The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

Welcome to the bad broadcast. I am your host. I feel like I'm kind of progressively getting uglier in my YouTube videos. Not actually. I'm sorry, I used the you word. I didn't mean it like that. I just, when I first started filming, I'm like, oh, this is such a great excuse to like do a full beat every day, get it a fit on, like do my hair. And now I'm realizing that that's kind of a pipe dream to do that every single time.

So this is real, this is me, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. But welcome back.

Thank you guys for the feedback about last week's episode, the conversations you guys were

having with me about being a working mom and feeling bad at every single thing you do ever. Like, that's really

kind of the reality of it. And honestly, like, you know what really gets me about mom guilt and just

guilt as a woman, really, in general? Why? Like, why were we built this way? I feel like no matter what

a woman chooses to do, there is an element of guilt or

shame or somebody telling you that you should be doing more or you should be doing less or you

should be focusing on something else. Like, I don't know. It's just, it's the craziest. I'm not like

reinventing the wheel here. Okay. I know that this is like a conversation we've been having for

decades, maybe centuries. Just like the expectations of women. I mean, I see so much content of people being like, you know, I saw something that said, I unfollowed somebody because they announced that they were pregnant. And I just, I don't resonate with that content anymore. And like, I'm, I'm so pissed. Or when somebody gets engaged, like I just unfollow them because I know it's going to be wedding content.

And just like the dance monkey energy that people give every woman, like unless the woman is there to like validate their experience or do what they are doing or I don't know, perform for them in some way.

To be a woman is to perform. Wait, is that the phrase, to be a woman is to perform. Yeah, that's how it feels a lot of times. It's like the people who are moms, you know, don't want to hear about your career. The people who are child free don't want to hear about your mom stuff. Like, it's an impossible game. I have been stumbling upon quite a bit of like child free by choice content and people explaining like why they are child free. And it's

actually like, I've really done some soul searching with it. Because this girl, I thought it was a

really good video. She said, don't ask me why I choose to be child free unless you

are ready to be offended because I'm going to like say something about your life choices that I

disagree with very heavily and that will probably offend you. And you know what I did? I forced

myself to listen to it. And because normally I would be like, okay, I'm just going to like steer clear because I don't want anything to like make me feel bad about my motherhood and whatever. It's already hard. I don't want anything else. But you know what? I made myself sit through it because I should consume content from people who disagree with me. I should. I should be uncomfortable. I should listen to people's opinions that could change my mind. And you know what?

I felt myself getting defensive. I was like, well, you know, it's not like that really. And then I had to really go to the root of it and say, why are you reacting like this? She's saying that, you know, whatever. I don't need to go into details about what she said. But she was like, my husband and I basically had conversations that we don't want to deal with this and this is a huge part of having

kids like, my husband and I basically had conversations that we don't want to deal with this and this is a huge part of having

kids, like, you know, something about it. And I was like, well, that's not always how it is. And I'm like, oh, I'm defensive because she's right. That is a really hard part of motherhood. And somebody should have the right to say, I don't really want to do that. That's, that's not my vibe.

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