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

Kevin Maguire 0:00 If you don't deal with your demons, your demons will raise your kids

Dr. Becky 0:04 If you don't deal with your demons, your demons will raise your kids

Kevin Maguire 0:08 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.

Dr. Becky 0:17 Yes

Kevin Maguire 0:17 We're starting to have the permission

Dr. Becky 0:19 And the community

Kevin Maguire 0:20 And the community

Dr. Becky 0:22 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

Dr. Becky 1:22 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.

Kevin Maguire 1:47 Ooh.

Dr. Becky 1:48 Okay

Kevin Maguire 1:48 I can cast my mind back-

Dr. Becky 1:50 Yes

Kevin Maguire 1:50 ... all that way.

Dr. Becky 1:50 Ooh, let's see.

Kevin Maguire 1:51 Uh, who was it? So this was 12 years ago.

Dr. Becky 1:53 Yep.

Kevin Maguire 1:54 I would've been living in London at the time. I grew up in Manchester originally.

Dr. Becky 1:59 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 1:59 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.

Dr. Becky 2:06 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 2:06 Like, I really cared about work.

Dr. Becky 2:07 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 2:07 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.

Dr. Becky 2:16 Mm.

Kevin Maguire 2:16 You think about yourself.

Dr. Becky 2:18 Mm-hmm

Kevin Maguire 2:18 You're f- very egocentric, and it's kind of the whole center of the world, and then-

Dr. Becky 2:21 Mm

Kevin Maguire 2:21 ... you meet someone, you fall in love, you care about them too-

Dr. Becky 2:24 Mm

Kevin Maguire 2:24 ... but you're still allowed to care about yourself.

Dr. Becky 2:26 Mm.

Kevin Maguire 2:27 And then you have a kid, and things shift.

Dr. Becky 2:28 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 2:28 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-

Dr. Becky 2:36 You were DJing?

Kevin Maguire 2:36 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-

Dr. Becky 2:42 Oh

Kevin Maguire 2:42 ... that was my whole, that was my world.

Dr. Becky 2:44 So you were DJing all, you were a late, late-night guy?

Kevin Maguire 2:47 Yes.

Dr. Becky 2:47 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 2:47 Oh, most definitely.

Dr. Becky 2:49 Oh.

Kevin Maguire 2:49 Yes. [laughs]

Dr. Becky 2:50 My late night was like, you know, this is not 9:00 PM.

Kevin Maguire 2:52 [laughs] No.

Dr. Becky 2:52 This is not what we're talking about, no. So you were out till, till 1:00?

Kevin Maguire 2:57 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 in the morning.

Dr. Becky 2:58 2:00, 3:00.

Kevin Maguire 2:58 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 2:58 Easy, right? Wait, I wanna double-click on selfish because I don't know, I mean, maybe I have a slightly more generous term, but you, you spent a big percentage of your energy, of your thoughts-

Kevin Maguire 3:11 Mm-hmm

Dr. Becky 3:12 ... what, centered on what I want-

Kevin Maguire 3:13 Yeah

Dr. Becky 3:14 ... what gives me enjoyment.

Kevin Maguire 3:15 Yes.

Dr. Becky 3:15 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 3:16 Where do I, where am I going? What am, what is my career? What is my trajectory?

Dr. Becky 3:19 Mm-hmm.

Kevin Maguire 3:20 What do I wanna be in my life? And, like, you put that energy into, you put it into work, you put it into relationships as well, but you're really kind of, you're looking out for yourself.

Dr. Becky 3:28 Yeah. And then I'm curious that you said even when you, you know, became partnered, that the, the, the residue of that was still there, and it was kinda fine?

Kevin Maguire 3:37 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 3:37 Or it kind of is ... yeah.

Kevin Maguire 3:38 You start to, you start to make decisions together-

Dr. Becky 3:40 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 3:40 ... and for the two of you-

Dr. Becky 3:41 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 3:41 ... definitely. But I think it's, something shifts for men on becoming a, on becoming a father where, and not for every man, right?

Dr. Becky 3:49 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 3:49 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."

Dr. Becky 4:00 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 4:02 There's something I t- I tell all expectant dads-

Dr. Becky 4:04 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 4:05 ... 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.

Dr. Becky 4:18 Right

Kevin Maguire 4:18 And, um, and the mother has nine months to prepare for this-

Dr. Becky 4:22 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 4:22 ... because she spent nine months-

Dr. Becky 4:24 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 4:24 ... already kind of, like, growing this baby and realizing how important it is that she looks after it, where the father hasn't.

Dr. Becky 4:30 Right

Kevin Maguire 4:31 And then when the baby's born, it can be a real shock to a lot of men.

Dr. Becky 4:34 Yes

Kevin Maguire 4:34 Like, "Hang on a second. Why? What is, what is going on here?"

Dr. Becky 4:37 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 4:37 And that, a- and I s- and I've seen so many men struggle with that.

Dr. Becky 4:40 Well, and again, like a little, like, "We had a good thing going, me and you." [laughs]

Kevin Maguire 4:44 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

Dr. Becky 4:46 Right?

Kevin Maguire 4:46 Yes.

Dr. Becky 4:46 And, like, I participated in this process, but I didn't fully feel out what it would be like.

Kevin Maguire 4:51 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."

Dr. Becky 4:57 [laughs] And then my whole life changed nine months later.

Kevin Maguire 5:01 And then my life was changed, yes.

Dr. Becky 5:01 Yeah. Um, do you remember that transition for you?

Kevin Maguire 5:08 I do, and I, and I remember it twice, okay?

Dr. Becky 5:11 Oh, mm-hmm.

Kevin Maguire 5:11 So I have a, I, I'm, I have two kids.

Dr. Becky 5:13 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 5:13 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.

Dr. Becky 5:42 Totally agree.

Kevin Maguire 5:42 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.

Dr. Becky 5:51 Mm.

Kevin Maguire 5:51 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-

Dr. Becky 6:09 Mm-hmm

Kevin Maguire 6:09 ... 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.

Dr. Becky 6:22 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 6:22 And, like, that can be a real shift.

Dr. Becky 6:24 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 6:24 And then I think with the s- the second time I became a dad was quite different.

Dr. Becky 6:28 Mm.

Kevin Maguire 6:29 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."

Dr. Becky 7:15 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 7:15 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.

Dr. Becky 7:28 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-

Kevin Maguire 7:40 Mm-hmm

Dr. Becky 7:40 ... like, there was a fire in our apartment, and you could, like, go pull someone out, like, obviously, we'd pull out each other.

Kevin Maguire 7:45 Yes. Sure.

Dr. Becky 7:46 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]

Kevin Maguire 7:50 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 7:51 I'm getting the baby.

Kevin Maguire 7:52 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 7:52 And it's this, like, weird thing.

Kevin Maguire 7:54 Yeah, because-

Dr. Becky 7:54 You're like, right?

Kevin Maguire 7:55 Because you've spent, you know, you might have been together for 10 years-

Dr. Becky 7:58 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 7:58 ... and this l- new thing's only been here for five minutes.

Dr. Becky 8:01 Seriously.

Kevin Maguire 8:01 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 8:01 They don't even talk.

Kevin Maguire 8:02 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.

Dr. Becky 8:21 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 8:21 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.

Dr. Becky 8:32 Ah.

Kevin Maguire 8:32 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.

Dr. Becky 8:40 Mm.

Kevin Maguire 8:40 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?

Dr. Becky 8:47 Mm.

Kevin Maguire 8:48 And then what's, no, but then, then what's wrong with me?

Dr. Becky 8:50 Oh.

Kevin Maguire 8:50 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.

Dr. Becky 9:15 Bad.

Kevin Maguire 9:15 Good luck.

Dr. Becky 9:16 Bad vibes, guys. Bad vibes.

Kevin Maguire 9:17 Yeah, bad vi-

Dr. Becky 9:18 [laughs]

Kevin Maguire 9:19 Bad, bad vibes. Because it's, it will push you to your absolute limit.

Dr. Becky 9:23 Of course.

Kevin Maguire 9:23 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 9:23 Of course.

Kevin Maguire 9:24 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.

Dr. Becky 9:39 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 9:40 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.

Dr. Becky 9:46 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 9:46 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.

Dr. Becky 9:55 Really.

Kevin Maguire 9:55 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 9:55 Checked a lot of boxes with that.

Kevin Maguire 9:57 Yeah, pretty much.

Dr. Becky 9:57 [laughs] Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 9:58 Yeah. And, and, and my daughter's name is, uh, it's a, it's a variation on Padma-

Dr. Becky 10:03 Mm. Mm-hmm

Kevin Maguire 10:03 ... 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-

Dr. Becky 10:11 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 10:11 ... which is beautiful. And then my son's name, Bodhi, is the word for enlightenment-

Dr. Becky 10:15 Mm

Kevin Maguire 10:15 ... 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.

Dr. Becky 10:23 Say more.

Kevin Maguire 10:24 Yeah, because, well, it was my experience with the paternal postpartum depression after he was born that really, really just opened my heart-

Dr. Becky 10:34 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 10:34 ... to, to how I could feel.

Dr. Becky 10:36 Mm.

Kevin Maguire 10:37 To the kind of, um, to not just my own suffering, but, like, the suffering of-

Dr. Becky 10:42 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 10:42 ... so many people out there that go through, like-

Dr. Becky 10:45 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 10:45 ... the really struggle on bec- b- after becoming parents.

Dr. Becky 10:47 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-

Kevin Maguire 10:58 Mm-hmm

Dr. Becky 10:58 ... but I've never-

Kevin Maguire 10:59 No

Dr. Becky 10:59 ... heard that all together."

Kevin Maguire 11:01 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.

Dr. Becky 11:19 Your son, when your son was crying.

Kevin Maguire 11:21 Yeah, my son. Yeah, when he was crying, I just couldn't take it.

Dr. Becky 11:22 Couldn't take it.

Kevin Maguire 11:23 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-

Dr. Becky 11:31 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 11:31 ... '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.

Dr. Becky 11:42 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 11:42 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-

Dr. Becky 12:01 Tell me, yeah

Kevin Maguire 12:02 ... 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.

Dr. Becky 12:15 Wow.

Kevin Maguire 12:15 And that was the first time I'd seen those four words together.

Dr. Becky 12:17 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?

Kevin Maguire 12:35 Yeah. It was, um, you know, it was, it was, I really felt like we'd made a massive mistake.

Dr. Becky 12:43 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 12:45 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.

Dr. Becky 13:00 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 13:01 And there was, there was just very little out there about, about dads.

Dr. Becky 13:06 Mm-hmm.

Kevin Maguire 13:06 And, and so in the UK, they will do the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression-

Dr. Becky 13:11 Yep

Kevin Maguire 13:11 ... 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.

Dr. Becky 13:20 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 13:21 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."

Dr. Becky 13:26 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 13:26 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.

Dr. Becky 13:57 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 13:58 And thr- three, they're not going to the doctors themselves.

Dr. Becky 14:01 Right.

Kevin Maguire 14:01 And then even if they do, they're not gonna talk about how they truly feel.

Dr. Becky 14:04 Mm-hmm.

Kevin Maguire 14:04 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-

Dr. Becky 14:16 Yep

Kevin Maguire 14:16 ... and baby blues, but also, like, addiction and addictive tendencies.

Dr. Becky 14:20 Mm.

Kevin Maguire 14:20 And a lot of-

Dr. Becky 14:21 Drinking increases-

Kevin Maguire 14:21 Drinking-

Dr. Becky 14:22 ... marijuana, yeah

Kevin Maguire 14:22 ... drug taking, gambling.

Dr. Becky 14:25 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 14:25 Uh, for me, it was v- video games. Like, of all the terrible things I could've got into-

Dr. Becky 14:28 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 14:28 ... I didn't, like, fritter away the kids' life savings-

Dr. Becky 14:32 Yeah, yeah

Kevin Maguire 14:32 ... 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-

Dr. Becky 14:37 What game?

Kevin Maguire 14:38 It was called Destiny. It was kind of just this weird thing of, like-

Dr. Becky 14:40 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 14:40 ... and I would play with these people in the US, and I would stay up till 3:00 in the morning.

Dr. Becky 14:44 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 14:44 And, and I would-

Dr. Becky 14:44 What was it-

Kevin Maguire 14:45 And it's-

Dr. Becky 14:45 What was it giving you?

Kevin Maguire 14:46 So it's interesting. I, at the time, I thought it was, that it was escape.

Dr. Becky 14:52 Mm-hmm.

Kevin Maguire 14:53 It's like, oh, I could go to this other place. And I actually realized that what it was giving me was an element of control. I, whatever I did with my son, I, it didn't work. I couldn't stop him crying. Like, I couldn't, I couldn't make... Like, I, I, I couldn't press the right button-

Dr. Becky 15:13 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 15:13 ... and get it to do the thing. And then I would switch on this thing, and I would play for seven or eight hours, and it would do exactly what I wanted it to do.

Dr. Becky 15:20 Was that a thing, was that a thing in your childhood? And I don't just mean therapy.

Kevin Maguire 15:24 Hmm.

Dr. Becky 15:24 But to me, a, maybe a proxy for that is talking about emotions.

Kevin Maguire 15:28 [laughs]

Dr. Becky 15:28 You know? Okay, yeah, so I just-

Kevin Maguire 15:30 [laughs]

Dr. Becky 15:30 What's that laughter mean?

Kevin Maguire 15:31 Oh, that laughter-

Dr. Becky 15:32 [laughs]

Kevin Maguire 15:32 ... 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.

Dr. Becky 15:41 Connect the dots for me. You grew up in a house.

Kevin Maguire 15:42 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 15:42 All emotions were not welcome.

Kevin Maguire 15:43 Sure.

Dr. Becky 15:43 I asked you, is it, like, a therapy, emotion-friendly house.

Kevin Maguire 15:46 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 15:46 The laughter s-

Kevin Maguire 15:47 Yes

Dr. Becky 15:47 ... 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-

Kevin Maguire 15:58 Yeah

Dr. Becky 15:58 ... especially with gender socialization.

Kevin Maguire 15:59 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Becky 16:00 How... Um, walk me through that childhood to how you, how you sought out therapy.

Kevin Maguire 16:08 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 16:08 Like, was there a barrier? How, how did, how did that happen? How were you open to that enough-

Kevin Maguire 16:13 Yeah

Dr. Becky 16:13 ... to seek that out?

Kevin Maguire 16:14 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.

Dr. Becky 16:29 Mm. That's right.

Kevin Maguire 16:30 Even if it is completely abnormal.

Dr. Becky 16:32 All adulthood is is realizing that that stuff was-

Kevin Maguire 16:34 Exactly

Dr. Becky 16:34 ... not normal. [laughs] That's all right.

Kevin Maguire 16:35 Yeah. Oh, no-

Dr. Becky 16:35 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 16:35 ... the amount... And, oh, oh, my God, the amount of times that I've sat down and, and explained a funny story about my childhood to someone, and they've leaned over and put their hand on my leg and went, "I'm so sorry that happened to you."

Dr. Becky 16:44 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 16:44 And I was like, "No, this was, this was, this is funny, right?" Like, no. And they're like, "No."

Dr. Becky 16:49 Did your wife encourage you to go to therapy? Were, did you know-

Kevin Maguire 16:51 She did

Dr. Becky 16:51 ... at the time, "I should do this"?

Kevin Maguire 16:52 Yeah, she did. When I... So the, the kind of timeline of, of events-

Dr. Becky 16:57 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 16:57 ... 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-

Dr. Becky 17:49 Mm

Kevin Maguire 17:49 ... 'cause I think she thought I was gonna leave.

Dr. Becky 17:53 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?

Kevin Maguire 18:07 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Becky 18:07 Was I successful?

Kevin Maguire 18:08 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Becky 18:09 Did I climb some type of ladder in my job? Did I climb ... I think of it even like a corporate ladder.

Kevin Maguire 18:14 Yes. Yep, yep.

Dr. Becky 18:14 There's levels.

Kevin Maguire 18:15 Yeah, completely.

Dr. Becky 18:15 You know what's expected of you. You know how to get a promotion. You get to the next thing, rewarded, rewarded.

Kevin Maguire 18:20 Yep.

Dr. Becky 18:20 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.

Kevin Maguire 18:31 Yes.

Dr. Becky 18:31 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-

Kevin Maguire 18:41 Mm-hmm

Dr. Becky 18:41 ... forget, is your ability to just sit in the mess. That's it.

Kevin Maguire 18:45 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 18:46 Fucking in the mess.

Kevin Maguire 18:47 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 18:48 And being competent isn't getting out of it quickly.

Kevin Maguire 18:51 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Becky 18:51 It's just staying grounded and tolerating it, and I'm just thinking about what a different mental model that is.

Kevin Maguire 18:57 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."

Dr. Becky 19:10 Yep.

Kevin Maguire 19:11 And jump straight to fixing.

Dr. Becky 19:13 Yep.

Kevin Maguire 19:13 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?"

Dr. Becky 19:26 Yep.

Kevin Maguire 19:27 And even just, like, adopting that mentality-

Dr. Becky 19:30 Say it again because everyone needs to hear it again-

Kevin Maguire 19:31 [laughs]

Dr. Becky 19:31 ... as a question. No, it's so, um... I don't mean just-

Kevin Maguire 19:34 No

Dr. Becky 19:34 ... I don't just mean the people in my studio, okay?

Kevin Maguire 19:36 [laughs]

Dr. Becky 19:36 I mean the people listening. [laughs] Okay, so-

Kevin Maguire 19:38 I need to re- I need to remember it myself sometimes.

Dr. Becky 19:40 Yeah, yeah. So that's why it's good to say again. So someone's imagining, okay, my partner's talking to me-

Kevin Maguire 19:44 Yeah

Dr. Becky 19:44 ... and they're complaining or they're struggling and-

Kevin Maguire 19:46 And either you can verbalize or you can ask yourself, "Is this a situation where I need to listen and empathize and understand, or is this a situation where we're seeking a solution and we're looking for a solution?" Because most men will just default to the solution-

Dr. Becky 19:59 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 19:59 ... even if that's not what, what's required. And when you talk about this competence issue, the baby is crying, the solution is, "Stop crying. Stop the crying. Do whatever you can to stop the crying." Like, there are just... That is the mindset that we go into. And I think you're right, is that as men, we have to get, like, more comfortable, like, sitting in the, it- sitting in that discomfort.

Dr. Becky 20:19 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 20:19 And that was something that I, I always struggled with. 'Cause growing up, it wasn't a, it w- like, it wasn't a, a, a childhood where you, like, sat in the, in the uncomfortable emotions.

Dr. Becky 20:29 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 20:30 And yeah, it's like men... Th- the thing before I was saying about, you know, you become the second, you become the second most important thing, it is a demotion. Like, and men generally, the only, the only time that men experience demotion is at work or is in sports-

Dr. Becky 20:44 Oh

Kevin Maguire 20:44 ... and they don't deal with those two demotions very well either.

Dr. Becky 20:47 No, right. It's like, "Hey, baby, you're not letting me feel competent, and you stole my wife."

Kevin Maguire 20:51 Mm-hmm. [laughs]

Dr. Becky 20:51 Like [laughs] this is not a good-

Kevin Maguire 20:54 Mm.

Dr. Becky 20:55 Sit... I'm, I'm angry, right? And if you don't understand it, the other thing I'm struck by is then your wife had shared with you like, "Okay, this is what's going on. That's, that's good news. We have a name for it." I-

Kevin Maguire 21:06 Yes

Dr. Becky 21:06 ... 'cause I think what can happen is on the wife end, the partner end, like, "I thought you were pulling away," like, "I thought you were disappearing"-

Kevin Maguire 21:13 Yes

Dr. Becky 21:13 ... which might make me pull back-

Kevin Maguire 21:16 Mm-hmm

Dr. Becky 21:16 ... not be so nice to you 'cause I'm scared, which only is gonna make you feel more disconnected-

Kevin Maguire 21:21 Completely

Dr. Becky 21:22 ... and almost give proof to, oh, see, right?

Kevin Maguire 21:25 See this, what this baby has done? Yeah.

Dr. Becky 21:26 Exactly. It's such a awful cycle.

Kevin Maguire 21:29 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-

Dr. Becky 22:40 Laying the foundation

Kevin Maguire 22:41 ... 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-

Dr. Becky 22:51 Yes

Kevin Maguire 22:51 ... intentionally who, like, what kind of dad do I wanna be?

Dr. Becky 22:54 Hundred. Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 22:54 It is so important for us to do this work.

Dr. Becky 22:58 Yes.

Kevin Maguire 22:58 You know? Th- this, this, this kind of, this, this core thought that I keep coming back to-

Dr. Becky 23:02 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 23:02 ... all the time, which is, like, if you don't deal with your demons, your demons will raise your kids.

Dr. Becky 23:08 Ooh. If you don't deal with your demons, your demons will raise your kids.

Kevin Maguire 23:14 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.

Dr. Becky 23:27 Yes.

Kevin Maguire 23:28 We're starting to have the permission-

Dr. Becky 23:30 And the community

Kevin Maguire 23:30 ... 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.

Dr. Becky 23:36 Really, really true. What, what do you understand even right now that you didn't understand right after, you know, Bodhi?

Kevin Maguire 23:49 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-

Dr. Becky 24:22 Mm

Kevin Maguire 24:23 ... 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-

Dr. Becky 24:36 No

Kevin Maguire 24:36 ... 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."

Dr. Becky 24:47 Mm.

Kevin Maguire 24:47 Like, I love that you can feel what you feel without fear of any kind of-

Dr. Becky 24:54 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 24:54 ... retribution. 'Cause when he's older, maybe he won't struggle to, like... Or when he does struggle, he'll understand.

Dr. Becky 25:02 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 25:02 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-

Dr. Becky 25:11 Ugh

Kevin Maguire 25:11 ... for him 'cause he, like... 'Cause then you can say-

Dr. Becky 25:14 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 25:14 ... "Oh, hey, is the red guy at your controls now?"

Dr. Becky 25:16 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 25:16 And he's like, "Do you wanna..." 'Cause he physically gets hot as well.

Dr. Becky 25:19 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 25:19 And you can feel him heat up.

Dr. Becky 25:21 Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Maguire 25:21 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-

Dr. Becky 25:29 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 25:29 ... to understand, like, what he feels.

Dr. Becky 25:32 What gives you the most joy these days? What specific things in your parenting?

Kevin Maguire 25:36 My daughter loves Billie Eilish.

Dr. Becky 25:38 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 25:38 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-

Dr. Becky 26:26 Mm

Kevin Maguire 26:26 ... when they were about to become parents, and it asked them to think about, like, something exciting-

Dr. Becky 26:33 Mm

Kevin Maguire 26:33 ... 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-

Dr. Becky 26:53 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 26:53 ... 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.

Dr. Becky 27:01 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 27:02 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.

Dr. Becky 27:10 Long time.

Kevin Maguire 27:11 A long time. Like, right? And but then you, you know, they crack a smile and you're like, "Oh, that was good."

Dr. Becky 27:16 Or you rip... Did your babies love when you rip paper?

Kevin Maguire 27:18 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Becky 27:18 Like the hysterical laughter-

Kevin Maguire 27:20 Yes

Dr. Becky 27:20 ... right, exactly.

Kevin Maguire 27:21 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-

Dr. Becky 27:28 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 27:28 ... emotional dads-

Dr. Becky 27:30 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 27:30 ... who are just looking for a space-

Dr. Becky 27:32 Beautiful

Kevin Maguire 27:32 ... to, like, bring all of their feelings-

Dr. Becky 27:34 Yeah

Kevin Maguire 27:34 ... 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.

Dr. Becky 28:01 Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Maguire 28:01 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.

Dr. Becky 28:23 Mm.

Kevin Maguire 28:23 Like, at my... Like, that, that experience with my son, like, completely broke me.

Dr. Becky 28:29 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 28:29 But what I built back was so much better.

Dr. Becky 28:32 And I think what you're saying is all those podcasts, the optimization, is it's competence in the one way we've defined it.

Kevin Maguire 28:38 Yes.

Dr. Becky 28:39 Fatherhood would enable you to have such a wider range of experiences where you can find competence, not day one.

Kevin Maguire 28:46 No.

Dr. Becky 28:46 It's, but if you embrace that perspective-

Kevin Maguire 28:49 Yeah

Dr. Becky 28:49 ... uh, competence in caring, competence in thinking about things, competence in noticing, competence in just connecting-

Kevin Maguire 28:55 Yeah

Dr. Becky 28:55 ... competence in doing nothing-

Kevin Maguire 28:57 Mm-hmm

Dr. Becky 28:57 ... and just being, right?

Kevin Maguire 28:58 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 28:59 Um, I love that.

Kevin Maguire 29:00 Well, well, it's the, the, the advice I give to every new dad is buy a notebook.

Dr. Becky 29:04 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 29:04 When you say noticing, buy a notebook and just write down all the things that you notice. And what it will do is two, it will do two things. One is that you'll start to look for really nice things, and as we all know from all the research on gratitude journaling-

Dr. Becky 29:17 Yep

Kevin Maguire 29:17 ... if you start to look for better things, you'll start to see them.

Dr. Becky 29:20 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 29:21 And then the second thing is it will give you this memento-

Dr. Becky 29:25 Yes

Kevin Maguire 29:25 ... that you can look back at, that it'll be like all the things that you, that you saw for the first time.

Dr. Becky 29:29 So cool.

Kevin Maguire 29:30 And then as the kids start to speak, you can note down all the cute little-

Dr. Becky 29:32 Yes

Kevin Maguire 29:32 ... things that they say-

Dr. Becky 29:34 Yes

Kevin Maguire 29:34 ... and everything.

Dr. Becky 29:34 Yeah.

Kevin Maguire 29:34 And, like, that, and, and just-

Dr. Becky 29:36 Mm

Kevin Maguire 29:36 ... that, getting into that practice of looking at fatherhood with this mindset of abundance, of, like, everything that it can bring you and not everything that it takes away. [gentle music]

Dr. Becky 29:54 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]