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 two 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 guests 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 get on with today’s episode. My husband and I celebrate 32 years together this year, which I genuinely don’t feel old enough to be able to say that, and we’ve been parents for 13 of those years and without question, the parenting years have been the hardest for us to navigate as a couple. Like so many parents, we expected children to bring us closer together. Instead, there were times when the pressure of family life, the endless responsibilities and the sheer exhaustion created distance when we least expected it. That’s why I am so excited to welcome today’s guest, Alex Trippier.

Nicky Lowe [00:01:26]:
Alex is the founder of Be a Happier Parent. He’s a couple’s coach, a writer, a speaker, and a host of the hugely popular Be a Happier Parent podcast. As a husband, father of three, and someone who has immersed himself in understanding modern family life, Alex explores a question that resonates with so many couples. Why do good people in good relationships often find themselves arguing more after they have children? Alex has built a huge following on social media by saying the things many couples are thinking but rarely talking about. From the I used to think my wife was just a control freak to the difference between mum guilt and dad guilt, to his powerful concept of using your wife’s brain for free, he shines a light on the invisible work so many women carry on, why it can become a source of tension in relationship what I particularly admire about Alex is his willingness to publicly examine and unlearn his own unconscious biases, shining a light on the cultural assumptions many of us absorbed about motherhood, fatherhood, and family life. And rather than creating blame, his works create understanding, helping men better understand the experience of their partners, while opening up more honest conversations about fairness, respect, responsibility and connection. If you don’t already follow Alex on Instagram, I highly recommend you do. The posts that he shares are absolutely brilliant, and in today’s conversation we’re exploring why the mental load falls so heavily on women, why many men genuinely don’t see it.

Nicky Lowe [00:03:10]:
And what’s really happening beneath the surface of relationship conflict after children, and perhaps most importantly, what couples can do to build stronger, more connected partnerships. I think you’re gonna love Alex. I won’t keep you any longer. Let’s dive in and welcome him. So welcome, Alex. It is great to have you on the podcast at last.

Alex Trippier [00:03:29]:
Thank you so much. It’s really, really brilliant to be here. And you’ve had some awesome guests. So I feel very important because I’m in good company.

Nicky Lowe [00:03:37]:
And I know you’re gonna be an awesome guest because I’ve listened and watched your stuff for a while now, and I’m sure many of my listeners may know you, and if they don’t, they’re gonna absolutely love what you’ve got to share. So for those that don’t know you, can you share a bit about who you are, what you do, but just as importantly, what led you to do this?

Alex Trippier [00:03:57]:
So my name’s Alex. I am. Most important thing about me is that I am a father of three, and I’m about to be married for 20, 20 years. Coming up to 20 years, and I work as a couples coach. I have my own podcast. I post daily about why we are all having the same arguments now we’ve become parents, and why the time with where we have young children is the toughest time on our relationship. And I don’t believe it has to be. I believe that’s something that this generation are facing through a range of factors that I’m sure we’re going to go into.

Alex Trippier [00:04:36]:
But actually, it isn’t all about personal blame. There’s a bunch of stuff which leads to imbalance and resentment that’s almost unavoidable. So how do we get back out of it?

Nicky Lowe [00:04:50]:
Brilliant. So tell me a little bit about what led you to do this then. Because having listened to your work, it’s not like you’ve always had this figured out and you’re like, oh, everybody else needs to know what I’ve had figured out for all this time. What was kind of that moment where you’re like, okay, and brought you into this space.

Alex Trippier [00:05:07]:
So I’ve always worked with kids my whole life in some capacity. I worked as an actor for a bit. I worked as a writer, and all the time in the background, I was working with children. So I was very, very, very excited to become a dad. I. When I became a dad, I, with my wife, built up a business where I was teaching little kids music. Very successful. And it meant that I had more time with my children than most men can dream of.

Alex Trippier [00:05:36]:
I was. I did a job that was traditionally done by women. So I was around for every school pickup, every bath time. I had that flexibility and I was really great with kids. So I was like, when my wife was resentful and sighing a lot and banging pans down and rage tidying, I was basically like, what is your problem? And arguments were bad. I mean, I have an inkling as to what it is from my background that made me feel the resentment so keenly, but I really. I really couldn’t tolerate it. I’ve always had a bit of a problem with authority and being told what to do.

Alex Trippier [00:06:18]:
And yet all of a sudden, it felt like that was the dynamic in our house. It was like, so where. Where’s this come from? Where you’re the boss and I’m the skivvy? And despite me feeling like we’re marching to the beat of your drum, you’ve got the balls to be annoyed with me. And it made me furious. And, you know, we got through it. And life does get easier as children get older, but we never really dealt with it. And we had this. This whole period of our lives where we felt enormously let down by the other person.

Alex Trippier [00:06:57]:
And we couldn’t talk about it without getting into a massive row. So we just put up a wall about that period. And because I’d had kids really young, I. I had three kids by the time I was 30. My wife’s eight years older than me. I then saw my mates having children going through exactly the same thing. Identical arguments, identical dynamic. Men who love their children fiercely, who centered them, spent every free moment with them, but still there was this constant thing going on from their wives, basically, why do I have to do everything? Why am I in charge of everything? The bloke being, what are you talking about? I do this, I do this, I do this exact same row.

Alex Trippier [00:07:47]:
And it was like this. This wasn’t about me in any way. This wasn’t about our characters. Like, what. What’s going on? Like, and these. I know my work often gets framed a lot as being great for women. I wanted to help men. I was just like, if we could understand what this is about, then this terrible period doesn’t have to be terrible.

Alex Trippier [00:08:13]:
And I knew I’d identified the problem, but I was like, where do I get solutions? I’m a dad. I have no idea. So I started reading books about motherhood. I picked up a book called the Motherhood Complex by Melissa Hoganboom, who you’ve met, and I just blew me away. It was like, this is nothing like what I’ve been through. The guilt, the shame, the judgment. I’ve not experienced any of those. As a father, I’ve basically just walked around thinking, I’m a great dad.

Alex Trippier [00:08:43]:
What you want about being a dad’s awesome. And the More I got really addicted to motherhood books. And in each of these books, there I was as a character, like, written by women who had nothing against me. They’d never met me, but there was this loving dad who was showing up at the end for the execution parts and thought he was doing a great job whilst the women sank in overwhelm and burnout. And the mental load was just so obviously the thing that me and Eloise hadn’t found the language for. That it was so the piece that I. Obviously the piece that I’d be missing. I was just like.

Alex Trippier [00:09:26]:
I got like, I. I know women have been talking about this since, you know, 2017, but I just felt like, no one’s telling men.

Nicky Lowe [00:09:40]:
Just everything about that. Alex, not that you had such a difficult time with your wife. I don’t love that bit. But I love how honest you are about it, how you can talk to the depths of it. And I know me and everybody listening at some level will have experienced that to different degrees depending on their dynamic, but will absolutely get that. But I also love your curiosity to go, what is this? And what can I do? I mean, the fact that you picked up all those books, I mean, that just says a huge amount about who you are as a human. To go, I need to go and figure this out. And I’m willing to.

Nicky Lowe [00:10:17]:
To kind of read out of my comfort zone and lean into that. And I love also that you’re going, actually, this absolutely helps women, but you’re not just doing it for women, you’re doing it for couples. And for. I imagine children to have environments where they’re like, oh, actually, this doesn’t have to be this hard.

Alex Trippier [00:10:36]:
Yeah, I mean, I. You know, I think I started off being like, this is for men. But then what I’ve realized is that that is just a false dichotomy. And there is no good for moms, bad for dads, bad for that. We’re all sinking together. I think that sometimes gets missed because mums, as we’ll go on to talk about, unquestionably have the roar a deal. But that’s what relationship is. What’s bad for you is bad for me.

Alex Trippier [00:11:05]:
And we will. We will suffer together. And if it’s not if that’s not happening, we will subtly find a way to make it happen. If I’m unhappy and you’re really happy, it just. That’s. That’s how it works. Right?

Nicky Lowe [00:11:19]:
I’ve heard you talk about this sense that I thought my wife was just a control freak, or that women had just been bossy or neurotic. And then you started to see that differently. Can you speak a bit to that dynamic?

Alex Trippier [00:11:31]:
So there’s a book called what’s on Her Mind by sociologist called Alison Daminger. And what she finds in her study, she does. The purpose of the study is to measure cognitive labor and see who’s doing more in a household. And what she finds in these interviews is that in every dynamic, there’s this thing that emerges with basically this kind of really controlling, anxious mother who just needs everything to be just so. And. And the guy’s like, you know, I’m just more relaxed. I’m more chilled. And she’s just like that.

Alex Trippier [00:12:06]:
And the woman’s like, yeah, I’m just like that. Like, they believe it too. And then she’s like, hang on, have I just accidentally stumbled upon a group of Taipei women here? But you’ll recognize this from your friendship group as well, right? All my mates have this same story where they’re just kind of happy. Go lucky, relaxed guys. And their wife is like this micromanaging nightmare. And what she realizes that when you’re seeing the same thing coming up and up and up again, this cannot be about personality. She calls it individual essentialism. And it’s this story we tell because we’re a bit ashamed to be saying something that sounds like biological essentialism.

Alex Trippier [00:12:53]:
And so she’s just like that because she’s a woman. But actually, this is about gender, and it’s about the fact that she’s judged when she’s not like that. You had Leah Rupana on last week with the messy room test she talked about at the beginning. She’s judged when it goes wrong, but also she bears the fallout when it goes wrong. We’ve all internalized, including the kids, this idea that it’s her job. So if the right food isn’t in the fridge, they’ll walk straight past me to complain to her because she’s carrying all the mental load. She knows that nothing happens unless she thinks about it. And I’m.

Alex Trippier [00:13:32]:
Because I’m not. I’ll go at the last minute and sort it out, but I’m not constantly anticipating and worrying. So it becomes circular. And women get trapped in this role of Being neurotic or ocd, it’s just because we decided they’re the ones who have the responsibility.

Nicky Lowe [00:13:49]:
And I love that you could start to see that. And what did you then start to do with that? So now, because almost like once you see it, you can’t unsee it. What started to shift for you then once you started to see that dynamic?

Alex Trippier [00:14:04]:
It allowed me to get past my defensiveness. It became my problem to solve. Like, this is the thing that I try and get across to men. It’s like, you didn’t make this, this isn’t your fault, but it is your problem. And if you want a better life, then it’s your responsibility to do something about it. So there’s various sort of systems of how to do that to deal with this out there. I take a few really concrete things like school. Like school’s such low hanging fruit, I think for dads because it’s kind of separate to a lot of the household stuff, which is.

Alex Trippier [00:14:47]:
Is really interconnected. Quite hard to take over once someone’s in charge of those systems. So anything to do with school. I really respect Leah’s work around the tidiness of the house. So I have this kind of, all right, I don’t care. But she’s being judged for it. If I don’t do it, she sees it as her job. So we have like, we, we negotiated standards together of like what this kitchen looks like in.

Alex Trippier [00:15:17]:
I get up very early in the. So I could do my work, I could do thing, but then I tidy this whole space before I go out. And you know, judgment is incredibly powerful. Lack of judgment is just as powerful. Like I don’t, I don’t care. So I, we actually had to take a photo with my wife was like, this is what this area looks like for me to be happy. And I was like, right, right, okay. Actually only three things can be on the table.

Alex Trippier [00:15:47]:
It’s honestly, it’s like that detailed love

Nicky Lowe [00:15:50]:
that you’ve kind of like the minimum

Alex Trippier [00:15:52]:
viable, minimum standard of care. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nicky Lowe [00:15:55]:
I’m conscious that there might be people listening to this conversation that haven’t listened to the interview with Leah. So what you’re talking to here is her study around messy room. So would you mind just kind of giving your perspective on that for people that may not have heard this?

Alex Trippier [00:16:10]:
Yeah, well, a go and listen to the episode Leah, right. And just follow Leah. And she’s just awesome. But the messy room test was they took a picture of a messy room and a tidy room and they told people that that room either belonged to Jane or John. And then they asked them a bunch of questions. And what we found out was a men can see mess. They were like, yeah, that room is untidy. They judged it.

Alex Trippier [00:16:37]:
But also that when the room was Jane’s, she was judged much more harshly, just on the how tidy rated the room. Even when it was the tidy room, she was judged more harshly. But also, even though we could say John’s room was messy, he pays no social penalty for it. Like, John’s messy, but he’s a legend. Whereas when it was Jane’s room that was messy, she was less hard working, less capable, less likable. Like, there were these moral judgments on her character. So once you see that, once you know that that is real, then you’ve got to change the way you look at the world. It’s quite discombobulating, but it changes the way you look at the world.

Nicky Lowe [00:17:27]:
So in preparation for this interview, actually, I got a friend, Tom, and I was talking to him, going, have you come across Alex and his work? And I’m like, he’s doing some brilliant stuff. And I’d mentioned to him about this and he was like, oh, that makes sense. He said this weekend we’d got friends, no, actually family, coming over to the house before we were going on to a party. And he said, my wife was like, I’ve got to tidy around, I’ve got to do this. And he was like, chill, it’s just family. And I was like, yeah, but what you’re not seeing. And we went into this whole discussion and I was like, you’ve got to check out Alex’s work. And he was like, oh, this makes absolute sense now.

Nicky Lowe [00:18:02]:
It’s that thing of God, you’ve just been neurotic, like, why can’t you relax that the house is a bit of a mess without, as you say, being able to see and understand the social judgment that would go alongside that. And it isn’t. None of this is explicit. Like, nobody has ever said to me, you will be judged more if your house is messy. Never have. I had that conversation. But as soon as I came across this study, I was like, oh, my God, that makes so much sense. And I think what I’m hearing you say is when you started to see it, you could see the.

Nicky Lowe [00:18:33]:
This is why good people in a good relationship are having a hard time, because there’s all these, like, invisible gravitational pulls on us that are impacting how we can show up for each other and not see each other’s perspective.

Alex Trippier [00:18:48]:
Yeah, I Think so important that you said there that, you know, no one’s ever told you told it to you. Like this language, like, understanding these things, having terminology means that we can have conversations in. In couples in a way that we just couldn’t before people started doing this work. We had resentment without explanation. And that kills relationships because basically you just, you start. I. I started to think you have a bad attitude. You are determined to make actually what could be this delightful period of our lives miserable.

Alex Trippier [00:19:26]:
The kids represent stress to you in a way they don’t for me. So why have we had three of them? Like, it starts to get very, very, very personal.

Nicky Lowe [00:19:34]:
And it just feeds the disconnection, isn’t it? And I imagine in your work, what you’re trying to do is bring people back into connection so they can have the conversations. But as you say that that resentment gets to such a point where you can’t even have the conversations and you haven’t got the language to have it. But I also love the fact that you talk about this term of are you. I get to use my wife’s brain. Or I was using my wife’s brain and I was like, oh, that’s such a clever way of putting it. So can you. Can you speak to that, please?

Alex Trippier [00:20:01]:
Oh, I’m still so bad at it. Like, I. I can. I can tell you about it. And then it’s sort of out of my mouth and I’m like, so this is like me clocking that I. Over or over just a couple of days. I’ve been like, how many potatoes have we got? What time’s the thing? Mike’s on Tuesday. When’s parents evening? Is it PE day tomorrow? Have you seen my phone? Have you seen my charger? Have you seen my.

Alex Trippier [00:20:29]:
The kids need a. The ping, ping, ping, ping. Like just, just all the time. Like, if you were trying to get any focus work done, you turn all the alerts off on your phone. You do. But moms are just getting pinged all the time. The kids see me doing it, they do it too. We make her like the house Alexa.

Alex Trippier [00:20:55]:
And then it certainly’s brutal. And this is with me, like, really trying. And I’m just like, well, but she’s gonna know the answer. Like, because again, it’s circular. She knows the answer because she knows she’s gonna be asked like, Like, I think the laundry is a really good example. Doing a post about this this week. I do laundry, right? But the kids will say to Eloise, I’ve got no school shirts left. Where are my favorite shorts.

Alex Trippier [00:21:25]:
And she’ll know because I’m not doing it properly. I’m not actually paying attention to stock levels, to where the high value items are to do you know what I mean? I’m not taking on the mental load and actually like the emotional load of actually Robin’s going to be really upset on Monday if he doesn’t have the shorts that he wears for climbing. And that’s going to impact. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. I’m not doing that. So I have to have to try harder and have to just change my kind of framing of what, what doing

Nicky Lowe [00:22:00]:
the laundry means so many levels to that. Because as you say, the borrowing your wife’s brain. And I think so many of us can relate to that. And I, I, I think over more recent years, going through perimenopause where your brain feels overstimulated anyway, and then, then you get all those questions come in and literally my brain will fry and I’m like, I can’t, I literally can’t answer these questions because. Yeah. And that borrowing, the little brain power I had when I was in Brain fog was like, oh man, that’s just taking me into complete overwhelm. But as you say that that piece around, you can do the task, but if you’re not taken on the emotional context of that task, like I thought that laundry is such a brilliant example because as you’re doing it, you’re going, yes, there is a, there is a mental task here. But the emotional context around that’s actually a high value piece of clothing.

Nicky Lowe [00:22:54]:
And I need to make sure it is clean and it is accessible for the date that it’s needed.

Alex Trippier [00:22:58]:
That constant monitoring that’s unboundaried. That’s like the high level work you’d get paid much more for in the corporate world. Like, you know, you’re, you’re in charge, you’re taking the responsibility you’re bearing and it’s stress. And usually there’s only one partner taking on that stress. Even when, I mean, my wife always worked just as hard as me outside of the home. And then I realized, but she’s working twice as hard of me in it. And that’s happening everywhere.

Nicky Lowe [00:23:31]:
Yeah. And I think it’s great that you go, I’m aware of this, but I still slip into it because that’s just like human nature. And knowing it is one thing, but doing something about it is another.

Alex Trippier [00:23:44]:
Change is hard.

Nicky Lowe [00:23:45]:
Yeah. So why do you think it is that men don’t see this? Then what actually gets in the way because as you say, these are good men. They’re not intentionally doing it. What. What are some of the barriers to people being able to see it in the first place?

Alex Trippier [00:24:00]:
Okay, so I think, you know, I’m very, very firm with men. And I am. I hope that buys me the leniency just to be a little bit firm with women here that I get a lot. A lot of the comments are, you know, why don’t men. Why can’t men. Why? And there’s this idea that we should be able to understand your lived experience, but I don’t think you understand ours. And to be honest, it makes sense because we don’t really understand ours. We’ve only actually sort of started to think about being.

Alex Trippier [00:24:34]:
Being a man is in the last 10 years. And that’s all thanks to feminism. If we didn’t have feminism, we would never have actually clocked like, oh, that’s different. We’ve missed out on all the particulars of masculinity. So the. The first of those is that you have been told your whole life that really being a mother is your ultimate destination. And it’s how you are going to make a difference in the world. And it’s in the toys that you’re bought and in the stories that you’re read from a very young age.

Alex Trippier [00:25:15]:
And we haven’t. And there’s definitely a biological side to that, right. Where sperm is cheap and eggs are very expensive. And the actual biological requirements of me come to become a father are tiny compared to what they are for you to become a mother. But I’ll just. I’ll take you through what happens to most couples. Okay, I’ll try and do this really quickly in two minutes. All right, so what’s your partner’s name? Nikki.

Nicky Lowe [00:25:46]:
Andy.

Alex Trippier [00:25:46]:
Andy. Okay. So Nikki gets pregnant and Andy is over the moon, and they’re both super, super excited. And Nikki starts to buy pregnancy books. She starts to eat differently. Essentially, she’s a mum, and she’s already making choices about how she behaves in the day and balancing sort of her own life with this life that she’s growing inside her. And Andy, as excited as he is, is not a dad yet. Nikki does all the research about birth and how she wants to give birth, and that makes total sense.

Alex Trippier [00:26:19]:
It’d be very odd if Andy was like, I’ve decided you should give birth in this way. But. So Andy is going along to the classes or hypnobirthing or whatever it is, but mom is in charge and she’s doing the research, and Andy’s in this support role. Andy thinks he’s going to become a dad soon and then he’s going to be looking after the kid. But actually, it turns out birth is insanely traumatic. And Andy is actually still really looking after Nikki. He’s on the outside in this support role. If Nikki is breastfeeding, she’s doing the research around that.

Alex Trippier [00:26:51]:
And because of that, she dictates the pace of the house, whether there’s going to be feeding on demand, whether there’s going to be a schedule, naps, all that stuff. She’s calling all the shots. Andy goes back to work. He probably goes back to work within two weeks. And he’s desperate to get home at the end of the day to see his child. And when he does that, he feels like a great dad because his dad probably didn’t do that for him. And he’s really focused on the kids. At the weekend, Nikki is now researching everything to do with baby and child development.

Alex Trippier [00:27:20]:
She is really loving some of it. She’s buying little socks. It’s really, really cute. She’s growing, booking the kid into their first swimming classes, their first monkey music classes. It’s actually really, really nice. There comes a point when Nikki either goes back to work or they have a second child, or she turns around and she says, hang on. How come I’m the only one who’s ever bought socks or ever booked a class? Why am I doing everything? And Andy turns around and says one of three things. He says, that’s not fair.

Alex Trippier [00:27:50]:
I do this, this, this, this and this. And he lists all the things he does, but he misses all the anticipation and the planning and the constant worrying that’s going on for Nicky. Or he says, that’s not fair. I work really hard. I don’t have time to do the things you’re saying. To which Nicky’s like, I don’t have the time. Either that’s why we’re having this conversation, or he says, that’s not fair. I want to be in charge of these things.

Alex Trippier [00:28:15]:
But you’re a control freak. And to which Nikki says, if I’m a control freak, it’s because if I drop any of this, the whole thing falls apart and we’re off.

Nicky Lowe [00:28:26]:
You have just summed up, I think everybody’s live. Obviously, I have no idea. Everybody that listens. But with those three categories, I think you are absolutely spot on.

Alex Trippier [00:28:39]:
And that’s it. And. And I just, you know, when I’m working with couples, it’s like, that’s our first session. It’s. We don’t have to spend a long time on it. But we have to understand that no one chose this. We have to understand why that happened, and then we have to sort it out.

Nicky Lowe [00:28:59]:
And it’s so interesting because, as you were just saying that, like, nobody intended. I had a really interesting realization a couple of years ago. My. My dad suddenly passed away and my mum had passed away years before and he, I. I had a box of stuff that they’d kept from me moving out. And in that box, one of the things wasn’t a essay that I’d written in my first year at university, and I’d done this module on individual effectiveness. And it was just your ability to reflect. It was like a reflective essay.

Nicky Lowe [00:29:30]:
I think you could do it on any topic. I can’t actually remember being assigned the topic. And I found this essay and it was all about how I was this independent woman and I wasn’t sure if I was going to get married, but if I got married, I almost certainly wasn’t going to take my husband and surname like I was. I was going to go on and have a career. And I was like, wow, I, like, I’d forgotten that version of myself. I’m like, oh, isn’t it interesting? I did get married and I did take my husband’s name, surname, and we fell into this, I think Eve Rodsky calls it the accidental traditional roles. And I somehow, like, went into this beating myself up about, how the hell did you lose that version of yourself and become that version of yourself? Thinking that it was somehow I’d become this passive, weak, disempowered. And then just as you talk about, and we.

Nicky Lowe [00:30:25]:
Leah talks brilliantly about is when you see it through the lens of social and gender and sociology, you’re like, oh, no, this isn’t like a personal failing or a relationship failing. Absolutely. As you say that these patterns of expectation that have been ingrained through our whole lives and through our whole kind of generations of expectations and being able to see that and give yourself grace for it, but then go, hmm, and what do we want to do about that?

Alex Trippier [00:30:53]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, beautiful.

Nicky Lowe [00:30:55]:
Just as you were explaining that, I was like, oh, yeah, like those patterns, no matter how empowered you think you are or how modern or, you know, a rebel, like I’m hearing you say, like, I didn’t conform to, you know, authority. And nobody’s telling us this so explicitly, but there is that implied. Like, that’s just what’s expected of you. That’s the rules you’ve got to follow.

Alex Trippier [00:31:18]:
It’s so Powerful. It’s so powerful. We. I loved actually what you said when you spoke to Leah. You were like, I feel like I’ve got goggles on and I’m looking above the sea and it’s all really, really beautiful and clear. And now I’m just learning to see the depths of, you know, these kind of tides and stuff that are pulling us in different directions. But to kind of use the, the Freudian model, he would put this, this stuff in super ego and superego is our kind of shoulds. And the reason it’s so complicated is because we feel good when we’re conforming to them.

Alex Trippier [00:31:58]:
When I’m doing the things that I’ve been told make me a good man, which is a lot of, a lot of that is about kind of individuality and working really hard at, at sort of sacrifice to the family, I, I feel good, you know, I’m like, I’ve just done a 16 hour day, haven’t seen my kids or all the stuff I really care about, but boy, go me, you know, like, it’s really strong. And the other difficulty with that is when we look at other people, it’s even murkier. We always see other people doing what they. But just like, well, you wanted it, so you wanted to do that. That was with me, with my wife. I’m like, you made these decisions, you wanted to. How can you be annoyed? Everyone’s just doing what they think they should.

Nicky Lowe [00:32:43]:
It’s all that invisible resentment. I wonder because again, I, I really appreciate your voice in this area around you. Talk about mum guilt versus dad guilt because we obviously hear people talk a lot about mother’s guilt. We don’t often get that perspective on father’s guilt and how different it is and in what way. So I’d love to hear, you know, what you, what your experience is in this area and your perspective on that.

Alex Trippier [00:33:12]:
I think that’s fair. I think it’s fair that we spend more time on mum guilt because it’s just much more complicated and it’s completely irresolvable at the moment, dad guilt is this. That guilt is, I made a promise, an unspoken promise to my daughter when she was born that I may not be able to buy all the things that she always wanted, but I would never be lacking when she wanted my time. And there are numerous times when I’ve had to break that promise. And men make some kind of promise along those lines, which is basically,

Nicky Lowe [00:33:54]:
should

Alex Trippier [00:33:55]:
I be using my time directly to care and be with my child or should I be using my Time to make resources for my child. Mums now experience this same guilt, but I think that is dad guilt really. It’s. It’s one dimensional and at times it’s resolvable. Like there’s times when we get that balance right. We’re not going to get it right all the time. There’s times where I’m like, this is good. I’ve got my kind of direct care and you know, providing resources for your future.

Alex Trippier [00:34:30]:
Well balanced. Mum guilt is just appalling. I just. There’s absolutely nothing that I’ve read in all the books about motherhood where I’m like, that looks fun. Like, just, I’m so glad I’m a dad. Like, it starts when you’re pregnant with a kind of. Are you going to have a natural birth? That’s the right one. You should have that one.

Alex Trippier [00:34:53]:
It doesn’t. You’re not allowed to think about yourself. Don’t be thinking about yourself. Actually, there’s also this kind of like, should I quit my job now? Because my responsibility is this thing and so. Well, that makes you a bad feminist, actually. And what are you teaching your child? Me? What kind of world you are. You want for your child moving forward, then you’ve got the whole breastfeeding thing. Breast is best.

Alex Trippier [00:35:13]:
Doesn’t matter if it’s massively inconvenient to you or kills your career or. Oh, but wait. So you know, but you should really think about those things to be a good woman because you’re supposed to be a girl boss as well. And then you are going to do routines, you heartless cow. Are you? Oh, you’re doing everything on demand because you’re, you’re not going to make tough decisions that actually would make your baby. Like, everyone’s evangelical. Everyone’s coming for you, like, and it’s irresolvable. It’s irresolvable.

Alex Trippier [00:35:48]:
And we know, or we think we know so much about human capital and about what it takes to nourish young minds and young bodies. And with that knowledge comes this insane overwhelm because you absolutely can’t do it all. And none of that, none of that increase in the norms of intensive parenting have come for dads. My feed. I can’t because I’m recording with my phone. I show you my fyp, right? It’s. It’s really embarrassing. It’s Cage fighting Star wars, right? People falling off things like slapstick comedy.

Alex Trippier [00:36:40]:
And my. And my wife’s is nutrition and self help. And now I’m me, right? I’ve worked with Kids. My entire life I follow all the same people. My female counterparts follow the algorithm. The world has decided that parenting and child development is a female topic.

Nicky Lowe [00:36:59]:
That’s so interesting because as you say, you’re kind of, I suppose you, you, you’re not an anomaly, but you’re, you’re outside of the normal range. So you would, you would expect that actually you might get presented different things, but no, the algorithm still is, is

Alex Trippier [00:37:14]:
I have the brain of a 12 year old child. Yeah,

Nicky Lowe [00:37:19]:
that’s so interesting. And again, it’s all of these pieces that we don’t necessarily see in their fullness about how this stuff gets just embedded and doubled down and why it can feel so tricky. And so I, I, you heard me say on my podcast with, with Leah, I didn’t really understand sociology. I’ve been raised as like this independent. If you, you know, personal power, therefore if something wasn’t working, it was always my fault. And in a way that was really positive because it’s my fault, I can do something about it. So it’s like this self, it’s like self efficacy, I suppose. And, but that meant when the shit hit the fan of becoming a parent, it was all my fault.

Nicky Lowe [00:38:04]:
It was all my problem to resolve. And then as you say, seeing these layers of social conditioning and then how social media just reinforces it and keeps perpetuating it, it’s like, oh, actually you’re swimming against the tide. Like that’s why it feels so tough. So you talk about kind of how good, good couples and good relationships have kind of these bad experiences. What, what could you share with somebody that’s listening that goes, you know, this is so familiar and this is a pattern that’s happening in my home. We’ve also built walls because of resentment and are just kind of functioning what might be some words of hope or some practical things that you could offer around what people could start to do.

Alex Trippier [00:38:51]:
The first thing is the removal of blame. It’s so important because obviously it makes it easier for men to overcome a defensiveness around it. But also part of the messages you’ve internalized as a woman and been fed as a woman is actually that the household and motherhood and tidiness and domesticity is a realm of virtue and the judgments that fall on you are moral. And that’s been going on basically since the Industrial revolution where the world split into work and home. And home was, was, was, was, was God and righteousness and the outside was brutal and markets and all. And we’ve. Women have really internalized this but if you try and have these conversations on the basis of morality, you get really stuck. So what is it you’re trying to do? What is the business that you are running here? Because you’re working together to run a small business? What’s its goal? Very few of us have had that conversation.

Alex Trippier [00:40:05]:
We’ve not sat down and been like, what do we think our job is here? Because as we’ve just discussed, you can’t do all of them. You’re gonna have to pick the ones that are most important to you. And if you decide that the most important thing is a really expensive private education and one of you is going to work your ass off to make that happen, and then that’s fine, but you’ve got to decide on it, and then you’ve got to be on the same team working towards that goal, because you’re still going to argue, but a bit like it would in a work context. You’re like, all right, this isn’t working. What can we change? So it works rather than, this isn’t working because you’re a feckless, lazy twat, right? Which is what happens in the home. But if you say you’ve got to get on the same team, and that requires some kind of shared vision, and if you were trying to change any system in kind of change management, you would get everyone on, you’d be like, let’s say I was like, I’m really sorry, Nikki, but you’re going to have to change this podcast software. Like, you’re gutted. You know how to use this one.

Alex Trippier [00:41:16]:
But what I’ve got to do is I’ve got to write, because this is what’s going to happen, right? This is what’s going to be better. This is what we’re going to get out of it. And I’ve got to really, really find those things, because the negatives of change, they feel like losses, and they always outweigh that. They feel much more powerful than this kind of potential of getting something good. So one of those things is a shared vision of what we want to be as parents. And then the other thing is just a general why for us, for you and me as a couple and this people sometimes like, what? So there’s got to be something in it for dad. Actually, one of the things that Eve Rodsky said to me, she was the first person I interviewed for my podcast, was the reason she made the Fair Play System was. Was Unicorn Space, the book that she went on to write, it was about Eudemonic well, being Eudemonic happiness, living with a sense of purpose, living within your values.

Alex Trippier [00:42:20]:
And she was like, when mums find that dads are quite emotional about. Actually, she’s like, dads are gorgeous when their wives are living to their fulfilling their potential. That dads are like. She’s like, it’s like watching teenagers, they’re so proud, they’re so thrilled. So a lot of the time we have this conversation of, I’m doing everything you have to do it because it’s not fair. That might be true, but what’s much more powerful is, and this is work, right, for mums, because you’ve been taught you’re not really supposed to think of yourself, right? But quite simply, I would like to. Three hours a week to work on my business, to get fit, or because I feel sick and I’d love to watch an hour of crap telly every day. You can give a positive goal.

Alex Trippier [00:43:21]:
Men are very good. We’ve had that message that essentially we should be looking after you, that you’re more vulnerable than us. That really plays into something for us. We can work towards that positive goal. Whereas we’re very bad. When you’re like, you should do this because you’re a bad person. We’re like

Nicky Lowe [00:43:38]:
those that can’t see a video version. Alex has just done the middle finger, which I love.

Alex Trippier [00:43:44]:
Two middle fingers and an angry face.

Nicky Lowe [00:43:50]:
Love that. And, oh, that’s so insightful to hear from you, Alex, because you’re right, I can absolutely see that. Can you help me be this better version of myself by kind of helping pick up whatever of the mental load and cognitive and the stuff that needs doing, but to present it in that way, because I would love to do this. And actually, as you say, biologically, it’s like, yeah, I’m here to support and protect and I’ve never thought about it that way. And actually, probably I’m making an assumption. But for many of my audience listening, and I think I know them, because I do know some of them, but they’re like me. And part of that is that the willingness to be vulnerable enough to be needy, because often we’re like these strong, independent women. I don’t need anybody to take care of me and look after me, but I do need you to pick up the load.

Nicky Lowe [00:44:43]:
So it’s fair and we’ll come at it more from that harder edge. But to go, actually, I’m struggling, I don’t feel my best and I need your help. And you can help by supporting me in my vulnerability and help me achieve my goals in that way, it’s such a beautiful way of framing it, but actually can feel quite tricky.

Alex Trippier [00:45:06]:
So, you know, the last time I said this to someone, I was answering a live question at a talk and she was really on it. She was just. It’s just. It made her angry. Why. Why should I have to ask? Why should I have to ask to help me when they’re his children? Why should I have to. Right. I.

Alex Trippier [00:45:30]:
I’m. I was going to say I can understand that, but I guess I can’t fully appreciate what, what that’s like. But what I would say is, quite simply, if you are in any situation, which is unfair and you want change, even though the situation is unfair, you’re the one who has to do the emotional labor, the sales pitch. You know, if you’re massively underpaid at your job, try going in and saying, you should pay me more because you’re bad. And try going in and explaining, you know, what you’re going to get out of it and what, everyone’s good. That’s just. That’s the work we have to do when we want to instigate change. I’d be saying something really different to men about why they should be doing it, but I think that is the answer when to the question from women.

Alex Trippier [00:46:16]:
Why should I have to ask?

Nicky Lowe [00:46:18]:
Yeah, no, I love that. Because what came into my mind is it almost takes you out the drama triangle of you’re the victim, they’re the perpetrator, and you just get caught up in that drama triangle. Whereas you’re going, actually, the situation is unfair, but unless we come at it from an empowered place of it, I have to take some responsibility to influence and change this. You, you’re just going to get stuck in that drama triangle of victim persecution.

Alex Trippier [00:46:41]:
Yeah, yeah.

Nicky Lowe [00:46:43]:
So I love that. And just as you were saying, I’ve to hear that male perspective of, actually, we do want to help you achieve your goals. We do want you to have that extra three hours. It’s not like we’re sitting there going, you ain’t going to have that. Because I want to sit on the sofa and just like, chill out. It’s like, no, I actually, I want to provide and I want to. I want my family to be happy. It’s just framing it in a way where everybody feels like they can gain from it.

Alex Trippier [00:47:08]:
Yeah. I think, you know, we don’t really know what to do with this protector piece I keep getting told about. Right. I’ve. We, you know, my. For the first time in a long time, our parents haven’t been at war, there’s been no wars on and there’s this kind of thing where I’m supposed to be a protector and it’s like, I get it, the world is a more unsafe place for women because of men. But I can’t just sit back and be like, if a fight kicks off, I am there. But in the meantime I’m going to chill out, right? So we got to find a new way.

Alex Trippier [00:47:42]:
And it would seem to me that in the face of all the guilt, all the judgment, all those things I described, our job to be can be to help protect our partners from overwhelm, from burnout, from, from depression. And that protects the whole family. It’s still the biggest kind of predictor of good outcomes for kids is the mental health of the mother. Like, it’s the most important thing. So if you want to find something to protect and live in traditional ideals of masculinity, that is sat there for you. It’s right there.

Nicky Lowe [00:48:21]:
I feel like that’s mic drop moment. Like I’ve just got tingles. Alex of yeah, like if there was a message that we can share for men particularly, I think that is so brilliant. And just before we wrap up, I also want to perhaps just cover that from a workplace perspective because we hear a lot in the workplace about supporting working mums, which is absolutely, absolutely important. And we’re hearing more about equal parenting in the workplace. If there was somebody listening, that is a line manager or even maybe a colleague, what are the kind of messages you think they need to hear in the workplace that help address this?

Alex Trippier [00:49:06]:
Parenting skills are leadership skills. Mums, overwhelmingly mums anticipate, they anticipate, they disaster plan all the time. They constantly managing other people’s emotions. They build teams. Women have always been better at the men, but, but, but they, they build teams, they get networks around them because they know that you can’t do this stuff on their own. In a world where we are moving away from command and control into, you know, a new sort of methodology of inspiring and empowering people, you, we need to start seeing care gaps on CVS as skill learning gaps, that you are getting something back afterwards that is better and that goes like that 100% goes for men. I am a better employer, a better manager. My team, I run two other businesses, my team of just so loyal since I started doing this work because I’m just seeing their world in a different way.

Alex Trippier [00:50:25]:
I understand their lives. I’m just, I’ve become a more caring person and that is just useful. And you can monetize it. There you go.

Nicky Lowe [00:50:39]:
I love that because we do, you know, for businesses, it ultimately is about roi, isn’t it? It’s about. Oh, yeah, it’s lovely that you’re a caring guy. And it’s like. It is. It makes me the world a more human place, which is great. However, there is. There is hard metrics that this drives as well.

Alex Trippier [00:50:56]:
Yeah, totally.

Nicky Lowe [00:50:59]:
I love that you’ve said that. So. And I think that’s brilliant, you know, seeing those care gaps as absolute skill. I almost talk about parenting being the best leadership development course you could ever go on. Like it is a vertical development opportunity like no other that we 100% also.

Alex Trippier [00:51:18]:
You start to understand what capacity actually means.

Nicky Lowe [00:51:22]:
Yeah.

Alex Trippier [00:51:22]:
Do you know what I mean? I thought. What was at capacity before? No, no. It turns out I can get three times as many things done as I thought I could.

Nicky Lowe [00:51:30]:
Yeah. And that. And I love the. And you were talking earlier about, you know, we’re holding tension, aren’t we, about when you were talking about dad guilt of do I spend more time with my family or do I create the resources that help me provide for that family? And holding that. Those tensions constantly. And that’s what leadership is. We’re constantly holding tension. Is it people or profits or.

Nicky Lowe [00:51:51]:
And parenting has the most tensions you’ll ever feel. And being able to navigate that complexity of that and go, yeah, and I can bring that back into the workplace in a more human way, I think is just so powerful. So we’ve covered so much, Alex. But if there was just one thing that you would want somebody listening to this to take away, what would you want that to be?

Alex Trippier [00:52:15]:
There is this real temptation to put your relationship on the back burner. And actually, mums do this more than dads. There’s this study from a guy called Mark Cummings in the States that basically shows that mums see the. The home as a series of dyads is your relationship with your child, your relationship with your husband, your husband’s relationship with your child. Whereas dads basically look at the whole thing as a unit. So a lot of the time when we are arguing, when there’s resentment, mums find that easier to push it away because that I need to focus on the child. Whereas actually it negatively affects the dad’s relationship with the child. Dads push it away for a different reason.

Alex Trippier [00:53:11]:
One, we’re taught there’s something stoic and noble in putting up with stuff that’s slightly shit. It’s not noble, it’s cowardly and avoidant. I’ll just be quite firm about that. Also, even when the atmosphere is bad, we get a lot more out of marriage than women do. All the studies show that. So even if you’re being awful to me, my children are still wearing clean clothes and this food, like, and I’m going to live longer and you’re taking care of my social networks and all. We have to remember that we are the people who are running this business. And putting off the work until when the kids get older is a bit like saying this business is really hard to run.

Alex Trippier [00:53:56]:
We’ll discuss, like, what we’re doing and what our roles are and how we’re going to run it in 10 years, you know, what do you mean? Like, you just can’t do it. But we do it all the time. We would never do that in the workplace. We don’t do it. We don’t have the conversations. We don’t have the difficult conversations about roles, about what our jobs are. We don’t make the time for ourselves. I know it’s hard.

Alex Trippier [00:54:17]:
I know. If you’re listening to this and you’ve got kids under the age of six, you are so time poor. Find a way to prioritize your relationship above the other stuff.

Nicky Lowe [00:54:27]:
Oh, that’s compelling. As you were saying that, Alex, I was just imagining, you know, that analogy of the balls and some are glass and some are rubber. And, you know, I always assumed that my relationship was going to be the rubber ball. I’m like, oh, I can. I can drop that. And over time, I’m like, no, no, it’s a glass ball. Like, why would I ever think that it’s a rubber ball? What? You know that. Not complacency.

Nicky Lowe [00:54:51]:
I don’t know if it’s hope because you’re like, yes, the children come first. I always remember before I had children, we had friends of ours that had children probably about 10 years before we were quite late having children. And I remember them kind of going, marriage always comes before the kids. And I was like, oh. And it prickled me. And it was only years later I was like, oh, I got it. Like, they were like, we’re the safe container for the family. Therefore, if our marriage isn’t right, we can’t hold the container for the family.

Nicky Lowe [00:55:19]:
But at the time I was like, well, that’s a bit selfish.

Alex Trippier [00:55:22]:
Yeah. I mean, as you said it, despite me having just said it, I’m like, it’s a really big thing to say. It’s. I would say that’s spot on. But we’re not socialized to think that’s okay. Right? Like, you look selfish.

Nicky Lowe [00:55:36]:
Yeah. And they’re probably the happiest married people that I know. So I’m like, they’ve got something. So I love that you’ve put it like that. I know people are going to want to find out more about you if they don’t already. So where would you point them to, Alex? Where can they find you and. And your work?

Alex Trippier [00:55:52]:
Be a happier Parent is the name of my social media. On Instagram and TikTok. I’m on Facebook as Alex Trippier and loads of mums are like, I want to get my husband to follow you, but he’s not on social media. We’re all on YouTube and I give the. Don’t tell anyone, but I give the titles. Slightly more masculine leaning titles on YouTube. And YouTube is Alex in dad land. So that’s where like get, get, get me.

Alex Trippier [00:56:21]:
Get, get the dads on that one.

Nicky Lowe [00:56:23]:
Brilliant. I’ll drop all of those into the show notes and literally your social media account is one of my favorite.

Alex Trippier [00:56:29]:
Oh, thank you.

Nicky Lowe [00:56:30]:
So for people that have not yet connected to you, please, please do that. Because what you share in the way in which you share it is just really refreshing. So thank you, Alex, for joining me and also thank you for the work that you’re putting out into the world. It’s. It’s really, really important.

Alex Trippier [00:56:45]:
Oh, thanks, Nicky. Thanks for having me. That was awesome. I really enjoyed it.

Nicky Lowe [00:56:50]:
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 wisdomforworkingmums.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.