Leslie Anne Bruce, You Are A F*cking Awesome Mom
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the web-in-nominated podcast,
[0:12]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:14]I'm really excited to be welcoming Leslie Ann Bruce today to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:18]Leslie is a five-time New York Times bestselling co-author and an award-winning entertainment journalist
[0:24]formerly of Us Weekly in the Hollywood Reporter. She's the founder of Unpassified,
[0:28]an online community for modern women to discuss motherhood. They're an unfiltered,
[0:32]judgment-free lens of honesty and humor. Her latest book, You Are A Fucking Awesome Moms,
[0:37]should I say Fucking or Fing? Whatever you prefer. I don't know.
[0:41]Continues the online conversation. She lives in Laguna Beach with her husband and her two children.
[0:45]So thanks for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me. So first the title,
[0:50]what do you say? Fing, do you say? I think it depends on the audience. When I, I tried to be respectful that
[0:55]not everybody was born and raised in the South Side of Chicago. It has that word as part of their
[1:00]vernacular. But yeah, so I'm, I mean, in a comfortable setting, I'm happy to say you are a Fucking Awesome
[1:05]because I believe it. And you just met me. Yeah. And yet you know. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
[1:12]Can you please tell us what your, and whatever Awesome Moms is about and what inspired you to write
[1:18]it? It is, You Are A Fucking Awesome Moms is a, I say it's a mama book. It's not a baby book.
[1:24]It is a book for women who are transitioning into motherhood. It is a book that focuses on that
[1:32]journey because so much of preparing for becoming a mom is baby centric. We plan for the nursery,
[1:39]we plan for, you know, the hospital and our diaper bag and what kind of crib mattress to get,
[1:43]but we're not planning for what happens when we become mothers when in that moment when your child
[1:50]is born and you realize you're the least important person in that room. And when I had my daughter
[1:56]in 2014, I really struggled with that transition. I felt I went through on top of the, you know,
[2:03]the hormone shifts and the body shifts and all of that I was going through a real identity crisis.
[2:08]You know, I spent so much of my life being one person and overnight I was becoming someone new
[2:14]and I didn't have the foresight to really honor that change. So this book talks about that
[2:20]journey and, you know, largely about my journey and it is, it's goal is to help women support
[2:28]women who are going through it as well and also offer them a little bit of guidance. I don't,
[2:33]I don't like to say so much advice because I think that only you know what is best for your child
[2:39]in your home, but I'd like to, you know, have a little tips and tricks along the way.
[2:44]That's awesome. And you do it in such a funny way. And in a new way, there are a lot of parenting
[2:48]books out there and a lot of women empowerment, you're great at this, you're about us, whatever.
[2:52]But this was like the perfect blend of tips. What I wish I'd known, I was trying to say to you
[2:58]before, but I was like, I'm not going to say this now. Let me save this. But in truth, I really
[3:02]wish I'd had this book before I had any of my kids. Thank you. That was a lot. Even still with
[3:06]four kids, who's like your target? Any mom, would you prefer, is it better for the first time,
[3:12]what's the best part for experience moms? I think that it works for all moms. I think it's one
[3:17]of those things that I want to give to all women, like the moment that they get pregnant.
[3:21]Yeah. Because I think that from that moment, from conception, like the train has left the station.
[3:27]But I think that all moms can pull something out of it because it wasn't until I had
[3:32]the ability and the time to kind of sit down and really think about in the creation of this book,
[3:37]think about what I was going through and what it all meant. I think that after having children,
[3:41]we become so busy with our lives that we don't take the time to sit and like appreciate the journey
[3:46]that we went on. And I think that for moms who do have four children and who've been moms
[3:51]for a while, it allows you to give herself a little bit of grace and a little bit of forgiveness
[3:56]for your less than stellar moments, which we all have. I'm like, is it that obvious already?
[4:02]No, it's for all women, right? And of course, no, of course, everybody goes through.
[4:05]Yeah. And it's still, it's one of those things where it's like we still feel guilty about, right?
[4:08]Like we still feel that paying of like, oh, you know, there's something I wish I could have
[4:12]been all things to all people, but reminding yourself that you're doing everything with
[4:18]the best intention and with your kids best interest at heart. And that's what makes you awesome.
[4:23]I love all the lists. So one of the best parts is shit, you should know, list of things you
[4:28]might cry over. Like one of the funniest ones I thought was you told your husband not to touch you,
[4:33]so he doesn't touch you. Right. That's so perfect. Because it's like, you don't know what you
[4:38]want. Right. I mean, it's like it's like the essential paradox. It's like, I want you to want
[4:44]me, but like don't touch me. And I think, you know, it's it's especially in those early postpartum
[4:51]days, like all like reason and logic has sort of left the building. So yeah, it's it's for me,
[4:58]it was like I wanted to still be wanted, but I didn't feel especially early on necessarily
[5:02]great in my skin. And I had either baby feeding on me or someone needing me, like, I want you to
[5:07]want me, but like, don't you dare come close to me. I want you to sit next to me, not touching
[5:12]and then just, you know, you also have the list. Shit, you need to stop feeling guilty about.
[5:19]Yes. Okay. Lots of stuff on this list. Sure. How do I stop feeling guilty? It's not it's about you
[5:27]stop feeling guilty by accepting your guilt. And I think it's all about reframing it because what's
[5:32]the alternative, the alternative is not caring enough to feel guilty. You feel guilty. And the
[5:37]motive of feeling guilty is because you love your kids and you love your family so much that you
[5:43]wish there was more of you give, you wish that you had more time, you wish you were able to be
[5:47]better in some capacity. So the motivating factor is the fact that you love so much. So instead of
[5:53]focusing on, you know, the shit that you're not doing, focus on the fact that you're trying so
[5:58]hard to do it all and your kids feel that and they know that and they know they're loved and that's
[6:04]90% of it all. I was just telling the story to somebody. I had kind of forgotten a few years ago.
[6:08]I had coffee with a girlfriend of mine and I was like, so how's everything going? You know,
[6:12]what's up? And she's like, well, I've decided I'm going to stop feeling guilty. So things have been
[6:15]great. And I was like, what do you mean? She's like, yeah, just like that because she was working mom
[6:19]and commuting and all this stuff. She's like, yeah, I'm just not going to feel guilty anymore.
[6:22]And now, you know, everything's fine. I was like, all right, I've got to figure this one out.
[6:26]That seems to be the secret, right? The guilt is the biggest sort of hindrance to successful
[6:33]parenting. Right. I keep getting in your own way. Well, and especially for successful parenting,
[6:37]for modern women, because we have, you know, a large number of us have careers or, you know,
[6:44]interests or things that are, you know, identifying factors beyond motherhood that are really
[6:48]important to us. So being able to take that time to fill all of those cups is near impossible.
[6:53]So realizing, you know, that you're going to, that guilt is sort of part of it, but don't
[6:59]wallow in it, you know, like don't like let yourself get so down about it and just appreciate that
[7:03]you feel guilty because you care. And what's the alternative? You wrote in the book, which I thought
[7:08]was so great. Women today are more unprepared for motherhood than at any other point in history,
[7:13]save for like the stone age. And then you said that we are ill equipped to transition from
[7:18]independent boss lady to mommy, mommy, mommy. Tell me more about this. Yeah. I mean, so that's
[7:24]one of the things when I was figuring out what the hell had happened to me during the first year
[7:30]after having my daughter. This was sort of what my, my, uh-ha moment was I think that there are
[7:35]three important factors sort of in a head-on collision. One being that women today for the most part
[7:42]are, you know, more educated, more career focused, you know, we've spent, we're having children
[7:48]later. So we're spending a large portion of our adulthood creating our identities, you know,
[7:53]what my mom was married at 22. Her mother was married at 19 and oftentimes in generations past
[7:59]they're going from sort of their family home to their marriage home and they don't have that
[8:03]period of time to develop who they are as independent people. And women today are. And so, you know,
[8:09]as I had said earlier, when we're forced to sort of give a lot of that up and you are,
[8:14]you are forced to give up parts of yourself when you become a mother. And so the idea of like
[8:18]you can have it all, I really push against because you, I think that it's important to hold on
[8:24]and fight for the things that are really important in your life and start learning to accept
[8:29]that there are certain parts of your life in becoming a mother that are just going to be,
[8:33]you know, in your past. And I wasn't at all prepared for that. I wasn't, I had never had
[8:37]grieved sort of the passing of my, my independent self. And then that coupled with more women today
[8:44]more millennials today specifically are further away geographically from their families.
[8:49]Like my mother grew up in Chicago and on the street that she grew up was her, her mom,
[8:54]obviously her three aunts and her grandmother. Wow. So there was an incredible community and there's
[8:59]sort of that like those native tribes, you know, where every woman sort of came to pitch in
[9:03]to help as as women are going through these transitions and in certain countries, it still exists
[9:08]like that today. And in the States, a lot of women are further away from home. So I, when I
[9:14]had my daughter, I was in one of these LA canyons with no sidewalk. I didn't know my neighbors,
[9:19]you know, my husband was back to work because he now had a family to support. And I was left
[9:24]alone. My parents lived only 90 minutes away, but that's not a pop in from around the corner
[9:29]kind of drive. And so here I was, this woman going through this crazy identity loss, left alone
[9:35]all day with a baby who I couldn't figure out. And I felt like I was failing her and I was
[9:40]failing what I was the most important thing to me. It was the biggest, it was a high stakes
[9:47]game. It was the biggest thing that I was ever going to do. And I felt like I was failing her
[9:50]and that was crushing, which then brought in the third component, which is social media.
[9:56]And the only access I had to the outside world, the only
[10:00]Morometer to be able to see how I was doing at motherhood
[10:02]was, you know, blogs and Facebook and Instagram.
[10:06]And from where I stood,
[10:08]it looked like everyone else was nailing it,
[10:10]and I was failing her.
[10:12]And I felt so horrible that my daughter,
[10:14]I felt got saddled with me.
[10:16]Like she picked, I say in the book,
[10:18]she picked the short straw in the lottery.
[10:20]Because I couldn't give her, you know,
[10:22]a magic hour photo shoots with like, you know,
[10:24]sprigs of lavender and, you know,
[10:27]bowl of braids.
[10:29]And as you point out in the book,
[10:30]though, you have a beautiful Instagram.
[10:32]I do, I do.
[10:32]I'm my own Democrat.
[10:34]No, you're not a hypocrite, but it's like,
[10:36]I look at yours and I'm like,
[10:37]oh, now I feel like a failure compared to you.
[10:40]Do you like, look at how beautiful
[10:41]and your kids and like the boards
[10:43]and the letters and like, it looks amazing.
[10:45]It's, but you address it really well in the book.
[10:47]I address that in the book.
[10:48]And I also try to be really upfront
[10:50]on my Instagram about it.
[10:52]It is, it's a slippery slope
[10:54]because it is in order to get the attention
[10:58]of people on any platform.
[11:00]It needs to be aesthetically pleasing, right?
[11:01]It needs to people.
[11:03]I find don't necessarily love to look at photos.
[11:07]You know, that's why Pinterest is so addicting.
[11:10]You know, you want to see these beautiful things.
[11:12]So I try to use, you know, the visual to bring people in
[11:16]and then quickly let them know that my life looks nothing
[11:18]like this.
[11:20]I recently did something with the bump.
[11:22]And my first thing that I said is my life looks
[11:24]nothing like this photo.
[11:26]And then here's what was really happening behind the scenes.
[11:28]But I created the platform because I wanted to connect
[11:31]with women and let them know that this is just a picture
[11:34]and anybody can make a beautiful picture
[11:37]and you have no idea what's being cropped out of the frame.
[11:41]Very true.
[11:42]So tell me about insta shaming, like insta shame and insta mom
[11:45]and yeah, what does it mean to be insta shamed?
[11:49]To be insta shamed means that you are holding yourself
[11:53]to an unrealistic expectation that you are feeling guilty
[11:57]because you are not living a picture perfect life.
[12:01]And it is often things that we're putting on ourselves.
[12:04]And I think that the insta mom, as I had said,
[12:07]the insta mom has like, you know, a succulent wall,
[12:10]and she only bades her baby and like a galvanized tub.
[12:13]She's seeing like obviously like homemade soap
[12:17]that she made with organic products.
[12:18]And you know, her whole life is like, you know, tones
[12:21]like blush and mustard and cream and maybe like,
[12:24]maybe a hint of like a dark gray.
[12:27]And I feel like a lot of women don't recognize it
[12:31]for what it is still.
[12:33]And that it really is, I try to use Instagram like a magazine
[12:38]or anything that has like the ability to edit
[12:40]and crop and Photoshop.
[12:42]But a lot of women don't see that.
[12:44]And when women, especially these insta moms,
[12:46]speak about their motherhood experience on Instagram,
[12:49]it is they'll say something like I always want
[12:53]to acknowledge and remember this season of motherhood.
[12:58]I'm like, what are you even saying?
[13:01]Like speak like a normal human.
[13:02]Like to say, like I really want to remember
[13:05]when he's grown that how he felt when he slept on me.
[13:08]But he also like, you know, had a diaper blowout today.
[13:11]And I cried because, you know, I went to go get like an Oreo
[13:14]and there are no more Oreos or whatever it is.
[13:16]Like speak normally about motherhood.
[13:18]And I find that that's so much more relatable
[13:20]and it creates a community.
[13:22]Totally.
[13:23]And this is how you started unclassified.
[13:26]Like tell me about starting men.
[13:27]Yeah, well, so I started unclassified
[13:29]because I wanted to connect with other women
[13:31]because I quickly realized after, you know,
[13:35]coming out of the fog of that like newborn war
[13:38]that my experience wasn't uncommon,
[13:42]that actually most mothers went through a similar experience,
[13:46]maybe not necessarily the same.
[13:49]They didn't struggle with the same things.
[13:50]But when you're making that sort of journey into motherhood,
[13:53]you have these, you have these hurdles.
[13:54]And everyone goes through them.
[13:56]And once I realized that I wasn't alone in that.
[13:59]But as somebody as a woman with like, you know,
[14:02]I was educated and I had friends,
[14:05]but somehow still I felt really alone
[14:07]in that if I could feel like that,
[14:10]there's like every, you know,
[14:11]women all over could feel like that.
[14:13]And my experience wasn't sort of in this vacuum.
[14:15]So I wanted to make sure that if I could
[14:18]to the best of my ability, connect with women.
[14:19]So there wouldn't be alone
[14:22]so that they would realize that they're not failing,
[14:24]that they realize that, you know,
[14:27]you can have a really, really hard day
[14:29]and still be an incredible mom.
[14:31]And one moment doesn't define you.
[14:33]One terrible day doesn't define you
[14:36]and that you will get through it
[14:37]and that it does get easier
[14:39]and you will learn to love and appreciate this stage
[14:42]and this chapter in your life
[14:44]more than you ever thought humanly possible.
[14:46]And so if somebody wants to be a part
[14:48]of the unclassified community
[14:50]and get the benefits of all that you have to share,
[14:52]what should they do?
[14:52]They just go to the website or should they sign up?
[14:54]They sign up for the newsletter.
[14:56]They start engaging on social media.
[14:58]I have women who have connected and become friends
[15:02]as a result of just kind of engaging
[15:04]with each other through social media.
[15:06]It really is sort of this wild platform,
[15:07]but you know, I have people who come to me
[15:10]that they've created these great friendships
[15:11]and support because they find women
[15:13]who've gone through similar experiences
[15:14]and because I really try to create a judgment free space
[15:19]because I do believe in my heart of hearts
[15:21]that if you are a person who is going to a website
[15:24]or social media or you're going somewhere
[15:27]to educate yourself either about childhood
[15:30]or your motherhood experience, whatever it is
[15:32]that you're trying your best.
[15:34]Like if you're going to those places
[15:35]looking for resources and looking for information
[15:37]that you're trying to do your best
[15:39]or what you think is right.
[15:40]So not to judge anybody along the way
[15:43]and be open that many roads I think lead to Rome
[15:46]and there's a lot of ways to raise really good kids.
[15:49]It's so hard too because everything trains us.
[15:53]We get trained for so many different things aside from this
[15:56]and then there's no metric.
[15:57]There's no like, yeah, you did great.
[15:59]You there's no performance review.
[16:00]There's no nothing at the end of it.
[16:03]And we're used to like, okay, we study, we get grades.
[16:06]Like we work hard at work, you get a review,
[16:08]you get a promotion, I don't know.
[16:09]I mean, I'm not saying anything original here
[16:11]but just with motherhood, there are so few markers.
[16:15]Yeah.
[16:15]And there's so, it just feels like this endless,
[16:18]not struggles the wrong word
[16:20]because there's so much joy in it
[16:21]but sometimes it can just feel, I don't know, overwhelming.
[16:25]Yes, I mean, there is, but I feel like there's,
[16:27]yes, it can be wildly overwhelming
[16:29]and it is a struggle.
[16:30]It is a struggle because everything that's really worth
[16:33]doing comes with struggle
[16:35]and having a beautiful family
[16:36]and raising good people comes with struggle
[16:38]because you're gonna have to go through some wild times.
[16:40]And you're right, like I think it would be nice
[16:44]at the end of the day, I got a gold star.
[16:46]All right.
[16:47]You know, my husband handed me a frozen yogurt
[16:50]and said, you did awesome today.
[16:51]But I think, and what I try to tell myself
[16:55]is that the reward is seeing my child succeed.
[16:59]Which sounds like something, I would say five years ago.
[17:03]But it really is, it's a really rewarding thing
[17:06]when you see your child living a fulfilling life.
[17:09]It fills my heart in a way.
[17:11]It's, I'm living it by curiously.
[17:14]It's my own win, so to speak, so.
[17:16]I also feel like now that I've had four kids
[17:18]and this is just my own anecdotal observation.
[17:22]I feel like I tried so hard with my first kids
[17:25]because I'm like a perfectionist
[17:27]and I wanted to do everything right
[17:28]and I wanna read every book and I wanna like everything.
[17:31]And not that I'm not trying hard with my other two kids
[17:35]or just as much.
[17:36]But I feel like my philosophy on this is like,
[17:39]first you know harm.
[17:40]Like they're all born the way they are.
[17:42]I see it now that they're all so different.
[17:44]Yeah.
[17:45]There's not that much I can do.
[17:46]I can mess them up, but maybe there's not that much
[17:50]I can do to make them that much better.
[17:53]So I don't know.
[17:54]It kind of takes a relief, some pressure off.
[17:58]Yeah.
[17:58]Yeah, I think you're right.
[18:00]We're sort of innately who we are
[18:01]and I see that with my daughter and my son is only a year
[18:04]but sort of I can see their personalities
[18:06]and there's really no different.
[18:08]The variables are the same.
[18:09]Same parents, same environment,
[18:11]same effort.
[18:12]Totally different.
[18:13]So different.
[18:14]So different.
[18:14]But I think it's so nice to be able to encourage other moms.
[18:18]I mean, there's also this whole community of not community
[18:22]but I think a lot of moms get very self-conscious
[18:24]and down on themselves and respond by being snarky
[18:28]and you know, trying to build themselves up
[18:30]in front of other moms, right?
[18:32]Sure.
[18:33]So self-destructive to our whole, you know,
[18:35]the whole mom community, 100%.
[18:37]And I think that that's a huge thing with the mom shaming.
[18:40]Yeah.
[18:41]Is that we're putting other mothers down
[18:43]in order to make ourselves feel better
[18:44]because we want to believe that we're making
[18:46]the best possible decision for our kids.
[18:48]And so the fact that somebody else is doing it differently
[18:50]makes this question whether we made the right choice.
[18:52]So it's a slippery slope, but that's what I keep saying.
[18:55]It's like there's so many ways to do it right.
[18:59]And as long as you love them and you show up,
[19:01]there's not a lot that you can, I don't know,
[19:03]more at least drop.
[19:05]I love telling the book you recommend
[19:07]that as a form of self-care
[19:09]and taking care of your own intellectual inspiration
[19:12]or whatever that you listen to podcasts
[19:14]while you're doing your chores or whatever.
[19:17]So aside from mine, which I'm sure you listen
[19:19]to every single one, but what podcast do you like?
[19:21]Well, I love your podcast.
[19:23]I also, I'm really into revisionist history.
[19:26]I love Malcolm Gladwell.
[19:27]I love the way that he speaks.
[19:29]He's like atrociously smart.
[19:31]And his storytelling is just like remarkable.
[19:34]Like where the first 10 minutes of every podcast,
[19:36]you're like, where is this going?
[19:37]Because it's always just sort of this
[19:38]like little window into this big world he explores.
[19:41]And you're always sort of set up for,
[19:43]you don't always know what you're getting
[19:44]from the description.
[19:46]And it ends up being wildly enlightening.
[19:48]And I have to stay away from like all those like
[19:51]murder podcast because I was like,
[19:53]got on like a deep well of them for a while.
[19:55]And I would like walk into the house
[19:57]and I would just sort of be like on pins
[19:58]and needles and my husband.
[19:59]If you think what.
[20:00]It's wrong, like, just don't talk to me for a second.
[20:02]I'm really sorry if I did anything to you.
[20:04]Please don't like, put me in the backyard.
[20:06]And then my best friend actually released her podcast
[20:09]in May, the first season of asking for a friend
[20:12]with Lauren Conrad.
[20:13]And it is a really fun, really uplifting, really
[20:18]female empowerment podcast of all things,
[20:22]just to sort of, you know, tips and tricks
[20:24]for making your life a little easier
[20:28]and a little more fulfilling.
[20:29]So that's awesome.
[20:31]Yeah.
[20:31]So you've written five best-selling books.
[20:33]Yes.
[20:34]Tell me about that.
[20:35]How did you get into writing?
[20:36]When in the whole timeline of the kids
[20:38]and whatever did this all happen?
[20:40]My first book is called Drinking and Tweeting.
[20:43]And it was, I co-authored it with Brandy Glenville,
[20:45]who was Unreal Housewives.
[20:47]And that happened in, yeah, 2013.
[20:50]And it sort of happened organically,
[20:53]sort of out of our relationship.
[20:55]And she trusted me.
[20:56]I was there through her whole story.
[20:57]And so she trusted me with it.
[20:59]And it did really well because she also
[21:02]has no filter and really connects with women
[21:05]by being willing to open up about her journey and her struggles
[21:11]in a really open and raw way.
[21:13]And then I wrote her follow-up book.
[21:15]And then I did Down the Rabbit Hole
[21:17]with Holly Madison about her life inside the Playboy
[21:20]mansion, which was fascinating.
[21:21]One of my favorite stories ever
[21:23]because it was just really sort of pulled back
[21:26]to veil on this world that we all thought.
[21:27]We had sort of an idea of what was happening.
[21:29]And then her follow-up.
[21:30]And then I wrote Celebrate.
[21:32]I co-authored that with Lauren Conrad,
[21:33]which is a party planning book, which was a very nice sort
[21:36]of diversion from what I had previously done.
[21:39]But it's different because you're writing someone else's story.
[21:43]And especially with the first two books with Holly and Brandy,
[21:46]I took a leading role in writing those
[21:47]because they were new to that world.
[21:49]They did a lot of the writing in the second books.
[21:52]But for this book, I'm now putting myself out
[21:55]on the table and it's I'm laying myself vulnerable.
[21:58]So it's wins and it's setbacks are on my shoulders.
[22:01]So I'm nervous.
[22:02]I am nervous because it's a very, really personal part
[22:06]of my life.
[22:06]And I had my friend tell me early on one of the
[22:08]research and things I wanted to pull back on
[22:10]that I felt were too raw to put in the book.
[22:12]Left me to open for criticism or judgment.
[22:17]And my friend said, if you're going to talk to talk,
[22:19]you have to walk the walk.
[22:21]And so I did.
[22:21]I put it all out there.
[22:22]And so far, the response has been overwhelmingly supportive
[22:27]and I'm really blessed for that.
[22:29]No, it's great.
[22:29]I mean, yeah, I agree.
[22:31]So I'm so glad you didn't hold anything but I know
[22:33]when you were saying that I was like,
[22:34]ooh, what did you hold back?
[22:35]Tell me, tell me.
[22:36]No, I mean, I went for it.
[22:38]I mean, I really threw my husband's phone
[22:40]out of a second story window.
[22:41]And I did it at all.
[22:44]I mean, if everybody hadn't been there,
[22:45]people wouldn't be appreciating it so much, right?
[22:47]Everybody has been there.
[22:48]Yes, the children can be the most like crazy making.
[22:51]Yeah, never.
[22:52]Well, that's great.
[22:53]I mean, it's so great.
[22:54]You do all this for other women.
[22:55]Have you always like wanted to give back in some ways
[22:57]that just who you are as a person?
[22:59]Or, oh, I'd like to say yes.
[23:01]I mean, that would be wonderful.
[23:03]I'm really fortunate to have really strong
[23:05]and really amazing friendships
[23:07]and really amazing tribe of women
[23:08]that have been around me since before having children.
[23:11]And like I said, I think it's harder.
[23:13]I think women have a harder time today.
[23:15]And we're not, it's this very special period of time
[23:19]that we were like, we didn't,
[23:21]my mom didn't know how to prepare me for it
[23:23]because she didn't know what the world would look like.
[23:24]And so now we're here.
[23:25]And if I can help and connect with other women
[23:28]so they don't have to wake up and feel like shit
[23:31]because they feel like they're failing their kid
[23:33]when they're not, there's no need for that sort of,
[23:36]that pressure to put on yourself.
[23:37]So if I can do that for other women,
[23:39]I'm honored to do so.
[23:41]So tell me about the actual process of writing the book.
[23:44]Where did you do it at your desk at home?
[23:46]Did you go to coffee shops?
[23:47]Like, where do you like to write?
[23:48]How long did it take?
[23:49]It wasn't pretty, I'll tell you that.
[23:51]The writing of the proposal to take out was,
[23:53]it was like a years,
[23:55]because it was like, it was like giving where
[23:57]that just, it took me forever to do
[23:59]because I was wanted to figure out exactly
[24:01]the best way to reach women.
[24:03]And then when we started the actual process
[24:06]of writing the book,
[24:07]I was wildly pregnant with my son.
[24:09]And I had a challenging pregnancy with him.
[24:11]So there wasn't a lot I could do besides sit
[24:15]in front of a computer.
[24:16]But then, so I did, I had a home office.
[24:18]Then, the other second half of the book,
[24:20]I wrote after he was born.
[24:22]And I was nursing, so I couldn't be that far.
[24:24]But luckily, we're fortunate to have a wonderful
[24:26]caregiver who helps us.
[24:27]And I did it from home.
[24:28]And I did it when I could squeeze it in.
[24:30]And I'm very strict on setting deadlines for myself,
[24:35]which is a blessing and a curse.
[24:37]But I created, okay, this is when it needs to be in.
[24:39]I think, from getting like a deal
[24:42]to writing the book having delivered
[24:44]it was four or five months.
[24:45]Oh wow.
[24:45]It's a pretty quick turnaround.
[24:47]And yeah, I just had to set those deadlines
[24:49]and power right through.
[24:50]But knowing in the back of my mind
[24:52]that I had written books before,
[24:54]and I know that in the editing process
[24:56]I have opportunities to kind of come back and revisit
[24:58]and match to the dismay of a wonderful project
[25:01]at a learning cycle.
[25:03]I was going back and forth and kind of
[25:04]free shifting things and moving it
[25:06]over the course of the last year.
[25:08]And what do you have coming next?
[25:10]Book publicity.
[25:11]Yeah.
[25:12]Book publicity for the next foreseeable future.
[25:15]And then hopefully taking some time
[25:18]with my kids off of the holidays.
[25:20]And then this book largely focuses on that early journey
[25:24]in motherhood and that in the mom's journey
[25:27]through motherhood.
[25:27]And I think that there's so much left to explore.
[25:29]And so I'd love to move on with a focusing more on those
[25:32]toddler years and then going through preschool.
[25:35]And everything in the moment
[25:37]that you're going through it feels so intense.
[25:40]So being able to speak to women
[25:42]as they continue on their motherhood journey.
[25:44]That's awesome.
[25:45]Do you have advice to aspiring authors out there?
[25:48]Oh, my advice to aspiring authors.
[25:50]I think it's no your work.
[25:52]Like, know what you're writing.
[25:55]When I did down the rabbit hole,
[25:56]I poured myself into everything I could find.
[25:59]Biography, documentary, everything about Playboy
[26:03]and Hugh Hefner.
[26:05]And then I'm in the mansion itself.
[26:06]And then with this book, I try to be really conversational.
[26:10]I want it to be like you're speaking to a girlfriend.
[26:12]But I mean, I went down these wells of research,
[26:16]whether it was for complex protein development
[26:19]and formulas or cortisol levels and crying babies
[26:22]or statistics of women returning to work, postpartum.
[26:26]And at what day they do.
[26:29]So I knew my subject because I felt like in order to really
[26:34]give women the best and appropriate advice
[26:37]I needed to be really well versed in it myself.
[26:40]And I think that's was anything, right?
[26:42]J.K. Rowling is the bar we all strive for in some degree.
[26:46]And she's the language is the magic in her series.
[26:49]And she's studied language.
[26:50]So I think you just knowing what you're writing.
[26:53]Excellent.
[26:54]Well, thank you.
[26:55]And it sounds like you are a fucking awesome mom, too.
[26:58]And certainly, fucking awesome writer.
[27:00]So thank you, thank you for coming on the show.
[27:03]Sorry for cursing.
[27:04]Thank you for having me.
[27:05]Thanks for listening to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[27:08]You can follow me on Instagram at Moms Don't Have Time
[27:11]to Read Books.
[27:12]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[27:14]for the Sound Editing.
[27:16]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[27:17]for providing this fantastic intro and natural music.
[27:20]Thanks for listening.
[27:21]You can always email me at zibbyoins.com.