Mental Load, Lost Dinosaurs and Shoulding Yourself with Ashley Brichter (Fair Play Facilitator)

Ever feel like parenting is an obstacle course of "shoulds" and expectations?

Today, I'm joined by Ashley, the founder of Birth Smarter and a Fair Play facilitator.

By sharing my own moments of mom burnout and marital tension, I expose the underbelly of trying to do it all and the freedom found in prioritizing presence over perfection.

This episode isn't just about the theory; it's packed with real takeaways that resonate with mothers fighting with their "to-do" lists and the relentless mental load. 

Together, we highlight for moms:

•  answering the tough questions about equitable division of labour
• looking beyond the oversimplified parenting choices, like breastfeeding + bottle feeding. 
• self-awareness is the compass that guides us through the complex landscape of raising children.
• the profound impact of social media on parenting

Chapters

• 0:00 Exploring Motherhood and Partnership
• 7:23 Parenting With Intentionality and Purpose
• 20:25 Breaking Free From Unrealistic Expectations

Transcript

Kayla Huszar: 0:00

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Chill Like a Mother podcast. We are here with Ashley. I am your host, kayla Huzar, and today we are going to be exploring, overcoming some shoulds, finding our own creative path when it comes to parenting and partnership, and all of the ways that the entrance to motherhood can really shape some of those experiences. So, ashley, welcome. Can you give our audience a little bit of about you? What brings you here with us today?

Ashley Brichter : 0:36

Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having me. This topic is so near and dear to my heart.

Ashley Brichter : 0:42

So I come to you through the Fair Play world. I'm a Fair Play facilitator the game changing magic right of like helping people more equitably divide all the shit that there is to do at home really like who's going to do what and why and I came to Fair Play through being a birth and postpartum doula, lactation counselor and a childbirth educator. So my primary business right now. I own a company called Birth Smarter and we provide prenatal education to families online and in person in New York City, in Salt Lake City, in Edmonton, Canada but that list is quickly growing since we've just launched our teacher training program. That list is quickly growing since we've just launched our teacher training program and we really try and weave sort of nonjudgmental, inclusive, accessible and very partner-centered sort of like realistic education into what our prenatal programming is.

Ashley Brichter : 1:37

Because I felt like knowing everything in the space for folks before they have a baby, that was really what was missing. Space for folks before they have a baby, that was really what was missing. And you know, traditional books that are written about having babies and classes you can take are very outcome oriented and they very much hold up. You know this is the one right way, this is how it can go well, and anything less than that, you know, is probably the undercurrent of the message is. It's probably your fault in some way and I wanted to change that messaging.

Kayla Huszar: 2:09

Oh yes, and there's so much dichotomy of like, right and wrong and good and bad in some of those spaces and myself, as expressive arts therapist for moms, I see so much holding of that birth experience or that entrance into motherhood, even if it was a subsequent experience, not the first. There is so much being held there. That is like my responsibility. I should have, I could have, I could have prepared differently, better, more vigilant in order to prevent or stop or avoid these things from happening.

Ashley Brichter : 2:59

Absolutely. And I think it's so interesting because sometimes, when we think about it in that mindset here's what I could have and should have done it actually prevents us from just like grieving that it's really hard and finding connection and that it's really hard, Right. So, like the thinking back what could I have done differently or what should I do next? Like really takes us away from being in the present moment, or what should I do next? Like really takes us away from being in the present moment, and sometimes a lot of times, right, the present moment of parenting is just really challenging and what we want to do is say, hey, this is really hard, I'm having a hard time. Is anybody else having a hard time? Right? Can we just sit in that and like this is the best, it is, this is how good it's going to get Right.

Ashley Brichter : 3:46

But and it can be both I think you're right. We talk about thinking beyond the binary all the time and in every like version of what that means. It's just living in a world where there is black and white or right and wrong. Is it breastfeeding or bottle feeding, sleep training or co-sleeping, having an unmedicated birth or an epidural? It's like never your answer, your right way is never going to be black and white.

Kayla Huszar: 4:13

Yes, yes, so much of that like gray the gray zone. We need it to be a certain, a certain way. This is so funny that this is coming up right now. This morning, as I was listening to the radio, there's this trend on TikTok, the white mom SUV or the black mom SUV, and the white mom SUV is like she's put together, she cares about her appearance and all these things, and the black SUV mom is like she's kind of a hot mess, these things that the black SUV mom is like she's kind of a hot mess. And there was a caller that came in um in in the midst of this conversation and she was like I'm a gray SUV mom, sometimes I've got my shit together, but like there are areas of my life that are a total hot mess.

Ashley Brichter : 4:57

Yeah, oh my God, but I'm literally like I have like a muddy brown SUV. I hate the color of my car so much but it was like way cheaper to get that one than the white one. And I feel like I'm a walking version of that. Right, like I will go to the car wash and both literally and metaphorically clean house. Right, like that is going to be shiny and beautiful and like I have every intention of keeping it that way. And then, like today, I literally think the side of my car is inside of my car because it fell off and the kids had to step over it and over the dirt and over the goldfish to get in so that we can get to school late. Like it's both right we all get to be both of these people.

Kayla Huszar: 5:41

Yes, yes.

Kayla Huszar: 5:43

And as I was listening, I was like my husband and I have this argument all the time whether my SUV is like a steel, blue or gray. And I am like it's gray and we have lots of our eyes do not see the same thing often and I'm like I am. I am the gray SUV mom. The other day we had lost a dinosaur since last August and it's a notable moment because my kids are like where is the green dinosaur that we got at Drumheller, that Uncle Taryn got us? We have lost it. I was like it has been in the car. It has never left the car. I don't know where it is. My kids were playing in the car. They lifted up the third row. There's an imprint of where this dinosaur has been for literal months. We emptied the car, we took all the mats out, but I didn't put the seats up. Yeah, yep, they put the seats up. Oh, here's the green dinosaur that we have literally lost for months.

Ashley Brichter : 6:44

Here's the green dinosaur that we have literally lost four months. Okay, I'm gonna stretch in the biggest way and turn that into a metaphor for the audience. This is really me taking a leap here. But I think maybe our like core identities as moms are the dinosaur right and like. For a while we're just like stuck under the squished up back row with all the crumbs and the crayons, but like there is going to become, like there's going to come a time where somebody lifts up that seat and then we're like, oh my gosh, I'm a person, I'm still here. Thanks, thanks for letting me out.

Kayla Huszar: 7:23

Oh my gosh, I love that metaphor and I think I absolutely need to do some art around that, around that metaphor, in finding what it looks like to find yourself in amongst the squishy, trapped, dark but like also kind of safe space of this, like because you're being held by the seats right but you're squished and no one sees you.

Ashley Brichter : 7:54

Yeah, I think, absolutely I think you're being held and you're not you know, you're not lost like you're lost, but it's not like you fell out of the car and it's a Toy Story moment where you have to like chase to get on the truck right. It's like you're there, you've been riding around the whole time, but like it was really it was not your time to play. I mean, I think it's really interesting, right, and that's my work is trying to, whenever possible, help people get on this journey prenatally right.

Ashley Brichter : 8:23

Or as early postpartum as possible, because I think you and I and so many other people I know have to do this work when their kids hit preschool, hit elementary school or later in life.

Ashley Brichter : 8:35

Right, for a lot of people that I work with in the fair play world, they're like nearly empty nesters and they're like now I need to figure out all this stuff with my relationship because I can, right, but I've just buried my head in the sand and kept going to get the day-to-day work done and so, if we can help people as early on as possible in their parenting journey, realize that you know, yeah, there's support out there. Of course we need to ask for help, but also, like reaching for the version of parenting that's on Instagram and on TikTok is is really harmful, and I know that there are trends to show the real and the normal and the struggle, and I think part of that is wonderful, but part of it is also like maybe we should just all get off social media altogether, because then we're romanticizing the struggle, right, and we're either way trying to have somebody else's experience as opposed to just having our experience, because all of us have really deep, beautiful instincts and we need some time and space to listen to them.

Kayla Huszar: 9:52

Yeah, yeah.

Kayla Huszar: 9:55

One of my favorite things to share with my clients, when it's therapeutically appropriate, is that we don't need to do more when it comes to self-care or taking care of ourselves.

Kayla Huszar: 10:11

We often need to do less, like we need to do less of the things that add stimulus to our lives, and when it comes to this, like the world of shoulds you know, having 100% access, 100% of the time, to what people's birthday parties look like, to what their gender reveals, look like, to their fitness experiences it can really cloud this like what feels good for me, what? How would I respond in that situation? What does my like, internal dialogue, my own intuition, say about this? What is my objective in this scenario? Because I could, I could recite the scripts from Dr Becky until I was blue in the face, but if they don't actually feel authentic or I haven't actually gone through the work of untangling my own should, it doesn't land the same as the organic moments that fully come from me in my partnership, or in my parenting, or in communicating what I need, or the division of labor, any of those things.

Ashley Brichter : 11:31

Absolutely so. The way that we talk about it in the birth smarter world is we have what we call the birth smarter framework, and I need a new name for it for the general life. Right, because it extends far beyond making decisions around your pregnancy and birth. But essentially, imagine that there's three Venn diagrams I'm going to hope that you can visualize this with an artistic background. So it's a Venn diagram with three overlapping circles and what we say is that your right way, the way you should show up in the world, the right decision, whatever it is, is right in the middle of these three factors.

Ashley Brichter : 12:06

So the first thing we always look at is what the physiological process is, or, metaphorically, what the physiological process is Right. So in labor and delivery, it's very easy to look at. Well, it's not very to look at. Well, it's not very easy because there's a lot of outdated science, there's so much sexism in medicine. But where we can, we want to look physiologically at what is true in the human body, for example, oxytocin, a love trust bonding hormone that's produced when you feel safe. A love trust bonding hormone that's produced when you feel safe, that drives uterine contractions. Right, and I just like that as a metaphor for life, right? Like how much good is going to come out of anything when you don't feel safe? So we think physiologically what is true? And then we think in our societal context, what is the world asking of us? Or how is the world limiting what's possible, right? So, really, what we bump up against there for cultures in the West is that we live in very for profit minded institutions and even social media marketing campaigns. Everybody is trying to make a little bit of money and they're doing that by influencing how we think about ourselves and our families, right, and our bodies.

Ashley Brichter : 13:27

And then the third piece of the puzzle is our personal circumstance, right. So who are we and what are we bringing to the table? And a lot of that is sort of our childhood, our cultural upbringings, our mental health, our physical health, things that are unique, right, and not that no one will, you know, be the same. There might be, you know, you can have soul sisters out there and be like, okay, we're pretty similar, we're making really similar decisions, but it is helpful to approach. But it is helpful to approach, you know, using Dr Becky as an example, who is, like, so brilliant and has gifted people a wonderful sort of like beacon of light of how we can also say you know, depending on my personal circumstance and what I'm going through at the time and what's right for my kid and their physiology, I'm not going to gentle parent you right now you know, and that is is it feels radical or revolutionary or so freeing?

Ashley Brichter : 14:32

I mean, my daughter is nine. I have an early childhood background. I I don't I gentle parent to a T, but it's not on purpose, it's just sort of how I know about being with young people. And the other day I threatened her in a very loud voice and it was incredibly effective of getting what everybody in my household needed at that time and very effective at unlocking her so she could release some really big feelings. And we weren't getting there with any amount of conversation or meeting her on her level. I mean, it was like 100% of power play for me to just like show up and scream and say you know, if you don't do this thing by this time, this really bad thing is going to happen and I promise you I'm going to hold that line and then I'm going to follow through. And I like was on cloud nine, because sometimes parents also like need a little bit of a victory right, and you need to be powerful in order to show up as a peer all the other times.

Kayla Huszar: 15:33

Yes, I recorded. I had a series of conversations that I did in the middle of the pandemic. I called them the mother load conversations and they were conversations with real people in my life and one of my favorite moments and I repeat it to myself even today, like four years later she said I choose to intentionally yell at my children. There is a moment, there's a time and a place. There is, like I am conscious, like 80% of the time in all of my parenting. I'm conscious about the choices I make, the words I'm using, all these things. But there comes a time, there comes a time when I intentionally need to raise my voice. There comes a time when I intentionally need to raise my voice, say the thing, say the consequence, do the thing. And she said and it works, you know, to a point she said, and I circle back and we talk about why it got that way and all those things, but she said, like I will intentionally choose to, I'm going to use the word cross that line in that moment.

Ashley Brichter : 16:41

I think what's really beautiful about it is like then that gets to be an analogy for anything else, right? And and the root of it, the root of what you're saying and what I try to say, is it's about the intentionality. So, um, yeah, it's so awesome when loads of people want to have unmedicated birthing experiences right. There is absolutely no reason to vilify labor induction. An epidural pitocin or synthetic oxytocin, right. These are life-saving tools that really can help people when they're used in a patient-centered way, when they're used intentionally. So, if you make a choice that you're ready for pain medication, right. If your doctor says, here's all my thinking right, we've really tried the quote unquote gentle pairing equivalent of getting this baby out of your body.

Kayla Huszar: 17:35

If it's not working.

Ashley Brichter : 17:37

It's really time to like level up and let's do something else, but we're doing it because it fits the situation, and so that is how I think, ultimately, we move beyond this.

Ashley Brichter : 17:49

Should culture right, the keeping up with the Joneses, the having something in your head about how we're going to be in control, right, and we can reach towards perfection if we just do X, y and Z is saying no, no, no, it's about context, it's about nuance, it's about being situational, and all of that requires us to be in the present moment, being as thoughtful as we can. And so I would go back to what you said earlier, which is about taking stuff off of our plate, because it's really hard to be present when we're legitimately overwhelmed. And I think the biggest thing I feel as a parent you know my daughter's turning 10 in June is it's really easy to fully overload our plate with how many ways we want to show up in the world, and part of that and I would say Fair Play really does help with this as well it's like not the core of what Fair Play is about, but it's about coming up with the values for your family, right, like what is important and why.

Kayla Huszar: 18:57

Yeah, absolutely. I have an online course and I actually call it Show Up With Love it's all about. It's an art journaling program for moms to explore the idea of presence and exploring the things that get in the way, because we can't talk about achieving presence without talking about all the things that get in the way, and because we I say we generally, I think as parents who have access to a lot of information we know what we should do, and I use should in a positive sense in that statement. We know the how-to. I have read enough Instagram posts and consumed enough podcasts and enough things about parenting. Right now, in this moment, I know the how-to.

Kayla Huszar: 19:53

What stops me from accessing it is the should and the overwhelm and the overfilled plate and the unequal division of labor and the deprioritizing of my own space and my own time. Those are the things that get in the way. And how do I and what I hear from almost all of my clients how do I overcome all of those things? I actually have to do less. Yeah, I have to be easier on myself. I have to command that I get an hour or whatever a week, that you are going to get up with the kids on the weekend and this is like my sacred time and I'm going to hold myself to it, I'm going to hold you to it, like all of that paves, that creative path.

Ashley Brichter : 20:49

Yeah, I mean I would say it. I will go through what I often think about, because when I do this or when other people do, it for me I feel like it's the most effective way of seeing what standards you're holding yourself to, right?

Ashley Brichter : 21:05

But so it's very easy for me to wake up and think I should definitely drink a glass of water right away, and I should track how much water I'm drinking throughout the day. I should set an intention and possibly meditate. I should definitely move my body. I should probably put the first load of wash in so that I can keep up with the day. I should make my kids a healthy breakfast. I should make sure they're like relatively clean and they definitely have their library books or the bottles or the extra clothes or the diapers whatever they need in their bag. I have to make sure that's all there, while making sure that I'm set up for the day, right. It would be great if I showered and got dressed, so that would be a bonus, right? And then we need to make sure that, like our car has gas in it. We need to make sure that we're showing up for work. We need to continue to make sure that we're drinking enough water, but also, maybe we're like trying to count macros now, because social media tells us that protein is super important, and check in with your partner, because that's really important to like have a meaningful relationship with them.

Ashley Brichter : 22:07

Email the school or preschool back with the five or six forms that they need from you on any given day. Try to volunteer, right? Try and get somebody a birthday gift. Be ready to make dinner while you pick your kids up. Either bring them to activities or, you know, come home and create an engaging environment. Cook a healthy dinner. Clean up from the healthy dinner. Forgot that you changed the laundry. Change the laundry right. Do the homework Like it's.

Ashley Brichter : 22:35

When you actually go bit by bit by bit of what we're keeping track of, you're like oh no, that doesn't make any sense, right, it doesn't make any sense. There is no human being who's capable of doing that. And the thing I really like to say and I learned this from the Fair Play world is that even when we outsource, we're still doing the mental load of keeping track of things. So even if you had staff right, I have a chef, I have a housekeeper, I have a driver for my kids Like I mean, it's like living the dream, but also you're still keeping track of that and telling them what to do. A boss is a boss and outsourcing.

Kayla Huszar: 23:21

At that point it's a monetary sense of investment or outsourcing right, and so you're also keeping track of the monetary. It might not be taking as much of your time in the execution of that task because you've outsourced it, but it's still something that you have to keep track of and will always still fall back on you if that outsourcing has to pause or stop or be interrupted by anything.

Ashley Brichter : 23:54

Yeah, there's a reason that the CEO of a company has the highest paid position, right, like even if they're not doing the bits and pieces, and manual labor, like keeping track of everything, is a lot. And so the first step and this is what I do in my coaching with clients the first step is laying out all the cards and getting rid of as many as possible. You know and this is a very I sometimes feel embarrassed to give this example because I think we live in a culture that's like quick to judge people, but in my family we don't send thank you notes, like it's just a hard. No, like best case scenario, we'll send somebody a text message, but at this point the grandparents everybody knows that my kids are not writing a thank you note and putting it in the mail, right, we also, we don't really volunteer. I'm giving like a very like right, we don't really volunteer for things. We try and show up and be good people in the world in lots of ways.

Ashley Brichter : 24:50

Those are two examples of cards in the fair play deck that for another family will be so important because of their personal circumstance, right, because of their cultural upbringing, and then they get to do those things. I also don't have a pet and like, for the foreseeable future, I'm not getting a pet right, because, like I'm maxed out and so it doesn't matter. Like what it is, maybe it's family celebrations, maybe it's like certain weekday dinners, right Like that. But go through the deck and just cut out whatever you need to and and give yourself permission. Not forever, not forever, but try it for this month, try it for this quarter, try it for this year.

Ashley Brichter : 25:33

Right To say, can I just not not worry about that altogether? And I think, especially when I do some coaching with pregnant or new moms or new parents, it's a real struggle for them to entertain that idea because they so desperately want to show up in all the ways. And I have this. I caused so many problems for myself and for my marriage because I wanted to do all the things. I wanted to make my own baby food, I wanted to breastfeed, I wanted to cloth diaper.

Ashley Brichter : 26:05

I wanted to exercise and so, slowly but surely, the burnout level was extreme. And I looked at my husband and basically was like I'm going to say that this is all your fault. And it wasn't. It wasn't all his fault, right? Like he had just figured out in his way that he needed to do less, and I didn't understand that conversation.

Kayla Huszar: 26:30

Literally copy paste. I remember and I share this whenever I can. I have this like imprinted memory of standing in my kitchen opening my spice rack and my husband did something and I said I hate you, like I, I do not like you anymore, like I can't even muster up compassion for whatever the fuck you're doing right now. Like I have, I have nothing left. And he looked at me and he was like I actually don't like you either, and we both.

Kayla Huszar: 27:03

It was just one of these like perfect time, perfect moment. Like we actually had an opportunity to break it down. Our son, I think, miraculously had like a two hour nap, which never, ever happened, except for that day. And it was like we broke it down around, like okay, I am doing way too much Somehow I assumed that I should and you're not doing enough, because I'm doing all of the things and I'm not actually allowing an opportunity for you to even try or show me that you can. And so we worked it out and we came to like a lot of conclusions and a lot of agreements.

Kayla Huszar: 27:43

That day we did not hate each other. That was like we hated what we had done, unconsciously and unintentionally, to the relationship dynamic, based on the way that men are conditioned and the way that women are conditioned in our particular heteronormative relationship and we fit those boxes and we fit and we were good at it of our boxes and were able to actually talk about all of the shoulds and the expectations and the feelings and all of the things it was like. None of this makes sense. We are prescribing to a version of parenting and marriage and life that we didn't even really consciously choose.

Ashley Brichter : 28:46

Yeah, I mean yes, exactly. I remember the moment that I looked up and I was like, oh, I'm a caricature of myself, like I'm a living New Yorker cartoon. That's what we are. We're just a caricature and I have no idea how we got there, because this is not who we were before we got married and I don't want to do this anymore. And I mean that's a whole separate episode, right, like a whole separate conversation is like what we did.

Ashley Brichter : 29:11

But I will just say for anybody who's listening who has the beginning of the like oh wow, I resonate and I want to make some changes, like my journey at least. I am very happily married to the same person, which I like to clarify, and it was two years of like, heart wrenching work, right Of couples, counseling of fair play, coaching of men's work of like really trying to unravel all of it and rebuild. And we were very capable of doing it. We had to cut a lot else out to work on our relationship. But I think the thing I will say from my experience that a lot of people have resonated with and again, this is not everybody, this is not everybody's dynamic but I was ready to do that work before my husband and I had to do extra work to get him ready and that was very resentful making I don't know what the term is for that, and so I struggled with that for a long time and ultimately, because I saw that he was going to engage with me, I was willing to put that work in.

Ashley Brichter : 30:22

But that's part of why it was like very, very slow and very much like a two steps forward, one step back sort of process, because it's all well and good to say, hey, let's not hold ourselves, you know, like against some external standard, let's not think about shoulds, let's rework all this. But then the nitty gritty of living that way is really really hard and it is really radical and it does change the world and it models different dynamics for our kids. But I think you need people around you who can really hold you through that sort of unraveling and rebuilding, because while it's like it sounds light and funny, in some ways right to just like drive a messy car, whatever, don't judge yourself the deep work of that can be very challenging.

Kayla Huszar: 31:10

Oh, yes, and thank you for naming that, because what you and I do in two very different geographical locations is walk people through that process and I marry and blend my Venn diagram I think would have six different circles on it between, like fair play and creative space and being a social worker and being trained in perinatal mental health, like all of the deep work that people can choose to do is so liberating and radical and rebellious, honestly, and if, um, any of this resonated with listeners, I'm going to have Ashley's links below to connect with her. With listeners, I'm going to have Ashley's links below to connect with her. I will have my links below if anything resonated with what I shared or any of the resources that either of us talked about.

Kayla Huszar: 32:09

Because, as a person, as a human consuming this right now, you are not supposed to do it alone. You're not supposed to do it in resentment. You can live a different way and it is easy. It's easy for us to sit here and say that. It's a very privileged thing to be able to say, but I have witnessed firsthand the amazing things that can open up for people when they finally say okay. I've tried doing it on my own, I've tried scouring the internet. I have tried having that conversation with my partner, or I have tried to implement X, y and Z and I'm defeated. I'm stuck and I'm the dinosaur in between the car seats and you need somebody to lift it up. And when you have that person to lift up the seats, it can make that so much easier and so much lighter.

Ashley Brichter : 33:16

And it's not always easier wider and it's not always easier, but the path is more clear. Yeah, I agree with all of that and I'm so excited to be supporting you know, your listeners and our collective audience through this and modeling that and struggling through myself right To keep figuring out more and more.

Kayla Huszar: 33:39

Yeah, and at every stage of parenting, bringing or partnership, bringing in new cards or removing other ones or, you know, delegating this, or maybe in this season of life, we can't outsource this thing, and so what does what does that look like? So, thank you, ashley, for being here. I appreciate all of your wisdom and knowledge and I love the dinosaur metaphor. Oh my gosh, I am like I'm never going to forget this dinosaur metaphor. I am so glad that the serendipity has led me to this moment with you and that you were able to name that for me. That was so incredible. So thank you so much. If you want to connect with either of us or anything resonated from the episode, please check out the links below.

Ashley Brichter : 34:24

Thanks for having me.

Kayla Huszar: 34:25

Thanks, ashley, bye, bye.