In this installment of Out Think Media History, I have an inspiring talk with Author Kristin Bair on the mental load of motherhood and where menopause sits in This Moment in Media History.

It’s been about a year since I started peri-menopause, and I cannot imagine what I’d be thinking if I hadn’t known of its existence beforehand. Actually, I know exactly what I’d be thinking, because I did:

They would have called this hysteria and mental illness in the 1950s.

I only know of this because I studied Tennessee Williams over the course of twenty years, and he is one of the greatest fictional chroniclers of middle aged women in his time. Kristin Bair might be edging her way into that title for today. I had the chance to read her book before it was published, and I haven’t felt right at home in a story or character since stumbling onto the show Workin’ Moms.

Listen or watch our interview to hear more on why, and how Henrik Ibsen’s masterpiece A Doll’s House also plays into Clementine’s world.

Who is Kristin Bair?

Kristin Bair’s fourth novel, Clementine Crane Prefers Not To, was published by Alcove Press on October 14, 2025. Kristin writes fiercely (and humorously) about women—those navigating the demands of family, ambition, and identity while confronting the patriarchal structures that hold them back.

Her third novel, Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything, was named a Best New Book by People magazine. She is also the author of The Art of Floating and Thirsty, as well as numerous essays about China, bears, adoption, off-the-plot expats, and more. Her work has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Baltimore Review, The Manifest-Station, Flying: Journal of Writing and Environment, The Christian Science Monitor, Poets & Writers Magazine, Writer’s Digest, and other publications.

A graduate of Indiana University, Kristin holds an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia College Chicago and has a proven track record of helping writers find their voices and shape their strongest material. She teaches annually at the Yale Writers’ Workshop and has taught in colleges and universities in New England and Chicago. Additionally, Kristin is a sought-after speaker, captivating audiences at conferences and literary events across the United States and China.

Known for her dynamic presence and ability to inspire, she empowers writers of all levels to craft their own compelling stories. She is an Associate Fiction Editor for Pangyrus, a literary magazine based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A native Pittsburgher, Kristin now lives north of Boston with her husband and two kiddos.

Mental Load & Menopause all in one book, but funny

Follow her on TikTok and Instagram: @kbairokeeffe.

Buy her book through Out Think Media’s Bookshop to support indie booksellers & this podcast series at no extra cost!

There you can also find my suggestions for further reading on the history behind a women’s mental load and others talking about menopause, or my Crone Puberty as one person called it.

Transcript

00:00:00 Introduction and Author’s Journey

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

Well, thank you, Kristin, for joining me today.

KRISTIN BAIR:

Thank you for having me.

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

I really want to jump right in because I was very involved in your book from like minute one. I read that your first, your third novel seemed like a kind of Harriet the Spy for grownups. But then your first two books, they’re all serious topics, but kind of more somber tone. So could you just give us a feeling of how you got those places and what was natural?

KRISTIN BAIR:

Sure, happy to. The common thread through the four novels is women. That is the thing that I come back to no matter what kind of story I’m writing. So the first two, Thirsty and Then the Art of Floating, had a much more somber tone, especially the first one, Thirsty. I feel like I am growing into my voice and how I tell stories.

KRISTIN BAIR:

Agatha Archer is afraid of everything and Clementine Crane prefers not to. They are very representative of who I am and how I speak in the world. And it’s taken time in novels to really be able to get that voice on the page.

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

That’s very fascinating and encouraging probably for a lot of writers.

KRISTIN BAIR:

I hope, I hope.

00:03:00 The Mental Load of Mothers

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

The way that your work is described, those navigating the demands of family, ambition, and identity while confronting the patriarchal structures that hold them back. So how do you do it?

KRISTIN BAIR:

I’m probably much better at getting my characters to find ways of dealing with it than myself. You know, I am in that same place as Clementine Crane. Menopausal, have been through perimenopause, suffered the hot flashes, but you know, the night sweats were what really killed me. Married two kids, my parents live with me. So it’s a lot and that…

KRISTIN BAIR:

Patriarchal structure. I have been butting my head against it my entire life. You know, I think I was born conscious of it and have tried to find ways to battle it. And I think I’m finally once again finding my voice for doing so in my books as well.

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

So one of the things in the second chapter, especially that I loved was how you wrote, you just integrated. She’s in the middle of a staff meeting actually, like advocating for a better title, which I loved. I’m also the child of two librarians. So, pretty accurate. But in the middle of it, she’s handling like questions from her family and not just like questions, but things you have to go in and do, like fill up a lunch pass or things like that. Which it’s fascinating to see it, to read it like that, because you don’t think of how much you do.

00:06:00 Technology and Societal Expectations

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

Being a parent with all these like different technologies. How is that do you think affected relationships or communication?

KRISTIN BAIR:

Well, I think the one thing that technology has done is increase the mental load for women even more. Like, I think it was already heavy pre-technology. You know, women have been, in most cases, responsible for packing lunches, making sure you have lunch money, doctor appointments, who needs this, whose boots are too small.

KRISTIN BAIR:

What friend are you arguing with? You know, both the like the day to day physical emotion, physical tactical things, but also the emotional development of kids. And I think technology has just blown that out of the water because everyone has access to you constantly. So it’s constantly like you’re in a meeting and the doctor’s tech, you know, the doctor’s office is texting you, please confirm.

KRISTIN BAIR:

This, you need a haircut, please confirm that. There’s a delivery of this. This med is ready. I mean, it’s non stop. And so while women are still in their jobs and still trying to achieve their dreams and still trying to achieve goals, they’re also managing so much for so many other people. And I really wanted to express that in a way that feels real, not just telling people but like,

KRISTIN BAIR:

Showing them what it feels like through Clementine’s life.

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

Yeah, as much as I was enjoying it, it was also really hard. Yeah. And that’s interesting that it increases the mental load.

KRISTIN BAIR:

Because I think, you know, in some ways it makes it all easier because you don’t have to sit at home and call from a landline. But you’re at everybody’s beck and call all the time. So, and I think the thing that’s like, yes, this book is funny. I hope. I hope women laugh and I don’t know if any men read it, if they will laugh and have a deeper understanding, but it’s also very serious. Like there’s,

KRISTIN BAIR:

Women are in a serious time with all this. And I feel like we’re pushing back on the responsibilities sometimes to, you know, more success than others, depending on your husband, your family, your boss, everything. But there’s as funny as I hope it is, I hope people also see how serious it is.

00:09:00 Women’s Friendships and Support Systems

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

Let’s go to the Dolls house for a second. Yeah, yeah. A Dolls

KRISTIN BAIR:

A doll’s house, Ibsen’s play.

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

You know, when that popped up too, it was just like, okay, you have like everything for me. Thanks.

KRISTIN BAIR:

I’m actually very happy.

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

And I can see with just reading the first two chapters, of the comparisons between Clementine and Nora and probably others. But was that something that you had thought of when you started, or was it just natural?

KRISTIN BAIR:

So I first read that play, I think it was ninth grade in high school, like two million years ago, maybe 10th grade. And I just was obsessed, you know, it like planted the seed because like I said, I have been hyper aware of women and women’s roles forever. And I held onto it. I knew, cause I knew I was a writer very early in life. I knew that eventually that would

KRISTIN BAIR:

Into something that I wrote. I didn’t know what, I didn’t know when. And then when I started writing Clementine, I think the first thing I needed was a name for her husband. And I was like, his name is Torvald. Which is Nora’s husband in a doll’s house. So yeah, I mean it finally found its home.

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

Hedda Gabbler was the one that I, Ibsen that I really latched onto for whatever reason. Stories really linger. Back to like the, well Ibsen was much earlier, but basically what I’ve learned from plays. And the fact that like

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

That women going through menopause could be labeled hysterical, right? Which I learned from Tennessee Williams. I don’t mean to make this a footnote thing. It’s just so fun to really be able to identify.

KRISTIN BAIR:

Yeah, absolutely.

KRISTIN BAIR:

Through history, literary history, absolutely.

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

Where do you think menopause is right now in terms of the kind cultural conversations? Because we have more visibility on it, but.

KRISTIN BAIR:

Yeah, I mean, there’s definitely an uptick in conversations about it and having it, you know, be spoken about publicly, not being hidden, you know, hiding yourself when you’re having a hot flash. There’s actually, I don’t know if it’s a college or a company that just opened like their hot flash rooms, really, which I think is brilliant. You know, you have nursing rooms for nursing moms. Like,

KRISTIN BAIR:

How that’s brilliant. So there’s a lot of people like Tamsen Fadal and Dr. Mary Claire Haver and Halle Berry and all of these, you well-known people who are bringing it to light. And then I don’t know if you’re aware of the We Do Not Care Club that started on social media, which is really like, I’m so excited because I feel like it’s the I prefer not to club.

KRISTIN BAIR:

Like it’s finally coming to fruition. It’s life imitating art because I wrote this, what, four years ago. So I think it’s taking hold and women are connecting on it. And that’s exactly what needs to happen. We need to keep having this conversation and finding both the humor, but also the help, you know, for it. There was, you know, for years, hormone replacement therapy was shunned because

KRISTIN BAIR:

Of, don’t quote me, but there was one study that said it caused cancer and then all the doctors who actually treated menopause, which were few, said, no, no, no, you can’t do that. And it’s come to light that that is absolutely not the case, that it’s very helpful. And so finally, a lot of the research is also beginning to get done. I think we have a lot more research to do

00:12:00 Cultural Conversations on Menopause

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

Yeah, it was amazing. Right after I started peri[menopause] I went to a retreat with a client and just from the way that we all answered, how are you? There were like two other women that I’m like, yeah, okay. Like we all connected with her.

KRISTIN BAIR:

Without even like saying it out loud.

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

Yeah, and it made it much more, it made it easier to like express my discomfort, I guess. That brings me to, her neighbor seems like she’ll be such an interesting character. And I just would love to hear about like connections and like we were just saying how women can connect and support each other.

KRISTIN BAIR:

Yeah, I mean, that’s another very common thread in my books is women befriending, supporting, taking care of each other. That was very important in Agatha Archer’s Afraid of Everything. And once again, this one, Clementine’s neighbor is an 87-year-old woman, and they are best friends. Like, they are there for each other. And she plays

KRISTIN BAIR:

A very important part in the development of this story. And I really value inter-age, I’m not sure what the phrase is, inter-age friendships among women. I feel like for very long we were, you know, everybody’s separated because of how old you are or where you are in life. You you’re just getting your first job, you’re just out of college, you’re entering your second phase in your career, as opposed to like women reaching

KRISTIN BAIR:

You know, over the boundaries and seeing what they can learn from each other. And these two, Clementine and Georgia, they do it so well, so well.

00:15:00 Adoption and Family Dynamics

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

I also want to go back to China for actually, because I read that you were in Shanghai. We were in Beijing in 2019, 2021. I wanted to know about that because what you were saying earlier about like coming into your own and finding your voice. And travel is just so incredible for that anyway,

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

And also, is that where your motherhood journey started? Yeah.

KRISTIN BAIR:

So we moved to China, my husband and I, in 2006. We had only known each other for six months when we moved there. We met, we married, we moved to China within six months. Neither one of us spoke a word of Mandarin when we moved. We were there for five years, so we came home in 2011. For me, that experience was astounding.

KRISTIN BAIR:

Loved as challenging as it was in many ways. I loved every second of it. I wrote the art of floating there The entire book and then that came out in 2016

KRISTIN BAIR:

But one of the most profound things that happened was, as you know, when you live in China, you have people work in your home. You have an i.e. So for five years, I had this amazing i.e. who cooked and cleaned and washed our clothes and went shopping. The only thing I had to do was write and

KRISTIN BAIR:

Be a new wife at first, and then our daughter came home.

KRISTIN BAIR:

And the mental load was so much lighter. And my husband laughs, he’s like, you were a much better wife in China. I’m like.

KRISTIN BAIR:

Yes, yes I was because I didn’t have to do all the things. I wasn’t tracking all the things for all the people and keeping everybody afloat. And that I really need to write about that part of that experience because it is astounding for women.

KRISTIN BAIR:

There’s a lot of other things. And our daughter came home. So our kids came home through adoption. My daughter is from Vietnam, and my son is from China. And my daughter came home in 2008. So we had been there about 2 and 1 years when we adopted. So she spent her first 2 and 1 years there. And then we moved back to the States. And then we actually adopted from China and traveled back to bring my son Yao home.

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

In terms of like that mental load being gone and then coming back and you were only a new wife there, like then you come back and have Yeah. So how did you transition? How did that work?

KRISTIN BAIR:

It was the bumpiest road.

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

A new wife who had never lived in the US with her husband. So when we got married, we were living in a country where I had a lot of help. I was not doing all the tasks. I was not doing the cooking and the cleaning and the this and the that. And then we came home and I had a kid and a husband and then a job and I wasn’t just writing and it was a very bumpy, a very bumpy ride.

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

And I still curse my husband on some days for because I wanted to stay and he wanted to come back So yeah, it’s it really and I think I was also saying that I really need to write about that experience because I don’t think until you don’t have that mental load You know hanging over you at every second it’s hard to even like

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

Understand what it would be without

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

It.

KRISTIN BAIR:

Remember when the first time after starting motherhood that I was going on a business trip by myself. I told one of my colleagues and she was like, okay, here’s what you do. You take a bath and you shave your legs twice. Is exactly what I want to do. Yeah.

CINDY MARIE JENKINS:

Exactly. Yes.