Tami Simon: Welcome to Insights at the Edge produced by Sounds True. My name is Tami Simon. I’m the founder of Sounds True and I’d love to take a moment to introduce you to the new Sounds True Foundation.
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You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is Ericka Sóuter. Ericka has over 20 years of journalism experience and is a nationally recognized voice in parenting news and parenting advice. She’s a frequent contributor on Good Morning America and other national broadcast outlets. It’s her job to speak to parents across the country to stay on top of the issues, trends, and controversies that are most affecting new families today.
With Sounds True, Ericka has written a new book—and believe me, this book is beautifully written, informative, well-researched, and funny. It’s called How to Have a Kid and a Life: A Survival Guide. Ericka is a great, sober resource who helps us have a realistic set of expectations on what comes with becoming a new parent and how to navigate so that you keep the integrity of your own soul right at the center of the experience. Here’s my conversation with Ericka Sóuter.
Ericka, in your new book, How to Have a Kid and a Life, you write about something that you call the “parenting happiness gap” and I wanted to start there. What is this parenting happiness gap and how is it discovered?
Ericka Sóuter: OK. There’s this research done of 22 countries, and they discovered that the parents in the U.S. were the least happy of all the parents in all the countries that they interviewed. It’s this idea that when we become parents we’re supposed to be fulfilled and happy and it’s supposed to complete us in a way that nothing else can. But in reality, for some people, it is actually a source of a lot of conflict, a lot of unhappiness, and a lot of stress. What they found was that while the people they interviewed were grateful to have families and they felt that this was important thing to do with their lives, they were not on a daily basis very happy because of all the stress that being a parent entails or includes.
TS: Now, just to share with you and our listeners here, for those people who don’t know me—and, Ericka, you and I are just getting to know each other—I don’t have any children and was never drawn to it.
But what’s interesting to me is that I’m on a leadership team with 13 people and a couple of them are moms and what I’ve heard, really, more so in the last five to eight years with people I work with, is women especially being willing to talk about this parenting happiness gap, this confusion of feelings, this whole group of feelings that they have that it’s not just one thing like, “Oh my God, I love being a mom.” Why is it only in the last less than a decade, do you think, that these conversations are surfacing?
ES: Well, I think that there has been historically a lot of expectation on how you’re supposed to think of parenthood and how you’re supposed to talk about parenthood. And if you talk about it in any kind of negative way, there’s instant shame or guilt.
I remember when I became a parent, and I was shocked by the experience. I was never one of those children who played with baby dolls or dreamed of a wedding or played house. My first child was actually the first diaper I’d ever changed. I was so career-driven up until that point, I found the transition to parenthood really hard.
I remember, I’m still on maternity leave and I went out to dinner with my husband, his boss, and the boss’s wife, and she was like, “How is new parenthood?” And I was like, “Honestly, it is so hard. I can’t believe people continue to do this. I’m really going crazy. I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m stressed out all the time.” She laughed and gave me some advice.
But on the way home, my husband was like, “Oh, my God. That was so embarrassing. You sounded ungrateful. We should be so grateful that we have this baby.” I thought there’s just instant shame because I was being honest, because someone asked me a question—and that’s how I’ve led my entire life, with honesty—but there was this instant shame connected with being honest about parenthood or the struggles or the hard times.
I think that in the last decade, things have evolved because we all have our own platforms. We can talk about our experiences and share our experiences to a larger audience from our home. I think that emboldens people and it also lets us know that other people are feeling the same way.
Now, it used to be that we had to interact by going out and meeting people at a church group or on the playground or at work or something like that. You can actually interact with people all over the world online and I think that emboldened people and makes people more willing to express themselves and share themselves because they know they’re not alone.
TS: Now, I’m going to read a quote from the beginning of your book that once again is about this parenting happiness gap, because I have to be honest with you, it floored me. I read it out loud to my wife when I read it.
“A 2015 German study found that being a parent actually creates more unhappiness than divorce, unemployment, or even the death of a spouse.” I think it was that last sentence that made me want to fall off my chair, that I don’t think I realized, honestly, that being a parent was that hard for people. Help me understand—when you see something like the results from this German study, how you make sense of it?
ES: Well, I think it’s an issue of expectation versus reality, to be perfectly honest, and I think that before when we’re planning to have children and we’re thinking about having children, we’re thinking about the nuts and bolts of raising a family and getting all the supplies we need and having the perfect nursery and you’re thinking about all these really fun, sweet instances of what it’s going to be like to raise a child. But when you actually have a child and you’re living and working and raising a family, all these other realities come into place.
The US makes it very difficult to be a working parent. We have poor paternity and maternity leaves, vacation time is scarce, the sick leave policies in a lot of places aren’t adequate, we have unsubsidized healthcare, all of these things go into being a parent much harder than any of us expect because, again, when we are planning to have a family, we’re not always thinking about “Who’s going to take off if my kid gets the croup or gets sick or needs to go to the doctor? How do I balance my time off? Do I have enough sick time or vacation time stored up?” All those things come into play when you talk about the reality of having a child and that’s what makes this parenting happiness gap so real.
TS: You talk about in How to Have a Kid and a Life that part of your goal was to help people have a realistic set of expectations for what it’s going to be like. You compare it to knowing that a speed bump is coming up ahead. If you’re unprepared, of course, for the speed bump, you go, “Whoa!” But if you’re prepared, you know to slow down. In that regard, help me understand what the key realities were that you wanted to help people know before they have a child or as they’re in the process of starting their family, “This is the speed bump you’re going to have to be aware of.”
ES: I think that one of the things when we’re prepping to have families is that we have to be aware of everything, and I think for a lot of us, we are not. We’re told to read books and blogs and articles about how to take care of a child. We buy the best strollers, we buy the best car seats, we make sure we have bottle warmers and sterilizers, and all those kinds of things. We do take maternity leave if we’re granted maternity leave. But we don’t prepare for the transformation that happens to ourselves.
I think one of the things that’s really important is that you have a newborn in your house but that’s not the only new person. When you become a mother or a parent, you also become a new person. I think that we’re not prepared enough for that. It’s like a roller coaster. Lots of things change: your career, your relationship with your spouse, your relationship with friends who don’t have kids, and those are things we don’t talk about and those are things we don’t prepare for. When those things hit us, the air is knocked out of us, and it can be hard to cope with. That’s why I wanted to provide a conversation starter.
In a lot of the chapters, I give you questions to ask, questions to ask your spouse, things like what do they think about discipline. I found out a lot of parents I talked to, they never talked about what their discipline rules were or how often grandparents visit or how involved grandparents would be or even things like will we allow sleep overs. There are arguments that start over these little kinds of things, and they’re all-important considerations.
You have to know what to expect in order to go more smoothly into the process. That’s what I meant by the speed bump. You have to get this information so you know what’s coming so that you can more, it’s not going to be perfect, but that you can more smoothly maneuver into parenthood.
TS: You introduced this interesting word “matrescence,” I don’t know if I’m saying it right, but comparing becoming a new mom to a biological whole-body change, like adolescence, but different for the mom experience. What was matrescence like for you?
ES: It’s so funny. I’ve asked that question a million times and no one’s ever asked me that, so thank you for that.
It was very hard because—I know it’s going to sound strange—but I didn’t expect my personal life to change outside of having a kid. I thought my career would pick up where it was; I thought I’d still be able to have some of those professional goals and personal goals that I had before—and there wasn’t the time and there wasn’t the bandwidth for those things.
There was that part of matrescence which was learning that my life wasn’t what it used to be, but then also learning how to take care of someone else and understand that human’s needs. I hadn’t been around a lot of babies, and I found it really hard at first and it was just a learning process the whole way. I guess I thought I was more prepared than I was. For me, matrescence meant learning how to accept the new me along with my new baby and then grow into the person I needed to be for both of us.
TS: Now, Ericka, you’re a very successful journalist, writer, having worked on the staff of People magazine, other publications, you’re the parenting expert for Good Morning America, and here you make the decision you’re going to write a book, How to Have a Kid and a Life, after you have two children of your own. Why did you decide that you wanted to do this? “This is so important. I want to do it.” And then how did you go about it?
ES: Well, the seeds for this were set years before I actually decided to write the book. I had written an article when I was an editor at CafeMom and it was entitled, “Discovery of ‘Mom Gene’ May Explain Why Some of Us Don’t Crave Having Kids.” I was fascinated by this discovery.
These researchers at Rockefeller University had found this gene in mice that also human women have. When this gene was suppressed, these mice were not nurturing, they did not show the same kind of maternal instinct that other mice did who had the gene actually activated. I thought, “This is really interesting. Could this be why some of us find motherhood a little harder or doesn’t come as natural?”
I wrote about it, and the reaction I got was amazing. People wrote into me saying, “I feel the same way. I’ve never really been able to express it. I’ve always wondered if I had the mom gene.” That’s what set the seeds for this book. That’s when I knew that there were topics that we weren’t really addressing that were really important for women and people who are thinking about motherhood or people who are already mothers. So, while I was at CafeMom working on those stories it was a really wonderful place to work and meet a lot of women and mothers, and really dive into the whole motherhood experience. But I decided to take a step back and work part time so that I could interview moms across the country, and experts and therapists, and attend mommy meetups and mom conventions, and go to the museum of motherhood, and all of these things, so that I could really dive into this topic and figure out what this book was going to be. It was really like the book developed as I interviewed and met with mothers across the country.
TS: What surprised you the most about the 125 formal interviews you conducted plus all the mom meetups you went to? What surprised you the most?
ES: I think what surprised me the most was that so many women didn’t have the support network that they crave. What I mean by that is that a lot of women had mom friends or people who are there to help them, but they still felt alone and struggling. I also spent a chapter focusing on finding the right kind of support. It’s like just because your womb was occupied at the same time as another woman doesn’t mean you guys are going to be besties. There’s a lot more that goes into making a real connection and a profound connection than just having a kid around the same age. I think for me it was sad to meet so many women who still felt so alone or lonely, and that that was really surprising.
TS: You mentioned that it was this question of, is there something called the mom gene, and do certain women have it? And do certain women like me, maybe—“me” being Tami, but “me” also being Ericka, and maybe other people who are listening—not have the mom gene?” As you dug into this, where are you at with this? Is there such a thing as the mom gene? Is this a genetic reality?
ES: At first, I wanted to believe that the mom gene was 100 percent the answer I was looking for, that if you can figure out how to activate this gene, you’re going to create one kid who’s going to be the most nurturing person in the world and that this is going to make motherhood easier.
But the fact is, is that motherhood—parenthood—is just much more nuanced than that. There are so many other factors beyond biology because when I talked to parents who didn’t have biological children—they have adopted children or they’re taking care of children that family members could not take care of—some of these same issues still came into place. So, no, I do not think that there is.
The science, I think, is really interesting. There may be something that the scientists label a mom gene but is it something that determines whether or not you’ll be a good mom? No. Or a good parent? No. Because I think our experiences are so much more nuanced.
What I found was that how you were raised, your belief system, where you live, how you communicate with your spouse, what kind of work you do, all of those play a part in how difficult or easy motherhood can be.
TS: Now, Ericka, what I found in reading your book is that not only are you a terrific writer and journalist, but you’re also really like “oh my God, I’m going to laugh out loud” funny. I want our listeners to get a sense of the writing that’s inside How to Have a Kid and a Life, and there’s a chapter in the book called “Not Every Woman Has the Mom Gene: What to Really Expect—Being Maternal May Not Come as Naturally as You Expect.”
I know you’re not prepared for this, but if you could turn to page 152 and just start reading at the second paragraph and all the way down to the bottom of the page.
ES: Starting with “Not surprisingly?”
TS: Yes.
ES: OK. “Not surprisingly, breastfeeding is another emotional touchstone. In the moments leading up to every feeding of Aidan, my second child, I swear I heard the theme music from Psycho, knowing that my poor nipple would be gnawed to within an inch of its existence.
“It’s supposed to be the most natural thing a woman can do, but studies suggest many women struggle with it. According to a study that included 1,011 mother-and-newborn pairs, about 85 percent of pregnant women intend to breastfeed for at least three months, but only a third actually make it that long.
New moms quit for several reasons including worrying the baby’s not getting enough to eat, going back to work, and difficulty even getting the baby to latch. It’s hard not to think, “I’m a failure. I’m terrible at this.”
Part of the problem is that women feel they cannot express how shitty the experience is without looking like a bad mom. It’s a dilemma many relate to. Becoming a mother made me feel like I was a passenger on that carnival ride that’s been so fast the gravitational force keeps you stuck to the wall. I was scared and uncertain of how I would feel from one moment to the next, and there was an all-consuming anxiety that I was never doing anything well—not mothering, not marriage, and certainly not work.”
TS: I’m telling you. You can just keep reading this book. It goes down so smoothly.
On the next page you write, “Perhaps the most important lesson you can take away from this book is that love is innate. Parenting skills are not. They are learned.” Of course, any sentence that begins “Perhaps, the most important lesson you can take away from this book” has my attention. “Parenting skills are learned.” What do you feel after all the interviews you did—and of course, your own life as the mother for two children—are the most important parenting skills that people need to pay attention to, the skills they need to learn?
ES: I have a manifold answer. I feel like number one is being patient with your child and with yourself. There are so many times we’re frustrated, or we feel like something’s not going right, or we don’t know how to fix it; but what we have to do is take a step back and breathe and know that no one is perfect. Everyone is struggling with this. I found that so many mothers didn’t see that. It was hard for them to see other people who are struggling with the same thing. It’s because we often hide that from other people. I want mothers to give themselves a little grace and be patient with themselves and their children.
I think that the other really important thing is that it’s OK not to love life 100 percent of the time. It’s OK not to love being a parent 100 percent of the time. I think that’s been a big problem for a lot of moms. They feel so guilty when they aren’t happy with how things are going, or they’re disappointed in how things are going; but that’s OK too, because life isn’t perfect and we all make mistakes—even people who seem like they’re the perfect parent with the perfect family, the perfect life. I’ve been in their homes. I’ve talked to them and it’s not perfect. I’m telling you that. It’s really understanding that you’re not alone as well.
TS: It’s interesting. Of course, talking to someone who’s conducted 125 interviews, we have these fantasies about people, but you got in there and people told you the real story. You have an insider’s look in a certain way.
ES: Yes. […] We’re in the age of social media, and so we look at things and we think it’s reality, but it’s not. It’s very surface—we have to remember that when we’re seeing other people or other moms.
One of the biggest things that I found that moms do on a daily basis is compare themselves to other moms. “So and so always look so together,” or “So and so’s kids are so well behaved and mine are not,” or “So and so’s husband takes her on these trips and I don’t get to go.” There are all these things that we’re comparing ourselves to. In reality, every single family I talked to had something going on that they were uncomfortable sharing with the world or things that they were struggling with or things that were really hard for them.
Actually, that’s probably one of the most important lessons that a new parent (or parent in general) can have, is to understand that everyone is struggling. Everyone has struggles when it comes to parenting and that we’d have to learn every day when we make mistakes or things go wrong or when things go right. We have to learn how to parent based on those experiences and that’s OK, we don’t have to have the answers right away. We can learn as we go along.
TS: Yes. There were a lot of insights that I got from your book How to Have a Kid and a Life, and also, just to see in the title—it means it can be done, right? You’re having two kids and a life. It can be done.
ES: It can be done. It actually can be—ut you also notice the stork is dropping a bomb, right?
TS: That’s on the cover of the book in the word “How.”
ES: It’s in the cover of the book, yes.
TS: The O is a little grenade about to … yes.
ES: Yes. It is. It is possible but it takes work. That’s one of the things. In every book, I have a new to do list. It doesn’t miraculously happen. Everything takes work. So you want to have a kid, want to have a life, you want to feel more fulfilled, I’m a big advocate in putting yourself back on top of your to-do list.
I think that oftentimes parenthood can leave us feeling swallowed up whole like everything that used to make us who we were is just gone now because we don’t have time to focus on those things. But all the research that I found, all the experts I talked to, the scientists, the social workers, the therapists, all of them, what I learned was that if you don’t focus on your own happiness, it has profound effect on your children. Happy parents have happy children. It is a very simple statement and it’s absolutely true.
One of the things I learned when I was interviewing moms when they were very unhappy and they felt like, “Well, it’s not about me; it’s about my kids.” But their kids saw how unhappy they were, they saw how just burned out they were. I think a lot of parents think that that doesn’t affect their kids, but it does. That’s one of the reasons I want to advocate having a kid and a life, but it takes work to have that life. We have to do things to put your needs in line or parallel to the needs of the rest of your family.
TS: It seems like it’s fair to say you have to not take on the martyr archetype, that the martyr is not going to get you to a kid and a life.
ES: No. Being a martyr is only going to burn you out and make you resentful. You have to do things. I asked a simple question: Do you have any hobbies that have nothing to do with your children? Do you have any interests that you can focus on that aren’t parent-related? Do you still connect socially with people in a non-parenting type situation? Do you have something that you love doing for yourself?
It could be taking a pottery class. It could be bowling. I’m not saying you have to climb Mount Everest—although I would love to do that, but I’m not saying you have to do that to be fulfilled—but you have to do something for yourself that’s apart from being a mom to help you feel more fulfilled.
That’s what I learned from the interviews I did with women. There were some women who felt that being a mother was the thing that completed them and that they didn’t need to do anything else. But many of those women also had social lives apart from their kids where they still did things for themselves even if it wasn’t about having another job, but it was about doing something for themselves on a regular basis so that they felt they also had a life.
TS: You also emphasized that it’s doing things for yourself and doing things for your marriage, if you’re in an intimate relationship, and you cited some interesting studies that children do so much better when their parents are happy. You write, “Perhaps, it’s time we realized that making our partnerships”—and this is what you wrote—“our top priority”—I thought that was big—“is what’s best for our kids. If our kids benefit from a happy marriage, shouldn’t we put our marriage first?”
ES: Yes. I know that’s going to get some reaction. I don’t mean abandoning your kids or only focusing on your partner, but you have to nurture all of your relationships. So many times we focus solely on our children and we neglect that other part of ourselves. I’m not talking about neglecting your partner—because you’re in a partnership for a reason, you get something out of that partnership as well.
A lot of moms talked about intimacy going away, like not holding hands or not even hugging in the morning or not really focusing on something going on in each other’s lives or something that’s important to one another because you’re so involved with your children. If you’re in a partnership and your children see that partnership every day, it is important that you nurture that partnership because you want them to feel that love, and you also want to model what kind of relationship that you want them to have later in life.
There are a lot of things that go into why nurturing your partnership is important for your needs and your companionship and your intimacy needs but also for your children.
TS: Now, you said yes, even if there’s a bomb in the center, How to Have a Kid and a Life, it can be done but it takes a lot of work. I’m curious to know, for you personally, when you think of “Here, the three biggest things I’ve done in my own life to say, ‘I’m going to have a kid and a life. This is the work I’ve committed to,’“ what are they?
ES: The three biggest things I’ve done, I have created a village for myself, not just for my children. I feel like I have a support network that helps me through tough times, through loss of a parent, through a tough pregnancy, through changes in jobs, through ups and downs in your marriage. You have to create a supportive network so that you feel that you have someone or some people to lean on and I’ve created that for myself, and I think that’s really important.
Not all these people have children. They’re not all mommy friends. Mom friends are incredibly important (I write about that), but it’s also good to nurture relationships with people who don’t have children and I feel like I have done that as well.
I think the other thing is that I loved my career. I love being a writer and I didn’t want to give that up, and sometimes I have to choose; I have to choose what takes priority that day. Is it going to be a soccer game? Or is it doing these interviews I need for this deadline I have for a story that’s due? It’s OK that sometimes I have to choose work over the soccer game. I am there for my children 96.2 percent of the time but when I have a work responsibility, that’s also important to me as well.
I’m not embarrassed by that anymore. It used to be that I was embarrassed that I would sometimes choose work over some kind of family responsibility but I’m happy when I’m writing. I admit that and I embrace that and so I’ve created a work life for myself that I’m proud of.
I think the third is my relationship with my partner, my spouse. We have been married now for 18 years and we’ve grown up together, and maintaining that connection and putting energy and effort into maintaining that connection is important. It’s hard. It’s not easy, especially with all the things we have going on—work, kids, aging parents, that kind of thing—but we make time for each other.
It’s simple. It’s like asking each other every day, “What happened today? Anything crazy happen today? What’s the latest gossip among your friends? Or what crazy thing happened at work?” It’s having conversations, it’s communicating, and caring for one another. Those three things are—I wouldn’t say it’s a perfect balance (there’s never a perfect balance)—but to know when to give to those three things, I feel very proud of, and I feel very happy about.
TS: The first thing you mentioned—having your own village, not just a village for your kids but for yourself, and that the thing that surprised you the most from the interviews that you did was how alone so many moms felt—how did you go about creating this village? What are your recommendations for someone who’s listening who doesn’t have that?
ES: Yes. Especially in the last year, it’s been really hard for people I think but as the world opens up again it really just involves putting yourself out there. I was always growing up afraid of rejection, and I feel like it took a lot of maturing to not be so afraid of rejection and to feel like I could put myself out there.
I would suggest meeting people. I met people at playgrounds, I met people in my apartment building who had kids, I see someone who has a kid around the same age, and I’d say, “Hey, do you want to get coffee together and take the kids to the park?” I volunteered at church and at school. I’m not saying I got best friends out of all these incidents. Some of these people I don’t talk to anymore, we just didn’t vibe, we didn’t click, but you have to put yourself out there.
I think another really important thing I learned in addition to actually meeting with moms in person—I joined lots of online mom groups, and that connection shocked me because they would reach out in the middle of the night upset about something and just needing a pat on the back or comforting words or encouraging words, and these communities are really strong and sometimes, they’re like, “Is there anyone in the New Jersey area who would like to get together Saturday at the park with the kids?” People would say yes, and they’d go and meet up.
Again, it takes effort. It takes time and effort and putting yourself out there. But if you’re lonely, I guarantee you, there are a million other lonely people, parents, who are looking for that same kind of connection. It takes time and it takes effort and you’re going to have to have probably several meetings and interaction with someone to really give them a chance and know whether or not they’re the right fit for you but it’s possible. You just have to do it.
TS: The second point you made was making time and being willing at times to prioritize your work in the world, your deadlines as a writer, and you said that you used to feel—I think you use the word “embarrassed”—about that, that you’re making that a priority. I thought of the person who doesn’t feel embarrassed—they feel guilty. They feel guilty about, let’s just say, how much they love their work, how much it gives them, how fulfilling it is, and that they’re choosing that at times. What would you say to that guilt that someone feels?
ES: You have to grow into someone who understands that they like their work, and it fulfills an important part of who you are; and if that’s the case, you should be proud of that.
I actually talked to a mom—her name’s Gae. She’s in the book. And she is a very high-powered attorney, and she was debating whether or not she should continue working because it’s like, “I feel so guilty. I love my job. I love my work—but am I not seeing my kids enough? Am I not giving them enough of me?” And then one day, her son was like, “Mommy, can boys be lawyers too? Because I think your job is so cool.” That made her realize that she is actually creating an amazing example for them, and they were proud of her, and they were happy that she was happy.
Sometimes, we beat ourselves up with all these rules of how we’re supposed to be—and how we’re supposed to be as mothers—but the fact of the matter is there’s no one right way to be a good parent. If there was and I figured that out, I would write a book about that and sell a gazillion copies.
But what works for you and your family could be different for what works for another family. For Gae, her boys seeing her work and love for what she does, that’s when she realized she was doing the right thing, that she had made the right choice and it was OK to be proud and interested and invested in her career, and her family wasn’t suffering because of it. I think that you have to take a look at what you do and what it gives you and then also what you give your children and know that they’ll be fine and it’s OK for you to want that for yourself.
TS: I want to read another quote from the book that stunned me and that goes exactly with what you’re saying here. Here’s what you write.
“Researchers say that a mom’s satisfaction with her life is more important to a child’s social and emotional skills than how much money she has, the amount of time she spends with them, or whether she is a working or stay at home mom. The point is your happiness matters.”
I’ll just say personally if people get nothing else out of this podcast and have listened to this point, I think really getting this how much our happiness matters and is such a big influence in the lives of the people we touch, our family’s lives. Do you have anything you want to add to that, “Your happiness matters?”
ES: It absolutely does. I think that happiness is going to have a different definition for every mom out there. I talked to moms who did want to go back to work full time or who work crazy hours every week but then they make sure they dedicate all their weekends—or they never miss a recital or play date or a game. You have to figure out what it is that makes you happy.
Actually, I have a questionnaire for moms about this. How do you figure out what that is? Because sometimes I talk to a lot of moms who are like, “I know I want something else. I know I need something else. I can’t figure out what that is.” I have a bunch of questions that you should ask yourself to help you weave through this question.
TS: What kind of questions?
ES: Some of the questions that can help you figure out what it is you want to do: When you were a little girl, what did you want to be when you grew up? What is your dream job? Other than your children and what fulfills you, what do you think you need to be happy? If you never try to reach your goal, how would it feel? What do you think is holding you back? What can you do to get closer to your goal? What was your dream before you had children? If you could divide up your day in any way you wanted, what would it look like? Name three things you do for you and only you. What do you think is your purpose in your family? What is your purpose beyond your family life? What made you most proud before you had kids? What change do you want to see in your life?
These questions are to spark a way of thinking about your life and what you’re interested in and what you may need to nurture another part of yourself because, again, the answer is going to be different for everyone. We can’t work toward having this kid and a life without examining what our lives are like now and what we want to change.
TS: It seems like a lot of us were born into families where our mothers did everything for us and they weren’t concerned with this notion, at least they didn’t speak about it—for many people, I’m just saying, this is a generalization—about having a kid and a life. They were just there for their kids. This is what was modeled for us, and it seems to me that really what you’re describing in some way is a cultural sea change that we’re right in the middle of. I wonder if you see it that way that we can’t mirror necessarily how we were raised depending on who we are, of course, but for many of us, yes.
ES: Absolutely. At the start of my interviews for the book, I’d ask people, “What was your mom like? Describe your mom.” There were always these glowing adjectives: selfless, beautiful, kind, hardworking—the way we often describe our mothers. Then I asked people to dig a little deeper. I said, “Well, don’t talk about that aspect of your mom, but tell me what do you think she felt like at the end of the day—or what do you think she did when no one was around? How do you think she felt when she finally got to sit down at the end of the day?”
The responses were a little bit more nuanced. It was like, “Well, I think she was always tired because she did nothing but work to take care of us,” or “I never really saw her do anything for herself.” One woman said, “My mom wanted to go back to school, and I remember making her feel so guilty about it that she decided not to do it.”
We don’t realize it, but what I was concerned about was that we learned how to function as mothers based on the mothers that we saw growing up. We learn how to mother and nurture based on what we saw. My fear was that we are repeating those patterns of being so selfless that we don’t have time to nurture ourselves. And do we really want that?
I ask people, “If you have daughters, is that what you want for your daughters? Do you want to have children who feel as though their life is not supposed to include anything that makes them feel happy outside of family life? Don’t you want your children to feel more complete or whole and fulfilled?” And the answer, of course, was yes.
But yes, we do model what we see and what we learn. I think that’s probably a big problem, is that we learn from the early age that moms are self-sacrificing and love unconditionally, of course, and their main priority and their only priority is taking care of their family—and while taking care of your family is the most important priority you can have, it doesn’t have to be your only one. No. Being happy and fulfilled and being a good mom aren’t mutually exclusive.
TS: One thing I learned in How to Have a Kid and a Life—I didn’t realize this was going on—is something you described as “mommy wars,” that this war is going on between stay-at-home moms versus working moms. I didn’t realize this. Tell me how you learned about the mommy wars and what you discovered about this and how we make peace.
ES: The mommy wars have always been characterized as stay-at-home versus working. That’s something that I have read about for years, I’ve written about it before, I’ve talked to a lot of moms about it.
But what I find in 21st century parenting is that it’s not just stay-at-home versus working—every point of difference becomes a part of the mommy wars: it’s breast or bottle, it’s all organic or not organic, it’s baby-wearing versus not, it’s helicopter parenting versus a more hands-off approach.
What I found is that we’re in this competition—it’s like this mothering Olympics: who’s going to be the best, who’s going to come out on top. And that pits mothers against each other in a lot of circumstances.
I was talking to a mom. She joined a mom group, and all the moms made their own organic baby food, and she was thinking, “Oh, my God. They’re going to kick me out of this group, or they’re not going to talk to me if I don’t make my own baby food.” She would buy baby food from the grocery store and put it in her home containers so that no one knew that she was feeding her baby store-bought food.
There are all these different philosophies, and it pits mothers against each other. I think it’s this idea that if you’re doing something different than I’m doing, then that suggests I’m making the wrong decision. And no one wants to be wrong when it comes to parenting your child.
I think that the mommy wars have now evolved to include all of these things that people do differently as parents. I don’t understand why we just can’t accept that this person feeds her kid all organic food. I’m going to, once in a while, get my kids some fries from someplace and that’s OK. We can coexist and be fine. Or I don’t breastfeed for a year, and I give my kid a bottle, that’s also OK. I think that the mommy wars continue to exist because we can’t accept people’s different choices when it comes to parenting.
TS: Something I read in How to Have a Kid and a Life that got my attention that I hadn’t really thought about, that I think relates to this, is you write, “Nothing will make you more insecure than motherhood and the endless array of choices you have to make in order to give your child the best care possible.” So, if you’re really insecure, it’s more likely that you’ll be in this compare-and-attack because you don’t have your own ground.
I wonder if you can talk more about that, this whole notion [that] we can learn from each other, we don’t have to tear each other down because of differences, how women can break out of that comparing mind and, as you say, move more to just an acceptance of difference and feel their own security, feel their own ground.
ES: We have to start thinking of our motherhood choices as our own choices and someone has their choice but that’s not making a judgment on my own choice. We have to stop looking at ourselves and comparing ourselves. I can’t think of a better way to explain this, but it’s as though just because someone does something different, that doesn’t mean they’re saying what you’re doing is wrong, and it doesn’t mean that your child is going to turn out worse or not going to be as healthy or smart or successful later in life. It really boils down to us accepting other people’s choices and they don’t have to mirror our own.
TS: Can you give me an example from your own awareness of yourself of where you had a place where you weren’t accepting other people’s choices and how you came to have a more accepting view?
ES: Yes. One that comes to mind immediately is breastfeeding. Breastfeeding was torturous for me with both children. I just couldn’t understand what was so hard. Not only was it just hard to get them to latch, but I just was also a poor producer of milk. I would pump for an hour and get two ounces. It was torture. But I tried.
What I noticed is that when I would meet someone who breastfed for two years, initially I’d be judgmental, like, “Why would you breastfeed someone who can actually chew steak?” That’s what I was thinking. Or I couldn’t just wrap my head around that choice.
I noticed that I was being judgmental, but I was not being judgmental because they were making the wrong choice—I was judgmental because it was something I couldn’t do, and I felt insecure about it. I wanted to breastfeed for longer; it just didn’t work out for me. For whatever reason, my body would not cooperate with what I wanted to do.
I think that because I was so insecure about it I made these assumptions in my head. That was definitely something that I’m not proud of feeling that way initially but when I thought about it and reflected about it, it was a person…
I was at a yoga retreat, I met a woman who had breastfed, her child was five, and I remember thinking like, “Oh, my God, that’s crazy. I can’t believe she did that.” But I’m thinking that because I can’t do it like, “Why can she do that?”
I think that sometimes our own experiences dictate how we react to things, and we have to step back and be like, “That works for their family. That’s work for mine. But that works for their family and that’s OK.”
TS: Could you recommend, just to tie a little bow on this, for somebody who has a judgement about parent works all the time, or that parent stays home till they’re bored crazy, or that mom does X, Y, Z, or your breastfeeding judgment—who knows what they might come up with—how do they work with that skillfully, internally?
ES: OK. One of the things that you have to do is you have to think about how you want to be treated. You should really think about the way you want to be treated by other people that you interact with. You also have to think about where this judgment comes from. Does it come from a place of insecurity? Are you angry about it because of something that happened to you long ago or something that you’re experiencing right now?
I think before you say something mean in your head or even out loud or think something negative about another parent and their parenting choice, you really should think about, number one, how you want to be treated, but also, where’s this coming from? And is this a fair thing for you to do? And what are you getting out of making this snap judgment or nasty comment or not really giving this person the benefit of the doubt? It requires self-reflection, but you’re going to be a lot happier and you’re going to be a better person if you do—if you take that moment for yourself.
TS: Ericka, in your profession as a writer and a journalist, you went to something called the NotMom Summit, a safe space for child-free women, to talk about different choices, different paths. What did you learn going to the NotMom Summit and covering that story?
ES: I loved going to that summit. It was really fascinating. It was one of the first times where I was hoping that no one knew I was a mom, because everyone was just so happy to be together. It was so much fellowship.
What I learned was that people who are child-free, whether by choice or by chance, experienced a lot of hostility from the world. People question their choice not to have children or make them feel as though their lives aren’t complete or they’re excluded from things within their family or their friendship groups because they don’t have kids.
It just really bought home for me how we unintentionally can make people feel like other, or not as good, or that their choices are not as valid. And why isn’t that OK? Why isn’t it OK not to have children? Why can’t you be fulfilled by a life without going through the milestones of potty training and teenage acne and getting into college and all those things? Why does that have to be the thing that defines your life or makes you the most fulfilled?
Meeting with these women was just really fascinating. There were lots of panels and breakout meetings about living child-free. What was really interesting is that they just wanted to feel that their choice was respected and valid. […] The first day, I knew I was going to have to write about this because I think it’s a choice that’s not always respected.
Even when I was leaving, my husband’s like, “Why would they have a conference to celebrate that?” This is why. Because we’re asking that question is the reason why they need a conference because it’s OK to celebrate having to make a choice that’s different. Not everyone needs to go to a conference to feel this connection or feel like their choice is valid or needs that validation, but a lot of these women did, and I love being around that supportive network of women.
TS: Just to share personally for a moment, because there’s a point I want to make about it, in my decision to not have children, to be child-free, I know the hardest part was sharing that with my mom and feeling her disappointment that I wouldn’t produce grandchildren for her and that she wouldn’t have that. There’s the sense of disappointing other people that I had to deal with.
I think having this acceptance, and this is the point I want to get to here, it’s like no matter what we choose, there’s the part unlived. If we choose to be a stay-at-home mom, there’s something unlived. By being a mom that commits to their professional life, there’s something to grieve, that we’re not getting to do. If we choose not to have children, even if it’s clear to us that that’s our path, there’s something still unlived.
I wonder what you think about that, this needing to accept the tradeoffs, […] this whole idea [that] you can have it all; whenever people say that I’m like, “Uh-uh, I can have this, which means I’m not going to have that, and that’s OK. I’m making choices.” I wonder what your senses of that.
ES: First of all, I think we can just start looking at women’s choices as being OK, whatever choice that they make. I don’t think it’s fair that […] people who don’t have children judge people with children.
I remember interviewing some women during the pandemic who felt that the women who didn’t have children were not sympathetic to what they’re going through at home, trying to work with their children around. Sometimes, the vitriol can go both ways. It’s not like any one group is innocent in that.
But I think what we need to start doing is being more accepting of people’s choices even when we feel that they go against the grain or they’re not what we would do. Also, we have to know when we make a choice, we have to live with that choice.
One woman I interviewed said that she was not going to have children. She and her husband—she joked that they had wrote it into their vows they did not want children. And then her mother gave her so much pressure and kept saying, “Who are you going to spend Christmas with? Who are you going spend the holidays with when you get old?” And then they started wondering, “Maybe we should have kids.”
Then I talked to people who have no kids, don’t want kids, and are completely comfortable with that decision. They know that their holidays they’ll be hanging out with their friends who do have kids or maybe with a niece or nephew, and they have come to peace with that decision.
I think that no matter what your choice is you do have to come to develop a sense of peace about how you’ve chosen to live your life and really embrace that this was the right life for you. I think that’s a hard thing to do for some people but it’s an important thing to do I think as we evolve into our life choices.
And you’re right. There’s no way to have it all—I can’t even believe that phrase even exists. No one has it all. No matter what you’ve chosen. I’ve yet to meet a woman on this planet that has it all.
TS: I think that’s very sobering, just to hear that from you—as someone who’s been to so many of these mom meetups and interviewed so many mothers just to have that myth dispelled.
All right, Ericka, as a final question here, our program’s called Insights at the Edge, and I’m always curious what someone’s current edge is—you could say their growth edge or learning edge. When it comes to having a kid and a life at the same time, what would you say still is your edge right now? What’s the edge you’re working on?
ES: My edge is embracing how I continue to transform. I am constantly changing and constantly growing and constantly learning something new. I didn’t think that that would happen for my entire life. But my work, and also being a parent, being a professional, being a woman, one thing I have learned is that I have to be ready for a transformation and a constant evolution in who I am and what I want and who I need to be. It’s just continuing to change and accept that and grow and just flow with the times. I need to keep it flowing.
TS: I’ve been speaking with Ericka Sóuter. She’s the author of the new book How to Have a Kid and a Life: A Survival Guide, a beautiful book. I think all mothers and parents will be inspired by the research she’s put together that really helps us clarify our own priorities and happiness for ourselves and for our families. Gorgeous book, Ericka. Congratulations.
ES: Thank you, Tami.
TS: Thank you for listening to Insights at the Edge. You can read a full transcript of today’s interview at SoundsTrue.com/Podcast. If you’re interested, hit the Subscribe button in your podcast app. Also, if you feel inspired, head to iTunes and leave Insights at the Edge a review. I love getting your feedback, being in connection with you, and learning how we can continue to evolve and improve our program. Working together, I believe we can create a kinder and wiser world. SoundsTrue.com: waking up the world.
