Latest / Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD / Puberty, Postpartum, and Adaptation with Lauren Fleshman and Molly Huddle

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Puberty, Postpartum, and Adaptation with Lauren Fleshman and Molly Huddle · Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to parent Data by Emily Oster. This is Emily.
0:04
Speaker 1: I'm a professor of economics at Brown University and a
0:07
Speaker 1: mom of two. I write a newsletter called parent Data,
0:10
Speaker 1: and on this podcast.
0:11
Speaker 2: I'll read it to you.
0:13
Speaker 1: If you want to read the newsletter yourself and see
0:16
Speaker 1: more of my writing on parenting and pregnancy, you can
0:18
Speaker 1: sign up for free at www dot parentdata dot org.
0:23
Speaker 1: You'll get reader stories, Q and as and other special
0:25
Speaker 1: features in your inbox that I don't share here.
0:28
Speaker 2: And now for today's newsletter, so I'm.
0:33
Speaker 1: So pleased to have two guests today, Lauren Fleshman and
0:37
Speaker 1: Molly Huddle, and we're going to talk about their books
0:39
Speaker 1: and generally about issues around body changes and adaptation and
0:43
Speaker 1: postpartum and puberty and girls and running. But first I
0:46
Speaker 1: would love to each have you introduce yourselves briefly, so
0:49
Speaker 1: you tell us who you are, what you do, and
0:52
Speaker 1: what your books are.
0:53
Speaker 2: We'll start with Lauren.
0:55
Speaker 3: All right, my name is Lauren Fleshman. I'm a former
0:57
Speaker 3: professional runner and I'm an author of Good for a Girl,
1:02
Speaker 3: A Woman Running in a Man's World. I'm a mom
1:05
Speaker 3: two kids nine and five, and a small business owner.
1:09
Speaker 3: And that's what I do.
1:11
Speaker 4: I am Molly Huddle, like Emily, a Rhode Island resident
1:15
Speaker 4: and yes love our little state and a professional runner
1:20
Speaker 4: five K ten k marathon, former American record holder, current
1:24
Speaker 4: American record holder in various distances. And I have one
1:27
Speaker 4: new daughter, she's seven months old, and I co wrote
1:31
Speaker 4: a book with my friend Sarah Slattery called How She
1:34
Speaker 4: Did It Amazing.
1:37
Speaker 1: Okay, So to sit the stage, I want to start
1:39
Speaker 1: with why I am excited about this conversation, so you
1:42
Speaker 1: guys know where we're going. So, Lauren, your book is
1:44
Speaker 1: about a lot of things, but a core theme is
1:47
Speaker 1: this adaptation from being like a girl runner to a
1:50
Speaker 1: woman runner and Molly, some of the essays in your
1:52
Speaker 1: book touch on similar themes. But also over the past
1:57
Speaker 1: eight months or so, you've been documenting your return to
2:00
Speaker 1: running after her birth. And in both of these cases,
2:04
Speaker 1: I think there feels like a desire to get back
2:07
Speaker 1: to where you were before, and that desire more nebulously
2:12
Speaker 1: affects a lot of women in both of these stages.
2:14
Speaker 2: So I wrote about postpartum stuff in cribsheet.
2:17
Speaker 1: There were very clear parallels for me to puberty, like
2:20
Speaker 1: what happened to my body? Why are there all these
2:22
Speaker 1: weird lumps, will they ever go away and go back
2:26
Speaker 1: to where they were where they were before? But I
2:28
Speaker 1: think for most people in most of those phases, this
2:31
Speaker 1: discomfort is hard to put your finger on. So when
2:33
Speaker 1: we say like I want to be back to my
2:34
Speaker 1: normal self at work, or I want my pants to
2:37
Speaker 1: fit in the old way, it's hard to always know
2:41
Speaker 1: what it would.
2:41
Speaker 2: Mean to be back.
2:43
Speaker 1: And what struck me I'm at the running in these
2:45
Speaker 1: settings is that it's so measurable. So I'm never going
2:47
Speaker 1: to know whether I'm back to being as good as
2:49
Speaker 1: economist as i was before I had kids. But you're
2:52
Speaker 1: definitely going to know if you are back to running
2:55
Speaker 1: as fast as you did before, or at least you'll
2:57
Speaker 1: know that in a much more concrete way.
2:59
Speaker 2: So it just seemed to me like a very stark example.
3:02
Speaker 1: I think the reality is, and this comes out in
3:04
Speaker 1: a lot of in Lauren's book in particular, like getting
3:07
Speaker 1: back to where things were before in exactly the same way,
3:10
Speaker 1: you can't always be the goal because it's not necessarily possible,
3:13
Speaker 1: and the challenge is more about moving through it to
3:16
Speaker 1: someplace better. I think that's true both in the puberty
3:18
Speaker 1: case and the postpartum case, and it's true not just
3:21
Speaker 1: for running, but for all the things that we're doing
3:22
Speaker 1: so ideally, and that's the theme i'd like to draw
3:25
Speaker 1: out a little bit, and so I want to start
3:28
Speaker 1: there by talking about the puberty transition for girls, especially
3:31
Speaker 1: the sort of girl athletes, which, as as a parent
3:33
Speaker 1: of a of an eleven year old, I was reading
3:36
Speaker 1: and taking notes and putting the stickies on and so
3:39
Speaker 1: so Lauren and I would love you to just talk
3:40
Speaker 1: a little bit about this in general through your own experience,
3:42
Speaker 1: and what are the key things that you hit on
3:45
Speaker 1: in the book.
3:47
Speaker 3: I think that you know the stage your daughter's in
3:49
Speaker 3: right now. Kids before puberty are sort of these gender
3:53
Speaker 3: neutral creatures, you know, And there's no sex base differences
3:58
Speaker 3: of significance for puberty between boys and girls, and so
4:03
Speaker 3: what you're facing is like the puberty initiates this divergence
4:08
Speaker 3: of these two paths based on sex that may or
4:11
Speaker 3: may not align with like how you feel on the inside,
4:14
Speaker 3: or what you're ready for, or your gender identity or
4:16
Speaker 3: various other things. And at least for me, that's where
4:19
Speaker 3: this stage of like unfairness came in. In the book,
4:22
Speaker 3: I remember feeling this deep sense of like this isn't fair.
4:25
Speaker 3: Why why does you know Adam down the street his
4:30
Speaker 3: body's changing in this way and mind's changing in this
4:33
Speaker 3: other way. And so there is this problem. It's really
4:36
Speaker 3: only a problem because the structures that we move girls
4:40
Speaker 3: and boys through in sports don't create like a welcoming, accommodating,
4:46
Speaker 3: encouraging space for those divergence of changes. I mean, there'd
4:49
Speaker 3: be like comparison between you and your male friends regardless, probably,
4:54
Speaker 3: but like we have the current sports systems that ignore
4:58
Speaker 3: a race invalid, don't talk about like these very basic
5:04
Speaker 3: embodied experiences that females are going through. And so that's
5:08
Speaker 3: where the tension is created. And it's it's honestly not
5:11
Speaker 3: too much different in pregnancy too, in that way that
5:14
Speaker 3: it's it's the incompatibility of the spaces. It's the like
5:17
Speaker 3: changing tables only in the women's restrooms. It's the you know,
5:21
Speaker 3: it's the places you go that make it harder than.
5:25
Speaker 1: It needs to be, right, agreed, Yes, changing tables in
5:29
Speaker 1: the restroom is a perennial problem on both sides. Actually,
5:32
Speaker 1: I mean, in some ways it illustrates the unfairness of
5:35
Speaker 1: in both directions like why can't my spouse find a
5:37
Speaker 1: changing table?
5:38
Speaker 2: And also why do I always have to find a
5:40
Speaker 2: changing table?
5:41
Speaker 1: But in this sort of puberty space, Molly you your
5:46
Speaker 1: book is a is a series of basically like interviews, essays,
5:50
Speaker 1: stories with a different runners.
5:52
Speaker 2: I think this theme comes up a lot.
5:54
Speaker 1: What is the core of this of this issue in
5:57
Speaker 1: this transition for a lot of girls and women.
6:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the theme of Lauren's book and the
6:04
Speaker 4: kind of reason we wrote our book, it's a similar
6:07
Speaker 4: concept of like young phenom girls before puberty and distance
6:12
Speaker 4: running anyway tend to disappear after puberty, and it's like,
6:16
Speaker 4: what is the cause of that? And there's so many
6:18
Speaker 4: reasons why we want to avoid that. One, you know,
6:21
Speaker 4: our book is a high performance guide, so we want
6:23
Speaker 4: the talent to rise to the top, but also just
6:26
Speaker 4: having sport in your life, your whole life, and not
6:28
Speaker 4: being deterred by puberty or by the other variables that
6:31
Speaker 4: steer girls off course when they drop out of sport
6:34
Speaker 4: at higher rates at like the age of puberty, you know,
6:37
Speaker 4: twelve thirteen, fourteen. We want sports to be benefiting many
6:40
Speaker 4: talent levels of girls as they go into womanhood. So
6:43
Speaker 4: there's so many great lessons and empowering things about sports,
6:47
Speaker 4: and that was kind of like our two full reason
6:49
Speaker 4: for writing book. But yeah, a lot of the women
6:52
Speaker 4: talked about I wasn't super direct, but you could kind
6:54
Speaker 4: of infer from their stories that like they would pick
6:57
Speaker 4: up injuries because the training wasn't suited for them, or
6:59
Speaker 4: they would suffers from like low energy availability because they're
7:03
Speaker 4: trying to change their body to like not go through puberty,
7:06
Speaker 4: or once they went through puberty, to still look like
7:09
Speaker 4: the boys, or look like they're young. You know, athletic cells.
7:12
Speaker 2: I know Lawrence's really familiar with.
7:13
Speaker 4: Just you get to a high level of sport and
7:15
Speaker 4: you see that over and over again. So those are
7:17
Speaker 4: kind of two reasons that body transformation just kind of
7:22
Speaker 4: gets girls off course in the sport and all of
7:24
Speaker 4: them quit or they just stop being rewarded by good
7:26
Speaker 4: performances and move on to a different thing. So yeah,
7:30
Speaker 4: that was one of the one of the valleys that
7:31
Speaker 4: a lot of women went pushed through and got out
7:33
Speaker 4: the other side and had success, and that's why they
7:35
Speaker 4: talked to them. But definitely a common theme.
7:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think, of course in your book, like
7:40
Speaker 1: we're sort of selecting. We're selecting the people who got
7:43
Speaker 1: out on.
7:43
Speaker 2: Any other on the other side of yes.
7:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think more broadly too, Just like in my book,
7:49
Speaker 3: I talk about breast development in middle school and that
7:52
Speaker 3: is the first physio that's the first stage of female puberty,
7:56
Speaker 3: and that's where we have a huge amount of drop off.
8:00
Speaker 3: It's like in Canada, one in three girls leave sport
8:03
Speaker 3: around this time and versus one in ten boys. And
8:07
Speaker 3: that's just like a massive difference, and it's entirely preventable.
8:10
Speaker 3: And it really comes down to, like, are we acknowledging
8:12
Speaker 3: the way it feels different in your body after you
8:15
Speaker 3: develop breasts to move like that's a uniquely female problem
8:19
Speaker 3: to be climbing trees and running down the street and jumping,
8:23
Speaker 3: you know, jumping rope and then all of a sudden,
8:25
Speaker 3: all those activities feel dramatically different as soon as you
8:29
Speaker 3: have breasts or as soon as you know you develop
8:31
Speaker 3: these body composition changes that don't immediately have a performance advantage,
8:35
Speaker 3: like long term they do. Like if you when you
8:38
Speaker 3: ride out the changes, like you will improve, you will
8:40
Speaker 3: be your best self and your woman body. But we
8:43
Speaker 3: just have a longer timeline than the male body to
8:46
Speaker 3: be able to see those changes through on average, and
8:51
Speaker 3: it's not talked about or accommodated because the changes in
8:55
Speaker 3: the female body are sexualized. So it's when when breasts
8:58
Speaker 3: are coming into being in middle school, I mean they've
9:01
Speaker 3: interviewed pe teachers, they've interviewed teacher, I mean, people are
9:05
Speaker 3: uncomfortable talking about it. They don't know how to broach
9:07
Speaker 3: the subject. So it's limited to health class. But health
9:11
Speaker 3: class is not going to provide any insight on your
9:15
Speaker 3: embodied experience of moving through the world with breasts or
9:19
Speaker 3: a menstrual cycle. It's really just like a diagram and
9:23
Speaker 3: a chart in some vocabulary words, right, So like we
9:26
Speaker 3: just have this huge gap in like in normalizing this
9:31
Speaker 3: different timeline. These these temporary things that make sport a
9:36
Speaker 3: little bit harder at first, but then once you make
9:38
Speaker 3: the adjustment to your new body, will you will thrive.
9:42
Speaker 3: And it frustrates me because it is very simple. There's
9:45
Speaker 3: like a nonprofit BRAS for Girls that goes into middle
9:48
Speaker 3: schools provides free sports, bra and breast education, and like
9:53
Speaker 3: it's like the most powerful intervention. And I can't help
9:56
Speaker 3: but wonder if males got breasts in middle school if
9:58
Speaker 3: that wouldn't be like standard SHUPE equipment.
10:01
Speaker 2: But definitely, I mean, isn't a jock? Don't they give
10:05
Speaker 2: them jocks?
10:06
Speaker 1: Isn't that?
10:06
Speaker 2: Isn't there some standard issue fee woman to deal with.
10:08
Speaker 5: The You know, I don't know, but I wonder, I
10:13
Speaker 5: do wonder, Like I am not an expert, I do
10:16
Speaker 5: know that, Like this is like loosely related, but the
10:20
Speaker 5: sectomies are covered as an excused reason for my female
10:24
Speaker 5: teacher to leave work to care for a loved one
10:27
Speaker 5: after surgery.
10:27
Speaker 3: But birth is not mm hmm, so her sister's birth.
10:32
Speaker 3: She couldn't take time off work to help with her
10:34
Speaker 3: traumatic birth after her birth, but she can help with somebody's.
10:39
Speaker 1: Expecting me, which actually is largely just an ice pack
10:42
Speaker 1: exactly for a day or two.
10:43
Speaker 3: This is this problem, like you know, it extends.
10:46
Speaker 1: It extends, Like how much of these issues in sport
10:51
Speaker 1: are because we are expecting we are coaching girls and boys,
10:57
Speaker 1: whether it's running or something else, whether we're coaching them
10:59
Speaker 1: the same, and we kind of have we have a boys'
11:01
Speaker 1: sports system when we build a girls' sports system as
11:03
Speaker 1: kind of a byproduct of that, and then of course
11:06
Speaker 1: we expect everything to go the same because that's how
11:09
Speaker 1: we built it.
11:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think Lauren you touched on that
11:12
Speaker 3: in your book.
11:12
Speaker 4: It was sport was built by men first, and then
11:15
Speaker 4: women weren't.
11:16
Speaker 2: Allowed to do.
11:16
Speaker 4: You know, we have a timeline in our book that
11:18
Speaker 4: shows how late women entered track and field and sports
11:22
Speaker 4: like athletics, and it was already built. It was built
11:24
Speaker 4: by men for the men and boys, and so of
11:27
Speaker 4: course we were funneled in. All the coaches are men still,
11:29
Speaker 4: Most of the coaches are men still, Most of the
11:32
Speaker 4: administrators are men, most of the athletic directors are meant.
11:35
Speaker 4: So it's like, I see, how like it's not women
11:38
Speaker 4: shaped in any way. We're kind of trying to like
11:39
Speaker 4: push those shapes out as we go through it, I think,
11:42
Speaker 4: only just now. And so I think that is where
11:44
Speaker 4: a lot of the misunderstandings and like not noticing that
11:47
Speaker 4: our bodies are a little bit different and it's not
11:49
Speaker 4: like we're a different species, but like you could serve
11:51
Speaker 4: women better in sport than what we're doing now, and
11:54
Speaker 4: so it isn't as complicated that. Yeah, like Lauren said,
11:56
Speaker 4: it's some of it's like fairly simple, like accommodating things
11:59
Speaker 4: and explaining things and adjusting timelines and things like that.
12:02
Speaker 3: Part of the problem is that there is a small
12:05
Speaker 3: percentage of female athletes that are emulating the male athlete experience,
12:11
Speaker 3: and very few of them are doing it without harming
12:14
Speaker 3: themselves in some short term or long term way. There
12:17
Speaker 3: are some that are just like genetically built in a
12:20
Speaker 3: way that has them progress more on a male timeline,
12:23
Speaker 3: but it's very rare. And then you have people coming
12:27
Speaker 3: in every year who you know, restrict their diet, fight puberty,
12:32
Speaker 3: get an eating disorder, do any of these various things
12:34
Speaker 3: that in the short term help them emulate a male
12:39
Speaker 3: performance trajectory, and they serve as the evidence that the
12:41
Speaker 3: system works just fine, because by the time their problems happen, they're,
12:46
Speaker 3: you know, they're on their way out and the next
12:47
Speaker 3: ones are on their way in, and so we're just
12:49
Speaker 3: kind of stuck in this cycle. And I was that person.
12:52
Speaker 4: So yeah, I'm just going to say I was.
12:54
Speaker 3: I kind of was that person.
12:55
Speaker 4: I feel like the more you were like a dude,
12:58
Speaker 4: the more coachable you were, the more coaches liked.
13:00
Speaker 2: Working with you.
13:00
Speaker 4: Like it was very much like that. I feel like
13:02
Speaker 4: when you were coming through college very much.
13:05
Speaker 3: And then when you justify the standards existence, then it
13:09
Speaker 3: makes it harder for change to happen. I mean, it's
13:12
Speaker 3: the same thing. And like, I don't know, you just
13:15
Speaker 3: got to the question we need to be asking is
13:17
Speaker 3: why aren't there as many female athletes thriving as male athletes. Like,
13:21
Speaker 3: if we get a female president, it doesn't mean that
13:23
Speaker 3: sexism is gone. Still need to ask why has there
13:26
Speaker 3: been one? You know, and like like these are the
13:28
Speaker 3: things that.
13:28
Speaker 2: We have to ask.
13:29
Speaker 3: But we as there there's always going to be people
13:32
Speaker 3: like us who are like strivers and who are privileged
13:37
Speaker 3: and have had some luck and some hard work that
13:40
Speaker 3: are like, see, it can be done. I'm the minority
13:42
Speaker 3: in my field. It can be done. And then like
13:45
Speaker 3: but then what like that's not that doesn't actually change
13:48
Speaker 3: a system, right, Yeah, it's it's.
13:50
Speaker 2: So interesting because I think you so.
13:53
Speaker 1: I also work in a very male dominated field, and
13:56
Speaker 1: in economics we talk a lot about sort of generating
13:59
Speaker 1: gender parody, and I think for many generations, the expectation
14:07
Speaker 1: was that you're going to fit the male mold.
14:10
Speaker 2: So the way to achieve this is just to be like.
14:13
Speaker 1: The guys and to think that, you know, masturbation jokes
14:17
Speaker 1: are funny, or penguin bloopers.
14:19
Speaker 2: Are great or whatever.
14:20
Speaker 1: Is like the you know, particular set of things I
14:22
Speaker 1: think is only actually the generation of women almost like
14:26
Speaker 1: sort of one cohort younger than me, who I now
14:29
Speaker 1: see much more being like, hey, you know, maybe like
14:33
Speaker 1: those jokes were not that funny, and we shouldn't, you know,
14:37
Speaker 1: we should try to sort of do more about the
14:39
Speaker 1: culture rather than you know, just kind of try to
14:43
Speaker 1: get to the top and then sort of help on
14:45
Speaker 1: the edges. And that's been quite interesting as a phenomenon.
14:50
Speaker 2: I think it makes me feel a little ashamed actually,
14:53
Speaker 2: but you know.
14:54
Speaker 3: Well, but I think that's just a natural order of things.
14:56
Speaker 3: The first people who come in have to do what
14:58
Speaker 3: they need to do to survive, and then you get
15:01
Speaker 3: to critical massive numbers, and then at that point you
15:05
Speaker 3: kind of like we need to let the twenty somethings
15:07
Speaker 3: and early thirty somethings wake us up and be like, oh, yeah,
15:11
Speaker 3: we don't have to stand for that, we don't have
15:13
Speaker 3: to deal with that, and then like we actually do
15:16
Speaker 3: deserve to shape the systems that we work in. And
15:19
Speaker 3: even though it will be painful and awkward for some
15:22
Speaker 3: of the people around us. It's hard work though.
15:26
Speaker 1: So actually this is a good transition to this postpartum
15:28
Speaker 1: thing because that is something in your field where I
15:31
Speaker 1: think there has been some substantial push in the last
15:34
Speaker 1: few years, is sort of thinking about the way that
15:37
Speaker 1: we deal with return to running after pregnancy. So, Molly,
15:42
Speaker 1: I wondered if you could talk a little bit about
15:44
Speaker 1: whatever You're willing to share a little bit about your
15:46
Speaker 1: own experience, but also about how this has changed in
15:50
Speaker 1: the past few years. I think it's a good example
15:52
Speaker 1: of a place where advocacy change some of the gender dynamics.
15:57
Speaker 2: Not enough, probably, but at least some.
15:59
Speaker 4: Yes. Yeah, So I had my daughter about seven and
16:04
Speaker 4: a two extra weeks, about seven months ago, and the
16:08
Speaker 4: landscape when I was pregnant with her in professional track
16:12
Speaker 4: and field anyway, as far as how contracts are protected,
16:15
Speaker 4: it just was so different. And most of that was
16:18
Speaker 4: blown open by Alicia Montana and the Dream Maternity campaign
16:21
Speaker 4: and Ellison Felix, and like that changed a lot in
16:24
Speaker 4: such a sure amount of time. It was incredible, Like
16:26
Speaker 4: usually you see things chip away at these standards, and
16:30
Speaker 4: that was like, you know, my contract was up around then,
16:33
Speaker 4: and I got a maternity clause in there right away
16:35
Speaker 4: just because of that. And I think a little bit too,
16:37
Speaker 4: like I was working with a female president at SOKNY.
16:40
Speaker 4: She was new, but I had tried to actually incorporate
16:43
Speaker 4: that into the two previous contracts and it was denied.
16:45
Speaker 4: And I don't know how, who, where, at what level
16:48
Speaker 4: it was denied, but it was something and I was like, Okay,
16:50
Speaker 4: we're going to get it in there now, and like
16:51
Speaker 4: it was fine, Like it was maybe it wasn't up
16:54
Speaker 4: to Alicia might have said, you know, make sure you
16:57
Speaker 4: get this this and this specifically, but like at least
16:59
Speaker 4: I was able to be pregnant and not rush my
17:02
Speaker 4: way back and still keep my income for the thing
17:04
Speaker 4: that I like support our family doing. So that was
17:07
Speaker 4: hugely different. And I remember when we were making it,
17:10
Speaker 4: I sent I sent the marketing head of marketing at
17:14
Speaker 4: SAWKNI like study from Trent stelling Worth on like what
17:18
Speaker 4: the recommended return to run is after pregnancy and like
17:21
Speaker 4: how long it really is, like because they were like,
17:22
Speaker 4: we'll give you what our standard office workers received from
17:26
Speaker 4: maternity leaves, and I was like, well, you know, like
17:28
Speaker 4: three months to be like back at like a diamond
17:31
Speaker 4: league isn't really reasonable, But I think they were just like, yeah, no,
17:34
Speaker 4: we'll give you like the time you need. But that
17:38
Speaker 4: definitely is something I'm you know, coming back using that information.
17:44
Speaker 3: It's much too.
17:45
Speaker 4: Much slower process than what a lot of women had
17:47
Speaker 4: done previously. Like I think you'll talk to someone like
17:51
Speaker 4: Cara Goucher and she was back running the Boston Marathon
17:53
Speaker 4: at a really high level six months after having a baby,
17:56
Speaker 4: whereas I was, you know, nowhere near ready for running
17:59
Speaker 4: America twenty six miles six months later. And so I
18:02
Speaker 4: used to pelvic floor specialists to kind of pace me,
18:05
Speaker 4: and physical therapist to kind of pace my comeback. And
18:08
Speaker 4: it's it's slow, like it takes as long as it
18:11
Speaker 4: takes to gestate, birth, recover come back, like it just
18:15
Speaker 4: takes a certain amount of time.
18:16
Speaker 2: And so is it incredibly frustrating, Mollie.
18:19
Speaker 4: I how slow it it takes?
18:21
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I am.
18:23
Speaker 4: I think I mean I could have hastened things by
18:25
Speaker 4: like training harder while I was pregnant, but I was
18:27
Speaker 4: thirty eight years old, Like I didn't want I wanted
18:30
Speaker 4: to break. I didn't want to do that. But I
18:32
Speaker 4: think that it still would have been slow, like it
18:34
Speaker 4: wouldn't it would have maybe accelerated it by a month
18:36
Speaker 4: or two. So yeah, your body can it. Just it
18:41
Speaker 4: can be frustrating because you take for granted how much
18:44
Speaker 4: it did for you when you were running, and now
18:45
Speaker 4: it's doing this other priority. Like it reminds me all
18:48
Speaker 4: the time that this is not my priority right now physically,
18:50
Speaker 4: Like it's like, no, it would be priority is you know,
18:52
Speaker 4: birthing the day that your priority is feeding the baby.
18:54
Speaker 4: Now your priority is. So it's like even though I'm
18:57
Speaker 4: trying my brain to like get back on the track, bodies,
19:00
Speaker 4: like your baby's not one yet, Like I still have
19:03
Speaker 4: caring to do. I still have moving and shifting and
19:06
Speaker 4: hormonal stuff to do.
19:07
Speaker 1: So, as you will learn, Molly, even when they are
19:10
Speaker 1: seven and they still need apparently you're not done.
19:15
Speaker 4: I'm not done when they're one.
19:16
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you're not done.
19:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're just like they use boarding school, you just
19:20
Speaker 1: send them out and it's it's it's over.
19:22
Speaker 3: It's kind of encouraging though, that like in a in
19:26
Speaker 3: an extreme like sports is really an extreme example for
19:30
Speaker 3: there to even be any kind of pregnancy protection because
19:34
Speaker 3: our job is our physical bodies ability to perform. And
19:37
Speaker 3: so if we can get pregnancy protections in place for
19:41
Speaker 3: that kind of a job that can have flexibility to
19:44
Speaker 3: take you through more time than you know, than you'd
19:48
Speaker 3: want it to take, we should be able to do
19:51
Speaker 3: it in other jobs where your job isn't like purely physical, right,
19:57
Speaker 3: like that, we should be able to push for it
19:59
Speaker 3: in those bass too. And I think a lot of
20:01
Speaker 3: times like sport is an arena where you can have
20:04
Speaker 3: social change first, or like it can be a leader
20:07
Speaker 3: in political movements, social movements, and then that helps get
20:11
Speaker 3: like it's like a jumping pad for other industries to go, hey,
20:15
Speaker 3: it's being done over here, let's do it over here.
20:19
Speaker 3: So I hope that it can help other industries.
20:23
Speaker 1: I also think there's something very interesting and parallel about
20:28
Speaker 1: this idea of kind of the slow return, because I
20:32
Speaker 1: feel like for many of us sort of coming back
20:34
Speaker 1: from having a baby, you know, there's a period in
20:37
Speaker 1: which I want to do anything except have, you know,
20:40
Speaker 1: be with baby, and physically it couldn't leave.
20:43
Speaker 2: The house and so on.
20:44
Speaker 1: But then there was a much longer period when I'm
20:47
Speaker 1: still I feel I'm somewhat in but at any rate,
20:50
Speaker 1: it was certainly longer than the first few months in
20:53
Speaker 1: which I wanted to be working at a lower level.
20:58
Speaker 1: So you know, I wanted to be doing the economics
21:00
Speaker 1: equivalent of you know, training, but not at the intensity
21:04
Speaker 1: that I was that I was before, because there was
21:07
Speaker 1: this other thing going on, whether it was physical or
21:10
Speaker 1: exhaustion or you know, just taking up mental space. And
21:14
Speaker 1: when we think about maternity leave in almost any other sector,
21:18
Speaker 1: of course, you know, for many of us, we're lucky
21:20
Speaker 1: do you have any But when people have attorney leave,
21:23
Speaker 1: it's much more in this space of you know, well
21:24
Speaker 1: you have six six weeks, or you have three months,
21:26
Speaker 1: or you have four months, and then at the end
21:27
Speaker 1: of four months, well.
21:29
Speaker 2: Then you're just done.
21:30
Speaker 1: You cooked it all, it's already, and then you can
21:32
Speaker 1: just come back and be at one hundred and seventy
21:34
Speaker 1: percent like you were before.
21:35
Speaker 2: And that's just not possible.
21:37
Speaker 1: And I think it's part of what frustrates a lot
21:39
Speaker 1: of people, and I think it's honestly part of what
21:43
Speaker 1: ultimately causes a lot of people to leave the labor before.
21:45
Speaker 1: As you say, like I just like I'd love to
21:48
Speaker 1: be back at sixty five percent or fifty percent for
21:51
Speaker 1: a while, but I can't be back at one hundred
21:52
Speaker 1: and fifty percent again because that's not feasible for me.
21:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you got to wonder, like at that a
21:58
Speaker 3: lot of careers could theoretically allow a dial button if
22:02
Speaker 3: you are willing to get work sixty percent and get
22:05
Speaker 3: paid sixty percent or whatever it is, and you could
22:08
Speaker 3: self select your hours based on and for men too,
22:12
Speaker 3: like yeah, like went after the female specific portions of
22:17
Speaker 3: gestation and birth and like initial nursing and things like
22:20
Speaker 3: that should be a discussion in families of who who's
22:24
Speaker 3: gonna be able to dial things down because the absurdity
22:27
Speaker 3: of the forty hour work week, which a lot of
22:30
Speaker 3: people even work way more than that, that was essentially
22:33
Speaker 3: designed around one working family households, and then when you
22:36
Speaker 3: have two working parents, you cannot get everything done without
22:41
Speaker 3: somebody burning out and losing their mind or relationships being
22:44
Speaker 3: under incredible amounts of strain. So in general, it's like
22:48
Speaker 3: there's this theme in my book about how, yeah, we
22:52
Speaker 3: can talk about how women and girls we need something different,
22:55
Speaker 3: We should have sporting structure built around our specific needs.
22:58
Speaker 3: But like, and men would benefit from a lot of
23:01
Speaker 3: those those new changes too, like the model is not
23:05
Speaker 3: ideal for the modern male either in any of these places,
23:09
Speaker 3: in corporate America, in anywhere. Like, more men than ever
23:13
Speaker 3: want to be active parents, and they need they want
23:17
Speaker 3: these options to And so I'd sort of think of
23:19
Speaker 3: it as like if we just we've centered men in
23:21
Speaker 3: the creation of our structures for a really long time,
23:24
Speaker 3: if we center women and girls and them, we'll probably
23:27
Speaker 3: all benefit because it's not just about center women and girls.
23:30
Speaker 3: It's about doing it in the twenty first century or whatever.
23:34
Speaker 3: It's like a chance to do it again. And I
23:37
Speaker 3: know that's very high in the sky, Like I tend
23:39
Speaker 3: to kind of think like that, but I'm also kind
23:40
Speaker 3: of like, well, we made it once, Like we can make.
23:43
Speaker 2: It again, make it, make it different and better? Why not? Yeah, Yeah, No,
23:48
Speaker 2: I think it's true. I mean it's true.
23:49
Speaker 1: I think that men would men would benefit from an
23:52
Speaker 1: approach to leave and child rearing that was more that
23:57
Speaker 1: was more equal or certainly allowed more of a of
24:00
Speaker 1: a kind of equal set of choices, an equal set
24:02
Speaker 1: of choices around this.
24:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, Molly, do you think you can come back
24:06
Speaker 2: like better? Like can we all?
24:09
Speaker 1: I'm sort of I think this idea of what I'm
24:12
Speaker 1: going to get back to where I were. Where I was,
24:15
Speaker 1: I think we can come back better, maybe not as
24:18
Speaker 1: maybe running as harder than some other things, but I
24:20
Speaker 1: don't know.
24:20
Speaker 2: I think sometimes there's like.
24:21
Speaker 1: Lessons from parenting that make it possible to do your
24:25
Speaker 1: job better than you did before.
24:27
Speaker 4: I love there's a quote from Chelsea Siddaro who just
24:31
Speaker 4: won the Iron Man ConA.
24:33
Speaker 2: And she within eighteen month old.
24:34
Speaker 4: Yeah, her daughter's not even two. And she said it's
24:37
Speaker 4: a reinvention, it's not a comeback, and she reinvented herself
24:40
Speaker 4: into a ConA champion. So you could argue that's better
24:43
Speaker 4: than what she was, but like it's different, she's different.
24:46
Speaker 4: I'm sure it's not the same amount of time given
24:48
Speaker 4: to what she's doing the same way. There's I'm sure
24:51
Speaker 4: there's something different about it, but that doesn't mean the
24:53
Speaker 4: outcomes aren't still like big dreams, big goals. You've seen
24:57
Speaker 4: it with many other female athletes to prove that, Like
25:00
Speaker 4: you know, you're right, there's performance metrics. Are you better?
25:03
Speaker 2: Are you not?
25:04
Speaker 4: The answer is you can be. Because we see Faith
25:06
Speaker 4: kape Gon, we've seen Sally Capego, we've seen Alphine Tomak
25:09
Speaker 4: we've seen Chelsea like we've seen it over and over.
25:12
Speaker 4: Just takes a couple of years, almost two years on average.
25:16
Speaker 4: But I'm sure there's differences behind the scenes to where
25:18
Speaker 4: you know it's not the same route you took before,
25:22
Speaker 4: where you're just out there dedicating every little inch to
25:25
Speaker 4: the sport and never taking your eyes off it. Yeah.
25:28
Speaker 1: There was an interview at some point with jakub Inger Brisson,
25:32
Speaker 1: who is from people who are not as nerdy as
25:35
Speaker 1: the three of us. Is a very a very good Swedish, right,
25:38
Speaker 1: he's he nor Swedish or Norwegian, I'm gonna mess this up, Norwegian.
25:42
Speaker 2: Okay, and any rate, he's from a Scandinavian country.
25:45
Speaker 1: But he said when he trained, all he does is
25:48
Speaker 1: run and play video games and eat and sleep and
25:51
Speaker 1: that's it.
25:52
Speaker 2: He doesn't do anything else.
25:53
Speaker 1: He doesn't even read books because it takes too much
25:55
Speaker 1: mental energy to like it takes it away from his
25:58
Speaker 1: focus on running. And I are always thinking about that, right,
26:01
Speaker 1: Like I have these women who are running with small children.
26:04
Speaker 2: It's like the idea that your life would just be
26:06
Speaker 2: running and video games and eating and sleeping, that's like
26:10
Speaker 2: completely completely turned off.
26:12
Speaker 1: But I guess sort of shows that there's many ways,
26:14
Speaker 1: to many ways to do this and that perhaps he's
26:17
Speaker 1: not ready for a child yet.
26:18
Speaker 3: Well, another kind of interesting thing along those lines when
26:21
Speaker 3: I was competing and we do our racing season and
26:24
Speaker 3: track mostly in Europe over the summer, and I remember
26:27
Speaker 3: talking to a woman from Kenya that had two babies
26:30
Speaker 3: and she was saying that she they were very young,
26:33
Speaker 3: the second one was like very young, and she was
26:36
Speaker 3: just like I just you know, I leave for the
26:38
Speaker 3: whole summer. I leave for the whole summer and race.
26:41
Speaker 3: And I'm like thinking, like, who's watching your you know,
26:44
Speaker 3: who's watching your kid? And she's she's got a whole
26:48
Speaker 3: community of people, aunties and her sister and like all
26:51
Speaker 3: these people, like we don't have a structure like that either,
26:54
Speaker 3: Like we still have a structure where we expect the
26:57
Speaker 3: birthing parent to be the one is doing all of
27:00
Speaker 3: the things. And some of us want to do that.
27:03
Speaker 3: I didn't, but you know, some of us really genuinely
27:05
Speaker 3: feel that pull and want to do that. But there's
27:08
Speaker 3: certainly like I would have loved the option that she
27:10
Speaker 3: was talking about to be like, oh, okay, that's culturally acceptable,
27:13
Speaker 3: and like that's people are excited to support me in that,
27:16
Speaker 3: and I can. And I'll miss my kid obviously a lot,
27:19
Speaker 3: but I can. I can do my job without also
27:22
Speaker 3: meaning to bring like a nanny and like all the
27:26
Speaker 3: other things. Let just make it impossible, and that's why
27:29
Speaker 3: people end up leaving the sport.
27:31
Speaker 2: So I want to kind of close with two things.
27:34
Speaker 2: But first is learn.
27:36
Speaker 1: I want to ask about solutions, you know, particularly on
27:41
Speaker 1: the kind of parenting side, because some of what you
27:44
Speaker 1: talk about as a parent is a little freaky and
27:48
Speaker 1: you know, makes one a little nervous about, you know how,
27:51
Speaker 1: what are the experiences that my kids are going to
27:53
Speaker 1: have as they're particularly my daughter is going to have
27:55
Speaker 1: sort of as they move through this this phase of sports.
27:58
Speaker 1: So other than sports bras in schools, which I'm fully supportive.
28:02
Speaker 2: Of, what else do you think needs to happen.
28:07
Speaker 3: I think that we can't guarantee coach education, the on
28:10
Speaker 3: female physiology, normal female performance waves versus like linear lines,
28:16
Speaker 3: all these things. We can't force that yet. That is
28:18
Speaker 3: a solution though down the road is just requiring mandatory
28:22
Speaker 3: education on the female body and its development and puberty
28:26
Speaker 3: for anyone that works with female athletes of a particular
28:29
Speaker 3: age range, so as parents we can be informed on it.
28:32
Speaker 3: Read my book. That's one starting point. But then like
28:37
Speaker 3: just you, I think, as for you, be prepared for
28:42
Speaker 3: her body to change. Be prepared to be the person
28:45
Speaker 3: that isn't greeting that change with like gloom and doom,
28:48
Speaker 3: because she's going to get a lot of that if
28:51
Speaker 3: she's having success in sport, and then it starts to
28:54
Speaker 3: kind of plateau as things are shifting. There's just these
28:58
Speaker 3: horrible myths about puberty, that it's a career ender, that
29:02
Speaker 3: it's the one injury a girl can't come back from.
29:05
Speaker 3: I mean, there's just like horribly toxic ways of talking
29:08
Speaker 3: about this that will be going on around her. And
29:11
Speaker 3: if you know better, and you're like, hey, your prime,
29:14
Speaker 3: like all the world records, all the best performers did
29:18
Speaker 3: it as women in women bodies, your best years are
29:21
Speaker 3: going to happen. When they're going to happen. There is
29:23
Speaker 3: just a temporary period of time when you're getting used
29:26
Speaker 3: to this new body. You're building up your strength, your ligaments,
29:30
Speaker 3: your tendons, like all the things have to adjust to
29:32
Speaker 3: this new body. But they will because the body's amazing,
29:35
Speaker 3: miraculous thing and right now. There's other ways to improve
29:38
Speaker 3: that aren't going to show up on a clock. There's
29:41
Speaker 3: you can improve, tactics you can improve like community building
29:45
Speaker 3: on your team leadership skills. You can certainly work on nutrition.
29:49
Speaker 3: You shouldn't work on nutrition to achieve a particular body
29:52
Speaker 3: ideal during those ages, but just learning about what foods
29:55
Speaker 3: fuel you best, those kinds of things are going to
29:57
Speaker 3: serve you throughout your life. So I think just like
30:00
Speaker 3: having a broad definition of success that includes more things
30:04
Speaker 3: than these measurables is really important. And then just keeping
30:08
Speaker 3: that confident look on the long term.
30:11
Speaker 2: I love it all right, So Molly, here's my ending.
30:16
Speaker 2: So I think a lot of times.
30:18
Speaker 1: For women and girls, we tend to be quite reluctant
30:21
Speaker 1: to embrace the attempt to be great. That there's almost
30:26
Speaker 1: a shame in saying I just I want to be
30:29
Speaker 1: the best, and that it's better to be well rounded
30:31
Speaker 1: and be good at some things and good a little
30:33
Speaker 1: good at everything.
30:34
Speaker 2: And you two are obviously both really really really.
30:37
Speaker 1: Great at many things, but running being the measurable one
30:41
Speaker 1: that people know you for. And you said something to
30:44
Speaker 1: Emily Sissant about this which really resonated with me. And
30:46
Speaker 1: for the background, Emily is Molly's training partner, and she
30:50
Speaker 1: just set the American record in the marathon. Can you
30:52
Speaker 1: close out by telling us the context there and what
30:55
Speaker 1: you told her?
30:56
Speaker 4: Yes? So we And then I had this conversation couple time,
31:00
Speaker 4: or this topic of conversation a couple of times, and
31:02
Speaker 4: it probably won't be super relatable to the listener because
31:05
Speaker 4: the origin of it was about how in the sports
31:10
Speaker 4: marketing side of things, like there's our performance, and then
31:12
Speaker 4: there's all the little things we're meant to do to like,
31:15
Speaker 4: you know, increase our social media presence, be more marketable,
31:18
Speaker 4: you know, put up good content, do this extra community,
31:22
Speaker 4: like do these extra things build our story, build our brand.
31:25
Speaker 4: And it can just be a distraction nearly from trying
31:28
Speaker 4: to be really good at running, kind of like Jacob
31:30
Speaker 4: anger Ritson with his you know, just.
31:32
Speaker 3: Video games and running.
31:33
Speaker 4: It's like it helps if you're doing less and just
31:36
Speaker 4: kind of like putting all the energy into running to
31:38
Speaker 4: get the platform first and then you can do the things.
31:40
Speaker 4: And she sometimes felt a little bit scattered about it,
31:43
Speaker 4: and I was kind of like it's okay to just
31:46
Speaker 4: go all in on something like just just go for it.
31:50
Speaker 4: Just try to be the best at it. Don't worry
31:51
Speaker 4: too much about you know, being also like this other
31:56
Speaker 4: story that like your you know, new balance wants you
31:59
Speaker 4: to be this person and this girl next door and
32:02
Speaker 4: then give off this image like just like go like
32:06
Speaker 4: destroy your track work out, like rest on the couch
32:08
Speaker 4: and like do it over and over again, and then
32:11
Speaker 4: you're gonna be able to check off those huge scary
32:15
Speaker 4: goals that you have. Like that's enough to be you,
32:17
Speaker 4: Like the best marathoner in American history is enough? Like
32:19
Speaker 4: I feel like a lot of people kind of are like,
32:21
Speaker 4: well does she also do this? Does she also do that?
32:23
Speaker 4: And I wonder if that's a very semale athlete like
32:26
Speaker 4: problem to have, like well does she give back to charity?
32:28
Speaker 4: Well does she also have like camp? Does she also have?
32:31
Speaker 4: And it's like she's the best? Like do you ask
32:33
Speaker 4: that of the guys.
32:34
Speaker 1: Like no, yeah, I think it is. I think it
32:38
Speaker 1: is a very gender thing. That the idea of just
32:40
Speaker 1: the thing I'm going to focus on now is that
32:41
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to be the best.
32:43
Speaker 2: And sometimes you just want to try to be the best.
32:45
Speaker 4: And that's not like a win it all cast thing.
32:47
Speaker 4: It's just like, why isn't it enough for some people?
32:50
Speaker 4: You know, it's not Judge does enough. And I'm like, no, Emily,
32:54
Speaker 4: it's enough. You're fine, You're doing good.
32:56
Speaker 2: She's doing good. I thank you both so much. This
33:00
Speaker 2: was awesome.
33:00
Speaker 1: Lauren's book is called Good for a Girl and Molly's
33:03
Speaker 1: book is How She Did It, and I am.
33:08
Speaker 2: So happy to've had you both. Thank you.
33:09
Speaker 3: Thanks for the time.
33:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks Emily, thanks for listening.
33:17
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33:24
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33:25
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33:30
Speaker 2: Talk to you soon.