Latest / The Curve / RTC88: The cost of having kids (and a life) with Chancè Hindirlane.
Transcript
- 0:00Eve Wellness is on a mission to erase shame surrounding taboo health topics like periods,
- 0:05hormones, sexual and mental well-being.
- 0:08So together we're doing this podcast mini-series all about the cost of being a woman.
- 0:13By opening up conversations like this one, we hope to bring these topics out of the
- 0:17shadows and into the light.
- 0:19We want to really dissolve the stigma and create a space for open and powered discussions
- 0:24around what it means and what it actually costs to be a woman.
- 0:28Eve's products are super high quality.
- 0:30They're some of our absolute favourites.
- 0:32They've got dosages and forms that match scientific studies, which basically means that they work.
- 0:38If you'd like to find out more, you can head to Eve Wellness.com.
- 0:41And if you would like to get a cheeky 15% off, then you can use our code Curve.
- 0:47C-U-R-V-E.
- 0:50Welcome to Raising the Curve.
- 0:52A podcast designed to teach you everything you need to know to be better with your money.
- 0:56In the wise words of Amy Schumer, we're slipping carrots into the brownie recipe.
- 1:01I don't really get the saying.
- 1:03It's kind of like eating vegetables that actually taste good.
- 1:06You know, I'm like, still not ready to eat.
- 1:08Are you on the script?
- 1:10That's basically like saying, investing in finance can be boring as
- 1:14but it totally doesn't need to be here.
- 1:16Okay, okay.
- 1:18So we're making it fun by putting the carrot.
- 1:20Okay, the vegetables are just good for you.
- 1:22It's the brownie recipe.
- 1:24Okay, we got there, we got there, okay.
- 1:25Well, you've really got a finance way.
- 1:28Yeah, one of us has to.
- 1:30This is a joke.
- 1:30Okay, come and learn alongside me from Vick Harris, ex-fun manager.
- 1:34Well, I'm going to ask all the questions that you wish you could.
- 1:37And I'm going to be eating all the brownie you wish you could.
- 1:40No, it's so not the joke, Vick!
- 1:43Okay, just come and talk and learn and laugh with us.
- 1:45Because together, we really can raise the curve.
- 1:50So our next guest, gosh, she was cool.
- 1:54As soon as we saw her pop up on the video, I thought,
- 1:57you know, someone just gives out this amazing aura.
- 2:00Like, beautiful energy.
- 2:01Oh, yeah.
- 2:02So Shantzai Hindalane is originally she's from Congo in Africa,
- 2:07and she's now living in the States.
- 2:08And she has become a viral sensation.
- 2:11Yeah, and that was all because she was getting an ultra-sounds
- 2:14and she found out she was having twins.
- 2:16Was that the one that went viral?
- 2:18Yeah, and she was like, oh gosh, oh gosh.
- 2:21And she, yeah, because she had a five-month-old, I think,
- 2:24roughly a five-month-old.
- 2:25And then she found out she was pregnant with twins.
- 2:27And she was like, oh my goodness.
- 2:29Actually, let's play a little snippet of that.
- 2:31Yeah.
- 2:33What, you have twins?
- 2:35I'm sorry, what?
- 2:36You have twins.
- 2:37I'm sorry, what?
- 2:38So like two of them, there are two beings.
- 2:41At the same time, at the same time.
- 2:44I even push them at the same time.
- 2:47Honestly, the other thing that's gone viral recently,
- 2:49another one of her videos is actually
- 2:52when she talks about how the village is no longer free.
- 2:54Yes.
- 2:55And what she's talking about is because she's African
- 2:58and she's grown up in a world where there's
- 3:00maids and there's cleaners and there's houses and yeah.
- 3:03And it's just normal.
- 3:05You have a village to help raise kids.
- 3:07And now that she's living in the States,
- 3:08she's like, oh, where's the village?
- 3:11And she sees a lot of women struggling to do it themselves
- 3:14or do it with a partner and she's like,
- 3:17yeah, everyone needs a village,
- 3:18but the village costs so much.
- 3:20Yeah, they actually play some as quite good.
- 3:22We need to start telling future mothers
- 3:24to financially plan ahead for their village.
- 3:26We need to make sure they understand
- 3:27a free village is no longer realistic,
- 3:29but it does not mean they're supposed to be doing this alone.
- 3:33I just love how she's bringing a completely
- 3:35different perspective to motherhood
- 3:37and rather than gilting women into thinking that
- 3:40they're a failure if they can't do everything.
- 3:43She's actually saying the total opposite.
- 3:44Yeah, do what you need to.
- 3:47Survive and be happy and have good mental health
- 3:51and all of that.
- 3:52She's like, don't be afraid or ashamed to ask for help
- 3:56and realise that we've all been brought up with villages.
- 3:58So everyone needs a village.
- 4:00Everyone needs a village.
- 4:01So we're not going to ramble too much longer,
- 4:03but this is an amazing episode.
- 4:05Actually, at the very end,
- 4:06when you start talking about diaries and stuff,
- 4:09that's blew my mind.
- 4:10Yes, so listen to the end.
- 4:11Yeah, as you always will.
- 4:14Yeah, Sean, say thank you so much for joining us.
- 4:16Yeah, thank you.
- 4:17Really amazing to have you on
- 4:18and we can't wait to get stuck
- 4:19and there's so many questions we want to ask you.
- 4:21Well, thank you for having me.
- 4:22I'm excited to get into it.
- 4:24Basically, what happened was we came across
- 4:25the online viral video.
- 4:27I think what was really refreshing about that
- 4:30is that a lot of us, like, I mean,
- 4:32for example, I've spent a very small amount of time
- 4:35in villages and countries where that phrase of
- 4:39raising a family takes a village
- 4:41is still actually really evident.
- 4:43But for most of the Western world,
- 4:45that's kind of just a saying that people throw around.
- 4:47Yeah, so can we just start there
- 4:50with you explaining your thoughts, feelings,
- 4:52and kind of like how and why that video was such a hit?
- 4:56I think it's so funny when we say it takes a village
- 4:59and it's a conversation I talk about all the time
- 5:01and it can be very triggering.
- 5:02When I people say it takes a village,
- 5:04I grew up in Africa.
- 5:05I was born and raised in Congo.
- 5:07I have the most stylish beautiful mom on the planet.
- 5:10My mom used to wake up and she has the stunning dresses,
- 5:14and she has 12 kids.
- 5:16So to me, I'm like, lady, are you a magician?
- 5:18How do you do this?
- 5:19And growing up, it didn't hit me.
- 5:21That one, I had in Annie.
- 5:24I had a sitter, like literally,
- 5:26an Annie and a sitter.
- 5:27We had someone who drove us to school.
- 5:29We had cooks, we had maids.
- 5:31And this is pretty typical in a lot of African countries.
- 5:33Now, they were paid not always.
- 5:36But even the most average household is going to have that.
- 5:39After my mom has kids,
- 5:40she has this huge party the next day
- 5:43where she's like dressed,
- 5:44but she's not the one necessarily taking care of the baby
- 5:47besides breastfeeding, someone else's.
- 5:49So my mom had this huge village,
- 5:52but some of it wasn't free, too.
- 5:55Yeah, she had aunt and who would come in for the first few weeks,
- 5:58but then they would leave.
- 5:59But the people who are constantly there,
- 6:01they were a part of her village,
- 6:03were the nannies, they were the cooks,
- 6:04they were the maids,
- 6:05they were the people helping her raise us.
- 6:07So when I moved to the US and I had my first baby,
- 6:10my husband and I are these newly married couple
- 6:14super excited to finally have kids.
- 6:16And my mom leaves, goes back to Canada as one does.
- 6:20And now it's just me,
- 6:21my husband goes back to work because in the US,
- 6:23we don't really get paternal relief.
- 6:26And I'm a new mom, I'm young, I'm confused,
- 6:29and I am looking around for friends.
- 6:31My friends are also young in their, you know, mid-20s.
- 6:34They're out, living their 20s life as they should be.
- 6:38I'm looking for a community.
- 6:39I even went on Facebook.
- 6:40I went on this app, Pena to get mom friends.
- 6:43I'm looking on social media for anything.
- 6:46Like, how do I do this?
- 6:48Like, I'm calling my pediatrician like,
- 6:50hey, I'm a kid burped because I don't care.
- 6:51Like, there's just no help.
- 6:53It was like, I am a dying,
- 6:55I'm a dying, I'm literally like,
- 6:57hey, it burps a lot.
- 6:58Is this normal?
- 6:59I feel like I'm doing this by myself.
- 7:04And when I got pregnant like five months later with twins
- 7:07and how to be stopped,
- 7:09we have to just don't forget because we did say this video as well.
- 7:12Literally, find out I'm pregnant
- 7:14and then I find that I'm in twins within a day.
- 7:16So we're freaking out.
- 7:18And then about five weeks later, they're like,
- 7:20oh yeah, it's a high risk pregnancy.
- 7:21You need to be in the hospital almost every single day.
- 7:24We have no help my husband is working.
- 7:27At this point, I'm like, no one in our family
- 7:29can take of time to be with my five-month-old.
- 7:33We start looking at daycares.
- 7:34We start looking for a nanny.
- 7:36We're starting to now look for other things.
- 7:38There's no guides.
- 7:39I'm feeling guilty because I'm supposed to do this by myself.
- 7:43After all, I'm a mom.
- 7:44This is my job.
- 7:45I'm a stay-at-home mom like that.
- 7:47And as I stay at home mom,
- 7:48you're a job to take care of everything.
- 7:50I'm supposed to have food ready, house clean,
- 7:53baby taken care of.
- 7:54That's what it seems I'm supposed to do.
- 7:56That's what I see on social media.
- 7:59The moms baking with their kids every day.
- 8:01I don't even like cooking.
- 8:03So I'm like, I don't understand what's going on.
- 8:06And this is when I finally decided,
- 8:08you know what, maybe there's supposed to be
- 8:10a different way of doing these things.
- 8:11Maybe I'm not supposed to do it all.
- 8:14My husband was like, you're not happy.
- 8:15You're not, this is not working for you.
- 8:17We need to outsource.
- 8:19And that's the first time I thought about outsourcing.
- 8:21I'm like, what does that even look like?
- 8:23And we got a nanny.
- 8:25And then it hit me that maybe my village
- 8:28is not necessarily my mom taking off work for months
- 8:31because she can't.
- 8:32She has a job.
- 8:33When I outsource, when I sometimes go
- 8:36instead of going to the groceries and I do Instacart,
- 8:39I give to spend an extra hour at home.
- 8:41All of that stuff is an extra hand
- 8:44that's supposed to help me through this process.
- 8:46And that's where I was like, you know what?
- 8:49I'm not going to be telling my sibling,
- 8:51I have a lot of younger sisters.
- 8:52Did you say you were one of 12?
- 8:54Yeah, we have quite a better siblings.
- 8:56Yeah, I'm not going to be telling them,
- 8:58hey, I think you have a baby.
- 8:59There's just going to be this village
- 9:01just going to come and help you.
- 9:02But I do tell them like, hey, I think you have a baby.
- 9:04You and your partner should really consider
- 9:07what it's going to look like after having a baby.
- 9:09So that's when I started telling my siblings like,
- 9:11yeah, this is really what is going to get you
- 9:13to a point of enjoying motherhood.
- 9:15I'm not saying it's necessary,
- 9:17but I'm saying it will get you to a point
- 9:19to enjoy this journey.
- 9:21I would love to know in Congo,
- 9:23the idea of what that village looked like
- 9:26and how everybody can afford that kind of a village
- 9:31because I mean, it was my perception
- 9:33that to be able to afford a witness and a nanny
- 9:36and a housekeeper and all those things
- 9:38was really expensive.
- 9:39So how is it just normalized?
- 9:41I think a lot of people
- 9:42is from what I saw how to live in nannies.
- 9:44Like, I think growing up we had a living nanny.
- 9:46Even though I did grow up in a different class,
- 9:48even people in a lower class middle class growing up in Congo,
- 9:52I don't remember seeing a mom just having kids
- 9:54and doing it on their own.
- 9:55Like, I can have my sister had a baby.
- 9:57I might be like, hey, I have a daughter who's like 19.
- 10:00She's sitting at home.
- 10:01She's not married because that's a big thing.
- 10:03She's not doing anything if you pay her.
- 10:06She's not married.
- 10:07I hear she's not doing anything.
- 10:09I'm like, she ain't got a man.
- 10:10So she's just married for anything.
- 10:12Yeah.
- 10:14Just collecting dust.
- 10:17Just what does she think she's doing with her life?
- 10:21If you bring her to your house,
- 10:23like pay her school fees, bring her to the city,
- 10:26like that type of inner, like that's kind of how it is.
- 10:29Which I guess really mean that village was never free.
- 10:32Yeah.
- 10:32Because it was never free.
- 10:34Not really.
- 10:35It was like an exchange.
- 10:36I think you got romanticized into free labor,
- 10:39which I personally also have a huge issue with
- 10:42because I'm like, it shouldn't be free for so many reasons.
- 10:45And it's like, it takes a village to raise a child,
- 10:47but really it takes like a lot of money to raise a child,
- 10:51which then can pay for the village.
- 10:53And I guess how would you, what tips would you give
- 10:56to families or women heating into motherhoods?
- 11:00Because this all sounds amazing,
- 11:02but it also sounds expensive,
- 11:03whether you're in Africa or in the US or in New Zealand
- 11:05or anywhere in the world,
- 11:07to have that enjoyment of motherhood costs a lot.
- 11:11I think I've talked about this before,
- 11:13but I would say start where you are.
- 11:16I didn't start having a 30 hour a week nanny.
- 11:19I started with two hours a day,
- 11:22because that's all I could afford.
- 11:24I really liked my clothes.
- 11:26I like buying clothes, I like shopping.
- 11:29But I'm like, yeah, that's a good to pleasure.
- 11:31But there was a time where my husband and I had to
- 11:33sit down and prioritize.
- 11:34And yeah, maybe we don't go on as many dates this week
- 11:38or maybe I don't eat out as much this week,
- 11:40because I want to make sure I have a little bit
- 11:42on the side for my nanny for my sitter.
- 11:44Let's say you don't have that $40 an hour to pay
- 11:48a full-time nanny with an agency,
- 11:51but you have two kids and you want help for just
- 11:54let's a two hours so you can leave, go on a walk,
- 11:58do whatever you might do.
- 11:59Then use different reputable sources.
- 12:02Facebook is incredible.
- 12:04The mom groups on there,
- 12:06when I couldn't afford a nanny who all she did was nanny,
- 12:10I found moms who were looking to make
- 12:12a little extra cash on the side.
- 12:15I would say start where you are.
- 12:17Figure out where you can compromise in your life,
- 12:21because I do think it can sound
- 12:23like it's so much more expensive than it is.
- 12:25Because yeah, maybe $30 an hour seems like a lot of money,
- 12:29but what if it was just for that one hour a week?
- 12:31If you were still a home mom right now
- 12:33who feels like you don't even get an hour to take a shower
- 12:36and hour to run with Starbucks by yourself,
- 12:38that's $30 an hour that you give to this one nanny,
- 12:42a week or this one sitter,
- 12:44that could be the start of you finding independence.
- 12:47Yeah, we always talk about money diaries
- 12:50and when people are feeling a bit stressed
- 12:52and they're like, we can cut back on spending.
- 12:54It's like, well, write down how, when you spend things,
- 12:56how it makes you feel.
- 12:58I think that's a really good point is that
- 13:00that $30 could be game-changing for your mental,
- 13:04healthy relationship, your physical heart, everything.
- 13:07Like if you could get an hour a week even.
- 13:10Do you know what I don't understand though,
- 13:11is well, we always expected to do it all over again.
- 13:15You know, because I kind of was under the impression,
- 13:18this might sound super naive,
- 13:19but I was under the impression that, you know,
- 13:21months, three generations ago were just doing everything
- 13:24and that they were expected to do the housework
- 13:26and the cooking and the nanny-ing.
- 13:28And we're just the complaining nation.
- 13:29I'm like, after the confusion.
- 13:31Generation that's, yeah.
- 13:32Or did they always just have help?
- 13:34Like, what?
- 13:35It's crazy because the help was like hidden.
- 13:38Because like on TV, on the movies,
- 13:40you can remember the old movies
- 13:42where the ladies, the husbands would come home
- 13:44and she's like in a nice dress.
- 13:46It's like, here's a pie darling, I've made cherry pie.
- 13:49Oh, they make my skin crawl.
- 13:51I'm like, oh.
- 13:52You ever see the kids around?
- 13:53The kids are not around.
- 13:54They don't show us a clip of who the hell's watching the kids.
- 13:57Because it's like, you see her as she's like here darling,
- 14:01here's who.
- 14:02And I'm like, babe, where is your toddler?
- 14:05Yeah.
- 14:06Also, do you remember, you know those videos
- 14:08that are like, what do you think she's getting
- 14:10when he marries me?
- 14:10And it's like, her walking in with this like,
- 14:12silly key dress, like, I'm so, huh?
- 14:14I'm so put together and then it's like,
- 14:17they've got a vacuum cleaner,
- 14:18what you're actually getting,
- 14:19it's like pimple cream everywhere, like, hair roll.
- 14:21And it's just like, we've been massively fucked over
- 14:24by the time my boyfriend has two girlfriends
- 14:26and it's like this one and the other one.
- 14:28Yeah.
- 14:28Those moments when it's like what he expected
- 14:30by the way he got, they pissed me off.
- 14:33Because I'm like, I'm sorry, it was 2022
- 14:36and you expect to come home.
- 14:38And I mean, if that's your agreement with your wife
- 14:41and that's what she likes, that's how she does things.
- 14:43More power to you, I think it's empowering
- 14:44for a woman to do whatever she wants.
- 14:46And if my want was to be home in a full gown
- 14:50to serve my husband and that's how I want to love him,
- 14:52that's incredible, more power to you.
- 14:53But it's like, if my husband expected that for me,
- 14:56like what he expected versus what he got,
- 14:58meaning like, oh, he expected to come home
- 15:00to a cooked meal and me dress and his kids put together
- 15:05and he just come home and guess to sit on his ass
- 15:07and do nothing.
- 15:08I'm like, sir, if that was your expectation,
- 15:11you got the wrong one.
- 15:13Yeah.
- 15:13There's a breakdown in communication.
- 15:15We love each other somewhere.
- 15:17Oh my God, I just love the use of the word sir and that's it.
- 15:20It's like you got the wrong one
- 15:22because what do you think I do all day?
- 15:24Oh, also when it's like, oh, well, I must say at home mom,
- 15:28so like, what else am I supposed to be doing all day?
- 15:29Why do you think that financial planning then
- 15:34has kind of been left out of the conversation
- 15:37when starting a family?
- 15:38Why are we not taught about that?
- 15:40And also, why is it not encouraged?
- 15:43Yeah.
- 15:44You know, it's not like, it's almost like the sense of guilt
- 15:46having to ask for help or pay for help
- 15:49or I'm not around 24, seven.
- 15:51I've got a nanny in a baby bed anyway.
- 15:52Because we've been told, we've been told if, you know,
- 15:54like if you're a good mom, you give it all up for your kids.
- 15:56Yeah.
- 15:57Like a good mom is completely selfless.
- 15:59But like, I'd be if absolutely shocking mom
- 16:02if I was pouring from an empty cup every day.
- 16:05When it comes to motherhood,
- 16:06a lot of people want to romanticize it.
- 16:08We want women to keep having kids.
- 16:10We don't want to tell them, hey, he didn't money to do it.
- 16:12That conversation should be had.
- 16:14It should be had.
- 16:15And it's almost this guilt thing
- 16:17that people feel very attacked when you say,
- 16:20you should try planning.
- 16:23You can't plan pregnancy.
- 16:24I know.
- 16:25Technically, all pregnancies are really just like a,
- 16:27most of them are surprises,
- 16:28unless you're going to like IVF or whatever it may be.
- 16:31So I get it, but we can still plan.
- 16:33And that conversation seems like such a taboo.
- 16:35It's like, well, you're invalidating every woman
- 16:37who just accidentally had a baby or things happen.
- 16:41100% or you're invalidating people
- 16:43that want to stay home who want it and can do everything.
- 16:47Again, I understand.
- 16:48However, let's be serious
- 16:50and look at how many women are suffering
- 16:52from postpartum depression.
- 16:53How many women are sitting at home
- 16:55literally telling you every single day,
- 16:57just go on social media.
- 16:58There are so many women telling us
- 17:01how much motherhood is taking a tone them,
- 17:03but we should talk about it.
- 17:04We should talk about outside of that typical crib, clothes, school.
- 17:09Let's talk about how much is going to cost for you
- 17:11as a black woman to have a safe delivery
- 17:15because you need someone to advocate for you.
- 17:18Let's talk about physical therapy at the end
- 17:21because I had twins and my body wasn't the same.
- 17:24I deserve health after having a kid,
- 17:27but it's expensive in the US.
- 17:29Let's talk about our mental health.
- 17:30That's also expensive, therapy cost,
- 17:32even with insurance.
- 17:34It's expensive.
- 17:35We thought about, okay, for a very long time,
- 17:37I have to take time off.
- 17:39They won't pay me for it.
- 17:40Postpartum care plan so that I have my partner there.
- 17:43All of those things when I sit on my head, that's what I mean.
- 17:45I don't mean like planning,
- 17:46even you can even start before having a kid
- 17:48if you know you're going to.
- 17:49So it's gonna say like wins too early to start.
- 17:52Because I'm feeling really overwhelmed right now
- 17:54to the point that I'm waiting to start some baby funds.
- 17:56Yeah.
- 17:58Don't even have boyfriends, but need baby funds.
- 18:01Honestly, there is no such thing as too early.
- 18:03If you know you have kids, why not?
- 18:05Especially if you have an idea,
- 18:07like I used to say, I want to tell my siblings,
- 18:09I say, what kind of mother do you want to be?
- 18:10And every time I hear, I always hear like,
- 18:13oh, I want to be the mom that like just bakes cookies
- 18:17and goes to Pilates and drives a ranger of,
- 18:20you know, you've seen the videos.
- 18:22And I'm like, that's fantastic.
- 18:23So where are the kids when you're at Pilates?
- 18:26Who's cleaning what you're at Pilates?
- 18:29Oh, I still want to have fun when my husband
- 18:31after having kids.
- 18:31Awesome.
- 18:32Who's going to watch your kids when you go on a date?
- 18:34So think of the mother who lifestyle you want
- 18:36and start preparing for it.
- 18:38I'm kind of want to dig into the motherhood penalty.
- 18:42What about women that want to go back to work
- 18:45or that have taken time out a couple of years,
- 18:47a couple of months, whatever it is, to have children
- 18:50and now have these financial impacts?
- 18:53That's me.
- 18:53That could last forever, you know,
- 18:56well, I guess what advice or what do you think
- 18:59that needs to be put in place to ensure that,
- 19:02you know, we don't have to choose that we can have both
- 19:05what needs to be put in place to give us the options.
- 19:08Well, funny enough is I do it now.
- 19:11I've always done it.
- 19:12I had a very promising career.
- 19:14I love what I did.
- 19:15I went to school.
- 19:16I've been interning since I was like 16.
- 19:20My first internship was in Congress
- 19:22because I saw myself working in Capitol Hill in DC.
- 19:25Like, I loved what I did.
- 19:27Okay, I love my career.
- 19:28And after having kids, I didn't feel like I want to give it up
- 19:31for good.
- 19:31I felt like, okay, what if one day I wake up,
- 19:34my kids are in school and I'm like, yeah,
- 19:36I want to go back and work.
- 19:37So I do something called keeping up with my resume.
- 19:41Did I apply on K being out with the connections,
- 19:42keeping up with my resume?
- 19:44I literally say, keep up with one.
- 19:48What's going on in your industry?
- 19:50So I would look at jobs that I would want in the future.
- 19:53Let's say like I want to be an engineer in the future.
- 19:56And that job requires a certification of some type.
- 20:00As I must say at home, I would say like,
- 20:02hey, babe, we need to invest in this certification for me.
- 20:05So on my resume, it doesn't look like I had three years off.
- 20:08It just looks like I was advancing my career.
- 20:11I was taking different certifications to advance my career.
- 20:15Unfortunately, being a homemaker is not
- 20:18a respectable job in America, which is insane.
- 20:20So I may not be able to put that on my resume,
- 20:22but I can definitely put all the different conferences
- 20:24I attended.
- 20:25I can definitely put on my resume
- 20:27all the different certifications I got while I was staying at home.
- 20:30I try my very best to make sure I'm still
- 20:33marketable in the industry that I worked in.
- 20:36And I think that's something that we should tell women too.
- 20:39Not because it's like, well, I don't trust my husband.
- 20:41What if he stopped taking care of me?
- 20:42I know for a fact, my husband will always take care of me.
- 20:45And if we want to be real, let's also advocate for pre-nubs.
- 20:48Like, what's wrong with pre-nubs?
- 20:50I could pre-nub never heard anybody.
- 20:52Oh, we'll well on both the pre-nubs.
- 20:53Yeah, shit, yeah.
- 20:55Let's advocate for pre-nubs.
- 20:57If I'm taking time out for my career to raise your kids.
- 21:00And you decide you're done.
- 21:02You don't feel like parenting.
- 21:03You don't feel like being married to me anymore.
- 21:04No problem.
- 21:05Make sure that you can still financially support me.
- 21:08Okay, I'm compensated.
- 21:08That you were doing before.
- 21:10That I'm compensated for the work that I've done.
- 21:12Aside from pre-nubs, I guess what in your opinion
- 21:15are other steps that women can take to ensure
- 21:18like financial security when they are taking that break
- 21:20from their careers?
- 21:22I think if you're not taking a break from a career
- 21:24and you feel like you need a little bit more
- 21:26financial security, we can talk about your bank account
- 21:28and how you split your bank account.
- 21:30My opinion, I think what works really great
- 21:32is having a family bank account,
- 21:35a personal bank account, a savings account,
- 21:38and making sure that whoever's working's income,
- 21:40there's a percentage.
- 21:42For example, my husband's working,
- 21:43when he gets paid 40% goes into mine,
- 21:46or 20% goes into mine, 20% goes into his personal,
- 21:49and the rest goes into the family
- 21:51to be split into savings, spending, etc, etc.
- 21:53That's a great way to do it.
- 21:54Yeah, I feel like I may not be working,
- 21:57but I am working.
- 21:58I'm just working from home.
- 21:59So yeah, me and my husband are both getting equal payment
- 22:03from the job he's doing.
- 22:04So he's out working when he gets paid,
- 22:07the 40% is split, 20, 20 between us,
- 22:09and then the rest goes into the family account
- 22:11where you can obviously bills account,
- 22:14savings, etc, etc.
- 22:16But I always have my own money.
- 22:17I like that.
- 22:18Yeah, we're talking offline before this podcast
- 22:21around how, I'm not being listening,
- 22:24but just maybe controlling it must be to be like,
- 22:26here's your allowance and you go, yeah,
- 22:28you go spend that, how you, how do you build up savings
- 22:32and investments if you're not earning?
- 22:35It's like, and it's not like he gets to decide,
- 22:37no, you get paid immediately, 20% goes here,
- 22:4020% goes there, and the rest goes into that.
- 22:42There's no conversation that needs to be had, it's split.
- 22:45And I'm not staying at home, not doing anything.
- 22:47You get to work because I stay home with your kids.
- 22:50You get to focus on advancing your career to where it is today
- 22:53because you know, I got your back
- 22:55because if the rules were reversed, trust and believe,
- 22:58I would be extremely successful in my career.
- 23:00If I knew I had somebody at home handling everything else for me,
- 23:03so it's, you should get compensated.
- 23:05What about if you're not in a relationship?
- 23:08What about for women who want to have babies on their own
- 23:12or don't have a partner?
- 23:14I can't even imagine having to pay for,
- 23:16what are we going to call it?
- 23:18The villains are community.
- 23:19Thank you. Yeah.
- 23:20I can't imagine having to pay for the village
- 23:22if I'm in a relationship, let alone single.
- 23:26Do you have any thoughts on that?
- 23:28Yeah, one of my cousin's best friends in life,
- 23:31she's a single mom.
- 23:32One thing she told me is she just had
- 23:34made a lot of sacrifices on some of the things she wanted
- 23:37to make sure she had the things she needed.
- 23:39Like for example, you know, we talk about outsourcing.
- 23:41She's like, I knew that I could not watch my kid 24-7.
- 23:45It's impossible.
- 23:46So I prioritize a few things, obviously food on the table,
- 23:49a place to live and somebody to watch my kid when I can't.
- 23:53And I think everyone who wants to have a kid they should,
- 23:55I just think we should also be mentally prepared
- 23:57for what that looks like if you have no one helping you.
- 24:00I think you should either invest in someone
- 24:04or help you or be prepared to kind of be slightly
- 24:06overwhelmed for a little while.
- 24:07And it's for a little while.
- 24:09I always say though, we should always prepare
- 24:12to raise our kids by ourselves, even if you have a partner.
- 24:14I agree.
- 24:15Anything can happen.
- 24:16Unfortunately, we don't know what's going to happen
- 24:18tomorrow, knock on good.
- 24:19We're going to leave a long and happy life.
- 24:21My husband, he could need to work away from home
- 24:23for a month, which he has.
- 24:25I like to say to prepare to be a single parent
- 24:28at some point in time, but that's both of us.
- 24:30My husband has been how to prepare to raise those kids
- 24:32without me at some point until I have I.
- 24:34As far as I'm like, yeah, I don't think I'm ever going to not
- 24:37make sure my career stays intact.
- 24:39I'm never going to stop working on my own career.
- 24:42Even if I'm not working, I want to make sure
- 24:44that I have a very strong resume in case this ever time
- 24:47when it's like, hey, yeah, you need to have back
- 24:49on the job market.
- 24:50At the end of the day, you can save all you want,
- 24:54which I think is a huge part of course, saving.
- 24:57But like, it's hard.
- 24:58Like you said, like today, everything is expensive.
- 25:01It's preschool.
- 25:02I can't even talk about preschool.
- 25:03Once you have more than one kid,
- 25:05it's like paying for college.
- 25:06I'm pretty sure my kids preschool costs more
- 25:08than my college did.
- 25:09So school average, nice preschool, like $2,500 a month.
- 25:15And if you have a few kids, you can see why some woman
- 25:18can't, can't even justify staying at home.
- 25:22They have to go back to work to pay that.
- 25:24I don't know, it's just like, but then they're paying
- 25:25for childcare.
- 25:26So there must be a tipping point where you're like,
- 25:27well, I'll just stay at home because what's the point?
- 25:29I think I can afford to have kids.
- 25:31I genuinely don't think I can.
- 25:33I mean, I'm being fully serious.
- 25:36Can anyone really?
- 25:382000 US a month.
- 25:39Like that is, every time my rent goes out, I'm like,
- 25:42oh, imagine that.
- 25:44Right, but double.
- 25:45It's like a mortgage.
- 25:46It's like a mortgage.
- 25:47Okay, so hold on.
- 25:48Let's then talk about how many kids you can actually afford.
- 25:51How would you, in advance?
- 25:54No, okay, I can afford one child or two.
- 25:57Like, yeah, I would say, like, think about the life
- 26:01you want as a mom.
- 26:03That's what you said at the start.
- 26:04No, I like that.
- 26:04And then I did up.
- 26:07Because personally, when my husband and I saw it,
- 26:08we want our kids to have extra critical activities.
- 26:11I want my kids to be confident.
- 26:13And for me, what I learned is building confidence,
- 26:15meaning tries new things.
- 26:17Like, I want my kids to have a really good quality of life.
- 26:20So I want him to have soccer.
- 26:21I want him to have horseback riding.
- 26:23I want him to have, you know, dance, whatever you want
- 26:25to be a part of, add those things up.
- 26:27Cause they add up.
- 26:29Do they need those things?
- 26:31No, but like, I want those things for them.
- 26:33So I might think about it.
- 26:34Like, I have to think about what type of mom do I want to be?
- 26:36I want to be the type of mom that shows up,
- 26:40a ballet practice every single day, that shows up
- 26:43at all the PTA meetings, that shows up in the middle of the school day
- 26:47because they have an event.
- 26:49And for me to be that mom, I need to make sure our home is good.
- 26:54So I know that while I'm at school,
- 26:57during a PTA meeting,
- 26:58somebody has to be here watching the other kids.
- 27:01I want to be the type of mom that primarily focuses
- 27:04on the little things with my kids.
- 27:06Because I grew up, I'm an immigrant child moving to the US.
- 27:09My mom was never there or my aunts,
- 27:12whenever they're at my debate competition,
- 27:14my dance competition, my basketball,
- 27:16my track meet, any hurt?
- 27:18As a kid, I understood they had a work.
- 27:21But still, when you look out in the bleachers
- 27:22and your parents are not there because they're working
- 27:24as a child, you're not thinking,
- 27:25oh, my parents are working to provide you're thinking,
- 27:28no one's here to cheer me on.
- 27:30And I want to be the type of person that
- 27:31a parent who gets to be there every single time
- 27:34because I invested in that.
- 27:36So when you're thinking about how many kids can I afford?
- 27:39Sure, maybe it's just one.
- 27:40Because you don't want to pay for nothing
- 27:42to watch the other kids while you go to the other kids' soccer practice.
- 27:45Or maybe it's two because you want to take both of them.
- 27:48But we stop that for.
- 27:50I mean, that's a lot less than 12.
- 27:52Half, half for it.
- 27:53I mean, we did have the two-per-one special.
- 27:55So like, yeah.
- 27:57I think I'm going to have to have a half.
- 27:58Just two-per-one.
- 28:00I need a torso.
- 28:01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 28:02We definitely got that two-per-one special.
- 28:04I need to cheer a baby.
- 28:06Yeah, okay.
- 28:07Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 28:08That's kind of what it's like having a partner.
- 28:09You just kind of share the kid.
- 28:10Sure. So do you know, I think I'm feeling a bit,
- 28:13I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed.
- 28:14Yeah, I feel sad because I think if I'm being really honest
- 28:17with myself with you with Vic, I don't know
- 28:20if I'll be able to afford the type of lifestyle
- 28:23that I know will make me the best mum I can be.
- 28:26So what kind of advice would you have for people
- 28:28who aren't in a position where either maybe they already have kids
- 28:31and they can't afford help in their struggling?
- 28:34Or they're like, man, they're like, I don't know
- 28:36if I'm going to either be able to get this.
- 28:37I could only afford myself right now.
- 28:39I mean, the line's throwing someone else in there.
- 28:41It feels very, very overwhelming.
- 28:43Yeah.
- 28:44I would say one, they're good breath.
- 28:48Breathe through it.
- 28:49Okay. I needed that.
- 28:52And then I will say, you have to remember that one,
- 28:56you are so much more capable of more than you think.
- 29:00And as hard as parenting is, as crazy as all of these sounds,
- 29:05there comes a point where you find this insane balance
- 29:08and you may come in very different ways.
- 29:11So when I couldn't afford a nanny
- 29:14and my husband and I had twins who were waking up every single night
- 29:20and wouldn't sleep until 3 a.m.
- 29:22We were in a space in our lives where the only time
- 29:25we had time for ourselves is by piggybacking off each other
- 29:29and figuring out where the other person is.
- 29:31I had to find different ways to balance that alone time
- 29:35before I had someone coming in doing it
- 29:37to give me an hour to myself instead of waking up at 6 a.m.
- 29:41to have an extra hour to literally sit and have coffee
- 29:45go on a walk.
- 29:47Sometimes it meant that when the kids map,
- 29:49I left a house dirty so I can nap.
- 29:52You start to find different ways to balance.
- 29:54So yeah, maybe right now you can't afford a nanny,
- 29:56you can't afford a cleaner, you can't afford a cook,
- 29:59you can't afford daycare childcare,
- 30:02but your kids are maybe third toddlers asleep through the night.
- 30:05So you dedicate a 30 minute, you wake up 30 minutes earlier,
- 30:09just 30 minutes so you can sit.
- 30:11You can turn on, you can breathe,
- 30:13you can do something just for you.
- 30:15Maybe that looks like, yeah, when they nap,
- 30:18your house stays a mess.
- 30:21You don't clean up right after, you know, you take a nap too.
- 30:24Personally, I like to clean as I go
- 30:26and I like to involve the little mess makers when I do it.
- 30:29So when we wilder would do it, I'll make it fun.
- 30:33Like maybe you're looking for ways to spend time with your kids
- 30:35because you want that, you involve them in the activities.
- 30:38I involve them in cleaning.
- 30:40So that when they're napping, the house is clean,
- 30:42I can nap.
- 30:43Here's some spray and wipe.
- 30:44Here's a mop.
- 30:45Let's make you the game.
- 30:46There's some skid marks there, please.
- 30:49There you go.
- 30:50You meet yourself where you are and slowly,
- 30:54you start to find ways to incorporate more.
- 30:57When maybe you start saying, okay,
- 30:59I can afford one hour a day, okay, cool.
- 31:02Maybe now I can afford to, but as overwhelming as it is
- 31:06to get to the place where you're like, oh yeah, I'm good.
- 31:09I can now afford 30 hours a week.
- 31:11I can now afford a housekeeper.
- 31:13I can now afford a laundry service.
- 31:15You have to start from somewhere.
- 31:18You reprioritize where your money goes.
- 31:21You allocate time to what matters most to you
- 31:24and you take where you can and you give where you can.
- 31:29Maybe this means you can only give your kids
- 31:31a good 30 minutes of mom time.
- 31:36You start giving and taking where you can
- 31:38and you don't feel guilty about it.
- 31:40You fight that guilty feeling because I deserve 40 minutes
- 31:44to myself a day.
- 31:45And if that means they are sitting up on that screen,
- 31:47then let them and Ms. Rachel have a good time.
- 31:50You're not supposed to be a hundred every day.
- 31:52Learning to apologize to your kids
- 31:54and learning to learn from your mistakes.
- 31:57Because I mean, we all kind of just wing in it.
- 31:59Yeah, there's no rule book.
- 32:02No, I like that that it's all about
- 32:04not feeling guilty as well.
- 32:05Yeah, a lot of just sounds like such an early thing.
- 32:08Mom guilt is the worst.
- 32:10It's so irrational.
- 32:13Well, I just like the way that in general,
- 32:15your whole ethos and the way that you're approaching
- 32:17this conversation is, you know what, like you're human
- 32:20and it's so important and normal to ask for help
- 32:25to also then save to pay for help.
- 32:27Like, I think that they'll not be okay
- 32:29to feel overwhelmed.
- 32:30Like, yeah, just, you seem very...
- 32:33Well, you're just changing the narrative mess of like
- 32:35and I think that, yeah, I think especially when
- 32:37for a long time, we're told that our worth is in being a mother.
- 32:41It then feels like you're abandoning
- 32:43that birthright or that responsibility
- 32:47or your role in a family.
- 32:48But actually, it's changing and adapting.
- 32:50I mean, even today, if you,
- 32:53if you were to read 20% of my comments,
- 32:55it's like, well, what do you do?
- 32:57If you have a nanny, if you have this, what do you do?
- 32:59What is your job? Where do you come in?
- 33:02And it's having that confidence to understand
- 33:03my role as a mom.
- 33:05Man, it goes above and beyond being a housekeeper,
- 33:09a cook and a clean.
- 33:10I'm raising humans.
- 33:12We are shaping and forming minds of little people.
- 33:15Does the role come with cooking and cleaning?
- 33:18Yeah, but the way my husband and I look at it is like,
- 33:21especially when it comes to equal partnership.
- 33:23If it's something that he would have to do,
- 33:24whether or not he had kids, whether or not he had me,
- 33:28then that falls under that equal partnership.
- 33:31Like, that's not my role.
- 33:33That's a house role.
- 33:34If you had a wife or not,
- 33:35you would still need to do the dishes.
- 33:37You would still need to eat.
- 33:39You would still need to scrub the bathrooms,
- 33:40at least I would hope you're doing that.
- 33:41You would still need to do the laundry.
- 33:44So why should that fall on the wife
- 33:46as a stay-at-home mom?
- 33:47Because now you have to go out and work.
- 33:50So do the nine to five thing,
- 33:52where my job starts when he does,
- 33:56in any end, when he gets home.
- 33:58And then we both tackle everything else.
- 34:01Where my job as a stay-at-home mom is a mom.
- 34:05I'm focusing on the mom part, right?
- 34:07Just the kids feeding them, learning with them,
- 34:10taking care of them, spending time with them.
- 34:13And it's like, okay, so I'm not necessarily a stay-at-home maid.
- 34:17I'm not a stay-at-home cook.
- 34:18I'm not a stay-at-home, like, I'm not.
- 34:20I'm a stay-at-home mom.
- 34:21So let me mom.
- 34:22And I know that means different things to everyone.
- 34:25But to me, it means being there for my kids
- 34:28in all the ways that I can.
- 34:29It means learning my kids.
- 34:30I mean, knowing my kids' personality.
- 34:32And that requires spending a lot of time with them.
- 34:34It's so refreshing to hear a different perspective.
- 34:37Like it really is.
- 34:38And also unapologetically, this is the way it should be.
- 34:41So thank you for being such a trailblazer in the space of,
- 34:46yeah, what it means to be a mom
- 34:47and what it looks like to feel independence
- 34:49within what societies told us you should have done.
- 34:53And I think that that's just like,
- 34:55for a lot of women I imagine, whatever their dynamics are,
- 34:59I don't think, even if you're listening to this,
- 35:00you're like, shit.
- 35:02We didn't start the way we now want to continue.
- 35:04You can always turn that around.
- 35:06You can start now.
- 35:07Yeah.
- 35:07You can have conversations now.
- 35:09Even if your kids are 18, you can turn around.
- 35:12Sydney has been this podcast.
- 35:14Yeah.
- 35:14It's like, we get the opportunity to see other things,
- 35:17you know, social media is so cool.
- 35:19We get to see different ways of doing things.
- 35:21We get to pick and choose a dynamic that works for us.
- 35:23Because that's why I started creating content.
- 35:25Because I was like, I don't see someone doing you like this.
- 35:28That's what I want.
- 35:29What I also really like about your content,
- 35:31just as an aside, is that content creators
- 35:34influences whatever we want to call them.
- 35:37I just love when somebody's voices amplified
- 35:41because it started by having something
- 35:44and they wanted to say.
- 35:45Yeah.
- 35:46And not because they looked really sexy in a bikini.
- 35:49Yeah.
- 35:50Right.
- 35:51Or you're like, yeah.
- 35:52Yeah.
- 35:52I just like, I think I'm grateful for social media
- 35:55when people like you come up in the algorithm.
- 35:57I love that.
- 35:58It's important to challenge the way
- 36:00that we've always thought about things,
- 36:02learn how we can do it differently,
- 36:03learn from different cultures and different ways
- 36:05to bring things in the way that things have always been.
- 36:08It doesn't have to be the way they always will be.
- 36:11I literally have my mom who's very African
- 36:13and I send her my videos all the time
- 36:15and like, she will see my husband doing all the things
- 36:17because to them, they don't believe
- 36:18a man should do anything that's how she grew up.
- 36:20I've seen her change her point of view.
- 36:23I've seen her.
- 36:24I've seen her be so proud of the things my husband does
- 36:27and I've seen her start to expect more
- 36:29of some of the other men's in our lives.
- 36:31I've seen her watch videos.
- 36:33I used to send her videos.
- 36:34She thought they were only for her,
- 36:35which is the cutest thing.
- 36:37You're like, no, mom, a few million people have seen those.
- 36:40I'm like, sorry.
- 36:42But she literally is like, oh, I showed these videos to like,
- 36:45she likes to like, she works in the church
- 36:47so like, young woman getting married.
- 36:49She said, oh, I'll show them that.
- 36:51Yeah, they should not expect that.
- 36:52But that comes from the women who are a diary party.
- 36:56My husband picked up a broom to sweep
- 36:59and every single woman in that building
- 37:01lost their mind.
- 37:02They were like, no, why would this man have to do labor?
- 37:05It was hilarious, but I mean, he started there.
- 37:08Sorry, can we just pause for a second?
- 37:10Did you say diary party?
- 37:12I did, yeah.
- 37:13Did you have a diary?
- 37:14I did.
- 37:15Could you just quickly talk to me through that
- 37:17because I thought that was something I only see in Bridgerton?
- 37:20In Bridgerton?
- 37:21No, but like I didn't realize that it was still so prominent.
- 37:24Oh, man.
- 37:25African cultures, most of the ones I know still do diaries,
- 37:28absolutely.
- 37:29And of course, all the different cultures
- 37:31have different reasons why they do the diaries.
- 37:33For us, the diaries started honestly
- 37:35because a woman couldn't have a job.
- 37:36And if you take a woman from her family,
- 37:38whatever lifestyle you bring her into,
- 37:39becomes her lifestyle.
- 37:41So if you as a man could improve that you can maintain
- 37:44or upgrade that woman's life, obviously the appearance
- 37:46and I give in her, do you lack of better words?
- 37:49Because let's say, for example, I'm married to a man
- 37:52who doesn't have a job, that means I don't have a job.
- 37:54That means I don't eat.
- 37:55So not only do you use a diary as a way
- 37:58to think that family for raising the women,
- 38:00but it's also as a way to say, okay,
- 38:02I can actually provide for her.
- 38:04I have income.
- 38:05I have saved up.
- 38:06I am able to take care of your daughter.
- 38:09Here in the US, back in the home,
- 38:11the party will be cows, goats, that's how they pay it.
- 38:14But here, it's transferred into monetary.
- 38:16So like, one cow is a thousand dollars.
- 38:20And the diaries are pretty expensive.
- 38:22Depends on the culture, they could range from like,
- 38:2420K to 200K, it's not small money.
- 38:28It is a lot of money.
- 38:29The families use that money to like plan your party,
- 38:32of course, to buy you things for your home,
- 38:35to kind of like prepare your home.
- 38:37But every time I talk about a diary,
- 38:39you know, Americans are like, oh my God,
- 38:40it's like buying you.
- 38:41I'm like, well, your fiance buys you a $30,000 ring
- 38:46or $5,000 ring, what's the difference?
- 38:48Wait, so do you still think about diaries now
- 38:50that you're married?
- 38:51I mean, do you have a problem with them?
- 38:53Do you totally see and understand them?
- 38:56Honestly, I did one, my husband did one.
- 38:58It is a really big part of my culture.
- 39:00And I am really glad he did it
- 39:02because it just shows his respect.
- 39:04My husband's not Congolese is American.
- 39:06So now, on does he show his respect to my culture?
- 39:08I also understand why my mom would want that.
- 39:10Not only am I marrying a man outside of our culture.
- 39:12She's never met him.
- 39:13She doesn't know any history about him.
- 39:16She, that's what gives her that safety net of saying,
- 39:18okay, that's to her, because you know,
- 39:20that's how she grew up to her.
- 39:21It's like, oh, he paid a diary.
- 39:23This man is serious about my daughter.
- 39:26This man is showing not only that he can provide for my daughter,
- 39:29that he knows that my daughter is worth working hard,
- 39:33saving for and providing that proof, really,
- 39:35because like, put your money where your mouth is.
- 39:37That's really how they see it.
- 39:39So sorry, does he pay, does he pay your mom
- 39:41and your mom also pays him?
- 39:43Is it, does it go otherwise?
- 39:44Or it's just him too?
- 39:46Him, yeah, because I mean, I'm not being taken,
- 39:49I mean, he's not being taken from his home.
- 39:51I got taken from my home.
- 39:52I'm not going to, he's not going to be the one
- 39:54that's like giving up his career.
- 39:56It's going to be most likely me.
- 39:58It's another way of making sure your daughter is safe.
- 40:00Some families save the diary for their daughters.
- 40:03So if he was to leave whatever I have that diary
- 40:06to take care of me, if he stops, some cultures do that.
- 40:09Some cultures use their money to plan the party,
- 40:12buy them furniture for their home,
- 40:15make sure she's coming into the home prepared and ready,
- 40:18put a down payment on her home,
- 40:19it just depends on the culture
- 40:21and how they want to prepare you for marriage.
- 40:23And I have daughters, of course.
- 40:27So we've talked about it.
- 40:28And I will absolutely tell them about the diary.
- 40:30I will tell them why we did it.
- 40:32The only difference is I will enforce it on them.
- 40:34If they don't feel like practicing, that's fine.
- 40:36Will I ask them to, no, but I will tell them why we did it
- 40:39and why I think it's so important,
- 40:40because it is a big part of our culture.
- 40:42And if they marry someone that's African,
- 40:45it won't be too hard.
- 40:46They're most likely to do it anyways.
- 40:48But if they don't want to,
- 40:50and they're like, I don't want to participate, that's fine.
- 40:52And if my sons don't want a pair of diary, that's fine too.
- 40:55But I will tell them why we pay him.
- 40:56I will tell him why they're there
- 40:58and I will tell him why my husband did it.
- 40:59And he'll probably tell him why he did it too.
- 41:01I feel like it's definitely something
- 41:03I'd like to learn more about,
- 41:04because maybe now, maybe now is not the time,
- 41:08but I definitely, it's interesting to me that for you,
- 41:11you're not like, oh yeah, I've been born.
- 41:13You know, like that for you,
- 41:15you're like, no, this is part of my culture
- 41:16and it's something I respect.
- 41:17Yeah, because it's like anyone,
- 41:19I could say that about American women,
- 41:21like he buys you with a ring.
- 41:23Yeah, no, no, true.
- 41:24I think that's a really good comparison.
- 41:25Yeah, I'm saying, yeah, because it's like,
- 41:27rings cost thousands of dollars too.
- 41:29And a lot of people are like,
- 41:31I wouldn't be married without a ring.
- 41:33Like, of course not.
- 41:34I've never thought of it like that,
- 41:35but I think it's so, it's so terms exactly the same.
- 41:38Yeah, you could say it's just a different form of a diary,
- 41:41because like, if you ask an American,
- 41:43what does the ring symbolize?
- 41:44Most people can't tell me.
- 41:46We've had this conversation about who should pay for the ring.
- 41:48Like, is it a shit?
- 41:49Well, that's an interesting one,
- 41:50because it's like, why should it pay really up to the guy?
- 41:53Well, I mean, me, the way I grew up,
- 41:55the way we think about it,
- 41:57just statistically speaking,
- 41:59who is going to gain more from being married
- 42:01are women of the men.
- 42:03And I'm not talking about what society
- 42:04want to tell us, the reality of it.
- 42:06Who gains more?
- 42:07It will always be the men.
- 42:08It will always be the men.
- 42:11Who stands to lose more in a marriage?
- 42:14It will always be the women.
- 42:15And that's not to say,
- 42:16oh, well, it's just a fact.
- 42:18Like, no matter how equal of a partner you have,
- 42:23he's never going to have to give up his boobs to breastfeed.
- 42:26He's never going to have to carry the babies.
- 42:28My husband is incredible.
- 42:30I couldn't ask for a better equal partner.
- 42:31And honestly, if he could do what he would,
- 42:34but he can't.
- 42:34He biologically cannot carry my kids for me.
- 42:37So yeah, at some point in time,
- 42:38I have to put my body in danger.
- 42:40And yeah, being pregnant is more dangerous
- 42:42than like 80% of the jobs you could do in the world.
- 42:45At some point in time,
- 42:46I have to give up my career.
- 42:48At the end of the day, he gains more from marrying me
- 42:52than sometimes I would gain from marrying him.
- 42:54If he stays single, never has kids, perfectly cool.
- 42:57His life won't change so much.
- 42:59If I stayed single, never had kids,
- 43:01are you kidding?
- 43:02I will be leaving a completely different life right now.
- 43:03So why should I also be the one that pays for a ring?
- 43:08I'm not marrying you, you're marrying me.
- 43:10Same thing with a diary.
- 43:11I even leave a thought about it like that,
- 43:13Iva, and it's actually super interesting.
- 43:15And I love, or even just all the small things
- 43:18that you pointed out, even just around boobs and body
- 43:21and the danger of being like,
- 43:22that I'd never thought of that.
- 43:24Because you kind of just take it as a given.
- 43:25Well, they can't do it.
- 43:27I have to.
- 43:27So, but no, it's like think about all of it.
- 43:31And if you were to try to put that in a monetary form,
- 43:33you could not.
- 43:34No, you could try.
- 43:35Because I have.
- 43:36You could try.
- 43:37I beat you head.
- 43:38Look, you got that, how much it costs to have a surrogate.
- 43:41Yeah, true.
- 43:41That's a hundred K, easy.
- 43:43Give me a ring for a hundred K.
- 43:45I'm all the fly that by four kids.
- 43:47So, yeah, $400,000, thank you.
- 43:50You know how many men I want to be a father?
- 43:53I want to be a father.
- 43:54I want my legacy.
- 43:55Well, that's going to cost you that fantastic, fantastic.
- 43:59But can you afford a legacy?
- 44:01Because I'm expensive.
- 44:02This one is an expensive one.
- 44:04Try buying one.
- 44:05I swear, honestly, when people try to like downplay
- 44:09what I do as a stay at home mom,
- 44:11or what it means to be a mother,
- 44:13what it means to be a married woman,
- 44:15I'm like, try it.
- 44:16I gain a lot from having my husband a hundred percent.
- 44:19I know that.
- 44:20He's an incredible man.
- 44:22But him having me, yeah, he also gains a shit ton,
- 44:26especially in society.
- 44:28So, yeah, buy that ring.
- 44:30Go ahead, spend that money.
- 44:31Take that down.
- 44:33We should pay for that.
- 44:36I love it.
- 44:38And I don't feel guilty about it.
- 44:39I'm so here for those.
- 44:41Yeah, I know.
- 44:42I really want to be like, it's changed my perspective so much.
- 44:45Yeah.
- 44:46I was like, Darius, and when you're being bought,
- 44:48and like not negative, just misunderstood.
- 44:51And honestly, when people tell me that they're like,
- 44:53that's not like a being bought, I'm like,
- 44:54couldn't afford me.
- 44:56So, no, you cannot pay for the companionship.
- 45:00You can't, and I don't get me wrong this the same way,
- 45:02either way around, I cannot pay for the companionship.
- 45:04But that piece that comes to going to work,
- 45:07knowing your kids are good,
- 45:10knowing they're taking care of their loved.
- 45:13You can't pay for that.
- 45:14You can have a nanny.
- 45:15But when you have a nanny, you're on call.
- 45:17Anything happened, it's still you.
- 45:20If the school calls, it's still you.
- 45:22But right now, my kid needs to come home early
- 45:24from school, they'll call me, right?
- 45:26Having that piece of mind is what allows him to go to work,
- 45:30focus on his career, advance in career.
- 45:32All of that, priceless.
- 45:34Because you are going to make more money.
- 45:36Man, who are married, make more money,
- 45:38leave longer, are happier, have better lives.
- 45:41You know your shirt, don't you?
- 45:42Yeah. I love how much you've thought about this.
- 45:44Every time we ask you a question,
- 45:45I wonder where she'll say to this.
- 45:47I mean, no, no, she's thought about it.
- 45:49Yeah.
- 45:50I have too many younger sisters.
- 45:51We talk about this way too much.
- 45:53And I'm clearly a little too passionate about it.
- 45:55So, yeah, that's great.
- 45:56It's so important.
- 45:57Such good energy, thank you.
- 45:58I also just think it's really cool that it comes
- 46:02from someone that's from a completely different part
- 46:04of the world to us,
- 46:05and has a completely different experience
- 46:08of being in a dynamic of a mother or father in kids.
- 46:11And also, I think the coolest part of the whole thing as well
- 46:14is that even, you know,
- 46:16it's not like your mum modeled this to you either.
- 46:18This is just something that you're like,
- 46:19hang on a bloody second.
- 46:21Yeah.
- 46:22This isn't right.
- 46:23And I'm actually going to talk about it.
- 46:24And I don't care if I'm public.
- 46:25I'm going to actually, I'm probably going to get lots
- 46:27of people telling me I'm being lazy,
- 46:29or the name like blah, blah, blah.
- 46:30It's like you actually know.
- 46:32Yeah.
- 46:33It's it's honestly so empowering.
- 46:35And we definitely have a challenge in that.
- 46:37The set of core of my family too,
- 46:38because African culture men are not supposed
- 46:41to do a lot of those things.
- 46:44I think in the African culture for the most part,
- 46:47the idea of a provider is he goes home, makes money.
- 46:50And that's in a lot of culture, honestly,
- 46:52brings home the bacon for say, and that's it.
- 46:54The only difference for the most part,
- 46:56African men also understand that a lot of the time
- 46:58we need mannies, we need housekeepers.
- 47:00US men don't get that part from what I've gathered,
- 47:04because when I post about having a maid or a cleaner,
- 47:07a lot of the men that get mad at me
- 47:09are like American men because they're like,
- 47:11then why does he have a stay-at-home mom?
- 47:14Yeah.
- 47:15My husband literally has had to go on my page
- 47:17and make videos and be like, she's a stay-at-home mom.
- 47:21Not my maid, not my cleaner.
- 47:24Oh my god, she probably needs to do that.
- 47:26He still has to do that.
- 47:27But a lot of African men I think in our culture
- 47:29don't understand that.
- 47:30But here in the US, it's like a stay-at-home mom,
- 47:33it's almost like having your built in everything.
- 47:35And that's why I'm really excited to have kids in the US
- 47:38who are being raised in a different way,
- 47:39who can see different ways of doing things.
- 47:42I actually started posting my vlogs
- 47:45because I wanted to have videos of me going through motherhood
- 47:48and saving them for when my kids grow up,
- 47:50so they can look at how I balance things,
- 47:52what I struggled with, and how I came through it.
- 47:54So I'm really excited to have that for my daughters
- 47:56and my sons to see.
- 47:58And it's gonna be one of those things where,
- 47:59hopefully they don't have to go through what I went through
- 48:01at the beginning to find that balance.
- 48:04But at the time, my daughters have kids,
- 48:06they don't have to feel guilty for having an Annie.
- 48:09It's just life.
- 48:11By the time my daughters have kids,
- 48:14I hope they don't have to expect a man
- 48:17to just bring home the beacon
- 48:19and that's him being an equal partner.
- 48:21Well, I hope we're not even having this conversation.
- 48:23I meant at that point, you know?
- 48:24All of our content pages will be very irrelevant.
- 48:27Yes, our business will be down the drain.
- 48:28Our business will be down the drain.
- 48:29Your content will not not matter anymore.
- 48:31Yes.
- 48:32And we want to progress, and it'll be great.
- 48:34I really hope that, I really do.
- 48:36I really hope that we've progressed enough
- 48:39to where we don't have to advocate for, you know,
- 48:42equal partnership,
- 48:43well, that's just the norm.
- 48:45Yeah, there were dreams to come true.
- 48:47I'm so true.
- 48:48But we just wanted to say a big thank you
- 48:49that's been the most amazing insightful chair
- 48:53and we could have talked for hours and hours.
- 48:55I just appreciate you actually doing the brain work
- 48:58because I don't think it would have come
- 49:00to that conclusion on my own, honestly.
- 49:02It's just so refreshing.
- 49:03It's like, it was overwhelming,
- 49:04but then it was like so easy, actually.
- 49:07It makes me feel like I'm worth more.
- 49:09I feel more expensive for some reason.
- 49:10So same.
- 49:11And you are.
- 49:12Because like put a price tag on it and you couldn't.
- 49:14And you are.
- 49:15Yes, shake it.
- 49:16I've got so, if I had a hundred kids,
- 49:19that's a million dollars that I've made out of my womb.
- 49:22Oh gosh, your womb?
- 49:24I would have probably no vagina left.
- 49:27Come on.
- 49:29And on that energetic number.
- 49:32But thank you so much for your time.
- 49:34And yeah, no, it was so great to have you on.
- 49:36So thank you so much.
- 49:37Thank you.
- 49:39Thank you so much for listening to Raising the Curve.
- 49:42These conversations are designed to teach you everything
- 49:44that you need to know to be better with your money,
- 49:46from saving, to investing, to talking to your friends
- 49:49about your salaries.
- 49:50And if you'd liked what you heard, we would love it.
- 49:53If you could hit subscribe button, please.
- 49:55He's a better yet.
- 49:56Leave a review.
- 49:57It'll only take five seconds.
- 49:59And it would really make our week.
- 50:01Oh yeah, our month.
- 50:02OK, lots of love.
- 50:03See you soon.
- 50:04Bye.
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