“But even if your mate seems oblivious, he may be detecting your wrath on a subconscious level. A University of Southern California study that observed married couples over several days found that if a mother was stressed, the father’s levels of the stress hormone cortisol would also rise—that, in effect, families “sync up” stress levels. Specifica... See more

“Researchers from the UK’s Mindlab International measured subconscious brain activity in sleeping men and women and found that while a baby’s crying was the number one nighttime sound most likely to wake up a woman, it didn’t even figure into the male top ten—lagging behind car alarms. And strong wind.”

— How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids by J... See more

“Even when they are asleep, infants as young as six months react negatively to angry, argumentative voices, as University of Oregon researchers discovered by measuring brain activity of babies in the presence of steadily rising voices. Babies raised by unhappily married parents have been shown to have a host of developmental problems, from delayed ... See more

“Perhaps the least visible but most pervasive job is that of household manager. “That one is constant,” Smock says. “It’s the person who remembers everything: that Joey needs to have a dentist appointment, what foods each child likes, that a babysitter needs to be hired for the weekend. If a mother is handing her husband a grocery list, he is given... See more

“Darby Saxbe, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California, explains to me that couples often fall into a pattern of demand and retreat—most often, the woman demands and the man retreats. This dynamic has arisen, she says, because men have less to gain by changing their behavior, while women are more likely to want to alter the s... See more

Birth trauma is a subjective experience. It is an autonomic response of the nervous system, similar to an alarm being tripped in the brain, often set off by a perceived threat to safety. It is not a choice. Birth traumas vary greatly in their cause and presentation. My story is only one example.

Your birth experience did not need to have been life-t... See more

This practice of accepting my feelings without judgment and leaning into self-compassion was the first and most important step in my healing journey. As we always say in the therapy room, you can’t heal what you don’t feel.

I also realized I had to forgive my past self. I had to forgive the version of myself who sat on that couch staring into space,... See more

The truth is that motherhood is as beautiful as it looks on the congratulations cards, but it can also be a mess. It’s important to be honest about this. No real change is possible until working mothers stop trying to be all things to all people—perfect at work, perfect as partners, and perfect as mothers, with each role kept entirely separate. Rat

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I’m not a celebrity, I’m a worker. I’ve always worked. I was working before people read anything about me, and the day they stopped reading about me, I was doing even more work. And the idea that if you’re a mother, you’re not doing anything—it’s the hardest job there is, being a mother or father requires great sacrifice, discipline, selflessness, ... See more