That was fun and now it's done
Why is it this hard to break up with someone who sucks as much as Mark Zuckerberg?
When I was at Romper, I wrote an essay about deciding I didn’t care if my kid said “penis fart” and “poop butt” all the time, and the various social stresses of interacting with families who had (understandably) different rules. For the piece, I interviewed Carla Naumburg, a licensed clinical social worker who wrote a book called “How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t With Your Kids,” (I’ll let you guess what it’s about). On our call, we talked about a bunch of stuff, but one point she made really stayed with me: She told me that it’s important to know what your own values are, and then think about what that means in terms of your relationships to other people, and to the world around you. When your value system is not in sync with your day to day life and surroundings, that can make you feel pretty unhappy.
At the risk of sounding like a Zoloft ad, I feel generally sad relatively often. Many days (always at bedtime) I'll get hit with these really cliché, 40-year-old mom pangs. It’s a feeling I’d describe as vaguely bummed out, or like, broadly out of sync. Maybe that sounds like depression, but I’m pretty sure it’s not depression. It is — I think — a nagging frustration that I haven’t been able to square the circle of my values and priorities with the overall shape of my life as an adult parent in America.
One thing (of the many things) that changes overnight when you have a baby is your value system. A lot of us call it a priority shift, and that’s an OK way to describe it. But the more I think about it, it’s bigger than that. It’s a total shake up of our value system — a total ethical deck shuffle.
In America (and plenty of other places, too) the value system that you suddenly have as a new parent is largely in conflict with dominant value system of the culture you live in.
Decades worth of subtle messages from basically every medium — messages about value, worth, self-worth, what time is worth, what you consider to be the meaning of your life, etc. — are recast in a totally different light.
This is jarring.
The overarching values of a market capitalist society — one driven by self-interest — are now dissonant with your lived experience, which is bodily, rich and messy, steeped in needing care and giving it, 24/7. You see the web of care (it’s everywhere! it always has been!) and you’re part of it. And — unless you’re really good at living with a lot of cognitive dissonance — you can’t unsee it.
Still, practical life has to happen. So we have to make decisions in the world as it is, over and over again, that are not in alignment with our newly shaken up value system. Decisions like buying clothes at Old Navy because we have a crushing mortgage and our kids are growing alarmingly fast and won’t wear anything from the resale store because they’re super super picky and you’re tired because you worked too long today and they’re tired because it’s impossible to get them in bed on time because of work and school hours that accommodate basically no one except farmers in the 1800s. So here you are at Old Navy, feeling icky, and putting it on a credit card.
It's all very hard to reconcile. No one is super happy about any of it. It makes our heads spin. It makes tons of us sad and depressed and anxious.
But, each choice that feels forced or out-of-sync is a chance to just stop a minute and question the default. To think about the tension we feel. And a lot of us are thinking hard about it, and finding ourselves, gradually or quickly, radicalized by the simple act of letting ourselves love our kids, and pay attention to what loving someone else more than we love ourselves could teach us about life, meaning, work, time, and (maybe!) how a society could and should function.
So some of us try to go ahead and let our values change, and welcome the course correction even as it’s hard, or cringey, or a little scary, or painful or (worst of all) socially awkward. I talk about this quote this all the time, but here I go again because Lucy Jones (author of Matrescence) said it so clearly, so perfectly on an early episode of
:We’re living in this world where care work is still so hidden, and our dominant economy takes advantage of women and free-rides off care work, as it exploits people in other countries. I also think it helps new mothers for us to try and set fire to that. The foundations of our global north ideas and ideologies is not fit for purpose. Our ways of thinking are inadequate now. We need the maternal and the voice of carers to dismantle what doesn’t serve us.
That’s just a really baller thing to say out loud, and I agree with it so hard.
The feeling of disillusionment that so often comes along with new parenthood is an essential catalyst for growth and change. I never get tired of thinking about this, and the potential of it all.
____________________________
For reasons that are far beyond me, I've told the story of my family's life, or at least a version of it, on a platform that I don't particularly care for, run by a person who I know to be unscrupulous, malicious and, you know, what the internet would, I think rightly call “toxic” for about a decade.
So, it's weird that it took something this extreme for me to end this relationship that's so out of sync with my value system.
What’s also weird is that — despite the values stuff — it’s really sad to leave Instagram. I am embarrassed to say that! I also have a little nostalgia maybe? For when Instagram was fun, for when it helped me muddle through the newborn days with Griffin (back when so much thrilling and interesting chatter happened with people I actually know in the IG DMs!)
Why is hard to leave this stupid platform? What does that feeling of hardness, of internal resistance, mean? Maybe it just means that it’s often painful in our culture as it is today to make changes that bring us closer to living in alignment with a love-and-care based value system that becoming a parent can push us towards. Maybe! Maybe a little pain is just fine.
Anyway, I really hate that I’m sad about leaving Instagram. It’s a visceral reminder that I’m not as disentangled from ALL OF IT as I like to think I am (duh). I guess that feels like a really important thing to learn about myself: I can finally see the degree to which Meta has seeped into my psyche and it's not NOT disturbing.
Conveniently, as parenthood swooped in and re-shuffled my ethics deck (I guess I’m doubling down on that one) it has also given me a lot of practice letting go. Nostalgia lurks all over my every day life — I just finished bedtime as I write this, and some very particular squishy feeling about holding his 7 year old hands brought me right back to a very, very specific snowy, snuggly, nursing baby moment — what’s one more little ping? Bye bye IG. As Daniel Tiger says (and as I sing into the void at least 3-4x a day) That was fun, and now it’s done.
My work lately:
I loved talking with Neha Ruch about her new book, The Power Pause, for The Cut. You'll have to let go of your aversion to business-speak to read her book, but it's worth it. It's a truly *practical* guide to navigating work + new parenthood in America today (i.e. totally lacking in support of any kind for parents).
- + me made an episode of The Mother of It All podcast with some brilliant women — podcaster Marlo Mack and “Kay” who are each raising transgender daughters. One is in a red state, and one is in a blue state, and both are terrified right now. Still, it’s a really empowering, uplifting conversation. Tune in here, or anywhere you get podcasts.
Reading
I finally read Neurotribes and it’s a beast, but so good (like everyone says). If you have autism in your life or on your mind, and haven’t read it, read it!
I read Ina Garten’s memoir, and I still like her. I guess I like her A LOT. (If you only kind of like her and want to keep liking her, maybe don’t read it.)
Always putting the best words to the constant feeling of dissonance in motherhood. I hear you and so appreciate this post.
I listened to Ina's book and enjoyed it and yes, I think you need to like her before to really appreciate it.
I have been trying to figure out my relationship with Meta these days. I haven't previously felt the need to break up with it because of some of the reasons people do like attention span (I have ADHD, the world is an equal opportunity distractor for me) and now that I am in my 40s, I am more accepting in my own mess that the mental health impact of comparison is less of a thing now. But how much these men suck and the sucky choices they make are the real hard push away. I have been trying to figure it out. There are annoying things that only exist on these platforms that are connected to my kids schools, local businesses I support, family members. I even have an instagram account for our Little Free Library in our front yard, only the neighbors follow it. I contemplated starting a Substack for the library...It's confusing times. I appreciate your perspective because I don't always see myself in the discourse and you have captured the challenge I am encountering.