm

00:15:26.860 not sure I could, you know, ask that of my parents. They're getting older and, you know,

00:15:30.880 to have two small children and maybe we'll wait. So there were all these decisions that she was

00:15:35.360 making, um, about parenthood that were sort of because of this larger system that she lived in.

00:15:43.680 Um, and I just, I found that so compelling because, you know, I feel like a lot of times

00:15:49.380 American parents, you feel like it's your personal responsibility to take care of, you know, your

00:15:56.100 child in all these different ways. You like make sure they're safe and you're looking online through

00:16:00.260 the ingredients and all these things that, you know, in some ways a functioning society would

00:16:04.960 do for parents. It's just it's sort of not. And it really affects the day to day experience of

00:16:12.000 parenthood. I think it really does. I think it creates so much fear. And, you know, we're living

00:16:18.960 in this strange world right now where the government wants us to have more and more

00:16:23.120 babies and yet is doing nothing to make that easier for women. I want to talk about some

00:16:29.420 of the challenges of parenting that are also universal when we get back from a quick break.

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00:17:27.420 Okay, we are back.

00:17:29.920 What were some of the challenges that seemed universal for women across the four countries?

00:17:35.240 i think just sort of not knowing what to do and really having a fear that you were doing something

00:17:43.100 wrong i mean i found it really interesting to watch like the chelsea the woman in kenya and

00:17:48.160 sarah the woman in the u.s had this like the same obsession with their child's weight um so they

00:17:54.580 were like monitoring whether or not their daughters were gaining weight and they you know it was this

00:17:59.700 thing that became like am i feeding her enough like is this right and i thought it was interesting

00:18:05.200 because both of them um didn't have the connection to the community that their own moms did like

00:18:12.200 sarah was a former lds member and she had left the church and so her mom had all these people

00:18:18.460 around her who probably you know when sarah was growing up other mothers to ask for advice

00:18:23.100 and chelsea in kenya came from um you know an ethnic group that was had strong ties but they

00:18:31.200 were sort of fraying and she wasn't as close to those people. So it was almost like they had no

00:18:35.600 one to ask really for advice. And they would sort of, I don't know, both of them would like look

00:18:40.440 online and then it was just, but there was this overwhelming sense of, um, not being able to

00:18:46.020 control, control it and wondering whether they were doing it right. And I, you, you know, you

00:18:51.760 sort of do see that that's universal and even, you know, Anna and Finland felt that way. Um,

00:18:56.620 but what was interesting was she went to the public health clinic and like the public health

00:19:00.060 nurse there said, you know, she was having trouble with breastfeeding. And the public health nurse

00:19:04.400 said, you need to take care of the mother so she can take care of the baby, basically. It was like

00:19:09.020 the philosophy. So there was an intention to Anna's, you know, concerns. And they were like,

00:19:14.300 you know, if you need to co-sleep maybe, or if you need not to breastfeed, like take care of

00:19:18.200 yourself. And so the concerns are universal, but I think how that responded to is obviously

00:19:25.300 different place to place. Well, that's the thing. I mean, I genuinely feel like in America,

00:19:30.980 once the woman has the baby, we are secondary. Our health does not matter. We are not seeing 0.80

00:19:37.260 a doctor right away. The baby is seeing a doctor right away. When it feels like motherhood,

00:19:42.980 well, it feels like the mother is an afterthought. Was that the case in other countries?

00:19:48.840 Yeah, that's a good question. It was sort of true in Japan. And the difference between Japan 1.00

00:19:54.040 and finland i thought was really interesting they both have really generous policies for parents

00:19:58.600 they both have really long paid leave they both have universal daycare but um but finland is way

00:20:04.000 more egalitarian like as far as gender roles so fathers are really involved and there's an idea

00:20:09.900 that men have a right to time with their children and children have a right to time with their

00:20:14.100 fathers and that that sort of stuff and in japan it's just totally different there's still this

00:20:19.560 idea that the women will do all the caregiving even though now you know most women work and so 0.99

00:20:26.020 they're like balancing professional careers and also all of this work at home um and Tsukasa the 0.99

00:20:32.580 woman there you could I mean she was like she couldn't get a haircut like she was always with

00:20:38.300 her baby there was no and they also don't really use babysitters which is I found so interesting

00:20:43.660 when I was living there it's like this sort of like dereliction of maternal duty like you're

00:20:48.840 really to be with your kid all the time and if you don't do it you're like doing something wrong

00:20:53.280 like why are you not with your child why someone else taking care of a child you can't like outsource

00:20:56.920 that so wow how is that for you having children there i mean it was hard i was sort of exempt a

00:21:03.720 little because i was you know a foreigner and it was like they're sort of like well you guys do

00:21:08.060 things your own way but like obviously the japanese way it's like sort of how it should

00:21:12.340 be done for Japanese mom. So there's the funny thing where expats are allowed to have foreign 0.94

00:21:18.520 nannies and the way that they justify it is that they need English speaking people to help take 0.72

00:21:23.720 care of their kids. So it's like people have Filipino nannies come in. But I mean, they're 0.97

00:21:27.840 not. We could sponsor a nanny on our visa, but a sort of average Japanese person couldn't do that. 0.99

00:21:33.740 And there's just not really a marketplace for for babysitters. Like there's not, you know, 1.00

00:21:39.460 like the kid down the street babysitting for you. It's mostly the grandma, like the mom's mom

00:21:44.860 is supposed to do it if the mom can't do it. But now, you know, like people are having children

00:21:49.220 later, their moms can't do it or they don't live close to their families or whatever. So

00:21:52.720 it's a real burden. I mean, there's public daycare that you can get into pretty early,

00:21:58.400 but like outside of that, it's not really a thing. It's just part of the whole. There's also

00:22:03.400 really limited pain medication in birth. Like they don't really do epidurals and it's all this like

00:22:09.180 same thing about how the mom's like the pain is supposed to bond the mother and child and birth

00:22:16.040 and it's like you're supposed to sacrifice for your child that's like kind of like the i don't

00:22:21.160 know it's it's just this totally different way of looking the first of many sacrifices

00:22:26.060 that we're supposed to make for our children yeah yeah but i you know it's like there's some

00:22:31.320 pushback to that i don't there's pushback to that there in japan among women now and you know you

00:22:36.520 see the plus dractyla here too but it yeah you really do feel it it's like you can't don't get

00:22:41.380 pain medication and you can't use babysitters it's just a lot so anyway just to answer your

00:22:46.480 question it is yeah you see how different it is like in Finland and Japan in that way and how big

00:22:51.260 a deal it is to have more egalitarian gender roles yeah and what was the role of the fathers

00:22:57.160 in the different countries so in Japan they still like I said they're way less involved than in the

00:23:05.280 other places and it's partly just the work culture there is so grueling like men are still expected

00:23:10.200 to work at these big companies for their whole careers and sort of like spend really long days

00:23:15.080 in the office and then go out to drinks with their boss and it's like this whole thing about

00:23:18.500 FaceTime and stuff so they there just isn't as much of a role for men there although they're

00:23:22.700 trying to encourage it so it's funny like you know Japan's birth rates have been going down and

00:23:27.220 so some of the stuff that we're seeing in the U.S. now was has been true like in Japan for a while

00:23:32.560 just this like pro natal stuff coming from like male politicians. But yeah, they so they have

00:23:40.560 they've sort of decided that involving men would help women, you know, have more children. So in

00:23:48.160 some ways they're trying to do it. They offer like really long paternity leave for men, but most men

00:23:54.740 don't take it. So they're really trying to encourage that to happen. But it's just it's tough when you 0.98

00:23:59.020 have these like sort of ingrained gender roles. And then, yeah, Kenya is sort of somewhere in 0.70

00:24:06.080 between. I think there were some traditional gender roles, but it seems like fathers are

00:24:11.240 sort of more involved now. Although the woman I profiled, the father of her child pretty much

00:24:17.640 isn't involved the whole time. So she becomes a single mom like very quickly. And that's really

00:24:22.800 hard. But you do see how much of a difference it makes to have an involved father. Although,

00:24:29.580 you know, even the Brian, the dad in the U.S., like he wants to be involved, but it's sort of 0.96

00:24:35.280 the same trap as like in Japan. He doesn't get any paternity leave and they can't afford for him 0.95

00:24:39.680 to take time off. So like he doesn't he doesn't do a lot of it, even though he really wants to.

00:24:45.780 Yeah. So you can see how much policy, you know, it influences culture. Like you have men who want

00:24:50.520 to be involved, but unless there's a policy allowing them to do it, it's hard. Yeah. I mean,

00:24:56.140 I think a policy and then also a culture, right? I mean, a culture that says it's okay for you to

00:25:02.440 do this. And that's rare. I've seen it in the Scandinavian countries, but I have not seen it

00:25:08.100 pretty much anywhere else in the whole world. Yeah. I mean, even in Finland, it was so funny.

00:25:12.480 There's like romance novels that are about these guys. They're called latte papas and they're like

00:25:16.620 involve fathers who like go out you know to like cafes with their kids and they're i don't know

00:25:23.140 they're just they become these like sort of um yeah archetypes of like involved who who do they

00:25:29.860 have romances with then are they still are they affairs or are they single are they single latte

00:25:34.400 poppers no just it's like well that's an interesting question no i think it's like with

00:25:40.280 their wives oh oh my god wait like a roman romance novel like with your actual husband

00:25:46.360 with like a an involved guy yeah like an egalitarian like wonderful man i think so

00:25:52.720 yeah that's wow yeah there was like yeah um so yeah um sorry i lost the thread on what we were

00:26:05.400 talking about just in just in yeah men just dads being involved generally yeah i mean i sort of get

00:26:12.500 the feeling i don't know if you feel like this that like this generation of american men is sort

00:26:15.900 of more interested in being involved, at least? I think that that is true in some very small

00:26:19.820 bubbles. Well, maybe that's true. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I think we inhabit some bubbles

00:26:25.300 where that is true. But I don't think that that is generally true. In fact, I do worry we're going

00:26:32.060 the other way. Yeah, yeah, that's true. And we don't, I mean, it's good when there's role models

00:26:38.840 for this kind of thing. Totally, totally. I mean, like, look, I think about my own husband all the

00:26:43.540 time. He is a feminist man who wants to be a good and involved dad. And now that he is the primary

00:26:52.600 parent in our household, there's no role models to show him how to do this. There's no other dads

00:26:57.200 being class dads. And also no cultural role models, I think. You know, we don't see TV shows

00:27:04.120 anymore. I've talked about this before. I'm like, the 80s, you know, we saw Tony Danza in Who's the

00:27:09.800 boss. We saw so much gender role flipping, and we've just gotten so far away from that.

00:27:17.600 Okay, let's take a quick break here. And when we get back, I want to talk about things like

00:27:21.380 breastfeeding, feeding babies, generally weaning and sleep training, you know,

00:27:27.200 just the kinds of things that make the internet shame moms like they're a bunch of puppy killers.

00:27:31.780 you want to impress them on a first date but also play it cool so what do you do i'm rufy thorpe and

00:27:43.720 i wrote and read a real love story about a hinge couple that navigated exactly that listen to the

00:27:49.280 free audiobook now before you knew what a stock was you traded snacks cards turns that instinct

00:27:56.340 to trade didn't disappear. It just grew up. With no minimums, no monthly fees, and a hundred free

00:28:01.960 trades, TD Easy Trade taps into that instinct. Because you are made to trade, and TD Easy Trade

00:28:08.100 is made to help. And we are back. I think it's really interesting, the things that we forget,

00:28:17.560 because now that I'm out of it, I'm like, I can't even tell you what I did to sleep train

00:28:21.160 my children or how how how they ate food in the first year of their life my biggest takeaway

00:28:27.020 from from the first year that i remember is just the onslaught of information like just how

00:28:35.840 how how much information and how much conflicting information i got on a very regular basis did you

00:28:44.780 find that another in other countries like to differing degrees i think in japan there is a

00:28:50.060 certain amount of that it's like you're supposed to sort of like conform to this perfect Japanese

00:28:53.980 mom archetype like make these beautiful bento boxes and like you know yeah perform motherhood

00:29:01.820 almost like a profession and like do really well in that so that definitely exists um I mean

00:29:08.700 the thing I took away from this in some ways was that there are just like so many different ways

00:29:14.440 to do it and so many different cultures around parenthood and they all you know like produce

00:29:18.820 another good generation of of people and so there is like a certain amount of freedom if you just

00:29:25.100 remember that you know there isn't one single way of doing it that there are you know there

00:29:30.180 are a million different ways and and it's probably going to be okay there are a million different

00:29:35.400 ways and it's probably going to be okay i mean i just i wish that someone had told me that when i

00:29:39.460 had my first baby maybe someone didn't i didn't listen because you never listen to anything but

00:29:43.980 yeah you don't listen you go searching for information and then you let me name it and

00:29:48.200 that's how i felt just like you go searching for information online and most of it is wrong

00:29:52.180 i know it's really bad it was also sort of funny i was talking to this researcher in finland and

00:29:58.620 she was saying that some of the american content online like the american instagram content about

00:30:03.720 how crazy parenthood was was like infiltrating the finnish psyche or something because it was

00:30:08.180 like coming through finnish um social media channels and there was this sort of sense that

00:30:14.260 it was like much worse than it actually like parenthood was much harder than it actually

00:30:17.720 is in finland because people were getting all this american content america exports the worst

00:30:22.280 things worst things possible abby tell everyone where they can find you and they can find more

00:30:29.100 information about your book yeah so my book is called for mothers and you can find it anywhere

00:30:35.520 books are sold and my instagram handle is all right a w l r i t e thank you so much for having

00:30:43.880 me, Jo. Thanks for being here.

00:31:13.880 Transcription by CastingWords

00:31:43.880 about. It's a collection of real love stories about five couples that met on Hinge. The stories

00:31:51.780 are written and read by Tembi Dintonhurst, Nicola Dinan, Curtis Garner, Raven Smith, and Ruthie

00:31:57.240 Thorpe. I, Hunter Harris, wrote and read the foreword. The audiobook's out now. Give it a listen.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - May 22, 2025

Is Motherhood Hard Everywhere, or Just in America？

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