Bianca Sprague, founder of BeboMia, sheds light on the disempowerment and mental health challenges faced by mothers within a patriarchal and capitalist society. She emphasizes that the current healthcare and parenting systems often fail to support women, leading to widespread issues such as postpartum depression and PTSD. Through personal stories and research, Bianca reveals how motherhood is frequently equated with unpaid care work, which compounds feelings of inadequacy and isolation. She discusses the societal pressure to maintain a façade of perfection, the struggles with mental health, and the necessity for systemic change to empower mothers. With a call for open dialogue and support, Bianca advocates for a transformation in how we view and treat women's roles in both the family and society.

I originally interviewed Bianca Sprague in Authority Magazine entitled What I Did to Heal After Postpartum Depression.

Postpartum depression is a significant challenge that many new mothers face. The journey to recovery is unique for each individual, involving emotional resilience, self-care strategies, and often the support of healthcare professionals. Addressing postpartum depression is crucial for the well-being of both the mother and her family. Sharing these personal journeys can provide hope, support, and practical advice to others facing similar challenges. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bianca Sprague.

Bianca Sprague, founder of bebo mia, has been a dedicated educator, author, activist, and doula since 2007. Passionate about accessible pre and postnatal care for marginalized communities, she advocates for mental wellness in families, drawing from her struggle for 2 years with undiagnosed postpartum depression and after the loss of her dad to suicide. Bianca champions reproductive health and justice, focusing on breaking down barriers for female and queer entrepreneurs and restoring joy, equity, and safety in family care through her expertise and innovative approaches.

The complexities of motherhood and the societal structures that shape the experiences of mothers are critically examined by Bianca Sprague, founder of BeboMia. In this enlightening discussion, Bianca reveals her journey into entrepreneurship while navigating the challenges of postpartum life. She emphasizes the impact of a patriarchal and capitalist system that often leaves mothers feeling unsupported and overwhelmed. Bianca articulates the emotional and psychological toll that these societal pressures can have, leading to mental health issues such as postpartum depression and PTSD. Through her personal experiences and research insights, she advocates for a re-evaluation of how society views and supports mothers during and after childbirth.

Bianca's conversation delves into the devaluation of care work, highlighting how the societal expectation that mothers will perform unpaid labor contributes to their sense of disempowerment. She discusses the trauma associated with childbirth and how it can affect parenting, creating a cycle of stress and anxiety that many women struggle to break. By sharing her insights, Bianca aims to foster a dialogue around the necessity of support systems that empower mothers rather than marginalize them. Her perspective challenges listeners to reflect on their own experiences and the collective need for systemic change that acknowledges the vital role of mothers in society.

An essential theme of the episode is the critique of gender roles and the myth of equal partnership in parenting. Bianca presents compelling statistics that reveal the stark reality of unequal labor division within households, even among couples who consider themselves progressive. She argues that this disparity not only affects the emotional well-being of mothers but also perpetuates societal norms that undervalue their contributions. The episode concludes with a poignant reminder of the importance of open dialogues about motherhood, advocating for a shift in how we perceive and value the work of mothers, ultimately aiming for a more equitable and supportive environment for all caregivers.

Takeaways:

• Bianca Sprague emphasizes the need for systemic change in healthcare to empower mothers.
• The patriarchal system significantly impacts women's mental health and their experiences of motherhood.
• Trauma from childbirth can lead to long-lasting effects on parenting and mental health.
• Women often internalize feelings of failure in both birth and breastfeeding, affecting their self-worth.
• The division of labor in parenting often remains unequal, perpetuating disempowerment of mothers.
• Motherhood is often viewed as unpaid care work, leading to mental health issues like PTSD.

Bianca Sprague.

She is the founder of Bebomia, which operates in 49 countries.

Is that right?

Yeah, 50 as of last week.

Oh, my goodness.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

I was waiting for that one.

It took way too long to break that 50.

I was like, I'm tired of saying 49.

It's not as sexy as 50.

50 does sound very complete.

Yeah, like a complete set.

Yeah.

We are in that many countries.

That's incredible.

It blows my mind.

Yeah.

It's bigger than I ever imagined when I started this as a under resourced, postpartum depression.

26 year old necessity is the mother of invention.

Yeah.

It was very quickly after, which is something I don't always recommend, that you have a baby and start a business at exactly the same time.

However, a lot of folks feel called to do something because of how change they feel after they have a baby.

I have a doula training program, and the number one reason why, when I ask why are you here on the first day of school?

They're like, because this thing happened to me, and I have to make sure nobody else has that happened to them.

So they're like, they are.

It's not uncommon.

Most of my students have babies at their breast or chest while they're in classes, and they're doing all the parent stuff because they feel changed from birth and their parenting journey.

We do have a few that are like, that was magical, and I hope everybody has that.

And that's my goal.

But most of the time, it's people feel harmed or that they're like, I don't want to put my kids in daycare.

Like, the birth was a reason why they're changing their lives.

Seems from the interviews that I've done, and yours included, that the day of birth, the day of giving birth.

That.

Experience in a hospital setting, they've all been in a hospital setting.

That experience set the tone for months and years, even of suffering.

Suffering.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's.

I mean, our system, it's destroying us.

And a lot of people keep calling it a broken system, but it was very strategically designed by the patriarchy to break us.

And I'm not going to get to women's studies here.

I could, but really, by ensuring people are broken in birth, we then are broken into our parenting journey.

And that is the most disempowering thing.

You're reading these stories, and how better do we repress and control the most powerful people on the planet, which are people with the uterus?

We're magical.

But when we feel broken at our most, our most powerful essence, which is our ability to give birth and bring life forth.

It's an.

A really intense journey.

It changes us at a cellular level.

But if we feel like we failed.

So even the language used in the hospital, failure to progress, instead of just calling it labor dystocia, or we're tired of waiting for you, we are now going in doubting, which is what I shared in my previous interview with you, is we've.

We feel like we failed our bodies.

We had to get induced.

We had to get augmented.

We couldn't get the baby out.

So there's something called cephalopelvic disproportion.

So that's saying that the baby's head is too big for the birthing person's hips.

It is such a true CPD.

Cephalopelvic disproportion is so rare.

Like, it's so rare because by design, a birthing person's body is going to know how big baby can get.

So very rarely, however, it's in the top two reasons for c sections, unplanned emergency c sections.

And I love, there's so many great videos.

If anybody had a CPD diagnosis as your reason, there's great videos on YouTube that are, like, birthing people giving, like, the middle finger to the medical system because they'll have a bigger second baby or third baby.

So they had a c section, but now they'll have a pelvic birth with a much bigger baby.

So it makes no sense.

Like, it's discrediting their pelvic disproportion diagnosis.

And we keep thinking that our bodies couldn't do this thing, and then we go into.

Into feeding from our body or lactation, breastfeeding, all the same thing.

And then we're failing at that.

Like, we've never had more social support in any other period of history.

But the worst outcomes around infant feeding, there's a whole bunch of reasons why.

Big one being trauma, second one being medications that are commonly used that we don't know actually stop the cycle for us to ability to produce milk.

So, like, the pitocin that they give us in the hospital is actually the historical use of it has now caused our body to not be able to produce as enough milk to feed our children.

And so we don't know these things, right?

But all we do know is that we failed.

So we're like, oh, I tried to have a baby and it didn't work.

I tried to breastfeed, and it didn't work.

And now we feel broken, and we're so far behind, not to mention just the PTSD.

So postpartum PTSD is now a pretty common diagnosis, unfortunately.

And there's no wonder we're having so many mood disorders in the perinatal period.

Depression, anxiety, psychosis, because of how terrible we experience pregnancy and birth, which is why I do the work I do, because I'm like, if we felt empowered in birth, we would now feel empowered in our bodies.

We would probably have less disordered eating.

We would vote.

We would say no.

We would leave crappy husbands we would like, but we're tired and we're traumatized.

So obviously, we keep controlling weird things like our weight, which we have very little control over.

And then we're hungry and traumatized, and then we stay in crappy marriages, and we stay in crappy jobs, and we accept crappy care from daycares, because where do you even start?

I don't have data to back this up, but I.

I have lots of.

You, if you want to.

Right.

Women tend to internalize more.

Yeah.

That's why there's more suicide rather than homicide.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the perinatal period.

Ironically, today is suicide prevention day, and I do.

And I, like, dove into it, and I struggled with.

I don't want to say struggled with suicidal thoughts.

I'm now very clear of and speaking out around differentiating suicidal ideation and suicidal planning.

They're two very different things.

And suicidal ideation is a pretty common coping technique.

And so, especially for women, because it's.

We have so little control over our lives, I think if we were able to talk more about these things, we could move through depression.

We could talk about our anxiety.

If we're like, I don't want to be here.

I love my kids, and I don't want to be here and be able to safely say that and have our community see that as a.

This person needs help.

This person needs love, this person needs care.

Not institutional, not, let's get you set up with a therapist.

But you.

You probably mostly need food, water, and sleep, and you would feel a million times better.

But, like, all of this stuff happens in the shadows, and we do internalize it because that's how we've been taught to cope, because we've been talked out of trusting our gut.

Like, when we trust our gut, we're like, I don't like that daycare.

And you actually don't need to qualify.

Why?

You're just like, I don't know, something about it.

It just doesn't feel like a place I want to leave my children.

Even if it was the best, the fanciest, close to your work, your friends.

Kids go there and love it.

Like, you just don't want to.

But we are always feelings.

And so when we, you know, you could go on a date with someone, you're like, I don't know.

I just don't like them.

But your friends are like, oh, my God, they're so great and they have such a good job.

And they would look.

You should have seen how they were looking at you and all that.

And you're like, I just don't like them.

But then you're like, oh, that's true.

Yeah, they do have a good job.

I know.

And you should see how nice they are with their dog.

And then we're like, okay, I guess I'll go out with them.

And we do that for little tiny things and really big things.

Like, my husband's a jerk.

I don't have a husband.

I'm a lesbian.

But, like, saying those things, but, like, my husband.

And then you're like, oh, but he's a good dad because they played video games after school, and you're like, wait, why am I talking myself out of this?

He's not around.

He chooses his hobbies.

He doesn't know anything about your children.

Go down the list.

If he knows all the same information as you, then cool, he gets a pass.

But so we do internalize.

So then we think, if I think he's an asshole, it must be something that I'm doing because everyone else says what a good dad he is because he drops the kids off in the morning and he's the only dad that drops the kids off in the morning.

And so everyone's, oh, no, if I could get my husband to drop the kids off.

And so then we're like, oh, I might.

I must be too difficult.

I must be asking too much.

I must think I deserve too much.

And that's just the cycle for everything.

Because you think you are the problem.

Suicide is really complicated.

But even if we dial it back one and it's not a death of despair, then we're in the bucket of addiction.

The jokes, all the mummy wine culture jokes, that's just another coping technique, right?

Overmedicating some kind of addictive cycle, if not just self loathing, depression, dissatisfaction with your life, ambivalence like, these are the norm now.

These aren't like, these aren't somebody you knew who had this.

If people were honest about what was happening behind their closed door, it would, I would put it well above 90% of mothers in North America would echo the sentiments in some capacity that we're talking about right now.

Really?

Oh, easily.

But we're not allowed to say these things out loud, which is why when I say them, I speak like this all the time about motherhood.

Obviously, it's my job and my passion and my mission and life's work.

And people are really shocked to hear me say that.

To say that I don't use.

So I don't talk about my role as a mother, as even the top ten most interesting things about me.

So if somebody's like, tell me about you.

And then maybe at the end I'd be like, oh, and I'm a mom too, Gray, and she's 17.

Because it wasn't one of my identity.

Like, it didn't define my identity because it's a thing I did.

Because, I'm sorry.

Let me rephrase that.

Most of the time we've got the two buckets, the work of motherhood and the relationship of motherhood.

And unfortunately, most of the stuff we do is the work of motherhood, which is laundry, dishes, changing bums, bath time, buying birthday presents, registering for summer camp.

That's the work part, which is where we spend most of the time.

And the relationship part, it would be like sitting and talking to your kid for fun or like playing.

Not because you only have 15 minutes before you have to drop them to daycare and you feel guilty about that.

So you're like, I should probably get some quality time.

But like, literally sitting in the grass and just seeing what happens, the way kids would freely be in relationship, the way we would with any friend, where you're like, flop on the couch and you catch up or you go to a restaurant and you just chat for 3 hours.

Like, we don't get to do that part of it because we're mothered out from the work and we don't really have the time or the interest, frankly.

Like when you have to do the crappy parts of something, you're like, I actually don't want to be around you.

And I wouldn't fill my cup with that.

Now, dads do the relationship of parenting and very little of the work, which is why kids are always like, again, in a hetero context, because they come home and they haven't had to do any of the work, even if even full time at home dad do, like in a hetero context, still do less of that emotional and invisible labor than their partners.

And when I thought of what is the role of motherhood, I didn't.

I was like, if I say I'm a mom, to me, I'm like, that's dishes and summer camp and diapers and breastfeeding and.

But a lot of people, that becomes a really significant part of their identity.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

It just means that you're in a really big roller coaster that has a more direct line to impact your mood and your mental health.

And this is work out of the house and in the home, paid, unpaid.

There's so many diets, right, of how families are structured, of who's earning money and who's doing unpaid labor and where are they earning me and where are they doing unpaid labor.

So all of that.

But it's really terrible.

And when we bring it back to postpartum mood disorders, when your identity is so tied to this role that's been assigned, and I also want to highlight, this is a product of capitalism that we just, anything unpaid or care just got lumped into women's work, mother's work.

And so that is actually a critical pillar of our economy.

It's a trillion dollar free labor.

So the economy can't run without women doing this work that's been dumb.

Dubbed care loving maternal, like these words, all you had to do is link it to that.

And this was obviously a shift from, in the industrial revolution because before that, the family work and was everybody's work.

And you, it wasn't like, you go get paid, you don't do this paid labor.

So this is a shift wherever capitalism became front and center in our economy, which obviously impacts the politic and the family structure.

And when we have this closely linked, we actually, the cycle is, I have to do this to prove that I'm a good mom because this is a critical part of my identity.

And so you don't give up the things that you would need to self preservation.

So when you're feeling really anxious or a little bit less with depression, depending on the symptoms of depression, but a lot of times anxiety and depression go together and so you feel really anxious.

So you actually bring your children in closer, so you have the baby in closer, you won't let other people hold and you won't give up any of those tasks because giving them up is actually giving up a piece of your identity, then what are you?

If people start taking over those jobs or providing care or cooking or cleaning your home.

So sometimes I work with clients who are resourced, and I was like, let's get you some help in here.

So.

So let's get somebody once a week to come clean your home.

And these are folks who have the privilege of being able to contract some of that care work out.

And the resistance is so strong because it's so much more.

If I took away that house cleaning or I took away that cooking or I took away night nursing, and night nursing is somebody that comes in and helps with the baby and then brings the baby, if the baby is feeding from the person's body and then takes them away, and it's really to support protecting the sleep of the parents.

And.

But, like, the idea of taking any of that away is crippling because that they need that.

And then we add on this exhaustion as a badge of honor.

So, if you listen in a daycare lineup or school lineup, it's like a race to the bottom.

Who could do the most and who's getting the least sleep?

And when was the last time you ate a meal?

And when was the last time you showered?

And these are the things that we boast about, because all the capitalism and the patriarchy had to do was say, a good mom would sacrifice till she's literally crawling on the ground.

And so we're like, I haven't eaten in three days, and I haven't showered in seven.

And I don't know the last time I even closed my eyes and I baked these cupcakes, and I'm volunteering in the class, and I, like, went to the gym, and we just like, the worse, the more you can give, the better.

And the reclamation of our time in our bodies would be, like, we could collapse.

And capitalism and the patriarchy, if we all just decided, I will no longer do free labor unless it's for my children, and I feel called to it.

But, like, we do free labor for other people to get better earning potential, and they don't recognize it, right?

Like, picking up somebody else's dry cleaning so that they can go advance their career and make more money and those kind of things.

Like those.

That's the capitalism.

Free labor, I'm talking about.

But if we just said no to those things, it would collapse our industry.

Its foundation is women doing free care work.

But the problem is, we would then have to give up our identity, right?

So every time we're like, yeah, we hate this.

We wish it wasn't like this.

The sacrifice is also really big because we do have to give something up.

And when we're looking at mood disorders, it's really complicated.

It's not.

Just get a therapist.

Have someone clean your house.

I'll take the baby.

You go to sleep.

Like, there's.

When we look at it from all these angles, it's a really big beast.

And if we back it up and have people birthing and going through their pregnancy feeling empowered and not harmed by a system and then going into parenting like that, that would be part of the solution.

But that's massive.

That's a systemic correction.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's feeling disempowered from the get go.

Is it just completely disempowered?

From my personal experience, it completely made me feel disempowered.

As a mom.

Yeah.

As a woman.

As a citizen.

Yes.

As a citizen.

Yes.

Yes.

I felt like I almost had to prove that I was worthy.

No, I have twins.

Double the fun.

Yeah.

I felt like I had to prove that I was worthy of being, like.

Of getting the job, of being their mother, even though I had given birth to them.

Yes.

Yeah, I know.

Why did that feel threatened?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's all of these.

It's all of these things, and it's.

Man, there's just so little space for us to tell the truth, which is what I talked about in my other interview.

Is that truth telling?

Like, in our heads, we have these flickers where the truth comes out of.

I hate this.

I wish I didn't do this.

I don't want this.

Like, those kind of things.

with two grandkids who were, like, had just thrown up on the sofa.

Like, those moments were like, oh, I hate this.

But we're like, oh, it's just because it's so bad right now, but, like, we have the flicker of hating the work of motherhood a lot.

But again, we self, we bring it in, and we disarm ourselves, and then we right away shame ourselves because we're so ungrateful.

What if somebody.

The evil eye, like, whatever your cultural, social, political beliefs, like, whatever it is.

But we feel like we can't say that because by saying, it's saying we regret our children or we don't love our children.

And that's why I keep wanting moms to know that the work part sucks.

It's inhumane.

Nobody should have to work like that.

And we can say we hate that.

And the more we say, I hate the work of motherhood.

I don't want to do that.

I don't want to have somebody, like on me all the time.

We had a storm and my windows blew in and smashed on the weekend.

And so yesterday, the glass guy came and he was like, a chatty guy in my kitchen.

And he was like, oh, I had a baby, and I travel a lot.

So actually, your wife doesn't want to be with your baby all the time.

And he was like, oh.

I was like, I know you probably think that, but she doesn't like it.

It's not fun for her.

She loves your baby, but she wants you to be able to do things.

And he was like, I'm trying to book her a trip away.

And I tried to tell her, like, you should go out.

And I was like, but I bet when she's out, you text her non stop about, what's this?

Why is the baby crying?

Where is this kept?

What is this?

And he's like, yeah.

And I was like, so if you're going to send her out of the home, you have to pretend that she's not accessible and never text her.

And you figure out how your own house works and where your baby's things are.

And he was like, oh, okay.

And I was like, I literally just saved your marriage because she's hating you every day a little bit more.

And if you're still together when your child is nine, it will be a miracle.

And I talk to men like this because I don't owe them anything.

I'm speaking on behalf of women who don't get to say this to them.

And then I was like, and when she gets to leave and hands free grocery shopping is nothing a fun reward like, you taking the baby so that she can go do more chores without the baby is not fun.

I was like, she needs to be a functioning human, which means she has to have at least a few hours a day to go do whatever she wants, which might be cry in the car, it might be go see a movie, it might be shopping, a leisure activity.

And he was like, oh, yeah, okay.

And I was like, and when she returns, this poor guy just wanted to fix my window and get out of there.

But of course she returns.

Your house had better be clean because if she comes home and your baby is still awake and the kitchen is a mess and it's chaos and you couldn't get her to sleep and all of those things, she might as well have not left because she has to do more work that she had to do anyway, but now is up later.

And he was like, okay.

I was like, you're welcome.

You will probably be staying married if you actually listen to what I just said to you.

But, like, those are the realities.

And if I talk to most women, they'd be like, yeah, I don't leave because it's too hard.

Or, yeah, I try to leave, but he texts nonstop.

The kids are fighting.

They won't go to sleep.

Where do we keep their shoes?

I forgot the bag.

What do I do?

Where's diaper cream?

Is this normal?

Like, with kids crying in the background, calling?

And you're like, I just wanted to go for dinner with my friends.

Yeah, this was supposed to be leisure time because when they're out, we don't need to text them because we know where everything is.

And so I was like, it's your home and your child.

You should know as much as she does.

Yes.

Give me a soapbox.

Thank you for coming.

You need a soapbox.

I have lots.

I have a very big platform with my community.

I have a podcast which does.

I don't really promote it, but I do know I have a few thousand folks that hang out and listen to me Rantin.

And then I have the menu.

Hot and brave.

Yes.

Yeah, it's right.

Like, we need our to be hot and brave.

Like, we need to be mad like this.

And it's easy for me to talk to other people's husbands like that because I know I lived in domestic violence, so I couldn't have gone home.

I did, but there was consequences to it.

I did say these things being like, why are you texting me where diapers are?

Like, learn where the diapers are.

But there's a blowback when you're in an unsafe living environment for talking to an abuser like that.

But to other people, I always scan.

I'm mindful of how people feel when they go home because more violence happens than not.

If we actually look at the bucket of financial abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse.

Like, there's lots of different ways that can happen.

And I would say most women are living with one of those.

And so I am mindful of, I assessed before terror strip out of a husband.

But I do it all.

Like, very important.

Like, we need people telling this.

Like, this is information that I know inside and out, but it's surprising for people to hear.

Like, they're like, what?

Oh.

Like, he looked genuinely shocked that he was like, oh, she doesn't like when I text her nonstop when she's not at home?

No, she hates it.

She hates it.

It's terrible.

It's not fun.

So do you think.

Why do you.

So why do you think that is that a husband hasn't thought of that?

We've normalized it, right.

Because we considered our work.

They're not supposed to know that they made the money.

But the statistics show that even when women are the financial provider for a household, so they make the most income, as far as paid labor goes, the actual treatment and disrespect and incompetencies increase so it doesn't get better.

So no matter what, whether we're a financial dependency, because we don't have any paid labor, which is the most precarious situation.

And it's the same if we make all the money for the household.

And so because we've normalized all of these things as care work and women's work.

And so anything that men do for it is considered, like, helping.

I'm helping you with your job.

Right.

And so they don't see it as a problem.

They think the fact that they're home with their child right now is, you're welcome.

And interestingly, when they did research of talking to families, talking to hetero couples, we'll just put queer families to the side.

I love you.

I see you.

And when we're talking about the cis het, which is where the garbage is happening, it's the tragedy of heterosexuality.

I feel so sad for all my string friends.

I'm like, I'm so sorry.

That's what you like?

Because it sucks.

It sucks for you.

And when they talk to families that would self describe themselves as very egalitarian, so they would say, we do a really good job with our division of labor.

Like, we're 50 50 when they talked to them, and they actually had those folks track their hours of work like their parenting work.

So, like, log in.

How long for dishes?

How long for laundry?

How long for driving the kids to school?

When they tracked it, families would, like, die on the cross of 50 50, and that is when it's 60 40.

And so when they had hard data to be like, actually, she does 60%, you do 40%.

Both parents would report 50 50.

Wow.

Yeah.

So there's really interesting research.

The stuff I'm saying is not just, like, an angry lesbian.

No, there's amazing research.

One of my favorite books is pull this out.

It's called all the rage.

You can see I cite it all the time.

It's all the rage by Darcy Lachman.

I love her.

She was a guest on my podcast, she just spent a few years and gathered all research around the sub.

The byline of the book is mothers, fathers and the myth of equal partnership.

So the whole thing is all studies that have been done on looking at how there's just such a massive gap in family care.

And when I was interviewing on my podcast, it was really fun because at the end of, or close to the end of the podcast, she was talking about that men think that we're all like very worldly or they're very proud of themselves when they support women working out of the home.

So they're like, yeah, for sure, you should go start your business.

For sure, go get a job.

Because never in that conversation is it even cross their mind that it means that the family part of it will now have to be divided.

It's, they're like, go get a job.

Go be a CEO.

Climb that corporate ladder.

Like, I'm so proud of you.

Go open that gym.

Like whatever the thing is that they want to do.

And it's because you will still have to do all of the family care, the home care.

And so the really big detail that men would see themselves though, as being really supportive.

So as long as we continue to uphold this belief that women's work and care work belongs to us.

And the bucket just keeps getting heavier.

Like now we have to have free range chickens in our backyard.

Like, it just like the bar of what a good mom looks like.

And what's women's work?

It's getting, it's pretty much everything now.

And simultaneously, men are getting less competent, they're doing less anything around the house, like the number of mums.

So I talk to women on mass all the time that they're like.

They also do the lawn mowing and the car repair and the trip booking.

And historically, those were the things you women did in the house, men did out of the house, and big purchases were made by men.

But now if you talk moms book trips and we do all the research and we check what tv is going to be the best that they can get us here, and it will fit in the cabinet like we're doing all of those things as well, dropping cars off, checking the batteries.

Like, men don't know about those things.

I feel very skewed now because I just left the city and I live rurally and it's like, and like a really agricultural community I live in.

And so they're those very competent man men.

But if you look at suburbs and cities we're seeing like this time and we need to have space from our children, period.

But when they also looked at the research, if they looked at a blueprint of the house, and if you tracked people through the house, this has been done.

And so they tracked them and they saw where people spent time and in what diets.

The majority of time, moms were, like, never alone, essentially any room, including the bathroom.

They had children with them on them.

So, like, every space they moved through, they got into their bed.

Children were in their bed, they were in the bathroom trying to, like, everywhere.

And men spent the majority of the time in rooms alone.

And so that is so fascinating.

I know.

And so now if you look at these things are happening even when there's a PMAD, and a PMAD is a perinatal mood disorder, like anxiety and depression.

And so you can imagine you're trying, like, you're not well, and these acts aren't changing.

And then the person, the other person is just alone, most likely in the garage or the living room.

If we're going to look at two typical gender, like, the tv room, going to bed alone, the basement, like those kind of things.

And I also just want to do a quick plug if we're talking about mental health, that men are not thriving in the patriarchy either.

So that being aloneness, this is women, do not soften on your stance and feel now like, you have to do care for these men, but they are struggling, and they won't give up their power.

And until they give it up, we can't have equity.

And so they are alone.

They don't.

Their parental brain is not changing.

So, like, it requires contact and care.

Work for your brain to change, to prioritize the well being of your children, which is why men can do things like sacrifice their children, or, like, when they leave, they don't pay child support, and they don't consider them, like, all of these things because they actually didn't go through the parental brain changes.

Yes, yes.

Yeah.

They're suffering in that they don't.

They feel isolated.

They actually don't like that.

They don't know anything about teachers names, friends names, friends parents names, shoe sizes.

If you poll most dads, they don't know any of those.

And people think they're funny TikToks.

And I'm like, this is a symptom of how sad and sick our society is, that it's considered indifference versus before the family unit mattered.

But to have one parenthood know 100%, the other knows zero.

That's some bullshit.

Again, I'm bullshitting.

Especially it makes me think of a child with special needs or special medical needs.

Yeah.

My twins were born early and they both have different specialists and they do physical therapy.

And it's a lot.

It's so much, so much.

Keep track of.

It's just added on top of what you would do with a child not living with disabilities.

And while we're looking at PMADs, it looks, you can see how impossible the situation is to have movement and wellness.

I also think it would be remiss for me not to point out that the conversation we're having here, there's a very, there's a line where it's actually not safe for a lot of folks to even disclose, to get help.

So, and until we're able to talk about our symptoms, like when I put this workout, you want to talk about how deep this hits because it was used in family court, because essentially grace hold life.

I was in a, I don't know why I can call it a custody battle, but it wasn't because I've never, I've done 100% of her care all the time, but because my disclosure of a PMAT was used even still, when I publish and talk about it, I do all the time.

My 26, 27 year old self is still scared.

When I published that article, I was scared because I'm used to those being used in court excerpts, photocopies of my blogs, sound bites from my podcast, that there would be some kind of blowback for me.

And so when I posted it, I still had a flicker of, oh, he could read this.

And my body felt scared because it's a cycle of abuse.

Even though I haven't been in it and I have had no contact with him for over a decade, it's still, I still felt scared that I was like, oh, what if they see this?

And I put in writing that I was like struggling and had suicidal ideation and it was dark and I thought I was a bad mom.

And these were all the things that he said I was a bad mom and the court said I was a bad mom.

And so I think that also needs to be talked about.

When we talk about family court as well as in the US, the US and Canada for equity seeking folks, the risk of apprehension goes up like that.

That cannot be the consequence of you reaching out saying you have a PMAT, is that the risk is they come and take your children.

But that's how the system is set up again, because it's a business.

And the more kids they grab, the more money they make in Canada, the more kids they grab, the less money they make.

But they still tend to grab, especially indigenous children.

They're removed constantly from their families and given to settlers and colonizers.

The fact that I can family court I was impacted.

But I do know I have a lot of privilege as a white person with the education I have and the class markers I sit in or believe to whole that I could go and talk about mental health things and get that support, family courtesy.

But a lot of folks can't.

And so we actually can't do anything about it besides live in this really unjust family structure.

Suffering and suffering in silence.

And so again, it's no surprise that we see death by suicide being one of the leading causes of death in the perinatal period.

And that window just folks understand this, it is not when you have a newborn, the highest rate of a loss due to a death of despair is actually nine to twelve months postpartum.

And that's.

That is the highest risk period.

If somebody is going to choose or.

I'm careful with my language here, but because I want people to see suicide as a cause of death like cancer or heart attack, because it is, it's related to an illness.

And so I actually encourage people to just explore the language and I'm trying to eradicate something like killed themselves or committed suicide because it feels way more lucid and voluntary versus it being perceived as something that happens because they lost the battle to an invisible illness.

I just ask some final thoughts.

I think reaching out to people and providing the type of support, especially if you've had this lived experience that you know what you would have wanted and starting to dialogue, even just you and I saying I'm struggling with the same feeling so that we can see that we are all struggling with it.