Jessica Grose, SCREAMING ON THE INSIDE: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood
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[0:54]Jessica Gross is the author of Screaming on the Inside, The Unsustainability of American Motherhood.
[1:04]Jessica is an opinion writer at The New York Times where she writes a newsletter on parenting.
[1:09]Her new book just came out in December, and I had a little event for her, and, yeah, I'll Sean Brun at my home the day of her publication or pup day, so you can go on Instagram and check out some of our pictures at Zivioins.
[1:22]Jess was the founding editor of Lenny, the email newsletter and website.
[1:26]She also writes about women's health, culture, and grizzly bears.
[1:29]She was named one of LinkedIn's next wave top professionals 35 and under in 2016 and a glamour game changer in 2020 for her coverage of the pandemic.
[1:38]Her second novel, Soulmates, was published in 2016.
[1:42]It was about a broken marriage, a spiritual awakening, and a murder at a yoga retreat.
[1:47]Her debut novel was called Sad Desk Salad, and it came out in 2012.
[1:51]She was formerly a senior editor at Slate and an editor at Jezebel.
[1:55]Her work has appeared in The New York Times, New York, The Washington Post, Business Week, Elle Cosmopolitan, and many other publications.
[2:02]She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters.
[2:05]Welcome, Jessica.
[2:06]Thank you so much for coming.
[2:07]On mom's turn of time to read books to discuss Screaming on The Inside, The Unsustainability of American Motherhood.
[2:13]Thank you so much for having me.
[2:15]When I got this book and even heard the title, I was like,
[2:18]finally.
[2:19]Yes.
[2:20]Thank you.
[2:21]I wrote this essay like four years ago or five years ago.
[2:25]It was called Mother's Right to Sanity, and it's like there's no, it's like impossible.
[2:31]It's just impossible.
[2:32]It's untenable.
[2:33]Anyway.
[2:34]So tell me about your, tell listeners about your book.
[2:37]I know all about your book, but tell listeners about your book and why you decided to make it into a book at all.
[2:42]Absolutely.
[2:43]So I have been thinking about writing a version of this book for probably eight or nine years.
[2:49]I had a very difficult pregnancy with my older daughter where I had hyperamesis, which is uncontrollable, throwing up.
[2:56]I like to joke that I leaned into a toilet because that is what it felt like.
[3:01]I got extremely depressed because I had gone off antidepressants to conceive.
[3:05]And I had just started a new job and I had to quit that job because I was so terrible at it.
[3:10]I mean, I just couldn't show up because I was really sick.
[3:13]And I realized in that moment, and even though I had been covering family policy before that and realize, you know, America does so little to support its parents actually living through it myself and such as sort of dramatic way was really galvanizing.
[3:30]So since then, you know, my older daughter is going to be 10 and a couple weeks.
[3:34]I have been reporting and talking to, you know, probably over the years, thousands of moms about the ways that, you know, our society falls short.
[3:43]And the expectations they feel are all on their shoulders and that they are not given the tools to be the kinds of parents that they really want to be.
[3:51]And the pandemic really crystallized everything for me.
[3:54]And I think it crystallized everything for a lot of parents who maybe had some in Coate idea that everything wasn't working, but they were just trying to get through every day because there's so much to do every day.
[4:05]But then with all of the social structures really falling apart in March 2020, I think more people kind of realize this is not working for me.
[4:14]And this is not working for most people.
[4:16]Really, the pandemic is what made me be like, okay, this is taught, this is the time for this to be a book links project and you know, the pandemic is in it, but it is not the main part of the book, it is one chapter.
[4:28]Because all of these ideals that we live with and put so much pressure on ourselves to live up to have been with us for forever, but certainly since the beginning of American society.
[4:40]So they just shape shift around whatever sort of invoke in the culture at the time.
[4:47]So yeah, that's sort of the long and short of it, a lot in there.
[4:52]A lot in there.
[4:53]The throwing up and pregnancy, it was as if you had developed some sort of chronic illness with naturally and it was luckily for you, there was an end inside like that the baby would come.
[5:04]But still, that doesn't mean that it made any moment of that journey any easier.
[5:09]And it was so it so took over your life.
[5:13]I mean, I know you just mentioned you couldn't work, but the way you write about it and how you needed to be so close to a toilet at all times and how you tried so hard and nothing you did would really help.
[5:24]I mean, it's the sense of sort of hopelessness and desperation and the fact that other people are all doing this and what supports there are.
[5:32]I don't know, it was very the telling of the medical odyssey part of this, not even odyssey, but just medical situation was so vivid and so awful for you.
[5:43]Oh my gosh.
[5:44]Thank you so I mean, I really wanted to make it seem real.
[5:47]It was hard to write because sort of blending myself back into those feelings was not delightful, but I mean, just to connect it back to sort of all these bigger picture ideas.
[5:59]There is, as far as I know one researcher who studies hyperemesis because there is no money in it.
[6:05]They don't fund women's health, first of all, the way that they fund, you know, there's you always hear the statistic about how you know there's more money going into erectile dysfunction than there is into most women's health issues.
[6:17]But what the one woman I years ago interviewed the one woman who does research it she researches it because she had it herself.
[6:25]She has a nonprofit that raises money for it because she's not getting money from the big funders because what they say is like, well, it resolves itself.
[6:33]You know, it ends with pregnancy and it's like, it is one of the most common side effects or that's not the word I'm looking for it.
[6:40]It's one of the most common sort of disabilities and difficulties that women have during their pregnancies. It is debilitating as I point out and to hear from sort of the medical community at large.
[6:51]It's like, well, it's not that big a deal because it resolves itself when you give birth.
[6:55]It is actually quite dangerous for some people. I was lucky enough where I was getting, I technically met the addition of hypermsis because I lost 5% or more of my body weight in my first trimester, but I was keeping down enough where the baby was always okay.
[7:12]And so you know, I didn't even have the worst version of it.
[7:17]I didn't have the worst version and it was completely debilitating and it ruined my life for, you know, the seven months that I was really stricken with it.
[7:26]It got better towards the very end of my pregnancy and then resolved completely when I gave birth.
[7:30]But yeah, just to like tie it all in, there's always these systemic things where it's like, well, why don't we have a fix for that. It's like, well, because there's no money in it and we don't care.
[7:39]You also highlighted the lack of research around going off antidepressants and why do doctors always tell you to do this. Like, I went off antidepressants for my last kid and I like it was rough going.
[7:53]Not to mention that just the fact of going off antidepressants usually takes a long time and tapering and I don't know if you read makeup side effects by Brooksium. Did you read that book?
[8:02]It's really interesting about how when you go off, sometimes these other symptoms come back. So you think that it's the problem, but really it's the getting off.
[8:12]It's of the meds itself that is causing these symptoms and so it encourages people to just stay on again.
[8:19]But it can cause it's like doses and all sorts of stuff to get off the meds.
[8:23]But anyway, talk a little about your research in that and like why this flipping is like, well, might hurt the baby. I don't know. Like, you should probably just go off.
[8:31]Well, that's sort of a medical knowledge gap because there is actually quite a bit of research on the older SSR as so you're talking prosack things that have been around for 20 or more years.
[8:42]There is pretty robust research on it and it shows that it is, you know, the same risks that exist from staying on antidepressants are the same risks of being super anxious and depressed while you're pregnant.
[8:55]So, you know, neither option is very good and they're minimal. You know, they exist. I don't want to sugarcoat that like there are risks of low birth weight. I don't have the stats in front of me, but there are risks, but it's sort of what always bothers me is it's treated like an optional medication.
[9:14]Whereas like, oh, if you needed insulin because you're a diabetic, of course, you would stay on it during pregnancy.
[9:20]And so it should be treated like every other medication where there you weigh the risks and benefits and you make an informed decision with your doctor, you know, that might be going off, but that might be staying on and I think the problem is.
[9:33]And unless you have a psychiatrist who is well versed in parent mental health, they just will not know the statistics. I had to look up the statistics and these are people who are educated. It's just a very specific branch of maternal mental health and I mean, when I've, I don't remember if this made it into the book.
[9:54]I've just done so much research on all this over the years, but the model that is recommended.
[10:00]to maintain mother's mental health.
[10:02]It is an integrated model where obstetric practices
[10:07]also have a social worker in the practice.
[10:10]So they have a social worker or a psychologist.
[10:12]So you're one stop shop.
[10:14]You're not having to get referrals.
[10:16]You're not having to go every which way.
[10:18]It is baked in to just the overall well-being
[10:22]of the mother and baby.
[10:23]And that just sounds like a dream, right?
[10:27]And not only are they expert, but they're right there.
[10:31]And so that is what I would wish for any new mom
[10:35]that they would have that level of just support
[10:37]and understanding and also just acknowledgement
[10:41]that prenatal and postpartal health challenges
[10:45]are beyond common.
[10:47]They are so common.
[10:48]It's like 20% of moms will have some sort of diagnosable
[10:54]struggle.
[10:54]And that doesn't even count sort of, you know,
[10:56]just the heightened feelings that are not clinically
[10:59]levely, significant of exhaustion.
[11:02]And you know, your life is changing.
[11:03]Like it's a hard, it's a transitional time
[11:06]for a lot of people and you're getting no sleep.
[11:08]That's what I always tell my new mom friends.
[11:10]I'm like, just go sleep for like five hours
[11:14]and see if you feel okay.
[11:16]I think that's part of it is you're just so freaking tired
[11:20]that everything feels unmanageable, right?
[11:23]So yes, I wish that mental health coverage
[11:27]were sort of more baked into the systems that we have.
[11:30]I don't even think peri-natal mental health
[11:33]is a popular term.
[11:35]Do you know what I mean?
[11:36]People know, nobody focuses on that.
[11:37]It's not like, it would be great.
[11:40]Yeah, it would be great.
[11:41]Here you're pregnant, here's the results,
[11:43]and here's your peri-natal mental health counselor.
[11:45]Yeah, good luck.
[11:46]That would be lovely.
[11:47]But this is an alternate, wonderful world.
[11:50]I mean, the way that other countries that are,
[11:54]I think might come back to over and over again in the book
[11:56]is that countries that are as wealthy as the United States
[12:00]all do more for mothers and for parents.
[12:03]And one thing that is very common in other countries
[12:05]that have national health systems
[12:07]is to have a nurse who comes to your house
[12:11]in the weeks after frequently, in the weeks after you give birth.
[12:15]Like just that, having someone come,
[12:17]who can help you with breastfeeding,
[12:18]help just talk to you, just check in with you.
[12:22]Can you even imagine like how lovely with that baby?
[12:25]I do feel like modern life in general,
[12:28]this is sort of like a larger point,
[12:30]but we keep going faster and faster
[12:33]and adapting to all these things
[12:34]and doing more and all of the stuff.
[12:36]And I think childbirth, pregnancy, childbirth,
[12:39]the whole thing, nursing, like that whole,
[12:42]it doesn't really fit with the ICal schedules
[12:45]and the crazy pace of life.
[12:48]And it's like, well, like I remember as a new mom,
[12:51]it was just like, well, how am I supposed to do all this nursing
[12:54]and make any sort of plan?
[12:56]Like you can't, and then if I can't make any sort of plan,
[12:58]how can I possibly like maintain my other commitments
[13:01]and like participate in XYZ or work or write or whatever.
[13:05]It's like, it's very, it seems almost like
[13:08]if only we could go back in time, right?
[13:11]That this current lifestyle speed does not really fit
[13:15]with this most elemental evolutionary part of our bodies.
[13:19]That's true, but I mean, one of the most fascinating parts
[13:22]of the book for me and one of the most interesting aspects
[13:26]of all the research that I did was reading women's diaries
[13:29]and letters from hundreds of years ago.
[13:31]And it's not like they found breastfeeding or birth easy.
[13:35]They would write in letters to their,
[13:39]they had perhaps fewer expectations on their time,
[13:43]but I still remember reading these letters
[13:47]about women talking about their abscesses,
[13:49]the babies feeding all the time,
[13:50]how exhausted they were, how their husbands were not helping them.
[13:54]They were off, you know, doing God knows what.
[13:56]And even though that wasn't even the societal expectation
[14:00]that husband should really be involved
[14:02]in sort of 19th century child rearing,
[14:05]these women still felt totally abandoned and angry.
[14:09]So it's sort of comforting to know that that makes you feel better.
[14:13]Yeah, even without the sort of I-Cal demands on your time,
[14:17]I still, my favorite was one woman who was talking about
[14:21]writing a letter to, I think it was her sister
[14:23]about giving birth and she was like, it's hell.
[14:26]Yes, that's true.
[14:27]So, you know, these things have,
[14:30]in some ways things have really changed
[14:33]and in some ways it's same as it ever was.
[14:36]Plus, we have all sorts of medical advances,
[14:38]even though it's not perfect compared to my wife.
[14:40]But sure, yes, very happy to have that epidural.
[14:43]Yes, very happy that that was an option for me.
[14:48]There's obviously the childbirth that early motherhood,
[14:53]but there's being a mother,
[14:55]which also feels unsustainable and which you highlight,
[14:57]especially with your pandemic research
[14:59]and all the moms that you talk to.
[15:01]And I mean, it's obviously it was so evident how,
[15:06]that yeah, how unstable it all is.
[15:07]So it talks to me about over the lifespan of the mom.
[15:11]Like, does it ever get, when does it get easier?
[15:13]Is there anything we can do to make it easier?
[15:16]Like, looking at it analytically the way you did
[15:18]with all the data, where's the answer?
[15:22]Like, where's the spotlight shining
[15:24]that is like, this is the path?
[15:26]I mean, I think the biggest thing
[15:28]to realize is a lot of things that would make it easier
[15:31]are not individual solutions, right?
[15:33]So paid leave, health care that is not tied to jobs,
[15:38]universal sick days, just things that would make
[15:42]a sick child not a crisis in your life
[15:44]or not an overwhelming, just kink to your schedule.
[15:49]A affordable childcare is huge and does not exist here.
[15:53]So all of those things happening and advocating for them,
[15:57]if you have the energy to advocate for them,
[15:59]those things are super important on the individual level.
[16:02]I think just honesty asking for help,
[16:05]a lot of folks have so much trouble saying,
[16:08]like, I'm not doing okay, I need help,
[16:10]I need you to come sit with my kids for an hour
[16:14]so I can take a nap.
[16:15]I'm going to lose my mind if I don't go to the gym today.
[16:18]Can you please just like, you know,
[16:20]just like having a community where,
[16:23]and obviously you reciprocate that.
[16:26]But, you know, relying on our communities more than we have been
[16:29]because I think that there's a lot of resistance
[16:32]to asking for help, either using your burden in people
[16:35]or you think you're going to look like you can't hack it
[16:37]because you need the help.
[16:39]So I think just that simple asking for an offering help
[16:43]for us and I know that this is not feasible for everyone.
[16:46]We have been blessed to live near my parents.
[16:49]We live near my parents.
[16:51]They are in great health.
[16:52]They help with our kids once a week,
[16:54]like just knowing they're there psychologically
[16:58]in an emergency, even though, you know,
[17:01]they don't, it has been immediately helpful,
[17:04]especially when my kids, you know,
[17:05]those sort of pre-pandemic era
[17:07]when my kids were really little
[17:09]and there were just times where it was like, oh my God,
[17:11]I am going to like lose my mind
[17:15]or I'm going to really not be able to meet this commitment
[17:17]that I've made for work.
[17:19]They just, you know, I can't think they gave me the gift
[17:23]of life and they have enabled me to have kids
[17:28]and what sort of really generationally meaningful
[17:32]and resonant for me is my grandparents did that
[17:35]for my parents.
[17:36]So my parents were both doctors.
[17:39]It was on you, my mom was one of five women
[17:42]in her medical school class in the 70s
[17:44]and the early 70s is unusual to be a woman
[17:48]in medical school then and her parents were not only
[17:51]so supportive and encouraging of her to work
[17:54]and to be a professional, but they live nearby
[17:58]and they were the backstop for sort of childcare
[18:02]crunches and disasters.
[18:04]And so I think my parents feel like they are paying it forward
[18:08]in a way that I just, you know, not only am I grateful for it
[18:11]but it is very meaningful because I was really close
[18:14]to my grandparents and that relationship for me
[18:17]was so important.
[18:18]And so I'm hoping that that is also for my kids
[18:21]just having more grownups in their lives who love them
[18:24]and to have fun with them.
[18:25]So, you know, it's, you know, a little bit saccharine
[18:29]but it is true.
[18:32]It's great.
[18:34]How did you become a reporter at the New York Times?
[18:37]Like for, tell me just a little bit more about that journey
[18:40]and I know you talked to them about what you were doing
[18:42]in the past and all of that in the book
[18:44]but for people who don't know.
[18:45]Yeah, yeah.
[18:46]So I mean, I have, I basically started in journalism
[18:50]as soon as I graduated from college.
[18:52]I immediately, I actually thought I would be a culture reporter
[18:56]so my first job out of college was at spin,
[19:00]which I think no longer exists.
[19:02]I don't know.
[19:03]So the music magazine spin,
[19:06]I worked on their website which in 2004 was like,
[19:11]just so not what websites are today
[19:14]but I always sort of worked on the website of publications.
[19:18]So I worked there and then I worked at the Zagat survey
[19:21]and I was very terrible at that job.
[19:23]I was like, that was a real learning experience for me
[19:27]because I was like, wow, this is the first thing
[19:28]I'm kind of failing at because it wasn't a good fit.
[19:31]It was a job that required a lot of copy editing
[19:35]and that is my Kelly's heel.
[19:37]In terms, I can do a structural at it.
[19:40]I can write my, my grammar for myself is fine.
[19:43]I cannot do it for other people.
[19:44]I'm not a good line editor.
[19:46]Anyone who has been edited for me, it's led by me.
[19:49]It's like, I'm like, does that comment go there?
[19:53]So to this day, not my forte.
[19:55]So I did that job then I worked at Jezebel in the first...
[20:00]Here are two, it was around, which was an amazing sort of experience and really got me more into women's media because I had sort of been more on this sort of culture lifestyle side.
[20:11]So I worked at Jezebel for a year or two and then I worked at Slate for three years. So more online media reporting really learning how to shape a story.
[20:22]I had amazing mentors there and they were mentors not only in sort of writing but also just really great models for me and seeing what a working mom could be like.
[20:34]Because it always seemed it was like at the time I was in my 20s and I was like this seems so hard like I'm already working so hard, how do you throw kids into this mix and so it was really special and important for me to have those role models and
[20:47]and Hannah Rosen and Emily Basilon to say like oh they're doing it, they're doing all the things and they are doing all the things well so I think about them and I'm still in touch with them and think about them a lot.
[21:00]So as at Slate and then I took another job and that was the job I had to quit after two months because I was pregnant.
[21:09]I was three at freelance for three years when my older daughter was born and until she was about three and then I just wrote for everybody.
[21:19]I wrote for a lot of business publications because they paid well so I wrote for business week I wrote for a fast company I wrote you know for all of the women's magazines Mary Claire Cosmo anybody who would have me.
[21:31]I was just like will your check cash great.
[21:35]Like it was very and it was great I loved being freelance I am very efficient it was a good deal for me I could be really flexible which I wanted to be I wanted to spend more time with my newborn like it was just a great situation for me as a going into motherhood and also during that time so.
[21:52]I first novel came out when I was seven months pregnant my second novel came out after I had my second kid so.
[21:59]Then I started working at Lenny which was an email newsletter and I knew that we wanted to have a second kid and that we could not financially make it work unless I went back to a staff job so I started looking for a staff job just to have this sort of.
[22:13]I had a regular income because freelance can be very streaky and you know I think we could have made it work but I just couldn't deal with that stress like the stress of the hustle stress like oh well this month I had a windfall and next month like.
[22:27]Who knows like I just with a second kid in the mix I was like absolutely not I cannot do this hustle anymore.
[22:33]You know I helped found Lenny letter which was a newsletter and website and I you know just had an amazing experience with the people that I worked with there and then I was there for about three years and then I went to the times.
[22:47]So that is the long path many jobs many different experiences lots of different right I wrote I edited I managed and now I'm just back to writing again and I am really enjoying it.
[23:01]I miss working with writers like I miss developing people and helping them move forward in their careers that was really special for me I do not miss being a manager but.
[23:14]Just only being responsible for myself is a relief and so I'm really happy and now so now I just write for the times opinion section and I love I love working for opinion because I have a lot of opinions.
[23:31]It's awesome it's only thing if you had one piece of advice for moms not even for authors here but just for parents not even just moms but parents after all the research you've done and everything given the structural constraints in which.
[23:47]We live and operate in parent like what what is what is the advice.
[23:52]So for me it's real and this has been something that I've benefited from from all of this research anytime you feel guilty about something.
[24:02]Just stop stop and think why do I feel guilty do I feel guilty because of some nonsense because I saw some other mom doing it and I feel bad because I'm not doing it or because my mother in law things I should be doing it or there's some sort of societal pressure that says I should be doing this thing.
[24:21]Or are you feeling guilty because it's your own value and you're falling short of your own value in the first case if it's someone else's values you're not living up to like just you can't stop yourself from feeling that initial guilt that's just human.
[24:36]If it is someone else's values that are making you feel bad about yourself let it go just say like I don't can I actually the person I am does not care about this thing.
[24:47]If it is something that is important to you then you know then it's a time for reevaluation what can I move around in my life so that I can do this thing that is important to me.
[24:57]I'm just really about trying to clarify your own values and what is important to you in your life absent of all the societal pressures and that's I'm not saying that that is an easy thing to do every single day I still like I am failing at something.
[25:14]Perfectionistic person it is a strength and weakness for me and so you know I think it's also the idea that you're never going to get to this perfectly.
[25:26]It's a state where you're just actualized and like nothing bothers you and nothing gets to you it's like that's not realistic either but.
[25:35]Trying to figure out what your actual values are that's also kind of a lifelong project right so I think just kind of spending your time on that rather than the ways that you're falling short of other people's expectations for you.
[25:52]Anything Jessica thank you so much thanks for coming on mom's time to read moms don't have time to read books or clearly make sentences today and yeah this amazing thank you for putting us all together and helping so many people.
[26:06]Oh no thank you so much for having me I really appreciate it and if it makes you feel better yesterday I forgot the word for footnote that is how broken my brain is I was like the little numbers that go on the end of us and that was just.
[26:20]That's where I am my mom journey just forget words for things I should know the words for I am I am with you like garbage garage which is the right word I don't even anyone.
[26:31]All right take care.
[26:34]Thanks.
[26:36]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books don't forget to follow me on Instagram at ZB Owens and at moms don't have time to read books.
[26:45]Also sign up for my newsletter at ZB Owens dot com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom every other week.
[26:52]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan fact texture sound for the sound editing and thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.