Episode 6: The Friction of Modern Motherhood to A Feminist Awakening with Rachelle Glendon

The return to work for most mothers, who chose to or have to, is not smooth sailing. We have birthed and nurtured a new life and our lives have radically changed. Then we enter back into a world that does not recognise or value our mothering roles and the additional energy and time this requires. 

This week’s guest, Rachelle Glendon, experienced this ‘friction point’ after the birth of her second child. 

Listen as we discuss:

• The resentment and overwhelm Rachelle felt when she wasn’t able to fulfil her calling for ‘something more’ and how this manifested in frustration with her husband and internally with herself 
• Rachelle’s exploration into what was going on leading to her recognising how modern patriarchal motherhood affects both men and women and how this dynamic was playing out in her marriage.
• How this feminist awakening changed her relationship with her husband and how she showed up as a mother.

She also discusses how her way of living slow is counter-cultural and what this brings up but how it enables her to show up and enjoy life as a mother, wife, friend and for herself. 

We end on the story of her recent big solo trip which was a huge step for her and how it benefitted both her and her whole family.

I hope this episode highlights the pressures of modern motherhood and how we are set up to fail in a culture that does not value the role of mothers. We often look internally for our shortcomings but please know it’s not you who isn’t enough or who doesn’t do enough – we were never meant to mother alone and the modern idealisation of motherhood is unachievable and unrealistic.  

Find Rachelle online:

Rachelle is a slow living coach for busy Mums. Find her below and join her community to embrace a slow living lifestyle and get clear on the essentials to create an intentional, fulfilled life.

Instagram:  @ howtoliveslow
Facebook: @howtoliveslow

Website: www.howtoliveslow.com

Podcast: www.howtoliveslow.com/podcast

GET GROUNDED

Learning to connect to myself was one of the most important parts of discovering who I was and what I really wanted when I became a mother - and it still is. We grew up giving away our power - looking for answers externally when we had them inside all along. Realising this was profound for me. But it took practice - over and over.

Getting still.

Listening.

Connecting.

Acting on the whispers and nudges, building trust with ourselves. I’ve created a free 5 minute audio for you, called Get Grounded, to download so you can start today.

It’s available to download here:

https://www.mothershood.co.uk/get-grounded

Come and find me here:

Instagram: @mothers.hood
Facebook: @mothershoodtribe

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-murrell-03966132/

Transcript

Welcome to the Motherhood Podcast, where I lift the lid on the real, raw and honest parts of mothering, motherhood and trece. Understanding what we are going through as we transition from a woman to a mother and beyond, and being supported and guided through this is essential to thrive in motherhood and hearing the challenges and struggles that others have encountered and overcome helps us make sense of our own lives, and fosters a feeling of connectedness and inclusion.

But today we mother largely in isolation and have been robbed of these essential parts of the mothering experience. I hope this podcast will make you feel less alone and that it inspires and empowers you to mother, your own unique way to support you on your path of thriving in motherhood and beyond.

We are all in this together. Let's do this. 

 Hello and welcome back to the Mother Podcast. Today's episode is with the wonderful Rochelle Glendon, a slow living coach who lives in Brisbane, Australia with her husband and two young sons. Rochelle shares the friction points she experienced after the birth of her second son, where she tried to carry on with her creative pursuits and returned to work, but she felt overwhelmed and resentful when she wasn't able to do this in the way she wanted.

Rochelle decided to explore what was going on, which set her on a path of understanding modern patriarchal motherhood, how it. And how this dynamic was playing out in her marriage causing friction and frustration. Rochelle shares this feminist awakening and how it changed her relationship with her husband and how she showed up as a mother.

She also discusses how her way of living slow is counter-cultural and what this brings up, but how it enables her to show up and enjoy life as a mother, wife, friend, and for herself. We end on the story of her recent big solo trip, which was a huge step for her and how it benefited both her and her whole family.

I hope you enjoy this week's episode with Rochelle here. It's hello and welcome back to another episode of the Motherhood Podcast. I'm joined here today by Rochelle Glendon, who joins us from Brisbane in Australia, where she lives with her husband and two boys who are four and six. Thank you so much for joining us today, Rochelle.

Hello. It's so good to be here. Nice to chat. Oh, again, we had a few, we've had a few tech issues today. So this is, uh, Rochelle, it's is late evening for Rochelle and we were supposed to be doing it this morning. So double excited to actually get this sorted today. So Rochelle is talking to us today about what she calls, which I, I think is a really great descriptive where her friction points in parenting.

Her point of friction when her boys were very young and her friction point of what she calls her, we call it an inverted return to work, isn't necessarily the kind of traditional description of returning to work, but how that became what she calls a friction point in her life and what she calls her feminist awakening.

So Rochelle, I'd like you to tell us a bit about the, the lead up to that. Obviously you had two boys and what that period of time was like before you hit that, that particular struggle. Yeah. So yeah, the boys were really little three and not even one yet. And I, I guess motherhood is a really creative time, right?

And so I had this really big urge, like I'd always had a YouTube channel and I, when my second son came along, I just found it really hard to create. Doing the YouTube videos. So I wanted to find another way of creating, so I decided when my, my youngest one was nearly one, I decided to create a podcast and it started to, like, someone said to me, well, why don't you make it into a business, you know, return to work kind of thing.

So. You know, start to build it up into a coaching practice, which I'd or previously had been coaching before I had the kids. And so I was like, okay, yeah, that's cool. But then what I realized, like as we got that the boys were a little bit older, the podcast was starting to take off. I was starting to get a little bit of, you know, busier, that that's when the friction point came because it really changed the dynamic of what.

I was able to do, you know, as a mother, because yeah, like you said, it's a non-traditional return to work because we, my husband and I have a family business and so I never really was off work. Mm-hmm. I was always working in the family business and doing, you know, finance and admin and all of that from home while I had the kids, while they're even from newborn.

And I guess that, that I was able to manage my workload with that with a couple of days of daycare. And then, you know, my homework, you know, housework, not homework, you know, housework and looking after the kids and keeping up with all of the stuff that we do as mothers, you know, all that caring work while maintaining a slower lifestyle, which was like the whole reason why we had this lifestyle set up was so that we could slow down and enjoy the, the phase with the kids being little.

But then this calling for something more, creating my podcast and growing my own business. That was the friction point because, and it was, it took a few months, it probably took about six months of, oh. Friction between us. Like I was busy, but I, and I didn't manage to get something done or, you know, I needed my husband's help with more, with things and, and we just weren't, we hadn't communicated and we weren't really aware of what was going on.

And so there was like a little bit of tension within our relationship because we weren't communicating correctly. And that's, I guess, what kind of sparked that. Yeah, that, that friction point that you said, and it really sparked, okay, well, I needed to figure out, well, what was going on in our relationship and what was going on in my life?

Why am I feeling so frustrated by not being able to do the things that I want to do, where I'm looking for more in my own life as a person outside of my roles as mom and wife? Why is that so hard? And yeah, and that's kind of where it all sort of started for me. Mm. Thanks, Rochelle, and I love that word friction point.

I know it's not a revel word, but it's just a word that actually describes something is not necessarily a. You know, we used the word challenge and struggle, but I, I just love the, the descriptive of way of that, bringing it another level of consciousness to, to those periods of time that we go through. So just coming back to that point of you talking about the friction between you and your husband and the tension of you being frustrated, not being able to do what you wanted to do and wanting to be more creative, and you felt a calling for something more.

The friction was both between you and your husband, and also was it internally in what you wanted to do? Were you coming up against something else? When I, you know, what was that something else? If it was not just between your, you and your husband, was it kind of an, almost like an internal friction? Yeah, I, I mean, it, it was mainly internal and it was because I was feeling frustrated with myself.

Like, why do other women. Seem like they can do everything. Why do other women, you know, go back to full-time work And they're fine. And you know, all of this is appearances, right? It just seems like other women moved because we don't talk about this stuff very much. But it seems like other women are able to go back to work.

They've got full-time job, their kids are in daycare. Or before and after school care. They managed to see their friends on the weekend. That it, it seems like, you know, other people are handling this, why am I finding this so hard? And I'm meant to be the one who has, I'm really clear on my priorities. I live a slower lifestyle.

You know, I'm very advocating for that. I spend a lot of time with my kids. Why am I finding it so hard to find the time for, for me, and the things I wanted, which it did at that point. It's obviously been a few years now. But at that point, doing my podcast was my creative outlet. It was my way of finding myself outside of, like I said, those roles.

And so the friction was more so within, but it was, it was because I wasn't actually consciously aware of it. It was coming out as friction within our relationship between me and my husband. So that's why I call it a feminist awakening, because I was like, right, I need to sort this out. And that was along the way around that time was when I really dove deeply into Amy's work, you know, from Mama Rising, which is how we connected.

Mm-hmm. And I guess that kind of, you know, linchpin moment, it kind of brought it all in, like, just like learning different things. And I'd heard people talking about the patriarchy and feminism and all of this, and I was like, yeah, okay. That's an interesting concept. Then through Amy's work, I must have hopped onto some other concept of patriarchal motherhood and you know, just interested in self-development in general.

And I was like, crap, well what's that actually? And, and I realized that that was what was actually going on. That's why I call it a feminist awakening because I realized my mind had, like, I learned all this stuff about what feminism actually is and how. The feminism and patriarchy kind of go together and patriarchy being that and the patriarchal motherhood being the descriptor of what a mo a good mother should do.

And I'm a self-identified good girl. I've always been like, you know, a people pleaser. Mm-hmm. And really like. Lacked boundaries and really just did not wanna upset people. So I would just go with the flow, and I guess you can't be like that if you wanna have, you have to learn how to have boundaries. You have to learn how to speak up for your own needs and advocate for yourself, because if you can't advocate for yourself, how can you advocate for your kids?

So I, I went on a huge learning journey and I really realized that actually it wasn't my husband's issue, it wasn't something he was doing. It was actually the fact that our relationship was suffering from the outside culture and the patriarchy and feminism, like, well, particularly patriarchal motherhood.

It describes the cultural conditioning that we find ourself in, as I'm sure you've talked about on the podcast before, or you've heard, you know, yeah. People listening are probably kind of aware. It describes that situation we find ourselves in where mothers play a certain role and that role is fairly invisible and fairly unvalued because there's no.

You know, from a capitalist point of view, there's no dollar figure that you put on it. So, yeah, I mean, we're getting into really deep and meaningful like things, but I realize like, and that's probably going on for a lot of people in their relationships. So we think that we've got these big issues with why can't we just get our husbands to freaking take the bin out without being reminded, and why doesn't he see how much I'm struggling?

Mm. But actually it's not because of anything. I mean, he might be doing those things, but as much as we've been conditioned that we're supposed to be able to manage it all mm-hmm. They have been conditioned that, well, motherhood's easy for women. They know what they're doing. They're supposed to do all of that stuff.

If I try and help or if I, I'm just getting in the way, you know? That's the good guys. Yeah. The guys who take are taking advantage. It's more like, mm. Well, I'll just leave them to it and then I don't have to do anything, but, and so they're benefiting from it. But you know, that's a boundaries thing as well, because people aren't generally likely to do more than what they're expected to do.

And Yeah. Yeah. Coming full circle to that, that was where I realized like I didn't have any expectations, right? For how I expected, you know, what I expected the outcomes for my motherhood journey to be in terms of what support my husband. Like what ex, what I expected in support from my husband. It never really occurred to me to communicate it.

Mm. Oh, that's, oh, thank, that's, I've had to learn to be very direct. No, sorry. No, I was say, there's just so, so much in there that I, I could pick out and you just, there's so many, I mean, topics and themes in there that I know are, are, are, are so relevant for. I never wanna say all, all mothers, but the, you know, the majority of mothers and especially in the western world and, and, and how number one we internalize again, you know, this thi this topic comes up again and again and again.

It's like, why can't I get, you know, internalizing the problem? Why can't I get him or my partner if you know, it may be female to do the thing, to do the other thing? Why am I not saying it right? What do I need to do? What? Like, is there something wrong with me? I need to change this and. Again, internalizing that of thinking there's something wrong with, with them.

And actually it's a whole, whole bigger issue. And then, you know, you, you, you know, again, as you we talking about patriarch motherhood. I, I actually talk a little bit more about this on my trailer, but it, it, it's great to just bring it, you know, bringing up and hearing different people talk about it and talking about intensive mothering and, and, and, and another word for it's sacrificial, sacrificial, mothering, all, all come under this, this kind of arching umbrella of patriarchal motherhood that, that we experience.

Uh, and then just how so many of you are saying, like looking around and why can other people, why, why can all these other people deal with it? Why can't, again, internalizing it, why can't I do the things that I want to do? Everybody else seems to be. Doing it, but you know. You, we, you know, we both know that we are all wearing these masks of, of, of, it's okay when it's not okay.

And also the consciousness of not always knowing that it's, that you're not okay. Just, yeah, there's just so much gold in there, Rochelle. So thank you for describing that. So. So beautifully. Yeah. Uh, so how did, so, so, you know, this time of friction between, you know, internal friction and between you and your husband.

How did that just, I know you said that you took some steps forward with you. You, you took the course with Amy Tele cab and we'll, we'll come onto that and, and how that moved you forward. But how was that also manifesting itself in enough, obviously you were having, you said you were having those sort of frustrations and struggles with your husband internal, but how was it really coming out in your behaviors or your, you know, and, and thought patterns and things like that just so we can.

Get greater understanding of that. Yeah, I mean, I definitely wasn't being the best mother. I have a thing in my business that I call the martyr to matriarch method. Mm-hmm. And this is the exact thing. Right. And what you were saying there about us all thinking everyone else is getting it right and we are not.

And why are we failing? That is a symptom of patriarchal motherhood. Is that? We make everything that mothers do, all their fault, but we don't support ourselves like we, a society doesn't support us, so we're set up to fail from that point of view. Mm-hmm. So, you know, we see other mothers seeming like they're doing a good job because.

Everybody feels like they have to show that they're doing a good job, because if they're not doing a good job and they're not enjoying every moment, then they're a failure. And so then we think we're failures, but we're also portraying to others. Yeah, it's a weird vicious circle. So, yeah. And now I've gone off on a tangent.

I've totally forgot what I was gonna say to answer your question. I was just saying how it was a great tangent, by the way. So I, I was loving that. How was it, man? How did it manifest? How did it manifest? So, yeah, so I became, I was almost cranky at my husband and the world by proxy, and I took it outta my kids, right?

So when they didn't listen to me, or if I had asked them to do something and they didn't, I got overly frustrated at them for minor, minor things because, you know, or, and I just felt really, really overwhelmed. Like, I just felt like there was never going to get a, when was I gonna get to a point where I could do.

All the things I wanted to do. How could I be a good mother? I, I couldn't kind of perceive, you know, OO obviously not all the time, not ongoing, but in my worst moments, I couldn't perceive and I would get really frustrated about, I wanna be a calm and patient and present mother. I want to have a successful business of my own.

I want to support my husband, and I want to be able to see my friends and do the other, you know, do things outside of that. Uh, outside of all of those things as well, I wanna like travel and see the world and I just was like, I feel like I'm just asking for too much. Like, you know, like what, so I've got like, how dare you ask for it all?

Yeah. Right. Like, what do I have to give up? What do I have to push away that I really want out of life? And how can I, yeah. So it, it came out in, in ways of just real frustration, resentment, overwhelm. And exhaustion. I was just really on the brink of burnout. I was not sleep, you know, not sleeping properly because I had little kids as well.

And to be honest, I know, uh, now like, you know, I'm a slow living coach, right? I also know that where I'm at the mercy of not just patriarchal motherhood, but. Productivity culture that says we should be hurrying up to return to something and getting things done right now. So hurry up and get back to work.

Hurry up and build your successful business. Hurry up and bounce your body back. Hurry up and grow those kids up and move on. And you know, so I know that in some ways I was very much, you know, you teach what you most need to know. And I was very much like, I also had to learn. Okay. Preach what, you know, walk your talk and slow down.

It doesn't have to be such a rush. Mm. And that really changed a lot. Okay. So that actually gave me tingles when you were talking about that. Just the hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. Just that, yeah. Yeah. The realization that we, yeah, we are always in that, you know, productivity and, and, and hurrying. And hurrying.

Hurrying. And, and so was there, you, you, you talked about the, the finding aba and the course that she did, that she did that helped you. Yeah. What was the moment sort of leading up to that and you, was the realization that you needed to, that you needed to walk, walk the talk? Was that leading up to finding Amy or was that, how, how did that manifest?

How did that work out? Well, I'd, I'd heard of Amy before, like, because I did my beautiful youth coaching training in 2014, so I'd kind of knew of her from right back then before I'd even had kids. I think her business was only really new as well. I. And I was already talking about minimalism and slow living and everything well before I started my podcast, like when Max was a baby.

I, you know, my other creative outlet that I started was a, a minimalism magazine and I have a YouTube channel where I documented all of our family adventures, just particularly when Max was little and when Louis was a newborn. But I found it really hard to pick up the camera with two kids. It really did change things.

So it was really, it's really beautiful, like documenting that slow living. But it's really easy to live slow when life is easy. You know, when you've just got, oh, I love that. You know, I think when life got hard, harder with the two of them, you know, max was getting a bit older that, you know, that had a toddler.

When things, when you sort of feel like you're coming outta that baby bubble and you're getting back into, you know, the world around you and a bit more, you know, out there, I think. And that's when you know those tension points start. That's when you really have to call on your tools, you know? And that's when they, I guess they, their metal is tested in that sense.

So when, you know, I, Amy came back into my realm 'cause she was talking about mires and I was like, I. Oh, I found the first, you know, I found motherhood really easy. I find I love being a mom. But then when I had two of them and it was more intense because they weren't babies anymore because everyone thinks babies are the hard part.

But we all know every phase has got its, has got its challenges. And a toddler and a preschooler is, is real. Yeah. And that's when Amy started, you know, coming into my realm again about mires and I was like, oh yeah. That's what's going on as well. I'm becoming, you know, I'm becoming more like I'm growing as well.

Yeah. So, so Mires essence was really like, I was always talking about slow living and I was always talking about like enjoying family life and, but then there was this other part of the motherhood journey that I hadn't quite clicked into place and I realized that. Scent and that evolution of you as a, as a woman becoming a mother.

And that process needs to be done slowly. And I've really seen it in, in a lot of, you know, a lot of moms that the slower you go in those early years, the more centered you become and the more you can kind of go through all of the different phases with your kids and it's easier and you kind of step, it's really becoming self-led.

You know, you become that almost like what I say, martyr to matriarch, you be, you're a good girl. Good girls can't become great mothers. So we have to do that inner work because good girls become, you know, that good mother and it's, it's hard for us, whereas we wanna be great mothers. Mm. We really need to do the inner work of figuring out how to.

Be more direct in our conversations and, and be okay with upsetting others if it means the benefit of our family. So that's where I say stepping into your matriarchal power of being the leader of your family and being in a co-parent. I think a lot of us, part of that good girl conditioning is all about waiting for permission.

Mm-hmm. And we can't wait for permission when we are mothers. We have to be the ones making decisions and we have to be the ones, you know, being. In power. Yeah. We have to be the leaders of our little tribe of minions. No, that's just silly. I love that vision. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That I mean, yeah. There there's, again, there's so much, so much gold in there and uh, I love the way you say it is easier to live, easy to live slow when.

When life is easy, of course it is. It, and it's that when it's really far, when you feel like life's really fast and, and you've got a lot on you and a lot of pressures on you, it's, it's easy to kind of slip from that. And I just, I just wanna touch back on. The, the things that we internalize and, and our own conditioning and, and along with societal conditioning, sort of, obviously it's multilayered and it, it's complex, but just touching on that element of already you were embracing the slow living life and it's how you wanted to bring your kids up and slowing down and enjoying those moments, those early moments.

And do you feel there was an element of pressure that you might have put on yourself as well as on top of that, of, I'm supposed to be living slow here. And enjoying these slow moments, and I'm not, was that an added pressure, perhaps on yourself? Yeah, I think so. I think because, uh, yeah, it's interesting.

It is an interesting one because it's almost like, again, it's, I was happy with it in myself, but it was like, well, you know, you still part of society, right? And society has judgments. And I was like, I wonder what people think and you know. Are people going to be looking at my life and wondering when I'm gonna get back to work or, you know, you know, all of those career, you know, because I've got, we've got a business.

We do live slightly differently because I wasn't getting back to work. But, so on the surface, because I've always worked for, I've worked from home for 10 years, it looks like I'm a stay at home mom. And so, you know, often people think that I've got a lot of free time. I don't have free time because I'm a stay at home mom.

I work, I've got a lot of free time 'cause I make it that way. Mm. Or I'm, I'm more available. I make sure that I'm available. But you know, for things like all the school pickups and school drop offs and all, and all of that. So it's like, yeah, I guess, I think it was probably more the pressure of. Appearances and even that is work in itself.

And, and that's part of slowing down is living differently and being okay with not being busy. Yeah. And those external pressures, like our kids don't really do extracurricular activities really like, as in, we still haven't signed my older one max up for any team sports or anything like that because we were, we are waiting for him to develop the love of it and ask us when he can sign up.

Rather than pressuring him and juggling him around everywhere. And even that, I don't know, that seems to be a little bit counterculture. Yeah. Everybody's doing team sports, but do you know what, he's out and he's now saying he's, you know, six and a half, he's now saying, Hey, hey dad, do you wanna play cricket?

Can we go out and kick the soccer ball? And he is pretty good at sport. He just hasn't played team sport, but he's the one driving it now. Wow. And for me, I think that that's. That's a really validating thing to see because we felt really unsure if we should be putting him in because that's just what everybody's doing.

But yeah, I've definitely seen like kids dropping out of sport in as they get a little bit older because it's just, you know, one other thing that they have to do. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh. So. I know that's, that's great because I love that valida, the, not the validation, that's not the right word, but you putting something in place and that, that's so many things in being a parent, isn't it?

It's kind of putting things in place and it's small, tiny, in seemingly insignificant things every day. And seeing the, the reward, again, that's probably not the right word, but seeing the end result of, we, we made this decision to not put him into sport in the way that, you know, competitive sport and team sports and against.

Against society, probably against all his friends, against your community of, against what everybody else is doing and kind of knowing that you want to do that. But that that kind of, again, a friction of, oh, this maybe feels a bit uncomfortable because I'm not doing what everybody else is doing. And then really seeing now how he's coming to his own.

And he is asking to do these things, and like you said, he's still interested in sport just because you hadn't signed him up to all the sporting things and how that's manifested itself. So that, that must be a really empowering thing as a parent to know that those decisions that you've, that you've made, but it's, it, it is hard to, to, to do that.

And it, it's hard to, to, to put that in. Put those decisions in place and we'll talk a bit about the end, about how big people can find you and, and learn a bit more about doing it in a countercultural awareness. I say that in inverted commas 'cause there's so many that looks and feels so different for everybody.

You talk about doing, Amy coming into Amy, Amy coming into your consciousness again, and she, her talking about tres essence, which is a huge part of the work that I do. And, and, and obviously you, you know, you, we, you know, we both do now, how did doing that work with Amy make you feel, and what, what changed in your life and in your world as a result of that?

It made me feel like, yeah, do you know, it made me feel like. Maybe this whole work of feminism and equality isn't actually as far along as we thought because mothers have been really left behind. There isn't a lot of, you know, trence. It should be a really well known word, and I know it's like just one word and you know, fine, but we, it's not common vernacular still.

When I say it, people are like, I dunno what that word is. We all know what adolescence is. We all know what menopause is. You know, we all know. I mean, even if we don't talk about menopause, we know what it is. Mm-hmm. But it's like. It's like becoming a mother is just one extra thing that you just quickly do over there quietly and you know, come back when, when you're done kind of thing, you know?

And I feel that that's a really, it's really the thing that lets us all as mothers down or as women as society down, because we've all got mothers. How many of us have had bad mothering experiences? Me, definitely, or not I Less than ideal mothering experiences. Even if we've got mothers who we know love us, who tried their very best, they've been unsupported.

So there are things that they haven't been able to do for us, whether they've been single mothers or whether, you know, 30 years ago when we were all babies, mothers, you know. All sorts of things happen with mothers, you know, like they weren't supported or they weren't given housing or they, if they split up their partners, they had to rely on horrible partners.

Financial support and all, you know, everything is just some, you know, some women are really, really struggle and that's just, you know, white women, you know. Then you've got racial levels as well of discrimination and things that make it even harder again, and we, if we don't support mothers, they're not then able to meet our needs as children, and then that's what creates a lot of.

You know, trauma and, and childhood issues that go, we carry on into our adult life. Whether we are aware of them or not, they do affect us. Yeah. And they affect our relationships. And I think the more we can support the mother child relationship to be really healthy and for women to be able to do the care for their children, really in deep ways, the better for society.

I, it just comes back to that, you know, we see mothers, the mother, blame, blame always goes on the mother. She's not, why is she not doing this? Why is she not doing that? We see, we've heard it and we may have done it ourselves. You know, when I, when I, you know, maybe my younger needs not being conscious, not even being of a child rearing age.

We see it as we grow up and then we see, ah, it's the mother's fault, she's bla And then as we grow, you know, we grow up, we grow up, and then we become mothers ourselves. We then internalize that because if there's any issue, it's okay. I, I know that the blame is gonna be on me, and it's almost automatic, isn't it?

And I just, it just exacerbates that, the cycle of blame and then women internalizing it and it's my fault. But actually it's a societal issue. We don't support mothers to be, you know, to, to be the best that they can be in, in the current ways. But it's, it's a really, really hard cycle to break. And that's, you know, we'll that's a whole other topic.

Yeah. But know, there's that me that goes around of like. Mom takes kid to the park and stares at her phone. Worst mom ever. Dad does exactly the same thing. Oh, what a great dad. You know, dad, dad buys takeaway Maccas for lunch. Oh, look, they're how cute mom buys takeaway Macs. What a lazy mom. You know, like just such double standards.

But it's all because all a lot of the motherhood work is, is hidden and we don't really talk about it because, you know, and we. Just circling back to the poll, patriarchy. Patriarchy isn't men. Patriarchy is the system that benefits men that we're in. And so under that patriarchy, women failing and it being all women's fault is a way to deflect blame from, from men.

And so, and, and that's easy. Like it's, it's this, you know, anything that's in the macro happens in the micro. And this is like the boundaries within our relationships and you know, those, you know, speaking up for ourselves and advocating for ourselves. If we can do that in the micro, then it affects the macro and that's how we affect society, I think.

Mm, I love that because it's really, it can feel really big and really overwhelming of this, you know, there's so much that needs to change. Yeah. It just feels too much. But actually just those small steps within ourself and that's where, you know, that's, that's. That's where my, my business comes in and what your business comes in and the work that I, you know, that we do with mothers.

It's really, yes, obviously we are part of the change, but doing those, what are seemingly insignificant steps? You know, can change the way that we model ourselves to our children, the way we behave around our children. And it really, really adds up into a, a, a bigger thing. But it's, yeah, and I, I, I want to kind of put that in there 'cause I, you know, there's been many times where I feel overwhelmed with, with the change that needs to happen and the work that needs to be done, but really, you know, activism starts within ourselves and the ripple effects can be huge.

So, yeah, that's a great point in there. Amy made you see that we weren't as far along inequality as you thought we were and, and how mothers were left behind and, and let down and left behind in this. And so going on from that, how did it further change your thought processes and the way that you changed in your life?

Yeah, so then I was like, alright, well I'm gonna give this a shot. I'm gonna see if I do the inner work for myself. Let's see, you know how that changes my experience of motherhood and our relationship. So I just decided I'm gonna do the work of being a bit more direct with everything. And, you know, it has really changed things like my husband and I have had a lot of conversations about, you know, is this, we are being affected by the patriarchy and that, and we're being affected by the.

I, I know a lot of people feel really uncomfortable about the, the word patriarchy we're being affected by modern culture. Yeah. And the expectations of both of us. Like, I'm a woman, so there's a lot of expectations of what I'm supposed to do. There's a lot of expectations on what you're supposed to do 'cause you're the man, but we wanna do things differently.

So it was really about opening the dialogue within my relationship. But it has changed my work in, in a, in a deeper way because I realized like. Slow living is a really nice thing to do, and it's a really nice, you know, you know, you can really slow living. You can do slow travel, you can be, you know, slow food, but there's slow parenting as well.

And when we slow down and actually take, you know, value the work that we do, because this is what, you know, slowing down when you do things slowly or at the right speed, it's because you value them when you've rushed through things. It's because you just wanna quickly get them done so you can move on to more important things.

And so I really think that a lot of us, or all of us, would think that our work as mothers and the way that we want to raise our children isn't something we wanna rush. Hmm. We wanna take our time and if we wanna change society, little things like slowing down and taking the time with our children, both our girls and our boys, and giving them life skills, showing them how to contribute to a family.

Particularly our boys as well, like getting them to, like helping them to, you know, you know when they're little and they wanna help and it's really annoying 'cause it takes away longer to do everything 'cause they're trying to help. But those moments, if you've got the time to slow down and allow that process to happen, yeah.

And, you know, eat carrot, peelings or whatever it is because they wanted to help. If you do that, then you, you are actually building your relationship with your kids. But you're also slowly changing society by, by developing a belief that boys can help and boys know how to do housework, and boys know how to contribute to family life, but equally allowing girls.

And boys to also, you know, it's not just boys who should be able to freely focus on their studies. Girls should as well. You know, there's a, there's both, it goes both ways. It's not just in feminism. It's not just about helping women return to work or get back to work. It's also about finding ways to encourage dads and men to be involved in family life.

So it works both ways. So it's the same with the, our boys and girls. We, we wanted to, yeah. So anyway, another tangent, but. It does. The answer for me is so much about slow living. Like when we slow down and we value motherhood and we value caring work, just because there's no dollar value associated doesn't mean it's not valuable when we value it.

Again, you know, that's, that is. Priceless, really. And yeah, to me that's, yeah, I think I answered the question. Yeah, no, you did get a little bit ranty on these topics. Oh, I love a rant myself. So doing good company, you know, thank you for that. And, and it sounds like the, the, the work that Amy introduced you to really reinforced the values that you already had, but reminded you why they were important and showed you Yeah.

Showed you the value in your values, the value of wanting to slow down and, and why it was important, but kind of almost connected the, the, that piece of before you had children and had the boys of knowing you wanted to slow down already and then actually when you had them, that kind of, not quite piecing it together, but it feels like they were knitted together and, and actually being able to move that forward and having someone else is that.

Showing you, giving you the language, the understanding, the knowledge of motherhood and why. So, so, so what a great tool for what, what a great experience for somebody else to, to show you that. And that's why we need activism and, and the understanding of Matresses, which obviously is huge, huge, huge, huge.

So. On a, well, on a day-to-day basis, on a week-to-week basis, on a month-to-month basis, what does your life look like now? And I, you know, I would, you know, I look at you as somebody who is thriving in motherhood and thrive, thriving in your life. And, um, so just talk to us a little bit about what that looks like for you.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you're right. And I say all of these things, but it was never really like dire straits like, you know, I was never going. My husband and I, it's all amazing. Like, you know, he's a very good man and we were able to work it all through and yeah. But you're right, my life now, like I said, my husband and I have a business, it's a trades based business, so I work, you know, I do the admin and the finance.

That takes me about a day a week. And then I have my podcast, which is How to Live Slow, where I, yeah, it's a podcast. I, I say it's a podcast. It's actually a business. I have one-on-one clients and I've got two group coaching programs, one called The Slow Life and one called Marty to Ma, or actually I've changed the name The Matriarch Way.

It's a self-leadership. For gentle mothers, you know, gentle parenting is another part of, or attachment parenting is another part of, you know, going slower we to develop that attachment. It's a real, it's a real part. So yeah, that's my business. And I, and I do that on, so Lewis is only in preschool, so he's only two days a week, my youngest one.

And then I see clients at nighttime as well. But yeah, I mean, I. I'm the flexible parent. Another term that I love to throw around, um, I'm the flexible parent, which I absolutely love. I I'm happy to be that because it means that I can be there at the school gate. It means that I can, you know, I can do all of, and I, I also really allow myself, you know, I schedule in a lot of, well, you would call, people would call it downtime, but I call it time for white space activities.

Mm. So it's all the things that we. Think we will just squeeze in, in and around our real stuff. Like put in a load of washing on, you know, doing the groceries, cooking dinner, getting breakfast, getting the shoes, lunchboxes and everything. Not a, not many people schedule in actual time to get those things done.

Whereas I build that into my day as part of my daily routine so that I know, you know what, I can't overschedule myself. I can't say yes to too many things 'cause I actually got. That stuff to do. And it is important. It is needed to be done well, you know, it needs to be done. Someone's gotta do it. And you know, obviously my husband and I share it and the, and the kids get involved.

But I really like that. I like it. You know, we take a walk of an afternoon and we play with friends and we're really flexible of an afternoon after school. So, and yeah, I, I think as well, another thing that I wanna say is that. If you are the flexible parent, like a part-time working mom, or if you're a stay at home mom or you've built a little business on the side, you know, so that you don't have to return to work.

There's a lot of us, but the pandemic has forced a lot of mothers out of work. But I just wanna say something that you, your husband or your partner is not supporting you to stay home. You are supporting them just as much to go to work.

That understanding that and realizing that can be a real game changer because I know that the common narrative can make a lot of women feel like, again, failures if they're not working, if they choose to stay at home or they feel like, you know, they can't ask for money to, for the things that they want or they don't deserve any in, you know, money.

But ultimately, if you've got a working partner and you are a stay at home or part-time working parent, your partner's career. Research and studies show that it will be, it will take off. They want, they can say yes to promotions, they can be more available for things at work. And I think Annabel Krab, she's a political reporter here in Australia, she has done a.

And she compiled a whole lot of research around this, showing that the more successful a man is in his career, the more likely it is that his wife will be a stay-at-home wife. Mm. So particularly in the PO political and white collar industries as well. So it's interesting that, yeah, that that's actually come out as a study.

'cause we probably know that we probably, yeah. You know, reference it, but actually studies showing that is is really interesting. Yeah. She has a book called The Wife Drought, and it's basically suggests that the working week is all about meant to be a man going to work and someone supporting him to do that by doing everything else at home and when.

You know, it, it's hard to have two full-time careers and a family in the, in the one home because there's no wife. That's why it's got a wife drought, because you know, like, yeah, it's a full-time job trying to manage a home. No, that's great. And it's great to have that reference to the mindset, that mindset shift of, because mothering, the mothering, I mean, let's separate, okay, let's, let's be clear here.

We're sep we are separating mothering work and, and housework. They are separate things, although they are often linked together. Yeah. You know that the, the mothering work and, and the housework is, is devalued because like you said, it doesn't have a dollar attached to it. And there again, if anybody's interested there, there has.

There has been some studies to show, and I know in Australia they have, I dunno about the uk, but about actually if you actually put dollars on things like breast milk and, and actually the, the, you know, the societal contribution that would be in, in economic terms, but that's a whole other thing. But you know, the way it is de the way it's not valued and actually really flipping it round and saying, well, if you weren't, you weren't supporting 'em in this way, then they wouldn't be able to.

To, to, to, to be as flexible as they are in terms of being able to stay late at work or, or, or travel because the kids are being looked after. So I think that's a really, really important thing to be, to, to be able to shift that number one. Yeah. And I forgot my second point, so we don't need to say number one there.

It, it's just a paradigm shifter because I think that there's always been this thought that, you know. Women are being supported to do, to stay at home, and that they're the ones that have to miss out sacrifice. You know, it's like, oh, he's had a, you know, sounds really mean and sounds really like anti-men.

I'm totally not, but you know, like he's had a hard week at work, so he should be able to go to the pub or like golf or, or whatever. Mm. Um, but actually. Love you. Like being a mom is like, well, having little kids at home. Mm. And it's not 40 hours, is it? It's not, you don't turn off even 60 hours. No, it's all day and all night.

So we deserve the a break. We deserve to be able to do, you know, spend, spend money on ourselves as well. Or it doesn't even have to be money, but yeah. Yeah. The income is not his income. It's family income as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, sure. Um, I know, and it's, it's a minefield as well, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to touch on something and I know Rochelle very well, so I, I, I, I know this story, but I think for the listeners, I really want to, something I, I briefly wanna touch on and end on 'cause, 'cause Rochelle lives in Australia and this is the first time we met and Rochelle did something recently that was part of her, you know, she loves travel, traveling and, and talking about how, you know, that, how, how, how to connect that with having children and how the, the trip you took recently.

Was was a really big step for you Yeah. But also really important for you. So I dunno if you just wanna talk about that as, you know, as, as a kind of physical example of how you are living by your values and doing the things that you want to do. Yeah. So you're right. I came to the UK for two weeks on my own left, left Raleigh and the kids at home in Australia.

And yeah, for, I think it was 12 days, it was amazing. And. It was the first time I've ever been away from more than like a night. I think from Lewis being my younger one. And yeah. I mean, coming off the back of, you know, when the boys were really little, I was pretty hypervigilant. Like there was no way, like I, I think I didn't, my friend invited me to their wedding, but it was no kids, so we didn't go because we had, we weren't gonna, we weren't prepared to not take the kids away with us.

'cause we'd have to travel and, and yeah, I'm just. It took a lot of work. It took a lot of work for me to get to a point, you know, over many years of like just going out for a walk by myself doing the groceries by myself, you know, like to just work up to being able to think of going overseas for two weeks by myself as even within some sort of possibility.

It was amazing. It was really, really good. It was really great for our whole family. Because it meant that the kids had more time with Dad to, you know, develop their relationship as well. It was long enough for him to experience a couple of weeks of having to do school and everything. So it was, it was an amazing experience.

It was really, really nourishing for, for everyone. Hmm. And. Two things I want to ask you about that. Number one is leading up to that, why would, why did you find it hard? And I don't, this isn't a judgmental question. Sometimes the why questions can feel judgmental. It's more about the, the, the process and your, the, your, your mindset behind it of why was it hard for you to do those things for yourself.

Whether, whether or not they were away from the boys, sort of, you said it was hard for you to go out for a walk on your own, and what was it that you felt that was preventing you from doing that? Going back to like what I said about like, you know, we've all had our mother experiences and I guess I didn't have a great mothering experience myself, you know, just, you know, my, my birth mother has some mental health concerns and I guess I, I just, I actually don't really know where it came from.

I think it's probably to do with the fact that. Because I felt so abandoned because of her. She was unsupported, so she couldn't look after me in the way that I needed to be looked after. So when I had kids, I was like, right, I am never leaving them. Mm-hmm. And I think my, you know, my brain might have taken that way too seriously.

And so I actually really struggled to leave them. Yeah. So that's probably the deeper why of, of why. And from a practical point of view, because. You know, my dad and my stepmom are three or four hours away. We don't really have any other family. My brothers and sisters are all, you know, there's no family.

'cause you know, in, I moved to Brisbane from my family home to come to uni and you know, I live away from my family. So there wasn't ever anyone to kind of call on to say, Hey, can you just watch the kids for me? So it was only ever, my husband, most of you know, 99% of the time, unless grandparents were in town visiting.

So I just was not used to it. Yeah. Yeah. So it had to become something that I started to feel comfortable with. Yeah. Yeah. It's slow, small steps, isn't it? We, we always say, yeah, that's right. We don't wanna do these things. And it's, you didn't just go from, oh, I did this course with Amy and then I was, you know, I was kind of understanding and then I came to uk, like there's lots and lots of steps in between and I, I, I just wanted to, to sort of paint that picture for, for the listeners.

And the other question was, and and you did reference this a little bit to me when you were telling me about planning your trip overseas, what the reaction was from some, from, from people, uh, when you were talking about planning the trip. Yeah. Everyone was like, oh, is everything okay? But yeah, everything's fine.

But also, I mean, meaning like, you know, international travel has only just become a thing again in Australia. I know that in the UK and Europe, you know, you've been able to travel a a bit more, but of. I think the borders to Australia's like international travel had only opened a couple of months prior, so I was like, in my friends and family circle, I'm like literally the first person to go overseas.

And so, you know, people have been traveling. To go visit family and family overseas, but it was like, because they were sick. Right. Or there was some exemption as to why they could go Mm. And someone was having a baby or something like that. So yeah, there was that as well. But yeah. That's funny. I don't know if that's the, that that was there was.

Yeah, I, I, you were talking about, I just wondered about, I, I think you mentioned it to me about there was a maybe one or a couple of people, there was some judgment there more on you, you not being with the kids and, and kind of like Oh, almost a, that sort of reaction. Yeah. Like, how's really gonna go? Yeah.

Mm-hmm. How's roll gonna go? What's Oli gonna do? And he was totally fine. You know, like, yeah. I think again, that's been a big practice in me, like letting go of the control. Over time and allowing him to have his own relationship with the kids and being okay with him not doing exactly how I do it, which is obviously the right way, Relle, but you know, they've gotta do it the second way.

I'm mean, I'm joking. I'm really kidding here.

Oh. Oh. Well, it's been absolute pleasure to talk to you and there have just so many gold. So much gold in there. And I know that, you know, I could talk to you for hours, but I'm gonna, gonna, going to finish up there just with the last question for you and just, I, I always, I ask this question at the end, just imagine that, that former, former you, that younger version of you when you were in that kind of real friction time, that time of real frustration and where, where you're at, you called it your friction point.

What would you say to that version of you? I would say that you don't have to burn everything down. Don't stress. It will take some time, but you will get there. And this journey, like this path that you're on, you'll reflect. You know, as our coach Joe says, you'll reflect on your life and will all make sense once you've lived it.

So yeah, I think that's what I would say. Just enjoy, enjoy it as much as you can. And yeah. Great. That's it really. Yeah. Thank you, Rochelle. I'll put some links in the show notes for everybody just to, just coming up of, of, of where we can find 📍  you. But just if you just let us know where we can find you.

Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me and allowing me to. Riff ridiculously. I have a lot of tangents, so I appreciate you allowing me to get it all out. Love tangents. Love tangents. You can find me at How to Live Slow. My website is how to live slow.com or Instagram and Pinterest. I'm how to live Slow as well.

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