Navigating the complexities of parenthood in today's world is no small feat, especially when it comes to balancing work and family life. In this episode of the Where Parents Talk podcast, host Lianne Castelino speaks to Lauren Smith Brody, about the concept of the "fifth trimester," which highlights the critical transition back to work after maternity leave.

Smith Brody shares her insights as a journalist, author, and CEO of the Fifth Trimester, emphasizing the importance of discipline and communication in fostering independence for working parents.

The discussion explores the challenges posed by societal expectations, including the impact of hormonal changes and mental health on new parents, as well as the role of social media in shaping perceptions of motherhood. Ultimately, this episode serves as a rallying cry for shared support systems that prioritize both physical and emotional well-being, encouraging listeners to advocate for their needs and those of others in the workplace.

Takeaways:

• The concept of the 'fifth trimester' highlights the significant transition parents face after maternity leave, impacting both mental and physical health.
• Research indicates that six months of paid parental leave is crucial for ensuring emotional well-being and effective bonding with the baby.
• Communication in the workplace about parenting needs fosters independence and discipline, allowing parents to balance career and family effectively.
• The rise of social media has amplified conversations around parenting challenges, including bullying and the importance of consent in relationships.
• Understanding hormonal changes postpartum can aid in addressing emotional health, making it vital for workplaces to support new parents.
• Building a community through shared experiences in parenting can enhance resilience against societal pressures and improve overall mental health.

Links referenced in this episode:

• 5thtrimester.com
• chamberofmothers.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• 5th Trimester
• Chamber of Mothers
• Happiest Baby on the Block
• Harvey Karp
• snoo
• vivi
• Boston Consulting Group

This podcast is for parents, guardians, teachers and caregivers to learn proven strategies and trusted tips on raising kids, teens and young adults based on science, evidenced and lived experience.

In this podcast, we explore the impact of hormonal changes, device usage, and social media on discipline, communication, and independence.

You’ll learn the latest on topics like managing bullying, consent, fostering healthy relationships, and the interconnectedness of mental, emotional and physical health.

Links referenced in this episode:

• whereparentstalk.com

Welcome to Where Parents Talk.

My name is Leanne Castellino.

Our guest today is a journalist, author, and entrepreneur.

Lauren Smith Brody is the CEO of the 5th Trimester & Co founder of Chamber of Mothers.

She's also a speaker and a mom of two.

She joins us today from New York City.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Leanne.

It's such a pleasure.

Seven years now since the book first came out, and certainly lots has happened.

But let's start, for people who might not be aware, what does the fifth trimester refer to?

Of course.

Yes.

So you know what the first three are.

The first three typically are pregnancy.

The fourth is something that I learned about after having my first son and reading a very popular book at the time called the Happiest Baby on the Block.

It was by a pediatrician named Harvey Karp.

And parents these days probably know him as the guy who invented the snoo.

He's fantastic.

And throughout the book, he introduced me to the idea of there being an additional trimester that human babies, because of the size of our heads and the size of mom's pelvis, are born a trimester earlier developmentally than other mammals.

So to soothe them, you recreate the feeling of the womb with all these s verbs, shushing and swaddling and swaying and sucking for pacifier.

And I just remember reading that.

And it was true.

I had postpartum anxiety after my first son.

I was at an executive level at that point.

I'd moved up really quickly with the hope of having a lot of flexibility by the time I had my kids.

And yet I found myself really, really having a very hard time as a brand new mom.

And his book was full of comfort.

However, throughout it, he said, just wait, Mama.

Just get to 12 weeks and your baby will wake up to the world and start to give something back to you and get on something of a schedule and maybe start to sleep at more regular interv.

And I thought 12 weeks.

12 weeks.

The irony of that number.

That was when I was going back to my job, my paid work, and I knew even then that I had it better than most American women that I was able to take those full 12 weeks.

Some of them were unpaid.

We could afford it.

It was a stretch, but it was doable.

And yet still I got back to work and I felt my baby was getting on something of a schedule, was starting to be the baby that I thought I was going to give birth to originally.

And I found that the only way I could through it really was by being very, very transparent about what was hard about the transition.

And like I said, I was at an executive level at that point.

I worked in women's magazines, so largely with other women who were pretty comfortable talking about their physical needs, emotional needs, and yet I didn't see anyone around me really talking about parenthood.

It was very much in the sort of girl boss era of fake it till you make it, dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

Try, try, try, just keep trying and you'll make it.

Which of course didn't account for a whole lot of factors that are much more systemic, which I didn't realize at the time.

And I had a moment when a colleague walked into my office and she said to me, you know, we really, really missed you over your maternity leave.

Thank you.

We were fiddling over a layout of a fitting a headline onto a magazine page.

And she said, you know, I'm really appreciative and just thanks also for, like, all of this.

And she's gesturing to my desk where I have out my breast pump and God knows what I looked like.

I'm sure I had circles under my eyes and like some stain on my swe.

And I was a little.

I was embarrassed.

I didn't know what to say.

And I paused.

And then she continued, because you're the only one here showing me that I can do it one day too.

And you don't make it look easy.

It definitely looks hard, but you're doing it and you're showing up.

And I know I want to be a mom one day too.

I know I want to continue with my career.

And thanks.

And that was a real wake up call for me when I realized that although working motherhood was new to me and it was going to continue to be hard, what I had to learn from this point out was management and modeling and showing that we could integrate our real lives and our real personhood into work and still succeed.

So I sort of filed that away.

I had my second son a few years later.

My husband was through his medical training at that point.

I had been the primary breadwinner for the first, oh, gosh, at least 10 years of our marriage.

And I had this idea of there being a fifth trimester of that transition back to paid work after maternity leave being an additional developmental transition and trimester not necessarily for baby, but for the working parent.

And thus the idea was born.

I eventually wrote my book.

I Surveyed and interviewed more than 700 other moms with all kinds of definitions of what ambition looked like, different kinds of careers, different family structures to figure out that initial problem.

I had what was an individual problem to be solved versus perhaps a system that working together, we could each play a part in helping to solve.

So that launched the book, and then from there I launched my business and started this movement.

And it's been an absolute pleasure and an honor to be able to bring individual support to people, but also to help look at bigger structures and systems and get into companies and help them do better and work in public policy and help our greater nation do better.

By parents.

Certainly plenty of lived experience that served as your motivation for writing this book in the first place.

And you were the very demographic that the book addresses.

So very interesting from that perspective.

Take us, Lauren, through some of the research that, you know, really struck you as you poured yourself into writing this book.

You talk about interviewing more than 700 women.

I'm wondering if there's anything that you saw or heard in those interviews in particular that really captured your attention.

Oh, absolutely.

Just how much of the physical experience and the mental health experience of new parenthood is.

The data really does all coalesce around six months postpartum as being a real transition point for moms, as I said, from all different kinds of backgrounds, all different kinds of circumstances.

To just say, actually this is a biological need.

And that's the moment at which our bodies start to feel like our own again.

Not the same as they were before, different, you know, of course, but ours.

And that's when we start to get a handle on focus and on just the emotional and mental health transitions of parenthood, too.

And not everyone, it takes some people longer, some people come to it faster.

But when I surveyed these hundreds and hundreds of women, that's what eventually they said is that it was at about the six month mark.

About the six month mark.

And the sleeping, too.

I asked, understanding that the people I was talking to were coming from all kinds of different cultural backgrounds and different definitions of, like, what does a full night's sleep look like?

I didn't ask, when does baby sleep through the night?

I asked, at what point did you as a mom get seven hours straight of sleep?

And seven hours, to be clear, is like, not even enough for me.

But I wanted to use that as a very conservative standard.

And it was at seven months postpartum.

And so when I had sort of the validation of all these numbers that are like so far out past that 12 week mark of what FMLA covers in America.

I started looking at other research that I didn't even know about when I was going through it myself.

And essentially all of the research shows, and has for 30 years, 35 years, that six paid months of parental leave is the minimum that's protective of mom's mental health, mom's physical health, baby's physical health, dad or partner's bond with the baby, mom's ability not just to maintain her career, but also ultimately her income.

All of it coalesces around six months.

And so what that said to me is that this sample of these hundreds of women who are answering these questions, they're pretty representative of a biological need.

And it's not to say that you can't go back sooner than that.

Obviously, most people do and have to.

I certainly did.

But to understand that if.

If you are back before you feel ready to be, it's not your fault, you're not doing anything wrong.

There's no failure.

There's no reason to feel, as I did, guilty.

When you're back at 12 weeks and you feel torn, it doesn't feel right.

I called it in my book the second cutting of the umbilical cord, because that is what it felt like to me.

But that it's a larger system and that you deserve every ounce of support that you can ask for from your family, your community, your friends, but also your workplaces to help get you over that hump so that you can be able to stay in your career and use what you've learned in that fifth trimester transition and pay it forward for others to help change systems and make progress for all you know.

If we just pick on that component for a second.

So the question then becomes, lauren, do you believe that we are more ready today, as a society in general, to have this conversation about the intersection between working parenthood and the business world?

I do.

There's a lot more research available done by me by colleagues of mine beyond just this book.

I also think just speaking to just the everyday mother, I think it's really, really helpful that we have a shared vocabulary now that didn't exist then.

And I mean terms like the fifth trimester, which I coined and made up and trademarked, but that now people find community in, but also like understanding unpaid labor.

You know that that term existed back then, but not a whole lot of people were using it.

I think the pandemic really, really made visible a lot of unseen unpaid labor that goes into care work that is absolutely just as valuable, if not even more valuable, than paid work.

And understanding sort of the math and the balance between the two, it's understanding terms like benevolent discrimination, which is a piece of the motherhood penalty.

And I love.

I'll explain.

So the motherhood penalty is the negative impact of motherhood on a mom's earnings, but also on her perceived.

Her status, but also her perceived dependability in the workplace.

And one way that it shows up is in salary and in offered starting salaries.

If someone knows you're a mother or they perceive you as someone who might be a mother soon.

So that's one way.

But another way is actually benevolent and is well intended, but is something that as.

As a mother, you can actually help people understand how to work with you better and give you opportunities by saying, I understand that.

You may say, oh, let's not ask her to go on that trip.

Let's not ask her to take on that additional client.

We don't want to bother her.

She's got a new baby.

And that comes from a really good place.

And understanding it comes from a good place helps you negotiate around it.

But to say, thank you for being so considerate, I really.

I want the agency to be able to decide what I can and can't take on right now.

And I'm really good at making these new decisions and compromises.

And so, you know, give me the opportunity, please.

It's that sort of.

So it's understanding and finding community and some of the vocabulary that we now have on the tips of our tongues in a way that we didn't before.

And it brings you together, and it helps you see that this is not an individual problem.

This is not, you know, an evil boss situation.

Very few people actually have an evil boss.

Most bosses also are caregivers, too, in one way or another, and want to be able to help their employees succeed and be productive.

There's also a whole lot of new research.

Some of it, actually, I worked on.

In the last year, I wrote a white paper in partnerships.

It was a partnership between my business, the Fifth Trimester, and a child care company called vivi that's really innovative.

And they were my thought partners in it, in researching the return on investment of caregiving support at work so that the caregiving benefits.

So that is everything from, you know, a stipend for childcare or backup childcare, that kind of thing.

It's paid leave, it's paid NICU leave.

But it's also things like measuring people's output when they have more flexibility.

And we did 10 case studies looking at what people who were in pretty good situations, they raised their hands to be interviewed for this.

That's an important qualifier as a subset of employees to say, here's what I used over the past year that was offered to me.

Here's the backup care, the flexible spending account that I put towards my childcare bills, the, you know, the maternity leave, paternity leave that I was able to take.

Here's what it cost my company over the past year, and here's what it allowed me to do in terms of my output and in putting a number to that, which, by the way, is 18, it's 8.

The ROI of caregiving benefits is 18x.

So for every dollar a company spends supporting its employees with training and all of these things, they get back $18.93 in output from them.

Like is a super capitalistic way to explain it.

But where I'm going with this is that we now have a lot of the economic arguments for the things that felt like they were the right thing to do, the moral imperative, but that, gosh, they just might not make business sense.

They now make business sense, they always did, but now we have the numbers to prove it.

And so I did that research.

There was other research done by Boston Consulting Group.

There have been a number of think tanks that have looked into various pieces of this, this.

And again, it's a little bit like that six month moment of coalescing of all of the data and research.

It all shows the same thing, which is that when we do do the right thing for not just new moms, but all moms, all dads, anyone doing elder care, anyone who sees caregiving as a part of their identity and the work that they do, it pays off.

People are more productive, people are more motivated, people do better work.

And that whole cultural narrative shift I've been really proud to be a part of, but I think that that's what's made the most progress.

That plus just the visibility that the pandemic put on a lot of these issues for families, progress is certainly welcome.

And as you mentioned, the pandemic really had seismic shifts on the world.

But with respect to this particular topic, because I've interviewed other people in and around this topic, massive amount of impact.

What more in your estimation needs to be done?

What does success look like?

Oh, my gosh, what a great question.

I mean, so I tend, I tend to lean pretty far left here But I've seen, I've seen that.

Okay, let me back up.

So my work, as I've described to you, that grew out of the book, is pretty much like, some of it's academic, but some of it is very.

Is private sector.

And it's really helping people who largely, I will admit to you, already have access to pretty good employment standards.

Like they work for companies that want to hire someone like me to come in and make them even better at supporting and retaining and recruiting parent employees.

So pretty good people.

My work was not fully reaching the people who need it the most, which is the people who in the United States are not even covered by fmla.

So that's about half of our country, the people who have access to no child care, because 51% of America is considered a child care desert.

And so I've now co founded with a bunch of other amazing women, the Chamber of Mothers, which does public policy work to reach really universally everyone.

So what success looks like, in my estimation is progress in the private sector and progress in public policy happening in tandem.

And in some cases, one will happen more quickly than the other.

I do think that we can't undersell the impact of public policy and laws that actually support childcare needs, paid leave, and maternal health as Chamber of Mothers supports, because it's just at the root.

It's at the root of everything.

It's completely interconnected.

And when we solve that for the mom who needs it the most, we essentially solve it for everyone because that woman is able to then show up for her family, raise the next generation to be productive, and also do great work at the same time.

And it's just, it's a pleasure to be able to do it.

But I think that what we need, we're pretty far away from what we actually need.

And yet public approval on all of these things is through the roof.

It's in the 90s, 90th percentile between 80s and 90s, depending on what, what surveys you're looking at.

But the American public is ready for it.

Our lawmakers aren't quite there yet.

I think that private sector progress has really shifted cultural norms very, very positively in the right direction.

And eventually, hopefully soon, we will elect people into office who are living, living the needs that they're trying to solve, and we'll get there.

Along those lines, you know, what would be some tips that you could share?

Strategies you could share with working moms, working dads in the trenches right now who are looking for relief one day, whenever that may be.

But in the moment they have to deal and grapple with many of the things that you described having to grapple with.

I know I did when I had my first child 26 years ago.

A completely different landscape back then.

Definitely.

What can you say to them to give them hope and perhaps some, you know, some actionable tips that you can share.

I have seen so many times the power of one person speaking up.

And I know it feels particularly if you're asking for any kind of flexibility or accommodation when you have a tiny baby, it feels like you are negotiating with the highest stakes in mind.

And from many, many women I talk to, it is the first time that they've actively negotiated for anything.

And that can feel very, very daunting.

What I found, whether I'm coaching someone one on one or speaking to a big audience of corporate managers who are trying to figure out how to engage in these conversations more effectively, the thing that unlocks people to have the bravery to do it, first of all, is their kids.

Kids are, and we found this in the white paper I was telling you about earlier, the ROI of caregiving benefits.

Kids are motivators.

Kids are not detractors.

The reason people want to stay longer in their job for stability's sake, make more money for economic security, move up in their career and find meaning in the work they do is because of their kids.

So first of all, know that your kids are driving you and that's a very good thing.

Next, know that anything that you ask for, any accommodation or anything that stands out as something that's different than what is normal in your, in your team or your industry, whatever, in your state is not just good for you.

It feels like something you're asking for because your daycare drop off is 15 minutes earlier than everyone else's and doesn't align with the weekly meeting.

Right.

Super personal, very, very kind of vulnerable feeling when you ask for that thing.

There are other people around you who for one reason or another cannot speak up to the same degree that you can.

They may be marginalized or minoritized in some way that you're not.

And they can't take that small risk that you feel you can take it for them.

You're doing it for yourself, but you're also doing it for everyone else around you who doesn't have a voice that's as loud that can feel, I think especially in the sort of awakening of nurturing that can happen for a lot of people in early parenthood.

That feels really motivating too.

But then further than that.

Also know you're Doing it for yourself, you're doing it for your colleagues.

You're also doing it for your employer.

You are actually doing your job well when you show them the thing that you need to be able to still be here a year from now, to be able to be performing at your best, to be able to be working on a team where everyone feels good about each other's personal lives and professional lives and works in synchronicity.

It's good for the greater economy.

There's just the economic argument, is there?

So go do whatever you have to do to fill up your brain and your heart with all the research that you need to feel motivated and secure in having those conversations.

Come into any negotiation with not just the ask, but also really the plan.

And you have to have all the answers, but you're going to as the person who you can't.

We can't solve problems we can't see.

So you're the one who's making it visible.

But you're also the one who's going to have the most specific plan for how to address it.

So come with that plan and you're actually doing the work for your manager in that way as well.

Come with a plan A, come with a plan B, maybe come with a plan C and ask them to try it.

If you get any kind of resistance, try it and keep track of your deliverables, Keep track of what it is that you're trying to fulfill to show that it can work.

And then set a plan to reevaluate and see if it's working.

Find solidarity in not just any other brand new working mom, if that's who you are, but also any colleagues who are doing care work that may not be as visible.

So I say all the time, like, if you walk into an office and they're having cupcakes for somebody's baby shower in the conference room, that care need is really visible.

If there's a pregnant belly, it's a very visible need.

Even on a zoom, like you lean way back, you can see a belly, right?

What's not as visible as some of the care work that happens at later stages in life, which is, research shows us, largely, largely handled by women.

So it's ongoing care for kids who have chronic conditions, you know, as they grow up.

It is spousal care, it's self care, it's elder care, it's your dad needs chemo and somebody has to take him once a week.

And you go, they're not always saying like, bye guys, I'm taking my dad.

To chemo.

I wish they could.

And when you speak up on behalf of new moms, you're doing it for all of those other colleagues as well.

And it becomes a universal need, not a niche need.

And you'll find solidarity there too.

So as open as you can possibly be, please do.

And I understand if you feel like you can't, but then try to link arms with a couple of other people so that you have that scaffolding around you to help you speak up for what you need.

One of the other interesting aspects of this whole conversation has to do with when women are having babies.

There's certain things we can draw from that statistic, you know, more seasoned, experienced mothers becoming mothers for the first time.

Does any of that or has it had any impact on you and your work and your advocacy?

Yeah, you know, I think a lot of the moms I'm working with are coming from a position of being more.

Having more invested in the climb, you know, and not everyone is defines.

Defines motivation in terms of climbing a corporate ladder.

I don't mean that necessarily at all, but they have a history to draw from and they're bringing that to their parenting, actually in ways that that's really cool.

And then they're bringing their parenting to their.

To their middle management, let's say, or their management or to their colleagues and skills that they've learned.

So I've seen that.

What I've seen also though is that, you know, a lot of the reason that people waiting is because parenthood is just incredibly expensive.

Childcare has doubled over the last 20 years in terms of just its cost.

And like I said, it's just not that available to many people.

Many people are able to afford a couple of days of real child care, like paid for childcare, and then are sort of cobbling together other ways.

If they have a partner, they're working kind of swing shifts, they're having maybe a neighbor watch the kids in a more ad hoc fashion, which takes more management and takes more out of you, frankly.

It's just more sort of verticals to manage in terms of your kids care.

And so that's really stressful.

So the women who I'm meeting, you know, in late motherhood, in some ways starting their motherhood later, are more sure of who they are, but then are more thrown when motherhood is harder than they imagined.

And they're starting later because they're trying to save up for it.

And unfortunately, they're finding it's just getting more expensive every year.

So you may as well just go ahead and have those kids.

But it's tricky.

They're also having fewer kids, though.

And that ultimately is another really strong economic argument for this support.

We need to be able to have sorry to be so just capitalistic about it, but a next generation of workers.

We're not going to have as many workers as we need to be able to support those who are aging now if people aren't able to have the number of children that they'd like to bring into the world because they can't afford it.

Certainly lots to think about on a very important topic.

Lauren Smith Brody, author of the Fifth Trimester, CEO of the Fifth Trimester as well, thank you so much for taking the time today.

Thank you.

Leanne.