Wigs On The Green

05 - Jacqueline Kelly on Matrescence - The Rite of Passage We Forgot to Name

• WigsOnTheGreenPod • Season 1 • Episode 5

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Jacqueline Kelly is a psychotherapist, matrescence practitioner, and founder of Our Brave Hearts, a community she built after becoming a mother herself and finding that the conversations she needed simply weren't happening.

In this episode we talk about what it costs women to become mothers, why that cost goes unspoken, and who benefits from keeping it that way. We get into matrescence; the profound identity shift of becoming a mother that has no mainstream name, the mask of motherhood, mum guilt as a social construct, and what happens when you dare to climb down from the pedestal. 

We also talk about Jacqueline's decision to speak publicly about Palestine in October 2023, what it cost her in followers, speaking opportunities and professional relationships, and why she did it anyway.

Mentioned in this episode

Our Brave Hearts: Wise Words for Mothers by Jacqueline Kelly, illustrated by Rosie Lovelock

Matrescence by Lucy Jones

Dr. Alexandra Sacks -- A New Way to Think About the Transition to Motherhood (TED Talk, 2018)

Dr. Aurelie Athan, Teachers College, Columbia University -- researcher who expanded the concept of matrescence

Dana Raphael -- anthropologist who coined the term matrescence

Francesca Albanese -- UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories

Swords for Palestine -- weekly vigils at Swords Castle, North Dublin

Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC)

Cunt by Inga Muscio

Find Jacqueline
ourbravehearts.ie | @our_bravehearts

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Intro soundbite

SPEAKER_00

I cannot claim to be in service of mothers and not talk about what's happening to these mothers. Like it just I couldn't do it. I think sometimes when you think about something, the doing the thinking of the doing it, it beg it becomes more problematic than the actual doing it. And so that to me, there was no other option because how can I, as somebody who claims to advocate for mothers, when push comes to shove, am I really saying I'm advocating for the white mums in this country who live a certain level of privilege and who have access to certain resources? If that's what I'm claiming, then say nothing. And that's what it felt like to me, and that that's not that's not who I claim to work with or serve.

Intro & Host Check-in

SPEAKER_03

Welcome to Wigs on the Green. This is the podcast that sits at the intersection of art, politics, culture, and we are just looking for a thread of hope while the world seems to be on fire. I'm Tamra Howard. I'm Marina Riley. We are a couple of tired Whigs. Marina, how are you this week?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I'm fine. Um on the second day of recovery post a wedding. So anyone in their mid 30s to 40s understands what I'm going through. But yeah, lovely, lovely Holton family affair, but that's where I am. Oh, you're in you're in it. Oh, um, and that was post uh a dog with exploding bum syndrome, who you oh god, yes, who you kindly looked after. How is Eddie? Oh, she's good, she's really good. Yeah, she enjoyed that bit of respite in the country, does does wonders for her.

SPEAKER_03

There's there's something about the look of shame when a dog has had exploding bum syndrome and they look at you and they go, I didn't want to do this. God love her. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

How was your week up to that?

SPEAKER_03

My week, my week has been yeah, a roller coaster. We I I think maybe we need to do uh an episode on the healthcare system in Ireland at some point and and talk about that. But yeah, this week it it it got all the way to the Minister of Health Um and local TDs and banging on cages and things. So that's a story for definitely for another day, but it's been it's been a week, and my god, it takes it out of you.

SPEAKER_01

Are you getting good responses?

SPEAKER_03

Um, not good. I'm getting responses, but I'm getting not getting answers if that makes sense. So yeah, for for people listening, uh I have a background, I have a history of breast cancer, and cancer doesn't end when it ends, it keeps going for a very long time for a lot of people. And um, I'm trying to access healthcare that is being withheld for an administrative gap. There's no uh procedure code for the procedure that I need, so uh the insurance company won't touch it and the surgeon won't do it. So it's fucking grey crack. But we shall we shall prevail. And I've a very needy dog with me here today, so uh excuse any excuse any whines. It's not me, it's my dog. Um but Marina, throwing over to you, we have a fantastic guest today.

SPEAKER_01

Uh do you want to tell us a little bit

Guest Introduction: Jacqueline Kelly

SPEAKER_01

about Jacqueline? Absolutely. Our guest today started somewhere very personal. She became a mother and wasn't prepared for what it asked of her. The loss of who she'd been before. She trained in psychotherapy and in mattressence. I just I'm so excited to hear her explain that word in her words. It's the process of becoming a mother. It needs to be added to the dictionary if it's not there already. So she Jacqueline built something out of it. She built a practice, a book, a community. She's a psychotherapist and matresynth practitioner, founder of Our Brave Hearts, and she shows up every week in Swords for Palestine. Our guest is Jacqueline Kelly.

SPEAKER_03

I've only met her a handful of times through the the work that she does with uh Swords for Palestine. Um I love her poetry and the work that she shares on her social media channels. She has this essence, I think, like a lioness. She's just she swoops in with this with this grace and ferocity and care and softness and strength all in one go. She's quite a she's quite a she's quite an amazing character. Um absolutely, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. Um I I always call her like a spoken word artist as well. Yeah. I should have added that to the intro. I I don't know that she necessarily identifies that way, but that's like to me she is, you know. Um her most impactful posts are the ones where she actually recites them herself, like they'll they'll bring you to tears. Um beautiful, just a magical ability to articulate in the best way what you're feeling. Yeah. Because she she g she gets me like that all the time. I'll read one of the posts and I was like, that's exactly how I was feeling. I just couldn't even put it into words, and you'll see that in the comments as well. Like, thank you for saying what I couldn't, you know. So very talented um all around and a fearsome activist.

SPEAKER_03

Uh I'm interested for the conversation. I find I don't have kids. Uh you have kids, I don't have kids. Um and so I've I've spoken to people who work in the space of kind of mom guilt and uh finding yourself and finding confidence, and I I I find some of that space to be a little bit tricky. And again, I say this as someone with no kids, so I I come with my own kind of baggage and background and bias, but um I find some of it deeply, deeply problematic. Um, and I think some of the practitioners of finding mom confidence actually perpetuate the problem um and reinforce it, but I don't get that sense from Jacqueline. I think she's rooted in in actually trying to recognise the forces behind mom guilt, some of the companies that benefit from women and people with children feeling this way. Uh, and I think that's very different than putting the blame back on the individual.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. Plot twist or spoiler, spoiler alert, it's capitalism. When is it not? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh yeah, so I think I think it's so important that those threads are pulled, you know? Um we name the problem and then we actually work backwards to the root of it. And uh yeah, Jack has done that really well, I think.

SPEAKER_03

Well, look, let's move over to our conversation with Jacqueline, who is in the waiting room. So we will bring her in.

The Interview Begins

SPEAKER_03

Jacqueline, welcome to Wigs on the Green. It's great to have you here. It's great to be here. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01

It's it's a real pleasure. You were genuinely one of the first people that popped into my head when Tamara came to me with this mad cap idea. I just think you're you're really uniquely placed as an activist who has a deep understanding of human behaviour, and I just think that intersection is super interesting. But we're gonna dive straight in to your work around motherhood. Um, you spend a lot of time sitting with mothers in the parts of motherhood that nobody warns you about. So, what do mothers say to you in that first session that they've never said to anyone else?

SPEAKER_00

That's such a good question. I'm trying to there's there's quite a few things that get said across the spectrum of motherhood, depending if it's a brand new mum I'm sitting with. And sometimes what those mums will speak to is the absolute shock and hurt that they may have experienced as a result of the birth, um, the disappointment in themselves, and that the motherhood isn't what they thought it would be, and that brings with it a real there's shame, there's a there's like a cloak of shame will often wrap itself around the session when you meet with a new mum. And then when I meet with mums who are further on in their motherhood, like I've got a 12 and a 10-year-old. If I'm meeting my mums with toddlers or with kids the same age as me or older, there's often a sense of I don't know who I am anymore. If I step out behind from behind the mask of what my children offer me in terms of who I think I am, I feel so lost and I don't know what I have outside of this. And that's you know, that's a real existential type of quest almost where the ma'am is like, Who am I? Like, what's my purpose beyond being a mum? And it's swallowing me at times this role.

SPEAKER_03

What why why can't women still today why can't we talk about that? Why can't or what women are or mums or why can't we have those conversations? Why why is there shame around

Why Mothers Stay Silent

SPEAKER_03

it?

SPEAKER_00

There's so much judgment, and what I've found now I have been a mum for my my boy was my first child, and he's gonna be 13 this year, so almost 13 years. And when I experienced motherhood in ways that I wasn't expecting, and I was devastated. I was just so hot. Again, speaking to what I just said there about what the new mums come in with, that was me. And I started searching online because I felt like I wasn't having these conversations in my local community for lots of different reasons because so many mums were were we become very vulnerable and very self-protective because nobody wants to be seen as that mum, the mum who's not coping, or the mum who you know she's shit, she's a shit mum, she can't um get an act together, or um, she's failing, or she must be really postingly depressed. And only searching online did I find that these conversations, these honest conversations, have always been happening, they're just not as mainstream as the party line of um everything's okay, oh, it's really difficult, but I'm okay and I love my baby, showed everything's fine. And when I started talking more about it online, the pushback that I would get would be very patriarchal. So the standards that I was being asked to meet were you in order to be seen and congratulated by society as a good mother, then really you want to be very selfless. And the idea I remember doing a post years ago, and it was talking about my son had asked me to go to a football match, and it was like one of hundreds that I attend all the time, and I talked about it, I had said no, because I really that morning woke up and wanted time for myself. I was like it was like comedy shock I had at the responses to that post about how I should never have had children if I was going to put my own needs first. I mean it it was like it was so ridiculous, and yet so many of them, and this would have been many years ago, so really before the understanding of what trolls were. So I realised then that part of what keeps mothers so silent is the understanding and awareness I think that we learn as girls and then women when we walk through the world, that when we become mothers, that that gets amplified. So not only are you pushing against what makes a good woman, but you're now pushing against what makes a good mother, and mothers are forced up onto this pedestal, particularly in um religious countries or where there's a strong Catholic, you know, the good Catholic women. So Ireland, Scotland, where I grew up in the 80s and 90s as well would be like that.

Jacqueline's Work & Background

SPEAKER_03

Tell us about the work that you you do and and how you got into it.

SPEAKER_00

So I'll start today and then I'll jump back a wee bit to give a wee bit of context then. So, right now, at this point in time, I am a psychotherapist. I specialise in working with mothers, but I knew mums to grannies, and I work with mums who are coming to me because they might have experienced birth trauma. They're coming to me because they don't understand why they feel the way they do in motherhood when they thought it was going to be all singing and dancing and beautiful and fulfilling, and they don't have that. So they're trying to figure out is it just me that feels this way? Am I doing something wrong, or is there a missing piece? I work with mums who are experiencing normal, typical life challenges, but those challenges are flavoured by the fact that they're mums. So, in the background of every decision that they have to make is the fact that they're taking into account the mental load they're carrying usually for their family. Prior to becoming a psychotherapist, I worked as a life coach, again specialising in the field of matrescence, which is looking at that's the name for the transition into motherhood that was coined by a sociologist called Dana Raphael, and the work of Dr. Aureli Athen has really revived that and has brought it, helped bring it to where it is becoming more known today in the world.

Her Personal Birth Trauma

SPEAKER_00

But it was my own experience ultimately that has led me into this type of work. When I had my first child in 2013, the pregnancy was beautiful, the birth didn't go as anticipated. I speak about it very differently now, I have a different language that I didn't have then. At the time, it became it felt like I was just a giant bruise walking about, and I didn't know how to put any words what had happened to me during my son's birth and what had happened to him, and how then we were just expected to get on with it. So now I would tell you things like there was, you know, obstetric violence took place when my son was born, um, there was no consent, things were done to my body that I didn't consent. So when I factor all of that in, it makes so much sense that I then felt so bruised and so lost. And the options to me at that time, the concerns that were floated to me is that perhaps I was postnatally depressed. But at that time, my under and so many mums will get that because it's like your only options are happy or postnatally depressed. Yeah, and at the time I rejected that because very much my understanding of postnatal depression at that time was it's a disorder, it's a mental illness, there's a chemical imbalance. So I was like, that that doesn't that's not me. Years have gone by, and I've since learned that yes, I I was postnatally depressed, but not through necessarily the medical model lens. I was postnatally depressed in a very appropriate way, considering the circumstances that I had become a mothering. So I I think kind of speaking to my own experience is what has led to opening up so many conversations with other mums that led me to wanting to become qualified in something that I can support other mothers

Systems vs. the Individual

SPEAKER_00

with as well.

SPEAKER_03

Amazing, amazing. There's we were talking beforehand before you you came in just at the the the opening of this, and we were talking about that idea of so much of this work puts the onus back on the individual that it's it's it's your problem and you need to solve it. In in this instance, like that, that that it's postnatal depression, and and you need to own the solution, you know, you need it's your responsibility, and it it neglects the systems and structures all around that individual who have let them down through the process, and I think that's that's true for for healthcare in general, but also so many systems that let women down every single day, and then put the put the onus back on on the woman to fix it. Yes, brutal.

SPEAKER_00

It is brutal. I'm thinking about a line that I read recently in an email, and the it was a psychologist that was writing, and she she was talking about women's mental health in particular, and she said it's abandonment dressed up as compassion, and I think that's very often what happens. So the idea that it's your problem that can be fixed by this thing, if you would just take it without addressing what's actually happening here, without addressing on why why do you feel so alone? Why do you feel so sad? Why do you feel like the the overwhelm? That's not being addressed. So the absolving of responsibility by society is huge, it's so individualistic. I agree a hundred percent.

Who Benefits from Mothers' Silence?

SPEAKER_01

Who do you think benefits from mothers and women feeling this way?

SPEAKER_00

I'm about to just ribe off a lot of stuff here. Nah, um okay, I think the obvious one straight away is you know the patriarchal society that we live in. So when we put it up there, you're like, oh, that sounds so like, oh yeah, the patriarchy, the patriarchy. But when we start to actually clarify what that means, when I consider who benefits in my life from my silence, from me carrying a mental load, I look at my children's benefit, my husband benefits, employers benefit, the school system benefits. So we start to see when we go outward, every structure, every institution in our societies benefit from the workload that mothers will carry because they believe that that's what good mothers do. The selflessness that women and mothers are praised for, we are nailed to these pedestals, and if we dare to climb down from that and claim time for ourselves, it's labelled selfish. We are our virtue as a mother is questioned. When I consider how I also, and this can be a difficult one sometimes for mums, it was for me as well, still sometimes is how do I benefit from me towing the party line? How do I benefit from me staying silent? And I benefit in ways that you know people might think, Oh, isn't she great? Isn't she a wonderful mum? Puts her needs of her children before herself all the time. And I think many of us saw that modelled by our own mothers and female caregivers and our families growing up. Like I grew up in the 80s in Scotland, just outside Glasgow. My mother was a self-sacrificing martyr, um, and I didn't realise that at the time, but I lived with the consequences of that because my mum she was a nurse, she was a middle child, she um was a good Catholic, forced to be a good Catholic woman when she was growing up. And so that idea of you know, you carry on regardless, and you shoulder and you shoulder and you give and you give and you give. But the the ripple effects of that are often felt in the house where mums are bitter or they're angry or they're resentful and they're hurt at possibly dreams unlived and a life unlived, because to claim those dreams or that life that they want or the hobby or the thing that they want to spend money on, like that risks being labelled selfish.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah. It's very it's a it's a really relatable story, isn't it? As as Irish people and Scottish people, we s we all had that shared experience of living under the the the Catholic guilt and the Catholic uh optics. Uh, I can certainly relate to to my mum who who was raised in a very Catholic family and had a similar um a similar approach to I I think an often rotating view as well. There was some times where she did put herself first and then obviously felt horrendous about doing that. And she was a single mum as well, which was even more complicated um from an identity perspective. I'm I'm curious about that word matrescence. Am I saying that right?

Discovering Matrescence

SPEAKER_03

Tell us about when you discovered that word and what that meant to you.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, so like I can remember it so vividly, it was 2018 that I had been working with mums. I had just become a coach at the end of 2017, got my certificate. I had launched a group programme, and one of the mums had actually sent me a link to a short YouTube video by Dr. Alexandra Sachs, and that was the very first time I'd heard the word matrescence, and the woman in my group was like, wait till you watch this. And I was in my mother-in-law's kitchen, it's only like six minutes long. So, for anybody listening to this, pause, go listen to the video and then contact me and tell me how your mind is blown. So I was in my mother-in-law's kitchen and I remember just like watching it several times. I couldn't, I couldn't believe that someone in six or six and a half minutes was able to describe what I had spent years trying to put into words, and here's this person. So essentially, what Dr. Alexandra Sachs, there's like a timeline of people I think that have to be mentioned. So, Dr. Alexandra Sachs, her tech talk went viral, which helped bring this term out, but again, that's on the shoulders of Dr. Aurelia Athen, who was standing on the shoulders of Dana Raphael. So the the word itself it comes from this. She was an anthropologist, sorry, Dana Raphael, and she was looking at societies and looking at rites of passage. And at the time when she was looking at them, the recognition that the rite of passage that a young girl into womanhood and then into marriage would go through would be a significant rite of passage. But she was also observing that becoming a mother was a rite of passage that really wasn't given much recognition, and so she coined this term matrescence to mean the time of mother becoming. So the work has since grown, and Dr. Aureli Athen has expanded that to talk about if we were to consider our young tweens, preteens, going into teenage years and adolescence, and we can recognise as a society the significance and the magnitude of the changes that they go through in terms of hormonally, spiritually, socially, um, economically, uh physically, psychologically, all of those changes, we now have whole systems set up to create the emerging adult and to support them through this massive time. So Dr. Arifna and her team were saying if we were to consider matrescence the same and consider the magnitude of the changes that happen for a woman, and she doesn't she doesn't or she acknowledges that it's not it's not just the woman who carries the baby. Like the time of mother becoming applies to anyone who is becoming that mother figure. So surrogacy, adoption. However, you become a parent, the recognition is that the changes that happen to you are so huge that it's no wonder that we have this whole spiritual redevelopment of sense of identity and who we're becoming. So I think it's becoming more and more popular now, it's becoming more wide known, and I think uh widely known. I think sometimes it can become like a buzzword, but forgetting. The years of research that actually it stands on is huge, and then there's a book here. I was looking this is by Lucy Jones actually, and it's called Matrescence. This book came out maybe a couple of years ago, and it has it has taken a concept that can seem quite academic or out there, and it's brought it into the realms of every single person can understand what it means. So this book is incredible. Lucy Jones' matrescraft.

SPEAKER_03

Brilliant. We'll put a link in the show notes for that

Consumerism & the Mommy Wars

SPEAKER_03

super, yeah, yeah. So many of these processes and these uh moments in life are are like they're unfortunately co-opted by capitalist movements that that see it as an opportunity to sell to these people. Um I particularly when you said that idea of tweens and adults, young adults, that was never a concept before. And as soon as it becomes a consumer group, it's it's i it's just it's it's totally co-opted. And I say this as someone who works in marketing, um, it it it's such an unfortunate approach that you identify these groups as consumers now and they just get sold to. I think young mums get sold to more aggressively and more readily, and that idea of guilt is brought into the into the sales tactics uh very deliberately, very intentionally. It's it's it's really tough um for young mums who are being targeted in that way. I'm not sure there's a question in that, but no, I understand.

SPEAKER_00

Like, I mean I I can still remember the amount of research I did on what kind of buggy I was going to get.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And the amount of money um and then mattresses and organic uh sheets and you know, and how like if you really love your baby, you wouldn't put them in just a normal mattress. You need the organic wool, um my god, do I need to get organic wool mattress for my you know year old baby? So it's yeah, I uh 100%. And like I'm the kind of person that you can sell anything to, so as you can imagine, that then leads to um like uh an incessant need to think that in order to be a good mum, I have to have all these things, and then the flip side of that, the other side, and this is an interesting piece that comes in because this is also a societal-driven argument about mummy wars. So the flip side of the consumerism is all you need is your breast, and all you need, you don't need the cots because your baby should be co-sleeping, and if you're not doing those things, then you're not a good mum. And the flip side of that is if you've not got the best buggy, the best cot, the best sterilizer, the best, then you're not so and there we have this um constructed mummy war, the cause divide again between breastfeeding, bottle feeding, co-sleeping, not co-sleeping. It's it's wild.

SPEAKER_01

Can I just possibly a bit of a tangent, but just a super interesting conversation I saw online this week. I don't know if you follow Grace Alice O'Shea, she's like a kind of a sex positivity activist and she runs courses for men and women alike on sex essentially, but she had a conversation on her stories this week about her decision not to have children. And you c as you can imagine, you know, her inbox lit up. I I think she posted a lot of positive messages, and actually she mentioned that most of her positive messages were from but the the you know the way she had to phrase it and introduce us to the and the the background or the context she gave before she came to this decision. Society pits mothers against women who don't, who have chosen not to have children. Yeah, we just we just really can't win, can we?

SPEAKER_00

No, like I posted a a couple of years ago, I put a poster up and I it went viral. This was back in 2023, and it was my first ever experience of like I was growing an online community, co-creating this beautiful space, and it was slowly, slowly, slowly growing. And then this one post where I was talking about matrescence, for whatever the algorithm daddies and gods decided, oh, let's fire that out and see how controversial it can become. And to this day, I still get random comments on it about how dare I um negatively slate people who choose not to have children, and then other so then it becomes about in the comment section, it became this whole battlefield that I had nothing to do with about mothers coming in and saying that's not what she was saying, and if she did, that's okay, and then other people saying that is, I feel so attacked, and the manipulation of something by whom creates this like this antagonistic that it's me against you, and that somehow my decision is better than yours, or yours is better than mine. It's it it's so inflammatory, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03

100%, yeah.

Social Media's Black & White Problem

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I think social media comes down to black and white, and and you there's no time for nuance, and that's what this this whole podcast is trying to just sit in the grey area for a little while and and maybe speak to people that we we don't always fully agree with and and acknowledge that two things can be true at the same time, but that's that's just not what social media does it wants you to pick a camp and then you will get served content from that camp. Your algorithm will reinforce your camp, and then when you see something that is just a little bit outside of it, you go, incorrect. And I need to tell you why you're incorrect. Um and it's awful, it's awful that we we can't respect decisions. Like this week, I again as a as a a person without children, I I I I follow a lot of women, so I see a lot of kind of mom or breastfeeding or that kind of content, just just what I get served. And there's uh a woman whose name escapes me. She's a fantastic uh she's a doctor in the UK, and she shared a breastfeeding story, and it was a success story, and that's all it was. How wonderful she felt that she had nailed it, and how much work went into it, and it just it just for the first time kind of worked. And her she had to take the post down because she was getting comments from people saying, How dare you misrepresent the journey of breastfeeding, which is so awful for so many people. Um, uh it and it's just it's just awful. We're all pitted against each other in this online forum.

SPEAKER_00

Uh you know, that reminds me of a time actually I worked with a woman, and her greatest difficulty was she she said, Motherhood is exactly what I thought it would be. I want a shout from the rooftops about how magnificent this is. She says, and yeah, I feel like whenever I do, or her birth story, which was to her the most beautiful thing, that she's gloating, or that she's somehow and I thought, Oh my goodness, there you go. For all the difficulties that we face in it, for the mums who it is what they thought it would be, and the thing that they really wanted to do, regardless of what other people think, that they achieved that and celebrating that somehow their celebration is a slight on another person. It's wild.

SPEAKER_01

It is wild, yeah. If you talk about the difficulties and and maybe choosing yourself in a moment over your child, you're a shit mom. If you celebrate the wins, you're smug and glouting. You can't celebrate your breastfeeding success stories, you can't talk about your your choice not to have children. Wow, yeah, yeah. They've they've really done a number on us. The patriarchy has really done a number on us, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um J help us, Jack. What how do we fix it?

SPEAKER_00

How do

Smashing the Patriarchy & Intersectionality

SPEAKER_00

we smash the patriarchy? It's easy, that's it, job done. And I was thinking about that as well. How you know, and and in particular for the last couple of years, right? When I first started talking online, and I was dipping my toe and I was learning about this language and world about patriarchy. What is a patriarchy? What are patriarchal structures? What does this mean? And the the patriarchal world or the idea that we have of it is very much part of this, like the consumer world that you were touching on, Tamara, and the you know, there are things that we are encouraged to rally against because it unites the clans in this in one sense. And I was thinking how I've been invited to speak at different events in the hurrah, because you're talking about challenging the patriarchy and what that means to motherhood. But what I have learned the last couple of years is that when we talk about well, that that's one intersection. What about you know the other intersections? What about race? What about socioeconomic? Oh no, oh no, no, no, no, because that becomes a whole different conversation. So the patriarchal is uh issue is such a big beast, and I think it serves to distract us in many ways because we can all put our shoulder to that one. That's a kind of easy one for many. In theory, it would unite women and feminists, anyway, any gender, um, against like to fight it, but other ones that's different, so that's what I'm really learning the last couple of years.

SPEAKER_03

Gosh, you can see that you can see that so much in like trans-exclusionary feminism that and and I I started reading about kind of feminist authors years ago, and I I stuck my toe into lots of different styles of feminism. I started with uh with a book written by Inge Mucio called Kunt. It is a marvelous book, it's it's like an owner's manual, and it's the origins of that word and how it was such a beautiful word that was again co-opted, and that led me into reading Valerie Solanus, the scum manifesto, and I went, okay, that's not that's not for me. The the scum manifesto was the society for cutting up men. Okay. Um uh so she was a form of feminism that I was like, okay, that's that's not for me. That's a little bit too far. And then I was I was learning from all of these different women who were talking about feminism from different pockets and different groups, and then I start to become aware of trans exclusionary feminism, and I was going, hang on, again, that I don't think that's for me either, because that that doesn't feel in the in the essence of what we're trying to achieve here, but it it just it it's exactly that. There's different pockets and different groups and different rooms, um, and it's all tribal. It's all tribal.

SPEAKER_01

Um, Jack, I often lament the fact that I didn't find your page as a new mum. Uh I only discovered you when you started the Bridgles for Palestine every Friday morning religiously, half seven, we're we're in swords, you're in swords on the bridge. So I missed actually your trend and some I've called it a transition, and you've corrected me because it wasn't a transition exactly. What happened to make you decide that you were going to start talking about Palestine on your page?

Speaking Out on Palestine

SPEAKER_00

So I remembered it actually, it was in October 23, and by this point in October 23, to put it into perspective, how little attachment perhaps I would have had to my not little attachment, that's the wrong way to explain it. My a couple of posts of mine went viral in July, June, July of 2023. Prior to that happening, as I mentioned a wee bit earlier, there my Instagram account was slowly, you know, tipping away a couple of new followers a week, maybe. I was sitting at around 4,000, but the conversations were so rich and deep, and the people who would message me and comment, I would know their names when they'd be, and I'd been replying back. And a lot of these women who mums who were part of that community were also working with me one-to-one, or were taking part in workshops that I ran, or were taking part in group programme, the group uh programme that I facilitated at the time as well. So it was it was a very familiar space, and then a couple of posts went viral, and the account grew from something like 4,000 by October, it was maybe 20,000-30,000 people. Um it was overwhelming, and I was like, I I think when you're online and there is this idea going back to that capitalist agenda that somehow that defined that means success, that when your account grows, that those numbers mean like you're somehow good at what you do, or that you're better at what you do than other people, or that you've made it. And so by the time October 2023 arrived, I remember watching things unfold, and I think I had put a couple of posts out, but it started to and I don't know what it feels like for you, but whenever I am acting in ways that feel out of alignment for who I say I'm trying to be in a world, it shows up for me at night time in the wee hours of the morning where there's just an unease and a restlessness and a knowing, I'm like, oh I'm showing up online and I haven't acknowledged this huge thing that's happening. But I have this growing account and conversations about opportunities, and why am I not talking about this massive elephant in the room? And so I was looking around at other people who I greatly admire, and they were just talking about like what's happening, and they were saying absolutely like no, this is what's happening, this is right, this is wrong. And I remember talking to my husband about it because I was saying, just running it past him, I was like, I cannot claim to be in service of mothers and not talk about what's happening to these mothers. Like, it just I couldn't do it, so then he was fully supportive because he's like, Listen, we know we know what is going to happen. So, are you okay with that? And if you're okay with that, then I'm okay with that, so go for it. Like, that's not why you set this page up, was to create these giant numbers. And at the time, like it's so weird. I think sometimes when you think about something, the doing the thinking of the doing it, it beg it becomes more problematic than the actual doing it. Because then when you do it, and I posted, I was like, that's what a fucking waste of time. All that was like this was this is not it's not a grey area, it shouldn't be, but it felt like a grey area, and so that to me, there was no other option because how can I, as somebody who claims to advocate for mothers, when push comes to shove, am I really saying I'm advocating for the white mums in this country who live a certain level of privilege, um, who have access to certain resources? If that's what I'm claiming, then say nothing. And that's what it felt like to me, and that that's not that's not who I claim to work with or serve.

SPEAKER_03

It what you've just said is so interesting to me because I think there's a like I work in social media and there's a sense that when something happens and you feel like you should get involved, there's this this internal conflict that I'm not gonna get involved, I'm not gonna say anything because I don't have all the answers. And there's this trade-off that it's like, well, is it worth losing my followers to get involved in something that I don't fully understand and I don't have all the answers, and I don't want to be seen as as a voice of expertise in it. And and I've just written down the words that the the work is not a destination, that the work is a journey. You don't need to have all of the answers to actually do what feels right uh and stand up and and say what you believe when you're committed to doing the work because it's about owning the process of it or something.

SPEAKER_00

I'm thinking about so my background prior to having kids, I would have worked in the humanitarian sector, I worked with the Irish Red Cross, I've worked with different NGOs, I've worked in different developing countries and emergency contexts. When I worked with the Red Cross, I I was blown away by what separated the Red Cross from other organisations. So the Red Cross, you have the ICRC, you have the I the IFRC, and then you have your Red Crosses in all the different countries. But what what makes the Red Cross and you have the Red Crescent, of course, um instead of the Red Cross, you have the Red the International Committee of Red Crescent. What makes the Red Cross, Red Crescent different to other organisations is its principles of universality and neutrality. So where they differ is that they will they they can act, they were supposed to be allowed to access everyone regardless of which side they're on. And they're able to do that because other organisations don't. You have MSF, you have other Oxfam, you have all these other organisations that can come out and say, you know, what's happening to a certain people is wrong. So I think I don't know where I was going with that, but it was the idea

Silence Is a Statement

SPEAKER_00

of to stand for nothing and to say nothing, and to put out this line that it's too political. I I can't accept that because it if in saying nothing, you're saying a lot. So when you have these organizations that at one point I had a pr the privilege of working for, their politics is very different, or how they do business or how they serve is very different to other people, but ultimately that that the they're they're they're upfront and honest about what they do and how they do it and who they're serving. And I think that when we apply that to people who get caught up in I need to know everything and speak to everything. I think I got caught up in that too, and it was the idea that and then I was like, I actually I don't need to know all the geopolitical history, I don't need to know the years where you know these different things were decided and what when this happened. All I need to know and all I should be able to stand up for is the humanity of it, which is what we're seeing with children and mothers and fathers being bombed and starved and um kept captivity. You you we don't need to hide behind the fact that we don't know the politics of that because I think that's what's happening, but people are hiding behind that, they're using it as an excuse. I don't I I'm not political, it's not good enough. Yeah, you don't have to be political. Well, actually, that's a lie, everything's political. Sorry, I'm off on a tangent here.

SPEAKER_01

No, it's right up our alley, absolutely. I've always found it really fascinating, and I guess you must as well, because you posted about it a couple of times. The people who would message you saying, Um, can you go back to what you used to talk about, please?

SPEAKER_03

Oh, interesting, yeah. Yeah, I I think we we all feel that, don't we? Can we can we all go back to to what life is like before you see the truth?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

What's that like?

The Cost of Speaking Up

SPEAKER_00

I I've got so many of those messages, and to go back to that idea of like risking follower count or losing. I don't think the numbers on my page have ever gone up since I don't know. Like all they've done is go down since um since probably the end of 2023, twenty early 24. And at the time I had to really sit with like what am I making this mean? Like I really I got I had find myself caught up in the excitement of what it meant to be petted on the head and congratulated for providing fuel for the machine of social media. And then I started to get these comments about, you know, you used to work and speak about mothers and how to support them and you don't do that anymore. And I was like, but I am, how can you not see that? I am speaking, I'm still speaking about mothers, I'm just speaking about it in a way that challenges what you're not considering, and it goes back to that intersection again. They loved it when I spoke about challenging the patriarchy. But the minute I started to advocate for mothers of in a different country, of a different religion, of a different skin colour, that that was a no-go. I had stepped outside the role that they had put me in and were used to seeing me in, and that wasn't welcomed, and so therefore, I wasn't welcomed and unfollowed, um my account reported, all the rest of it. So all that did was reinforce my sense of I'm not here. Maybe I was before, but I'm really not here for your amusement, and I would rather be able to sleep at night knowing that I'm having conversations that are uncomfortable and sticky rather than banging the same drum that I've banged for the last five years to great approval, but really all it's an echo chamber, and I'd I'm sick of banging that drum.

SPEAKER_03

What have you learned since moving into that more activist space online, or or what are the main things that you've kind of taken away from it all? Because I think there's a there's a great opportunity there to really to see things, to learn, to see people for what they are. What are you taking away from it?

SPEAKER_00

It comes at a cost. Like if we were to and and I'll counteract that comment in a moment, but it does if if I I know a lot of people like I would have called Ireland is a small space, particularly in the motherhood arena. Um, and even in the UK, I would have been in contact with a lot of big motherhood accounts, and I would have been in contact in messaging and saying here in Ireland about why are you not using the platform that you have? Because the people who are part of your community they trust you, you've built that trust. Why are you not creating opportunities for discussion with these people around this subject? Because they're looking, a lot of people who are online they are looking for a place to have conversations with someone they trust, and you you are that person because you've built this community of 50,000 or a hundred and something thousand. And the comments that the conversations that would come. To me, would just be well, just a flat. I'm sorry if you don't like the way we're dealing with this. Feel stop. Okay. Other ones were the community that I've helped build, and I'm paraphrasing now, but it's along the sense of it's for communication, it's for mums to come and feel good, it's for mums to come and take resources, it's for mums to have a place to come and you know not feel bad about things. And I just thought I'm so disappointed. But I can be quite a black and white thinker, and it takes me quite some time to settle into the grey. So my immediate response then was just okay, well, we I can't foresee myself being in business with you. So it has cost me opportunities in terms of speaking at different events, um, running workshops, coffee mornings, all of that kind of stuff. My Instagram account is dead in the water, really. Um, it doesn't grow, it will decline. The posts I I share are seen by very few. And I had to figure out am I okay with that? Which the answer is yes, I am, because the flip side of that is the community and the people that I have met, Marina yourself included, the it is far more reaching and they run far, far deeper than this badge, this public-facing space online. Um, so what I have learned about myself is that I used to crave being parts of those spaces, I would have done and still miss it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm like, oh, I I sometimes see the opportunities and I'm like, God, I would have loved to have been part of that. But to be part of that, I know that there's an understanding I would be silent and I'm not prepared to do that at so, therefore I can't be part of it, and then that reminds me, well, if I can't be part of it because I won't be silent, then really I actually don't want to be part of it, so then I get okay again and I go about my business. So it's it's a bit of a roller coaster in there.

SPEAKER_01

Do you anything any words of you've lots of wise words? Anything that you could say to somebody because it's not too late to to start using a platform. Like we always say that the best time was October 23, the next best time is now. And we mean that, and actually, I've spoken to Tamara about this, even us, Jack, like the the the IPSC, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Ireland, have been working for decades. And they welcomed us in in October 23, when we, you know, when when we decided to to get in, yeah, to to to get involved. So, you know, it's a very it's an extremely welcoming space, and you could speak up today. Is there anything you can say to welcome those folks in or advice you can give to anyone who's nervous, or you know, I I'm sure you know what I'm asking?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I do. Um oh 100%. Listen, and funnily enough, I was just thinking about this today because I saw there was a a call out online for therapists to get involved with something, so I reached out to them and I'm having a conversation with them about this just now. And I was thinking about okay, as a therapist, again, it's this idea of the the two camps again, you know, the um that society would like to pit people against. One saying therapy shouldn't be political, they should be completely neutral. Your job is to sit there and meet with anyone, and then you have the other camp that are saying no, like therapy is political, and if someone is coming in to talk about their rage and grief, then they want to know that they're coming into a space that is safe. So I was thinking this is a long way to answer your question, by the way. Takes me a while to get to my point, as you may have noticed. I was thinking about again what what is the point of having access to say a platform where you can create a podcast or a social media page or a community or a friend group. What can we do with the opportunities that we have access to in order to challenge or open up the privilege that we seem to hoard? That somehow my access to privilege has to be nailed down and protected at all costs, because if I don't have as much of it, then it means my whole life is in danger. So we are going to protect us and let you go with nothing. And I was thinking about well, the whole point of having any type of platform and access to a community is that we open it up to include other people, and so for anybody who has those, be it whatever it may be, a podcast, a page, and uh a small fundraising group, whatever it is, and they're they have that feeling that I was talking about because we all have that, we all know when our way of being in a world is off-tilter and it shows up differently. And so, if a person is already knowing that they're they're not acting in ways that they would like to be acting in, I would ask them to just have the courage to message someone that they know is doing something already, and if they don't get invited in, message somebody else. Even me who can be so bull-headed at times. Like, if someone messaged me right now and was like, Listen, I know we spoke whatever a couple of years ago we haven't contact, I'd be like, Oh man, great to see you. Come on in, like, I can put you in contact with somebody who might have that or needs that expertise or needs that whatever it may be. Just try and bite the bullet and just reach out to somebody or join a march or make a donation. There's so many ways.

SPEAKER_03

100%. It's the action that's the important thing, not the timing.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, like yeah, like like what Marina was saying. I remember that day we were up at um ASL doing a demonstration, and Martin came from the IPSC, and he was so just present and generous with his time and his words. And I remember thinking when we talked, I was like, God, there was no like where have you been? Why did it take you so long to get here? Oh yeah. He was like, Oh no, not great to see you, and that was it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, because people need to protect their own energy as well. And I think with a lot of this, we we've talked about this before, Marina, that there's uh there for a lot of people need to step in and step out and step in, and life gets in the way, and it's it's uh it's great to be able to support, but as with parenthood or motherhood, you you you can only pour from a from a full cup, and if your cup isn't isn't full, you need to take a step back for a while. I don't think you can criticise people for restoring and then coming back to to the fight when it when it when they have the ability to do so. I could talk to you all day, Jack. I could I could I think we could talk about this all day. Um I'd love to I'd love to before we kind of wrap up, we have our four questions that we ask people when we wrap up. I'd love to talk to you about how you express uh through poetry and art and written word. We were we were talking before you came in.

Art, Poetry & Activism

SPEAKER_03

Um when you feel impassioned about something and you do some spoken spoken word poetry on your page, um where does that come from, or when when did you start to express yourself in that way as well? Because it's beautiful. Does art and activism go hand in hand to you?

SPEAKER_00

When I see it on other people's pages, I think the answer to that would be yes, in terms of the different forms that activism can take. So painting, speaking, dancing, singing, um, all of it. Uh but I remember seeing something ages ago, and the person was talking about, you know, we keep calling it activism, but it's being a human, like it's humanity, it's humanism, really, is what we're talking about. So for me, my sometimes I read my own work and I'm like, geez, I can't even really remember writing that because it usually comes from a place of whatever it may be, tremendous love or deep, deep sorrow, or like rage that I have kind of unlocked and allowed to have its moment. Um and it's the humanity piece, I think, not the activism, because I kind of I can see why I know why we call it activism, but it's the what what what lies behind the activism, it's humanity, it's the the desire and the to not see other humans suffer, and then the purpose behind it act the drive behind it is that all of us want well not all of us, but certainly a huge amount of us want for others what we have for ourselves. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So true, it's so true.

SPEAKER_03

Look, we will I think we will go down rabbit holes and just keep chatting all day, but let's let you go and have your have your Saturday. Uh but before we set you free, we like to ask all of our guests our our final kind of four

Final Four Questions

SPEAKER_03

questions. So roll with us with these. Okay. Um, okay, question one What is your source of truth? And that can be anything, it can be a form of media, it can be a book, it can be a person or an individual. But where where do you go when you're looking for a source of truth?

SPEAKER_00

Myself, actually. I know myself. When I'm saying things or I'm not doing things, or I am doing things that I just know don't sit right with me, then my body is like and it just it's like a poke, poke, poke, poke, poke, poke at my soul. So where that comes from, I say myself, but it obviously must be deeper and darker than that, perhaps.

SPEAKER_01

Just intuition, I guess. I love that.

SPEAKER_00

I love that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That was amazing. Um, what's one thing you wish more people understood?

SPEAKER_00

I hate cliches, but they're obviously cliches for a reason. But that we don't have to gate communities, like we don't have to hoard our privilege and be frightened of like allowing other people to have access to safety because them having access to safety somehow means that we won't like that, like it's it's not we don't need to hoard privilege.

SPEAKER_03

It's sad that that's a controversial position in 2026, isn't it? Um our next question: who is a top contrarian or uh who is pushing buttons out there that you're watching or keeping an eye on? Who who is antagonistic in the world that you think is kind of interesting?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, Francesca Albanys. I mean, immediately I'm just like how that woman moves through the world, like so focused on so just boom, boom, everything, like all the the attacks on her, all the you know, the people try to drag her down, all the lies, all the ways that people are twisting her words. She's just like boom, nope, nope, nope.

SPEAKER_01

She is she's incredible, she's ready for anything. Yeah, um, she's the UN special rapporteur, yeah. And yeah, I mean, I she has she's been banned from I don't know the UK, definitely, probably the US, but yeah, she's an absolute powerhouse, she just keeps going. Yeah, highly recommend a follow there. Wow, uh what gives you hope?

SPEAKER_00

My children, uh yes, because my children I think are my muse. So whenever I am thinking about that art or writing or whatever it may be, when I ground myself in what it feels like to catch moments of them, not all the time, because obviously I'm like, oh sit down, be quiet, but the actual moments of like pure, like heartbursting love, they do, but then and I god I uh I feel myself getting emotional even like when I see these mothers in Palestine and what they are living through every day and what they're doing, like that gives me hope that they that they're still going. If they're still going, if they are still going, then surely to God the rest of us can keep going too. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well funny you say that, um yeah, they are incredibly inspirational, you know, just the resilience and um tenacity that they show. I wish they didn't have to, you know. I I've stopped saying it to anyone I'm speaking to, like, oh you're so resilient, you're so strong because they're exhausted, you know, and they keep going because they have to, and they parent because they have to, and they survive because they have to. Yeah, they don't have a choice. But it actually they don't have a choice. Um it is incredibly inspirational. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you so much for your time and your energy and your thoughts. Um, where can people connect with you, find you, work with you?

SPEAKER_00

On my dead Instagram page. Uh they're more than welcome to join that uh that there, uh which is Ur Brave Hearts. And um my they can sign up to newsletters on my website, which is erbravehearts.ie.

SPEAKER_03

We will put all of that in the show notes if anyone's looking for it. There'll be links down there. So thank you so much, Jacqueline.

SPEAKER_01

Lovely, thank you so much. This was everything I had hoped for. Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_03

I need to

Wrap-up & Debrief

SPEAKER_03

what a wonderful conversation. Yeah, that was amazing. Oh, I banged the mic again. Sorry. That's okay. Even professionals, that's alright.

SPEAKER_01

Uh she's uh she's incredible, she's just so inspiring, and it's just her way of saying stuff, like she just has a magical way with words. Yeah. Um I genuinely could listen to her all day. I could just have a word all day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. Um, and something we didn't get to is that Jacqueline wrote a book, released a book this year that I really want to give a shout out. As you'll have learned, she isn't the type of person who's like, Well, my book, but I absolutely want to take this opportunity. It's called Our Brave Hearts, Wise Words for Mothers. Uh it's illustrated in some gorgeous illustrations by Rosie Lovelock. It's about pre-child, then matrescents, then post-child motherhood, and grief and parenting in this capitalistic society. It's just stunning. It's absolutely stunning. It's gonna cost me a fortune because I'm gonna buy it for every new mother in my life. Yeah, yeah, it's really beautiful and I highly recommend that.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, okay. We'll link in the show notes all of that, but I think it's it's always it's always so hard to know what to buy for a new mom, you know?

SPEAKER_01

You couldn't go wrong with this, genuinely.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's nice. Okay, cool. There we go. Gifts. I'm literally gonna buy a few copies today because I've got some some new moms in my orbit, so I'll I'll do that. Amazing. Um you know they don't they're in SafeFans, Jacqueline. She's such an interesting person. She genuinely she's just such an interesting person, and again, like multifaceted just so so much to her and um such I think strength in vulnerability, um, I think is is how I would describe her. Great, great conversation.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I think we both got giddy when she said me as a source of growth. I I I wish that for every woman. Just to to be to be attuned enough to yourself and your needs and what feels good and what doesn't. We should all I genuinely wish, because I could wish anything for for all of us, it's to have that confidence in yourself, be your own source of truth. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02

I love it.

SPEAKER_01

I love it.

Sign-off

SPEAKER_01

Marina, how can people support the show? Oh, please follow us on Instagram, please like, share, rate, review the episodes. Um, we have a Patreon. If you think if you like the work we're doing here, you can support us there. Yeah. So yeah, ever all of the links will be dropped in the show notes.

SPEAKER_03

We got our first review during the week and it it gave me a little sprinkle of joy to to read someone who had taken the time out to drop a little uh like a literal written review of our first episode. So wherever you're listening right now, just even drop five stars or let us know what you think uh with a review would be amazing, and we will be back next week with another guest. My voice is deciding to leave, I think, but um another guest, another conversation, more source of hope. Thanks, Marina. That was amazing. Thank you, Tamara. How am I go enjoy your day? My dog has just woken up and has decided to annoy me, so the timing is perfect. So that's our cue.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Bye.