On this episode, I welcome Dr. Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco, clinical psychologist and author of Mom Brain: Proven Strategies to Fight the Anxiety, Guilt, and Overwhelming Emotions of Motherhood—and Relax Into Your New Self. We discuss the following:

• What “mom brain” is
• What happens to our emotions when we become mothers
• Maternal anxiety
• Mom comparison and social media
• Partner relationships once babies enter the picture

00;00;09;00 – 00;00;33;08

Dr. Mona

Welcome to this week’s episode. I am so excited to welcome Doctor Ilyse DiMarco, who is a clinical psychologist and author of the book Mom Brain Proven Strategies to Fight the Anxiety, guilt, and Overwhelming Emotions of Motherhood and Relax Into Your New Self. And she is here today to talk to me all about Mom brain. Thank you so much for joining us today, Doctor Dobrow.

 

00;00;33;13 – 00;00;35;11

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

 

00;00;35;17 – 00;00;51;04

Dr. Mona

I’m so excited to have you. I think, you know, mom, brain is something that I didn’t really realize was a thing until I became a mom. And now I’m like, wow. This title of your book very much speaks to me, and I know will speak to so many of my followers. Tell me a little bit more about yourself and why you wrote this book.

 

00;00;51;11 – 00;01;16;17

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Sure. So I am a clinical psychologist, as you mentioned, and I started my career specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety and mood issues, and cognitive behavioral therapy, just briefly, for those listeners who don’t know, is a short term, research supported treatment that really is geared towards providing strategies for people to manage their problems in the here and now.

 

00;01;16;21 – 00;01;39;16

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

So CBT is, you know, not about unpacking childhood issues extensively. It’s not about digging into the origins of a problem. It’s really about, you know, here and now issues and what kinds of strategies you can use to manage those issues. So I you know, I have an expertise in that. And then when I started my own private practice in the suburbs of New York City about ten years ago, it was when I was myself becoming a mother.

 

00;01;39;16 – 00;02;03;13

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

And I think because of my age and, you know, stage in life, I was attracting a lot of patients who were also new mothers. And what I found was that many of the strategies, that had been research supported in CBT for things like generalized anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder and panic disorder, actually matched really well. On to a lot of the issues that new moms face.

 

00;02;04;08 – 00;02;27;15

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

All of the mom brain stuff, which includes, you know, much more than just mental fogginess. Right. It’s huge changes in emotions. It’s a huge cognitive shift as changes in relationships, changes in identity. And I found that the CBT strategies really mapped beautifully onto these issues. So I started adapting the CBT that I knew for, the new month that I was treating and, you know, kind of use the strategies on myself as well.

 

00;02;28;06 – 00;02;39;05

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

And again, felt like it was a great it was a great fit and decided to write, you know, start writing about it. And I started writing shorter pieces and then ended up writing a whole book on it. So that’s that’s the origin story.

 

00;02;39;06 – 00;02;55;13

Dr. Mona

That’s awesome. And I think, you know, like I said, I think people throw around the term mommy brain or mom brain just because they think they’re foggy or they think they’re not thinking clearly or have, you know, the anxiety and guilt and overwhelming emotions that you talk about, but it is actually truly a clinical diagnosis and clinical change that we see.

 

00;02;55;13 – 00;03;20;29

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Correct? Yeah. It’s fascinating. So there’s been very little work. I actually embarrassingly little work on the maternal brain and what happens when we become parents. But, emerging research is showing that mom brain far from being kind of a detriment for moms like. And again, that’s how it’s portrayed right in the popular press. Like, mom leaves the house without her cell phone or forgets her shoes or, you know, whatever, forgets her kids names.

 

00;03;21;18 – 00;03;39;24

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

But far from being a detriment, it actually is very adaptive. What seems to happen is structural and functional changes in our brain that enable us to put our kid on the top of our mental priority list, which is great, right? Because that means that we are paying attention to our kids. And making sure that they’re having what they need.

 

00;03;39;24 – 00;03;58;24

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

But that also means that other things are falling a little bit lower on the priority list, which may be, you know, the location of your phone or your shoes or whatever else, right? But again, it’s actually it’s really adaptive. It is not a problem. Right? It’s actually it seems to be an evolutionary, experience. Right. That enables us to take good care of our children.

 

00;03;58;29 – 00;04;12;21

Dr. Mona

Oh, this is so fascinating. I can’t wait to talk to you more about it. And of course, everyone, if you haven’t read the book, you’re going to have to buy the book because it’s just amazing. But we’re going to get into more about what this book is about and just would, again, mom brain and the things that happen to us as moms.

 

00;04;12;22 – 00;04;25;16

Dr. Mona

So the first question I had was, what happens to our emotions when we become mothers? I don’t think people really realize, you know, the the depth of hormones and the depth of emotions that are involved and become a mom. But what scientifically happens.

 

00;04;25;18 – 00;04;51;27

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

So much happens really, just so much. You know, I spend a whole chapter in the book talking about maternal emotions, because one of the things that I found consistently, when I started doing, you know, working with a lot of us moms, was that moms generally expected sort of these blissful experiences from motherhood. Right? They expected that it would be sort of transcendent and amazing, and they feel joy and love.

 

00;04;52;14 – 00;05;14;06

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

On the one hand, I’ll say to that, I think there’s also a lot out there on the internet, which sort of like portrays motherhood is like a hot mess. You know, this like where you see, like moms in various states of disarray or whatever. So I think a lot of moms, I mean, certainly all the moms I see were coming and telling me, wow, you know, I get that it could be like a train wreck.

 

00;05;14;06 – 00;05;36;02

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

And I get that it can be blissful, but like, that’s not my experience. Like, neither of those extremes are what I’m experiencing. And what it turned out was that maternal emotions were just so much more nuanced and complicated than that. Right. And so you have boredom, right? Especially when your kids are really small. Right? Oh my gosh, so much boredom.

 

00;05;36;04 – 00;06;07;04

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

There is resentment. There’s anger, there’s frustration. There’s a longing for your old life. Right? There is there’s these experiences where you feel two seemingly contradictory emotions about the same thing. Right? That’s like when you finally get away from your baby and you’re both thrilled to be away from your baby, and also, like, desperate to get back to your baby, you know, and so, again, the emotions of moms are so rich and complicated.

 

00;06;07;04 – 00;06;28;07

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

And what I found was happening with my patients was that they were really hard on themselves for any of the negative emotions they experienced. Right? So they feel anger, resenting shame, guilt, anxiety, and then judge themselves for these feelings and feel bad about it. And my hope with this book was to destigmatize all of these negative emotions of motherhood, right?

 

00;06;28;07 – 00;06;48;15

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

To show that we all experience these emotions many times over again, sometimes contradictory emotions about the same exact thing. And they’re nothing to be ashamed of. And instead, it’s important to acknowledge them, right? Because we can use these negative emotions as signs that we need help, as signs that, you know, we’ve got to engage some coping strategies.

 

00;06;48;29 – 00;07;03;17

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

And so that’s, you know, that’s a short description of the very complicated sort of emotional roller coaster that is motherhood. And really, you know, even when your kids get bigger, like you’re still on that roller coaster, I don’t think you ever get off.

 

00;07;03;20 – 00;07;27;22

Dr. Mona

Oh, and it’s so fascinating. I mean, I my son is now 16, almost 17 months, and even within one day it’s, you know, the emotions that happen within a day. And then you look at it over the course of 17 months and then you have a older child. It is very fascinating. And I so appreciate what you’re talking about in terms of kind of accepting all of the emotions and not looking at the, you know, socially or, you know, however you want to describe a negative emotions as negative.

 

00;07;27;22 – 00;07;42;13

Dr. Mona

They’re not I mean, they’re just emotions. And we all are entitled to feeling them. And I feel the exact same way. You know, you discuss maternal anxiety at length and what anxiety challenges do your mom patients face and what strategies are helpful. Do you think to navigate this?

 

00;07;42;15 – 00;07;57;27

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Oh, there’s so many different types of anxiety. And I actually devote two chapters to it because there is so much that moms are worried about. I mean, particularly now, right, with Covid and everything. Yeah. And I talk about sort of two categories of worries in the book, what I call big stuff worries and small stuff worry.

 

00;07;57;27 – 00;08;01;07

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

So the big stuff worries are things like, you know, a pandemic.

 

00;08;01;13 – 00;08;02;08

Dr. Mona

Or.

 

00;08;02;10 – 00;08;27;23

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Climate change and cataclysmic weather or school violence, you know, any of these big, huge political stuff, right? I mean, any of these, these very big national international issues. And then the small stuff worries aren’t small because they’re not, you know, problematic or difficult to navigate, but they’re small because they’re really about our own personal world. Right? So it’s things like, what happens if my kid isn’t put in the nursery school class that I want, you know, that to be in, right?

 

00;08;27;23 – 00;08;45;29

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Or like, why won’t my kid eat salad? What if my kid never eat salad foods? Those sort of things. Right. So those are the smaller stuff worries and that they’re really focused on sort of your kid individually. And so there’s a number of strategies that you can use for big stuff. For small stuff I’ll, I’ll give just like a small taste of that, which is, you know, for the big stuff.

 

00;08;45;29 – 00;09;07;15

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

We use a lot of mindfulness and acceptance work in CBT, and I talk about it a lot in the book. And basically what this means is being accepting and compassionate towards yourself for the anxiety that you feel, because in fact it’s valid, right? Especially regarding Covid, regarding political upheaval. I mean, it is it makes sense that we are worried about these things, right?

 

00;09;07;18 – 00;09;35;20

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

So the first thing we need to do is just let ourselves feel this anxiety without feeling guilt or shame for feeling it, without trying to make ourselves stop feeling it. Because all that will do is just make us feel frustrated. And then sort of. So there’s a big mindfulness and acceptance piece to that. And then there’s also kind of an action oriented piece where I ask my listener is or my A readers rather to think, okay, well, you know, is there something however small that I can do that can affect some change in this area?

 

00;09;35;20 – 00;09;52;23

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Right. So this would be the example of like which I talk about in the book about like, a mom who’s really fretting about climate change and the future for her kids, deciding that she’s going to volunteer, you know, a little bit of her time towards an organization that works towards combating climate change. Right. And that’s a small thing.

 

00;09;52;23 – 00;10;08;20

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Right? But it can have a really profound effect when you feel like you’re at least doing something to manage those big step concerns. And during Covid, I talked to patients about this a lot, right? About how like, no, you can’t make a vaccine appear out of thin air, but like, can you volunteer at a food bank in your community?

 

00;10;08;26 – 00;10;30;09

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

You know, can you and your kids bring food over? Like, actually, my kids and I did this. We were like, bringing food every week over to a local church that was collecting food, you know, for families hit hard by the pandemic. So, you know, can you do things like that that help you to feel like you, you know, in however small away or bringing about change and then, you know, there’s so there’s all of those types of worries and then there’s a smaller step types of worries.

 

00;10;30;09 – 00;10;50;09

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

And for those, I’m often telling moms to try to consider sort of what the worst case scenario is. And if there is a way they feel they can manage it. So like a good example of this would be like was actually something I’m hearing about a lot is the feeding issue. I don’t know if you hear about this a lot, but for whatever reason, a lot of my patients recently I’ve been worried about solids.

 

00;10;50;12 – 00;11;06;10

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Yeah, yeah, I don’t know what it is. And their baby’s not taking the solids and their concern. And so I’ll kind of stop them and I’ll say, okay, let’s take a step back. You know what is the worst case scenario here is the worst case scenario that your baby is still not eating solids at five years old. And like the person, I never will start laughing.

 

00;11;06;10 – 00;11;22;08

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

No, no, that’ll like, you know, sometimes I’ll even be more extreme. I’ll be like, do you see them as 18 years old and in high school and not able to eat solid foods? And of course, my patients are always laughing. No, no, no. So I’ll say okay. All right. Well, so, you know, realistically, what is the worst case scenario.

 

00;11;22;23 – 00;11;44;04

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

And usually they’ll say something like, well, maybe they’ll have a little difficulty with the solids, and then I’ll call my pediatrician to see if there’s anything more we can do. And I’ll say, okay, well, is that something you could manage? Like, could you handle that? And they’ll say, yeah, I think so. Something else that I encourage people to do a lot is to, you know, when they’re really worried about something to consider the evidence for and against the worry.

 

00;11;44;04 – 00;12;01;11

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Like, is there evidence to suggest that what you’re worried about will likely come to pass? And is there evidence to suggest that what you’re worried about likely what? And we do that a lot in CBT because CBT, you know, almost talks about looking at worries that so you’re a scientist, you know, kind of collecting evidence for and against the worries.

 

00;12;01;26 – 00;12;14;08

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

So that too is something that we’ll do in a small step worries. So that’s kind of a little taste of some of the stuff I talk about in the book. But as I said, I have two chapters on anxiety because there’s just so much to be said and actually so many great strategies that you can use to manage it.

 

00;12;14;14 – 00;12;30;29

Dr. Mona

Well. What you brought up about solids, I completely agree with that. I see that a lot through my social media and also in my office, and I wonder why that’s happening right now. Is it that parents or mothers are worried about, you know, wood choking? Because that’s a real fear that a lot of moms have, like in the pandemic.

 

00;12;30;29 – 00;12;50;10

Dr. Mona

Will they be able to go to the hospital or, you know, what can I give my my child that is okay for them? I think a lot of things that may be happening is mothers are on social media and they’re looking at educational accounts, or they’re looking at other mothers and they may get into a comparison game, you know, maybe my child’s not doing something when another child’s doing it.

 

00;12;50;10 – 00;13;02;28

Dr. Mona

Why is that child eating so much or eating this? And why is my child not doing that? So tell me more about comparison making and moms. I know you talk about this in your book, especially as it relates to social media.

 

00;13;03;00 – 00;13;07;27

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Yes, I have a lot to say about this one. I do too. One does it. I’m sure you do it.

 

00;13;07;29 – 00;13;21;13

Dr. Mona

It’s not. It’s hard, I see it, I see it affecting our generation greatly in a negative way. You know, I think it’s a double edged sword. You you go on social media to want to learn, but you also leave feeling a little bad about yourself. And that’s it’s also, I.

 

00;13;21;16 – 00;13;39;23

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Guess it’s so hard. And I have a chapter in the book on comparison making and social media in particular. It’s such a difficult thing and I think actually made worse during the pandemic because none of us were going out. And so social media was really like our only outlet, you know, for connecting with the outside world. So I think these issues became even more entrenched.

 

00;13;39;25 – 00;13;59;07

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Yeah, I mean, I see exactly what you see, which is like moms, you know, comparing themselves to other moms, either in social media or like in real life, and finding that they come up lacking in some way. Right. And this often leads to guilt and to shame and to anxiety. One of the things I think is so interesting now is the rise, which this actually happened after I wrote the book.

 

00;13;59;07 – 00;14;17;28

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Interestingly, the rise of what they’re now calling the moms who answer of these moms who, you know, are on social media, I mean, some of them really terrific, but some of them inspiring, a lot of envy and shame and, yes, and all those sorts of things. Right. So, you know, I devote, as I said, a whole chapter to talking about this one thing.

 

00;14;17;28 – 00;14;36;18

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

I’ll say that’s sort of a theme of the chapter and a theme of my work on comparison making in general is basically for moms to learn to be critical of their comparisons. So, in other words, to really think about, all right, is this person an appropriate person for me to be comparing myself to? Because often it’s not right.

 

00;14;36;18 – 00;14;54;15

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

So sometimes it’s like a celebrity or a mom who answer right, or somebody that these moms don’t know from a hole in the wall, right. So how is that a fair comparison? You have no idea who these people are, what it took for these people to get this perfect picture, you know? Right. Most right. You don’t know these people’s lives.

 

00;14;54;15 – 00;15;12;19

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

You don’t know how much help they have. So totally unfair comparison. Another unfair comparison is like when you’re comparing yourself to people you see on social media, who you haven’t known since, like sixth grade. Right? That’s another crazy one, too, because, you know, moms will come to me and say, oh my gosh, this girl I knew from sixth grade did X, y, Z with her kids.

 

00;15;12;19 – 00;15;18;10

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

And I’m like, well, how long has it been since you’ve seen or talk to this girl? And she’ll be like, oh, since sixth grade, you know.

 

00;15;18;17 – 00;15;18;29

Dr. Mona

That’s all I’ll.

 

00;15;18;29 – 00;15;49;19

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Say. Hey, you don’t know this woman any more than, you know, a mom to answer at this point, right? So how can you make a fair comparison when you don’t know her background and her life? But even when you do know people, and do make comparisons with people, you know, you can often challenge that to like something I hear about all the time is like a patient will say to me, oh my gosh, my neighbor just posted X, Y, or Z about her kids on social media and I just felt so awful jealous, you know, etc. after I saw it and I’ll ask, you know, I’ll say like, can you tell me about

 

00;15;49;19 – 00;16;09;04

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

your neighbor? Like, what’s she like? And like inevitably the patient will say, oh, I can’t stand her. Like, I can’t Twitter. I find it really annoying, I find. Oh, and and she’ll be like, well, okay, so if you can’t stand this woman, like, why are you comparing yourself against someone whose name don’t value right, doesn’t share values with you?

 

00;16;09;04 – 00;16;21;11

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Like one of the things I’m always saying is like, it’s as if you’re going to a doctor whose medical credentials you do not respect, and then taking their medical advice right. It just doesn’t make any sense. That’s a.

 

00;16;21;11 – 00;16;24;12

Dr. Mona

Great analogy. And and it’s perfect. Yes I love that.

 

00;16;24;14 – 00;16;45;13

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Yeah. And so I really and again there’s a lot more specific strategies in the chapter in the book too. But in general I’m really encouraging of moms, like I said, to be very critical of their comparisons and to choose sort of strategically who to compare themselves to. These are moms whose, you know, opinions they value, who they respect.

 

00;16;45;28 – 00;17;10;08

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

I think rate comparison points are moms with kids, like a little bit older than yours. Right? Because they’ve been through it and they can kind of tell you how to navigate it. Those are the people you want to pick for your comparisons, right? You want people whose values you share, people whose opinions you value. Again, people whose families you might admire, like choosing those people as your comparison point and really try to be critical of the other comparisons you’re making.

 

00;17;10;15 – 00;17;29;20

Dr. Mona

Absolutely. This is great advice. And you’re right. The rise of the influencer has been very eye opening for me because I joined Instagram two years ago, or maybe now three years ago. And at that point, you know, it was I would join because I wanted to do education. And then I became a mom, and I started looking at all these other mom, Flo answers.

 

00;17;29;26 – 00;17;52;24

Dr. Mona

And I ended up unfollowing many of them. One, because of the reality that they were creating that I knew not to be real. Because I know I’m a pediatrician. I’m also a mom. I know the realities that happen day in and day out in my office. You know? I know that things are not rosy. And the problem that was with social media, I will say, before the pandemic especially, was that it was, you know, filters.

 

00;17;52;24 – 00;18;14;07

Dr. Mona

And it was like you said, those those pictures that took I know personally because I’ve done them to 20, 40 pictures before you get the one that actually works, that your child’s not screaming and crying, you know, I don’t, I don’t, I, you know, and it’s and it’s, it’s a sad reality because I’m on a platform that also you have to take those photos because that’s what gets the likes and gets the engagement.

 

00;18;14;12 – 00;18;18;19

Dr. Mona

But I hate that those are the photos that have to, you know, that’s what you have to do to get there. Yeah.

 

00;18;18;19 – 00;18;20;04

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

It’s so it’s so hard.

 

00;18;20;04 – 00;18;39;28

Dr. Mona

And I, you know, I, I do feel like during the pandemic, there was a big switch or shift to people who were being more real. Like, I saw a lot of accounts that were more authentic, really thrive, you know, sharing more of the emotional side of motherhood, how hard it is, but also balancing it with the good kind of what you mention at the beginning, like understanding the whole spectrum of motherhood emotions.

 

00;18;40;10 – 00;18;54;21

Dr. Mona

And I’m happy I, I want social media to turn into more of that place. You can still have filtered images, but you can still talk about the real stuff, right? Get into your stories and really say, this is hard, but you know what? We’re going to get through this because that’s what it should be about. And I think that’s so uplifting.

 

00;18;54;21 – 00;19;09;24

Dr. Mona

And, I completely agree. I think the social media world and your advice about who you’re comparing yourself to is just such an important insight that I think a lot of moms of my generation are not doing, and it can rob you of your joy of being a mom, for sure.

 

00;19;09;24 – 00;19;30;12

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

There’s no question. I don’t say to like, you know, following your Instagram is a great example of a good person, right? Because you are a mom, you are a pediatrician, you post, you know, fact based insights. So I mean, that’s the type of thing that I encourage my patients to follow. And not this ridiculous. I mean, there’s a lot of nonsense out there is, you know, I.

 

00;19;30;12 – 00;19;32;00

Dr. Mona

Know, I know.

 

00;19;32;02 – 00;19;33;19

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

There’s there’s a lot of nonsense.

 

00;19;33;21 – 00;19;51;06

Dr. Mona

Oh, it’s painful, but I, you know, I think this is so important. Like, like you said, we could talk about the social media opinions for a whole episode. The, the one other thing I wanted to go over, which was a really important part of your book, was about partner relationships. You know, we talk about ourselves changing. We talk about mommy brain and all that.

 

00;19;51;09 – 00;19;57;04

Dr. Mona

But what do you see happening in partner relationships once babies enter the picture? And how can we navigate this?

 

00;19;57;06 – 00;20;24;11

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of moms are just not prepared for, you know, babies sort of being like bombs that drop on their marriage or on their partnership. Right. But they really can be, there’s so many ways in which partner dynamics can shift. And I think there’s a couple things that I try to encourage moms to do sort of straight out of the gate to hopefully minimize some of the partner, you know, kind of related difficulties.

 

00;20;24;13 – 00;20;44;04

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

So I talk about these things in the book. I’ll just kind of like highlight 1 or 2 of them. So one of the things that I hear most often, if not the most often from my patients, is issues with the division of labor. Right? Something they were not prepared for and something that really surprised them when the baby came along.

 

00;20;44;08 – 00;21;05;03

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

So often it’s it’s something to the effect of what we talked about, baby in the abstract. Like we really talked about 5050 split of labor. But then, you know, we had this baby. And oftentimes I’ll hear like I was the one who nursed. And so I was the one who started getting up with the baby and how that cascaded to me being the one who did everything with the baby.

 

00;21;05;03 – 00;21;24;08

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

And then that kept that sort of that pattern continued. I’ve heard this so, so often. So, so that’s been sort of one big thing I, you know, have wanted to target and another big thing I hear all the time is like, we don’t have time to be together anymore, right? Any time we talk where it’s like two ships passing in the night and we’re talking about logistical issues and nothing else.

 

00;21;24;11 – 00;21;47;07

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Yeah. So, so in order to hopefully minimize these issues, one thing I really encourage moms and their partners to do basically as soon as they can after the baby is born, is to set up what I call the list of lists. And this is not mine. I stole this from this really cool, New York Times piece that this woman, Judith Shulevitz, wrote now, about 5 or 6 years ago, I think his mom, the designated worrier.

 

00;21;47;09 – 00;22;04;26

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

And in the piece Shulevitz talks about how and actually they did an interesting kind of updated version of this in the times, which a few weeks ago. But Shulevitz talks about how, you know, mom is often the worrier, in part because she is often the one who keeps the quote unquote listed list. Right? That has the everything that has to be done for every kid and whatever.

 

00;22;04;28 – 00;22;24;18

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

So I always tell patients to read this piece, and then I say, you know what? You and your partner need to sit down and you need to make the listed list together, and you need to decide who’s going to do what. Right? Yeah. And and play to your strengths. So there’s certain things like, I don’t know, me and my husband are a great example where like I buy the clothes because I am just better with the clothes.

 

00;22;24;18 – 00;22;40;13

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Right? My husband does the Cub Scouts because he’s just better with the Girl Scouts. Yeah. And I think you got to play to your strengths, right? You also have to be realistic. Like, you know, if one partner is working and the other partners not. Or one partner has responsibility for aging parents like you definitely have to account for that.

 

00;22;40;13 – 00;23;04;23

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Right? So it doesn’t have to be a 5050 equitable partnership, but you want to make it a fair partnership, right? One that both members of the partnership feel good about. So as early as possible, sit down, make the list of lists, figure out who’s going to do what and consistently talk about that right. As your kids get older and responsibilities change, I think it’s so important because to establish those patterns at the beginning ensures that you’re not dealing.

 

00;23;04;23 – 00;23;20;04

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

I’m sure you see this in your practice, but what I will see is moms of elementary school age kids who will say, you know, my kids will not accept my partner in the middle of the night, because I was the one who got up with them very early on. And I continue to be the one who got up with them.

 

00;23;20;04 – 00;23;47;00

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

And they will not accept my partner now. And that sticks where it is at a certain point. What, you don’t want to be the only one who’s doing the nighttime stuff. So again, I think the earlier you can sit down and talk through this list of lists and figure out a fair division of labor, the better. And the second thing I mentioned about, you know, not being able to communicate, I tell my patients, like, find a time for face time with your partner, make it the same time every week.

 

00;23;47;00 – 00;24;04;07

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Maybe it’s twice a week, like, depending on your circumstances. But assign yourselves a time when the kids are napping. When the kids are in bed, right? When you won’t be interrupted to just sit down and talk to each other. And it can be about logistical stuff. It can be about emotional stuff. It can be about whatever you want.

 

00;24;04;09 – 00;24;28;13

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

The important thing is right just to be face to face in front of each other. And that just helps to keep the lines of communication open, right? Because otherwise it’s really two ships passing in the night, like I said before. So those are two kind of big ones. Another thing that I focus on a lot in the chapter on couples is how to, navigate sort of disagreements and how to ask for what you need in a productive way.

 

00;24;28;19 – 00;24;50;27

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

And for that, I steal a skill from dialectical behavior therapy, which is an offshoot of CBT called Dearman, which is an acronym. I won’t go into what it means, but basically, dear man, it’s a strategy for asking for what you need, without being pushy and without being passive. So I talk a lot about how you can use that to ask for what you need in a relationship and how you can use that when you are arguing.

 

00;24;50;27 – 00;25;15;02

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Right. When you’re disagreeing. Because arguments can blow up so easily when you’re new parents and you’re sleep deprived. Right? And you’re just feeling generally crappy. So I think the sooner you can put into place the solid strategies for managing arguments, the better. So those are kind of some general themes from that couples chapter. But there’s a lot to be said about couples because as I said, babies.

 

00;25;15;05 – 00;25;17;11

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Babies really change the dynamic in a pretty profound.

 

00;25;17;17 – 00;25;35;04

Dr. Mona

Oh, absolutely. And all the things in your book are just so important. And I think, again, things that a lot of moms or women just don’t realize until they’re actually in the trenches and they’re like, well, I didn’t think this would happen. I was told it might, but it actually happened. Like with partners, with mom brain, with the anxiety, with the worry.

 

00;25;35;11 – 00;25;50;24

Dr. Mona

I mean, I went through that too, you know, I had friends tell me, well, this will change. You know, your relationship with your dog will change, your relationship with your partner will change. And I said, oh, it’s okay. It’ll we we’ll get through it. And although we get through it, it definitely is important to understand that it changes.

 

00;25;50;24 – 00;25;59;18

Dr. Mona

And your tips and your book is just so important because there’s just tangible ways to get through that. And so I want to thank you so much for putting this book out there into the world.

 

00;25;59;21 – 00;26;21;23

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

Oh, sure. And I really felt strongly that moms needed some really solid strategies to manage. I mean, again, just the emotional people and the identity shifts and the relationship changes, like so much is going on and there’s still such a negative stigma around, as I was saying before, kind of the negative emotions and experiences of motherhood. So I really hope that this book, in some small way, can can help to mitigate that a little bit.

 

00;26;22;09 – 00;26;27;12

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

And can give mom some really good, solid strategies that they can use to manage all these difficulties.

 

00;26;27;14 – 00;26;30;24

Dr. Mona

And what would be your final message for everyone listening today?

 

00;26;30;26 – 00;26;56;10

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

I think it would probably be feel your feelings, which sounds so corny, doesn’t it? But I think if there’s one thing that I most want moms to take away from this book, it’s that it is okay to feel. However ever you are feeling about this experience and about how it has changed your life and about how it has changed your relationships, how it’s changed your work, how it’s changed everything like it is okay to feel your feelings.

 

00;26;56;10 – 00;27;16;06

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

The problem isn’t your feelings, right? The problem can be what you do or don’t do to manage those feelings, right? So that’s really the main premise. I sort of come at you know, with the book is that I say feel however you’re going to feel. And then here is a lot of coping strategies to help you manage whatever you’re feeling as effectively as you possibly can.

 

00;27;16;06 – 00;27;19;27

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

And so that’s I think that would be my my one take home message from the book.

 

00;27;20;02 – 00;27;30;18

Dr. Mona

Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us. I’m going to link your book. Is there anywhere else that people can find you if they want to find you online or on social media? Yes.

 

00;27;30;18 – 00;27;50;22

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

So I’m at doctor CBT mom, Dr. CBT Mom on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, I write, I have a blog as well, which is same thing doctor CBT, mom.com and I write a whole bunch of places. I write for the Washington Post. I write, I’ve written for parents, I’ve written for Scary Mommy Motherwell. So my my stuff is around.

 

00;27;50;22 – 00;27;54;00

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

But you can basically find everything on my social media and on my website.

 

00;27;54;02 – 00;28;02;08

Dr. Mona

And I will be linking that on my show notes. Everyone. I cannot express how grateful I am for having you on the show today. Thanks again for joining us.

 

00;28;02;12 – 00;28;04;24

Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco

It was great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

 

00;28;04;29 – 00;28;20;20

Dr. Mona

Thank you for tuning in for this week’s episode. As always, please leave a review and share this episode with a friend. Share it on your social media. Make sure to follow me at PedsDocTalk on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel. PedsDocTalk TV. We’ll talk to you soon.