The Decline of Motherly Intuition - Erica Komisar, LCSW

I have 5 kids. I sing a LOT to them, I’m humming and singing while doing chores, I sing them to sleep. So all my 5 kids know exactly where I am at all times. lol. I sing to my baby while rubbing 2 kids backs and 2 snuggled up to me. So much love.

With my first born, I had no idea about parenting and our pediatrician recommended the cry out method. So I tried, for one to three minutes, which felt like eternity. I couldn’t do it anymore than that, so I picked up my son tears streaming down on my cheeks. That was such a terrible moment. It was 9 years ago and I never tried it for any of my sons after that. This county is so broken that even a pediatrician suggests such a terrible treatment for a precious baby.

This was so great. Your boss or employees or coworkers will NOT be there when you take your last breath. Family is important. Raising healthy and happy people is important and impressive.

You are so right when you said the moms who hate being moms are suffering and were mishandled as children. They can’t conceive of enjoying motherhood even if someone tries to explain it to them.

Lovely podcast. I am the only child of my divorsed parent raised like a go getter boy. Super independent and competitive. Now I understand it was well meaning but similarly to what feminism does... turns women to men. Outdated and unnecessary. Luckily my career stopped working out once I hit my 30ties because my worsening mental health. This made me work on myself. I met my other half and realised I'm not yet too old to have babies. We have our beautiful 10 month old and I have never felt happier. There is no feeling like this. I won competitions, had success at work, won in sport events. There's nothing like being a mother. We are literally made for it <3

Thank you, thank you, thank you for asking about fathers as the primary attachment to a child. No one covers this thoughtfully! My father stayed with us in the 80s and my mother worked. Reasons being 1) my mother had a higher paying job and 2) suffered intense abuse as a child and just did not have the emotional or mental capacity to nurture us. My father was the nurturing parent. While there are things I can admit I missed due to little relationship with my mother, my father loved and nurtured me intentionally. Fast forward decades to the moment I am writing this and I stay home with our children and my husband works. Thank you ❤

Before meeting my husband I always said I’d never have kids and never get married. I was in love with my career. It took for me to get with my husband for me to realize what my real role in life was. When I got pregnant with our child I fell in love with being a mom. I look back and see how unfulfilled my life would’ve been if I would’ve stuck with my career.

I relate so much to “changing my own record straight.” I went through a huge perspective shift after the birth of my first child, realizing I didn’t actually want to go back to work, even after a year. Now with 3 little kids, I feel so grateful to be home raising them, and my eyes have been opened to the warped, unhealthy view our culture has on mothering. It is hard and exhausting, but the transformation, if you’re open to it, is like nothing else. I think often it is difficult to admit the importance and value of a stay at home mother, because that then implies that mothers who aren’t at home with their kids are doing less than the ideal. People don’t want to offend. But we pay a price when the value is downgraded just because not everyone can/is doing it.

Came across you lovely ladies while searching for more Erica content. When I was a new mom and became part of a local Moms' group, I noticed for the first time just how much underlying competition and hostility there is between women. As a tomboy I never really exposed myself to women like that. I am glad to never have had the urge to fit in by adopting their ill will towards others, including their own offspring. I can't count how many times I overheard moms making a dig at other moms or their own children. It is the mass of female bullies that drive and direct this race into the emotional abyss. We need to continue to speak against this multi generational trend to snuff out our ability to love. Thank you all!

Follow your child’s lead. They’ll let you know what they need. Trust your intuition which says to comfort your child. Be present with them. Listen to them. Give them your self. It goes by so fast.

we LOVE Erica K. around here, the wife and I. We have popped her book "Being There..." into multiple Little Free Libraries, and distributed more to newlyweds we know both in and out of our Church groups. She's quite brilliant, well informed/educated and does a fantastic job with the emotional intellect aspect of being able to relate all of these studies et al, to the broadest of audience comprehension levels. I've never wanted to be friends with someone "IRL", as I do people like Erica! I bet coffee/tea talks would just get me juiced up for the following work weeks to share such insightful, informative and nuanced conversation with those in our spheres of influence. Great interview...Thanks!

I'm loving my maternal preoccupation! 7 months now and going strong!

When you grew up at church and from immigrant parents, and worked in daycare for 14 yrs, that girl boss mentality doesn't and never did exist forme, its so sad when I hear that 😢

I literally could not let my baby cry it out. It just didn’t feel right at all to me, he’s one and he goes to sleep fine

Erica is incredible❤ thank you for helping me in my motherhood journey ❤❤

My son turned one 10 days ago. He’s very attached which I love, but also is developing on his timeframe not society. His met all his milestones but struggles with sleep and eating solids sometimes. I went back to work 2 days a week on-site & 3 days working from home when he turned 5 months. It’s impossible! I resigned from my position two weeks ago. I have to put him first. I tried sleep training him at 11 1/2 months doing Feber after 2 nights I stopped. I felt like the worst unfit mother on the planet. I will NEVER do that to him again. I’m trying a more gentle patting and singing method. He still wakes up all night but he’s sleeping in his crib now at night. 3 weeks ago he had to sleep in my bed. That’s progress in my book. Baby steps literally but we will get there. My son is first tho and thankfully my husband is on board with my decision to stay with him. I’m hoping to be home until 3 but definitely until he turns 2. Being a mother isn’t easy but nothing worth having in life is. It’s the best most fulfilling job on the planet though. God bless all you moms out there.

Loved this show. Thank you.

Just because a woman is a stay at home parent, does not mean she will be loving and nurturing. I always say my Mom was my first and biggest bully. To be fair, I wasn't the easiest child for her as I had a lot of unmet sensory needs, but even when I was able to finally verbalize those needs, they were never believed or taken seriously. I was suic*dal by 10. I'm having to learn these skills because what was modeled for me was terrible. But people learn and grow, and my Mom is not the same person she was when I was a child.

I work from home to at a corporate job and have been having an internal struggle about quitting. I have a 2 month old and one a year old

Shes her sister in law?? I actually thought they were identical twin sisters. They look and sound so similar.