DEEP DIVE: Leslie Forde of Mom's Hierarchy of Needs

0:00Angela Santomero:Amy, let me tell you about a magical place that is so exactly designed to be enclosed space, year-round fun for the whole family, that I bet you already know what I'm going to say before I even say the name. Let's say it together on three. One, two, three. Great Wolf Lodge. You got it, Amy. My kids loved Great Wolf Lodge when we went. You probably already know that it has a huge indoor water park with a wave pool, Lazy River, a bunch of massive water slides. But then your pack can hit the other attractions because, wait, there's more. Great Wolf Lodge has adventure-packed attractions like MagiQuest, a live-action game kids can play throughout the lodge.

0:42Angela Santomero:Plus, the Northern Lights Arcade spent some quality time there. So your kid who loves the Lazy River and your kid who loves fantasy games will both have a great time. Great Wolf Lodge also offers great dining options and complimentary daily events like nightly dance parties. All under one roof. Unpack the car once and you're settled in to have fun. And with 22 lodges across the country, you're always a short drive away from adventure. We've both had such great times at Great Wolf Lodge. So bring your pack together at a lodge near you. Learn more at greatwolf.com and strengthen the pack. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Fresh Take from What Fresh Hell?

1:21Angela Santomero:Laughing in the face of motherhood. This is Margaret. And this is Amy. And today we're talking to Leslie Ford. She is the CEO and founder of Moms Hierarchy of Needs, an organization committed to the well-being and growth of moms, both at home and in the workplace. Moms Hierarchy of Needs provides moms with products, research, and community to reclaim time from their never-done-to-do lists for their own well-being. Leslie has held brand management, product marketing, and business development roles. And for the past decade, she's focused on children's education, mental health, child care, and elder care.

1:56Leslie is a frequent speaker, researcher, and consultant to organizations on how to support parents in the workplace. Welcome, Leslie. Thank you. I'm so thrilled to be here. Can we start by your company is called Mom's Hierarchy of Needs. I want to start by describing Maslow's hierarchy of needs, just in case people aren't familiar with what you're talking about. I'm happy to. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, kind of unlike mom's hierarchy of needs, it's a bit more linear in that it displays all of the things that we consider vital for our health and for our wellness, like food, shelter, like the real basics are down at the bottom of the hierarchy.

2:35And most people kind of explain Maslow's as once you've hit those foundational priorities for your survival, then you can ascend to the next level, right? And it goes all the way up to what you would consider your aspirational goals. And the mom's hierarchy of needs was modeled after that. And I was having a conversation very casually with a startup founder who's a dad. He said, why are moms so stressed? And I said, well.

3:04Angela Santomero:You said, how much time do you have, first of all? Exactly. It was a how much time do you have response. And I said, you know, there's Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and then there's mom's hierarchy of needs. And as soon as I said it, something clicked for me. And it was the visual that really changed my life. I realized everything that we prioritize and hold dear, like our children's health and well-being and milestones down at the base, followed by all those other responsibilities and commitments we have, like the household role and all of the things that we would do in our professional lives.

3:41They are foundational. They're high priority for all of us. But everything up at the tippy top, which in the mom's hierarchy of needs world would be aspirational, but vital, anything that you would do for your mental, physical, and emotional health, the reason that you never get there is because the things in the bottom two thirds are never done. And for me, that was my aha moment. I realized I was trying to do the impossible. Pre-kids, you kind of condition yourself to think, oh, when I have time, I will, insert the blank. It's pursue that PhD, call a friend, go for a walk. Right.

4:21Angela Santomero:Great American novel, whatever it happens to be. Exactly. Like whatever that thing is for you, you imagine that there is this discretionary rainbow of time at the end of your day. But after you've kids, there is no time. Discretionary time evaporates. And so you have to become really intentional, or as I like to say, ruthless about making space for anything that fuels your health, because it won't happen by magic. It won't happen otherwise. And you said of the triangle, once you have your basic needs met, then you move on too. But the other point of the triangle is if you're spending all your time on food and shelter in the Maslow list, you're never going to be self-actualized.

5:05Angela Santomero:If you only worry about like must get food, you're not doing a lot of like, am I writing the novel that I have inside me. You're just too busy. And so, you know, you're building hopefully towards something, but also it's exclusionary in terms of if the lower things on the triangle are not being met, you never can go up the rungs. Absolutely. And unlike Maslow's where you can kind of check off food, shelter. Hopefully, right. Yeah, hopefully, right? Because obviously, security, things aren't working for you, then you have bigger issues than mental, physical, and emotional health, perhaps. But if you are checking those things off, in Maslow's world, in the mom's world, they're never checked off.

5:52Like your children's well being, it's never done. Care tasks, right? They're cyclical. Exactly. Your household, that's never done. Like you could easily spend 24 seven, just in the bottom two thirds of the hierarchy. So if you kind of understand and embrace that, it gives you the permission to think about mental, physical, emotional health differently, because you have to make the time, you will not get the time. People in your life who love you, your family, your partner, they will not give you the time. They will not look at you and say, you know, you look really tired, or you look really busy, why don't you sit down?

6:30It's not going to happen. So understanding that allows you to reframe how you're spending your time. And also, if you are taking space for yourself and for your wellness, all of the things that are keeping you busy and that you prioritize and value in the bottom two thirds feel different. You know, if you go for that walk, or if you talk to that friend, or if you spend time, you know, watching that show, whatever it is that you value, then you feel differently about, you know, cleaning the counters or doing another pickup or when you're, you know, when your child throws up on you, whatever it is, you have a little bit of more resilience, more space, and the ability to kind of put everything in its proper context.

7:17But if you're spending all of your time on never done tasks, and you're not refueling, and doing the types of things that help you manage stress in your body and bring that cortisol level down, you burn out. And that's what's happened long before COVID. That is what continues to happen in this time of epic levels of uncertainty and stress. But I'm here to beg moms to make that space at the top and to start to think about the way they spend their time differently. But the problem is staring you in the face when you look in this hierarchy. So we just did an episode, just did one on can this be more fun?

7:59And we talked about how like, why are we having more fun? Well, what does it take to have fun? You need to be able to do one thing at a time, you need to be able to lose yourself in your activity. And we talked about how taking our kids to pumpkin town or ice skating and out for hot cocoa is sort of fun for them. It might be fun for us, it might not be. But looking at it in the triangle, children's activities, I'll make sure to put the link in the show notes, you can follow along with us while we're talking about this.

8:24Angela Santomero:Yeah, pull it up if you can, because it makes a lot of sense when you're looking at it. Yeah, you see like, wow, like children's activities is at the bottom. It's a pretty big chunk. And the value judgment is taken out of it. That's just it is. That's how a lot of us spend a lot of our time facilitating our children's enjoyment. And then fun is like, no teeny tiny triangle up at the top. Of course it is. Of course, we don't have time to have more fun because it's staring us in the face, the impossibility of how our days are structured. So is some part of this, as we like to say, this can't be fixed?

8:56Or is some part of this like, I got to move my triangle around? How do you advise people? The fix, or at least the fix as I see it, is that up at the top has to become like sacrosanct, memorialized in your calendar, part of how you think about your daily life. It doesn't mean that you won't be busy or consumed by all of the things in the bottom two thirds because they are never done. They will always be there. But going to Pumpkin Town, for example, right, or when we do apple picking or any of those activities that we do for the kids and for memory making, that's something where if you are not racing through that, thinking about the fact that you have a presentation to write, that you have 15 things that you didn't do at home, you didn't pull something out of the freezer to make for dinner that night, that as soon as you get home, not only do you have to find space for the pumpkins and all of the stuff that you acquired.

9:52You have to clean the counter, you have to get everything ready, you have to set up dinner. Everyone else is relaxing, by the way, while you're doing all of this. That's the part that feels bad, right? If you set up the, hey, you know what, before I went to pumpkin town, I went for a run. Or for me, when we go apple picking, I still go for a run every day. It might mean that my kids breakfast later. It might mean that they have a tortilla first thing in the morning, and then we have brunch later in the morning. It might mean that I don't make the same dinner that I would ordinarily make. It might mean that we order a pizza.

10:32It might mean that I am prioritizing that writing project or that presentation for a client at a time when I would love to be spending it with my family, but I had to kind of set some boundaries and say, hey, we can do the park today because I only have about an hour and a half. We can't go apple picking or do something that's going to take four hours because I just don't have that today. I have to prioritize this other thing. So it's feeling really confident that you can set the priorities for your time, that you can adjust. Not every day has to be the most magical day ever for your children and for your family, and that they are going to have to understand that your time for yourself is also as important as the time that you spend with them.

11:21So it becomes more, you know, I hate to use the word balanced, because I don't believe that balance is really achievable the way it's been sold to us. But if it feels like you have some part of your day that's around your health and your well being, or your growth, and then other parts of your day that are in service, right, to your family or in service to your household. That feels really differently than if 24-7 you're on this grind of constantly being in service to your household, taking care of others, making sure everybody else is comfortable and happy while you are withering on the inside.

12:00Angela Santomero:I want to talk more about this idea of balance and triangles right after this break. We're talking to Leslie Ford, the CEO and founder of Mom's Hierarchy of Needs. I used to think electrolytes were just for athletes with super intense workouts, but let me tell you, Drip Drop has become my go-to reset button. Drip Drop is doctor-developed, proven fast hydration that helps your body and mind work better. Drip Drop uses science-based formulas for rapid hydration, so you feel results fast while getting three times the electrolytes of leading sports drinks. Drip Drop is trusted by firefighters, medical professionals, and over 90 % of top college and pro sports teams.

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14:53Angela Santomero:Progressive.com. Find a rate that works for you with a name your price tool. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. So Amy knows I talk a lot about triangles. I have a triangle metaphor that Amy and I have now been fighting over for six years because I always say that's at the top of my triangle. And she's like, I think you mean it's at the bottom of your triangle. And we don't see the triangle the same way. But I think we're all kind of saying that when I say it's the top of my triangle that my career takes up space in the life of my family, what I mean is it's at the top of the triangle because nothing can bump it down.

15:31Angela Santomero:So for me, the top means, and then Amy always says, you mean it's foundational, it should be the bottom. We've been having this discussion for six full years. It doesn't really matter where it falls. We won't work it out today. It's interesting because people see it different ways. When I did the first survey, because I'm a researcher by training, and I run these studies on stress, self-care, and growth for mothers, when I refined the triangle, I positioned it as, what do you prioritize? Where do you spend most of your time? What holds most of your mind share? What do you hold dear? And so that does align with what's at the bottom, right?

16:09Those are the food, shelter, safety categories, right? Basic categories. Basic, right, right. But what you do for your release, relief, reset, that's everything at the top. When I ask moms, what do you do to manage stress? What do you do to unwind? What makes you feel like yourself? What makes you healthy, happy? It's everything way up at the top. So I, like you, believe that I have to put things at the top into every day. It's not even up for debate anymore.

16:40Angela Santomero:See, Amy, she's the triangle expert and she agrees with me. No, just joking. The one thing I like about the triangle, and especially in terms of balance, when you say balance is as if this ongoing constant running back and forth and this isn't balanced with that, the fact of the matter and the thing that defines, I think, life for so many moms is a finite amount of space and a finite amount of time and too many things to fit. And so the idea of balance is like, okay, I got my kids dinner. Now I have to spend 20 minutes on my side. That is a losing game because I think the triangle really forces you into the idea of the finiteness.

17:21Exactly. I think balance is a crock. We've all been sold this idea of balance and depending on the generation, they have it all fantasy that we expected to have. And to your point, it doesn't really work that way. And days are messy and blurry, right? Anything can happen at any time. Your kids can need you at times you don't expect. Your work life or your professional life can need you right at times you don't expect your partner, depending on the health and independence of your parents, suddenly your parents might need you, or siblings might need you in ways that you don't expect. So I don't think it's a, you know, hey, I spent X amount of minutes here and Y amount of minutes there and Z amount of minutes there.

18:03But I do think it's, hey, have I centered myself today? Have I established my mental, physical, emotional health as part of my routine? And if so, then it allows me to feel better about, you know, stepping on the Legos for the 55th time or having to...

18:22Angela Santomero:Just for the record, nothing ever makes you feel better about that. Right. In general, I agree with a lot of what we're talking about, but nothing will ever make you feel better about stepping on the Legos. It's not possible. Yeah. Well, that's true. I wear slippers now. That is my defense in the home. I'm always in slippers. Yes. I mean, I'm joking, but your general concept is yes. Having that sense of order, it takes the burden off of every small thing just destroying you. Absolutely. Because it starts to feel like you've left yourself out to dry, like you've abandoned yourself, and you've hollowed yourself out in service to everyone else.

19:01And then at the end of the journey, and by end, it's not that there's an end. But our children, you know, provided everything goes according to plan, they grow up, they have their own lives, they move on. And if you've spent the last 20 years, not caring for yourself at all, you know, what happens, right? No one wants that. I wanted to ask you about that because at the triangle, the bottom, I mean, I think this reflects reality. The children's well-being is the very basic. They have to be safe. Then they have to be fulfilled, our kids. Then they have to have an orderly place to live and food on the table.

19:37then above that and sort of the middle of the triangle then we get to a professional role or friendships our siblings and then our self-care and I'm just interested that for the working mom who's listening it's the middle of the triangle it's important it is a smaller space in the triangle and it is above like getting the household and the kids first and again I'm wondering it probably has to be this way at least until they're out of the house and then do you sort of going back to what you're just saying, then do you sort of re-rack your triangle? Do you sort of look at this and say, I think my career can be at the bottom now I have three kids out of the house?

20:15It's a great question. Our children and what they need based on their age and independence. If you're blessed with healthy children, you know, and I have them, their kind of daily activity, you know, their activities of daily living will take up less of your space. But I'm seeing, I don't have teenagers yet, but in the national study, which now has close to 3 ,000 parents, 97 % of whom are women, when I hear from moms across the spectrum since the pandemic started, the mothers of teenagers and even young adults are spending a lot of cerebral space on managing their children's mental health, their overall well-being.

21:03their happiness, especially with kind of the global mental health crisis in the background. So I imagine that as my children age and their needs become more sophisticated and complicated, right, it's going to take more cognitive space and less like hands on, you know, getting them to and from the park or getting them in and out of the bath. So that is what I see from mothers who are on the other side with older children. I will say though, career, absolutely. There are times that you can accelerate and push harder on professional growth, particularly if your children do not have the same needs of you.

21:44If you've set up your infrastructure in a way that allows you to do so. There's a lot of moms who I've spoken with, interviewed, or have like chimed into the research studies, where they feel like they're living the dream, because they either like have grandparent care 24 seven, they live with their parents, or they live in the same town as their parents, or they have a sibling who lives in their neighborhood, or they are surrounded by, you know, local family, or they have a really good setup with an au pair, or somebody who is a, I think there are other ways to kind of a more expanded look at your question.

22:24There are other ways to create infrastructure that helps support you where you want to grow your career, where you want to take on more creative interests, where you want to spend more time investing in your healthy adult relationships. And that includes partnerships. So again, in thinking about the research study, it's only like 30 % of my couples that are doing well. And by doing well, where they say they're doing as well or better than pre-pandemic, you know, marriages and partnerships are a tremendous amount of strain. So you might find that strengthening your healthy adult relationships becomes a priority if there's a lot of tension in the home.

23:06And you might need more paid support or more parental, grandparental support, or more friend support to be able to manage everything that you are responsible for. I don't think it's healthy for us to view it as something we are solely responsible for, even though we are encouraged and socialized to think of it that way.

23:27Angela Santomero:Let's take a break. And when we come back, I want to talk about the sort of solutions that the hierarchy of needs can ask and the really practical applications. We'll be back with Leslie Ford, the CEO and founder of Moms Hierarchy of Needs. at DSW we ask the important questions like what shoes are you going to wear whether you're prepping for wedding season festival season or just planning the ultimate vacay the right shoes can make or break an RSVP so own the moment you've got big plans and we've got just the shoes at the perfect price of course get ready to get ready with designer shoe warehouse That's your DSW store or DSW.com today and let us surprise you.

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