Episode 266: Unpacking Momfluencers with Sara Louise Petersen
“Social media has democratized whose ideas are seen and heard in ways that are really important.”
- Sara Louise Petersen
Kate shouts out a pimple patch she swears by and Doree makes real progress on decluttering her home one room at a time. Then, Sara Louise Petersen joins them to discuss her new book Momfluenced, the wild world of momfluencers, the Pastel QAnon phenomenon, and if there is an upside to living your life online.
Photo Credit: Winky Lewis
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Transcript
Kate: Hello and welcome to the Forever35 Podcast. A podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Kate Spencer,
Doree: And I am Doree Shafrir
Kate: And we are not experts.
Doree: We are not, but we're two friends who like to talk a lot about serums
Kate: And a friendly reminder, just some business before we get the show on the road. Our website's Forever35podcast.com with links to everything they mentioned found there. Our Instagram is Forever35podcast. You can find us on Facebook groups at Forever35. Our favorite products can be found at shopmy.us/Forever35. We also send a newsletter out every couple of weeks at, you can find that at Forever35podcast.com/newsletter.
Doree: Okay?
Kate: Ooh, there's more.
Doree: There is more. You can call or text us at (781) 591-0390, and you can email us at Forever35podcast@gmail.com. Kate, we are a mere two weeks away from our live show.
Kate: Oh my gosh. I'm starting to get a little nervous.
Doree: I mean,
Kate: In a good way.
Doree: Yeah, it's going to be fun. It's going to be great. If you don't have your tickets yet, head over to moment.co/Forever35. One thing that I feel like we've only mentioned in passing, but I do want to highlight is we're going to have some pretty good giveaways during the live show.
Kate: Yeah. There's an interesting opportunity that has been handed to us to kind of give out a gooddie or two, so we're very excited about that.
Doree: We are so moment.co/Forever35. We hope to see you there. And Kate,
Kate: And I did want to mention, oh, I'm sorry, Doree. I did just want to mention also if you are local to Los Angeles or you feel like coming in for the weekend, Doree and I will be playing pickleball together in the deep dive Bitch Sesh, mother's Day, weekend pickleball tournament. Oh yeah, it's called the I'D hit that pickleball tournament. It's on May 13th. We'll include a link where you can get tickets and come and cheer us on. And there's even a code for 15% off that code Is Kate/Doree.
Doree: Kate/Doree. Yep.
Kate: Anything could happen. Anything could happen. We could win the entire tournament. We could lose in a landslide.
Doree: Yeah, it'll be interesting. We do need to practice a little bit more, I think.
Kate: Yes. Yes, we do. Let's, we'll schedule that off the air, but I will say, okay, Doree picked up pickleball in two seconds. I've never seen anything like it
Doree: What, Kate? That is not true.
Kate: I'm serious.
Doree: Well, thank you. I mean, I do play tennis, so I know my way around a racket
Kate: That you do, but I don't think just because one knows how to play tennis necessarily means that translates to the old pickleball court. But I felt like you really understood the nuances of the game very quickly
Doree: Well, thank you.
Kate: It's very fun to watch. Oh, because we podcast together. We don't play sports together, so it's always interesting to see, oh, you're ath. I forget that you're athletic. And it was fun just seeing your, you work it out very quickly and take on something new. Very, very courageously.
Doree: Thank you, Kate. That's, that's very kind.
Kate: That's what I witnessed.
Doree: It was fun. It was also fun to play with you. So it's a party.
Kate: Well get ready because we're going to be playing in a tournament and I get a weird competitive rage inside me. So that should be fun.
Doree: I really cannot wait to see this come out.
Kate: I mean, as I explained to you, it's like I'm extremely competitive, but never been especially skilled at sports. So I, it's just kind of been sitting there inside of me my whole life. I don't know. Anyway, I did want to just share with you and our podcast listeners that my cholesterol has gone down. And you may recall that my cholesterol really kicked off what can only be described as a butter, butter journey on this podcast, in which now at least once a week I receive some sort of DM about butter on my Instagram from folks, because I told you my cholesterol was high and you were like, I wonder what it is. And I was like, well, I do eat butter.
Doree: And I was like, you mean, you spread a lot of butter on things and you were like, no, I literally eat sticks of butter.
Kate: I literally take out the butter, chop it up and just eat it. One might eat apple slices or cheese slices. Yeah. Well, interestingly enough, I got my blood work done and my cholesterol has gone down and my iron stores, which were frighteningly low have gone up. So I feel really optimistic about both of those things and I didn't really do many drastic changes.
Doree: So what did you do?
Kate: Well, I did eat less butter for a long time. I have kind of been nibbling, again, I incorporated more fiber into my daily diet. I started taking supplements like fish oil, really good iron supplements, vitamin D, vitamin B, N A C, a bunch of stuff. And I also have stopped exercising as intensely, and I'm trying to focus on rest, really being more conscientious about rest. So my exercise is more low impact, walking, hiking, yoga, pickleball, horseback riding. And I incorporated, I tried to do daily rest, five minutes of daily rest. So I don't know if any of that had anything to do with it, but that was exciting to see. That was exciting to see.
Doree: That's so cool.
Kate: It was really great. It was exciting.
Doree: I'm very happy for you.
Kate: Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm, I'm trying to take care of myself in a loving way, in a loving, tender way as if I found a baby possum in my backyard. Yeah. I'm tending to my inner baby possum.
Doree: Wow. Okay. Okay.
Kate: That's what I've been up to this week is just nurturing myself. And also, I did want to also just give a product, like a soapbox product moment, and I'm going to pass the mic to you, but I did just want to say that the Casar X pimple patches are maybe one of the best skincare products I've ever used. Period.
Doree: This is interesting because I have found a pimple patch that I like better.
Kate: What's your preferred patch?
Doree: The hero ones?
Kate: You're a big hero loyalist.
Doree: I really like heroes products. I'm not going to lie.
Kate: I bought their sunscreen, actually bought a little mini one based on your recommendation. I haven't tried their pimple patches. You find that they work really well.
Doree: Okay. So lemme just get the name of this. They had this one pimple patch called Yes. Okay. Called the Micro Point for blemishes.
Kate: Ooh, Okay. Okay.
Doree: They describe it as the early stage blemish patch. It's got little, they say 395 dissolving micro points. It's like little prick prick, prickly things that you put on when you feel the pimple coming out. And I have never experienced anything like this before.
Kate: Seriously, it you mean you've never experienced the sensation or the way it works?
Doree: Yeah, It's like it works really well. It works really well. I highly recommend it. Kate, I will send you the link and you can see what the micro points look like.
Kate: Okay, cool.
Doree: And I think their regular ones are really good too. And they come in different sizes. I don't know, I, I find their Pimple patches to be superior to casaRX, but your mileage may vary. You might be a casaRX person, and I might just be a hero person. It's fine.
Kate: I have just been shocked using only my face as an experiment. Anytime I get a pimple, the kind with little white puss underneath, I will put one of those pimple patches on sleep and that pimple subsides. It's wild. And I feel like I, sometimes I'll be like, oh, this product, I can see a slight difference. But for whatever reason, these pimple patches are the only skincare product where I've ever been blown away by the effectiveness. And I've tried those yellow star pimple patches.
Doree: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kate: Which I feel like the star face, I believe is who makes them. And they didn't do anything and they literally look cute, but they didn't do anything. But these CasaRX ones, it's like magic. It's wild. So I will try your hero once also because I really,
Doree: I'm curious to hear what you think of them.
Kate: Okay, great. I'm on it. I'm on it.
Doree: , OkayGreat. Well, Kate, I have been in just an ongoing struggle with the amount of stuff in my home. And I don't know if it was Casey Davis or some or someone who made a comment on a Facebook. I don't even remember where I saw it, but someone was like, you deal with one room at a time. And it sounds so obvious, but I realized that part of my issue was that I started thinking about everything in the house that needed to get done, and it was so overwhelming that I couldn't even start. So I decided to start with Henry's playroom.
Kate: Okay, Love that.
Doree: Partly because I was like, okay, this feels very manageable. It's not like it, it's kept relatively clean and neat and there's not that much to do. I started by finally getting rid of some old toys that had been sitting in our hallway. I gave them away my buy nothing group. I got a new shelf, a big one of those Kallax shelves from Ikea with the cubes, like a cube shelf.
Kate: Oh, a Kallax shelf. Those things have saved me in so many moments of my life. That shelf is a legend. It's a work horse.
Doree: For a reason. And so,
Kate: Yes, It's great.
Doree: We built it today and put it in. And things already look so much neater. I realized how much stuff was just sort of sitting in piles, even in his playroom, there's still a little bit more to go. There's also a closet full of stuff that needs to be gone through. But that has been good because I can focus on my energy and you get these little wins
Kate: Yeah
Doree: As you go. It kind of reminded me of, and I do not like Dave Ramsey at all. I think he's not trying to, not great.
Kate: I dont know who Dave Ramsey is,
Doree: He's a financial expert who okay. People are obsessed with, but also he has also been kind of problematic in some ways.
Kate: Got it.
Doree: But he has this thing called, I think he calls it the snowball way of paying off debt, which is you start with the smallest debt first. So if you have $10,000 on one credit card and 7,000 on another and then 500 on the other, you start with the $500 debt because you need that. It's like you need that win. You need to just cross that one off. You know what I mean? And that
Kate: I love that.
Doree: And that was kind of how I'm feeling about the decluttering. I need the win of the playroom and then I can move on.
Kate: You know What, that is really good advice that I've never really thought about, but I tend to always try to tackle the giant thing.
Doree: Yes, exactly. Same, same,
Kate: As if that's going to be more of an accomplishment or something, but then
Doree: Right.
Kate: Yeah, what great advise Doree.
Doree: Start with the easiest one. Start with the one that needs the least help.
Kate: That sounds, that one's logical. But, why have I never? Yes. thats good advice.
Doree: But it's a little mind shift and then you're like, Oh Yeah, okay. Okay. So that's what I've been doing this week. He definitely has some more toys that need to be, I either need to quietly get rid of them while he's at school or I need to do it. There's toys in his closet that he literally never plays with, and so I just, it's like stuff like that. But we're on our way. We're on our way. So that's what I've been up to this week.
Kate: You know what, congratulations. It's so great to have a win. It's so vital to give, set ourselves up to have wins.
Doree: Totally.
Kate: I think that's such a gift for yourself because it can really make a freaking difference in how you feel sometimes.
Doree: Yes, for sure. For sure.
Kate: Winner, winner Doree's here.
Doree: Well, Kate, should we introduce our guest?
Kate: Ugh, let's do it. We talked to Sarah Louise Peterson, author of the book, momFluenced, and it was a fun,
Doree: Think about that for a second.
Kate: Yeah, I know. Just love the word momfluenced, its so great.
Doree: Let it sink in
Kate: You know how good this conversation is going to be. So let's tell you a little bit about Sarah. Sarah's a writer. Her essays and articles have been featured in places like the New York Times, Harper's Bazaar, Glamor. She's a frequent contributor to the Washington Post in style. She's written for W B R's Cognoscenti column, which is my personal favorite and p station of all time. So I just want to shout that out. And she has really become known for her mom influencer centric pieces. She has written about mom influencer culture for Romper Refinery 29, Harper's Bazaar. She really knows the momfluencer scene.
Doree: She does, she really does.
Kate: Which is why she has written a whole book about it. And it's a great read if you want to really dig into the nitty gritty of mom, not just mom influencer culture, but the ways in which kind of social media has created this world of performative behavior for income. It's just fascinating. And the different sects of not sects, but the different kind of corners of influencer culture in the parenting space. I mean, it's just fascinating. We had a great chat.
Doree: We had a really great chat with her. So here is Sarah.
Kate: Sarah, welcome to Forever35. I mean, I can't think of anybody. I want to talk to you more about Mom influencing than you. We're so excited to have you here.
Sara Louise Pet...: I am so excited to be here. I'm so psyched.
Kate: So in the spirit of the show, we always ask folks to share a self-care practice, and I'm excited to hear yours if you don't mind sharing, especially because I do think it's interesting coming from someone who studies the ways in which self-care is kind of monetized and sold in the influencer space. So how do you approach, what is one of your favorite self-care practices that you have?
Sara Louise Pet...: Okay, so one of my favorite self-care practices that is not aspirational at all and not hinged to a particular product. I guess it is actually hinged to a product, but it can be any brand of this product. Earplugs in the morning is a huge, huge game changer for me. I have three kids, they're children, so they are loud. And I am not a good morning person. I like to be in my cozy corner by myself. I don't like anyone to talk to me and my kids now understand that I'm a grouch in the morning and mostly avoid me aside from my almost four year old. But I come down, I have the EarPods in, the earplugs in. I go to my nook in my couch. I have my tea, I flip open my laptop, and it's just a much softer way to start the day. I don't listen. They're watching their shitty shows. The big kids will turn on the TV immediately in the morning. I don't have to listen to their shows. And I just really appreciate it.
Kate: Can I ask you, do you have a preferred brand of Earplug? Okay, because I am. I've bought some because apparent, I like utter quiet, especially to work. Yeah. Do you have a recommendation? What is it?
Sara Louise Pet...: So they're Flent, f l e n T. They come in a big plastic jug and they're purple. And I've been using Flint for several years and they're still going strong.
Kate: So these are a soft Yep. Little ear, like foam earplug. Okay. You
Sara Louise Pet...: Roll them and then wedge them in.
Kate: I love that moment. I love that moment when everything goes quiet.
Sara Louise Pet...: Yes, Yes.
Doree: I also am a big earplugs fan. I wear them to sleep.
Sara Louise Pet...: Same. Yeah.
Doree: So yeah, I'm right there with you. I've not worn them in the morning though. That's That's an interesting,
Sara Louise Pet...: Well, it's like interest. I transition from sleep, I wear them to sleep, and I just don't take them out. I just go downstairs with them still in.
Doree: Wow. Okay.
Kate: Do your kids know that you have earplugs in or your partner, I don't know if you are partnered, but did the folks in your home know.
Sara Louise Pet...: Oh yes, Yeah. Okay. And I mean, don't get me wrong, they'll come over to me. I'm kind of off to the side and the main chaos is happening elsewhere. They'll come over to me and they'll start talking and I can't hear them. And I'll begrudgingly take the things out to hear what's hot lunch today or whatever it is. Or did you write me an afterschool note to go to so-and-so's house? So I will take them out if necessary, but I put them back in.
Doree: I love that.
Kate: I do too. What a nice little boundary you can set up for yourself and my family. I kind of do this with my noise canceling headphones, and it does help. It just, the audio boundary is actually very powerful. Right? Yes. Giving yourself that stop gap, if you will.
Sara Louise Pet...: Yeah. No audio like sensitivity, I just am increasingly aware of as I age. Yeah.
Doree: Yes, yes. Well, especially now, my, sorry. And then we can move on to your book. But now that my Apple watch tells me when I'm in a loud environment,
Kate: Oh my gosh.
Sara Louise Pet...: Oh, I dunno about this.
Kate: Oh
Doree: Yeah.
Kate: Oh yes. Oh,
Doree: You get a little notification that's like, it's basically you're in a loud environment,
Sara Louise Pet...: Like seat covers? I mean
Kate: What do you do?
Doree: I mean, well, right. There's no real call to action. It's more just, by the way, you're probably damaging your hearing.
Kate: I had that happen. I was at concerts all weekend and every night my watch just kept going off and I was like, I have earplugs in like, leave me alone. Apple watch. But obviously you can't have a two-way dialogue. It's not
Doree: Not Even an AI
Kate: Yeah, no, not a thing. Sarah, can we talk a little bit about how you, as a journalist, a writer, a curious person, got interested in this space of mom influencing? And I know you talk about this in your book, but for our listeners, what was the first moment that you had where you were like, huh, okay.
Sara Louise Pet...: Yeah,
Kate: I'm interested in this.
Sara Louise Pet...: Yeah, I mean, I think I've always been fascinated with maternal imagery and the power of it. I remember back in the day, there was a paparazzi photo of Gwyneth Paltrow, Chris Martin and Baby Apple. I don't know if this is going to evoke anything, but they were coming out of the hospital or whatever it was, the first shot of them with baby apple. And Gwyneth is in a flowy white top. Chris Martin is gazing adoringly at her. And it's just this perfect snapshot of bliss, or at least that's how I interpreted it at the time. I didn't have kids the first time I saw that photo, but it was just like, I want that. I became very aware. I want this whole thing and just that sense of desire, especially as it pertains to motherhood. I think I've always been, I don't know, conscious or unconscious of in my own life. And then I discovered, I don't know, was probably, it was like twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, I had a newborn and a toddler. And I don't know, I first discovered Naomi Davis's blog, love Taza, but I did, and this was prior to me even being on Instagram really, but found her blog and she was in the Upper West Side. She had, I think at the time, three kids, Julliard trained Mormon, durable freckles, blunt bangs, bright colors, and she just made motherhood look so adventurous and joyful and vibrant. And I was not feeling that at the time. I was really struggling still with the laborer of mothering and the daily grind of it and still trying to locate myself within it all. And so yeah, I think I've just always looked at these powerful images as sort of blueprints for how to be or how to improve my own day and own maternal identity.
Doree: I mean, Sarah, I first met you because you interviewed me for a piece. I think it was for real simple
Sara Louise Pet...: In style.
Doree: In style, yes. About, I don't even remember exactly what it was, but it was something about how in my book I had talked about how there weren't any real mom influencers who looked like me. And this image that I had had in my head of being a new parent of just wearing a long prairie dress and sitting on having picnics all the time, picnic with my cherubic babe. And the reality was just not really that. Yeah. So that was how I first encountered you. And it, it's been really fun to read along all of your stuff about mom influencers as my personal views about them have kind of evolved. And I was hoping we could talk about just what does, and I should say also, a lot of these questions that we're asking you are things that you talk about in your book, which people should read. But can you talk about what does it do to our brains to see these images and follow these people and get invested in their lives?
Sara Louise Pet...: Yeah, I mean, the short answer is I don't think we fully know. I think this technology is so new. The whole phenomenon of parasocial relationships is still really new. I did in my research, learn about upward comparison theory and downward comparison theory, which is where we can assess our own values or belief systems by say, I am consuming an anti-vax MAGA hat wearing momfluencer, I cons consume her content and feel better about my own politics or my own feminist beliefs. And that's upward comparison theory. And then downward is where when I was consuming Tassa's content at the time, I think it was not conscious, but I was sort of, I'm not fun. I'm not a natural mother, I'm not an easy mother, which is downward comparison theory. And I think so much of this is unconscious. I think yes, we can intellectually know when something isn't feeling good or when somebody's content is triggering, that type of, I feel shitty about myself because X, Y, and Z. But I think also so many of these images just get stuck in us. We, images are so tricky because once you see something, you've seen it and it's in you somewhere. You can't erase it from your psyche. And that's why I think just, I don't know, maternal imasistic representations of motherhood hold so much power over us individually and collectively.
Kate: I appreciate that you saying that because I do feel like I have certainly felt like shit after my nonstop consumption of mom influencer content. And it's very easy to just say, well, don't read it or Get off the internet or get off Instagram when these things don't make us feel good. But the impact has already been made, and I guess we're preventing ourselves from future impact, but it's a lot easier said than done to suggest we get off Instagram, especially when it's beyond just following influencers. It's like now how we socialize and communicate and also present ourselves. So do you see any sort of boundary setting, realistic boundary setting to manage the ways in which we project our own shit onto the influencers we follow?
Sara Louise Pet...: Right. No, I mean, you're so right to point that out because yeah, nine times out of 10, if I'm feeling a certain thing about a certain content creator or mom influencer, it's my shit. I chose to click on the app I chose to follow. But I guess in terms of, I don't know, managing it, I always think, do you guys listen to Poog ever the podcast? I'm obsessed. But they had this episode where I think Kate is talking about her Instagram addiction and trying to navigate this very real thing of, many of us also need it for work or use it for work, and they were talking about getting an actual hat, like a cowboy hat or whatever, and putting the hat on When it's time to go into Instagram, I'm going to go in, I'm going to post my shit. I'm going to check on a few people that I think it's necessary to check on for work or for community or whatever. And then I'm taking my head off and I'm getting out this physical, which I thought was so,
Doree: I love that,
Sara Louise Pet...: Right? So I thought it was so funny and actually could be really useful. But I don't know, I think everybody's thresholds are different. I have experienced experimented a lot myself with breaks, and I'm always sort of despondent about how much better I feel when I'm off on social media because it is, I think, a part of our lives and not going anywhere. And it is so hard to know our own boundaries, to locate our own boundaries, to figure out a way where we can interact with it on a regular basis without getting sucked in. It's just constant self interrogation, I think, which is hard.
Kate: I mean, think the thing that I have, I have really had to come around to is that I am doing the projecting onto the thing and not necessarily the other way around, although that is how it feels, and that is really hard. And I don't think that's my fault necessarily. I think it's kind of just the ways in which social media operates, and that I find extremely challenging as we explore these different representations of motherhood, personhood, womanhood, all the things, right? A lot of it is me, but I don't go into it thinking it's me. I'm like, how dare this fucking person post this thing and it's making me feel like this, and then all of a sudden I'm like, whoa, this is coming from me.
Sara Louise Pet...: Well, and we're also products of our environment, so it's like, I don't know. So many of us are trained explicitly or implicitly to model ourselves after supposed ideals. And I think it comes almost as naturally as breathing in many ways, especially in terms of motherhood, this ideal of optimal motherhood. And especially with Instagram, it's like you have so many tools now at your disposal, you can find an expert in anything. So if you can do it, why aren't you doing it? Shouldn't you do it?
Kate: On the flip side, can I ask, how do you see reliance on these free social media platforms like Instagram? How does this actually harm these predominantly women who are making a living as influencers? Because I think this is one of the traps of this, right? You're beholden to the whims of Instagram. So on the other hand, these are folks making a living, choosing this as a profession, and then one day the company's surprise. Now you have to make only videos in order to succeed. Just things like that that seem incredibly unfair and detrimental to the success of women who are already being marginalized.
Sara Louise Pet...: Yeah, no, totally. I mean, so many of the people I spoke to for the book talked about really diversifying their platforms. A lot of them talked about creating a subset or a podcast or another type of newsletter in addition to their Instagram accounts, because they are completely beholden to the algorithm and there is no, there's no industry standards, there's no hr. There's really alone out there, and it's such all consuming work. The line between private and public is so blurry. You can't really take breaks because the algorithm will screw you for that. If you're gone for a week, your post won't be seen. So almost everyone I talked to struggled with that, always having to be on and always having to perform and always having to be aware of, am I sharing too much? Am I not sharing enough? Am I protecting my real self, but am I also sharing my real self? It's just this really impossible line to walk
Doree: I feel like there is, there's been more of a backlash lately about influencers posting their kids, and I'm blanking on who it was, but there was a pretty famous influencer who very recently announced that she wasn't going to be posting her kids anymore.
Sara Louise Pet...: Might have been Amber Ring Bell, Amber filler up Clarke, maybe fill,
Doree: Oh yes. Maybe. And I, I'm also, I've seen on TikTok a lot of children of influencers who are now in their late teens or early twenties talking about the trauma of their parents being influencers and them being sort of fodder for content and also feeling pressure from their moms mostly to participate in these posts because these were now supporting the family. And I'm just wondering what you have found in your research or what your personal thoughts are on what is the effect that we're seeing on the children of mom influencers, and what are the kind of long-term repercussions for the mom influencing industry if the kids get taken out of the equation?
Sara Louise Pet...: Totally. Yeah. I didn't focus a ton on this in the book, only because I was primarily interested in the performance of motherhood and how that impacts moms specifically. But of course, I'm personally interested in this, and many of the momfluencers sponsors I spoke to, one of them was very transparent with her kids from early on that she was getting paid for these things. And if they ever didn't want to participate, they just had to say so. And one of her kids did opt out. Another one had set up trust funds. And I sort of feel like it's quite doable to mom influence without ones children's faces or whatever being a huge part of it. Because, I mean, of course there are the accounts where people get invested in children's stories and want to watch Baby Emma grow up or whatever. But I think we're more often than not sucked into the mythology of the mom herself and what she is making of her maternal experience, which is why, to me, I think, yeah, I just feel like it's quite doable to put the heart over the face or whatever, and still very much talk about your maternal experience without having these consent issues, which I don't know. I've been thinking about kid actors a lot lately in terms of this whole conversation. Sure. You can have a conversation with a five-year-old and say, do you want to do this movie? Does this still seem fun to you? And that five-year-old can say yes, but not have any clear understanding of what the legacy of this movie they're making might mean for them as an adult.
Kate: Oh, wow. Yeah.
Sara Louise Pet...: I just think consent with kids and media of any kind is really tricky.
Doree: Totally.
Kate: Yeah. I think about this. My kids have these favorite, this favorite family of content creators, and I now watch a lot of their videos with them. And like, how do these kids, they have no, it's, you think they have consent, but they really don't. And the pressure they must be under. What if one of them was like, I'm done. Then what? And I stress about it as I watch these kids trying, doing all these family challenges, which are very entertaining.
Doree: So we're just going to take a short break and we will be right back.
Kate: I have a question. Yes. It's kind of a one word question, and that one word question is just ballerina farm? I feel like ballerina farm is, it's a real kind of zen diagram, not a gram of Venn diagram, excuse me, of influencer mom, influencer culture. It's like there's triad wife vibes, there's that big family, kind of the big Mormon influencer culture, which is very real. There's like the homesteading stuff, but then there's the generational secret wealth that is kind of disguised also, she's a thin, attractive white woman. Yeah. I mean, you write about ballerina farm, but for folks who aren't familiar with her or for folks who follow her and are like, huh.
Sara Louise Pet...: Right.
Kate: What do you think she kind of represents right now? Because I do feel like she is at the peak of influencer culture at the moment.
Sara Louise Pet...: Yeah. Yeah. She has skyrocketed since I first started writing about her. She had, I don't know, 90,000, a hundred thousand followers, and now she has over a million. And the central draw for me at first was the sheer volume of children and her smiling face. Those two things I, I just couldn't wrap my head around how, and one thing I always think about that sort of feels like a poetic distillation of why she's so fascinating is, I have no clue if I can find this now, but there was a post or a series of stories where they were showing the before of the ranch kitchen, and it was essentially, it looked like a eighties or nineties kitchen, I want to say vinyl siding was involved formicah counters. It was just very non-descript. And then they completely stripped it down to the studs, and I think put shiplap on that wasn't there to begin with, to create this very authentic farmhouse vibe, but it was completely orchestrated to look like an authentic farmhouse. And the same with the aga stove that harken.
Kate: Oh, the stove,
Sara Louise Pet...: Yes. The $20,000 stove. And even the kitchen, it's like this very bare bones humble, down to earth. No, it's not fussy. It's like the polar opposite of Kardashian aesthetic. Right? Right. That's very in your face with the wealth, the whole point of Kardashian anesthetic is money. How much money went into making it look like this? But so much money went into making that ballerina farm aesthetic as well. It's just completely, you're not supposed to see it. You're supposed to feel this sense of naturalness or inevitability when in fact it's orchestrated. So I just find that to be helpful in unpacking her allure and the whole accounts allure. I guess,
Doree: Could we also talk about an aspect of mom influencing that you discuss in your book that I am personally sort of obsessed with, which is the role of mom influencers in the rise of anti-vax and anti mask sentiment and the sort of Venn diagram with Qunon. Can you talk about the slippery slope from crunchy mom to anti-vax mom to quanon mom? And how did that happen? Why is it happen? Yeah, why is this happening? I can't remember if it's Joe Piazza. Someone has a term for this that I'm blanking on. It's, it's not pink fluency, but it's something like that. And if some
Sara Louise Pet...: Pastel something maybe. Yes,
Doree: Yes, yes, yes. Pastel, I think, what's her name? The woman who does sad beige?
Sara Louise Pet...: Oh yeah. Hailey. Hailey, yes.
Doree: Hailey talks about this. It's like pastel quanon. It's pastel quanon. Yes. That's she it. Yes. Pastel qan. Okay, great. Glad it was really bothering me that I could not remember this anyway. Sorry. Totally.
Sara Louise Pet...: No, I am also fascinated by this, and it is such a slippery slope, and I think what's interesting to me is that often these ideologies are grounded in real concerns. For example, maternal healthcare is really in need of an overhaul, especially for black moms and other marginalized moms and fat moms. Many of these big systems, undergirding motherhood are broken and do deserve to be criticized. So many of these granola crunchy moms will start from a place of, I'm really concerned about what's going into my child's body. I don't feel like my maternal authority is being respected, or my autonomy is being respected. And again, valid concerns. But then they use that and they weaponize that to do my own research. And suddenly maternal authority becomes this thing where I didn't go to medical school. I know nothing about chemistry or science, but I know that vaccines are full of toxins. And I guess I think that it's slippery because the root is real. The root concern is real. And I think it's easy for many moms to relate to feeling disrespected or unseen in medical settings, healthcare settings. And I also just think it's a way for moms without available or without easy access to cultural capital, to gain cultural capital by upholding themselves as authorities or upholding themselves as free thinkers or mavericks. I'm not one of the sheeples I can think for myself and make my own decisions, which we all want to be respected as thinkers and as experts in some ways, and in the US mothers are certainly not.
Kate: Do you see any upside to living life publicly online in this way? I know there was a lee from, I know Lee America is not a parent. Lee from America is a popular influencer who has since kind of gone offline, but is now teaching courses on how to stop influencing. I did not read the recent profile on Lee from America, but I do think the idea is, let's get away from this. But then what, I don't know, are there upsides to being online? Is there a way to do it in a way that you feel is productive for all involved, or are we maybe shouldn't be here?
Sara Louise Pet...: I mean.
Kate: Also, sorry to keep rambling here, but also I feel like this, then this so specifically impacts women.
Sara Louise Pet...: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I will say that social media has democratized whose ideas are seen and heard in ways that are really important. Prior to social media, unless you had a book deal or you had ties to academia or had some other source of cultural entry point, you couldn't create an audience. You couldn't get your ideas out there. They couldn't be widely accessible. So I think that's important to remember when we're talking about all of this. I think of people like Laura Danger, she is huge on TikTok, but also big on Instagram. And her whole platform is talking about unequal gender divisions within the home and drawing attention to that. And she's got a massive platform and is now writing a book about this and is reaching people in meaningful ways. And without social media, how would she have been able to do that? that being said, I guess your question about can it be simple or good for the person putting out the content? I don't know if it can be wholly simple or good or only positive just because of the Thorniness parasocial relationships, the nece necessity of having to identify and uphold boundaries and to keep some of yourself for yourself, that just feels so existentially difficult and confounding and just one of the big issues of our age, I guess. So I don't know if that answers the question. I guess I just wanted to point out that it can be this really wonderful force for good and change despite it being toxic in many ways and really hard to navigate in so many ways.
Doree: Well, and you talk about this a bit in your book. I have had, I'm not a mom influencer, but I have a podcast about infertility, and I have seen the ways in which certain communities can almost need someone who can create that community for them.
Sara Louise Pet...: Yeah.
Doree: Because I can't even tell you how many people we have heard from who say things. I was not able to talk about my infertility until I started listening to your podcast. And you talk about that with marginalized communities, and I do think that there is a real power there. Yeah.
Sara Louise Pet...: But is it just, Yeah, I was going to ask you, is it tricky for you to be, I don't know, the pressure of being that source? I don't know. I always wonder if that's hard to hold.
Doree: Oh Totally. No, I, I mean, I wrote about this in my book too, because when you have been in the infertility community and then you get pregnant, it brings up a lot of very complicated feelings for people that I was both very empathetic too, and also sort of like, well, this is actually my life,
Sara Louise Pet...: Right.
Doree: You don't have to be happy for me, but also don't be mad at me.
Sara Louise Pet...: Yeah.
Doree: And there were some people who made their sort of displeasure with how I was presenting my pregnancy on social media. No. And I was kind of just like, look, unfollowing is free.
Sara Louise Pet...: Yeah, totally.
Doree: If this content is not working for you, then don't follow it. But also this content quote is my actual life.
Sara Louise Pet...: Yes.
Doree: Sometimes we would get emails from people that were basically, it's taking too long for you guys to pregnant.
Sara Louise Pet...: Oh my God. Oh my God.
Doree: And I was like, Sorry, we haven't given you that you've been waiting for, but this is my actual life and we're doing this in real time, so you're experiencing this. So yeah, to answer your question, yes, I do. I did feel that pressure a lot. So it's complicated, but I was also, I think it was kind of outweighed by how I, I felt really good about being able to give voice to all these people. One final question. You mostly write about Instagram in your book, and I'm wondering if you have thoughts on how mom influencing is different from platform to platform, for example, I feel like for me personally on TikTok, I see a lot of teen and very young moms, and they don't seem to be as much on Instagram, or at least they're not surfaced for me as much as they are on TikTok. And I'm kind of fascinated by them just as a social phenomenon. But I'm wondering if you have seen other kinds of distinctions.
Sara Louise Pet...: Yeah. I will say I'm not on TikTok, I guess. So I will dip in for research purposes, but I'm not a consumer just for no reason other than I just never signed up for TikTok. But I guess anecdotally, it seems to me that it's much less image driven, less there's less need for Polish. And again, this might be reflecting my own silo, but it feels like there's a lot of clear advocacy happening on TikTok and very specific issues being tackled on TikTok. Very clear, are you struggling with this specific thing? If so, let's talk about it. And here are resources. Whereas Instagram, I just always think of narrative and storytelling as being the primary driver of interest. Yeah. But I have noticed a lot of younger moms morning routine videos seem really huge.
Doree: Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Sara Louise Pet...: And this is maybe neither here nor there, but I don't do Facebook for anything other than I find Facebook is still where the utilitarian mom parenting stuff is. So if you need a babysitter, there's the babysitter group in your neighborhood or your community or whatever. I feel like that is still very much, you need Facebook for that type of stuff. But I don't know, that could just be community specific.
Kate: That's a good point. They are kind of utilized for different things are face mom community can all be found on Facebook, but the aspirational stuff and then the weird educational, I follow this influencer to learn about how to make dinner is all on the other apps. It's so interesting. Sarah, where can our listeners follow and find you?
Sara Louise Pet...: I have substack in Pursuit of Clean Countertops, which is an interrogation of the Cult of Ideal Motherhood, and I'm on Instagram and Twitter @SLouisePeterson.
Kate: Wow. Get Momfluenced. The book. Not like, don't go back and subscribe and
Doree: Subscribe to Sarah's substck. I really love reading it. It's such a great such newsletter. So if you're not subscribed, I highly recommend it.
Sara Louise Pet...: Thank you so much,
Kate: Doree. I had a thought actually earlier today. It's not quite about mom influencers, but it's about the way in which social media kind of sabotages my self-care. Oh, like the algorithm. Here's for me, I have tried to set up so many blinders when it comes to diet and fitness culture and all that kind of shit. Yeah. And if you click on one thing, all of a sudden your feet is flooded.
Doree: Oh, totally. Yes.
Kate: And it really can, I find, set me back in terms of the ways and the progress I have made in kind of healing myself. And I just was noticing it, and I was feeling very kind of angry about that earlier today. So I feel like that kind of plays into the conversation we had with Sarah. It was just something I noticed.
Doree: Interesting. Okay. Yep. Yeah. Yep, yep, yep.
Kate: Well, Doree, how did it go last week with your intention of just getting through your son's fourth birthday party?
Doree: Well, if you are a subscriber to my newsletter, which is a Doree.substack.com, you might have already read my ruminations on Henry's birthday party and just the nature of birthday kids', birthday parties in general. If you haven't read it yet, you can scoot loo on over and check that out. But
Kate: Scoot a Loot,
Doree: Scoot a Loot. Just look.
Kate: I love that, scoot a loot.
Doree: Thank you. But Tldr, it was great. Henry had a blast. He just looked so happy the whole time. He was so happy. Oh, it was really lovely. Bluey showed up. Bluey came all the way from Australia to go to his birthday party.
Kate: Okay. Talk about a celebrity sighting in Los Angeles.
Doree: These kids have seen a lot. Okay. These are LA kids, and when I tell you the excitement that these children had when they saw Bluey, it was next level.
Kate: Can I ask you kind of just a random nostalgia question? Yeah. Do you have any early memories of the characters that showed up at other people's birthday parties? I remember I went to this girl's birthday party. I think her name was Sasha.
Doree: Okay.
Kate: It was at McDonald's, which was the hottest place to have a birthday party in the eighties.
Doree: Yeah.
Kate: And Michael Jackson impersonator showed up, and this must have been like 1985, 86,
Doree: Stop.
Kate: Now I can vividly remember it was the most glamorous, important day of my life between the McDonald's.
Doree: That is so funny
Kate: The party and a Michael Jackson impersonator. That's the only time I ever remember seeing that at a birthday like that never happened at my birthday parties.
Doree: I do not recall any characters. I remember going to the ground round and there was a clown.
Kate: The ground round.
Doree: I don't remember any characters ever at a birthday party.
Kate: Wait, I want to get to your intention this week, but I just also want to ask, did you ever do the horrible thing at the ground round where you pay what you give your weight?
Doree: Yes. Yeah. Pay what you weigh.
Kate: One of the most fucked up things I've ever experienced,
Doree: They had, if you're not familiar, I think it was once a week, Monday nights or something, kids could pay what you weighed. So if you weighed 65 pounds, you paid 65 cents. But as you can probably gather, this had the potential to really do a number on some people.
Kate: Holy, some all of us. I mean, what a nightmare.
Doree: What a nightmare.
Kate: There was a full scale that you could, I don't think I ever did it, but I remember the offering.
Doree: Oh we did it all the time.
Kate: Oh, you did?
Doree: Yes, we did it all the time. I have. So I remember going to that so much because it was so cheap.
Kate: Yes. It means yes. They also gave you free popcorn. That's like my other big memory of the ground round. Ground round. Good Lord. Does that still exist?
Doree: I don't think so. Okay.
Kate: Wow. What a memory.
Doree: Well, back to Bluey, we did a lot this week. I'm just as discussed in the beginning of the episode. I'm going to finish the playroom. So I've made a lot of progress, but I want to feel like super done with it.
Kate: Oh, wow.
Doree: Kate, what about you?
Kate: Okay. Mine was just resting and taking it easy because I was at these concerts all day, and then the LA Times Festival books, wait, excuse me. Concerts all night, and then I was at the LA Times Festival of Books all day last weekend.
Doree: We had a conversation about, you brought up, what do you do when your self-care is like not restful?
Kate: Yes. Yeah. I'm like, what am I doing to myself? It was so rewarding, but that is why I basically stayed home all weekend this weekend. So I had an amazing time. Phish is, I love Phish more than anything in the whole world. I love them so much. I just never going to stop. Loving Phish at had the best time. The concerts were great. I had fun seeing friends. It was so much fun. Scraping outside. Hollywood Bowl is gorgeous. And as mentioned, I met Forever35 listeners. It was amazing.
Doree: Amazing
Kate: LA Times Festival books. Amazing. I got to meet readers, authors that I love. I got to talk about my favorite, other favorite thing in the world, romance. Hang out with friends, see book sellers that I love. I mean, it was just amazing. But all my extroverted wells were drained. I just needed quiet. But I took it, but I took it. And also, luckily I was able to take it between work and my partner's work and my kids and all that stuff. So I'm very, very felt lucky about that this week. I'm just going to try. Well, God, you know what? I was about to set this intention and then I remember what the fucking weather is for this week. And it's rain.
Doree: It is rain,
Kate: But you know what, I'm going to just try to, well, I really wanted to sit outside the, today I sat outside and I worked, and I, I'm, I've been reminding myself to go sit outside and read and just spend time outside, which I can do here in Southern California. So I'm going to try to do that despite the rainy forecast. Just get outside. I just am so happy getting to sit in the outdoor world and I know i don't do it enough.
Doree: That sounds great.
Kate: Thanks, friend.
Doree: You're welcome. Well, everyone, Forever35 is hosted and produced by me, Doris Shafrir and Kate Spencer, and produced and edited by Sam Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager and our network partner is Acast. Thanks for listening. Bye.
Kate: Bye.