I’m Caitlin Murray, host of Big Time Adulting. This show was made for moms like me who crave funny, provocative, no-nonsense entertainment to distract themselves from the hamster wheel that is life. Join me for conversations about parenting, relationships, lifestyle, and what it means to be human. Consider this your mid-week women’s group. Circle up because shit’s about to get real.
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Tier of kids so that they can make more money off of it. And and it is so expensive. It is crazy. His club lacrosse team, I wanna say, costs around 4 $1000 to play. And now at this point, he's made a team and he knows it. And would be heartbroken if I told him that he couldn't play on it after having let him try out for So this is a a completely massive part of this where these sports are just so expensive that many families are truly breaking the bank to keep their kids in these high level competitive sports when, to be honest, the reality is that very few of these kids will go on to playing college. The statistics out of a study done by the NCAA in 2020 showed that 7% of high school athletes will play in colleges 1 in 13, I think. And then Only 2% of those kids will go on to play at the top division 1 level. What what are we doing? We've got, like, 80 kids playing club lacrosse. And if you do the math, what? What's 7% of 80? Less than 8. I don't know. Five of these kids are gonna go play college lacrosse, really, and colleges are not even looking at you. Until your sophomore year of high school. So the amount of which you are involved with these sports at age ten seems pretty irrelevant. Like, you don't need to be on 2 or 3 teams to get better when you're ten years old. It's insanity. This has become an industry, and there is sort of this little bit of fear mongering going on with parents that if you don't get them involved young, they're gonna miss out on their opportunity. Now
Like, what I was supposed to do. And, like, it took everyone, like, a year. So I figured, like, okay. I have a year to get my mind around this. And I got pregnant, like, in the 1st month, And I was sick immediately. So it wasn't even motherhood. It was being super sick. Like, I was so self conscious about people thinking that I wasn't as hard a worker or as good a worker as I always had been, that I kept my pregnancy secret for for as long as I possibly could. And I actually did that with with the first two. So I was working as a political strategist. I'm a lawyer by training, and I worked as a political strategist in the largest Democratic think tank in Washington. I worked on federal policy. And I designed campaigns, so it was really fast moving. And I couldn't keep up. Like, I had my first two kids within 18 months. And it was also the beginning of the Trump presidency, which if you work a democratic think tank, is a big change in your work. And I ended up not going back to my office at the end of my second maternity leave. It's when I left the think tank. And it wasn't because I wanted to spend more time with my kids. I actually felt basically no connection to the babies. I thought they were so annoying and such a drain on me. But I was so self conscious about the fact that everyone I worked with knew me as a worker before I had kids. And so that's how they were gonna be measuring me. And I was like, I can't do this. Like, I can't show up in the same way. Because I my identity was so tied to being really good at being a political strategist and working the hardest of anyone in the room. So I wasn't the same person, and I couldn't show up in the same way, and I didn't have the same bandwidth. So it changed for me really quickly. And did you feel angry or sad about that shift that you made? I don't even think I had space to feel sad. I was mostly just angry. I was angry at my kids. I was really angry at myself. I thought, like, I'm this badass worker and all of these people seem to be doing work, life balance. And it was like the lean in era when everyone's walking around with, like, their kids breastfeeding.
Father and person, and he happens to work a lot. He has very long hours outside of the home. He leaves very early in the morning before anyone's awake in the house. And he often comes home at least after Lukey has been put to bed. And so when all the kids were little that left me as like a very much solo parent. And one of the things that I feel envious about there is this freedom of not being the primary caretaker in knowing that your children will always be looked after and that you're never gonna have to figure it out if they get sick at school or are staying home, or if some babysitter cancels or having to even find a babysitter for any of that. If I could have that level of freedom in my mind to not have to worry about the care of my children on a day to day basis, what that would be. Now, this is not to say that my husband doesn't have massive things weighing him down on a day to day basis, like his job and providing for the family. But for so long, what mothers have been doing in the household has been viewed by society and men and fathers as easy for us. And that it just comes naturally to us and that we just enjoy all parts of motherhood because that's the way society has portrayed women. And frankly, that's what I expected to feel as a mother, just a 100% enjoyment in love and cherish of that role all of the time. And holy shit. When I actually got there.
Weren't heard and that they could maybe find it within themselves to feel better eventually. Because what are we teaching our kids that we're gonna fix every bad feeling that they have all of the time? Because that's not real life, if you ask me. At the end of the day, we all could take a fucking breather and not be so stressed out about everything. I know that social media plays a big part in that, and the parenting advice and all that we're hearing, and making us think that we're doing it wrong. I feel like what a shame it would be to get further down the road and realize how much time you wasted feeling bad. And I think that we are all doing our best and that is fucking good enough. Thank you so much for listening. If the show tickled you, inspired you, share it with a friend. And please rate and review us on Spotify and Apple podcast because it's actually really helpful to me. I've done my magazines, Whole Snacks, where I curate everything you need to know into a tiny neat little space. Now get yourself a snack.
Stop talking like this or maybe if I stop showing up as bold and, you know, just just, you know, tone it down a bit, it will be different. Yeah. Like thinking that you can control somebody else with, like, your own actions or like yeah. Now I I like, I think what makes me wonder right now is, like, thinking back to when you first when you first became a mom at age 16, do you think that there's, like, something about, like, ignorance was bliss at that young age where you don't think about the pressure of life so much? Is that why it was easier? It was easier because I lived at home with my parents. My daughter's father was amazing. His parents were really active. So I feel like even at that time, I I was like, was I really actually her parent or was I her big sister and everyone else was so hands on that, you know, I still had to, hey, mom, can we go here? Like, it was like, literally, like, my mother was, like, really hands on with her. But I also just think that that's because I was home and I was younger, and it was like I didn't even experience all of that I experience now because I lived in a house with 3 other people. So I always had someone to say, hey, you you know, my sister would knock on the door. Hey, you need me to take her? You have school tomorrow. And I'm like, oh, damn. I missed that. Like, where is that? And getting the taste of it and then not having it, you're like, this is different. You know, this is this is a lot. There's no one to pick up the slack. Yeah. And also having that, like as your first experience expecting it to feel similar or better because you're older. And then, like, knowing that you went into it thinking you had a partner in it, but then that person just really because at that point in life when you're like a grown person, you're kinda like, how could you not be here for your kid? Mhmm. Right? Like, how could you not know that you have
