Love Lives - Motherhood and choice, with Sophie Mackintosh

Episode Date: August 28, 2020

Support Millennial Love with a donation today: https://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove This week, Olivia is joined by bestselling author Sophie Mackintosh to discuss motherhood.Sophie’s debut novel, The Water Cure, was longlisted for The Booker Prize last year and earned her comparisons to Margaret Atwood thanks to its feminist dystopian themes. Her latest book, Blue Ticket, explores the thorny subject of motherhood.Why do some women choose to be mothers, and others choose not to be? And what happens when that choice is taken away from you?The pair discuss this alongside the reasons why we associate motherhood with femininity, why abortion remains a taboo subject, and the sexism surrounding contraception. Follow the show on Instagram at @millennial_loveSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Twas the season of chaos and all through the house, not one person was stressing. Holla differently this year with DoorDash. Don't want to holla do the most? Holla don't. More festive, less frantic. Get deals for every occasion with DoorDash. Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, a podcast from The Independent on everything to do with love, sexuality, identity and more. This week I am very excited to be joined by author Sophie McIntosh. Sophie's debut novel The Water Cure was long listed for the Booker Prize last year and earned her comparisons to Margaret Atwood, who also happens to be a fan of her new book too, Blue Ticket. Like Atwood,

Sophie specialises in feminist dystopian fiction. In this episode, we talk about her representation of motherhood in Blue Ticket, why women choose not to have children today are sometimes ostracised from society, and we also touch on abortion and why it's still seen as such a taboo subject. Enjoy the show. hi sophie hi alifia how how are you doing how have you been coping with the heat wave we've had like four days of crazy heat now when we're recording this how have you been finding it um it's it's been okay we're really lucky to have a garden and my partner did the most genius thing in the world which was we bought a paddling pool last year. And we have just had it set up for three days and we've just been in the paddling pool. It's like a dirty paddling pool with an umbrella over us.

That sounds like an ideal setup. I've been to London and it has been so hot. I have never, ever experienced heat like that in my life. And honestly, normally when the sun comes out, I love it. And then in the city, when there's no shade and there's no swimming pool there's no nothing it becomes like actual hell it's horrible yeah so today we are going to talk about motherhood um but we're also going to talk about blue ticket um because that is I think motherhood is one of the central themes to the book so could you start off by just explaining the plot? So Blue Ticket is about a world where

on the day of your first period girls are sent to a lottery station and they pick a ticket from a machine and they're either like a blue ticket or a white ticket and the white ticket means they can have a family and children and the blue ticket means they can't and then that one decision kind of follows them throughout the rest of their life and dictates the way their life turns out and we follow uh our heroine Kala who picks a blue ticket and she's initially happy with it but then as time goes on she decides she really wants to have a baby and so she kind of has to find her own way and you know find a way to have what she desires basically and how old are the women when they go to the lottery uh like 13 14 so yeah kind of like the day of their first period kala is 14 when she does it it's young to be making that kind of

young to have that kind of decision made for you yeah i guess it's like on the precipice of puberty sort of isn't it um yeah and and it's completely random whether they get a blue ticket or a white ticket uh yes it is yeah so it's obviously a really unique idea um so I'm dying to know where where it came from and what made you want to explore motherhood in this way I think for me I was thinking a lot about babies kind of in my own life and in my life around me and obviously it's just a massive choice and I think my position on it has kind of changed as I've gone through my life I've gone from really being sure that I was not going to have kids and feeling like quite good about that to feeling like incredibly broody and

that was weird and so kind of thinking about that change and also thinking about all the things I would gain from a baby all the things I would lose from a baby and it's just there's just so much around it they can feel quite bewildering not knowing what is the right choice and so the idea of the the like the lottery it's such a simple idea um but it really kind of just um makes it in a way it makes it easier for the girls but also kind of they don't have any say in the matter um and I was thinking as well about I guess just ideas around kind of being a maternal person or a non-maternal person because I'm like not a very maternal person I feel like no one would look at me and say oh she's very like you know she's

definitely the kind of person who would love babies I think could surprise my friends sometimes when they find out how broody I actually am and it made me think about you know how she's definitely the kind of person who would love babies. I think it's a surprise my friends sometimes when they find out how broody I actually am. And it made me think about, you know, how we kind of internalize these ideas about ourselves as well, about kind of being nurturing or caring and the way we're raised to be as women and how, you know, even if we decide not to have children, or we do, I think we have these ideas of like, what a mother should be like um what a mother what a good mother is like or a bad mother and how these kind of might factor into how we live our lives it's really interesting I think I think mothers are judged so harshly on just in terms of once

you become a mother in terms of how you choose to parent your child it is it is such a it's such a thing that people just feel so passionately about like even something as simple as whether or not you choose to breastfeed your baby um or give them formula like you know you see these heated debates on mum's net you see how flammable all of these subjects are around motherhood and parenting in general um but going back to what you said about being maternal, I think that's really interesting. And this is something, again, that the book brings up. It's like, to what extent is motherhood linked to femininity?

And is that link in itself quite an archaic idea? What do you think? Yeah, it seems, you know, the idea of someone maternal is so linked to femininity, I think, and about the idea of someone maternal is so linked to femininity I think and about the idea of being like a good a good woman there's I think we still kind of buy in a lot to the kind of like virgin whore dichotomy and like wife material and all this stuff and we are so judgmental about mothers like you said it really we really really are um I've been like quite surprised we're not surprised but

disappointed maybe and you know even in reading reactions to the book um I've out in the US already and I've seen you know people be like oh this that Kala shouldn't have a baby she's clearly terrible I don't see why she'd want to have a baby because you know she's very you know it doesn't really make sense and it's kind of like that idea of you have to be this kind of this perfect version of femininity to sort of be a mother it's strange because you know mothers come in all shapes and sizes and some are good and some are bad but it's yeah we we view women as like their sole role in life is to have children um and so this is something else I wanted to ask you about is when you well there's two parts really so one when you can't have children as a

woman you know what what do you say so in your in the book for example it's women with blue tickets like color but in real life it's obviously women who have fertility issues um and what what do you think the impact of that is on a woman's sense of her own femininity and using color as an example the idea of the lottery and it was that kind of really simple concept because you can't tell beforehand like if it's going to be hard necessarily that's the thing it's kind of it's like anyone can have a baby but at the same time maybe you're the one person who can't and it doesn't matter like how good you are or how much you kind of want it sometimes I think there is that kind of weird um atmosphere like the kind of unfairness and again when it's so tied into like ideas of femininity and you know you're not truly fulfilled unless you have a child or

whatever uh I think it's like a hard thing not to be able to kind of uh do that one do that thing that society tells you is you know the, the right thing, the thing that you're kind of made for. And going back to this idea of freedom, because the way that the tickets are kind of opposed, it's like women with blue tickets have a greater degree of freedom because they don't have to have children, whereas the white ticket women are sort of bound to a life of domesticity so do you think that I'm interested in what you think of the freedom that having a child sort of takes away from you um and you know I'm sure there's there's freedoms that you receive as being a mother as well but what do you think you lose as a woman by having a child what do you think you have to

sacrifice I guess when I think about it in terms of my own life I think about kind of you know freedom and yeah I guess just the ability to be selfish like that was something I would really I would really miss I would really miss if I had a baby um the ability to kind of do what you like and that is something that you know the blue ticket women have in blue ticket but at the same time you know I I imagine having a baby gives you so much and I know especially in the book I kind of really leaned into like the stereotypes of what someone without children would do because you know though I'm sure I could have written a book with a blue ticket woman who did amazing things and like changed the world because you

know they can just be so super focused on their career and have all this freedom and instead I kind of went for a heroine who like has a lot of freedom but doesn't necessarily like enjoy it that much and kind of takes it in a more in a smaller way um yeah I think that ability to be selfish and I'm interested about how you said your view changed on motherhood over time what was what do you think was the kind of turning point for you was it a matter of where you were at in terms of your career or just how you felt personally about having children what was kind of the the catalyst for you changing your point of view? I think it was a combination of things because

um yeah I'd got to kind of a good point in my career or at least I was um my writing career something was actually happening at last and I I've been in a relationship for like eight years and just feeling like a lot more stable after years and years of like not feeling very stable in my life and it was strange that kind of when all those things clicked into place I suddenly felt um yeah I suddenly just felt the urge to have a baby and. And it was strange that kind of when all those things clicked into place, I suddenly felt, yeah, I suddenly just felt the urge to have a baby. And it was, it was strange because it was like, is it just happening now? Because this is kind of more of a, you know, it's more logical, like it could actually happen. It makes more sense for me to do it now. Is it because all my friends are kind of having babies and I'm seeing babies. And for the first

time in my life, I'm hanging out with babies and seeing them not as like this abstract terrifying thing that cries and will like take away your freedom but it's this like lovely little ball of joy that um you know people I love and respect um are raising like really well it's kind of interesting because it's just is it something like in your body or is it something that you just sort of slip into and kind of feel not the pressure but because everyone else is doing it maybe you think it'd be a good idea I still kind of don't know which one it was it's probably both yeah I'd say it's probably both but it's interesting isn't it because you know obviously you give birth to a baby in your own body so maybe there is something biological going on there to do with broodiness but it also must be a little bit you know if all of your friends are having babies and you're in a

stable you know financial situation you have a stable partner then you know it's kind of like you've got all of the components there so it makes sense to then think about bringing a child into the mix but then something something I was thinking about when writing blue ticket was because I was kind of researching pregnancy and looking into it and stuff and I kind of you know I had the idea in my head it's actually it's such a terrifying thing and it's such a kind of dangerous thing for the female body and it's you know in a way in a way we kind of that urge makes sense because how else do you convince people to keep doing it when it's a thing that is actually quite dangerous

like it's a risky way to keep like propagating the species really biologically it's quite like violent and terrifying so it's kind of interesting to think of it in those terms as well as opposed to like oh it's like milky and lovely and you make a sweet baby and think of it and it's like bloody like turning your own body against itself way like it's kind of like carrying you know it sounds horrible like carrying like an alien life form or a parasite like something that literally sucks all your nutrients out of you it's it's so weird yeah no you're right though and we never we never talk about the goriness of pregnancy and of giving birth but then as soon as you talk to any new mother and you ask

them about, you know, what it was like, there's so much stuff that goes on that you're just like, oh my God, really? So then this rips and then, and then this happens and then, and then you screw yourself and run over the doctor and your husband and like all this stuff. It's like, there's so much that, that we don't talk about that is so gruesome. And obviously being pregnant is hard work. You know, you have to, you do have to sacrifice a lot just for those nine months of pregnancy. So it is interesting. And obviously I wanted to ask you about this as well. So women who choose not to have children.

So that's obviously a different thing to women who are infertile or to women who have fertility issues or keep miscarrying um it feels like there is still a big taboo around women who choose not to have children particularly once they get to say like their early 30s mid 30s when you know people will be like oh well your biological clock is running out um why why do you think that that is still a thing today when we are supposedly in you know the most progressive age that we've been in I think it must be it must be tied into like social stuff and issues of femininity like you said earlier because I can't think like it makes sense really obviously like we need to keep having babies but at the same time um you know

there's a climate emergency and you know there's a lot of really good reasons not to have a baby and especially um as more and more kind of you know people are kind of unstable and don't feel they can give us stability to that child i mean in terms of um like living situations and stuff and job situations um so it's strange that, like when it's a completely valid decision. And I mean, it always has been a valid decision, but now more than ever, it feels almost like, almost like the responsible decision. Sometimes I feel irresponsible for wanting a baby so much when,

you know, there's so much kind of going on in the world already. And I can make this little change that might have like an environment, environmental impact but I think it takes a long time for ideas to change socially and yeah again it's so tied up in completing you as a woman you know you're you're a good person a good mother uh you're doing a social thing by bringing a baby into the world somehow do you think um sometimes then women have children for the wrong reasons because maybe it's they have the children because they feel pressured that that is what society tells them to do and then a few years down the line or maybe even even a few months down

the line they realize oh god i actually wasn't i wasn't ready for this yet do you think that's something that happens quite frequently and i'm so you know in the book in the context of the book I suppose that would happen to the white ticket women because you know they might have the children before they are ready to just because it's what they've been told that oh well this is your ticket in the lottery um so it's such an interesting comment on that situation yeah I mean it must happen that I think that's that's almost like the last taboo it's like we don't really talk about is that you know there are there are people out there who regret having yeah I mean it must happen that I think that's that's almost like the last taboo it's like we don't really talk about is that you know there are there are people out there who regret having

children um but it's always like to say it is the worst thing like no one ever can admit it I guess um and it's not something I really see talked about or explained but it's also like it's just something to be really afraid of it was it was a fear for me and you know it's a fear for color I think it's a fear for lots of people it's what if you have your baby it's a decision you can't take back it's like it's the one thing you can never really undo um so it's quite like yeah it's quite a massive thing to think about and when you are operating under such like social pressure and I think it's just really easy to slip into things and you know you can get pregnant accidentally it's strange that it can just sort of it just sort of happen and then your life is

totally different and for like one of the biggest decisions you can make in your life it's kind of to have it's so easy to slip yeah it's a strange one can trees help us grow more resilient to climate change? At the University of British Columbia, we believe that they can. Dr. Suzanne Simard and her team are connecting our future to nature. Their Mother Tree project could transform how we manage forests, capturing more carbon and safeguarding biodiversity for generations to come. At UBC, our researchers are answering today's most pressing questions.

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Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. As a reader, but correct me if I'm wrong, the main thread in the narrative, you know, motherhood aside, seems to be that of choice. And, you know, you hear that word coming up a lot when the characters speak to one another.

I think Calla says, my name is Calla and I wanted to choose. And so it's not, is it a spoiler to say that, you know, she's given a blue ticket and then she decides that she wants to actually have a baby? Oh no, that's not a spoiler at all. Yeah, so she obviously goes against the system. And so I wanted to take that context and apply it to something else that you talk about in the novel, which is abortion.

And you reference it as one character, I think it's Valeria who uh who aborts her baby um so why do you think it why do you think it's so important that we keep talking about abortion in those terms and in terms of the importance of this pro-choice narrative because you would think that today that is something that people have a pretty good understanding of but then you you know you hear what Kanye West is saying about anti-abortion at his presidential rallies. And you hear all, you know, the spate of restrictions that happened in the US. So clearly it's something we still need to talk about. Was that a conscious decision for you to kind of bring that into the narrative at all? I wanted definitely to kind of show all sides.

But I think, you know know when it comes to body autonomy it's something that we can never take for granted like the ability to have a safe abortion like it's just it's always historically been a way for bodies to be controlled and I mean it still is now and I think as kind of right-wing rhetoric expands across the world as well it's something that could be really easily taken away and it's just again like i say it's like you can it's so easy to get pregnant well it's not for everyone but it can be such a massive decision and it just takes away your autonomy if it's not something you want um if it's something yeah just the idea of control i guess and having that ability to choose is really important.

And I think it's something that we can't really get complacent about. I mean, even the abortion referendum in Ireland was like, what, two years ago? And that seems like, you know, some really inhumane stories are coming out of that. You know, people being made to have babies against their will. Just, I can't see how that's ever kind of acceptable I still think that actually abortion isn't something that we really talk about like we we talk about it within the context of the news so like within the Irish referendum and within within the US and everything um but I still think that women who experience it feel a lot of shame around it and we don't we don't have open conversations

about it and and that kind of it kind of keeps it it keeps it like a dark internal thing almost so yeah why do you think why do you think that is how do we how do we overcome that I was thinking about um have you seen sex education and there's a scene in there where a character has an abortion and I was just so struck at how well it treated it and how it made the abortion seem just like not not a big life-ruining deal I think we go through our whole life being told that you know abortion's bad or it's a really big deal but you know it's it's in the end of the end of the day an early abortion or any abortion is still it's not a baby yet it's like it's a medical procedure it's just one that again um i guess has been used to take away body autonomy and i guess there's so much shame around it because maybe it just feels it feels like we should should want that baby. I don't know. It's hard to, yeah,

it's definitely something I wish we talked about more. Yeah. Cause I think it's, um, it's just, yeah, it's just not something that is an open, open discussion. And it's, you know, like, yes, it's like in the one sense of, yes, it's happening in the news. And yes, we are pro-choice, but then at the same time, like you still get in the UK, I mean, pre-COVID obviously, but you would get protesters standing outside abortion clinics

trying to dissuade women from going inside. And the government conducted a review into buffer zones. So putting them all, they have to all stand 100 meters away. And it didn't go through the home office rejected it so there are certain clinics that now they have to stay 100 meters away but but it's not it's not it's not enforced every single one um which it just seems so bizarre to me that they

would they would allow that to happen like they almost talk about it as if like it's a free speech issue yeah yeah and it's like how is it a freedom speech issue and it's people's own bodies and it just it's such a small thing and it just kind of I don't know it hits home how little this government really cares about quite a lot of things but yeah I think it's um yeah it just seems especially in this day and age and when we are so open about so much to still be having these conversations like oh is it okay for a woman who's about to go and have a medical procedure to be like bullied and harassed and yelled at when it might be traumatic it might not be traumatic but we make it into this like moral kind of yeah this massive moral big deal i wanted to ask you a bit about um how you think contraception plays into the motherhood

conversation as well so obviously all of the women with blue tickets they get uh given RUDs don't they uh now I'm sure you will know this women have to go through a lot of hell with contraception and you know for example uh getting an RUD it, I have friends where it has been rejected by the body. So then that's like a really traumatic thing. And it's really painful where it kind of like falls out of you. I've had other friends where it goes missing in their body. And I've had other friends where it obviously just gives them a lot of pain or it gives them really heavy periods or it gives them no periods. And then they're consciously, constantly worried that maybe it won't work

and then there are other forms of contraception that you know sometimes just don't work nothing's 100% effective how do you think that imbalance in terms of between the sexes because obviously so in straight in straight relationships all men have to do if they're not going to get a vasectomy is wear a condom so how do you think that kind of imbalance plays into these conversations that we have around motherhood and femininity and just and just parenthood in general I mean it's massive I really resent that men have it so easy in that way I would love like a male pill so much and you say you, all they have to do is wear a condom. And it's like, how many men just refuse to wear condoms as well?

I just, I hear about it all the time from friends who are dating and stuff. And it just seems insane to me that, you know, a man would just willingly just get you pregnant just for like his own pleasure. But I don't know why that should surprise me so much. No, but it is. It's like like it's seen as the woman's responsibility yeah yeah the woman's responsibility to get the contraception I think it's hard as a man to kind of get your head around that kind of enormity that sense of you know it all being on you I think as well there's just you know contraception really in my experience as a woman who's been on contraception, like more than half her life now, you know, doctors themselves

don't even really seem that interested in the best option for you or even how things work. You know, I just feel like there's just, it's kind of just something you have to, it's seen as something you have to put up with. I've been to the doctor so many many times about contraception about you know side effects that really affect my life and about trying to find the best options you're always kind of fobbed off I think I I'm now on like the mini pill and I was getting like a lot of bleeding with that and you know just weird side effects and my male GPs were just so uninterested and were like

well you just have to sort of put up with it or or change and then I saw a female GP who was like what's acceptable for this to be happening to you and then gave me another another pill to take with my actual pill that somehow stopped all the side effects and I was like I don't even know how it worked and when I went to see my male GP he was like I don't actually know why that drug interaction works as well um so it's just you know it's just all a mystery really to even the doctors and that's quite a scary idea as well as the idea of like responsibility yeah that's unbelievable that's unbelievable because also i know i mentioned this earlier but my friend my friend whose coil um got lost inside her she had had a baby um and when she went to get contraception after having had a baby no one told her that actually

after you've given birth your your uterus is really soft and because of that you shouldn't ever get a coil immediately after giving birth because then the coil can you know not stay in the right place and so with her it did not stay in the right place and it somehow made its way up to her intestines that's terrifying and it's terrifying and the doctor didn't tell her that and it's it's almost like it's it like you said it's deeper than just the conversations that we have with our partners it's the conversations that doctors are having and the lack of research I guess into it it's almost like it's just accepted that women have to put up with this crap I was reading an amazing article and there was a statistic i can't remember specific exactly but it was something about um studies of erectile dysfunction versus

studies of like painful sex in women like actual pain and the amount of research into that kind of thing for women is so small compared to the research into male sexual problems and i mean obviously i'm sure erectile dysfunction is is a big issue um but there's been a lot of money powered into that and for women who physically can't have sex who have never enjoyed sex and for whom sex is like physically really painful it just seems incredible that there's actually very little in comparison looked into and i know it just says larger things about what as well as the contraception about how we see male pleasure versus female pleasure and you know how for women it's just the stakes are just different in the same article um I think I

read um saying like they asked like men to rate good sex and women to rate men to rate like bad sex and women to rate bad sex and for men the bad sex rate like bad sex and women to rate bad sex and for men the bad sex was like well I still I still had an orgasm but it was just a bit boring for me and for women the bad sex was you know it just it was painful or I was assaulted the the stakes are just that much higher yeah you're you're so right and and the painful sex thing as well is such a is such a big issue I think it's so it's not even a common parlance to, to use a word like vaginismus, you know,

which is the condition where it is incredibly painful for women to have sex. But actually you mentioned sex education earlier, the TV show, and it was, it was mentioned in that, I think. So I think that show has actually done a really, a lot of brilliant things for conversations around sex and particularly with women.

It's so good. it's so good it's so good I wish I'd had it when I was a teenager I'm thinking like how much how much more different could my life as a woman have been if I'd seen that instead of like skins or something I know it's awful um finally it's time for our lessons in love segment so this is the part of the show where I ask every guest to share something that they've learned from either their previous relationship experiences or just from their own, their own thoughts and experiences. So I suppose for you, perhaps writing about these things, I know in The Water Cure, there's quite a lot of, there's quite a heavy relationship narrative in that book, which I loved, by the way. We haven't even spoken about that book. Love that book so much.

Thank you. So yeah, will you share your lesson in love, Sophie? I think maybe this is quite relevant to the water carrier as well, but also probably relevant to Blue Ticket. But I think just hanging on to yourself, I found really important. I think I'm a person who, for a lot of the life, kind of just made so many concessions to relationships and um you know kind of lost a lot of myself in them and actually it's only been when I've kind of

really hung on to who I am I guess and loved loved myself that sounds a bit cheesy but you know I mean like kind of um tried to really hold on to me and not to give too much away that things became sort of healthy and good um and I think that you know in the water cure that's something that Leah is figuring out and um Calla is like very independent um so yeah I think I really prize my independence now and my relationships have been better for it I'm pleased you brought up Leah could you remind um the listeners uh or those who haven't read The Water Cure about her narrative and her relationship? I can't remember his name now, but it's such a brilliant,

it's so relevant to what you just said. Yeah, so Leah is the middle sister in The Water Cure, which is a book about three sisters living on an island where they've never met men before and then men arrive. living on an island where they've never met men before and then men arrive and Leah falls into a very um sort of intense uh and quite unhealthy relationship with one of the men called Cleo and she I mean she she has no idea of kind of like the dating games you play and how you're supposed to react with a man and she just falls like totally in love and she's so kind of needy and kind of gives everything away and gets completely consumed by it

and I mean like in the book it's not the right thing to do but I feel like in life as well it's a kind of it's a dynamic that we see played out in in real life and that's kind of why I wanted to explore it a bit in the book too um so yeah that kind of obsessive love isn't necessarily healthy and especially not in the book um where the stakes are higher but I think you know it's definitely a lesson to be learned in real life as well yeah I think it's so easy and when you're in the throes of infatuation at the beginning to just think I will do anything to make this person love me I will like suppress any part of my personality that I think is unattractive to them just in order to kind of maintain this you know it's it's such a it's

such a natural instinct I think even though it's quite toxic yeah it's like one of those things that kind of you you know when you're doing it that it's really bad and it's actually you're kind of doing the the worst thing you could be doing because obviously the the more you kind of try to cling on to something that the further away it kind of gets away from you and yeah it's kind of the opposite of what you should be doing that's it for today thank you so much for listening if you're a new listener to this show you can subscribe to us on apple podcasts spotify acast or anywhere else you can comment and leave us a rating too so that more people can find us keep up with everything to do with the show on instagram. Just search Millennial Love. See you soon.

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