I’m speechless. This could have been an interview with me. Much of what Majka said I have literally said to myself verbatim. We too thought we would have one kid that we would integrate into our lives and ended up with twins. I have literally said “I guess now I understand why all these marriages blow up when people have little kids”.
This feels so strange. I need to go read the book today. Maybe I can finish it before we start couples counseling on Thursday. Maybe we too will make it another year like Majka did.
This really spoke to me. All three of the kids woke up at 5 this morning and the coffee pot overflowed and melted a smart plug and of course I was attached to a breastpump through all of it. It was...not a great marriage moment. My first was born in April 2020 and for some reason I really don’t feel like my marriage was hit very hard. It was MUCH harder for us after the twins were born this past August. And I can’t help thinking that breastfeeding is the reason. We switched to formula very early with my first, which meant we were able to share everything, completely and truly equally. In contrast, I’ve been breastfeeding the twins, which means a LOT of time attached to a pump or a baby. This hardly lets my husband off the hook (it’s a lot of toddler time for him) but it does mean that not all tasks can be fully shared and it’s harder to decide what is “equal.” I like breastfeeding and don’t want to stop. But I really miss those days of feeling like a team with husband after our singleton.
I am going to buy this book today. From this interview it sounds absolutely exactly like what my husband and I are going through - it literally just brought tears to my eyes.
This parenting thing is hard in such unexpected ways. I am eternally grateful that my husband and I were together for 8 years before having our baby, so that we could grow in our relationship. But just this weekend I looked at him and said that I just miss spending time with him. (We live together 😂!!!)
Thank you, fellow parents, for doing the work of parenting healthy kids with me. Even if we all feel alone, we are together in spirit.
Thank you for sharing this. So much of this interview resonated, but ESPECIALLY the particular challenges of being in the same career as your spouse, and how challenging it feels to struggle in the same career as your spouse because of the mental load and physical load that mothers so often take on. It’s SO RARE to see my own struggles reflected / experiences by others, and I was so grateful to read both your takes. In a world where more and more people meet at work or in higher education, I would love to see this topic explored more. Moreover, I also work in a male dominated field (finance) where most of my male colleagues’ wives step back from professional work once they have children. thank you both for making me feel less alone!
Thank you for sharing this book and interview! One of the hardest parts about parenting, I’ve found, is the feeling that you know it’s hard on your marriage but no one wants to talk about it. And you fear that if you do bring it up, and the other person doesn’t have the same experience, you’re a failure. Thank you Majka for writing it all down and talking about your experience.
Long time listener, first time commenter. I found this interview so relatable and fascinating to listen to, and I'm a father/husband! I especially appreciated the discussion about when spouses have different preferences when it comes to child-rearing decisions, especially when it's a decision that impacts one spouse (usually the mother) more directly than the other. I thought you guys did such a nice job of speaking about the complexities involved. For example, my wife felt strongly about taking more time off work, and sending our now 3.5 yr old son to nursery school only 4 mornings/week. This means she is home with him A LOT. And often times it is hard, burdensome, stressful, etc. It's not the choice I would have made, and has repercussions that are difficult for me (I have to work more, then also relieve her of child-care at the end of a long day of work because she's exhausted from being with a toddler for hours at a time). Navigating our feelings about this decision, and the repercussions from the decision is really tricky! Thanks for giving voice to the various perspectived involved.
Thank you, Majka and Emily. This exposure of those raw moments will certainly help many people in their parenting journey. Your exchange brought me back to a time when my husband left for a business trip while I was pregnant and our two young children had the flu. Of course I ended up with the flu as well and I resorted to journaling all the rage I had about the situation. We both have rounded the edges on the challenges over the last decade of parenting, but I still have that entry and sometimes read back to respect what we’ve gone through.
I have always been thrilled to hear the message that girls can do anything boys can do. And women can also do anything men can do, albeit with a bit less height and muscle for most. This equality is true and it's a good thing.
Then I became a mother. And I realized I could do things - powerful things, meaningful things, mysterious things - that men could not do.
As Victoria Olorenshaw writes in Liberating Motherhood, "Our experiences may well be ethereally gender-neutral until a human being makes his way down our vagina and attaches to our breast, covering us in amniotic fluid and connecting us with the life-creating and birthing process of generations of women before us."
Accomplishing those things, having those priceless adventures, came at a cost. The exhaustion of pregnancy, the physical therapy to only partially recover from birth, and the time spent breastfeeding are all costs my husband did not pay. But I wouldn't give up those uniquely female experiences for the world.
The hormones of matrescence, brought on by gestation, birth, and breastfeeding, transformed me in ways I cherish as a central part of my identity. I love being a more nurturing person now. I love my heightened skills of attentiveness and motivation. I love remembering the quiet moments of nighttime nursing when the oxytocin and prolactin release made it feel like the world was revolving around me and my baby in perfect peace.
My husband and I have had our times of anger, distance, and blame since becoming parents. After reading this interview, I look forward to reading Majka's book and feeling some solidarity there. My and my husband's situation was complicated by the fact that while I was pregnant with my first baby, he came down with a chronic illness that left him barely able to do his job, much less be an equal partner with chores or parenting at home. Fortunately he recovered…17 months after the birth of our baby.
One thing that has saved me and my husband from many clashes is the acceptance that we are different people. Most of the ways in which we are different are not typically gendered: I learn about statistics for fun, he learns about linguistics for fun. I like Star Trek, he likes Tolkien. I enjoy doing the yardwork, and he enjoys making sure our electronics are up to date.
So it did not seem unfair to us when I was launched into the intense desires and roles of a birth mother, and he was only changed more subtly. It seemed lonely, yes, but not unfair. I had a new passion and was going to pursue it in the ways that were intuitively clear to me, with or without him. I don't think we'll ever know how involved he might have been if not for his unfortunate illness during that time. But he was wonderfully present after our second child was born.
I have a strong sense of myself as my own person rather than a counterweight to him. When I decided I would prefer to stay home with the baby and not go back to work, and he was fine with that, I wasn't bothered out of a sense of fairness that our day-to-day activities diverged. It has, though, bothered me that we have less time to spend on our few shared hobbies than we did before kids when we were both working.
Would we share more time together if we worked equal hours outside the home and split chores and childcare equally? I'm not sure. We might get more quality time double-teaming more tasks. Or we might have to separate our efforts even more to prioritize efficiency. Would it be worth giving up our comparative advantages and preferences in all other areas? Not for us. Probably for some couples it would. Every couple, every individual, every family firm, has to do what works for them, and not be beholden to an external locus of control or sense of fairness.
This is what I am doing with my one wild and precious life, and I love it.
This is going to sound like hyperbole, but this is one of the best interviews I’ve ever read. This season is so hard and I can’t wait to read the book. Thank you for sharing this.
Haven't listened to the episode yet, just skimmed through the transcript. BUT I have to comment on the guest's name. Yes, the name, as trivial as my comment reads. "Majka" in my and a few other languages means Mother :) Isn't this so, so appropriate? Can't wait to listen to this!
I cried reading this interview this morning, because here I am, with a 23-month-old and a 7-month-old, and everything Majka said, especially relating to partnering while you parent, is what I'm going through right this minute.
You really did something special here Majka, in keeping it so damn real. I’ve been on a flurry of texts with girlfriends over the past day as everyone scrambles to get the book. It’s dark stuff, the stuff of a marriage eroding…but giving it some light helps us all. We’re having the same challenges, in counseling, all of it. We became parents overnight when we got the long-awaited call that a little girl was born in another part of the country, and we needed to get on a plane that day to go to our adopted daughter. It’s been the most beautiful thing…and the hardest, for two people who have skied and climbed all over the world together and now struggle to find time for a quiet cup of coffee together. Incidentally, I took a climbing clinic with you years ago in N. Conway. I’m so psyched to read the book. Big thanks for giving this experience some words.
This is great. I wanted to share that I am in a marriage where our careers couldn't be further from each other, Farmer and a consumer packaging project manager, and I can completely relate to what you shared about the transition back to work being different for both of us. Additionally, I am the woman you and Emily describe in your mom's, I am the one up with vomiting kids and getting up at 5am to get ready for work and go into the office. It's brutal, but good or bad your mind can give you the power to do anything you want or need. Thanks for sharing, definitely going to check out the book!
I’m speechless. This could have been an interview with me. Much of what Majka said I have literally said to myself verbatim. We too thought we would have one kid that we would integrate into our lives and ended up with twins. I have literally said “I guess now I understand why all these marriages blow up when people have little kids”.
This feels so strange. I need to go read the book today. Maybe I can finish it before we start couples counseling on Thursday. Maybe we too will make it another year like Majka did.
This really spoke to me. All three of the kids woke up at 5 this morning and the coffee pot overflowed and melted a smart plug and of course I was attached to a breastpump through all of it. It was...not a great marriage moment. My first was born in April 2020 and for some reason I really don’t feel like my marriage was hit very hard. It was MUCH harder for us after the twins were born this past August. And I can’t help thinking that breastfeeding is the reason. We switched to formula very early with my first, which meant we were able to share everything, completely and truly equally. In contrast, I’ve been breastfeeding the twins, which means a LOT of time attached to a pump or a baby. This hardly lets my husband off the hook (it’s a lot of toddler time for him) but it does mean that not all tasks can be fully shared and it’s harder to decide what is “equal.” I like breastfeeding and don’t want to stop. But I really miss those days of feeling like a team with husband after our singleton.
I am going to buy this book today. From this interview it sounds absolutely exactly like what my husband and I are going through - it literally just brought tears to my eyes.
This parenting thing is hard in such unexpected ways. I am eternally grateful that my husband and I were together for 8 years before having our baby, so that we could grow in our relationship. But just this weekend I looked at him and said that I just miss spending time with him. (We live together 😂!!!)
Thank you, fellow parents, for doing the work of parenting healthy kids with me. Even if we all feel alone, we are together in spirit.
Thank you for sharing this. So much of this interview resonated, but ESPECIALLY the particular challenges of being in the same career as your spouse, and how challenging it feels to struggle in the same career as your spouse because of the mental load and physical load that mothers so often take on. It’s SO RARE to see my own struggles reflected / experiences by others, and I was so grateful to read both your takes. In a world where more and more people meet at work or in higher education, I would love to see this topic explored more. Moreover, I also work in a male dominated field (finance) where most of my male colleagues’ wives step back from professional work once they have children. thank you both for making me feel less alone!
Thank you for sharing this book and interview! One of the hardest parts about parenting, I’ve found, is the feeling that you know it’s hard on your marriage but no one wants to talk about it. And you fear that if you do bring it up, and the other person doesn’t have the same experience, you’re a failure. Thank you Majka for writing it all down and talking about your experience.
Long time listener, first time commenter. I found this interview so relatable and fascinating to listen to, and I'm a father/husband! I especially appreciated the discussion about when spouses have different preferences when it comes to child-rearing decisions, especially when it's a decision that impacts one spouse (usually the mother) more directly than the other. I thought you guys did such a nice job of speaking about the complexities involved. For example, my wife felt strongly about taking more time off work, and sending our now 3.5 yr old son to nursery school only 4 mornings/week. This means she is home with him A LOT. And often times it is hard, burdensome, stressful, etc. It's not the choice I would have made, and has repercussions that are difficult for me (I have to work more, then also relieve her of child-care at the end of a long day of work because she's exhausted from being with a toddler for hours at a time). Navigating our feelings about this decision, and the repercussions from the decision is really tricky! Thanks for giving voice to the various perspectived involved.
Thank you, Majka and Emily. This exposure of those raw moments will certainly help many people in their parenting journey. Your exchange brought me back to a time when my husband left for a business trip while I was pregnant and our two young children had the flu. Of course I ended up with the flu as well and I resorted to journaling all the rage I had about the situation. We both have rounded the edges on the challenges over the last decade of parenting, but I still have that entry and sometimes read back to respect what we’ve gone through.
I have always been thrilled to hear the message that girls can do anything boys can do. And women can also do anything men can do, albeit with a bit less height and muscle for most. This equality is true and it's a good thing.
Then I became a mother. And I realized I could do things - powerful things, meaningful things, mysterious things - that men could not do.
As Victoria Olorenshaw writes in Liberating Motherhood, "Our experiences may well be ethereally gender-neutral until a human being makes his way down our vagina and attaches to our breast, covering us in amniotic fluid and connecting us with the life-creating and birthing process of generations of women before us."
Accomplishing those things, having those priceless adventures, came at a cost. The exhaustion of pregnancy, the physical therapy to only partially recover from birth, and the time spent breastfeeding are all costs my husband did not pay. But I wouldn't give up those uniquely female experiences for the world.
The hormones of matrescence, brought on by gestation, birth, and breastfeeding, transformed me in ways I cherish as a central part of my identity. I love being a more nurturing person now. I love my heightened skills of attentiveness and motivation. I love remembering the quiet moments of nighttime nursing when the oxytocin and prolactin release made it feel like the world was revolving around me and my baby in perfect peace.
My husband and I have had our times of anger, distance, and blame since becoming parents. After reading this interview, I look forward to reading Majka's book and feeling some solidarity there. My and my husband's situation was complicated by the fact that while I was pregnant with my first baby, he came down with a chronic illness that left him barely able to do his job, much less be an equal partner with chores or parenting at home. Fortunately he recovered…17 months after the birth of our baby.
One thing that has saved me and my husband from many clashes is the acceptance that we are different people. Most of the ways in which we are different are not typically gendered: I learn about statistics for fun, he learns about linguistics for fun. I like Star Trek, he likes Tolkien. I enjoy doing the yardwork, and he enjoys making sure our electronics are up to date.
So it did not seem unfair to us when I was launched into the intense desires and roles of a birth mother, and he was only changed more subtly. It seemed lonely, yes, but not unfair. I had a new passion and was going to pursue it in the ways that were intuitively clear to me, with or without him. I don't think we'll ever know how involved he might have been if not for his unfortunate illness during that time. But he was wonderfully present after our second child was born.
I have a strong sense of myself as my own person rather than a counterweight to him. When I decided I would prefer to stay home with the baby and not go back to work, and he was fine with that, I wasn't bothered out of a sense of fairness that our day-to-day activities diverged. It has, though, bothered me that we have less time to spend on our few shared hobbies than we did before kids when we were both working.
Would we share more time together if we worked equal hours outside the home and split chores and childcare equally? I'm not sure. We might get more quality time double-teaming more tasks. Or we might have to separate our efforts even more to prioritize efficiency. Would it be worth giving up our comparative advantages and preferences in all other areas? Not for us. Probably for some couples it would. Every couple, every individual, every family firm, has to do what works for them, and not be beholden to an external locus of control or sense of fairness.
This is what I am doing with my one wild and precious life, and I love it.
This is going to sound like hyperbole, but this is one of the best interviews I’ve ever read. This season is so hard and I can’t wait to read the book. Thank you for sharing this.
Haven't listened to the episode yet, just skimmed through the transcript. BUT I have to comment on the guest's name. Yes, the name, as trivial as my comment reads. "Majka" in my and a few other languages means Mother :) Isn't this so, so appropriate? Can't wait to listen to this!
Q for the guest: Will there be an audiobook? And if so will the author do the reading? (Always so much better with the author vs the “pros”, imho)
I cried reading this interview this morning, because here I am, with a 23-month-old and a 7-month-old, and everything Majka said, especially relating to partnering while you parent, is what I'm going through right this minute.
As a busy mom of 2 little ones, I can only find time for audiobooks. Any chance you will be making one for this book?! Thank you!
What a fun and fascinating conversation!
You really did something special here Majka, in keeping it so damn real. I’ve been on a flurry of texts with girlfriends over the past day as everyone scrambles to get the book. It’s dark stuff, the stuff of a marriage eroding…but giving it some light helps us all. We’re having the same challenges, in counseling, all of it. We became parents overnight when we got the long-awaited call that a little girl was born in another part of the country, and we needed to get on a plane that day to go to our adopted daughter. It’s been the most beautiful thing…and the hardest, for two people who have skied and climbed all over the world together and now struggle to find time for a quiet cup of coffee together. Incidentally, I took a climbing clinic with you years ago in N. Conway. I’m so psyched to read the book. Big thanks for giving this experience some words.
This is great. I wanted to share that I am in a marriage where our careers couldn't be further from each other, Farmer and a consumer packaging project manager, and I can completely relate to what you shared about the transition back to work being different for both of us. Additionally, I am the woman you and Emily describe in your mom's, I am the one up with vomiting kids and getting up at 5am to get ready for work and go into the office. It's brutal, but good or bad your mind can give you the power to do anything you want or need. Thanks for sharing, definitely going to check out the book!