Abby Eckel on Modern Motherhood — And Where Scott Galloway and John Crist Missed the Point

Disclaimer: This is one of the more emotionally charged interviews I’ve done so far, and it touches on topics that can spark strong reactions. I deeply respect Abby Eckel’s advocacy, her desire to create more equity, and her bravery. Some of the topics we’ve discussed might be triggering, and there are a few swear words if you listen to the podcast or watch video on YouTube.

When Abby Eckel became a mother, something didn’t sit right. Like many women, she had absorbed years of glossy images and carefully curated narratives about what motherhood was supposed to look like. But after her second son was born, the gap between expectation and reality became impossible to ignore.
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“I felt really lied to about motherhood,” Abby says. “Everything I had been seeing, all the influencers I had been seeing, their carefully curated lives… I was like, this is such bull**t... I kind of set out to shed light, an honest look at motherhood, because I didn't really see that outside of Scary Mommy. And so I started creating content."

That moment became the starting point of a journey that would turn Abby into a widely followed content creator, educator, and advocate for more equitable partnerships and honest conversations about motherhood, marriage, and gender roles.

When “Equal” Isn’t the Norm

Abby didn’t set out to become an advocate. She started by sharing her own life. But one moment, in particular, revealed just how far her family’s setup diverged from what most people considered normal.

After moving into a new neighborhood, Abby casually mentioned to neighbors that her husband was inside making dinner. “They were like, ‘Is your husband working?’ And I was like, ‘No, he’s inside making dinner. It’s his week to cook.’ And they were kind of dumbfounded.”

In Abby’s household, cooking, bedtime routines, and domestic labor rotate. Both parents participate fully. When Abby shared this online, the response was immediate… and massive. “I realized very quickly that this was not the norm,” she said. “Even though I knew it wasn’t the norm, I didn’t realize the extent of it.”

That realization opened the door to a deeper education, which Abby says never really ends. “The more you learn about the inequities of marriage and motherhood and simply existing as a woman in the world, it never really ends.”
 
Raising Boys Without Gendered Shortcuts

Abby is raising two sons and is intentional about modeling equity at home, not through lectures but through expectations.  “There aren’t really any gender-specific roles,” she explains. “They’re doing their laundry, they’re cleaning up after themselves, they’re loading the dishwasher. They see both mom and dad doing all of these tasks.”

For Abby, accountability matters just as much as participation. When tasks aren’t done properly, they aren’t quietly fixed by someone in the background. She recalls a moment at her mother-in-law’s house when her son rushed through cleaning up train tracks, assuming his grandma would finish the job.

“He was like, ‘No, it’s okay, Nana has her own way that she wants it done.’ And I was like, ‘No, no, no. Nana doesn’t want to do this. She doesn’t find enjoyment in cleaning up after you.’” Instead of leaving it as is, Abby made him start over. “Now you’re going to sit down and you’re going to dump the box out, and we’ll put them in there together… If you have questions, I’ll be here to help you. But now you will complete this task.”
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The lesson wasn’t just about chores. It was about dismantling the belief that women enjoy cleaning, or that someone else will always pick up the slack.

It Is Not Women’s Fantasy That the House Falls Apart

One of Abby’s most viral responses came after the comedian John Christ mentioned on his Net Positive podcast that moms secretly enjoy leaving the house and returning to chaos because it makes them feel “needed.” Abby didn’t mince words. “It is not women’s secret hope or fantasy that when we leave the house is in shambles. It is quite literally most women’s nightmare.”

She explains why: the mess doesn’t magically disappear. “They’re going to have everything to clean up and piece back together… That’s a punishment. That’s not an enjoyment.”

For many women, the chaos triggers fear, not validation. “If you go out with your friends, or you go to an event and enjoy something or fulfill your hobby, and then you come home and it looks like a tornado went through your house — the kids haven’t been fed properly, the dogs haven’t eaten, toys are all over the place, and there are ground Goldfish crackers in the carpet,” she says passionately. “That’s not an enjoyable thing for anybody to come home to and be like, ‘Look how much my family needs me.’ That is very much like, ‘Holy sh*t — what if something happened to me? This is what my kid’s life would look like if I wasn’t here.’ And that very often is the main reason so many women stay in unhappy marriages, because they are terrified of how little proper care their children would receive in their absence and during the time they would be with their fathers during his custody.”
  
Abby provided an example of how Kentucky’s recent equal-custody law, framed as a way to reduce divorce, may in reality keep many women in marriages out of fear rather than happiness, because they are deeply concerned about the level of care their children would receive in their absence.

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​In this episode of the Trust Me Mom podcast (Season 1, episode 30) available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, Abby Eckel and host Ekaterina Konovalova unpack why so many women feel overwhelmed, unseen, and resentful, and why the problem isn’t communication, effort, or “doing more,” but deeply ingrained systems that still center men at women’s expense.

​Abby shared her journey into advocacy, the TikTok moment that went viral when she talked about splitting household labor equally, what centering yourself actually looks like in real life, and how raising boys differently can change future generations.

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The Danger of Repackaged Misogyny

The conversation turned to cultural narratives that appear progressive on the surface but still place the burden on women. When author and podcaster Scott Galloway argued that unmarried women tend to thrive while unmarried men spiral, Abby saw a deeper problem.

“I think Scott Galloway is, for lack of a better term, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” She explains why the message feels dangerous. “His entire message is like, we just need men to get married… because when men are single, they are destructive… We must pacify them with women.” For Abby, this framing ignores systemic issues and quietly assigns women responsibility for male behavior. “Women again should not be given up and sacrificed for men’s wellbeing. It’s just misogyny packaged a little bit prettier.”
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“You Cannot Communicate Your Way Into a Better Husband”

Perhaps the most provocative moment of the interview came when Abby was asked how women might create more balance in their marriages. Her response was so disarmingly blunt that I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow: “Get a divorce?” She quickly clarified but didn’t soften the message. “There’s no amount of communicating… books… podcasts… counselors that are going to change somebody who has benefited greatly from the way things have been set up.”

Abby challenged the idea that women are responsible for fixing inequity through better phrasing or timing. “You cannot communicate your way into having a better husband. This is solely on men.” She explained why so many attempts fail. "You can't make him see your worth. You can't make him see that or suddenly deem that what you do is important enough to want to help out with, to want to participate in."

Centering Women in a World Built for Men

One of Abby’s core concepts is centering, or rather how rarely women are allowed to do it. “Men have always been centered,” she says. “The world was literally built by them, for them, on the backs of women.” Even men who consider themselves egalitarian often default to their own needs.

“They’re talking at their wives, not with them,” Abby explains. “It is me, me, me… and they don’t even realize it.” Her advice for women who cannot leave, many of whom are unable to do so, is radical in its simplicity.  “Start centering yourself.”
That might look small, but it’s powerful. “Make a meal that you like, even if everybody else hates it. Set the thermostat to your preferred setting.” These acts matter because they reconnect women to themselves. “This is about you finding fulfillment and happiness… outside of being a wife and a mother.”
 
The Work Still Ahead

Abby doesn’t pretend this path is easy. “This is going to feel really uncomfortable for men,” she says. “It will create friction.” She believes it is necessary, not just for women but for future generations. As she raises her sons in a household built on accountability, empathy, and shared responsibility, Abby is clear-eyed about what is at stake. “We give up our bodies. We give up wages. We give up promotions. [The world] was not built to empathize and understand what women go through.”

Change, she says, doesn’t come from women doing more, but from refusing to disappear inside systems that were never designed for them to thrive.