Paternal Postpartum Depression: What Every New Dad Needs to Know | Kevin Maguire & Dr. Becky

1. 0:00 – 0:22

   Intro

   1. KMKevin Maguire0:00

      If you don't deal with your demons, your demons will raise your kids

   2. BEDr. Becky0:04

      If you don't deal with your demons, your demons will raise your kids

   3. KMKevin Maguire0:08

      And that's what's been happening for generations and generations and generations. Dads now, we're starting to have the language. We're starting to have the right resources.

   4. BEDr. Becky0:17

      Yes

   5. KMKevin Maguire0:17

      We're starting to have the permission

   6. BEDr. Becky0:19

      And the community

   7. KMKevin Maguire0:20

      And the community

2. 0:22 – 1:22

   Why paternal postpartum depression matters (and why it’s often missed)

   1. BEDr. Becky0:22

      Hi. I'm really glad you're here. This is Rattled, a show for when new parenthood shakes you. If you're new here, here's what we do. We take the thoughts that show up in new parenthood, the ones that feel really big or really shameful or really confusing, and we talk about them, and we sit with them. And today's thought is one that I think is a really important one, paternal postpartum depression. Those are words you might not have heard together, but it's very, very real, postpartum depression in fathers. If you're a new father, if you're a father-to-be, if you know someone who is a father, this episode is so important to listen to, and it's so important to send to someone else. We often misunderstand depression in men and definitely postpartum depression in fathers. We think someone is just being difficult or is disengaged or doesn't care or is just being angry all the time. I think this is going to really reframe what might be happening. Today's guest is Kevin Maguire. He's the author

3. 1:22 – 3:41

   Kevin before kids: identity built around work, independence, and late nights

   1. BEDr. Becky1:22

      of the Substack, The New Fatherhood. He's a father of two, and he very openly and honestly talks about his experience of paternal postpartum depression. [gentle music] All right, Kevin, I wanna know who you were before you became a dad.

   2. KMKevin Maguire1:47

      Ooh.

   3. BEDr. Becky1:48

      Okay

   4. KMKevin Maguire1:48

      I can cast my mind back-

   5. BEDr. Becky1:50

      Yes

   6. KMKevin Maguire1:50

      ... all that way.

   7. BEDr. Becky1:50

      Ooh, let's see.

   8. KMKevin Maguire1:51

      Uh, who was it? So this was 12 years ago.

   9. BEDr. Becky1:53

      Yep.

   10. KMKevin Maguire1:54

       I would've been living in London at the time. I grew up in Manchester originally.

   11. BEDr. Becky1:59

       Yeah

   12. KMKevin Maguire1:59

       Uh, met my wife, moved down to London, worked in kind of advertising this whole time, and I was a guy who just, it was, it was work.

   13. BEDr. Becky2:06

       Yeah

   14. KMKevin Maguire2:06

       Like, I really cared about work.

   15. BEDr. Becky2:07

       Yeah

   16. KMKevin Maguire2:07

       And I think this is a thing that a lot of men are allowed to do, which is you go through most of your life fairly selfish.

   17. BEDr. Becky2:16

       Mm.

   18. KMKevin Maguire2:16

       You think about yourself.

   19. BEDr. Becky2:18

       Mm-hmm

   20. KMKevin Maguire2:18

       You're f- very egocentric, and it's kind of the whole center of the world, and then-

   21. BEDr. Becky2:21

       Mm

   22. KMKevin Maguire2:21

       ... you meet someone, you fall in love, you care about them too-

   23. BEDr. Becky2:24

       Mm

   24. KMKevin Maguire2:24

       ... but you're still allowed to care about yourself.

   25. BEDr. Becky2:26

       Mm.

   26. KMKevin Maguire2:27

       And then you have a kid, and things shift.

   27. BEDr. Becky2:28

       Yeah

   28. KMKevin Maguire2:28

       But really, before, you know, that was it. It was kind of like this was me, and I was having, you know, I would, I was DJing. I was kinda, like, going out, having a-

   29. BEDr. Becky2:36

       You were DJing?

   30. KMKevin Maguire2:36

       Yeah, I used to DJ. I used to work in a record shop a long time ago, and then amassed a crazy collection of records, and, uh-
4. 3:41 – 5:01

   The “demotion” shock: becoming second most important overnight

   1. KMKevin Maguire3:41

      ... definitely. But I think it's, something shifts for men on becoming a, on becoming a father where, and not for every man, right?

   2. BEDr. Becky3:49

      Yeah

   3. KMKevin Maguire3:49

      But for, uh, you know, hopefully the majority of them, that you go, "Oh, now something is, something is here now that I have to care about it more than I care about myself. Because if I don't, like, you know, something bad is gonna happen."

   4. BEDr. Becky4:00

      Yeah.

   5. KMKevin Maguire4:02

      There's something I t- I tell all expectant dads-

   6. BEDr. Becky4:04

      Yeah

   7. KMKevin Maguire4:05

      ... when they're about to become a baby- a, a father for the first time, and it's like you and your partner are each other's most important person for all the time you're together. And then this baby comes along, and it's like you're suddenly both second most important.

   8. BEDr. Becky4:18

      Right

   9. KMKevin Maguire4:18

      And, um, and the mother has nine months to prepare for this-

   10. BEDr. Becky4:22

       Yeah

   11. KMKevin Maguire4:22

       ... because she spent nine months-

   12. BEDr. Becky4:24

       Yeah

   13. KMKevin Maguire4:24

       ... already kind of, like, growing this baby and realizing how important it is that she looks after it, where the father hasn't.

   14. BEDr. Becky4:30

       Right

   15. KMKevin Maguire4:31

       And then when the baby's born, it can be a real shock to a lot of men.

   16. BEDr. Becky4:34

       Yes

   17. KMKevin Maguire4:34

       Like, "Hang on a second. Why? What is, what is going on here?"

   18. BEDr. Becky4:37

       Yeah.

   19. KMKevin Maguire4:37

       And that, a- and I s- and I've seen so many men struggle with that.

   20. BEDr. Becky4:40

       Well, and again, like a little, like, "We had a good thing going, me and you." [laughs]

   21. KMKevin Maguire4:44

       Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

   22. BEDr. Becky4:46

       Right?

   23. KMKevin Maguire4:46

       Yes.

   24. BEDr. Becky4:46

       And, like, I participated in this process, but I didn't fully feel out what it would be like.

   25. KMKevin Maguire4:51

       No. I mean, a French friend of, of mine said, you know, "It was, I, I played a part, but it was three minutes and a cigarette."

   26. BEDr. Becky4:57

       [laughs] And then my whole life changed nine months later.

   27. KMKevin Maguire5:01

       And then my life was changed, yes.

5. 5:01 – 8:02

   Two very different experiences: first baby joy vs. second baby disconnect

   1. BEDr. Becky5:01

      Yeah. Um, do you remember that transition for you?

   2. KMKevin Maguire5:08

      I do, and I, and I remember it twice, okay?

   3. BEDr. Becky5:11

      Oh, mm-hmm.

   4. KMKevin Maguire5:11

      So I have a, I, I'm, I have two kids.

   5. BEDr. Becky5:13

      Yeah

   6. KMKevin Maguire5:13

      My eldest is 11. My youngest is 7. He just turned 7 last week. So I'm out of what I always call the tunnel. I think from zero to five years, you're in the tunnel. It's relentless. It's, it's just hard. It can ... You shouldn't wi- wish it away and will away the, the time or the years, but it just feels like you gotta get your head down and get through, and there is light there in the end. And sometimes that light is actually a train that's coming towards you and gonna hit you, and, and I think once you get past five, everything starts to get a lot easier.

   7. BEDr. Becky5:42

      Totally agree.

   8. KMKevin Maguire5:42

      So I'm, so I'm out of the tunnel, and but I... So I remember the first time with my daughter, we were, you know, everything went according to plan pretty much.

   9. BEDr. Becky5:51

      Mm.

   10. KMKevin Maguire5:51

       It was great, you know? And I've really, like, I was crazy about her. The whole thing that they say with, with, I know they say it about both parents, but I think for men, you go I think m- men can operate at this very kind of steady, stoic level of excitement, engagement in their lives of just, like, a constant six or seven, and-

   11. BEDr. Becky6:09

       Mm-hmm

   12. KMKevin Maguire6:09

       ... and then you become a dad, and it's like, oh, right, wow, this is what, like, true joy, unbridled joy and love for another human being feels like. This thing that I kind of, like, co-created. But then you also have these crashing, crashing lows.

   13. BEDr. Becky6:22

       Yeah.

   14. KMKevin Maguire6:22

       And, like, that can be a real shift.

   15. BEDr. Becky6:24

       Yeah.

   16. KMKevin Maguire6:24

       And then I think with the s- the second time I became a dad was quite different.

   17. BEDr. Becky6:28

       Mm.

   18. KMKevin Maguire6:29

       Because we had re- So, you know, in the meantime, we left London, we moved to the US for a little while. We moved back to, we moved to Barcelona, and we moved there, and I knew no one. And my wife was four months pregnant at the time. We had my son, Bodhi, um, in April of 2019, and I took some time off. I was kind of working for myself. I said, "I'm gonna take a big chunk of time off." And, and me- pretty, pretty quickly, I realized that something wasn't right in that space, and just the, the, the instant connection that I had with my daughter, I didn't have with my son. And that, that thing you said as well, is like, we had a good thing. I think this all the time. I go, "Well, you know what? It was really nice when it was just me and my wife and my daughter, and then this kid, this baby has come along, and he's..." Like, in my mind, I would say, "He's ruined everything."

   19. BEDr. Becky7:15

       Yeah.

   20. KMKevin Maguire7:15

       He's like, and, and, and then even that, you're starting to kind of wrestle with these feelings of, I shouldn't feel-- should I feel like this? Like, am I, I feel guilt. I feel shame. I feel like all of these things. So the second time, for me, was so dramatically different from the first.

   21. BEDr. Becky7:28

       Interesting. I, I wanna go back to, to something you said 'cause I, I haven't ever really talked to someone about this. But you said something that reminded me of something me and my husband used to talk about, where when you're married, and there's no kids-

   22. KMKevin Maguire7:40

       Mm-hmm

   23. BEDr. Becky7:40

       ... like, there was a fire in our apartment, and you could, like, go pull someone out, like, obviously, we'd pull out each other.

   24. KMKevin Maguire7:45

       Yes. Sure.

   25. BEDr. Becky7:46

       And then you have a baby, and you're like, "If there's a fire, and you can only pull one person out, like, sorry, you're gone." [laughs]

   26. KMKevin Maguire7:50

       Yeah.

   27. BEDr. Becky7:51

       I'm getting the baby.

   28. KMKevin Maguire7:52

       Yeah.

   29. BEDr. Becky7:52

       And it's this, like, weird thing.

   30. KMKevin Maguire7:54

       Yeah, because-
6. 8:02 – 9:24

   Isolation and spiraling inward: when you don’t want anyone around

   1. KMKevin Maguire8:02

      Yeah. You know, I'm, you know, like, like, everything is a fog. Those ba- the baby years is always, when you look back at it, and you think about it, and especially, like, with the second time around 'cause of the paternal postpartum depression, it's even, it's even tougher to kind of, like, really be in that space. And even, like, when, when, when working on the book, when I'm writing about it, it's kinda, like, difficult to go back to that place a lot of the time.

   2. BEDr. Becky8:21

      Yeah.

   3. KMKevin Maguire8:21

      But it's, you know, it was-- I think the thing that I really struggled with second time around was less the, it was more that I turned in on myself.

   4. BEDr. Becky8:32

      Ah.

   5. KMKevin Maguire8:32

      It wasn't that my wife wasn't available. It wasn't that friends weren't available. It was that I didn't want to be with anyone.

   6. BEDr. Becky8:40

      Mm.

   7. KMKevin Maguire8:40

      You know, when you ha- you, you get into this mind frame of, why is he crying all the time? Why is he doing the, like, what is he doing? What's wrong with him?

   8. BEDr. Becky8:47

      Mm.

   9. KMKevin Maguire8:48

      And then what's, no, but then, then what's wrong with me?

   10. BEDr. Becky8:50

       Oh.

   11. KMKevin Maguire8:50

       And all of these kind of things and the, and all of that kind of shame that you bring on yourself and you're battling with. So yeah, it's, it's a, you know, it can be such a hard, it... I mean, having a baby is an impossibly hard transition for everyone. You know, we, I'm sure you've g- heard friends, and they're a couple, and they go, "You know, things aren't really good right now. But you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna have a baby, and it's gonna bring us closer together." And you think, oof.

   12. BEDr. Becky9:15

       Bad.

   13. KMKevin Maguire9:15

       Good luck.

   14. BEDr. Becky9:16

       Bad vibes, guys. Bad vibes.

   15. KMKevin Maguire9:17

       Yeah, bad vi-

   16. BEDr. Becky9:18

       [laughs]

   17. KMKevin Maguire9:19

       Bad, bad vibes. Because it's, it will push you to your absolute limit.

   18. BEDr. Becky9:23

       Of course.

   19. KMKevin Maguire9:23

       Yeah.

   20. BEDr. Becky9:23

       Of course.

7. 9:24 – 10:47

   Names, meaning, and the ‘omen’ of enlightenment

   1. KMKevin Maguire9:24

      In June 2014, I became a father for the first time, and then in April 2019 was when my son was born. And my two kids' names are Padme and Bodhi. So my wife is, uh, s- first gen, she, like, her parents are Indian.

   2. BEDr. Becky9:39

      Yeah.

   3. KMKevin Maguire9:40

      And she moved to the UK. My parents are Irish, and they moved to the UK. So we both kind of bonded over this being children of immigrants that moved to the country.

   4. BEDr. Becky9:46

      Yeah.

   5. KMKevin Maguire9:46

      So when we named the kids, I, w- we said, "Let's give them Indian names," but I wanted Indian names that my Irish family would be able to, to be able to say.

   6. BEDr. Becky9:55

      Really.

   7. KMKevin Maguire9:55

      Yeah.

   8. BEDr. Becky9:55

      Checked a lot of boxes with that.

   9. KMKevin Maguire9:57

      Yeah, pretty much.

   10. BEDr. Becky9:57

       [laughs] Yeah.

   11. KMKevin Maguire9:58

       Yeah. And, and, and my daughter's name is, uh, it's a, it's a variation on Padma-

   12. BEDr. Becky10:03

       Mm. Mm-hmm

   13. KMKevin Maguire10:03

       ... which is the kind of, like, the, the Buddhist chant, and it, it's the lotus flower, the, the beautiful flower that blooms from the messy, murky water-

   14. BEDr. Becky10:11

       Yeah

   15. KMKevin Maguire10:11

       ... which is beautiful. And then my son's name, Bodhi, is the word for enlightenment-

   16. BEDr. Becky10:15

       Mm

   17. KMKevin Maguire10:15

       ... which I didn't quite know at the time how important, like, how, um, much of a, a kind of an omen that would be to name him that.

   18. BEDr. Becky10:23

       Say more.

   19. KMKevin Maguire10:24

       Yeah, because, well, it was my experience with the paternal postpartum depression after he was born that really, really just opened my heart-

   20. BEDr. Becky10:34

       Yeah

   21. KMKevin Maguire10:34

       ... to, to how I could feel.

   22. BEDr. Becky10:36

       Mm.

   23. KMKevin Maguire10:37

       To the kind of, um, to not just my own suffering, but, like, the suffering of-

   24. BEDr. Becky10:42

       Yeah

   25. KMKevin Maguire10:42

       ... so many people out there that go through, like-

   26. BEDr. Becky10:45

       Yeah

   27. KMKevin Maguire10:45

       ... the really struggle on bec- b- after becoming parents.

8. 10:47 – 13:06

   Recognizing paternal postpartum depression: the bench, the tears, the article

   1. BEDr. Becky10:47

      I wanna really zone into that because I know there's people listening who are hearing paternal postpartum depression, and they're probably thinking, "Okay, I know what each of those words mean-

   2. KMKevin Maguire10:58

      Mm-hmm

   3. BEDr. Becky10:58

      ... but I've never-

   4. KMKevin Maguire10:59

      No

   5. BEDr. Becky10:59

      ... heard that all together."

   6. KMKevin Maguire11:01

      And I, that was absolutely my situation after the birth of my son. I would take, I would just take-- I have a dog. I have a basset hound. He's just, like, so sad, so sad. And I would just need to get out of the house because his, just when he cried, it felt like nails on a chalkboard.

   7. BEDr. Becky11:19

      Your son, when your son was crying.

   8. KMKevin Maguire11:21

      Yeah, my son. Yeah, when he was crying, I just couldn't take it.

   9. BEDr. Becky11:22

      Couldn't take it.

   10. KMKevin Maguire11:23

       And I felt like he was crying all the time, and no matter what I did, he wouldn't stop crying. And with hindsight, he wasn't crying all the time. It just, but it really truly felt that way-

   11. BEDr. Becky11:31

       Yeah

   12. KMKevin Maguire11:31

       ... 'cause of kind of the, the just what was going on mentally. I'd just take the dog out, and I would just go and sit on a bench, and I would cry because I, I didn't have this connection with him. I didn't know what was wrong.

   13. BEDr. Becky11:42

       Yeah.

   14. KMKevin Maguire11:42

       And I desperately searched for things out there, desperately trying to find-- And this is twen- this is only, you know, seven years ago, 2019, and couldn't find anything and came across an article in Psychology Today written by a doctor who talked about the exact symptoms that I had Talked about-

   15. BEDr. Becky12:01

       Tell me, yeah

   16. KMKevin Maguire12:02

       ... like, ang- like, just all this anger all the time, feeling like that having this kid was a mistake, feeling anger at the child for, like, every, all of these different things. And he said, started to look into it and it was paternal postpartum depression.

   17. BEDr. Becky12:15

       Wow.

   18. KMKevin Maguire12:15

       And that was the first time I'd seen those four words together.

   19. BEDr. Becky12:17

       Yeah. Could you take me, just to paint a detailed, zoomed-in picture, like, give me a moment. Like, where are you in your apartment or home? How old's Bodhi? Like, what exactly is happening? Then, like, then I'll ask you, like, let's go, what's going on in your brain and your body? Like, what... Could you paint a, could you paint a picture for us?

   20. KMKevin Maguire12:35

       Yeah. It was, um, you know, it was, it was, I really felt like we'd made a massive mistake.

   21. BEDr. Becky12:43

       Yeah.

   22. KMKevin Maguire12:45

       That, th- that feeling just going, we, this, things were g- things were good, and this, this, this baby has come along and ruined everything. And feeling, like, I, I even feel, like, so bad thinking about it now, just, like, feeling angry at a baby.

   23. BEDr. Becky13:00

       Yeah.

   24. KMKevin Maguire13:01

       And there was, there was just very little out there about, about dads.

   25. BEDr. Becky13:06

       Mm-hmm.

9. 13:06 – 15:20

   What it looks like in men: anger, avoidance, and addictive coping

   1. KMKevin Maguire13:06

      And, and so in the UK, they will do the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression-

   2. BEDr. Becky13:11

      Yep

   3. KMKevin Maguire13:11

      ... Screening Test. And all, all mums will get this at, you know, a month, three months, and then six months. And men aren't being asked anything.

   4. BEDr. Becky13:20

      Yeah.

   5. KMKevin Maguire13:21

      They're not, you know, they're just given this kind of a slap on the back and said, "Go on, good luck. Hope it all goes okay."

   6. BEDr. Becky13:26

      Yeah.

   7. KMKevin Maguire13:26

      And when I first started reading and researching about paternal postpartum depression, they said, so they know in mums that this, it's almost exact- It's 11% of new moms will go through an episode of postpartum depression. When I first started reading and researching about it, the only data that I could find was they said it's anywhere between 5% and 25% of new dads. And w- why is it, why is it so wildly different? It's, one, there's no research happening. It's, two, men aren't being screened for it.

   8. BEDr. Becky13:57

      Yeah.

   9. KMKevin Maguire13:58

      And thr- three, they're not going to the doctors themselves.

   10. BEDr. Becky14:01

       Right.

   11. KMKevin Maguire14:01

       And then even if they do, they're not gonna talk about how they truly feel.

   12. BEDr. Becky14:04

       Mm-hmm.

   13. KMKevin Maguire14:04

       And all of these things were happening to me. And there's, the, the, the symptoms present a little bit differently for men, in that anger is more prevalent than kind of like sadness-

   14. BEDr. Becky14:16

       Yep

   15. KMKevin Maguire14:16

       ... and baby blues, but also, like, addiction and addictive tendencies.

   16. BEDr. Becky14:20

       Mm.

   17. KMKevin Maguire14:20

       And a lot of-

   18. BEDr. Becky14:21

       Drinking increases-

   19. KMKevin Maguire14:21

       Drinking-

   20. BEDr. Becky14:22

       ... marijuana, yeah

   21. KMKevin Maguire14:22

       ... drug taking, gambling.

   22. BEDr. Becky14:25

       Yeah.

   23. KMKevin Maguire14:25

       Uh, for me, it was v- video games. Like, of all the terrible things I could've got into-

   24. BEDr. Becky14:28

       Yeah

   25. KMKevin Maguire14:28

       ... I didn't, like, fritter away the kids' life savings-

   26. BEDr. Becky14:32

       Yeah, yeah

   27. KMKevin Maguire14:32

       ... on, on an online casino. I just ended up getting really hooked onto this, this one game, and I would, I would play it for-

   28. BEDr. Becky14:37

       What game?

   29. KMKevin Maguire14:38

       It was called Destiny. It was kind of just this weird thing of, like-

   30. BEDr. Becky14:40

       Yeah
10. 15:20 – 16:49

    Where it started: growing up without permission for emotions (and finding therapy)

    1. BEDr. Becky15:20

       Was that a thing, was that a thing in your childhood? And I don't just mean therapy.

    2. KMKevin Maguire15:24

       Hmm.

    3. BEDr. Becky15:24

       But to me, a, maybe a proxy for that is talking about emotions.

    4. KMKevin Maguire15:28

       [laughs]

    5. BEDr. Becky15:28

       You know? Okay, yeah, so I just-

    6. KMKevin Maguire15:30

       [laughs]

    7. BEDr. Becky15:30

       What's that laughter mean?

    8. KMKevin Maguire15:31

       Oh, that laughter-

    9. BEDr. Becky15:32

       [laughs]

    10. KMKevin Maguire15:32

        ... is, like, it was, it was, it was just a, like, I grew up in a house where, um, you know, all emotions were not welcome.

    11. BEDr. Becky15:41

        Connect the dots for me. You grew up in a house.

    12. KMKevin Maguire15:42

        Yeah.

    13. BEDr. Becky15:42

        All emotions were not welcome.

    14. KMKevin Maguire15:43

        Sure.

    15. BEDr. Becky15:43

        I asked you, is it, like, a therapy, emotion-friendly house.

    16. KMKevin Maguire15:46

        Yeah.

    17. BEDr. Becky15:46

        The laughter s-

    18. KMKevin Maguire15:47

        Yes

    19. BEDr. Becky15:47

        ... told me the whole story. Um, and I have a feeling, I don't know if I can fully assume this, but I feel like for any, especially men listening, I have a feeling the majority of them probably would've, would say the same thing-

    20. KMKevin Maguire15:58

        Yeah

    21. BEDr. Becky15:58

        ... especially with gender socialization.

    22. KMKevin Maguire15:59

        Mm-hmm.

    23. BEDr. Becky16:00

        How... Um, walk me through that childhood to how you, how you sought out therapy.

    24. KMKevin Maguire16:08

        Yeah.

    25. BEDr. Becky16:08

        Like, was there a barrier? How, how did, how did that happen? How were you open to that enough-

    26. KMKevin Maguire16:13

        Yeah

    27. BEDr. Becky16:13

        ... to seek that out?

    28. KMKevin Maguire16:14

        I think going through... I think you don't real- Okay, so when you're a kid, by the very definition of being a child, everything that happens in your house is normal.

    29. BEDr. Becky16:29

        Mm. That's right.

    30. KMKevin Maguire16:30

        Even if it is completely abnormal.
11. 16:49 – 17:53

    The turning point: telling his wife and breaking the negative cycle

    1. BEDr. Becky16:49

       Did your wife encourage you to go to therapy? Were, did you know-

    2. KMKevin Maguire16:51

       She did

    3. BEDr. Becky16:51

       ... at the time, "I should do this"?

    4. KMKevin Maguire16:52

       Yeah, she did. When I... So the, the kind of timeline of, of events-

    5. BEDr. Becky16:57

       Yeah

    6. KMKevin Maguire16:57

       ... was that I... So my wife took our newborn son back to the UK to spend some time with her parents. I was kind of in, like, I wasn't in a great place, and I was, I was still in Barcelona with my daughter, and I was just, like, ho- hooked on this game. And I would take my daughter to school. I would come home, play this game. I'd go pick her up, I'd come home and play again. Wait, you know, till 3:00 or till 4:00 in the morning and then realize, like, oh, I gotta go f- bed for a few hours. And then, and then I, uh, it was around this time where I came across this article written by this, written by this doctor. And then when she came back, I said, "Hey, there's, um, there's something I need to talk to you about, and I'm quite kind of scared to talk about it." And I said, "There's this paternal postpartum depression, and this is what I think's going on." And my wife's f- main feeling was a feeling of relief-

    7. BEDr. Becky17:49

       Mm

    8. KMKevin Maguire17:49

       ... 'cause I think she thought I was gonna leave.

12. 17:53 – 21:29

    Competence culture meets parenting reality: learning to ‘sit in the mess’

    1. BEDr. Becky17:53

       I'm thinking now about the, the person who's listening, the father who's listening, and there's a set of reflections that I think are powerful. Okay, before I had a kid Was I someone who was, like, pretty hard driving? Did I like linearity? Did I do really well?

    2. KMKevin Maguire18:07

       Mm-hmm.

    3. BEDr. Becky18:07

       Was I successful?

    4. KMKevin Maguire18:08

       Mm-hmm.

    5. BEDr. Becky18:09

       Did I climb some type of ladder in my job? Did I climb ... I think of it even like a corporate ladder.

    6. KMKevin Maguire18:14

       Yes. Yep, yep.

    7. BEDr. Becky18:14

       There's levels.

    8. KMKevin Maguire18:15

       Yeah, completely.

    9. BEDr. Becky18:15

       You know what's expected of you. You know how to get a promotion. You get to the next thing, rewarded, rewarded.

    10. KMKevin Maguire18:20

        Yep.

    11. BEDr. Becky18:20

        Competence, building competence, building competence almost comes. And I think it's so important for us all to feel competent, and I do think men have a socialized different relationship with competence. Like, that is masculinity.

    12. KMKevin Maguire18:31

        Yes.

    13. BEDr. Becky18:31

        Like, you're competent at things, you're good at things, you're useful at things. And then you get to fatherhood, and I'm just thinking about so much of being competent as a parent-

    14. KMKevin Maguire18:41

        Mm-hmm

    15. BEDr. Becky18:41

        ... forget, is your ability to just sit in the mess. That's it.

    16. KMKevin Maguire18:45

        Yeah.

    17. BEDr. Becky18:46

        Fucking in the mess.

    18. KMKevin Maguire18:47

        Yeah.

    19. BEDr. Becky18:48

        And being competent isn't getting out of it quickly.

    20. KMKevin Maguire18:51

        Mm-hmm.

    21. BEDr. Becky18:51

        It's just staying grounded and tolerating it, and I'm just thinking about what a different mental model that is.

    22. KMKevin Maguire18:57

        Yeah. And I think, you know, there, there is, there is that very typical male/female divide where, like, a woman will want to kind of like talk about an issue and have a conversation about it, where a man will go like, "I wanna fix this."

    23. BEDr. Becky19:10

        Yep.

    24. KMKevin Maguire19:11

        And jump straight to fixing.

    25. BEDr. Becky19:13

        Yep.

    26. KMKevin Maguire19:13

        As a, you know, I was given a great piece of advice a long time ago, which is so many arguments in a marriage can be solved if you say, "Are we having a situation where you would like to- me to listen to this, or are we having a situation where we're trying to figure out a solution to it?"

    27. BEDr. Becky19:26

        Yep.

    28. KMKevin Maguire19:27

        And even just, like, adopting that mentality-

    29. BEDr. Becky19:30

        Say it again because everyone needs to hear it again-

    30. KMKevin Maguire19:31

        [laughs]
13. 21:29 – 23:36

    Breaking generational patterns: ‘deal with your demons’ and build new foundations

    1. KMKevin Maguire21:29

       It's a negative cycle, yeah. You know, I always think about, um, I think about, you know, my mom, my mom passed two years ago, and she, I remember her telling me a story about when they, when they moved into their first house. And, um, they had like rickety old windows in this house, and I'd, I'd just been born, and some guy came around to sell them, like, double glazing windows, and they ended up on this crazy, you know, they, they, they... He said, "Hey, you don't even need to pay for them now. You can pay for them, like, over the next few years." And it ended up, like, completely taking them for a ride. And it- my parents just existed, right? They, they wor- they went out, they worked. Like, my dad worked hard. He w- he was in, used to dig holes in the road, right? The crazy thing about his, his job was that he, um, I remember him when I was a kid, when I was maybe about, like, seven or eight years old, and he came home with this little, um, this little piece of wire that had all these frayed cables in the top. And I was like, "What is this?" And he said, "I don't know, but they're paying me to put it into the ground everywhere." And it was fiber optic cable. He was literally, like, putting the infrastructure into the ground that 30 years later I would use to build a career and, like, the, that all of us use every day and-

    2. BEDr. Becky22:40

       Laying the foundation

    3. KMKevin Maguire22:41

       ... laying, like, truly laying the foundation. You know, and it's a, and he, he, like, the, there is a sense of privilege that I get to think about-

    4. BEDr. Becky22:51

       Yes

    5. KMKevin Maguire22:51

       ... intentionally who, like, what kind of dad do I wanna be?

    6. BEDr. Becky22:54

       Hundred. Yeah.

    7. KMKevin Maguire22:54

       It is so important for us to do this work.

    8. BEDr. Becky22:58

       Yes.

    9. KMKevin Maguire22:58

       You know? Th- this, this, this kind of, this, this core thought that I keep coming back to-

    10. BEDr. Becky23:02

        Yeah

    11. KMKevin Maguire23:02

        ... all the time, which is, like, if you don't deal with your demons, your demons will raise your kids.

    12. BEDr. Becky23:08

        Ooh. If you don't deal with your demons, your demons will raise your kids.

    13. KMKevin Maguire23:14

        And that's what's been happening for generations and generations and generations. It just, like... And, and I think, like, dads now, we're starting to have the language. We're starting to have the right resources.

    14. BEDr. Becky23:27

        Yes.

    15. KMKevin Maguire23:28

        We're starting to have the permission-

    16. BEDr. Becky23:30

        And the community

    17. KMKevin Maguire23:30

        ... and the community to be able to do this thing. But it, you know, it takes a village, and it's not something that you can do on your own.

14. 23:36 – 25:32

    Emotional literacy as a gift: teaching kids to name feelings (Inside Out as a tool)

    1. BEDr. Becky23:36

       Really, really true. What, what do you understand even right now that you didn't understand right after, you know, Bodhi?

    2. KMKevin Maguire23:49

       I remember in therapy being asked to name emotions. I remember therapy saying, like, "W- what's this emotion?" And I would say, I would say something. She's like, "That's not an emotion." Name the emotion. And I, and I, and I just couldn't do it. And, and I... And it was, you know, I, I feel like it w- it, it was like being asked to call out the colors on the, the rope that was pulling me down into the bottom of a pool. You know, and, and-

    3. BEDr. Becky24:22

       Mm

    4. KMKevin Maguire24:23

       ... we... It, it is still so... Like, I, I think about my son, and I, I think about me as a boy who was not encouraged to permit, not, not encouraged, not allowed to permit-

    5. BEDr. Becky24:36

       No

    6. KMKevin Maguire24:36

       ... a full range of emotions. And I look at my son, and sometimes he probably shows too many emotions, [laughs] you know, on any given day. He's like, he goes from here, there. And I, but I look at him and I go, "I love this."

    7. BEDr. Becky24:47

       Mm.

    8. KMKevin Maguire24:47

       Like, I love that you can feel what you feel without fear of any kind of-

    9. BEDr. Becky24:54

       Yeah

    10. KMKevin Maguire24:54

        ... retribution. 'Cause when he's older, maybe he won't struggle to, like... Or when he does struggle, he'll understand.

    11. BEDr. Becky25:02

        Yeah.

    12. KMKevin Maguire25:02

        And something like, you know, the, the, the resources that are out there, the books that, that you can read to kids. Like, sitting down and watching Inside Out with my son was a revelation-

    13. BEDr. Becky25:11

        Ugh

    14. KMKevin Maguire25:11

        ... for him 'cause he, like... 'Cause then you can say-

    15. BEDr. Becky25:14

        Yeah

    16. KMKevin Maguire25:14

        ... "Oh, hey, is the red guy at your controls now?"

    17. BEDr. Becky25:16

        Yeah.

    18. KMKevin Maguire25:16

        And he's like, "Do you wanna..." 'Cause he physically gets hot as well.

    19. BEDr. Becky25:19

        Yeah.

    20. KMKevin Maguire25:19

        And you can feel him heat up.

    21. BEDr. Becky25:21

        Yeah, yeah.

    22. KMKevin Maguire25:21

        And, and I, and I think, you know, this is... I'm giving him this gift. I'm giving him this ability to name his feelings-

    23. BEDr. Becky25:29

        Yeah

    24. KMKevin Maguire25:29

        ... to understand, like, what he feels.

15. 25:32 – 29:54

    What dads can look forward to: connection grows, and practical advice for new fathers

    1. BEDr. Becky25:32

       What gives you the most joy these days? What specific things in your parenting?

    2. KMKevin Maguire25:36

       My daughter loves Billie Eilish.

    3. BEDr. Becky25:38

       Yeah.

    4. KMKevin Maguire25:38

       Like, she's obsessed with Billie Eilish. So the, the, the new movie comes out in 3D, and we go together. She's never seen a 3D film. And we go, and we put the glasses on, and we go to the cinema together. And it, I mean, it's crazy, and there are people jumping up in the aisles and jumping around, and just turn to her face, turn and look at her face. I took my kids to see, uh, Rosalía in concert, uh, last month, just to see their face. I ma- I built, like, I built this huge Lego thing with my son, like a Lego Spider-Man tower, and it took us a week and a half. And there's, at one point, he turned around to me, and he just, like, put his hand on my arm, and he said, "I'm having a really good time doing this." Which, like... There's a really, really, really fascinating bit, bit of research that was done, um, I, I, I can't remember the exact date when it was done, but it was, it put men and women into the fMRI scanner-

    5. BEDr. Becky26:26

       Mm

    6. KMKevin Maguire26:26

       ... when they were about to become parents, and it asked them to think about, like, something exciting-

    7. BEDr. Becky26:33

       Mm

    8. KMKevin Maguire26:33

       ... that was gonna happen in the future, like, when this child was born. And the, the women, the bits of brain that fired and the, the, the things that they thought about were nurturing, like br- whole, b- breastfeeding, kind of being in the room with, putting the baby to sleep. And the guys, it was a different part of the brain that fired, and it was all about, like, throwing a football-

    9. BEDr. Becky26:53

       Yeah

    10. KMKevin Maguire26:53

        ... and, like, going playing catch and all these things. And, and I think that this is a, this is a big thing that dads, like, expectant dads need to understand, which is that stuff comes.

    11. BEDr. Becky27:01

        Yeah.

    12. KMKevin Maguire27:02

        That stuff will come. It won't happen right away. And there's a, there is a real, there's a time there where you're not gonna get a lot back.

    13. BEDr. Becky27:10

        Long time.

    14. KMKevin Maguire27:11

        A long time. Like, right? And but then you, you know, they crack a smile and you're like, "Oh, that was good."

    15. BEDr. Becky27:16

        Or you rip... Did your babies love when you rip paper?

    16. KMKevin Maguire27:18

        Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

    17. BEDr. Becky27:18

        Like the hysterical laughter-

    18. KMKevin Maguire27:20

        Yes

    19. BEDr. Becky27:20

        ... right, exactly.

    20. KMKevin Maguire27:21

        And there was one of the, you know, so part of the, the newsletter has put me into this orbit of all these, like, really thoughtful-

    21. BEDr. Becky27:28

        Yeah

    22. KMKevin Maguire27:28

        ... emotional dads-

    23. BEDr. Becky27:30

        Yeah

    24. KMKevin Maguire27:30

        ... who are just looking for a space-

    25. BEDr. Becky27:32

        Beautiful

    26. KMKevin Maguire27:32

        ... to, like, bring all of their feelings-

    27. BEDr. Becky27:34

        Yeah

    28. KMKevin Maguire27:34

        ... about fatherhood. And there's a, and I remember this dad saying to me one time, saying, uh, talking about that kind of first year, and he said, "There is literally one thing that you cannot do. Everything else you can do. So, like, go do that." And I think there is that th- there is that feeling for new dads sometimes, like, "I'm useless. I can't really do anything around here." Like, no, no, no, you just can't breastfeed, but [laughs] you can do a- absolutely everything else.

    29. BEDr. Becky28:01

        Yeah, yeah.

    30. KMKevin Maguire28:01

        And, you know, uh, uh, what I would, what I would say to new dads listening to this is fatherhood, you know, we, we desperately, like, dads, we're reading these business books, self-help, like, personal development, all these things about, like, how we can be better, how we can crush life, how we can do all these things. Like, fatherhood is the biggest opportunity for transformation in your life.
16. 29:54 – 32:43

    Resources and closing: screening, concrete help for non-birthing parents, and reassurance

    1. BEDr. Becky29:54

       If you have felt like Kevin, you're not alone. If you're thinking, "Oh, I think my partner maybe feels like Kevin, maybe my brother, my friend," there are so many men, like Kevin said- Maybe 5, maybe 25% of new fathers who feel like this, and my guess is the vast majority never say a word about it. This is why Kevin released a free, clinically designed online questionnaire that screens for the possibility of paternal postpartum depression for dads who might be curious about the severity of some of their feelings, or for the loved ones who want these new fathers to thrive. We're going to link to it in our show notes. The other thing I made is a different type of resource for new fathers. So many dads ask me, "Okay, I hear the only thing I can't do is breastfeed, but can you be a little bit more specific about how I can feel useful? I do want to feel like I have utility. I do want to feel competent, and this is new for me, and maybe I never had a model for it. So could you be a little bit more specific about some of the things I could do? I kind of want to get this right, and I could use a little bit of help." I'm so excited to have created a resource on exactly that. Link in the show notes for what is useful for the non-birthing parent to do right after baby. It's concrete, it's practical, and it's all stuff that's going to make you say, "Oh, okay. I could do that starting today." And I have to say that if you're looking for a full kind of more holistic support for early parenthood and for pregnancy, this is exactly what we do in the Good Inside membership inside our app. Of course, we have guidance for feeding and lactation and baby sleep, but seriously, the thing I'm proudest of and what makes me feel so good after conversations like this is we support you, the person behind the parent. We support the dad and the mom. We support your partnership. We support the feelings that come up for you because at the end of the day, that's what's going to affect your parenthood and your kid more than anything else. You can learn more at goodinside.com. And if you have a story you're willing to share with other parents or parents-to-be, we'd really love to hear from you. Your story can help so many people, so please email us at podcast@goodinside.com. All right. Let's end the way we always do. Place your feet on the ground, place a hand on your heart, and let's remind ourselves, even as I struggle on the outside, I remain good inside. I believe in you. You've got this. [outro music]

Episode duration: 32:52