There are few experiences as universal to human existence as pregnancy and childbirth, and yet its most difficult parts — perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) — are still dealt with in the shadows, shrouded in stigma. The fact is 1 in 5 new and expecting birthing people will experience a PMAD, yet among those who do many are afraid to talk about it, some are not even aware they’re experiencing one, and others don’t know where to turn for help. The fact is, when someone suffers from a maternal mental health disorder it affects not only them, their babies, partners, and families - it impacts our communities.
In the Previa Alliance Podcast series, Sarah Parkhurst and Whitney Gay are giving air to a vastly untapped topic by creating a space for their guests — including survivors of PMADs and healthcare professionals in maternal mental health — to share their experiences and expertise openly. And in doing so, Sarah and Whitney make it easy to dig deep and get real about the facts of perinatal mental health, fostering discussions about the raw realities of motherhood. Not only will Previa Alliance Podcast listeners walk away from each episode with a sense of belonging, they’ll also be armed with evidence-based tools for healing, coping mechanisms, and the language to identify the signs and symptoms of PMADs — the necessary first steps in a path to treatment. The Previa Alliance Podcast series is intended for anyone considering pregnancy, currently pregnant, and postpartum as well as the families and communities who support them.
Sarah Parkhurst
Previa Alliance Podcast Co-host; Founder & CEO of Previa Alliance
A postpartum depression survivor and mom to two boys, Sarah is on a mission to destigmatize the experiences of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs), and to educate the world on the complex reality of being a mom. Sarah has been working tirelessly to bring to light the experiences of women who have not only suffered a maternal mental health crisis but who have survived it and rebuilt their lives. By empowering women to share their own experiences, by sharing expert advice and trusted resources, and by advocating for health care providers and employers to provide support for these women and their families, Sarah believes as a society we can minimize the impact of the current maternal mental health crisis, while staving off future ones.
Whitney Gay
Previa Alliance Podcast Co-host; licensed clinician and therapist
For the past ten years, Whitney has been committed to helping women heal from the trauma of a postpartum mental health crisis as well as process the grief of a miscarriage or the loss of a baby. She believes that the power of compassion paired with developing critical coping skills helps moms to heal, rebuild, and eventually thrive. In the Previa Alliance Podcast series, Whitney not only shares her professional expertise, but also her own personal experiences of motherhood and recovery from grief.
Why Am I 15 Again? The Roles We Play in Our Families - Part 2
•Previa Alliance Team•Season 1•Episode 238
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You tell your family you’re staying home with the baby. One comment about what your cousins did, and suddenly you’re 15 again, defending a decision you’ve already made.
In Part 2, Sarah and Whitney unpack the roles we slip back into around family, from the Golden Child and Family Therapist to the Rebel, Scapegoat, Baby, and Comic Relief. Maybe you’re the person everyone calls to vent. Maybe you crack a joke the second dinner gets tense. Or maybe your family still calls you the baby, even though you have grandkids of your own.
As the holidays approach, Sarah and Whitney talk about how to spot these patterns and set a boundary without turning it into a confrontation. What would you do differently at your next family gathering if you didn’t feel responsible for playing your usual part?
Hi everybody, welcome back to Preview Alliance Podcast. We are full into fall, Whitney. It's here finally. It's here. We're finally during the morning, I shall say, in the South, not in shorts, but in the afternoons, when it's still in the 80s, we are in shorts. We're not melting. We're not melting. We're not sensory overloaded because of heat. Now we may be for other reasons, but not shifted.
SPEAKER_02
We shifted.
SPEAKER_00
We've shifted. There's always a new way to be overwhelmed. Um, but we are in part two. Listeners, last week we did part one of essentially family roles. And when we enter into this season, once you're going to be seeing your family, which you may see them all the time, or you may see them once a year, and this may be that time, but I would guarantee your roles, no matter how many times you see them, are still present. And quick recap of our last one. We did the peacekeeper, the responsible one, the fixer rescuer, people pleaser, slash good girl, invisible one, and achiever. So now we're jumping right back in. So if you're like, wait, I missed the first one, go back and listen to that. Yes. Um, absolutely.
Now, the one I'm wondering if Whitney maybe has to wear the hat because of her qualifications is the family therapist. It is the one that everybody confides in you. You know, mom talks about dad, dad talks to mom about, you know, you're kind of that person, you know, way too much about everybody, and you find yourself in those situations of like, I'm not supposed to know this about you at this moment. Right. But you really kind of are the one that's keeping everybody emotionally connected and in place. Um, and you're you're carrying the emotional responsibility, which we've know that fiscal rescue organizer may be like truly carrying 20 plates into Thanksgiving. Oh, absolutely. But you're more the one of emotional burnout, wear out, carrying, um put in a fixer emotional situation that you maybe not asked for.
SPEAKER_02
Right. So thankfully, I don't necessarily have that role in my family. No, I will say, like when my grandfather was really sick and all the things, I was medical social worker in the family, advocate, things like that. But I will say I do see it some in my husband, maybe not all the time, but I do see a lot of, well, did you see that mom did this or what about this? Like I do kind of see a little bit of that back and forthing, kind of almost middlemanning him in a way, but not necessarily, oh Michael, I need you to go tell so-and-so this. It's I'm gonna confide in you. And then 20 minutes later, the person that will say Aunt Brenda, Aunt Brenda confided in him and said, now don't tell Uncle Dave about this. Well, then 20 minutes later, Uncle Dave is like, Hey, I gotta tell you this, but don't tell Aunt Brenda I said it. Yeah, I kind of see that sum in there, and I'm like, mm, that's peculiar, and it does weigh heavy on the family therapist, so to speak, because they have been put, they never wanted to be in that position, but they've been put in that position where they know all this information, they feel very um weighed down by it because what do I do with this information kind of thing? And unfortunately, with Michael being an Enneagram nine, the peacekeeper, he's not likely to stand up for himself and be like, hey, like I really don't want to be in the middle. Like, if you need advice on how to approach that person, sure, I I can do that, but like that's not what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00
No, no, they're offloading, they're they're wanting to bring you into it. Right. And I bet every single person can think of that person in their family that you're like, no, if this is going on, I'm gonna tell this person, or I'm you know, I'm gonna go to aunt so-and-so, or my cousin this, and um, and it's a pla it's a high regard often that you go to this person of like you value their advice or their you know, their approach, or they just feel like kind of that warm hug of a person to you that you can kind of or like maybe that's the only reasonable one in your family, right? You know, so it's I think it's one of those things that's hard for them to be like, I love you a lot, like I I care about this, but like I can't get into this, right? Like, uh-huh. And boundaries, but it's difficult when you are that, and I think it's even harder when there's multi-generations coming to that person. Yes, you've got the young, you've got the old, you've got the whole mixture of that. So that person is probably gearing up for the holidays, like, oh boy, I'm gonna take on my second job um with my family, it's gonna be great. Right. The second one that we're gonna talk about today, and I'm sure everybody's gonna think
about it. And I guarantee it, Whitney, I'm gonna say the opposite. It's not you, it's the scapegoat, it's the difficult one. Yeah, it's not Whitney.
SPEAKER_02
It depends on what part of my life we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00
Uh oh, okay. And does that carry? Because you know, the the whole point of our episode is why do I feel 15 again when I'm a grown woman with children? And but what's if your Aunt Brenda always sees you, Whitney, for that, you know, little blip of your life that maybe you were the difficult one, that now you're labeled as that, right?
SPEAKER_02
Well, and it's one of those again, I do, and as a parent, I kind of see it too where you're like, are they really that old? Are my kids really six and nine? Do I really have one that's gonna be 10? Like, we do always tend to see our children and other family members younger, you know, as the young kids, as the toddlers, the preschoolers. So I can understand that scope of it because here I am as a mom and I see my kids kind of the same way. And so I think if Aunt Brenda were to remember me in high school/slash college, where I was like, no, I'm gonna do my own thing. You know, like I was the only person in my family that didn't go to Auburn and I had no plans of transferring to Auburn because I didn't want to go to a big university. I changed my major from marketing to social work without asking permission of anybody in the family. I just knew that I was not going to survive in marketing because I had made a D in accounting twice. So it was a little bit of the black sheep of I didn't do the things that people thought I was going to do or expected me to do. And so I think I got kind of pinpointed as a little bit of the rebellious one. And honestly, when I as an adult, I look back, I'm like, y'all, those were very mild behaviors. Okay.
SPEAKER_00
Those were not what could have been. And I think that's a really good point, is that maybe sometimes the scapegoat difficult one is the one who maybe just kind of identifies family patterns early, or maybe roles that they're like, I'm not gonna play, or I'm just not gonna do, or hey, that's not okay.
SPEAKER_02
Right. Well, and I think too, a lot of times your scapegoat black sheep person doesn't live up to somebody's expectations, whether they're said or not said, and so therefore, there's a negative cast or connotation to that, and it doesn't always have to be that way. Like me choosing to not go to Auburn is not a bad thing, it is not this black sheep thing, but it was like, what do you mean you're not going? And I'm like, I want to go to Jacksonville instead, and it was like, Well, why would you do that? Aren't you gonna transfer? I'm like, I don't have plans to that's not what my goal is, and it was that shock. So you a shock factor can play a role as well, but the black sheep is often the person that just didn't meet someone's expectations, or they didn't go, you know, the path that was expected of them, again, whether it was said or not said, or that they're just different from the family. Like maybe you have a family of athletes and then this person decides to be artsy. Yeah, maybe they don't enjoy sports, that's just not their thing. Okay, you know, you know what? Maybe, maybe they did have a rebellious high school or college time frame. Maybe they did, maybe they went out and partied more than they should have. Maybe they experimented in some things that maybe they shouldn't have. You know, maybe, and not that I'm condemning this, but maybe they got a DUI when they were in college. And Aunt Brenda looks at you and you're 34, 38, 40 years old, and Aunt Brenda's like, well, don't go too heavy on the wine at Thanksgiving. And you're like, it's one glass. Yeah. And I'm an adult that has a house and a car and children. Like, I'm not getting wasted at Thanksgiving and going to have another DUI. Like, that's not who I am. And so I think a lot of times the scapegoat and the black sheep end up being skewed with immaturity from their past. Yeah, that people don't think that they have outgrown or learned from. And so you know, it's also easy to blame that same person over and over again for any family upsets because you know they disgraced quotes the family when they did that. Well, they're not continuing to do it. No, they're not the one time respect or credit for growing.
SPEAKER_00
No, or even I mean, and it it really often is of just when you I mean, I remember being a new mom and saying Thanksgiving with my oldest, and being like, We can't come. Um, it was but it was like height of flu cold. He was a Nikki baby, he's not being passed around. And um also, too, like I mentally was not in a good spot to be a part of all that. And I remember being like, your cousin, I remember being told your cousins always did it, it's not a big deal. But I was like, no, I'm not, right? And it's like then kind of it's just been like, you know, I kind of moved away, a lot of people didn't, um, you know, lived different places outside of the nuclear family center home, and you kind of get put as like, oh, here she's doing her own thing, or you know, family, this family's not, but whatever. And it's but it's just not the case, right? But you tend to be the case, but it goes back to that one event often, or that one moment of right you said where you kind of rock that boat, expectation set by that person on you, or standard that was spoken, not spoken of the family of everybody behaves, and you kind of, yeah, then you get labeled as that, but but then you're also the one that's able to be like, hey, I ain't doing this, and nobody nobody's surprised again that you're not doing it, you know. It's kind of like so. There's a little bit of freedom there for that, right? That all right.
Then you got the other one who is always there, it's the comic relief, who when they feel ain't Branda bringing up Whitney, your um grave decision not to go to Auburn, they're gonna bring up a joke and say, Oh bah they are going to lighten the mood, they're gonna send awkward silences, and they're gonna be that person that steps in. They have you know, humor has a place, right? Um, but humor, this person, it they often sometimes do not allow people to sit in the uncomfortableness, and maybe they don't allow themselves to sit into the uncomfortableness of pause or disagreement, or just right, you know, have a different opinion, right?
SPEAKER_02
Well, and I'll say this that was absolutely my uncle Jeep. He could crack a joke and make anybody laugh, he could lighten the mood of the room, and I do think that that was his goal. I think his goal was to kind of deflate the situation, yeah, and so it wasn't necessarily avoidance, it was okay, I want to make things less tense so that it doesn't get more tense. So oftentimes that comedian jokester person is also a nine, they're a peacekeeper, but not with full avoidance.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, they're just trying to be like it's I mean, they're kind of like of all the world problems, right? We're not gonna get to blows over this. Right. Let's laugh about it, let's make a joke, let's I think I think they're but everybody knows one. Like you know that person that's gonna have great comic time at the Thanksgiving table. Right. Yep.
SPEAKER_02
You don't know how much they're missed until they are missed. Right. Well, and it's one of those two, the person that cracks the joke, again, they they want good for everybody kind of thing. And I think they're also trying to be maybe preventative of the situation escalating and things being said that don't need to be said in the way that it would be said. So, and they may, you know, pull a joke that is out of left field, but it's a distraction, you know. We talk about it oftentimes with grief, you want to distract yourself some. That's what the comedian jokester in the family does.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, no, they're needed and we'll put them beside the aggressor any day.
And the next one that everybody's got it in the family, they didn't choose it, but they're the baby. Oh, yeah. I mean, my father is going to just turn 68, and his sisters say baby brother, and they will talk the baby. We have to take care of the baby. How's my baby brother? And I'm like, this man is a full-blown retired man, lived a whole career, has a grown daughter and two grandsons, and but that label of the baby and needing to be taken care of is a lot, right?
SPEAKER_02
Well, and I think too, it starts obviously early on in life, and sometimes not all the time, but often we see it where the baby of the family often gets away with things, uh-huh. Like they're given a lot more grace or just passing of things, and the oldest is over there, like, what do you mean? I would have been torn up over that or grounded or whatever, but the baby gets a pass on it all. Uh and here's the funny thing, I'm I'm literally the baby of my family growing up. I am the youngest of two kids, and so I can kind of remember a little bit of that. Um, definitely didn't happen in like my teen years, but definitely more of like those smaller elementary school years, and I can only imagine how frustrated my sister was over that. Oh, I'm sure yeah. Now, as I'm mom of two girls, I try so hard to not let my youngest get away with things. But also, she's my tenacious one that pushes it. And I'm like, oh, I do have to pick my battles. Oh, my parents were exhausted. That's why I got away, you know. Like that's why I got to eat more candy than her, because they're like, whatever, whatever at this point, you know, they were picking their battles.
SPEAKER_00
And if you see it though, you see it because it's just like that little extra care for the baby, the little extra, like, are you okay? You know, the little check on by the older sister, still, you know, 60 years later, still the like, of course, of course, he can get out of, of course, he doesn't have to do the dishes, mom. Like, you know, he never did dishes, you know, or whatever. You know, it's just, but then the baby sometimes feels like, hey guys, now I don't have a voice at the table because I'm not the baby, I'm a grown person. I have I have experience. Listen to me, right? Like, so then the baby sometimes feels like I can't ever outgrow it in your eyes, right?
SPEAKER_02
And we talked about that just a second ago about how you know Aunt Brenda might view you as a five-year-old, for example, or you know, that college you that got a D wipe, things of that nature, and so it is a shift, especially when you're the baby of the family, for someone to actually acknowledge that you've grown up and matured.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah. Oh, the babies, everybody's got them. We know who
they are, I'm the baby, they know how to play that role, and then you've got which I don't, I think sometimes the golden child's not usually the baby, but it's the golden child, right? You've got the successful, the dependable. The parents will be like, I never had to worry about them. Um, I could always depend on them. Um, but there's a lot of pressure on the golden child, and the golden child is carrying something, and they don't want to admit they're struggling. So the golden child is often like this facade of like everything's great, it's great, it's great. And inside you can feel like your shattering kind of falling apart, but you're expected to be the one who comes to Thanksgiving, and right, you know, you're expected the one who's been doing well, you're expected the one to have the kids to be behaving, the marriage good, the everything's okay with you. It should be, right?
SPEAKER_02
Right. Well, and that person, I don't think they ever think that they can mess up. Like this is where I think a lot of maybe your perfectionistic people come from, or your type A people as Enneagram ones, where you know, it's you're supposed to have it all together. And if you don't have it all together, who is gonna keep it all together? Yeah, and that's a very scary place for them to be.
SPEAKER_00
Well, and then you're you're like, Do you love me and appreciate me for me or for what I've accomplished, or that I don't cause you issues? Right. Right.
SPEAKER_02
It's like you don't love me for me and my personality, or maybe that I do love to draw, or I love to play sports, or ride horses, or do whatever it is. Like you don't love me for me and my traits, you love me for perfectionism and not letting you down. Oh, yes, I meet your expectations, right? And they, I mean, this is where you get your high-functioning anxiety people. This is where you have your masking people when you get into the workforce. They get all of these accolades and honestly earned. Okay, we're not mad that the accolades happen, but they are constantly given more and more and more because they don't feel like they can say, I need to breathe. They don't feel like they can say, Whoa, slow down a little bit, all the things.
SPEAKER_00
Or they don't push back or they don't set up for themselves or say, I'm this. So I think with all these roles, and and depending on how big your family is, it can be interchangeable, right? Like some of these roles, you can have to play multiple of them. And I think what's the hardest thing is when the holidays crash upon us in these roles is you may at work operate in a completely different role. You and your own nuclear family could be this, but then when you join in, as we said, there's a lot of Aunt Brendas who have preconceived, locked in their mind, Whitney's always going to be this way, Sarah's always gonna be this way. Right. It can be very disruptive when you all sit down together and have a meal.
But I guess the hard thing is, is like what happens when you've changed, but your family hasn't changed of your role? Like, how do you navigate that? If you're like, if a listener's going, okay, Whitney, what do I do? Like, I'm done being the scapegoat, I'm done being the peacekeeper this year. But my family's not gonna be done with that for me.
SPEAKER_02
Well, here's the thing boundaries can exist, and boundaries don't have to be confrontational. Okay. And I know when we say the word boundary, we feel like it could be harsh, or like, Sarah, I'm putting a boundary between us now because you just made me so mad. That's not how we need to put a boundary in place with people that benefit of the doubt, do genuinely care for us, and they want good for us. So, how that comes is especially if you're that high-functioning anxiety type a perfectionistic person. Hi, nice to meet you. Welcome to the club. Yeah, yeah. Next to me, okay. Just telling people I can't bring five things to Thanksgiving, I have too much. You know, figure out how to lower that load, and you're not telling them, don't expect perfectionism out of me. It's I can't do as much this time. And that is okay. It is okay for you to back off a little bit if you don't want to host, if you're used to hosting, but it is way too much right now. Say, hey guys, I do want us to still get together, but I just can't host this year. It's just too much. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
And I think that's the thing, is and I with anything, you're someone else's disappointment, right? I think that's what people struggle to carry. And I think that's where they're like, well, what's if they get mad at me, Whitney? What's if they're disappointed at me? How do I sit with that? Or is it then it goes back to even deeper, which I think it'd be a whole good episode on is when we say no for the better of us, right? Why is that hard for us?
SPEAKER_02
Well, we're not used to doing it. We've never been allowed to do it.
SPEAKER_00
Mm-hmm. Which I think would be.
SPEAKER_02
Think about this. Like when you first started learning to drive a car, were you confident?
unknown
No.
SPEAKER_02
Were you nervous?
SPEAKER_00
100%.
SPEAKER_02
So it was something new to you, right? But now that you've been driving for years and years and years, driving really doesn't make you nervous for the most part. You may have a few situations that make you a little antsy. Like if I had to drive through Atlanta, I would get nervous because I don't like driving through Atlanta. Atlanta is just crazy. But because I'm a good driver now and I'm so used to driving, I'm not that anxious. The more you flex that muscle of boundary building, the easier it becomes. And honestly, like if you just feel overwhelmed by something, there's no shame in saying that. Yeah. You don't have to be perfect all the time. As a perfectionist, I'm here to tell you listeners that are also with me, you don't have to be perfect all the time. You don't hold it together all the time. You are not duct tape, you are not super glue. Yeah. Do not hold it together all the time. You're allowed to not.
And I think the challenge of listeners to be like, okay, this is all a lot. We've taken it in. It's figure it's go into this holiday season and see what role that either you put yourself in or you think your family put yourself in. So go into like you don't feel like it's a lot to challenge anything right now. Just be an investigator of your own life and see are you playing into it? Are people labeling it? Are they still quoting it? And use that as investigation, data collection, and then take it with you as information. Don't go in to try to change everything at once. But right now, just look at it as the data. Who am I? What role am I playing? And what role is being played on me. Right. Is that something I want or don't want? Right. And I think you start there. And then, you know, as we go into the new year, we're gonna have some great content on boundaries and again learning ourselves and how to navigate. So just if it all feels a lot, just figure out what role you're playing or someone else has put on you. That's your only challenge and only goal out of these episodes, is or make it a game and try and try to figure out who in your family member is what role.
SPEAKER_02
And make yourself by the way.
SPEAKER_00
It is very fun and it can also help you in uncomfortable situations to kind of distract your mind and be like, oh, there's the scapegoat. Oh, there's our comic relief.
SPEAKER_02
Kind of take that step back and people watch your own family.
SPEAKER_00
Yes, that's your challenge. That's this holiday. That's how we're all gonna survive. But listeners, this is a great two-part series. Go back and just know we're we're living it with you, but we'll be here through the holidays and we're not going anywhere. So we will see you guys next week. Maternal
mental health is as important as physical health. The Preview Alliance podcast was created for and by moms dealing with postpartum depression and all its variables like anxiety, anger, and even apathy. Hosted by CEO, founder Sarah Parkhurst, and licensed clinical social worker Whitney Gay, each episode focuses on specific issues relevant to pregnancy and postpartum. Join us and hear how other moms have overcome mental health challenges as well as access tips and suggestions on dealing with your own challenges as moms. You can also browse our podcast library and listen to previous episodes at any time. Please know you're not alone on this journey. We're here to help.
