- [Announcer] Middle Ground is a social experiment
that brings humans with opposing beliefs together.
Please see the humanity in each participant
and as always, we encourage empathy.
- There is a study that showed like being a mother
is two and a half full-time jobs.
Like, we have to have grace with ourselves,
we have to, otherwise, how will we get through?
(gentle music)
- [Moderator] Step forward if you agree with the prompt.
I envy the other side.
- I got pregnant really young.
I had my first baby at 19.
I've never known a life as an adult
without being a single working mom.
Have I always wanted the opportunity to stay home?
100%, oh my gosh, like that would be a dream come true.
- My mom has always been a stay-at-home mom
and her marriage ended and she had nothing to fall back on.
So I always grew up saying, you know,
I'm not gonna be a stay-at-home mom, you know,
I'm going to go to work.
Me currently now, I just had my first son,
not too long ago.
I wanted to go back to work.
My boyfriend, he works in a corporate world,
so he's able to take care of everything,
and he told me, you need to stay at home.
And I'm just like what?
- I was working while I was pregnant with my first.
I let them know, you know like hey,
so you guys are gonna have me back, right?
And then I hit him up
like a couple of months after I have my first
and they're like, we've replaced you with somebody else
and I was like, oh, dope, all right.
We never really decided I was gonna be a stay-at-home mom.
It just kind of happened that way.
I'm Dorys, and I'm a stay-at-home mom.
I've lost a lot of friends to motherhood.
As soon as I had the baby, like people drop like flies,
like everyone was at the baby shower.
Everyone was at the wedding.
Everyone was at this and that
and as soon as the baby came, boop,
they just dipped on it outta there.
- [Moderator] And can we have the disagreers step forward.
- I was working when I was pregnant a year ago
and I let my partner know, I don't wanna go back to work.
I wanna bond with my child
like I wanna be able to breastfeed.
And then I did go back to work, but I just couldn't do it.
I'd rather deal with my baby yelling at me,
throwing stuff at me than the customer, you know?
So I was just like, I can now let the job know.
I was like, yeah, you know, I'm just not gonna come back.
- I'd have to say I'm very fortunate
in the aspect of that I have a flexible schedule
as long as I work 40 hours a week, you know, that's good.
So I don't have to miss, you know,
if my daughter has a presentation
or it's bring your mom for gingerbread house making
for Christmas, you know.
I find so much joy
and again, I'm very fortunate to be passionate about my work
and love it that it doesn't seem like work at times.
And I can come home when needed.
My name's Megan, and I'm a working mom.
As a working mom,
I take care of my mental health by going to therapy.
I take breaks when I can by walking my corgi.
I love the outdoors and just listen to my body
when I need a break.
- [Moderator] Children need a mother more than a father.
- Of course, it's always nice for Kids to have both parents
and I'm sure there's wonderful families with, you know,
single parents or maybe a single father,
but at least in those early years,
I was more intuitively connected with my children.
I breastfed for four consecutive years
which obviously a father cannot do.
And that was a big part of the connection
that I had with my children.
And there is just something so fundamental
about out being a mom
and the connection that you have with a child
that is irreplaceable, so.
- It's very important for the father
to bond with the baby as well,
not just the mother, you know.
My mom was married to her husband
which is not my father,
but growing up I longed for my father a lot.
It's really important to have both sides.
Even though I had a stepfather there,
it's like, in a way it's not really the same
because I yearned for the connection.
- I'd have to agree with that.
I lost my husband been when I was pregnant
with our second child to suicide.
She'll just see photos of like her father.
She'll never have a connection with him.
And that, that kills me.
Men are just as important.
And also, you know, there's, you know, gay parents
we have caretakers, you know,
it doesn't matter the sex,
that person needs to be in the child's life.
- I was divorced when my oldest had just turned three
and my youngest was seven months old.
And you know, my husband decided that he wanted to leave
and that was extremely hard and extremely tough,
but I was so determined to keep a cordial relationship
with their dad.
They go see him like one evening a week
and it's very important for the girls to see
that even though relationships don't work
and even if you do end up becoming a single mom,
that you can still have a cordial and a good relationship
with the person that's gonna be in your life forever.
- Question.
- [Kayla] Yeah.
The arrangement that you have with your ex
is that because he can only do one day a week?
- He could do more.
- Oh, okay.
- I've picked my battles.
At one point in time
you're gonna look back and you're gonna realize
some of the things he's missed out on
and unfortunately, that's gonna be on you.
- Yeah, you can't make that up.
- I'm Kayla, and I am a working mom.
I do feel a lot of pride
in the fact that I can raise my children
while still providing fully for them by being a working mom,
but it doesn't ever take away the guilt that I feel
about having to leave them to go to work.
It will continue to be an ongoing struggle
that I have to deal with internally,
but I feel like I'm slowly making peace with it.
- [Moderator] I am providing a good example of motherhood
to my child.
- It's me who pays the bills.
It's me, who, you know, got the house for us.
I take pride in that and also my work, you know.
I work in social services
and I love coming home and telling my children what I saw
because it's all real life
and telling them to be grateful for what they had.
And yes, we've been through, you know, loss in our family.
Being a widow at the age of 22, I'm 25 now.
I didn't want others taking care of me
and I know that's not what my husband would want.
And I'm again, proud out of my work so my children can see.
- [Anu] You should be proud.
- Yeah you should be.
- I think I'm conflicted about this one
because I was raised by a stay-at-home mom.
So I wanna give them the stay-at-home mom experience
without compromising on my career path,
but there's a cost to everything,
and one of the costs is I'm always stressed out.
Am I setting a good precedent by trying to do it all?
Or should I scale it back?
Or is scaling back showing them
that you have to scale back when you're a mother?
So it's, there's a lot of internal conflicts
so I don't know if I have a good yes or no answer, but.
- I haven't been able to successfully get that balance
between work and my life at home,
and I feel so bad because like you said,
I feel like I take it out on her.
And I love her so much
and I just don't want her to feel
like I'm upset with her, cause it's not her
and I know it's not her, but I'm working towards it.
But I'm really hoping that I can do that for her one day.
- And even just being open at an age appropriate level
because I think everybody feels the guilt
of losing their patients with their kids.
Mom's human and saying sorry.
- She knows you love her.
There was a study that showed like being a mother
is two and a half full time jobs.
So like we have to have grace with ourselves.
We have to, otherwise how will we get through?
- [Moderator] I am working toward my dream life.
- Well, me and my fiance, we both work full time.
We're both trying to help each other move forward
in our career so that we can have enough money
so that I can stay at home
and be a stay-at-home mom with my daughter.
- I actually started working a housekeeping job
when my oldest was three months old in a hospital
and I've worked my way up over the past nine years.
I feel very accomplished,
but I've never wanted to work in a hospital.
(laughter)
Like that was never something I wanted to do.
I was about to go to like an acting observatory
and then I found out I was pregnant a month later.
And I'm really lucky my two, my two girls
are also obsessed with theater.
And so as long as, you know,
as long as they still are into it
that's something that we kind of have as a dream together
which is like really fun.
But me working this job,
even though it's not never what I expected of myself
it's still giving me a springboard
to be able to pursue what I'm more passionate about.
- So I'm doing school online
and taking care of our seven month old son
while my boyfriend is away and he comes home.
He in a way is like, when I tell him
like my dreams is to become a, you know
a college profess and I'm a history major
and I wanna get my PhD.
And he goes, you could do, go to school
and you think you can go to work?
I say yes, I can.
I can do whatever, like I set my mind to.
I always wanted to work
and show my son or show even my little sister
is like, even though I'm a stay-at-home mom
I'm still doing what it takes to achieve my dream.
My name is Aliya, and I'm a stay-at-home mom.
Do I miss life before motherhood?
I can't give you a committed answer.
It's complex cause I did feel, you know,
that there was something missing before motherhood.
I feel like it made me more clear minded of who is around me
cause I feel like before, maybe it was foggy.
Didn't know my real friends, my real family support system.
I just feel like being a mom now helps me understand
who's on my team and who is not on my team.
- [Moderator] I was affected by postpartum depression.
- With my oldest daughter,
people always talk about like once you see your baby
it's gonna be a love you've never felt before
and I didn't feel that, like I loved her
and I knew that she was mine,
but I didn't feel that instant connection, like bond
that everybody just talks so much about,
and I felt so guilty.
- For me from, with my first, when she was born,
I actually had the opposite experience.
They brought it to me, she latched on right away
and then, you know, as I was breastfeeding her
she wasn't making eye contact with me
and I was just, just little things were starting to pile on
that I was noticing about her
that just kind of made me wonder
like, huh, like, well, that's a little different.
So as she was getting older
just little things kept piling on.
And then finally she started to verbalize a little more
and then she had five words
and then she stopped talking out of nowhere.
Not even sounds, like nothing
and I was like, what is happening?
I just spiraled out of control after that.
I was so, I'd never felt anything like that.
Like I've always been prone to anxiety
but I'd never felt depression.
She's autistic, so when we got the diagnosis,
I was kind of like, oh my God, you know,
like I was so relieved actually.
Like I'm just glad that now I know
that she is neurologically diverse, you know.
- Before I did my own research
I had family members telling me like,
oh, you're starving him.
You're not feeding him enough.
You need to put that in formula.
He needs to drink four ounces.
Like I'm not producing enough milk.
I try to tell people like most part of it it's real.
Like I'm not just crying to be crying, it's like a lot.
It still takes a lot, like I lost my hair, you know,
I was like, oh my gosh I'm going bald, I had acne
and it's still like going on.
And you know, people like, oh, well, you know,
Tiffany you look nice, but I don't feel nice.
I'm Tiffany, and I'm a stay-at-home mom.
The most important thing a mother can do for their child
is show them love.
There's people out there that don't get love
and childs that don't get love end up hurting other people.
- It's a privilege that I feel like I don't even think about
because I didn't have to experience it
and my heart goes out to you guys.
I do think having a support system helped
in the early stages of postpartum.
- I would have to say that this whole conversation
underlines something that I feel very fortunate about.
I had the usual like ups and downs with having a baby,
but I had an amazing support system.
I think this is a cry for help from all moms
like we need support systems.
We need, whether it's friends or moms or whoever it is,
but we need help, we need support.
I'm Anu, and I'm a working mom.
- [Moderator] Do you believe the government provides
adequate support for mothers?
- Hell to the no. (laughs)
There is no paid maternity leave.
Like I wanna yell this from the rooftops.
We have, you know, paid family leave
for when you have a surgery or when you have cancer,
all kinds of things,
but why are mothers not given the same, you know,
the same support.
I think it's ludicrous, I think it's in unfair
and it's infuriating.
- [Moderator] I've always wanted to be a mom.
- For me many years ago, almost five years ago, I think,
I was pregnant at first with someone.
When I announced that I was, he wasn't happy with it.
A lot of people weren't happy with it
and telling me, you know, you need to get an abortion.
You need to get an abortion.
Giving me a phone to call planned parenthood.
And when I went to planned parenthood,
she asked me from one to 10,
how badly do I want this appointment?
I told her I don't want this appointment at all,
but I was scared.
So I went through it and I was traumatized
cause I felt like a choice was taken away from me.
So years later when I was pregnant with my son, Jayden,
it was a no brainer choice for me.
I love my son.
I love my heavens baby.
And I'm happy I'm Jayden's mom.
I wouldn't want it any other way.
- [Megan] Jayden's got a great mom
and I'm really sorry that your voice was taken from you.
No woman should ever have that
and it should be ultimately our choice
whether we want a child or not.
- Thanks you guys.
- My girls are everything to me
and they bring me so much joy
and there's no place I'd rather be
than snuggling with them under a blanket
and watching Encanto for like the 25th time.
(laughter)
Yeah, it's a good script,
but like, I'm just again so lucky that these kids are mine
and I wouldn't trade anything for the world.
- I, like I said before, I've always wanted to be a mom.
So the fact that I am a mom it's amazing.
My name is Kayla, and I'm a working mom.
- [Moderator] What is your greatest fear for your child?
- My greatest fear will be her losing me or my fiance.
My cousins lost their mom, my aunt.
So consistently I think about that.
- So that's not to say I don't wanna be a mom now
that I'm already a mom,
but I just, I never thought about it, really.
I got pregnant and I was like, I'm almost 30.
If there's any time to have a baby
I think this is a good age to have one at.
And I should probably just keep it, and I did
and it was impulsive and dumb, but I don't regret it.
I mean, I love my daughter, she's great.
Now that I'm on this like self-improvement journey
I hope that I can be the best mom that I could be
with the circumstances that I've been given.
- [Moderator] That is a wrap on the group discussion.
(moms applauding)
(gentle music)