Trash Tuesday w/ Esther Povitsky & Khalyla Kuhn - Survive and Advance w/ Milana Vayntrub

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

Absolute Sweetie Pie Milana Vanytub AKA  AT&T's it girl for over a decade is in the stu this week. The girls talk about  what’s next for Milana’s career?  Motherhood...babies….growing up as an immigrant in the states….Esther’s  weird school play + of course  we get into the details of a colonoscopy procedure one of the girls went through….I’m sure you can guess which one. Enjoy!  THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSOR!!!!!! Say it with us **Skimmmmmmmssss*** Shop the SKIMS Soft Lounge Collection at SKIMS.com.  Now available in sizes XXS - 4X.  After you place your order, select "podcast" in the survey and select our show Trash Tuesday in the dropdown menu that follows.Absolute Sweetie Pie Milana  ___________________________________________________________________ More Milana Vayntrub  @mintmilana on IG!  Milana Vayntrub’s Pod: Your Mom is a Podcast: https://www.yourmomisapodcast.fm/   00:00 Please welcome Milana Vayntrub 02:30 Moving on from the AT&T Commercial  05:00 Blonde Vs. Brown 06:42 Milana Has New Podcast About Being a Mom 09:17 Having empathy for our Moms Despite Our Upbringing 12:00 Living up to Our Parents & Empathy 16:30 Babies are Hard on Relationships  22:00 What Trauma Has Actually Taught us in Adulthood 24:32 Esther’s Colonoscopy Fear & Calling Khalyla 33:00 Dealing w/ Letting Your Kid be With Strangers 40:15 How to Make Sure Your Kid is Vocal About Strange Behavior 46:00 Back Labor and Wrapping Up SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE TRASH TUESDAY: https://bit.ly/HitOurButtons Trash Tuesday Podcast iTunes Audio Feed: https://bit.ly/TrashTuesdayPodTrash Tuesday Podcast Spotify Audio Feed: https://bit.ly/TTPodAudioTrash Tuesday Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itstrashtuesday Listen to our other Podcasts: TigerBelly -https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tigerbelly/id1041201977Rick and Esther Have a Time - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rick-and-esther-have-a-time/id1694264079  Follow Us: Khalyla Kuhn - https://www.instagram.com/khalamityk Esther Povitsky - https://www.instagram.com/esthermonster Theme Song Written by: Bobby Lee http://instagram.com/bobbyleelive Banana Break Song by: Can Nguyen    https://www.candyedits.com Podcast Producer(s): Stella Young/Tiny Legend Productions  Shot and Edited By: Guy Robinson and Sean Wanless Edited By: Andrew Tarr (Audio) & Guy Robinson (Video)   This Video Contains Paid Advertising

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offer and your new three-month unlimited wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com slash Tuesday. That's mintmobile.com slash Tuesday. Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at mintmobile.com slash Tuesday. $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes. On unlimited plan, additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply statement mobile for details kalilah shop the skims soft lounge collection at skims.com now available in sizes double x to 4x that's what i love about skims you don't have to give up looking sexy to feel comfortable be sure to let them know we sent you after you place your order select podcast in the and select our show trash tuesday Tuesday, in the drop-down menu that follows. Hi, slugs. Welcome back. We're so excited. Today in studio with me and Koloko is our friend. She's an actress. She's an activist. And you may know her from the past 10 years of AT&T commercials. Please welcome Milana Weintraub. Hi. The audience is insane. The crowd is going wild for you. It's really overwhelming. Thank

you for coming today. It's so lovely to see you. It's been so long I know how are you like you're a mom you're a director I'm like I feel like the last time I saw you and this could be wrong was at Little Dumbs I was having lunch with Angela Trimber you walked past and you're like Angela taught me to put foundation in my sunscreen and my life has never been the same. That sounds right. She did teach me to mix foundation with sunscreen and that really actually was a game changer. Kind of like ahead of the times because now they have the tinted sunscreens, right? Right. You're a trailblazer. Well, Angela is.

Oh, yeah, that's right. I'm a trailblazer of doing what people who are prettier than me are doing. Right. You like to announce the trailblazing. Yes. I'll collect the information, pile it up. You are actually the trail ablaze. Someone else is blazing it.

Yes. But you are the path. I'm just laying there. Yeah. Walk all over me, hot girls. Wait. Yeah, no, I vaguely do remember that. Yeah, so what?

What's up? I know. So much is up. I don't know. Life is wild. I'm no longer doing the AT&T commercials. Really? That's been kind of a chapter end.

I think 10 years is like a nice benchmark. I'm grateful. You seem really disturbed by this. No, I just had no idea. Because in my head, that's... I feel like you're just sort of the image in my head of AT&T forever.

You're right. Which I'm sure you hear that all the time. Does that bother you? Where are you at with it? I don't know. It doesn't bother me because I feel like that was good for that job. It was helpful for that brand for when they showed my face for people to be like, I know what this is an ad for. This is memorable because it includes this recognizable face, this particular face.

because it includes this recognizable face, this particular face. And, but I also feel like I am adaptable and I can change the way I look. And I'm often like unrecognizable in other things, which is a weird skill. Like, you know, and also people are like confused. I think particularly men, like you change your hair and they're like, do I know you? And you're like, what commercial? Wait, can I just tell you? Okay. So when I was in high school, I did this play in Scotland. It's as long as not worth getting into the details, the fine print. You traveled? That's right. But listen, I swear this is going somewhere. I'm not just trying to flex on my high school. I just didn't realize you were a traveler. I'm not. this going somewhere i'm not just trying to flex on my high school i just didn't realize you were a traveler i'm not this is a one-off one-off okay and in the play it was a play that my theater teacher wrote so you know it was good and um there was no words but everyone played like an

archetype of a type of person and i need you to pause somebody wrote something without words in it yes okay yeah so like a live music video like a stage music collage everyone has the point is i had no lines but well did anyone no okay so it's not an insult yeah that's right okay if you flew to scotland to be, that'd be, you know what I mean? Well, essentially I did. Okay, but so one of the archetypes that I got to play in the traveling version, not even in the like local version, but in the traveling version, I was the blonde bombshell. Which as you, I'm sure you know, that was like everything to me. I was so excited.

And I got to wear this blonde Marilyn Monroe wig and like you know cinched waist dress whatever and after the show there was this really cute guy and we were like me and some of the other actresses actors were talking to him and he was like who is that blonde girl like I want to meet her and I'm like oh my god that was me and he's like oh and he was so disappointed and it was such a like it was such a core memory of just a guy totally not caring about you and me realizing or just like reinforcing that when you have brown hair you're ugly like did you ever feel that if you're not blonde you're not pretty i never never felt a draw towards being blonde. Okay. And.

Okay. You love your blondies, though. You love Anna Nicole. You like Marilyn. I do. You have a really big, you know, you're magnetized to blonde. I can also see how blonde would look better on you than it does on me. I could see you looking great as a blonde.

I feel like you're trying to make, turn this into like a compliment on me. Have we tried? I would never. Have I tried being blonde? Yeah. I mean, I saw, I know I've seen the wigs. Oh, just like little highlights here and there. I don't think, I love dark hair now. I think because I was so rejecting of it when I was younger. Now I'm like, no, it's actually amazing. Thank you, Kim Kardashian, for being beautiful with dark hair. Anyways, I just wanted to confirm with you that men are so dumb about hair color. Yeah, hair color. Honestly, shirt. Shirt.

On a different setting. When I do stand up, there have been times where I've talked about being the girl from the AT&T commercials and they're like, it doesn't click. Yeah, right. It's so I'm not worried about it. No. Just to say in terms of like being associated with that. I think it was a great gift and I'm really grateful that it happened. And I'm very curious about everything that's coming up.

That's so cool. Wait, so now where are you shifting your focus more directing? I saw you were doing a podcast about moms. Yes. where are you shifting your focus more directing I saw you were doing a podcast about moms yes I'm doing a podcast called your mom is a podcast where we basically interview people that we find fascinating and their moms to figure out how they got that way yeah because like a lot of the times you meet someone and you're like wow I it would be amazing if my kid turned out like you or I would be so proud of my kid if they had this quality or that quality. And you know, now that you have a kid, like it takes up 90% of my mind and it is so much of my identity. I recently read this book called Machiavelli for Women. And one of the things it talked about, and I think is really true, is that it hurts women to talk about children in the workplace because there's an assumption that you are splitting time, that you're unavailable,

that you're deprioritizing work, whatever the assumption is. But when men talk about having children, it's like, what a hero. He went, he left work early to pick up his kids. How charming. And if she leaves work early to pick up her kids, she doesn't care about the job. So and I do think that we don't work in a very feminist industry. Unfortunately, I think, you know, more women in positions of power is changing that. Thank you both for being. Thank you all of you for being women in positions of power to hire other people. But it is. Yeah. So it takes up so much of my mental space. Very hard to not talk about all the time. And so interesting to me that I started this podcast with my friend Sandeep

and it's been really cool. It's been a real gift to our guests because we're like, hey, you want to like have a beautiful moment with your mom and talk to you get to like know your mom in a way that you haven't. Because how often do you get to like have that facilitated moment? Are you do you have guests on with difficult relationships with their mom and still ongoing? I was asking if she can come on. mom and still ongoing. Koala's asking if she can come on. Or are you finding, because I mean, it is almost like, you know, I have such deep envy for sweet childhoods and people talking about their mothers in a way that felt safe for them. And I never got that. Like not a moment in my life

did my childhood ever feel like it belonged to me or that I was ever safe. And so when I hear people talk lovingly about, you know, just being around like this sturdy loving mom, I'm like, oh fuck, like they probably are such well-balanced adults. How old was your mom when she had you? She was 23, 22.

Yeah. I think about that. My mom was really young when she had me, too. Baby, right? And I'm like, could you imagine? And then also being an immigrant. My mother is an immigrant, too. Right. You were a Soviet Union. Yes. I was born in Uzbekistan. And then my mom moved here when I was two. And my son is three now. And I think about moving to a new place, not speaking the language, having a really unsteady, sorry dad, but like really shitty relationship with my dad was like delivering donuts and being a plumber and like doing the jobs that people who don't speak English well do. Because one of the things that's really true and really heartbreaking, but I think is important to remember about anyone who doesn't speak the language is it's really hard

to see how smart, funny or charming they are. Right. It just will not be communicated. And I speak Russian pretty fluently, but I'm sure I sound like a dumbass to people who speak Russian, who live in that culture. So that was really hard on him. Couldn't really get financial footing. And so he had the opportunity to go back to the Soviet Union, I mean, former Soviet Union, but to go back to Uzbekistan and start a business and all these things. So he was traveling my whole life. He's been gone. And I have an opportunity coming up where I'm going to have to leave town for almost a month to work on a project. And I'm like, how did he do that? How did he regularly leave us? And I imagine that he just had to put up so many emotional

walls because I don't believe he didn't give a shit about us. I believe he had to redirect his thinking to be like, I'm focusing on this money so that I can say, I mean, that's what I at least believed growing up is like, he's out there because he loves us and he needs to make money so that we can live. Right. I had to say that to myself as a child and I did believe that I'm not sure if that's true but there was a that there's still like a um maybe an anger or resentment just about how often and seemingly easy it was for dads to leave. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, so I am coming at this from such a different angle than you guys. Like, so becoming a mom, it does really, you just, it's almost like this bomb goes off. And, like, it doesn't even need to be that doesn't need to be as negative as it sounds a bomb of glitter yes it's just like whoa everything is has been shaken up and is being rearranged and coming up and one of the things that like the big a big shift for me is when I'm really hard on myself which I feel like I've never I'm like was I ever hard on myself did I ever feel guilt or shame before like I have no

idea super common now I really do but I find myself thinking back on oh my god my mom was such an amazing mom and I haven't given her any of the credit I have that too that she has deserved and then also building on the like I mad at hard on myself it's like oh I'll never be what she was like I here's how I'm lacking in comparison to her and that's like a really difficult thing that I'm like grappling with I'm not a parent and I already know I could never live up to what my mom had to go through. I mean, just the fact that she, like you said, I mean, being an immigrant, English is not her first language. Being married to someone who was like three decades older than her, coming from abject poverty but also she would say things like stroller like like baby carrier she's like what are those she had my sister on her hip and me in her belly and just kind of like

did motherhood in a very like white knuckle white knuckle way and um and so i i already know i could never like live up to the way she was such like and she took like she made motherhood like a full-blown sport that she would not fail at but then that's what happened she helicoptered right then she went a little too hard into motherhood and she could have pumped the brakes a little bit. It's a really hard line to know how to walk because you want to you have to have some kind of control. You're the person setting all the boundaries and creating the reality for this new person. Right. And also you have to make sure to not say careful. Oh, my God.

All the fucking time. I do that with my dogs already so i'm really nervous about being just a parent in general because like my everything like i'm always two steps ahead i'm always saying don't i don't want to be that are you that it's she doesn't even roll yet so it's like i didn't take her to ballet. But I do with Dave. I definitely am like, careful, you know, like don't die. Yeah. Or like just what he's doing with her or like when he's like a little too rough with donut.

Like I'll have to pull him aside and be like, look, some people can roughhouse with their dogs. Donut is seven pounds. We can't do that. Like she's gentle. Do you guys have to fight the urge to tell your spouse how to do things with baby? Or is that, do you just let go and. No, there is no letting go of anything. I've never let go of anything. And I don't think I've had a single thought that I haven't told him. Like there's no holding back. Um, because I think part of the reality is the birthing parent has mother's intuition

has an intuition i didn't believe that and now i'm like no it's there like i can literally just check in like it's not for me i have to like go okay where is it what is it and then i'm like okay tonight we're not doing the swaddle anymore like I just it I don't know it's I it's really there it's really there the father does not have that mother's intuition and so they need to read the books and they need to listen to the the mom like it just is the way it is I'm also using mom interchangeably like but i do think that you they they not only have to be told what to do they have to be and i'm saying this i need you to hear me and then if there are any of you still out there you have to let the person who gave birth

tell you what the fuck to do and you have to say thanks i didn't know that it's so helpful oh oh i gotta oh i gotta wipe this way thanks i didn't know that oh i have to not put the baby in the blazing sun thanks I have to clean this bottle this way. Thanks. I didn't know that. What are you helpful? How many were the thanks? I didn't know that. Five words will make the newborn stage so much healthier for relationships. It's so hard on a relationship, the newborn stage, because now you are co-producing the highest stakes project of your life and you're both exhausted. One of you has just come out of basically major surgery, if not exactly major surgery, and you have to cooperate in ways that you've never,

you're dependent on each other in a way you've never had to be dependent on each other before. I know. Pardon me. Cause I'm such a like lonely person forever. Like that, that like new found bond of like, we're where this is all hands on deck all the time. Yes. I romanticize that so much. Like it was so fun. But I will say that on the mother's intuition thing, like no one is allowed to just to decide the temperature of her bathwater but me. Yes.

Like no one will know exactly the right temperature except for me. And I just, I don't trust anyone else with that. My cousin who has two kids, she's like a little bit younger than me, but she feels like a big sister because she's just so wise and has done this ahead of me. We were, my son was really little. We were at her place. All of like the aunts and grandmas, my family is just like all women. They're like, most of the men have bounced. So it's just like every girl has two girls and every girl has two girls. It's a lot. But something was going on.

Somebody was maybe trying to feed my son something. I don't remember what the situation was, but she goes, ah, ah, ah. She's the mom. Like nobody else here, none of the aunts and none of the grandmas, nobody else who's been a mom gets to say what happens with this baby. She's the mom.

I love that. And I, yes. And that's also so comforting for me to even hear when I'm by myself, when I feel the pressure to like, oh, well, we should really go to. No, I'm the mom. Like I decide what we get to do. Oh, you think that this is how my baby should and it fill in the blank i'm the mom yeah and that is really such a powerful way to see like that's a new way for me to see myself you know asking for permission asking for acceptance asking to be liked such a

huge part of being a woman but definitely a huge part of my personality. And being in charge of this person, you know, and again, walking that line of like, where am I flexible? Of course, allowing him to be himself. But the confidence of there's a reality where I know what's best for him intuitively is such a confidence builder for me. Oh my God. Wait, I haven't thought of it like that. That's, I love hearing that. It is confidence building. And also I heard a friend say like, you're your kid's best mom. Cause it's, it's hard to be like, I didn't do this, like this person and I'm not doing a good job because of this but it's like no I I'm her best mom that's it's me I'm the best mom for her so that has been really like a helpful you know I don't know mantra yes I also I love that I heard you say like it did shift your

identity it is all you're interested in because that's definitely the like I'm that's what's happening for me and I'm like oh am I crazy but it's I because we had talked before I had the baby like about you know when becoming a mom like you don't want that to be your whole personality but now I'm like I can't control myself it just is and maybe that's temporary yeah like I think I am my son is now three and I think I'm a little bit more maybe in the past six months or a year I have felt more like the person I used to be as he's become more independent and I feel better about leaving him with people because I could always leave him with somebody. But the guilt was real because I knew that what he needed most was me. And I'm like, how am I robbing him from the thing he needs most? You know, that's all the guilt talk.

But also, I think what a child needs most is a happy, thriving mother. And if that you think your mom being that way made you awesome um in terms of just having like an overall tough childhood or um like what qualities of hers helped make you awesome whether it's like you're leaning towards or leaning away um so i love how Dr. Drew puts it, where it's like, I'm able to frame my trauma in a way that's both an asset and a liability. And I can carry those two truths together where it's like, okay, these are the things that happened, but good things did sprout from that. And I do that I am able to be, I'm very empathetic. I read people's cues a lot. That's a very, that's a huge quality of a traumatic childhood.

You ever play Mafia? I've never played Mafia. It's a game where you can like, one person in the room is like the murderer and you have to guess who it is. I am a monster at that game. Really? I am not good at being the murderer. I am not good at being the murderer. I'm not good at being the mafia.

But if someone is acting a little weird, I'm like, oh, it's you. Because of walking on eggshells. Right. Because of our ability to be like, oh, am I going to get hit right now? Right. So I later learned that being an empath, it was sort of like a survival mechanism because you'd have to read, like for instance, my mother's cues, like she would switch up so fast and you didn't know what

the implications were for yourself. Would you get your ass beat? Would you be in a bad mood? So that eggshell lifestyle keeps you very alert. Yes. So it's both a good thing that I have, like, I can read my surroundings really fast and people really fast. Yeah. But also I become like an overtly people pleaser. Yeah. Because I've had to please my mom. Wait, why did I, why was I gestured at?

Because you're my goals member. Right. Right. We have. We have like an interesting dynamic where I get stressed that she's just trying to people please where I'm not. She can't read me. She doesn't know if I'm saying yes because I genuinely want to do it or if I can't say no. And I don't want someone to say yes to me if they don't want to. That's like my nightmare. Yes. The reason I love Esther is because it's never a guessing game. No is no. Yes is a genuine yes. And I do envy like having that kind of superpower. Like I never, it's never a guessing game. Yeah, I guess so. And I feel there's more trust that you are saying how you feel or what you're telling me is genuinely how you feel yeah whereas I will kind of like like hide a little bit and like mince my words or soften the blow because I don't I don't want to deal with it then

but I eventually I do come around You were hiding from me last week. What was I hiding about? Can we talk about this? Yeah. No, that was not hiding. This is Esther's medical anxiety. It is. I don't know.

Did you have this postpartum like extreme advanced medical anxiety, like health? No. Okay. I didn't. I saw this. You seem balanced. Or maybe i just didn't get it diagnosed i kind of went into like a hole and so i don't maybe i just didn't get help for it okay i saw this really cryptic tiktok that was like this woman saying that colon she would never get a colonoscopy so i text klyla i'm like why would someone say they wouldn't get a colonoscopy

and she just she gave like the most vague answer and like wouldn't really answer the question. For starters, I didn't think I was qualified to answer that question. I'm like, why is she asking me why people shouldn't get colonoscopies? And then she just goes, I've had one because I had so much bleeding, lol. So it's fine. But I'm like like but why is it not fine like why why is this woman saying this and she just kept like only answering other questions but not that question so in my head I'm like spiraling like having a colonoscopy is like so bad that she won't even tell me and then I called you it was I was having my sister's birthday dinner

getting a barrage of like why why are you ghosting me? Why aren't you replying? What's the truth about colonoscopies? I'm like, oh my God, Esther. She finally calls me and you're like, why are you running away from this question? I was like, it's, I'm the problem? You're spiraling about a colonoscopy.

Why did you care so much? That's like one person's random. I literally didn't care that much, but it was just, you know, when someone like they keep not answering a question and then in your head, you're like, this is really bad. Like this is big. I just thought it was so silly. Okay. Now I see that. I'm not going to feed into her already existing anxiety about the colonoscopy she had eight years ago. I know. You had one colonoscopy eight years ago? Like six years ago.

And it just happened to be like farts, right? Why do you have to? No, let's talk about your bowels. Okay, and so you're worried that that maybe? She thinks that because she got a colonoscopy. No, I don't think that. I'm fine. I don't want to talk about this anymore. I don't want to talk about this anymore.

I don't want to talk about it either, honestly. I have to get to the bottom of this. I also have a question, a big question, which is how often are we calling Kalilah and texting her about medical problems? Literally, I feel like almost never lately, but recently after postpartum, a little more. Yeah. And I don't mind the ones that I actually like. Are you a doctor? No, I went to nursing school. Like this is why I'm telling her. I'm like, I don't think I'm the

person for it. But the thing is, is then then I ask you things and then you're right before my doctor. I think I just answer before your doctor. Yeah. But you know, you have my sister's number now. She's way more qualified than me. Is she really? Yeah, bother somebody else. She's like pawning you up. What if I give you the wrong answer? I trust you more than you trust yourself. So I'm not concerned about that. So wait a second. So the colonoscopy thing, what were you worried about?

I don't know. I literally wasn't even that worried. It's just when someone ignores a question you start to like you know you start to build stories don't say you say i yeah you do that because i am not relating to the story i'm like she's probably busy no what but she was responding to other things because she was distracted i know because i was like i i think this is a nothing thing. I now see that. Right. But it just, it built up. I didn't realize it was heavy on your mind.

It was a scary story in my head just because of you ignoring it. Because I was like, oh, it's so bad that she doesn't want me to know how bad it is. And then I think I said, like, don't make me Google it. Like, you know, that will be harder on me. But then the next day you were like, so why do you think there's a rise in um colon cancers in young young people i was like oh god here we go my algorithm has taken this weird colon turn and i need to go back this colon shaped yeah i need to go back into mommy style yeah i did answer that because i was like she's not gonna stop if i don't answer. So I was like, I don't know, lifestyle, maybe early diagnosis.

No, but I can typically, I handle like not being responded to. I handle that very well. Like that's not an issue. Like we go days in between and stuff. But it was just that one thing. I swear I'm not that annoying. It's really making me seem worse than I am. And that, I guess I'm okay with that.

Where were we? I think we were talking about our parents trauma and how it shaped us positively and so positive for me maybe i don't even want to tell you about how my dad died he had colon cancer oh my god no i feel like that's the venn diagram of all the things we've been talking about i feel like since you're so connected to my father i know like maybe you knew something but anyways he was 80 it was time it was time anyways timed out okay after years of fine print contracts and getting ripped off by overpriced wireless providers if we've learned anything it's that there's always a catch so when i heard that for a limited time all mint mobile wireless plans are15 a month when you purchase a three-month plan, I thought,

where's the catch? But after talking to them, it all made sense. There isn't one. Mint Mobile's secret sauce is that they sell wireless services online. They don't have retail stores or sales people. Instead, they deliver premium phone plans directly to you. As you guys know, our friend Rick Glassman, he uses Mint Mobile. I learned about Mint Mobile through George Kimmel. George is a busy guy. He takes the most business calls and the fact that not a single call is ever dropped. And you can use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all of your existing contacts. Say goodbye to your overpriced wireless plans. Mint Mobile is here to rescue you with plans starting at 15 bucks a month and all plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's

largest 5g network that is such a steal to get this new customer offer and your new three-month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month go to mint mobile.com slash tuesday that's mint mobile.com slash tuesday cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at Mint Mobile dot com slash Tuesday. Forty five dollars upfront payment required equivalent to fifteen dollars a month. New customers on first three month plan only speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. So it's an actual dream come true that Skims is a sponsor of this show because I feel like you and I fell in love over Skims. And today we're talking about one of my all time favorites, the Soft Lounge Collection.

I have been living in them. I'm postpartum. OK. And so I know a thing or two about being comfortable, but also wanting to feel like yourself again, wanting to feel a little sexy. That's where the Soft Lounge Collection comes in, because first of all, it's the softest, my most favorite material. I recently ordered this little onesie and it's like a spaghetti strap and then shorts. I walk around the house. I'm doing my laundry. I'm taking care of my baby. I look sexy. Scoop onesie. It's so comfortable that I have to get louder. It's comfortable. I look sexy. Dave goes, hmm?

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Southland. How do you deal with the both of you having kids? Like, what is the roadmap or what are the rules or are there any hard and fast rules around iPads, iPhones, screen time? Or are you just going to like wing it? Have you winged it yeah this is such a hard thing to navigate like i of course feel it's like all about what you said like how you model yourself and i'm like when i reach my phone i'm like oh this is an addiction i have and if i don't stop it soon how am I to expect her to not want to be a part

of it and do it and I'm just that's always on my mind of like what what's my game plan like what's the end have you and Dave talked about where you want to take it with a phone and we just say like we have to fix this we don't know what we're going to do. Obviously, like, you know, she's so young. She obviously does not look at screens. And I've read, like, not till age two. Then people say they do it sooner. People say they do it later. Like, I just have no idea.

I'm like one day at a time, kind of. But I think the bigger issue is what am I going to do? How am I going to, you know, at a certain point, she's going to be aware that it's there and it has to. I can't bring it out in front of her. How are you going to address your addiction? Yeah. Yeah. And I do really believe in the modeling thing, like because I like I've never had alcohol before.

And when I really think about why that is, I think it's because my parents never had alcohol. Like we never had it in the house. And I just I so I'm I about why that is I think it's because my parents never had alcohol like we never had it in the house so I'm I know that works modeling am I going to start reading in front of my kid? I don't know but I should I'll read to her. You could read with her

Julia Fox's book yeah maybe yeah my kid's not going to someone's house if it's against the parental rules Yeah, maybe. Yeah, my kid's not going to someone's house if it's against the parental rules. And if they're not a safe person. Did you guys watch that Nickelodeon documentary? I was like, oh, right. All of these parents trusted these adults.

It's so hard to get away from them because as someone who has been sexually abused as a child it came from my own household and um and it came from someone who even when i later on like my whole family knew about it they were kind of just like yeah like no full acknowledgement so it's like i feel like nowhere is safe and and it really is like you can put all the protective barriers and do your best but ultimately they will be a part of social groups i mean i had a friend who was unfortunately like assaulted in middle school by his baseball coach and it turns out that the baseball coach assaulted a bunch of other kids it's like it's just kind of hope to God that your child knows that you're a safe person to tell these things to. And they feel confident enough to say,

this is my body. Hell no. And that starts really, really young. That starts really young. I teach my son all the time to say, don't touch my body or no touching or I don't like that. And it's good for him. I'm like, great. Practice that. I've also been sexually assaulted. And it's like such an unfortunate, massive reality. And I think a big part of that, I mean, talk about like how our childhood shapes us. A big part of that was like having to kiss every person that my mom was friends with when i walked into a room go hug uncle you have to hug uncle and it doesn't matter that his lips are wet and it grosses you out kisses right right in the eyeball kisses you right in the ear yeah you're just like that's fine i can't hear but it's fine to sack it's it's the moral lesson of i'm going

to sacrifice my comfort for the comfort of others that for me was the main ingredient in my assault yeah is that i was like this it's fine for me to be in pain for your comfort. It's not just it's fine. It's safer. And then to shut up about it. Because when I did voice the smaller things of like, I don't like it when he hugs me. Right. I don't like that thing he said. Yeah.

You're told to shut up. So, yeah. So I'm I'm raising a fucking noisy kid. I like that, though. They considered me a noisy kid, a little too noisy. And I was like, it wasn't noisy enough. I should have sounded the alarm much louder. But I think because in my family, sexual assault was such a common thing that happened to a lot of my aunties and my mom. How do you, do they talk about that?

When did you guys talk about that? They never talked about it. I mean, now we're able to kind of like, it seems like all the girls in my family were. But I think that because it was such commonplace for them, unfortunately, that when I finally did say something, they were like, you're not special. Like, we've all been there who hasn't kind of that was like the reaction and i i took that as a okay i'll never mention it again you're like first of all i am special

i know i am okay you're like you think that was bad i mean that's what it sounded like when i went to the police about my assault. Oh, wow. I was like, oh, yeah, that happened to you at a party? That happens all the time. Yeah. Wow. I will say I had a really beautiful conversation with my mom on this topic where, you know,

my mom loves my son and I am not afraid of her being with him in any way. She is like such actually like a beautiful release valve for me because i really can leave him there with her and they're both so fulfilled by each other's company it's so i'm so so grateful for that relationship but she like loves him to the point of smothering well she like wants to kiss his feet and kiss his butt. And, and he's just like, ah, you know, and that's literally the sound he makes. Oh, I can like hear them on the phone. And, um, and so I've like had to have this conversation with her about how important it is that he can say no and how good it is that he says no. And, and I brought up because children are assaulted and I want him to know that it is safe for him to stand up for himself and that he is the boss of his body. That's another thing I

teach him to say. I'm the boss of my body. And when I said to my mom, I'm doing this to prevent him from ever being sexually assaulted. I saw something click in her that said to me, like I've been there and we've never had a conversation about it, but it made me feel like she has experienced it. It is so common. I don't know who I never. This is why it would be great to take mushrooms with my mom and go for a walk. But yeah, it made me feel like it made me feel like she knows.

She got it. She the point was understood. Yeah. And I've never talked to my mom about my sexual assault. Yeah. It is a hard thing to talk to your mother about i mean even for me now the most we'll say it's like yeah that thing happened but um we had another instance in america when we first came to america where we had a family doctor i was 15 we had a family doctor who was doing stuff to us that we didn't know was not protocol.

And so when I would go in for like a sniffle or a shoulder injury, he would basically do like a full pelvic exam on me. My sister came with back pain and he basically like stuck fingers in places that didn't need whatever. And but my mom, he did something similarly too so we all have the same like american abuser so that gave us a little bit of solidarity even though like my childhood stuff wasn't necessarily addressed she finally like over the pandemic she was like wait can i tell you what he did to me i was like yes tell us and so that was even though it was such a disgusting thing to have gone through it did um there was something mended there when she told us okay like this is this is what happened with this particular doctor

and um yeah he lost his license all of the, all of all of the things that needed to happen happened to him. Thankfully, the law took care of him. But it was nice. It was not nice. But I'm glad that she was like, OK, like, you know, the truth came out. We can talk about something like this terrible together. But I also heard that it's from my brother. I got in trouble because I didn't call my niece's vagina. I called it like a tweeter or something. It's better to call it by the animatonical. I don't think I said that right thing. Because then kids know like vagina instead of penis and penis instead of like weird like tweeter and thingy. And I think that helps as well. they're saying with that the same problem and I'm wondering how you guys feel about

that gosh all the names the fun names I have called like yesterday my boyfriend was like what did you call it it was like my naan bread he's like why are you calling your naan it's like it's naan bread I've called it everything under the sun. I do think that's probably correct. But, I mean, there is a joy in, you know, coming up with 50 names for. I'm just thinking when I used to help my sister babysit and the little girls would say, ouchie tootie. And that meant their vagina hurt. I'm like, now I'm like, wait, why did it hurt?

Probably because they had a urinary tract infection yeah no but you know you can't do bubble baths right for little girls no i did not know that i didn't know that either yeah you don't want to put soap in like a perfectly working vagina that knows how to clean itself oh that's right, I wish mine still knew how to clean itself. Me too. It seems like mine has completely forgotten how to clean itself. Wait, I think our text messages the last two weeks have mostly been about our vagina is not cleaning itself. Yeah.

Sorry, TMI. The pH is not pH-ing. This summer. this California summer. Have you guys tried a candida cleanse? No. No. Let me introduce you. Join the chat.

Yeah. Log on. If you have common symptoms, may include yeast infections, sinus infections, skin rash, all sorts of things that are like an overgrowth. It's often that there is an overgrowth of this bad bacteria, candida, that feeds off sugar. And so the way to get rid of it, I already lost Esther, is to starve it off by not giving it sugar. Don't feed your yeast. Oh my God. Don't feed your yeast, babe.

What if it's BV though? Oh, I don't know enough. Will this work? The struggle for me would be the fruit because I'm such like, all of the fruit kiosks, the fruit men in Los Angeles, they all know me

and they all give me extra. You can do coconuts. Love coconut. You can do berries. Do, I do the berries, but no the in la you have to have the mango with the tahin and the chamoy and the watermelon yeah you can have jicama i think oh jicama is good yeah it's not mango though no but jicama with a lot of lime can hit the spot okay how was monk fruit sweetener how was giving birth for you oh we don't

have to go there but i'm just no it was um it's weird that you forget and your body is like i would do this again i know is that a real thing the amnesia yeah yeah a part of it because you're the the feel good hormones are so strong afterwards. You're just like, that was amazing. And I do think parts of it were really amazing and then i gave birth the following saturday morning i had back labor um and was planning a home birth back labor is when your kid is they call it sunny side up which means their face is facing forward what you want is their back to be on your belly so that the hard bones of their spine are on your soft, cushy belly? And then there's room. He was the other way around. So his spine was on my spine. So it felt like the baby was coming out of my butt. And I was like, I called my midwife and I was like, I haven't slept in two days. The pain is unmanageable. I've tried drinking wine and taking Benadryl and doing all these other things. And she's like, I don't think anybody should have to go through back labor unmedicated. And I was like, thank God. I don't know why I needed her permission because I'm a people pleaser. And I was like, thank God we got in the car. We went to this wonderful hospital and they put me in a

wheelchair as soon as I got there. And I was like, guys, I can't sit down. There's a baby in my butt. And I loved also, it's so funny because like comedians are always going to try to be comedians, but I gave my best set while pushing. I was just like, I had this, you know, the doctor and her daughter, actually, they were both doctors, which I thought was so beautiful. So it was like the two of them and my midwife who ended up like who ended up not really having to do anything because I transferred to a hospital. My doula, Carson Meyer, who's an angel. My husband had this amazing team around me and I was just doing bits the entire time I was pushing. It was amazing. But yeah, I was in there for like another day and a half. You know, they

gave me they gave me fentanyl when I got there, which was amazing. So much fun. I had so much fun with that. Yeah. Worth the nine months of sobriety. Yes. So good. Well, honestly, I just needed to rest. And I had you know, I watched The Business of Being Born. Do you guys know this movie? No, I didn't watch that. you can get rushed into a C-section because you've been given the drug that will help you open and the drug that will numb you up in a certain order that doesn't align with how the baby wants to come out. And thus you are taken to get a C-section. And so I was really trying to not do the drugs or do them in a way that was very slow so that I could actually have a vaginal delivery. And, um, and not because getting a C-section is bad. I was just scared of it. And, um, so I, yeah, I was in labor for so fucking long until like, you know, Saturday morning,

I'm like, this is illegal. Like, oh, and because of because of back labor uh the epidural doesn't really work oh really it worked for like two hours but i was in labor for you know days so like oh my god it was enough for me to like take a nap and um and i had to get two epidurals like one guy came did the epidural i took a nap woke up and i'm like it's back i feel everything feel my back breaking oh my god And I didn't even have a normal contraction. I don't think like, I don't, you know, people are like, it feels like cramps. I never had anything like that. It was always all in my back. And yeah. And then when I was able to push, I pushed for like two hours and that was the best part because

it felt like progress. So much of contractions is like, it's like you're standing in the water and the wave just goes over you and you just have to like breathe through it and like, okay, it's coming and it's gone. Okay. And you just have to stay cool. But with, when it's time to push, you can do something about it. And it feels progressive. It is satisfying. And it feels like you're working on something. Yes. Something's happening.

So that was a real gift to me. And also my midwife had my husband lay behind me in the bed, which is like a little bit Handmaid's Tale. But was also so beautiful because I got to be spooned while i he like spooned me and held my legs like this way oh no he was on the bed he was on the bed and i was laying on him oh i love that so he got to like that's an option yeah he got to like talk in my i had a speaker in one year i like had two playlists. I had my calm playlist. This is I highly recommend. Two playlists. One is like your calm down playlist and one is your pump up jams.

One is like your breathe bitch and the other is your work bitch. And so we brought our own speaker to the hospital. He held it with one hand right by my head. And with the other one was like talking to me and telling me I could do it and kissing my head and kissing my neck and holding you know I don't know how he had so many hands and uh yeah it was amazing it was amazing oh also there was a mirror right in front of me so I could see him crowning what it was a fucking trip yeah we could both see that that's a fucking trip oh my god i like i i'm so i never would want to see that but i'm like obviously i have a curiosity like that's so crazy and i'll be down for that dave behind you with a mirror in front i really like how it went like oh you probably already talked about it on this podcast i did but it's like i was thinking that does sound nice but weirdly when it came time to pushing

i sort of wanted it to just be about me and nurse suzy and like not so much dave like that was sort of my moment to be intimate with this nurse who's angel yes right aren't they angels they're of course that's this is why i'm so into her because she went to nursing school so she is my angel that's so sweet well i'm so sad that we're out of time but this has been so fun and like therapeutic to have this little mommy chat which i always need because i don't know when you're like home mothering sometimes it feels like you're the only mom in the world and like you're doing this all on your own so whenever i connect with other moms it feels really like i don't know it just fills me up so thank you for being here and chatting about this stuff anytime you can call me thank you but not about colonic

yeah whatever thank you so much yes and everyone to check out your podcast yeah your mom is a podcast it's a podcast yay thank you melana we'll see you guys next week. We'll see you guys next week with a brand new episode.