Ep 179: How to embrace being a "good enough" mother. With Dr Margo Lowy author of Maternal Ambivalence

In this conversation, Dr. Margo Lowy discusses the complexities of motherhood, emphasizing the importance of embracing the messiness and normalizing the feelings that come with it. They explore the role of community support, the significance of maternal ambivalence, and the need for mothers to forgive themselves for not being perfect. The discussion advocates for a more compassionate understanding of the motherhood experience.

Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children. Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner.

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Welcome to your child is normal, the podcast that empowers parents with reliable science backed guidance on Childhood Health and Development. I'm your host, Dr Jessica Hochman, a pediatrician and mom of three, here to provide you with quality advice and reassurance so you can spend less time worrying and more time focused on connecting with your kids and enjoying your so you can spend so you can spend less time worrying, so you can spend less time worrying and more time focused on connecting with your kids and enjoying your parenting and enjoying your parenting experience as much as possible. I'm so happy to have this conversation with you. I really enjoyed reading your book. I think it's very, very relatable. Thank you. Thanks, Jessica. I'm really happy to be here, and any opportunity that I have to spread My Word, it's very important to me. There's so much taboo and secrecy around mothering. My work is really to expose this, and, as you say, to normalize it. And we all have these experiences, but we really find it difficult to talk about them truthfully, and I think we paper over a lot of them, and I really want to bring this out and become more comfortable with talking about this. And I am a mother of three, but I'm also a grandmother, so I've seen, I've seen a lot over my years, and I really, I'm very passionate about changing, really changing the narrative around mothering. Did you go through something personally that inspired you to write this book? I'm a psychotherapist, and it was more I'm sure that in my room, there was always what I call an empty seat reserved for the mother, which means she was always in the room, obviously not physically there, but emotionally there. And so then I decided that I wanted to do a PhD on mothering, and I wanted to find an area of mothering that wasn't really talked about a lot, because there's a lot of work, as you know, on mothering, but I wanted to find something that really inspired me and took my interest, and I found this book by someone called Dr Rosica Parker, and It was called torn in two, and it talked about maternal ambivalence. And it really spoke to me. I've adapted what she said she What she said is that maternal ambivalence is the mother's loving and hating feelings towards her child and the hate, I think that mothers do have hating moments, but it's a little extreme. So I in this book, I talked more about encouraging mothers to talk about all their feelings of mothering, not to make it binary, not to say I have anger or happiness, not that I have had dark feelings or light feelings. It's for to encourage mothers to talk about all their feelings, and in particular, not to disregard the dark feelings, the difficult feelings, the disturbing feelings, the messy feelings of mothering, because I believe that they are so valuable, and they transform our mothering. It's like those moments that a child does something and like we're reminded, or they melt us in our hearts. Think we've all had those moments ever since I was a child, I've always wanted to be a mother, and I'm sure many people can relate to me when I say that, and I think your book was definitely relatable for my feelings, because I remember when I became pregnant, I did not like feeling pregnant. I felt nauseous, I felt tired, I couldn't do the things that I normally like to do. I'm a very active person. I'm not a homebody. I like to be out and about, and all of a sudden, my life was totally disrupted. I wasn't feeling good and so and I felt I felt bad about that. You know, because I meet a lot of mothers that love being pregnant. They love that someone opens the door for them. They love feeling the baby inside them. And I remember that my first experience of entering motherhood was not what I expected, and I felt bad about that. And I have to say, now to this day, I love being a mother. I'm so glad I did it, but the experience has not always been roses, and this is really what I talk about in my book, because we have these expectations about pregnancy and about mothering, and it puts the mother into a spot. Because, as you said, you kind of think, well, I should be feeling this way, but I'm not. And it's really a wrestle and an inner struggle for the mother, because one already feels that, that you're an insufficient or a bad mother and what. And one of the things I talk about a. Lot in the book, and it's kind of related to this is mothering is an experience. I think it's, I call it a messy, interrupted experience, and I think that that is a better way of saying it, rather than it's a wonderful, fantastic, smooth experience. It's not, it's messy. And as you say it's interrupted because you think it's going to be a certain way. It's not. I think if, if that was the message that mums got before they even got pregnant, it might be helpful that it's that it's not all this peaches and cream. No, it's not. It's It's messy. It can be despairing, it disrupts, but it's also the most wonderful experience. So what I'm trying to do is to make both sides important, not to just take one, because my way of thinking about is, I think I humanize mothering when it's seen as something perfect, that's not what it is. No, no. And I agree with that concept. I think, I think it's important to realize and to recognize that it's okay to have both thoughts at the same time and have space for both feelings to be true. So you can really love being a mother. Want nothing more than to care for your children, and also you can resent the feelings of motherhood. You can, you can, you can struggle with the fact that your life is totally different after having children. That is something that I completely relate to. I love being a mother. I want nothing more than to raise my children, raise them well, spend time with them, but at the same time, I also like taking a break from them. I love going to the gym. I love being with my friends sometimes. So I think, I think what you're talking about is really helpful for moms to not feel so much shame and guilt around having both of those feelings. That's right, and I think that it's not really in our stratosphere in that way quite yet for moms to feel your word okay, that it's okay, it's and it's actually more than okay. It's actually necessary, because to be a good mum, or, as I say in my book, and enough mum, we need to be able to do the things that that make us feel good. Yes, I love the chapter in your book where you talk about the myth of perfection that, yes, striving towards perfection just isn't realistic. It's not it's actually not possible. And thinking in those terms will set us up for failure and disappointment, definitely. And that's I that's that's related to the maternal ideal that, and it's such a high bar, and we'll never reach that. The issue is, we're kind of not told about all this when we're going to be mothers. I mean, you know, you talk about, you know, as a little girl, there was nothing more that you wanted, and it's like you're pushing the pram, the dolly pram, and you're thinking that this is going to be the most wonderful thing, and in a sense, that's going to complete you, but it can complete you, or it does complete you, but in an entirely different way. And one of the really important concepts is also that mothering is also really making mistakes and fixing them up, and that's how we learn. We don't learn if we don't make mistakes, I have to say, I am very grateful to my own mother. If you fast forward now, I'm 44, years old. We are very close. I call my mom probably every day, sometimes more than once a day. We're very, very close. But throughout my childhood, she definitely made it clear that having children was not easy for her. She talked about how hard it was to go through labor. I heard those stories all the time that it was very uncomfortable. I agree. Gift. I agree. Now you can see it as a gift. Now I can see it. She would say to me, of course, it's the best thing I ever did. I would never regret it. I love being a mother. I so. I'm so grateful to have my three children, but having a baby was very painful. It was a really hard experience. I did not like breastfeeding. I did not breastfeed. She and my dad would go on vacations together without the children. They they were very clear that they needed that time. They needed some break without the kids. And so as an adult, I look back and I'm very I'm very glad that they knew what they needed. And I'm very glad that my mom was honest with me, because now my mom gave me that blueprint. She talked to me clearly about her experience in motherhood. I mean, that's that's quite incredible, and I don't know how usual it is, but in a sense, she she's given you permission to have maternal ambivalence, and you can see that it can, it is a transformative experience, if you can see both sides, because if you shut off the difficult feelings, it's not real. It's not it's not human, and any hands on mothering is. Is hard. I mean, you've gotta right, really get down to the messy parts, whether, whether we're talking about new mothering, when you're up all night with a fussy baby, and it's just excruciating when you haven't when you haven't slept, and you have to get up the next day and you have to function, and it's really hard and and then you go through the stages of when they're a toddler. I thought about the other day that experience, say, at the mall, when you look, when you lose sight of your child for that minute, we all have those experiences. And you're gripped with terror, and you're thinking, how could I take my eyes off the child, like for one minute? And how, how could I do that? And I told that child not to move, and they moved. And then you've got that terror, and you're looking and you don't know what to do. And then this, then I I think of this story of of seeing a little girl coming, skipping along back to me in the hand of my mother, like she's so proud she's with the mother. And then you like the relief and how fabulous it is. But then you're kind of shocked by these feelings, these feelings of, how could I felt? That that resentment, that fury, and then those feelings of fury melt you and your love becomes stronger. We all have those moments, and that's what ambivalence is. It's that melting, that surge of love that keeps going forever. I follow your point. I can see this. It's true, absolutely. I'm sure all of us listening. If you've been a mom long enough, or a parent for long enough, you have had moments where you're scared you can't find your kids, for example, and it's true, maybe those moments do help us or remind us how much and how valuable our relationships are with our children. And in fact, it doesn't stop when they're little and continues like when you have an adult child, and they forget to call you and it's two o'clock in the morning, and you think back to when you first when you have your baby, you're up at two o'clock at least, you know where the baby is, you know. And I talk a lot in my book about separating future from your children when they're older, and being able to respect them as adults, and kind of to stand back and let them make their own mistakes as as adults with their own children. And how I talk about how proud I am I've got three totally different children that have taken on three totally different paths, and how lucky I am to be able to watch them and to really carefully not judge them, because you don't want to judge your children. You want them to have their voyage into parenthood in their own way, and how wonderful it is to do that, and how you know they'll make mistakes the same way as we did, and I did and you didn't, that's okay, and that's what makes us human. We have grandparents that are very close to our children, and I feel so grateful when they don't judge things that we do. They may be thinking things, and I'm always grateful that they don't share them out loud. Yeah, well, it's, it's the parents, the mother's time. And I think when we're talking about judgment here, there's a social judgment, an ideal that it's like when you talked about your parents went away, even though, like, maybe their friends were thinking it was terrible. Well, you know what? It's every mum, every every relationship, you need time away if you're lucky enough to get it, and it's so important, because it refuels you and renews you, and that's what we need as moms to be able to be renewed. And there's so many ways of being renewed as a mother, and there's also ways that it's it's so difficult hands on being a mother, because it is messy and it's exhausting. Yes, I really respect that my parents knew what they needed, because I do think that when you have that time to recharge, you become a better parent, and when you're a better parent, that's better for your children, much better for children to be around parents with energy that are in good moods, as opposed to parents that are stressed. Don't have time for their kids, don't have energy for their kids. So I agree. I think it's really important that people honor what they what they need. Yes, you bring you bring in another really important part of my work, which is laughter. And I relate that to flow as a mother. If we can flow with our mothering, you know, as opposed to being rigid and kind of strangled by the ideals, we're going to be better mothers. Flow is being able to laugh, being able to laugh at ourselves, and being able to stop. For a moment like to smell the roses, even at the most difficult time. I when I read that in your book the importance of humor, I couldn't agree more. And I was thinking about there was a time when I took my kids to the farmers market, and my youngest hadn't had, you know, she went to the bathroom. I changed her diaper. I had only brought two diapers with me, and then she went to the bathroom again, and it was a big mess. Poop was everywhere. I had to take off her clothes. It got on me, and it was very stressful. I'm around a lot of people in a crowded area at the farmers market, and I remember my older kid, who was probably five at the time, she started laughing, like, Mommy, you have poop all over your shirt. There's poop all over her, and it immediately transformed this very stressful feeling into, you know what? This is funny. This is a funny time. We're going to fix this. It's not so bad. I'll get home, I'll clean her off, I'll wash my clothes. But this is a funny moment, and so I do, I do, completely agree that humor can change stress into a good experience. And in that, in that scenario, you were open to making it humorous and to going with your flow, because often we can't, often it just we take it much too seriously. But there was something in that, there was something in the interaction that you were able to maybe stop and think, think for a second and transform it. And that's that's a wonderful asset to have. And I really encourage all mums like to make a space to think how serious is this, and am I going to change it by being annoyed and irritated and stressed. Oh, this is an opportunity to make this a funny story that we can recall forever. Yes. And I also remember being grateful because there were people around me that looked at me and I thought, maybe they're going to judge. And they looked and they said, up, been there, done that. It's Yes, yes. You know, they gave me a smile, they gave me some encouragement. And I do think there's also something to society, being forgiving of each other, giving the parent the Okay, been there. I understand what you're going through. It's okay. We're gonna get through it. And so I do, I do agree that overall, if we can add humor light in the moments of child rearing is better for everybody, yes, like that light and the moments of mothering or parenting, I mean getting back to your to your comment about if there's community around that are supportive, that's that's so much better, and it doesn't always happen. And there's also the sense of being able to forgive ourselves. I think that's really important, and it doesn't come from like that. There's a process and a thought being thoughtful about forgiving oneself, and that's also connected to flow, as opposed to being rigid, you know, I've thought a lot about rigidity and how it really makes it difficult to be a mother when you are rigid, when you've got these rules that you think that you need to observe all the time, and There's no flow. And we really need flow, because we're adapting all the time. If we're not flowing, we're not adapting, we're not going to be able to fix our mistakes, we're not going to be able to laugh at them, and we're not going to be able to have the sense that I'm going to do what I need to do to be the enough mother that I can be. I'm grateful for my mothering experience, because I could see the difference from my first child to my third child. When my first child I felt that rigidity. I felt that I had to be perfect with breastfeeding, with her sleep schedule. Yes, I remember I couldn't go to birthday parties with my first child because the birthday party fell exactly during her nap time, everything was rigid. But by the time I had a third kid, I remember thinking, you know, did we, did she nap yet today? I'm not sure, or did she, did she have a good, balanced meal? Yet, I don't remember. And you just Yes, and so I I'm so grateful that I had that experience where I could see that had a much less stressful experience with her, and she's okay. It's right now. Fast forward, she's nine years old, and she's doing fine. She's in school. She has friends, that's right and that, and they don't have to be so, so sticky, so rigid, and they teach us. Every child that we have teaches us so much about life and about mothering, and yeah, you had no choice. You had to that. You had to adapt. Otherwise you would be at home. You would be at home all the time without, without being able to get out. I mean, my children are now. My oldest is 44 my next one's 35 and. My next one's 27 I had secondary infertility between my first two, and I was very lucky to have the second and the third one. But I think that you you for me, I was very rigid with the first experience. We had a lot of fun, but I couldn't tolerate that. I might have messy feelings. And I have two sons, and my daughter taught me about the messy feelings, and she taught me to laugh, and she taught me that it was actually okay. And the the irony is, once you once you can laugh about it, or once you can flow with it, you actually are a better mum or an enough mum. And that's the irony, and it's very hard to get to that, I think, with the first children, because you're on a you're on a timetable, you just have to adapt. I mean, the second and the third, they just have to drag along, and they're okay. And as you said, your nine year old actually made it to school, and she's actually got some friends. Yes, no, absolutely. Something that I think about a lot is, as a pediatrician, I talk to moms. I talk to a lot of new moms who experience a lot of anxiety, a lot of sadness. They have postpartum blues. They are very real, very pervasive, and I think a lot of people don't want to admit that they have those feelings. And I strongly believe that the more community you have around you, the more support you have around you, the more that we can let moms know that these feelings are okay, expected, normal. I do think it's better for everybody, and I think if you can validate those feelings, yes, it's better for everybody. It's it's better for the mother. It's better for her husband, it's better for the children. I do think that by validating these feelings, it really does make it really does make it better. And I think for a lot of mums, it's hard to because you're absolutely time poor, it's hard to really know what's going on. And I really, I really encourage mums to look at my book when they get a chance, and to even to read it in whatever order. And it's really, it really gives, I think it really gives them more real notion of what mothering is a human It's human. What I really appreciate about your book is that it it really validates those feelings, that you may really love your children, but it's okay not to love all aspects of mother. No, no. It's really hard. I mean, when you're tired and, as you say, when they've when they poo everywhere and it's messy, it's hard. I remember being very excited to have my first kid. I was in residency at the time, working 80 plus hours a week, and I fantasize this time where I would have a baby that slept all day. I would be off for a few months before going back to work. And honestly, it was really I was I was in for a rude awakening, because my first born had a severe case of colic. She cried all the time. It was really, really hard to console her. She really was not a good sleeper at night, and I remember feeling really bad about not wanting to be with her. I felt tremendous relief. I remember very clearly the first day that I took her to daycare and I was able to pay somebody to take her for the day. I felt so guilty at the relief I felt that I wasn't with her, and I thought they're gonna call me any second, telling me she's so colicky, she cries so much, we also can't take her. But they never called me, and I felt bad that I was I was so happy to not be with her for eight hours. But fast forward, I want to say that. You know, she outgrew that stage. I adore my children. I adore her. Now. As a pediatrician, I'm very grateful for that experience, because when I have new moms that come in and they tell me similar feelings when they have colicky kids or they really don't enjoy that newborn stage particularly, and I can relate to them. Yes, I can tell that it gives them relief, it gives them comfort, that we can that that they're not alone in those feelings. So I do think, in hindsight, it was a great experience for me, because I do think my experience has actually helped other mothers, and for that, I'm grateful. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I always think that our kids teach us everything every a lot, and we get the children that we're meant to get. And I, I think that your vulnerability is so important, especially as a pediatrician, and if you can, if you can understand that, that opens a whole sense of self, forgiveness, for for the for the mums that you see, and also a different way of looking at it. It's like, it's okay. I can actually say that I don't like this phase and that I'm tired and that it's exhausting, and that I'm happy to put for them to go to someone else so I can get myself back on track. And this, this is like, such a new narrative. That it's like fan fantastic and, and it's healthy and, and I also am so grateful for those in my life that helped with my kids when they were little. My mother in law was in particular, was very involved. I remember she would come over and watch the kids for a couple hours and let me leave my apartment. And I do think those experiences also help you have a greater sense of appreciation and love for others in your life. Yes, and I've no doubt that you would probably have told your mother in law that you appreciated her. So I know, yeah, it's, it's a wonderful thing. It's, it flows, yes, I mean, still to this day, she listens to this podcast. So I I can say with great sincerity and love that her involvement with my kids has definitely been a wonderful experience, because I know it works. It works in all respects. You know, she My kids love her. She loves my kids. I love her. I love my kids. So I feel like everybody benefits. So again, just just sort of reiterating the point that the more support we have, I do think my overall sense with maternal ambivalence is that, because it's a real feeling, and it's a really a normal feeling, the more we talk about it, the more we ask for help, the better it is for everybody, the better the overall experiences. So please, moms, anyone listening who's struggling, ask for help. I mean, people like to feel helpful. I think, I think also what this what you're saying. I don't know what people think about this statement, but it does take a village to raise a child. It does, really does. And this also reminds me of the roles of the Father, and how important the father is to the partner, to if it to, if it's the wife or the partner, because they I think these days, fathers are much more involved with their children, and it's like and I think the mothers possibly have let go of, hopefully, of their perfection, because if you've got someone to help you, they're actually allowed to do it in their way. You don't need as the mother, you can just go and be in peace, and you don't need to ring up. Are you doing this? Are you doing that? Like with your mother in law? What food are you giving or you don't need to, like, be a policeman. You just need to let them do what they do. The kids are going to be all right. They're going to survive an afternoon with the father or a weekend with the grandparent, and the kid is going to know that they can get away with this with the grandparent. They're not going to get away with it with the mother. But it's that's also so important to be able to give the help, the people that help you, the possibility to do it their way. And you mum, we like as mums, we actually like to control, and that's rigid. We actually need to let go of that and let other people help us. And it goes back to what you really said, get people to help because they like it, and it's good for the child. It's good for the child to have other people around, loving them absolutely now you're reminding me when my when my kids were really little, my husband. He's a very involved husband. He loves being a father. I'm very grateful to him, but he definitely did things in a different way than I would do them, and I do think it really helped to laugh about it. So for example, the buttons on those onesies are so difficult those but those buttons, you have to line them up exactly. And he didn't care. Oftentimes the kids would leave the house the buttons were half on or not. I love it. And I would have a diaper bag, for example, that was packed with everything you needed, diaper cream, extra diapers, extra change of clothes. And I remember once he walked out the door with our six month old with just a diaper in his back pocket, no diaper bag. And I said, Don't you need the bag that everybody has. And he said, what for? I'll figure it out. You know, I got what I really need, just a diaper. You know, it's funny. We could laugh about it, that we'd figure it out. And he did figure it out. He's like, if something happens, I'll figure it out. And he was right, and the kids are okay, so I do think you're right that being exposed to different styles that aren't so rigid, it's helpful for everybody. Yeah, and I think as moms, we need to, we need to work on that, because we do like to do it our way. And I think we often, with the first child, you've got these plans, and also you really want to do it yourself. You want to, you want to prove in a way, that that you're that you're enough, or that you're doing a good job. Because it go and this, for all of us as moms, it goes to the center of our being, that we can, that we that we're doing a job that we're proud of, and sometimes we can, we can have moments that we I nailed, that. That's fantastic, but it's really we're not going to be like that all the time, and we have to be really forgiving of ourselves and that, remember that maternal ambivalence also is something that's positive and that's transformative. Yeah, and this takes me back to the that the word ambivalence is really misunderstood. People confuse it with indifference, which is actually the opposite, because it's a not caring. It's just being aware of all the different feelings and and that the difficult ones are difficult, but they're valuable, and they renew our love. And I just, I really want to stress this part, that maternal ambivalence is something that we haven't included in the maternal language, and it's so vital. Yes, I agree. I think it's so vital for people to know that there's space for all feelings, that you can love your baby, but you can also struggle with being a mother, that you can feel how hard it is. And I think the more that we recognize this, the more that we admit this to ourselves, the better the experience is overall, yeah, and the better for other mothers. Because when, if, when this when and if this is known, and I am so determined to make this known, then other mothers will say, yeah, that's okay. That's how I feel. You identify with it, and when, when you read it, or when you hear it, you kind of can get a warm glow, yeah, that's what I'm going through, and I'm okay and enjoying my best. And that's really what it's about. It's it's about the mother being able to feel that she's doing the best that she can at that moment, that it's not always going to be like that, that she's going to make mistakes and she'll fix them up. I really believe that we're all doing the best that we can with the tools that we have, that we're not meant to be perfect. We're just doing the best that we can definitely Now I'm curious for yourself, now that you've spent a lot of time thinking about maternal ambivalence, now that you're a grandmother yourself, do you wish that you have that you had done anything differently when you were a mother? Definitely, and I've got, this is my second book. I wrote a I did my PhD on maternal ambivalence. That was what I studied. That was in a bit from about 2012 so I'm really very invested in this area. And I wrote a book from my PhD, which was more academic, and I ended it on very near the end of I wrote, I wrote a list of things that I wish I would have known. And it's really what we've been talking about today. It's being able to laugh a little bit, to stop and not to worry about the little things. And I wish I would have known that it was actually a messy, interrupted experience. And I wish I would have known that I can't be a perfect mother, and we need to concentrate on our humanity and not being perfect. It kind of takes you away from the main focus and that we're human. I know that your work is going to be so helpful to so many people. So thank you so much. And can you tell everybody about your book and where they can find it? Yes, okay, my book's being released on the 25th of March. And if you go to my website, Dr Margo lowy.com you'll find a little bit about me, a little bit about my work, my book, and I am so passionate about this topic and carving this space for all of us as mothers. And really it goes further than that, because mothers are really the basis of society. And, you know, we we rear our children, and what's more important than that? So listen. Thank you so much for for inviting me on your podcast, and thank you also for your work that you're doing with young mothers older mothers. It's just really important. So thank you. Thank you for listening, and I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of your child is normal. Also, if you could take a moment and leave a five star review, wherever it is you listen to podcasts, I would greatly appreciate it. It really makes a difference to help this podcast grow. You can also follow me on Instagram at ask you.