We’re Taught To Not Talk About It. Miscarriage, Shame and Grief. Uncut with Dr Jessica Zucker
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Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. I'm Brittany. Now, it is no surprise to anybody listening and something that we've spoken about quite a bit on this podcast over the years, that we very much live in a society and a culture that uses shame and stigma to keep us in line, especially as women, to keep us quiet and to keep us being the good girls, which is very much a term that we've spoken about and used. And we've been talking about it a lot over the years.

Some of it is very obvious, while other parts of shame and stigma that we live in are far more subtle and are far harder to recognize. From girlhood, we are taught that we should look and feel a certain way, that we should dress a certain way, and there's an expectation around bodies. The expectation of motherhood, our careers, once again, our bodies as we age, whether or not we should choose marriage are all laced with different types of taboos and expectations. Yeah, wow, no pressure.

No, particularly no pressure. But today we have a wonderful guest. Her name is Dr. Jessica Zucker. And Jessica is a clinical psychologist with a PhD who specializes in reproductive health and the author of the award-winning book, I Had a Miscarriage, A Memoir and a Movement.

Jessica is the creator of the viral hashtag I had a miscarriage campaign. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, New York Magazine, Vogue and Harvard Business Review. Now we're here to talk about her brand new book that has come out. It is titled Normalize It, upending the silent stigma and shame that shapes women's lives.

Jess, welcome to the pod. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, what an intro that was. How much you've written about, how much you've spoke about, your qualifications, it's all very incredible and we're going to really get into it and I'm very excited about the chat. But before we do, we kickstart every guest with an Accidentally Unfiltered, your most embarrassing story. So do you have something to share with us today? Okay.

I do. I mean, I don't know if it's the most embarrassing story in my entire life, but it is an embarrassing story that happened not too long ago that kind of reveals the stage of life that I'm in. Last summer, we were preparing to take a family trip to London for our son to play basketball and play.

We went to get passports renewed and new ones. And I got to the window and the person asked me the most basic question. What's your name? And I said, Jessica. And then I looked at my husband and he was like, what are you doing? And I said, I'm

I can't, I could not come up with my last name. Okay. This is ridiculous and embarrassing, mostly because this is perimenopause. Now we can get into that because the book gets into that if you want to or not. But.

But in your 50s or maybe sooner, this whole concept of brain fog and not knowing what you know is absolutely delightful and horrifying all at the same time. You know what's so upsetting about that as well? It's interesting that we've now recognized that it's part of perimenopause and menopause, but for a lot of people, it would have just been kind of back in the day, I would assume, it would have been reduced down to like...

she got dementia? Like, is she losing her mind? You know? I just asked my oncologist recently if it was dementia because it feels like it is. Yes. And what would they say? They're like, no. You're like, I can't remember what they said. No, no, no.

Well, that's kind of true. I'm like, what did she say? She looked at me, she had a smirk and she said, I can guarantee that is not what it is. So, I mean, I'm banking on her answer. Is it similar, do you think, I mean, I have had none of the above, but is it similar to baby brain, like that fog that you get when you are in your pregnancy and post-birth? I wonder, like, do you think that, I mean, you've experienced that, Laura. Full of hormones.

I think it's worse, but that's just me. I was going to say, I don't have the comparative, but I think baby brain kind of is multiple things. Sometimes it's the tiredness. Sometimes it's the hormones. But like, yeah, there's definitely a lot of things change and shift during that time as well. Jessica, what was it that made you get into really researching and understanding this idea in psychology around shame and stigma that I know it's something that does also relate to men, but it very much relates to women.

So I'm a psychologist, as you said. I specialize in women's reproductive and maternal mental health and have done so for about 15 years at this point. And prior to pursuing my PhD, I worked in public health. So I have a background working internationally. And my focus was women's health, women's rights. And so when I started my clinical practice, my vision was to kind of marry my background with my background.

PhD and the one-on-one work. So at the time, I was just passionate about all things women, all things women's health until I was 16 weeks into my second pregnancy and I had a miscarriage while I was home by myself.

So for years, I had been sitting across from women who were talking about the silence, the stigma, the shame, the feelings of alienation and isolation in the aftermath of pregnancy and infant loss. But of course, not all therapists can walk in the shoes of every single patient. And so all I knew up until that point was what I had read, conferences I had gone to, consultation groups, and

Until I was one of them. And it was the most traumatic, surprising, dramatic things, of course, that I've ever been through to date.

So I was home by myself. The baby emerged. I had to cut the umbilical cord myself, coached by phone by my OBGYN. And then I promptly began to hemorrhage as my husband was darting through Los Angeles traffic trying to get home to me. And then we brought the fetus in a bag to my doctor's office to be tested and to make matters all the worse.

I then underwent an unmedicated DNC. Oh, my goodness. Mm-hmm.

It's unimaginable. The sound of the machine is still seared into my psyche. And all of that to say that I could not sort of sit back. Not that I had been sitting back. I had been so engaged with my patients. But because I now knew the hormonal shifts and this feeling of introspection,

intense grief in a way that I hadn't previously, I felt like I had to do something about it. So I went to the research and the research found that a majority of women are blaming themselves, think that they did something to deserve this outcome, and even report feeling a sense of body failure or even body hate. And this outraged me.

Luckily, I myself did not experience those feelings. And the only thing that I can think of as to why I didn't was because I had already had a healthy son. So I think I just like intuitively felt like there must have been something wrong with the fetus. Like, I don't feel like my body failed me here. Like, I just I actually felt like my body really worked differently.

And it does turn out that there was a chromosomal abnormality and that's why the miscarriage did happen. So sorry you went through that. If you don't mind me asking, how far along were you when you had your miscarriage? I was 16 weeks. The term miscarriage, people do speak about it so much more now, but you don't necessarily speak about what it actually looks like. Like you'll hear somebody be open enough to say,

I'm having a miscarriage. I had a miscarriage. And you immediately think, okay, there was some blood. You might've gone to the hospital. But I have never thought when someone has said to me they've had a miscarriage, I've never thought that that's what they could have gone through, that they could have been at home birthing a child

Taking it to the hospital. I just think it's so important we have these conversations because I don't think people are understanding what it actually looks like to go through something like that. I think you're right. But I will say for the listeners that this is an incredibly unusual circumstance. A majority of miscarriages happen within the first trimester.

And I've never heard a patient tell me a story like this. So mostly people, you know, yes, they start to spot, they go to their doctor and there's no heartbeat. And then they can schedule the DNC, have medication, wake up. They're no longer pregnant, but at least they weren't awake for the process. So you're right though. I mean, I feel like we just need to unearth these stories because we,

They're happening in this sort of hush hush. Don't tell anybody just kind of quote unquote, move on or move forward. At least, you know, you can get pregnant. God doesn't give you more than you can handle. God has a plan. All of these platitudes that are so off putting and so, you know,

scientifically incorrect sometimes. We just need to replace the silence with storytelling so that we feel like we have community in the aftermath of these traumas. I think a big contributor to it is, you know, for so long there's been this kind of like just general knowledge and expectation that you don't tell someone that you're pregnant until you're past the first trimester. You keep it to yourself.

And I even remember, and I hate it now, I think back on it, when my sister first told me that she was pregnant, she'd been trying for a really long time and she was so happy and so excited and she must have only just found out. So she was only a couple of weeks. And

And my reaction wasn't excitement. I was like worried that she told me so early because I didn't understand. And I was quite, you know, young and naive at the time around my understanding of pregnancy myself. And I was so worried about how she would feel if something went wrong.

Whereas now I look back on that time and I feel so sad that that was my reaction. But I just I didn't think of it in any other way except this fear because I was like, I'm not meant to know that information. That's your information. Why are you telling me? Right. But so my sort of feeling about that is that even though a majority of miscarriages happen in the first trimester, it feels like what the doctors are saying. And again, I know they mean well, but I think, though, that the message is don't share your good news.

Because in case it becomes bad news, then you don't have to share that either. And you can just start again. But my feeling is...

why not share our joy? And if our joy evaporates or the joy ends, then we have the people that we love and we need around us. I also think you rob yourself the opportunity to have those conversations because if you don't talk about it and people around you don't know, then they don't know how to support you either. So it's been this incredible disservice to women for so long. And that's not to say, I'm sure there are some women who do want to keep it private for their own personal reasons.

But I would say overwhelmingly, there is a lack of support in the workplace. There is a lack of support in general for women who are experiencing miscarriage. And it's changing, but it's because for so long it has been so unspoken. That's right. I think that it's time that we shout it from rooftops if somebody is inclined to do that, which I ended up doing, which I would never have thought I would be the person sort of

getting on Instagram and saying it all and writing in all these places and writing a book about the contents of my personal life. I just never would have pictured that. But it feels like if not

us, who, if not now, when, right? So I feel like for future generations of girls and women, we need to start talking about these normative outcomes of pregnancy. Talk to us a little bit about the silence, shame, stigma cycle that you speak about and some of the more insidious ways that shame shows up for women because it's not just limited to miscarriage and early pregnancy loss. No, it's not. So

I sort of see it as this strident trifecta, like it goes in a circle. I think that the silence begets the stigma, begets the shame.

And then we start all over again. The shame, I think, is obviously the most painful part in terms of emotion, in terms of potentially leading to feelings of depression, anxiety, being very cut off. And you're right. It shows up in a variety of avenues and elements of our lives.

So my book, Normalize It, starts with girlhood. So menstruation. So from the get-go, girls are told to not talk about the symptoms of menstruation. They are made to feel sort of awkward in their changing bodies. And that's where the silence seems to begin. And then it makes a way through our lives, ranging from motherhood, abortion, pregnancy loss,

perimenopause, menopause, all of these milestones that most, if not all people go through are just under talked about. And so when we live with the shame inside of us, my fear and what I have seen in my practice over all these years is it can eat us alive. And so when our stories are untold, we make narratives out of our stories. I'm bad. I'm

I don't deserve to be happy. So this shame kind of, if it festers, can be dangerous. It's interesting how young it starts when you think about the first time you got your period or the first time that you had an accident with your period where it ended up on your dress at school or something like that, like the pure embarrassment around it. Even now, I think if someone was to accidentally get period blood on their pants, I'd be like, oh, for fuck's sake, like,

It's not something that we're like, oh, don't worry about it. It's cool. Like it is still something that we see as being like relatively embarrassing. I was about to almost say the opposite laws. And I say this because I was just thinking it happened to myself like three weeks ago here. And it happened to somebody else, one of our work colleagues. Like I was like, oh my God, I have period blood. Luckily I was wearing jeans. It was on the inside of my jeans, but you could see it through the outside.

absolutely nothing I could do. When you're young, if you fall over and scrape your knee and you're bleeding through your pants and someone goes, oh, you're bleeding, your knee's bleeding. And you're like, oh my God, I've hurt my knee. You're not embarrassed. But the second that it's because it comes from menstruation, all of a sudden we're supposed to be mortified. But I wasn't mortified. It was an inconvenience. But I wasn't embarrassed. I was like, fuck, what am I supposed to do now? Like,

I agree, but I would also say that you were in close company with your closest girlfriends. If I was walking down the street. Yeah, if you were in the office with like our male bosses, I think you probably would have felt slightly different about it. Yeah, I think about girls in school and I went to co-ed school in primary school and I still remember I have this visceral memory of a little girl getting up to get an award at the front of school, going up and walking up onto the stage with the principal and stuff and she had period blood on the back of her dress and everyone in the school was like, no.

Which, totally, right? How humiliating for a little 12-year-old. But, like, this is seared in my memory because I felt so sorry for her. Yeah, like embarrassed for her. I was like, you poor thing. That is so humiliating. And now I look back on it and I'm like, God, I wish that that hadn't been so significant that as a 39-year-old woman I still remember it for this little 12-year-old girl, you know? I was only 12 at the time too. Yeah. I mean, but what do you think will make the difference? Like, what do you think would change her?

The stories, the narrative around this culturally, I just I keep trying to figure it out because my daughter is 11 and I'm assuming she'll be getting her period soon. And I'm sort of toying with this, like, do I want to have like a period partner?

Do I want to like... She's like, mom, stop. You're embarrassing me. I know. See, that's going to be embarrassing too. It's like, what's the path forward that could be comforting? You know what I mean? I think it's changing a lot from even the advertisement for period products and things like that and the way brands are talking about periods and de-stigmatizing it. You're seeing billboards for period products now. You're seeing a lot of people like us talk about it really openly online.

I do think that a lot of the stigma and the embarrassment, and I don't want to point fingers and blame, but I think it will always come back to men. And I'm not blaming them, but I'm saying –

I don't think a lot of women are around, sorry, girls around menstruation. I don't think they're embarrassed because other females have seen that they're menstruating. It's coming back that men are seeing they're menstruating. Are they going to laugh at it because they don't understand it? I think it all comes back to a lack of understanding and maybe education as a whole. So I think it's not so much, I'm sure most parents are doing the right things at home. I think it's just the broader conversation. I completely agree. And I think that there's two parts to it. Like I think

having the same conversations with little boys that we have with little girls. We prepare little girls so much for the things that change in their body.

but we don't really have those conversations with boys because we think we don't need to. But then that just adds to the kind of the mystery and the weirdness of it and all that sort of stuff. And I think about when we were, I mean, I know it's changed hugely, but when we were in school, boys weren't taught about periods. It was completely not something that was relevant to them or that they needed to know about. And so this lack of understanding made it funny to them. And it became a point of almost like something that they could make jokes about and

The flip side to that is, and I know we talked about advertising Brit, but it's still interesting to me that there's a lot of advertising rules around period products. For the longest time, you weren't able to show blood. You weren't able to show anything that was red. It had to be blue dye that was used.

I don't understand that. But I think that those things are very subtle. They're very subtle when you think about it. They're quite subtle in terms of marketing or advertising, but it adds to the shame. Well, if we're not seeing the product, we're not seeing blood. The way it looks. Yeah. Right. So I think that those things, there's quite a multi-layered reason why we're still so weird about talking about it, especially for young girls. Yeah.

I know we brushed over it, but I want to go back for a second. When we are talking about pregnancy loss and miscarriage, for the people that you see, what is the main issue or the reason that shame is attached to that? What are people experiencing the most? Is it the fact that they...

believe that they're failing because their body couldn't hold on to the pregnancy? Like, is that what you're seeing? I'm seeing that a majority of the time that women end up going to this place of my body failed me. What is wrong with me? And yet, you know, they're saying, but that woman, you know, that's walking down the street is pregnant. So she must have done something differently or she must be better than me in some way. But I also think the shame comes from

through the silence around the topic. So again, we're back to this swirling trifecta because I don't know that people would instantly feel ashamed of a loss if they were met with a communal discussion about it. So if everybody was just shouting from rooftops or openly talking about their miscarriages, would we go to the place of body failure? Because we know that one in four pregnancies ends this way.

So maybe instead people would say, oh, it was likely a chromosomal issue. This is actually my body doing its job. Something was wrong.

And I'm going to find out more, but I am going to keep loving myself through this or at least trying to. So I think the shame comes from even female to female conversations being stunted or being met with these platitudes that are so off-putting that people want to run for the hills because being met with, at least you have a healthy child or at least you know you can get pregnant or at least you're young.

I totally understand why people say those things, but really what they're doing is minimizing the pain and they're not wanting to be in the discomfort with the person who's grieving. Yeah, I can resonate with this so much.

I also think when you speak about miscarriage, that's when you find out that you're actually not alone in it. So to our listeners, this isn't new, but I've had two miscarriages and I've spoken about both of them. And the first one was very different to the second, not in terms of what I experienced, but in terms of people's reactions to it.

The first time, I guess like the realization I had is that once I started speaking about it, I realized I was part of a much bigger community. You know, I'd read the statistics of the one in four or the one in five. And I was like, where the fuck are these women? Exactly. And then all of a sudden, you know, my mom and my mother-in-law and like my friends and it opened up to people that I'd never realized or knew about because they just hadn't spoken about it.

But the second time it was really different. And that was because it was after my first child. And it was exactly that response of like, well, at least you already have a baby. And it really damaged some of my friendships because it really made me clock the people that I could talk about the things that were upsetting to me with and the people who I felt dismissed and

what was important. And absolutely, there was no part of me that was invalidating the fact that I had a baby. But I was like, also, I still feel sad. Like I'm still allowed to have these feelings simultaneously alongside the gratitude. And I think that it's exactly, it really is what you said, this idea that along with shame and stigma, we find it very difficult to hold space for grief. And we don't like to ask people if they're okay in so many situations when grief is involved, because we don't want to upset them.

them. You know, we don't want to make it worse is what we think. But, you know, I very rarely think you're making it worse by asking if someone's okay. Well, I agree with that. And I actually think it's a poor excuse for not making yourself vulnerable and not being uncomfortable with the griever. Because to say, well, I didn't want to bring it up because in case she wasn't thinking about it, I just wouldn't want to upset her. It's like, number one,

She's a big girl. She's thinking about it. So if she doesn't want to talk about it. Yeah. Well, number one, she's probably thinking about it. And even if she's not, she'll tell you that. And she can say, thank you so much for thinking about me or caring about me, but I'm not up for talking about it or I'm actually feeling good today or whatever. But unless we ask, we're not going to know. And so we end up feeling pretty alone around.

around our loved ones at times, which is just a terrible feeling. I think when it comes to grief, this isn't something that is just isolated to women. And I say this because I feel like men often find it really difficult to have these conversations. And recently I saw it in my own husband. He had a friend who had gone through a really traumatic family loss and they'd gone out for lunch together and he came home and I was like, did you speak to your friend about the loss that they've just had? And he

And he was like, oh, I didn't want to bring it up because I didn't want to make him uncomfortable. And I think that it is very prevalent in men as well, that they don't want to ask about divorces or breakups or things that do feel vulnerable for fear of eliciting that response in the person. And, you know, I think that that gets into a whole nother conversation around masculinity. But I do think that it's something that we struggle with on both sides of the gender spectrum. I couldn't agree more.

I don't know if you know this about my history, but two weeks after my first book came out, the one that is a memoir meets manifesto about miscarriage, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And I was met with the most sort of silly, uh,

I mean, I had heard these words before, but sort of like all of this warrior language that surrounds breast cancer. We wouldn't say this to men. You're such a warrior. You're so strong. You're going to beat this, quote unquote. And I just found it fascinating as I was listening.

laying there taking in the fact that I had this diagnosis, that I had two young kids, that I was faced with something that can, of course, be fatal. And I was like, wait, people's responses are to tell me that I'm a warrior, which just made me kind of giggle because it made me see myself like on a horse wearing...

Joan of Arc. Yes. And I thought, well, actually, I feel like what I need to do more than anything is lean into my body, lean into self-compassion. I don't want to fight, you know, this war or this battle against my body. The opposite, I felt, you know, so it's interesting. And then on the gender note that you just mentioned, I

I mean, aside from my father and a couple of cousins and my uncle, the men in my life were...

unable to find words to ask about this, to really be with me through this because they haven't been taught to ask about this or to sit with the uncomfortability of a woman having to undergo a mastectomy or a change in her body that's so unimaginable. I think this is an important time to talk about the language that we use in these situations. And you've just made me think of something just a couple of days ago, a friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer, very young. And

I was looking at, she put it on social media, you know, this is what's happening in my life, this is where I've been. And I was looking at the comments and I felt very similar to what you just said.

The people that telling her that she's got this, she's strong, she's going to be fine. You're going to beat this. And I thought that's probably not what she's thinking right now. She's like, let's be realistic. Telling me that I'm strong and I'm going to, and I've got, this is not what I want to hear. I be, I am riddled with cancer. Like, let's just call a spade a spade. And I had this moment in that situation where I thought she probably just wants someone to say, I'm thinking of you. Here's what I want to hear.

here if you need me. Not like you are going to beat this. You're so strong. There are people saying you've achieved so much in your life, like this isn't even going to touch the sides. And I thought, what a crazy thing to say to someone. Yeah, just like they're trying to be so positive. Like there's no malice in it at all.

But this is an interesting time to have these conversations. And you were just mentioning the at least language around pregnancy loss. Like, well, at least you know you can fall pregnant. Well, at least you're still young and you can try again. For me, I get it all the time. I've struggled to get embryos and I've managed to get three after getting none. I know what three means. It means nothing. But the number of people that are like, well, at least you've got three.

I'm like, that's just not helping. And I know it's not laced in anything, but I think it's an important time to talk about thinking about the types of language that we use in these situations. A hundred percent. I think that this does create shame. I do. I think that the language then informs how we feel. Because if everybody's saying you're so strong, for example, what if

I didn't get through the cancer. What if your friend doesn't make it? Does that mean that we weren't strong enough, quote unquote, like that we didn't fight the battle with enough verve? I mean, it just puts the onus so much on the woman to get through whatever it is she's trying to get through and

And I think it can make people just fold in on themselves because it's like, if I'm going to be met with all of this bullshit or these words that, you know, are trying to stave off the pain of what's happening and,

then maybe I won't really tell people. I mean, I think that's what ends up happening. And then there's like a shame spiral. So what do you think some examples of some really great things to say in those situations are? Well, what you just said that you were tempted to write in the comments, that's exactly what I would recommend. So what do you think?

whatever the trauma may be. It's, I care about you. I'm here for you. I want to talk with you if and when you're ready. I'm here to listen. And I think touching base, showing up. So even your husband could reach out to his friend who he had lunch with now and just say, I know we didn't get a chance to talk about it, but I want you to know that I'm here if you want to.

We can always circle back. And I do think consistency is key because we are all so busy and somebody has a miscarriage or receives a diagnosis or there's a death in their family. And within, I don't know, two to four weeks, everybody else has sort of moved on and they expect the griever has to. And then they're kind of left alone. And actually, this may apply to early motherhood as well.

right? When a baby's born, everyone's there in the beginning and then suddenly they're gone. And then women are like, Ooh, is this postpartum depression? Like I'm anxious. Like I feel very isolated. So I think the antidote to these platitudes are really simple. It is just being present with your loved one. What do you think is that antidote to us fixing the shame that women feel apart from the storytelling element? And I guess, yeah,

us feeling as though there's kind of safety in numbers of the other people who have similar experiences. What would you say and what do you recommend to your clients who come and see you, your patients that come and see you, how they can kind of break this shame cycle? Well, usually I find with patients that the shame is complicated like it is for all of us, you know, so I kind of get into connecting the dots between childhood stuff and what's going on right now.

Because it seems like in a lot of cases, whatever happened at home in our early lives, you know, with our attachment figures, with our parents, with the people who raised us, that can really inform the way we let in the shame, the way we don't.

And so I like to try to sort of help people make sense of why they are who they are by looking back. But I also think in a more practical way, because of course not everybody's going to be in therapy and not everybody wants to look all the way back to the beginning of their lives. I do think that getting our stories out

in some way releases the potential shame. And so I know I've been talking about, you know, getting on a soapbox and creating this movement and stuff, but other options are things like writing in a journal. So you might,

even just want to write about the friends that were disappointing in the aftermath of loss or a sexual assault experience that your family doesn't even know about or Whatever the case may be that was traumatic that holds some shame That you have kept tucked inside It can be even just written on a page and then it can even be burned, you know if somebody's that worried about it being read and

So there are various ways I think that we can release what we hold inside without it having to be super public or super well-known to those around us.

One of the things we were talking about earlier, and it was in reference to something you speak about, this objectification theory and women's bodies in particular. Can you talk us through what that means? And I know that like, I mean, we've kind of circled on pregnancy loss a little bit, but something that is such a common thing for women to feel shame around is their bodies, whether it be the way their bodies look or have been shamed for being too sexual or...

It's always like there's a thing that's too much or too little. Oh, yes. And the pressure that we feel as mothers to look like we were never pregnant at all. Yeah, like never grow another human. You know, within weeks, you're supposed to have a pre-partum body as if you didn't just give birth to life.

So objectification theory is really just about sort of the way that others view us, objectify us, make us feel, the sexualization, all the things that we already know. But then what's interesting and really troubling is self-objectification that starts to take place because we are so used to this. So

Girls in my daughter's class in fifth grade at 11 are wearing crop tops. Why? How? I mean, I feel grateful that she doesn't want to. I don't even know what I would say or do if she did want to. But it's like, oh, they're seeing this on the billboards as they drive down Sunset Boulevard. They're seeing this in the magazines that their mom is maybe reading. They're seeing this, you know, with the older girls around them.

And so we begin to kind of sometimes take on the objectification we've received throughout our lives and we self-objectify. It's so fascinating when you say that. I mean, I have an almost six-year-old who watched the Taylor Swift concert. And in my mind, I was like, Taylor Swift, that is safe territory. She watched the Taylor Swift concert. Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift, the Eris tour, and was amazed.

obsessed with wanting to wear a crop top. And it was really hard because every time she'd come down the stairs, she would have pulled her pants right down and pulled her top right up. And she doesn't understand. She's a five-year-old. She doesn't understand the implications of what that means or what that is. Of course.

you know, how that is not age appropriate for her. And so we have a rule. She can't wear anything that shows her belly when she goes out of the house. But I didn't expect to be at that point of having to place that rule in my household, having a five-year-old. I know. I mean, that's the thing. I mean, that's what I'm saying. It's like, I just feel grateful that my daughter doesn't want to because the idea of making these rules is,

is also tricky because the more, I mean, I, so I let my daughter, we have all types of food in our house because of the body stuff. I don't want things to be off limits because the more rules there tend to be sometimes the

This can lead to more body image stuff, eating disorder stuff. The more we aren't allowed to have something, maybe the more we want it. Like the forbidden fruit. Yeah. So I just kind of let our cabinet be filled with lots of different things. And my hope is that because it's available, they want it less. Like there wouldn't be sort of this...

hoarding or obsession over wanting it. But Jessica, do you do? I think that's something that a lot of families and moms would struggle with because you don't want to instill in them that anything is bad. You can't eat that because you might put on weight and then that's not attractive. Like you don't want them to take anything from it. But then how do you navigate it? Because there's still very unhealthy foods that are not good for you for health reasons that have nothing to do with aesthetics. So do you say that there are just like

sometimes foods because of the sugar content or how do you, because so many moms would be listening to this right now being like, well, what do I do? I know. And I don't know what to do. I want to ask somebody else. You're the psychologist. You have to give us an answer. I'm joking. Yeah. Well, I don't work with children and I, you know, I do have a 16 year old son and I don't think these things over. Like you mentioned earlier, half as much as I do for her. Um,

Yes, I try to talk about it in terms of that sugar is ultimately not good for our bodies. And that is just true. And I try to talk about balance, that we want to eat foods that help us grow. And then we also can once in a while have these things that people call treats, whatever. But I don't have her earn anything. I'm not going to let her have dessert because she ate her dinner. I try not to...

pair things with like good behavior equals you get a jelly bean or whatever. I mean, I don't think it's productive and I'm scared. I mean, I think our girls are growing up in a very strange world. I mean, I live in Los Angeles and I,

The amount of, you know, half naked bodies walking around starting when they're teenagers is just pretty unbelievable. So I try to talk to her about sort of a love of a body and being healthy and just trying to take care of ourselves. But, you know, once in a while she'll say stuff like, do my legs look like yours? Like, or she'll comment on, you know, how petite or thin I am.

And I worry, but, and I, I am at a loss sometimes for exactly what to say or do. But I hold myself back when she's like scarfing down cheesecake, you know, to be, I mean, I did say the other day, I'm like, slow down, you know, like you can have this just like slow down. I don't want you to feel sick.

But to be honest, my instinct was to be like, just have half of that. Like you just had dinner. You don't need all of that. But I did not. Those words did not come out of my mouth. Would you think the same thing for your son?

It's a really good question. I don't think that I did. Yeah. It's so interesting, isn't it? Because we have our own internal biases around it as to how we've been raised and like our versions to food and everything else. Something I think was really interesting is this like connection between anxiety and perfectionism. You know, you said that it's a really tricky time for women growing up, women in the world now in terms of social media and everything that there is.

but it feels as though perfectionism has been dialed up and also so has anxiety. We talk about anxiety now more than we've ever spoken about it. Can you explain what the link is and also whether you think it is something that is increasing or just that it's getting more airtime?

I would think it's getting more airtime, honestly, because of social media. I think social media can do so much good. And for so many years, that's all I felt like I was exposed to because I was only following people that were in my sphere. So other psychologists or people in the grief space. And so it just felt so meaningful. And I was meeting women around the world who had had similar experiences. Now I'm realizing, though, as I scroll, especially as my book is coming out,

then you see people with, you know, all this press or their book is getting this attention. And, um,

I see how easy it is to get caught in the comparing and contrasting game. For sure. And thinking you're less than, you know, or even someone's on a more beautiful vacation than you're on, you know? So it's like, I do think that this is creating a sense of maybe I'm not good enough or, you know, maybe, um,

I chose the wrong path or maybe I'm not beautiful enough, whatever. So I think those images are not helping. And then it is, I think, fueling perfectionism. Well, maybe if I was fantastic,

thinner. Maybe if I accomplished X, maybe if I had another child like she does, maybe I would feel more fulfilled. And it's like a rat race though. I mean, what gives? I don't want anyone to listen to this and men to listen to this because we do have male listeners. Men do feel shame as well. I know plenty of men in my life, friends, different family members that feel shame around their bodies or maybe their income or their work or whatever it is. But do you think it's just that the expectations...

are higher on women so that the shame shows up differently? Because I know men feel it internally, but it's almost like...

society doesn't want to give that space because the expectation is not as high. Yeah. I said this to a couple just the other day. I mean, I feel sorry for men in our culture because they're taught to keep things stifled even more than we are. So we are pressured to look a certain way and be a

But they're not taught to express their emotion. They're not necessarily even in touch with what they are feeling sometimes. And I know we are making generalizations and there are exceptions, of course. But I think we're all suffering in a way because of it.

Yeah. I also, I mean, something that I think is interesting around what it is that we want versus what the reality is of what it might be that we're seeking. I think that, you know, when we, and we're kind of like touching on this idea of the, we very much are the patriarchy and how it impacts women and men, but this, you know, the idea of like the stereotypes versus the reality, like women wanting to be married, women wanting to be, have children, but then it's

And you even just said, you know, maybe wanting to have another child. The correlation between is it actually going to equate to happiness or fulfillment can be two very different things.

100%. Statistically, a lot of people and the statistic outcomes around women who are the happiest are not the ones who are married who have children, unfortunately, regardless of what society tells us. Exactly. I think times are changing. It seems like this generation is opting out of parenthood.

And for good reason. I mean, they're looking around thinking, how can I afford to raise a child in this world? You know, so I think it is financially motivated. And I think maybe they're looking at their parents or their friends or older generations and thinking, I don't want that. Yeah. And they're opting out. And I mean, I think that's OK. I don't know what it'll mean for sort of the population.

population on the planet. But the expectation that we all become mothers is fading. You know, I just don't think that every woman wants to take on that role. It is such a role, as you know, you know, I mean, it's a full time job, and not everybody feels cut out for it or supported enough to be able to

undertake this. Yeah. And I mean, from very much a subjective observation, but I would say from a lot of people who I've spoken to or that have written into the podcast or people who I'm friends with, it's not an equal thing that you walk into for a lot of women. And, you know, this idea that like, okay, you'll go back to work and you'll still do this. But for most women, they're also running the household. They're also doing majority of the parent

load, taking care of the kids. Like one part is financial, but the other part is the sheer volume of everything that there is expected to do when you become a mom and maintaining every part of that relationship. And there's so many women are like, I don't fucking want to do that. I'm not wanting to do it on my own, but also take care of a partner at the same time. You know why too? It's because a lot of

people more open about how hard motherhood is and how maybe it's not as fulfilling as we were always led to believe. Whereas there was always shame again around saying anything out loud that was negative about motherhood. So growing up, you would never hear anyone say that they regretted their choice. Doesn't mean that they don't love their child. You would never hear anyone just say they don't enjoy motherhood. It wasn't what they thought. If they could go back, they'd change it. But you hear that now. People are not feeling so much shame. And I

think that is planting the seed in other people's heads of being like, oh, hang on a minute. It's not what we've always been fed to believe by the patriarchy, by society. Well, and we're seeing so much divorce and so much divorce because you have children. I mean, who knows? You know, maybe you wouldn't, you'd get divorced anyway, but...

The pressure of raising kids together changes the dynamic of the marriage. Yeah, I think it's interesting, though, the perspective on divorce has changed so much. I remember divorce. I mean, that was shameful in itself. People didn't want to get divorced because it was...

that your relationship didn't work out. People having divorce parties now. People, I mean, people talk about the best decision I ever made was to leave my husband, you know, on social media. Like the shame around divorce and the shame around relationship failure doesn't exist in the same way, dependent on the culture that you come from. Obviously, like I'm not going to say it's the same for every place and everywhere, but I would say for a lot of people who listen, who have made the decision to leave relationships, it's

They don't necessarily feel shame around those decisions now. And that is because of the volume and the normalizing of it. Yeah. I mean, actually, I think I take this on in Normalize It. I will show everybody this, by the way, somehow. I have the example of somebody getting a divorce and it's

she's not broken by it. You know, I think people just assume that people are bereft or this is the end of her life or, you know, she must be in the depths of grief and maybe she is, but maybe she isn't. And actually maybe she's the one that wanted this and maybe she was the one cheating or maybe she wants to go off and create a different career, live in a different country. I think it

also comes back full circle to the language that we use again. So when people say like, it was a failed marriage, just because it ended doesn't mean it was a failure. And maybe it was amazing for the time that it was there. Maybe you got what you needed from it and it was successful for both of you and changed both of your life and it was time to move on. But it's again, this idea that we attach everything to...

being a failure. Exactly. And it's so dichotomous. It's success versus failure. And it's like, you're saying you could be happy for 10 years and then you grow apart and that can be normal and okay. Exactly. Jessica, thank you so much for being a part of the podcast.

Normalize It, your book. We're going to put all of the links and the show notes. It's available now. But also, I think that this is something that so many women will be able to relate to because shame and stigma and feeling as though you can't talk about things that universally women go through every single day is an incredibly common conversation that we do have here on the podcast. But the reason for that is because it's so common to every woman. Exactly. Well, thank you so much for having me. This was such a profound and meaningful conversation. Thanks, Jessica.