15 Comments

THANK YOU for sharing this interview. The other day I got an email from my (now former derm) for a Mother’s Day Botox promo. Like, “Give your mom a Botox gift certificate to celebrate her!” You’re so right - this is not radical, it’s actually putting more pressure on moms to disassociate from their bodies and the human experience of aging and evolution. Eff that. Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who celebrate. You are already enough. Don’t let the beauty industry let you feel otherwise.

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“Advocate for all people to have access to postpartum doulas” — yes! Being unsupported after childbirth is so backwards and even unsafe. I’d pay more taxes for that. Or give up eye cream.

Perfect discussion for today. I had my first baby in 2000 and last in 2015, and this is how I personally saw this play out:

• First baby in 2000: Moms were frumpy and no one cared how they looked.

• Second baby in 2005: Huge shift. Yes, the internet contributed, but so did the growing number of married moms with disposable income who transferred their high status career ambition to motherhood, and appearance was often a big part of that.

• Then came social media obsessions with celeb moms and “momfluencers” — the mom-pressures went sky high, along with an endless stream of crap to buy and time-wasting “hacks” to make it all seem possible. It’s sooo good to see people like you and Sara challenge those narratives.

Being a mom is often harder than it needs to be. But we know what’ll really help. Access to doulas for all people is a great place to start!

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This is so freaking beautiful to read. “You’re not supposed to look and feel like yourself.” I’m gonna be thinking about that line for a long time.

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It’s so scummy to try and profit off the insecurity mothers face about their appearance and personhood, especially when you look at the way people talk about mothers’ bodies vs the way people talk about ‘dad bods’ (when the woman is the one who actually!! grows!! the baby!!!)

I’ve been reading Hags by Victoria Smith and her first chapter ‘Ugly Hags’ contains a really excellent analysis of the complicated feelings middle aged women and especially mothers have towards their changing bodies. There’s a really prevalent idea that within all of us is a ‘true self’ which is really an ideal self, as defined by the patriarchy and beauty culture (read: feminine, fertile and fuckable in Smith’s words)

Great topic to explore, and great interview discussion. Seeing the Unpublishable in my inbox is my favourite way to start the morning!

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Both you and Sara are like the palate cleansers of my Substack feed (note: I’m not even a Mom but the rundowns of her day crack me up) which is otherwise full of current events, political & legal maneuvering and the mental dissection of crazy people, i.e. other things I’m interested in. Thanks to the both of you for always getting the dart in the bullseye. Happy Mother’s Day.

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Beautiful interview.😭 As a mom of 3 who went through postpartum depression after my 3rd - I only came to the realization to really look inward and focus on non-tangible aspects to create beauty in my life a year ago but it took a life coach to teach me that, not a psychologist. Happy Mother’s Day. 💐

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Hi Sara, I am disabled. We can be really hot too. 🙂

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I have scars all over my face from not-yet-advanced laser hair removal back in 2014 and well... that pain really is the thing that radicalised me

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I just heard you can get botox for a migraine......

or is it the other way around?

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Awesome interview

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Loved this so much. Thank you, Jessica.

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