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Ash BG | You Wanted This

@youwanted.this

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✍️ Writer @youwanted.this
📱 Founder of @tether.mentalload
Writing about the systems failing women: at home, at work, and everywhere in between.

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As banal and hackneyed as it is to say, I have no idea where to begin here. Too trite to mention I am overwhelmed to tears with the support I’ve been shown. Too pessimistic to remark that I put together this event from a place of misanthropy originally with more or less low expectations, a reflection of my own deep-rooted world-weariness that I’m no longer shouldering (as much) after the generosity and benevolence and good that defined Sunday night.

So I suppose where to begin is at the beginning, which is where we seem to be now. I organised Girls Just Wanna Raise Funds as a standalone, and in retrospect, it feels almost insulting that I never considered myself that it could be any bigger. One of many fundraisers to come. One of a long list - an infinite list - of lineups of intelligent, talented, lovely women. How could I let myself forget that we women are always capable of more?

With a highly ambitious three week turnaround, we have so far raised over $1000 for @fullstopaustralia with our raffle of prizes donated by women and businesses still ongoing (tickets for purchase in my bio). We also raised awareness, we raised the roof, and we raised my spirits, which is arguably the hardest of all to do.

Thank you to @vanguardnewtown for the venue and thank you to @cass.etttetape for capturing it so beautifully. I am blown away. Thank you to @moniquetech for your immediate support and incredible skillset! Thank you to Ash @youwanted.this for being the catalyst behind the cause and the prolific voice behind such an important platform. Thank you to @rhinestonerodeoau @deartommie_ @charleycastle_ @mollysuziemillington - I am so honoured to have shared the stage with you. You will be in my heart forever. Thank you to my friends @elly.williamss @hellz_beelzebub who listened as I fumbled through chords at midnight the morning of when I came up for air long enough to remember it was a country and folk night and I needed to play my songs (and for the stickers). Thank you to all who were present and involved in any capacity. I wish I could take the ticket list and thank you individually in this caption but Instagram won’t allow it. Thank you ❤️

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I am taking my outrage to the stage ❤️ Girls Just Wanna Raise Funds is a women-led country & folk night raising funds for @fullstopaustralia - one of the country’s leading sexual, domestic and family violence response and recovery services.

There is a fundamental heaviness that comes with confronting the recent and ongoing coverage of violence against women and the prevalence of misogyny in this country, in particular among young Australians. In as many ways as I hope this event will educate, raise awareness and encourage conversation around a cause that demands our attention, it also serves as a reminder to myself that shedding light on something dark does not always require darkness in return. The arts have always been their own manner of resistance.

Tickets to the event are available in my bio. All net proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to Full Stop Australia. 1800 FULL STOP (1800 385 578) is Full Stop Australia’s 24/7 trauma specialist counselling line, available to anyone impacted by violence who needs support.

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If you haven’t yet listened to our talk on all things motherhood, career and returning to work with Ashley from @youwanted.this, run, don’t walk to your favourite podcast app now. So much wisdom, so many lightbulb moments. Out now, wherever you listen to @readyornot.pod

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Ashley Brooks-Garrett (@youwanted.this) on the myth of choice that so many mothers are faced with when it comes to their careers. Comment ‘LISTEN’ and we’ll DM you the episode x

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OUT NOW: When we noticed a new follower notification pop up just a few months ago, with some 300 followers and the Instagram handle @youwanted.this, we were intrigued by the name. Immediately, we had a pretty good idea of what the content might look like, and we were right: its creator - Ashley Brooks-Garrett – was clearly passionate about exploring feminism, life, and work through the lens of motherhood and womanhood.

Since then, she’s built a much bigger following: an audience made up of people who are either enraged or in full support of the topics she explores so thoughtfully and thoroughly, through social media, Substack, and her mental load app, Tether, too.

So today, we find out more about the mother and the brains behind it all: what her career life has looked like, what her motherhood journey has entailed so far, what drove her to the work she’s doing now, and why a woman that calls it how it is, is immediately branded as negative, complaining, and as you’ll hear from Ashley herself, far worse, too.

Listen now, wherever you listen to Ready or Not x

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The shift came when I stopped trying to get him to do tasks better and started transferring entire domains to him completely. Not “Can you do the laundry this week” but “Laundry is yours. Forever. You notice it, you manage it, you own it. I am not involved.”

And then I stopped rescuing him when he dropped things. I let the consequences land. I stayed out of it.

It was the hardest thing I have ever done. Harder than building an app, which I also did.

Speaking of which.

Tether is the tool I wish I had when I was in the worst of it. It makes the invisible labour in your household visible to both partners, with neutral data, no arguments required. Both partners log independently for three days. After three days you get your Partnership Score. Not her word against his. Just what actually happened.

Then comes the plan. Domain ownership, recurring tasks, a weekly check-in that builds he’ll you both build new habits until they become automatic.

No more micromanaging. No more circular arguments. Just data, a plan, and two people finally looking at the same reality at the same time.

Download Tether now. Link in bio.

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We had the same fight for three years.

Different words every time. Same argument. Same outcome: me feeling invisible, him feeling accused, both of us going to bed with nothing resolved.

He didn’t think the load was uneven. He thought he did a lot. And honestly? He did do a lot. More than most. Just not the invisible stuff. Not the thinking-before-the-doing stuff. Not the part that never switches off.

The fight wasn’t really about whose turn it was to call the plumber. It was about being seen. About having the weight of running our life acknowledged as real, as labour, as something that costs me something every single day.

You can’t win that fight. Not with feelings. Not with a list of everything you did last week. Not with another conversation that starts calmly and ends with both of you saying things you don’t mean.

What finally stopped it was data.

Not a book. Not a therapist (though, also, therapy). Not a better way of asking. Just the two of us looking at the same numbers and not being able to argue with them.

That’s why I built Tether. It’s an app that makes the invisible visible. For both of you.

Download free → link in bio.

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“I thought I’d be a good mum.”
So why does this feel like I’m failing?

Ash @youwanted.this talks about the guilt.
The self doubt.
The constant feeling of not being enough.

She didn’t expect motherhood to dismantle her like this.

That voice can get loud.

This exists so mums don’t sit alone with it.

🤍 Save this if it hit,
or send it to a mum who might need it.

#awakeat3am
#newparents
#sleepdeprivation
#parentalmentalhealth
#postpartum

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