Dr Margo Lowy Interview
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Low Demand Parenting Podcast, where we drop the pressure, find the joy, and thrive even when it feels like life is stuck on level 12 hard I'm Amanda Diekman, author, autistic adult, and mom of three. I'm not here as an expert, but a fellow traveler. Together, we're learning how to live more gently, authentically, and vibrantly in this wild parenting life
welcome Margot to the Low Demand Parenting Podcast. I'm really wanted to have you on because your area of expertise of maternal ambivalence is going to speak to this, to my audience, to my community. I think all of us have experienced parenting that just doesn't fit into any easy boxes.
Yes. And that's your expertise. So [00:01:00]
yes,
both as a mother and as a researcher. I'm really glad to have you here to share first, before. We dive into the content. I would love to hear a little bit of the origin of this passion for your research. Okay. Of all the things you could study, how did this take center stage for you?
Okay. Thanks Amanda. Really happy to be on the podcast and we're looking forward to our conversation. How I got here was actually. Yeah, I think you'll find this quite interesting. I'm a psychotherapist by profession and I've got three children they're all adults. One 45-year-old, one 36-year-old, and one 28-year-old. And when my youngest was going through school, I. I knew that I needed to be around and I'd worked in the mothering field and I'd worked in the field at infertility, and
I wanted to research [00:02:00] something about mothering that hadn't really been investigated a lot. And I knew I wanted to be home for my daughter because she was doing her last few years of school and it was important. So I decided I'm gonna be at home and I'm gonna research this. And I was looking for an area of mothering that it, that, that was different. This was nearly 30 years ago, but I came on a book by someone called Ika Parker, and it was about something called maternal ambivalence, and I was shocked. Captured by this taboo area and how I understand it now because I've done a lot of work of it on it over the past 15, 20 years.
It's about encouraging us as mothers to engage in all of our feelings about our mothering, the joyous, and the difficult, the full. And the empty, the joy and the [00:03:00] turmoil, the despair and the happiness. And I think what we do as mothers is we really don't give enough space to the difficult ones because it's very confronting for us.
And what I've found is that these difficult feelings, and I know you've talked about this in your work, they're not there to be fixed. They're there. For a reason, they're an opportunity for us to understand our mothering and to understand ourselves. So it's a bit of a taboo area to think about these difficult extremes, but they're all there in all our mothering.
Yeah, I was struck in your book you used pretty close to the beginning, the word hate and that you were really confronted by that when you first thought about it. Yes. That we love our children and we hate our children, and that is the most. [00:04:00] Condensed version of what ambivalence
Yeah.
Represents.
Can you tell me more about that?
Okay. First of all, I talk about hating feelings not as a state, but just as a flow. And what happened when I first started my work on ambivalence Ika Parker used loving and hating feelings and. I found that it was really difficult to talk to people about these feelings because they often shut down.
They couldn't manage this, and I think that most of us as mothers may have the hating moments, but it's really difficult to, talk about them and to engage with people about these moments, and I actually think they are there and they are opportunities, but it's so difficult for us to confront this.
And not only that, until about the time I was in my early thirties, I could not. [00:05:00] Negotiate that thought of hate, of hating feelings. And then when I talked to my colleague, he said what's wrong with them?
And I actually couldn't answer. I couldn't give an answer because I'm not talking about feelings of destruction or genocide or anything like that. I was just talking about regular, everyday feelings that take you to the edge and once you acknowledge them, they can bring you back.
What are the things that no one talks about? We don't talk about miscarriage. We don't talk about postpartum depression or anxiety. We don't talk about how it's not just those two acutely vulnerable times as a parent it that there are these incredibly. Significant vulnerabilities that last throughout our parenting experiences.
And yet most of our collective conversation about parenting is like at the playground. Oh, is your kid crawling? No, we're going to pt. And it's all about progress. Yes. And staying in the lines and [00:06:00] being a good parent, a lot of us are putting a lot of energy into performing good parenthood, is how I think about it.
Yes.
And it makes it. So difficult for those of us and like the majority of the people listening to this podcast where we can't even participate in that anymore because our kid is the one who's screaming at the other kids and having a meltdown at the playground. Yes. Our kid is the one who can't go to school anymore because they've been.
Kicked out for bullying. Our kids are the ones who they break all the rules. Yes. And then it makes our entire parenting experience taboo.
Yeah. Yes.
We become the taboo. Something nobody wants to talk about.
No. And. I think one of, one of the things that has come out of my work is how important it is to name these feelings or these experiences, because if they're not named, then we can't begin to try to understand them and to take them and to give them a voice.
And the taboo areas don't have a voice and [00:07:00] it's really your responsibility, my responsibility to, to bring this out and. The thing is to normalize Yeah. These experiences because they do need to be normalized and I think that.
If we look at, say, social media and what's depicted there, that is not true. It's just not the truth that you get a mother with her three children going to school looking like she's walked out of a magazine. No, that's not true. But that's, and I think what you're talking about also with this taboo is this sense of perfection and mothering.
And it doesn't exist. But when we see what's on social media, then we are drawn into this this kind of illusion that it exists and it doesn't, and it's really so distressing. For any mother and particularly in your audience when it's really [00:08:00] difficult to manage what society expects, what the ideal is.
And I also talk, and I notice you do about the danger of shoulds. And expectations and how that really how difficult that is because when we, when someone should be like this, someone should be able to control their child. No. No. And I think really we've all had the experience. I'm not.
Measuring our experience to some of the difficult, the very continual difficult experiences that you have. But we've all had a kid that's had a tantrum at the wrong place and the wrong time, and people stare at us and think aren't you a lousy parent? And there's, there needs to be compassion.
Think this is the thing. And I, and my, in my work, I also really stress the importance of flow. As opposed to being rigid and the importance of flow, meaning, meaning to be compassionate. [00:09:00] To be self-compassionate and to be compassionate with our children, to be forgiving and not to be rigid and your ex one's experience is one's experience with that child.
And it needs to flow because that's the only way we can get some some lowering down of the pressure. What is low demand parenting? And, it's really about taking the expectations of ourselves and of our children down and lowering the level and and flowing with what we have.
And it's also, it's also society, not. Putting shoulds on us or us not engaging with the shoulds. But I think the other part is. That we all have in common as mothers is how lonely it can be at times.
Yes.
And what and the importance of when we are lonely to surround ourselves [00:10:00] with our team, with people that.
Understand us and that are with us, that are compassionate and that we can feel okay with, and that you know that we are not being judged and we're just being ourselves. And this also impacts our children. Because if we're all the time trying to match up, with people that, with a group around us that, that aren't our people, then we are gonna become rigid to fit into that.
So it's like a cycle and I think that it's really, we really, as mothers need to be mindful about that, about being with our people and about being selective. If someone doesn't give our energy, give us energy, or if someone is taking, if we're allowing someone to take our energy away, it's our responsibility to move away and to have that [00:11:00] courage and bravery and it is difficult, but it's important.
What have you found as a psychologist about the healing that comes in?
Embracing all of the duality of our feelings.
what I've found is you use the term, the duality or the binary, I see things as a more inclusive it's, and rather than, or, and that, that is really helpful for me and I've got some sayings. That I use that really help me in my work.
One of these things is in mothering we can only learn by our mistakes. Mothering is a series of making mistakes and repairing them, and making them and repairing them. We only learn by making the mistakes and thinking about them and understanding them and not being too hard on ourselves.
With that. [00:12:00] And the other thing is that my definition of mothering is it's a messy and interrupted and loving experience. It's messy. It is messy. And we are really not told that. We're not told that truth. When I first became a mother at nearly 46 years ago, I did not realize how messy it was gonna be.
And and when I was able to write this book, I was able to really step back. I'm a grandmother now, and when I started to write it, I could look back 'cause I wasn't, I was no longer in the thick of it. Because when you're in the thick of it, when you're in daily hands-on mothering, it's so hard to see it as it is and to admit that taboo, that it is messy and it's interrupted and it's loving.
And also having that mindset. To say, yeah, it's all of these, and that's okay, [00:13:00] because I think that we do tend to put things into, no, it's only, it can't be messy. It must be not messy or must be perfect. No, it's not. It's not. That's not reality. Okay. And then the other thing is that my other saying is that 99% of mothers do their best.
We really do and we are hard on ourselves, but we have to remember that we do our best and for you very much. And your audience, you get up every day and you show up. We all need to pat ourselves on the back for that. We show up even. Even though yesterday was like terrible. No sleep and just how, but we still keep showing up.
It's like quite, it's amazing, honestly.
It's amazing. And it's who else does that?
Yes.
No, no one else does that. It's yeah, we show up.
Yeah, exactly. And it can be one of the [00:14:00] trickier parts for the healing journey is that. The thing that's triggering these hating feelings or this feeling of being trapped or not wanting to do it.
Yes. That is also right in the midst of your loving feelings and your safety. Of
course.
Yes. And those things are so intertwined with each other.
And I think being able to think about those feelings of being trapped and naming them and knowing that other people, other mothers have those experiences and not feeling alone with that.
Because even though. If someone else has it, it doesn't take it away, but it's that feeling of yeah, that's normal. Everyone, that's what we are as moms. We, it's not a freeing experience a lot of the time. For many years it's difficult and it's a slog every day. And we, as I said, we show up and it's it's difficult [00:15:00] and it's messy and it's.
Mucked up a lot of the time, but we still do it. It's like quite, when we have a chance to think about it and really think about what we do, and particularly hands-on mothering, it's a lot. And for our own wellbeing, we, I, it's so important to acknowledge this.
Many of my listeners wish that they could fast forward to the phase of life that you're in and know that everything's gonna be okay.
They wish that they could say, oh, if I raise my kids this way, if I give them radical acceptance, if I embrace all of myself, if I let go of trying to be perfect and just keep showing up for what today holds, like how do I know they're gonna be okay. And I wonder if you have any thoughts from where you sit.
Yeah. I think a lot about that and I think what is okay and it's like we move with our children. We move with [00:16:00] them to what is okay. Like I might've thought, before I had my first child, I probably thought, okay, it was like I was gonna have this child that was gonna complete me and I had this illusion of someone that was gonna be an another part of me and that would agree with me and that would just take me to this level.
Yeah. And sometimes they do, but that's not, if I look now. That was like a fantasy, but it's turned out okay. But I found with my, with our children, I've had to navigate it and I've had to keep on changing and accepting and adapting and learning. The thing is we think we're teaching our children, but no.
They're teaching us. And that's the most astonishing thing about being a parent, being able to accept, adjust, and to learn. And [00:17:00] we only get there by by, by being fluid.
I've just gotten a flash of insight from what you shared that feels like it's really gonna help me. I hope it helps.
Listeners to share this. Many of our kids tell us on the regular that they hate us or that we're the worst, and they really express that ambivalence. Also they love us and are completely obsessed with us and want us around every second of every day.
Yeah.
They live into that. Feel it all, say it all world.
Yeah. There's something really fascinating about being told by your child that they hate you. And I believe there's something in that because I think that, and I learned this from a psychologist colleague of mine, and when she said to me, it actually changed me, she said to me, your child can say that to you because you can bear it.
Because they can, [00:18:00] and that when she said that, I thought, oh my gosh, that is so true. They're not gonna tell everyone that. Because most people could not bear that. But it's that's one of, it was one of the most like. Unbelievable conversations that I think I've ever had because it took me to such another level, because it empowered me in a sense because if they can say it to me and I can accept that, then I don't have to.
It's not binary. It's not like they hate me. It's the end of the world. It's part of their feelings, and that's okay. It's not gonna destroy me. And it's okay. And when we're talking about Okay, then Okay. I think that's okay.
Oh yeah, that's right. That's the real definition of Okay. Is We can bear it.
Yeah, we can hold it.
Yeah. Yeah.
Something I say inside of my head [00:19:00] regularly, which is part of my radical acceptance practice, is this also belongs. It's just a little reminder like that there's room inside of me or there's room inside of our relationship for this, whatever it is that's happening. And it makes me feel like I have enough inside enough capacity to hold it.
As we end, I wonder if you have any thoughts about the way that this conversation relates beyond just mothering.
I know we have many listeners who don't identify as a mother. Yeah. Or for whom the other intersections and complexities of their life feels like it supersedes the mother I that in some way. Yeah. Yeah. How does this fit into a larger conversation?
Okay. That's a, I really like that because. If we go back to the ambivalence, like being to hold, being able to hold conflicting feelings or experiences or as that we say, nowadays, being [00:20:00] able to hold more than one truth, it goes across every relationship.
And it's for me it's so it's been world breaking. For me to be able to realize that in every relationship this happens, and we really need to understand and hold that truth, that there's so many feelings and being able to wrestle with all of those, especially when they're contradictory, is not easy, but.
It's a start and it's really important and it's, everyone does it in every, in most interactions, they're contradictory and we have to learn to respond rather than react. And what, how I see response is being able to give ourselves a thinking space rather than going into react straight away. So this is how I would, this is how I think about ambivalence and about, [00:21:00] it's quite a it's a phenomenon to be able to think about, yeah, we've got contradictory feelings.
Yes, they sit together. Yes, that's normal. And how do we learn from these and how do we accept these contradictions? Because often our playbook is not. Our playbook is it's not contradictory. Experiences aren't contradictory. Like life's not like that, but it is, and by naming this, it makes us it more comfortable and more real.
Yeah. It does apply to every relationship we have loving and hating feelings for our partners, for our pets, for our parents, for our friends, for our, and not just those two, but
the whole
attracted and repulsed.
Yes. Yeah.
Comfortable, excited board.
Yeah. All those. And it's, that's what, that's, we're talking about the expansiveness of this and not being tunnel vision.
And I think this like really flows nicely into what, onto your work because it's not tunnel, it's [00:22:00] all, it's like all of it. And we really need to respect this and live in it like it's normal.
I love the normal world you just created for us here. That is the normal I want to live in. Yes. I would be so happy to see all of the rigidity and the shoulds and the expectations just fall away.
Yes. No, and we've got, that's why we've got name this and not surround ourselves with people that are like this because it's not helpful for us. It's just for our wellbeing.
Ah, I feel very invigorated. This is the world I wanna live in. Thank you. Thank you for your, I
do too.
Your piece of thank you of making that a little bit more true.
We'll include lots of details in the show notes, but what are your favorite ways for people to either connect with you okay. Or find out about what you do? We can, they can go on my website, dr margo lowey.com, or they can go on [00:23:00] Instagram. Dr. Margo Lowy and send me something, make a comment.
I'm mean, really passionate about this work and about, as we've been talking about normalizing us as moms. And not putting expectations on us.
Yeah. Ugh. In, in your way and in, in your world and in mine, I think we're really hoping to leave people feeling you are good just the way you are.
You, you don't have to clean yourself up or
no.
Make yourself better somehow, just like this. You are, you're doing it.
Yes. Yeah. And we're showing up. Everyone's showing up. Despite the difficulties and the pain. It's all part of it.
Yeah. Oh, thank you. And thank you for your book.
You've got one more scholarly version and one
yes.
A
little yes. The other way person. This one's more conversational. The other one I took from my PhD. It's a great book. It's the maternal experience. And, but this one's a, it's a more conversational, it's also got a really good index at the back.[00:24:00]
You can pick it up, you can drop, take it down, but it's got lots of examples. And I also, in my work, I've always used film. As a, I've looked into, I've looked at film because I think film is such, first of all, it's such a creative medium and we can see ourselves safely when we watch, when we see a film or we see a series on television.
Or we can just, we can. We can identify and it's not so frightening. And then we see that other people have actually a lot of issues and that become, it works out somehow. It works out in the way it's meant to be and we dunno how this is gonna be.
Oh, that's a good point. And I think when I, there's a lot I don't like about social media, but the reason I continue to show up there is that when you don't see yourself represented.
Anywhere collectively, it can really deepen that isolation. And
yes,
I like to keep, I'm like it's not a movie, it's not a show, but it is something, and I can show up there and be like, this [00:25:00] is my everyday life. Is this your everyday life? That's right. That's right. And that mirror,
and I like that when you say, is this because it's like a question and that's very inclusive and it normalizes it because this is.
My experience, but yours is probably different. I'm sure it is. And I wanna talk about yours. I wanna hear what you say. And it's so flowing and it's so comforting and forgiving. And Amanda's got her way, Mar's got her way. Everyone's got their own way. And we need to respect that because everyone's got their own experience and it's valuable.
I think this is the point. That the difficult times and the difficult experience. They have value and it's up to us to really make sure that they, that we see the value in them and we see the opportunity.
That is a perfect place to end. Thank you so much for, thank you so much for this conversation.
Thank you. It was wonderful. Thank you. Really appreciate [00:26:00] it.
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I'm Amanda. Remember, it takes great strength to let things go. I'll see you next week
