Narrator: It started, as many earth-shattering marital fights do, over something incredibly stupid: a PopSocket. Laura Clery, a comedian and content creator, was six weeks postpartum with her second child. She and her husband, Stephen, had a rule: no work talk after 8 PM. But one night, Stephen brought up a brand deal for a PopSocket, a small grip for the back of a phone. The conversation spiraled. Tensions flared. Soon, Stephen retreated into a stony silence, a behavior that triggered Clery’s deepest fears of abandonment. She found herself in the bathroom, frantically texting her therapist, wondering if she had married a narcissist, all while her life, which looked so successful online, felt like it was completely falling apart.

This raw, unfiltered moment of chaos is the very heart of Laura Clery’s book, Idiots Welcome. It’s a memoir that pulls back the curtain on the carefully curated images of modern motherhood and marriage. Clery offers a brutally honest, often hilarious, and deeply vulnerable account of navigating postpartum depression, raising a child with autism, and confronting the messy, imperfect realities of a life lived both on and off the screen.

Narrator: In today's world, birth plans are often treated like meticulously crafted projects. For her first child, Clery was all in on the idealized vision. Influenced by documentaries, she planned a natural home water birth. She hired a midwife named Maude, whose office was a hippie-chic haven of crystals and tie-dye, but noticeably lacking in modern medical equipment. Her husband, Stephen, was skeptical. Maude used unconventional tools and even claimed to use "the magical power of dowsing" to assure them their baby was a perfect size, dismissing an OB-GYN’s warning that the baby was measuring large.

The dream shattered when Stephen, driven by a gut feeling, found a one-star Yelp review for Maude. It detailed a traumatic home birth where a baby over 11 pounds was born with brain damage after Maude had dismissed the parents' concerns about his size. Terrified, Clery and her husband fired Maude and pivoted to a hospital birth. Their son, Alfie, was ultimately born safely after a 16-hour labor that required an epidural and a vacuum extraction—a world away from their serene water birth plan. Her daughter Penelope’s birth was equally chaotic, an unmedicated whirlwind that ended with Clery on all fours, feeling a profound sense of empowerment. Clery’s experiences underscore a central truth: childbirth is a transformative miracle, but it rarely follows a script. The real plan is to be flexible, to trust your intuition over any expert, and to understand that the goal isn't a perfect experience, but a healthy parent and child.

Narrator: Society talks about three trimesters of pregnancy, but Clery argues the most intense period is the one that comes after: the fourth trimester. It’s the 12 weeks of physical recovery, hormonal upheaval, and profound identity shifts that are often glossed over. Before she had kids, her friend Jill offered a brutally honest preview, describing postpartum recovery not as a gentle bloom into motherhood, but as a war zone. Jill detailed the "thousand tiny evil elves" stabbing her stitches, the raging hemorrhoids, and the cognitive fog so thick she couldn't remember names.

Clery’s own postpartum journeys were just as raw. After her first birth, she battled vaginismus—a painful condition where her body physically rejected intimacy—and required months of pelvic floor therapy with vaginal dilators to heal. After her second, she was hit with a tidal wave of postpartum depression. She describes breaking down in a Whole Foods parking lot, crying so hard she used a clean diaper as a tissue. In that moment of despair, she did what she does best: she turned on her camera and filmed a video, sharing her raw feelings of isolation and struggle. The response was overwhelming. Thousands of women flooded her inbox with their own stories, proving that this supposedly private pain was a deeply shared, yet silent, epidemic. Clery’s message is clear: the postpartum experience is often brutal, and the only way to survive it is to break the silence and find community in shared vulnerability.

Narrator: Clery is unflinching in her assertion that there is no perfect relationship. The pressure to present a flawless marriage, especially for public figures, is immense. But behind the scenes, her marriage to Stephen has been tested by addiction, infidelity, and the immense stress of parenting. Early in their relationship, while newly sober, Clery’s insecurity led her to snoop through Stephen’s emails, where she found flirtatious messages with another woman. She confronted him, he claimed he was hacked, and they broke up before eventually reconciling through therapy.

Years later, the roles were reversed. After a car accident, Stephen became addicted to painkillers, and the addiction led to an affair. Clery discovered it, and their relationship imploded. Yet, through intensive therapy, a commitment to sobriety, and radical honesty, they rebuilt. Clery learned a crucial lesson from a 98-year-old neighbor named Anne, who, when asked the secret to her long marriage, said, "I liked the man he WAS, not the man I was going to make him into." This wisdom became a cornerstone for Clery. She realized that true partnership isn’t about forcing someone to be perfect; it’s about accepting them, flaws and all, and choosing to love them through the chaos. It’s about being curious, not furious, and understanding that forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.

Narrator: For 34 years, Laura Clery just thought she was quirky. She was impulsive, easily distracted, and prioritized making people laugh over focusing in school. It wasn't until she was an adult that she was diagnosed with ADHD, and suddenly, her whole life made sense. In Idiots Welcome, she reclaims this diagnosis not as a deficit, but as a core part of her identity. She expresses gratitude for her "beautifully fucked-up brain," recognizing that her neurodivergence is the source of her creativity and humor.

This perspective was hard-won, shaped by a family history marked by mental health struggles. She tells the tragic story of her Uncle Don, a brilliant man who suffered from depression and isolation, ultimately dying by suicide. She also recounts the story of her cousin Marie, whose battle with addiction ended in a fatal overdose. These losses instilled in Clery a fierce determination to remove the shame surrounding mental illness. She champions the idea of seeking help and advocates for a shift from a scarcity mindset—one rooted in fear and lack—to one of abundance. For her, this means practicing daily gratitude, using positive affirmations, and choosing to believe that her unique brain is not a liability, but her greatest asset.

Narrator: Perhaps the most powerful theme in Clery’s work is her ability to transform moments of shame into sources of empowerment. This is perfectly captured in the story of how she became an "accidental lactivist." While breastfeeding her son at a restaurant, her husband posted a photo to Instagram. Soon after, Clery received a hateful message from a stranger, shaming her for feeding her "too big" child in public and repeatedly misspelling "boobs" as "boibs."

Instead of deleting the message or internalizing the shame, Clery took a screenshot, posted it publicly, and defiantly defended her right to feed her child. The post went viral, and the term "boibs" became a rallying cry for mothers everywhere who had been shamed for breastfeeding. Clery and her husband took it a step further, launching a clothing line called Boibs that celebrates imperfect motherhood with humor. This single act encapsulates her philosophy: if someone tries to put you down, you can turn their mistake into your success. By refusing to hide the messy, embarrassing, or painful parts of her life, she strips them of their power and transforms them into points of connection, humor, and strength.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Idiots Welcome is that radical, unflinching honesty is not a weakness but a superpower. In a world that demands curated perfection, Laura Clery makes a compelling case for embracing the mess. She shows that our struggles—with childbirth, postpartum depression, marital strife, and mental health—do not diminish us. In fact, they are the very experiences that connect us.

The book challenges us to look at our own lives and question what we hide out of fear or shame. It leaves you with a powerful question: What if the stories you’re most afraid to tell are the ones the world most needs to hear? And what if sharing them could not only set you free, but give someone else the courage to say, "me too"?