We couldn’t have planned the timing of Cam’s episode with the headlines, but that’s what makes it all so important.
I recorded my conversation with Cameron Oaks Rogers when she was 15 weeks pregnant. She is now 39+ weeks. Which means for basically her entire second and third trimester, we were building this show behind the scenes — editing, planning, arguing over thumbnails — while she grew an entire human. (!!!!)
The same week Episode 1 went live, Hayden passed and the Lindsay Clancy trial was taking over my FYP. Both, for very different reasons, put maternal mental health front and center again, not because we decided to talk about it, but because tragedy forced the conversation open. And that's the part that's been eating at me: we keep waiting for the worst possible outcome before we're willing to say the quiet part out loud. Surely, that’s not how progress will be made, right?
I said some version of that in a TikTok this week. And I got exactly the response you'd expect from a certain corner of the internet — men telling me men's mental health never gets airtime, that "liberal white women" only ever talk about their own feelings, that I was "promoting my podcast on the backs of women who are really suffering." One comment told me I made him sick. Rude.
Here's the thing I wish I could get through to that guy, and to anyone who thinks this is a competition: it is not us versus them. It is not zero-sum. If women get better support, better care, better language for what they're going through — men win too. Everyone wins! I've watched too many friends post honestly about postpartum mental health lately and get met with the exact same vitriol, and it is a problem worth naming out loud, not just women having to take it on the chin.
If women get better support, better care, better language for what they're going through — men win too. Everyone wins!
Which brings me back to Cam.
My favorite thing she said in this episode wasn't really about mental health at all, it was about permission. She talked about going on medication for her anxiety and refusing to carry shame about it: "If you broke your leg, you'd go on crutches." Yes!!! That's it. That's the whole energy I want more of — the crutches energy, the IDGAF-what-it-looks-like energy, applied to how we talk about our own care and choices.
So, inspired by Cam, here's what I personally do not give a single shit about this week:
Posting every day to my 300 TikTok followers — everyone starts somewhere.
Feeding my kids Whole Foods chicken strips again. It's calories, okay! They got nectarines too.
Eating on Zoom calls.
Wearing an eye mask at drop-off (these are my current favorites).
Having a third cup of coffee.
Here's a taste of the quality TikTok content you're missing — this one captures the millennial rebrand of giving fewer shits pretty perfectly.
Go watch or listen to the full episode with Cam if you haven't yet — it's a good one.
xx,
Cat
