A Personal Update

TLDR: I have two announcements to share with you.

The first is that Tether: The Mental Load App that I’ve been building for months, is now live on the App Store. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time and announcing it feels surreal! But more on that later.

The second is that I’m actually a Chinese bot created to stop Americans from reproducing.

Can I start by admitting something a little bit cringe? I’ve started building momentum on here, as well as on a few other social media platforms. After a long time of posting to crickets, I’m not going to lie, it’s been really nice to see my writing resonate with so many people.

An example is my Instagram carousels. I spent so long wondering why I was bothering, when only two of my friends would like them. And now, some of them (like this one) have had over 100,000 views. I am shook!

But of course, more eyeballs means more criticism. I have attracted a lot of haters recently, and boy do they love to tell me just how much they hate what I am saying.

The comments are brutal:

“You should have stayed single and motherless”
“What a victim mindset”
“Lazy ass greedy b*tch”
“Ugh, shut the f*ck up”
“Attention seeker”
“Lol amazon shopping is not real work”
“You wanted this” (my favourite, always)
“If I married a c*nt like this I’d strangle it”

How charming.

And then there was the time I stumbled upon someone else’s Substack only to randomly find they had shared one of my posts and assumed I must be a Chinese bot created to stop Americans from having more children.

I don’t even know where to begin with that one. I guess I should be flattered that they think my content alone is enough to stall the birthrate of an entire country?

Another person has threatened to write an entire essay dedicated to tearing down all of my ideas. But here’s the thing. My so-called “ideas” are just my own personal experiences. I write about what I’ve been through, what I feel, and what I see my friends go through. It may come across as a bit doom and gloom (I promised I’m actually a lot of fun IRL. No, really! You should see me after a few glasses of rose at a long lunch.) But my writing takes a serious turn because I genuinely want to change the world as it currently exists for women.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about why it bothers people so much that I struggle within motherhood. To clarify, I didn’t say that I don’t enjoy motherhood, I said that I struggle within it. I remember sitting at a girls’ lunch and listening to my friends exchange stories about how hard it had been (we all had very young children at the time, from 0-2) and then another friend commented, “I just don’t think it’s been that hard.”

Everyone turned to stare at her, shocked. And then, she was immediately shut down, and the complaining resumed.

I looked at her and noticed that she was a little taken aback. I felt bad for her. I wondered whether I should jump in and defend her. But then I realised, if your biggest problem in life is that you’re just finding everything too easy and no one will let you talk about how easy everything is for you… Maybe just enjoy that feeling, instead of arguing about it?

The comments that I get here and on other platforms genuinely shock me because I don’t understand why women in particular get so upset that I don’t love every aspect of motherhood.

Again, to be clear, I love and adore my child with every fibre of my being. But I have struggled with being the default parent. I have struggled with the lack of support (my parents live hours away and my siblings are on the opposite side of the country). I have struggled with the fact that I had to quit a job that I loved because they weren’t willing to be flexible with me, and my baby was exclusively breastfed at the time.

And I can’t help but wonder why women see me struggle and take it as a personal attack on their own parenting journey, instead of simply thinking “Wow, I’m so lucky I don’t feel the same,” or “I’m so grateful that’s not my situation.”

It’s kind of… exhausting to be honest.

But then something happened that made me more emotional than any comment directed at me personally had.

A fellow Substack writer reached out. I have been following her for a while and she is also building something. It’s something meaningful and brave and hard and I’ve often looked on with awe as she kicks goals left, right and centre. But her message was a sad one.

She told me someone had torn her down in a way that clearly cost her. I’m not going to share her name or the details, because that is her story to share, but I will share what I told her, in case someone else needs to hear it to.

I told her: it does not make it any easier, but please know that I know exactly how this feels. Let yourself feel the hurt and then let yourself feel proud. Because nobody tears down something that does not threaten them in some way. Whether it is jealousy or insecurity or something we cannot fully understand, the attack says more about them than it ever could about you. My advice is to keep your eyes on the prize. Remember the comments that matter. Have a cry about it, sure, but then keep going.

I have decided to take my own advice.

Because for every comment that tears me down, there is another that says “Thank you, I feel seen.” And that makes it easy to keep going.

Here is the thing…

I did not build Tether so that strangers on the internet would applaud me for it. I built it because I was sitting in a client meeting one afternoon, completely unable to focus on anything except the problem that I had been going over and over in my head.

My husband and I kept having the same conversation and getting nowhere, and I did not want to be “that couple.” The one that fights all the time. The one that bickers in front of their kids. The one that pushes each other away constantly what we really need most is connection.

We were losing our spark, I could feel it. And all because of the stupid dishes.

There had to be a simple fix.

I went home that night, put Archie to bed, sat at my kitchen table and started researching. I thought: could I actually do this? And then something in me said: do it now or you will regret it.

So I did.

The next six months were the hardest professional experience of my life. There were so many moments I wanted to give up and so many nights where it felt like too much. I am embarrassed by how many tears there were each time the App Store rejected the app. Each rejection felt like the end of something, but each time I picked myself up and figured out what needed fixing and tried again.

And then, finally, it was approved.

I could not believe it. After all of it. There it was.

I collapsed into my husband’s arms and sobbed uncontrollably for about 15 minutes. Yes, I really am that dramatic. But I was also panicking. Who did I think I was creating something like this?? Will anyone even care?

And then the messages started rolling in from the waitlist.

“I’m SO excited.”
“This is going to do wonders for my husband and I.”
“VERY happy you’ve made this app. I think it will change lives.”

So in the hard times, these are the comments I’m choosing to remember.

I have made a decision for my own mental health that I wanted to share with you, because maybe it will inspire you to do the same.

I am stepping back from trying to respond to all comments. Not because I am hiding and not because the criticism has won. But because I am a toddler mum who is TTC with a day job and a tech startup and I’m just really fucking tired. Simple as that.

I feel like I’m building something important, and my focus is on that, and I’m creating the family life that I want my child (and hopefully future children) to have. The time I spend defending myself in comment sections is time I am not spending on the work that actually matters. I have realised that not everyone deserves a personal response from me, and that may seem harsh, but it is the truth.

But something I’ve realised is that the negative comments are exhausting, but they do not make me want to quit. If anything, they make me want to work harder.

To every woman who is reading this and wanting to build something, whether it’s an app, a business, a platform, a creative practice…. anything at all. If you’re wondering if the hostility is worth it, here are my honest thoughts:

It is hard to build something as a woman. It is hard to speak openly and share personal experiences. It is hard to take up space and stay in it and refuse to apologise for existing loudly. The backlash is real and it is relentless and some days it is genuinely exhausting (did I mention I’m tired?) and makes you question everything.

But I would hate for you to stay small because you were scared. I would hate for you to not live the life you wanted because you were scared of the way people would respond.

Nobody attacks something that does not matter. Nobody tries to silence something that has no power. The hostility is not evidence that you are wrong, it’s evidence that you are absolutely doing something worth doing.

So keep building. Have the cry. Block the noise. Keep your eyes on what you are making and why you are making it and who it is for.

Because the women it is for are out there and they need what you are building far more than you need the approval of the people trying to stop you.

I know this because they keep telling me so.

And that is enough.

Ash x

P.S. All paid Subscribers get free lifetime access to Tether.