Good Inside with Dr. Becky - Revisit - How To Stop Doing It All

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

This is an edited version of an earlier episode.Moms, you deserve space for yourself. If this sounds like a revolutionary concept… that’s because it is. In a too-busy world that constantly questions your good enough-ness, this week’s episode delivers a powerful message: You don’t have to do it all. Dr. Becky talks with Eve Rodsky, best-selling author of Fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space, about how rebalancing domestic labor can change your relationship to yourself, your family, and society. Join Good Inside Membership: bit.ly/3LqOTi4Follow Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinsideSign up for our weekly email, Good Insider: https://www.goodinside.com/newsletterOrder Dr. Becky's book, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, at goodinside.com/book or wherever you order your books.For a full transcript of the episode go to goodinside.com/podcast

I'm Dr. Becky and this is Good Inside. I'm a clinical psychologist. I'm a mom of three and I'm on a mission to rethink the way we raise our children. In case you missed it the first time, this is an episode you need to hear. I talk with Eve Rodzky, the best-selling author of Fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space about something all moms need to hear. All moms, here it is. You do not need to do it all.

I'm gonna say that again. It's that important. You do not need to do it all. Anyway, we're going to be talking about how rebalancing domestic labor in your home can change your relationship not only with yourself, but with the rest of your family and even with society. We're going to talk about reducing resentment and letting go of mom guilt.

So many important things. I'm so so excited to re-share this special episode with you right after this. Hey Sabrina. Hey. So I've been thinking about toys recently. I don't want the toy to do that much of the work. I want the toy to inspire my kid to do the work. Because actually the toys that get really busy

and do a lot of things, kids actually lose interest in so quickly. Oh, totally. There are certain toys that my kids have just played with throughout the years. I have a six-year-old and a three-year-old. Like what? So I have these wooden blocks from Melissa and Doug.

They're super simple. Just plain wooden, no-color. And my kids love them. They're always building castles or like a dinosaur layer. And then my oldest will tell my youngest to like decorate them after he's built this crazy cool structure. My go-to's are Melissa and Doug too. I feel like we have this ice cream scooper thing

that my kids use when they were two. And then they used again when they were developing better fine motor skills. And then for my kind of four year old, my seven year old still using it in imaginative play. I really only like talking about items and brands that we actually use in our own home and Melissa and Doug, I just don't know if there's any other brand I feel so good about naming the way that their toys

actually inspire creativity and open-ended screen-free child-led play. It's just unmatched. And what's honestly so exciting is to be able to offer everyone listening to this podcast, 20% off, visit molissaandug.com and use code Dr. Becky20DRBECKY20 for 20% off your order. Molissa and Doug, timeless toys, endless possibilities.

The thing that's been keeping me up at night is the statistic that 70% of the 1% in this country, right? The people that make our policies and government and in our corporations are white men with state-owned wives. And so what's keeping me up at night is just as people are starting to navigate back to in office work and just how not normal, quote unquote, the world still is, especially for parents and caregivers. I'm seeing a huge disconnect between what people want

in terms of their workers and what workers are telling me they can give because they also need to be caregivers. So I'd say that's the thing that's keeping me up in night. Tell me a little bit more about that. Let's jump into some specifics about whether it's people's stories or what you're seeing even around you or hearing in terms of this disconnect. Yeah, I'll give you a little story. I remember when I was in I got to go to Davos, which was actually really amazing right before the pandemic to talk about the fact that I had been doing research for 10 years, which started with my own marriage into the fact that I did not have the career marriage combo. I thought I was going to have, right? And I was losing my identity and

my marriage. And I was watching so many powerful women not being able to use their voice in the home. And so over 10 years, as I started to research these issues around what is called the Gender Division of Labor, definitely did not. In my third grade science project, or what do you want to be when you grew up journal Becky, did not think being a gender division of labor advocate

was on my list of things I wanted to do with my life, but That's where I found myself in Davos in 2019 and I just written fair play and I was trying to convince a room of executives that flexibility that parenting out loud that centering a care the caregiver the humanity in us is actually really important for the workplace because half of our population was going to drop out if we had one more crisis. And I remember one man said to me, well, what can we do? I said, just be the BBC dad. I want to see you on Zoom's being, or whatever it was back then.

And camera being interrupted by your kids in a walker and not pushing them out of the room and hiding them, but parenting out loud, not making your workers have to hide when they have to go take their kids to a doctor's appointment. Just understand that our humanity is in our care giving. And so I said, I wish for you that you all become the BBC Dad. And then ironically, we have a month later, we're all the BBC dad, we're all, you know, of course, there's essential workers who can, for the privilege of being home, but over 20 million workers were in their homes.

And so I think a lot about what I saw on those parents before, including myself, especially women, we hold two thirds or more of what it takes to run a home and family. That was the statistic I was undeniably living for 10 years before I even understood that was happening to me. I was the default parent for literally every single household and domestic task for my family. I call that the she fault parent. And so I think it is understanding that even before the pandemic, what I saw in thousands of interviews now,

I'm into the tens of thousands of interviews, was just the physical toll of being told our whole lives that having it all means doing it all, and watching women and myself not only lose our identity, but lose our mental health, our physical health, to this idea of not believing that we have a permission to be unavailable from our roles. So that was the number one thing women told me that was holding them back in their life,

that they didn't believe they had a permission to be unavailable from their roles as a parent, a partner, and a professional. But what you're saying is so many of the women that you've talked to feel like I can't take that extra space for myself. Is that what you're saying? And I know. Correct. And I love your term. You'll correct me if you would say it differently.

Like unicorn space. This idea of like I can step out of my role as a parent, not just to do something, quote, productive or to take the trash out or to pay taxes, but for something else, right? 100% and I think that is something I think about all the time, because again, the same way I didn't want to be a gender division of labor specialists, I did not think I'd be writing or thinking about women's collective identity, especially in America.

But I'll tell you about this breast cancer march I was on that I write about in Fairplay, because it sort of gets to the heart of what we're talking about here. It was nine women. We were honoring a friend who had been diagnosed. This was 10 years ago, 2011 or 2012. And they all looked like you, right? I mean, they were smart, not look like you, physically,

but they all were like you and that they were very powerful in their own rights. They were using their voices for the greater good in many cases. There was an Oscar winning producer there and CEO of a nonprofit. And it was really, really wonderful morning. I remember we were all covered in like pink litter and we were sort of marching and we were going to have lunch in downtown LA. And what happened to us was, this was after I was already becoming aware of my own marriage, that things were starting to feel really unfair after my second son, Ben, was born, which was exactly around the same time.

But at this march around noon, we literally became like the reverse of Cinderella. I don't know, maybe pumpkins. We turn into pumpkins. We started getting inundated with phone calls and texts from our partners. All of us except for one, I was married to a man with things like, I'm done, right?

I'm done. It was new and ready, like when you coming home, wears hats and soccer bag, where'd you leave me the gift and what's the address of the birthday party? My favorite was my friend Kate's husband who texted her do the kids need to eat lunch That was a good one But what disturbed me the most about that day I think was just and again, this was pre-consciousness right?

This is before I knew that this was happening to me obviously This is a way before fair play, but what I was recognizing was the shocking thing with that not one of the other women said to me, okay, let's just go to our lunch and shut off our phones. Every single one of those women said to me, I left my partner with too much to do. And they literally ran. They ran home to find Hudson Soccer Bag

to bring a perfectly wrapped gift to a birthday party and to feed their kids lunch. And that day, my active resistance that day, because I started to resist this. I was like, I don't want to live like this anymore. And this gets to what we're going to talk about, how you can be a game changer in your own life and your own marriage, even in the midst of mess up systems, like we started the podcast with.

But it was asking these women, okay, if you're gonna like ghost me for lunch, then at least help me count up how many phone calls and texts we've received. And we had 30 phone calls and 46 texts for 10 women over 30 minutes. And that's the day when I realized that this, you know, private lives are public issues that the home is super dangerous Becky

because it, you know, we think we're fighting over Hudson Soccer bag, but ultimately, this is about years and years and lifetimes of society building itself, our foundation of our house, of the house of our society has been built on the unpaid labor of women. And when we outsource, quote unquote, that was always a very sort of white feminist thing to say, well, I can, if you outsource,

but then it's the undervalued labor of women of color. So I keep coming back to the bigger issues too, because while I was learning about this in my marriage and feeling such rage and resentment over the fact that Seth was texting me that day, asking me where my kids' pants were to get them out of the house. And such rage, a kid's husband for asking if her kids need to eat lunch. Really what was happening was to me, it was my eyes were opening to the fact that we can no longer live this way where women are the default, the she-fold for literally every

single household and domestic task. In addition to being a breadwinner in many households for their families, so that's the full circle. That's the story that sort of started me on this journey to understanding that when you can start changing the dynamics in every individual marriage, you're also changing the politics and assumptions of our society. And it makes me think about what happens to us as women when we get a text about our partners' discomfort in child caring. Yeah, yeah. My partner's taking care of the kids.

I'm at a breast cancer walker. Something that even seems less noble. My partner's taking the kids and I am getting a manicure, or I am sleeping in, right? I am not doing good, I'm not walking for, I'm just doing something for myself, because that's the baseline. And I get the text of,

where's Hudson Soccer bag, or you didn't leave me the right food for lunch. Maybe my partner knows that they should have lunch, but then, right, what happens for me on an individual level? And one of the things I see in women over and over and over is that my partner's distress becomes my guilt. But what happens where my partner is uncomfortable, taking care of my kid, the two kids, figuring

out lunch. Okay. And my partner's male, I know your partner's male, so I'm gonna say him for now, because that's our lives. He's uncomfortable. I was doing something that I found enjoyable. And all of a sudden, his distress becomes my guilt, and then I'm going back to that story

of what happened on the breast cancer walk. That guilt now motivates me to change my behavior to assuage my guilt, but really now I'm doing something, I'm going back home to make my kids want to take care of my partner's discomfort. There's so many transfers of emotion. Hissing and the rage.

I love that you always talk about how that ends up leading to that resentment in these two rage, right? It's that circle. 100% because when we take on other people's feelings in that way, and then also take on actions and change to take care of someone else's feelings, our body knows we're not really doing that for us. Our body knows we just missed out on something else, right? And in the short term, we can manage our guilt, right? But in the long

term, the resentment builds up and it just is going to take one tiny thing for the entire vat of resentment to come out and, you know, exactly look like rage. And then in those moments, it's like, whoa, why why is so emotional about this little thing, right? And really, it's the last number of things or like, it's the last, it's the hundreds of years of this shit, right? That's been inherited. Absolutely. Now, so that's the which is cauldron.

So we'll call that sort of the cauldron that you just built, which is so beautiful and that analogy is so beautiful. And again, why do I love talking to you? Is because I think the combination of sociology and the individual psychology, the way you break it down, is so impactful. Because it allows us to recognize when we're complicit in our own oppression

and where also what we can do about it. But the last thing I'll add to that, which is called, and is just, we have an identity before that we can do about it. But the last thing I'll add to that, which is Cauldron, is just, we have an identity before that we can remember. So to me, the which is Cauldron after all that rage and resentment is also remembering that at one point in my life, there was a spark in fire in me.

That was about me. And I talked, I was on this amazing author talk with an author named Rachel Yoder who wrote a book called Night Bitch. It's a fictionalized book of a woman who turns into a dog because of her anger and resentment over her choices of becoming what I call an accidental traditionalist, but a state-owned mom due to the choices of her life. And so it's so fascinating because we both were talking about the fact that to become

a night bitch again, you have to remember the spark inside of you. Like she was saying when she was 17, she could do anything. A hundred percent. Where is she? When's the last time she came out? When and where and how did she learn that it was really dangerous to keep being seen? Where were those lessons? And where can I make contact with her now? Because for everyone listening, and I do think there's people listening who would say, yeah, I don't know if I ever really knew that girl.

Like right from the start, I was the good, complicit, what do people want of me, child? But what I know, and what I think about so often with all the different people I've even worked with in the therapy setting, I've gotten to know in such deep ways, that part of us, it's there for everybody. Because that part is the most in touch with our individual wants for ourselves.

It's been named a selfish by other people that is a gaslighting term. I mean, it's a part that has access to self, which is not the same thing as selfish. That's pretty solid, right? Like access to self, that seems like life sustaining, right? But that literally does exist for everyone. And actually, I think just even before we say,

oh, after this podcast, I'm gonna tell my partner that I'm going to get a full-time job after being a stay-at-home parent. If you wanna do that, you go, girl, like go do that, 100%. But if that feels like, yeah, that might be a little too far. What is something really small every one of us can do that gets us back in touch with that,

I'm gonna be president. And it might be dancing in the shower. It might be doing a cartwheel. It might be, you know, saying to the person at the store, no, I really do want to refund on this item. There's all these moments. We don't have to go from, you know, zero to a hundred. And actually pressing for a refund or doing a dance

and kind of letting your body be loose and have fun in the privacy of your own home, those actually are stepping stones to speaking up for the other wants and needs you have in your relationship. Hey, so I want to let you in on something that's kind of counterintuitive about parenting. The most impactful way we can change our parenting actually doesn't involve learning any new parenting strategies.

The most impactful way we can change our parenting is by giving ourselves more resources so we can show up as sturdier, so we can show up as calm amidst the inevitable chaos. It's what our kids need from us more than anything else. This is why I'm doing my mom rage workshop again. I'm doing it again because it is one of my most popular ones to date. It's coming up July 19th, but no worries if you can't make it live. It'll be available as a recording for whenever you have the time. I promise it's really the best investment we can make not only in ourselves, but also in our kids.

Can't wait to see you there at goodinside.com. So let's make this actionable. So give me your quickest and most to the point definition of unicorn space. So someone's listening to like, that sounds amazing, but what's unicorn space by Yvrajski? It is the answer to this question, which is going to still sound a little bit esoteric and then we'll break it down. It's the answer to the question, what makes you you and how you share that with the world? It is, what are you curious about? What community do you have to share that with?

And how do you complete something? The curiosity, many women do have curiosities. Many women do have communities that they feel like they could share with. But a lot of times we get stuck in the completion phase. Because of perfection, I'm sure you have lots of things to say about that. But that completion phase of not living in unfulfilled dreams. But if you have a curiosity, if you have a community, a connection to somebody externally, and then you have some completion, that connection to somebody externally, and then you have some completion.

That's all you really need. And it doesn't have to be hard. It could be literally making one pottery wheel and like, color me mine with your child. It could be learning your old piano song one more time. For me, I start to dance again. At the end of the day, it requires you to believe that you have permission to be unavailable

from your roles to carve out that time. And the last thing I will say is not so cycle. Self-care is important, but what we see in Unimania, Unimonic Wellbeing, which is what this is about, that's linked to mental health and longevity. It's not the personal pursuits. It's the sharing with the world. Christina Tossino of Milk Bar, I was watching her in a documentary and I was like, yes, she has it. Because she said the first thing that made her want to bake

was not how good her cake was. It was what it felt like to share it with a neighbor. You know, people give me all types of feedback on my Instagram or now I run to people on the street and you know, what feels best to me. This is totally true. Is when people say you know maybe I read something and like here's what happened in my home or here's what that felt like to me versus comments that are more like oh Dr. Becky you're you're amazing or that's such a smart idea.

And to watch us put things out there and then watch what that does, watch, watch impact or watch someone else access something in them is just it's the most amazing feeling in the world and that really that's definitely one of the things that drives me in my unicorn space. The other thing and I think for the lights to maybe what you're saying for so many women that the hardest part is the completion. Like, okay, this is, this is going to put it out there. Is the idea of, am I looking for someone to give me approval or good enoughness? Or am I in touch with or learning to be in touch with the feeling of, like, this lights me up. When I talk about parenting ideas, it lights me up.

I don't even really notice how people react. It's a icing on the cake if they're like, that was a great talk, but it's just icing on the cake. I kind of know inside me, that felt great or, oh, that part needs tweaking, that didn't feel as great. And it makes me think about how often women are raised to gaze out first, what does everybody think? And we really have to build the muscle of gazing in. What do I think? Meaning really, that's not really so much about thoughts, but what does this feel like to me?

That, oh, I'm creating something, this is fun, this is creative. And I really feel like that feeling is maybe one of the things you're talking about, when you're in that feeling, you might be in that unicorn space. That could be its own guide. You said it lights you up. That's that girl.

That's your girl. Again, you may not have known her earlier. I don't know how you were raised. But for me, when I was that, that lighting up again is my connection to my past. It's my own transitional object. I wear a ring that reminds me of my grandmother and she never sold a diamond ring that she took with her through the depression

and I wear it as my transitional object to her and the women behind me. But my transitional object back to myself is exactly that feeling. It's recognizing that I remember what it felt like to be in a flow state and to say that, you know what? I'm gonna keep doing this even though I may not be as good of a dancer.

I can't turn on my left foot because I have a bunion, a bone spur, like a million calluses. But I signed up for dance class again. It was outdoors. I could follow the choreography. Like I was so proud of myself. And so it's that I may not be the same as I was at 17, but I feel that light. A couple of questions, because I hear especially some women's questions

in my head, I don't make money. And I feel like my partner would say to me, oh, you need time kind of to yourself, like what, like isn't that what you get, is not what you get all day, or isn't that what you get when the kids are in preschool, right, like these moments that I think can shut down this desire to reclaim space.

What are your thoughts on that? That was a very big part of the resistance to my work, fair play. It was this idea that I make my wife's life. Like what does she have to complain about? What does she do all day? If you're so overwhelmed, just get help, right? All these messages that are actually really gaslighting because what they do is they perpetuate a stereotype that women's time is infinite like sand and men's time is finite like diamonds. So what do I mean by that?

Practically what that means is that if we're a society that doesn't value women's time, we're going to do things like when women enter a male profession, salaries will automatically come down, which always happens. Throughout history of women enter a male profession, salaries automatically go down. We will say things to women in our society such things as breastfeeding is free. When literally it's 1,800 hours of our time, it's an actual full-time job. But I think the hardest part was what we hear about our time ourselves, right? What did you do all day? You do all these unnecessary things. You could free up your time if you stopped doing

unnecessary things. I make your life. I'm the one who puts a roof over our head. Then we start internalizing it, and we can become complicit in our own oppression. And I know this from the sociology, and you can probably analyze this a lot from internally, but we start saying things to ourselves like, well, of course, I should do it because my husband makes more money than me, or my partner makes more money than me. This happens in LGBTQIA relationships as well. Or you say things like, in the time it takes me to tell him, are they what to do? I should do it myself.

Or you start saying things, you rationalize yourself, well, I'm just a better multitasker. I'm wired differently for this task. Or you say, yeah, we're both color rectal surgeons, but I should just handle the school forms because my partner's better at doing one thing at a time and I can find the time.

And so if you keep saying you can find the time, you can find the time, right? We have to recognize we're not Albert Einstein, right? We can't find time. We can't fuck with the space time, continue on. We have limited time, 24 hours in a day. And the unpaid labor, what we often call chores and housework, but I call our humanity,

those are a full-time job. Your partner does not make your life by putting a roof over your head. not make your life by putting a roof over your head. You make their lives by having a family for why they would even put a roof over their head in the first place. It is just a different way to view and value women's time. If we start to protect and guard our time, then society starts changing. So people get scared of that message. But we can do that individually. And so, yes, so what I like to say is all those messages, you say them to yourselves. And so, yes, so what I like to say is all those messages,

you say them to yourselves. Of course, yes, you will probably end up doing more unpaid labor in your home if your partner works outside the home, but you have to insist that you don't do it all, because that is more than a full-time job. We know the time diaries. It is more than 24 hours in a day, and you actually don't have it. And so what it ends up leading to is multitasking, stress, forgetfulness, not having any time for yourself, and then guilt and shame over your partner, look at you and say, what is wrong with you? Like, why are you so stressed?

And then on top of that, God forbid you decide you want to leave your relationship, and that person leaves with their degree, their job, and then you're there. What? Begging for alimony, the dynamics and our culture are really messed up. So what I'm here to say is you can start so small by just saying, you know what? My time is diamonds. For me, Becky and my own household, I had so much rage and resentment.

I write about that of their play over Seth. I was just raging and raging at him until I finally had that aha moment that oh my God when Seth has four hours after our kids go to bed to work on his career to work out to watch some sports center whereas literally literally I'm doing things in service of our household until my head hits the pillow after midnight so much though that I would start banging around because I was doing things and he's like, you're making too much noise at night. And so when I realize that, oh my God,

this is an issue around time choice. I get 24 hours in a day, just like Seth does. And I deserve equal time choice. As much time choice over how I use my days, my husband has. That was a huge aha moment for me. So that's a long answer to say that the unlearning is why you're here. That's what a husband has. That was a huge aha moment for me. So that's a long answer to say that the unlearning is why you're here.

That's exactly right. So I'm going to ask you for people listening. Where do you tell people, like, the first couple places they can start? What are a couple things people can do to start feeling more in touch with themselves, lighting themselves up? I think it depends on a lot of where your hurdles lie. So I think that

it's important first to ask yourself that checklist. Like when you said earlier, Dr. Beck, you know, like what's, is it, are you pausing on the guilt and shame? Is that the one you're pausing on? Is it the permission to be unavailable from your roles? Is it a boundary issue? Right? That, so I would say the first thing I would ask is what's the hurdle? And all I can tell you are what the most common three were for women at least. I interviewed men as well and non-binary individuals, but for women it was, so I'd ask you to say, you know, do I feel like most connected to the boundary issue of domestic encroachment, meaning like I sit down from my piano lesson

and it's two, 40 and I'm like, ah, yes, grandma's picking up, but I might as well go pick up my keys, right? That's a domestic encroachment, that's a boundaries breach. Are you feeling that the guilt and shame, like we said earlier, those feelings are coming up from our past,

so you're like, you know, you're 20 year old self where that helped you is now hurting you. Or is it that you don't believe you have a permission to ask for what you need? I think I would look at that because then literally you just book it with someone else. You can book your dance time.

It helps a lot for those women to book something with somebody else. To have accountability partner, a success partner that helps, it goes from 65% to 95% completion if you have a success partner like that. So Becky, you and I are gonna write together in a cafe. I can't just appoint Becky by showing up. So then I get to transfer my guilt to somebody else.

But at least, it's still there, but at least it's for my, I know you're my accountability partner. If it's a Pilton Shea issue, one quick thing that I started to do and this came from Dr. Cheryl Gonzalez-Eglor, a friend of mine who years ago helped me reframe guilt by saying, I feel guilty I didn't put out of the bed. She just said, you know what, you're going to start saying, I made the choice not to put out of the bed because. I love that. I just want to like highlight that for everyone, right? I feel so guilty that I went out to dinner with my friends and my daughter ended up having such a hard night when my partner,

but my daughter... That's the guilt interpretation. And really, there's such power. I say, oh, hi, Gelt. You're going to be with me a while. So just write all the lists. You have probably a long list of things you feel guilty about. This is one. Okay, keep going. Other side is being a little more in touch with myself. I made the choice. I made the choice to go out to my friends. I don't know about for you, but I love layering because I've taken that, I've heard that from you

and I love that. I made the choice to go out to dinner with my friends and almost always we can add. And I am allowed to make decisions that prioritize myself. Well, you and I have so many more conversations we need to have. So this is kind of one part of many. Thank you so much for being here.

Your work is so important. I've seen it help so many people. I know it's going to help so many more people. So thank you for sharing with all of us what lights you up. I can tell you it has very much impacted me and my family and I can't wait for the next time. We get to speak. Thanks for listening.

To share a story or ask me a question, go to goodinside.com slash podcast. You could also write me at podcast at goodinside.com. Parenting is the hardest and most important job in the world. And parents deserve resources and support so they feel empowered, confident, and connected. I'm so excited to share good inside membership. The first platform that brings together content

and experts you trust with a global community of like valuedvalued parents. It's totally game-changing. Good Inside with Dr. Becky is produced by Jesse Baker and Eric Newsom at Magnificent Noise. Our production staff includes Sabrina Farhi, Julianette and Kristen Mueller. I would also like to thank Erica Belsky, Mary Panico, Ashley Valenzuela, and the rest of the good inside team. And one last thing before I let you go. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves.

Even as I struggle, and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain good inside.