Scenic Route, Social Change and Mental Health Conversations for Perfectionists
Forget the fast lane! The Scenic Route is where perfectionists slow down, get better, and create real change.
We explore:
- Mental health wisdom (minus toxic positivity)
- Social change (that starts from within)
- System critiques (with actionable solutions)
- Inner wisdom (over external validation)
- Mindfulness for minimalists (no crystals required)
Join Jennifer Walter, sociologist (MASoc UCC) and recovering perfectionist, for weekly conversations that blend critical thinking with oh-so-much compassion.
Whether you're questioning everything or trying to find peace amongst the chaos, you'll find space here for your inner voice, mindset, mental health, and collective change — you're in the right place. We make space for both personal healing and collective change — with a side of potty humour.
New episodes drop every Tuesday.
The longest way round is the shortest way home – and that's exactly why we're taking the Scenic Route.
Ready to walk the scenic route?
The view here is *chef's kiss.*
Scenic Route, Social Change and Mental Health Conversations for Perfectionists
Smiles and Sacrifices: The Modern Motherhood Performance
Why are women punished for being honest about motherhood?
When Chappell Roan said her friends with kids are “in hell,” the backlash wasn’t about the words but about breaking the performance. In this episode of Scenic Route, sociologist and coach Jennifer Walter unpacks the emotional labour, mental load, and societal expectations that define modern motherhood.
Why do we praise men like Seth Rogen for opting out of parenthood while vilifying women who name the cost of caregiving? Why do tradwife aesthetics trend while actual support for mothers disappears?
This episode explores:
- The mental load and invisible labour that mothers carry
- Why motherhood is a performance, not just an experience
- The backlash against Chappell Roan and what it reveals
- Adrienne Rich on motherhood as institution vs. experience
- Erving Goffman’s theory of social roles and the "good mother" mask
- The rise of the trad wife movement and its political implications
- Why unpaid care work is central to the global economy—and still invisible
- The cost of honesty in a culture built on maternal silence
🎧 With insights on:
- Call Her Daddy and Chappell Roan's viral statement
- The cultural double standard around parenting and gender
- How systems maintain control through emotional suppression
Join us on the Scenic Route.
New episode drops Tuesday.
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Visit jenniferwalter.me – your cosy corner where recovering perfectionists, misfits, and those done pretending to be fine find space to breathe, dream, and create real change."
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When Chappell Roan said motherhood was hell for her friends, she wasn't just making a statement, she was committing her say against the carefully maintained political and urban fiction. So today, on the Scenic Route , we kind of like, expose or try to put into words why we celebrate men who stay clear from parenthood while punishing women who dare to speak the truth. And how Tradwife fits into all of this, it will trust me. Grab your beverage of choice and let's dive in into what happensz when women dare to drop the mask of maternal bliss and how that backlash isn't about protecting families, it's about protecting a profitable system built on women's silence. There's a different way to think about mental health, and it starts with slowing down. Sometimes the longest way around is the shortest way home, and that's exactly why we're taking the scenic route. Hi, I'm Jennifer Walter, host of the Scenic Route podcast. Think of me as your sociologist, sister in arms and rebel with many causes Together. We're blending critical thinking with compassion, mental health with a dash of rebellion, and personal healing with collective change. We're trading perfectionism for possibility and toxic positivity for messy growth. Each week, we're exploring the path to better mental health and social transformation. And yes, by the way, pretty crystals are totally optional. You ready to take the scenic route? Let's walk this path together.
Jennifer Walter:As a sociologist and feminist, I wasn't surprised at all when Japp Rowan, on the recent episode of the podcast called her daddy, said her friends with kids are in hell. I mean, yeah, I feel you, we feel you. And I also wasn't surprised by the fury that followed from conservatives, because this is precisely what happens when a woman speaks too plainly about the realities of motherhood as she sees them, and while we don't interrogate the conditions making mothers suffer, we interrogate the women who dare to name them. Meanwhile, I think it was not that long ago when Seth Rogen said on a talk show that not having kids helped him succeed, and he and his wife clearly decided not, like it was a very conscious decision not to have kids, which is very cool, you do you. And not to have kids, which is very cool, you do you. But he, like the media narrative around this interview, like he has been seen as like, wise and grounded. And when we look at the narrative following Chapel Rowan, when she says her observation that her friends with young children are exhausted and joyless, she's accused of kind of like being bitter, immature, anti-family, like, yeah, the whole, the whole shenanigans, right, and just this contrast alone kind of like tells us everything about what we value. It's not the honesty, it's the performance. So, and I feel it's really important to kind of like look into the distinction between motherhood as an experience versus an institution.
Jennifer Walter:Um adrian rich, in her book of women born, draws a distinction that remains quite essential the difference between motherhood as experience and motherhood as institution. Motherhood as experience is real, contradictory, human, like, precious, joyful, hard, flawed right, it's, it's all the things. It's full of long days and short years and it's full of intimacy and loss and joy and rage and connection and disintegration. And right, it's the lived reality of caring for children. It's messy and complex, deeply personal and and wonderful. Yet motherhood as institution is a culture and political script. It demands women's sacrifice, smile and obedience. It clearly defines a good mother in quotes as one who is endlessly available, grateful, emotionally visible and preferably with a good blow-dry. Institution doesn't merely describe motherhood, it just it prescribes it, enforcing very narrow boundaries of acceptable maternal behavior. Right, and don't you dare say you regret having kids like that's. That's puts you right into dante's whatever kind of ring of hell.
Jennifer Walter:So, yeah, chapel run, kind of again, was one of the recent examples, that of people who broke the silence and the backlash and followed. Wasn't about what she said, right, it was about what she kind of disrupted by speaking things out loud. And to look at the role of mother, I think it's really interesting to and the role of a good mother. To look at Irving Goffman's theory of dramaturgy Right, we are all actors in social, in our very own social performance. Right, we go on stage and we perform, and motherhood in particular is a very, very, if not the most scrutinized role nowadays. Right, the performance is very rigid the good mother as a nurturing, calm, selfless, fulfilled, as said, preferably becky with the good. And she must never appear overwhelmed or ambivalent or angry, god forbid. And to drop that mask while on stage, to admit that the role is crushing, is to invite condemnation. And this performance doesn't merely burden individual women, it also serves as a broader social function, while by keeping mothers focused on their personal adequacy rather than structural inadequacies, we prevent collective action that might demand better conditions for care, work Right, better conditions for child care, better conditions for like work and life balance.
Jennifer Walter:So, chapel, she reminded us that the stage is really a stage and a set and that behind it, the actors, women with kids, are often exhausted, unseen and fucking unsupported, and for that she was dragged. But it's very important to highlight that again. This is all structural, right, it's happened. This is what happens when society asks women to raise children without affordable child care, paid leave, social support or just general fucking rest. Right, I mean yes of. I mean yes. Of course we are unhappy. Maybe we're not unhappy like all day, every day, but we are unhappy. It's what happens when an entire economic system is propped up by the unpaid labor of mothers and the gas and then gaslights them into thinking that their exhaustion is a personal failure. They can fix it with I don't know whatever kind of weird relaxation candle Gwyneth Paltrow wants to push when a paltrow wants to push.
Jennifer Walter:So I mean some stats for you, right? According to bureau of labor statistics, women spend 37 percent more time on unpaid household and care work than men. The economic value of this unpaid care work is estimated around 11 trillion globally. Yet this number is it's invisible. It's nowhere in GDP calculations, policy considerations, it's just taken for granted, and laurie penny writes it very articulately in saying the unpaid, invisible labor of women is what keeps the world turning and it also keeps turning because we have been told to fucking smile through it and just shut up, right, it's kind of like the dixie, the chick song, like just shut up and shut up and sing, or just smile and say I I never got the lyrics to that anyway.
Jennifer Walter:So and then, interestingly not interestingly seph rogan isn't vilified for saying he doesn't want kids, because our culture doesn't require men to anchor their identities in care work. We don't script masculinity around emotional labor or self-sacrifice. So when a man chooses not to be a parent, it's autonomy. Why is this a decision? When a woman critiques the system around motherhood, it's betrayal. Rogan, this thing is practical, wise, smart, broan, ooh, dangerous, a threat. So at the beginning I I promised you, trad, trad, the trad wives will fit into this and they will. So here we go. Um, right, it's this whole. It fits into this whole narrative of, and this whole stage play of motherhood.
Jennifer Walter:Right, the rise of the, of the, the trad wife movement from the last couple of years, a social media-fueled return to traditional values where a woman embraces hyperdomesticity, submission and performative femininity. It isn't occurring in a political vacuum. Nothing is right. It's directly connected to broader political currents that seek to redefine women's roles in increasingly restrictive ways. This movement has gained momentum alongside the rise of right-wing populism globally. What began as an aesthetics nostalgia for 1950s vibes and lifestyles has evolved into a political stand that intertwines with conservative and nationalist agendas.
Jennifer Walter:The triad wife ideal doesn't just romanticize motherhood. It actively promotes a return to patriarchal family structures where women's primary value is derived from their reproductive and domestic labor. The whole political dimensions become very clear when we examine how who amplifies these messages. I mean conservative media outlets, politicians promoting family values and religious organizations. I mean politicians who, I mean themselves have, like I don't know, a gazillion kids by a gazillion different women. So whatever, take that for whatever family value that is, I don't know and like religious organizations fighting against reproductive rights and have all embraced the trad wife aesthetic as a proof that women naturally desire traditional roles. And again, if this is on an individual level, if this is what you personally desire, yes, go do that, but be mindful of how this can be institutionalized. Anyway.
Jennifer Walter:The rhetoric around protecting the family, the core family, um often translates to policies that restrict women's economic independence, reproductive autonomy and political voice, and it's a word or a term that comes in a lot of conservative right-wing parties, right when we also think of the AfD in Germany. So all of this is very evident in political campaigns that use motherhood as a moral credential. Female politicians are often required to perform perfect motherhood while simultaneously proving their professional competence, a double standard their male counterparts rarely face. I mean, would you imagine a female elon musk having I don't know a boatload of children by a boatload of different men, how this woman woman would be seen in society and dare imagine this woman might be black? Right, just this makes it all just mind-boggling nonsense. So meanwhile, like let it.
Jennifer Walter:Legislation that would actually support mothers paid family leave, subsidized childcare, maternal healthcare is frequently blocked by the same political forces celebrating the trad wife idea. So the whole trad wife aesthetic package is the institution of motherhood and soft lighting and curated table settings and homemade butter churns and all those. It doesn't fix the system Right, it just I don't know, it paints it pink. And it doesn't sell support, it sells silence. And forget about the fact that a lot of these very popular trad wives are very wealthy women with very wealthy backgrounds. Side note so in states where reproductive rights are being rolled back, the tradwife narrative serves as a cultural reinforcement. As a cultural reinforcement, again, right.
Jennifer Walter:So suggesting that women's trade fulfillment comes from embracing their biological air quotes destiny rather than fighting for bodily autonomy. And the political message becomes if modernity is your highest calling, why would you need to control over when and how you enter it? Just be happy that you do, be grateful that you do. And I mean also just the fact that they're excluding anyone who is biologically not able to become a mother. I, yeah, just another layer of nonsense. So in this political context, rowan's words well, they're not just inconvenient for conservatives, they're unforgivable, right, because she isn't romanticizing any of this, she's naming its cost and and that's your happiness. I mean, social psychologists could also explain this backlash through the lens of cognitive dissonance, and this is something why there was also a lot of backlash from individual mothers, right, not just like from the media.
Jennifer Walter:When someone says something that threatens the belief we hold very close to us, um, really like an established assumption of who we are, like motherhood is the most fulfilling role a woman can have. If someone threatens that, we feel discomfort and we do not like discomfort. So instead of confronting the belief and asking ourselves critically, why do we feel this discomfort, we rather lash out and attack, and studies show that we're particularly resistant to information that challenges beliefs tied to our identity or moral framework, and for many of us, rightly so. Modernity isn't just a role, right, it's more than that. For a lot of us, it is a part of our identity, which is okay. Yet if you put it in a religious and more cultural conservative background, it becomes more or less everything you are, and if that everything you are is being threatened, it puts you like in a corner, like a scary, like a scary cat, ready, ready to lash out, right.
Jennifer Walter:So so it's interesting that I always believe, when you feel truly bothered by something, someone says you should look inwards. You should look inwards, right. And if you felt anger, like when you heard Chapel on the podcast, and you felt angry or disappointed or mad, whatever, if your first reaction to her comment was anger, really ask yourself, okay, what version of motherhood are you protecting? Ask yourself who taught you that suffering in silence is a noble cause. Who taught you that motherhood equals martyrdom? And ask yourself who benefits from you believing that. Ask yourself what political interests are served by keeping mothers isolated and focused on personal rather than structural solutions. Ask yourself what part of yourself is still waiting for permission to say this is all fucking too much. Because, babes, believe me, the real betrayal here isn't Rowan's honesty, it's the culture around it that makes honesty feel like treason.
Jennifer Walter:So and with that I'm jen, your swiss sociologist and host of city growth podcast, a podcast for misfits, deep feelers and those don't pretending everything is fine I talk about care, culture, social change and the systems that shape us. If this resonates, I'm more than happy to welcome you again next week. Love us, and just like that, we've reached the end of another journey together on the Cine Group podcast. Thank you for spending time with us, curious for more stories or in search of the resources mentioned in today's episode. Visit us at cinegrouppodcastcom for everything you need. And if you're ready to embrace your Cine Group, I've got something special for you sources mentioned in today's episode. Visit us at scenigroupodcastcom for everything you need, and if you're ready to embrace your scenic route, I've got something special for you.
Jennifer Walter:Step off the beaten path with my scenic route affirmation card deck. It's crafted for those moments when you're seeking courage, yearning to trust your inner voice and eager to carve out a path authentically, unmistakably yours. Pick your scenic route affirmation today and let it support you. Excited about where your journey might lead, I certainly am. Remember, the scenic route is not just about the destination, but the experiences, learnings and joy we discover along the way. Thank you for being here and I look forward to seeing you on the scenic route again.
