The Challenges of Being a Mother Today with Jessica Grose

An interview with New York Times journalist Jessica Grose about how being a mother became an impossible feat

Today’s newsletter is an interview with New York Times journalist, Jessica Grose. Jessica Grose is an award-winning journalist and author who has written extensively on parenting. After reading her most recent book, Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood, I knew I had to interview her because it is so important that all parents (and especially mothers) know that they are not alone in this struggle. You can read or listen to the full interview below.

Source: Laura Garcia/Pexels

Dr. Cara Goodwin: Hi everyone, welcome to the Parenting Translator Newsletter and Podcast. I'm Dr. Cara Goodwin and I'm so excited today to have Jessica Grose here. Jessica Grose is a New York Times journalist who often writes about parenting. She was named a Glamour Game Changer for her realistic coverage of parenting during the pandemic. She's the author of several books including Sad Desk Salad, Soulmates, and Love, Mom, and most recently a book called Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood. As soon as I read this book, I knew I wanted to talk to her because this book was what all of us mothers needed after the last few years. It's just so interesting and validating for parents who have experienced a time when parenting has gone from extremely difficult to nearly impossible. Jessica, thank you so much for being here and could you please introduce yourself and tell us why you wanted to write a book on motherhood?

Jessica Grose: Thank you so much for having me. I have had a lot of the ideas for this book kicking around in my mind for the past decade since I became pregnant with my older daughter who is almost 11. I got extremely sick when I was pregnant with her. I had hyperemesis and I had to quit my job. Even though I had been reporting on how much our country does not support parents, living through an example of it myself was quite galvanizing. Over the years, I had really been talking about a lot of these issues like paid leave, lack of childcare, and how they affected parents, primarily in the United States. Then, you know, the pandemic happened. I think it was finally a moment where more people outside of just moms of young children were really talking about these issues and realizing that the way that we have constructed parenting in the United States is, as I say in the subtitle of my book, not sustainable. You see it in the fact that fewer people are having children. People are not having their ideal number of children, even when they become parents, because they just can't make it work. The pandemic was this moment where I felt like, okay, we finally have the attention of more people in positions of real power to hopefully change things for a larger number of parents in the United States.

Dr. Cara Goodwin: I definitely experienced that during the pandemic of parenting going from being very hard to seeming like, how is anybody capable of this? The first chapter of your book is called, “How Do We Get Here?” I thought this was so interesting because it talks about the history of motherhood in America. I know you don't have time to get into all of it, but could you highlight some of the history of parenting in America and how we got to where we are and how that informs us today?

Jessica Grose: Forever throughout history, mothers have been supposed to be self-sacrificing and always put themselves last. Historically this is true throughout many, many cultures. I'm not going to say every culture, but most of them, and certainly Western cultures. In the early days of the United States, parenting wasn't strictly a mother's domain. There wasn't a lot of separation in households. Everybody was home all the time. There wasn't industry where there was this division where men were going out to work and women were staying home. Everything was at home. Dads had an active role in raising children that was established. There was this idea that women were too flighty to educate their children, certainly to teach them moral values. So fathers really took the lead on that part of parenting. But parenting was barely even a word. You did not pay attention to your children in the way that is happening today because everybody was on the farm and kids started having chores and work to do by the time they were three or four, but definitely by the time they were six. Paying all this attention to kids was not a thing until very recently. 

Fast forward and the industrial revolution happens and this idea of the home as being the domestic sphere and that being women's place and the outside world, the working world, and the political sphere being men's space, that idea really started to take hold. When we're talking about the domestic sphere being women's space, we are talking about white Christian women because before the Civil War, Black Women were enslaved and immigrant women always worked. It was just this role of mother who is just devoted to her children and not really doing anything else was solely white Christian women really. We're still to this day dealing with that ideal, even though there were just new labor market numbers. Almost 80% of women between 24 and 54 are working or looking for work. It is beyond the norm for women to have paid employment, but we're still just piling those expectations on top of the expectation that women will take the majority of responsibility for children and families. That is not great for a variety of reasons, I think the big one is that it's just burning a lot of people out and making our lives less joyful and happy than they could possibly be.

Cara Goodwin: I was so struck by this book reading the history. Obviously a lot has changed, but it's amazing how little has changed in terms of the expectations on mothers. Our society has changed so much, so why do we still have the same expectations of mothers? It really is pretty shocking. One of the things I really loved about the book is you get into your own personal struggles with motherhood.  I think it's so important that we as mothers talk about the struggles. You talk about this very difficult pregnancy. I'm currently pregnant with my fourth child and I'm really struggling. It is really hard. I have three other kids. I've been nauseous and exhausted almost the whole time. It's taken me four pregnancies to get to the point that I feel okay about saying things like, I hate pregnancy, this is terrible. It doesn't mean my children are not loved and wanted because all of my kids have been very wanted and very loved. But it's almost like we can't complain about anything. I think it's really important that we talk about it. Why do you think admitting that it's so hard makes us feel like we're failing somehow? How do we get the support that we need without feeling like when we admit that it's hard that we are admitting that we are somehow not a good mother or not fit for motherhood?

Jessica Grose: I really address this in the conclusion of the book where I talk about the psychological idea of ambivalence, which is that you feel all of the feelings all of the time about everything. There's no reason that motherhood should create a situation in which people are not allowed the full breadth of humanity. No matter how much you love anything in your life, that doesn't mean you won't have conflicting feelings and you won't feel exhausted or frustrated or angry at your kids from time to time. That is just normal. That doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't mean you don't love or want your kid. And not allowing yourself to feel those feelings just compounds the guilt because you cannot avoid those feelings. Then you just feel guilt on top of those feelings. You can't say I'm just going to be a person who is only grateful 100% of the time and loving 100% of the time because then you are a robot or a Barbie. It's just really accepting that we all have lots of feelings and that parenting is no different than any other relationship in your life in some ways. 

I strive to reach the limits of my patience with my children. I am more patient with them than in other relationships in my life. It's not like I treat my children the way I treat adult relationships in my life. I'm not saying that, but you know just leaving room to have all of these feelings because you cannot avoid the feelings that are there and talking about them. I think here is where social media has sort of warped our idea of what is acceptable and what is okay to share. On one hand, there's been this tremendous flowering of honesty for moms and for women in general about how they feel about motherhood and being a wife. But at the same time, you can see all of this blowback and it's from strangers who don't know your context. Oftentimes, I wonder, do they understand humor? And that humor is a tool that people use to exaggerate. Because there's so many times where I see this is clearly a joke. And the response on the internet is oh, you hate your children. They're blowing off steam by joking around about it. I think it is more broadly acceptable, to be honest, about the highs and lows of parenting. It's just that in social media, you get context-free commentary. I think I have found, among my friends who are parents, just complete acceptance, honesty, and love. We all know that we still really love our kids and can still vent to each other about when it's hard. I think overall, the picture is actually quite positive in private conversations. It's just like everything on social media has an intense polarized reaction to it, if that makes sense. 

Cara Goodwin: Yes, that is so true. I'm in the parenting social media world, and I struggle with that all the time. Could you talk a little bit more about social media and the Mom influencers on social media and how they're contributing to these unrealistic ideals we have for American mothers and what can we do? Do we need to curate our social media feed? Do we need to, on social media, make an effort to show more of the real sides of motherhood and show the nuance there? How can we deal with this? Social media is here to stay, so what do we do?

Jessica Grose: I think absolutely curate your feeds. If someone is not making you feel good for whatever reason, mute, unfollow. Don't let them make you feel that way. I think that's a good rule of thumb for all of us on every topic. But even though intellectually, I think most of us know at this point that social media is the highlight reel, that it is not real life, and that this is a business and a job for the people who are putting out these sort of idealized images and that their toddler probably had a meltdown five minutes before the photo was taken. There is still a way that we compare ourselves to these visions. And we wonder, why don't I look like that? Why am I not expressing pure joy and gratitude about my children 100% of the time like these people appear to be doing? We have no idea what is going on in their private lives. That is obviously what is most advertiser-friendly, because again, it's all a business. I think just reminding ourselves, this is not real. These people, it is their job to show us the shiniest, happiest moments of their lives because they're trying to sell us whatever they're trying to sell us. I think contextualizing it like that for ourselves every time we see these images is really important. So it's just sort of like media criticism, media awareness.

Cara Goodwin: I think that's so important. But I feel like I know that and still, a lot of times on social media, I feel like this irrational guilt. I know that they're just showing the highlight reel. I was just watching a story on social media this morning about a mother who has four kids and is homeschooling all of them. And I'm thinking, why can't I do that? What's wrong with me that I'm incapable of homeschooling? Because I wouldn't be able to. I don't have the patience. I know that guilt is irrational, but I still feel it. How do we cope with this irrational guilt that we might feel about not living up to these standards, even when we know on some level they are unrealistic?

Jessica Grose: I think we just have to do the self-talk and say, this is not real. Teaching is a really hard job that I personally am not trained for. And there is no reason I should be good at it. That's obviously the extreme example that many of us experienced in the darkest days of 2020. But I think that there's so many ways in which we are all different parents to different children. And what is important to me is not important to somebody else.

l’ll give you an anecdote from my own life that I was experiencing last night. So, consciously, we did not super over-schedule our kids. We did not have them going to a million activities. We really chose weekends as time for rest and family time. My kids are seven and 11. My kids are older. I see friends who got their kids really into dance or got their kids really into softball and I think, “Have I shortchanged my kids by not making those decisions? Should have done this, that, or the other thing?”  You know what? I just have to remind myself that I made decisions based on values that are important to me. and they made their decisions based on values that are important to them and maybe their kids' specific talents. It's really hard because there's just so many things now that you could have done or spent money on and people are so involved in their kids’ day-to-day. But that's just one example for me where I felt that little pang of guilt. Have I somehow ruined my kids' lives by not putting them in dance class? No, obviously not. They are loved. We had lots of great family times and family activities that we couldn't have done if we were spending all day driving to a softball game. That's not to say that there's anything wrong with driving and spending time with the softball team. They are all valid choices that families make and not one is necessarily better than the other and you just have to remind yourself and ask yourself— am I doing the choice that is most aligned with my personal values and my family's values, which are not the same necessarily as somebody else's values?

Cara Goodwin: I love that. I think it's so easy to compare. I've definitely had that thought, “Oh my gosh, this kid has been playing soccer since they were two.” I think it's so important to remember that different families, different people have different values and let that lead you. Another really interesting thing I read in your book was that American mothers are more likely to cite experts when asked what it means to be a “good mother.” This relates to the idea of what's called “scientific motherhood” that you discuss in the history section, which is the idea that mothers need expert scientific advice in order to be a “good mother.”  I know that we both very much value having research backed parenting advice. How do we take in all the advice out there, assuming that it is good advice that is based on actual research, but use that to make us feel empowered, and to trust ourselves to make the right decision rather than feeling like the research is a mandate that this is what I must do in order to be a “good mother” and if I go against the research, then I am not a “good mother”?

Jessica Grose: It's honestly really, really hard. The internet is a fire hose of conflict, sometimes conflicting opinions. It's really difficult to feel confident because the stakes are so high. You love your kids so much. You want them to be healthy and happy. It feels like even small decisions can have these immense consequences. I think it's just reminding yourself that usually it will not matter that much.  There are certain things, big things to me are like, wearing a seatbelt, vaccination, general stability of households, but if you have those big picture things than those little decisions, which seem so consequential at the moment, probably don't matter as much as they feel like they do.

I've triaged the information by just having a few trusted sources and going back to them and not just sort of Googling and falling into the rabbit hole, which you can do so easily and getting sort of all turned around. Especially when my kids were little— it's easier now because they can talk to me, they can give me feedback about their lives and what is working. But when my kids were really little, if I had a question, I asked my pediatrician or my parents because I think they did an okay job. And that was really it. I was the first one of my friends to have kids, so I didn't really have close friends who had been through it. So it was just my mom and my pediatrician. I had one book, The Mayo Clinic's Guide to Your Baby's First Year that I would sometimes consult. But that really was enough. It really was. I know that sounds maybe a little low-fi, but it worked.

Cara Goodwin: I love that. I love the idea of limiting because we have just so much information out there. Some people can take in a lot of information and synthesize it and feel okay with it. But if you find that you are overwhelmed by the information overload, the idea of limiting I think so important.

Jessica Grose: I just knew that for myself, I would be really anxious if every time I had a question I just did tons and tons of research about it. I just knew that it wouldn't lead me to an answer that I felt better about than these sources that I really trusted to give me the right information— not everyone has this. I am really lucky. And I want to be clear about that, that I have a good relationship with my parents and I really trust their advice. I had a pediatrician who was responsive and that I also trusted. I don't mean to suggest that it is easy to find these sources of advice that you feel really confident in, but it was something that really worked for me.

Cara Goodwin: Yes, I think that's so important, just being aware of how you respond to different sources of information. Whether it's social media or a parenting blog or even a friend who you talk to. If their advice is making you feel bad and making you feel more anxious and less empowered, then you can limit that in your life and have some control over what you take in and what you don't.

Reading your book, I was just thinking— there are so many policy changes we need, particularly in the US, to make motherhood sustainable. But how do we advocate for change? I feel like it's really hard not to feel defeated when year after year it feels like nothing really seems to change. I'm always like, this is going to be the year that we finally get paid maternity leave and it doesn't happen. How do we advocate for change and how do we keep going when nothing seems to be changing?

Jessica Grose: Well, I think first of all, the wins that are happening all the time need to get more attention. So for example, since the book came out, another state has passed paid parental leave. I had to edit the book twice and add two states that passed paid parental leave while I was writing it. That's just in the past three years that three more states have passed paid parental leave. That's huge. It's not going to make the front page of any newspaper, but it is happening. I think just the idea that nothing is changing is not true. There are more conversations and more energy around reforming child care than at any time since I have been reporting. We have to recognize that change is really, really slow. Legislative change, in particular, is quite slow.

I talk to people all the time who have made changes in their private employers and have really worked so hard and banded together with their co-workers to advocate. I think workers have an unusual amount of power in this moment because it's such a tight labor market. It doesn't mean that we will retain that power. But you're seeing all these strikes happen. Organized labor is on the rise. After unprecedented decades of being on the wane, we're seeing some changes happen there. I think it's paying more attention to the wins. If we can see people are doing it, it is possible. They're showing that it is possible to get fired up and organized around something. I would be in a different role if I knew how to get people organized. I'm not an organizer, I'm a journalist. But clearly it can happen.

Cara Goodwin: Yes, I totally agree. It is encouraging to see that there are changes. I just saw, was it last week, that the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was passed, which gives pregnant workers in the workplace some basic accommodations. And it was really interesting because I posted on it. And everybody in the US was like, oh my gosh, this is so great. This is such good news. And everybody in Europe was like, what— you don't have basic accommodations for pregnant people?!? Are you serious? This is 2023, and we're still talking about you're allowing pregnant women a chance to have a drink of water if they need it. So it really is shocking where our country is versus other countries. But there is progress. It's important to not be so negative and to think that there are changes happening. In the meantime, so we can advocate for change, we can try to organize around the topics that we care about and we want to see change. What can we do in the meantime? How do we operate in this unfair world, this world that seems to be kind of stacked against mothers? How do we get the support that we need? I think about this a lot, without perpetuating the stereotype that mothers are less capable. How do we say, I'm stressed this week because I have sick kids without making it seem that mothers aren't as valuable of workers as people who aren't mothers?

Jessica Grose: In the book, I talk about how there's three levels of work to be done. There's interpersonal–asking for help when you need help in your personal life, making sure your partner is a real partner. My mom, who is a retired shrink, always says the most important decision you will make in your life is who you marry. Your partner needs to be in your corner and wanting to make the family unit function in the best way possible. So, asking for help from your partner when you need it, asking for help from family and friends when you need it, and not feeling ashamed about that, because I think there is so much shame in admitting that you can't do everything yourself.

Then there's the political change. And there are changes at work.  I really am a big advocate in making flexible work for everyone, because when it is earmarked just a perk for moms, that is when resentment happens. That is when people see moms as some other different category of worker that is less capable, and they're always getting perks and not working as hard as everybody else. So I think we need to take this away from being a mom issue and make it into a caregiver issue, because everyone, nearly everyone who works is going to have to do some kind of caregiving in their life, whether it is of an elderly family member, of a spouse, or of themselves. People's health is not amazing 100% of the time. I think trying to pressure businesses to have a little bit more grace and flexibility for everybody in terms of sick leave and in terms of caregiving leave is a way that we do not continue to marginalize working mothers.

Cara Goodwin: I love that. I love the idea of this is not just mother's issue— this is a human being issue that we all need flexibility for life outside of work.

More specifically, is it better, as mothers, to hide some of our pregnancy and childcare-related issues that we experience, or is it better to just be transparent about it and ask for the support we need? I've wondered, particularly if I'm interacting with men, does it make them look down on me when I say I can't do such-and-such because I'm having childcare issues or is it better for us to be transparent that this is real life, especially if you are at a higher level in your field, would it be better to show that side of real life? Is it better to be transparent or is it better to hide that in terms of putting up a good face?

Jessica Grose: Unfortunately, my answer is going to be totally unsatisfying, which is I think it is really such a case-by-case basis. Because the culture of each company is so different. There are certainly company cultures where it would just totally ruin your reputation for saying that. Especially if you are not particularly high up. I'm not going to advise someone to risk their future career to make a statement because that's just not practical. But I do think the more power that you have in a company of any kind, the more it makes sense for you to be really transparent about what you're doing to set an example, especially if you are an executive. Then you really have the power to change policy, to set an example, to show the people under you what is acceptable behavior.

Everybody takes cues from the people at the top. I see this with men as well. There are a lot of law firms and finance firms that have paternity leave on the books, like a month of paternity leave, and almost no one takes it because they know that they're going to be punished. In those circumstances, men who are really high up in those companies need to take the full paternity leave. Because otherwise, the people under them are never going to do it. Because they will see I want to be promoted, if I want to be considered for top jobs, they're not taking the full leave. Why would I do that?  I think that there are really a lot of places where people who have more power in organizations can set an example. But again, the culture of each workplace is so different. Is it a mom-and-pop? Is it corporate? There's just so much different behavior that is acceptable, depending on where you are and what part of the country you're in and what the expectations are that I don't like giving blanket advice without knowing the particulars, does that makes sense?

Cara Goodwin: That does make sense. I was thinking that was what the answer would be, that it might depend on where you are. And I think this idea that it's very important if you are higher up to set that example is so important because people who are on a lower level in their field may not have that opportunity.

Jessica Grose: In general, I think, if you are at a lower level, I am always in the camp of do what you need to do and do what you need to do to hide that you're doing it if that needs to be done. As long as you're meeting your deadlines, you want to be present in your children's life. If that means doing some creative business with your Google calendar to make it seem like you maybe are at one place when you're actually at your kid's softball game, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing.

Cara Goodwin: Yes, yes, I think that's so true. If you're meeting your deadlines, if you are meeting the expectations that you need to, if it's possible in your situation, make flexibility where you can. 

You end the book with talking about a lot of hope.  I think that was really helpful— talking about all of the amazing things that mothers have accomplished, even when things feel stacked against them. When I was working as a part-time psychologist after having my first, I remember feeling like I was not a very great employee between pumping and childcare issues. But when I was leaving that position, my supervisor told me that I had seen more patients as a part-time psychologist than two full-time psychologists combined. It just made me realize that working mothers can do anything.  I truly believe that working mothers are the most efficient people on earth because I would get in there and I was not messing around. I was getting things done and still not working long hours and spending a lot of time with my baby. After talking to all the mothers that you have for this book, what inspiration can you give us to overcome the challenges of being a mother? And what is the positive side of this?

Jessica Grose: The positive side is that the hardest years, those years when your kids are so little, they really are finite. They feel so hard when you're going through them even though they're also filled with so much joy. Now that my kids are older, there's just more room to do things. It feels like those years, all the cliches about those years I think are often true. The days are long and the years are short. Like that really is true. So just knowing that there is always this light at the end of the tunnel. I think also knowing that you can admit that it is hard, that it's totally normal and most everyone agrees with you. It's not some sort of personal failing.

It is really difficult especially if you do not live near your family. That is such a huge thing that I think we don't talk about enough. Throughout the history of the world, and I wrote a column about this in darkest days of 2020, people are not meant to raise children just as isolated nuclear families or as single parents. People are meant to raise children with tons of other adults and other people in the community to help watch the children. That is how children have always been raised. So it is historical and unusual to expect that even just two people can provide everything that children need. So just recognizing that. It's not only okay to ask for help, it's the way that children have always been raised, by many, many adults, not just the ones who are their biological parents. I think recognizing that and trying to get the help where you can is really important.. The past couple years have taught us that. We can't do this by ourselves and that it is not normal to ask people to do it by themselves.

Cara Goodwin: Yes, I cannot personally hear that enough. That it is an unrealistic expectation to expect any parents to do this on their own, much less if you are a single parent or you're doing most of it on your own. That's unrealistic and it's supposed to be hard and that we do need to reach out for help.  I think that just cannot be said enough.

So, what do you say to the people who say, “If motherhood is so hard, then, you know, why did you do it? You chose this, why did you do it?” I'd love to hear your response to these trolls.

Jessica Grose: I just don't even respond to them anymore. Because it's like, what's the point? You don't know me. You don't know my life. I also think it's actually really a cultural thing. I'm Jewish, and Jews just complain. It is culturally normative to complain. That is our love language. And so I'm always like, I just don't even understand. We complain about everything all the time. I know that's stereotypical.  I'm just like it's fine. We're not speaking the same language and that's okay. You don't get me. We don't need to understand each other. I respect you, keep it moving.

Cara Goodwin: I do think there are people that don't really need a response because you're not going to change their mind anyway. But my response is usually something along the lines of everybody complains about their job or I would say almost 99.9% of people complain about their job at some point. It doesn't mean you don't like it. It doesn't mean you want to quit. It's just like, well, you're allowed to complain about something that you do that is objectively hard and it doesn't mean that, you wish you hadn't chosen it or this isn't something that you want.

Jessica Grose:  I think it just all goes back to this fantasy that motherhood should be effortless, because it's “natural”. It is a woman's natural role to be a mother. So if it requires effort for you or you don't love it 100% of the time, there is something aberrant or unnatural about you. We don't even have time to unpack everything that is wrong with that group of assumptions. But when you realize where it's coming from, you can just be like, I just don't agree with that. We don't agree and that's okay.

Cara Goodwin: Yes, I think that's such a common experience, especially in early motherhood when having an infant is so hard. When you have those feelings or you admit this is hard, it's like, wait, am I not fit to be a mother? Am I not maternal? Is this not coming naturally to me? When the truth is, and we need to talk about more, that everybody struggles with a newborn. I love babies so much. I'm such a baby person, and I think the newborn stage is so hard. Everybody feels this way. It doesn't mean that you're any less maternal, any less fit to be a mother. 

Jessica Grose: In that new motherhood period, it is just sleep deprivation. I mean, they literally use sleep deprivation to torture people. You're just very tired. I think about that all the time. I actually also love it. I hate being pregnant. I love babies. I absolutely love infants. Both my girls were like the easiest, most delightful babies. I think that different people struggle with different stages. I love the baby stage. I struggle with the toddler stage. So between one and two was very hard for me, just because they're so irrational. I actually really like three-year-olds. And someone else might say, I love toddlers. It's very much about your personality and what you like about those moments. And that doesn't mean you can't get through those moments that are more challenging. But everybody experiences it differently.

Cara Goodwin: That is so true. Yeah, I've talked about that with my friends because I'm such a baby person and some of my friends are like, I don't like the baby stage, but I love the toddler stage. It goes back to what you're saying that different people are different. It doesn't mean you're not as good of a parent. It just means that you're different and you're experiencing this differently.

Jessica Grose: I think it's also realizing even on the hardest days with my kids, when someone's always melting down or the baby's colic and you don't know what's wrong, there are always moments of just complete hilarity, I find. Like, someone does something ridiculous and funny. It brings levity even on the most difficult days. I do try to always hold on to those moments. So that helps me too. I know that's sort of corny.

Cara Goodwin:  I think that there are a lot of hilarious moments in parenting and when you can find those moments  that helps you deal with how hard the day to day is. To end, I ask a lot of my guests this. This has been so incredibly interesting, but I would love to ask you. You talk a lot about how hard it was to be a new mother and what you didn't know going into motherhood. If you could go back in time and give yourself advice as a new mother, what would it be? What do you wish you had known? What do you know now that you wished you had known then?

Jessica Grose: Losing my job and having a really difficult pregnancy was in some ways a blessing. It was horrible to go through, but it made me reassess my life and the centrality of work to my life in a way that I think was ultimately really healthy for me. So that's one. Two, that there is so much delight in just observing your kids grow into the people that they are. They surprise me every day with who they're becoming, the things that come out of their mouths. I can't even write about it because there's no way to kind of get that feeling on paper. Just how much day-to-day good feeling comes from watching that develop over time.

Cara Goodwin: Yes, I totally agree. It's very hard to put into words, but it is an amazing experience.  It is so hard and parenting is just such a mix of extreme emotions. It's hard to really describe or even if you're trying to warn somebody who's about to be a parent, what exactly to expect. It's hard to even put it into words until you experience it.

Jessica Grose: That's so true.

Cara Goodwin: This has been so incredibly fascinating and so incredibly validating as a parent who struggles and I know other parents will find it that way. So can you tell my listeners where to find more information about your book or about you and some of the writing that you do on parenting?

Jessica Grose: Oh sure, so my website is jessicagrose.com. My Newsletter is with the New York Times and if you just Google, Jessica Grose New York Times. You can see everything I have written for the Times over the past five years. It's all there. You can buy my book, Screaming on the Inside, wherever you buy books.

Cara Goodwin: Thank you so much, Jessica. Again, this has been so incredible for me, and I really appreciate you and your time, and thank you so much.

Jessica Grose: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

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Welcome to the Parenting Translator newsletter! I am Dr. Cara Goodwin, a licensed psychologist with a PhD in child psychology and mother to four children (currently a newborn, 3-year-old, 5-year-old, and 8-year-old). I specialize in taking all of the research that is out there related to parenting and child development and turning it into information that is accurate, relevant, and useful for parents! I recently turned these efforts into a non-profit organization since I believe that all parents deserve access to unbiased and free information. This means that I am only here to help YOU as a parent so please send along any feedback, topic suggestions, or questions that you have! You can also find me on Instagram @parentingtranslator, on TikTok @parentingtranslator, and my website (www.parentingtranslator.com).

DISCLAIMER: The information posted by Dr. Cara D. Goodwin, PhD, Parenting Translator, and its representatives on the Instagram account @parentingtranslator, TikTok account @parentingtranslator, website (ParentingTranslator.com), and newsletter (parentingtranslator.substack.com), or any other medium or social media platform (the “Information”) is for educational purposes only and is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical, mental health, legal, or other advice.  Parenting Translator is not engaged in rendering diagnosis, treatment, counseling, or therapy services by providing the Information, and your use of the Information does not create any practitioner-patient or other treatment relationship between you and Dr. Cara D. Goodwin, PhD, Parenting Translator, or any of its representatives.  Dr. Cara D. Goodwin, PhD, Parenting Translator, and its representatives assume no responsibility and expressly disclaim liability for any consequence relating directly or indirectly to any action or inaction you take based on the Information.  Reliance on any Information provided by Parenting Translator, its representatives, and contributors, is solely at your own risk.  Always seek the advice of your own licensed and qualified medical, mental health, legal, or other professional, and do not disregard professional advice or delay in seeking it based on the Information. Call your medical or mental health professional, or 911, for all emergencies.