This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - The Good Mother Myth with Nancy Reddy | 274

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Parenting comes with a lot of expectations, but have you ever stopped to ask where they come from? On this episode of This Is Woman’s Work, we unpack the myth of “the good mother” with Nancy Reddy, author of The Good Mother Myth. Nancy shares her personal experience of confronting the unrealistic ideal of motherhood: endlessly patient, always available, and completely selfless. She hilariously and heartbreakingly debunks these outdated ideals, rooted in flawed mid-20th-century research by figures like Harry Harlow and Dr. Spock. Nancy explains how bad science from the past continues to haunt modern parenting, creating pressure, guilt, and shame for today’s mothers. But this conversation is about more than debunking myths—it’s about empowerment. Because when you prioritize what matters and let go of perfectionism, you’re not just doing woman’s work—you’re modeling it. Connect with Nancy: Newsletter: https://nancyreddy.substack.com/  Book: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/the-good-mother-myth-9781250336644/  IG: https://www.instagram.com/nancy.o.reddy/  Essay: I Was Promised That The “Golden Hour” Would Make Me A Mom:  https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/04/golden-hour-c-section-bonding-attachment-baby-friendly-hospitals.html Related Podcast Episodes: 126 / The Parenting Map with Dr. Shefali 090 / Unmasking Modern Motherhood with Katherine Wintsch 155 / Executive Motherhood with Ashley Quinto Powell Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

I am Nicole Kahlil and you're listening to the This Is Woman's Work podcast. And I've only said this out loud a few times, typically to a much smaller audience, but here goes. I am not a great mom. I don't even aspire to be one. And I know there were just a few gasps of horror, but I am serious. When I thought about having kids,

and whenever Jay and I talked about it, I always shared my concern that I might not have the stuff, the stuff that makes a great mom. I mean, on a scale of one to 10 for patients, I'm a solid zero. I don't enjoy cooking, let alone cooking separate meals for tiny humans and cutting sandwiches into cute little shapes. Not happening. Let's also be clear, I was never going to make my own baby food. I love and need

my sleep, and without it, I'm less pleasant than an overtired toddler. And I've always been unapologetically career oriented. Stay at home mom, not for me. Or as I like to call it, a work inside the home mom, because let's be honest, that job seems infinitely harder than what I do for a living. And when I would say things like, I'm not sure I want kids, or when I was pregnant that I'd be going back to work

after maternity leave, people would kind of give me this look, like that mix of pity and judgment. Like they felt bad for my unborn child or for me because they thought I'd miraculously change into another human once my child was born. And they'd inevitably say something like, well, you never know.

And it took every ounce of my non-existent patience to not scream, I fucking know, because between Jay and I, if anyone was going to stay home, it wasn't going to be me. But neither of us considered that option because we both love our careers and we figured we'd just somehow make it work. So I entered motherhood not aiming to be a perfect or even great mom, but just hoping to be a good enough one. No Pinterest worthy moments, no parenting books completed, no dreams of my child being my entire world because side note that always felt like way too much pressure to put on one tiny little human. My kid is loved by her parents and a small village.

She's safe and she's cared for. She sees and experiences her parents working, failing, playing, participating, and prioritizing. And for me, that's good enough. Again, I know there's been lots of gasping and horror going on because motherhoodhood above all things is the space where insecurity and judgment thrive. We're all scared that we're messing up,

yet somehow convinced we know how to parent someone else's kid better than they do. And in my opinion, the biggest screw up of all is the pressure we put on ourselves, on each other, and that we let society pile on top of us. So on this episode of This Is Woman's Work, we're gonna dive into the myth of the good mother. Our guest, Nancy Reddy, wrote a book about it

and knows from personal experience as well. When Nancy became a mom, she found herself face to face with the ideal of the perfect mother, endlessly patient, always available, and fully invested in her child to the ideal of the perfect mother, endlessly patient, always available and fully invested in her child to the exclusion of everything else. Sound familiar? In her book, The Good Mother Myth, Nancy dives into mid-20th century research that has shaped our modern ideas of parenting.

Research that was often flawed, misogynistic, downright absurd, and completely outdated. She hilariously and heartbreakingly debunks these myths, exposing how we're all still haunted by the bad science of men like Harry Harlow, who claimed that he somehow discovered love with lab monkeys, and Dr. Spock, whose best-selling parenting book included just one drawing of a dad interacting with his kids. So Nancy, thank you for being our guest. And I'm going to dive right in by asking you to share some of the myths that you challenge and debunk about motherhood in your book.

Thank you for having me. I should say like I was nowhere near as clear eyed as it sounds like you were about the kind of work that I was taking on when I became a mother or what I was capable of. And before my first son was born, I had this idea that I would just somehow be able to do everything, this kind of myth of the super mom, who just knows what to do, can do it all, knows how to soothe her baby, and doesn't mind, because she just loves her kid so much. And I mean, like you, I always worked.

I wanted to work. I grew up with a working mother. And so I somehow thought that I could both be this, you know, kind of good mother and also be a working mother. And I, it's a really complicated set of ideals, I think. Yeah, well, it's two full-time jobs. And I will also add that I had the advantage of going last, meaning I had kids later, or had my daughter later

than most of my friends had their kids, and I also have a few really honest friends, so that was really helpful. I think it kind of dismantled a lot of that for me. And I do think it's been a little bit of my saving grace that I don't aspire to be this great do-it-all mom. It's relieved I think some of that pressure. Okay, so you mentioned the myth of doing it all and doing it perfectly. I know a lot of your book is based on old and outdated research. What are some of the things that we're still operating under or living

as today that are just either ridiculous or have been proven to be outdated or not work? I mean, it's fascinating to me because this research that I'm looking at is mostly, it's the post-war era, so it's like the 50s and the 60s, which is a long time ago now. But the ideas are still really 60s, which is a long time ago now, but the ideas are still really with us, I think.

The biggest one, I think, is this idea that what a baby needs most is an undivided, uninterrupted relationship with a single primary caregiver. I'll say these researchers, sometimes they say caregiver, but what they really mean is mom, right? They mean the person who gave birth to this baby better be there every minute. And if she goes out with friends, if she has a job, if she has other interests, that she

is damaging her baby's physical and mental health for the rest of his life. And I think that's still, I mean, I think that's still really with us in ways that are sneaky. Like for me, I don't think before I had my kids that I would have been able to articulate as clearly as I do in the book or as we've been talking about,

like what my ideals were. I just thought that's what it was like to be a mom. Like that I would just be kind of magically become this other person who could do it all. And had this image that I had ingested that I think a lot of us had ingested that comes in some ways from these researchers. And from, as you say, like research on monkeys,

not human babies. Right. Well, I also think that, I don't know if I'm going to say this right, but motherhood is almost carried like this nostalgic thing, right? Like this idea that moms in history were somehow more committed or doing it better.

But it's really quite fascinating when I've done, and clearly not as much research as you have, but when I've looked back historically, women may not have worked in a profession or a job, but they were freaking working. They were doing a lot of things outside of caring for their children. It's not quite this picture that I think we're being presented. Any thoughts or pushback on that? I mean, no, absolutely.

I think when you, and like time use studies bear that out, that even working mothers today spend more time like one-on-one interacting with their children than stay at home mothers of like the 50s and the 60s. I mean, I think about my grandmother, who I write about in the book, was a literal 50s housewife. I am fairly confident she never sat on the floor

and built train tracks with her daughters. I don't think that she was playing dolls with them. And I think her kids grew up fine. And so I think that we put a lot, we have this inaccurate historical idea of what moms used to be like and what moms should be like. And so we put all of that pressure on ourselves. And oftentimes we are, you know, employed out of the home

in a way that those women that we imagined weren't as well. And so it's really an impossible and inaccurate set of expectations that we bring oftentimes to motherhood. I don't know if this is a myth, but I think it's something that permeates motherhood as well as so many other things. It's this idea that if we do it right, right? If we make all the right decisions,

say all the right things, do all the best in that somehow everything will be okay, that our child will not face any pain or harm or hurt or as if that's even a good life or that they will be successful and smart and all the things that we want. And again, this is like not my area of expertise, but the way I see it is like, I don't care what you do or how you do it, you're gonna fuck up your kid in some way.

Even if that way is by trying to be perfect all the time, because then they're gonna think that's the goal and then they're gonna try to be perfect all the time and then they're gonna fall short and that goal, and then they're gonna try to be perfect all the time, and then they're gonna fall short, and that's how you're gonna fuck them up. We're all screwing up our children in some ways, even sometimes by doing things, right? Because we have no control over what translates

in their brain. I can remember things that I've told my mom, like, this really hurt me or I didn't. And she'd be like, that's not what happened. And it's just, again, kind of crazy. So long-winded way of asking, is one of these myths, this idea that we can do it right, or that we can somehow impact that our kids

will have only happiness and joy and success? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that's the idea. One of the things, John Bowlby, who's one of the founders of attachment theory, who I write about a lot, had this idea that a mother's love is like vitamins. So we kind of like stock our kids up and insulate them. Like what we do in their childhood is going to insulate them from any harm later on in their life. And I think that's a, in addition to being impossible, like that's not actually, I also, as you say, I don't think that's the goal. And I think it gives our kids really too little credit for being autonomous and interesting people on their own.

And I mean, as you say, right, like we don't know what our kids are going to take away. There's this like Instagram thing that I see sometimes the idea of like, you're going to like, I'm creating core memories for my kid. I think like, yeah, that's not how that works, right? Like the stuff that my kids remember is not usually what I intended them to remember for good or for bad, you know? And it's a long game. I think if you try to make either an afternoon or a childhood perfect, you're kind of doomed to fail. Couldn't agree more. I always want to be careful because one of the things

that is clear in this podcast is how we define a woman's work is up to the individual. Like I always say, you're the decider. Whatever brings you joy, lights you up from the inside, whatever makes you feel the sun, that is what your definition of woman's work is, and to do it authentically. So I know that there are women who find mostly joy,

I don't know that anybody who find mostly joy, I don't know that anybody finds 100% joy, you could not convince me otherwise, but mostly joy in some of these more traditional mother roles or that they decide with their partner, you're going to work and I'm gonna be responsible for home. And everybody has that opportunity to make that decision, but I struggle a little bit with the idea of, okay, let's just say, in that traditional role, husband goes and works,

and woman stays home and cares for the house. It's like, okay, but then the working hours are from 7.30 to 5.30 or whatever, and the parenting hours begin at 530 and go till 730. And that is a joint... It was a joint decision, most likely. It's a joint effort. It's joint participation. And that does not mean everybody does the same thing equally all the time.

But I just, I don't find it cute anymore when fathers don't know how to basically care for their children. And I find it even less cute when mothers enable that behavior. I mean, I've had a couple of conversations with like some of the women in my life, not close friends, but like, you know,

moms from my kid's school who, you know, sometimes, I don't know, I don't want to get into this place where we're blaming women for things, but I do think there's a narrative that's really easy to hook yourself into about, oh, what men can't do, they don't know how to do this, blah, blah, blah. I think in some ways it's because motherhood is a path to power for women in a culture that doesn't give us a lot of power. It is a way to feel like I am good, I am competent, I am doing what I'm supposed to do. So I don't want to totally dismiss that, but I have definitely had conversations with

women. My kids are in fourth and sixth grade now, so I have kids about my kids' ages. I'd be like, oh, my husband can't do that. He can't. I was going to go out of town overnight and I had to do all this stuff to get him ready. And I'd be like, did you marry a child? Like why, like that is not, that's not someone I would stay married to, I don't think. And so it's a very tricky, like how do you shift those responsibilities

if you're unhappy with it? But maybe some of those women are actually happy to be, to have control over the house and the domain and to feel like they know. Yes. So, hey, if that's working for you, live it up. But I don't love it. So I'm so glad you said it that way, because yes, that

would not work for me. I would not stay in that situation. But that is a me deciding for me situation, and everybody gets to decide for themselves. And you're right. There definitely are some women who that is their choice, and that's what brings situation, and everybody gets to decide for themselves, and you're right. There definitely are some women who that is their choice, and that's what brings them joy and happiness and more power to you as long as that's the case.

And I'm so glad that you said that because I get frustrated, clearly you can probably hear it, because I think we as women are doing a lot of harm to each other in this space. There's so much judgment. I know I feel it directed towards me, and I also feel it with other moms.

Like, it's this weird thing that I'm, like, trying to stop doing. And my intention is not to blame women, My intention is not to blame women and to understand that a lot of this was determined for us, but not by us. Mm-hmm. And we're kind of playing these roles that have been forced in our general direction.

Yes. And for those of us who choose that role willingly and with joy, great, but I'm more trying to speak to the people who don't or don't want to choose it. I mean, I think it's important to keep in mind that we have all of these structures that make not just motherhood, but family life incredibly hard in America. We have this culture that says we're pro-family and we love moms and we think we're doing the most important job in the world, but we don't have paid leave.

Child care is incredibly expensive if you can even find it in a lot of places. And I know that accessibility of childcare has gotten so much worse since the pandemic. The school day, like even once your kids get to school, that school day ends at three o'clock. There's random half days, there's breaks. Our culture and our actual just like structures

of the work day and the school day and everything else are not set up for people to be able to easily work and raise a family. And I don't know, in some ways, like maybe that's the real enemy. It's not like kind of working moms versus stay-at-home moms or like moms versus dads. It's like these bigger structures that make our lives so hard. Yes. Yeah, they aren't designed. So much has changed and evolved. Lots of progress has been made, but not necessarily in the systems and the structures that would support a dual working

household or a single parent or, yeah, it's really tough. So one of the things I noticed that you had said that I just wanted to talk a little bit more about is the institution of motherhood is kind of a scam, but getting to be a mom can be pretty amazing. There's that duality or that paradox. Let's talk a little bit about that. What do you mean? I just, I mean, I think so when I'm talking about the institution of motherhood, I'm thinking about like all of these pressures that you articulated so clearly, right? Which are

almost always so much more about what we think things should look like, the kind of performance of, like, look at my kids' cute lunchbox, look at our matching Christmas jammies, the stuff that we feel like oftentimes we're supposed to do in order to be good. A lot of that stuff is super don't know, is super stressful, is expensive, is time consuming, and doesn't actually bring people joy.

I mean, if matching Christmas jammies bring you joy, live it up. But I think that it's really easy to get caught up in a performance of motherhood that's about other people's expectations. I did make my own baby food with my first and now I'm like, what were you doing? Although hilariously, I had these little molds that I would freeze the purees in with the organic apples from the farmers market. My goodness. And I have to say, I have a couple friends who lovingly and joyfully made their kids baby food.

And again, I think what you're saying more articulately than I am is if it brings you joy, great. Yes. If it's coming from a place of pressure, performing what it looks like to others, not great. Yes, like needing to learn to listen to our own inner voice. And I think it was fine. Although I will say like those little ice cube trays are great for cocktails. Now I thought about that. I was like, well, hey, here we are, you know, 11 years later, still using it. But I think the thing, the thing that I have really discovered, and then

I think sometimes gets lost in conversations about motherhood. Once we start talking, like kind of being honest about how hard it is, because that's true. And I'm glad that people are being really honest in a lot of ways about the particular hardships is also like the real joy. Like I have experienced experience daily, like joy and get so much meaning out of my relationships with my kids. meaning out of my relationships with my kids. And that has nothing to do with like,

did they eat a whole rainbow of fruits and vegetables? Like someone on Instagram said they were supposed to, are they participating in an appropriate array of after school curriculars? Like all of those things that I think we're supposed to do or that feel like we're supposed to, like that's not what brings me joy. It's like my particular weird, interesting kids,

like getting to know them and getting to see them know me, like that is an incredible source of meaning in my life. And I think focusing on this stuff in the institution really makes it hard to experience that. My version of that is my child is one of my top two favorite humans on the planet and she's not my whole world. Yes. It's this both and it can feel paradoxical, but I think that's a distinction that's really important for me. Now, I cannot let you go without talking about this one thing that does sort of fall under this nostalgic category

or historical category, but I think we've forgotten about it, and that's this idea of community in parenting. If you look back in history, all sorts of history, there is more of this women and community and family and friends coming together and sort of this concept of the village, right? Whereas I think somehow it's evolved into, as you said earlier, this solo adventure where we might delegate a little bit here or there,

but it's this idea that I'm supposed to be the end all be all. Where does community play a part in dismantling the good mother myth? I love that question. In my own life, especially as a young mother in the first year or two of my kids' lives, like the friends who would come to hang out with us, and we were kind of the opposite of you, we were the first of our friends to have out with us. And we were kind of the opposite of you. We were the first of our friends to have kids, which

was hard in some ways, but it was also really convenient in other ways, because it meant that we had lots of friends who had free time who could just hang out, which is amazing, because they didn't have their own kids to be home and take care of. And those are the people who saved my life, the people who would just come like, hold the baby. I mean, we had a good friend who is a man still doesn't have kids, but is like the most engaged kind of

uncle to lots of kids in his life. And he came over when my son was probably like, I don't know, five, six days old, maybe a little bit older than that. But at a stage where he was just crying all the time. And he was like, well, I don't really know what to do with that baby, but I can bring over. He brought over like a flank steak and grilled it, and then held the baby so that I could eat. And that, I think, is what we, and man, that's above and beyond, but I think it's that kind of,

people who will hang out with you is so much more valuable than the kind of experts and advice and the right way to do it that I think a lot of us spend our time looking for. Because if you have a community, if you have people who will just hang out with you, it's messy and it's vulnerable. And like, hey, who knows what I looked like or what I was even

saying at that point. But that's, I think, how you really, that's the kind of support I think that a lot of new parents really need. And then I'll say also it's really hard to build. I mean, we were in a uniquely lucky spot when our kids were born. We had a lot of good friends.

I was in grad school. We knew a lot of people who had pretty flexible work schedules. We lived in a small city where it was really easy to get to someone else's house. And I think that is not true for a lot of families in America, right? A lot of us work really long days. A lot of us have long commutes.

A lot of us have moved for work and don't have friends nearby. So I think finding that community can be really hard, but if you're willing to show up in person and be vulnerable, that I think is where parenting can also get a lot more joyful. Couldn't agree more, both as a mom, and also I would add for my child, because there is something

to be said for all the unique different things that JJ has learned from the village. Like we had a nanny for a couple years who spoke to her in Spanish. She doesn't speak Spanish today, but she is way more open to languages and you know, all that. We, you know, I'm 100% sure that Daniel Tiger taught my child potty training. Like it was not me.

It was Daniel Tiger. My mom taught her ABCs before I even thought that was a possibility. Like, there's just so much to sharing that there are different ways and different styles and different skills and different things that relieves the burden that we have to do and know it all. One last thing I want to throw out there, again, kind of in this weird thing that we have to do and know it all. One last thing I want to throw out there,

again, kind of in this weird thing that we do about romanticizing motherhood of old. Back in the day, moms had all sorts of mental health issues that weren't being talked about. And even today, I think that this idea of pressure and performative experience and all the things that we put on ourselves, anxiety as moms, are contributing

and playing a part in our mental health. So how important is it to dismantle this good mother myth for our mental and emotional wellbeing? I mean, I think it's really essential. I think that the mythology we have around motherhood makes it really hard to reach out for help. And it makes it really hard to understand what kind of help you might want. I mean, not to end on a downer note, but like I really thought in the first couple of weeks and months of motherhood, like my problem was I just

was just bad at it. Like I was just a bad mom. I shouldn't have had kids. I needed to get my act together and figure it out. And now I'm like, man, you could have used some therapy, girl. That would have really, I don't know. And I had been to therapy. This is the thing that's crazy. I think about maternal mental health in particular

is that we don't really take seriously enough what an enormous transformation it is. I mean, the things that happen in your body and in your brain as a result of pregnancy and giving birth are amazing. It's like a second adolescence in a lot of ways. And even if you didn't give birth, the actual labor of caregiving changes your brain. And I think that we don't take that developmental stage

from moms and new parents generally nearly seriously enough. I mean, the idea that you give birth to a tiny person, and then you go home and they're like, good luck. They're just, I don't know, maybe everybody needs needs like a therapist to the first, you know, or whatever kind of mental health support. Or at the very least an awareness

of what a big transition it is and how much variety of support we might need and all the things we might be feeling. I mean, I can't tell you how much I relate. I can vividly remember JJ being only a couple weeks old and sobbing, like not crying, full body sobbing in my mom's arms saying, I don't think I was meant to do this.

I genuinely believed I had made a huge grand mistake, like that I was not equipped. And God, that was like the worst feeling in the whole world. And I wouldn't wish that on anybody. And yet I think it's a pretty common experience and that breaks my heart. And we have a lot of work to do about that, yeah? Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. I could talk to you forever, Nancy, but I think... And if you're still with us, if I haven't pissed you off, and please don't blame Nancy for my very aggressive comments, but absolutely get your hands on her book, The Good Mother Myth, available on Amazon or go to your local bookstore. Let's keep them in business. And if you want to get even more of Nancy and her work, you can visit her sub stack, which is write more, be less careful. We'll put the links to all of those things in show notes. And Nancy, thank you so much for your time

and your openness and patience with me, just blurting out whatever is going on in my mind. Thank you so much. This is a great conversation. My pleasure. All right, friends, here's the deal. There is no one size fits all when it comes to motherhood or anything else for that matter. If you want to be the Pinterest mom

who bakes organic gluten-free muffins in the shape of woodland creatures, amazing. As long as that's your desire and it brings you moments of joy, not because you feel pressured by the shoulds or because you're trying to keep up with some other mom on Instagram, for example. You want to be the mom who orders takeout three nights in a row because you're too tired to cook?

That's fabulous, too. You don't want to be a mom at all? Also fantastic. Because the truth is, being a good mom or a good human isn't about fitting into some outdated mold or meeting anyone else's expectations. It's about doing what works for you, your family, and your life. Whether you're rocking career goals, mom goals, or just trying to keep your head above water, you get to decide. And if anyone has a problem with how you do that, well, that sounds like a them problem

to me, not a you problem. I know you want the best for your kids, so a loving reminder that all humans learn best by experience and observation. So are your kids experiencing parenthood in a way that you'd want them to emulate if they decide to have kids? Because they will emulate. So how about we don't pass on the pressure, perfection, expectations, guilt, and shame to our sons and our daughters. Let's model something instead that feels good and that brings joy. At least most of the time. Because when you define what works for you, when you decide your own rules, when you prioritize what really matters most, you're not just doing woman's work, you're modeling it.

And all of that sounds like woman's work to me.