Nicky Lowe [00:00:06]:
Hi. It’s Nicky Lowe, and welcome to the Wisdom For Working Mums podcast show. I’m your host. And for nearly 2 decades now, I’ve been an executive coach and leadership development consultant. And on this show, I share evidence based insights from my coaching, leadership, and psychological expertise and inspiring interviews that help women like you to combine your work, life, and motherhood in a more successful and sustainable way. Join me and my special guest as we delve into leadership and lifestyle topics for women, empowering you to thrive one conversation at a time. I’m so happy that you’re here, and let’s go on with today’s episode. Do you ever feel stressed? Silly question, I know, because every working mother who I speak to, who has ambitions in a career and wants to show up fully at home, feel stressed.

Nicky Lowe [00:00:59]:
It’s almost the water we swim in, so constant and ingrained that it seems unavoidable. But what if there was a way to understand this stress more deeply, to know its roots and manage it in a healthier and more supportive way? Well, in today’s episode, we’re diving into the science and realities of maternal stress with Doctor Molly Dickens, a stress physiologist, a women’s health advocate and the founder of the Maternal Stress Project. Molly’s work explores the cultural, structural and physiological pressures that shape modern motherhood, especially for those of us balancing demanding careers and family life. She’s here to share powerful insights on how stress impacts us as working mothers, and most importantly, what we can do to better support ourselves in navigating it. With a background in cutting edge research and a deep commitment to advancing women’s health, Molly is a visiting researcher at the University of California and research adviser to the Poppy Seed Health and the founder of the Maternal Stress Project. This initiative is focused on identifying and mapping the stresses that shape modern motherhood, particularly in America, and providing essential insights for parents, healthcare providers and workplaces alike. Molly has shared her expertise with audiences through powerful pieces in CNN, Harvard Business Review, MIT, Sloan Management Review and the New York Times. And in today’s episode, we’ll explore her invaluable research on maternal stress, its impact on working mothers, and what we can all do to better support the well-being of mothers navigating both careers and families.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:48]:
So if you’ve ever felt that familiar weight of stress or wondered if there’s the weight to lighten the load, you’re in the right place. Let’s explore a new understanding of maternal stress and learn some practical strategies for a healthier life. So welcome, Molly. Thank you so much for joining me today on The Podcast Show. It’s really great to have you here, particularly so early because you’re dialing in from California. So welcome.

Molly Dickens [00:03:14]:
Thank you for having me, Nikki. I’m excited to have the conversation.

Nicky Lowe [00:03:17]:
And thank you for joining me so early, as I say, because I think it’s 6 AM your time over in California. So I do really, really appreciate it. So I would love for you to introduce yourself to my audience. Can you take us on a bit of a journey as to how you’ve come to do the work that you do specializing in stress, but also maternal stress specifically?

Molly Dickens [00:03:40]:
Yeah. So I’ve had a bit of sort of a convoluted career path to get to this, I guess, thesis. I don’t know how I should describe what I’m currently working on. My background my research background is in stress physiology. So I have my PhD in stress physiology. I followed that path for a while, planning to be an academic researcher for my career. And then, you know, PhD, 2 postdocs, years in research later, I actually was back in California. I jumped off the academic track to join a friend’s maternal health startup in these very early stages.

Molly Dickens [00:04:17]:
I had just had my first baby. I was fascinated by pregnancy physiology and dismayed by how little we know about pregnancy physiology. And being in the maternal health space, it also especially on the side of tech and innovation and that it was, you know, 2 20 gosh. When was that? It would have been 2015, 2014, 2015 when I started. And really understanding where data gaps existed and how that impacted innovation and funding and clinical care and all of these things. It just, one, woke me up to what how we see gaps in women’s health and women’s health research and how it affects women. That then kind of transitioned. I was there for 6 years.

Molly Dickens [00:05:10]:
And part of my feeling around why we have these enormous gaps is we lose the women along the way, the women who are doing the research, the women who would be the entrepreneurs, who would be the innovators, who would be the funders. And we’re losing these women because motherhood is a key barrier to how we ascend in our careers, for various reasons, and a lot of them come down to societal reasons. Yeah. And so at the time, this was in early 2020 right before COVID, so another great time on that one. I cofounded nonprofit that was focused on gender related, motherhood related barriers, to gender equity. And a lot of this was looking at how is childcare an issue? How is leave an issue? How is workplace culture an issue? How is just valuing women as contributors in the workplace a problem? And we you know, building and growing that organization, especially during COVID when it was, I mean, one of probably the biggest setbacks for working mothers in our in our timeline, you know, timeline and our history for us as mothers. And what that really did was a lot of people came together, and it allowed for this incredible network for those of us who were saying, okay. Well, the curtain is lifted.

Molly Dickens [00:06:36]:
You know, all of the things that were holding us up was already made of balsa wood and flimsy as heck. And and the curtain lifted, and now it’s on fire. So what does it look like to rebuild this world the way we want it to look? And so there was just this really collaborative energy and networking that was just it’s really rich for me in terms of learning from people who have deep experience in the space of working motherhood and gender equity and everything along those lines. And so when I was transitioning out of the nonprofit and kind of handing over the reins, I kept coming back to my roots and stress and thinking that how all of this is just so it’s so interconnected. It’s so will comes back not only to research gaps in women’s health, but just health, our health now. And how can we see how all of this is connected? How can we see not only the health risks associated with being a parent, being a woman, being a mother, being a working mother, being a family caregiver, all the things that are gendered in many ways, how do we see the health risk of that but also the opportunities to decrease that risk and have these conversations about all of these issues that we’re facing that are often I mean, rightly painted as gender equity issues and economic issues and equality issues. They’re also health issues, and it just opens these opportunities for having different ways of improving our health as individuals, but all the way up to a public health level, to be honest. And so, yeah, the maternal stress project really started from this big thought experiment of can we look across the lifespan of being a woman, being a parent, being in a birthing body, in a cycling body.

Molly Dickens [00:08:32]:
Can we look at where the stressors align with these it’s kind of we also have extreme physiological changes in our body as women, and that also happens to align with stressors. So pregnancy and postpartum aligns with stressors, perimenopause, menopause align with stressors. And that also sets us up for additional health risk. And so, maternal stress project is really starting from this mapping stage, but then coming back to that, we have huge gaps in women’s health. We have huge gaps in all things related to women and mothers, honestly, on on the research side. And so how can we pull together what we know and the evidence that we do have and build this scaffold for how we can think about this now even as the data and the evidence and the research kind of fills in and builds the meat around the meat’s probably not the right meat on the bones, wood on the scaffold, however whatever analogy I should be using right now, but I think you get where I’m going

Nicky Lowe [00:09:32]:
with this. Absolutely. And I’m just fascinated by the work you do because there’s so many things that you’ve said that I’m like, oh, I wanna dive into that. Oh, I wanna dive into that. So I know we’re gonna be going so many different directions. And even before we hit record, we were like, how are we gonna pack this all into the time that we’ve got? So we will absolutely do the our best. But I I’m curious as to what led you down the stress route in the first place because you talked about you kind of studied in stress physiology. Can you explain what that actually means, and what why was your curiosity led in that way in the first place?

Molly Dickens [00:10:06]:
Yeah. I mean, to be honest, my, you know, 22 year old self, the thing that I wanted to do in grad school, I was already really fascinated by physiology. I was fascinated by endocrinology. I knew I wanted to do research. I also wanted to be a field biologist. So I was like, how do I go into the field and study physiology? Like, is there a is there a way to merge this? And so I got really into conservation and conservation physiology. And stress was this key thing that kept coming up, especially in terms of reproduction. So conservation you know, it’s this thing that we talk about all the time and how stress affects fertility.

Molly Dickens [00:10:45]:
And stress affects fertility on the conservation side, that’s important. On the human side, that’s important. And whenever it was like, how does stress affect fertility? Everyone’s like, ah, it just does. There was, like, no research on the conservation side, and there was no research on the human side either. Even though I feel like anybody who has gone through fertility challenges has been told that stress affects fertility. Yeah. And right? And we don’t really know how. And I’m a how kid.

Molly Dickens [00:11:14]:
So I wanna that’s why I like physiology. I wanna know, okay, how does that work? What are the mechanisms of that? And the other thing with stress that I just think is really cool and why it just kinda sticks in my brain, is that it’s it’s really the way that our body responds to challenges in our environment. How we think about stress on this very basic science level. It’s a really well what we would call as biologists, we it’s a well conserved system, which means the way that we respond to an acute challenge, a single challenge if, you know, our ancestor on the savanna getting chased by a lion. The way that our brain and our body responds to that challenge is the same that the bird outside your window responds to you spooking it. It’s the same physiological response. And so that to me was very fascinating how we can have this one physiological system that connects to everything else in the body because it has this kind of important job to do, which is we need to live right now. We need to survive right now.

Molly Dickens [00:12:27]:
And so it’s sending the signal. We need to survive. And then once we survive this quick challenge where we run away, it’s that fight or flight response, We need to survive the survival, which means we’re gonna create a huge mess in our body by just getting up and running away. So we also need to clean it up and come back. And it just, you know, again, as a physiologist, we always think in terms of homeostasis, which is our body’s in balance. If we are cold, we get goosebumps or we try to if we, you know, insulin and glucose we have ups and downs for everything in our body, and stress is the same. It’s just this more extreme push. So it just sends an alarm bell across our body, and then it cleans up the mess.

Molly Dickens [00:13:13]:
But with humans and the reason that I find it fascinating to even translate what happens in wild animals to what happens in humans is that humans humans have just use use it poorly. Yeah. Yes. We abuse this beautiful system. I mean, stress the beautiful system, and we just we don’t have lions anymore in the same sense, but our body I call them modern lions. We still see modern lions in our environment. We still there’s something in the bush that’s gonna eat our child. We still we still respond the same way, and that’s what gets us in trouble because our body was not meant to have this response over and over and over and over and over again.

Molly Dickens [00:13:59]:
It was not built for that. It was built for a one time, clean up the mess, move on, maybe you’ll get it again next week. And now we’re getting it all the time. It’s not shutting off. We’ve just human psychology has just mucked up again this beautiful physiology. So and that’s what gets us in trouble. It’s when when it kind of turns that corner into a chronic stress is when you start to see these health effects. Because, again, it’s affected everything in the body.

Molly Dickens [00:14:26]:
And so, all the things that it’s pushed, it can push too far. So, fertility, cardiovascular issues, autoimmune disease. I mean, a a lot of things are, exacerbated by stress or even triggered sometimes. So

Nicky Lowe [00:14:43]:
Brilliant. And you’ve again, it’s so fascinating. So where my head’s gone to is we’ve talked about stress there, and we’ve talked about stressors. And I wonder if you could just kind of almost define those for us because they they’re gonna be so important to, I suppose, frame the conversation we’re gonna have. So how do we because it stress is such a overused word, I think, now. It’s almost synonymous with model life. So what actually is stress? Is all bad stress bad? And and what’s the difference between stress and stressor? Like, give us some context if that’s okay.

Molly Dickens [00:15:16]:
Yeah. So, I mean, stress is a word as you as you point out. Like, it just it means everything and nothing. It’s just used in a colloquial way where what do we do with that? Are you stressed? Yeah. I’m what is what do I do with that information? And so, yes, when I talk about it, I tend to try to talk about stressors, stress response, acute stress, chronic stress, terms like that. And stressor bear with me because even stress researchers have this kind of circular definition. A stressor is something that causes a stress response, that physical stress response, and a stress response is a physical response to a stressor. So it’s circular, but I think the important thing that is the way that we should think about stressor.

Molly Dickens [00:16:05]:
I often tack on the word potential stressor because a stressor implies that we are responding to it. We can have challenges in our environment that we don’t respond to, but once we perceive them as a stressor, once our brain kind of flicks on that moment that says, okay, this is something to pay attention to, this is something to respond to, that’s when it becomes a stressor. And that’s the important thing especially when we think about maternal stress or human stress. This is where human psychology kind of comes in and mucks up everything because we have that perception layer. And that perception, it comes back to who we are as individuals, our personality, our circumstances, our situation at the time, other challenges that we’re facing. And that’s why, you know, with the maternal stressor map, one of the things that I talk about with stressors on this map is that they’re very interconnected because each of them can essentially exacerbate or worsen or even reduce how we’re perceiving Yeah. The challenges that are external to us. So we can have everything in the world piling on to piling on around us.

Molly Dickens [00:17:23]:
But unless we are perceiving them as stressors, they’re not gonna have that physical response. We just have a tendency to respond to them.

Nicky Lowe [00:17:30]:
And it and it reminds me, Molly, I trained in cognitive behavioral approach many years ago, and it was almost the analogy they would use is, you know, you see a lion. If you saw it in a zoo, you might go, oh, that’s a beautiful animal, and I wanna book a safari. But if you saw it kind of in your bedroom as you wake up, you’d have a different response.

Molly Dickens [00:17:52]:
Yeah. I mean, my my favorite, I have this in one of the posts that I wrote were just kind of explaining what stress is on my substack. You know, I have, like, a GIF of a kid pressed up against the lion cage at the zoo, and the lion’s like pawing at the glass. And it’s, you know, it’s this feeling of, you know, there’s a mom videoing this, and she’s fine. She’s not responding to that. But, like, that is our ancient brain should think that this is a problem, and we don’t. And so even in that analogy, like, lions are not lions today. They’re in the and that they’re in a zoo.

Molly Dickens [00:18:29]:
So it’s exactly that.

Nicky Lowe [00:18:30]:
So you mentioned about the stressor map. Can you tell me a little bit more about that and what that means and and what your research has kind of shown particularly kind of in the maternal space?

Molly Dickens [00:18:41]:
Yeah. So where I started with the maternal stress project was really from this visual. You know, how can we get eyes on any again, potential stressor that we might encounter as, again, as parents, as women, as people in a birthing cycling body, as, caregivers? Where are these stressors kind of congregating is not the right word, but where are they clustering? Where are they where are they, affecting us throughout a lifespan? And then how are they connected? And so what it started with was, you know, the stressor map, it has a timeline. It has a, you know, I we consider reproductive lifespan. So starting kind of post adolescence, going through pregnancy and postpartum because, again, the other part of this because I’m a physiology nerd is that we have these incredible physiological dynamic, physiological changes that happen in our lives. And they’re natural, and they’re normal, and they’re beautiful, but they put us more at risk for everything. So, you know, having that on the map is already kind of acknowledging our body is changing at certain points. And then there’s stressors that align wherever on this map.

Molly Dickens [00:19:57]:
And so there’s things on there, like, I feel like I should have the map in front of me so I can go through it. But, you know, everything from just the pregnancy experience, something like birth trauma, breastfeeding and feeding decisions. There’s other mental load and other elements of invisible domestic load in the home. Sleep is a very circular stressor. Child safety, child health, there’s elements and and they they come up at different times. Some of them are longer. Some of them are shorter. Some of them are across the lifespan.

Molly Dickens [00:20:35]:
But then they also communicate to each other because, again, they’re all connected. So another thing on there is financial stability and workplace, issues. And that has a close connection, but that also has a close connection to breastfeeding and feeding decisions, and to sleep, and to mental load, and to childcare, and to all of these things that are on there and just understanding that interconnected nature in this visual form so that we can then kind of go piece by piece. So so far, I’ve kind of started going piece by piece. I I did a deep dive into breastfeeding and feeding decisions. I’ve done a deep dive into childcare issues. I’ve done a deep dive into abortion access. That’s a big topic for us in the

Nicky Lowe [00:21:25]:
US. Yes.

Molly Dickens [00:21:27]:
Yeah. Unfortunately, and I think the the way that I I have it with the map and with these deep dives is that it allows for us to look for other solutions to decrease that stress that don’t rely on individual responsibility to solve it. So even something with breastfeeding and feeding decisions, it’s connected to identity, and that’s connected to social narrative. And so how are we communicating, you know, and shaming breastfeeding and feeding decisions? How are we showing up for other people in this space? How are we making sure our workplaces are set up for the transition back to work? Because that in connection to breastfeeding and feeding decisions and identity and social narrative, that’s a big stressor connection. And, you know, and sleep. And I think even with something like sleep, that connection is it’s not a sleep more. It’s a we need to see how this is affecting our health. And so how do we have different conversations with our partner or find additional night help if we’re able to, to protect that part and and make sure that that we can reduce that as a stressor because of how interconnected it is.

Molly Dickens [00:22:55]:
So it’s a visual, but it’s also the starting point for how do we, okay, really go deep into where where are the solutions that we can decrease the pressure going into the stressor and going out of that stressor. Yeah. And

Nicky Lowe [00:23:08]:
I love that. And as you were talking, and I I could picture them up kind of in my own head, and I could also kind of go tick, tick, tick, tick. Because one of the things you may not know about my journey is what led me to do the work that I do and and kind of run this podcast is a year after having my first child who’s now 11, I seriously burnt myself out, and it blindsided me. I was like, how did that happen? I literally burnt my adrenaline system out, and it took me about 2 years to recover. And my journey has been piecing together what I am I’m now imagining is your your stressor match kinda going, oh, that’s why. That’s why it was. Yes.

Molly Dickens [00:23:49]:
Yeah. And I think that’s, you know, that’s the the beauty of the map is that it it allows for people to see themselves in it. You know, there’s there’s things there’s stressors on the map that many women will never encounter ever, never have it as an issue. And there’s some that, oh, okay. Here’s my 5, and here’s how we’re connected. And I think the other thing is that, you know, there’s gonna be certain things even if you look at it from an individual perspective. There’s gonna be certain things you’re like, there’s nothing I can do about this one. There’s, like, literally nothing I can do about this one.

Molly Dickens [00:24:21]:
You know, my my mother-in-law is gonna shame me for not breastfeeding forever. So, like, I’m not gonna be able to change that, whatever it might be. But where you see it’s connected to something else, you know, stress again, it’s chronic stress. It’s cumulative. It’s a think of it as a pile of rocks. And there’s gonna be big boulders, and there’s gonna be tiny pebbles. And lifting any weight is good. That’s positive.

Molly Dickens [00:24:47]:
And so it’s this freedom to kind of chip away where you can instead of shrugging your shoulders and saying, oh, well, I’m swimming in it. I’m swimming in the stretch. We are. We absolutely are. And so to be able to see, okay, but we can take some of these pebbles off, or we can, more importantly, pass some of these pebbles.

Nicky Lowe [00:25:07]:
Yeah.

Molly Dickens [00:25:08]:
I want it to not be an individual problem with an individual solution.

Nicky Lowe [00:25:12]:
And I love that because one of the things that I found in my kind of recovery journey was the the initial shame that I felt in not being good enough, not being strong enough. And somehow if I’d eaten and I’ve had a cardio or done enough yoga or whatever it might be, I should have been able to do this because every other woman was kind of managing it and being kind of validating that, no. This is the water we swim in. Whether we know it or not, some of us have more privilege than other in math in that we might have access to more resources that help us to to swim a little bit easier. But, yeah, there is the there’s kind of the society piece is massive.

Molly Dickens [00:25:49]:
And we’re all individuals. And so that comes back to that perception filter. Just because someone else is not responding to a challenge the way that you do doesn’t mean that you’re wrong in how you respond. We’re just different people. There’s different things that are going that our brain is pinging around that’s deciding whether or not things are stressors. And so you can’t fault yourself for not responding the way someone else does. And that’s honestly why I why I really try to get away from or or encourage getting away from even the view of resilience and coping mechanisms and things like that. Because, again, it’s putting that individual it’s framing this as an individual problem with individual solutions, and there’s nothing that causes stress more than failure.

Molly Dickens [00:26:46]:
And so we’re just in this this loop of, like, well, you know, I should exactly as you identified, like, you get into this this spiral of, well, I should be able to rest and recuperate, and I should be able to bounce back. I mean, resilience is also described as bouncing back, which I feel like is a triggering phrase for postpartum.

Nicky Lowe [00:27:08]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Molly Dickens [00:27:11]:
The term used for resilience and you’re like, that is it’s certain people, fine. Not everyone. And so we can’t expect it from everyone. And then when we expect it from everyone and everyone feels like it’s something they should be able to do, then you’re just adding another stressor onto the pile because you’re setting them up for failure and the feelings of failure.

Nicky Lowe [00:27:32]:
Thank you for that. And I hope everybody listening, you know, I I know that my nervous system has just gone, thank you. That’s kind of a message we need reinforcing. And I’m I’m wondering what your research may have kind of indicate about how the modern motherhood stresses have evolved, how that might be to perhaps where our mothers or our grandmothers. What what can you share with us about kind of modern motherhood and and what your research indicates?

Molly Dickens [00:28:01]:
Yeah. I mean, I think modern motherhood, a lot of it you know, I get a lot of my information too from even just talking to people and as you do, and you probably can name a number of modern modern motherhood stressors. I think, you know, we’re we’re parenting in a time where you know, I have an almost 11 year old, so we’re we’re about the same, place in our journey of motherhood. And I feel like we came up in the age of attachment parenting and parenting experts and access to parenting experts in a different kind of way where it’s not just a parenting expert that has a book that everyone reads, But we also have social media, and we have experts who probably aren’t really experts but have a platform. And so and we have access to watching other people succeed in a public performative way, but then we judge ourselves against it. So we have different elements related to mom guilt and shame and identity that are just fueled by our access to seeing other people’s lives presented in, again, a performative way. We have this training of, you know, how should we be engaging, interacting, spending time with our children that I feel like is is different than our parents. I mean, I’m an eighties kid.

Molly Dickens [00:29:33]:
I feel like we are always like, we would just run around outside and, like, culture not only parenting, but I think culture has changed in that you see a 10 year old running loose down the street and everyone’s worried about that kid. Whereas in the eighties, it was like, cool. There’s why there should be 5 year olds running around by themselves. And so then we have this, you know, intensive parenting moment, and I feel like intensive parenting has become very buzzy. Especially, you know, I I’m sure I don’t know if you see see this in the UK. I’m sure it’s made, you know, international news. But the US Surgeon General announced made it, released an advisory on parenting stress and parenting mental health and how it was a health hazard and a public health hazard. And a lot of what came out of that was this this lens on intensive parenting, which I do agree with to some degree, but I also that shouldn’t have been the only takeaway.

Molly Dickens [00:30:32]:
Yes. And so, like, yes, we can look to intensive parenting as this is a modern mom problem. I think we also you know, as we are really recognizing our place in the workforce, contributing where we want to be, it’s not being matched by what we need in terms of structural support. So in the US, we still don’t have a federal paid leave policy, which is insane. We have little to no support for childcare. And so our child childcare expenses, 1, we have childcare crisis. So it’s hard to even get childcare now compared to even when I was looking for childcare, 11 years ago. Right? And and it’s incredibly expensive.

Molly Dickens [00:31:19]:
And so we don’t have as we’re taking our place in the working world, we don’t have the social structure to alleviate the pressure on finding that balance. You know, our school day is short. It’s not a full workday. So there’s a lot of I think that is part of the modern stressors is that, you know, it’s not that we have more per se. I think they’re just more intense for a variety of reasons.

Nicky Lowe [00:31:52]:
Yeah. No. And I love how you’ve you’ve explained that because I think that is the almost perfect storm that we’re caught in. Absolutely. That in a when you look at the research that I’ve looked at, you know, you go, well, actually, we have more rights than we had 50 years ago. We now have, like, a washing machine, a dishwasher, all the things that we wouldn’t have had perhaps 50 years ago. Yet all of the well-being data says, and we’re still not benefiting from that because of all

Molly Dickens [00:32:24]:
the things you’ve mentioned. And I think, you know, I don’t have the research on this, but my where my brain goes to right now is and where research I feel like is starting to show is that the physical tasks, the washing the laundry, the making the food, the the the physical tasks associated with parenting, I don’t think that’s where the stress comes in. So having the washing machine evolve over the years so that we can do a load and not worry about it, not like hammering it. I don’t think that’s alleviating the stress. I think the stress of modern parenting is coming from we sent our kid to school with a lunchbox full of snacks because we didn’t have time to make a sandwich, and now we’re being shamed as mothers. And so I think the stress is more actually related to the emotional elements of the labor rather than the labor itself. And so having tools that just reduces the labor, I don’t know if that’s gonna impact stress as much as we think it might. And as you point out, like, we have all these things that make our life easier, and it’s a podcast so you can’t see I’m doing air quotes.

Molly Dickens [00:33:42]:
We have all these things that make our life easier theoretically, but it’s not fixing anything. We’re still burning out and we’re still, And I think it’s because we haven’t solved for or we’re actually in many ways made worse the emotional side.

Nicky Lowe [00:33:57]:
Yeah. I get that. And what came into my head as you were saying that Molly is there’s been many occasion where I run my business from home. So I always think I’ve got and I like that. You know, I like that I I get, you know, a significant amount of time at home that enables me to put the washing on while I’m doing my my work during the day. And but the amount of shame I felt that on a busy day, I’ve not been able to have the time to pick it on the washing line outside. My neighbor has, but I haven’t. And I’ve ended up putting it into the tumble dryer, which now I’m contributing to the environment problem because I’m using electricity.

Nicky Lowe [00:34:32]:
And now I’m this bad person because I’m working from home. I haven’t even got my washing on the line, and I’ve had this negative impact on the environment. And I’m like, wow. That’s a lot to carry.

Molly Dickens [00:34:43]:
Yeah. And then it’s like, well, what does my neighbor think of me? Because clearly, I haven’t had washing out. And but then why is it you? Why is it why isn’t it your partner? Why isn’t it your child? You know, why is it why is the assumption if washing’s not on the line that it’s the mother in the house Yes. That failed the task? And that’s how we feel.

Nicky Lowe [00:35:04]:
Yeah. I did a post recently that’s gone a bit viral on LinkedIn about there’s an actress in the UK that, just put on her social media that she has a cleaner, and she was shamed for it. And I was like, this just makes my blood boil because it’s the it’s this paradox of we expect women to have it all, do it all, but if they admit to the help that they get to be able to have and do it all, it’s somehow they’re less of a woman, and it’s it’s gone viral because people are like, this is insane. You know? And it is. There’s that kind of, yeah, yeah, that emotional tone to it. It’s just like, why shouldn’t she? And it’s like, well, her her male partner wouldn’t be shamed if he had it, you know, like, admitted that he had a cleaner. What is that? What is that about?

Molly Dickens [00:35:51]:
Yeah. And I and there was a a post that I saw. It was on on Substack that I had, pre second. It was about this just calling out how when households cut back, when they look at their financials and they cut back on the budget and they say, we can’t go out to eat anymore. We can’t have the cleaning person. We can’t do this. We can’t do that. Most of the things that they cut back on are areas that it’s expected the mother will fill in the gaps.

Molly Dickens [00:36:24]:
I wake them up. Stay. And so that in and of itself, even those household financial conversations become gendered and add more weight back onto the mother. And I think that, you know, again, that’s part of changing how we look at these things and we talk about these things. And, yeah, it’s I mean, someone who is can afford a cleaning I I have a I mean, I have a cleaning person. I I do. Yeah. That’s crazy to me.

Nicky Lowe [00:36:53]:
But for years, I was a little bit like, oh, I don’t know how to admit this because does it make me less of a woman? Because actually, if I was an amazing woman, I would be this domestic goddess that could do it all. And it’s like, what is that about? Like, that talk about, like, just swallowing those society kind of expectations. So what I would love to hear from you now, and you’ve all already kind of indicated about this, about the kind of the boulders and the rocks about if anybody’s listening going, oh gosh, I can I can feel that map? I’m living it. I can feel the weight of it. I’m carrying all those boulders and all those rocks. And I I I absolutely hear you when you talked about this isn’t about resilience and about, well, let’s just make you kind of more capable of kind of holding it all. What has your research kind of shown about what we can do then? And also I’d love to hear in that what impact that’s had on you personally, what you’ve done or what you do that really helps you with this.

Molly Dickens [00:37:52]:
Yeah. I mean, I think the, again, you know, I keep coming back to this, but I really want to continue painting this as not an individual problem and not relying on individual solutions. That’s not to say there aren’t there there are great stress management tools. There’s deep breathing in a moment is, you know, certain types of breathing methods of breathing, great. Meditation, mindfulness, great. Like exercise, great. Getting in nature, great. Getting your there’s there’s ways of managing stress.

Molly Dickens [00:38:28]:
That has been discussed. You can find lists of stress management tools everywhere you look. And so that’s I don’t need to do that. And I think, you know, what I like to focus on is looking at if we had you know, we’re at the middle, but expanding concentric circles around where should we look to support, where should we look to stress reduction, And, you know, maybe starting with partner, family, community, workplace, and, I mean, a public, you know, a public level and policy level. And I think, you know, obviously, that big policy level, that’s I don’t expect you to go do all the work to make big policy changes. That’s a bigger conversation for people in that space. But I think even starting at that lower the smaller levels, the partner level, family level, the the hired help level. I mean, 2 if you’re able to afford it and look at where where are the stressors that I’m experiencing? Where can I relieve the pressure? And I think part of it also comes back to, like, how do I feel in these moments? You know, how for example, we talked about social media.

Molly Dickens [00:39:40]:
Like, I think if a lot of that guilt and shame and comparison is coming from who you’re look following on Instagram, start there. Like Yes. That because that can just lodge itself in your brain. And anything you do, any of these tasks that you do that make you feel I’m not good enough, I’m not doing enough, I’m not a woman enough, I’m not mother enough, I’m all the things. If that is coming from comparison, shut off that comparison. Just shut off the link to that stressor. And I’ve I’ve been trying to get better at that, and I’ve been try because I know that’s that’s a big source for me, is that comparison. And so I try I’ve been trying to shut that off.

Molly Dickens [00:40:25]:
And then, you know, there’s aspects of in the home. So, like, mental load mental load is fascinating to me as a potential stressor. And, again, I think, you know, with mental load, it’s divided between cognitive and emotional labor. And I think as as women, as mothers, we tend to take on a both of the emotional labor. I will I don’t think it’s biological, but I think it’s related to how we are the ones who take on a primary caregiver role right out of the gate. And so our brains just adapt to that, and our partner’s brain adapts to not being a primary caregiver. And so I think that’s a whole other topic for another hour of podcast. We don’t need to go there.

Molly Dickens [00:41:09]:
But I think our brains have shifted in this primary caregiver role, and it relates to all primary caregivers, not just mothers, not just birth mothers. But I think we are primed to take on a bulk of emotional labor. And so I think that also needs to open the conversation for how we divide mental load in the home because that is very gendered, and that is very societally gendered. And women, this is you know, I think this is a place to start in terms of how we have the conversation. This is affecting my health. I have too many balls up in the air. I’m waking up with my you know, at 5 AM with my list of things I have to do during the day, and half of that is related to a child that we share, that we co parent. And you know what? You need to do all doctor’s appointments from now on, or you need to do all sports from now on, or you need to do the birthday party.

Molly Dickens [00:42:03]:
I I and also recognizing what fuels you and what takes away. And I think that’s another practice that I’m trying to get into in my house is I I already told you. I have a cleaning person. I don’t like to clean. My husband likes to clean. If he wants a clean house, he can clean it or we can get a cleaning person because that doesn’t fuel me. That adds to my weight, and I don’t wanna do it. So and I don’t feel shit.

Molly Dickens [00:42:31]:
I I’ve gotten over feeling shame about it because I’ve just closed the door.

Nicky Lowe [00:42:35]:
Brilliant. Yeah.

Molly Dickens [00:42:36]:
And and then, you know, other things like, you know, I I know that I am stressed with birthday party planning. And so my husband for the last 2 years has been in charge of my my older daughter has a big sleepover every year with, like, all her friends. And I leave the house, and he is in charge. And he’s the one sending out the invitations. I mean, the moms think it’s a like, I think this is the other thing. We need to change the culture so all of the birthday information is coming from him. You know, to the other to moms because it hasn’t we haven’t shifted it enough that it’s only dads who who are in charge of these things. But, you know, he’s completely in charge of it, and I’m I’m not I’m not even gonna be home.

Molly Dickens [00:43:22]:
I have nothing to do with this birthday party whatsoever.

Nicky Lowe [00:43:25]:
I love that, Molly.

Molly Dickens [00:43:27]:
It’s it’s like how do you pass these things off? And we can. We can pass them off because and it doesn’t matter who is, you know, the primary caregiver, the secondary like, it doesn’t matter who is working for more pay or less pay or no pay. It doesn’t matter. It’s the load. The load needs to be redistributed because that is also part of this stressor map, and it’s part of the what’s affecting our health.

Nicky Lowe [00:43:54]:
Oh, amazing. Amazing. And I love that example of how you’re bringing that alive in your your kind of own home. So you’ve talked about, obviously, these biggest systemic pieces, and you quite rightly said kind of from a from a kind of public policy perspective that might be kind of out of our direct control and and direct influence. But you’ve talked about there that the workplace and how much that has an impact on our kind of stresses. What have you found through your research is where we need to be having the conversations? What’s what can we be doing in that space?

Molly Dickens [00:44:32]:
Well, I think it, you know, it’s it’s on both sides, the employer and the employee. And where you know, I think it it differs depending on what kind of workplace you have and what kind of structure you’re in, and whether or not you’re in a position of power or in a position of advocacy, and working from the level where you are, right, and starting there. And I think, you know, if I had a magic wand that I could wave and, like, fix every workplace, it would really start with a big culture shift and just valuing women’s work, valuing our time, valuing humans as humans, and understanding that, you know, there are elements of workplace culture. There are elements of workplace structure, flexibility, hours, leave programs, all these there are different elements of it, that can affect health. And on the employer side, I mean, it’s good to have healthy employees. Right? Like, you want to have healthy employees. They’re more effective. They’re more efficient.

Molly Dickens [00:45:48]:
They show up to work more. All of these things. And it has that element of there is it’s not a big ask. You know? For example, the transition back to work, I think, is a key example. You know, the body, the brain, they’re still changing. It’s still you’re still recovering from postpartum. There’s all different elements of shame and guilt associated with return to work. And when you return, you know, full on, when you don’t have that support, when you’re not acknowledged as a human, when you come back and you are trying to continue breastfeeding and you’re pumping and there’s no pumping room, you know, there’s these elements that sort that don’t have to be there.

Molly Dickens [00:46:31]:
Like, just set up the pumping room. Just set up the pumping room. I don’t have why should I have to advocate for my own pumping room? You know, it’s just an added stress on my plate. And, you know, I think that that starting from that I mean, childcare is a whole other thing and understanding what it means to, you know, have just again, be human. You have a child. It doesn’t the school doesn’t fit work hours, but also kids get sick and things come up. And we have conferences and meetings with, you know, we had to get them to sport or whatever it may be. How do we just change the workplace culture to see the humans and also respect the health elements of fighting against the human nature of of our human workers.

Nicky Lowe [00:47:21]:
Yeah. I’m I’m completely with you on that. So I’m like, we’re singing from the from the same hymn sheet. There’s so much we’ve covered. And I wonder what your if there was just one message that you would want somebody listening to this conversation to take away from all of your research. I know we’ve only just scratched the surface. I’m like, we could you know, there’s so many areas that we could dive deeper on, I’m sure. But what what would you want Matt’s kind of one message to be?

Molly Dickens [00:47:52]:
I mean, I think it comes back to your example, and I’m I feel like I’m just talking to you, Nikki. It’s like, be kind to yourself. Be kind to yourself. You know, you we are absolutely swimming in this sea of stressors, and it’s it’s gonna take us down at some point. It it can, it might, it will, or it won’t. And if it does, just be kind to yourself. It’s not your fault. It’s not your it’s not your response like, there’s there’s gotta there is a way that we need to just see that this is not an again, I keep echoing this.

Molly Dickens [00:48:31]:
It’s not an individual problem. It’s not your individual responsibility to pull yourself out of it. So just be kind to yourself.

Nicky Lowe [00:48:39]:
Oh, I love that. I think we could I need that kind of imprinted on my forehead because a lot of my audience, are high achieving women that, like, we hold ourselves to such high standards and we have strong personal power. So we’re like, if I just push hard enough, if I just get more organized, if I just and it’s that, no, actually, there’s this stuff here that it doesn’t matter how determined, how dedicated, how strong you are, you it can still take you under, and I love that. It’s be kind and know that a lot of this stuff is not our fault. So what’s the future for your research? I’m intrigued as to where you’re gonna go next with this because there are so many kind of, you know, areas that you could go. So what’s what what are you exploring next with your work? Yeah. So I am

Molly Dickens [00:49:32]:
you know, I think where I kinda started with it was, can we have this this base layer this base layer of this map that we can then make almost three-dimensional? So we can layer on different things. So whether it’s working with policymakers, I, you know, I I don’t wanna get into this too much, but, you know, maybe at a federal policy level, things have changed or or doors have closed for a little while over here in the US, but we still have local things that we can look at. And so how do we see big broad changes at, like, a policy level through this lens to say, okay. If we did this, it would relieve the pressure off these stressors. And then, you know, a similar thing again for even workplaces. It’s if we were to layer on what we are able to do in a workplace, if we are able to offer a better paid leave policy, if we were able to offer childcare benefits, if we were able to, offer a special transition back to work support or coaching. You know, what does that look like? How does that relieve the pressure off of the stressors that are people are encountering during this phase of life? And then similarly with an individual, you know, I I would love to get this map once it’s more established in terms of how everything is connected, to that, how do we play with it as individuals? How do we look at where we are feeling the most pressure, where we are feeling the most challenges, and start to kind of see where are the resources to relieve this stress off of these specific stressors, where we can make change. And so I would really I’m working towards getting this to a more sort of interactive and application.

Molly Dickens [00:51:16]:
Loweve it. Right. And so for now, I’m still in this evidence building testing hypothesis like, that testing stage. And I the next phase is really gonna be that that application of this.

Nicky Lowe [00:51:30]:
Oh, that sounds incredible. And just thank you for the work that you do because, it’s so important as you say, and so unexamined up until kind of the work you’re doing. So thank you for that. And I know people are gonna wanna find out more about you. Where would you point them to? I’ve I’ve heard you mentioned Substack, but where where else can people find you? And I can put all the links into the show notes so I’ll I can drop those in for people.

Molly Dickens [00:51:55]:
Yeah. So I’m currently kind of writing and exploring this on Substack. The easiest way to find it is that, there’s a button that will take you to the Substack. If you just go to maternal stress project.org, you’ll get a button up top and you can get right to the Substack. And then I am on Instagram. Like I said, social media is a little bit of a stressor for me. So you’ll see that I’m not very, I’m not a prolific poster over there. But it’s at least a holding place for each individual posts and individual topics that I cover.

Molly Dickens [00:52:28]:
And that’s maternal stress. I believe it’s just, maternal stress project at maternal stress project for Instagram, and I’ll give you that link as well. And and, yeah, that’s primarily where I am these days.

Nicky Lowe [00:52:41]:
Brilliant. Well, thank you. Thank you for joining me so early in the morning and for sharing your expertise, your experience because I know it’s resonated deeply for me, and I know it will with people listening too. So thank you.

Molly Dickens [00:52:53]:
Thank you, Nikki. This is really fun.

Nicky Lowe [00:52:58]:
If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Wisdom For Working Mums, please share it on social media and with your friends and family. I’d love to connect with you too. So if you head over to wisdom for working mums.co.uk, you’ll find a link on how to do this. And if you love the show and really want to support it, please go to Itunes, write a review, and subscribe. You’ll be helping another working mum find this resource too. Thanks so much for listening.