you've had a baby...not a lobotomy

Samantha Murrell
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Society & Culture

We should be mothering amongst the stories of motherhood - its complexities, joys and challenges. We should have been supported and mentored through it, with the knowledge being passed down from generation to generation. But today we mother largely in isolation, away from our families, friends and communities. It was never meant to be this way. Without all of this we lack the reference to make sense of our own experiences and the language to express how we are feeling. It leaves mothers feeling disconnected, lost and believing there is something wrong with them. 'You've had a baby not a lobotomy' is a podcast lifting the lid on motherhood, bringing you real, raw and honest stories from real mothers - with no experts or gurus. It challenges the damaging modern narrative of the perfect mother and celebrates mothers thriving in modern motherhood, doing it their own, damn way!

  1. 15h ago

    18 - Lupus, Burnout, Perimenopause and a Late ADHD Diagnosis with Faye Ceyhan

    Faye Ceyhan was told in her twenties that she'd never be a mum. Then came lupus, years of being really ill, two babies, and a string of businesses built in a hyperfocused blur, including learning Instagram at 4am while feeding a newborn. Faye is an ADHD unmasking and personal brand mentor, based in London, and the voice behind the Instagram page Lost Bitches Club. I've only recently started following her and I knew straight away she had to come on. She is funny, sweary and completely unfiltered and this conversation is exactly what this podcast is about: mothering in your own damn way. We talk about the loneliness in early motherhood that nobody warns you about, the perfect mum act, and what happens when the thing holding you up finally gives out. Faye admits she thought burnout was a bit snowflakey until it hit and she couldn't even open her laptop. We get into: Pre-motherhood Faye and being told after her lupus diagnosis that she'd never be a mumThe loneliness of early motherhood and the moment a new mum friend turned out to be selling skincareWhy a perfect house is now an alarm bell for herA completely different second postpartum, and the hyperfocus that launched her first businessBurnout, twice, and why she'd written it off until it flattened herHow perimenopause turned the volume up on her ADHD and led to her diagnosisWhy she's not here for martyrdom motherhood and how she makes time for herself without apology If you’re a new mum, feeling like you need to be perfect and are pretending you’ve got it all together, this one’s for you. Find Faye on Instagram here. MOTHERS’ HOOD If this episode or any other resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. Email me: samantha@mothershood.co.uk Or come and find me here: www.mothershood.co.uk Instagram: @mothers.hood Facebook: @mothershoodtribe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-murrell-03966132/

    18 - Lupus, Burnout, Perimenopause and a Late ADHD Diagnosis with Faye Ceyhan

  2. Sep 22

    17 - If one More Person tells me to Have a Bath I'll Scream! Self-Care + Why We're Getting it so Wrong. Solo Epiosde.

    If one more person tells you to just take some time for yourself while you're drowning, this one's for you. In this solo episode, I go off on the self-care industry and why taking a bath is not the answer to your rage, your burnout, or your lack of capacity. Self-care has become another job on the to-do list, dressed up as wellness and sold back to us. And underneath it all? A whole lot of unexamined beliefs about why women can't put themselves first in the first place. I get honest about my own early motherhood and why 'just relax' was never going to cut it. I digs into boundaries and how bloody uncomfortable they are to hold, the people-pleasing conditioning that follows women into motherhood, and the mindset work that actually moves the needle not another bubble bath. Plus: the wellness industry is worth $224 billion in the UK alone, and women's mental health is still in crisis. Sam breaks down why those two facts are connected, and why the answer was never a spa day. In this episode: Why self-care so often means another job, not a breakThe link between the wellness industry, beauty standards, and moneyMy own postpartum story - anxiety, undiagnosed ADHD, and why baths never workedThe mindset and beliefs that stop women putting themselves firstWhat it actually takes to hold a boundary and why it hurtsWhy the fix was never a spa day If you've ever felt guilty for resting, exhausted by self-care, or like you're failing at looking after yourself no matter what you try, this one's for you. If you're back at work and even thinking about looking after yourself feels exhausting on top of juggling everything else, this one's for you. Ready to stop over-giving and start reclaiming your own boundaries? Book a no-obligation Clarity Call with me and find out what working together actually looks like. Book here MOTHERS’ HOOD If this episode or any other resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. Email me: samantha@mothershood.co.uk Or come and find me here: www.mothershood.co.uk Instagram: @mothers.hood Facebook: @mothershoodtribe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-murrell-03966132/

    17 - If one More Person tells me to Have a Bath I'll Scream! Self-Care + Why We're Getting it so Wrong. Solo Epiosde.

  3. Sep 8

    16 - Maybe I'm not Cut out for Motherhood? With Laura Greenwood

    This episode was recorded back in 2022 when the podcast first started. Since then, Laura has continued her work with hundred of mothers and also her own self-discovery, so I feel that an update of motherhood and life from Laura is needed here - watch this space! In this episode, Sam is joined by Laura Greenwood, psychotherapist, mother, and founder of her own private practice in Yorkshire, for an honest conversation about the early years of motherhood. Laura shares what it was really like becoming a mother to her son Owen, who struggled with allergies, colic and reflux from birth and how quickly the instant bond she expected gave way to overwhelm, isolation and a creeping sense that she wasn't meant to be a mother. Having lost both of her parents at eighteen, Laura talks candidly about how motherhood forced long-buried grief back to the surface and how a later miscarriage, paradoxically, became one of the most healing experiences of her life. She and Sam talk about matrescence, the pressure to perform contentment as a new mother, the fear of losing loved ones, learning to trust her own instincts over other people's expectations, and what it actually looks like, in practical, everyday terms, to build a life that lets her thrive as a mother, a partner, and a person. In this episode: Laura's early experience of motherhood, and why breastfeeding struggles and medical battles left her feeling dismissedWhy the early monotony of newborn care was harder than any high-pressure job she'd hadDiscovering the concept of matrescence, and how it changed everythingProcessing the resurfaced grief of losing both parents at eighteenHow a later miscarriage helped her finally grieve her parents properlyAnxiety, intrusive thoughts, and the fear of losing the people she lovesWhat thriving actually looks like day to day, boundaries, self-employment, and doing things her own way, even when others don't understandLaura's message to her younger, overwhelmed, newly postpartum self MOTHERS’ HOOD If this episode or any other resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. Email me: samantha@mothershood.co.uk Or come and find me here: www.mothershood.co.uk Instagram: @mothers.hood Facebook: @mothershoodtribe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-murrell-03966132/

    16 - Maybe I'm not Cut out for Motherhood? With Laura Greenwood

  4. Aug 25

    15 - Stop Calling it Baby Brain! What Really Happens When You Grow a Human Being.

    ‘Baby brain.’ We've all said it. We've all had it said to us, usually with a little pat on the head and a ‘bless her.’ In this episode, I'm calling it out for what it actually is - a lazy, patronising insult dressed up as a joke, and I'm bringing the neuroscience to prove it. Because here's the thing, while we've been told for decades that pregnancy turns our brains to mush, the research tells a completely different story. Your brain isn't declining when you become a mother. It's being rebuilt to make you a more attuned, more responsive, more brilliant version of yourself. And yet less than 0.5% of all brain imaging studies since the 1990s have looked at women's health at all, let alone what happens to the maternal brain. We'll go to the moon before we'll properly fund research into what happens to the woman who just grew a human from scratch. In this episode: Why "baby brain" isn't cognitive decline, it's a biological transformationThe landmark 2025 Nature Neuroscience study that MRI-scanned one woman's brain 26 times across pregnancy and postpartum, and what it foundWhat's actually happening inside your brain - the pruning process fine-tuning you to your baby and why it explains everything from letdown reflexes to picking your baby's cry out of a crowdThe 2025 study showing measurable grey matter changes in first-time mothers and the areas of the brain it affects, including memory and decision-makingWhy mothering today is harder than ever, according to trauma expert Dr Gabor Maté, and what that's got to do with a brain that's already working overtimeThe uncomfortable stat on maternal mental health that should be front-page news, and isn'tThe surprising long-term upside - what having a baby might do for your brain decades down the line If you've ever felt stupid, foggy, or less than since having a baby, this one's for you. Because you didn't lose your edge. Your brain did something extraordinary, and it's about time we started talking about it that way. MOTHERS’ HOOD If this episode or any other resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. Email me: samantha@mothershood.co.uk Or come and find me here: www.mothershood.co.uk Instagram: @mothers.hood Facebook: @mothershoodtribe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-murrell-03966132/

    15 - Stop Calling it Baby Brain! What Really Happens When You Grow a Human Being.

  5. Aug 11

    14 - Having a Baby Doesn't Mean Derailing your Career, with Ashley Chang

    Here's a plot twist for you: Ashley Chang built a business for working parents before she was a parent herself. Ashley is the founder of Sundays — an executive assistant service that pairs working families with (mostly) mum-run support, both at work and at home. She spent years deep in the research, talking to exhausted parents, watching the drop-off that happens the second ambition meets a baby. Then she had her own son, four months before we recorded this and got to test every assumption on herself in real time. I loved this one. It's rare to talk to someone who studied the juggle or parenthood from the outside and then lived it from the inside. We get into: - Why she scrapped her plan to build an app and built a team of humans instead, because parents didn't need another system, they needed capacity - The "make impact vs. save your life" framework her husband uses, and how she's learned to slide up and down that scale instead of picking a lane forever - What actually changed for her once she had her son – it wasn’t a big philosophical shift, just a much harder line around what's worth her time at work - Taking two months fully off her own company and having to trust her team to run it without her - The coaching question that cracked her open before maternity leave - Why she went into leave trying to just be present, instead of chasing another goal to hit There's a line in here about how the messaging we get is that having a baby derails your career for years — wait until they're at school/secondary school/the kids have left home. Ashley's four months in and already proving it doesn't have to be that way. Not because it's easy, because she's decided she gets to choose. If you're in the season where you're trying to work out how much of you gets to stay you and chase your own career goals while you're also somebody's whole world, this episode is for you. You've Had a Baby, Not a Lobotomy is an independent podcast, produced by Decibel Creative. MOTHERS’ HOOD If this episode or any other resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. Email me: samantha@mothershood.co.uk Or come and find me here: www.mothershood.co.uk Instagram: @mothers.hood Facebook: @mothershoodtribe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-murrell-03966132/

    14 - Having a Baby Doesn't Mean Derailing your Career, with Ashley Chang

  6. Jul 28

    13 - Why Flexible Working isn't Working - solo episode

    In this episode I'm calling out the PR stunt for what it is. Flexible working policies were never going to be the holy grail on their own and the stats prove it. Careers After Babies' 2024 report found a 32% reduction in women in managerial roles after becoming a mum, alongside a 44% increase in admin roles. Brilliant, capable women, moving backwards, not because they've lost their edge, but because nothing around them was built to hold them through the change. This isn't a logistics problem and it never was. You can't fix an identity crisis with a hybrid working policy. In this episode: Why flexible working policies look great on paper but are failing mothers in practiceThe stats behind the 32% drop in women reaching managerial roles after having a babyWhat organisations need to do instead to support and nurture their working mothers and what else needs to change in order for mothers to get the support and resources they need and deserve. If you're the brilliant mother back at work after maternity leave and being managed around rather than championed, book a Clarity Call. Let's talk about what proper support actually looks like. MOTHERS’ HOOD If this episode or any other resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. Email me: samantha@mothershood.co.uk Or come and find me here: www.mothershood.co.uk Instagram: @mothers.hood Facebook: @mothershoodtribe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-murrell-03966132/

    13 - Why Flexible Working isn't Working - solo episode

  7. Jul 14

    12 - Motherhood Changed my Career Goals Forever, with Amy Taylor-Kabbaz

    I recorded this conversation with Amy Taylor-Kabbaz back in 2022, right when I first started this podcast and I didn't get to publish it at the time. I'm so happy it's not out in the world for more mammas to hear from this incredible woman who changed the trajectory of my motherhood for the better. Amy was my mentor and I trained with her for nearly three years in motherhood coaching and she's the reason Mothers' Hood exists. She was the first person who ever made me feel like what I was going through in early motherhood wasn't me failing. Amy gave me the language and understanding of it all. In this episode we go right back. We talk about the Amy before kids — fiercely ambitious ABC journalist, the "we don't need a man" generation, success and career as the whole point of her life. Then motherhood and the floor dropping out from under her. We talk about: The version of yourself that cracks open the second you become a mum, and how nobody warns you it's comingWhat it actually looks like to hit the maternal wall at work — the comments, the assumptions, the being managed out without anyone saying it out loudLeaving a career she'd built her whole identity around, and the grief that came with itWhy "I don't know who I am anymore" isn't a crisis to fixWhat she'd tell her daughters about becoming mothers themselves If you've ever felt, or are feeling, like you're standing with one foot in who you used to be and one foot in someone you don't recognise yet this one's for you. AMY TAYLOR-KABBAZ www.amytaylorkabbaz.com Instagram MOTHERS’ HOOD If this episode or any other resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. Email me: samantha@mothershood.co.uk Or come and find me here: www.mothershood.co.uk Instagram: @mothers.hood Facebook: @mothershoodtribe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-murrell-03966132/

    12 - Motherhood Changed my Career Goals Forever, with Amy Taylor-Kabbaz

  8. Jun 30

    11 - This is my motherhood story

    In this first episode of season 2 of the glammed up podcast, I'm starting with a special episode and format. I'm handing over the mic. For the first time ever, I'm the guest on my own podcast and the brilliant Laura Greenwood from Laura Greenwood Therapy is asking the questions. Laura is one of my closest, most trusted friends. We met studying motherhood and matrescence coaching and facilitating together back in 2020, and she knows my story in a way very few people do. She's also a psychotherapist with 18 years of experience, now specialising in supporting mothers to find themselves underneath all the noise of who they think they're supposed to be. She was the first person I thought of when I decided to do this episode. In this episode, I share my postpartum story for the first time in full. The anxiety that hit like a sledgehammer from day one. The intrusive thoughts. The constant internal monologue telling me I was failing at the most important thing I'd ever done. nd how, underneath all of it, undiagnosed ADHD was shaping every single part of my experience and I had absolutely no idea. We talk about: The emotional dysregulation and rejection sensitivity that I can now trace all the way back to childhood and what it meant to grow up being told I was "too sensitive" and "too dramatic"Why postpartum was the moment the mask slipped and why that was so brutal for an undiagnosed neurodiverse brainThe connection between hormones, dopamine, sleep deprivation and ADHD that made my postpartum so intenseIntrusive thoughts — what they really are, how common they are, and why my ADHD brain made them so much harder to shakeHow I've consciously parented Luna in the ways I didn't get and why repair matters as much as getting it rightWhat my ADHD diagnosis finally gave me: language, understanding, and permission to make sense of my own lifeAnd the one thing I whisper to Luna every single night, which, if I'm honest, I'm saying to that little girl in me too. This is the episode I've been building up to since I started this podcast. It's a long and deeply vulnerable share, so buckle up! FIND LAURA GREENWOOD HERE www.lauragreenwoodtherapy.com Instagram: @lauragreenwood_therapy MOTHERS’ HOOD If this episode or any other resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. Email me: samantha@mothershood.co.uk Or come and find me here: www.mothershood.co.uk Instagram: @mothers.hood Facebook: @mothershoodtribe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-murrell-03966132/

See All (20)

About

We should be mothering amongst the stories of motherhood - its complexities, joys and challenges. We should have been supported and mentored through it, with the knowledge being passed down from generation to generation. But today we mother largely in isolation, away from our families, friends and communities. It was never meant to be this way. Without all of this we lack the reference to make sense of our own experiences and the language to express how we are feeling. It leaves mothers feeling disconnected, lost and believing there is something wrong with them. 'You've had a baby not a lobotomy' is a podcast lifting the lid on motherhood, bringing you real, raw and honest stories from real mothers - with no experts or gurus. It challenges the damaging modern narrative of the perfect mother and celebrates mothers thriving in modern motherhood, doing it their own, damn way!

Information