the Henny Flynn podcast

The Mothering Myth and the Courage to Be Enough – with Moe Carrick (S16E8)

• Henny Flynn • Season 16 • Episode 8

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In this episode, I speak with Moe Carrick – workplace culture expert, TEDx speaker, and mother of four – about the deep, often unspoken pressures that shape our identities at work and at home.

We talk about the myth of the perfect mother, the legacy of the provider-father, and the quiet courage it takes to say, “What I’m doing is enough.” Moe shares a beautifully layered story about a gingerbread house (yes, really!) and how that moment became a metaphor for the deeper journey of letting go of perfection.

We explore the ripple effects of shame, identity, ambition and care – and how the stories we’ve inherited can limit us unless we consciously choose another way. This conversation is full of warmth, honesty and insight, and left me reflecting deeply on how we show up for ourselves, and for one another, in work and in life.

PODCAST EPISODES YOU MAY WISH TO LISTEN TO NEXT:

  • Empathy and Transformation: Navigating Menopause in the Workplace with Pamela Windle (S14E6)
  • Burnout and Self-Compassion, with Dr. Danielle de la Mare (S14E3)
  • Debunking myths: returning to work & the gender pay gap, with Amelia Miller, Ivee (S13E9)

CONNECT WITH MOE

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/moecarrick/ 

Website: https://moementum.com/ 

Moe’s latest book: https://moementum.com/when-work-is-good/ 

***

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Speaker 1:

occasionally on the podcast we delve into the world of work, seeing how the kind of deep reflections and wisdom that we explore here can influence and change not only how we work but the workplaces themselves. Welcome to the henny flynn podcast, the space for deepening self-awareness with profound self-compassion. I'm Henny, I write, coach and speak about how exploring our inner world can transform how we experience our outer world, all founded on a bedrock of self-love.

Speaker 1:

Settle in and listen and see where the episode takes you. Settle in and listen and see where the episode takes you. So there's been two or three episodes recently in the last couple of series. There was one around empathy and transformation with Pamela Windle, where we looked at navigating menopause in the workplace, so that was season 14, episode 6. We also looked at burnout and self-compassion with Dr Danielle de la Mar, and that was also season 14, episode 3. And, of course, back in season 13, episode 9, we looked at debunking myths the myths around returning to work and the gender pay gap, with the lovely Amelia Miller from Ivy.

Speaker 1:

So if you've been listening for a while, you'll know something of my own background as a working parent in some highly stressful and very demanding senior roles, and that means you might understand why my guest today piqued my interest. So Mo Carrick is an internationally respected pioneer in the study and the practice of workplace culture, which is something that I used to work in a lot back in my corporate days looking at how we could create culture change in organizations. Mo also has some developed some award-winning frameworks which are used by Nike and Nintendo. So she's got the, the credentials, the evidence that she knows what she's talking about, and she's also completed three TEDx talks, which is I'm going to confess, here is something on my bucket list actually to do one of those, so I'm just putting that out into the universe. And, according to Glennon Doyle, she of we Can Do Hard Things, mo Carrick is helping to change the toxic paradigm of the mothering myth at work.

Speaker 1:

Now, that's a pretty big description, it's a pretty big introduction, and I am really looking forward to speaking with Mo, partly because there is a story that I hope she's going to share and in fact, I may ask her to to share it right at the top of the of the conversation, um, where she talks about building an ambitious gingerbread house that ended up collapsing and, as I say that, I wonder if there's a metaphor in there. That was part of how she became the expert that she is. So we'll just give Mo a few minutes to join us and I look forward to diving into this conversation with her and with you. So, mo, how delicious, how delightful to have you here. I know it's taken us a couple of goes to actually make this happen, so it feels even better that we're both together.

Speaker 2:

Yes, thank you for your persistence, and it's just delightful to be here with you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, wonderful. So I have given a little bit of an intro, I've shared a little bit about your background and the fact that you are a thrice TEDx speaker, and I did say I am putting out into the universe, that is one of my little things. I've got a little list of like something I'd like to do, so, um, so I I really honor that, um, but one of the things that I shared is that you have a story about making a gingerbread house a very fancy gingerbread house, as far as I can tell, and it really felt to me that there was such a metaphor in there that might have informed part of how you've ended up doing what you're doing. So I would, maybe slightly counterintuitively, I'd really love to kind of dive into that story and then see where that takes us.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, I love that you like caught that story and and are remembering it, because, yes, it is a story that you know stands with me, and I think it's a story that's particularly connected to my sense of myself and my role as a mother. I have three grown children and a grown stepson, and when they were little I was a working mom and I, my income was, was primary in my family and I was. My kids were out of school where I was one of three working moms back then. The rest of them were all stayed home, and this was in the nineties. That would seem to be a trend at that time. It isn't so much a trend now, for all the obvious economic reasons. But, um, I so I was a busy consultant, I was, uh, trying to be a good mom and, um, I had also a legacy.

Speaker 2:

My father was a creative. So there's, there's for you, henny, there's like multiple layers here, I'm sure, for thebread House, because my dad was an architect, he was also an artist and he was very poor. He was an architect at a time when, you know, he graduated from Harvard School of Design. He was a architecture really dipped and he kind of had struggled to recover. You know, his equilibrium financially as an architect, but he was creative in everything he did, and so one of the things that he did for Christmas for several years in a row for us was because he didn't really have much money to buy us things is he would make us gingerbread houses, and there were three of us.

Speaker 2:

My parents were divorced so he always had to put these gingerbread houses in his car. My dad always drove a sports car so we'd have, like the Porsche with the, you know, all the gingerbread houses in the back and they and there would be one for each kid. That was sort of unique. A log cabin, frank Lloyd Wright house, like I mean. You know, these were extraordinary gingerbread houses. He was not a baker but he was a good architect and one of them that I got was a gummy bear cathedral and it was like a tall house. It had stained glass windows and it had little pews inside with all these little gummy bears sitting in church. Such an expression of love Mo in church.

Speaker 1:

It was just beautiful, such an expression of love Mo.

Speaker 2:

I mean, that's honestly the feeling inside me as I think about your father there making these as a language of love. Great, it was incredible. And my father was in recovery. My dad got sober from his alcoholism when I was six, and so these gingerbread houses happened after that and he was still, you know, sorting his life and and it was just beautiful. Like you, like you're feeling like there were these evocative memories.

Speaker 2:

And so my kids I had my kids and I was wanting to we were asked to bring a gingerbread house for one of my son's kindergarten or whatever, and I had this idea like, oh my gosh, now by then my father had died and I thought I can do this, like I can keep this legacy. Yes, I'm not an architect, but maybe I can do it. So I decided to make this gingerbread house and because this school where my kids were at was a private school, there was a high volunteer requirement and there was always a. I always felt a sense of like I'm the working mother, I'm not as present, I'm not reading in the classroom every week, I'm not, I can't go on every field trip. So I had some guilt and probably shame about not being a good enough mother in that way. So I went all out on this gingerbread house and we spent days. You know, I spent days like getting it just so, and it actually looked really cool. My kids were like minimally involved and we and I had it all ready and it was supposed to go to school the next day.

Speaker 2:

It was probably like I don't know two feet high and I remember going to bed after one in the morning being like, oh, this is going to be so fun, like to showcase this beautiful gingerbread house. And when I woke up in the morning the cats had got at it or gravity had got at it or something. But the whole thing collapsed, fallen in, which made the walls go out. The gummy bears were dead. You know, it was horrible and I was crushed. I was like, oh my gosh, you know I'm here, I am, I'm a failure as a mother.

Speaker 2:

Again, my little boy woke up and cried the gingerbread cathedral. But my, my kid's dad came out and he looked at it. It was like huh bummer, you know, didn't really hit him quite as emotionally and he said why don't we just go to Safeway and buy one? And I was like, what are you talking about? He said they're selling them right now. They're $9.99. They're already made. It's fine, like we have to leave for school in 10 minutes or whatever, and I remember thinking what a bad idea that was, but then I was like I don't have any other option.

Speaker 1:

We got to do that, so I went and got the gingerbread house went to school, like go in to the class and there wouldn't you know, there's like eight of these safe way gingerbread houses from these other perfect parents who don't have all the the weight of that story, apparently.

Speaker 2:

I mean, it's exactly yeah yes, in my mind, these mothers who have all this time, their stay at home, they don't have to work like they're going to Safeway too and buying the thing. And then there were also some that were handmade, that the kids had clearly done. There were some that you know were a little bit fancier, but there were none that were quite like the gingerbread cathedral. But what I what hit me about that moment was there is no perfection and it's good enough, whatever. The feeling. I remember from that day and I really do credit my kid's dad for helping with this was like whatever it is you've got when you show up, it's enough, it's enough. And if what you have is the Safeway Gingerbread House, then that's what you have, it's enough.

Speaker 2:

And that's sort of how I try to live my life and how I often find that I work with clients and that I parent and that I partner. And yet we all get really caught up, don't we? In the hustle of it's not good enough, it has to be somehow better, it has to be the best, it has to be the most creative or the most influential. So there was that side of a lesson for me. But the other thing, henny, that struck me is that I've been thinking about this a lot lately is it gave me even more reverence for the makers? Because I, I, my dad was a maker and he and I, I am. I am a maker. I've come to think of myself as a maker in my business, but I'm not a maker in the traditional way.

Speaker 1:

My mother was a maker.

Speaker 2:

She was a knitter and an artisan, you know in so many ways, and I always thought I'm not a maker, I'm not a maker, I don't. But makers are really powerful people and when they make something, it's for a whole host of reasons that benefit the world. And so for me it was also like, yeah, okay, so you did make that gingerbread and didn't work out, but there is something really sacred about what the makers do, the people who me because I too, when my son was very young, was a working- mother.

Speaker 1:

I remember walking into the playground on his first day of school and there was me and two other women in suits, three working mums. So they're kind of like and that was in the early 2000s Now whether whether there were only three of us who were working there or it just looked like that on that day I definitely felt this, this sense of these other women here are better mothers than me, and I also had a kind of sense of like, well, what's their perception of me and what's my perception of them, and blah blah. So I'd really love to kind of come back to that in a moment.

Speaker 1:

But but this idea of the enoughness, like recognizing that maybe it was your ambition, maybe it was part of the thing that actually made you really good at work, was also part of the thing that led to you wanting to create such a beautiful, ambitious project, but to then be able to pick that story up and transform it into ah, whatever I do is okay, whatever I do is enough, because Whatever I do is enough, because actually it's just about showing up, isn't it? And that really is what mothering, I think, or parenting so much of it, really boils down to that. So how, how does that? How does that story play into this beautiful phrase that you use around the mothering myth? Talk to us a little bit about that and how you define what that is.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's interesting what you're saying and I just feel for you in going to the playground too right, it's interesting what you're saying and I just feel for you in the in going to the playground too, right. And so I think for me, the mothering myth is the stories that we've been is is is that there's a lot of mythology that we've inherited as stories about mothering being something that is so precious and so magical that it's actually unattainable to do it perfectly, and I think it's all caught up in, actually, religion, in Christianity in particular, in our historical notions of what the role of mothers are in the world, probably in multiple religions, not only in Christianity, but it's the one I'm perhaps the most familiar with, not only in Christianity, but it's the one I'm perhaps the most familiar with around. Mothering is sacred, which I believe. Mothering is sacred, but I also believe that fathering is sacred, but it is not treated that way, in the same way, and so I think there's a risk, when we make something sacred, where it becomes not for mere mortals.

Speaker 2:

It becomes something that is on a pedestal that we worship. But that isn't real, and it reminds me of so many other myths related to women in particular that are so harmful. I've been recently listening to a podcast about Marilyn Monroe and I have been thinking about the myth of what you know, what she represented to society and what. How many myths there were around. What is a sexual being? What is a beautiful woman, what, what, what do they do? What do they not do you know?

Speaker 2:

And I think the same thing happens in this mothering myth, and I think how it plays out is that for many women it leaves them feeling inadequate because they can't reach the myth they are mere mortals, and so they end up feeling less than now. I would add, henny, that I've noticed in my interviews and in my partnerships with women of all different types that the mothering myth, guilt and shame right, feels more profound for white women than it does for women of color, and I don't I can't speak to that. I'm sure that women of color have their own demons around guilt and shame, but I have felt that white women in particular in my world are the ones who seem to so deeply internalize this feeling that they have to be it all in order to care for them, because she's the only one that can do it like. We either have that or we are contributing to the world in other ways and feeling guilty because we're not that.

Speaker 1:

I think there's also something here as well, mo, about.

Speaker 1:

I suspect that that myth isn't only challenging, difficult, maybe, um, I was going to say dangerous actually that was the word that that came up I mean, I think in terms of like identity it probably is, and there is a facet of that which is a little bit um, um, risky, um, that I don't.

Speaker 1:

I suspect that it it's not um, uh, purely that way for women who have had children, because that myth of the mother, if, for whatever reason, you have chosen not to have children, or biologically it's not available to you, or illness has meant that it's not been possible for you, or life circumstances have colluded to mean that it's just not been able, you've just not been able to, um, you know to, to participate in that um experience. That also is really, really challenging. So I, I suspect this you know this sort of concept, just sort of, you know, getting inside this idea. You know this concept of the mothering myth as the kind of sacred on the pedestal. It's divisive in many ways and, like anything which is that is divisive, it obviously kind of separates out people so that everyone ends up feeling isolated and like they're not doing it right. And how could I possibly attain that? I love that.

Speaker 2:

I love what you're saying. I think it's really true. It sort of makes it become, with a capital T, the most important thing that a woman can do, which is, for me, being a mother has been hugely significant in my life and it probably is the most important thing. But there are other things women do, including you and I, that also matter hugely, and if someone is choosing or is not able to have children, that doesn't make them not able to contribute in the world in ways that really really matter. So I love what you're saying about how it can divide us. It also puts this inordinate pressure, I think, on mothers or people who do choose or end up having mothers. It puts an inordinate amount of pressure to attach themselves to the identity of their children, which is like, if their children are successful, then they are successful, and children struggle as adults and as young children for all reasons that are all related to themselves. It's not only about the mother. So, yeah, there's lots of places where it, where the myth itself, can divide us and can harm us.

Speaker 1:

I remember there was a book round about the time when I was pregnant with my son, so he's just turned 24. So a little while ago now, and I think, pregnant with my son, so he's just turned 24. So a little while ago now, and I think things have changed to a degree. But there was a book that came out which was I Don't Know how she Does, it was the title and it was essentially this kind of like you can have it all you know, you can be the phenomenal working mom and I think also oh, her name's just gone out of my head but the Facebook.

Speaker 2:

Oh yes, lean In Sheryl Sandberg.

Speaker 1:

That's it Lean In. And then she actually retracted much of that, didn't she, I think, where she just said I don't know what I was doing. I mean, she had a live-in nanny several live-in nannies, as far as I could gather, you know and even she found that this concept of the mothering myth actually was not something that she could comfortably hold alongside her working persona.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, I remember when Lean In came out and it was such a you know, it was such a must read and I remember reading it and kind of wanting to vomit in my own mouth.

Speaker 2:

I was like, are you kidding? This is what we're supposed to do, you know. We're supposed to lean in, like how does that make sense? And I think it leaves women feeling really conflicted about their desires, about their roles in the world, because in addition to parenting, there's lots of other really important problems that women want to engage in. And do we have to pick? And also mothering doesn't last for our whole lives, it's a part of our lives. I mean mean, there's just so much complexity there, um, in in our identities, that we have to.

Speaker 1:

I also just want to sort of pick up as well on what you said about the, the, this sacred role of the father as well, that you know and and I would say there is the sacred role of all the participants in a child's life, in an individual's life, and the minute we start saying no, no, no, all of the responsibility for that sits on her shoulders we actually deny the kind of honoring honoring, I suppose, of those other roles, the respect due to those other roles and also, potentially, the responsibility that comes with those other roles. Um, yeah, I think that's really. I think it's really interesting, mo. It's sort of. I also find this it's a little bit sticky, it's a little bit uncomfortable to talk about it, which I love conversations like that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it makes our palms a little sweaty.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly, it's like oh dear, I don't know, I don't know what I'm going to say kind of makes sense, or like what do I really think about this? Or where is this thought going, you know? Because actually, maybe for many of us it's so, it's so ingrained that we don't even consider that it could possibly be anything other than yes, I think.

Speaker 2:

I think you're right. We've inherited, you know, generations, really, of pressures, and it's so powerful. I've been thinking a lot lately about you know what's happening with men and you might've seen one of my talks about men and women's role in healthy masculinity and you know men right now, here in 2025, we've got a real problem on our hands with our notions of masculinity and what's happening with men who are being predated upon with social media. We've got the highest suicide rates, the highest opioid addiction rates, the highest victims and perpetrators. Men are not doing that well, and so we had this. There's this paradox of this rise in women's health and women's well-being with feminism, and I'm part of that and proud of it. And then we have now what we're seeing is a real decline in how well men are doing, and what I often say is like, wherever we go, we go together. Whether we're hetero or cis, whether we're trans or, you know, whether we're gay or straight, it doesn't matter, we still. We have men in our lives, people who identify as men, and women who identify as women, who must be in partnership, either at work or at home, and so the decline of one whole, you know, half of the sky, so to speak, is dangerous for all of us.

Speaker 2:

And one of the things that I see play out and it's sort of a micro example of this dynamic of, I think what feels sticky is what I see happening in the world of work. You know, for more than 10 years many companies have granted paternity leave equal to maternity leave, and yet men still consistently don't take it. They never take it. They don't take it. Yeah, they don't take it.

Speaker 2:

And when you ask them, like what I asked these young men, well they're, they're worried about the impact on their career, they are not sure what is their role and also the timing that it's granted is often not the best time for them to be out, because it is a very maternal centric time when a baby is first born, you know. So what happens if we, maybe we give it to men when the, when the kids, you know, hit 15?, when they are really, you know, needed? I mean, they're needed all the way along. But I think for me it's been really impact. It's impactful to notice right now, because I do believe, henny, that unless we have, unless we see men in particular, as competent carers, we never will reach real equity in the workplace because somebody has to take care of the children.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Somebody does.

Speaker 1:

It's sparked a memory from my own life and the way that we by chance ended up bringing up our son. By chance ended up bringing up our son. So, um, when he was I you know sort of nursing, ended up sort of taking him into the office before he was three months old because I had to have meetings, because I was so determined to demonstrate that I could you know, I could do this even though I just had a baby. Oh, it's just a baby, don't worry about that. You know, oh my goodness. Oh, it's just a baby, don't worry about that. You know, oh my goodness. Sent him to nursery at three months. Oh, the pain, the pain of doing that. And yet I felt I had no choice.

Speaker 1:

And then eventually, I think he was two and I walked into my CEO's office and I just stood there like with my fists, like almost like I was a toddler, and I just said I just can't do it anymore. He went oh, okay, what is it? What can't you do? And I said I can't do this, I need to have time with him. And so he said okay, and so we managed to work out a way that I could work part time, which for me was a really good balance.

Speaker 1:

And then, when our boy was seven, my role exploded. It was, you know, I got a significant promotion, a lot more responsibility, was going to be commuting a fair distance, and so my husband and I made the choice that he would be the primary carer and he created his own work as a copywriter so he could work from home. But it just happened that for us that's how it worked and I just listening to you there, I was just thinking, gosh, wouldn't it be incredible if actually that paternity leave became available when a child is still really needing and loving that like one on one time with their parent, and and also we can see developmentally that actually it's really healthy to have a strong you know, a male figure there at that time?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and I love what you're saying and what a courageous conversation I'm sure that you and your partner had at that time around likeoken. That's really, really hard to talk about, and one of them is financial contribution and another one is ambition, because part of the inherited mothering myth is the fathering myth, which is you will provide. You will provide. In a capitalist society, that's the value that men are attributed to most often in their family situation. And so what happens, if? What happens when a man is not able to provide as much money as the woman, which happens over and over and over again and we don't talk about it?

Speaker 1:

I can remember hiding.

Speaker 2:

I remember when I was married to my kid's dad. I can remember there were periods when he would be out of work and we'd get together with family and friends and they would ask him you know what are you doing? And he would sort of bluff like, oh I'm, you know I'm doing that and I would. We were basically lying about what was real in our situation, which was that I was making the money to support us and it's happened even in my second marriage at times. And what's that about? What is that about? And some of what it's about is that women are given some messaging that their economic contribution is insignificant compared to their maternal contribution, which isn't real. It isn't true If you have to choose between feeding your children.

Speaker 2:

We just saw we just saw that the movie that just came out about pamela and with pamela anderson in it, called um the last show girl, and it's really a beautiful little movie and in it she's talking about.

Speaker 2:

She's talking with her daughter, who's now an adult, about the.

Speaker 2:

The daughter is accusing her of leaving her in the car with a game boy while she performed in a in a las vegas show for two hours, whatever.

Speaker 2:

And this is one moment when the pamela anderson character said the woman the like forgot the woman whose name she's playing, but she said I, I had to work, I had to feed you and that was the only way that I could do it, but that's insignificant. Like the fact that she was providing a home and food for that child is insignificant compared to the harm of like you left a child alone with a game boy while you worked, which is a decision that women have to wrestle with over and over and over again, given some of the problems we have with childcare. So for me that gets all tangled up the mothering myth with the stories we have about ambition and who should be the earner and what I know from my male friends and my sons and my husband and my husband, my ex-husband. What I know from them is that they carry this burden of financial providing in a way that actually does not feel good.

Speaker 1:

It is so hard for men to bust up against those stories and navigate it.

Speaker 2:

It is so hard for them and it's hard for us together to sort that out. And, like you, I was able to do part-time many different times and I had a whole cacophony of nannies and you know ways to juggle it. But without somebody taking care of hearth and home and taking care of children as well, we can't really, you know, continue to grow the human race, you know. So we have to sort of negotiate this and we are in a capitalist society, so somebody also needs to make the money which is really valuable and really feels good. And I it's only recently for me that I've been able to step into like my pride of that, like oh I, you know, I, I got my kids through college, I bought this house, I, you know, I'm all that, you know. It's only recently that I've been able to see that as success. I've usually hidden it.

Speaker 1:

Yes, oh no, I mean honestly and that.

Speaker 1:

And the thing is that what gets in the way of that, that sense of kind of pride and like, ok, like I've, I've been doing a good job, you know, not just a sense of like you know, the work, work, the paid work, but I've been doing a good job is are those stories that say, ah yeah, but you kind of missed out on stuff, or you, you didn't, you know, you didn't sort of show up in the way that that you think that other people would have done, or you, you know, you didn't.

Speaker 1:

Just, um, uh, at one point I had this kind of idea I left one of my uh sort of big kind of senior roles, um, and and announced I was only going to make jam and toffee and cakes and I was going to be the perfect mother, which, on reflection, would have been the most terrible form of mothering imaginable. You wouldn't have had any teeth left. But you know, I had this sort of idea that if I did that then I would be enough, then I would be doing a good job. But actually, like you, I can now look back on all those years and see, okay, we made the best choices that were available to us at the time, and that was a we did a good job.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and it mattered you know it mattered to our family structure. I was walking this weekend. So I am friends with my ex-husband and we our kids are all grown, but we still talk and we connect and we were chatting about some things and we were talking about our. You know our history and our learning together. We're both remarried and one of our kids is the middle one is getting married this summer, so we're quite excited about that. And we have also another one of our sons has a partner who has a 10 year old, so we've become like instant grandparents of this 10 year old. So there's like a lot of new things to sort of share on. Now I also have my stepson has a new baby, so my husband and I are grandparents, so there's just a lot of new life like flourishing and that we're connecting on.

Speaker 2:

But one of the things that we had to laugh about was the way that we, the way that we, parented, was both the same and different after the divorce, and these stories have been. I was telling him that these stories have started to leak out from my adult children about how things were when they were at dad's house and in particular, it had to do with his cooking, and but the stories, the way they tell them, are stories of joy. They are not stories of like you know we didn't get fed. You know they got fed, but apparently one of his habits was he had a meal plan that he had every week. You know, then it was the same food every day for every week. Week over week was the same thing, and they, you know, they joke about, yeah, for 10 years, like Tuesday was mac and cheese night or you know whatever the thing was. And so we were having a laugh about that and he was like that's the only way I could cope, like I didn't have any idea, because when we divorced and when we had shared custody, he became a primary parent in a way he never could.

Speaker 2:

When I was, when we were married, because I took it all on, I took on all the financial load and I took on all the emotional heavy lifting and I took it all on. There was no room for anyone else to really parent. I mean, it's hard for me to say that, henny, because I'm like what was I thinking? What story was I telling myself about how I needed to do that? And so when we divorced and we had shared custody.

Speaker 2:

All of a sudden I now had weeks when I could actually indulge my career and make even more money to help support us all. And also he got to do things like deal with snarly hair and pick out clothes and try to get a two-year-old to put her tights on no, not two, she was six, you know to put her tights on and deal with a kid who's plagiarized at school, like all of that. Now he had to be front and center and it changed him and it changed me, because and it was good for our kids, because they got to see dad as primary parent and they got to see me as a primary income provider, you know.

Speaker 1:

So much wisdom in there. I think, mo, about the significance. It's definitely something that comes up when I'm working sometimes with clients, where, actually, when we are in a position, whether it is conferred on us through society society, our culture, our family system and we're taking on all of that responsibility, or our gender, we're taking on all of that responsibility. Um, there is also choice in there to hold on to all of that responsibility and to keep holding on to it. Now, that choice for me it often comes from a place of, like desperately trying to create control in order to feel safe in the world, like it's all a bit too much and therefore I need to cling to it even tighter. But there is actually this beautiful opportunity here of being able to hand over some of this responsibility.

Speaker 1:

And I think in our story, a bit like in yours, something happened where I just, I just couldn't do it. You know I was commuting four hours a day and you know some know wasn't it? You know, even, like you know, was missing, like the last train home, and had to stay in a hotel. You know all that sort of thing. I had to trust Anton to to parent and and that releasing then creates the opportunity for the other person to do it their way.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, to do it their way, and also to honor the things that you were providing for the family by what you were doing, the hardships you were enduring, what you were doing, the hardships you know you were enduring. And and I see this as you know, you're probably facing this too, honey, with your son, who's now 24, because our kids are similar my youngest is 23. My oldest is 37. And what I'm watching is them navigating this now and I'm watching them internalize and think through what is it that I'm going to do as couples and, as you know, with their partners and on their own. What is the identity that's connected to earning, what is the identity that's connected to home and hearth and parenting in some instances, and how are they going to balance that? And one of the things that I've noticed is that without these kinds of discussions, it's really easy for patterns to get set that are quite destructive. And so an example, and it's interesting, so interesting, talking to you, because it sounds like you and I both had the experience of finding ourselves as the primary earner, like I never thought that would be the case for me. I'm not a rocket scientist or anything. I'm a consultant and a coach, but somehow and I worked in nonprofit for years and somehow over time, my earning capacity, you know, increased and what I'm noticing right now is that for young men and women, they can make decisions really young that can impact them with their earning potential.

Speaker 2:

And one of the things that I talk to some of the young women I know in my family and outside the family is like be thoughtful about that in terms of if you're the woman in the partnership and if your husband has more earning power. That may not always be the case. So don't think of your own work as always meaning that you're going to be the low earner, because it's important that we have some parity or some equity around the way the earning contributes to the family's wellbeing. And I think we've lived.

Speaker 2:

I think part of the myth of motherhood and the myth of the father who provides and the mother who stays home and takes care of everybody and everything is that it creates terrible inequity around earning potential. And then we have marriages end and often she is financially compromised significantly. And then we have marriages end and often she is financially compromised significantly and and he may not be connected, you know well, to the family, which creates a lots of host of problems. So I think it's brave and and important to have these conversations all the way along you know, like you and your partner have, and and it's not easy, it is palm sweaty.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it really is. And I think I think just talking about finances, talking about money, you know money is it's interesting actually because that is a theme that often again sort of comes up when I'm working with clients because there is, it is such a powerful energy. Is it is such a powerful energy and and there are so many stories attached to it and actually understanding what is our own relationship to how we feel about money, to how we relate to the concept of how other people are around money, you know, like all of those things, if we don't really make sense of that I think it's such a beautiful point you're making about you know when we're kind of, you know early days of our nascent, you know relationships, if we don't spend that bit of time together when things are easier, hopefully, because maybe we don't have so many responsibilities, and you know, therefore, you know, in that there's early days of a couple if you don't spend that time really being clear with each other about where the equity sits and really being clear with each other about, um, the value that everybody is bringing into the relationship. And you know, I think, well, I think doing that can resolve problems further down the line.

Speaker 1:

I really do? I think it's, and it is difficult. It is hard to have open conversations about things that are palm sweaty. You know it is.

Speaker 2:

It is really hard and that I was just this morning. I was just talking to my husband. So he, my husband, is 67. He's of retirement age and he just recently started taking his retirement. He was for many years self-employed we're in the same field and then he worked for an organization internally as chief consulting officer for years. When that ended, he hung up his own shingle.

Speaker 2:

But he's in the diversity, equity and inclusion space which right now, in this binary political world we're living in, is almost a dead market right, tragically, for a whole host of reasons here in the US. And so he's really looking at like what is it that he's going to do and what is what? Does it mean? He wants to contribute. He has so much to contribute in the world. So this morning we were talking about how all that contribution can still happen, but it may be unpaid. And then there's does he want to still be paid and what does that look like? And one of the things that I've been thinking about and we need to have another conversation is similar to what you're saying with Anton is there's actually at my I'm a bit younger than him and I really feel like I could use him taking over even more of our home. It's just the two of us now but, there's still a lot to be done.

Speaker 2:

You know there's a lot to be done for our lives, for planning for our future, for financial management, for the pets, for all the things for feeding and caring for me, for you exactly, and I'm really sitting with like that is probably one of the conversations in our future around what if we shift these roles so that actually the need for you to generate income right now goes away? It's not actually a real need, it's a need for his identity and and what we both need is for my firm to continue to grow and be successful. One of my kids works in the company. We have employees like that. You know it needs to. We want that to thrive. That's our biggest kind of value added thing next to our home for the long term. But but I can tell already that that there's a lot to that. That conversation between us. It's not just something that we do for two minutes. It's like a deep robot because it's connected to identity.

Speaker 1:

I think there's something here about really seeing the worth. That that's what I'm hearing, and and I think that is kind of the thread actually through through everything back to your story about the gingerbread house, and it's enough. You know, seeing the worth inside the worth was that effort, that beautiful effort that you put into it. That was enough, you know.

Speaker 1:

And and then bringing the, the, the house from, uh, safeway, you know, that was enough yes and and here you know, recognizing maybe for your husband that you know caring for you might be enough, right, absolutely, and it's what we need, like as an ecosystem.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for that. Free coaching. I love it. I love it and, and you know, we, we can't with these things like the motherhood myth, like the pressure on men to be providers.

Speaker 2:

We, so much of this is like beyond our conscious knowing. We're just an individual binging about in our world. We don't know of this is like beyond our conscious knowing. We're just an individual binging about in our world. We don't know that this is at play the stories of our ancestors, the traumas of our own families and of society at large that somehow play themselves out in what it is we're trying to do with this one precious life we have. You know, and I I don't think we have to take all that on, but I think it can be helpful. It's helpful for me to sometimes remember there's something else at play here. There's more, whether it's epigenetics or societal myths, that is impacting and driving my behavior. And if I just know that and can say, okay, so let me just pause and think about that, to try to really center on what is it then that I really want to choose, you know now, with my partner or my family and my community?

Speaker 1:

the influences on our lives. As you know, they're threads and and you know when those threads are beautifully aligned. It's this glorious tapestry you know we talk about. You know the, the tapestry of life. The challenge is that for most of us, those threads, at certain times in our life, just feel like a great big knotty bundle and it's really hard to see. Well, what's the thing that's actually constraining me, you know? Is it the story that I've picked up from the female line in my family system? Is it my culture? Is it, um, my identity that I've somehow adopted, about what a good mother looks like, or what a good working, uh, mother looks like, or what a good, you know, woman or person looks like? You know these things that they've and actually what we're. So often I find, you know, we use the, the concept of these sacred roles, well, with sacred pause is to to stop and as you say, to take a breath and go hang on a minute.

Speaker 1:

Well, what might be entangling me right now and even if we can't see it, even if the naughty mess is, is just a bit too naughty for us to untangle on our own. At least we can recognize it's there and we can go okay. Okay. So there's stuff at play here. It's it's not all my fault, it's not, it's not me being a bad person. There is that, there are influences here that that are informing the way that I'm feeling about this and and I have some choice here too.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I think that is so vital, remembering that it is, and I think it is so vital to recognize our own choice and I think when we do that, it reduces anxiety, doesn't it? And you know, we're living, certainly, in an age of anxiety. I see this in young people and old people too, right, but I think, young people especially, it can be so hard to look out at the world. I was just visiting with my daughter, who's 23 and re-engaging in her own educational experience after working through COVID.

Speaker 2:

You know tough times for young people and and I was thinking about how she is really looking out at the world and it's easy to look out there and feel both insignificant and also feel anxious between climate change and geopolitical forces, and that it can just feel like why bother?

Speaker 2:

Like it's all dark and scary, and I think, where I'm seeing her beautifully challenge herself and grow is like no, but there's these moments. There's my friends, there's my, you know, there's my job, there's my people I'm meeting, there's, um, there's all these moments that are right here, that are actually safe and joyous and beautiful, and that helps me get grounded. I can choose to engage in those things and reduce my own anxiety, which is like so empowering for all of us in an age of anxiety, um, but it really takes a lot of courage to do that and it takes the willingness to be seen as enough as enough and to and and I think just sort of picking up on the thread that's been coming through our conversation is the willingness to have those more difficult conversations, not only with others, but perhaps with ourselves as well.

Speaker 1:

um and and also um. Yeah, I really love what you just said about your daughter, you know, being being able to see that there are these beautiful things that are close to us, and maybe that also comes back to this sort of mothering myth that is placed on top of the pedestal. It's incredibly hard to see the stuff that's closer to us and recognize okay, I'm doing, okay, what I'm doing is enough.

Speaker 2:

Is enough. And it disconnects us too, I guess and I know we're going to push on our time, but I just love talking with you. It disconnects us from others. So you know, as you were talking about the threads and the courage that it's required to to notice and name them, and I was thinking about another.

Speaker 2:

This is another parenting moment for me that happened, which was that after the divorce we were at a concert for my daughter made me think of her. She was like eight or something and she was. She had been with her dad that week and she was walking up to the choir you know steps to sing with her group and as she walked up, I was, I became. I had a wash of shame because her clothes didn't match her hair was. She had really curly, has really curly hair and her hair it looked like a rat's nest, it was like all over the place sticking up. You know she didn't match the other kids, like her uniform was not quite right and I was sitting next to her dad, who had her that week, and I had this wash of shame and what the shame was about was like oh I, my kid, doesn't look well kept compared to the others and that's going to reflect badly on me. Like I felt the mothering myth, I felt like, oh, I'm a failure.

Speaker 2:

But then the music cued and she started singing and I'll never forget her little face, like the joy of her little face. She just like ball like, just began singing with this joy and hope. And they all did. And I was thinking, and Mo in my mind, all of a sudden I have this insight it matters not a hoot that her hair is messy and or anything that her clothes match. And so at the end of the concert I turned to her dad and I said good job, you know, because my kid had a very tender head and she hated putting herself on. And he said, he looked at me, he said thank you, can you teach me how to French braid? And also, how do you put tights on a six-year-old who doesn't want the tights on?

Speaker 2:

You know, and I was like, oh man, we have those battles. I have those battles with this kid too. Like this is challenging, and it was a moment for me of like, what is it that I'm getting snagged by in my life? That doesn't matter. This kid is in joy and she's happy, he's safe and she's well loved and she got there on time and she's singing and it's beautiful. Okay, her hair is hard to tame.

Speaker 1:

That's because it's really hard to tame and and, in the grand scheme of things, what will she remember? She? Will remember standing on that step singing her heart out.

Speaker 2:

Yes, no one, no one ever is going to remember the messy hair, and I think that that's for me, it's like, that's the part of identity that we have. That's the work of like what matters about what we're doing and who we are and what doesn't matter at all we're doing and who we are and what doesn't matter at all and how can we separate those things to to to celebrate the things that really last and that matter, and it's, it's, um, it's good work if you can find it.

Speaker 1:

I I mean that feels like such a a beautiful sort of round up, such a beautiful place to close. But I I also just want to say, mo, how gorgeous that you turned to him and you said good job, that, my darling. That that's so beautiful because it would have been very easy to have held all of that experience just inside you and to not recognize what he actually achieved to get your daughter there on time even worse.

Speaker 2:

I could have shamed him, yeah, which I'm sure I've done that at times too. I could have been like, how could you have or not have her tights matched like, and I think for me it was an insight of that is not the point, like, and I know how hard it is to get her out the door matching and you know so good job. And also it eased up my own perfectionism, what I'm wasting energy on, and so, yes, it is. I felt good that I was able to see him and back away from the ledge of my own internalized critic.

Speaker 1:

I think so much of this, I mean so all of my work is founded in this, in how do we build self-compassion and I mentioned the word once while we've been talking, but really fundamentally that's what it's all been about and this idea of like being able to hold ourselves, being able to hold the stories that we're carrying, the people who shared the stories with us, you know, and the people who are carrying different stories, being able to hold it all with compassion and, to your point, kind of recognizing well what really matters and what doesn't. And actually that's part of being an adult, I think, really the true, deep, wise adult.

Speaker 2:

Well, yes, and you're so right.

Speaker 2:

And isn't it powerful when we think about self-compassion, that sometimes it requires us to look a little bit from the balcony, like going back to the gingerbread story.

Speaker 2:

When I came home from work that day, the gingerbread house was still on the counter. Right, it was falling apart on the counter. But what filled me when I came into the house that day was lovely memories of making the thing and memories of my dad who showed me first how to make the thing, and my kids had all bolted candy on the thing and we had had days of fun in the construction and the cat was like licking the frosting on the counter. I was like even she is getting something lovely out of this thing. But because now I had a reframe of it, because I wasn't seeing it as a thing I needed to do perfectly, but instead it was a series of experiences with others that mattered, that had joy and that I, that I actually facilitated. And so that's that, being able to be on the balcony, even with myself, with self-compassion, opened up a lot of space for for joy, and I think sometimes when we're in it, we can't, we can't tap into that self-compassion.

Speaker 1:

That's so beautiful and I I love it when a conversation has the, the alpha and omega of you know, the, the full circle. Coming back to your, to your original story, there's something very, very beautiful about that, that wonderful reframe that you had, um mo. There is a question that I, I always ask my, uh, my clients, actually as part of you know, before they start working with me, but it's something I like to ask my guests here too, and the question is if bringing it really really sort of closely to you now, if this time in your life was a chapter in your book of life, if you saw it that way, what would the chapter heading be?

Speaker 2:

oh, what a beautiful question. I think for me, the chapter of this stage of my life would probably be Well done.

Speaker 1:

Well done.

Speaker 2:

Mo, thank you. Thanks for asking a good question. It makes me cry. You're obviously very good at what you do, but it's powerful to tap into that.

Speaker 1:

So thank you, yeah, thank you, thank you for sharing from such a deep place it's. It's been an absolute honor to talk to you and you know the conversation has gone off in in so many directions that I I had no idea where we were going to go and, like they're my favorite um conversations with guests, because it means that it's it's been really, really heartfelt and I've really loved it, and thank you so much for joining me oh, thank you for having me and thanks for your great questions and insights and and coaching.

Speaker 2:

What a, what a, what a beautiful um, a series of offerings you're you're bringing into the world. Thank you All right. So much love, thank you.