00:08:49.540So, yeah, so I think it's so incumbent on us not to, like, tell them what to do,
00:08:55.420but to show them what to do i mean i think it's so interesting to be this change generation and i
00:09:03.140do mean that in terms of like parenting styles and parenting philosophies but also
00:09:07.900culturally and technologically um i think when i you know things like social media or
00:09:15.540even the fact that i don't as a mom of five kids working mom of five kids i don't need to go to
00:09:21.760the grocery store anymore like i just boop boop boop and groceries magically show up on my doorstep
00:09:27.420and i often feel like i slash we don't have a roadmap for how to do this and um just kind of
00:09:39.100being compassionate with ourselves about that um and there's so many great thinkers thought leaders
00:09:44.920trying to guide us in different ways through the era of change that we've lived through but
00:09:51.140But we also, we, the parents who are wanting to be role models to our kids, I think we do, we also need role models.
00:09:58.860And there's not a lot of precedent for, I think, what this generation is trying to do in terms of gender roles, in terms of, you know, generational healing.
00:10:08.500So the best I can come up with is to support one another and be gentle with ourselves as we're trying to navigate that.
00:10:14.560Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think in terms of role models, and this is, and this was my great revelation over the past few months, is it's each other. Okay? It's like, it's talking to other women, other mothers. How do you do life? Like, what is working for you? What are you trying?
00:10:33.060I love that before we started recording this morning, you were like, all right, so I'm trying something new.
00:10:39.240I'm trying to do a day of meetings and then a day of other kinds of work that aren't interrupted by meetings.
00:10:46.560I tried that and it didn't work for me, right?
00:10:49.280Because it's one thing to read Atomic Habits and it's another thing to talk to other women who have tried things and who are experimenting and who maybe have failed at things, but they want to try them again.
00:11:31.760Okay, we're back. We're back. And it's time. It's time for the feminist rant version of this. I love
00:11:47.240it. Like I said, this is my favorite part of the show. So as I mentioned, I'm a recovering
00:11:54.260overachiever and eldest daughter. And I love productivity books. I almost compulsively
00:12:03.680consume them. And honestly, so many of them have helped me tremendously in thinking through
00:12:09.980how I make money, how I think about my expertise in the world, how I value my time.
00:12:16.640But almost all of them, you mentioned Atomic Habits. It's one of them. There's
00:12:22.120dozens of others, almost all of them are written from the point of view of men. And the anecdotes
00:12:30.060are men, the successful examples of here's how Warren Buffett. I don't care. I don't care.
00:12:39.500But this is how these books are structured. And they'll pepper in some examples of women. And I've1.00
00:12:44.100no doubt that it can work for women. But the reality is, I can't join your 5am club because
00:12:50.080I was up late last night breastfeeding my new baby. I can't stack things on my schedule in the
00:13:00.580way that someone who doesn't have to do preschool drop-off can. And so one of my missions in life
00:13:08.120is to remake the world in the image of women, in the female normative, and not have the lives of
00:13:15.340men be the sort of central narrative that we then have to like jockey around um and i think a lot
00:13:23.360about and i in your own work you know these like echoes of our of our ancestors of of our matriarchs
00:13:30.600and um how in a deeper way i think that it is our grandmothers and our great-grandmothers and
00:13:40.540And these generations of women who, of course, had such unfair burdens from society placed on them.
00:13:48.260And yet, when I think about my own grandmothers, are probably the wisest women, wisest people, you know, that I ever met.
00:13:59.580And so even though they're not famous and they're not wearing the fit and no one's going to write a book about them, I think there was a, and this is not, of course, universally true, but I do think for many of the women in our lineages who had to bear these huge burdens, there is deep, profound strength that I draw from frequently.
00:14:24.800and they're my role models in a lot of ways not because they had careers that I'm like I want to
00:14:30.340be just like that but because I think that they knew who they were and and they were unshakable
00:14:37.220in a lot of ways despite having gone through a lot of hardships and so that is the like
00:14:41.520tree that I get my own inspiration from despite kind of living in two worlds of
00:14:48.700I have like five productivity books written by men stacked right next to me here on my bookshelf
00:14:54.260And I know that a lot of that is just completely, completely not relevant to my life. And I refuse to beat myself up for not being able to live up to that impossible male normative standard.
00:15:10.220Exactly, exactly. I mean, and it is impossible. And it's much like I think about, you know, the corporate world not being created for women or for I mean, definitely not for mothers.
00:15:24.260Definitely not from others. It was created for male executives. It was created for Don Draper back in the 50s and the 60s. You had a wife at home who was taking care of everything. You would leave at seven in the morning and not return until seven at night. Maybe never see your children.
00:15:41.340Sometimes she's my favorite part of Mad Men, which I rewatched on a plane recently, is how he just stays in the city sometimes.
00:15:48.240He's just like, oh, that is my fantasy is I have my own little apartment that I get to go stay in in the city and nobody bothers me.
00:15:58.980And it was it was the reality for a lot of, you know, well off white men who were dominating the corporate world.0.60
00:16:07.860And then the world of work has just followed that model ever since.0.52
00:16:15.360I think about this topic constantly as I'm in my own work and in the companies that I run, remake what what work needs to look like.
00:16:27.180And where I draw inspiration from is not from reacting to the 1950s model of work, but frankly, is from really zooming out.0.50
00:16:35.820And when I think about what did work look like for women throughout human history, not just in America, not just in the post-industrial world, but what I see is women have always been running the economy of the home.
00:16:52.780And, you know, right now we think about, you know, money as dollars, but they were doing all kinds of handiwork of building value inside their homes in trading within the community, swapping services.
00:17:06.500Women have always done that work from home, from the village, from the community.
00:17:11.460And what it does truly excite me is the revolution in remote work, which we all acknowledge has downsides.0.61
00:17:18.440But it's almost bringing this idea full circle because, you know, when we hear ideas of like, you know, women going out to work and how does that integrate into family life?
00:17:31.140I think the reality is women have always been at the center of the economy and we just haven't acknowledged it as important or as valuable as that corporate model.
00:17:41.580But if I'm kind of connecting the forever past of how women supported their families to the ways that we're able to do that today, I hope and I do believe in the long run we're going to be in a place where women feel much more empowered and I hope men as well to work more flexibly in a more integrated way to support family life in addition to being able to support themselves within capitalism.
00:18:07.500Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a hundred percent. I don't I don't even have enough claps to like to be able. I'm like, I just want to stand up on the desk and start cheering, cheering you on. And I thought about this so much when I was writing Sicilian Inheritance and because I was trying to pull on these threads of strength from the women who came before me.
00:18:28.840But the revelations have actually come afterwards since, I mean, I've zoomed into or visited in person about 100 book clubs, most of them women, although a shocking amount of men recently who we've been talking about how it wasn't just this one period in Sicilian history.
00:18:48.680Women have held the fabric of society together forever.
00:18:51.960I mean, if you think about it, men were going off to wars, to the Crusades for decades at a time.
00:18:58.020And most of them not coming back, right? So it was women running entire economies while juggling, you know, as many children as they could possibly bear because that's what they had to do. And those stories have been lost because it has not been women telling history. It has not been also women of a lower socioeconomic status telling history.1.00
00:19:20.960You know, when we when we do get that rare diary of a woman, she's a woman who had the luxury of knowing how to write and also the time to write a diary.
00:19:30.140So we've got queens and empresses and, you know, women with a lot of time and money, which was a luxury most women did not have.
00:19:39.460Let me tell you one of my life fantasies directly related to this, which is which is this.
00:19:47.600I have no idea how, but I have a dream of producing a miniseries basically on this very topic.
00:19:55.520So I did like my DNA, you know, one of the through one of those DNA companies and actually found out through that that I am a relative of the King's Daughters.
00:20:08.400Have you ever heard of this? The King's Daughters?
00:20:12.600OK, this is your next novel. We're going to collab on this because this my passion, like with every fiber of my being, exactly what you said, that the that the stories of our female ancestors have not been told because they haven't held the power.
00:20:28.420But the power of those stories is mind boggling. So I think it was around the 1600s that the French king realized that if he did not send wives to the settlers in Canada, the men were going to revolt.
00:20:42.360So there were hundreds of French men settling French Canada and they had been there for maybe five, ten years and they were like, we want women or we're not doing this anymore. Right.
00:20:54.440So it's both this like sexual history of North America and the geopolitics of colonialism.
00:21:02.300So the French king at that time rounded up hundreds of lower class, but not women believed to be prostitutes.
00:21:14.240So women of, you know, good reputation, but who were very poor.
00:21:22.680he outfitted them with outfits to wear i mean i again i'm a i'm a descendant or i'm not a direct
00:21:30.780descendant i'm a relative of these these women i'm in my french canadian history it was a great
00:21:35.820great great aunt somewhere along the line so hundreds of women were you volunteered for this
00:21:43.220opportunity to get on a ship and like flail themselves at the new world and they settled
00:21:51.480all along French Canada there were convents and nuns in French Canada who were involved in the
00:21:59.380marriage market or these French fur trappers it was like matchmaking helping them get wives
00:22:07.340and to me if i imagine being my relatives being like 18 19 20 year old girls there's no internet0.99
00:22:15.960uh yeah this is 400 years ago take how desperate their lives must have been to think i guess this
00:22:24.260is my best option and the idea of these poor i think the term was street urchin if when i've
00:22:30.300as i've been researching it that sounds right they they love they love the term street urchin
00:22:34.580I've seen in their Wikipedia. These girls being then sort of taken in by the king of France, given, you know, these assets. But then these are city girls being sent to then the frontier in the new world and how I'm not going to get the exact numbers right.
00:22:55.680but something like within a decade, they had quadrupled the population of French Canada
00:23:00.820through these marriages. It's just unbelievably dramatic and interesting. I mean, what were you
00:23:07.520going to do if you didn't find a husband? If you, you know what I mean? Like what these women
00:23:12.300had to go through. That is, and by the way, Angelina Jolie and Hillary Clinton are the0.98
00:23:19.980or two direct descendants of the king's daughters i mean this is the most dramatic story i've ever
00:23:26.100this is wild it's wild and there's and if we look at you know all of our ancestries there are
00:23:33.940wild and stories of these women's courage and bravery and what they had to endure
00:23:40.240and we are we are their descendants and so you know to me just like your work with historical
00:23:46.880fiction it takes it takes the imagination it takes retelling these stories in the most authentic way
00:23:54.760that we can possibly you know gather to be able to step into the real lives that these women you
00:24:02.380know experienced and i just think there's there's more to tell that than we can ever tell but i'm
00:24:08.980so glad that you're doing that work because history was not it wasn't like women weren't
00:24:15.520present in our history. But if you read our history books, it can certainly seem that way.0.96
00:24:20.360It really can. It really. Liz, you have to be very careful about what you say you want to work on
00:24:26.300next on this show, because as JB, your producer knows, I will be like, OK, great. Are we starting
00:24:32.800tomorrow? Like, what are we doing? How are we making this happen? Because we will. Because
00:24:39.040that's just that's how I move in the world. Let's take one more one more quick break. And when we
00:24:43.640get back, I want to talk a little bit more about Motherly and all the work you've been doing there,
00:24:47.980because I do think that you have genuinely created a public square0.74
00:24:51.460for how women can talk about our lives. Love it.0.85
00:25:02.960And we're back. I mean, I'm now completely obsessed with this story. We're going to figure
00:25:08.260out I mean how to make it a novel a podcast a miniseries all of the things yes yes I'm so so
00:25:15.060here for it and you know we are all hashtag blessed to have lived through the Bridgerton
00:25:21.220era and the Downton Abbey era and like we love it but there was so much drama in America and as
00:25:29.220Americans I think we get and this is such a theme of your work but like we get separated from the
00:25:35.260stories of our ancestors the land of our ancestors and like that is just fascinating to me and so
00:25:41.240let's figure it out um let's figure it out all in all right as as am i i am i am so clearly good
00:25:47.640all in all in and we'll fit what we will figure that out uh in the meantime though i do want to
00:25:53.360talk about a little bit of the work that you've been doing with motherly with with the digital
00:25:59.120platform with the podcast, because as we know, there are so few places to openly and honestly
00:26:07.420discuss motherhood in this world. You know, a very, you know, prestigious newspaper that I will
00:26:16.720not name, you know, cut down on their parenting coverage. They went all in and then they were
00:26:21.840like, oh no, no one really wants this. You know, another website that I love and respect just
00:26:28.060completely eradicated their motherhood site last week. Despite the fact that mothers, I mean,1.00
00:26:35.700we are holding up the sky. We are controlling the economy. These topics get brushed under the rug.0.80
00:26:44.620And you don't do that. You don't do that with motherly. How did you go from being a Washington0.59
00:26:50.440Post journalist to creating mists. Yeah. Well, I was a Washington Post journalist. And that was,
00:26:59.700I always say, baptism by fire. It was exciting and absolutely terrifying. But it did give me
00:27:05.800the confidence by the time that I turned 30 that I had been a religion reporter and editor. So
00:27:11.600every day was the most controversial story of the day. How could I stoke that fire? But that work
00:27:18.400did give me the confidence to end the drive. So 10 years ago, just about 10 years ago, I
00:27:24.320started feeling this like entrepreneurial itch. And if people have experienced that,
00:27:29.080it literally feels like this itch, like I have a craving, a desire, like I want to make my mark
00:27:34.220on the world. I didn't know what that mark was going to be. And then I ended up having a light
00:27:38.540bulb moment while I was doing the dishes in my student apartment while my husband was in grad
00:27:44.120school in California. So it was all around the startup ecosystem. I had two little kids. They
00:27:49.580were one and two and a half, my two oldest boys. And I just realized, oh, yeah, again, 10 years
00:27:57.680ago, so much has changed in the digital ecosystem in 10 years. But I realized that the space that
00:28:04.760was so outdated and not representative of millennial parents. Now, I became a relatively
00:28:10.340young mom i was 27 when our first son was born so it was like the beginning of this generation
00:28:17.800becoming moms yeah the space that's so outdated is motherhood um moms especially then this is
00:28:25.100like before the instagramification of motherhood but the way that the media depicted motherhood0.83
00:28:31.540was either cartoonish where literally she would always she'd be like superwoman or she'd have like
00:28:37.540eight arms trying to juggle all the things or they i mean i just remember i think it was time
00:28:43.940at the time um truly driving traffic by stoking the mommy wars and you know publishing provocative
00:28:52.260pieces which still get published out there but deliberately to turn women against one another
00:28:58.260and i just it almost felt like so like bottom of the barrel content and like the lowest form of
00:29:03.460journalism and audience building i just felt like this generation is going to want more
00:29:09.620and because i feel it you know and they're millennial women are uh the most highly generated
00:29:15.880the most highly educated generation ever so not only are millennial women more educated than
00:29:21.840millennial men but they're they actually have attained the highest um rate of education of
00:29:27.160any demographic ever in the United States. So we're coming into motherhood with so much
00:29:33.600accomplishment, so much ambition, so much sense of ourselves. So I believed and pitched to my
00:29:41.340co-founder this idea of Motherly as a nonjudgmental, expert-driven support platform,
00:29:49.780support publisher. We always wanted to be a little bit of both, supporting women through
00:29:54.120the journey of motherhood from before you have a baby, really through college and beyond.
00:30:00.720So we have tens of thousands of articles. We've written two books. We host, at this point,
00:30:07.260I think maybe 50 online classes. We have e-commerce, an email newsletter people can
00:30:12.360sign up for week to week for that, especially the five-year journey of trying to conceive
00:30:18.040through early motherhood. And our content isn't just about taking care of your kid,
00:30:22.420though. I think, crucially, from the beginning, it was about who you are and how you navigate
00:30:29.220all that's demanded of you. When we were just starting Motherly and we were at a demo pitch,
00:30:36.900a journalism professor at Stanford came up to me and told me she was so offended by what we were
00:30:43.000building and that by focusing on motherhood and not parenthood, that we were pushing women back,
00:30:51.060which is a valid critique but what i said to her and how i feel is i think most of us want to live
00:31:00.480in this ideal of equality and frankly of men being able to be as involved in family life as
00:31:07.200they say that they want to be at least of this many in this generation say that they want to be
00:31:13.000but there is not the support and structure around us for any of that to be possible and so
00:31:19.060motherly lives in the reality that we acknowledge the unfair burdens that are placed on mothers in
00:31:25.560our society today. And we want to support women in equipping them in all aspects of their life,
00:31:30.500whether it's financial, their mental health, dealing with issues with their kids. But motherhood0.94
00:31:37.280is this stage of life that really changes everything for women today. So that's what1.00
00:31:43.760We built this community to do, and I'm glad that it's had the impact, as you've said, over the last decade.
00:31:51.340And I think we have helped and been a part of this transformation of how motherhood is depicted online, because I think a decade ago, maybe the conversation wasn't so honest or maybe so accurate, and now it's everywhere.
00:32:08.400And I think we played a small role in that, which is exciting.
00:32:11.640I really think you did. I think you played more than a small role in that. And you're continuing to do that, even as, you know, more traditional media and even non-traditional media is rejecting this as something that doesn't matter.
00:32:26.400Right. Well, also, I mean, we know that it's just good business, right? And mothers drive the economy. And Motherly's success as a business, because we are a business and we make money by partnering with brands that want to influence this generation of moms, brands that share our values.
00:32:45.520um who why would you not want to talk to um the single most influential you know economic
00:32:53.400demographic in america and i think the partners that we've gathered the investors that we have
00:32:58.700that is why they're here so that's a short-sighted uh way to look at them in my opinion i think our
00:33:05.040success kind of bears that out yeah absolutely absolutely it's good business it's good for the
00:33:10.220world. It's good for all the things. All the things. Yeah, I love it. Tell people where they
00:33:15.420can find you to learn more about all of the insanely wonderful things that you've done.
00:33:22.200Cool. Well, so Motherly, you can find us at mother.ly, not .com, mother.ly. Our biggest
00:33:30.520kind of secondary audience today is on Instagram, which is also at mother.ly. I host the Motherly
00:33:36.780podcast, which you can find anywhere. You get podcasts where you are about to be a guest.
00:33:42.980I can't wait. It's going to be great. But we talk to all kinds of influential mothers, both about
00:33:49.560their work and their motherhood. And I've gotten to, I mean, interview Hollywood superstars and
00:33:56.580senators and book authors. And, you know, we like to say that we take motherhood seriously.
00:34:03.040um we're all so fun and funny but to your point um i worked at the washington post before i started
00:34:10.200motherly like i hate when we are dismissed as like a mommy blog i hate when mom influencers
00:34:16.780are dismissed as mommy influencers i think they're shrewd business women and we people in our culture0.88
00:34:23.980throw these terms around to make women feel less than or that as if motherhood and the business of
00:34:29.600motherhood, but somehow not as important or serious. So yeah, I'm kind of unapologetic about
00:34:34.960that side of things. And we would love for people to follow along to subscribe to the podcast or
00:34:40.340even sign up on our website to get our weekly emails. Yay. I love it. Thank you so much for
00:34:45.500coming on. This conversation was amazing. And we're going to make the greatest miniseries of
00:34:50.160all time. I'm thrilled. And I also believe in the serendipity of opportunities like this. You're an
00:34:57.620amazing storyteller and The Sicilian Inheritance is a must read to all who are listening as well.
00:35:04.320So thanks for writing it and thanks for having me on.