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Hello, everyone, and welcome to Fresh Take. From what fresh hell laughing in the face of motherhood, this is Margaret. And this is Amy. Today, we're talking to Renee Rina. She is the creator and host of The Mom Room, a top parenting podcast. It also has a wildly popular... Instagram following, including me, with a PhD in psychology. Renee is not afraid.
to get real about the ups and downs of motherhood, offering expert insights and honest conversations for every mom out there. Welcome, Renee. Thank you for having me. I love hearing intros about myself. I don't know what that says about me as a person, but I'm like, oh.
was exciting you're like that's me that's me we were just talking on our bonus episode about how weird it is when people are singing happy birthday to you and like you don't know what to do with your face that's what i feel like when people are like she's talking about me right now Nice to see you guys this morning. Renee, tell us how and when you decided to start the mom room. Oh, my gosh. It's such my story is so funny. Every time people are like.
oh, what do you do for a living? I'm like, I make TikToks and I have a podcast. But I feel like I need to explain how I got there all the time. And so I have a PhD in psychology, like you said. And my intention was to be a professor or work in a research institute downtown Toronto. We live on the outskirts of Toronto. And then I defended my dissertation three days before. the world shut down. So I was in Ottawa, defended my dissertation, came home, and then it was like...
You're like doors are closed. You're not going anywhere. And at the time, our son was 18 months old around that age. My husband's a physician, so he was working his regular job outside of the house. So I was just at home. home with Milo, our son, day in and day out on my own. And so I started making TikToks. I was like, what is this app all about? If I look back on my first TikToks.
You could tell I'm just trying to learn how to use the app. It's just like funny dancing videos and stuff. And then I started the podcast shortly after I started to gain a TikTok following. And then it became my job. And how old is your son now? He's six and a half. Yeah. So you're like, we always say at this point in the podcast, we come from the future. You are in it. We are in the future, but you are deeply in it. What is six looking like at your house? What are the challenges?
are you dealing with? What's going great and what's going absolutely horrendously? I love... Six. I always tell people when they have younger kids, once they're four and a half, five, your world completely changes. Agree. Agree. They become more independent, but they still want you to rub their back before bed.
which is cute. You know, like you kind of have the best of both worlds. I love that he is developing into this funny little human and you get to watch more of his personality. You can reason with them. You can take them on more. experiences and they're actually understanding what's going on. Like watching a movie together, he has the attention span now to sit and watch a movie. We take him to the movies all the time. Challenges, I would say. are still the big emotions, the big feelings.
how to navigate. It doesn't happen as often as when he was younger, but when it does happen, it almost seems to be more, not explosive, but it's just because he's bigger. And, you know, it just seems like more of a, oh my God, what's happening? trying to navigate.
Those moments, I would say, are the most difficult right now. And I think it's the flip side a little bit of the reasoning piece that you're like, oh, I can reason with this person, except for these times that we call red brain, where like you're kind of.
get lulled into a sense of complacency when you have a couple of reasonable, like, well, maybe if you don't want to break it, so let's put it down carefully. And that works once and you're like, oh, we're in the age of reason now. And the next thing you know.
There's like a lot of crying over the mac and cheese being in the wrong shape. And you're like, wait, what happened to the age of reason? I thought we were reasonable now. I know. And things just seem like a bigger deal. You don't want. And I remember people always telling me like. You still have difficulties as they get older. It just changes. What becomes difficult is different. And then also as they get older, the things that you worry about are more serious.
Yeah, you know, kind of. We come from the future to tell people that it gets better. I think there's a lot of content out there telling that just you wait. right big kids big problems I don't know why people do that you know like I mean maybe your adolescent will have big problems and maybe you'll have like I have a high school right now that it is a peaceful kingdom in my house right now it just depends and I and we try very hard because our kids are
a lot older than six now to just say like, it might just be really good. And it doesn't get like the magic doesn't stop. It just changes. I feel so me from. You were from the past. We've established that. It's the now. It's the now, to be clear. The olden days. I think about myself when I was in high school and going to parties or even in university, let's say, and I see what...
or I remember what other kids were doing and just like things that can happen. And I'm like, oh my God, you just, I think I worry like, what if he gets in with the wrong crowd and he like makes bad choices and something terrible happens? I know that's like catastrophizing before like he's six and a half. But I think about those things and you just hope that he will have the confidence that I had as a teenager to not.
do those things and to hang around with people that make you feel good and don't bully you. And yeah, I don't know. It's just wild to think about.
It's such an and I just actually interviewed my best friend on the podcast because she has a new book coming out. And it was so interesting to have a conversation. We met when we were 13. And we were best friends all through. I mean, we've been best friends ever since basically, but She wrote this beautiful book about a kind of a girl's reckoning with her own mother and talking to each other as moms and remembering how our mothers were when we were in high school.
and being wild, and that both of us kind of felt like the other person's mom understood us better. But as moms, now we look back and say, oh, right, because our own mom's job at the time wasn't to understand us. It was to... discipline us and stop us from making really stupid mistakes. And so it is really interesting that journey that you're on from like, being the kid to being the adult of a teenager.
You're like, oh, wait a minute. I know too much. I know too much. I wanted to talk a little bit about. So I was on your podcast and you had a reel that was a clip from it that went. For me, totally viral. I don't know about you, but I mean, it blew up and it's on our page. We'll link to it in the show notes. And anyway, you and I are talking in this clip about how working moms in the 2020s today.
spend more time with their kids than stay-at-home moms did in the 70s and 80s. And by that, we mean like actual time with them, actual time doing homework and building, you know, magnet tiles, more time. And people were like, no, half the people in the comments were like, absolutely, that's true. My mom was just sort of around, right? And I was living my life and she was home. That was what our moms were instructed to do.
Whereas parents today, I think, are instructed to be there every moment, to make every moment magic, right? Elf on the shelf every morning. And I was surprised that there was so much resistance to that idea because... In my experience, I think that's true. I mean, what do you think? When I think about my childhood, it's like my mom and my dad are having tea in the living room and me and my sister are playing. Right.
That's how we I mean, we've talked a lot about the podcast. My parents had a gate and it was called adult talk time and you were not allowed to go near them. And there was a literal gate at a baby gate and we would hang on it sometimes like something must be fast. But they were literally having. martinis in the den and there was a baby gate up and I mean
We were definitely under 10, possibly under seven, you know, four of us. And yeah, it was just like, there was no expectation that dad would come home, take his coat off and like get on the flooring magnet tiles. And even mine. she would cook and stuff but there wasn't a lot of she certainly wasn't out back throwing us the football no for sure the whole
way we run our families. And we were outside playing with all the kids in the neighborhood until it was time to go to bed. My mom was not in charge of the activities. Like, oh, and now we live next door to two little girls that are friends with Milo. And if sometimes they'll play outside on their own and work like on the back patio watching them. But for the most part, it's like.
We're facilitating their fun. We're pushing them on the swing. We're at the playground pretending to get hamburgers when they're making food out of sand. we're facilitating it right you're buying the mud pies yeah yeah and there's there's just more there's the elf on the shelf and then like the leprechaun has to do something and then also like now valentine's day i was just learning that you have to do like
tales that have presence in it. I mean, it used to just be paper Snoopy Valentines. You had three kinds of the drugstore and you wrote them out yourself. And now it's just like... getting out the cellophane to render this beautiful gift basket for every teacher. It's the expectations just go higher and higher. Yeah. It's like we're busier. than ever with career. We're told that we need to have this career and be independent.
focus on education and all that stuff. And then we have kids and now we're getting it from both sides. You need to do everything with your child. You have to do the teacher gifts. And if you don't, you feel... Like there's been a few times where Milo comes home with...
you know, all these presents from school on Halloween. And I'm like, Oh my God, I didn't even miss the memo to do it. And then I'm like, are the other parents thinking like, Oh, there's no gift here from Milo. You know, like I, it's wild. And I think it is all of a piece of the same thing that you were saying about, I'm worried about high school. I'm worried that kids are going to go out and do the crazy things that I did. It's all of this comes down.
fundamentally I mean there's social media and there's like you should keep up and all that but I think a lot of it is anxiety too that we have to be at the playground that you know if I was five and walking down the street to the library and playing with friends a lot of stuff did go
go down that wasn't great and there was danger associated that because the moms weren't around similarly now I think you would be hard pressed to find a total high school rager with alcohol happening in someone's basement because most people don't. do that anymore in the same way that it was done back in the day. I think that this idea that we can keep kids safe by controlling all the outcomes by sitting one foot away at the playground.
And by supervising the parties, I understand where the instinct comes from. It just has ups and downs on both sides of it, I think. Yeah, it's a double-edged sword. We want to protect our kids from every single... negative thing that could happen from the smallest thing. Somebody looks at them funny and we're like, oh my God, don't worry. They didn't mean it. To the big things. But at the end of the day, I think about things that I went through and if people made fun of me or...
And those are all learning things throughout your life that make you the adult that you are. So I always go back and forth thinking, having a few bumps on the chin and going through... a fight with a friend or whatever it might be is not necessarily a bad thing. They need to learn how to navigate. these situations as well. Because when you are living on your own and you get a job and your boss is mean to you...
What are you going to do? Like these things will happen for the rest of your life. Right. That's right. We say that you have to send your kid to college having failed already. So it won't happen for the first time once they're there. Yeah. We're talking to Renee Rina from The Mom Room, and we will be right back. Amy, with two teens in between in my house, my grocery haul could feed a small country. So I'm all about anything that makes grocery shopping less of a hassle. That's why I love.
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healthiest year yet with Branch Basics. So Renee, you are extremely honest and open with your own parenting journey and your own personal journey on the show. And you've been recently talking about ADHD. and being diagnosed and taking medication. And I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about that and also a little bit about how you perceive it as being part of your parenting. I feel, okay, the ADHD thing is very interesting.
And I will say I have medication for it. But for some reason, I was very nervous to try the medication because I think I had this. thought in my mind, like if I took it, I'm not going to sleep. It's true. Yeah. A lot of people who have tried it said that they had really like a difficult time sleeping. And to me, that's my worst nightmare, not sleeping. So it took me a long time to actually. try it. And for me, I find I can take it on days where I have a bunch of recordings lined up and
a bunch of things to get done around the house, but I don't necessarily take it every day like a lot of people do. The thing that interests me about ADHD and specifically women having ADHD... I feel like once you have kids and you're working and you're trying to do all the things like the Valentine's buckets and all this stuff, it's almost like our environment fuels. the symptoms of ADHD, if that makes sense. We have so many things going on at every given moment. And I always laugh because
I am very productive when it comes to work things. And people are like, oh my God, how do you do all this stuff? It's crazy. But then... if you looked at my closet or my cupboards or my drawers, you would be like, oh my God, this girl is a mess. So I don't feel like I grew up struggling with ADHD. Because when you read about it, I didn't have that. But once I had a child, I was doing a job where it's very small tasks as opposed to sitting down and writing a paper.
for two weeks, a very focused, long task. My job right now is all over the place. It's like an email here, shoot a TikTok here, record a podcast here, bouncing, and I'm at home. So then on top of that, it's like I'm... worrying about getting stuff done around the house. And sometimes it's like you have so many things to do that you just freeze and don't get anything done. Or it's like...
I empty out my closet thinking, okay, I'm going to organize my closet today. And then, oh, I'm going to go do something else. And now my closet's emptied. Everything's all over the place. Once I started to clue in, and it's probably from seeing other people's content on ADHD. And I remember specifically doing an episode with a psychiatrist who specializes in ADHD in women. And my husband's a physician.
I was just starting to clue in like, I think I have this problem. And now I look at my mom and my mare, my mom's mom, and I'm like, yeah, we're all struggling with this. Yeah. Yes, because now I'm a mare. I guess back then when she was my age, it's not really something that people were talking about, especially in women. So now she hears me talking.
about these things. And she's like, oh my God, I have struggled with all these things my entire life. So I'm happy the conversations are happening and people are starting to take inventory of maybe this isn't normal. So the medication is great on days when I need it, but I feel fortunate in that I don't have to take it every day. And some people do and it works for them. But for me, if I'm just having a regular work at home day, nothing crazy, I don't take it. And what has the feedback?
been like for you after talking about ADHD and being diagnosed as a mom? Are you finding that people are reflecting back like this happened to me as well? Or this is something I want to start looking at? It's interesting to me, I think we see. a lot. having kids with a diagnosis, that they always say there are times when kids tend to get diagnosed. First day of preschool, starting middle school, that there are times when the circumstances change and bring into focus some underlying issues.
that hasn't been addressed. And it's interesting to me that for women, motherhood can be that same transition point. And so are you hearing that from people reflecting that back to you? Yeah, lots of people. I think a lot of the things that I talk about, so many people, oh my God, that's so relatable. This is me. This is me. And maybe have never thought before that it was an ADHD.
kind of thing. So I think a lot of people are starting to think about that. And like I said, so many of us are robots just going through the day, going through the day. And you don't actually sit back and think, okay, why am I doing things this way? Or I'm really struggling with finishing tasks or doing a task that is longer than 30 minutes or...
It's hard to explain. It's just the way that I function. So I think a lot of people are actually slowing down and taking inventory of how their day goes and things that they might be struggling with and trying to connect. the dots. But I do know, like I'm in Canada, a lot of people are like, how did you even get a doctor to talk to you about this? Or I think a lot of people are curious where to go. I did it.
with my family doctor. We had a conversation for like an hour and she basically said, some people will try the medication and absolutely hate it. It doesn't make them feel good. So she's like, you will very quickly. understand if it's something that is going to work well or not and I'm on like a super low low low dose and I think that's because I don't take it every day my body doesn't adjust to it so hopefully I'll
keep it that way. But yeah, I think your doctor would be your first starting point. And then maybe they can direct you. You have such an interesting... perspective, Renee, because you're a mom with ADHD, you're just like everybody listening or watching your content. You also have a PhD in psychology. And so do you come at it from both ways? Like I'm an expert in something like this.
And I'm also a fellow traveler. You know, how do you offer both to your audience? It's funny because doing my PhD... I probably had certain characteristics that were like, oh, that's peculiar. I remember one of my professors saying the way I did my work, like statistics and stuff, he was like, that's really... odd. He didn't want to say it, but he was like, interesting. And I was like, really? I thought this was very strange, like a coding system. And I think it served me.
in those situations, like in academia. But then, like I said, my lifestyle and my day to day completely flipped when I started podcasting, doing social media. I was a mom. I had a little kid. My husband obviously has a super busy schedule. It was completely different. And then so the way I did things as a grad student, I couldn't do that. in my new environment. So it was just kind of...
all over the place. Did that answer your question? I guess I'm curious, did being a doctorate of psychology make you feel like I can't have ADHD? I'm the doctorate in psychology who sees everything in other people. I don't have this difference myself. No, I feel like... Once I figured that out about myself, I was like, oh, that's probably why I do so well in school. I love an exam. Like studying, doing an exam.
I feel like it served me for so long living by myself in a condo. Everything was spick and span, immaculate, in place. And then you have a house with two Pomeranians, a young child and a husband. And I'm like, what's happening? happening. It's not working quite the same. Yeah. So I've also had to let things go like your house is not going to be perfect. So you need to let that go. And I have.
I wonder also listening to you talk about ADHD and thinking about it and seeing it in my kids and other people's kids, how much, and we talk a lot about on the podcast, the value of... women's work at home or people's work at home really like the default parents work at home and I mean I've certainly participated in these memes and comedy things of the hot mess mom oh mom's a mess and the picture
You know, I think that we kind of moved from the Betty Draper, Doris Day, like mom and four petticoats, perfect. kitchen to now the picture of the mom is the laundry basket's overflowing and the baby's covered in spit up and the mom's hair has carrots in it and that these kind of images of moms. might work against us seeing...
Something being a fixable problem in the home, an inability to kind of keep all of these things going. It's become almost so normalized that I think, when would I know, oh, I might actually need help with this. There might be something that was fixable. in this kind of hot mess mom version of ourselves. It's funny. I see the humor in all of that content. I've done it too, especially in quarantine. Good Lord.
But at the same time, like you said, it normalizes, oh, this is how it should be. And similar to that. in quarantine i remember a few times i made a video and this was very common in quarantine about moms drinking wine Right. We've talked to people about this very issue that like mom wine time became really problematic for a lot of moms. And this is such an interesting.
point you're bringing up because this is it like is mom adhd metaphorically close to like mom wine time as we should maybe stop normalizing this as part of the way you have to cope right The wine thing, that really struck me. Somebody wrote me this really lovely DM. She had struggled with alcoholism. And I was like, oh, my God. I and so many of us who are making... light of oh this is how I cope I have a glass of wine other people when you're constantly seeing that message
it's starting to normalize that. And so the same with, you know, like, ah, like everything is chaos. It's funny. But at the same time, I don't like that it's normalizing. Oh, this is... What motherhood is the same as with like you were saying back in the day, like everything's perfect and you're in a red lipstick making dinner and.
I don't know. I think that there's like a middle ground there because I think it's so important. Social media is amazing to help somebody feel seen. Like, yes, I'm struggling with that, too. Yes, I'm barely getting through the day in quarantine. We also did video content.
That blew up because people were like, yes, that's exactly what it's like. We are barely holding on. We're joking about my husband doesn't even know how to turn the dryer on. That content does really well, too. But when that's the end point, like. aren't husbands ridiculous with how unable to help they are, how completely dumb, dumb they are. Isn't it funny that I need a glass of wine at the end of the day, right? This content makes us feel seen.
But if that's the end point and you don't use it to sort of then further the conversation or question those things or challenge those things. It normalizes it. Like, that's right. Husbands don't help. If you consume enough content about how dumb, dumb they are, then you'll stop demanding equity. Yeah. Or you have enough content about wine, then you're like, I guess that's what everybody does. Yeah, and the thing about ADHD is...
Like I was saying, a lot of people will experience those things, but it's not necessarily that they have ADHD. It's more a product of their environment, if that makes sense. And so it's really a matter of... figuring that out, which is why speaking to doctors, you can't just be like, oh yeah, I relate to this. I must have that too. In motherhood, especially with young kids, if you are the default parent, your partner works outside the home.
everybody is going to experience these things to some degree. We're talking to Renee Rina from The Mom Room, and we'll be right back. So we're talking about social media and does it highlight like, boy, these are really broken things about mom life. Ha ha ha. The end. All three of us create content, share content in this system.
that we think maybe overall isn't so good for us sometimes. So how do you think that social media can both help people in our audiences and also maybe in some other ways not help them? Oh, boy. I guess it depends on the person. I honestly think every human should go through media literacy. Yeah. Especially kids. It should just be something that is put in school.
We talk a lot, especially nowadays, about how social media affects children and teens. But those same things apply to adults. And I don't know why we don't talk more. about that. So as someone that creates a ton of content, I do not consume much content. And people find that surprising, I guess. Same with people are like, oh, what mom podcast do you listen to? I'm like...
I listen to pop culture podcasts. It's interesting, but I find in quarantine, TikTok was really fun. I feel like it's changed. I'm very self-aware. So when I'm scrolling Instagram, I'm like, I don't feel good. When I'm watching people's stories, them living their life, and everything looks so exciting, I'm like, I don't feel very good.
Yeah, I completely agree. I get that. I don't even know what it is. It's not jealousy. It's just like a weird, I'm dying inside feeling. And I don't know why I can't you can't quantify. It's not quite one to one. And also because it's my job, I feel immediately like I should be doing something. Like, oh, I should be putting out a piece of content like this. Oh, I should be storying more. I should be doing XYZ. And so...
Yeah, I don't know. And I feel like a lot of people, it's a huge part of their day is to scroll social media. So depending on the kinds of content that you gravitate towards, that the algorithm has figured out that you enter. with, I think that plays a part in how social media is going to make you feel. And I think it's really important talking about media literacy to be vocalizing this stuff for our kids I find now that I have tweens and teens that everything
So many of our conversations, and they do get annoyed at me because I am kind of a broken record. Where are you getting that information from? What is the source of that information? Why do you think someone's telling you that? Do you understand how particularly...
disaffected teen boys are being targeted on the internet by algorithms. And I mean, they are tired of hearing it. But I think sometimes we just think like, well, social media is in the groundwater, there's nothing you can do about it. I mean, I say all the time with the podcast, I said no TikTok. Their friends all have it. They're seeing all the TikToks. It has nothing to do with my personal choices. This is so much bigger than me.
I think in terms of talking to your kids about it, and then also talking to fellow moms about it, that sometimes I find myself saying to moms, like, where are you getting that idea? Where are you seeing that? Because, and just hearing this ADHD conversation. And like I had a light bulb moment just having this conversation. Oh, that's hot mess mom stuff that's going on. And I think that having those conversations with children and adults.
has to be part of that media literacy because at least for us, they're definitely not getting it in schools. Yeah. It's hard because I find so much incredibly valuable information on social media, like unbelievably. Like you just said, the ADHD, it came to you. You found something that's very important for you going forward through seeing it reflected back on social media, for sure. Yeah, so valuable. But at the same time, and I talk.
or I used to talk a lot about information overload. It's like, at some point, it's too much. And so unless you're looking at very niche... information for yourself, like digestion issues or whatever it might be, then you're just bombarded with information. And especially for new moms, holy Lord, it's overwhelming. And because we care so much about being a mom and this baby that we have, they take every piece of information very seriously. It's not just something that you pass by.
Add it to the bucket of the mental load of all the things that we're trying to do. Now we have all this information coming at us from the TV, books that we're supposed to read, all the parenting experts. And it's like... oh my God, at what point do we just do what feels good for us as a parent? Talk about anxiety. That is a huge part of it. I remember when Milo was a baby, the big thing.
was like, there's arsenic in rice. And I was like, oh my God, all his baby food and stuff is made out of rice. And so I actually went because I still had access to all the academic articles. because I was in my PhD, I went and found the articles that were talking about arsenic and rice. And your child would have to eat so much rice, like it didn't even make sense for the amount of arsenic to even...
make a difference. And I was like, why are they doing these clickbait headlines to try and scare people? So anyways, that goes back to media literacy, you know, these clickbait headlines.
to scare parents into doing things drives me nuts. Yeah. And it has a lot to do with locus of control, right? That if we're presented as... the earth's problem is you washing out the strawberry container or not to recycle it when in fact we're part of a giant system that has a lot of consequences for our planet and similarly and we've talked to people about this that the idea that what happens to your kids on screens is in any way in your control it is a huge machine that you are
speck of. And so I think that, yeah, keeping that information and understanding, do I have agency in arsenic in the rice? Probably not. I mean, we're all now drinking glasses of water filled with plastic particles. Sorry, we tried, guys. But I think that there can be. I think for me, the distinction is making those. points like what is useful what do you take and what do you
throw away from the vast amount of information that you're getting, because that's really the only thing you have control over. You don't have control over arsenic in the rice, but you might have control over figuring out whether as a mom whose kids had some very... specific needs finding those communities and what are you guys doing for this and how is this working and connecting using social media I guess to connect
personally with another person with specific information good using social media to have the firehose of information pointed directly at your face bad. You can sift out the useful from the hand wringing on social media. but it takes a lot of work, right? It takes a lot of work to be like, this isn't me watching the 42nd day of...
The horrors in California without giving me a sense of agency or action or something I can do isn't useful. On the other hand, I can donate money or time or clothing or whatever without consuming that content and still. be a good person. Sometimes I think we feel like we have to consume the fire hose or else we're not doing our job or something.
And so I guess it's like, yeah, you can be smarter for yourself. I'm not going to worry about arsenic in the rice. But this is really a good idea about nap time. And I wouldn't get it if I wasn't on social media. Right. But how do you sort of put those? glasses on while you're scrolling it's it's not so easy it's a lot of work being on social media but not our social media our social media is really positive and useful
I mean, we try, we do, we think about that, right? We try not to ever present, here's a big problem, nothing you can do about it. It's probably all your fault though. Like we're so uninterested in that and it's everywhere for moms, I feel like. True. Not for dads, though. That's one thing I've noticed, especially when it comes to a celebrity. You see a dad giving their child a bottle and it's all over the news.
Like, oh my God, he is amazing. And then if it was a woman doing the same thing, they would be like, why so-and-so chose not to breastfeed. Exactly. A bottle? What kind of monster? Exactly. Yeah. Yes. It's a good point. And there's starting to be content about that, too, on social media. I mean, I'm seeing a lot of that people making content about like, here's me being a guy doing the things guys do. And it's like putting a glass in the dishwasher and then like a band comes to the kitchen.
to parade for them but again if that's the point if it's like isn't this so unfair that women and and then like we make and consume funny memes about at the end it's not it should be the first step i think i'm gonna flip that on its head. And I'm going to start... I put out one video the other day and it went viral on Instagram. And it was just me and my husband in a sports store. And I'm like...
I was filming him and I was like, babe, what's Milo's shoe size? Because I wanted to get him running shoes. And he because my husband's the one that always knows the shoe size. And he gave me an answer. And then the text on the screen was just like. POV, you're not the default parent. I saw that. Yeah. And that went viral. So I should start using my husband in social media content to kind of show the other side.
Because he is, I hope he doesn't hear this. He's like amazing when it comes to. Don't be too nice. Yeah. When it comes to like being involved and the mental load, he takes on just as much as I do. It's wild. And so I need to start doing that. to show the other side of it. Right. It's useful. You don't accept that that's not possible for him to know what the shoe size is. It is. And so many people think, oh, but he works outside the home and he's focused on his job. My husband's a surgeon.
And he... can find the time to sign Milo up for his summer camps. You know what I mean? Like, it's not an excuse. I'm sorry. Drives me nuts. No, because believe me, there's a lot of lady surgeons out there figuring out where their kids go in a summer camp.
Lady Surgeon. Lady Surgeon. Lady Surgeons are out there doing it. It's starring Juliana Margulies. New series. Lady Surgeon. Lady Surgeon. Yeah. And it was the same thing when we were dating. People were like, oh, so-and-so hasn't texted me all day. I'm like, really? Because my husband or my boyfriend at the time is like...
urology resident and he texts me all day. Settle for more out there, people. That's the lesson. Settle for more. Settle for more. That's right. Renee, tell our listeners everywhere they can find you and the mom room and everything. I have two Instagram accounts because I'm unwell. At the Renee Rina is my personal account. And then the mom room is the podcast account where I share all kinds of content from other moms and my own content. And then podcast.
clips. And then The Mom Room is everywhere you listen to podcasts. We're also on YouTube. I'm trying to be a YouTuber. The Mom Room Podcast and TikTok at the Renee Arena. We will link to all of those places in the show notes so you don't have to write them down as you're driving or doing the 9 million other things you are doing right now while listening to this podcast. Even if you're a lady surgeon. Don't worry, lady surgeon. Even if you're a lady surgeon, you're doing lady brain surgery.
right now. You can't write these things down. We're going to link to them in the show notes. Don't worry, lady surgeon. Renee, thanks so much. This was a great conversation. Thanks, Renee. Thank you.