LadyGang - LQ QUICKIE: Jessica Grose

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

A Becca Tobin fav and The author of #saddesksalad + #screamingontheinside (The unsustainability of American Motherhood) Jessica Grose joins us today to create a mandatory podcast for all parents out there. If you've ever felt like you are failing at Motherhood and are doing it all wrong this one is for you.  Check out our great sponsors!!! Signos: Manage your glucose levels better! GO TO Signos.com AND GET UP TO 20% OFF SELECT PLANS BY USING CODE "LADYGANG" Aura: Get a 14 day trial PLUS a check of your data ALL FOR FREE at Aura.com/trust  Huggies: Get your baby’s butt into Huggies’ best fitting diaper! Huggies Little Movers. We got you, baby.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's time for a quickie. Podcast one presents the Lady Gang, the Hollywood girl posse with Lady Gang Quickie. Here's Kelty Knight, Becca Tobin and Jack Vanek. Let's make this quick. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Lady Gang Quickie. I am Becca here with Jack and Kelty and I have a treat for all of you mothers out there or want to be soon to be mothers or women who definitely don't want to be mothers and

you may be feeling more strongly about that choice after the conversation we're about to have. Kelty, who do we have with us today? We're very excited to welcome Jessica Gross. She's a journalist, editor, and novelist. She's been covering family, policy, and pop culture at so many of the biggest publications in the world, including New York Magazine, Jezebel, Slate. She graduated from Brown in 2004, so she's a smarty. And she joined the New York Times as the editor of their parenting products in 2018, and then moved on to the opinion section in 2021. And the opinion is what we're interested in. She's the author of Screaming on the Inside, The Unsustainability of American Motherhood, and two novels, Soulmates and Sad Desk Salad.

She's also the founding editor of Lenny, the email newsletter and website. And we love an award over here. She was named a Glamour Game Changer in 2020 for her coverage of parenting during the pandemic. Please welcome Jessica. This one's for the parents because we have so many Lady Gang moms. Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm psyched to be here. We're very excited. I'm going to give a little backstory on how I discovered you. My son is two years old right now, but shortly after he was born, I took to the internet as we do in a moment of weakness. And I just said, I am over the age of Instagram and finding out information of how to raise my child. I feel like I'm failing. I feel like I have no idea what I'm

doing. And I feel like every little choice that I am making for my child, because there's so much information on the internet, I have analysis paralysis, and then I end up doing the thing that my gut tells me to do. But then I don't trust my gut. And so I took to the internet, long story short, my very good friend, Tracy Thomas has a book podcast. She had children two years before me. It's called the stacks, by the way, shout out. And she said, she sent me the link to your book. And she said, stop what you're doing. You must read this. This should be mandatory reading for anyone who decides to be a parent. So thank you so much for the book. And why, why did you read it? I know you had quite the journey with your two daughters. You have two

girls, two girls. So, you know, as I say in the intro to the book, I felt like I had failed at motherhood before I even gave birth to a child. So I got super sick with my older daughter. I had hyperemesis, hyperemesis. I never say it right. But I just was throwing up all the time. I had to quit a new job. I had just gotten this job and they must've thought I was crazy because I just could not do it. And I felt just like I was already doing it wrong. Like I had to take medication. I got super depressed and anxious because when you're not holding down any food at all, you're not feeling great. And so I had already been covering family policy for a while before I even got pregnant or thought about having kids. And it had been obvious to me before I had kids

that the United States makes it unusually hard to parent. Like we just do not have social structures in place. We don't have paid parental leave, which only two other countries in the world don't have paid parental leave for mothers. We have no system really of childcare. But it was sort of living through it myself, living through this really tough moment that galvanized me. And I kind of say that the book had been gestating in my head, and that is a pun intended, until the pandemic hit in 2020. And then that was a moment where I think so many people who sort of maybe knew subconsciously that the United States makes it harder than it needs to be for parents really felt it in their bones like this is not working for me and everything is falling apart around me

and um mothers in particular I mean obviously the pandemic was very hard for basically everybody but I think there was a way in which moms felt oh I am holding everything together in the world in a way that nobody appreciates um and so I started writing the book in the summer of 2020 somehow um, because I use work to associate from my feelings. So don't we all need to. Yeah. But it's, you know, I you're, if you have a two year old, you're so in it. I used to joke like they, there should be an, it gets better project for the parents of very young children, because I have a seven year old and an 11 year old now, and it is delightful 95% of the time. Like they're so fun with my older daughter who's in sixth grade.

We're like watching Gilmore Girls together. Like just so fun. I love hanging out with them. And I loved hanging out with them when they were babies too, but it's just so hard when they're really little to do all of the things. I agree. And I think that for any new parents out there, I was really just happened to be lucky that a lot of my girlfriends

had had kids a couple years before me. So now when we're out like at a pool, say, and I think I'm never going to enjoy a large body of water again. And my kids running around like a psycho. I look at my friends and their kids are around the same ages, you know, like five, seven, nine. And they're like, just know you will have this soon. You will not always be trying to skirt death at every pool party and you'll be able to have a cocktail. So I would suggest that you try to find a family around you. They're a couple years ahead of you because you see the light at the end of the tunnel. Not that this is torture, but this is definitely where you lose most of

your own autonomy, I would say. Yeah. And you were talking before about social media and the onslaught of information that you have. And I think I say this in the book too, but even when I had my older daughter, which was 2012, I was so overwhelmed even by the amount of information then that I was just like, I'm not going to look at the internet. I had one book and it was the Mayo clinic's guide to your child's first year. And I was like, if I have other questions, I will ask my mom or I'll ask my pediatrician. Not because you can't find good information online because you absolutely can. It was more just, I knew myself well enough to know that it would just make me more anxious and that there were other sources of information that I really did trust. So I think

having friends, having trusted people in your life that you can turn to is just so pivotal in those early years. Yeah. What do you think the, the, where our obsession with the vicious cycle of mommyhood is like, you know, I just, I just had a hysterectomy. I'm not having kids. And, and so I'm sitting on the outside and I'm watching everyone. There's a whole different ball of wax that I'm dealing with over here, of course. But, you know, I was thinking about it. It's just so funny that I ended up getting my hysterectomy the week that Arizona passed the new abortion law based and, you know, based on a law that was put in place before women even had the right to vote on whether or not you can, you know, what you can choose to do with your body. And like, listen,

I get it that there are so many people that are against abortion. And like, if you're against it, you don't have to have one. Like, but I love the I think the the right thing to do here is allow people to make their choices about their bodies you know so but it's a weird we live in this weird circle of like okay you know you're you're supposed to have be want to be a mom first of all like we trained you since you were a two-year-old girl to want to be a mom everything was babies and being a mom and you know when I was in school this is how old I am the the boys took mechanics And we took homemaking, sewing and cooking as our like, you know, classes at school. So it's like we're set up to be a mom and then you have and then you have to be a mom.

So whether you're, you know, trying, not trying, you know, medically going to die during pregnancy, keep the baby. And then once you have the baby, we have no support for you at all. There's nothing education. You can't even afford to send your kids to school in this country. there's no education, there's no healthcare. And I grew up in Canada. So I grew up with a very different childhood where, where like my mom was still nuts, but it was like, Oh, we didn't have to worry from the time we were four to start saving so that I could go to college. Like it was like, it was available. We didn't have to worry when I hurt my foot at dance that we were going to go broke, go into the clinic, you know? I mean, and then I, so it's just this like wicked

cycle of like, yeah, you're born to have a child. You are for, you need to have a child. Then when you have the child. We're not going to support you at all. And can you talk about that? Because I think that is the most insane circle. It just makes no sense to me. Well, I've written this before that I really think that the original sin of the American workplace is that our jobs are tied to our healthcare. We would have so much more flexibility to make our work lives gel with our personal lives. And I'm not just talking about parents. I think part of the reason we don't have better systems in this country is because work-life balance is thought of as like a mommy issue. And so we don't have to take it seriously as if lots of people don't want things in their personal

life, to have a life, to do caretaking that isn't just of children. I mean, I hear so much now about caretaking of the elderly and that that is such a challenge in the United States. There's even fewer support. Think about the support that we have for caretaking of children. There's even fewer for caretaking of older family members. So it's not just a mommy issue. It is an everybody issue and that we fail part of the roots of the problem are that we fail to see it that way so we need to reframe it as such um but i mean it's a sort of complicated long history but we start you know women always worked in the united states working class women women of color always worked so the idea that like women were home with babies lies only wealthy and mostly

white women were doing that 100 years ago but that was seen as the ideal that was seen as what you should do that was seen as what a good mother does. And as women started entering the workforce at all levels, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, instead of saying, let's reframe the idea of what a good mother is, it was like, no, we're just going to pile more expectations on this idea that is already freighted and impossible to reach. Now we're going to say it's known in the academic literature as the super mommy mystique um and it's just the idea that like it's this idea that you should do everything and never complain and so everything now includes being successful at a career um doing everything for your kids all the time never stopping thinking about them but also

being perfectly well and meditating and looking hot until you die and like just like all of these things that we're supposed to be able to do in a 24 hour day that no actual human could do without having a nervous breakdown. I mean, I'm sure like there's one lady in the country who does it. And I'm sure she also has like six nannies. Like, that's the other thing that is so under discussed is the amount of paid care that is undergirding like the most successful women. And I don't say that in a judgmental way. I say that in a way is like, these people that you think are doing it all, they're not doing it all by themselves like there's no way

so it's you know it's all these things sort of like brewed together and I have some response to my work that's like well nobody wants to get married anymore no one wants to have kids and I'm like what planet

are you on there's still so much pressure on young women to be married and have kids and have a very traditional life and so there's still sort of something you know countercultural when you're sort of pushing back against that in the first place so it's a mess man and I will say also about the Arizona law which just is like I learned when I was reporting my book they didn't even know how babies were made until

the 19th century like they did not know sperm into egg they didn't know they had no idea until like we are our ideas about fertility and the science behind it brand new brand new and so the fact that they're like putting the law back to when they like literally didn't know sperm meets egg the majority of the population had no idea that was how it worked ridiculous sounds about right yeah i was like classic america yeah i also when you just brought up the thing about all the hidden, uh, basically there's an epidemic on Instagram of mommy bloggers where there's hidden nannies all over the place. And, you know, I understand why some women felt the need to hide that as somebody who has a part, a full-time nanny, I struggled in the beginning of being like,

but if I shout it from the rooftops that I have a nanny, then people are going to be, I'm not relatable. And I'm not saying I want to be relatable to stay relevant. I'm saying, I don't want to alienate women who come to me for advice and inspiration, not that I'm super inspirational, but just feeling less alone. Like that's the community. Well, the answer is always like, well, it's easy for Becca because she has a nanny. Right. And I don't want to, and I will always acknowledge that I'm a small percentage of people who can afford to do that, but I must do that so that I can keep working and we don't have family near us. And I feel this need like I'm doing right now to justify the nanny thing. But then on the other end, it's like

such a disservice to other women to hide your nannies and hide your support system. Because then all these women who are alone with their children all day long are thinking, well, why can't I be skinny and beautiful and cook a beautiful meal every day? This woman seems to be doing it. And I don't see somebody behind her cleaning up her mess. And I'm like, no, those people are behind the camera cleaning up the mess and picking up the kids. And so it's this weird thing. And I think women, I love us. I think we're powerful, amazing, the superior gender, but I also get so angry with us about this. And we've talked about it on the podcast, the mommy shaming of one another, of pitting ourselves against ourselves. And I think it's

because the pressure of society, you're always feeling less than, you're always feeling shame. So then if you can turn around and point the finger at someone else, suddenly you're better your job of being a mom but why how can we stop doing this to each other I really don't know I mean I'm just whenever I see things online and like you know we we've had social media for a decade right and I'm just like we all judge constantly I'm sure just keep it to your group chats why do you have to put that in somebody else's face like I think asking people not to judge is probably unrealistic but asking them to like why are you telling that to somebody else Like, who is this helping? Take it to the group chat. Take it to the group chat. Be a normal

person. Don't like be out there. Like, that's the thing that I just am kind of over. I'm like, what do you need in yourself that you need to like, tell these people to their faces? Nobody will do it to their faces though. It's not like, I'm sure the percentage of moms that come up to other moms in real life is 0.0001. It's just always hiding behind that screen. Yes, and it's always the people who have no avatar and not using their real names. Always. Those are always the meanest. And a Bible verse.

Jack. The Lady Gang. There was a quote from your book. Hold on, let me put it. When sociologists compared happiness levels of parents and non-parents in 22 countries, they found that parents in the U.S. were comparatively the most miserable. we kind of talked about like the lack of support and all that. So you have throughout your book, I just want to tell everybody the statistics that you have in there are so eyeopening. Cause I,

I knew we had it a little bad and granted in the grand scheme of things we have it. It's pretty wonderful. Um, but there were some statistics that you said, what was the thing? And you, you speak to women, a diverse group of women all over the country, mothers. Um, and you kind of, uh, report their accounts and your conversations with them. Was there anything that even you as somebody who's researched this and written on it for so many years, that just blew your mind that you could not believe a statistic or a story from one of these women? So the thing that I think about a lot still is that even, you know, more privileged women tend to have more paid leave, you know, they have better benefits, they tend to, you know, but that

doctors and dentists, so the medical professionals who are tasked with keeping us alive, did not have any paid leave at all. So this was one woman I talked to cared for, was a high risk obstetrician and she had children while she was training. Again, the irony of someone who is training to care for, to save your baby, did not have a single day of paid leave because she was a resident. She wasn't, I mean, I might be misremembering the specific details, but it was like she got she got nothing her boss basically had to lie for her to like even get her to get three months off away from the office um and that just kind of says it all right so even for someone who is among the most privileged and doing you know highly educated had a spouse with

a job you know white collar job like all of that it was still like it didn't matter um and then the other thing that really struck me was just no matter what anyone was doing had they you know if they were a stay-at-home mom if they were a working mom if you know whatever if they were a single mom if they were like any circumstances they felt guilty that they were making the wrong choice and then what was super interesting is that then they felt bad about feeling bad so there was like this meta guilt it was like I should feel some type of way and I am not feeling it exactly in the right way and I was just like what a waste of all of our time and energy and I've certainly related to it there's many times like I've been thinking about this now like I'm in a place where

um to kind of get even further in my career I have to do things like travel more I hate traveling for work. I don't like being away from my kids. I don't like it. It doesn't make me happy. And so just negotiating that challenge, I'm like, well, I'm not taking these amazing opportunities that are offered for me. I'm so ungrateful. And then if I do it, I'm like, well, I'm not here on this Wednesday night. And this happened to me two weeks ago. I went to DC for one night. It was not even gone a full 24 hours. But of course, when I had scheduled it, I had no idea that my older daughter had picture day. And I wouldn't be there the morning of picture day. And she had a hair emergency. That, you know, a middle school hair emergency. We've all been there. And I felt so

bad that I wasn't there. Yeah, so bad. So it's just like, I don't know, man, I don't have solutions for that sort of granular. I don't think there are like, you're just everybody's kind of meddling through it, but like feeling the guilt on top of already feeling some type of way is just like such a waste for all. Do you think a solution could be, because I, I, I have the same thing with travel. It is the older my son gets, the harder it is. The guilt is crazy, but I know I need to do it. I find that I have a really great 50 50 split with my husband as far as taking care of this child. Or let's say, what's a third? So the nanny has the other third. But equal parts. My husband and I are equally responsible. We are so lucky, Becca. There's so few Zachs in the world.

It's so true. And I still feel a little bit of the guilt, but I will say not to put the pressure on the men. Oh no, that. Put the pressure on the men. I will say that I believe that if every woman had an equal partner in parenting, that that the guilt would be alleviated by even just minimally because the reality is, I think it would be way more. I feel like 70%. I feel like we're talking hetero marriages. That's like, yeah, everybody. But like, I feel like 70% of what ails us if men were truly equal partners. And I am also lucky. Like my husband, when I was like, I feel bad. he was like don't feel bad yeah like that's crazy yeah not the common response you know like he was not he was like don't you did you were where you needed to be like i'm she can deal

it is not going to ruin her life that she her hair he re-braided the hair can i ask jack i really want to ask you in the middle of this conversation like you are jack is newly married and you know thank you possible babies at some point in the future I mean they've definitely done some family planning like when you hear all this what is greater your fear or your like maternal instinct that like I want to reproduce Jack and Jerry like I mean I it's kind of like a little bit of both we're kind of getting closer and closer to thinking about wanting to start a family in the near like year or so. Um, I think that these are all like truths that I've known just about motherhood. I'm really lucky too. I have a husband that I know will be

like 50% and my parents are going to live super close. So I know I'll have that support system. If I didn't like that, the whole conversation would be a lot harder. Like if I didn't have that support, I don't think I'd be thinking about having kids at all. So I'm very fortunate in that way that a lot of women aren't. And I really feel for them because my maternal instinct isn't like super strong. I've never been somebody that's like died or really, really, really wanted a kid. But like, I know that I do want kids. It's just not that strong. So for women out there that like, that's what they've desired for so long. And it's so hard to physically make that happen in their lives. Like, I mean, my heart just like breaks for them.

I just think that you need a tribe like I think that we're not meant to like raise when I watch my friends that are are oh no one's okay no not one of my friends that has like I'm in this this every one of my friends has two kids under five or you know like right now that's my age when I look around and I see who is kind of less ready to jump off the cliff it's the people that have a tribe the people that have people around them that they can call hey come over oh my god i need this grandma's taking them for the week whatever it is like but the i just don't think we're meant to raise children like when i watch um 19 1883 on paramount plus i feel like they're all raising their children in like a little town but all the children are together

and all the parents are parenting all the children yeah it's like a tribe you know no i mean that's you that is absolutely true we are not meant to raise children in isolation just two parents and one and you know without any help like that just it's not how we've ever kind of lived as human and i think absolutely having your tribe but also just like sometimes people think admitting that it's hard means that you're failing it's like no most things that are rewarding are hard like it doesn't I think people get stuck when they think I'm finding it hard and that means I'm doing something wrong um or I'm not looking at it right the right way or I should just be completely joyful and happy and grateful

um 24 7 which is just not a realistic way to go through the world and so i think accepting like it'll be hard i'll be tired and that's all fine that's all just part of it and it's like if you want kids which like again anybody who doesn't want kids do not have them do not have them please don't i think it's so wild when anyone can if someone's like i don't want kids and anyone will be like oh you'll want them someday it's like why why no think that it's bizarre to me um but if you want kids then like it's gonna be hard but it'll be totally rewarding and awesome and you know add to your life in other ways although i was talking about this with my husband and i'm like in my feelings about the fact that i have my 20th college reunion in a month and i'm

just like how is this possible like I'm still in high school I know right um but there is a way in which once you have kids you can never be carefree in a way and then part of it just might be getting older like I had my older daughter when I was 30 and so like maybe I would have felt like this eventually anyway but I'm just like I cannot like go out and just purely have fun in a way that I could because always in the back of my mind and forever it will always be like and I don't ever I wasn't even describing this as necessarily a bad thing it was more just like you have to say goodbye to being carefree and that's just what it is I think I think that's such a real thing because as someone without children, I'm still carefree. Like I can go, I can go to Europe on

a vacation or I go to a vacation at Christmas and the dogs at the dog sitter, the house is locked up. And I'm like, I'm not thinking about anyone. I feel nothing. I feel no emotions, email off. Like, I think that's the difference. Yeah. I love that for you, by the way. Seriously. Like I'm so jealous. I'm like, I wish I could access that feeling again, but like that feeling is just no longer available to me. Yeah. But I will say my friends who have older kids, um, in their teens and that are about to go to college and not to say that they're not always going to be thinking of their children for the rest of their days. Yeah. But I will say that to me makes me excited to see those girlfriends of mine, like going back to those

traveling on a whim, you know, going to a music festival, going like, and not having these little humans that are solely dependent on you. So there is definitely a light at the end of that tunnel as well. And so, and I also think this is why having kids older as women, I feel so deeply that it is such a double edged sword. You know, I myself went through so much fertility bullshit, and I know that it's because I started late. And for that, I'm broke. And I'm still making, you know, making money that I made to make this child. But luckily, I had the money to even go down that road cause I'm older. Um, but I, and I also think the benefit as I'm an older person is that right before I had my child, I would go do things where I was quote carefree. I do the

music festival. I do the thing. And I'm like, this is great and all, but like, I can't do this forever. And I, I don't have a passion for this. You know, I like to dip in, in and out here and there. So I do feel like I sowed my oats. I did the thing, but at the end of the day, like we're still older. And I look at my parents who had me when they were 25 and they're still young and vibrant and they can be with their grandkids and they can run around with their grandkids. And I think about myself and I'm like, I'm going to be shitting myself in a diaper when my grandchild is shitting themselves in a diaper. So it's like so tough. And I, and when women talk to us about it, you're shitting yourself in a diaper now, let's be honest. Yeah. But you know,

it's like, it's so there's no right answer. And I don't even know the right answer to tell young women when they ask, they say, do you have regrets about starting later? Cause it was so much harder. We tell every woman we know to freeze their eggs. That's basically all we can really do. And that's the best advice that I can give. Um, but it's just super tough. And then also, I do want to go back to your book because there's one thing that really struck me, which was, um, I touched on it in the beginning, but the weaponization of information and all of these quote experts on the internet and this one woman who cited the ukrainian orphanage study where they she's now using this study to say we shouldn't be sleep training children how

it's essentially ruining them for life but when in fact the study was done it was so extremely intense and it can't even really be translated into sleep training children if you haven't looked at this study, it's really interesting. But this one woman is essentially using it to say, you're a horrible person. If you're sleep training your baby, I personally would not have survived early motherhood if I didn't sleep train this baby. So all this information and the milk conversation in your book where you're like, I could go, I could spend a week wondering if I should give my kid dairy, when I should do whole milk, when I should do skim milk, when do you bring it down from whole milk to skim milk. Like it is crazy that there's so much information and

you feel irresponsible for not looking at it. But then I'm the type of person where it doesn't help me at all whatsoever, but I still feel this amount of guilt to go to those quote experts. And like, what is, you said that you only asked your mother and you kind of didn't subscribe to that. Is that the best advice? Cause I think it sounds really logical. Well, you know, I'm, I, I think it is the hardest for people who don't have good role models so I'm really lucky in that I have a great relationship with my mom I trust her she's also a retired physician so like not everyone has a retired doctor that they can be like is this a thing and like 99% of the time they'll be like it's nothing they're fine so like I realized like the myriad luck like just the luck

of being born to such a person. So I think it is really challenging to trust your instincts when your models have been bad. So I'm so sympathetic to not knowing who to turn to for advice. And if that is, you know, your situation, like you had an absent mother, a bad mother, a bad parent, whatever. So that's sort of the first thing I will say. But I think we need part of early parenting I think is learning to trust your instincts and also define your own values so certain things that are really important to me are going to be less important to someone else and I can't tell you what your values are and so that's why it's like sometimes people are like oh you're a parenting expert I'm like no I'm a journalist and I'm an

expert in two children they're my children and I've gotten to know them over the years that I've been their mother and there's been trial and error and like I you can't my I do say this in the book my mom's dad also a doctor he was a physician like old school family physician like with the black bag um you know going to you know house calls delivered babies like all of that and he would say like you cannot raise an orchid like a baby like every child is different and that you have to sort of alter your parenting styles or whatever to i mean my two girls are very different personality wise um so it's it's learning over time trusting your instincts learning your values and i can't tell you what your values are jessica gross please check out her books um screaming on

the inside, the unsustainability of the American motherhood. She's got her novels, Soulmates and Sad Desk Salad, which I'm going to pick up. We will link them. Thank you so much for this awesome conversation and go get your children. Go get your children. We love you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening. The Lady Gang is produced by Steve Delameter, Stacey Pera, Jared Monaco, and social support from Amy Ryerson. It really means the world to us when you show up in our community outside the podcast. So sign up for our secret Facebook group. Just search The Lady Gang under Groups.

Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at The Lady Gang. And the most important thing you can do is share this episode with a friend. We would love that so much. Thanks for listening. You know, if you sell me something on Instagram, I buy it. Whoever markets to me does a fabulous job. She talks about the economy. We used to joke that'll be the thing to send them to therapy.

Okay, we're creating jobs. Can we look at it that way? She talks about parenting. These kids want to come home. They don't want to leave. They don't want to drive. They want to stay in the womb. Let's talk with Heather Dubrow every Thursday on Podcast One or wherever you get your podcasts.