The Truth About: Having it All with Lia Higgins

This episode starts with a simple truth few people say out loud: sometimes the first chapter of parenthood is grief. Lia Higgins joins us to unpack an early miscarriage at 28, the shock of a postpartum hemorrhage, and the quiet ways trauma can delay bonding without diminishing love. From there, we zoom out: what happens when a high-achieving identity built in Big Law collides with a life you actually want to live? Lia talks candidly about trading titles for alignment, why a “soft landing” back from leave turned into a firestorm, and how prestige can masquerade as purpose until you call its bluff.

We also get practical about the myth of “having it all.” Corporate policies help, but not nearly enough when the village has vanished, childcare is fragile, and mental load still defaults to moms. Lia breaks down the limits of outsourcing, the emotional labor no app can automate, and the social cost of saying “I need help.” She chooses transparency over performance: yes, she has a full-time nanny she loves; no, she’s not doing it all alone; and yes, childcare should be a baseline, not a brag. That honesty dissolves comparison and reframes the real question: what support would let more families breathe?

Along the way, we talk community, isolation in self-employment, and the strange mix of freedom and loneliness that comes with flexible work. We close with two anchors: advice for a newly pregnant friend—you don’t have to enjoy every second to be a good mother—and the unexpected joy of watching a partner become a parent. It’s a conversation about loss and agency, ambition and care, and the messy, ordinary beauty of building a life that actually fits.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs some honesty, and leave a quick review—your words help more parents find their people.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Lia: Love, Timing, Loss
• 2:28 Early Miscarriage And Naming The Grief
• 6:08 Pregnancy Realities And Birth Trauma
• 9:58 The Gap Between Narratives And Reality
• 14:13 Having It All Meets Corporate America
• 18:28 Identity After Big Law
• 22:28 Support, Nannies, And The Mental Load
• 26:28 Community, Isolation, And Finding Peers
• 29:28 Advice, Unexpected Joy, And Where To Find Leah

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:28

Hi everyone. We are here today with a really exciting guest. Unfortunately, Sam is not able to be on this episode, but I'm here with Leah Higgins. Leah is someone I discovered on TikTok. She posted a video about the concept of having it all, and I think it was spot on. It really hit home for me as a self-employed mom. And I'm so excited to talk to her about her take on having it all as well as her path to parenthood. So thank you for joining us, Leah.

SPEAKER_00: 0:55

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_03: 0:58

Of course. So let's get right into it. How was your path to becoming a mom? What did that look like?

SPEAKER_00: 1:04

Well, it was unique in the sense that I had married my high school sweetheart and we got married pretty young, at least by New York City standards, at around 25. We already really knew each other incredibly well, obviously. We've been together for years. And I think that it set us up really well having that really solid foundation and partnership and time, just the two of us to have traveled the world and grow up together before having kids. And I think it just set us up really well to do that at a slightly younger age, which is something that we always wanted to do because we had older parents. And in terms of getting pregnant, it was kind of a funny story. I was waiting and waiting to have these babies towards the end of COVID. I knew I wanted to be a mom, but I kept pushing it off because I was like, I want to do a couple more big trips. And then the trips ended up getting canceled over and over again because of the COVID restrictions. And finally, I got COVID and I got so sick that I actually, either subconsciously or consciously, just forgot to take my birth control pills. And I was like, that's it. We're done. We're off. Start trying next month. So we started trying, and unfortunately, that first pregnancy ended up in a miscarriage. I had what's called a chemical pregnancy, which is a really early miscarriage. It happens within the first five weeks and they are exceedingly common. Many, many women unfortunately have them, but they're not really talked about for a number of reasons, in part because they are so early. A lot of people don't even really view them as miscarriages. But for me, I've always felt it was important to talk about them so that other women who went through that experience knew that they weren't alone and that their grieving and their feelings were valid. Of course, there are different, you know, ways in which you can have child loss. And some are understandably more difficult, I'd imagine, than others to handle and process. And but that doesn't change your own experience with it. And it doesn't mean we should be undermining each other. So I always talk about mine with the caveat that I realize that could have been worse. Um and yeah, once that happened, we started trying again immediately after. And I was very lucky. I got pregnant with my son right after that. And that was my first baby. I had my second 18 months later.

SPEAKER_03: 3:43

Can I ask how old you were when you had that miscarriage?

SPEAKER_00: 3:46

I was 28.

SPEAKER_03: 3:48

I had I had a first trimester loss at 29, and I've talked about this on here a lot, but something that I don't think people talk about enough is how isolating it can be to have a pregnancy loss when you're young, when you're in your 20s. I felt like everybody around me was either actively avoiding pregnancy or like getting pregnant immediately, having no issues with fertility. And I remember feeling incredibly isolated when I had my loss. Did you experience any of that?

SPEAKER_00: 4:17

Totally. And I think again, that's really why I talk about mine so publicly, is because it's not that other women our age at the time weren't having these losses. They just weren't talking about it because we're not supposed to be talking about it. So you feel like you're the only one going through this pretty awful thing. And you can Google it, right? And there are statistics that will show you how common miscarriages are and early miscarriages. But until you really have a face to that, it it just feels like you're alone in it. And I didn't know any other women my age who had been through one. My sister-in-law had had a miscarriage, but she was older than I was. Um and yeah, it it felt like I was kind of solo missioning it. But really, that's not the truth. You're just not, you're you're so not alone.

SPEAKER_03: 5:09

Yeah, it's interesting. When I talked about my loss to people who are older, like a generation above us, a few of them said to me, I had one too. And I've never talked about it to anyone. And to think about these women holding it in for 30 plus years is really devastating. And, you know, I agree with you. I had an early loss as well. And I always feel the need to kind of caveat when I tell people that I had a miscarriage and I'll have to feel like I have to say, you know, oh, but I only had one, or oh, but it was early. But you're right, a loss is a loss, and it's not a competition, right?

SPEAKER_00: 5:45

It's not you just don't listen, on there's no award here for having, you know, a worse situation or outcome. It's all devastating. I do feel as much as I wish I didn't feel like I had to caveat, I do feel like it's worth acknowledging, right? That there are scenarios that are, I would only imagine significantly more difficult to process and more hurtful. For example, having a stillborn, I don't know what that's like. That's that's a different situation. And I just want to, when I am talking about these sensitive topics, create the space for acknowledgement that there are perhaps, you know, sliding scales at play here. But again, I would hope that somebody who had been through something like that, or even if they hadn't, that they wouldn't then invalidate however sad I was over my loss. Does that make sense? I think.

SPEAKER_03: 6:50

Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, I always say something doesn't have to be the hardest thing in the world in order for it to be hard and in order to be for it to be real to you and your experience, right?

SPEAKER_00: 7:01

Totally. I think with miscarriage, what a lot of people don't understand, especially with an early miscarriage, is it's not necessarily that you're grieving the baby just yet. You might be, but for me at least, it was more that I was grieving this idea of the baby. I'd had the positive pregnancy test. I was so excited. We'd been trying to get pregnant. We had stopped in the middle of trying. I was like, wait, pump the brakes. Um, but it ended up that I was pregnant anyway. And I had felt, I think in all three of my pregnancies, I felt right away and knew that I was pregnancy pregnant. My body just reacts so drastically to the hormone shift that I start vomiting like quickly. And maybe it's mental, I don't really know, but all three times I've known I was pregnant right away. And so I was grieving this attachment that I'd already formed to this developing fetus, however far along it was. Um, so when I lost it, I was sad at having to relinquish that idea of becoming a mother and watching my husband become a father, and also I guess left with the sense of wonder of how long would this now take me to achieve this dream? What were the roadblocks? Why did this happen? And so I was a little bewildered because even if you do hear about miscarriage, you kind of think it's one of those things, oh, that's not gonna happen to me.

unknown: 8:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 8:37

Yeah. And it's the questions afterwards, right? I mean, I think as many millennial women are, I like to be in control. I like to know how things are gonna unfold. And fertility, so much of it is just outside of your control. And there are so many things that you can't really plan around when it comes to your body and your, you know, fertility and pregnancy and all of that. But what was your pregnancy like?

SPEAKER_00: 9:02

My pregnancy with my son, it was okay for the most part. Nothing too notable. I was tired. I was definitely a little exhausted. I was still working in big law and working in big law while pregnant can, you know, have its ups and downs because there are some long hours required. But generally, it was an uncomplicated pregnancy. Um, towards the end there, it got pretty uncomfortable. Both my kids were born big and he came early, also, which I knew. I was like, he's just too big to cook that whole time. Like he's he's gonna come out early. And he did. Both my kids were early, and not too early, but you know, pre-due date. And my water broke, and it was, you know, a whole to-do rushing to the hospital. It's a very exciting time. But the pregnancy itself, some nausea, some exhaustion, definitely at the end. My body, I'm 5'4, so carrying these large children towards the end there can be physically taxing where I'm like, it's time, eviction notice has been served. Please vacate the premises. But generally, I didn't have some crazy complicated pregnancy. I was very lucky on that front.

SPEAKER_03: 10:19

And then I know you've written about postpartum or delivery hemorrhage, right? Mm-hmm. Was that with your son?

SPEAKER_00: 10:26

Yes. So I had a hemorrhage about 20 minutes after delivery. I was still in the hospital. I'm not entirely sure what the timing is exactly, but it was it was shortly after. They were still trying to get the amniotic fluid out of my son's lungs. So it was very, very shortly after. Um, and it was traumatic. As I mentioned, they were really focused on my son trying to get the fluid out, trying to get him to breathe at 100%. And so I'm not sure at what point somebody realized that my stats had totally plummeted and I was pale, I couldn't talk, and I had started bleeding out.

SPEAKER_03: 11:11

Did that affect your ability to bond at all, just that trauma?

SPEAKER_00: 11:15

Yes, for sure. It didn't change how much I loved my son off the bat. But one, I couldn't hold him. I the skin to skin thing that happened for a couple of seconds for us, and then he was quickly taken from me. And my husband actually did that skin-to-skin bonding. And then in my recovery process, I was really weak. I was exhausted, I was weak, and I think probably more emotionally traumatized than I even gave myself space to deal with because I was busy trying to take care of this baby and myself and pretend like everything was okay, and it it definitely was not. Um I was pretty shaken up looking back at it. But yeah, physically I couldn't even really bond with him. Holding a water bottle was hard for me postpartum. It was just too heavy. I was exhausted, I had so much blood loss. And I think there were probably some complex feelings that evolved from there that I couldn't really deal with that made it harder to bond emotionally as well. And I'm still kind of honestly trying to work through what that what that was. Of course, we're incredibly close now, and I love my baby so so much, always have, but I think it there was definitely a bit of a what just happened after birth, instead of the oh my god, I'm so happy this is the best thing ever. It's like um, I feel like shit. And I don't understand that didn't look anything like the Hallmark movies. Like, what what is that?

SPEAKER_03: 12:58

Yeah, I mean, I think the only narrative we are sold when it comes to birth is it's the best day of your life, newborn bliss. The minute you see your baby, it's like everything, all the pieces fall into place. It's all worth it. And I also, I mean, I had a pretty smooth delivery, but I had a very complicated end of pregnancy and then a very complicated postpartum. I actually wish Sam was here because she had some hemorrhage issues as well. Um, but in doing this podcast, something I've really noticed is that everyone we've talked to has some sort of a story that does not line up with that picture that we've been sold, right? And everyone kind of says the same thing of I felt lied to. I felt like all of these stories that I heard about what it feels like to give birth and what it feels like to hold your baby for the first time just led me down this path of expecting something that I didn't get. And that I and I think you feel kind of cheated.

SPEAKER_00: 13:56

Yeah. So it's complicated in that it's funny. I've told this story before, but the first thing I remember thinking when I think I started to hemorrhage was I don't feel the way all those women look in the pictures. Like either they're lying to me and they're lying on social media, or like something is severely wrong. And I think it's a bit of both. Um, I think there's a hesitancy to fear monger, which is never my intention. I think postpartum hemorrhages are actually not that common. And there have been so many developments in the medical world where, you know, male, a female mortality in childbirth is way down. It's still higher than it should be, in my opinion, but it is down. But we're not told what the real risks are. And I think some of that is not wanting to fear monger, and some of it is that it's just not that pretty of a picture. So we don't want to talk about it. And it makes us seem less than perfect if it happens to you. Because in theory, there's this age-old narrative that you know, women are meant to reproduce. So if you're having trouble doing that, whether it's the conception part or the delivery part, like something is wrong. And that's of course not right, but I think it is some sort of ingrained cultural and psychological development that we've had. I think the other problem though is that when I had my second child, for example, I had a very smooth delivery for the most part. And I was able to get up and walk around, and I was in newborn bliss, and everything was totally fine. So I've had both experiences. So some women aren't lying, and that's really what it looks like for them, and it's great. I think we're just doing all of ourselves a disservice by not sharing the possibilities of what could happen and setting the stage for what to expect and the real risks that come with getting pregnant and having a baby. I think if we can't acknowledge those problems and we can't advocate to fix them.

SPEAKER_03: 16:04

And I think, like you said, when you have birth trauma, it takes a long time to process it internally too, before you can even really speak about it, right? I think that I mean, my kids are six and a half. I have twins. And I think now I'm at a place where I can look back and I can tell the story of how it all unfolded, but I think it took years, quite frankly.

SPEAKER_00: 16:25

Yeah. Twins complicated.

SPEAKER_03: 16:28

They can't think they were 36 weeks.

SPEAKER_00: 16:32

Yeah, it's scary, right?

SPEAKER_03: 16:33

Yeah, yeah. And I relate, I mean, when you said you're 5'4, I'm 5'1, and I had twins. Luckily, they were both small, but it was uncomfortable at the end for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 16:43

Yeah. No, it's uncomfortable. And we're kind of told not to complain and to smile. You know, there's like the funny, kind of characterized, almost fetishized version of pregnant women with the Ben and Jerry's ice cream. And like, that's true. I ate a lot of ice cream at the end until my acid reflux got so bad that I couldn't actually consume it. Um but like we don't talk about that second part, right? Like, so at some point, we're gonna need to start telling other women what this is actually like, and we have such a voyeuristic culture with social media that we have the platform to do it. We're just don't have the willingness.

SPEAKER_03: 17:24

And I get it. Yeah. And it's hard. I mean, and I think there's there's so much nuance, right? I think about Chapel Rowan talking about all her friends who have kids being in hell, and I just one, I think the comments itself lacked nuance. Yeah, and two, I think the reactions, people were either like, parenting is the best thing ever, and like it's all rainbows and sunshine, or people were like, Oh no, she's right, parenting is hell. And it's like, but there's nuance, right?

SPEAKER_00: 17:55

There's yeah, there's yeah, there's some of everything, and it's sometimes day to day, and sometimes it's all within one day, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 18:03

So yeah, sometimes it's minute to minute, it's minute to minute.

SPEAKER_00: 18:05

I can have a second where my child is tantruming and absolutely freaking out, and I'm like, oh my god, I need a glass of wine. And then the next minute he'll be giving me a hug and saying, I love you, mommy, and like that is my glass of wine. Just it's it's a joke, but you know what I mean. Yeah. And yeah, it's so it's so much more complicated than just to say you're in hell as a parent. I think that there are definitely times where I feel like it's incredibly difficult and stressful, and yet I would not trade it for anything. But I also acknowledge that there are some women and people, generally speaking, where they don't want that trade-off. And that's totally okay. Like, I am not here to tell you that parenting is not some major life change and sacrifice. It is. So if you don't want that, totally cool. Doesn't make you selfish, it doesn't make you bad, nothing. But if that's not your thing and you don't want to give up your freedom to be a parent, totally respect that. That's fine. But don't shade everyone who has opted to have children.

SPEAKER_03: 19:13

Yeah. I want to talk to you about career a little bit because I think you have such good, you're so good at expressing some of this stuff in motherhood. I really love how you tell your story about your own career shift and the idea of having it all. So talk to us a little bit about that. What did that look like for you to go from being a big law attorney to now working on your own kind of passion project?

SPEAKER_00: 19:37

It was really difficult. I think the idea was that it would be this huge relief, right? Taking all of the stress off my plate. And that, you know, it's exciting to start a new chapter and doing something for yourself. But at the same time, my identity had been so tied to a title. And not just my identity, but my self-worth and my self-esteem, and having these like accolades and having a job that I could tell people about and it auto-garnered respect. You know, you say you're a big law attorney, and everyone is like, oh, wow, that's great, wonderful. And assumes you're smart for the most part, which is a terrible assumption because I've met plenty of attorneys who are not smart. But when you say, you know, I'm an aspiring writer, I'm a content creator, or, you know, whatever other projects I'm doing, which is like a million things right now, it's like, wait, what? You're doing what? And especially when you try and tell someone in an older generation who's a bit more old school and new to social media, they're like, I don't understand what this is or why you're doing it, or why you would not use your law degree to do something that's so unsafe. And I think those sorts of reactions and the fear of those reactions really just put me into a bit of a spiral where I was like, oh my God, what did I just do? And why? To the point where I was so panicked about trying to make it all work right away and be so successful that I didn't even take the time with my kids that I had left my job to do. You know? So it was definitely having that identity crisis and being like, but I don't actually want that job anymore. And yet I want the title. And the it's very confusing. It's very hard to figure out what your real priorities are.

SPEAKER_03: 21:35

Yeah, I think especially for millennial women, you know, like I've said, we were really sold this idea of having it all and really kind of given this picture of like what modern womanhood looks like, right? And I think that many of us have kind of gotten there and realized that it's not for everyone. It's not all it's cracked up to be. There is always something that has to give.

SPEAKER_00: 22:02

Yeah. I think it's very hard hard to fail at something every single day, which is what I constantly felt like I was doing. I was failing at work, I was failing at home. Often days, both. It's very hard.

SPEAKER_03: 22:15

Yeah. I mean, I always say that I think as mothers, we constantly feel like we're failing, but in reality, we're being set up to fail and we are being failed by all the systems that we're trying to navigate. And but I really think that that is such a universal part of motherhood. You know, whether you're a stay-at-home mom, whether you work outside the home, whether you're kind of somewhere in between like I am, um, and like I think maybe you are as well at this point. Yeah, it's it is incredibly tough. And, you know, we're doing it in a system that really offers no support to mothers. But I'm actually, so I was when I was looking you up a little bit in preparation for today, I realized that your mother-in-law is Barbara Corcoran. And what is that like for you to be, you know, related to someone who is such this prototypical career woman? And like we said, right, that generation often doesn't understand content creation, more career creative career pursuits, things like that. Has that been a challenge for you to sort of reconcile that role model versus a more kind of modern approach to career that you take?

SPEAKER_00: 23:25

She's the exception to that role, I would say. She's kind of the probably the only, one of the only people in my life who initially was like, yeah, if you don't want to practice law, like that's totally fine. Going out on your own, I'm always gonna be a proponent of. That was kind of her reaction. She's been, you know, one of my biggest cheerleaders through this whole thing. So I'm just incredibly lucky to have her. And I think she's honest about the ways in which she sacrificed time in motherhood for her career and maybe having some regrets for that. I think generally she doesn't really have any regrets, but she has always emphasized how important her children are to her and now her grandchildren. She's an amazing grandmother. She's very involved. Um and so I think she was able to see why maybe I wanted to have children younger. She was actually shocked when we told her that I was pregnant the first time, but so excited. And it was, if anything, she's always just pushed me to have more kids, sometimes joking, sometimes not. But she she's um she's very on board with that, with more grandchildren. And so I've been lucky. I think it does create sort of like a big shoes to fill sort of situation, but we're different. Um so it's not it's not really like that. In general, we're we have different skill sets, different strengths, and so we apply them different ways. But I always am grateful to have her advice, and I just think it's funny when she comes to me for mine.

SPEAKER_03: 25:12

I love that. Were you someone who always thought that you were going to be a practicing attorney and a mom and that it would all just kind of fall together seamlessly?

SPEAKER_00: 25:23

Kind of. Um yeah. I mean, I'm used to running on fumes and just go, go, go, go, go. And I think it wasn't that I couldn't keep going at all. It wasn't a stamina thing. I think so many women choose to keep going, and other women they don't have that choice, and that's a whole other conversation. But I think that I was used to balancing five million things and making it all work. What surprised me was that I no longer wanted to, it wasn't worth it anymore. I knew at a certain point that I didn't want to be a partner at a law firm. At first, I thought maybe I could do this. And it was definitely something that I had started thinking about. And then as soon as I had my first child, I was like, it actually doesn't get easier in this industry as you get higher up. Because if a client has an emergency on a Saturday at 10 a.m., it's not the junior associate that they want to talk to. They want to talk to the partner. So if you're on vacation or you're with your family or whatever it is, like you're dropping whatever you're doing and you're getting on that phone as you should. That's your job. I just didn't want it to be my job.

SPEAKER_03: 26:41

Was that a gradual shift, or did you kind of realize all at once?

SPEAKER_00: 26:45

It happened pretty quickly after I had my first. I I it became abundantly clear very quickly that I wanted to stay a bit longer and I definitely wanted to give it a shot again after I had my second. But I underestimated how sad I would be being pulled away from my kids, even if I wasn't busy at work. Like I still couldn't leave and go to the zoo in the middle of the day with my son or and then my daughter when she was born, because I didn't know if I was gonna get an email or, you know, even if things were quiet, it's just it's the element of surprise and the lack of control over your schedule that I knew I didn't want. Um, and then there were the pressure cooker times where I was totally distracted. And when I came back to work after giving birth to my first child, I came back to a pretty intense environment. And it was supposed to be kind of a slow ease in. And I just got kind of unlucky with how I ended up getting staffed. There was a case that was an amazing opportunity and super interesting, but it was supposed to be super quiet and a nice, like ramp-on case. And of course, everything hit the fan like the week I got back. And same thing with another case. A partner called and was like, hey, I know you're newly backed. Do you want to work on this with me? And I thought it was going to be something kind of more chill. It was not. And so I spent a lot of my first few months back to work crying. So gradual and all at once, I guess, in terms of my my change in perspective.

SPEAKER_03: 28:28

When you felt that change in perspective, did you immediately shift away from that career or did you kind of resist for a while and stay?

SPEAKER_00: 28:38

I'm not sure it was intentional, but I think I dialed it back quite a bit. I don't think it was intentional necessarily, but I got pregnant with my second not long after coming back with my son. I was worried about secondary infertility. And so we started trying pretty soon. My son was 10 months when I got pregnant with my second. And that was definitely, you know, a short stint after getting back to work. And so I was back for about, I want to say like 13 months a year between my kids. Being pregnant with a toddler that wasn't sleeping, I think I kind of naturally pulled away from the more intensive opportunities that I would have actively sought out prior to having kids, or even when I was pregnant. When I was pregnant, even I was still, I want to go, I want to do. I volunteered to travel places to take depositions, and I was excited about it all. It wasn't until I, you know, hit the flying deadline that I was like, okay, we're probably gonna have to hit pause on that, or when I got really to the end of my pregnancy, where I was like in early labor essentially for weeks having contractions. And at that point, I was like, stop giving me intense projects. I need a break. Um but yeah, I I think I did start to pull away a bit.

SPEAKER_03: 30:01

Did you face any pushback from anyone in your life?

SPEAKER_00: 30:05

A little bit, yeah. I I would say my husband was always incredibly supportive. He was like, I am so done with you being in Big Law, actually. Not a fan, never thought this was gonna work. Um, despite him knowing that I was a very good lawyer. It just wasn't a great situation. Um I think my parents were a little more hesitant. They were they've always been incredibly supportive and I'm lucky to have them. But I think they were a little confused about why I would leave such a stable and prestigious job. And I think they kind of had it in their heads that, you know, you can stay forever in big law and it's easy to make partner and then you make millions of dollars. And like this all sounds really great, but that's not really how it works. And my mom always worked. So she didn't necessarily see what the issue was with having an intense full-time job, but she didn't have a job where she would potentially have to be pulled away from me on a whim on a weekend or on a vacation or something like that. That wasn't something she experienced because she ran her own business.

SPEAKER_03: 31:16

Well like I said I discovered you through that TikTok about having it all. Can you tell our listeners what your take on this idea of having it all is allowed to curse?

SPEAKER_00: 31:27

I always ask that on podcasts. Absolutely. Okay, wonderful um it's bullshit put simply it's just not real. And I think women have kind of come to that conclusion, right? That like having it all, it's possible you can do it. And I'm still searching for a way to do it. But it's always with some sacrifice, right? And I think that what's really bullshit is trying to do it in corporate America because for the most part women do not have the supporting infrastructure around them to make it all work. Because and I've been on rants about this before especially on Substack, but really we have been given all these interesting opportunities as women and I think that's a good thing, right? We've been given a chance to sit at the table and hold any seat at the table, although we all know that that does not happen fairly as often as we would like it to. It's not equal. But women have the opportunities to be CEOs, to be leading major corporate companies and that's wonderful. What we don't have is as many stay-at-home husbands to compensate for that or the ability to easily outsource work. And listen this is all to some degree also about economics and how present you want to be with your family there's a mix. It's what you can afford and what you want. So outsourcing somebody to do your grocery shopping sign your kids up for their classes tasks like that that don't even require you to physically be there that costs money and you might not actually want to delegate that. And then there's the things that you can't delegate which is time spent with your loved ones you cannot delegate that. But you also necessarily don't have mothers and sisters and grandmothers, et cetera, who are all able to then step into your place, right? So women for so many years were always intended to raise their family in a village but the village has left and now you have to pay for it and you can't pay for everything. It's just it doesn't really work just yet. And there's also the issue of all of these corporate policies that have been implemented to kind of help women navigate these issues for example extending MAT leave and you know mentorship groups, support groups that's all nice, but like how much does it actually do? And it's not enough to really compensate for the challenges that we're facing.

SPEAKER_03: 34:02

Yeah. And I think the thing that people don't realize about outsourcing too is that it still takes an incredible amount of mental and emotional labor, right? You you want to ensure that your kids are being cared for in a way that is up to your standards and that takes communication it takes labor it takes emotional soul searching and you can outsource your grocery shopping but you have to make a list in most cases. It's not like you snap your fingers and that's all done for you.

SPEAKER_00: 34:33

Listen if you have enough money it is you hire a private chef and they go and they do the whole thing. That is not my situation. I know women who do it and I got no issue with it. If you can do it and that's something that you want that's great. I enjoy cooking dinner for my family it's a means of love expression for me. But there are ways to outsource pretty much everything except time spent with your family. It's just it's not that accessible for most women first of all and second of all it's do you really want to is that really how that works and then on the flip side when you're at work you can delegate of course but at some point people are going to get tired of you pulling the parent card I can't take on this project because I don't have childcare or my nanny called out or my child is homesick from daycare whatever it is that's not an excuse it's real it's just not fair to everyone else at some point to pass on that work. I get it. When other associates for example would be like hey I can't get to this right now or and it needed to be done immediately but I didn't have childcare at the time I could understand why they might start to build resentment about that.

SPEAKER_03: 35:51

There was nothing I could do but it's just there's not enough support on the corporate side either to make it work you've been open about the fact that you have a nanny is that something that you've ever gotten pushback about on TikTok say for example because people on TikTok are crazy.

SPEAKER_00: 36:11

Yeah for sure people are incredibly frustrated with it especially since I'm no longer at a corporate job why would you have a full-time nanny because I like having my freedom to do what I want during the day during the week because my children enjoy being with her because it helps me mentally and also in my career development I'm still working I'm just doing different things that allow me to have more flexibility and also because people don't see it this way but necessarily like taking someone else's job away from them when I don't need to and I don't really want to is unnecessary. And I understand that I'm privileged and I'm also open about that. But listen if you want to be angry about it be angry about it. What I would be more angry about it is the women who make it seem like they have no help and they're still able to live these like absolutely insanely beautiful lives. And that's that's setting an unrealistic standard. I'm just going to tell you flat out that I have a nanny she comes Monday through Friday. I'm so incredibly grateful for her love her so dearly she's like she helps take care of me too which is wonderful. She is like she gives me a nice warm fuzzy feeling and a hug and that makes me happy and I'm just going to tell you that flat out I'm not doing it all by myself. And I'm grateful that I have the ability to do that. What I also don't have though is a mom or a mother-in-law or a sister who can drop everything and come be substitute childcare for me so that I could do a work thing or go work out or do something for myself like get my hair done.

SPEAKER_03: 38:01

Yeah I mean there is so much gatekeeping of support systems and privilege and all of these things. And it just puts people in this comparison trap where it's not serving anyone because you're comparing yourself to someone with a different set of resources or support that they're just not disclosing.

SPEAKER_00: 38:21

Yeah. And listen to be fair I wouldn't actually be mad at those people because we don't owe the internet everything, right? I disclose a lot of my life but I don't need to tell you everything just because I choose to be open about most aspects. Some things are private and some things are just you don't need to know and that's fine. I I do think you know if your audience is like constantly spiraling about why their life doesn't look like yours it's likely for a number of reasons that it's not just that you haven't disclosed how much help you get. There's probably other things going on there. But that's that's been an interesting thing to navigate and the route that I've chosen in terms of my social media stance on it is just to say up front what sort of help I have.

SPEAKER_03: 39:12

Yeah. I mean I I grew up with a stay-at-home mom who had a part-time nanny and I will tell you from the child's perspective I got to see a mom who was rested who was happy who had a social life who took care of herself who had space to be a human and I wish that were more accessible for more people because there are so many mothers who are just they have nothing left for themselves.

SPEAKER_00: 39:36

I couldn't agree more. I while I won't hide or necessarily apologize for my situation I also do very much wish and believe that this should be something that should be more accessible for more women because it is unfair that we expect women now to just even if it's just in air quotes heavily be a stay-at-home mom, which I think is the hardest job in the world to expect that women do that nonstop without a break is so wildly unfair. It is so emotionally and physically draining and in turn we end up demonizing women who get help instead of you know expecting that we set that as the baseline for all women.

SPEAKER_03: 40:25

Do you are you in a social circle where it is more common for the mothers to be in these more kind of traditionally high powered careers or do you feel like you have kind of a community of people who are doing more of this like fluid flexible self-employment thing?

SPEAKER_00: 40:42

I did not have any friends like that until I got more heavily into the content creation game and then started going to more influencer events and then I made some friends who are entrepreneurial in that way. My friends that I grew up with and friends I went to college with are in finance, in real estate, in marketing in my best friend from college is a doctor it's they have crazy high power jobs, which again made it very difficult for me when I chose to leave mine because that is not a path that any of my friends have taken and was definitely hard for me to reconcile but it is also I know plenty of women in older generations in my social circle who did not have necessarily high power jobs or at least did not once they had children and instead were stay-at-home moms with assistance.

SPEAKER_03: 41:46

Yeah it's interesting it's I think can be a little bit of an isolating experience to be in more of a freelance or a self-employed career path because it's as much as I I think there's a lot of visibility around self-employment right now because so many people on social media are self-employed and are sharing but I think that on the ground in real life it can be really hard to find your people when you kind of live out this experience.

SPEAKER_00: 42:15

Yeah I mean it depends also what you mean by do you mean self-employment in terms of like being a self-employed content creator which by the way I do think is a full-time job just it has not become socially acceptable to say it has not been socially accepted yet as a full-time job which I have plenty of thoughts on but um is that what you mean?

SPEAKER_03: 42:37

Well yeah that or like I'm a freelancer I'm self-employed um I'm not a content creator but I am freelance and I work for myself and I take on clients but I don't have any friends who are doing kind of a similar career thing. They're either working nine to fives or they're stay-at-home moms in my circles.

SPEAKER_00: 42:58

So yeah I mean I think there is more of a spotlight on trying to do that now in part because of what we talked about earlier where corporate America just hasn't yielded that like work-life balance that we were all promised. So I think there is kind of a sexiness to working for yourself if your ego can allow for it and your means can allow for it. I think that social media has made that much easier to do in a number of ways not only if you want to be a content creator but also securing clients or securing buyers if you are developing a product that's all become a lot more automated through social media and through AI and other technological advances. But I do yeah I think for me it's isolating for sure. I think in some ways I have a friend who is a stay-at-home mom and she moved to the suburbs because she was just like I don't she had a high power job at a consulting firm and she was just like I just don't have anyone else who's around all day to hang out with me, my kid, run errands like I just don't have that here in New York City and so it's time to go find that and I don't blame her. So that might just be I'm not sure how much of that is a localized issue for me versus elsewhere.

SPEAKER_03: 44:22

You think it can be localized for sure I mean I think you know different parts of the country have different sort of societal norms and yeah but it's tough and it's tough because I think that in motherhood we really crave community and we really crave people who understand our experience and the truth is you're never going to find anyone who can understand 100% of your experience. But I think that when you can find common ground with one another that's it can really be helpful and it can really kind of pull you through some of the challenging times.

SPEAKER_00: 44:57

Yeah absolutely I agree with that.

SPEAKER_03: 45:00

Well we are coming towards the end of our time and we have two questions that we ask all of our guests. So I'd love to ask you if your best friend say someone who doesn't have kids yet came to you and said I am pregnant what would the number one piece of advice you give them be I think it would be to remember that you don't have to enjoy every second of motherhood to be a good mother.

SPEAKER_00: 45:26

It's okay to give yourself that time and space to have moments where you freak out where you acknowledge that it's hard and kind of the not so beautiful or in some ways beautiful but not so picturesque moments of motherhoods and just be okay with that and know that it doesn't mean that you don't love your kid or that you're a bad mom. It just means that you're having a moment and that's okay. And it might be a couple moments but it's all good.

SPEAKER_03: 45:54

Well that actually leads us really well to our next question which is what is a part of parenthood that has brought you unexpected joy something that you didn't expect to really find joy in oh man I mean it's hard to say because I'm not sure what I expected out of motherhood.

SPEAKER_00: 46:19

Of course are like the moments where I love seeing my children grow and when they learn something new that is way more exciting than I ever thought it would be because when it's not your kid and the parent gets also excited about their kid saying a new word or learning something that you're like okay great. But when it's your kid it's super exciting. And I think also I knew that I was going to be excited to see my husband as a father. I always knew he'd make a wonderful dad but really seeing him bond with our children and the connection that he has with them and watching their relationships bloom has been a really really special part of motherhood for me. I love that. Well where can everyone find you you can find me on TikTok and on Instagram OneLit Mama with an underscore at the end O-N-E-L-I-T M-A-M-A with an underscore and then you can also find me on Substack I publish essays on all these things that we've been talking about as well as a lot of practical guides like everything that you need on your baby registry and I mean everything. And that's Mom Talk by Leah Michelle Higgins. So definitely find me there. Hey thank you for joining us thank you