LIVING IN SYNC | Lifestyle & Wellness for Women in their 30s · Joelle Suess | Podcast Producer & Entrepreneur

Nobody Told Me THIS Would Change After Motherhood

·36 min·2 clips

Dr. Morgan Cutlip's research says children thrive with an "OK-ish mom," not a perfect one.

1. Living in Sync focuses on motherhood and the changing expectations Joelle sees in women raising children in their 30s. 2. Joelle, the show's host and a podcast producer, speaks as a mom of two boys ages 8.5 and 6.5, and she says she is not a parenting expert. 3. The episode asks what motherhood has changed after children and why the load can feel "too much for one mom." 4. Joelle connects the conversation to Dr. Morgan Cutlip, whose books Love Your Kids Without Losing Yourself and A Better Share shape several examples. 5. Her "eight layer cake" metaphor frames motherhood as generations of added expectations, context, and pressure. 6. She says moms now carry emotional regulation, kids' schedules, work, marriage, friendships, and their own identity at the same time. 7. She describes early years with two under two, saying she felt "so drained, so depleted, so tired." 8. Joelle says her youngest asking, "mom, why did you want children?" made her think about how her children experience her role. 9. She describes being reactive when her work is interrupted, especially because she relies on silence and intense focus to edit podcasts and do client work. 10. A story about a pontoon outing becomes a lesson that life jackets are a dual-parent responsibility, not a one-person task. 11. She uses the phrase "nobody tells moms what to do" to describe how invisible the load can feel in daily family logistics. 12. Another story from Dr. Morgan Cutlip involves a husband using peppermint soap on a child, followed by the child's "my bum hurts" complaint. 13. Joelle says the soap story shows how easy it is for households to default to mother-blame when something goes wrong. 14. She reads Instagram responses about losing personal life, growing emotional strain, and feeling alone in parenting. 15. Her answer to friendship loss is narrow but clear: she is comfortable with two or three close relationships and acquaintance friendships at games and small talk. 16. She says expectations can "suffocate relationships," and she points listeners toward Mel Robbins' Let Them Theory for adult friendship language. 17. The tone is conversational, confessional, and reflective, with repeated direct address to "my friend" and frequent personal caveats. 18. The format blends solo commentary, book recommendations, and reader-response examples from Instagram into one long monologue. 19. Women in toddler-to-school-age parenting seasons. 20. Listeners wanting a tightly structured interview or technical parenting advice.

As heard by us

A frank motherhood check-in about seasons, boundaries, and the invisible list moms keep carrying.

This is a candid motherhood check-in from a mom of two who is past the baby and toddler years and now parenting school-age kids. Joelle keeps it grounded in personal experience, not expertise, and she leaves room for the fact that parenting can feel good in one season and hard…

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Why you'd press play

When the invisible list keeps landing on you.

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