All Up In: Rock Climbing, Biodiversity & Motherhood with Majka Burhardt

Music. Welcome to All Up In My Lady Business. I am your host, Mary Nisi. On this podcast, I'll explore the fine line between having it together and losing your shit. Here I share my journey as an entrepreneur, a mom, a wife, a DJ, and randomly a beekeeper. I have no shame and no filter except the ones I use on Instagram. My stories of resilience, a little structure, and a lot of resourcefulness can show you how to take those same things and live your life life with your whole ass. Thanks for listening. Music. All right, folks, thanks so much for tuning in today. This woman has been living in my brain for like the month that I've been taking to read her book because I've been reading it slowly. Usually I kind of just try to get through things quickly and this one I'm like, oh yeah. Her name is Micah Burhart and she is a professional climber, a conservation entrepreneur, an author, a filmmaker. She's the founder and executive director of Legato and the author of the 2023 book More, Life on the Edge of Adventure and Motherhood, a Next Big Idea Club Must Read, as well as Vertical Ethiopia, Climbing Towards Possibility and the Horn of Africa, which was shortlisted for the Banff Book Award. Her work projects have been featured in the New York Times, Economist, Outside Magazine, The Weather Channel, we're gonna talk about that later, PR and more. Mike is a climber and ambassador with Patagonia and an American Mountain Guides Association Rock Guide and Ice Instructor. She graduated from Princeton University Safety School, cum laude, and received an MFA in Creative Writing from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers. She and her husband, Peter Doucette, an internationally certified mountain guide, live in Jackson, New Hampshire with her twin children, which she's coming at us from today. Are you in New Hampshire right now? Yeah, I am. I'm in Jackson, New Hampshire today. Thank you so much for joining us. I am so happy to have you here. Oh, I'm so thrilled to chat with you. I'm a little concerned this interview is going to be like three hours long because I feel like I've got a lot to cover. Okay, so you are a climber. Do you want to maybe give us a little like background on how you got into climbing? That alone is kind of an amazing thing. I don't think I completely got out of the book because there were so many other things going on. Yeah, I got into climbing when I was a kid growing up in Minnesota at summer camp. Let's frame expectations. This was the early 80s, kind of getting into climbing in Minnesota at Taylor's Falls. I loved it. We got to go once. It was also lots of sugar that you could consume because you're in Taylor's Falls. After you did the obligatory climb, you could go over and get cotton candy. I thought it was fantastic and just kept throwing myself the path of climbing the outdoors since. And that, you know, accelerated through my life so that when I was at college, I took a year off to climb full-time and that's really when my career took off as a full-time climber and eventually professional climber and never looked back. A professional climber. That's so cool. It's like a job you don't know that anyone can have. And it's a job that few people have. And I have to imagine few women. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of sports have pro athletes, right? And professional climbing is no different. I always joke that it's sort of like professional basketball, but it's a very different income scale. But for me, it's been a really great way to be part of the climbing world and to represent climbing in the larger world. And Patagonia, one of the companies that I've that I've worked with for the longest, is my longtime sponsor. It really showcasing the life of a climber versus just the rawness and the coolness. A lot of times people think, oh, professional climber, it means that you're doing all these competitions. And there certainly are pro climbers who compete, but I've always been a pro climber who travels around the world climbing rock and ice and big mountains and small mountains, you name it. And when you're climbing them like professionally, is it just to kind of like see the terrain and then come back and report on it? Or is it just, what's the- You're an ambassador for those brands, right? So you are out in the world, your photos appearing, you're filing reports, whether it's in magazines or journals about the places that you've been, places that you're climbing, you're showing up at climbing festivals and representing, you're doing gear feedback, all of those things is what it really means, to be a pro athlete in the climbing community. And then via, obviously, the climbing, that got you to start your company, Legato. Yeah, yeah, it was actually through seeing a picture of a mountain in Mozambique, a granite mountain, and saying, wait a second, there's potential climbing in Mozambique, and then sort of getting deeper in and realizing that that rock face that I wanted to go climb looked like a giant chia pet, and that was not usually where climbers want to go climb. They like to climb clean faces, but I said, ooh, cool, vegetation. Who would want to go up into that vegetation? And then brought scientists with me to find new species to science. And started working to support the Lomwe indigenous people who are the stewards of Mount Namuli in Mozambique to create a plan for their lives that included protecting their mountain and its biodiversity with furthering their objectives for their people. So I need to take this back to a layman's situation. So you're in Mozambique like hanging out and then you see a mountain that you know no one has like climbed. So I actually got a photo sent to him from a friend who was visiting his daughter who was in the Peace Corps in Mozambique. And he flipped me a photo because I was that person who everybody was sending emails to with photos of random rock faces being like, hey, have you thought about climbing here? What about here? And when Mark sent me this photo, I thought, hmm, Mozambique, let's learn more. And so then through learning more, picked Mount Namuli, which is the second highest mountain in Mozambique and had just this beautiful granite cap on it that I was fascinated by. And that's the one that I realized had a ton of agitation. And so it wasn't just going to be a climbing objective, that it needed to do more and that it needed to have a bigger impact in the world if I was going to go launch a big expedition. And at that point, I never imagined I was going to start my own organization. I mean, this was back in 2011 when I first went there. So 13 years later would be working in Mozambique and Kenya and Peru and have huge demand for our partnerships. I mean, that was not my plan. It was to agitate, right? To start something and to potentially hand that off and to continue the way I was doing a lot of serial social entrepreneurship versus stick it for the long term, but Legato. Was created from that. And so Lugato is made to bring conservation and work with locals and making sure that you're doing things in a respectful way, but also were there environmental issues on the mountain that you were, like in a particular mountain in Mozambique that you were trying to deal with? Yeah, so I love how you frame that because that's exactly how we started, but that's what we realized we were doing wrong. So let me explain. So when we first began working with the Lone Wave people on Mount Namuli, it's because Mount Namuli at that point had been designated a key biodiversity area, which is a really big deal as a global status. And there's beautiful rainforest that was being cut down by the people who live there because you and I, Mary, would cut that rainforest down if we lived there with our families because we're like, we need to eat, we need to have healthcare, this is our resource, this is how we're going to do it. So we went in to say, here's a way that we could marry conservation better with your daily practices. And the people who we were working with said, yeah, just hold the phone. Do you know that we also have education needs? We have healthcare needs, which is again, why we're cutting down the forest. We have infrastructure needs that we need to think about how our governance is. And at that point, our funding was uniquely from the conservation lane. And I was like, yeah, but I can't help you because I have a funding from the conservation lane. That's what my team has expertise in. But after a while, I just started feeling like an asshole because I actually, at my core, I'm someone who solves problems and puts together teams to make things happen. I mean, my background as a climber who's run expeditions all around the world, I don't have a 25-year history of being tightly in the conservation lane. I'm much more of a disruptor. So I said, hmm, what if we're doing it wrong? What if your goal should be my goal versus my goal being your goal? And how do I backstop your community to get all of the things that you're trying to make happen? Because that will in turn better protect that biodiversity. Because when biodiversity protection is in the hands of local stewards, it's four times more effective than when it's in the hands of like a national park or protected area in that format. So we really pivoted legato so that now we backstop indigenous and local communities to build what we call a thriving future. So we're agnostic. We go in, we help them do the planning, support if they need it with tools, resources, and partnerships to make all of those priorities happen. And what has been like your shining star outcome that you can point to to be like, look at what we did because of this? Yeah. I mean, here's a great example on Mount Namuli. All those communities have legal rights to their land, which is something that a lot. Of times people in the United States are like, but what does that mean? But you have to understand this is a former communist country. Land was communal. You don't get to have individual rights. And so going through that formal titling process is incredibly important in terms of ownership and agency. And the majority of those were titled in a woman's name, which is pretty awesome because it's a matrilineal inheritance system on Mount Namut. Look at Mozambique. Yeah. And when you say communist, do you mean it was like a Russian outpost or just happened to be operating within their idea? We call it communism, but they call it something else. Yeah, that's a good point. It was a Portuguese colony. And then during the Civil War, one of the factions of the Civil War was heavily financed and supported by Russia. And so it had a lot of that integrated into all of their community law processes, you name it. Wow, that's a lot of stuff to have to understand and unravel. I mean, just to respect and understand where they're coming from and not just like, I'm a capitalist, I'm an American, I'm going to put my ideas, because that's all I know, on top of this other thing that is completely important. Well, but that's the way most conservation development happens, right? It's sort of like the colonial instrument is coming and saying, I have a solution, the solution is what you need. And the only thing we're going to talk about is that solution. And a lot of what we're doing is in this space of decolonizing community programming and decolonizing the way conservation and development happen to say, no, the job is actually to work around that local knowledge and context, and if necessary, backstop those communities to achieve their goals or get the heck out of the way, right? And it's a very different framing. And it's a really important time right now in our world in that shift. And the events of the past three years have certainly accelerated that. Everything from George Floyd starting here in the U.S. to this ripple effect across the world to say, wait a second, who's at the decision-making table? How do we need to be shifting what true inclusivity means? So you start this very needed and important non-profit and you started that in 2011? Yeah, 2011 is when we decided, when we first went climbing and then in 2014, things really kicked off in a more robust way. We were back on Mount Namuli, did a big project, shot a film, and then officially started the organization in 2014. And that film is the one that the book starts off with at the Band of People Festival? Yeah, Namuli, yeah, exactly, that I'm touring with. So when I was pregnant, I was then on tour with the film. There's a lot of traveling with the circus that is your whole family. So let's get into that. So the book itself, while climbing is a part of this book, and it's mostly you wanting to go climbing and wanting to be able to do the thing and being pulled back to your children. So you get pregnant and you find out you're having twins, and then the twins come out of you. And it's like trying to figure out who you are in all of this and how to navigate those two things, which I think every mom has to go through. So I turned 39 the day after I had my son, and I only had one, and I only have one. You were 39. So we both have sort of the exact same sort of, I mean, I'm not a professional climber, but I'm not a professional DJ. So that's the thing. It's like, I, we both have non-traditional careers that are usually dominated by men that are kind of a young person's gambit. I mean, are there like 80 year old climbers out there? I mean, I guess there are, there There definitely are, but you're right, the bell curve. Drops off. And a lot of people stop climbing when they're in their 40s and 50s or when they have kids or they stop doing different types of climbing, etc. And that's a really hard thing to grapple with. Just the losing of an identity and replacing it with a new one that you just get thrown into and you don't get plans or rules or consensus on fucking anything. And it's tough shit. Yeah, it's really tough. And for me, I was so stubborn and am so stubborn that I didn't want to give up anything. I wasn't willing to just say, oh, I'll just blank slate it. Let's see what's coming up. First of all, I can't. I have to make a living, as you were saying, having a nontraditional career. There's no such thing as maternity leave at that point. Legato has maternity family leave policy now, but I had just gotten a salary for the first time. We did not have that going on. You're hustling, you're making things happen. I was not in a space to say, I'm going to stop doing what I was doing before. Instead, I said, how do I keep doing it? What does this new version of me look like with all of those things that are important to me still of firing and how the hell do I do that? And one of the things that really struck me was your dogged determination to nurse. Cause I was the exact same way. And I don't really know that many people, like not many people talk about their nursing experience when they have positive ones. Cause people have had so many bad experiences with nursing that if you're having a good time, you don't talk about it. Because like people, the first thing people start, they get defensive or that wasn't my experience or I didn't get to do that. And you know, when I got to the point of your book you basically said like part of the reason why you were super into nursing is because you had a c-section and you were pissed you didn't get to have a vaginal birth and that is 100%, my deal. Like I had the exact same thing. I did a 12-week long natural birth class. I had a doula. I was freeze-drying my placenta. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Did you freeze-dry your placenta? I had plans to freeze-dry the placenta. I was like ready to go like had the whole thing. I kind of had given up how the whole birth thing was going to happen because with twins you just can't do that. But you got to have a lot of stuff that I don't think a lot of I think you must have have been pretty demanding in your prenatal times, to go to 38 weeks to get to attempt to vaginal birth. Yeah, definitely. I was like, we're going to do this. And I mean, I have friends who are OBGYNs who are like, oh man, I would never have let you go on 40 hours in labor. There's just no way. We would have known. And I'm like, well, I got to do that. But in the process, I got really sick. I had a fever of like 102 during labor. And so because of that, they, thought the kids might have choria, I think it was called. So I couldn't eat my placenta and kids had to come out and have antibiotics, which was like, well, there went the placenta idea. And plus I was like, how am I going to get through two placentas encapsulated? That seems like an optimistic. I mean, I think you'd get through it, but it's understandable. But that's the thing. When I was younger, I was like, I can't wait to give birth to babies. I had that kind of punk rock, like I don't really want kids, but I just want to give birth to them. I want to grow them inside of me. Mary, you are my hero. I've always said that. My husband's like, that is the most insane thing. In fact, he says it's not okay to share that with people. And I was like, no. I want to exactly, I want to go through this physical transformation. I'm not so sure about having the kid. And then you would say, you know the kid comes after you give birth. I'm like, yeah, yeah, whatever. Like, what a wild thing to experience. So I adore that that's a similarity that we have. Yeah. And I loved being pregnant. And that's another thing I don't get to feel like I get to share with people too terribly often because people are like, I hated being pregnant. I'm like, yeah, I loved it. I like, I had all this energy. I looked beautiful. I also was a cute pregnant person, like, you know, like from behind, you couldn't tell I was pregnant. Then I'd turn around and it was like baby surprise. I had some positive things that a lot of people have negative associations with, so I didn't feel like I could share it. But when I was younger, I wanted to have a baby and hand it to somebody else and be like, I actually thought about being a surrogate. That's how, like- Nice. I love it. You took it that far. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I didn't look into it, but I was like, maybe I should be a surrogate because I really just want to, like, experience the process of, like, and I wanted to push a baby out of me and I wanted to feel what the pain felt like. And I know that sounds ridiculous. No, I hear you. Yeah. But when people are like, the pain is more than you could ever possibly imagine, I'm like, okay, I want to see if I can handle that. I always think that becoming a mom made me so much of a better human, which asterisk does not mean I'm saying it's the only way to do it, but it made me more humble and more empathetic because I have something in common with so many more people, right? And there's Here's all the nuance, like you said, being like, wow, I really like nursing and you want to be careful saying that because what if that's going to create shame for people who weren't able to pull it off? But I think all of that also, we have to stop that. We have to allow all of these narratives to have an equal space versus saying, because, I think that's one of the reasons that women feel so isolated and so flipping lonely in this experience is that we're not connecting around the myriad of emotions. You might love nursing, but you might hate crying. There needs to be way more dialogue about it than we're allowing into the space. For me. I think that having missed out on a vaginal birth and that piece of bonding with people, and it's like, I'll never know that. It's something I'll never know as a woman, but I'm a mom and I gave birth to two kids. But even saying that, it's hard for me to say I gave birth. Because I'm like- You said that in the book, I almost cried a little, because I used to say I didn't give birth. I used to say my child was cut out of me. I cried. I was actually- Jessica Hopper is our friend that introduced us. I was texting with Jessica last night about this, because I was like. As I've been reading this book, and to be completely honest, I would read this book, I'm like, my God, this is everything that I felt and that I went through and I thought that I'd be like, she's kind of a bitch. She's kind of saying things that are kind of shitty. And then as I'm thinking that, I'm like, I did that thing that she said was shitty. And then I'm like, wait a minute, we are so conditioned to think less of a woman who says the truth or feels things and we all lie on the outside. And I'm like, I went through that whole process of like, she's amazing, she's kind of a bitch. Oh, wait, I'm her. It was like the amount of bias that we have to kind of overcome. And we do this to every mom. That's the thing. It's like the shame and the guilt is just, it's too much. And it's not fair because our husbands sure aren't feeling it at all. Yeah. And was it like specifically about when you're like, oh man, she's really a bitch in terms of like things I said about myself or my kids or my spouse or all of that? Yeah. No, anything. I don't even remember. It was just something where not really a bitch, but just sort of like, man, she thinks she's cute. And I'm like, oh, wait a minute. I did that exact same thing. And it's like, you know. That's the thing. That's a reality. recently about this, how this is actually what emotional process looks like. But the way we present ourselves to the world is tidied up. We're like, oh, that was kind of hard for me, but here's the upshot of it. And because I wrote this book in the moment, I did not write it intentionally. It's not a retrospective. You're really getting this chronicle of me banging around inside of my head and my heart being like, do I feel like that? No, maybe I feel like this. Okay, what do I do if I do feel like that? But I know I don't want to manifest it outwards, but I need to acknowledge that it's there. And I think that's what's missing in these conversations as we too often do them in this retrospect. And then again. It doesn't create this open dialogue between like women to women, women to men of saying, hey, I'm right here and I'm having a lot of colliding emotions and it's okay. It doesn't make me a bad person. I'm having all these colliding emotions, but if I can't talk about them, it sure as hell makes me feel marginalized and anxious and lonely. But I will say, and maybe it's because you've been having journals since you were. Five years old or whatever. But when I'm reading this, I'm like, oh my, like your ability to correctly identify feelings and emotions. Like, I wish I would have read this as I was going through it because it would have made it easier for me to process things because the things you're saying are things that no one ever talks about out loud. And I'm like, okay, so are Micah and I the only two people who feel this way? And I just happened to find the book I needed in this moment to read it, to understand it, or is everyone else feeling this way? Are Micah and I so similar in this because we're both old moms. I mean, I don't know anybody who says these things out loud. But it was very comforting to me. Almost every page had something on it where, I mean, this whole thing is filled with circles and, fuck yes, and oh my God, and yes, me too, all through the whole book. And sometimes it's a hard read, especially when you started talking about the difficulties you were having with your husband, because it happened at the nine-month mark with the kids. And I'm like, oh, the husband-hating, right on time. At nine months, that was about when I started to hate my husband as well. And I think maybe I started hating him him a little bit earlier than that. But I think in some way it's a biological thing to make you hate them so you won't have sex with them, so you won't make another baby because you need to focus on these ones. I read something somewhere that that is part of the biological imperative. But I think for you and me, I mean, there were things you said in there like about, I wish I could make it easier and want less. That really struck with me because I think there's a lot of people who have, like a lot of my friends had babies and they're like, yeah, I just like went down to work part time and you know, this is just what I am. And I'm just, and then I had another baby and then I had another baby and I'm just like, we're going to that park and I'm really good at cutting the crust things. That's not the mom I am. Like, I hate going to the park. I'll say it out loud. I fucking hate going to the park. That was John's job. There are parks I've never been to that Sebastian's been to a thousand times because I hate going to the park and I can't believe I'm saying that out loud into a microphone and then I'm going to put this out in the world. Everyone's going to know I hate going to parks. But I'm sure there's someone who will hear that and be like, what a bitch. There's nothing that said because you're doing this thing with your body and because you love your children means you're going to love all the pieces. Like, they're just inevitably like where you're going to be better at some things. There are going to There are going to be things that. Trigger you in different ways because of how you were raised or how you've been building your career. And I often thought, I'm like, man, if I could just like numb myself out, a little bit, right? Like if I could just care less, if I could try to do less, but it's just not who I am. And that's definitely not the world I want to raise my kids in, right? Like I want to raise them in a world where if they want to go charge in the world, then we're like, okay, let's talk about how we're going to make that happen. You know, like here's what you have in front of you. Like here's how to have a partner that understands that. Here's what you're taking on. And I feel like instead, you know, we're still caught in this moniker of women trying to have it all or you're just okay. And I think the real conversation is everything in the middle, which is 99% of us. Because even though you're talking about friends who you had who were okay with working halftime and who then had another baby, I bet the majority of them are also in the space of, is this really what I want to do if I decided to make this choice? Because this is what I've heard from a lot of women in that position. If I decided to make this choice, then why am I not happier with it? It's this expectation that somehow we'll find that perfect equilibrium and it'll feel good while we're raising these tiny humans and we're trying to do our best. And it's really difficult while they're going through all the stuff that they're going through emotionally. I don't know how you would do that and just be okay. I certainly wasn't, which didn't mean that I had heinous postpartum depression. Quite the opposite. I just was a normal mom saying, hold on a second, hold the phone. Is everybody else feeling like this? Because, look out world, this is insane. Well, and the determination to nurse for as long as I nursed Sebastian until he was almost three, and I- How long did you make it? Just like 26 months. So two years and two months. Yeah. I mean, maybe like two months longer than you. I think I made it to two years and six months. So I think it went- Yeah. But still, and I hid it from my friends. No one knew I was nursing that long. You knew, I'm assuming, that the partner was closed, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like you were not having more sex. Yeah. Exactly. So was that part of the reason why you decided to nurse so long? Because the way you described nursing, this book took me back, I don't know if I would have remembered these things about my life if I hadn't read this book, but just the picture of you in tandem nursing. First of all, tandem nursing is bad the fuck ass. You may have hit a record of tandem nursing twins. Do you know anyone who's done that? I also had so much milk supply when I was pumping that I ended up giving to a milk bank and giving milk to one of my friends. And so it was like, I don't know, it just worked for me, right? I think for me it was in part because I knew I wasn't going to have other kids and frankly like it was peace. Like nursing to me was peace. It was just this moment where I was exactly the place I need to be. When you have two kids and they're like you know oh my god we have concrete floors throughout our whole house and when they started crawling and trying to walk it was just terrifying watching them like bumble around and you know we'd like try to like put. You all these different carpets around and things like that. But if they were nursing, we were just there. We were just all in our little unit. It was all we needed. I mean, there was something about that that I think was almost this calm that I needed. And I was afraid of giving that up. I was like, what do I do if I don't have that? And I nursed all the time. I remember at one point nursing in PetSmart, very close to the end because they were just having this really hard time. And they were on top of me and I was like, screw it. I just sat down in the middle of some cat tower aisle and just tandem nursed them. And I'm like, people walking around me. I'm like, I don't flipping care. Going to gymnastics class, same thing. So this was not like, they're only nursing at night, they're only nursing when they wake up in the morning. If I was around, they had access to me, you know? Tess Terrible And when you have a good experience with nursing, then you understand why you need to keep that, you know? Because, I mean, there was at one point I kind of felt a letdown when you were talking about something, and I haven't obviously felt that in years. And it was weird to feel that because I, first of all, didn't know I could still feel that. And it reminded me of just, like, I called Sebastian my baby paperweight. When Sebastian's on me, I can't do anything else. Like, that was the thing I made up in my mind, like I can't work, I can't type, I can't do anything. I could text my friend Susan. My friend Susan and I had babies at the same time and I could text her with one hand but it was like I couldn't work. And I think that might also be part of the reason why I liked it because it kept me from doing things I didn't necessarily want to do. No, it does. It helps you. Get clean. Yeah, you're just in it. And I mean, I think that for me, there was just this joy in it and also the certainty that felt just damn important. And you know, I didn't have a plan. Like I had zero plan to nurse. I was like, I don't know if I'll even be able to let alone two kids. And then it worked. And then I thought they just stopped. My kids never stopped. They were not these like self-wieners. Like the way we stopped was I went to flip in Mozambique. Like I left them. I went to Africa. So we would stop nursing. Yeah. I mean, Sebastian probably would still nurse. He still talks about it sometimes. Oh yeah, totally. In weird ways. Yeah. Anyway, I just wanted to talk about that because I also feel like because people don't hear positive nursing stories, they're more inclined to give it up easier. I'm not judging them, but I mean, I think that because there's not enough people giving these positives, like, what's the point of it if, you know, if it's all of this problem? And it is hard. I mean, the beginning, like the first, well, you're getting a lash on immediately. And my son did too. But yeah, I mean, but it was hard. I mean, I had like mastitis. Yeah. And you're just like, oh my, I mean, I had like achy wrists because of like holding their heads up because you have to hold their heads in these certain ways for them to be on. And you're just like getting this crazy tendinitis and you're trying to, I would be like, Peter's trying to stack like cloth underneath my hands. So they'd like stop trembling holding these tiny little heads. I mean, it was a total shit show, but you know, like then you kind of hit your stride and it becomes this thing that that you can do, which is so vile. Your body just makes food. Like if they're crying, just put a boob in their mouth. I really miss that. I miss the ability to just shut my son up with my boob. Right? Yeah. Just like, right? It's this instant, like we are doing what, like the right thing. And then you get into, you know, all of the other things of parenting and you can't solve it that way. So I miss it too. Well, and you know, the fact that your husband can't solve it that way too. And it's good that he was supportive of it, but it does seem like he had a really easy time with planning trips together. We're like, huh. The planning was exceptionally easy. Sometimes the execution became difficult. Yeah. We just had this idea that we were going to keep going. I mean, I look back at it now and I think, how do we not talk about this? How do we not talk about how things are going to be different? Because we didn't know how things were going to be different, right? And you also have that incredibly headstrong attitude of, well, I bet we can pull this off, which is basically how I've run my whole life, right? People might say, you might find this difficult at one point. I'm like, yeah, yeah. And I sort of respectfully nod and inside I'm like, that person probably has no idea what they're doing. That's how humanity continues. Otherwise, we would just all turn away from any challenge because we would see that other people had been beat by it. But you can see people around you having a hard time parenting, and yet you still choose to be a parent. That's ludicrous to me. But we do it. And we're there and we're like, well, I want to give it a shot. And I think for us, it was, well, we can do this. We can continue doing our lives, or we'll find the limits when we hit them. But then you're so stubborn and attached. That you don't want to actually find it and admit that it's a limit. Well, yeah. And I think it might be a bit of a different for people who are entrepreneurs and thrill seekers. I don't know how to stop moving. I make the joke that I'm like a shark. I'll die if I stop moving. I don't know how to not do more. And you said something towards the end of the book where it was like, if I'm just going to keep doing something, why do I keep adding things if I'm going to do them poorly? And it really struck me because I'm the kind of person who says yes to everything or like, yeah, I can do that. I can do that. I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. And I found after I had my son that that was a harder thing to do because I want to keep adding the things and I I think I can still add the things because in the past I've been able to add things and they work. And now I'm realizing I just have so many things I'm kind of half-assing, which is not good. Yeah. Yeah, I think, and I said this in the forum when it was like, what are you half-assing and what are you full-assing or something like that, the forum that you sent me beforehand. And I was- Whole-assing. I think. I think anything you're trying to do really well, sometimes you're going to do poorly. Does that make sense? I think that that's kind of the thing we don't talk about enough. It's like, if you're going to really go after something and you're going to do it well, it does not mean that you're on this beautiful hockey-shaped curve and it's just going better and better and better. It's like there are periods of time when something's really difficult, but you're still committed to doing it as best you can. And I think for me, it was learning that. It was learning that I could want this total crazy richness and fullness, right? I met this woman when, I don't know, my kids were like three and she also, she had twins and then she had another kid and she was telling me about how she used to do five things, like work, parent, have her marriage, be an athlete. And I don't remember what the fifth thing was, but she's like, so I can't do all of that, so I'm just going to get rid of being an athlete. And this woman had been this amazing athlete, right? I can only do the other things. And I'm like, I don't agree with that. I'm unwilling to do that. And in part, it's because I grew up with parents who did everything and they were able to do everything because they were divorced. And that sounds messed up, but it's very true, true, right? They only had my sister and I for half of the week. And so then they could charge on these other fronts. And I fully own and talk about in the book from the very beginning that that was my worldview, right? It's like, you can actually do a ton. You can have a charging career. You can be a really good athlete and you can be a parent. And. For me, I'm like, all right, I'm going to pull this off. But there are some days, like today I did something stupid to my knee. I have no idea what. It's going to go away most likely. But today I'm like, probably not going to be much of an athlete today. Like this, isn't what's going to work today. I'm definitely half-assing that today. Support for this episode is brought to you by Sparrow for Everyone, the hair cream. You might remember that I had founder Susan Flaga on this podcast back in season two, episode three. Anyway, I absolutely love my hair cream. I actually remember Susan literally making the formulas in her kitchen and like, it's, really fun to see something go from an idea to an amazing product. And I really love this one. I have kind of fine curly hair that needs something to like pump it up. 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And it's designed by a stylist who wants better options for sensitive people. You can find them at sparrowforeveryone.com and use the code LADYBUSINESS for 10% off your first order. You know, your friend that took the athlete out, I actually wrote something down about that. If you don't wanna do the thing that you're known for anymore, or if you don't wanna do anything that you used to pride yourself for, are you a failure? Or are you just changing? Like you also said something about like, the kids are changing so much, but our adults changing so much, but we don't see it. Yeah, yeah. Is it okay to change? I recently moved, I was living in Chicago for 28 years, lived in the city. And then my husband and I just moved out to a suburb. It's pretty close to Chicago. Everyone's like, you're barely in a suburb, but it's definitely a suburb. And I had a lot of, and still do have a lot of identity of wrapped up, like trying to figure out who I am now. And I told myself I would never move to the suburbs and here I am. And there's all these things I don't want to do anymore. And I'm like, do I not want to do this because now I'm a suburban mom and I'm so far away from the place where I would do these things that I don't want to do them anymore? And does that make me a failure or am I just changing? And I think it's that tension. If you're a person who is susceptible to that, it can tank you, right? Because you can be endlessly in this rat race of just saying like. Why does it matter? It means it's a decision that I made that's best for me, right? And it's like finding that sense of self and like respect for your choice versus trying to unpack constantly the why and just saying it is right like this is what feels good to me in this moment this is what I need to do and I've had to do that certainly as a climber I don't do as big of objectives as I did before in part because of time in part because of risk in part because It's also really important to me that I show up for my kids. I have, and this goes back to how I was raised with these corporate charging parents who afforded me a ton of possibility, but they weren't around. They were not around at three o'clock to pick me up from the bus station, and they couldn't be. My mother could not be and have had the career that she had. But to me, as much as I might want to go climb something in a certain day, I have this equal desire to show up for my kiddo because I know that they're having a bit of a rough week and that if I can fill their cup, that it will help them. And so those two things combined together to that choice. So it's not like, oh, am I a failure because I'm not pursuing that thing? It's like, no, I'm actually choosing like the Venn diagram choice for my life. And I think that's like, when you try to do many, many things, you have to more often say like, what's like the greatest good for all of them. And so you might not have like the high note of your climbing day, but for me, it's like, I want to try to have the high notes for my parenting. Yeah. I mean, and it's hard when you have that desire to go do things like, you know, in my career, I'm traveling more than I ever have before and I'm away and I'm I'm like, I love doing the thing I'm doing when I'm away, but I hate that I'm not there. And I wish I could just pause them and they just kind of stood there while I went off and did things. They weren't experiencing things without me so that I could, but also kids need to be away from their parents. Like I would argue that your mom, even if she was a stay at home, mom making cookies, it was the eighties. There was some benign neglect going on that we're not allowed to have. Exactly. Yeah. Like I wish I didn't neglect my kid a little bit more. I don't mean that like in a jokey way, but I wish I felt like I could like give him more rope and I just can't yet. Yeah, I understand. Yeah. Or I mean, even just being, I'm all for raising kids that have deep emotional self-knowledge, right? And there are times when I think, oh, I get why just going to your room would like, I kind of wish that I could be a parent in the 80s. Just go to your room until you're happy. And like, we can't do that because we're like, oh, tell me about your feelings. I mean, this morning I had to remake some weird beaded thing to put in my daughter's hair. I was in a cycle of hell for about 55 minutes this morning because of very charged emotions for a six and three quarter year old. And I was. That would not have happened, right? Because if when I was growing up, I would have been having a hard time and I would have been mad and I would have been sent to my room until I came out and been better. Or you would have just solved it on your own. Yeah. Like you just would have been like in your bathroom having all of these feelings. And I mean, I'm the fifth of six kids. I couldn't have been more backburnered on anyone's mind. And in fact, when you said, did my mom really love me? Like, did my mom have these feelings about me? Like I had that thought so many times where I'm like, like when you're like, I want to devour my, did my mom feel this way? I don't think she did. Did, that really struck with me because I felt the exact same way. My mom died 16 years ago yesterday, and so I never got to ask you these questions. I never got to find out the answer to those questions. And like you said, I doubt she'd even remember because I forget so much of what happened five years ago. And I think the desire to know what our parents were going through because, you know, it's. Like, okay, yes, empirically, I totally know that my mom loves me, right? It's like, she loves the heck out of me. But you have these kids, and when they're in this moment, and you're having these huge feelings and they're trying to reconcile what you knew about your parents and how they were and the work they did. And you think, wait, how can any of this go together? If they felt exactly like me, how did they do that? And that was something that I was deeply trying to understand because I was trying to be a working mom and keep my marriage intact. And how was I raised and what was I going to learn from that? And especially when it comes to the marriage stuff, because your parents were divorced. And so that's the thing, you're friends with the five things. It's like, they didn't have to worry about marriage. So that did eliminate a lot. Because I have friends who are divorced And they're like, yeah, I don't have my kids this weekend, so I'm going to go do 80 million things. And I'm like, wow, divorce sounds cool. I get to just do things, but then the love gets in the way. And it seems like you really went through an arc of spousal rage that I think every woman can relate to. Yeah. And I think for me, I had that and I was trying to hold it in this container of saying, I want this and I also want this to be good. I don't just want to be in this space where it's like, well, we're just married and we're going to stick it out forever. So it almost made it harder. Does that make any sense? I had been married before. I was married in my early 20s and I said, I'm either never going to get married again or if I ever get married again, I'm going to be vigilant as all hell to make sure that we're not slacking off on making sure that we're doing a good job taking care of this marriage. So then suddenly I'm married and I have little kids and And I'm like, how the heck do you be vigilant in this? I have this standard for how I want to be married. I don't just want to be married to get to the other side. I want to be married at this level. So it created like a harder time for me to say like, and I have these feelings. So what the heck do I do about them? Because what I can't do is pretend they're not here. So like, what are my other options? And then you're looking around and you're like, does anyone else feel like this? Like I would have conversations with some friends and be like, Oh, that's not a friend to talk to about it. Or you find a friend and you say, Oh, this actually feels safe. And they're relating to this. Right. And then you have this person who you can bounce around on it. But it's just absurd to think that you can get through this partnership and not have it be hard on that partnership. And we just need so many better support systems. And those support systems are not going on a date, you know? The number of times people are like, you need a date night. I'm like, you really think that's it? That's going to solve this problem? But I also think, just the point that you don't have a normal career. Like you don't have a career where it's like you leave the house at 830 and you come back at 530. You don't have that. You've got a weird job. And especially with the fact that you clearly are a feminist and, you know, you're strong willed and you don't want to fall into these typical, basic, patriarchal bullshit. And you're like, all of a sudden you're in it and you're like, oh my gosh, how did this happen? How am I doing? It's a total shock, right? And you don't realize how strong that system is, right? Like you mentioned Jessica Hopper, like when she and I were kids, if you would have told us when we were in sixth grade that we would have been subjected to that, we've been like, out of my way, I'm going to hurt you. But you don't realize how entrenched it is in places that we don't necessarily see it. You're doing it because you're in a family system and you're the woman and you're the birth parent, but that does not mean that it comes with everything else that comes with it. We just pile on. That was exciting. I mean, there's so much work to be done at that nucleus still and understanding. And I'm terrified by that. I'm tired from it, and I'm also inspired by it, right? Like how to raise my kids so that they can be in a totally different era of it. I mean, when I was growing up and I told people that mankind was not okay, I was seen as such a misfit. I wish you could go back in time and tell me at five years old that what I should say was, I don't feel included when you use that word. I didn't know that that was, but my son this morning woke up too early, we listened to a podcast. It said something about, I don't know, some man. I said, Kaz, he's like, I know, mama, I know it's not okay to say that, it's human. I was like, yep, there you go. He's like, because that doesn't include women. Yeah. I used to have a really difficult time when you're learning grammar that he is the. Default. How do they put it? The royal he. Default pronoun. Yeah. The default pronoun is he. And I'm like, but that doesn't seem cool. And so then I tried, to write a paper and used she in that place. And the teacher was like, I don't understand what you're trying to say here. Yeah. But now there's a space for that. And I feel like that's great because, man, I was a misfit for speaking up about that stuff when I was a kiddo. But again, I think that's why it's so surprising to me that you're inside of these like normative gender practices and you're saying like, I don't want to be trapped here. How the heck are we trapped here? How much of it is our doing? How much of a society doing? And regardless, how do we make it stop, right? Let's make it stop and have. A different way through. Our husbands were raised by lovely women and they were doing exactly what everyone else was doing. It's not like what he saw and I obviously wasn't there when he was a kid, but like, you know, I'm sure that his mom was doing the majority of the cooking. I'm sure his mom was doing the majority. Like I'm sure maybe his dad never put a diaper on. Maybe his dad never folded clothes. I don't know these things. No, I know what you mean. Or this idea that you do incrementally more than the generation behind you as a man and that you're doing a great job. Both things can be true. You can be doing a great job, be giving it all you can, and it can still be not equal. And like you, I understood the desire, like the keeping score and thinking I'm banking things and wanting him to just say, you're killing it and saying it for real. All the time. And he'll be like, you're doing a great job. I'm like, can you be more specific? I want a report card, because I too, I always have good grades. I'm a good student. I'm a rule follower. It's like, I want check marks and I want gold stars. And specifically, I want to know when you went to the store and you got me the root beer I like instead of the other root beer, you did a good job there. I thought about you in a way that you never think about me. Yeah. I've thought about you. If I said, get me LaCroix. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. No, I'm with you. single piece of emotional labor that I did for the day. I recorded and then when my spouse came home, I was like, let's go through the journey of the day in all the ways. And I'd love to see yours too, right? A, who has the time for that? B, I don't know if that really gets us to where we're trying to go, but there's this sense of that unseen. It's like, how do you fix it without it being seen? And wanting that validation for it, wanting it to not just be kind of like set in the constant tumble cycle in a dryer, which is what it feels like. Whenever I kind of have like, get to end of my rope and I try to talk to my husband, like mental load of having to deal with all of it. He's like, I'm doing it too. And it's like, I guess you are, but maybe I'm not being generous enough. Maybe he is, perpetually thinking about, did he call the therapist back? And did they have our insurance? Men aren't really good at multitasking, so maybe we're asking too much of them. Do you really believe that? That men are bad at multitasking? Yeah. And that we shouldn't ask. I think there are these default arguments that then create, you know, it's like, well, you want things done in a certain way, so it's just easier for you to do them. You're better at multitasking. Like all these things, what they do is they set up a paradigm where then it's your job. And I think that... It's what are they called? Learned helplessness. Yes. Yes. Yes. Which is sort of like planned obsolescence. I always think of those two words in tandem, planned obsolescence and learned helplessness. But yeah, it's... Yeah. I think it's this narrative that we have. And I mean, I guess I'll go back to what I was saying. I think people can be working their hardest, but the expectations of what each of the work is, whether you've done it intentionally or unintentionally in your family system, and then the external system that's playing at it, makes it so out of whack that you can't even see how out of whack it is. And then when you try to talk about it, and you're trying to talk about it to someone who's like, I'm working my butt off. I'm not over here just having to rip your floats and have my feet up. I'm doing everything I can, and you think that I should be doing more. So you come into it loaded, right? That's a really hard, conversation to have. And you know, Eve Rodsky's Fair Play, have you read that? Or have you looked at the Fair Play system? It's really cool. It's a really interesting book that talks about, is there a different way to do this? Is there a different way to have ownership in these entrenched gender division of labor? And I think we really need some different mechanisms and people trying out different ways to crack the nut. I think it's easy for people like you and me who are their own bosses, where they can make different decisions than people who are locked in a nine to five. It's easier for us to kind of be like, why aren't we changing things? This all seems insane. And because are not operating within the regular paradigm that everybody else is kind of in. I also think that, because men aren't moms, like women can do everything a man can do in theory. Like, I mean, whether they let us there or not, we could still do the thing if someone were to let us, you know, if we weren't being gatekept from being CEOs or whatever. But having babies, that was another thing I really loved when I was a girl. I found out that I can do everything a man can do. And I have one more thing. That was another thing I was very excited about. No wonder you wanted to do it. You're like, I'm going to own the shit out of that thing too, right? Yep. Yeah. Like we can all do one more thing than you can do. Like, man, I like that. I think that might have been part of my motivation too, but I, yeah, yeah. I've never. It wasn't verbalized that way. Yeah. So I think that because we're the only ones who really know, like a man can never know what it's like to have a baby. They can never know what it's like to have a letdown. They can never know, you know, what it's like to feel a foot lodge itself inside your ribs. You know, I had a fucked up rib after I gave her a Sebastian because he would just put his foot up in there and just kept it there for like a week. And I was fine with that, you know, but my point is that I think that motherhood and stuff gets degraded as a concept, as a thing to be proud of, a checklist to tell you you're doing great because they don't understand it and so therefore it's pushed to the side or it's accepted. Well, what I would say about that is I think there's something about. Maybe women had to present themselves as having a universal experience to break through the first boundaries of what we needed to do. And now we have to allow women to be individuals in their experience to get through the next one. So what I mean by that, it's like if we're a unified voice that says like, that, you know, women can do this. And like, I felt like that before, but then you don't see yourself in it. And it's exactly what we were talking about with nursing, right? It's like, oh, now the narrative is that you don't share that nursing is wonderful because nursing is hard as a way to really let people feel more included, whatever their journey is, but what if you could do both? What if you could actually say, I love nursing, nursing was hard. That's where I think we start getting, true equity is where all of those experiences where like, what's her bucket? Come on, New Zealand head of state, who do you step down? Jacinda, just call her Jacinda. When our friend Jacinda stepped down from being the head of New Zealand, right? To be able to say the feeling of like, oh man, but you were supposed to do this, you were supposed to crush this, but actually it's the further step to say, but I choose not to, right? And I think that that's the conversation that we're having around motherhood where we have to debunk the universal experience. I mean, I feel that as a climber, I was terrified of talking about being a mom and climbing at risk because I felt like I was going to have to speak for everybody. And then I realized that's so limiting. If we have to speak for for everybody. It's not fair, like actually. What we need to do is be able to have all this nuance, because some women are going to love being pregnant, some women are going to hate being pregnant, some women are psyched that they're getting their rib kicked out of them because they finally got to have that baby that they worked so hard to have, and other people are going to think, I want nothing to do with this. That's where I think we start calling everybody into the space, but when we try to homogenize the response, and then I think that ties into the sexism of it, because it's like, well, if we can keep ourselves in a bucket, if someone can keep us in a bucket, then they can move us as a group. But if all of a sudden we spread out, we're much harder to contain. Wow. up with that all? Yes. In your brain? Yes. Wow, that's good. That's some like bell hooks level. Yeah, I kind of like that. But I do think it's like, yeah, we are harder to fucking contain if we are all our individual places. And I think that, you know, I'm not saying don't be unified. I'm not saying don't like build coalitions, but like appreciate that. And then all of a sudden, you can't basket us, right? It's like, ah, I wanted to be like the prime minister of New Zealand for a little bit. I'm good with that. I'm done with that. Like, I'm going to move on. It was brave. It was a very brave move for her to do that. And, you know, I actually have this theory, like, I mean, not theory. It's like kind of things I think about when I'm like on my bike or whatever. And I'm sure you get some crazy thinking and done when you are ice climbing because there's nothing else you can do. I mean, you have to focus on what you're doing. But in the moment when you're climbing up, you have all this time and you're blaming people and you have tons of time to think about things. So yes, like I was thinking about how like when the world started, like, you know, when Homo sapiens were figuring out fire and rolling things and rocks and how to like, you know, and then we really needed bigger, stronger people to be able to defend us from bigger threats and whatever. And then, you know, then we kind of go through, you know, the medieval times and then we get the Industrial Revolution and we get like a different, like, the needs of people change when we are in a town where like, I need candles. I can't make candles. Oh, look, there's a candle maker. I'm really good at killing chickens. Like, let's change a chicken for a candle. And then all of a sudden we've got, you know, commerce and we're able to get things that can't do ourselves. And a lot of that stuff was stuff women did. We sewed, we made the quilts, all this labor that's never been appreciated. And as we have become more progressive society, and now we've got the AI of the whole thing, and we don't need to be defended anymore. Men don't need to be the number ones. And in fact, when women are more involved in things, those things get better. Like, you know, women CEOs perform 40% better than male CEOs on the the Fortune 500. So I'm like, wouldn't it be kind of cool if we started a campaign to kind of be like, can we just reverse it for just a bit? Let's just put women in charge just for a bit. Or maybe that's like, it's not natural selection, but that's what evolution is going to do anyway. You know, the adaptations, instead of making it take 200 years for that, let's just do it faster. Yeah. Because it's like how women used to be like 51% of the population, now we're 52%. Like there's just more women. And so I'm like, what if we're just moving towards this? I think about what's happening in Sudan, and maybe you understand what's happening in Sudan better than I do, but because you go to Africa, you've been to Africa, I've never been there, but But it seems like it's just... Fighting for fighting's sake, and I'm sure I'm greatly diminishing what's happening, but it just seems like just some people can't get along, so we're just going to war. And it's like, what is that going to solve? Like any war, what's happening in Ukraine? Like what is that going to solve? Like how cool is power? No, it doesn't. What it does is... Yeah. No, I think it's hugely disturbing to see that we're still in that cycle, right? And that is for me as a mom, where I can get very, very depressed when I think about the world that we're in. It's kind of that humans are bad to each other so easily and so often, and that that hasn't been self-selected out, that there's some trueness in us that means that when pushed too hard, we will become that evil. That's a deep concern that I have that's out there. I feel like that about Trump, right? I feel like that about many things, and you say, no, this is not the yesteryear. This is still there. So, you know, what's wrong with us? What's wrong with us that that's still this latent desire? I remember in college in the late 90s and like, you know, in women's studies classes and whatnot talking about how like, oh, Newt Gingrich and the right, it's just the last gasp of the patriarchy. Remember having these conversations where it's like, they're getting so evil right now because they're trying to burn out. It's like a star at the end of its life. They're just burning out all their shitty ideas and, you know, we're heading towards something better. But let's let these little dumb children, you know, burn out their shitty ideas. But there was an undercurrent of better things happening. Like there's been a lot of progress in the last 40 years. Are we presently in that last gaseous, like them burning themselves out? Because I mean, the stuff with Trump is so bad. It's so bad. It's so awful. Like all of it, all of the... I think that's the real question of this is to say, were we that optimistic that we were further along? Were we so good at kind of taking the wrong data set and believing in it? While in the background, there's this other data set being built that we were ignoring, that we were impervious to. And it goes back to that conversation of when you're suddenly a mom and you're saying, wait a second, there are all these other systems that I didn't realize I was subjected to. And it's that at a societal level to say, how is it possible that what is happening in the Supreme Court is happening in the Supreme Court right now? And is it because we were obtuse to seeing it or because there's a shift or like you're saying because it's this last gasp? And I think that there is such a reckoning that our generation and the next generations need to have that. I mean, I just thought, our moms, they crushed it. And that generation, they made it happen. But if you actually go back and you look at stuff that about when, you know, we're trying to get the equal rights amendment and the fact that it couldn't happen and why it went down, I mean, that was in our lifetimes. Like at the very beginning of it, but it was in our lifetime. I think we were painting a picture that was better than it really was. Well, especially when you look back at history and you realize there's been bad Supreme Court since 1827. There was a scandal where like, you know, Haas, you know, blah, blah, blah. There's always these like, and then you kind of have to go back to remind yourself that America is this democratic experiment. Like the way America happened, nothing else has happened that way. And the garden hasn't been tended to very well. But I feel like if you look through history, there's a cycle. It's like, it gets really fucking terrible, and then it gets great, and then it gets really fucking terrible, and then it gets great. And I wish we could look at those patterns a little bit closer and realize it's usually when Democrats are in charge that things have felt good. But that's my own bias showing. Yeah. Well, I'm ready for things to feel a little greater. Like I said, I think there's a lot of work to be done. And I think it's daunting because I think that a lot of us have been been able to have all these alternative careers and do these because you're like, oh, there's a space, I can go do that. And I don't have to just put my head down and make this other thing happen. And actually, I think that we left some things untended to that turn out to need a lot. I mean, I'm on the school board here in Jackson, New Hampshire, and we have an open school board seat and no one wants to take it. You're like civil society works when people show up, you can't just step away from it. You can be frustrated with it. And that blows me away. Wait, no one wants to be on the school board? Yeah. No one ran, it's a publicly elected position and no one ran for the additional position than we've been saying at school board level. Like, hey, we need a person. There's a space right here. Like now that it's out of election cycle, we, you know, someone can volunteer. But that's surprising to me. That's surprising to me too, especially when like school boards are like the hot place to like let your misery shine. And so, and especially being in like, you know, live free or die in New Hampshire, you think there'd be some, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene in training that would kill for that position. Because there's a lot of podcasts. Otherwise we're going to have people moving to Jackson to take a school board seat. Yeah. I know, right? Can you imagine somebody in like Georgia being like, I'm going to go up to New York and make that happen? Okay, well, I could do this all day long. We've been all over the place. It really is. And so, I mean, I feel like to get back to the point of the whole thing is that you are a climber, but this is not a climbing book. It's an amazing trip through the first five, four, what were they at the end of the book? With pregnancy, five and a half years. So from pregnancy to my kids being four and a half. But it still resonates through now. I mean, even having a little bit older kid. It was an amazing tome. We didn't even get to like, relate too much about your husband and the, I guess we did kind of talk a lot about the unfairity of the whole thing, but it does seem like he's okay with it being out in the world. I don't know if my husband would be okay with, well, actually, I don't think he'd care at all and it's fine. And it's not really about him. That's the thing. It's like, it's not really about him. You know, he's not purposefully trying to like force you into a 50s housewife place. You know, he thinks that you're doing it, that you are 50-50. He thinks he's living that. Of like walking in the door at the end of the night and expecting a bourbon and a hot meal on the table. Yeah. Yeah. of. I mean someone has to do it. So what's next for you? So what's next for me is hopefully recording the audiobook for more, which I'm really excited about. You're doing it? I'm hoping, trying to make it happen and getting out in the world. And also Legato just stepped into working in Peru and I get to finally go visit our team in Peru coming up in June, so that'll be really fantastic. And as much as I love doing all the things, I am aware of the irony that having a book be at the final stages and then being in like book tour mode has also really added to my life. And what's next for me is in this next like two-year cycle, really reclaiming some personal space and seeing what the next writing project is. I realize I'm just replacing more with something else, but I'm really curious as to what that's going. To be. That's beautiful. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for this. I think this is amazing. And I have to say this book, I feel like it came into my life at the right time. Like I feel like I needed this book right now, almost like putting my son's childhood or his early years and perspective in a way that I feel like you did it for me. I'm really glad I got to do it with you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thank you, Mary. This has been a total pleasure. Thanks for listening to All Up In My Lady Business, a podcast from a Mary Nisi production. It is written by me, Mary Nisi. It is edited by Amelia Ruby with Softer Sounds. It is recorded at the Toast & Jam offices in Logan Square in Chicago, Illinois. And it is also sometimes, recorded in the attic of my house in Evanston. You can find resources and links from this episode in the show notes at all up in myladybusiness.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, and you did smash that subscribe button and send it to somebody who's ass could be a whole lot wholer. Oh, and also if you're the kind of person that reviews things on the internet, please rate and review us on Apple podcast and Spotify. It really does help people find the show and, Don't forget, whatever you do this week, do it with your whole ass. Thanks for listening! Music.