Why Stay-At-Home Motherhood Can Destroy Your Identity

Faz Gaffa says something most parenting platforms will not: it is okay to sit in a car park and scream before you walk back inside. She is the editor of Honey Kids Asia, a journalist known for opinions that make people uncomfortable, and a mother who has been rewriting what she owes everyone else since her father's cancer diagnosis gave her 89 days to say goodbye. In this conversation, Faz and Stephanie go somewhere most interviews will not: the phone call that changed everything, the diagnosis nobody prepares you for, and the year she does not talk about publicly. They get into why an entire generation looks fine and feels empty, the parenting rule Faz will not bend on no matter how much her son begs, and the question she asks herself every time someone praises her for handling it all. There is also a confession about anger neither of them expected to share on camera, and a line about discipline that will change how you think about the next time your child gets in trouble. This one gets raw and spicy. Click play. **IN THIS EPISODE:** 00:00 | Cold Open: Real Conversations for Real Parents 00:38 | Meet Faz Gaffa: Ditching Beige Parenting Advice 01:54 | Beyond the Job Title: Redefining Personal Identity 04:24 | Postpartum Grief: Navigating 89 Days of Heartbreak 09:34 | Sandwich Generation: Surviving the Caregiver Guilt Trap 11:28 | Millennial Identity Crisis: Unpacking the Single-Path Fallacy 16:55 | High-Functioning Depression: Recognizing the Burnout Discipline 21:03 | Spicy Take: Why Moms Should Always Work 26:27 | Silent Struggle: Unpacking Postpartum Rage and Self-Erasure 29:56 | Tech Boundaries: Unsupervised Screen Time Is Neglect 39:39 | Future-Proofing Kids: Building Taste and Soft Skills 42:29 | Rethinking Discipline: Why Humiliation and Pain Fail 49:24 | Finding Hope: Breaking Cycles of Generational Trauma 50:44 | Stephanie’s Top Three Episode Takeaways ### **About Faz Gaffa** Faz Gaffa is the editor of Honey Kids Asia, a journalist and brand strategist. She built her career on saying what feels real over what feels safe, and now works as a brand storyteller and community builder, with a focus on diversity, inclusion, and raising race-conscious children. Connect with Faz: - Website: fazabdulgaffa.com - Email: email.faz@gmail.com - LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/fazgaffa - Instagram: @fazgaffa - Facebook: facebook.com/fazabdgaffa ### **What You'll Take Away** - The rule Faz says she will never break, no matter how much her son pushes for more screen time - What happened in the 89 days between her father's diagnosis and his death - The Instagram message Faz keeps getting for talking too honestly about how she is doing - Why she wrote that mothers should never leave the workforce, and the backlash that followed - The postpartum condition neither Faz nor Stephanie had ever heard of before it happened to them - What her son said to a boy holding a stick, and what happened next - The one sentence her mother said about discipline that sent Faz into a rage ### **Connect with Growing Pains** Growing Pains is HoneyKids Asia's podcast for the conversations you want to have after the kids go to bed. YouTube: @growingpains.honeykids Instagram: @honeykidsasia Website: honeykidsasia.com Hit subscribe so you don't miss an episode. If this one resonated, share it with a parent who needs it. Growing Pains is produced in partnership with Poddster, Singapore's podcast studio.