Quickie takeaways from today’s Substack if you have exactly fifteen seconds:
Mom shame is everywhere and we don’t need to take it any more.
Shame is often driven by the desire for one's own choices to be seen as the best choices for everyone. People want to feel good about the decision THEY invested time in implementing.
Social media can be both a source of connection and comparison for new moms. Two things can be true. It can be your best friend and the mean girl from high school.
The postpartum period and how women shame one another is VERY similar to how we treated other girls in middle school.
Curation is your best friend in 2024. Curating social media feeds will help moms find supportive communities and avoid negative comparisons. Unfollow often.
A meme has been going around this week that tells moms that when they drop their baby off at daycare their baby thinks they are dead.
THE BABY THINKS THEY ARE DEAD.
Who even comes up with this stuff? Sometimes I think there is a top secret mom-shaming lab somewhere under the Siberian perma-frost where they force people to make memes to undermine the world’s mothers in case we finally decide to revolt. (that could actually be an excellent starting place for a new novel).
I found out about this ridiculous when I chatted with the economist and bestselling author Emily Oster last week. She has been sent it about a dozen times.
Emily has been one of my north stars when it comes to parenting advice. As an economist she gives rational and reasonable advice based in real data about what works, what doesn’t work and what actually doesn’t matter. I’ve loved her no bullshit tone since I was pregnant with my first baby and I totally fan girled when I had her on the podcast.
There were dozens of things that I wanted to talk to Emily about, but the big one was mom shaming and judgement. This is mostly because one of my new years resolutions this year is to stop following anyone or anything that makes me feels guilty or ashamed on the social media. It’s a pretty big list sadly.
Emily is a professor of economics at Brown University. She's also the author of three incredible books that you should definitely get for any new parent in your life. Expecting Better, Crib Sheet, and The Family Firm. Her website and podcast, both called Parent Data, are guides for parents that give you numbers and decision-making tools to feel more empowered about the decisions you make as a parent. All of which are hard.
One of the most striking things Emily mentioned to me during our talk was how judgment could poison even the most well-meaning advice. The issue is when we assume that what works for one child and mother will work for everyone, which ultimately sets the stage for feelings of guilt and shame.
Another thing we discussed is the sense of "belonging" we all crave, especially in motherhood. There's a comfort in knowing there are other moms who are going through the same struggles. However, there's a dark side to this desire for community. Emily brilliantly highlights the concept of "in-group and out-group," where it's easy to fall into the trap of distinguishing “us” versus “them”. Seeing moms making different choices than you have made can spur feelings of being judged, which in turn can lead to judging those who have made a different choice.
I have a crazy example of this from when Charlie was a baby.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Over the Influence to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.