Motherhood Unlocked - Cat Sims

Cat Sims joins The Project Baby Podcast for an honest and powerful conversation about the realities of motherhood and addiction. She opens up about the challenges many women face behind closed doors — balancing parenting with personal struggles, breaking stigma, and finding strength in vulnerability.

The episode dives into real-life experiences, offering support, understanding, and reassurance that no one is alone in their journey. It’s a raw and important discussion that highlights both the hardships and resilience that come with motherhood.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This episode is brought to you by Barbara Gayenne, a probiotic brand trusting families like yours. From newborn drugs, today is support for all ages. Baba Gaya is one of the world's most research probiotics available at large beats of us. Welcome back to the Project Baby Podcast, where we're joined by Kat Sims. Welcome to the Project Baby Podcast. Thank you. So lovely to have you here. We've tried a few times to pin you down. I know.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Well, it's it, you know what it's like. It's never easy, is it? It's always something that gets in the way. The kids? Always the kids, well, the kids or the husband or the dog or or just actually sometimes I'm just not in the right, you know what I'm like? I'm just I'm not coming. You know what I'm like, I'm really sorry, it's not gonna work for me today.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Cat, let's start with your name on Instagram. Not so smug now. Yeah. I feel like it's got a story behind it.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Well, it does actually, it wasn't. I have to give full credit to my friend Antonia who came up with it, and I can't remember, I think I was just like splitballing ideas, and she's like, that's that's the one, that's definitely the one. And basically it came from this idea, you know, when you're pregnant for the first time, and you're well, I can only talk from personal experience, but I was sort of insufferable. I was that insufferable, like they're only gonna have wooden toys, and they're going to, you know, we're not gonna use meds, we're just gonna have colloidal silver and all the rest of it. And then you know, you give you have the baby, and you're like, here's a frozen fish finger to suck on, and you're like this with cowpole, like whatever you can do. So it was just that real uh self-awareness, it was about that self-awareness of going, yeah, listen, you don't know until you know. Yeah, and that's the reality of motherhood.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Yeah, 100%. 100%. Like, yeah, I don't think anybody kind of like thinks that they're gonna have it one way and it actually turned out that way. No, I just know it's always different.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

No, you can't chaos, right? It's chaos, and you can never ever know. And you know, it's always you're always treading that fine line with people who are pregnant for the first time because they always sort of ask your advice. You don't want to scare the shit out. Can I spare? Yeah, okay, great. You always scare the shit out of them, but also you don't want to do what I had, which is kind of this really false sense of, I guess, the magic of it, like you'll never feel loved like it, and it's a bond that you'll never, you know. And I was like, she arrived and she was great, but I was like, I don't get it. Because I I mean I had a traumatic birth with my first, and there was a few things that just went really wrong, but I was I just want to put her out by the bins, like I did not think this through, and it wasn't that I didn't love her at all, it was just that the actual reality of having a small human to keep alive with zero instruction or help or support really, because that's the other thing. New mothers are so vulnerable, we're so vulnerable and so under supported, because it is this myth that, like, what's the most natural thing in the world. Yes, just get on with it, and it's so hard, yeah. Especially, I think, women of our generation, where you know, we were told we should be doing more, right? And so we've worked really hard to do loads of things, we're really type A, you know. I'm not anymore, I've given up being type A. I'm very type B now, I'm very happy being type B. I love it. Um, and uh, but at the time I wasn't, and I was a control freak and I was full of all this fear of like, was I good enough and all the rest of it. And this baby turned up and fucking just exploded everything. I there was no I was in control of nothing. And I'd gone into the maternity ward with like a four-page double-sided birth plan. I think I'd even like I know it was colour coded and it was laminated, and I can only imagine what the midwife thought. God, god must have hated me.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Um what was your second time birth plan that day? Oh, I didn't have one.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

That's the difference. I had her at home, second child I had at home, and uh and I yeah, the first one I was like, This is how we're going to do it, and obviously it went completely out the window. The second one, uh, somebody said, Why don't you hypnobirth? And I, being northern, went, absolutely not, it's really vagina whispery, too woo-woo for me, no thank you. Um, but my friend was like, Why don't you give it a go? I thought, fine. Anyway, went to do this hypnobirth theme for the second time around, and she said, I don't remember anything really what she said apart from this one bit where she said, Giving birth, your uterus is like a muscle, and it contracts and relaxes in labour, right? And like any muscle, it needs oxygen-rich blood to work at its best. So if you freak out, you start creating adrenaline, which takes all of that oxygen-rich blood to your head and arms and legs for fight or flight, your uterus is still started, it's it's gonna keep going, but it's gonna be harder, longer and more painful. And I just went, hang on a minute. Are you saying the only thing I need to do is stay calm? She went, literally, that's it. And we're just gonna give you some tools on how to do that. And I was like, okay. And because I used to be an athlete as a kid, I understood that. Like I understood the muscles and the oxygen and all of this stuff, and it transformed my second birth, which was and now I'm vagina whisper-y, was really fucking healing. Um and I think that you know, we don't you like I said, you just don't know until you get there, and nobody said to me, I think that was the thing, nobody gave me permission to go. It's really hard. Yeah, it is really hard. Everybody was like, just keep going, just keep going. I'm like, hang on, I'm gonna feeding a half blood, half milk. Like, I've got a temperature every other day from mastitis. Uh, I think I've got nipple thrush, and they were like, just keep going. It's best for the baby, it's best for the baby, and I was like, Okay, uh, and it was just it was awful, and nobody gave me permission to go, it's really hard, and I'm struggling. Yeah, um, and it ended really badly, you know, I had severe postnatal depression. I was ended up, you know, my addiction really kicked off at that point, and still nobody went, you're all right. They were just like, hey, yeah, yeah, everything's like, you know, yeah, just don't, and I think that was where the name should we get back to the question? I think that was sort of where the name came from, which was like I wanted to sort of make it clear that I had been that insufferable person that was like, it's going to be great. Like, I'm gonna prepare and be perfect at this. Um and now I was like, hang on a minute, it's not great, and that's alright. And um and so yeah, I would just in and there are times when you go, Oh, you know, I'm growing up a bit now. Should it, you know, everybody some sometimes people have these like funny handles in their names, and then they suddenly change them to their proper name. And I suddenly think, Oh, should I should I do that? You know, feel a bit more grown up. And actually, no, because I think that that handle is you know, it reminds me where I was, yeah. And that's what's really important because it was really hard. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

And how old are the girls now?

SPEAKER_01 6:48

12 and nine.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

Twelve and nine.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

12 and 9, so my 12-year-old's uh first year of pri of secondary, which we were just talking about, weren't we, before, but um, and my nine-year-old is in year five. Well, how is that? Um because it can't because every year comes with its different challenges, like yeah, it's it's hard but in a different way. I don't mind this hard. I really struggled with I think the constant relentlessness of the physicality of motherhood when your kids are little, like the stuff and the constant getting dressed and undressed, and the grabbing and the holding and the carrying and the in and out of car seats, and the you can't sit down. Like, I really struggled with that. I get I find that with the older kids, yeah, you get a lot of there's a lot of emotional stuff, but the fact that they are at school and they are far more independent means that I do get a chance to fill my cup in a way that I didn't when they were small. And I don't think many women do, unless you've got a significant amount of help, which I didn't have. I didn't have you know, my husband was away on tour all the time, we didn't live near family, we didn't we couldn't afford nursery, you know. I had these kids all the time, and um and so now I do get to fill my cup and I do get to look after myself, and I find the emotional side of things way hand easier to handle than the than the rest of the nonsense. Um, but yeah, they're fine, you know. They're at the moment they're still both talking to me. Nice, and that's do you know what I mean? Like they're telling me stuff, yeah. And that's when I'm like, no, things are still okay. So when they start stop when they stop telling me things, I'm gonna panic.

SPEAKER_03 8:26

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Yeah, but at the moment we're doing a touch on sentiment. We're doing touch of it. Um and what does filling your cup look like? I'm really I'm really ruthless about it. Like I, as somebody who has had burnout two or three times, you know, really struggled with anxiety, I'm an addict in recovery. I know that when I don't look after myself, it ends really badly. And so for me, it's it's really making sure that I get time every day to do to really look after myself. You know, I I do like tonight, for example, I've put my elder my youngest in after school club. We were just talking about this. I put her in after school club till six. I'm gonna be home way before six.

SPEAKER_03 9:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

But I didn't want to then have to rush home. And I've got some work to do, so I was like, do you know what if I put her in after school club, I've got that time to myself, so I can do this without rushing. Like I could do it without putting her in club, but like then I'm rushing, and I'm like, this is these are the tiny micro decisions that I make where actually the payback for me is huge, and she's like, no, whatever, you know, she likes after school clubs, so that's fine. She's good, yeah. But um, you know, it really is. I am ruthless about making sure that my needs and wants are as met as other people's, and that can feel quite like I think a lot of people sometimes online when I talk about it sort of feel that I'm quite like I get a lot of oh yeah, you know, you was you never with your kids or all the rest of it, you you know, Jimmy does everything. Poor Jimmy, we hear poor Jimmy a lot, poor Jimmy, who by the way is on tour for three weeks, so not that poor Jimmy. Um, and I think that's just because it's still so alien to women to feel comfortable really asking for what they need. So, like when Jimmy's home, I don't really do any pickups and drop-offs at all. I don't cook either because he likes to cook. Um, and I don't feel guilty about that. You know, he really enjoys doing it when he's away, I do it all. When he's home, he does most of it. Um, I work all the time. He only works when he's away, really. So, you know, we figure it out, but I am, you know, I really protect that that space for me, and it pays off in dividends because I'm not good when I'm not rested. Yeah, you know, if I don't have time to myself, I'm not good like I am good socially, but like I have the social battery of an i of an old iPhone. You know, like I've got a certain amount, and to maintain that, I have to be plugged in for like a long time. Yeah. And so plugging, you know, it's going to the gym, it's getting out and having a walk with the dog, it's um staying in bed some days. You know, I mean, I might work, I might do bits in bed, but there'll be messages when I go, do you know what? I'm not doing anything today. Like, I've got that one Zoom phone call. Can we push it? Like, if we can, great, I'm just gonna chill out. And I don't feel guilty about that anymore. Now I have a lot of privilege in that I do work a job where there are times where I can go, let's reschedule everything today if I need to, and not everybody has that. Um, but you know, I I I I feed it down to the kids as well. I I hate this 100% attendance thing. I I think that that is one of the most damaging things that we do because schools only do it for like offstead, essentially. Um, and what it's teaching our kids is it doesn't matter how you feel, you go into school. You go into and you take that with you as you get older, and actually stop learning to listen to your body and listen to your head, and you stop learn and you start to learn that somehow rest is lazy or avoidant or guilt something you should feel guilty about. So my kids often have like not often, but like occasionally, they'll go, I'm really I'm not feeling it. And you know when you're a mum, you know. Yeah, like you just know when they're not okay. I'm like, okay, you're home today, that's fine. I mean, I'm not taking them out shopping or anything, like we're not having a great, we're not going to Autumn Towers. No, of course. But um yeah, I do think it's really important to take away this guilt or this, you know, shame about taking time off.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

Yeah, definitely. I think you're exactly right, like we don't do enough for ourselves, and actually having we have to have a full cup to be able to look after everybody else that depends on us, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:48

But also it's our responsibility to do that. Like, I you know, I know that there's a lot of talk about and and it it's not wrong, you know, the patriarchy is a fucker and it doesn't help, and all the rest of it, and men, I love them, they can be useless in terms of seeing that mental load and managing it and picking up on it without having to be up. I get all of that, but the other side of it is I think often women can feel quite can be quite guilty of sort of sitting in the self-pity puddle and being like, oh, he just doesn't do it, you know, or or getting angry, you know, that sort of oh, he's just fucking useless, or whatever it is. And I just think actually sometimes we are guilty of not communicating properly. You know, I think I learned from my mum that telepathy was a viable form of communication, like it isn't, yeah, it's not a reliable form at all.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

Um definitely guilty of that. Yeah, Gav will be listening to this. Totally guilty of that.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

You know, I I would be fluent in like door slamming and tutting and sighing, but never actually go, I'm feeling really overwhelmed, and that thing that you've just done is really adding to my anxiety. I might have a fight about, I might start screaming and shouting, but I would never ever go, babe, I'm really struggling and I don't really know what's wrong, but like I know you're contributing in some way, and I think it's so important that I well, for my marriage, certainly, I had to learn to be really comfortable with having a conversation that says, I'm struggling and I'm, you know, I need your help and you're not helping, rather than just letting it get to the fight. Because there's this sort of myth, isn't there, that like if they loved me, they would know. They would know, just gonna know it. And by the way, that's bollock. I call it like the rom con. It's like we've been taught that this perfect relationship is like they just know and they turn up with flowers and they know exactly the right thing to say, and you know, they put the kids to bed and then they rip your clothes, you have sex on the kitchen counter, and it's wonderful because they've got time and there's somehow nobody's doing any fucking laundry or washing up, but that doesn't matter, and it's just this absolute myth about what a good relationship is. And you know, I it at the end of the day for me, it's like the guy I chose is not perfect. There are days I want to stab him in the face, there are days when he walks in and I'm like, I just instantly want to walk out, yeah, but he is a good guy and he's kind, and I wake up every day and I want to make it work with him, you know? Yeah, and it's alright that it's difficult, you know. It's not supposed to be perfect. No, you know, you're not supposed to be like after 25 years of marriage, having sex three times a week. Like they're the anomalies. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And so yeah, I don't know what the question was, but you know, we got there in the end.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

We got there, we got somewhere. They'll be watching this on the edits going, what are they two chatting about?

SPEAKER_01 15:38

I know, honestly, I don't know anymore.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Um, no, it's perfect. Um, and you have have you recently been diagnosed with ADHD? Um, so four years ago. Four years ago, so recent. Yeah, recently. And it changed your life the diagnosis?

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Make you understand yourself a bit better? Yeah, I mean I went through years of sort of being told I I had depression and being put in antidepressants, and then I'd be on them for like eight months, and then I'd be fine for a couple of years, and then I'd crash again, I'd go back on them. And when I was finally diagnosed with ADHD, the doc the psychiatrist went, I don't think it is depression, I think this is ADHD burnout. Like it doesn't look, it looks like that. Like you mask so heavily that you just get to a point where you crash and then you rest up and you get going again and then you crash again. And so getting the diagnosis didn't just help me understand what had been going on, but it also gave me permission to stop masking so heavily. So, you know, going back to what I was saying at the beginning, I used to be type A, like everything was spreadsheet, everything was a list. I would had to be early for everything because I knew that if I wasn't, it would be chaotic. And for me to be that organized with my brain took such a monumental amount of effort that I didn't realise it was taking me 10 times more effort than a normal person, neurotypical person. Um, and inevitably ended up in burnout. But now I'm like, I'm probably gonna be late. That's all right. Like, I just I and it's not that I'm being rude, it's like I'm gonna try my best, but I'm also not gonna beat myself up. I'm not gonna send myself into this anxious spiral because I there's only so much I can do before I start really, you know, doing damage to myself. It's the reality of it. Like it's just not worth it. Um, and so it's not, you know, it's not my fault, it is my responsibility to manage and I do my best. Um, but my life is definitely way more chaotic, and there's been a real sense of acceptance around that as well. It's okay that my house is. I mean, I cooking dinner the other night was just a sweat, even I was like, it was like I was outside of my body looking down at me, going, what like even I'm shocked at the level of ADHD going on here. Like somehow I'd used every single utensil. I'd managed to burn not one, not two, but three of those food compost bags onto the frying pan by doing the same thing three times. Like I started off making something and then I was making something else. In the end, the kids got two Frankfurters, some sort of potato rosty that was not anywhere near a rosty or I don't know what it was, and some green beans. And I said, I'm really sorry, but this is the most neurodivergent meal I've ever made and presented. And my youngest, who's also really neurodivergent, went, This is the best meal ever, who she doesn't eat anything. And my eldest was like, Yeah, this isn't this isn't your best. And I was like, Do you know what? This is my best tonight. Tonight, yeah. And she was like, Okay, I get it. Um but yeah, it's that acceptance. Yeah, it really helps with the diagnosis. Um, I wish I'd had it as a kid. Yeah, yeah, because I think that a lot of I think a lot of the addiction stuff, a lot of the anxiety uh really came from not understanding why I couldn't do what other people seem to do so easily, and also that constant conflict that so many ADHD girls, especially, and I guess boys, have, which is this constant like she's just not fulfilling her potential, like she's really clever, but she just can't, I mean she's just not getting it together. And you're like, I'm really I'm trying my best, like I don't know what else to do. Yeah, um, and I think if I'd have had that diagnosis early on, it would have helped, but it was a different time, you know. It was just ADHD was just like naughty boy disease when I was a kid, and um but yeah, which is why I'm you know really keen to get my youngest diagnosed um as soon and kind of as thoroughly as possible.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

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SPEAKER_02 20:29

So we've touched on addiction. Yeah, you've mentioned that a few times. Tell us a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Um I I'm an addict, I'm an I'm an alcoholic, I'm a drunk through and through, hands down. I um got sober in November 2021, so I've just got four years. Uh my primary, I suppose my primary addiction was alcohol, but you know, to be on, I mean, I did do a lot of drugs, but really only did drugs so I could do more alcohol, if I'm honest. And I mean, I suppose that at that point that should have I should have known there was a problem there. Like when you sort of make the decision that you can manage your drinking by doing class A drugs, there's probably a problem. But you know, I was like, I wasn't drinking every day, I was binge drinking really heavily once I started, I didn't know if I was gonna stop. Um, it became sort of Russian roulette, like maybe it would be fine, occasionally something terrible would happen, then something catastrophic would happen. Um, and I just kept going. And it's that insanity of like, I know it's not good for me, and I'm still gonna keep doing it. Um but you know, there was a lot of it was really that first year of motherhood that it really sort of not came went up a notch because I was so lonely. There is nothing like new motherhood as the perfect breeding ground for alcoholism because you are often on your own, you're often um you know, like tired, sad, a bit, you know, it's hard work, yeah, and it can really rip you sort of spiritually. From the inside out, right? And you leave you sort of floundering. And I was just very much left to my own devices. And so I would drink, and there was also this big um narrative around wine o'clock, and like, well, you've deserved you deserve it, you know. And I grew up in a big drinking. There was a whole load of reasons, you know, we didn't we could do a whole episode on the on the addiction thing. But at the end of the day, I decided that what had sort of been fun was then fun with consequences, and then it was just really consequences. And when it starts costing you more than money, you have to go. And I could stop, but I couldn't stay stopped. And so I went into recovery. I didn't do rehab treatment. I didn't, you know, here's the thing: I never wasn't sleeping on a park bench, I didn't lose my job, I didn't lose my kids, I didn't lose my licence, um, I didn't lose my marriage, but I was not okay, and it was very socially acceptable, my kind of drinking.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Very, very socially acceptable. But I would tell my husband I'd be back by midnight or I wouldn't be late. I'd turn up at six or seven o'clock in the that the next morning. Um I'd fall asleep on tubes and wake up at the end of the line without anything. You know, all of these things which at the time are like, oh, it's Jesus, funny, whatever, it's not, it's not actually okay. And I think our the measurement of like what is acceptable for most of us is so out of whack. And I just remember thinking if my daughters went out on a night out and they told me that they'd gone to the end of the tube line and they had no phone, no money, no way of getting home, I'd be like, that is not okay. Like that's not funny. And so uh I went, I I mean, I went to AA, I do Alcoholics Anonymous religiously. Um you still go now? I go every day, do meeting every day, they've got online meetings of you know, I'm in London, we've got meetings everywhere and anywhere. But you could like if I wake up at four o'clock in the morning and I'm um pissed off and angry, or if I just can't sleep, I'll be like, oh, there'll be an LA meeting that I can go to online, you know. And for me, you know, connection is the opposite of addiction, and I never felt able to connect anywhere. Like you I was an only kid, my mum was an alcoholic, my dad worked away a lot. You know, connection for me wasn't really there, and so alcohol just made it easier, made everything a lot easier. Like it was actually the problem the solution to the problem until it stopped working. Um and I just went in and I'm really lucky I didn't relapse. Most a lot of people do, and that's all part there. So I just that was my last drink, and I don't have any cravings to use or to drink. Um, I'm still an addict and I still behave like an addict at times. I try not to. Um I'm like I'm still waiting to get addicted to salad and running. You know, people are like, oh, I'm addicted to running. I'm like, really? Because I'm just addicted to cigarettes and sugar. Like I've given up sugar cigarettes now. Sugar's still a problem. Um shopping, it's not great either. Um, but it is just partly my personality. A lot of it's to do with undiagnosed ADHD as well as real comorbidity between that and an addiction. Most of the people I've met in recovery definitely neurodiverse. Um, but it's not anything I'm ashamed about. And I also I do use the word addict because I'm addicted to lots of things, but I am an alcoholic, I'm a drunk through and through the textbook. Like, I might not have been passed out on the street vomiting, but you know, I was a drunk, and I do not have part of my whole thing is I want to use that word and say this is what an alcoholic looks like. Yeah, this is what they look like. Like I go into meetings and I'm not surrounded by old men with big red bulbous noses. I mean, there's a few of those, of course there are, but actually the majority of people are just like you and me. Yeah, that's who we are, and I think the shame of that word in particular, I think addict's got a bit of a cooler edge to it, but like that shame surrounding the word alcoholic, I think keeps so many people out of sobriety and out of getting the help that they need because they don't want to be associated with that word. Yeah. I'm like, I'm an alcoholic through and through, and if me saying it out loud helps somebody, uh then I'll keep saying it.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

100%.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

So we touched on women taking a little bit of responsibility for taking on the mental load in the family. Should we unpack that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 26:39

We've we've sort of we're stuck between a rock and a horror place, and a lot of it is you know, our is our own making, actually. I think if we were just to feel more fucking comfortable with going, this is what I want to do, yeah, whether that's stay at home, go out and work all the rest of it. The problem is, and I think this is a little bit about um what you were talking about, is as much as we are not just homemakers and mums and housewives anymore, we are still ultimately that is where our value lies. So it's almost like yes, we can have all the other stuff, but unless you're doing that really well as well, it doesn't fucking matter. Yeah, and that's I think where the pressure, that untenable pressure comes from, which is I actually can't do both of those things, but I don't feel like I can just do this housewife thing because that's not that's like sort of betraying femin feminism, and I can't even really do this well because I still have to pick up the kids and I still have to do this, and we sort of run ourselves ragged, and actually, I think it's really important that we recognise that it's it our value in society is still very much about whether we are running a good home, and it doesn't really matter to a certain extent how much our relationships are 50-50 in that, how much our husbands step up. The reality is nobody walks into a house, nobody looks at a kid and goes, That father didn't get that kid clean, or that father didn't get that house clean. They just don't, and that is not something we can change. We have to accept the world the way it is. All we can change is how we approach that, which is how much do you care? And I have given up caring. Like my kids, you can either have me looking great, my house looking great, or my kids looking great. You cannot have all three, you know, and it shifts and changes, yeah, but essentially, you know, we've kind of gone, we want it all, but nobody sort of said, you don't have to do it all though. Yeah, like you don't, and your value is still valid, but it it just isn't, and so I do sort of get this real pressure that women feel that we're still not, it doesn't matter even if our men are picking up 50% of the load, at the end of the day, the buck stops with us when it comes to all of that domestic mental load, and that pressure is huge, huge, you know, it is huge, and and it's a bit like motherhood and parenting and fatherhood in general. Until you've been a woman in that situation, you will never really fully understand it. Yeah, you know, and it's it's quite I think it's having a very devastating effect on marriages. It nearly destroyed my marriage. You know, I remember I sat my husband down and went, so we're gonna separate, and I found this plaque down the road and uh I've paid for three months' rent on it. So when you're with the kids, you'll be in the house with them, and then when I'm with the kids, I'll be in the house and we'll swap it and do it like that. And Jimmy was like, hang on, what? What why are we separating? And I was like, Well, because we're both miserable. He was like, Well, I'm not. I was actually, we both were, but like it had got to a point of such resentment in me of like I cannot spend the rest of my life looking after all these people who do not give a shit. Yeah, do you know who do not see it? And it was so difficult to for for us to get back to a point where we could continue to be married. Like we did so much couples therapy. I think for the first six weeks we didn't even speak to each other outside of the therapist room because we just couldn't risk it. Um and you know, we both wanted to make it work, and we did get it back, but a lot of it was me going, I'm not doing this anymore. And then a lot of it was a therapist going, well, then you need to stop doing it. Like, don't wait for somebody else to, you know, you have to take responsibility for the fact that your control issues, which is a lot of what we all have, yeah, are like it has to be done a certain way. Yeah, you're not doing it properly, you're not do-da-da-da-da. I feel like you're talking about me, my husband. Oh, yeah, and every woman will feel the same because that's how we do it, you know. And yeah, and then, you know, I my favorite thing is when women go, not my favourite thing, like I totally understand where they come from. They go, Well, why do I have to write lists? If I have to write lists to him, I'm it's just another thing on my to-do list. And I'm like, okay, I get it. But at some point we have to recognise that as women, from the moment we smashed down Earthside, we were groomed to look after this mental load. You know, we looked to our mums, we saw it happen, we did it, that was it. Men were not groomed to do that, they do not know. It's like, you know, that's not their fault. It is, you know, I've said it before, it might not be their fault, they don't know, it's now their responsibility as grown men to figure it out. But we have to accept that we might need to guide that a little bit, and maybe we do write a list so that our daughters don't have to write lists. Yeah, you know, maybe that's what it is. Um, but I do think there are some women who are who are just so resentful, and I get it, I totally get it, that they're like, I'm not, like, I'm just not gonna do it for him, I'm not gonna teach him, I'm not gonna help, I'm not gonna do what he should just know. And I don't think that's helpful or reasonable, and I think that sometimes we have to put our own pride and our own ego and our own control stuff aside and go, Do you know what done is better than me doing it perfectly and having shit fit?

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Biggest shift in opinion from before delivery to now.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Oh, it just I think it goes back to not so smug now. Like you are not gonna plan, you're not gonna get it perfect. You can think whatever you like, but the fact is you're gonna it's survival, it's survival. Survival. Yes. Best piece of parenting advice you've been given. Um, well, first of all, when you first have a baby, the best thing I ever was told was don't let anybody in the house unless they have brought food or they're willing to do some laundry or do some vacuuming and after 45 minutes tell them to leave. Love it. That and I was like, that's genius. That's it. Worst piece of parenting advice. Oh, everything I've ever read in any baby book. Anybody who stands on Instagram and goes, What you need to do is I mean, it's all nonsense. Nonsense. Just nonsense. Thoughts on people Oh, gentle parenting. Gentle parenting. I know it's gonna be controversial. Sorry, gentle parent. I will gentle parent when my children start gentle children. Like, I I there's only so many times I can go, can you please put your shoes on? Like, I know you're having some very big feelings right now, but I think you should put your shoes on. Eventually I'm gonna go just put your fucking shoes on, we need to leave the house. And do you know what? That's when they put their shoes on. So that one then. Oh, my favourite I once had an agent who said, um, oh I've got puppy, it's just like having a baby. And I went, Does that bab does that puppy chew on your nipples until they bleed? And he went, No, and it's not like having a fucking baby then. It's not. Just shut up. Parenting myth? Uh that it that you'll never feel a love like it. Instant, that instant bond. Like I think sometimes that happens, um, but it's also okay if it doesn't happen, didn't happen for me first time around. Parenting truth. It's really fucking hard. It's really hard, and um you're gonna hate moments of it, but you know, it'll be alright in the end. Stick with.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

If you had a motto, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Don't be a dick.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Love it. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

It's our family motto. Do what you want to do, just don't be a dick about it. That's it. Like I'm not gonna say you can't do anything, but you've got to not be a dick about it.

SPEAKER_03 34:11

I love it.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

That's true. Don't be a dick. Thank you so much for joining us on the Project Baby podcast. If our listeners want to tune into your socials, where will they find you?

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Uh so they can find me on Instagram, TikTok, and I mean threads, didn't we do threads? Not so smug now, uh, not so smugnow.com. And I'm gonna take the chance to plug my book, which is called The Mental Load Diaries, which is like a comic comedy sort of memoir about how I nearly fucked up my entire life, um, and brought it back from the brink, and it's available. Uh well, it's available now, but you can get it in paperback from February the 26th. Where can we buy it? Uh, all good bookstores and Amazon. Love it.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

And I have one last question for everybody that comes in the podcast. What is your love language?

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Acts of service. Acts of service. 100% acts of service. Like, my husband brings me a cup of tea in the morning. I am like, that is brilliant. Thank you. If he tries to touch me, I will cut him. Too menopausal for that shit. Cup of tea, end of.

unknown 35:22

I love it.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

It has been a really, really good moment. Thank you so much for coming on, and you're gonna come back. I will come back, yeah. We'll talk sobriety and addiction and all of that good stuff. We absolutely will. If you have loved this episode as much as we have, make sure that you hit subscribe and we'll see you on the next episode soon.