Radical Honesty, Ragebait Content & Cycle Breaking with Libby Ward

As a content creator and author of Honest Motherhood: Losing My Mind and Finding Myself, Libby Ward built her platform on radical honesty. In this conversation, she delivers just that. Come for Libby's story, which includes a lifetime of caregiving responsibility, and stay for Libby's sharp, unfiltered opinions about the state of motherhood today.

Libby speaks to Anita and Zara about:

• How being a caregiver as a child affected her in motherhood
• Why so many mothers feel invisible after giving birth
• What it's really like to break cycles in parenthood
• How she realized selflessness shouldn't be viewed as a badge of honor in motherhood
• Why ragebait content is so viral (and so dangerous)
• And so much more

Chapters

00:00
Introduction to Libby Ward and Her Journey

02:00
The Reality of Motherhood vs. Expectations

09:53
Breaking Cycles of Parenting

14:45
Navigating Caregiving Responsibilities

18:36
The Impact of Online Content on Motherhood

23:53
Positive Motherhood Content isn't Actually Positive

26:36
The Struggles of Modern Motherhood

29:58
Content Creation and Its Impact on Caregiving

34:13
The Gender Gap in Content Consumption

37:22
Navigating Relationships and Boundaries

41:43
The Illusion of Adulthood and Self-Trust

44:02
Radical Honesty as a Survival Tool

Thanks for listening to The Millennial Sandwich! Don't forget to follow, subscribe and connect with us on social media 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to the Millennial Sandwich, a space for real conversations about millennials in the middle. Not just of our own lives, but also of a caregiving sandwich.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

I'm Dr. Anitha Chandra, a geriatrician and expert in elder care. And I'm Zara Hanowalt, a parenting journalist and expert in American motherhood. And even we don't have all the answers. Join us as we figure out life in the middle. Welcome back, everybody. We are here today with Libby Ward. She is a content creator and she's now an author. So congratulations, Libby. Welcome to the show. Can you tell everyone a little bit more about yourself? Thanks. Um, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Yeah, I am a mom of two, uh, married mom of two. I live in Ontario, Canada. I started creating content online in 2020 about motherhood and all the hard things that no one else really says out loud. And so that's everything from the mental load to being a cycle breaker and overstimulation, ADHD, everything in between. And I for a long time thought I was alone and a lot of things I struggled with and found out via the internet that not only am I not alone, but really it's a really common thing for mothers, for women to be carrying all the things for all the people and to be feeling burnt out. And so made it my job to create content about this and to change the narrative of motherhood. Like that's really my goal is to help women prioritize themselves and choose themselves and uh show up for themselves in a way that helps them feel whole and be able to like give their best to their kids as well. And I just released a book called Honest Motherhood on Losing My Mind and Finding Myself. And it's a memoir about my journey through healing and through motherhood and the hard parts, but also like the hope that comes in choosing ourselves. So that's me.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

You've been you've been so open about motherhood and family and personal growth. So we thought you'd be a great person to kind of explore some of the realities with us today. And I think a lot of us grew up with a very specific picture of what adulthood would look like. And then we got here and realized it's a lot messier than we thought it would be. What surprised you most about the reality versus what you imagined before you had kids?

SPEAKER_02 2:06

That's a great question. I was so excited to become a mom and also terrified. I mean, I I wasn't raised in a way that I wanted to repeat. And so when I became a mom, I thought I'm gonna do this differently, and all I have to do is love my children, and then that'll be enough to like help me be the mom I want to be. And I surrounded myself by women who I wanted to be more like, you know, I didn't necessarily have a version of healthy, a blueprint that I wanted to follow at home. And so I sort of looked to the world as like, what does this look like? What does this feel like? How do we act? And when I looked out to the world, what I saw was mothers who loved motherhood, you know, who loved their children, who loved their roles, who seemed to be able to handle it all with ease, and only spoke of the good parts. I, you know, I went to a little rural church where, you know, the goal was like have babies and have as many of them as possible. And really the children became the center of so many women's lives. And I kind of thought, okay, that that must be just like a natural progression. And they seem to really love that and love just motherhood in general. And when I became a mom, I was surprised very quickly by how invisible I felt. So I tell a story in the book about how, you know, a few weeks after my daughter was born, she ended up having a problem with her shoulder and ended up being hospitalized. And so for several weeks, I she was admitted to the hospital and I had to stay with her. And even though she was the sick one and had a bed at the hospital and she needed me because I was exclusively breastfeeding her and I had to be with her every day, there was no care for me, right? I I had to sleep in like a recliner chair. I had to breastfeed her by like bending over the bed because the lines, the IV lines wouldn't reach if for her to come to me. I wasn't given like food or drinks or and I wasn't cared for at all. I ended up getting mastitis. And I remember, you know, they wouldn't, there was no lactation consultant that I was allowed to see because I hadn't given birth at the hospital. And they were like, oh, you'll have to leave the hospital to see your doctor, but I couldn't leave because I was breastfeeding. It's like my baby needed me to survive. And yet I all of a sudden didn't matter. I remember going down to the public showers uh in the hospital and like shuffling down the hallway. And I'm, you know, I'm still bleeding from giving birth. I'm postpartum, I'm exhausted. I haven't slept, you know, in weeks, and I'm having to, I need to like go massage my milk duck basically to express milk. And I had this flashback to when I was, you know, eight months pregnant and glowing, and everyone was caring for me. And everyone's like, Do you need to see, you know, you go in front of me, you go first. What do you need? How's your mental health? How's your physical health? And I felt when I was pregnant, I was being treated like I was the most important person in the room at all times, and maybe had this vision that like that is what motherhood would be like. Mothers have an important role, so we're gonna be cared for. And um, I just felt like everyone was staring at me all the time and everyone was caring for me. And as I shuffled down to the showers in the hospital that day, I remember trying to catch someone's eye. You know, I had felt like lonely and invisible for days, and everyone was just busy doing their life. And I kind of thought, like, am I a ghost? Like, am I invisible? Uh and that really was my first real experience of wait, do I even matter anymore now that I'm a mom? And so that's probably my biggest, my biggest surprise was how quickly I went from being a human person with all the same needs as everybody else and feeling like my needs mattered to like, oh, wait, you're actually invisible. And not only are you invisible and do your needs not matter in comparison to your kids, like everything is about the baby now, but everybody else is gonna carry on like that's normal. And all the moms you see out in the world are gonna be smiling and you know, going to church in their matching outfits with their warm shortbread and their, you know, clean houses, and you are gonna feel like a farce. And and I felt a lot of shame for any struggles that I did have because it didn't seem like people really talked about that. So there was a lot of things that didn't really meet what I thought it was gonna be like.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

And I bet when you share that, you probably hear a lot. Oh, I had a similar experience, but there was everybody before. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Yeah. And it's hard to talk about because it can feel to the people in our personal lives like they're the ones that failed or that they're the ones that did something wrong, or we're saying something about them personally. And it isn't really about that. It's like this general sense of, wait a second, people used to check in on me, and now everything really is about the baby. And even if there's no ill intentions, even if people are like, oh, she's a mom, she's got it, or they're just not really thinking, or whatever it is, it's this constant little minutiae day after day of like, wait a second, does anyone recognize that I'm still here? And not only am I still here with the same needs, but if we care about the baby, the child, the children being okay, the person who makes it that they're okay, the person who they rely on is right here as well. And her needs need to be met in order for theirs to be met. It's just crazy. The duality of like you feel invisible and also you are needed every second of every day. Uh, and it it's a weirdly gaslighting experience.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Yeah, it's like you're so lonely, but you also want to be alone more than anything. It's yeah, such a I yeah, I remember that. I mean, I'm kind of in a different phase of motherhood now where my kids are in school full time. So I think I've kind of gotten some distance from that. But that is very much a part of the first few years of motherhood, that feeling of you are invisible, but also you're like a hyper performing because you think everyone is going to judge everything you do. And they are.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

And I and I think in my story, it was like I took the invisibility and I tried to sort of like counteract it. But when everyone else around you is acting like it's normal, it's so easy, I think, for women, for me, for other women I talk to to fall into this. Okay, well, I guess I don't really matter. And then it can be easy to fall into acting as though that is the truth by, you know, okay, I am gonna feel guilty, leave, I can't leave the baby. I can't put someone, let someone else put the baby to sleep. I can't, you know, X, Y, Z. And the longer you leave that, the more normal it comes, it becomes to put yourself last. And I know for me, I'm at a stage now where I do have time to myself, you know, I do know that I'm a person and I share about that, you know, journey in the book. But I know for a lot of women, they end up in the middle years, in the teen years, even when their kids have flown the nest, being like, who am I? Like, what do I want? What do I like? What about me? I've spent my whole life serving my kids, serving everyone around me. I don't even know who I am anymore. And that's the message that I want to counteract. Don't take the world treating you as though you're invisible in those first weeks, months, years, and take it as fact and continually put yourself on the back burner so that even when they're 10 and 12 years old and they can make their own snacks and they can do their own laundry and they can do more to take care of themselves, that it's so normal that you martyr yourself and you come last that you're still burnt out from trying to be everything.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

It's like one of those things that we see from generations before us that so many mothers and women, you know, they martyr themselves and wear it like a badge of honor. Like that is something that we should do. And if you're a good mother, then you should come last and you shouldn't put yourself first. So I love the cycle that you're breaking. And you you you talk a lot about breaking cycles. Is there anything that you're consciously trying to give your children that you wish you had more of growing up?

SPEAKER_02 9:53

There's a lot of things I'm trying to consciously give my kids that I wish I had more of growing up. I mean, I have a a memory of one of the first times uh my daughter came home from school. She was in grade, you know, one or two, and she was telling me about some of the things that kids had said to her that day that made her feel sad, or it was like a friendship quarrel that she was trying to figure out. And I very intentionally listened and sat and listened and listened and asked questions and was curious. And she opened up and she shared, you know, the different levels of her feelings. And, you know, I validated that friendships can be hard and, you know, it doesn't feel good when these things happen. Gave her some advice and uh just listened. And I had this dual feeling where it's like on one hand, I had this, oh my goodness, I'm so glad that she trusts me to share this. And I'm glad that I can show up for her in this way and that it's helping. And simultaneously, what I would have given to be validated in this way and be supported in this way when I was younger and not have, you know, either dismissal or avoidance, or, oh, well, you didn't have it as bad as me, or this like comparison. That's just, you know, one example, or it's giving my kids a regulated parent. I grew up in a home where there was a lot of dysregulation. I was raised by a single mom who had undiagnosed and untreated mental health disorders and in a very different time where people didn't seek help for mental health. And, you know, we moved 18 times before I was 18 years old. And I was given a lot of responsibility from a young age. And I learned very quickly that it was my job to maintain the emotional temperature of our home. And I became really good at that and really good at being attuned to her needs and the needs of others, and saw myself as responsible and all of that kind of stuff. And so there was a lot of sort of unpredictable moods that happened in our house. And that is something that I'm trying to, you know, break with my kids. And that turned out to be the hardest cycle to break, actually. You know, I entered motherhood being like, I'm never gonna be a mom who yells, I'm never gonna be a mom who shames my kids, I'm never gonna be a mom who XYZ. And then a couple of years later, three, four years later, when I am completely burdened by the load of motherhood and the mental load and just constant overstimulation and overwhelm and doing everything for everyone, you know, I I find myself then yelling at my kids and seeing them look at me with a fear in their eyes that I've only seen them be afraid of, you know, the dark or a stranger or something. And it hits me like, oh, you're you're everything you said you weren't gonna be. It's not that that was true, but that's what the feeling was of like, oh my goodness, I so badly didn't want to do this, and here I am doing it. And so it has been, I say, like the work of my life to learn how to be a regulated person and show up for my kids in a really present way. But yeah, I mean, it's all related to emotions. It's this idea of like, you are a person with feelings that matter. You're not just a toddler or a baby or a kid. You're actually a person and your feelings matter. And also it is true that I'm a person with feelings matter. And I think that for the first few years, I tried to run so far in the opposite direction to how I was raised that I over-prioritized my kids' needs, my kids' feelings, my kids' emotions, my kids' everything, the world's perception of all of those things, that it just completely exhausted me and what counterintuitively actually made me more strung out and more irritable and more snappy. And I have had to learn that actually it's not self-ish to prioritize myself and my nervous system and my well-being. That is actually what the key is. The key is to take care of myself so that I can show up for them and break the cycle. Breaking the cycle doesn't mean I used to think that to be different from how I was raised, I had to go, well, okay, that meant my mom was self-ish. And so I need to be the opposite, which is selfless. And that's not actually the case. I like to get rid of those words now and just say, like, we actually both have selves. My kids have a self, I have a self. Both of those needs need to be met. And I I want to show up for my kids in a way that I wasn't showing up for. And that's hard. And I don't think that's something we like to talk about enough.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Yeah. It sounds like you've had caregiving responsibilities your entire life. Do you think when you became a mother, do you think you just kind of realized that it was all too much? Or do you think that that prepared you for motherhood? Or is it some of both?

SPEAKER_02 14:16

I think it's some of both. I would definitely say that when I was younger, I had a sense of pride over being a caregiver. I loved being responsible. I loved being like, I can go grocery shopping when I was, you know, 11 years old. I could pick up the phone and talk to creditors. I could, you know, emotionally attune to everyone, I could take care of everyone. And it felt good to be responsible and all of those things. And then even as a young adult, I remember looking at other adults around me and or like adults, you know, other young adults and being like, oh, why can't they just XYZ? You know, whether it was making a phone call to the doctor, I was like, oh yeah, it's easy. Or, you know, I'd have friends complaining about things and I don't know, just complaining about different things with their parents or with work. And meanwhile, I would be like working two full-time jobs and taking my mom grocery shopping and taking her to the doctor and going to pick my dad up for something else. I was always taking care of people. And I felt like good about the fact that I could do that. I didn't always love it. Like there were moments where I felt a bit resentful or I wanted someone to lean on, but it was so normal to me to be a caregiver that I was like, yeah, we just you just do it. And so I think when I became a mom, it felt in a way natural to just continually caregive and take care both of my daughter and of my mom and of, you know, of the people around me. But there was a couple of things that happened. There was the overwhelm of how much work it actually is to be a parent, how you don't get a break, how you don't get time to switch off, how you don't necessarily have a chance to regroup. You're having to respond in the moment when you're dysregulated. You don't get those breaks. And so the load really was too heavy. And although I'm someone who's high capacity and can spin a lot of plates, there became too many plates. And because I was such a people pleaser and so afraid of disappointing people, it felt too hard to put them down. So I just kept going and that broke me. And then the other part that became harder in motherhood is that I think before I became a mom, I knew that my childhood wasn't typical. I knew that my relationship with my mom as a young adult wasn't typical and that I was in a caregiving role. I knew those things, but they didn't affect me emotionally. It didn't affect my day-to-day. You know, I had moments where I'd be like, ugh, you know, like other people are so lucky that they have X, Y, Z, but they didn't really like hit me that hard. It wasn't until I became a mom that the grief of not having somebody else to rely on and being the most responsible adult in my life completely overcame me. I share in the book how like it was like the third day of being a mom when I I looked down at like my newborn and was so overcome with love and pride and this desire to like protect her and be her person and be her mom and her be my daughter and her be able to rely on me. And it was in that moment that I was like, wait a second, I I'm someone's daughter. Like I have a mom, and I have actually been in a maternal role for as long as I can remember. Pardon the language, but like when the shit hits the fan, other moms I know go to their moms.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

And it's not like you're swapping out roles. It's not like you're you were a daughter and now you're a mother. You're you're a daughter forever, and you have this extra role.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Yeah, but yeah, but I didn't even like, even though I always knew I was a daughter, it wasn't until I had one and I had this intense desire to be maternal towards her that I was like, wait, did my mom ever have that towards me? Wait a second, I am now having to care for people on both sides. And what about when I break down? Or what about when I need something? Or what about when I need advice? Or, you know, that was like it's almost like I didn't grieve that I didn't have someone to fall back on until I became the main person that my children would fall back on. And I was like, wait a second, I don't know that I have what I'm giving you. And that is like a weird thing to come to terms with. And it was the grief of it didn't get me until motherhood.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Yeah. That's and I think so many people feel that in one way or another, whether it's because, you know, you've lost your parents or because you have a parent who's sick and who just can't be there for you anymore. And I know that many of us had it maybe in childhood, and it sounds like you didn't. And I I'm really sorry that you never had that. But you are doing a really, really amazing job. And just sharing this is going to help so many people. Thanks. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

I also know, like, I have so many friends who they lived very different lives to me growing up. You know, they had more of like a typical middle class life where, you know, their parents, they weren't perfect, but they put food on the table and they had pretty consistent jobs and they were a part of communities and they had like pretty typical upbringings. Uh, and then they struggle in motherhood and they say things to me like, Well, I I had loving parents, or I didn't have it as bad as you, or why is this so hard for me? Like you had it worse kind of thing. And I tell them all the time, like, it's not a competition. Like it's not, it's not a competition, and it is just hard. And also, you can have parents who are loving, who did their best, who you still have a relationship with, who you want the best for, who X, Y, Z, and maybe they didn't show up for you emotionally. Maybe they did sign you up for sports and take you to things. Maybe you did go to the same school your whole life. Maybe you had a very, you know, typical family, but you never felt safe enough to feel emotions. You never felt like your emotions were important and you maybe were the eldest child taking care of younger kids, or your parents just weren't comfortable talking about emotions. That doesn't mean that they're bad parents. It doesn't mean that they ruined you. It doesn't, it doesn't have to mean anything horrible about them or about your relationship, but you can acknowledge, like, hey, I am now having to unlearn these things that I learned in in childhood, and I'm having to pass down to my kids. We can talk about emotions and we need to talk about them. And you're still breaking the cycle. You're still having to do things differently. And it's not about it being a competition. It still can be hard. It might still be hard to like show up to uh holiday dinner or like birthday family gathering. You don't need to have big T trauma or have a make your huge cycle that you're breaking for it to be hard to navigate. Okay, I am somebody's child and I'm trying to navigate my adult relationship and what are boundaries and where do they start and end, and what's my responsibility toward them and them towards me, and then also doing it to my kids. That's hard, even if you have a very quote unquote typical loving parent relationship.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

I think our whole generation is really breaking lots of cycles in that way. Just the way that we interact with our kids. And so much of parenting is reliving your own childhood and deciding what you want to carry forward and what you believe back there. I don't think I realized how much I would think about the way I was parented as much as I do.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Yeah. Well, I think even the good parents, you know, who were parenting millennials just didn't have the tools to talk about a lot of things and it just wasn't in the culture. And now it's so much in the culture.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Yeah, and almost some not not too much, but it can be like a lot, like overwhelming, where we pressure ourselves to get everything right. I was talking to a woman yesterday who came to an event. She was in her like early 60s, and we were we were talking about this exact thing where it's like on one hand, it was harder. It not harder, it was different and more difficult for them in certain ways because they didn't have these conversations. People weren't talking about mental health, people weren't going to therapy, they weren't talking about emotional regulation or validation or any of that. They were just, they didn't have those tools or resources. And so if they did struggle with mental health, they just had to like get on with it, kind of thing. And that was harder. And then on the other hand, there was this piece of if they did have a friend or they were plugged into a community, that That was amazing in that they weren't comparing themselves to every single mom in the internet. It's like you only have your own circle of friends. You may only see the inside of, you know, five people's houses. You're not on the internet being like, oh my goodness, look how they're organizing their drawers in their kitchen. Oh my goodness, look at how they're cutting up their sandwiches. Look at how they're, you know, oh, they they do what with their kids? I'm supposed to be doing that with my kids. They didn't have that. And so that I think gave a little bit of freedom. And so that's it was just a different generation. And uh, I do think the conversation needs to shift a little bit more to the middle and that it can feel like it's so easy to just blame our parents, right? To be like, how could you not? How could you not? And like I've I've even made content that, you know, where I have had those moments where I'm like, how could could you not do what whatever it is? How, how could you? But also I think we need to start talking about the fact that they were mothering in an entirely different generation. And what was considered normal was very different. And we need to kind of take that into account, at least in how we talk about it. That doesn't mean that, you know, like I was in a pretty codependent, ameshed relationship with my mom as an adult for a very long time. So I'm not saying that that means we can excuse everything they did and that even now we can just be having no boundaries and let them walk all over us. But I do think it's important to have a conversation around, okay, they were parenting in a different time. We can do things differently, and it doesn't have to mean anything huge, but it gives us an understanding of where we're mothering and where they were mothering.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Yeah. The bar was just in a completely different place too. Do you, as somebody who creates content and who understands how algorithms and platforms and all of these things work? Are you still someone who is very affected by things you see online? Or are you able to kind of put a little distance between yourself and that content?

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Yeah. I think for the most part, I'm not as personally affected. I can see something and be like, that's just a snippet of their day, or they know that's gonna be a rage bait. They know that's gonna get the clicks, they're trying to, whatever. Like I can, I can pick up on that. And because I have like, like I share in my book, I've truly found myself. I used to be someone who was very affected by what everyone said and everyone did, and it made me feel shame and it made me feel comparison. And now that I know who I am and I know what's important to me and I can stand true in that, it really does just bounce off me more. Like I can separate myself from it. Where it does affect me is it's almost this maternal protectiveness over my community. Maybe like it's this if I get triggered, it's more like it's on behalf of other women and mothers. It's not on behalf of myself because I will see, I'll see a Nara Smith video where she's you, we know Nara Smith, you know Nara Smith, where she's making her like fruit loops from scratch with, you know, churned butter, whatever. Like it's like these perfectly curated things. And I see people in the comment section being like, oh, I want to be a mom like you when I become a mom, or oh, I wish I could be more like you with my kids, or you know, I see women feeling shame because they can't live the life that trad wives and other, you know, moms online are sharing about. And I get protective over them. I get a little bit like, okay, let's talk about what is actually happening here. And I think some people online are just making content. Like you think of rich influencers who are sharing their life and they're just like living in a different world. Yeah. And they maybe they don't intend to misconstrue things or harm anyone. And the everyday mom is looking at that, being like, oh my goodness, I could never. That's one thing. But it's, I think when I see those rage bait videos that are like, there's one particularly right now, where they're it's just like, oh, the the miserable mom trend is out. We're into positive topics. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. I like Twitch so much, because I get it's like, how dare you? Like what a privilege it is to have not experienced what so many women are experiencing and what it says about you that you take whatever extra capacity you have. Because maybe you are having a better experience. Maybe you are feeling more positive, maybe it isn't negative for you. Like, how is it that you can have this extra capacity or you can feel this goodness? And rather than going, oh, hey, how can I lend a hand to another mom who isn't as privileged as me? Or how can I use my capacity to advocate for change, or how can I use my capacity to just like focus on my life? No, no, no. I'm gonna use that to shame women who are having a hard time and make it like they've decided it's their personality and not that, oh, actually they are struggling very deeply because they're mothering in very different circumstances. That that one triggers me, but not because it it maybe like five, 10 years ago, it might have triggered me personally. Now it triggers me in a like, okay, let's set the record straight and I want to defend the like millions of moms who are just drowning, trying to keep their heads above water and will feel shame when they see that.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

It's so refreshing to hear you say that as somebody with such a large platform because we we actually did a whole episode on how content um portrays caregiving. Yeah. And if you don't know, I mean, obviously, as a content creator, you can see you have the understanding of why people are making certain videos and it is their livelihood to make videos and rage bait and get engagement. But if you don't know that, I mean it's really nice to hear that you're thinking about your community and it's important if if people are just getting fed this information, they're gonna take it at face value if they don't understand how content works.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

Yeah, I mean, I I could like start a whole platform on this very issue because it it fascinates and enrages me so much too. I also as a Canadian, I don't make money off of my content. So like I don't make money per views on Instagram, I don't make money per views on TikTok. I never have. And so for six years, I've made content simply because I feel passionate about what I do. And when I learned that so many of the American influencers I knew were making insane amounts of like mind-boggling amounts of money, simply just from their views, not even the brand partnerships that also pay a ton of money. It like blew my mind. And then when you look at what's happening with the algorithms and the attention economy right now, that the only things that are getting pushed to the algorithm are the really um divisive things, then you're training creators to say the most pissy thing. Like you're training the people making content to not show nuance, even if they actually have nuance, even if they are having coffee with their neighbor that morning, being like, Oh yeah, I'm a stay-at-home mom, you're a working mom, we're both struggling, we have different struggles. Maybe they have nuance in their real life, but it's then pushing people to make content that is extreme because they know it's gonna get engagement, because engagement gets pushed in the algorithm. And so then everyone feels like there's all these extremes when I think there really isn't as much as we think, because we're not actually seeing that online because that's not what's being pushed. And so you're like training creators to do the most extreme thing. Like, I I'm gonna I'm gonna keep going. There's a video, there's also these videos. You got me going now. There's also, I know this is another point, but I feel like people will resonate. Those ones that's like, oh, preparing this is what I do when there's like a snowstorm coming, or this is when I do when a flood's coming. And then it's just like a video of a list of a thousand things that they're doing to prepare their kid for a storm. And it's the most insane things that I'm like, that's not the backpacks, like if I if it's yeah, you're like finding something to them and their phone numbers on everything. But it gets so many comments though, because I know I'm so yeah, because they know people are gonna be like that insane, but then they know that, and then there's just different versions of that too. Like with mothers, like care, like you said, caregiving and what they do with their kids, where like that is what gets views. And so if you go hardcore, you get views and you make money, but the average mom looking isn't necessarily thinking about that. They're going, like, oh, I can't do that.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

I just want to make it through the day.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

Yeah, I'm trying to make it through the day. I, you know, and uh it's been like 12 hours that I'm alone with these kids and I can't entertain them every second of the day, and I can't afford to go on all these day trips that you guys are promoting that you're getting into for free with your assistant and your nanny. Like, no. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

And it's it so many of these people are doing it under the guise of being positive, but it's not positive if you have to take someone down to make you feel good about yourself, or even this whole like I didn't marry a loser thing. If you can't celebrate your partner without taking down someone else's, that's a problem.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

It is a huge problem. And also, why are we putting the blame on women for women's oppression? Right. Also, like so now, so now not only does that woman have to deal with maybe a husband who never cooks, never cleans, never changes the diaper, never asks her how her day was, X, Y, Z, not only does she have to deal with that, but she then has to deal with the people of the internet saying it's her fault that she married someone like that, as if she knew she was right. That's what was gonna happen. Yeah. It like it is, it's absolutely, it's absolutely insane. It's it's crazy. There's so much content out there that is just meant, and even if it's not meant to, that just like adds this level of shame to mothers' lives that they're already struggling, and the internet just like adds to it.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

We posted a video about how our husband's algorithms are so different. Like the content created for men is very different than for women. And there were a lot of comments on that post saying, Well, you train your algorithms, so you're just perseverating on this, and maybe you need to feel like you need to be better, and that's why you're getting. Are you saying there's like some secret corner of the internet where there's dad improvement content that we just don't know about? And I'm not, I mean, that's it doesn't exist, it's not there.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

I think people think that social media is the root of the problem. It's not, it's just a platform for the problem and it's amplifying the problem because it's always been in the best interest of the patriarchy and capitalism to keep women feeling bad about themselves.

SPEAKER_02 32:23

Yeah, it's it's just it's a symptom of the problem. It isn't what the problem is. Like if you look at society, right, we're gonna we'll go deep on this, and how in general, men are completely disconnected from their feelings, right? They don't want to feel their feelings, they don't want to talk about their feelings. Feelings are for girls, you know, we're not emotional, we're not gonna approach our feelings. Okay, so that is men, and they more typically are the type to distract themselves, right? With a project, with a thing that they're gonna do, with a hobby, with uh sports, you know, they're gonna just avoid, avoid, avoid and just avoid their emotions, avoid their relationships and just get distracted by, like, oh, let's watch a tractor fill of whatever, you know, like the you know, they're gonna sing. That is exactly what their algorithm is. There may be men making like men improvement content. It does exist. You know who's consuming it? It's women. Women are because they want their husbands to be attuned to their emotions. They want their husbands to be attuned to themselves and also to their partners. And the the men aren't, they're not engaging with that content because if you remove social media, they're not engaging that in their real life either. If they run into another man, we're generalizing here, but it's something I've seen enough that I feel like I can generalize. Say they're in a group situation with another man who maybe shares some vulnerability or some emotion, they are more likely to just change the subject or to not go deep or to not meet that death. And you see that exact same thing play out on social media, which then trains their algorithm to not give them the depth, right? Whereas women, we are so used to being attuned to one another, to being caring, to being compassionate, to being affected, you know, by things that we are then going to pay attention to things that make us feel triggered. We are gonna pay attention to the men's accounts that are improving, like male improvement accounts, because we're like, oh, we we see that it's gonna benefit other people in our lives. We're always looking through the lens of making the world better, I think, in general.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

It's all women in the comments. It's all women, they're they're making the content for women, like you said. It's for the man, but all of the followers and people engaging in the comments are women, being like, This is amazing. You're so amazing.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

Yeah. And it and it's just like internalized misogyny, internalized patriarchy that also gives women this mindset, too. Where like when I share about my husband doing things, the number of women who are like, You're so lucky, and they're not so many of them are not saying it with the tone that I used to think they were saying it. I used to think they were saying it with the like, Oh, aren't you lucky? I think they genuinely, there is this longing for like, gosh, what I would give to have a my partner come home and cook dinner. What I would give to not be the main person thinking of everything. It's like this real deep longing, but it really shows this the stem of so many of us, so many women have internalized this message that it should be us. And so then it's so hard for us in our relationships to change things, to have that conversation. And so it's a complex thing that I think, like you said, it's social media is just a symptom of it. That those things are happening in real life too.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Totally.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

It's tough because I also know that social media for me was the first thing that made me realize I wasn't alone and helped me connect to other cycle breakers, to other women who, you know, think the same as me who are like doing the work. Uh, and people tell me constantly, your work, your content, your book, whatever has changed my life, saved my life, changed my marriage. Like big they're saying these very big things. And part of me is like, that can't be true. And the other part of me is like, I think I think it is, because for me, in my real life, I didn't interact with a lot of people like me. And then when the internet happened, I found other people. And so the internet can be powerful, but it's also it can be so damaging to how we perceive ourselves and how we contribute to the patriarchy.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Yeah. And there's now a lot more content related to being a daughter, and it's still not quite there the way motherhood and parenting content is. Um also it's starting to become really polarizing. Like there's the camp that's like you just set boundaries and you cut them out of their life and they're toxic and you don't need them. And then completely the other way, like you don't love your parents unless you're taking everything, you know? So I think we're getting to that that part of things, which is hard.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

It really is like a lack of when I think about parenting content, when I think about cycle breaking, the daughter dynamic, so much of what's wrong with what's happening online is a complete inability to understand that two things can be true at the same time. Or even like if this piece of content is saying this, it's not also saying, well, and not this and not this and not this and not this and not this. It's like a 15-second video can only say so much. A 60-second video can only say so much. So we see these videos, and it's like people are like, oh, but what about, but what about? It's like the internet is makes it like only one thing is true at the same time. And when you look at our relationship with our parents, it's, I feel like the people who get triggered by those of us setting boundaries, like, well, you can't blame your parents for everything, and you need to get over your childhood and da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And it's like, no, I can love my parents while still having boundaries. I can have boundaries with my parents and also still talk about what they did that harmed me. You know, it's like with our kids. We can say, like, hey, they're driving me insane, and I also love them. Hey, I'm going to have boundaries with my kids, but that also that doesn't mean I'm gonna scream in their faces and like rule them by fear. It's uh it's very I could obviously talk about it all day.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

How much do you share with your kids about your childhood?

SPEAKER_02 38:24

I try to share what they are ready for at an age appropriate time. And that is different for both of them. You know, they're maturing at different ages, they're interested and curious about different things at different ages. They're dealing with things in their life at different times that may or may not be affected by a story I have to share from my childhood. And so my daughter, my eldest, she's turning 12. Oh my gosh, this month. And so we have more conversations than I have about my childhood than I do with my 10-year-old. And it sort of is just like always evolving, and it's also connected to what life looks like right now. I I have a relationship with my mom. My dad's passed away, so he's not in my life anymore, obviously, because he's dead. Dead dad jokes. So the last year. Nothing's not really there. But you know, I have a relationship with my mom, and it is complicated and it is boundaried and it is loving. And that means that she is in my kids' life, and they notice things that they have questions about. They notice things that they wonder about, and they're also navigating things in their childhood that they they ask questions, like, oh, what was it like at your age? And so I try to give them answers that are honest, but don't have to give every single detail. My whole goal, one of, you know, my biggest goals in raising my kids is giving them the ability to trust themselves, to trust their own instincts, to trust their own gut feelings, to listen to their own feelings. And I would not be doing them justice or teaching them how to do that if I shut down every hard conversation and I didn't talk about my childhood. Um, but I also wouldn't be doing them justice by telling them everything that's like not necessarily needed. And so it's kind of something that evolves over time.

SPEAKER_00 40:09

Yeah. And you you're humanizing yourself for your kids by doing that, right? You know, you're showing them all of you. It's interesting. I was having this like little internet discourse with someone about how so many of us millennials never really hear from our parents that they're proud of us or that we're doing a good job. And so many people are like, you just have to accept your boomer parents for who they are. And I'm like, that that's what all we do as millennials, right? We accept our kids for who they are. We accept our parents for who they are. Is anyone accepting us for who we are? Or are we always trying to fit ourselves into these boxes of what everybody else needs from us? Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:47

Right. And there is a level of, okay, maybe I accept that that's who they are and that's who they're always gonna be, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Right. I can come to a point where I say this relationship with this person is never gonna be more than what it is right now. It's never gonna be what I long for. It's never gonna be what my soul actually needs. Okay, maybe I can come to an acknowledgement and an acceptance of that. That doesn't mean that it doesn't still hurt, that I'm not still gonna grieve things, that I'm not gonna look at what other people have and go, oh, that would truly mean so much to me if I had that type of relationship in my life. Those two things can be true at the same time as well. And accepting something doesn't mean that you never talk about it or that you never acknowledge the impact. You know, all those things can happen.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

What's something about adulthood that 20-year-old Libby would never believe?

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Something that 20-year-old Libby would never believe is that nobody has it figured out. I entered adulthood being like, okay, the adults know what they're doing. We're gonna know what we're doing soon. I'm just gonna like gather information uh from all the normals. What are all the normal people doing? I'm gonna do the normal thing and then I'm gonna feel like an adult. And I'm still waiting. Even though I've been a caregiver my whole life, even though I am often the most capable person in the room, I still have this sense of when am I gonna feel like an adult? And so I think it would give 20-year-old Libby freedom to know actually that nobody has the answers. I think this assumption that other people had the answers hurt me over the years because I would trust what other people said or what they did, or I would try to take on their values or their norms and or their shoulds. And I think it's kind of freeing to know that like the 70-year-old grandma that I walk by every morning, she doesn't know what she's doing either. Like she's just make we're all we're literally all just making it up. And it's kind of terrifying, but it's also absolutely freeing.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

It's everybody, no matter how much, how many resources, how much money, whatever it is, we none of us know what we're doing. We're all just figuring it out as we're doing.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

Even the people who think they know what they're doing. They don't. They don't. They're just like drinking the crazy juice. Like nobody really actually fully knows. And the lesson of my life, the main lesson of my life that I share in my the book, everything, is that I needed to learn to trust myself and that I actually know far more than I give myself credit for. And by listening to myself, that is how I get to feel like a more regulated, present parent and person and someone who can actually like feel joy and navigate relationships, which are going to be hard for the rest of life because they just are. Step one is realize no one knows what they're doing and listen to your own voice and trust yourself. Because you know more than you give yourself credit for, even though you keep screwing up. Because everyone, everyone keeps screwing up. And yeah, you know more than you give yourself credit for.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

I mean, screwing up is necessary to learn, right?

SPEAKER_01 43:51

Yeah. So we usually end by asking, do you have what's your millennial sandwich survival tip? Do you have do you have a survival tip for our listeners?

SPEAKER_02 44:02

Oh, my survival tip is to be constantly, consistently, radically honest with yourself. Like just take a moment whenever something happens, whether your kid is rolling on the floor and screaming at the front door because they don't want to put their shoes on, whether your mother-in-law just asked you to host Christmas dinner and it's the 23rd of December, whether your boss asked you to stay late to work, or your husband is like going golfing for the third time that week, whatever, like take a moment, be so honest with yourself about like what is happening in my body right now, what is true? Is there a lion chasing me? Is this important? Does this align with my values? Is cooking Christmas dinner a priority for me? Like, be honest with yourself about what you need. And then, and then do whatever needs to be done or say whatever needs to be said in order to help yourself be more regulated and be true to yourself. Don't just answer out of like, oh, my mother-in-law needs an answer, or scream at your kid because you your body feels unsafe, or just let your husband go on the golfing trip because it'll keep the peace. Just stop and ask yourself what you're feeling, why you're feeling that way, and then do something differently. I don't love practical tips all the time. I'm like, oh, I'm not really like an advice person. But when I started to be honest with myself as a practice, as a like day-to-day, moment-to-moment, what is true, what is real, what do I need next? It's those like little shifts that that actually help because we don't have time to make big shifts because we're busy doing real life all day, every day.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

That's a great tip. I think we all need to hear that.

SPEAKER_02 45:39

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. This has been a great conversation. We got to talk about lots of stuff. And I think lots of things we didn't know we would we would get to talking about. So thanks so much for sharing everything you share online and with us and in your book. Where can our where can our listeners find your book?

unknown 45:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Um, they can find it anywhere that you buy books. So Amazon, Barnes and Noble, the any of the places where you get books, independent bookstores, you can grab it. I would appreciate that. I also, a lot of people ask me, do you read the audiobook? I do. It is my life story, my motherhood story. So it'd be weird if it wasn't me. So I do read the audiobook, and a lot of overwhelmed moms don't have time for paper books. So highly recommend the audiobook. Uh yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It's a great conversation.

SPEAKER_00 46:25

Thanks for being here. Thank you for listening to the Millennial Sandwich. Don't forget to like, subscribe, give us a rating, and connect with us on social media.