Noise Within Motherhood with Kathryn Barbash
Get to know the 2024 Mental Health and Motherhood Virtual Conference speakers in this summer series!
It’s time for another meet and greet!
As we wait for the 2024 Mental Health and Motherhood Conference on October 11, 2024, we have the chance to meet our speakers this summer on Substack. I sat down with Kathryn Barbash of
and asked her our conference question:“How can we treat ourselves with self-compassion despite the noise of motherhood?”
Take a 5-minute pause in your day to watch our chat or read the transcript below! It’s been a pleasure to read Kathryn’s newsletter and see how she’s offering practical tips for parenting as someone with a professional background in clinical psychology.
“There are so many voices out there in the parent-scape, which I call, that's what I call kind of the parenting space. They're telling us all different types of things to do, some helpful, some not. And I think that those voices start to get really loud and really confusing.”
You can also reach out to Kathryn through her own newsletter or ask questions in the comments here.
Transcript
Chanel Riggle (00:00.508)
Hello, thank you for joining me. I have Katherine here and she is going to be on one of our speaker panels for the 2024 Mental Health and Motherhood Virtual Conference and that is October 11th. Very excited to have Katherine here and I wanna dive right into it.
Katherine, could you tell us how we can treat ourselves with self -compassion despite the noise of motherhood?
Kathryn Barbash (00:26.116)
Yes. So I think self -compassion is so important for any parent. I think it should be given to you like a sheet in the hospital. Here you go: Self -compassion. These are the things you need to do. There are so many voices out there in the parent-scape, which I call, that's what I call kind of the parenting space. They're telling us all different types of things to do, some helpful, some not. And I think that those voices start to get really loud and really confusing.
And it's an easy way to fall down a rabbit hole and feel that you need to do all of these things. Be perfect. You know, make sure that you're following all of the expectations and the rules and all of that.
And then when life gets in the way and things are hard and complicated, we feel even worse at a time when that's already hard. And so I feel like self-compassion is just crucial to be there to kind of help us kind of get through: what is my voice saying? What do I need to listen to? What is helpful and what is not? And be able to follow things that are going to be true to us as mothers and how we want to show up for our kids.
Chanel Riggle (01:58.684)
I love it. Thank you so much. What is so interesting to you about the topic of self -compassion and motherhood?
Kathryn Barbash (02:06.784)
I think what's so interesting to me is self-compassion in many ways is kind of a simple concept to treat ourselves with care, kindness, you know, as we would treat a friend, but it's so hard to do. And I think this is kind of universal across humans, but I also think it is incredibly difficult as mothers to do this. And I think there's a lot of different things that go into that. But I think that that is why it is so important to me and so interesting that it's something that is so helpful, so useful, so important, and yet so hard to do.
Chanel Riggle (02:51.004)
Yeah, sometimes the simplest things are the hardest things, especially in motherhood. And then before we wrap up, could you just give us a brief background about who you are and what you do?
Kathryn Barbash (03:05.502)
Yeah. So I am a clinical psychologist. I worked with kids and adolescents and families for a decade. And then I took a little bit of a pivot and became a full -time stay at home parent. I have four kids ranging from toddler to age nine. So we've got all types of things going on in our house. And, being a stay -at -home parent, I had this whole shift from working full -time and kind of taking in more of the parenting content and things that were going around in the world and really feeling like, hmm, there's a lot of noise here. And I felt that I had some things to say about it. So I started writing a newsletter on parenthood,
on Substack and focuses on mindfulness and self-compassion, other kinds of psychology tools as well as humor. That's really important to to get through something like parenthood. So that's that's me.Chanel Riggle (04:17.852)
Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm really looking forward to hearing this speaker panel on the topic of noise within motherhood. There's so much to say and just letting everybody know that this conference is going to have many speakers and they're going to have a lot of unique views on how to help you handle mental health in motherhood in the way that works for you. So thank you so much, Kathryn, for your perspective.
I really appreciate your writing and thank you for your time!
Kathryn Barbash (04:51.993)
Thank you.
Ready for more discussion on mental health and motherhood?
Learn how to treat yourself with compassion in mind, body, and spirit during this live-streamed event. Motherhood Minute is hosting its first virtual conference October 11, 2024.
Save the date: Tickets go on sale July 1, 2024
Motherhood Minute is still going to share all the things about the virtual conference, but a website was necessary for better sharing. Please Share! We need your help to let other moms know a day is being dedicated to mental health topics for their benefit.
How you can share:
Share the website url with mothers you know: https://mentalhealthmomevent.com/
Share in your newsletters or restack and like this post ❤️
Print or share a flyer with your local hangouts where moms go (coffee shops, play groups, work places, libraries, etc)
Let moms know that community is out there and maternal mental health awareness affects all of us! This might be the first step someone takes to become aware of their mental health and feel connected.
This is going to be such a great talk during the conference! And so important, too.
So excited to be a part of this conference. There are so many wonderful presenters on a topic that is so important. It will be a wonderful, rich event!