Why Maternal Guilt Isn’t Personal: The Science Behind What Mothers Are Carrying - with Melissa Hogenboom

In this episode, I’m joined by award-winning science journalist and author Melissa Hogenboom to explore maternal guilt through a powerful lens: biology, psychology, and culture.

Melissa’s work has deeply influenced my own thinking, and in this conversation, we unpack one of the most important truths about modern motherhood:

Much of what we experience as “personal failure” is, in fact, systemic design.

We explore why women are still carrying too much, how deeply embedded gender norms shape our daily lives, and why even the most empowered, high-performing women can feel stuck in cycles of guilt, overload, and self-doubt.

This is a conversation that will help you zoom out, reframe, and start questioning the narratives you’ve been living inside.

What We Cover

•  Why maternal guilt often feels visceral-and why it isn’t actually about you
•  The difference between internal guilt vs. socially conditioned guilt 
•  The concept of “gendered cognitive stickiness”-and why roles are so hard to shift 
•  How maternal gatekeeping forms (and why it’s not your fault) 
•  Why women still carry the mental load-even when they earn more 
•  The hidden emotional and psychological cost of being a breadwinning mother 
•  Why empowerment (financial + psychological) changes everything 
•  The reality of modern motherhood: too exhausted to build the village we need
•  How connection acts as a buffer against shame, depletion, and isolation 

Key Takeaways

•  You are not failing at motherhood-you are operating inside outdated systems
•  Guilt is often a signal of conflicting societal expectations, not personal inadequacy 
•  Letting go of control (even imperfectly) is a crucial step in reducing mental load 
•  Financial and psychological autonomy are deeply linked to wellbeing 
•  Social connection isn’t a luxury-it’s protective and necessary
•  The solution isn’t doing more-it’s rethinking everything you’ve been told you should be doing

About Melissa

Melissa Hogenboom is an award-winning science journalist and author of The Motherhood Complex and Breadwinners. Her work explores the intersection of biology, psychology, and culture-particularly in relation to motherhood, gender, and identity.

Links & Resources

• Melissa’s website
• Melissa's Instagram
• The Motherhood Complex + Breadwinners – available wherever books are sold 

Work With Me

If this episode resonated and you’re ready to stop internalising guilt and start creating a way of living and working that actually works for you, you can:

• Buy my book Challenge Your Guilt
• Subscribe to my newsletter for weekly insights and support 
• Email me - belinda@theflourishingmother.com - for the link to apply for a free 60-minute Motherload Breakthrough call - a powerful starting point for real change.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to Challenge Your Guilt with me, Belinda Jane Batt, maternal guilt expert, positive psychology coach, and author of Challenge Your Guilt: How to Flourish in Motherhood, Work and Life. This is a podcast for mothers ready to stop internalising guilt and start flourishing in every aspect of life. Let's dismantle maternal guilt, one conversation at a time. Hello and welcome to another episode of Challenge Your Guilt with me, Belinda Jane Batt. Today's guest is Melissa Hoganboom, an award-winning science journalist and author whose work explores the intersection of biology, psychology and culture, particularly when it comes to motherhood and gender. Melissa is the author of The Motherhood Complex, a book that had a significant impact on my own thinking when I was researching my book, Challenge Your Guilt. Her ability to translate complex scientific research into something deeply human and relatable is, in my view, quite rare and very needed in the conversations we're having around modern motherhood. Her more recent work, including her book Breadwinners, continues to challenge long-held assumptions about gender, power, and relationships, from who earns to who cares, to how those roles shape our identities and experiences at home and at work. What I particularly value about Melissa's work is that it's evidence-based, but never detached from lived experience. She helps us understand not just what is happening, but why, and that's exactly what we're going to explore today. In this conversation, we're looking at maternal guilt through that lens. How much of it is personal and how much of it is shaped by the systems, expectations, and invisible pressures that mothers are navigating every day. Melissa, that was a long introduction, but I'm so pleased to have you here. Thanks for having me. It's so nice to have you. And I just was saying before we started recording that there's just so many different things that we could, so many different avenues that we could go down today. Maybe we could start, I don't know, I haven't actually prepared you for this, but if you could share a bit about whether you experience guilt in your own experience of motherhood. Like, is this something that has touched you?

SPEAKER_02 2:06

It's funny you asked that because I was rereading some of my earlier book just to remind myself, because it was written, you know, five or six years ago, and opening part of a chapter about maternal guilt goes on about how it was such a visceral feeling when I felt I couldn't be there for both my children at the same time. There's a two-year gap between them, and I was writing it when my baby was three months and my eldest was just over two, and she, you know, would sometimes bite him. She like once jumped on his banter and his neck arched back, and I felt so angry at her, then I felt angry at myself for not getting there in time, and then angry at myself for being angry at her because it wasn't her fault. So there was this just kind of cascading amount of guilt that I wasn't being enough and that I wasn't enough. But I knew rationally I couldn't. I couldn't split myself in two and be there for both of them. Um, but I had to because the way we parent these days sets us up for those kind of feelings of guilt. But now looking back on that, it was quite, it was kind of almost amusing reading it because I was so in the thick of it and I remember that stress. But now that I'm detached from it, I don't feel that sense of guilt in the same way. And literally today I was um preparing for this podcast and I realized we'd forgotten my daughter's swimming costume. Um, and I absolutely did not internalize that at all as my responsibility. Um, I called my husband because I thought maybe he'd packed it, he hadn't, and we both collectively felt bad for my daughter because of how she'd feel, but we didn't feel guilty in terms of feeling like we were failing as parenting. So I think I think it's definitely changing. Um and I think the balance changes as you kind of shift in your family life. So sure, there's things, you know, if if one day they're home from school early and they're getting more screen time, I feel bad about that. Or um, I give them crisps that are ultra-processed, and I'm writing about ultra-processed food in, you know, in my work at the BBC, I feel bad. But I don't find my day-to-day is steeped in guilt the same way as it is when you're at the beginning earlier stage. And I think perhaps it's because I write and live and breathe a lot of the literature about parenting and what's expected of us, and that in itself is quite empowering. So I know what I can expect of myself and what expectations are thrust upon me.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Yeah, I was gonna say as you were talking, I was thinking, is it is it that we just as motherhood goes on and we become more, you know, embedded in our roles as mothers and more used to it? Is it that that the guilt naturally declines then? And then I'm thinking, well, no, I don't think it is because I think there's like you could just go down that endless rabbit hole and loop of guilt and more guilt. I think you need to have the awareness of why the guilt exists in the first place, and that is very much the work that you're doing and the and the work that I'm doing as well. We're sort of in that space of educating ourselves and then and educating other people that actually it's not our fault. And and we need to remember every time that guilt crops up that actually I I always say this the majority of guilt I think that modern mothers feel is that societal, you know, external guilt, not the guilt that is actually related to our true values or you know, trying to get our behavior back in line with something that we've done wrong. Like it's very rarely we've done something wrong when we feel guilt. I think. What do you think about that? Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Yeah, I think there, you know, we're social beings, we constantly compare ourselves to others, and it's really hard to let go of that. And if we feel we and we we don't get a full view of how other people are parenting, right? And so other people might feel more put together than us, or our lives might feel chaotic internally, um, and then we feel like guilty compared to what you know, what their friends might be experienced, but they don't see the inner workings of your chaos. Like I remember once someone said to me, Oh, you're so organized, you're such a good mum. And I was like feeling at my most chaotic. So it just is a reminder that everybody has some kind of struggle going on or struggle to get out of the house one day, one day it's smooth. Um, and I think talking about it really helps because then your comparisons are more accurate rather than unrealistic. And I think we are entering a stage now where people are talking about the realities of motherhood more so than even when I first became a parent. I remember I was kind of the first in my um group at work to become a mother. So I was I felt quite young comparatively, and I didn't have anyone around me in my immediate team or even teams adjacent to me that were juggling parenting or motherhood, especially, and work. And so the natural inclination is not to talk about it. And now when I go on like LinkedIn, every day there's about five anecdotes about this is how empowered I felt feel as a mother, or this is what I'm taking ownership of. And even yesterday in a meeting, um, someone had to leave early and it was a man, and he said, I've got to go, sorry, I've got to go pick up my kids from school. And I was like, Yes, people are parenting out loud, and we need dads to do this more than ever, um, in a way that just wasn't the case, you know, even eight years ago. So I think, yeah, it's it's certainly changing, and we certainly need to remember that our attitudes depend on who we um see ourselves surrounded by and also what we consume online and on social media.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. So I guess we go back to this concept of women carrying too much. There are obviously, as you say, a lot of positive signs that that things are changing. But I know that you talk a lot about this in your work. Women are still carrying too much, right? And uh why what are the main reasons for that, would you say? Is it like, are we uh internalizing these uh ridiculously uh high expectations that society has of us of all the things that we're meant to be able to do? We're meant to be able to do it all, but actually we can't, you know. Are we it is it partly our fault because we're taking on too much? Like, where where where do you sit with this this concept, like women carrying too much?

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Oh yeah, we we absolutely do, but I think, yeah, it's exactly what you say. Um, motherhood is still this all-consuming, you know, very visceral and positive experience many times. Um, but we still carry this ideal mother norm. And this is the idea that a mother's time and love is all-consuming and the most important. And if you aren't there for your child all of the time, you're somehow seen to be failing. And this idea, you know, dates back several decades ago, perhaps, um, before women were entering the workforce as much as they do. And so we're living in this reality where women aren't able to be those kind of perfect ideal mothers, which essentially nobody can be, it sets you up for failure. Um, and but we have internalized our assumptions of what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, because it starts so early. You can see it with the toys the kids play with. Uh, girls are more drawn to dolls and boys to cars. Why is that? Because we put our expectations of what boys and girls do onto our kids. And I remember a cognitive scientist told me kids are like little detectives looking at other people and matching their reality with what they see others around them. Because you often hear parents, and this is such a big bugbear of mine, you see, hear parents saying, Oh, well, I tried to be gender neutral and it just didn't work. You can't be gender neutral in a gendered world if you think your sample size of two and you tried to give your son a dull and he still went for cars means that it's innate. You're forgetting that he is part of a gendered world and he is witnessing all these older kids around him. Um, and then the social norms of what boys and girls do is bedded in early on. I mean, you could you can even see the language around how parents speak to girls versus boys. Uh, dads speak to women, dads speak to girls more about emotions and more about kind of rough and action-based words with their sons. So it this is important and part of the wider conversation because then we're socialized in a world where women expect to be a certain way and more caring and nurturing. And then the reality is most couples live in a dual-income household, so we can't be the caring, nurturing mothers that we've told we're meant to be, even if we wanted to be. And lots of people might not want to be, right? I wanted to go back to work. I loved being a mum, but I wanted to hold on to my work identity as well. Um, and so if the idea of being a mother means you can't do that, then that creates this constant cognitive dissonance where you feel uncomfortable with how you're parenting and uncomfortable with the time you're putting in at work. So, yeah, society is setting us up to fail because it hasn't caught up to the fact that our gendered expectations don't match the reality of the modern workforce now.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Oh my god, so so well put. And um, and there's a term that you used in something you wrote recently. I saw I'd love you to explain a bit more, which was gendered cognitive stickiness. Could you tell us what that means?

SPEAKER_02 11:09

I love this term, and it just reflects the reality that our assumptions about what men and women do is so sticky. So it literally just means women do care, housework, child care, men do, you know, the um the rougher work, the DIY, the earnings, and it's so sticky because we can't let go of these assumptions. And loads of couples intend to do things 50-50, but you'll find that even before parents become parents, even before children enter the mix, you and couples move in together, you find the women gravitate towards doing more of the housework and the men do more of the DIY. But the problem is the DIY and the you know, the more manual labor stuff, that's not an everyday task, whereas housework is an everyday task. And it's sticky and stays with you and because it's so gendered. And what I love even more is because of that cognitive stickiness, it's really uncomfortable if you go against the norms because of what society has told us that men do versus what women do, and because women are judged more on how their household looks than men are, and they internalize that. And you see this in parenting as well. And a common example I often use is um if a dad brings the kid to school in mismatched clothes, it's seen as cute, and you know, people might laugh and oh, your dad dressed, dad dressed the kid today, and he gets kind of positively rewarded for the fact that he's showing up with the child and got them ready. If a mum dresses the kid in clothes and the kid looks unkempt, she's judged for it. Oh, what a bad mum! I can't believe she'd let her child turn up like that. And even if it's subtle, or it's like an eye roll, or oh, what how is the mum letting the child do that? Um, we internalize it, and so that's why this kind of cognitive stickiness in the household actually transcends into the wider parenting sphere as well. And a term I want to introduce you to as well, which is goes even further, something called gender deviance neutralization. And this shows that if you are not performing your gender, which is how sociologists define it, so you're not doing kind of the typical female or male script, it feels so uncomfortable that you deviate from this norm that you kind of neutralize it by performing your gender more. So that you often see this in um breadwinning couples where the woman's earning more. She compensates for the fact that they're deviating against the norm by doing more housework at home. So it's it's kind of that's how pervasive it is. Even when she has less time, she will compensate.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Wow. I'm just wondering how that relates to maternal gatekeeping, because that's something that I talk about a lot. You know, the the fact that we um perhaps find it difficult to let go of certain caregiving-related tasks because we believe maybe. I mean, this probably speaks exactly to what you were just talking about, because we worry maybe that if uh it's not done to our standards or the standards that we've internalized as being the correct standards, then it will somehow come back on us. It will be our fault if they if our partners don't get it right.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Exactly. The social penalties are higher for women, and that's where the gatekeeping starts. But I think it even starts before that. It starts because of the gendered cognitive stickiness we talked about, the fact that there's expectations on women, so they might be doing more of the kind of the housework and childcare anyway. They bet then become more proficient at those tasks, and so letting go of them is slightly tricky because maybe it takes longer for their partner to do it, maybe it's not done as uh to a high a standard, and maybe they'll be judged for it even if their partner is doing something. So, an example might be if there's friends coming over, and the the male partner who doesn't usually cook is like, Oh, I'll cook for a change. And then the woman's like, absolutely not, cooking is my domain, I will do it because she knows that she might be judged if the meal's terrible, even if he owns up and says, Oh, it's okay, I'll cook. Like I we've we've done that before, actually. Uh we've invited friends around, and I'm like, Oh, I don't feel like cooking. He's like, It's okay, I'll do it. And I'm like, No, no, no, because it still will somehow come back to me. And it won't, you know, my friends are lovely, lovely people. They would never have judged us on how we cook, but that idea is so embedded that you have to kind of present a certain way that women do that. So it it's quite subtle, but it can be really demotivating for dads if every time he does something, the woman is like, no, let me do it, I can do it better. But it comes out of a judgment and expectation, so it's not intentional. And there's even research that shows that when couples are struggling, they maybe they're not not getting on, maternal gatekeeping increases. And so it's kind of this extra toxic thing. But it is so hard to let go. And I know I've done so much writing around this, and I find it hard. Cooking is probably the biggest example. My partner wants to get more involved, but the reason why it's difficult for me to let go of that is because there's actual, actually a social penalty for me in terms of my time, because if he's cooking, I'm the one with the kids, and actually I can cook faster than him. So I think that's why talking about it's really important. Like in maternal gatekeeping's not a good thing, handing over is excellent. Um, handing over is work in itself. That's another reason why it's challenging. Um, but I think there has to be domains where it's beneficial to hand things over, and then the more you do hand over, the less you're you're likely to be to gatekeep at that task, because the less literally sticky it'll become, and it will feel like less like your domain, especially if um your partner is able to do it end to end, because it's no use kind of sometimes handing something over, because then you're still essentially having the mental work of thinking about it.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Yeah, we I have this a lot, and I I do often beat myself with this stick because I'm like, oh, you know this, you know better than to let yourself fall into these patterns. And then my husband just will do bath time and he's left all the things in the kitchen, and I'm just kind of tutting, thinking, well, when it when is he gonna get the toothbrushes, or is he gonna get the toothbrushes? And then I find myself kind of running down, you know, the corridor with the toothbrushes and leaving them outside the bedroom, or like I know that she's gonna want her water bottle, so I'll just put the water bottle outside the room and you know, and then I think to myself, I have not sat down all day, and this is my time when I could be sitting down and actually resting. But instead of sitting down and resting, I'm doing the things that, you know, like I'm automatically kind of filling out all these tasks that I think that he's forgotten or he won't do. And when I've actually spoken to him about it, you know, he says to me, When I'm on duty, I'm on duty. And I will remember the toothbrushes, but it will not be at the same time as you. I won't remember to take them to the bathroom like you do, but I will remember before bed and I will go and get them. You have to let me do it. And it is that, isn't it? It's the same with with our kids. Like you have to let them make their errors, the mistakes, maybe not even the errors, but you have to allow room for them to do it their own way. It's hard to let go of it. And it feels silly, but it's true.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that's why domain, a lot of sociologists talk about having specific domains each, because if you're both trying to do something, then it's both part of your mental work. So bedtime is actually a great example. Um, I'm always home first, so I tend to have the kids for a couple of hours before my partner gets home. When he gets home, he takes over. I just go and sit down on the sofa. Sometimes I'll just, you know, finish tidying up after um eating or finish up cooking if I haven't managed to cook yet for us. Sometimes, you know, the kids have to eat earlier, but I just leave him to it. He goes upstairs, and actually I find when I'm doing bedtime, I'm the one that now forgets to do a second toilet stop for my son. Um, and sometimes, you know, brushing teeth, or I'm not monitoring the toothbrushing as well as he does. So actually, because that's become more his domain, he's now more proficient at it. And that's fine because that's really healthy, because there's other things I do, and this can be his thing, and it allows me to have some time to relax. So I think recognizing that and then just letting go, because I often talk about letting our partners fail some of the time, because if we are gatekeeping, they're never going to get proficient and they'll be demotivated, and then they won't stop if they feel judged for you know what we're telling them to do, even though it's well meant, then they're more likely to be like, oh, well, you do it then, you're better. And it in in you know, in bad situations, that could become quite toxic as well. So um it's difficult because we internalize expectations, but yeah, you you have to kind of do the work to hand it over before it can just be divided, I think.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

And there is an element, I think, of getting out of our own way when we try and put down some of the mental load because, and I say that absolutely with the full knowledge and awareness of you know, the majority of the mental load and everything that that modern mothers are carrying, you know, it's it's too much and it's being put placed upon us these ridiculous societal expectations. All that said, I think there is a part of it which requires us to more consciously try to put down the mental load. And I think that that's why maternal gatekeeping is a good example of that, because like I said, you know, I could be resting when I am doing these activities, which I do not need to do. And I think something actually that I read again, something that I read one of your writings recently, uh, there was an example about uh remind me about giving money to mums to reduce their mental load and what did they spend it on?

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Oh yeah, this was um part of Leah Rupaner's book, Drain. So she's a sociologist who's done a lot of work on the mental load. She's really um her writing on it is really excellent. And she wanted to explain or highlight just to these women that she was um speaking to, just how pervasive their guilt was. And so she said, look, I'm gonna give you $400 each, spend it on yourself to reduce your mental load. And she wanted to see what happened. And all the women, their first inclination was to spend it on something for the household and their partners because they felt responsible. And if they had this extra money, well, I must, you know, give this to something for the children or for my partner or for the house. Uh, because there's this, because of the ideal mother norms we've talked about, the the idea of marching yourself for your children and your family and putting yourself last is so embedded. And then she dug a little deeper. She said, No, no, no, spend it on yourselves. And then, first of all, they struggled to know what to spend it on because a lot of the times maybe they didn't have the hobbies or social connections that were as strong anymore. Um, but then when they were really pressed to it, you know, one of them organized a weekend away, the other one paid for some extra support. And they were able to do it, and they did, they were able to let go of their kind of some of their overwhelm and their mental load. And I think it just shows that if you can outsource something, so it doesn't have to be money that you throw at something. If there's any way you can outsource help, you can put yourself for you, you know, if you put yourself first, if you go out on an evening out, even if it's something as simple as that, or you go swimming, in that moment, you are not physically present and therefore you're not able to do some of the organization. You might still carry some of the mental load with you because you can still think about the food shop or the birthday party when you're swimming. Unfortunately, you kind of can't turn that off. But it's about what she also calls reducing the loop. So every time you do something, you're strengthening the loop and you're cementing an idea of being your domain, right? But every time you stop doing it or you do it less, you'll think about it less. So an example in my household is I used to be in charge of, or not in charge, I somehow it fell upon me to organize kind of social play dates and events. Um, and I was doing more during the week because my husband worked longer hours, and I said, I can't work full-time and think about the weekend. But we knew that if we got to the weekend and we had no plans, it was chaos. You know, the kids benefit from plans, we benefit from it. If they, you know, if we don't have plans, we just end up not doing enough for ourselves and the kids. And so he took it upon himself to make the plans, and that loop for me is completely gone now. So instead of him going to me, have we got plans? And we we will ask each other sometimes because now it's kind of a joint enterprise, but he's the one that makes more of the plans or thinks about it, texts his um friend, and they have these kind of dad day day, daddy daycare, which is a terrible way to put it, but they do look, they do look like two dads with three kids. It's quite funny because they're the other little girl looks a little bit like my two kids, and they have this little activity every Saturday morning, and that you know, that for the kids, sometimes that's enough. And then in the afternoon we can just play in the park or something, and so I don't even think about it anymore. So it's not part of my mental load to think about the plans, and then when things prop up, like this weekend was a good example, someone um messaged me asking if my daughter could have a play day with her daughter, and I then had to message my husband to check in with him because he had the plans, and I was this go-between, and I was like, ah, some some suddenly his plans or he hasn't cemented the plans yet, became part of my mental load. And then obviously I had the social pressure to reply to this other mum. Um, but I was the go-between. So it kind of just shows that even if you're trying to break the loop, often things still come back to you because a lot of the socializing is done between mums or the organizing of the social events. And I could have just given her, you know, my husband's number and said deal with him directly, and I would have, but you know, she's a friend of mine, and I didn't need to do that in that case. But it's just an example where it shows that um it is extremely challenging, even if you've consciously tried to let parts of your mental oe go.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Yeah, and that also makes me think of next weekend I'm going away with a friend on a very rare weekend away. And there happen to be three different birthday parties happening that weekend, and of and it just, as you say, it's very gendered, the communication often between parents, and usually, not always, I have to say, it's it's becoming a bit of a fairer split, but often it's the mum that sets up the WhatsApp group and all the mums that get invited, and yeah, similar kind of situation. The mum's in charge of the diary for the weekend, and so we had exactly that for next weekend. It's like um, you know, my husband saying, What's going on? Um, I want to do this with the kids on Saturday. And I'm like, There's two parties and we've RSVP'd yes, but if you're gonna take them out, then I'm gonna need to RSVP no, and you know, and I'm like, I'm not gonna add him to a WhatsApp group just so that he can say they're not coming, you know. So then I just rubbish it. But then it was me, like, sorry guys, it's a it's a no, actually. I didn't realise that he had plans about, you know, but it it that was very much felt to me like, hang on a second, how is this, you know, I'm not even here next weekend, so how am I holding this mental load for everyone's diaries trying to work out what's going on? Um, yeah, so I think that's um yeah, it's a good example. We need to try and be a bit less uh less gendered when it comes to things like birthday parties and planning, planning weekends and so forth. Um, something you touched on earlier, which I I made a note of wanting to talk about, was more empowered women are better at putting themselves first. And when we feel more empowered, we have happier relationships. So this kind of positive loop of you know, putting ourselves first fundamentally is gonna impact how we feel about ourselves, how our relationships are. Um, how do we get there? How do we do it?

SPEAKER_02 26:50

There's there's not a simple answer to that because there's a lot of structural, kind of policy-level ways that we need to be more empowered. But simply put, you can influence that in your own household. So there's a lot of work about power imbalances, and uh in society, men have traditionally been the higher earners and therefore the power holders because finances are often tied to power. So that's what I spent the last two years researching. Um, and then women tend to have more power in the home space, but I argue that it's a faux power, it's a false sense of power because it's a result of being disempowered outside of it. So that's one element. So then the theory is if you are more empowered outside the home, you know, you're then able to make more financial decisions, you're able to put yourself first. And a lot of it unfortunately comes down to earnings, right? If you are able to earn your own money, then you have more control over your time. You can outsource certain aspects of your life. I mean, that that kind of cash experiment was a good example. The woman that spent money on themselves reduced their load because they were physically taking themselves away from the situation in some cases. So that's an easy example. If you're outside of the home working uh for a job that earns a significant amount of the family income, you know, you're not there at home to do all the extra washing and cleaning and child pickup. You might outsource that. And then the more you outsource certain tasks, the more power you have. But there's also a psychological element at play. Um, when we feel disempowered, we're stressed. It's like one of the biggest causes of stress you'll see in any kind of conflict or relationship stress or conflict at work. If you ask someone, usually they feel disempowered. They might not know how to voice it, but that often um happens. And so if you're empowered, and whether it's financially, whether it's in charge of decisions, it doesn't have to be financially. It could just be, you know, you have more control over um certain elements of your life from holiday choices, restaurant choices, where you live, it can be big events, it can be small events, um, then you feel more in control and you feel more kind of respected. Because I've, as when I was researching the book, um, a lot of researchers I spoke to told me that autonomy is just a fundamental human desire. When we have autonomy over our own lives, we feel more empowered. Um, and you you see the reverse is true as well. If you have a lack of control or a lack of autonomy, you feel stressed, you feel disempowered, you lack the ability to communicate, to advocate for yourself. So the more empowered you feel, the more able you are to advocate for yourself. So it's again, it's strengthening another loop. And so I found that literally very empowering if you're able to make your own decisions. Um, and then on a purely financial level, there is so much domestic violence, financial abuse that I came across. And so that's the kind of extreme consequence where women are completely disempowered. And then if the relationship breaks down or they feel like they want to leave, sometimes they can't because they have no finances. And that's kind of then it's very, very black and white, right? Then you can see, oh wow, she if she had had a job or if she was able to work, she would have had more power over her life to leave the situation she's in, which is why I always kind of try and remind any woman is thinking that the juggle's too much and she wants to quit her job, that you know, losing that financial control could have massive consequences down the line because we all like to think our relationships will last, but the statistics show one in three, one in two of them won't. The job market's really precarious at the moment. So even if your relationship's fine, your partner might lose their job, or you know, it's just all these things we have to think about. So I think it's it's massively important on a psychological, financial, and social front to be empowered in wherever way possible.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And if we segue beautifully into your fantastic book, Breadwinners, which I told you before we call before we started this, that I started reading last night and I literally could not put down, I had to stop myself from staying up until midnight to keep reading it. So if you haven't yet uh got a copy of it, please do. Um but one key point that you make in Breadwinners, obviously I've only got through the first few pages, but high-earning women still do more at home. And this is something that you know, well I mean it doesn't blow my mind because I I, you know, you see it everywhere, right? But I'd love to know a bit more in terms of the insights that you got when you were doing your research into this, you know what why is that cycle so hard to break? Why are women still doing it all at home, even when they're the ones that are the breadwinners?

SPEAKER_02 31:33

It's shocking, isn't it? Because it doesn't make financial sense. Because if you look at basic economic theory, the person who earns most of the money is in theory at the house more and therefore has less time available to do more at home. And you see that in heterosexual couples where the man's the breadwinner, he will do less at home. Um, but that the same isn't true for a woman. And I thought that was so revealing. And again, it shows that gender ideas of what it means to be a man and woman and what the expectations are at home are so ingrained that and so uncomfortable. So one reason is because men feel massively affected if their wives earn more than them psychologically. Um, their happiness goes down, their well-being goes down, they are more prone to depression. Um, it's just it's massively disempowering, essentially, because the breadwinner homemaker norm is so strong, even though we've moved away from that, and men get judged negatively if they're not earning money. Um, so that that's one reason, and women internalize that as well. And so then you get this gender deviance happening. So they try to reduce the discomfort their male partners feel by kind of stepping up on track, and you see this financially as well. There's um uh a quite well-known BBC reporter I interviewed who is now the breadwinner, but they used to be equal and they worked very hard at it, but they all went out for an evening meal, so it was her and other high-earning women. And when the bill came, both the men reached for their wallets to pay, even though they're likely using their wife's money to pay. So you can kind of see the social script of men providing, women caring is so built into our DNA, even though I think it's in the UK, one in four women in heterosexual couples are earning more than their partners. And so you have that going on. And um, one expert told me that gender trumps money. So gender is more prevalent or more gender is more influential in how we perform our daily lives than money is. Um, and so we we need to change that though, because um it's a recipe for burnout if women are are working outside the home or in the home, what you know, they're working long hours, they're earning most of the money, they're still doing more at home. And then another element to that, which I think it's really important to highlight, is a lot of these breadwinning women aren't necessarily like high-powered career women if you look at the average, right? Yes, there'll be outliers who earn a lot of money, but for the most part, women, women breadwinners are just, you know, in normal couples, and it can be for a wide range of reasons. And one of the biggest causes of couples where this takes place is because the man has lost his job. So you can, if you add that into the mix, you know, he's feeling down about losing his job because other evidence shows that men are more penalized socially and they have more mental health effects if they are out of work compared to women. Women can redefine their identities in more ways. Women essentially fit into different spheres more comfortably. They're accepted at work, they're accepted at home. Men have not been accepted in the home space as much as women have in the workspace. So you have all these competing pressures going on. And then because of the gender pay gap, breadwinning women on average earn less than breadwinning men. So then you have financial pressure sometimes added to the mix. So because of it, you know, that the resulting discomfort this creates, women then tend to do more at home as well. And probably because they did before, they haven't handed over the task, they're still doing the mental oad, there's perhaps still gatekeeping. Um, and then another side of that is they often feel guilty. So a lot of the studies I read, you know, interviewed lots and lots of women, and they felt guilty for not being present for their children. And so when they did get home, they worked extra hard to kind of make sure the home was as they wanted it and spend more time with their children as well. So it's it's really challenging. And I think it will change. I'm hopeful and positive, because there's more awareness. Dads want to be more involved with their children, loads of evidence shows that, but we just haven't set up a society yet where that has become the norm, where that's even possible in some cases.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

I was thinking as you were speaking, are we seeing a shift, a generational shift in attitudes? I know that there, you know, I see so many scaremongering reports about what you know, Gen Z boys think about XYZ and all of these documentaries about the manosphere, and we're all meant to be terrified that our, you know, children are turning into enormously dangerous misogynists and all this kind of stuff. But I can't I'm I'm really curious to know, like in your research and talking about this particular issue of breadwinning and um you know societal attitudes, is it is it changing? Do you see any changes with different generations, or maybe you haven't spoken to enough people across different generations? Well, I'm curious to know your take on it.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

I think it is changing the more we talk about it. So you see a lot more dads actively talking about parenting. There's some dads group that have been set up. There's you know a podcast that's all about boys and men that's been launched recently. Um, it's called To Be a Boy. I was on it recently. It's it's fabulous, you should check it out. Um, there's more dads at the school gate at my kids' school. There's loads of dads, and actually, this morning I was texting another dad for a play date, and my first inclination was to text him and not the mum, because I see him more and he has a very flexible job. Um, one of the school reps in my daughter's class is a dad. Uh so I do think it's changing, uh, but it's very, as you say, nuanced. So there's generational divides, um, a lot of young boys are struggling, you know, girls are outperforming boys at school and at university, and so you have this new generation who haven't experienced the struggles or witnessed the struggles of women, and so they feel left behind. So it remains to be seen what happens when that generation has children. But I think as um men are entering the workspace and becoming more senior and able to advocate for themselves, that's when they can argue or care or um fight for the flexibility they want. And there's, I think it depends on how much autonomy again that you have in your job. So there's lots of there's interesting research where um dads who felt able to, it was called disregarding discourse or that the effort dads, the the researcher told me, they didn't care what other people expected of them and they made sure to find jobs that fit into their family life. And if those jobs didn't accommodate, they were like, right, well, I'll go find another job then. So they put their family first. But I think you can only do that once you reach a certain level of seniority and you know job satisfaction as well as job guarantee, right? If the job market is scarce, you then have to do more of what your employer wants. And then there's another group of dads that were doing more caregiving and more flexible work, but were hiding it because they felt penalized and judged for it, because surprise, surprise. Men also get judged for flexible working, women do, but they expect to, and someone has to, but men also do. So sometimes they won't, you know, they'll say they have a meeting or block out their diary instead of saying they're picking up the kids. So you you I think it's a massive shift, and I think the shift will continue to happen as more of us talk out about it and as workplaces adapt. Because until workplaces allow their staff the flexibility, we're going to still have this culture of secret parenting or overcompensation or women having to drop their hours and their um, you know, their career aspirations more so. So it it's such a big meaty issue that you can't solve on an individual level, even if you want to. And I think that's why talking about it in conversations like this is so important.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Absolutely. And I think the stigma is is really real and really needs to be addressed. And I often, I really welcome all of the, like you say, the dad groups and the um the campaigns and the parenting out loud and you know, all of the the movement uh to recognise dads more, to bring them more into parenting, you know, equal caregiving, um, you know, paternal leave, you know, all of these things are brilliant. And policy change, you know, particularly with paternity leave, is absolutely needed. But I always argue that the stigma has to be addressed hand in hand with the policy or even beforehand, because even if the policy is that you can take, you know, however many weeks paternal leave, if the if you're working in a company which has very old-fashioned, outdated, you know, uh views, then a lot of men will still feel that that stigma is too great and that they couldn't possibly take that paternal leave because it would have devastating consequences on their career or certainly their reputation, you know, organisationally, and they will be seen as flaky and that they don't take their career seriously. And so, you know, the stigma is very real, um, and I'm sure will continue to be for quite some time. You know, we've got what a lot of work to do in that respect.

SPEAKER_02 40:11

Yeah, I I agree, but I am I'm an optimist, and I, you know, my I grew up in the Netherlands originally, my family still lived there, and I have been studying cultural differences as well. And some countries just do get it right, they not perfect, but it's better. I think um there was in both in the Netherlands and countries like Sweden and Norway, the norm is to leave on time or to leave when the kids finish school. So you see this in Norway, you see this big exodus at 4 p.m. Uh, because you know, of course, of course, I put my children first. That's the expectation. And there's even this really interesting study where when an American boss came in, they kind of frowned upon that, and then the you know, the the workers had to tone down what they were doing because the the Americans just didn't get it. Uh, and so there it's possible to understand that we are social creatures with families, and family life is actually more important, and I think there's more awareness of that the older you get. Um, and then at the same time, I think it's really interesting to follow the trends of population decline. And I know that's not relevant on a sociological level, but I think it's becoming so clear that we have put our work, we've we've put we've put work first for too long. And because women are facing this massive juggle between family and work life, many of them, and one of the reasons is to feel more empowered, are either having fewer children or stopping having children altogether. And it's sometimes it's a choice, sure, but often it's a choice between work or not working. And so when you see that, surely there has to be kind of some shift because we literally won't have another, you know, generation of workers. Of course, you know, there's plenty of um policies we could implement in terms of immigration, but if we're not going there because we can't control that, we need to understand that to build a functioning society, we have to value the next generation, we have to value care. Um, and until we do, it's it's it's just going to continue, we're going to continue to have this conversation. And I really hope that for our kids' generation, they're not having the same conversation.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so bringing it back to guilt, I I the thing I wanted to make sure that we we discussed before we finish. Um, again, something that you said uh recently, which really resonated with me, was I've been hosting some calls recently, purely uh a sort of interest passion-driven project, uh, how getting mums together on a private online call to talk about how we can feel more resourced and less depleted and more able to turn up and show up and in community, you know, as villagers in this village that we feel that we've lost. And um, you know, it's kind of like this this constant uh this uh problem that we just can't overcome, right? Because we really want to be part of a village, but we're too exhausted to be villagers. So I'm seeing this show up so much in my work and with the mums that I know, the mums I work with. And you said this as well, that it's really hard to fit socialising and connection in on top of everything else. And so something the first often the first thing that's going to slip away, you know, in modern motherhood is with when we're so overloaded and we've got so much to carry, and the mental load is so overwhelming that the connection, you know, the socializing it just goes out the window. Like we just don't have the time or the energies. But I'm I think you would argue, and I would certainly argue also, that it is absolutely critical that we have that social connection in order to buffer against the depletion and the stress and all you know, all of that. So connection helps us regulate, right? So, how do you think we can overcome the barriers? Barriers to connecting so that we can regulate.

SPEAKER_02 44:03

I think we have to make a conscious effort because it's really easy to deny that social event or not turn up at that party. I did it myself. I went out this week and it was the last thing I wanted to do. It was an evening. But it was really energizing and I really enjoyed being there. I think making sure you plan things in advance, finding your tribe. I've unexpectedly met some great friends at the school gates just by being open and chatting to people. And sometimes, you know, you feel like everyone else knows each other or you don't have time or energy. But actually, because I work from home a lot, sometimes when I do go get the kids, it's my motion, you know, that that 10-15 minutes of socializing at the school gate massively energizes me. And you know, having a little chat about how the kids are doing and just being aware that it might be your friendship groups might shift. And I think that's okay. It's really hard to fit in, you know, socializing with people who live an hour away, two hours away. And I think the the friendships we can keep, great, but I think exploring new friendships, um, organizing play dates, I have to do a lot of that for the children. But actually, it is a good way to meet parents and sometimes they stay and you know have a chat. Um, the I really used to dread going to the kids' birthday parties, but actually, those early birthday parties were the only time you could have prolonged conversations. And because our children's lives revolve so much around their clubs and their friends, if you have some friends in common there, their parents, great. And it's not going to be everyone, you're not going to gel with everyone, but just being open. Um, and just that self-care, right? Like finding something you can enjoy, um, finding a hobby. If you look at what your week or your month looks like, are you doing anything for yourself? And if not, what could you possibly put in? Because if you're in a caring relationship, your partner would never deny you that time if it's possible, whether it's like joining a running group, even a knitting group, or sculpting, something maybe unexpected. I think having something that's truly yours will open up unexpected friendships. Um, it certainly did for me. I joined running eight years ago. I joined a local kind of park run and met loads of people through that. And now a quick morning catch-up run is a way that I, you know, hang out with a few friends, and just that half an hour of a run and chat, we're getting some exercise in, we're getting those endorphins, we're having a little catch-up. So it's actually opened up unexpected friendships, but also recognizing your needs. Like you might, if you're an introvert, you might not want lots of connections. Um, but there's everybody is feeling that same thing. And there's um a colleague and friend of mine, David Robson, who wrote a book about social connections, has covered a lot of research showing that we think that people will like us less than we do, but lots of people are thinking that, and actually the social anxiety to strike up a conversation is felt, is universally felt, but nobody ever penalizes you for doing so. No one ever thinks you're weird if you ask how they are and if you ask open-ended questions. So I think there's lots of avenues to explore there, whether it's existing groups, new groups, being open-minded, or just inviting some people around. You know, we found during the early days of parenting that the children were so much more fun to be around when we had some, you know, other people over. And it doesn't have to be a dinner party or anything elaborate. Nobody wants your house to be perfect. We just would invite someone around for, you know, a brownie and a coffee, you know, or you know, shot bought muffin. And sometimes I'd bake something because it was something to do with the kids. And just those couple of hours with someone else, the kids would run around and play. We would actually be able to catch up. It made it so much more enjoyable because we weren't meant to do it alone. We weren't meant to parent alone. So I know it's the cliche, but finding and creating some kind of village is just going to set you up for a success.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

Yeah, that's really something that I'm so passionate about at the moment is like having these conversations and and and knowing, you know, from my own research that connection is well, actually, and I have to credit Brene Brown for this, but you know, empathy is at the opposite end of shame. And, you know, when we connect with one another and share our experiences of motherhood, the highs, the lows, everything, you know, we are fostering empathy and we are um moving further and further away from shame and comparison and all of that stuff, you know. So it has to start with connection and it has to start all of this, it has to start with the conversation, right? About why are things, why are we accepting this status quo, which is making it so much harder for all of us, not just women, men as well, you know, to be equal parents or you know, to be able to work and have children, work and parent. I mean, my goodness, what an amazing concept to be able to enjoy work and enjoy parenting and not feel stressed and stretched, you know, in either direction. So, yeah, thank you so much. I think um I think maybe that's a really great place for us to draw to a close, although I could speak to you all day um about so many more things. But yeah, connection is everything, I think, is um is a very important final point. So, Melissa, thank you so much for joining me. And please can you tell everyone that's listening uh how they can find you, um, where they can get your book, anything else that you'd like to share before we finish?

SPEAKER_02 49:15

Yes, so I have a website, melissahoganboom.com, or just pop it into Google and you'll see my articles and website um and books are available on anywhere where you buy books from.

SPEAKER_00 49:27

Thank you, and I really, really recommend uh the Motherhood Complex and also Bread Bunners, which I'm now reading. Um, Melissa really does have an amazing way of making all of this information so accessible and easy to understand. So please grab a copy. Um, and thank you so much for joining me. I've loved this conversation so so much. There's so much richness. I'm sure people will get a lot of value from it. So thank you so much for your time.

SPEAKER_02 49:48

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 49:51

Thanks for joining me on Challenge Your Guilt. If you found this episode helpful, I'd love for you to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with another mother who needs to hear this. You can also buy the book Challenge Your Guilt or book a free call with me to explore how we can work together. Links are in the show notes. Until next time, remember the guilt you've been carrying was never yours to hold. It's time to put it down.