Lyz Lenz: On the perks of divorce, missing kids' sports, and being ruthless
Advice from a journalist and author
Meet our next creator, Lyz Lenz:
Lyz Lenz
Age: 39*
Kids: Two children
Location: Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Title: Journalist, author
Substack: Men Yell at Me
Website: lyzlenz.com
*Age at time of interview
Lyz contains a very special combination of bravery and doesn’t-give-a-fuck-ness. Sometimes this results in her sticking to her journalistic integrity and standing up to the GOP in her red state of Iowa. Sometimes it results in her blowing up her life, divorcing her husband (after being raised evangelical), in order to create the right life for herself and her family. Sometimes it means saying the things about womanhood and motherhood that not enough people are saying, about how hard it is, about how much it is ingrained in our country to disdain things related to women. Sometimes it means that she writes things like this:
I hand off the iPad to my four-year-old so i can sneak in a few moments of writing, until the guilt consumes me and I return to her. I boomerang between what feels like polar opposite directions on the compass of my life—writing and mothering.
Before I was a mother, I was a writer. And later, when my children only need me in fits and starts, I will still be a writer. Before I wrote about them, I wrote about books and politics and sex. Now, I tell people I exploit my uterus. It’s a joke, but it isn’t.
That’s from her book Belabored: A vindication of the rights of pregnant women. There are a million other gems like the one above in it. She’s also written the book God Land: A story of faith, loss, and renewal in middle America. (And she has a third book, This American Ex Wife, on the way.) She also writes the truly excellent, and exquisitely named, newsletter Men Yell at Me, where she “explores the intersection of politics and our bodies in red state America.” (Full disclosure: I was her copy editor on it.)
Oh, and she’s fucking hilarious. She’s the whole package. Read on to let Lyz help you recalibrate your perspective and rearrange your priorities. She also introduced me to a phrase that has become a bit of a mantra for me: Drop the ropes.
And now, Lyz Lenz, in her own words…
On the benefits of divorce:
I tell people I’m really lucky to be divorced. Because we have a 50-50 parenting custody schedule. And that means that my ex has to take the kids at least half the time. And not that he wouldn’t, but it’s just different if I was at home and he was upstairs working. It’s a different expectation. With all due respect, there are a lot of men out there who are married to wonderful women who think they do 50-50 but who have no fucking clue. And they’re lovely, involved fathers, but they don’t have a fucking clue what actual 50-50 is. That’s how I get it done. I had to break my life apart to get it done.
On setting your own standards:
My kids are older now. They’re both in elementary school, which helps. Because it was a lot different when they were younger. I am coming out of that time. And I live in this town, and I don’t have a mother nearby to help. So it’s a lot of jury-rigging. I do have help. I have a house cleaner and I don’t mow my own lawn. And I live out of a laundry basket. We have something called the sock basket. Because I don’t match socks. If you want to match socks, match socks. I draw the line. I don’t care if they wear matching socks. I care that they’re clothed and smell moderately okay. Moderately is a really low bar.
There was a time in my life when I cooked all the time and made these big, beautiful meals. I don’t do that anymore. Because I don’t want to. I want to work. And I love my work. And I want to be ambitious. There’s a lot of things I just completely let go of so I can do the things I want to do.
On making the most of short spurts of time:
The thing I always tell myself is that if you can just write 50 words, that’s 50 words more than you had written an hour ago. And that’s how I tricked myself into writing Belabored. I was writing that book while getting divorced. Part of it was written while married and having no childcare help. And another part was written while I was moving out and trying to find jobs and working 50,000 different jobs. And I would put the kids to bed, and I would sit down with a cup of tea and a bunch of cookies and stare at the computer screen and be like, There is no way I can write this. I almost didn’t. I almost tried to buy my way out of the contract. (I didn’t get a huge advance.) I would sit down at night and just look at the computer screen and think, Okay, I will write until midnight, and if I have 100 words, then it’s 100 more words than I had yesterday. And then keep going.
On guilt and taking your own space:
Don’t be apologetic about taking the space that you need. I often feel very guilty for doing things, like making my kids play outside while I get one more hour of work done. Or putting them to bed early so I can get work done at night. Or even taking trips and traveling so that I can write stories and profiles that I really want to do even if it means that they spend a little more time at their dad’s that week. And every time I’ve had guilt about it. And of course kids don’t let you off the hook. But the next year, they don’t remember. I once left for a whole month when the kids were little to write a book, and I still feel kind of shitty about it. But they don’t remember; they don’t remember at all.
On dropping the ropes:
I really believe in dropping ropes, just letting it go. So much of our identity as women is tied to—and this is not an accident, this is exactly how our culture is—it’s tied to how nice our children’s hair looks at school or if our house is clean or all these things, and I—just drop the ropes. Just let it go. When my daughter did a kids sport this year, she had all these games, and I had things to do, so I sat down with her, and I was like, “I will miss this game and this game and this game, but your dad and your stepmom will be there.” And my daughter was a little upset, and she did say, “But all the other moms never miss a game.” And I was like, “But what about the dads?” And she was like, “Oh, I guess I hadn’t thought about that.” Dads miss, and I’m gonna miss. And it was fine. I was like, “You will always have someone supporting you, but it might not always be me.” I think that that’s okay. Just drop the ropes, drop them.
On the pursuit of selfdom:
I think it’s okay to be ruthless in pursuit of yourself. And remember that what we have as expectations on our time are not normal. Stay-at-home moms in the ’50s spent less time with their kids than moms do now, in 2022. That’s just a statistical reality. We have put all of this pressure on ourselves, and then our society has systematically defunded the social safety net. But we are not raising our children in a vacuum, and this is not all on us. It’s even advisable to be a fully formed human being who’s not afraid to be ambitious. And I think that’s okay.
Thank you, Lyz! Now, tell us how you drop the ropes in your lives. Have you found things that just don’t matter despite society’s pressures?
*Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Lovely interview. Subscribing to her and to you.
Dropping the ropes: This isn't exactly apples to apples, but its a big deal to me.
My fifteen year old golden retriever, Duke, tore his ACL. I had already told myself a year or two ago that he was in the age where big stuff like this wouldn't be solved surgically. Too expensive. Too hard on him. He's old anyway.
But he doesn't know he's old.
So the surgery happened, and went smoothly. And since I work out of a company vehicle (mobile office for sales visits), he rides along with me now.
I wish I'd started bringing him along sooner. I enjoy our (very) slow walks in the park.
P.S. I asked my employer about having my dog ride along after surgery and he kinda hemmed and hawed and didn't say yes or no. And that's how the conversation ended. So I didn't seek a second conversation and just did it.