Full Episode Transcript

Dr. Ashley Blackington (00:01.058)

Hello and welcome back to the in both podcast. I am here this week solo to talk about I'm going to call it the elephant in the room and a lot of the conversations that we've had so far on the show with guests that have come on and I don't I don't mean that bad elephant doesn't always have to be the bearer of bad news. But what I wanted to talk about was how a lot of these different pieces, tying them all together, a lot of these different stories that we've talked about or people that we've heard from are ones that are maybe at a different period of time in the parenthood spectrum than where you are. And I think it's important because we don't always point that out.

So what I mean by all of this is, when you hear people come on and they talk about being fully engulfed in motherhood and being, you know, sort of pushing everything else aside and doing all of the things that need to get done for everybody but themselves. And then realizing that through a series of whatever happened, events, conversations, complete empty bucket phenomenon, the awareness and the idea that it is time to put yourself back on the map, it is time to incorporate things for yourself, incorporate strategies, incorporate events, whatever it is, whatever the thing is, right? So of the people that have had on so far, it's kind of a common trend or a common theme. And that is you go whole force into motherhood, fully engulfed. Then somewhere along the line, you run out of run out of steam when it comes to being able to just sort of show up and show up and show up and show up without recharging your own battery, realizing that you need to recharge your own battery, you need to fill your own bucket, you need to do all of those things that take care of you as a person so that you can show up in the way that you want to show up in the role of motherhood. And so that's what we've talked about so far, right?

Dr. Ashley Blackington (02:21.994)

So people have come on and talked about their very, their different perspectives and they're very different opportunities and what works for them. And I think that they're all incredible examples. And I think that everyone that has been on so far, I'm really lucky, especially as a new podcast. I don't know how long you're supposed to call yourself a new podcast for, but the people that I've been fortunate to have on so far have all been great and they've all done really cool things. And that doesn't have to be big and splashy, but it can be simple.

And so the thing that we haven't, so much, touched on specifically has been this idea of time relative to the lifespan of motherhood and where you are on that. So what do I mean by that? I mean that it's really easy to listen to a podcast where you hear a mom who has an eight-year-old or an eight-year-old and a six-year-old and them talk about how they started to incorporate something for them, how they wanted to start a business or start a group where other moms can meet up or how they wanted to do something that was just for them, all that stuff. And that's fabulous. If you are listening as a mom of like, I don't know, a one-year-old, a newborn, a two and a half year old, there's gonna be a disconnect there. And I think that's where you get into this, what do I say?

The like the chasm or the spaces in between these silos of motherhood. Because when you have a brand new baby, when you have a one-year-old, when you have a two-year-old, things like that, you have a different level of supervision. You have a different level of heavy lifting that you need to do in that time right so like I have a 10 year old as my oldest right now um and I have a three year old is my youngest it's a whole different world between the two of them so if I go on and I listen to a podcast and people are talking about taking time for themselves and doing things differently and all of that if I look at it through the lens of having a 10 11 year old it makes sense right like that's a motivating thing that's like okay

Dr. Ashley Blackington (04:44.726)

These people are clearly having this happen and they're trying these strategies and they're thinking about this in this way. And that's really, really cool to hear and inspiring. If I listened to that same podcast and I look at it through the lens of a three-year-old where my three-year-old is in preschool two half days every week, my first thought is all of that sounds lovely. However, there's no way that I can do that right now given where I am.

And that is one thing that I never really want to gloss over when it comes to these conversations. That the time and the amount of lift that you have along where you are in your journey in motherhood right now is going to determine what you have available to you. And that in no way, shape or form is a measure of motivation, whether it's a measure of desire or a measure of capacity or capability. If you are the parent who is the primary caregiver, you are the default parent, you have a brand new baby, you are on maternity leave, don't look at somebody else who is way down the line and think I should be where they are because I will guarantee you from my own experience that if you do that now, when you get to that part where you're down the line, like if I look at it through the lens of my 10, 11 year old, I can look back and say, there is absolutely no flipping way that I would be able to do what I do now at this stage way back when.

And that's so vital to this idea of creating community. It's so vital to not look at everything as though it's a level, it's a level playing field because it's not, if you are, um, you know, if you've had, uh, if you're, if you have a new baby, if you have a new baby, it is all hands on deck trying to, um, like when Mika was on talking about sleep, like sleep is a basic need.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (07:07.17)

If you cannot, if you are not able to fulfill that basic need right now, there is no way that putting pressure on yourself to like get back to doing, you know, meeting with people for yada business or going back and doing something at the gym, whatever it is in no way, shape or form, is that going to be helpful or community building if you're like running on three four hours of sleep at night. And, and I say this because I've, I've also done this. I've done the like, I don't know which way is up and you go online and you're sort of feeling like the whole world is upside down and sideways because you haven't slept. But then you go on and you're talking to somebody or you see something on social media and people are talking about these like mommy meetup, stroller, exercise groups and it's like, what?

Like I can't even function right now let alone like pour myself into some sort of legging derivative and get out there and like run around and like do pushups with a baby. Like if you put me in one of those stroller exercise groups with my first, I probably would have just left her in the stroller and laid on the grass and had a little nap. You know, and I think that like we the notion that everything is equal all the time is so divisive. You know, having different pockets of time where what you're doing is representing it has a different idea to it. It has a different capacity to it and that you are using the space that you have but also protecting the time that you have by saying you know, I want to go and do all of these things, but right now a realistic view of my day and a realistic view of my time Looks like I only have this available but taking that Motivation the should the you know, there's everyone, you know, you and Beyonce have the same 24 hours in the day

Dr. Ashley Blackington (09:26.974)

Yet taking all that out of it would I hope and I want that to take that pressure and that weight off your shoulders to feel like you're supposed to just be nailing everything here but you're also supposed to be like pushing ahead and leading the charge and like you know mom boss and all of that stuff. Like it's okay to not check all the boxes every day. It's okay to say someday eventually, this podcast, where people or see stuff on social media where people are farther down the line in terms of the age of their children and say, you know, when my kids get to be that old, I think that's something that I'm interested in doing or trying. When my kids are in this age and stage, then I know that I'm going to have more time and take the pressure off of yourself right now to feel like you're supposed to be there.

If you're talking about this in broad, broad strokes, and because I'm, because I live in the US, this is the topic that we talk about all the time with childcare and how childcare in this country is just, it's like non existent, you know, there's, there's a lot of things that fall into old ways of thinking and old patterns of living and old ways of doing business, where programs have just have not been developed but the idea of like, you know, you can have it all and you can do it all, but you have to do it all in order to have it all, especially as a mom.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (11:07.95)

So it's just, it's, yeah, I just want, I want to never gloss over that for people. I never want to say, you know, this is, this is just that like after thing, because somebody coming on and giving me any sort of story about all the ways in which they've like, fixed everything and taking that as a way of being, of feeling like I'm not doing enough when I'm, when I'm already doing as much as I possibly can every single day is not what I want to create here. It's not what I want for anybody. And this isn't to say that anyone has like emailed me or written into the show or had any comments about this. I just wanna make sure that in the scope of building community that we're talking about everybody. And we're talking about everybody in terms of full spectrum. Because, I will also say with full transparency, I don't have childcare outside of school. And that's not like, ooh, I'm doing so well and I can juggle all these balls and I'm super parent. I drop a lot of those balls because there's only so much that you can juggle. I say no to things that I would like to say yes to. I say no to things for the kids that I would like to say yes to. But, just knowing that right now, I don't have that capacity. I don't have, we don't have grandparents that participate in childcare. We don't have outside, you know, after school programs. I mean, our after school programs in the where I live are full on a wait list. They're on a wait list for people before they've even gotten into the age where they can be a student in the school.

So trying to get on the hamster wheel and juggle all of these things for like you know, a means to an end just doesn't make sense. And so as my kids have, each of them have progressed into the age where they now go into school, it's just a constant rearranging of time and rearranging of schedule for me to be able to fit my stuff into that piece. And I will say, you know, the, the idea for this podcast I've had for years, um, because I've had a kid for almost 11 years.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (13:32.166)

I've had this idea for a really long time and I really wanted to have something out there because I really felt like this is something that I struggled with as somebody who is very organized is really wants to, you know, pursue this whole person way of living and parenting and being an example for my children and all that. But I couldn't do it, you know, I was not able to be in the headspace or be in the place where I could actually make this a reality where I could actually reach out to someone to say, hey, I'm thinking about launching this podcast, you know, BT dubs, I've been, I've had this on the burner for a couple of years, thinking about launching this podcast. Right now I record episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays when my youngest is in preschool and that's it.

But I couldn't do this last year. It could not, I could not bank on the time and I could not bank on the, the ability to, you know, make things happen and move things around in that way. And that's okay. I could have felt, could have felt really bad about it for two years, but instead chose to say, you know what, right now is not the time, you know, it's five years ago, I was, I had four kids home during COVID and three years ago, they're back in school or two years ago, they're back in school and it's just been this slowly emerging, slowly evolving, parenthood timeline where I'm, where I'm circling back and being able to do things like host podcasts and meet people for, you know, coffee to talk about, to talk about work and to have uh, meetings with people about the technology for the startup and all of those things. So like none of this, you can't do it all at the same time. It doesn't mean you can't have it all. It just means that it might not all happen at once. And that doesn't mean that you're doing it wrong.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (15:52.406)

So today, really about giving yourself the space and giving yourself the grace in the period of life that you're in to not feel like you have to be doingthe same thing as everybody else. Because it's also true that when you talk about childcare, this is to, you know, thread the needle here, but when you talk about childcare, I think we, especially in this country, when people are doing this, like having it all, and you're seeing this presentation on social media, you're seeing this presentation at, you know, school drop-off, and you're seeing this in your community.

The last thing that people usually talk about or usually sort of allude to or whatever is whether or not they have help. Whether or not they have help in the form of childcare, whether or not they have help at home, whether or not they have help, whatever that may be. So instead of leaving that as the end of the paragraph, let's move that up to the front. Let's get honest and open about how you are able to make this happen. And that's not a bad thing, right? Like I'm not here to say, oh, well, people who have all of these things lined up, they're like, it's so easy for them. Cause it's not, none of it's easy. Parenthood is hard. I don't care if you have no person. I don't care if you have a whole host of people. It's still, you're still managing people and you're still managing pieces and you're still pulling all of these things together. And whether or not you're doing that alone, which is infinitely harder, but you're also doing that with somebody else, there's still the management aspect of it that you're still gonna make sure, like if said child is supposed to be here, that they're there, if they're getting picked up, if whatever, it's just the logistics are endless. And whether or not you have a person as a middle person to help spread that out, doesn't necessarily mean that it makes it easier in the long run because you still got to manage that. You still got to manage the logistics of that. So I think going forward it's probably really important and maybe helpful and I would love to hear opinions, thoughts, and all of that. It's probably pretty important that we that we include more of the conversation around child care and how if we're talking to people about putting things back into their day, how they're actually making that happen.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (18:16.522)

Because whether it's a partner, whether it's a parent, whether it's a grandparent, whether it's a, uh, you know, someone that you hire, whether it's school, whether it's services, whatever it is, I think that is something that needs to be discussed in a huge way because that is, that's sort of like the idea of like not hiding all of your, um, you know, and you have like people come over and you sort of like run through your house and pull all the stuff out and shove it in the closet somewhere. I don't do that anymore, but I used to. But we have to open that closet because that's really how the breakdown of these individualistic silos that I keep talking about is gonna happen is saying like, hey, this is what I do and I have the capacity to do this and not to vilify people whether they have it or they don't have it, but how to have that.

So I would love to hear thoughts on that, I would love to also hear from people that, you know, if you're, if you're someone that has like, I have a new baby and this is something that I'm interested in and, and things like that, like who do you want to hear from and who would be a motivating person for you to hear from versus not motivating? Because I think it's, you know, you can talk about the, the story of someone who has grown children, but there's that time space where you can sort of let the dust settle versus the raw, I have brand new children right now kind of perspective. So please let me know what you think. I will put email and contact info and you can also find me at dovetaileddesigns.co on Instagram and let me know what you think and who you want to hear from because I really want this to be representative for the people that want to hear these stories. That's going to be helpful. That is going to be motivating and not, I cannot think of the word, alienating for a listener. So let me know what you think. Thank you again for listening, for following, for downloading all the podcast things. And I will see you, or you will hear from me next week on a brand new episode and look forward to it.