Most parents enter motherhood with an imagined version of what life will look like. They anticipate sleepless nights, diaper changes, and the usual challenges of raising a child. They may not anticipate years of medical appointments, developmental evaluations, sensory challenges, emotional dysregulation, or the possibility that their child will require lifelong support.

For Susanna Peace Lovell, motherhood unfolded very differently from what she had envisioned.

Susanna is a life coach, author, speaker, advocate, Reiki practitioner, special needs parent, and co-host of the Brave Together podcast. Her daughter, Arizona, now 20, has autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, and significant food allergies. During our conversation on the Trust Me Mom podcast, Susanna spoke candidly about caregiver exhaustion, the complicated emotions many mothers are afraid to admit, and the small but meaningful choices that can help parents reclaim parts of themselves.

When Motherhood Changes You Overnight

Susanna grew up surrounded by children. She had many siblings, regularly babysat, and felt naturally comfortable caring for babies and young people. She expected motherhood to be demanding, but she also believed her experience with children had prepared her. Then her daughter Arizona was born. “I had this different idea of what motherhood was going to look like for me,” Susanna recalled. “I knew that it would be different and challenging, but I also thought I had it figured out because I was so good with kids.”

What she could not anticipate were the sleepless nights, hormonal changes, and the enormous weight of becoming fully responsible for another human being. When Arizona was about three months old, Susanna experienced severe postpartum anxiety and depression. At the same time, her baby was extremely uncomfortable. Arizona had colic, eczema, rashes, and an extensive list of food allergies that took approximately a year to fully identify. Susanna stopped breastfeeding because her daughter appeared to react to nearly everything she consumed.

As the family focused on Arizona’s allergies, other developmental differences began to emerge. Arizona walked at around 12 months but had never crawled and struggled to pull herself up after falling. By age two, she was using some words, but Susanna sensed that something else was happening. A family member who was an educator gently suggested that Arizona was not simply being stubborn. Susanna brought her concerns to their pediatrician, but it took repeated conversations and considerable persistence to receive a referral to a developmental specialist.

Arizona was initially given several different labels, including sensory processing difficulties, apraxia, executive-function challenges, and auditory processing disorder. At approximately two and a half years old, she was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. ADHD and generalized anxiety disorder diagnoses followed later. “There was that gut feeling as a mom,” Susanna said. “There is something going on, but I just don’t know what.”

“If you are not living this life, you do not understand this life”

Parents of children with disabilities frequently carry responsibilities that remain invisible to the outside world. Friends and family members may witness occasional moments, but they rarely see the full reality unfolding behind closed doors, day after day and night after night.

After Susanna and Arizona’s father divorced, the family decided that Arizona would live with Susanna full time. Arizona needed consistency, structure, close attention, and fresh homemade food that accommodated her allergies. Moving between two households would have been highly disruptive. Susanna had to build her life around her daughter’s needs. Twenty years later, she describes herself as having been “on call” for the entirety of her motherhood journey. “If you are not living this life, then you do not understand this life,” she said.

For some parents, special needs caregiving can feel like a prison without a known release date. That comparison is not intended to minimize the experiences of incarcerated people. Rather, it describes the loss of freedom, uncertainty, and relentless responsibility some caregivers experience. Many parents do not know whether their children will eventually live independently. They may love their children fiercely while simultaneously feeling trapped, resentful, frightened, or desperate to escape. These conflicting emotions can coexist.

During the depths of postpartum depression, Susanna sometimes fantasized about finding her passport, boarding a plane, and disappearing. She did not act on those thoughts, but she allowed herself to acknowledge them instead of adding another layer of shame. “I felt bad and I felt guilty, but I was like, no, I need to allow myself to feel these feelings,” she shared. Recognizing painful emotions does not mean that a parent does not love their child. It means that the parent is a human being carrying more than one person was designed to carry alone.

Reclaiming Agency Within Difficult Circumstances

Some aspects of special needs parenting cannot be changed. A diagnosis may be permanent. A child may always require significant support. The caregiver may have limited financial resources, little family nearby, or no realistic opportunity to step away. 

Susanna does not pretend that positive thinking can remove these realities. Instead, she returns to one powerful word: agency. “We still have some agency, even with the circumstances,” she explained. “This is my life. Here are the pieces of the puzzle that I get to work with. What are the values that are important to me?” Agency does not mean having complete control. It means identifying the choices that remain available within circumstances you did not choose.

For Susanna, those choices include making room for meaningful friendships, delicious food, personal adventures, time with her partner, and experiences that have nothing to do with motherhood. They also include asking how she and Arizona can thrive both together and as individuals. That question may not produce a dramatic or immediate transformation. It can, however, shift a parent’s attention from everything that has been lost to the small areas where choice is still possible.

​In this episode of the Trust Me Mom podcast (Season 2, episode 47 available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify), Susanna Peace Lovell, author, speaker, life coach, Reiki practitioner, co-host of the Brave Together podcast, and mother of a 20-year-old daughter diagnosed with autism, ADHD, anxiety, and severe food allergies, shares her journey through postpartum anxiety and depression, her daughter Arizona’s early diagnoses, divorce, caregiving without traditional respite, and the difficult emotions many mothers are afraid to admit experiencing. She explains why caregiver depletion is real, how self-compassion can soften guilt and resentment, and why even mothers facing tremendous limitations still have some agency.

​Self-Compassion Comes Before Grace
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Caregivers often feel pressure to handle impossible circumstances with endless patience and grace. When they become angry, resentful, or overwhelmed, they may interpret those emotions as personal failures. Susanna believes that grace begins with compassion for the caregiver. “The most important way to experience grace is to have so much compassion for yourself, Mom,” she said. “It’s so understandable why you find this to be so challenging.”

Caring for a child with complex needs can require constant physical, emotional, and cognitive labor. A parent may need to prepare specialized meals, coordinate therapies, monitor medical symptoms, anticipate sensory triggers, manage emotional outbursts, and remain alert through the night. Unlike a demanding job or an intense period of study, this work does not necessarily end on Friday afternoon. There may be no weekend available for recovery. “You can pull an all-nighter, do the test, and then rest for three days,” Susanna explained. “That’s not the case” for many caregivers. When the work never truly stops, exhaustion is not evidence that a parent is failing. It is an understandable response to prolonged stress without adequate recovery.

Forget Filling Your Cup. Find Five Minutes.

Conventional self-care advice often assumes that a depleted caregiver has enough time, money, support, and freedom to take a substantial break. For a parent whose child is medically fragile, experiencing a seizure, or unable to be left unattended, even going to the bathroom alone may be impossible.

Susanna does not offer elaborate wellness routines as the solution. She encourages caregivers to intentionally seek the smallest available moments of respite. “How can I even find five minutes of respite?” she asks. “You have to seek it out. You have to make it a non-negotiable priority in your day.” Sometimes that means leaving the laundry untouched. It may mean not answering a well-intentioned phone call, releasing a nonessential obligation, listening to a one-minute meditation, or writing a few unfiltered sentences in a journal. “If you really think about all of the ‘shoulds’ on your plate, I bet most of them, or at least half of them, are not really a should,” Susanna said.

On the hardest days, parents may not be able to think beyond the next minute. Susanna remembers looking at the clock while Arizona screamed and realizing it was only 6:07 in the morning. The day ahead felt impossible. In those moments, the goal does not need to be thriving. The goal may simply be getting through the next minute safely.

Finding Connection Beneath the Caregiving

The endless tasks surrounding a child’s needs can sometimes obscure the relationship itself. Parents become focused on appointments, meals, medication, therapies, behaviors, school concerns, and daily routines. They spend so much time doing things for their children that they have little capacity left to simply be with them.

Susanna sometimes lies beside Arizona or sits near her without trying to fix anything. Eye contact has been difficult for Arizona, so Susanna may quietly wait for one brief moment of connection. “I’m here. You’re here. We’re here together,” she said. That pause does not eliminate the challenges, but it can restore a sense of purpose and connection. Beneath the responsibilities is a relationship between two people who are learning how to move through life together.

Using Multiple Paths Toward Healing

Susanna’s approach to well-being incorporates both conventional medicine and complementary practices. Western medicine and medication were vital during her experience with postpartum anxiety and depression. She has also explored acupuncture, journaling, chiropractic care, and Reiki.

After experiencing Reiki herself, she trained first for personal healing and later became a practitioner. She now incorporates its principles into her coaching and occasionally practices it with Arizona when her daughter requests it. Susanna describes the immediate effect as a slowing of the breath and a return to bodily awareness. For her and Arizona, the practice is also a form of connection. It is not a replacement for medical or mental health care, but one of several tools they choose to use. 

As Arizona has matured, she has also become better able to communicate her emotions, recognize mood changes, and prepare for transitions. Progress has taken many years, but Susanna sees those skills beginning to come together. Her story offers hope without promising an easy or predictable outcome. Children develop differently, and some will continue to need intensive assistance as adults. Still, communication, connection, and regulation can grow in ways that may be difficult to imagine during the earliest and most overwhelming years.

Community Helps Caregivers Survive and Thrive

Isolation makes an already difficult caregiving experience even heavier. Susanna encourages parents to seek communities where they do not need to justify their exhaustion or explain the complexity of their lives. Through We Are Brave Together, she helps support the mental health and well-being of caregiving mothers around the world. Virtual communities, podcasts, support groups, and online resources can become lifelines for parents who are unable to leave home. They remind caregivers of something essential: You are not the only person living this life, and you were never meant to carry it entirely alone. “I believe that in community we can thrive together,” Susanna said.

Special needs motherhood may not offer weekends off or a clearly marked finish line. But even within its hardest realities, parents can practice self-compassion, release unnecessary expectations, reach for support, and reclaim small pieces of agency. Sometimes grace does not look like a full cup. Sometimes it looks like five quiet minutes, a pile of unfolded laundry, and permission to breathe.

Parents monitor countless details in their children’s lives, from sleep and nutrition to school progress and screen time. Yet many of us know surprisingly little about the environmental factors surrounding our families every day. Dr. Manish Arora wants to change that.

An environmental epidemiologist and exposure biologist, Dr. Arora is the Edith J. Baerwald Professor and Vice Chairman of the Department of Environmental Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is also the founder and CEO of LinusBio and, as he proudly shared during our Trust Me Mom conversation, the father of teenage triplet daughters. In the interview, he told me, “My biggest achievement is that I’m a dad.”
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His work explores the exposome, which the National Institutes of Health describes as the full set of environmental exposures a person encounters throughout life, along with the body’s biological responses. While our genes remain largely fixed, our exposures change constantly through the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the products we use, and the places where we live.

For Dr. Arora, one question has guided decades of research: Can the body preserve a record of those changing exposures, and can scientists learn to read it?

A Childhood Shaped by Environmental Questions

Dr. Arora’s interest in environmental health began long before he entered a laboratory. He spent part of his childhood in a remote region of Africa during a civil war and a malaria epidemic. He remembers trucks driving through communities and spraying DDT while conflict unfolded around him.

His father, a chemical engineer, taught him that chemicals could move through soil, water, and air. Those early lessons helped him see that human activity can alter the environment and, in turn, affect health.

Dr. Arora initially trained in dentistry and oral surgery. Later, while studying public health in Australia, he encountered research by scientists Herbert Needleman and David Bellinger, whose work helped establish the serious effects of childhood lead exposure. Their use of baby teeth to study exposure history immediately captured his attention.

He was a dentist fascinated by environmental health. Suddenly, the two paths belonged together.

Why the Timing of an Exposure Matters

Environmental health research presents a difficult problem. Measuring how much of a substance is present is only part of the story. Scientists must also ask when the exposure occurred.

“It’s not just how much you’re exposed to,” Dr. Arora explained. “It’s when you’re exposed.”

An exposure during fetal development or infancy may affect the body differently than the same exposure later in life. Individual susceptibility also varies. Age, health, genetics, nutrition, and the timing of exposure can all influence how a person responds.

That makes reconstructing the past especially challenging. If a health concern appears when a child is 10, researchers may need to understand exposures that occurred years earlier, perhaps even before birth.
Dr. Arora began searching for what he calls a biological time machine.​

The Tree-Ring Moment That Changed His Research

The breakthrough came while Dr. Arora was looking at the growth rings inside a tree. One ring appeared thinner and more distorted than the others, suggesting that the tree had experienced drought or another stress during that year. “This was just nature showing me the way,” he recalled. 

He wondered whether the human body contained a similar chronological record. Baby teeth, he realized, begin forming during pregnancy and develop in layers. Those layers can preserve information about nutrients, chemicals, and biological stress over time. Dr. Arora compares them to the grooves of a vinyl record. Instead of storing music, they hold a sequence of biological information.

Testing that idea required technology far beyond traditional dentistry. As a PhD student in Australia, he connected with physicist Chris Ryan, who gave him access to specialized equipment attached to a nuclear reactor. Because the machine was expensive to operate, Dr. Arora learned to use it overnight after the regular workday ended. His early studies included children living near a mining community. In their tooth-growth patterns, he could see exposure levels change as families moved from one location to another. The record was there. The next challenge was making that record available much earlier in a child’s life.

When the Science Became Personal

Around the same time, Dr. Arora and his wife became parents to triplet daughters after being told that having children was unlikely. One daughter experienced developmental and learning differences, and autism was one of the possibilities the family was asked to consider.

Dr. Arora was surprised that the evaluation relied so heavily on questionnaires and behavioral observations. His clinical and laboratory training had conditioned him to look for objective biological measurements. He began asking whether autism might leave a measurable biochemical pattern. His research team studied hair and teeth from children in multiple countries, including twins who shared the same genes but had different developmental outcomes. They examined patterns in how the body processed essential and toxic elements over time.

Hair offered an important advantage. Children usually do not lose baby teeth until age five or six, but hair can be collected during infancy. Using robotic and laser technology, the researchers analyzed tiny points along a strand of hair to map biological patterns across time.

A peer-reviewed study published in 2022 evaluated hair samples across cohorts in Japan, Sweden, and the United States. In a blinded analysis involving 486 participants, the algorithm identified a biomarker associated with later autism with 96.4 percent sensitivity, 75.4 percent specificity, and 81.4 percent overall accuracy. The authors reported that the pattern could be detected in samples collected as early as one month of age. 

The Birth of ClearStrand-ASD

LinusBio has translated this research into ClearStrand-ASD, a prescription laboratory test intended to help health care providers rule out autism when it is a concern in children from one month through 10 years of age.

The distinction between screening, ruling out, and diagnosing is important. According to the current ClearStrand-ASD information, the test returns either a negative or non-negative result. A non-negative result does not confirm autism. It indicates that the child may need a more comprehensive evaluation. The test should be considered alongside developmental history, behavior, and professional clinical judgment.

The test is performed in a CLIA-certified laboratory, but it has not yet been cleared or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. An earlier version of the technology received an FDA Breakthrough Device designation, which allows closer communication with the agency and prioritized review during development. As the FDA explains, that designation is part of the review pathway and is not the same as FDA approval or clearance.

For Dr. Arora’s family, ruling out one possibility helped them investigate others. His daughter was ultimately treated for other conditions, including ADHD and anxiety. He described the transformation with unmistakable pride. A child who once struggled to speak when nervous later stood onstage and delivered a 20-minute presentation about Neil Armstrong. “Ruling out an incorrect diagnosis is often as good as finding the right diagnosis,” he said.

For parents, the larger message is not to wait if something feels different. The CDC recommends that developmental concerns lead to further evaluation and, when appropriate, early intervention. No single laboratory result should replace a full developmental assessment. ​

What if a strand of hair could reveal a timeline of environmental exposures?

In this episode of Trust Me Mom (Season 2, episode 45 available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts), Dr. Manish Arora, environmental epidemiologist, exposure biologist, founder and CEO of LinusBio, professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and father of triplet daughters, shares the personal and scientific journey behind his groundbreaking research.

Dr. Arora explains how growing up during a civil war and malaria epidemic sparked his interest in environmental health. He later discovered that the growth rings inside baby teeth and hair can preserve biological information about nutrients, chemicals, and environmental exposures over time.

We discuss the exposome, why the timing of an exposure can be as important as the amount, and how Dr. Arora’s experience with his neurodivergent daughter inspired his search for more objective ways to help families find answers earlier. Dr. Arora also explains the science behind ClearStrand-ASD, a hair-based laboratory test intended to help health care providers rule out autism, and Traced, a consumer wellness test that maps patterns involving essential and toxic elements.

​Reading the Environmental Record in Hair

Dr. Arora’s team has also developed Traced, a direct-to-consumer wellness test designed to map patterns involving 15 essential, non-essential, and toxic elements across a 30-day period. The current test uses a small sample of hair and reports elements such as zinc and copper, as well as lead, arsenic, and cadmium.

Unlike ClearStrand-ASD, Traced is not a medical diagnostic test and does not require a prescription. Its purpose is to provide information about environmental exposure patterns and help people consider practical changes in their homes and routines. If you’d like to try the test, use promo code TRUSTMEMOM at checkout to receive 30% off.

Dr. Arora believes the time-based pattern is what makes the approach useful. A blood test usually captures a particular moment. Hair grows over time, allowing his platform to examine a sequence and look for repeated changes that may correspond with a routine, location, or recurring activity.

The report is meant to guide questions, not provide a diagnosis. If a result suggests possible lead exposure, for example, a parent should speak with a health care professional. The CDC recommends a blood lead test to determine whether a child has been exposed to lead and to guide appropriate medical follow-up.

From Invisible Worry to Practical Action

Conversations about toxins can quickly become frightening, especially for parents already carrying a heavy mental load. Dr. Arora does not want families to panic or attempt to eliminate every possible exposure. Most homes are monitored for temperature and smoke, he noted, but not for the many other environmental factors families encounter. Better information can help parents focus on specific concerns instead of worrying about everything at once.

Potential sources vary widely. Lead may be found in deteriorating paint or contaminated dust in older homes. Cadmium can come from tobacco smoke and certain industrial sources. Pesticides may enter the home through lawn care, pest control, or residues. PFAS and other chemicals have been used in some nonstick, stain-resistant, and water-resistant products.

The goal is not perfection. It is informed, manageable action.

Parents can start by:

1. Talking with a pediatrician promptly about developmental concerns rather than waiting for certainty.
2. Asking about a blood lead test if a child may have been exposed, particularly in an older home or through another known risk factor.
3. Keeping the home and car smoke-free.
4. Addressing peeling paint and dust safely, especially in homes built before 1978.
5. Following product labels carefully and reducing unnecessary pesticide use when practical.
6. Improving ventilation during cooking, cleaning, painting, or home projects.
7. Making one realistic change at a time instead of trying to overhaul the entire household overnight.

Dr. Arora uses a business metaphor that feels surprisingly reassuring: “Everybody is the CEO of their own house.” Parents cannot control every part of a child’s biology or environment. They can, however, make thoughtful decisions about many of the products, habits, and conditions inside their homes.

A More Empowering Way to Think About Environmental Health

One person may experience significant effects from an exposure that appears to have little impact on someone else. That does not make the risk imaginary or the science irrelevant. “Humans are different,” Dr. Arora said. “There is a range of responses to these environmental toxins.”

It is equally important not to turn environmental health into parental blame. Research into the exposome is an effort to understand complex interactions, not a reason for mothers or fathers to believe they caused a child’s developmental differences. Good environmental health is not about raising children inside a perfect bubble. It is about replacing invisible worry with better questions, reliable clinical testing when it is indicated, and practical changes that a family can sustain.

For Dr. Arora, that is where decades of science and his experience as a father meet. His work began with a child’s view of chemicals drifting through the air, continued through long nights beside a nuclear reactor, and became deeply personal when his own daughter needed clearer answers. Now he hopes the tools developed from that journey will help other families move from uncertainty toward informed action.

Motherhood has a way of changing the shape of a woman’s life. Sometimes the change is joyful and tender. Sometimes it is disorienting, exhausting, and humbling. Often, it is all of those things at once.

I recently sat down with Makena Sage and Gigi Sage, a mother-daughter coaching duo, co-authors of The Wisdom That Raised Me, and co-founders of Way of the Muse, a resource and podcast that helps women pursue their dreams with more clarity, courage, and intention. Their story is unique because they speak from both sides of the motherhood journey. Makena is a new mother navigating the early months of life with her baby daughter, while Gigi is a mother of five who has spent decades coaching women, couples, families, and leaders through personal transformation.
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Together, they offered a thoughtful, honest, and deeply practical conversation about becoming a mother, protecting your dreams, communicating with your partner, and remembering that the hardest seasons are still only seasons.

From a “Shadow Career” to the Work She Really Wanted

Before becoming a coach, Makena had a successful career in marketing. On the outside, it looked like she was doing well. But internally, something felt off. “I was going through basically burnout and a lot of questioning,” Makena shared. “I was having anxiety and panic attacks and wasn’t really sure what was going on.”

With Gigi’s support, Makena began looking more honestly at what she wanted. She realized that marketing had been what she described as a kind of “shadow career,” work that was close to her true calling, but not quite it. “I was doing marketing for coaches, so I was very close to the industry that I loved,” she said. “But it wasn’t quite it. I was hiding a little bit.”

Deep down, Makena had always wanted to coach women, work with her mother, and lead retreats around the world. Over the past eight years, that vision has become her real life. That idea of a shadow career may resonate with many mothers, especially those who feel successful on paper but quietly wonder whether they are living the life they actually want.

The Joy and Shock of Early Motherhood

Makena’s daughter was under a year at the time of our conversation, and she described herself as still very much in the middle of the transformation. “My daughter is nine months old,” she said. “She hasn’t even been out of my belly as long as she was in there.”

What surprised her most was the delight. “It brings out this just such a loving, nurturing side of yourself,” Makena said. “She’s fun, and she’s goofy, and we play together.”

At the same time, she was honest about the challenges, especially the loss of sleep, freedom, and personal time. “The lack of sleep, the lack of time freedom, any kind of time to yourself, especially if you’re nursing, it’s full on 24/7,” she said.
For Makena, one of the hardest parts was not only the physical adjustment of having a baby, but the impact on her marriage. She and her husband had been together for 10 years, and the first few months of parenthood tested their relationship in a new way. “It was the most challenging thing we’ve gone through in our 10 years together,” she said.
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Her husband loved their baby, but parenthood was a major shock. Makena also experienced postpartum anxiety in the beginning, and both of them had to adjust to the sudden loss of freedom, lack of sleep, and new roles at home.

Why Couples Need Space to Talk Honestly

Around four months postpartum, Makena and her husband visited Gigi in Houston. Gigi led them through an immersive coaching day, giving them space to talk openly about what was happening in their relationship. “They were having a very difficult time with communication, with intimacy, with every part of the relationship,” Gigi said.

Rather than jumping in with advice, Gigi created a space where both could be honest without judgment. Makena and her husband were able to express their worries and concerns through Gigi’s guidance and say things like, “This is what I’m feeling,” or “There are moments in this that I don’t really like, even though we love our kids.” That kind of honesty can be hard for parents to admit. We are often expected to feel only gratitude after having a baby. But the truth is that love and overwhelm can exist at the same time.

Makena said the experience helped them remember they were on the same team. “They both want the same thing,” Gigi said. “They have a beautiful little girl. It just gave them the place to open up and communicate.”

For parents who are struggling, Gigi emphasized the importance of creating space for open dialogue, ideally with support from a coach, therapist, or neutral third party.

Money, Marriage, and the Conversations Couples Should Not Avoid

One of the most vulnerable chapters in The Wisdom That Raised Me is about marriage and money. Makena said it was the hardest chapter to write and the one that almost did not make it into the book. “Money is one of those topics in relationship. It is one of the make or break topics for people,” she said.

Makena does not believe there is one perfect financial system for every couple. What matters is that both partners are honest about what they want and willing to talk about it before resentment builds. “So much of the time people try to go, ‘No, it’s fine. It’s not important,’” she said. “If you push that stuff down and you’re not honest about it, then it creates much bigger issues down the road.”

This becomes especially important after a baby arrives. Costs increase. Sleep decreases. A mother’s ability to work may change dramatically during pregnancy, birth recovery, breastfeeding, and postpartum healing. Roles that once felt equal may suddenly shift.

Gigi’s advice is to remember that partners are not opposing teams. “You’re on each other’s team,” she said. “There’s a way for everybody to get what they want, even though if it’s not talked through and really worked through, it feels like opposing teams.”

Gigi’s Unconventional Path as a Mother of Five

Gigi became a mother young. Her oldest and youngest children are 20 years apart, which means she has parented through many different decades and life stages.

Her life was not traditional. She built a career in personal development, led workshops around the world, homeschooled her children with support, traveled with them, and created a family life centered around learning through experience. “I’ve built and lived a very unconventional life,” Gigi said. “I didn’t do things the way most people did them.” Her children traveled internationally, learned from different cultures, participated in workshops, and grew up inside a family system that valued flexibility, communication, service, and personal growth. Makena said the beauty of her childhood was also in that unconventionality. “Gigi lived life on her terms in so many ways, and that’s what I write a lot about in the book,” Makena said.

At the same time, Makena acknowledged that every parenting choice has both gifts and tradeoffs. If she were to take one lesson into her own motherhood, it would be to keep the inspiration and adventure while adding a little more stability.

That honesty is one of the most refreshing parts of the conversation. Even beautiful childhoods are not perfect. Even loving parents make mistakes. Even thoughtful choices affect different children differently. “You’re going to mess up,” Gigi said. “You’re not going to get it right. You’re not going to please every child, and every child is different.”
Her advice to mothers is simple but powerful. “Be a loving mother,” she said. “If you’re a loving mother, you’re doing a great job.”

The Family Meeting That Starts with Acknowledgement

One of the most practical tools Gigi shared was the family “team meeting.” In her family, meetings were a way to build communication, connection, and teamwork.

The first step is not criticism. It is acknowledgement. Each person answers the question: What would you like to be acknowledged for? A child might say, “I made my bed.” A parent might say, “I got up early and made breakfast.” Everyone claps.

It sounds simple, but Gigi said it helps children and adults feel seen. “Often what happens is we’re running in our lives, or our kids are doing things, and we are saying, ‘Don’t do this, don’t do this,’” she explained. “If they have the chance to come to the table and say, ‘Hey, I did this and I’m really proud of it,’ everybody claps. There’s this kind of ownership and feeling of being seen and appreciated.”

Over time, families can also add acknowledgements of one another. A parent can acknowledge a child. A child can acknowledge a sibling. Partners can acknowledge each other.

Only after trust is built does Gigi suggest adding the next layer: sharing something that did not work. The key is that each person shares about themselves, not someone else. A child might say, “I cried when I was told to clean my room.” Everyone still claps.

The point is not shame. The point is awareness. “What did you do that worked, and what did you do that didn’t work?” Gigi said. “They learned to be able to see where they maybe had an attitude or messed up, but in a way that got the same amount of attention as what they did that really worked.”

Makena now uses this practice with her own growing family and nanny. She said it creates a place where people can talk before small issues become bigger ones.

The Power of Appreciating Your Partner

For couples, Makena and Gigi suggested a simple 30-day practice: acknowledge one thing your partner did each day. It does not have to be dramatic. It just has to be real. Makena gave an example: “When you took the baby so I could take a nap for 30 minutes, that changed my whole day.” The practice helps rebuild trust and connection, especially during the exhausting early stages of parenthood when both people may feel unseen.

Makena also shared one more piece of advice Gigi gave her and her husband during their difficult postpartum season: cuddle for five minutes every day. “That touch and that kind of physical intimacy, so much goes out the window when you have a kid,” Makena said. “It doesn’t even have to be intimacy, intimacy. Even just the touch, having that physical contact for five minutes each day starts to build a bridge.”

For exhausted parents, five minutes may be more realistic than a date night, a long conversation, or a weekend away. Sometimes rebuilding connection begins with something small enough to actually do.

Asking for What You Want Without Blaming

Acknowledgement does not mean pretending everything is fine. Makena and Gigi were clear that healthy communication is not about people pleasing, avoiding conflict, or going along with everyone else’s expectations. Instead, it creates a foundation for harder conversations.

One of the skills they teach is asking for what you want without complaining, blaming, or criticizing. For example, instead of saying, “Your family is too much,” a person might say, “When we visit your family, sometimes I feel overwhelmed. I love your family, and I’m also longing for us to create some of our own rituals. How could we do that?”

That distinction matters. One approach creates defensiveness. The other opens a door. “What do you want?” Gigi said. “It needs to be really what do you want. In your heart and soul, what do you want? That’s what you communicate to your partner.”

For the Mother Who Feels Like She is in the “Goo”

Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Makena and Gigi what they would say to new moms who had careers and dreams before having a baby, but now feel exhausted, sleep deprived, overwhelmed, or even hopeless.

Gigi’s first response was grounding. “It’s a season,” she said. When you are in it, it can feel like the rest of your life. But the newborn stage, the sleepless stage, the disoriented stage, and the “Who am I now?” stage will not last forever.
Gigi encourages mothers to begin gently asking: What do I want now? What brings me alive? What kind of support do I need?

Makena described this transition as being in between worlds. “You have one foot in one world and one foot in another world, and you’re not quite yet in either,” she said.

She calls this stage “being in the mush,” like the caterpillar that has not yet become a butterfly. “You’ve just turned into goo,” Makena said. “And you’re like, I hope there is a world out there. I hope I emerge from this goop someday.”

That image may be exactly what many mothers need. Not every season is a blooming season. Some seasons are messy, unclear, and uncomfortable. Some seasons are about dissolving an old identity before a new one has fully formed.

Makena connected this to matrescence, the process of becoming a mother. “We’ve got to become the goo before we can grow our wings and become the butterfly,” she said.

For the mothers who feel stuck in the goo right now, Makena and Gigi’s message is not to rush, force, or shame yourself back into your old life. Instead, recognize the transformation, ask for support, stay connected to what brings you alive, and trust that this season is not the end of your story. It may be the beginning of a new one.

When Maryam Mehrtash walked onto the Disney lot for her first day as a Hollywood executive, she wasn’t just arriving at a new job. She was stepping into a dream that began decades earlier when a little girl who had fled Iran learned English by watching Disney cartoons.
​
Today, Maryam is a former Disney executive, former Vice President at Paramount, author, entrepreneur, and mother of two young children. But behind the impressive resume is a story of resilience that started long before Hollywood. “I actually started learning how to speak English through storytelling and watching Disney cartoons,” Maryam shared. “It was a full circle moment for me when I started working at Disney because so much of how I was introduced to American culture and American storytelling was through Disney.”

A Family Built on Sacrifice

Maryam’s story begins in Iran during one of the country’s most turbulent periods. Her parents fled following the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War in the late 1980s, searching for safety and opportunity. During their escape, Maryam and her mother were accidentally separated from her father and ended up in a refugee camp for months before he was able to find them.

Her father had one overriding goal: to create a different future for his daughter. “He didn’t know at the time what gender I was going to be,” Maryam recalled. “But he had this feeling that he was going to have a daughter. His goal became getting us out of Iran so that his daughter was going to have a life where she wasn’t silenced and she had opportunity in life to become who she wanted to be.”

The family eventually settled in Canada, where her parents built businesses from scratch despite speaking little English. “I watched my parents hustle,” Maryam said. “That’s what, from such a young age, ingrained in me the ethics of hard work and the ethics of really going after your dreams.”

Those lessons would become the foundation of everything that followed.

Chasing Hollywood

Like many children of immigrants, Maryam grew up balancing practicality with passion. She loved storytelling and theater, but her parents encouraged her to pursue a stable career. Rather than choosing between creativity and business, she found a way to embrace both.

After graduating at the top of her business school class, she began working in creative agencies in Canada. Eventually, she realized she had reached a ceiling. If she wanted a career in entertainment, she would need to take a leap.
Thirteen years ago, she packed up her life and moved to Los Angeles. That decision led to leadership roles at KTLA, CBS Interactive, Paramount+, and eventually Disney, where she oversaw global marketing promotions and partnerships for major franchises including Marvel Studios and 20th Century Studios.

Yet one of her most meaningful moments wasn’t a promotion. It was simply arriving. “I remember walking on the lot about a year ago,” she said. “I was just completely entrenched in the magic of Disney.” As she toured the historic studio, she found herself reconnecting with the child who had once dreamed of being there. “It was a surreal moment,” she said. “I felt that little girl again.”

Motherhood Arrives Alongside a Pandemic

Maryam became a mother in 2020, just months after the world shut down. Her daughter was born during the height of the COVID pandemic. Her son followed two years later.

Like many mothers, she was navigating career ambitions and newborn life simultaneously. Unlike most, she was also helping launch Paramount+, one of the largest streaming platforms in the industry.

Despite having six months of maternity leave available, she chose to return after ten weeks. “I felt that I had a big responsibility on my shoulders as an executive,” she explained. “I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to be there for this big moment in my career where we were launching a streaming platform.”

The pandemic created challenges, but it also provided flexibility that previous generations of working mothers never had. Maryam could breastfeed between Zoom meetings, work from home, and receive support from her mother, who temporarily moved in to help care for the baby. Looking back, she sees both sides of the experience. “The blessing was that I had a lot of time at home with my child even though I had a very demanding job.”

The Myth of Doing It All

Ask Maryam how she manages a demanding career, motherhood, writing, and a growing Substack community, and her answer is surprisingly simple.

She doesn’t believe anyone truly does it all. “I think the secret to being able to do it all, because I actually don’t think that exists, is relentless prioritization.” Her system centers around identifying the three most important tasks each day and protecting time for them on her calendar.

Motherhood, she says, taught her to become ruthless about where she spends her energy. “Life is about trade-offs and you can’t have it all.”

That mindset extends into her marriage as well. Rather than silently carrying the invisible workload many mothers shoulder, Maryam and her husband regularly discuss responsibilities, schedules, and mental load. “I’ve sat down with my husband and I’ve done this,” she said. “I said, this is all of the invisible work that I do. What part of this list can you take off of my load?” The exercise brought visibility to work that often goes unnoticed and created a stronger sense of partnership.

Courage Is a Muscle

A few years ago, Maryam faced a major professional setback when she was laid off from Paramount. She had two young children, an uncertain future, and plenty of reasons to doubt herself.

Instead, she chose to build something new.

Today, she is writing her first book and growing her Substack newsletter, This Is Not a Memo, which has attracted thousands of subscribers. What changed? She started taking small steps. “Courage is a muscle that takes practice,” she said. “You develop it through doing more and more reps.” Rather than waiting until she felt confident, she committed to writing for twenty minutes a day.

Those daily sessions eventually became articles, a newsletter, a literary agent, and a book project. “I just started writing every day for 20 minutes,” she said. “That really built momentum and gave me the confidence.”

The Legacy She Wants to Leave

When Maryam talks about success, she rarely focuses on titles or achievements.
Instead, she talks about example.

Her mother modeled resilience. Her father modeled vision. Together, they showed her what was possible.
Now she hopes to pass that same lesson to her children. “I want her to see that I’m following my dreams,” Maryam said about her daughter. “She can do whatever she wants, but I just want her to see me continue doing it even after having two kids.”

Perhaps that is the thread connecting every chapter of Maryam’s journey, from refugee camps to Disney, from executive boardrooms to bedtime routines.

Dreams don’t stop when life gets complicated. They evolve. And often, the courage to pursue them begins with a single small step.
​
As Maryam reminds mothers who feel overwhelmed or stuck: “Just start doing it. Don’t overthink.”

When Nasha Fitter talks about motherhood, she does not sugarcoat it. She speaks honestly about exhaustion, resentment, ambition, grief, marriage, and survival. But she also speaks with remarkable clarity about joy, resilience, friendship, and purpose.

Nasha is a Harvard MBA, entrepreneur, rare disease advocate, and mother of three. Her youngest daughter, Amara, was born with a devastating genetic condition called FOXG1 syndrome, a rare neurodevelopmental disorder that affects mobility, communication, muscle tone, and seizures. What began as a terrifying diagnosis eventually became the catalyst for building two organizations that now support thousands of families navigating rare disease care.
​
In our conversation for Trust Me Mom, Nasha shared what it was really like to go from ambitious startup founder to full-time caregiver almost overnight, how she saved her marriage during unimaginable stress, and why exhausted mothers need to stop glorifying self-sacrifice.

“I always wanted to do something really great with my life”

Nasha grew up in an immigrant family after moving to the United States from India as a child. Education and ambition were deeply woven into her upbringing. “I was ambitious just naturally from a young age,” she said. “I always wanted to do something really great with my life.”

That drive showed up early. At just 13 years old, she convinced an accountant to let her work for free simply so she could learn. She built an exciting global career, eventually launching an education technology company called Schoolie while raising two young children. Like many ambitious women, she found herself balancing growing professional success with the invisible labor of motherhood. “It was especially hard for me and women like me who are very ambitious to then deal with motherhood and what does that mean and your love for your child, but your love for your career,” she said.

Although she grew up in a household where both parents shared responsibilities fairly equally, marriage introduced a different reality. “My husband’s career always ended up taking precedence,” she admitted. “You resent being at home doing the housework because no one’s doing it and you resent then also working and also having to do everything.”

The diagnosis that changed everything

When Nasha became unexpectedly pregnant with her third child, life was already stretched thin. She was fundraising for her company’s Series A round while caring for three children under four years old.

Then Amara began having seizures.

Within months, genetic testing confirmed FOXG1 syndrome. Doctors told Nasha her daughter might never walk or talk and could remain cognitively at the level of a one-year-old for life. “They told me there were no therapies. There were no cures,” she recalled. “No one is going to focus on this condition because there’s only a few hundred patients we even know of in America.”

The experience shattered the life she thought she was building. “It was honestly very difficult because all of a sudden I had three children under the age of four,” she said. “And then everything changed dramatically.”

Those early months became pure survival. “I was just trying to keep my daughter alive, honestly,” Nasha said.
​
At the time, she had little family support nearby. Her husband’s demanding new job required constant travel, and she was running on almost no sleep while caring for a medically fragile child. “She was on a medication where she would wake up every two hours at night,” Nasha shared. “I just was not sleeping at all and still managing my other two young children.”

Learning to let grief move through her

One of the most powerful moments in our conversation came when Nasha described finally allowing herself to fully feel grief after months of suppressing it.  “I sat in a dark closet for about five hours,” she said. “And I just said, 'Okay, I am going to just let all of the grief [in]. I'm going to feel it.”

Instead of continuing to push away fear and sadness, she allowed herself to fully experience them. “The thing with grief is so fascinating,” she explained. “If you let it come in you, it will go through you. It will not stay, but you have to allow it to come in you, and you have to let it process. And then it will leave.”

That moment became a turning point. “I told myself, I am not going to be a victim of my circumstance from this moment onward,” she said.

I hope her words resonate with and inspire other mothers who try to numb their pain, push through exhaustion, or pretend everything is fine while silently drowning.

Why mothers need more help and less guilt

Throughout the interview, Nasha repeatedly emphasized something many women struggle to hear: mothers are not supposed to do everything alone. “The society we live in now has focused on independence to a fault,” she said. “Women with this whole DIY mentality, do it yourself. And there is a badge of honor in being exhausted.”

She believes that mentality is harming women physically, emotionally, and mentally. “A child needs a stable, happy parent more than anything,” she said. “We don’t need to do everything for our children to be good parents.”
Nasha openly admits she wishes she had hired help much sooner. “Even if you have to put your whole salary to just having help in those early years, it’s worth it,” she said.
​
Today, she relies on caregivers and support systems that allow her to continue running two organizations while still being present for her family. One of the caregivers she hired during those early crisis years has now been with her family for nearly a decade. “If I didn’t have that help, I couldn’t run two organizations,” she said. “That is the brutal fact.”

Building something that did not exist

Rather than accepting the lack of resources available for rare disease families, Nasha decided to create them herself.
She co-founded the FOXG1 Research Foundation, which is now advancing a gene therapy into clinical trials. She also launched Citizen Health, a technology platform that helps rare disease families manage daily care, access resources, and connect with advocacy communities. “We are building the tools to help families manage day-to-day care,” she explained.

Citizen Health now supports over 8,000 patients and more than 100 advocacy groups. “I had to create these opportunities because they didn’t exist,” she said.

For Nasha, pain became fuel for purpose. “Whenever you’re going through something, look at it as an opportunity to then create something that can help yourself and help others.”

The marriage survival strategy no one talks about

Families raising children with special needs often face extraordinary pressure, and divorce rates within these communities can be high. Nasha and her husband managed not only to survive but to strengthen their relationship. “The lucky thing for me is my husband and I are very in love with each other,” she said.

She credits honest communication and flexibility as essential tools. “What my husband and I have done is we accelerate and decelerate at different times,” she explained. Sometimes his career took priority while she worked part time. Later, they reversed roles so she could accelerate professionally. “It is very hard to have three children, one with special needs, and two parents with big jobs,” she said.

Nasha also emphasized the importance of recognizing each partner’s strengths rather than demanding perfect equality in every task. “You can outsource the cleaning. You can outsource the cooking even,” she said. “But you can’t outsource being there.”

Friendship as survival

One thing Nasha spoke about repeatedly was the importance of female friendships. “My friends are everything to me,” she said.

Whether it is weekend getaways, reading alone for two uninterrupted hours on Saturdays, or simply getting her hair washed every few weeks, Nasha now treats her own wellbeing as non-negotiable. “You have to set your boundaries,” she said. “You have to kind of treat yourself at that same level.”

She believes women often prioritize everyone else’s needs while abandoning their own. “I stopped reading for a really long time because I didn’t have time,” she shared. “And I realized what an impact that it had upon me.”

For mothers who feel isolated, overwhelmed, or guilty for needing rest, her message is simple: taking care of yourself is not selfish. It is necessary.

Hope for the future

Today, Amara walks, communicates through an iPad, and continues to exceed expectations. “No FOXG1 children walk,” one physician once told Nasha. But Amara did. Nasha remains hopeful that ongoing clinical trials may bring even more breakthroughs for children like her daughter. More importantly, she hopes mothers stop seeing themselves as failures for needing support.
​
“You human beings have the capacity to get through anything,” she said. “We absolutely can get through anything.”
And perhaps that is what makes Nasha’s story so powerful. It is not just about surviving unimaginable hardship. It is about refusing to disappear inside it.

Women are often taught to endure. To give more. To sacrifice quietly. To hold everything together for everyone else while ignoring themselves in the process.
 
Relationship coach Ada Gore helps women stop self-abandonment and reconnect with themselves emotionally, spiritually, and relationally. In a deeply personal conversation on the Trust Me Mom podcast, she shared her own story of burnout, divorce, motherhood, relationships, and healing, while offering women practical ways to reclaim their power and stop living purely in survival mode.
 
For Ada, the journey began with a devastating moment that initially felt like failure.

​The Firing That Changed Everything
 
In 2017, Ada was a single mother working as a manager at a dental practice. She had poured herself completely into her career. She transformed the struggling business into a profitable operation, expanded the team, and dedicated herself entirely to success.
 
Then, two weeks before Christmas, she was fired. “It felt like my whole world fell apart because I had invested so much,” Ada said. At the time, she had built her identity around being a strong, independent single mother who could do everything herself. Losing the job shattered that identity and forced her into a painful period of self-reflection.
 
What she realized was startling: she did not actually know who she was outside of performing roles for other people. “I had been so locked into what I have to be,” she explained. “I was being who I thought I needed to be in order to be a good manager. But I was not being my true self.”
 
The physical consequences of that disconnection had already begun to surface. She experienced anxiety attacks, hormonal issues, digestive problems, and chronic stress. Her body was demanding that she slow down. That moment became the catalyst for a decade-long journey of healing and self-discovery.
 
What Self-Abandonment Really Looks Like
 
Many women assume self-abandonment only applies to passive people pleasers who never speak up. Ada argues it is often much more subtle.
 
She describes herself as a “shapeshifter,” someone who could instantly adapt to any environment, personality, or expectation in order to get approval or results. “I can read a room and adjust my behavior based on the temperature of the room,” she said. “I didn’t realize I was doing it.”
​
For countless women, self-abandonment becomes second nature. It can look like:

• Ignoring your own exhaustion
• Constantly prioritizing others’ needs
• Suppressing emotions
• Staying in unhappy relationships
• Over-functioning in marriage and parenting
• Seeking validation through achievement
• Dismissing your own desires before you even voice them

 
Ada believes many women learned these patterns in childhood as survival mechanisms. “If you know how to be trapped and miserable and broke, you will cling to that,” she explained. “Not because you consciously want better, but because your nervous system knows how to handle it.”

The Scarcity Mindset Keeping Women Stuck
 
One of the most powerful parts of the conversation centered on fear, especially financial fear. When Ada lost her job, she had almost no savings. As a single mother, the uncertainty was terrifying. Yet she says that experience taught her a life-changing lesson about trust and survival. “The resources show up,” she said repeatedly throughout the interview.
 
She described receiving unexpected tax refunds, surprise financial opportunities, and support arriving from unlikely places during periods when she believed she was completely unsafe.
 
According to Ada, many women stay trapped in unhappy relationships or unfulfilling lives because they believe survival depends on external security such as a job, a husband, or financial predictability. But she argues that true safety is internal. “Your safety does not come from your job. Your safety does not come from your husband,” she said. “Your safety is an internal knowing that you are a beloved being, that you are made of love, that you were made with love, that there is a benevolent, loving force that cares for you, and that there are resources everywhere, things that you can’t even think of.”
 
This perspective challenges deeply ingrained beliefs many women carry about dependence, scarcity, and fear.
 
Why Women Ignore Their Own Needs
 
Throughout the interview, Ada repeatedly returned to one theme: women dismiss themselves constantly in tiny everyday moments.
 
She gave examples many mothers instantly recognize:

• Eating the burnt toast while serving everyone else fresh food
• Holding their bladder for hours
• Never taking breaks
• Skipping hobbies or self-care because it feels “selfish”
• Running on exhaustion while caring for everyone else

 
Over time, those small moments accumulate into resentment.
 
“Resentment is the canary in the coal mine,” Ada said. “It’s the alert that you have abandoned yourself.” She explained that many women become angry at their husbands or children without recognizing the deeper issue underneath: they are not allowing themselves to have needs at all.
 
One example she shared involved a wife who secretly longs to attend a yoga or dance class but continually talks herself out of it because of money, childcare, or guilt. When her husband later leaves to play basketball with friends, resentment explodes. “The problem is not that he went to play basketball,” Ada explained. “The problem is that you did not go to dance class.”

The Power of Reflective Writing
 
Ada believes one of the most transformative tools available to women is also one of the simplest: journaling. She credits reflective writing with helping her process trauma, understand her patterns, and reclaim herself emotionally.
 
According to Ada, writing creates two important psychological shifts:
 

• Self-distancing, which allows women to observe experiences instead of drowning inside them
• Self-witnessing, which helps women finally see and validate their own emotions

 
“You need a place where you can start to name your emotions,” she said. “I feel angry. I feel resentful. I don’t feel supported.” For women conditioned to suppress their needs, simply admitting those emotions can be revolutionary.
 
Healing Generational Trauma
 
The conversation also explored how family dynamics shape women’s relationship patterns. Ada described growing up with emotional neglect and learning early that her needs were inconvenient. Her mother, however, eventually became an important example of resilience by returning to school for nursing after facing financial instability in her marriage.
 
Healing generational trauma, Ada explained, requires women to hold two truths simultaneously:
 

• Their parents may have done their best
• They were still hurt
  
  

That balance between compassion and accountability is central to her philosophy. “Without accountability, there’s no growth. Without compassion, there’s no connection,” she said. Rather than bypassing pain or remaining trapped in blame, Ada encourages women to process their experiences honestly through writing, reflection, and emotional awareness.
 
Dating After Divorce: “You Are the Prize”
 
When discussing relationships, Ada did not shy away from controversial opinions. She believes many women settle because they are afraid of loneliness and because they underestimate their own value.
 
“If you are a single woman, you need to stop giving and start receiving,” she said. Her advice for dating includes:
 

• Do not chase emotionally unavailable men
• Stop ignoring red flags
• Avoid pursuing men who show inconsistent effort
• Learn the power of saying no
• Focus on self-worth instead of validation

 
“You only need one good man,” she said. “You don’t need a hundred.”
 
Ada believes women who deeply love and respect themselves naturally become more discerning and magnetic in relationships.
 
Marriage as a “Growth Technology”
 
Perhaps the most nuanced part of the discussion involved unhappy marriages. Ada emphasized that not every marriage should survive. She strongly stated that abuse of any kind changes the equation entirely.
 
However, in non-abusive relationships, she believes many marriages can transform if women stop over-functioning and begin addressing their own patterns. “A marriage is a technology to help you grow,” she explained.
 
She described how women often unknowingly create dynamics where they manage everything emotionally and practically, leaving their partners passive and dependent. Healing begins when women stop controlling everything and begin taking responsibility for their own emotional well-being instead.
 
That process can feel terrifying because it often means allowing discomfort, mistakes, and uncertainty. “You have to stop holding it all together,” she said. “As long as you keep gripping it, it stays the same.”
 
At the same time, Ada stressed that women should never stay trapped in deeply unhappy marriages purely for appearances or obligation. “You are the operant power in your life,” she said. “You do have agency.”
 
Learning to Live Instead of Survive
 
Ultimately, Ada’s message is about far more than relationships. It is about reclaiming humanity, identity, and emotional freedom. Many women spend years living in survival mode, convincing themselves that depletion is normal and sacrifice equals love. Ada challenges women to imagine something radically different.
 
“You are not here just to survive,” she said. “You are here to live your life and to live a good life.” That transformation does not happen overnight. It begins with small acts of self-respect:
 

• Taking a break
• Resting without guilt
• Saying no
• Honoring emotions
• Asking for help
• Believing you deserve more

 
For women trapped in cycles of resentment, exhaustion, or fear, Ada believes healing starts with one powerful shift: stop abandoning yourself. And perhaps the greatest act of love a woman can offer herself, her children, and the world is finally choosing not to disappear inside her own life.

When Sasha Romary first came to France as a teenager, she was simply experiencing life abroad. 20 years later, she is raising two bilingual boys and coaching parents.  

On a recent episode of Trust Me Mom (Season 2, episode 40), Sasha shared her fascinating journey from the United States to Paris, the cultural differences she’s observed in parenting and education, and the lessons she’s learned as both a mother and parenting coach.
​
What emerged from the conversation was not simply a comparison between American and French parenting styles, but a deeper discussion about independence, structure, neurodivergence, and the pressure modern parents face everywhere.

Growing Up Across Three Languages

Sasha’s family life today is deeply multicultural. She and her French husband met at an international school in Paris, built their relationship in English, and later lived in Singapore and Germany before returning to France. Their household now runs bilingually: Sasha speaks English to the children, while her husband speaks French. For a time, while living in Germany, their children were actually navigating three languages simultaneously.

One of the biggest misconceptions Sasha often hears, especially from American parents, is that bilingual children experience language delays. But she shared a perspective from her German pediatrician that completely reframed the issue.

If a child knows the word “shoe” in English, French, and German, that is not one word in their vocabulary. It is three separate words. While bilingual children may appear to use fewer words in one language, their total language processing is often far more advanced.

Sasha says the real challenge isn’t capability. It’s consistency. Because French dominates social life and school, she must intentionally protect English at home. “I can’t be lazy about it,” she explained. “If I’m speaking English to them, they need to respond in English too.”

The French School System: Independence First

Perhaps the most striking cultural difference Sasha described is how early French schools expect children to become independent.

In France, school officially begins at age three. Children are expected to attend full days almost immediately, arrive potty trained, manage long school hours, and begin functioning independently from parents. For many American parents, that level of separation feels abrupt.

French schools operate with a philosophy that school belongs to the child, not the parent. Parents typically drop children at the gate and have very limited interaction with teachers outside a few annual conferences.
​
Sasha describes the system as both impressive and difficult. On one hand, children develop confidence and autonomy remarkably early. By age 10, many students are expected to organize their own study schedules and manage homework independently.
​
On the other hand, the rigidity of the system can create challenges for children who learn differently. “The expectation is that the child adapts to the system,” Sasha said, “not the other way around.”

When Neurodivergent Kids Don’t Fit the Mold

Sasha’s older son has been diagnosed with ADHD. She explained that while French schools do recognize learning differences, support often requires formal medical documentation before accommodations are provided. Until that diagnosis exists, many parents simply receive feedback that their child has “concentration problems” and needs to improve behavior.

For Sasha, the experience highlighted a major contrast with the American educational system, where accommodations are more legally protected and intervention often begins earlier. She ultimately chose private school for her son because the traditional public-school structure was not working for him.

Her story reflects a broader parenting truth: systems that work beautifully for some children can be deeply stressful for others.

French Parenting and Food Culture
​
One aspect of French parenting Sasha genuinely admires is the culture surrounding food. French school lunches are full multi-course meals with vegetables, proteins, cheese, salads, and dessert, not separate “kid food.” Children are expected to eat what is served, and parents generally do not prepare multiple meals to accommodate picky eating.
​
Sasha embraces this philosophy at home as well. “It is my job as the parent to decide when we eat and what we eat,” she explained. “But it is your child’s job to decide how much of that they are going to eat.” This approach encourages children to develop a healthier, less emotionally charged relationship with food, something many overwhelmed parents may find refreshing.

The Hidden Pressure on Parents
​
Despite the independence French culture promotes in children, Sasha says the pressure placed on parents can feel intense. Teachers frequently comment on sleep habits, eating habits, and behavior. Parents may be told their child appeared tired in class or didn’t eat enough protein at breakfast.

For Sasha, it sometimes feels as though every challenge at school somehow becomes the parent’s responsibility to fix, even when the parent isn’t physically present during the day.

The feedback can feel blunt by American standards, but it also reflects how deeply French culture values routine, structure, and self-regulation.

Why Potty Training Becomes a Power Struggle

As a potty-training consultant, Sasha also shared one of the biggest mistakes parents make during toilet training: constantly asking children whether they need to go. According to Sasha, potty training is both physiological and behavioral. Children must learn to recognize the body’s signals independently.

When parents repeatedly ask, “Do you need to go potty?” toddlers often automatically say no simply to maintain control. More importantly, Sasha says accidents are not failures. They are learning experiences. Children begin connecting physical sensations with the need to use the bathroom only after experiencing those moments firsthand.

She also addressed one of the most common but rarely discussed potty-training struggles: fear of pooping on the toilet. Many toddlers become anxious because the experience feels physically unfamiliar and emotionally vulnerable. Sitting exposed on a potty, rather than standing in a diaper, can feel overwhelming. Rather than treating it as defiance, Sasha encourages parents to approach the issue like any other fear, with patience, exposure, reassurance, and support.
​
What Parents Everywhere Can Learn

Throughout the conversation, one thing became clear: there is no perfect parenting system. French parenting offers beautiful lessons in independence, resilience, structure, and food culture. American parenting often provides more flexibility, emotional support, and accommodation for individual learning differences.

But regardless of country, parents are still navigating the same universal questions:

• How do we raise confident children without overwhelming them?
• How do we encourage independence while still offering support?
• And how do we help children thrive when they don’t fit neatly into the system around them?

For Sasha, the answer lies somewhere in the middle, combining structure with empathy and expectations with understanding.

And perhaps that balance is exactly what modern parenting needs most.

You can find Sasha Romary on Instagram at @SashaRomaryParenting and learn more about her coaching services at SashaRomary.com.

When I sat down with Stefanie O’Connell, award-winning journalist and author of The Ambition Penalty, I wanted to unpack the assumptions surrounding career advancement for women, especially moms.
​
Stefanie’s work focuses on workplace inequality, and one of the first things she challenged in our conversation was the story we have all been told for years. “We have these myths and misconceptions,” she said. “Like women just aren’t confident, or they aren’t interested in high-paying careers or leadership roles. And yet the data does not support that in any meaningful way.” That insight reframes the problem entirely. This is not about women lacking ambition or drive. It is about how that ambition is received.

From Personal Finance to a Bigger Question

Stefanie did not start her career studying workplace inequality. She began acting in theater, touring internationally and doing work she loved. But financially, it was unstable, and that pushed her to start writing about money. “I thought if I could just figure out how money works, then I could do what I love and have a life I love,” she shared.

Over time, her perspective shifted. Budgeting and saving could only go so far. “You can save a lot, you can spend less,” she explained, “but if you’re not making enough money, there’s only so much you can cut back.”

That realization led her to a deeper question. Why are women consistently earning less, even when they follow all the recommended advice? What she found was not a confidence gap. It was a consequence gap. “It wasn’t that women weren’t asking,” she said. “It was that they were punished when they did.”
​
In practice, Stefanie found out that punishment does not show up as something obvious or formal. It shows up in how women are perceived and treated afterward: “The man is always perceived as being better qualified, and the woman is more likely to be perceived as not being the right fit.” Women who advocate for themselves are more likely to be labeled as difficult, not a team player, or not the right cultural fit. Instead of being rewarded, it can lead to fewer opportunities, less support, and slower advancement. Over time, those reactions shape careers in ways that are hard to trace back to a single moment, but very real in their impact.

How Small Bias Becomes a Big Gap

One of the most powerful parts of Stefanie’s research is how she explains inequality not as a single event, but as a pattern that compounds over time. For example, women often need more education to access the same roles. Their work is more likely to be undervalued. Their contributions are more easily overlooked. “Their performance is consistently undervalued,” Stefanie explained. “Men are more likely to get credit for women’s work, and women’s work is more likely to be seen as less valuable.”

What makes this especially important is how small the initial bias can be.

Stefanie described a study that simulated a corporate structure where men and women entered at the same level and performed equally. When women’s performance was undervalued by just 3%, the long-term impact was dramatic. She explained that a woman would need 17 performance review cycles to reach the executive level, while her male counterpart would need only 8. She would need to complete 208 successful projects to advance, while he would need roughly half that number.
​
It is not one missed opportunity. It is thousands of extra hours over a career just to be seen as equally qualified.

 
​When Progress Triggers More Bias

Another surprising insight from Stefanie’s work is that progress does not always reduce bias. In some cases, it can increase it.

Stefanie mentioned a study that analyzed about 1,500 firms, and once a woman landed a top-level job at a company, the chances of another woman being hired to a high-ranking position dropped by about 50%. “When there was a woman on the evaluation committee, men’s bias against women applicants got worse,” Stefanie explained. The presence of a woman in a position of authority appeared to trigger stronger bias among male evaluators.

Rethinking Work-Life Balance

The conversation around working mothers often centers on balance. Can women have it all? What are they willing to sacrifice?

Stefanie challenged that framing directly. “There’s a reason why debates about having it all and work-life balance are almost exclusively had among women,” she said. “It’s because men who have it all typically get it at women’s expense.”

For men, having both a career and a family is not treated as a tradeoff. It is expected. In fact, it is often rewarded. “There’s a fatherhood bonus,” Stefanie explained. “Men are rewarded when they become fathers, while mothers’ careers are more likely to stall.”

The contrast becomes even clearer when looking at time. Statistically, men consistently have more leisure time than women, even in households where both partners work. The difference is not marginal. It amounts to hundreds of additional hours per year.

The Role of Paternity Leave and Cultural Norms

One of the most telling insights Stefanie shared was about paternity leave and how cultural expectations shape behavior. There is a common assumption that men do not take parental leave because they do not want to or because it does not align with their priorities. But the research suggests something different.

“The best predictor of whether men took paternity leave was what other men did,” she said. It was not about personal preference or even family needs. It was about social norms and what was considered acceptable among peers. This highlights a broader issue. Workplace culture does not just shape women’s experiences. It also limits how men show up at home. As long as caregiving is seen as incompatible with masculinity or career ambition, the imbalance at home will continue, and that imbalance will carry over into the workplace.

The Double Bind at Work

For women, the challenge is not just about access to opportunities. It is also about how they are perceived once they are there. “There is no right way for a woman to behave in the workplace,” Stefanie said. If a woman is assertive, she risks being seen as difficult. If she is collaborative, she risks being overlooked. The same behavior that is rewarded in men can be penalized in women.

This double standard shows up across many dimensions, including age and communication style. It creates an environment where women are constantly adjusting, but never quite aligning with expectations.

Beyond Individual Solutions

For years, the dominant message to women has been to fix themselves. Be more confident. Ask for more. Lean in. More recently, a different narrative has emerged, encouraging women to step back or opt out.

Stefanie sees both approaches as limited. “They’re both selling the idea that you can self-optimize your way out of inequality,” she said. But if the system produces unequal outcomes regardless of the path, then the issue is not the individual path. It is the structure itself. “The way you change a system is with collective action,” she said. “It is not something you do alone.”

What This Means for Working Moms

As our conversation came to a close, I asked Stefanie a question that feels very real for many of us. Can a working mom actually win?

Her answer was not about choosing between career and family. It was about shifting how we think about both. “What I want people to do is live more in alignment with what they want,” she said. “And think about how they are either reinforcing the system or challenging it.” That might mean making different choices at work, at home, or in how we raise our children. It might mean questioning assumptions that have gone unchallenged for generations.
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There is no simple solution. But there is clarity in understanding that the pressure many working mothers feel is not just personal. It is structural. And recognizing that may be the first step toward changing it.

What if the struggles so many mothers face are not personal failures, but systemic ones?
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I sat down with Alexa Starks, founder and CEO of Executive Moms and Mothered Magazine, to unpack one of the most pressing and often misunderstood topics of our time: why modern systems fail working mothers and what real change could look like. Alexa’s story is both deeply personal and widely relatable. And it reveals a truth many women feel but rarely articulate.

From Corporate Climber to System Challenger

Alexa spent over a decade climbing the corporate ladder in advertising. She was ambitious, strategic, and clear about her path forward. Promotions were mapped out. Success felt inevitable.

Then she became a mother.

Her maternity leave and return-to-work experience were not just difficult. They were unsupported, isolating, and ultimately career-altering. She found herself sidelined, overlooked for promotions, and pushed out of opportunities she had worked years to earn.
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At first, she thought it was just her experience. Then she started talking to other working moms. What she discovered changed everything. “This is a very common thing,” she realized. “I refuse to accept that.” That refusal became the foundation of her company, Executive Moms, and later, a broader mission to redesign the system itself.

The Problem Is Not You

One of the most powerful insights Alexa shared is something many mothers need to hear: “The hardest part about motherhood is we internalize systemic failures as our personal failures.” Women often blame themselves for feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, or unable to “do it all.” But according to Alexa, the real issue is not individual capability. It is structural design.

In the United States, many mothers return to work within weeks of giving birth. Affordable childcare is limited. Community support is fragmented. And workplaces are still largely designed around a model that assumes someone else is at home managing the family.

That “someone else” has historically been a woman.

Resilience or Survival

We often celebrate mothers as resilient. And they are. But Alexa challenges us to look deeper. Women are not just resilient by nature. They are often forced into resilience by necessity. There is a difference between thriving and surviving.

In other countries, like the Netherlands and South Korea, postpartum care can include in-home support, community systems, and structured recovery time. In contrast, many American mothers are navigating sleep deprivation, physical recovery, and career pressure simultaneously. “That’s not true resilience,” Alexa explains. “That’s survival.”

Understanding “Matrescence”

Another concept gaining attention is “matrescence,” the process of becoming a mother. It is not just about giving birth. It is a full psychological, emotional, and identity transformation. Much like adolescence, matrescence takes time. It evolves as children grow and as mothers redefine their priorities, ambitions, and sense of self.

The problem is that society does not allow space for that evolution. Women are often expected to return to their pre-baby identity almost immediately. But that version of them no longer exists.
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Alexa reflected, “It takes so long to fully become who you are as a mother, and that’s still going to evolve as you go through the different phases… Who I am now that my kids are toddlers is different than who I was at six months postpartum, and it’s probably going to be different in two years, in 10 years, when my kids are teenagers… And that’s where we see a lot of women struggle, especially with going back to work, because they’re trying to go back to that pre-baby version of themselves.”

A System Designed Without Women

To understand the root of the issue, Alexa points to the broader structure of society. Many of our systems were designed by men, for men, during a time when women were not fully participating in the workforce. From healthcare research, including tampons and other menstrual products that weren’t tested with real human blood until 2023, to workplace norms, male experiences have historically been the default. The traditional nine-to-five workday, for example, aligns with school schedules that assume one parent is available for caregiving.

When women entered the workforce in larger numbers, the system did not evolve with them. Instead, women were expected to adapt.

What Could a Better System Look Like

Alexa introduces an important distinction. The alternative to a patriarchal system is not a stereotypical matriarchy where women dominate. It is a more balanced, community-centered approach. In more matriarchal or matrifocal societies, values tend to emphasize care, collaboration, and collective well-being rather than dominance and competition.

Even in modern countries, we see glimpses of this shift. Nations that prioritize family policies, healthcare access, and work-life balance often create environments where both parents and children can thrive. Alexa herself has experienced this difference firsthand after moving to the Netherlands. There, she noticed a stronger sense of community, better work-life balance, and normalized flexibility for parents.

The Most Powerful Change Starts at Home

While systemic change can feel overwhelming, Alexa emphasizes that there is one tangible action every parent can take:
Raise good humans.

“Raise kids who are empathetic, compassionate, and stand up for what’s right.” This is not a small task. It is one of the most impactful forms of long-term change. By teaching children to question injustice, respect others, and use their voice for good, parents are shaping the future of society itself.

Redefining Success and Support

At the heart of this conversation is a simple but transformative idea. Success should not be measured solely by productivity, income, or career advancement. A truly successful society is one where people are supported, families are valued, and individuals are allowed to thrive in all aspects of life. For many mothers, that vision still feels out of reach. But voices like Alexa’s are helping to shift the narrative. 

When people talk about equality in relationships, many assume they are starting from the same place. But as Alex Trippier points out, parenting has a way of exposing a very different reality.

Alex Trippier, podcast host, writer, teacher, and speaker, shared his thoughts on the most common mistakes couples make in relationships, especially after children enter the picture. What followed was an honest and nuanced conversation about mental load, resentment, conflict, praise, modern parenthood, and why so many couples struggle once they become parents.

Alex’s insight comes not from theory alone, but from lived experience. He explained that he got married young, had three children by the time he was 30, and truly loved being a dad.
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“I just loved it,” he said. “I loved having young children.”

He was deeply involved in daily parenting. He worked with children professionally, spent a lot of time with his own kids, and was convinced he was doing fatherhood well. “I felt like a great dad,” he said. “I felt like I was nailing it.” The world seemed to agree. He was praised by strangers, by friends, and by other people in his life. But at home, things felt very different.

“The only person who seemed to disagree with my top dad status was my wife, who was really underwhelmed by my kind of fathering.” That disconnect became painful. Their relationship suffered. They argued often, and those arguments had a deep physical and emotional effect on him. “I found those arguments incredibly painful,” Alex said. “They would sort of stay with me in my body for days. They made me feel sick.”

The breakthrough that changed how he saw his marriage

The turning point came when Alex and his wife tried a Gottman exercise focused on understanding each other’s perspectives. The task was not to agree, but to understand the other person well enough to say their perspective back in their own words.

For Alex, it was mind-opening. “It was just so illuminating to realize that A, that my wife saw the world completely different to me, but also that two people could be doing what they thought made them good parents and those be completely different things.”

That insight widened as more of his friends became parents. He began noticing that many of them were having the same arguments. “I basically looked around at all my mates having kids and realized that everyone was having identical arguments.”
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That realization led him to a deeper understanding. The issues were not just personal. They were cultural. They were about the very different expectations placed on mothers and fathers.

Discovering the language mothers already had

Alex described picking up The Motherhood Complex by Melissa Hogenboom and immediately realizing there was an entire conversation happening that many men never entered. “From the second I opened it, I was like, wow, there’s this kind of huge debate raging amongst mothers. There’s all these words, mental load, maternal gatekeeping, like all these things that describe the things that I can see going on around me. But no one expects dads to read these books.”
That was a major part of the problem. The information existed, but it was not assumed to be relevant to men. Alex was struck by how much of motherhood involved guilt, shame, and judgment in ways that simply did not apply to fathers.
“All of that stuff is just completely absent for men.”

Once he began to understand those patterns, it changed the way he responded. Instead of seeing the issue as personal criticism, he could see it as something much bigger than himself. “Because they weren’t about me, I didn’t have to be defensive about them. Because it was everyone,” said Alex. “It was just enormously freeing.”

What mental load actually looks like

One of the clearest parts of our conversation was Alex’s explanation of mental load. He was not absent. In fact, he was doing many of the visible parenting tasks. But he was not carrying the invisible planning behind them. “I was taking my kids to the doctor. I was taking my kids to school. I was going to parents’ evening. I was cooking dinner.”

But then he explained what he had missed.

“What I hadn’t done was book the doctor’s appointment. I didn’t know when the shots were for the kids. I hadn’t kind of ordered the food to make the dinner. I hadn’t been the one who’d done the research for the school.”

That distinction matters. A parent can look highly involved while still relying on the other parent to do the anticipating, planning, scheduling, and decision-making that keeps everything running. Alex summed it up plainly: “I was showing up, but only once everything else had been sorted out for me.”

And that led to the kind of misunderstanding that many women know well. One partner is stressed, overextended, and mentally carrying the whole operation. The other is confused because, from their point of view, family life looks manageable and even enjoyable.

“I was like, what’s your problem? Why are you so stressed? This whole thing is really, really fun. The problem is you and your attitude.”
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Then came the truth he had not been seeing. “My wife was working just as hard as me outside of the home and then twice as hard in it.”

Why do so many couples struggle after having kids? How can wives ask their spouses for help? Why is complaining about mental load and household chores often a really bad pitch for men, and how can you ask for help in a way that is constructive and more likely to be received positively? Why is there still a huge imbalance in societal expectations when it comes to parenting, and how can spouses support each other instead of fighting?

For these insights and more, tune into Trust Me Mom Podcast, Episode 36 with Alex Trippier, available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

“You’ve rented space in your wife’s brain”

Alex has spoken online about the everyday ways men end up relying on women’s mental tracking systems. One of his most viral examples is simple but revealing.

He talked about asking his wife how many potatoes they had in the house. On the surface, it sounds trivial. But beneath it is the whole structure of mental load. “My wife is constantly stock keeping, right? She knows what’s in the cupboard in a way that I’m not.”

These are the kinds of tiny defaults that quietly push family management back onto mothers. And Alex emphasized that even with awareness, this takes ongoing effort.

“It’s constant work for both of us.” Why? Because the assumptions are deeply ingrained. “These assumptions that these things belong to mums, they’re incredibly powerful.”

He gave a concrete example involving their 17-year-old daughter’s trip abroad. When their daughter casually asked him for a ride to the airport, he suddenly realized how much his wife had already done without them ever discussing it. “She booked the tickets. She’d had all the conversations with all the other parents to make sure everything was safe. She’d ordered a shop for her to bring groceries, like just everything.”

Again, the visible task was easy. The invisible work behind it was enormous.

Why women’s anger is understandable, but not always persuasive

One of the most thought-provoking points Alex made was about the way the conversation around mental load is often presented to men.

He was very clear that women are often right. “Most of the time that is what is going on and that is absolutely what I was missing.” But he also explained why anger alone may not move men into action. As he put it, the message often becomes: “The mental load, the running of a household, the being in charge of all this stuff is terrible and painful and I want you to do it instead.”

Then he added, “Now that’s an appalling pitch.” He joked that this kind of pitch won’t “make it through the door” in a corporate environment.

His point was not that women should be less honest. It was that many men do not respond well to being handed something framed purely as misery. So what does work?

He offered one pitch that, in his experience, resonates with a lot of men: “Do you hate being told what to do all the time?” If the answer is yes, then the solution is clear. “If you don’t want to be told what to do all the time, then you’ve got to take charge of some of these areas.”

That means ownership, not passive help. It means taking over a task from start to finish, including the mistakes that come with learning.

Sometimes it is not weaponized incompetence

Alex also addressed a phrase that comes up often in these conversations: weaponized incompetence. He knows many listeners are quick to use it, but he made an important distinction.

“Sometimes it’s just incompetence, all right? Like sometimes it’s just not very good at stuff. No one’s ever told us we’re supposed to be good at it. We’ve never done it before.”

That does not excuse staying incompetent. But it does matter when couples are trying to change patterns. If a man is genuinely new to a task, there will likely be mistakes. The key is what happens next.

Alex shared a memorable story about packing for a family trip. He took responsibility, gathered all the children’s things, and even remembered the kite he was excited to bring. “I spent ages looking for the kite. I remembered the kite, but I forgot their socks.” All three children arrived without socks. What mattered was not that he forgot. What mattered was that he had to solve it. “Now I’m going to fix it.” He found a store that was open to buy the socks and even asked other parents for a spare pair.

That is the formula he keeps returning to. If a husband does the task and gets it wrong, he still has to be the one who carries the consequences and fixes the problem. Otherwise, the job has not really left his wife’s mental load.

Praise matters, but so does seeing the invisible work

We also talked about praise, and Alex was thoughtful about the complicated role it plays in fatherhood.

He acknowledged that men often receive a lot of praise for visible parenting. Dads get admired for things mothers do every day without comment. “There’s just something about dads playing with their kids that I think is lovely,” he said, describing the reaction many people have.

That praise can encourage involvement, but it can also reinforce a very low bar. “The universe thinks I’m a great dad, you’re clearly the problem because you can’t see that I’m a great dad.”

That mindset created real problems in his marriage. At the same time, he realized he was not seeing, and therefore not praising, the unseen labor his wife was carrying. “I wasn’t praising my wife for any of the invisible labor that she was doing because it was invisible and I had to train myself to see it.”

Once he did start seeing it, appreciation changed the atmosphere at home. He gave the example of finally noticing everything his wife had done to organize their daughter’s trip. “You’ve just organized this whole thing, haven’t you?” Then, just as importantly: “Wow, you’re amazing.”

He believes this matters deeply. “If you start noticing the thing your partner is doing, and I think this is men’s job, men should do this, if you start noticing, you will see it, you call it out, you will start getting it back.”

The four horsemen of bad conflict

Alex also reflected on the Gottman Institute’s four horsemen: criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, and contempt. He described the conflict pattern he and his wife used to repeat again and again.

“Our row was my wife would criticize. I’d get incredibly defensive.” Then it escalated. “We would go back and forth until I said something nasty, like hurtful. And then she would stonewall.” For him, that silence was unbearable. Eventually he would apologize, but not because the issue was resolved. “I would apologize even though I didn’t really believe it. And then so nothing got sorted.”

That cycle is one many couples will recognize. For Alex, one of the most important shifts was learning how to begin difficult conversations without criticism. He knows that is especially hard when you are tired and overwhelmed, but he believes it changes everything.

Instead of starting with accusation, he recommends starting with something more honest and vulnerable: “I’m really hurt. I’m really upset when this happened.”

And then adding, “I know you’ve not done it to hurt me, but this is how it feels to me when this happened.” That kind of opening makes it much harder for the other person to become instantly defensive.

A fight about chairs was not really about chairs

One of the best examples Alex shared was a recurring fight about dining room chairs. Their chairs were too big for the table, and when he did homework or school projects with the children, he would leave them out because they were awkward to move. His wife would come in and loudly push them back under the table.

They fought about it repeatedly.

But when they did the Gottman exercise and listened carefully to each other’s perspective, they realized the chairs represented something much deeper. For Alex, sitting with his children to help with homework was emotionally significant. “It was this big deal for me that I was gonna sit and give my kids this thing that I never got.”

For his wife, neatness and order were closely tied to her sense of safety and what it meant to be a good mother. “For her neatness and order and everything being where it was supposed to be was her way of being a good mum.”

Then came the larger realization. “You’re not bad, I’m not bad. This is us doing the best that we can … really, really trying for our children. And we just see this thing differently.”

And yes, the practical outcome was simple. “I am now gonna put the chairs back.”

Why being home with young children is so exhausting

We also discussed modern motherhood and why caring for young children is often underestimated, especially by people who compare it to traditional masculine work.

Alex said that when he talks about motherhood, many men respond with a list of the difficult things they do, often jobs involving the car, DIY, drains, repairs, or finances. But he sees a major difference between those responsibilities and the work mothers are typically carrying.

“These masculine jobs tend to be completable. They have a start and a finish and they’ll come up sporadically.” By contrast, he said the work often falling to mothers is “daily grind.” “It’s just constant meal prep. It’s laundry. It’s not even the doing of the laundry, but it’s like, where do all the clothes live in the house?” That kind of work never really ends. It renews itself every day, every season, every stage of childhood.

He also made the important point that expectations around parenting have risen dramatically. The standard for what makes a good mother is far more intensive than it was decades ago. “The expectations on what motherhood is,” he said, “have just got harder and harder and harder.”

Then he offered a blunt conclusion that many women will immediately recognize as true: “Being a stay-at-home mum is actually much harder than it was in the 70s.”

The case for paternity leave

Alex also spoke powerfully about the importance of fathers having time alone in full charge of their children. Not time supported by systems their partner quietly set up, but true sole responsibility.

Reflecting on his own experience, he admitted that for a long time he only thought he understood what his wife was doing. “I was living off systems, I was living off things you put in place and finding it really easy.”

Only later, when he had to manage without those supports, did he fully grasp the strain. “I’m really quite stressed and not having, this isn’t just kind of a great party time with the kids. I’m really shattered.”

He connected this to paternity leave policies in places like Norway, where fathers spend dedicated time alone caring for their child. In his view, that kind of experience changes men profoundly because they are finally forced to understand what caregiving really requires.

Rethinking masculinity

Toward the end of our conversation, Alex challenged the idea that older, more authoritarian models of masculinity are the answer to modern relationship struggles.

He dislikes the phrase “traditional masculinity” because he does not believe the world has always looked the same. But he was clear that the old model, where men are obeyed, emotionally distant, and dominant, is not the solution. “That is the disease,” he said.

What has brought him closer to his children, his partner, and his friends is not emotional hardness. It is emotional courage. “Being vulnerable and going and talking to someone that you love about the things that aren’t going well in your life, the things that you think might be wrong with you, the things that you’re scared of, that has led to me having incredibly deep relationships.”

I his view, vulnerability is not weakness - it takes strength. “Those things I’m describing, being vulnerable, being emotional with people, that’s what they take, right? They take bravery and they take resilience. They take toughness.”

The most important thing couples need to understand

As we wrapped up, Alex offered what may be the most important insight of the whole conversation. “You may come from a culture where you think that men and women are equal. But what becomes really apparent when you have children is that no culture at the moment feels that way about moms and dads.”

That is not about blame. It is about seeing reality clearly. “Once you can acknowledge that there is this real imbalance in what’s expected of your partner and that she is going to respond to those expectations,” he said, “then that becomes an external problem that you can both deal with together rather than it being this war that’s between you.”

That reframing is powerful. It shifts the conversation away from personal failure and toward shared responsibility. It gives couples a chance to stop fighting each other and start understanding the larger forces shaping their lives.
And that matters, because as Alex noted, the years of raising young children should be a season of shared purpose. Instead, they are often the period of greatest marital dissatisfaction.
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His message offers a better path. Awareness. Ownership. Appreciation. Vulnerability. Teamwork. Not perfection. But partnership.