I Was No Longer the Subject

In this episode, I return to a question I thought I had already explored: why is slowing down so difficult, even when we finally have the chance? Looking back on the years when motherhood became my whole identity, I explore the difference between being ready to stop and feeling allowed to. A personal reflection on care, guilt, unpaid work, and what happens when our own needs quietly disappear from the equation.

What is The Quiet Between with Juliette Pasquet?

The Quiet Between is a podcast with Juliette Pasquet about making room for a slower, more attentive life.
Through personal stories, observations and the occasional conversation, Juliette explores the moments we tend to move past too quickly, and what becomes visible when we give them a little more space.
A place to arrive, listen and notice more.

I Was No Longer the Subject

Hi, everyone. You know, I've been thinking. Looking back at my first episode, I can see that I left out something important. In my first episode, I talked about restlessness, about the mind that keeps racing even after the body has stopped. So I guess I was approaching slowing down through the lens of readiness.

And I thought at that time that readiness was the main obstacle. But even when the mind finally catches up with the body, something else can still make slowing down feel out of reach. It took a conversation with a dear friend for me to understand what I had missed. Being ready to stop and giving ourselves permission to stop are two very different things. And so that shifted the question for me from readiness to permission. It was no longer only "am I ready to stop?" It was also "am I allowed to?"

I'm Juliette, and this is The Quiet Between.

Slowing down asks us to tune in and check in with ourselves, to consider whether we were moving too fast in the first place and what we might actually need. And admitting that we have needs also means believing that those needs deserve some room.

My needs… Such a funny thing to talk about, especially once you become a mother.

Your entire world is turned upside down overnight and the only rhythm that seems to count is your baby's. I suspect the reason I overlooked this huge piece in my first episode is that I no longer live in that stage of motherhood. If I did, trust me, I probably would not have the time or the mental bandwidth to be here talking to you.

At one point in my life, I had three children under five. You'd think it was chaos, but it was not. I took it upon myself to stay on top of everything. I became this parent who focused almost exclusively on the well-being of the other members of the family. Home became my workplace, my sanctuary, my reason to be. I was many things: a wife, a friend, a lover, a mother, but there was simply no space left for me outside those roles.

You have to understand that when we moved to the US back in 2016, I had a two-year-old, I was six months pregnant, and I did not have a work permit. So staying home did not feel like much of a choice when you think about it. But eventually, it evolved into one. I embraced motherhood so fiercely that it became not just a role, but an identity. It was the most all-encompassing, all-consuming job of my life. You know, we often hear that it takes a village to raise a kid. Well, I certainly did not have one. It was just the two of us in a foreign country, each with our own project. A business for my entrepreneur husband and baby number two for me.

Did I miss going to work? Not really, if I'm being honest. Would I have gone back to work if I could have? Probably. But that was simply not on the table for me.

Back then, I remember some of my friends thinking that because I, quote-unquote, "was not working," life was somehow easier for me. They were mothers just like me. They were getting their children ready in the morning, just like me. They were in charge of the house, just like me. But unlike me, they also had a job. And because I could afford to stay home, I was even expected to feel grateful. No right to complain. I was supposed to feel joy every single day because I was so lucky to witness my babies' firsts: the first time they blew raspberries, the first time they held a spoon, the first time they walked. Of course, I cherished those moments, and of course I knew how lucky I was to have a front-row seat to them. But that does not mean it was all sunshine and roses every day. There are always different versions of the same story depending on who's telling it.

I have always worked. I just have not always had a paid job.

That being said, in retrospect, I hate the word stay-at-home mother. I will never again use it to describe myself. I was an unpaid care worker who eventually chose to stay home to care for and raise her children without any outside help. It's a Monday through Sunday job with no breaks during the day, no financial compensation, and little to no praise. Would you really sign at the bottom of that page?

And listen, this is not a debate about mothers who work outside the home and mothers who do not. Despite all the ways we tend to set these experiences against one another, there may be one thing that unites them, and that is guilt.

I've always felt that guilt was somehow built into motherhood, and maybe it begins with how we internalize responsibility when we become our child's primary caregiver. Breastfeeding may be the best example of this. It can be one of the most beautiful and intimate experiences of your life. It is an extraordinary act of giving, but it can also feel like a form of enslavement.

I know that is a strong word, but when you're breastfeeding every hour, physically and emotionally drained, and your body is quite literally on call around the clock, that is what it can feel like. Both things can be true.

In those first weeks, the baby's needs come first because they have to. You learn to tune in to every cry, every rhythm, and every signal because this tiny person depends on you for everything. And somewhere along the way, your own needs stop being part of the equation.

That is where permission becomes so complicated. Taking time for yourself does not simply mean recognizing your needs. It can feel like choosing your needs over your baby's. The problem is not taking a few minutes for yourself. It is that those minutes can feel like time taken away from someone who might need you, especially when your needs and the baby's do not conveniently follow the same schedule.

That tension can remain whether you stay home full-time or work outside the home.

If you're home full-time, time for yourself can feel like stepping away from the work you have taken on, whether or not that situation was entirely yours to choose. Now, if you work outside the home, time for yourself can feel like even more time away from your children.

Different circumstances, but the same tendency to make our own needs irrelevant. So if 98% of your time is already allocated to everyone else, what exactly is the remaining 2% supposed to hold? One exhausted hour after everyone else has gone to bed?

From my own experience, I learned that when care is shared, some of the responsibility, worry, and self-doubt are shared too. That was why back then I was so envious of my friends in France who lived close to their parents or other relatives. That did not mean help was available every day or even that they asked for it. But from where I stood, simply knowing that a grandparent, an aunt, or an uncle was within reach or even just in the same time zone, made a difference. It was not only about day-to-day help. It was about having a safety net, someone you could actually call in an emergency.

We did not have that safety net. With my husband building his business and me at home with the children, I often felt alone at the helm, and this was before AI could answer every panicked parenting question. I had very little support as I learned how to parent, let alone cope, beginning with childbirth and postpartum care.

I could name all the differences between my birth country, France, and the United States, but what would be the point?

I think you have to experience it to truly understand what it means to give birth in a country where you're not even familiar with the medical language. But I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. I felt very empowered as a mother. Staying home had become a choice, and I had finally stopped caring about what other people thought.

My children were what was relevant. I, on the other hand, was simply no longer the subject. They became the center, the whole, and everything in between. My days and nights, my dreams and nightmares. But I also felt very competent as a mother, as though I were somehow the only person who truly understood what they needed. Caring for them had become my monopoly. There was pride in that, of course, or you might call it ego. I knew their hearts, their sounds, their cries. I could decipher every sign like an interpreter. I felt I was the only one who knew their language. So home became my realm, and I somehow became its queen.

But looking back, I realize that the cost of being all-in was that I lost myself in the role. I lost touch with who I had been before becoming a mother, with my own dreams and ambitions, with my needs and desires. It was as though everything about me had receded into the background. Still there, but quiet enough for me to stop paying attention.

And when caring for everyone else had become the organizing principle of my days, slowing down for myself felt almost beside the point. So no, at the time, I did not think of myself as a person with needs.

But don’t get me wrong. Mothers aren’t mystical creatures, but we can become remarkably good at pretending that we do not have needs. I know I did.

That was my experience, and I know it's not every mother's. I became so fused with the role that I lost part of myself in it. Motherhood had become my only purpose at a time when I was also deeply isolated, and I'm sure the two were connected.

But even within motherhood, the question of permission does not disappear when the newborn and toddler years are over. Today, my children are older, and I am no longer at home solely to take care of them. Yet some of that guilt remains. I still find it difficult to give myself permission to take time for myself. Luckily, my husband is exceptionally good at taking time for himself. Truly gifted. So at least I have an expert in the house. Tom, if you're listening, I love you for it. I'm trying to learn from you, but it still does not come naturally to me.

What I understand now is that external and internal pressures work together to hinder our ability to slow down. Our performance culture, the constant movement it demands, and our habit of filling every available space keep us from feeling ready to stop. At the same time, guilt, the rules we've internalized, and our habit of making our own needs irrelevant can make us feel that we are not allowed to stop.

You know, there's one image that keeps coming back to me from my training as a psychotherapist, and it is the image of the oxygen mask on a plane. If the cabin loses pressure, you're instructed to put on your own oxygen mask before helping anyone else with theirs. Not because your needs matter more, but because you cannot remain helpful if you can no longer breathe.

Psychotherapy belongs to what we call the helping professions. During my training, self-care was treated as essential to the work itself. It was what allowed us to remain present and continue helping others.

I find myself thinking about that now in relation to parenting, especially when most of the day-to-day care rests on one person. Giving ourselves permission to stop is not separate from caring. It is a prerequisite for continuing to care without disappearing entirely from our own lives. So yeah, give yourself permission.

Give yourself permission to stop.

If you'd like to stay in touch, you can find my writing at read.thequietbetween.space.

Thank you for listening to episode number four. I'll talk to you soon.