Honest Motherhood with Libby Ward

Thanks For Asking

Feelings & Co.

Mental Health, Society & Culture, Personal Journals, Health & Fitness

4.7 • 13.5K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2026

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What makes a good mom? Is it adhering to the perfectly packaged image of a shiny, happy woman cooking lavish meals with her 2.5 children, always cleaning, never complaining, and never NOT grateful, doting, and happy? No – but that doesn’t mean that the expectations are any more attainable. Any choice a mom makes is immediately subject to scrutiny or ridicule. Anything she does is under a microscope. She can’t miss a beat. She can’t wonder what her life might have been if she wasn’t a mother. And she DEFINITELY can’t do anything for herself. Today, Nora talks with Libby Ward, the author of the brand new book Honest Motherhood: on Losing My Mind and Finding Myself. Get a copy of Libby’s new book HERE. Watch us on YouTube here! Get this episode ad-free here! Listen to Geoffrey’s album on Spotify and Apple! Our Sponsors: ❤️ Refresh your spring wardrobe with Quince. Go to ⁠⁠Quince.com/TFA⁠⁠ for free shipping and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too. Go to ⁠Quince.com/TFA⁠ for free shipping and 365-day returns. ⁠⁠Quince.com/TFA⁠⁠ ❤️ ⁠Shop Everyday Cotton, and all of my favorite bras and underwear, at SKIMS.com. After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you! Select "podcast" in the survey and be sure to select our show in the dropdown menu that follows.⁠ ❤️ MasterClass keeps adding new classes, so there’s never been a better time to get in. Right now, as a listener of this show, you get at least 15% off any annual membership at ⁠MASTERCLASS.com/TFA.⁠ That’s 15% off at ⁠MASTERCLASS.com/TFA.⁠ ⁠Head to MASTERCLASS.com/TFA⁠ to see the latest offer! ❤️ With evening and weekend course options, Fordham’s online MSW lets you keep working while earning your degree, completing the program in as few as 16 months. Learn more and apply at ⁠fordham.edu/TFA⁠ ❤️ ⁠Experience your juiciest and deepest sensual experience with a bottle of Foria. FORIA is offering a special deal for our listeners. Get 20% off your first order by visiting foriawellness.com/TFA OR use code TFA at checkout. That’s F-O-R-I-A WELLNESS DOT COM FORWARD SLASH TFA for 20% off your first order. I recommend trying Awaken or their Pleasure Set with all three of their best sellers.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi. Hi. Hi, how are you there? Hi. Hey, Nora.
0:11.5	I'm Nora McInerney, and this is thanks for asking, a call-in show about what matters to you.
0:27.6	What is a good mom? Before I had kids, I had a lot of ideas about what a good mom was.
0:32.6	I thought my mom was a good mom.
0:34.6	She made our childhood fun and magical. She worked jobs that I always thought were cool.
0:40.3	She was up for adventure. She was artistic. She let us explore what was interesting to us from fencing to
0:47.1	volleyball, even if it wasn't personally interesting to her. She sewed my sister and I matching dresses.
0:55.9	She made our Halloween costumes.
1:02.7	She decorated and renovated our homes mostly by herself. I was not raised by a handy man.
1:09.6	I was raised by a handy woman. But the closer I got to motherhood, the more messages I received about what it meant to be a good mom. And the messages
1:13.1	were conflicting and they were confusing. A good mom was good even before her baby arrived.
1:20.0	She ate all of the right things. She went to the right classes to prepare for childbirth.
1:25.2	She had a birth plan. And the plan wasn't just to give birth,
1:29.5	but to probably give birth in a warm pool surrounded by candles with a perfect playlist.
1:36.0	And absolutely, and this part is important, no drugs whatsoever.
1:41.3	A good mom would never let her kids have sugar or see a screen of any kind.
1:48.2	Now, I became a mom in 2013 when girl bossing was not ironic and every woman I knew
1:55.5	believed that she could and would have it all. I read Lean In on my maternity leave and I thought, hell yeah,
2:03.5	I cannot wait for these 12 weeks of partially paid maternity leave to end so I can get my unheeled
2:11.7	body and psyche back to work and make some PowerPoints. And I'm not joking. That's how I felt. I thought, I will be a mom
2:20.8	who nurses, who pumps gallons of breast milk for daycare, who eventually makes her baby food
2:25.9	from scratch, just like I make all of our family meals, while climbing the corporate ladder
	...

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