In short
Fresh Take episode with Dr. Margot Lowy about “maternal ambivalence” as a dynamic mix of conflicting feelings in motherhood that should be acknowledged and integrated (“the and,” not “or”). She argues ambivalence is more than “mixed feelings” or “indifference,” and that naming emotions helps mothers pause, respond, and avoid shame.
Guest backgrounds
Dr. Margot Lowy is a psychotherapist and researcher focused on the emotional complexity of motherhood; she contributes to Psychology Today and wrote Maternal Ambivalence, The Loving Moments and Bitter Truths of Motherhood.
Key claims
Motherhood has a taboo around discussing difficult feelings; children sense “pretending.” Thoughts aren’t actions. Naming anger/other emotions reduces pressure and supports repair. Mothering is messy, involves ongoing letting go, and continues across ages.
Notable examples
postpartum intrusive thoughts (e.g., picturing driving away); preschool drop-off (joy plus loss); teen daughter midnight call after drinking; mother’s anger leading to a harsh reaction and later repair; grandmother reflecting on letting go.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOUnderstanding Maternal Ambivalence
0:58 to 2:05
Discover the concept of maternal ambivalence and its deeper meanings.
“And thank you for that lovely introduction.”
The Taboo of Difficult Emotions
2:05 to 3:09
Explore the taboo surrounding difficult emotions in motherhood.
“all these moments, to think about all these contradictory feelings, and to actually find value in all of them, not only the enjoyable ones.”
Balancing Expectations and Reality
3:09 to 4:24
Learn about the unrealistic expectations mothers face today.
“But in motherhood, there is this taboo because the other person involved in the story of motherhood seems very vulnerable, very dependent on us.”
Telling the Truth About Our Feelings
4:24 to 6:02
Understand the importance of being honest about maternal feelings.
“And I picked up what you were saying, and I think there's so many layers in this.”
The Power of Maternal Ambivalence
6:02 to 8:12
Delve into the dynamic force of maternal ambivalence beyond mixed feelings.
“So instead of trying to hide things, we're better off to say, look, I'm not really feeling that good today.”
Recognizing Our Humanity as Mothers
8:12 to 9:30
Acknowledge the human experience in motherhood and the need for self-care.
“It's giving ourselves permission to not be perfect, to not be on 24-7.”
The Forbidden Thoughts of Motherhood
9:30 to 10:40
Discuss the intrusive thoughts mothers may have and their legitimacy.
“And that's actually okay because we're human.”
The Messiness of Motherhood
10:40 to 13:19
Embrace the idea that motherhood is messy and imperfect.
“People on the outside were constantly telling me, these are the greatest days of your life.”
The Realities of Motherhood
14:00 to 15:30
Mothers often face challenges and imperfections in parenting, which is a shared experience.
“And to normalize all this for mums and to say, you know what?”
Understanding Maternal Ambivalence
19:08 to 24:18
Explore how maternal ambivalence persists throughout various stages of parenting.
“Margot, we were talking in part one a lot about the postpartum period and newborn moms.”
Show all 15 chapters
Navigating Emotions in Parenting
24:18 to 28:00
Discuss the importance of acknowledging and naming emotions in parenting.
“It's like that sense of let's give ourselves 10 seconds to control ourselves before we talk, before we respond.”
Understanding Shame in Motherhood
28:00 to 28:57
Explore how to separate feelings of shame from our actions in parenting.
“But it's also separating I'm terrible and what my action was.”
Navigating Expectations in Parenting
31:23 to 35:08
Understand the challenges of parenting children who don't meet our expectations.
“the teen daughter out having a drink and the idea of like, this is not what we signed up for.”
The Complexity of Mothering
35:09 to 38:36
Discuss the emotional complexities and growth opportunities in motherhood.
“maybe that drive you nuts or things you really wish they did differently or decisions that they hadn't made.”
Continuing Growth in Mother-Child Relationships
38:37 to 39:22
Learn about the evolving nature of relationships as children grow.
“I'm going to quote you to yourself because I feel like this concludes what we've been getting to.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Angela Santomero:Monday AI agents took over my work and I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com so they see the full picture. My work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff, knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com.
0:32Angela Santomero:Hello, everyone, and welcome to Fresh Take from What Fresh Hell? Laughing in the face of motherhood. This is Margaret.
0:37Heidi Raykeil:And this is Amy. Today, we're talking to Dr. Margot Lowy. She is a psychotherapist and researcher whose work explores the emotional complexity of motherhood. She's also a contributor to Psychology Today and the author of the book we'll be talking about today, Maternal Ambivalence, the Loving Moments and Bitter Truths of Motherhood. Welcome, Margot. Thank you. And thank you for that lovely introduction. I picked up this book, Maternal Ambivalence, as I think many people do when you introduce them to this idea, thinking that it was going to be about the moments of motherhood. They're like, I don't know.
1:12Heidi Raykeil:I wasn't sure I wanted to have kids. It isn't going so great. I thought that was ambivalence. That is not what you're talking about. And it's not, in fact, at all what the dictionary definition of ambivalence even is. So let's start by explaining what you're really talking about. Thanks for that. I mean, that's so central to my work because, in fact, the word ambivalence is not really understood. And it's so interesting that with mothering, it's also not understood. So I'll start with talking about it. Maternal ambivalence is really the feelings that we have about our mothering, which are conflicting and which we don't really talk about the difficult parts.
1:52We might talk about them, but we don't really explore them. What my work does is I go into the difficult, troubling moments, as well as the other moments. And how I see mothering and these moments is that mothering is designed for us to have all these moments, to think about all these contradictory feelings, and to actually find value in all of them, not only the enjoyable ones. How I think about it is in terms very much of and. We can have happiness and discomfort. We can be very mindful about our mothering at any time and we can be not mindful about it and we can be joyous and we can be sad.
2:41So it's really giving value to all these feelings and not neglecting the difficult ones. Because if we think about, for example, the losses and the sorrow that we have in our mothering, the difficulties, that's kind of a way to really understand ourselves and our children. That's really what my work's about. Not moving away from those, but really leaning into those moments. And it's really a bit taboo.
3:09Angela Santomero:That's what I was just going to say, that when you talk about your own personal feelings, about whether you like something or dislike it, or whether you find something satisfying or difficult, if you were to talk about your job that way, people would be very accepting of that because people feel different feelings in every situation. I think even in a marriage, there's another person, but we kind of understand that there's this difficulty inherent in living with another adult and that there is an acceptance that we can talk about the hard and bad parts of it without feeling like we're maybe throwing our partner under the bus or saying something terrible about them.
3:51Angela Santomero:But in motherhood, there is this taboo because the other person involved in the story of motherhood seems very vulnerable, very dependent on us. And that to speak about the hard parts of mothering is, just as you said, taboo because it feels like we're invalidating that person's existence by ever saying that we're having anything other than a baby sent down the rainbow to us as an ultimate joyful gift for which we should feel a constant sense of blessing and joy. Yes. And I picked up what you were saying, and I think there's so many layers in this. There's an ideal that we all have, even though we know we can't be perfect as mothers, we know that, but we continually strive to do that.
4:47mothering is a human experience it's not an experience of a robot and often today especially with social media there's a sense that we need to be or should which is a word that you used before we should be perfect but we know we're not and as mothers i think we have our bar so high and we're spending so much time trying to be like this that somehow we lose our humanity. Another very important part of this is really, let's face it, our kids know. Our kids know when we're pretending. Our kids know when there's something wrong with us intuitively. So we can't hide it from them and we do try to. This is such an important part of my work and such an important part of mothering is to understand our children know.
5:41Because really, from the time that they're babies, we're there and they pick up on every single part of us. So by the time they're older, they know and they pick up. So we're really fooling ourselves and we're actually not giving a genuine belief in them. We're not being genuine because we know. So instead of trying to hide things, we're better off to say, look, I'm not really feeling that good today. I need a bit of a rest. And just treating them, obviously that's age appropriate, but just bringing them into our feelings because in fact, that releases them to speak of their own feelings.
6:24Heidi Raykeil:Let's go back to the ambivalence part because I still feel like we're circling around it as like, of course, we have mixed feelings. Of course, we have lots of feelings as mothers and we're not supposed to talk about the bad ones, only the good ones. But maternal ambivalence itself, you say that people tell you that it's mixed feelings and you say, no, no, no, no, no, that does not get close to the power of the experience. So explain to us what that means, that maternal ambivalence, you say it's a dynamic force. It isn't just like, you have good days and bad days. It's way more than that. So take us into what you're really talking about.
6:56Okay, let me go back to how ambivalence is kind of understood. I ask many people many, many times, what do you think ambivalence means? And often I get the response that it means, okay, mixed feelings, we kind of understand that. That's when feelings are all mixed together. No, they're not mixed. We have to give value to each of them because mixing dilutes it. That's the problem, that you don't feel the power of the anger. You don't feel the power of maybe the pity. You don't feel the power of the troubling. You just mix it all together, which is not what I'm saying. And the other issue is a lot of people think it means indifference, which is so interesting.
7:43I think they're fairly long words, and I think people have just, it's indifference. Indifference is not feeling anything. It's a splitting off, whereas ambivalence is not a splitting off. It's a bringing together of all one's emotions and it's a space to think about all of them. It's an and, whereas an indifference is an or. I'm angry or I'm happy. It splits. It's binary. Ambivalence gives us the consent to say, I'm on for 24 hours and maybe a few of those hours, I just can't be on and that's okay. It's giving ourselves permission to not be perfect, to not be on 24-7. And actually, as we all know, in mothering, it's really difficult for us to give ourselves permission to give ourselves time off.
8:40This is one of the instrumental parts of mothering that really is so important that we have to say it's okay to have time to ourselves. It's okay not to be 100 % present all the time. I mean, as you were alluding to before, what other experience or relationship do we have that we're meant to be there 24-7, that we're meant to consider the other person's feelings and not our own? It's not how we can function. And so what I'm doing with my work is I'm saying to mums, it's okay. Let's give ourselves permission to be normal. And that's really what we need to be as mothers. We've got to give ourselves some grace.
9:25And I think it's really hard for us to do that. It's really hard for us to say, you know, we're not always caring and always compassionate. Most of the time we are, but we're not. And that's actually okay because we're human.
9:40Angela Santomero:And I think on the troubling feeling side, I know as a young mom, and I've talked about this on the podcast, I had tremendous postpartum anxiety. Then I had three kids back to back and spent a lot of time in a pretty bad mental place, like intrusive thoughts. I mean, I could literally picture myself getting in the car and just driving. We lived right off the exit of a highway and I'm like, I could just drive away. But that to me was a very forbidden thought. Good moms don't think about leaving their children. Some intrusive thoughts like good moms would never think about, you know, hurting a child or feeling like this was all a huge mistake, that those thoughts went into this forbidden suitcase.
10:26Angela Santomero:And that did not help me mentally to just keep stuffing. Someone else used the metaphor of a ball, an inflated ball in a pool that I just kept trying to shove it underneath. And then it would pop up. People on the outside were constantly telling me, these are the greatest days of your life. I miss having a baby. Oh, it was so wonderful. And I kind of ended up feeling like everyone's telling me this is the most magical time. And my experience is dreaming about getting in a car and driving away. I mean, you brought up such important comments there. The first thing is that thoughts aren't actions.
11:04We can have thoughts and we all do. No question. But it doesn't mean we're acting on it. And had you been able to have someone to talk to that you felt comfortable with, who was honest enough to say, yeah, I've had these thoughts, but they're thoughts. They're not actions. And it's OK. And we all have those feelings.
11:26Angela Santomero:I need to put you in a time machine and bring you back about 15 years because I could have definitely used to have heard that. I mean, really, that's also why I'm so passionate about this work, because when I had my first child over 45 years ago, I didn't have someone to tell me this. There was no book like this. I was really young. I was 23, nearly 24. And I had this vision that my motherhood would bring me this total, like, unity with this child. Of course, I had that. And I had moments that were so difficult. And I think this also comes back to what you were saying, that what these people didn't say is, yes, it's wonderful to have a newborn and you're up all night and you're exhausted and your partner doesn't really understand what it's like to have the physical, to have the emotional, to have given birth and to have to kind of navigate all this stuff.
12:28and why wouldn't we have all of this? And what you just said, like just gives me so much feeling about what I'm doing because yeah, it is so important that mothers at all stages and beginning from the early stages, realise that yeah, it can be joyful, beautiful when we've got newborns and we see that afterglow after they're fed in the eyes. It's just wonderful. And we're up half the night and in your situation, you had three. So you had to deal with a beautiful newborn that was probably up screaming and you had these other two and you just had to keep going. And the thing is, and I love this expression, as mothers, we have to keep showing up all the time and we have to show up in, I guess, the best possible way that we can and that's okay and that's enough.
13:25We've got to normalize all this. And that's the difficult part. I was looking back on some of the podcasts that you've done, of course. And what really spoke to me is one of the words that I use is motherhood is messy. It's messy. If someone would have told me 45 years ago that it's a messy experience and it's interrupted, I mean, it interrupts your whole life. You're not told that, but it does. And it's also loving. It's so many different things that we actually have to integrate and try and understand. This is not really what's done. So this is my work. And to normalize all this for mums and to say, you know what?
14:08We're all making mistakes. This is what mothering is. We make mistakes and we fix them up. We make mistakes and we fix them up. And that's what mothering is. And why didn't someone tell me about that? this is the essence of it, that it's not perfect and we're doing the best we can. And most mothers do the best they can. Very few don't. And it's really these kind of mantras that when I was writing came into my mind because I wanted to have, I don't like the word mantras. I haven't found a better word for it, like sayings that really make sense that we all need this for our own mothering. Like, how do we keep going?
14:48Like, what are the sayings that really help us? And that we're all making it up as we go along. We are. And it's all different and all depends on where you are everywhere in the world, in your space. Every mothering experience is different. And that's how it is. And we get such a stylized version of mothering. It's not stylized. It's human and And it's difficult and it's wonderful and we feel pity and we feel compassion and we feel so many different feelings. And we're full and we're empty and we're exhausted and we have energy.
15:27Heidi Raykeil:It's all these things. We're talking to Margot Lowy. Her book is called Maternal Ambivalence and we'll be right back. It's way more fun to plan a summer vacation when you know exactly how you're going to afford it. That's why Margaret and I both love MonarchCore. MonarchCore is the personal finance app that tracks everything, accounts, investments, savings goals, and spending. Right now, you can get your first year of MonarchCore for half off, just$50 with the promo code FRESH. MonarchCore takes the mental load of your finances way down. When I log into the MonarchCore app, all the info is there, right at my fingertips.
16:04Heidi Raykeil:Most apps only tell you what you've already spent. MonarchCore helps you set goals and map out big purchases like that summer vacation. Or you can even ask Monarch Core's AI assistant about your finances. How much did I spend on that vacation last summer? Or can I spend this much on this year's vacation without touching my savings? Use code FRESH at Monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just$50. That's 50 % off your first year at monarch.com with the code fresh. Quince has totally become my go-to. It's that in-between weather right now in New York City. And I just got Quince's shorter length trench coat, cotton, a little bit of stretch.
16:45Heidi Raykeil:Makes me look super polished when I throw it on. I just find that Quince's pieces are the ones in my closet that I wear over and over.
16:52Angela Santomero:Quince makes it easy to refresh your everyday wardrobe this spring with clothes that feel as good as they look. They use premium materials like 100 % European linen, organic cotton, and ultra soft denim. And you can't beat the prices.
17:06Heidi Raykeil:Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80 % less than similar brands. Their lightweight linen pants, dresses, and tops start at$30 and are top quality, breathable, and fashion forward.
17:17Angela Santomero:Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middleman. So you're paying for quality and craftsmanship, not brand markup. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quince.com slash fresh for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too.
17:38Heidi Raykeil:That's quince.com slash fresh for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash fresh. It's so important for our kids to be confident in the water because then our kids will be safe. But then you have to deal with cold pools, cranky adults swimming laps right next to them, and getting in the water with
18:00Angela Santomero:the kids. Yuck. Amy, you're giving me flashbacks, but not anymore. Now there's Goldfish Swim School. Goldfish Swim School is a premier parent-trusted Learn to Swim brand designed intentionally for both kids and parents with a focus on confidence, safety, and progress, not just swim skills.
18:19Heidi Raykeil:Every detail at Goldfish is thoughtfully designed to create a golden experience from shiver-free, warm indoor pools to comfy and separate viewing areas for parents to professionally trained lifeguards on deck.
18:31Angela Santomero:And they offer year-round swim lessons for children as young as four months up to 12 years old with flexible scheduling and easy makeups through the Goldfish Swim School app.
18:42Heidi Raykeil:If you've been thinking about swim lessons or just wondering where to start, this is a great opportunity. Right now, Goldfish Swim School is offering a waived membership plus your child's first lesson free at participating locations.
18:54Angela Santomero:Just visit goldfishswimschool.com slash free and find a location near you and enroll using the promo code free.
19:02Heidi Raykeil:That's goldfishswimschool.com slash free promo code free. Margot, we were talking in part one a lot about the postpartum period and newborn moms. And I do think we have kind of figured out in the last couple of decades since we became parents that that's a heightened time, that mothers need more support, that sending them home after 24 hours is not great, that calling it the baby blues and you'll be fine in two weeks is not the way to handle it. And we all remember it as a uniquely intense time. But maternal ambivalence is not just about the postpartum period and I love the baby, but I'm not sleeping.
19:36Heidi Raykeil:I think we concentrate on that as like, remember that? That was nuts. And it was, but maternal ambivalence continues through the ages and stages of parenting. So talk to us about how maternal ambivalence, how you've seen mothers express this as parents of eight-year-olds, 12-year-olds. How does this continue? Okay, I'm going to do that. That's a really important point. But also what I want to say, which is so important, is these feelings of ambivalence are valuable and all mothers have them and we need to acknowledge them. Even if we see, if we look at a mother and say, oh, she's fantastic. I wish I could be like her.
20:14So in reality, we all have them. It just depends what kind of triggers us or presses our buttons. In my book, I've got a lot of stories about these feelings. And I just want to talk a little bit about myself. I'm a grandmother now. And how I see these feelings is, as you said, they develop over the years and they never finish. And as a grandmother, I have obviously adult children now who have their own children. And it's always an experience of letting go. And this is a very important part of mothering. It's always letting go. And this is what contributes to these difficult feelings. I read something and it's absolutely makes so much sense that our initial feeling of letting go is when we have a newborn and they go to sleep on us.
21:10They kind of go to sleep and they go away and already at that time we have to let go and that's the beginning of letting go and all our mothering is an experience of letting go and it's often how we feel about that. And if we think of One experience of maternal ambivalence, which is fascinating, which we've all had, is when we drop our three or four-year-old off at preschool. Now, we really want this child to go to preschool. We need some time to ourselves. And we know that there's going to be good parts of preschool and that they'll learn and they'll develop and they'll have social interaction that we can't necessarily have at home.
21:52So we drop our child off at preschool and we have these feelings. This is wonderful. This is wonderful. And we also have a feeling of loss. Am I going to be as important as I was before? Is my child going to be okay without me? And am I going to be okay without my child? We just can't take mothering just on a superficial level. This is what I'm saying. There's many layers and we have to really, if we have a chance, think about all these layers and lean into them. Lean into that feeling of, yeah, I love it when my child's at preschool. And I have difficulty with it. And I've got to really voice these feelings because that's another thing.
Read the full transcript
22:34Or naming. I'm very big on naming because if we don't name an experience, we can't understand it. So that's one experience, like when we drop the child off at preschool. And then there's another example of when we've got a teenage daughter. I'm soaking in it right now. So we drop our daughter off at a party. She gets ready where we really want her to obviously have a good time, but she walks out. She's got her low top on. She's been doing her makeup with her friends. We're really happy and we give her the instructions. Ring me if there's a problem. I'm going to pick you up. Make sure that you don't drink anything.
23:15Stay with your friends. That's the most important. Okay, so we do all that. And we also, it's the sense of we need to have belief in our child. And also, we're worried. We're so worried. And then sometimes, and this has happened to me, my daughter was a bit older, and we get the phone call at midnight, mom, come and get me. And then what goes through our heads? What's happened? Is she okay? I'm also annoyed, because I told her not to drink. And when I pick her up, she's had a drink. So it's all these feelings that we kind of have to navigate and try and actually respond rather than react. So when we see our daughter at that time, how do we stop ourselves saying to her, I'm not letting you out again.
24:07How dare you do this to me, you little so-and-so, and try and understand where she is and what she's been through. And this isn't what we had planned on. And responding to ourselves and our children is so important. It's like that sense of let's give ourselves 10 seconds to control ourselves before we talk, before we respond. All this is complicated. And from my experience, and you will have had your own, give ourselves 10 seconds. Unfortunately, with mothering, we've been trained and we train ourselves immediate response instead of, it's okay. We don't need to instantly gratify ourselves or our child.
24:53Let's give ourselves some grace again to think. And once we do it once, the next time we might muck it up, but once we've done it once, if we do, if we respond the way that we feel comfortable with, like one out of 10 times. The next time we'll do it two out of 10 times. And that's so important because when we've got the barrage of all these feelings, we often react. So it's like giving ourselves time and the space that it's okay. We don't have to react straight away. We can actually respond and be present for ourselves.
25:28Heidi Raykeil:How does naming your emotions, which is the work of this, right, to name them all, how does that help with the pause? Because you could take a pause without knowing what your emotions are, without being particularly emotionally aware. You could take on that homework for yourself. You were saying before that it's valuable. It's not only acceptable to understand all these parts of yourself, it's valuable. So how is naming and understanding these things valuable? Let's look into those feelings, say, of anger. We're angry with our child. So we can just be angry or we can name it to ourselves that we're angry.
26:01And that's also a little taboo, but we need to dig into what that feels for us. What does that mean for us? Does anger mean exploding? And is there a place for anger that's okay? Is it okay for ourselves to be angry because they didn't do what they were meant to be doing? Like I had to be dragged away from what I was doing. and is it okay? Can I give myself permission to be angry and to name it? And naming it validates it and helps us not push it away because we've got so many feelings and anger is an important one that we really need to integrate and to understand what our anger means. And by naming it, I think it can bring it down.
26:48You were talking before about that pressure cooker buildup. If we name it, if we say, yeah, it's okay to have angry feelings, but let's try and understand them how we understand it from our own background as well, that will help us be okay with it and to actually respond with it rather than react.
27:08Angela Santomero:We have talked about that idea of the pause and I shared a long time ago having a pretty out of control young child and grabbing them by the arm and realizing that I had left a mark on their arm. And I was like, throw me out. I have failed as a parent because I've injured my child in anger, basically. But it was a learning for me of that absolute need that as I felt that feeling welling up in me, that it headed towards a pause rather than action. And it was a complete training exercise, but it really changed my parenting in a great way. Exactly. Because it's naming it. Yes. It's not catastrophizing because we tend to catastrophize like I'm the worst mother.
27:58It does feel terrible when you do something kind of wrong. Yeah, but listen, it's about naming it. Yeah, I do feel terrible. Yeah, actually feel like I'm terrible. But it's also separating I'm terrible and what my action was. And I talk about this in my book, The Shame of Mothering. And what we do is we separate ourselves as being, we might see we're terrible and we separate that from that was not something that I like. It's not something I'm proud of. And next time I can do better. And what we do is we do catastrophize ourselves. And instead of saying, yeah, you know what? Mothering is actually about making mistakes and fixing them up and making them and fixing them up.
28:43And it's okay. And that's a much more realistic and calm way of looking at what we just did. But there's something about our makeup that makes us. We go to the shame first.
28:55Angela Santomero:We go to the shame. We are talking to Dr. Margot Lowy and we will be right back. Amy, we have two very annoying but slightly adorable cats at my house. And the Litter Robot 4 from Whisker has transformed the job of taking care of the litter box. And that's according to my teenagers, because as you know, I don't change cat litter. That's their job.
29:18Heidi Raykeil:That's right. The Litter Robot from Whisker is a self-cleaning litter box with smart odor control that eliminates the chore of daily scooping for everyone in your household. One single litter robot can accommodate up to five cats.
29:33Angela Santomero:We are all set on cats. Thank you. But my family also loves the Whisker app that works with the litter robot. It tells my kids when cycles are complete and when the unit needs attention. Mom's not yelling at them anymore because the Whisker app is telling them on their phones where they always are anyway. So they can't claim they don't know when the litter robot needs their attention. The future is feline.
29:58Heidi Raykeil:Learn more about Whisker litter robot models and starter kits today. Take an additional$50 off bundles with code FRESH.
30:05Angela Santomero:That's an additional$50 off bundles with code FRESH. Visit whisker.com slash fresh to shop now.
30:39Angela Santomero:Nutrafol's hair growth supplements are peer-reviewed, NSF-certified for sport and clinically tested. Nutrafol offers multiple formulas for men and women tailored to different life stages and lifestyle factors, so you get support that's actually right for you.
30:55Heidi Raykeil:Let your hair be one less thing to worry about. See visibly thicker, stronger, faster-growing hair in three to six months with Nutrafol.
31:02Angela Santomero:For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners$10 off your first month subscription and free shipping when you visit Nutrafol.com and enter promo code laughing.
31:13Heidi Raykeil:That's Nutrafol.com spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com promo code laughing.
31:22Angela Santomero:I want to revisit something you were talking about because you were using the example of the teen daughter out having a drink and the idea of like, this is not what we signed up for. We don't want this behavior from our child. And we talk to a lot of people who have kids with medical needs, special needs. They find themselves in a land that they were not expecting. I kind of thought mothering was like, you get a lump of clay and you form it into a person. And I was rather shocked to learn that you actually just get handed a person who is going to do things that you have no control over. And so how does this ambivalence play out when you have a child that is, as Andrew Sullivan calls it, far from the tree, a child that is different in whatever way it might be, whether it's like you wanted a football player and you got a ballerina or whether you expected an easy child and you ended up with a child with complex medical needs or something that feels far from the experience you were expecting.
32:29I love your explanation. I think that what we also need to understand about mothering is that mothering is an experience of flowing. We have to flow. Whereas when we're rigid, what do we do? Rigid is splitting. It's like that. We split, we split, and it's not reality. And what happens when we split is we have expectations. And so flowing allows us to look at our expectations and say, Well, you know what? That's not what I have. And I need to flow with it and check myself and name it and try and understand it. And whatever mothering experience we have, we hope that it's not what we thought it was because that's how we learn.
33:17That's how we understand our child. It's so fascinating because when you were talking, I was thinking about my own experience with my oldest child. And when I actually realized he's actually not me.
33:30Angela Santomero:It's such a strange revelation. You think you get it, but then you have a child and you're like, who is this person? And I also understood then that I actually thought that he was just going to be a mini me. No, he's not a mini me. He's wonderful. And he's not mini me. And I can't be a mother to him if I think he's going to be like me. But that was my initial thing was, I'm going to have someone, he's going to complete me. This child is going to be like an extension of me. And that's what it is. And that is why I wrote this book as well, because it teaches people that it's not like that. And we have to, as I said before, we've got to give ourselves grace.
34:17And it's all a learning curve for us more than them. And if we go back to what you're saying about neurodivergent children, yeah, it's really difficult. And if we flow with it, we understand that our expectations do not help and we actually have no other choice. And you talked about the nugget about control, and this is what I've learned, is that the only time we actually get control is when we realize paradoxically we have no control.
34:49Heidi Raykeil:It makes me think about our kids as they get older. You talked about accepting of this ambivalence in ourselves, that we have a light and dark in ourselves, and so do our kids. And as our kids get older, we might not love every single one of their personality traits. They're not like us. They can't be perfect since they're not exactly like us, right? And they have ways maybe that drive you nuts or things you really wish they did differently or decisions that they hadn't made. And that accepting of that, I'm still trying to understand. Like I said something, I regret it. I was angry and I said it and I shouldn't have said it.
35:21Heidi Raykeil:And what I should have done is paused and then I'll have my anger and then I won't feel as angry anymore. But the point is not like feel less angry or maybe it is. Maybe we are supposed to feel positive feelings more of the time, but you're naming your feelings without judging them. But then you're also trying not to act on your negative feelings. Exactly. Exactly. That's a very good description. We have to try and understand that anger. We can't just put it in a box. It's all part of our mothering. And there's anger and don't forget compassion. There's always the and. And that's why my work is about the and.
35:56Because as mothers, we often do go down the rabbit hole and we need to know that it's the and. And we need to remember that. So when I talk about ambivalence, it's always both. It's full and empty. It's sad and happy. It's carefree and caring. It's all of these, all of these emotions that are so important. One of the stories I talked about was a mother with a 17-year-old son. And the son went out one night and he got all the rules, no drinking, no driving. He was pushed forward a year. So he was in a year with kids that are older than him. And we've all had this stuff of when do we send our kid to school and blah, blah, blah.
36:41Anyway, so he was with a group of friends and he went out for the night and the mother heard him coming home and she was at the front door and he got out of the driver's seat. So he didn't have his license and she was like furious. She came in the door and she let him have it. How dare you do this? How dare I've told you, because of course she was so frightened that he could have had an accident, he could have been arrested, all these things. So what happened is he kind of walked in, took his medicine and walked away. And then he was silent over the next couple of days. He was respectful of her, but he didn't engage with her.
37:21And so she like felt terrible. She catastrophized it. I've lost him. He'll never talk to me again. What have I done? After a few days, they were able to have a conversation about this. And he said, listen, mum, I know I did the wrong thing, but you've got to understand what happened that night. He hadn't done the right thing, but she didn't at that time. She wasn't an adult in the room. She didn't give him the opportunity at that time to talk. And thankfully, she did get another opportunity after a few days. So in this story, there's a lot of nuance. The first thing is, of course, you're furious.
38:01And can we be an adult? Can we respond to something really as difficult as this? Or do we just explode? And then we get to the point that the child is actually in control, which isn't actually great either. So how do we do this? And in most situations, we do get a chance to repair and to heal. And this is another part of the message. We do get a chance to fix our mothering up and to learn from it. And we do have those times that we really feel we've lost our child. And it's so painful. It's so painful.
38:37Angela Santomero:I'm going to quote you to yourself because I feel like this concludes what we've been getting to. I urge you to find your own words to own these complex and contradictory feelings. Naming them keeps us going as our conflicts and pain renew and fuel our love rather than depleting it. We evolve and transform. It's a win-win. Yes, that's it. All of the things we're getting to at all ages and stages is our ability to understand ourselves. It's work that helps us have better relationships with our children. And it continues forever because it changes when they're not at home and they're adults. We still have these feelings and we have to kind of keep going with them and not cut off from the feelings and not cut off from our child.
39:31because they're going to do their own thing. And we need to respect that and believe in them. We've been talking to Dr.
39:37Heidi Raykeil:Margot Lowy. She is the author of Maternal Ambivalence, The Loving Moments and Bitter Truths of Motherhood. We will put the link to buy the book in the show notes for this episode. And Margot, tell our listeners where else they can find you and your work. You can find me on my website, margot.drmargot.com. And also I'm on Instagram. That's my favorite platform, drmargotlowy on Instagram.
40:00Angela Santomero:Wow, I went deep into my thoughts here on this one. Excellent conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Margo.
40:30Angela Santomero:you options that fit your budget. So whether you're picking out your first policy or just looking for something that works better for you and your family, they make it easy to see your options. Visit Progressive.com. Find a rate that works for you with the Name Your Price tool. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law.
From the publisher
We often think "ambivalence" means indifference. Its actual meaning is quite different: ambivalence means having multiple and often opposite emotions in one moment. Motherhood contains much joy—but what about the resentment, grief, anger, fear, exhaustion, and guilt that can exist alongside deep love?
Psychotherapist and researcher Dr. Margo Lowy joins us to discuss her book MATERNAL AMBIVALENCE: The Loving Moments and Bitter Truths of Motherhood and the emotional contradictions at the heart of parenting.
Dr. Lowy explains why naming difficult emotions can actually strengthen our relationships with our children at all stages of our parenting, from postpartum anxiety to learning to let our children go.
We discuss:
Why the pressures of perfectionism are so damaging for mothers
The taboo around negative parenting emotions
How self-awareness and emotional honesty can improve parent-child relationships
Here's where you can find Margo:
https://drmargolowy.com/
@drmargolowy on IG
Buy MATERNAL AMBIVALENCE: https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9798888455999
What Fresh Hell is co-hosted by Amy Wilson and Margaret Ables.
We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:
https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
