S3E1: I Don't Work...Let's Talk About It!

What does it really mean when a mom says “I don’t work”? In this spicy and heartfelt Season 3 kickoff, Tessie and Diana unpack the assumptions, guilt, and hidden power behind stay-at-home motherhood. From identity crises to invisible labor, this episode reframes what ambition and purpose look like when your office is your living room. Featuring insights from Neha Ruch’s The Power Pause, this one will make you rethink what it means to “pause” with purpose. Perfect for moms navigating identity shifts, ambition, and self-worth. Follow @pomcasts on Instagram and join the conversation: “I don’t work, but…”

Transcript

Tessie (00:01.378)
Hi, welcome to season three of Pearls of Motherhood. And I'm your host Tessie.

Diana (00:08.859)
And I'm your host, Diana. So we're going to start the season with a big conversation. And this one, mean, really there are, let's face it, all of these episodes are personal because this is what we're going through and this is what we're talking about, right? This one is layered and it starts with a phrase many of us hear or say, I don't work.

Diana (00:35.559)
and I am guilty of saying that I don't work and that's not really true. I work really hard.

Tessie (00:40.782)
Right!

I say that too. Then I always correct myself like, wait a minute, I just don't get paid actually.

Diana (00:50.203)
or get bonuses or get a break, right? Get a retirement.

Tessie (00:52.142)
Yes, or yes. Yeah, exactly.

Diana (00:58.655)
But yeah, this episode is called I Don't Work, Let's Talk About It. So, but first let's do our new segment. It's called Listener Mail. I'm really excited about this one.

Diana (01:12.627)
So listener mail. So this is from Megan in Ohio and she called it all the moms all before breakfast. She writes, hi Pearls, I just listened to the seven types of moms and yes, you're all of them by 9 a.m. and I felt that in my soul. This morning alone, I was one, the planner mom because she made three different lunches because no one likes the same thing. Two, the hot mess mom because she forgot it was pajama day at camp. Three,

Tessie (01:22.103)
I'm

Diana (01:42.003)
The crafty mom, because she was taping together a Paw Patrol book. yeah, I did that the other day actually. I was taping together a, what was it? I think it was a Bluey book.

Tessie (01:53.971)
I'm constantly taping

Diana (01:55.615)
but she was multitasking while brushing her teeth. that's I can't do that. No. Number four, the yelling mom. She found yogurt on the carpet. I get that. Yeah. Number five, the Zen mom. So and then 10 minutes later, after the coffee kicked in, she found to remember Daniel Tiger reminded her to take a deep breath and count to four. I need to rewatch that episode.

Number six, the helicopter mom hovering at the window to make sure the camp bus driver didn't forget us. And number seven, the proud mom because we made it out the door sort of on time with mostly hairbrush and only one sock lost. Hey, that is a win.

Tessie (02:43.438)
Hehehehehe

Diana (02:45.897)
So yes, confirmed. are all the moms before 9am. Thanks for the reminder that we're not alone. Megan, thank you so much.

Tessie (02:53.782)
I love that. It's so true. every what is it about mornings that are so crazy? That's that reminds me of my morning. I wake up and then I don't sit down for like two hours straight constantly.

Diana (03:05.311)
I same. And I'm a morning person. I love morning. So imagine I weren't a morning person. That would be.

Tessie (03:12.716)
which is me. So I'm definitely the yelling mom a lot more in the morning than I am in the afternoon.

Diana (03:21.449)
I'm definitely the yelling mom followed by the Zen mom because I'm like, okay, inner peace, inner peace, trying to remember what my calm app told me, but it doesn't always work.

Tessie (03:24.942)
You

Tessie (03:34.636)
Yeah, I'm definitely not a morning person. is like sometimes when I wake up, I'm like, do not even come in my vicinity. I don't want to hear you. This is too much noise.

What has my life turned into?

Diana (03:50.793)
So are you better at night typically?

Tessie (03:53.966)
not necessarily at bedtime either, because I'm so tired because I'm forced to be a morning person. So if I like got to sleep on my natural schedule, you know, I would sleep in later in the morning and then I would probably be a lot happier at night. But since I have to be at both ends of the spectrum, like, no, it's just not the season for that.

Diana (04:17.199)
I totally hear you. But it's nice to know that we're not the only ones who are, who have all these different personalities before breakfast. That's a nice feeling.

Tessie (04:28.27)
That's so true.

Diana (04:32.126)
And if any of you have any more listener mail that you'd like to send us, you can always find us on Instagram at pomcasts and at our email at ideas at pearls of motherhood.com.

Tessie (04:44.428)
Yeah, thanks for sharing, Megan.

Diana (04:48.174)
Okay, so let's get into our episode. I don't work. Let's talk about it. Tess, you wanted to be a stay at home mom, right?

Tessie (04:56.994)
yeah, this is 100 % my full-time job. And I do actually consider it a job. It's to me and always, it's always been like the most important job like any human could have. And we as women get to be blessed with that privilege, I feel like is amazing. It's not a thing that I ever looked at as like a downside of life. I always looked at that as like, this is gonna be great.

Diana (05:24.99)
See, I wish I could say that, but I didn't. I thought it was like, you pop out a kid because that's what you're supposed to do and then I'm gonna head back to work. I was always super career driven. mean, and we talked about this on previous episodes. And like I said in the past, Tessie was right. She told me I wouldn't wanna go back to work. And I said, no, I'm gonna want to, no, Tessie is right.

Tessie (05:25.678)
Obviously I didn't know how hard it was.

Tessie (05:53.55)
Well, it's like, we're both task oriented people, so I can see where you're coming from because like you're like, check it off the list, you know, like next thing I do, I have a baby and next thing I do, I get a promotion and next thing I do, the baby grows up, you know what I mean? Like I'm like that, I could see it totally being like that.

Diana (06:12.99)
I never looked at it that way, but you are completely right. But the thing is that with being a mom, your checklist is never ending because oftentimes I check something off and then I have to erase that check mark because I have to do it again. And that's super hard. This is honestly the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. And I've done hard things, but this takes the cake. What to you is the hardest part about being a mom, stay at home mom?

Tessie (06:21.58)
Mm-hmm.

Tessie (06:33.784)
Mm-hmm.

Tessie (06:41.326)
I say like just the 24 sevenness of it, which like after, I mean, it's been seven years now for me, so I'm kind of used to that, but it took a long time to adjust to the fact that like, you are the one 24 seven, like you don't get to like send the baby away and you don't get to just be like, no thanks, I actually don't want the baby for.

a week. I'd just rather not. You know, like you just can't do that.

Diana (07:14.468)
You can't return them.

Tessie (07:16.526)
And it's like, yeah, and the hardest part is I think at night when you absolutely do not want to get up and you're exhausted and whatnot and literally like nobody else is gonna do it. It's only you and your husband, but there is no, I feel like the nights are the hardest in that like season when you're in that season of life when you have very little ones and

Diana (07:17.85)
You can't rent a baby.

Tessie (07:45.25)
They need you at night and you absolutely just like do not wanna get up, but you have to, like you have to force yourself. There's no getting away from it.

Diana (07:52.357)
Mm-hmm. Because you are the end-all be-all for that baby. I remember during that season when my daughter was that young and, again, sleep deprivation and everything, and I didn't want to get out of bed. I just put her back down, and I think I had laid down for about 30 minutes and she got back up. And I just thought, and my husband had to work, so I'm not going to make him go. It was so hard.

Tessie (07:58.443)
Yes.

Tessie (08:16.77)
So hard. Yeah.

Diana (08:18.748)
And then I had this little guilt in my mind that says, you are the only thing standing between her and death at this moment. She's hungry. And so that kicks my butt out of bed. But I had to have that talk with myself like, okay, this is life or death. Like that's the only way I got out of bed. That was kind of extreme.

Tessie (08:36.884)
Yeah, you know, like those nights when you have an infant or like a very early toddler and they're just not tired and they just are wide awake until like 11 o'clock at night. And all you want to do is go to sleep. But you can't because they're like they literally can't take care of themselves. They can't even you can't even entertain them with anything. You just have to be with them. Yeah. Those are like extremely hard nights.

Diana (08:59.518)
Came to turn on TV. Yeah.

Diana (09:06.108)
Yep. So I know the before mom version of me was like, you don't work. you know, you have all day at home. You do nothing. And that's so, that was so blind of me. I mean, how dumb am I? My mother was a stay at home mom and she raised four of us. I know she never stopped. At the same time, I remember thinking, when we're at school, it's so easy.

No, she's just like trying to recover before we come back with chaos.

Tessie (09:35.63)
I know that school day is definitely not long enough for a stay at home mom.

Diana (09:41.702)
I understand why they created after school programs. You need a little bit more time.

Tessie (09:48.578)
Yeah, because when you're what you're doing and when they're even if they're at school, which like mine aren't necessarily all at school, you know, you're cleaning and you're catching up on things and you're doing the adult stuff and you're cooking and you're meal prepping and there's like it's constant like all day. It's not like you're just literally napping for six hours. That is not reality, least not for me.

Diana (10:13.202)
I would love that. I would love that. That would be so nice. Sleep, what's that? I'll sleep when I'm dead, it's fine.

Tessie (10:17.922)
know. I mean, I don't know. Maybe like there are stay at home moms who send their kids to school and they do nap all day. I don't I don't really know. But I don't know any of them.

Diana (10:27.514)
I wanna learn from them. I don't know anything. I wanna learn from them. So if that's what you achieved, please let us know how you did it. We need to learn a little bit more from you. But see what we're doing here, we are actually justifying that we don't work. We have to explain ourselves. And I don't think that's not really fair, right? So.

Tessie (10:45.294)
True. Yeah, yeah, it's such a misconception of society that we don't work. But the thing is, just imagine you going to work wherever you work, whoever I'm talking to, which is not a mom, say ho mom, and then just, you have to do all the work, but you actually don't get a paycheck at the end. There's like...

Diana (10:53.426)
Yeah.

Tessie (11:10.456)
There's no immediate gratification. Like your gratification is going to be 18, 20 years down the road when you actually get to finally see the outcome, the final product, I guess, that you're working on. Because that's really what we are working on is like a 20 year project, know? Essentially, I know. Each times how many? Yeah, yeah.

Diana (11:22.6)
Mm-hmm.

Diana (11:29.596)
That's a long time. Potentially even longer now sometimes they come back.

So when people ask you Tess, do you work? And you say something along the lines of, don't work. Do you feel any judgment from them? What are their reactions?

Tessie (11:54.326)
Well, I've kind of morphed what I like people will ask me what I do for a living, you know, and over time, I've just morphed it to like, I think I say I raise my babies. And to me, that's my job. You know what I mean? And I would say like most people are pretty anymore. I don't know. I haven't gotten like a ton of negative. But usually it's like

Diana (12:02.654)
Mm-hmm.

Diana (12:09.032)
Mm-hmm.

Tessie (12:21.898)
older people and they think it's awesome. You know, I don't know, maybe it's the way that I actually say it that I'm just so like passionate about it that they get passionate about it too, you know? Yeah, I don't know. Do you get like negative feedback?

Diana (12:24.414)
You

Diana (12:28.904)
Mm-hmm.

Diana (12:34.204)
Hmm?

Diana (12:38.928)
In general, no. I used to say I don't work. And now I'm still working on the phrase, honestly, about how to answer that question. what do you do? And right now I say, right now I'm raising my daughter. I'm raising my daughter right now. And that comes off okay. Older generations, older moms or moms who are our age and their kids are grown because let's face it, a lot of...

Tessie (12:56.098)
Mm-hmm.

Diana (13:06.776)
In my peer group, a lot of their kids are in college. I was very late to start. And they get excited. They say, you know, I wish I could do that. Or it's the best thing. So I get a lot of support. I don't really get the feedback from a younger generation of moms because I don't really know them. But I would love to know what they think. I'm sure that if I came across

Tessie (13:10.318)
Yeah.

Tessie (13:18.847)
Mm-hmm.

Diana (13:29.404)
someone who, a woman who doesn't have kids and super career driven like I was, I'm sure I would get like the eye roll from them at some point.

Tessie (13:37.166)
Yeah. And honestly, like our kids are young enough that it's understandable that we're home with them, right? But like, how will people treat us when our kids are like, our youngest is 15 and we're still like primarily at home raising them essentially, you know, and taking care of the household and all of that stuff, which is 100 % my plan. Like I don't...

Diana (13:45.277)
Mm-hmm.

Tessie (14:06.04)
plan on going to work until after my youngest is out because I want to be there for them. But like, I wonder if we I could imagine we would get like a different response. They're like, well, why are you like they're 15? They don't need you, you know, I feel like they still need us but

Diana (14:20.702)
Mm-hmm.

I wonder, I think they do, definitely. They don't need you to change your diaper, most likely, I hope, but they need you in other ways. Yeah, right?

Tessie (14:29.416)
Mm-hmm. They need supervision. They need me to stalk them around the town and make sure they're behaving. Secretly.

Diana (14:39.265)
That would be me. That would be me 100%. But, you know, what about like homeschooling, you know, because you are the teacher. How does that play into it? So I'm just curious. you know, for the moms out there who have older kids and you are a stay at home, how do people treat you when you tell them that you are full time at home? Please let us know.

Tessie (14:48.632)
Mm-hmm.

Tessie (15:03.436)
Yeah, so here's my question that I have about it is, we don't necessarily get paid. Our husbands are the ones that bring the money most of the time. And how are the dynamics around spending money? There are so many different dynamics, even between couples on...

Diana (15:22.878)
Mm.

Tessie (15:29.366)
like who has the upper hand when it comes to making financial decisions, you know, and

Diana (15:34.884)
Mm-hmm. That's a really good, that's a really good episode actually.

Tessie (15:39.7)
Yeah, because yeah, we don't make the money, but we still contribute on we save money when we're grocery shopping. We we save money when we're like looking for sales and looking for deals and we find ways like fixing things rather than buying a new one. There's tons of ways that we contribute to the household financially just by cooking meals. It's a lot cheaper to cook at home than to go out to eat. So there's

There's ways that we contribute financially. It's just different.

Diana (16:13.086)
I agree with that. Okay, and let's set the record straight. We're not trying to pit stay-at-home moms against working moms. It's not a competition. We don't want that. We've been both, well, not moms while doing it, but we were super career driven and now we're driven to be at home. And we have friends and family who do both. So we don't want this to be a competition of one is better than the other. We just want to have a conversation about...

Us as stay at home moms, we don't work and we wanted to get that out there. What is everyone else experiencing? And if you are a mom who does work, please let us know how you balance it all, how you prioritize. We want to hear your day because I can't imagine. mean, my mornings, I can't imagine. Like right now, my daughter, her sleep times are all over the place that I can't imagine having to get up at a certain time to get out of the house.

Tessie (16:56.162)
Mm-hmm.

I can't imagine. I can't.

Diana (17:10.332)
And not only that, it takes her at least an hour to warm up, to get out of bed, to get downstairs. No way. I would never make it to work.

Tessie (17:11.501)
Yeah.

Tessie (17:19.214)
I do think about that too when I'm up in the middle of the night a lot. I'm like, thank God I don't have to get up and go be somewhere at a certain time. I still have to be up, but there's not that pressure. I can stay in my pajamas for the whole morning if I wanted to. Yeah.

Diana (17:34.556)
Mm-hmm.

Diana (17:38.29)
I don't have to be a human yet. I can still be me in my house.

I don't have to have brushed my teeth before I started the day. It's fine. Okay, so we wanted to hear from you, our listener, about the phrase, I don't work, and how it hits differently. So here's what we asked you to complete the sentence, I don't work, but, and here's what one of you said. She said, I don't work, but I spend most of my day trying to keep the stuffed animals from having a meltdown. I get that.

Tessie (17:49.548)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tessie (18:13.015)
Hahaha

Diana (18:14.577)
my gosh, I still get that.

Tessie (18:17.878)
Yeah, that's a good point. Ruining a three-year-old's day because you won't let him play with knives. I mean, that's so horrible.

Diana (18:29.436)
Mom, you know, why don't you let him choose?

Tessie (18:33.614)
I know I

Diana (18:35.016)
There's a certain point where natural consequences has to stop,

Tessie (18:39.574)
Yes. My two year old literally wanted to be like sucking on a knife at the restaurant the other day. And I'm just like, you are not going to do that. She was so mad. She was so mad. I took the knife.

Diana (18:52.156)
My daughter got so mad at me this morning. She wanted to jump on the bed and I let her jump on the bed, but she must be supervised by someone literally on the bed with her, grownup with her. And she, stepped away for two seconds. I said, don't jump. And she goes, I want to jump. I said, well, you're going to get hurt. She goes, I want to get hurt. I said, okay, go ahead. And a part of me was like, okay, how bad is that?

Tessie (19:04.247)
Yeah.

Tessie (19:09.838)
Mm-hmm.

Tessie (19:15.49)
Have fun.

Diana (19:18.142)
She's gonna crack her head open and then a part of me is like well natural consequences, so I I'm like And she looked at me

Tessie (19:18.795)
Hahaha!

Tessie (19:25.912)
Don't worry, my kids have fallen so many times on their head and none of them have cracked their head open.

Diana (19:31.858)
Thank goodness and they're still perfectly healthy. Thank goodness for that. But I was really torn for that second. like, what is she going to do? And then she looked at me she goes, I'm not going to jump. I said, that's a great choice, honey. she's in her no phase. She's in her no era.

Tessie (19:33.902)
They're bouncy. Yeah, they're bouncy.

Tessie (19:43.874)
Yeah, she's just being sassy. Yeah, she's totally just.

Tessie (19:53.048)
So I got a question for you outside of this work that you did. What was the hardest work you ever did before that and how does it compare?

Diana (20:03.134)
So I was in healthcare. I went to med school and I ran offices and, and hospital medicine, all those things. And this is harder. Being a mom is harder than all that, counseling patients, talking to your team, motivating your team, thinking around hiccups in the day, thinking on your feet on a regular basis, literally pivoting or

Even, gosh, this is really disgusting. this is a little, not my, this happened to me. I had to clean up the mess. I was not the one who made the mess. But I remember how this one disgusting part of healthcare, I was in dermatology, I was working in Atlanta and this patient came in and they had an accident and the mess went everywhere in the bathroom.

and they tried to clean it up, but they couldn't. And so they were so embarrassed. And I ended up cleaning it up. I remember thinking, oh, and this is before I had a kid. I remember thinking, oh, this is so disgusting.

Tessie (21:03.342)
God, I would quit.

Tessie (21:18.432)
Yeah.

Diana (21:21.158)
I can't believe I'm doing this. And I remember I burned those scrubs afterwards. I'm so lucky. My manager was like, thank you so much. You get the rest of the day off. And it was only like 10 a.m. So I went home and showered and burned my clothes. But I remember thinking, my gosh, you have to do this as a mom. And I will say, yes, I do it as a mom. And it's not as disgusting, but it's still pretty gross. And being a mom is harder than even that.

Tessie (21:36.43)
Uh-oh.

Tessie (21:48.002)
So bad.

Diana (21:50.942)
cleaning up someone else's waste. This is harder because you know what, but you know, to me, the hardest part about this full-time mom thing is I don't get a break. Even cleaning that up, my manager said, go home. Even if she didn't say, go home, I could say, hey, I'm gonna take my 10 right now and go outside and get a breath of fresh air and not think about it. Here, my barnacle will follow me outside. I've tried. She knows where I am.

Tessie (21:53.198)
I can't.

Tessie (22:19.615)
Right?

Diana (22:20.934)
It's like, if I get too far, it's like a bungee cord. She's right back at my side. So this is, this is harder. This is harder than having to talk to someone about a a bad diagnosis or consoling a family member. This is, this to me is harder because there's no downtime. At least when I walk out the offices.

Tessie (22:29.761)
Yeah.

Tessie (22:42.701)
Yeah.

Diana (22:44.26)
I'm me again. I'm not manager. I'm not an assistant. I'm not anyone else. I'm just me. But here I'm full time, full on mom, no matter where I go, no matter what I do.

Tessie (22:54.294)
Yeah, and you can't escape it. Yeah, we can get little breaks away, but nothing significantly meaningful like we would need. But that reminds me of this weekend. My kids were being so loud, just like kids, loud. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go sit outside so I don't have to hear this. And then they just follow me outside and then they're loud outside.

Diana (23:05.957)
Yep.

Tessie (23:20.664)
So then I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna go back inside and then they followed me back inside. We did that like four times.

Diana (23:27.544)
gosh, it's just a game.

Tessie (23:31.032)
I was like, they're just so, and then, we were, so my kids are just very attached to me. I think they have very healthy attachments and they just have a pulse on me, like literally sonar on me. They know where I'm at every second of the day, right? So like, we were at this trampoline park over the weekend and I had to go outside to the van real quick with my baby.

Diana (23:38.76)
Mm-hmm.

Tessie (24:01.108)
Literally, I was gone for five minutes and then I come back in and my two younger boys were like meeting me at the door. They're like, is it time to go? They called your name over the intercom. And I'm like, what do you mean? Why would they call my name? I didn't hear it, of course. And so my oldest, like I was gone for five minutes. He went to a staff member and was asking if they had seen me because I moved from where I was.

Diana (24:15.518)
my gosh!

Tessie (24:31.283)
and he had them like call for me.

Diana (24:35.972)
At he knew to do that. I give you a lot of credit. I started teaching my daughter that, like that we have names outside of mom and dad.

Tessie (24:37.858)
But yeah.

Tessie (24:43.742)
Yeah, and so he knew my full name and he told them and they announced it. I didn't hear it. My other two like interpreted that as they were announcing that we had to leave because you know how they announced the colored little wristbands. And it was just like so funny. I come in and I'm like, my God, I was gone for five minutes. And he was like looking for me. was like, where's my mother?

Diana (24:59.198)
Diana (25:12.414)
Wow, you just never get any downtime. You never get any downtime.

Tessie (25:19.638)
You would think in that moment you'd get two hours. Okay, so this is what I thought. I was like, okay, I'm gonna go to the trampoline park, two hours, you know, it's in Phoenix, so it's hot outside. So they're gonna get all their exercise and I'm gonna get to sit down on my computer and actually do some adult stuff. Yeah, that lasted 10 minutes. It's like, I could not.

Diana (25:31.39)
Mm-hmm.

Tessie (25:46.932)
it down. It was just like being at home. I was like, why am I even here? Why did I pay for this privilege? What is going on?

Diana (25:56.19)
It takes a toll, it really does. And so my question is, how do you stay present and maintain your idea of self-worth as of seven years of this, how do you maintain that passion still and keep a sense of who you are?

Tessie (26:14.924)
well that is interesting because I definitely would say like the passion has faded a little bit than it was at the very beginning.

I think I mentioned this before, I used to text my other friend who's a stay at home mom, like, don't we have the best job ever? Like, isn't this such a great life? And this was when I only had two.

And she would be like, she had three. So she's like, I don't know. feel like you enjoy it more than I do. And I'm like, I don't understand that. But now I do.

Diana (26:52.616)
So how many did she have at that time? Did she have more than two? Okay. So is it at that three point that you said, well, maybe not.

Tessie (26:54.862)
She had three. Yeah, she had three. And so...

Tessie (27:02.158)
feel like it's definitely like the three where I kind of stopped like being such a crazy person about like teaching them their letters and reading books, like five million books a day and making sure they had their phonics by the time they were like certain age and just like, know, all the learning stuff. I used to, I had like such a rigid schedule with my first two and I was

like so much more strict, also so much more a little bit crazy about like my expectations. Then when the third one comes along, it's kind of like, I'm kind of over reading five million of these books like the same every day over and over. Fourth one, I mean, I read to her, but it's definitely not as often. I used to sit on the floor a lot. Yeah.

Diana (27:56.543)
But she has three brothers. She has three brothers to read to her too.

Tessie (28:01.152)
Yeah, she does. And they do read to her. like, I used to just like, be on their level and sit on the floor. And it's like, definitely, it's easier to do what you just have to, clearly. But then also, as time goes, and you just like keep doing it, it's like such a Groundhog Day. I'm always saying like, is another Groundhog Day for me, it's another Groundhog Day. Because that's kind of how it feels. And then it's just like,

Diana (28:25.767)
Hahaha

Mm-hmm.

Tessie (28:31.202)
have another baby, it all starts over. But my thing is that I'm like naturally, I don't know if it's because I'm a Libra, but I naturally get like bored of things. I don't like to commit to things. I like to be able to have flexibility and say like, peace out if I don't wanna do it anymore. I feel like it's getting to the point where I'm just like, okay, I'm kinda over this stage. Like, let's move on.

Diana (29:00.698)
face it, I mean you've been in this phase for seven years. It's hard.

Tessie (29:04.942)
Yes. And I still have the passion for being a stay at home mom, being with my babies. I love being with my babies. But I do actually take breaks from them or enjoy my time away from them more than I used to. You know what I mean? Because I'm just like, OK, well, this is just short lived and they're fine. They can live without me. I don't know. But I just.

Diana (29:28.114)
You

Tessie (29:33.674)
I don't know if it's just a me thing that I'm like ready to do something different because I get bored easily. I think I have slight ADD. But yeah, I don't know. What about you?

Diana (29:47.006)
I think that, I think I'm still finding myself to be honest, because this is my first and even though I fought for her, it's so hard every single day to just show up. But I am learning to pace myself and I'm learning that my self worth isn't tied to productivity, which is so hard, so hard because I wanted...

Tessie (30:12.172)
That is hard.

Diana (30:13.902)
I like the accolades. I got the degrees. I wanted all this stuff and I achieved them. And now I don't get a gold star anymore. I get a poopy diaper. That stinks. Literally it stinks. I want the gold star. And now I have to quantify those milestones in a different way, what my achievements are in a different way. And that's been really...

Tessie (30:30.039)
you

Diana (30:41.542)
That's been the tricky part for me and it's still very much a work in progress. I was actually a book that really helped me out was by Neha Ruch She wrote the book, The Power Pause, and I loved it. She's the founder of Mother Untitled and she really speaks about redefining ambition in your motherhood chapter. So she was a marketing executive. She then had her first child and she decided.

over time that she decided to stay home, but how do you frame that in a positive way? Through her, I've found that I can have certain vocabulary to kind of re-describe my time right now and not feel bad about being the stay-at-home mom. Instead of saying, I don't work, I say, I'm full-time taking care of my daughter. I'm full-time raising my daughter. So to me, it's better.

I don't feel like I'm falling behind anymore because I felt alone and through that book I felt, I'm not alone. I'm not crazy. Okay, great. And that's a really good feeling. So I just have to give a shout out to that book and how much it's really helped me kind of reframe what's important. Although I do, there are times I still slip up and go, I need to go back to work. But then I go, are you even able to work?

in a work setting anymore? I don't think you can. You go around rhyming words all the time. Adults don't do that.

Tessie (32:11.202)
No.

Tessie (32:15.744)
My brain has zero capacity for adulting. Like if it's not absolutely critical, am not, I can't do it. I can barely do math anymore.

Diana (32:27.044)
but Tess, you have soon to be five kids. Your brain is literally saturated. I have one and I don't think I can be adult anymore.

Tessie (32:35.662)
No, it's such like a heart adjustment. feel like, I wonder what it would be like if you did have babies and then continued to work, if your brain would continue to like not melt into oblivion like I feel like mine has. I bet it would because it would be challenged every day. But that's the thing, I focus on...

Diana (32:54.352)
Mm-hmm.

Tessie (33:01.74)
I focus on my babies. They're the most important things in the entire world to me. I just always look at it as, if I trust a person with my babies, I literally could trust them with any worldly possession that I have. I don't even care. You know I mean? That's the most important thing.

Diana (33:22.066)
Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree with you. I completely agree with you. They are the most important things. And when I see my daughter do something or reach a new milestone or do something that just makes me a proud mama moment, I'm like, yes, this is why I do it. But it's those, it's the between those moments that I still struggle with to especially staying, staying present is hard. Trying not to pick up my phone to decompress.

Tessie (33:39.597)
Mm-hmm.

Tessie (33:48.552)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes.

Diana (33:51.132)
I was really proud of myself yesterday though. For the first time, I actually checked out. I walked away. I was so exhausted. My body was just done. I was nauseous. I was not having it. could barely, every time I sat down, my eyes closed. So I just said to my husband, you gotta take her, I'm done. And I went upstairs and I fell asleep.

Tessie (33:58.028)
Ha ha ha.

Diana (34:19.934)
I had an earlier night, it was still like 10 o'clock, but I had an earlier night and I let him put the baby to bed. That's normally, you know, normally a two person thing where he puts her to bed and then I clean. I just said, forget it. I'm done. I'm out. And I am such a better person for it. So I'm still learning. I'm learning.

Tessie (34:20.695)
Yeah.

Tessie (34:25.123)
Yeah.

Tessie (34:29.143)
Wow.

Tessie (34:36.34)
Yep. You have to do that. Yeah, that is the hard like for me, one of the hardest parts was I'm a very instant gratification type of person and I want it now and I want to see like the instantaneous like that's why I really like to clean because it's like instant you know, like you see it dirty, you clean it, it's clean and you get the satisfaction from it.

Diana (34:51.422)
and

Diana (34:57.178)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yup.

Diana (35:03.806)
Mm-hmm.

Tessie (35:04.48)
And that was something that I struggled with having kids is like nothing is instant. Not even, you can't even just teach them to tie their shoes. You can't just show them one time. Like you have to constantly be reiterating. And that is hard for me. Cause I just wanna be like, here's how you tie your shoe. Now do it. Like look at me. I taught you how to tie. Look how awesome that was. It does not work that way.

Diana (35:16.894)
Mm-hmm.

Diana (35:31.071)
You know what that reminds me of? It's the, I don't know if it's a medicine mentality or a surgeon mentality, but when I was in med school, it was see one, do one, teach one. That's it. And I remember having that pressure on me, especially with procedures or something new, like when you're a student, see one, do one, teach one. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, how do you do that? How do you master something in like less than one time? And I forget that with my daughter.

I'm like, what do you mean you don't know how to put on your shoe? I showed you one time. Figure it out. Do it yourself. Now go teach the kid down the street.

Tessie (36:03.607)
I

Tessie (36:10.658)
especially get cranky when I've showed them like 20 times and they still don't understand it I'm like, what is going on here? And then I like internalize that like, I am such the worst teacher in the world. Maybe I just suck at this. Maybe I'm such a terrible mother and I like, it's just because they're like two.

Diana (36:29.19)
Yeah, yeah, they're they're not there yet. And honestly, even as adults, we don't catch on that quickly. We don't master anything that quickly unless it's some luck.

Tessie (36:36.014)
I really hope I hope surgeons aren't mastering surgery in one try. Scary but seriously, then I guess you know who the really smart ones are.

Diana (36:42.756)
Well, then they're really talented. They're super talented. Yeah. But I have to say, I am like you. I like that instant gratification. I love cleaning. It's my de-stressor because I accomplished something and that's a nice feeling and nothing's ever clean ever.

Tessie (37:02.134)
Yeah, I know so hard. I know what we can go every mom knows this. We could literally go and clean and literally right behind us is some sticky fingers or toys being thrown on the floor. And so you don't even get the satisfaction at the end of it being like clean. So here you just did all this work and then you that that messes with my brain.

Diana (37:31.314)
finally understand do you remember Charlie Brown and the kid pig pen? He was always in a cloud of dust and everywhere he went was like debris everywhere. That's that's that's a toddler. I realized I'm like, I get it now Charlie Brown just makes more sense to me now.

Tessie (37:36.766)
Mm-mm.

Tessie (37:42.094)
but that's like my third.

Yeah.

Tessie (37:51.758)
Yeah. So I mean, that's a lot of work. Could you imagine going to work like a job, doing something and having somebody come behind you like screwing it up and then you have to do it all over again? I feel like we... Yeah.

Diana (38:04.53)
That's what you call HR. That's called HR, okay? And that's a fireable offense. But you don't get to do that with your kid.

Tessie (38:15.16)
See, we do plenty of work five times over, not just once.

Diana (38:18.716)
Yeah, exactly. So I think we do do work. I think the average, I think the average mom does two and a half jobs. Two and a half jobs. Imagine that.

Tessie (38:23.502)
Yeah, I think we work.

Tessie (38:30.062)
Especially if you're breastfeeding, that's like a full-time job all in itself. Yeah.

Diana (38:36.334)
Yes. I forgot what the calorie count was, but I think I read somewhere when I was nursing, when I was breastfeeding, that breastfeeding uses three times more energy than your brain does.

Tessie (38:52.063)
Wow.

Tessie (38:55.938)
That's I believe it. I am always starving and so weak. Breastfeeding. I have no energy.

Diana (39:01.214)
Mm-hmm.

Diana (39:04.752)
I was always confused, so I guess my milk was eating all the food from my brain. that, or I thought it was sleep deprivation, but apparently it's both.

Tessie (39:10.99)
You

Tessie (39:16.59)
That's the worst part.

can't do the sleep deprivation. It's very hard for me. That is such the hardest part of our job, you know what I mean? Like no other job, maybe, actually there are other jobs where they wake you up in the middle of the night like our husband's job. But they at least get compensated for it.

Diana (39:25.65)
Yes.

Diana (39:34.066)
Yes. Mm hmm. Yep.

Diana (39:41.086)
I remember my husband doing night shifts and thinking, how, how? Like, I can't, because like I said, I'm a morning person and I'm not getting compensated for any of this.

Tessie (39:54.487)
No!

I know when my husband would be on call at night and they would constantly be calling him, constantly. I do feel like that did prepare him for being a great co-parent. He is so good. He's better at night than I am. He's the one that hears them. He's the one that will get up with them. I'll actually sleep through it if I'm that tired because it was not a thing.

Diana (40:09.406)
Mm-hmm.

Tessie (40:24.514)
He like did that for so many years. He's kind of used to it and he can function. He can function so much better during the day than I can't function not sleeping at night without a nap, you know, but he can.

Diana (40:26.846)
Mm-hmm.

Diana (40:35.698)
Yeah, it's the same thing with my husband. Because it's that time between 8 o'clock and 1 a.m. that I am just done. I'm totally done. So he will take, usually when my daughter was really young, he'll take her during that really late hours. And then I'd switch out with him early, early in the morning so he could sleep. And then he would still function. I'm like, how?

Tessie (40:47.651)
Mm-hmm.

Tessie (40:59.331)
Mm-hmm.

Diana (41:02.172)
I don't even know where like my phone is, much less where like to save a life. No way. I'm pretty sure I lost a... Yeah.

Tessie (41:02.552)
I

Tessie (41:08.718)
And they have like, they have high stakes jobs, right? Like these aren't, they're not just like going and like, you know, not doing something serious.

Diana (41:18.642)
Yeah. But anyway, we digress. So I guess whether you're a stay-at-home mom by choice or by circumstance or like in a season of transition, we want you to know that this space is for you. You're not less than, you're not off the path. You're just walking your own path. And that's what motherhood is.

Tessie (41:24.174)
You

Tessie (41:42.188)
Yeah, and honestly, if you've ever said, don't work, which I'm 100 % guilty of, I say that to my kids all the time, like, mommy doesn't work, daddy makes all the money or something like that. You know what I mean? We just hope you know that the sentence doesn't begin to cover your brilliance and actually what you are contributing just because you're not working a nine to five.

does not mean that you're not contributing to society and to the human race, because you are in like the largest way humanly possible. And so just remember that.

Diana (42:16.51)
Your work is just as important as going out there and making money for yourself or for any institution, because we're making the next generation of people, hopefully good people.

Tessie (42:29.29)
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's the point, right? And that's whether you do actually work a job or not. then you would, literally could consider yourself working multiple jobs, you know, if you also work a nine to five.

Diana (42:47.634)
Yeah, yeah, it's part of the two and a half jobs that the average mom does. It's worth it. And we want you to know that we see you, we recognize you, and you get a gold star from us.

Tessie (42:54.872)
Mm-hmm.

Tessie (43:03.264)
And it's for sure work. Yeah, you work hard.

Diana (43:06.014)
Thanks so much for kicking on, kicking off season three with us. We'd love to keep the conversation going. So follow us on Instagram at Palmcast. That's P-O-M-C-A-S-T-S. And let us know what does work look like in your motherhood story and complete the sentence. I don't work, but we'll be reading a few more of them in the next few episodes. So stay tuned and you might hear yourself here.

Tessie (43:33.964)
Yeah, and if this episode spoke to you, give us a five-star review, share it with a friend, and tag us in your stories or on your Instagram and help spread the word. Let's rewrite the narrative together.

Diana (43:48.958)
Thanks for being here, bye.

Tessie (43:51.469)
Bye.