Ashlee Margolis: The Environmentally Conscious Mom Boss

I was first introduced to her through the amazing Kerry Washington and Ashley is the founder of The A List, which is a brand building agency that develops relationships in the entertainment, fashion, and digital industries to gain client celebrity, placement and development. It launched in two thousand one. Ashley lives in l A and New York and she currently lives in Beverly Hills with her husband and three sons. Three sons. I've been wanting to Ashley on the podcast

for years. She's just a really cool mom. She says it like it is. She's so the real deal, and she's also incredibly environmentally conscious and I wanted to talk to her so much about that. So welcome to Katie's Crib. Ashley. Ashley is here. She is such mom goals. So, as I mentioned before, Ashley runs and operates the A List. Ashley, how exactly did the company come about? So? The A List was born about twenty years ago when I left my old PR job. And when I left that job,

I want to pursue a talk show career. Fred Durst was producing a show called All Access Ashley, Oh my god, we need that show now. It was really awesome. We'll bring it back. In the meantime, a friend of mine was went to run Global PR Coach and we had worked together at our old job, and she was obsessed with Rashida and Karata Jones. She called them Rashata and they had been long time friends of mine. And at the same time that my friend Raina who left to

run Global PR Coach. At the same time, She's like, I'm dying to do an event of Coach with Rashata. And I was like, oh, that's funny because Rashida just said, Ashley, will you help me put together an event for my charity, Peace Games, And I said, actually, Coach wants to do something with you. It was the timing was perfect. I produced my first event at Quincy Jones's house. Coach sponsored it.

It benefited Rashida's charity. And at the same time, Coach started sending me bags that lived in my trunk, that lived in my house up Lower Canyon, and I started gifting them out to friends from my trunk. Then my friend Raina, who was my client, said, you know what, let's start having you bring celebrities into the Coach store. We just opened a store at the Grove One in Beverly Hills. I started bringing celebrities into there and I started gifting celebrities Coach bags, and then she got me

a showroom. Now, many years later, I represent about twenty two brands fashion, beauty, lifestyle, beverage, medicine, a vibrator company, Yes Vibes, and we have celebrities, taste makers, influencers, YouTubers, tiktoker's coming in the showroom and um, we gift all these people. We hope that we get the organic social tags.

And then we also throw events for all of these brands and we get hired to what would be called talent procurement, but we can also call celebrity Wrangle for events around Oscar's Emmy Sundayance, super Bowl, Coachella, and be All Stars. So sometimes companies that are not our clients hire us to do talent procurement and get celebrities to attend events. And when Scandal was sort of like just starting, Carrie was like, we have to go hang out with Ashley and go to a list and it was so helpful.

You work together, you can find an outfit for being on Kelly and Ryan or a red carpet or you know you're going to this thing and you're gonna be photographed. And in the same time of me meeting Ashley, I realized her running this business and being such a boss and your your own entrepreneur, and you started this thing off the ground and it's so wildly successful. You're also a mother of three. Yeah, and that's insane to me.

And I want to know because I have to and I literally don't understand how you're doing this and also how you're doing it inside. I just think you're such a conscious parent. I think you're really good at multitasking, asking for help, juggling lots of things. But also you seem happy. Tell us the secret to your fountain. You know what I mean, I have to be honest. I am feeling like depleted and defeat it. So I'm glad that on the outside I look happy. I mean I

am happy. I've always been a happy person. I really love being around people and socializing and that brings me a lot of joy, introducing people to people. I love working. I love being really busy, but the parenting on top, and by the way, it should start with parenting and work comes second. I'm having a totally hard time, so I need to hear about this. So take me back. Did you always know you wanted to be a mom? I always knew that I wanted to be a moment.

I don't think I ever thought I would have three kids. But after we had to, time went on and I was like, I feel like there's a third person that has to be in this mix. And my husband was like, absolutely not. We are so out of the clear. We could start traveling our kids now they're ten, eight and two. Oh ship, you were like done. We were out of diapers, yes, sleeping through the night, getting on planes, even having going to places with kids, clubs, are sending them off where

we could do our own thing. I mean, really, in a great place and our marriage was in a great place. And he was like, I don't want this to fuck our marriage up, and I was like, I agree, I agree. So then I go back and talk to other people. Remember talking to this mom, this wise mom at burning Man, and she was like, if you don't have enough time for your two kids, now, don't have a third. And I was like, that's a really good point. That I went back and then I just kept saying, oh my god,

I can't stop thinking about it. And I had heard from other people with three when you can't stop thinking about it, you gotta go for it. And I convinced my husband we went for it. I got pregnant immediately. You basically sneezed, had the thought and here he is. Were the first too pretty like run of the mill, boring like your labor, so that the third wasn't was anything out of the ordinary. Tell me they were all

pretty great pregnancies. I barely smoked pot with the first, smoked a little bit more with the second, and a little bit more than that the third. And he's the chillist. Nice, Now, what are your thoughts on whether look like obviously, no one's gonna tell you it's allowed, what do you feel about this? About the pot? I mean, I asked all

my health and wellness people. I even went to this top notch high risk doctor at U C l A who was like, I can't say his name, but one of the biggest and I had just gotten back from working Coachella, and I was like, I definitely smoked some pot this weekend with our party was Snoop Dogg, And he didn't say anything. And then again I was like, oh, detinally smoked a little pot at Coachella this weekend. And he didn't turn around and say you should do that.

He just looked at me and didn't say anything. But I asked, I'm obsessed with health and wellness. I mean, of course I'm a pot smoker. This is like also a big part of this episode because I really want to be you in so many arenas, but so much in the wellness situation. I like, it's beautiful. I asked, like the alternative doctors who I trust. I asked a lot of people and they all said, honestly, it's fine. They said, make sure you're continuing to work out and

get oxygen into your lungs and nothing in excess. And I didn't do anything crazy, a little hit there, here, a little hit there. But I had three great pregnancies. By the third, I was forty one or forty two, and I had more back pain, hearder to sleep, peeing all the time. I mean, by your forties, it's just more exhausting, more taxing on the body. But I pretty much love being pregnant. With all three, I felt really grateful. I had so many friends around me just constantly miscarrying.

I really at one point felt like seventy percent of the girls that would come in the show room, we're telling me that they were couldn't get pregnant or miscaring. I was just blown away. So when I found out that my third was a boy and I really wanted a girl, I had one day of tears. And then someone in my office had kept miscarrying, and I was like,

I'm not gonna feel sorry for myself. So it actually was better for me because I real quickly I was like, now this is You're not going to be an asshole just because you're having a third healthy fucking boy, and someone really close to you can't get pregnant. So you know, I was sad because I wanted to grow I'm so close with my mom, and I always thought i'd have

that mother daughter thing, you know. But when I tried to rationalize why, I realized that I have a really short fuse and my boys are already giving me a run for my money. I don't know, maybe it would have been just too hard to deal with the girl emotion ends and the insecurity. I don't know. My friends with girls really talk about how hard it is dealing

with the emotions. Such a funny thing, like, obviously you're going to have some relationships with one of two or three of your sons, that are They're all going to be so different. Adam is one of two boys, so his mom is a boy mom, and Adams like the chick, meaning like he's the one that would go shopping weekends and then go see musicals in Philly with his mom

because that's what my husband likes. Like his older brother would go to the sport game and then Adam would be like, do I get a mom weekend where we shot and then I get to see like Joseph in the Technicolor Dreamcoat and like, you know, so like some of your boys, who knows like how your relationship will fare. But it will be super tight like you are with your mom. You know, one of them will have maybe an energy that's more something that connects to you in

that way. Yeah. I get it though, because I was sobbing the night before when we just had to open the email if my second was going to be a groler boy. I sobbed when I found out my first was a boy. Yeah. Yeah, but yes, it's a great wake up call when you're like, it's one in four, it's one in four pregnancies are miscarried. And then that's not even to say how many people can't even get to that place. So many women can't even get pregnant. So the fact that you had three and amazing pregnancies

and did were they all vaginal? Birds? Were they all different? They were all c sections? And I think that my doctor. Looking back, I realized I was like, whatever you think, doctor, and I should have said, no, I refuse, I want to have this vaginally. And I was so kind of nervous at the time, and I just went into it thinking it'd be vaginal. I didn't really. It's funny because as much as I like to think that I have hippie dippy ways, I don't because that side of me

should have done a little more research. I was just like, whatever, okay, the water broke and the this is happening. Whatever you think, doctor. But looking back, it was Friday night. He wanted to get home, and I was saying, you were. It was also ten years ago, like you've changed a lot. I should have fought like, because there's other doctors that It turns out my doctor loves the C section like late. I later found out, Oh, he just loves c sections.

He's great at them. And I just said to the nurses, what do you think, and they said, just do whatever the doctor says. But I really should have said, no, I want to wait. He could have delivered a healthy baby. The next kid, Isaac, shoot, I don't remember. For some reason, they also suggested a C section and I said okay.

And then by the third I had heard that it was hard on the body to have it v back, and I went to this new high risk guy because I was a little older, and I just wanted I said, whatever you think, doctor, But you know, my sister had her babies in her bathtubs and I was always envious. At the end, it's fine, I have a great little scar. You can hardly see it. My badge is still tight. Nice girl, get it. I no looking back. It's all good.

We're just moving forward now. You know, a lot of our listeners are so in it in that place where it's like they're either pregnant or they just had a baby and it might have been traumatic where they had a certain plan and it didn't go that way, either by choice or by not choice or whatever it is. So it's so great to listen to moms who have space and time, you know what I mean, Like you're looking back at this ten years ago, eight years ago, two years ago. Uh, and you're onto the next thing,

if that makes sense. Not that you can't honor that something might not have been what you wanted it to be. But I think it's hopefully lessons, you know what I mean, Like because you're too busy, like taking care of this ship exactly. I moved through my pregnancies as if I wasn't pregnant. I was like I have to work. I was like, I'm just running a business. This baby is just coming when it's coming. Otherwise, let's just keep moving right.

And I think it's just my personality. I was focused on work, honestly, So tell me about what is it like raising three boys? And what is it like raising three boys this past year in a pandemic. God, I don't think I'm like the most amazing mom to model yourself after. So I just I wish I could say differently.

I do, because I was just telling my hypnotherapist, I go to bed at night stressing and thinking all the things that I want to do with them and when when can I But in the pandemic, it was actually a great gift to spend more time with them because I wasn't around enough before and so now it's made me able to reimagine how I want to show up

for them and be there. I mean I was getting home three nights a week when they were already in bed, and then went to having, you know, a little over a year, having every meal with them, lunch included, and that was amazing. Was it amazing and also awful? Or like, did you really love it? No? There were awful parts, for sure, but not rushing out of the door in the morning. The mornings are so hectic, yelling at each other. Did you prush your teeth? Did you do this? Did

you eat? Did you pack your line. I mean, they're so crazy. Not having to rush out in the morning was huge. Being able to take our time. Some days we went on walks together as a family. We had breakfast together, then they go on their zooms and we and I go upstairs and then they would have a break For twelve to twelve thirty we had lunched together. I'm really lucky because my husband is really involved and helpful. I'm not the mom that's I don't even know how

to cook, I don't do homework with them. I'm not proud of these things, by the way, It's just who I am. Yeah, but you're showing up in other ways. Like I always say on this podcast, like I fucking hate I don't craft. I do not kill it at this age, like I'm constantly running away. He's like, Mommy, can you play this? And then I'm saying in two minutes, I like to like plan the whole family, make sure everyone's got what they need, blah blah blah. But I'm not like to sit on the floor and play and

be present, which I feel fucking horrible about. Like I feel so bad about it. But I think hopefully when he's fourteen and wants to like talk about real ship or smoke a joint when he's twenty and we can like talk about life. I'm down, by the way. My dad shoved a joint in my mouth when I was fourteen. Get at it here, But I'm gonna I'm gonna wait way later with my kids. Why tell me why? Because of all the studies, I think fourteen was a little young.

Have you always been somebody who's super into the environment? How we treat our planet? Like? Were you raised like that? Totally not. My dad had a big fashion business. I saw a lot of waste. I did not become environmentally conscious really until my husband, just in the past couple of years has become a massive environmentalist. First he became a vegan, his dad dropped it out of nowhere, and then he read the China Study, which is like huge,

and then we watched Forks over Knives. He stopped eating meet the next day and I beat very little meat. I don't even know what the pivotabal moment was. We just started becoming really conscious and then he just became

a super extreme environmentalist. He opened a grocery store and COVID on the East Side, and you bring your own reusables, and yeah, I just so we just started paying attention and then watching more documentaries and starting to care and starting to get freaked out about what we're doing to this planet. I don't think people even realize how dire it is. It's so scary. So I see plastic water bottles that kind of sends me spiraling, because recycling is

not a real thing. I mean, you can recycle very little plastic, and they have to be lumped together, and there's no sorting system for this type of plastic versus this everything's kind of lumped in and goes one place, but no one's even probably sorting it. Very few places are. I work with a lot of fashion brands. I stopped working with fast fashion brands. Fast fashion is just like disposable product that after three or four wears, it just goes into a and phil you can't break it down.

Like organic cotton, you can break down and reuse and make a new shirt out of it. But a lot of these synthetic fabrics, actually you can't do anything with them, and so they just go into landfills and then over time there's like a process where they're just submitting really

bad toxins into the environment. So, since this is newer in your life and really becoming a true value in your husband's life for sure in his business, how did you change your household and also instill this into your boys, Because, like I look at my kids, fucking plastic toys is insane. So I started recently putting on my personal Instagram asking for toys and getting hand me down to toys and clothes. So my sister, who's like a cool shaman into Pega Canyon,

who's incredible. If I buy something new for one of her kids, it's your debt. She gets. Everything is a hand me down. We teach our kids by talking about it. We try to not buy food packaged and plastic. It's really hard to be plastic free. It's it's like near impossible. It's really, really, really hard. I am trying to wear a lot of my client farm Rio, they planted farm

Rio so much the best, they're so cool. Trying to wear conscious brands and trying just trying to be smarter about my purchases, trying not to buy anything that I know I won't have for a long time, trying to borrow clothes from friends actually and for kids that's really hard because kids out grows ship. If you can get in a lineup, like I'm in a lineup of hand me downs, that's the best. Like his best friend Rocket.

I get close from Rocket, and then it goes from me and it goes to Will, and then from Whale it goes to Da Dada and we weed out the ones that like have the holes and the grass stains that cannot come out. But guys like it literally doesn't matter. It doesn't. But for a lot of first time moms think that they need their kid to be in the cute ship. Oh my god, my son doesn't want to get us ever, so he wears pajamas like all fucking

day and he just wears the same ship. They don't need a lot of clothes, They need a couple of T shirts. But I think that a lot of first time parents get so excited, but then you realize they grow out of it so quickly, and then it's just sitting in a landfill, not going back to the earth. How do you have conversations with your kids about this where it's not scary. I don't have the vocabulary to say, like the earth is dying and it's our fault. I

don't know. We just do the best we can. And again we show them documentaries and are they interested in that? Are they so bored? They are like a lot of beautiful animal documentaries. We try to tell the teachers what we talked about with them too, And right now, like my older one is talking a lot about the environment at school and the teachers told us he's really into it because he hears about it at home. And I

brought them to a recycling center once. I mean, I think now coming out of COVID, we can bring them to other places to see firsthand. I can't to imagine it's not going to penetrate into their psyche some way or another. My son just opened up, you know. We're teaching him, helping around, like okay, now it's time to take your plate or this garbage and throw it out. And he opens up the garbage. He's like, what's this one and what's that one? And why are they different?

And I'm like trying to explain to him, like lastic and cardboard and all that. But you're right, it's hard because there's a big part of me that's like, is this even doing anything? Like it's hard. It's hard. What are your kids eat for lunch? Now that they're back to school, It's been really hard. There's their picky eaters. They're not vegan, but they're kind of vegan adjacent. They eat very little meat, and they do like fish. There's always a ton of fruit going on and cucumber, avocado rolls.

I make a smoothie for them. That is one good thing as a mom that I'm proud of. I make smoothies for them in the mornings and weekends. That's who it's fag. Tap yourself on the fucking back because that is a mess and annoying. And I always want to do the smoothie too, because I sneak in the spinach, but what a pain in the ass. So I pump in the spinach, blueberries, I've got even a little spar alina, be pollen, a little protein powder, couple healthy things or

greens powder. It's all about getting that spinach and and then another thing that we've been doing because they do like bell peppers, they like carrots, they like cucumber. Is a lot of time. I put that on their plates first and then say finish that, and then we have the meal after. Because if it's all put at the same time, they'll go for like you know, kind of their process, fake hot dogs and fake chicken wings. And at a certain point that ship is not good for

you either. If they want to eat meat, get it from Bell Campo. Like, get it from places where we know the animals are treated well. They're not shot up with all these hormones. They're kept happy. They're happy cows. And Bell Campo is a place where we like to get our meat from. We're doing some bone broth right now. Oh that's good because I was gonna say, if they're not eating cheese or any meat, is it easy to get their protein. There's actually more protein and vegetables than

people realize. The whole circle diagram of you need this much dairy, this much meat, that's an antiquated old thing. You don't need dairy, you don't need cheese, you don't you know, there's a lot of protein in vegetables actually, So they get it from that. We add a little protein powder. They do eat eggs, whatever they want to eat when we're out, no problem. What we what is a big no no for us is cakes with dies with the desserts. We try to keep it vegan or

with the cakes. Once it has the pink and the purple and all the colors, I think Dan and I both spiral out a little bit because to me, all those all that coloring, that's just cancer. Honestly, it's just things that aren't that it's not supposed to be in our body. And there's so many dark chocolate, they love vegan ice creams, and there's so many other great things. Did they ever say, why does in our house have cheese ites? Or like, why does in our house have goldfish?

Or like they don't give a ship. Yeah, they we've got the vegan version of goldfish right now. Nice, It's that's really good. Yeah, they have case of dillas with our vegan cheese all the time. They're super into it. Again, they're obsessed with their dad and they follow what he does, and he makes great vegan sausage and we have vegan sausage pizza. It's still good. It's not as good as the real thing. But to me, I'm like, this is really absolutely. I had to go for the first time

my entire life. Vera is five months and I had to start like a total elimination diet when she hit two weeks because there was blood in her poop, and so we had to figure out what she was allergic to in my breast milk. So I had to cut out dairy for the first time in my life, gluten, nuts, everything, and I haven't introduced anything back yet because I'm doing this big experiment, Like this is the first time in my life, five months of my life where I have

not had dairy. I've never done that before. And how do you feel with having no dairy? Well? I feel good. And I was a dairy queen, like, yeah, dairy horn Like I grew up having a huge glass of whole milk with dinner every single night, like cheese on everything. And I don't have a problem digesting it, you know what I mean, I have no lactose anything. But it's weird to see what I eat dairy. I see it the next day in my face. I love cream cheese, but we've got some amazing vegan cream cheeses. But I

love a good goat, I love a good muster. I mean, I love cheese so once in a while, but for the most part, there's there's a lot of good alternative cheese is great cash FW cheeses. I just think it's so cool that your boys are like so down women who are watching this who just want to fucking grab the ziplock bag or lunches. Why why is that ingrained in us that that's like the thing? Like why is the sandwich bag, the snack bag, the gallon zip blocks?

Like there are even on Amazon. There's so many options, you know, as long as you're read using them, those bags could be easily clean. We have a big plastic bag that goes with them, but we come home and clean it and just reuse it. That's the key. If you had Katherine McCord on your show, she's like a great mom with a lot of kids, you could follow

her tips on how to package everything. But there's great little you know, carrying food cases where it doesn't have to be repped and it all goes in that thing and then it closes. Albi just started nursery school for the first time two weeks ago, so I've just started to get really into like how do we make this

situation reusable not throwing shit out? Like packing stuff Again, We've also all been home, a lot of us for a year and a half, and so I'm trying to look at what's the better way to do this, you know, and the better for our environment way. It is time consuming to plan out the meals and your days in a way that is responsible and healthier. It all takes time. And I have a nanny that lives with us, I've got two greatest sistems, i have a fucking village, and

I'm still overwhelmed every day. I go to bed every night like it's the it's it's trying to find a lone time with my kids. That that I think is what I obsessed over, because I can't seem to find the time of between there after school schedule and my stuff. Yeah, that was the thing we were talking about at the start of this interview, like, still you feel like there's never enough hours in the day. No, I'm still picking my nails and going to my hypnotherapist feeling stressed out.

I'm still feeling guilty all the time. Last week I was trying to get in my therapy and my workouts in the morning. I didn't take them to school one day last week. I was like, I can't do that, you know. So refiguring that out, which means either waking up super super early for the workouts are doing them at the end of the day, and I'm too tired by the end of the day and and have to save that energy for sex also, which is exhausting. Yeah,

you have to see your fucking husband. I was just about to say, like where do you get that, and like, come on, I've got nothing for you. There is at the end of the day, there's nothing. There's nothing. Don't look at me, don't talk to me. Then you end up in a sexless marriage, and then you're in big that trouble. Like it's just Yeah. We just went away for our first time him together, the two of us, and it was life changing. We went to New York for a wedding. The second the second we dropped them

off and left. It just felt like a huge weight. It was the best thing for our marriage. I was I remembered why I liked him. I was like, oh, and had a great time. We rode bikes, we got those city bikes. We had drinks, We hit up all the fancy vegan spots, connected had fun. I have a lot of friends that won't that really don't like to leave their kids and and and have it, and I'm like, how do you even have a relationship that's not because this whole COVID, Dan and I were just as every

parent was. We were just in it. There was there was like no emotion. It wasn't like I love you, We're in this together. It was like no, it was literally like roommates, like hot, hustling, trying to sustain. Oh god, I don't think we've even fully seen or realized yet the like trauma on relationships and that that this past

year has done. Adam and I have our first trip away the two of us with another couple, like in a month, and I am already super anxious about leaving my six month old, like super anxious about leaving him with his parents, and how are they going to handle all the stuff? And I know the second I get on that plane and bring a bobbably beverage to my mouth. But you know what, your kids are going to be so fine. I mean, I know we had issues in

the beginning leaving our kids with my parents. I mean there were times when we first started traveling, we come home and realized that they didn't give a bottle that the second bottle was were like, how are there? How is there? Here's the bottle bag and there's still a full bottle, and with the first kid, we would spiral out and like, well, how could you do that? They survive? Are they all okay? Then we're good. They're fine, They're resilient.

The time with their grandparents is so valuable. The grandparents break the rules like that is just a gift for the grandparents, a gift for you guys, a gift for the grandkids. I did not ever think I wanted to send our kids away for that long a sleepway camp. And this Humer, my ten year old, is going for eight weeks. He comes home for one full day and

goes back again, and I am so excited. But I never thought because of the way I work and how much I work, I'm like, no, I don't want to be gone from them, But you know what, he needs it. So he needs to be a wait for us. He needs to be away from the fucking iPad because when they get older, the fucking iPad is absolutely the worst. Out of control. It's awful, it's out of control. And in COVID, they got so hooked on their on their electronics. Of course, my son had never done TV that much before,

and then COVID hit. He was all of a sudden gone from not much to an at least an hour a day. Then Adam started the fucking pretzel business, and we wouldn't let anyone in our house to fucking babysit because it was the beginning and we were so scared. I'll be was in front of the television for like five hours on a Saturday, and I was like, this is insane, Like I don't know what's happening, and now to try to pull it back. It's the thing he's

the most obsessed with. Some mornings he wakes up and it's the first thing he says to me, what am I gonna get TV today? Mom? And I'm like, oh my god. And this brings me to also being with your kids in nature. I think you said you guys hike or take family walks and stuff like that. Do your kids like that or they just complaining that they're not on my iPads the whole time, both my middle kid and I. He's going through a lot of issues

and it's hard. It's really hard. Sometimes we have to bribe them with the iPad and say we're going to go on a hike. And it's a fighting all right, I'll give me the eye pad later. But we've been renting bikes a lot, are actually bringing our bikes down to the beach parking in Santa Monica and riding to Venice and back, and it's been really great. And they

get to see so much. I mean there's tons of exercise classes and people meditating and all the homeless drum circles, I mean a lot to look at, and it's fun. The scenery changes and the people change, and so that's been fun. And then I talked to them like, while we're riding, you know, when it's not too crowd, I could go next them right behind and to have that time because it's only in the car, really, I mean

at home, they don't really want to talk. They're busy, they're doing things, and we don't do a good job of having proper dinners altogether. I feel like that's rushed and we need to figure that out. It's something that all these therapists and people remind us how important it is to at least try to have a couple of meals together. And even our new pediatricia was like, you have meals the other I'm like, what are they saying, like weekly, try a couple of nights a week, try

to all sit together talk about the day. You know, they're just rushed because they're rushing to go do this, So they're rushing to do that. I mean, it's is it that you feel guilt, mom guilt about not spending time with them, or that you want to spend time with each of them individually both. I'm trying to find time to spend more time alone with them. So it's me and Dan with one of the kids, or just me and one of the kids. So I went to this thing actually down at the beach. They do it

in Venice into Pegan Canyon Beach. It was kind of like a burning Man Vibe you rent for twenty dollars headphones. It's like ecstatic and dance l A that might be what it's called. And I may go again this Wednesday. And you dance on the beach and there's a DJ and everyone puts the headphones on and you dance. And it was a little hippie, dippy, a little vulnerable for my oldest son, but we just danced together. I ended up bearing him in the sand and he just kind

of moved around. I mean, everyone else was dancing. You don't want to dance, but we still had a great time together. Then we went to dinner together and he had been so mean to me for like the week before, you so, and then we went and had a great night together, and for good four days after he was being really nice to me, he just started being mean again. What does that mean? How? What does he do? I'll say, Oscar, Oscar, make your bed, says the woman who never makes her bed.

Everything is says the woman who And I'm like, what are you? Work is going on right now? God? This is my future. I'm terrified. Oh it's it's so bad, Oscar. You know, stop yelling, says the woman who taught me how to yell. He rolls his eyes at me. I mean you were saying something like fourteen year old boy, I'm talking. He's tent okay. He is so mean. He's like beating me down to a pulp and I'll cry so today, I can't tell you that anymore. And you're

the toughest ship. You're like tough, no, because then you have the guilt of like I'm not around enough and like he's acting out and showing me he needs more of me, and how do I fix this? And I need to be alone with him. It's just it's really hard. And I think having the third was hard. Even though they're obsessed with him, the two year old gets the most of me and it's hard. It's really three is really hard. I'm so happy we did it, but I

don't have a second for myself ever. Even when I get massages and treatments, I'm usually on a call during it, but I try not to be because it defeats the whole purpose. Yeah, you can't, Okay. In wrapping up any advice for parents out there from the incredible Ashley Margolis, tell me my advice would be, don't compare yourself to other people. Don't read mom blogs and look at moms

on Instagram and think that they're doing it perfectly. People put out these false airs, and I think everyone struggles they do. I think that comparing yourself to what else you see in here, don't do that. I think knowing that falling out of love a lot of the time is normal and to just not feel shame in that, and to know that between working and parenting. That's so cliche, but it's so hard to be a working mom. When people say to me, how do you find the perfect balance.

I don't think there is any such thing as the perfect balance. It's just doing the best you can, not beating yourself up for anything, and just moving forward and trying to do it better. This is all amazing. Finish this sentence really quickly. Parenthood is hard as a motherfucker. Hell yeah, hard as a motherfucker. Hard and trying and emotional and has so the ups and downs and it's tough. But it's a blessing and it's amazing and I'm grateful every day for it. I would have it no other way.

But I don't think people tell talk about it enough how hard it is. I don't think they've talked about how hard having babies are. This is why Katie's Crib exists because we're all like, this ship is so fucking hard. That is so fucking hard. Yeah, thank you so much for coming on Katie's Crib. I think you are the coolest. I think your kids are so lucky to have you, And you better tell them to call me and I'll

tell them that you are the mother who kicks ass. Okay, thank you guys so much for listening to today's episode, and be sure to subscribe. Tell your friends share it with all your mama's out there, and also I want to hear from you. What do you guys want to talk about, Topics you want to discuss, guests you'd like me to have on You can always reach me with your ideas at katie s Crib at Shonda land dot com. Katie's Crib is a production of Shonda Land Audio in

partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. You never know until you try Ride