Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #650 This Week in Parenting

Transcript

#650 This Week in Parenting · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
0:07
Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers, Now.
0:10
Speaker 2: When our children do something wrong, it actually has very
0:13
Speaker 2: little to do with us and everything to do with
0:15
Speaker 2: their ability and their maturity at navigating the world around them.
0:20
Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My mom
0:23
Speaker 1: and Dad.
0:24
Speaker 3: First of December, Colylie, it feels like summer, feels like summer.
0:28
Speaker 3: I think we should do like when I used to
0:29
Speaker 3: be on the radio, we used to do like the
0:31
Speaker 3: one hundred Days of Summer, And I feel like we
0:33
Speaker 3: should do one hundred days of Summer on the Happy
0:35
Speaker 3: Families Podcast. What do you reckon? We should we do it?
0:38
Speaker 3: Or no? No, No, we're having a holiday. We're going
0:41
Speaker 3: to okay, all right?
0:42
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I am feeling a little bit flat,
0:44
Speaker 2: to be honest, because in my mind, yeah, tomorrow, yes,
0:49
Speaker 2: is the first day of your brain.
0:51
Speaker 3: So I'm taking a break. I'm actually having time off
0:53
Speaker 3: in December. I've got to do a little bit of
0:55
Speaker 3: work here and there, but I'm having time off in December. Yeah.
0:58
Speaker 3: And I thought I've done this. I've never actually taken
1:01
Speaker 3: time off like this.
1:02
Speaker 2: No, this is a really this is a really big deal.
1:04
Speaker 2: So I was so excited because we were going to
1:07
Speaker 2: have pretty much next week weeks without the kids.
1:10
Speaker 3: Yes, but we've got two kids that finish school that
1:13
Speaker 3: still live at home, and they're going to be at home.
1:15
Speaker 2: I didn't know that.
1:16
Speaker 4: I know, I know, but we've got these kids that
1:19
Speaker 4: finish school and I mean, they're working a bit, but
1:21
Speaker 4: they're also going to be around.
1:23
Speaker 2: And so I am just feeling a little bit jipped.
1:27
Speaker 3: Well, but you know what, I'm taking time off and
1:29
Speaker 3: we'll have time together. I mean that they're big, they're big,
1:31
Speaker 3: they'll give us some space. Anyway, Today Today my favorite
1:35
Speaker 3: podcast episode of all the different podcasts that we do.
1:38
Speaker 3: It's not I'll Do Better Tomorrow. That's tomorrow.
1:41
Speaker 4: It's not book Club, it's not even the Doctor's Desk,
1:44
Speaker 4: my favorite wats land, And it's not one of our answers,
1:47
Speaker 4: you know, like our people that email us podcasts at
1:50
Speaker 4: Happy Families dot com dot you to ask questions.
1:52
Speaker 3: The one that I love.
1:53
Speaker 4: The most, the one that I get most excited about,
1:54
Speaker 4: is where we just talk about parenting.
1:57
Speaker 3: That's in the news. It's this week in Parenting.
2:02
Speaker 2: Can you do that again?
2:04
Speaker 3: This Week in Parenting? You're so mean to you're mocking
2:08
Speaker 3: me now, so I thought, I mean, I've been watching
2:11
Speaker 3: the news and pairing as I always do, and before
2:13
Speaker 3: I kick off the four stories that we're going to
2:15
Speaker 3: go through in about two minutes each for today, I
2:17
Speaker 3: found a parenting tweet that just made me laugh so much.
2:20
Speaker 3: It's from a Twitter account called be kind of Witty,
2:23
Speaker 3: Be kind of Witty, and this person has said, my
2:27
Speaker 3: parenting style right now is like gentle parenting, gentle parenting,
2:32
Speaker 3: gentle parenting. I cancel ndriss mass gentle parenting, gentle parenting.
2:37
Speaker 3: It just made me laugh. It was all in I thought,
2:40
Speaker 3: how many parents are right now saying that the please
2:42
Speaker 3: don't please, don't cancel Christmas? Okay? This week in Parenting
2:45
Speaker 3: in The Guardian is where we're starting with one of
2:48
Speaker 3: the world's most famous women, Michelle Obama. There's an extract
2:52
Speaker 3: from her most recent book and she talks about parenting,
2:55
Speaker 3: especially raising kids in the White House. When she walked
2:58
Speaker 3: into the White House, had a couple of pre eighteen girls.
3:01
Speaker 3: Her mum moved out of the Chicago home that she
3:03
Speaker 3: lived in and came and moved into the White House
3:05
Speaker 3: with them to help out ended up staying for eight years,
3:08
Speaker 3: became the first grandmother in chief, the first grandma. But
3:14
Speaker 3: I love what she says, and I just want to
3:15
Speaker 3: read this excerpt because I want to ask you about this.
3:18
Speaker 3: She says, one tiny thing would go wrong and my
3:21
Speaker 3: mother guilt would kick in. I'd start second guessing every
3:24
Speaker 3: choice Barrick and I had ever made. Self scrutiny is
3:28
Speaker 3: something women a programmed to excel at, having been thrust
3:30
Speaker 3: into systems of inequality and fed fully unrealistic images of
3:33
Speaker 3: female perfection from the time that we were kids ourselves,
3:36
Speaker 3: none of us, truly, none ever live up. For mothers,
3:39
Speaker 3: the feelings of not enoughness can be especially acute. The
3:44
Speaker 3: images of maternal perfection we encounter inadvertisements and across social
3:48
Speaker 3: media are often no less fake than what we see
3:50
Speaker 3: on the enhanced and photoshopped female bodies that are so
3:53
Speaker 3: often upheld as the societal gold standard for beauty. But
3:55
Speaker 3: still we are conditioned to buy into it, questing after
3:58
Speaker 3: not just the perfect body, but also the perfect children,
4:00
Speaker 3: perfect work life balance, perfect family experience, and perfect levels
4:03
Speaker 3: of patience. It's hard not to look around as a
4:05
Speaker 3: mother and think is everyone doing this perfectly? But me.
4:09
Speaker 3: I read that, and I just wondered whether we're still there.
4:12
Speaker 3: I'm wondering whether or not we've moved past it because
4:15
Speaker 3: you and I talk openly and often about being realistic
4:19
Speaker 3: about parenting and that nobody's doing it perfectly at all.
4:22
Speaker 3: But what's your experience. Do you think that she's got that?
4:24
Speaker 3: Do you think she's nailed it? Because I love the
4:25
Speaker 3: way she writes.
4:27
Speaker 2: I think that when you're in the public eye, or
4:29
Speaker 2: like she was specifically, you feel even more aware of
4:34
Speaker 2: every fail.
4:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's true, even when I think about it
4:38
Speaker 3: from a parenting from a dad's point of view.
4:40
Speaker 4: Totally.
4:40
Speaker 3: If we're in public and I have a scowl on
4:42
Speaker 3: my face when I'm looking at one of the children,
4:44
Speaker 3: you can be guaranteed somebody who follows us on Facebook
4:46
Speaker 3: or listens to the podcast, we'll walk over and say, hi,
4:49
Speaker 3: a really big fan, at which point I go, oh, no,
4:52
Speaker 3: because I just was looking angrily at my child.
4:55
Speaker 2: Well, if I'm perfectly honest, it was one of the
4:56
Speaker 2: reasons I didn't want to come on the podcast with
4:58
Speaker 2: you either. This something daunting about putting yourself out there,
5:03
Speaker 2: especially in an area where we are not only so
5:06
Speaker 2: self judgmental, but we're often really judgmental of each other.
5:11
Speaker 2: We see things and we kind of think, you know,
5:13
Speaker 2: I'd never do that, or I can't believe she's doing
5:16
Speaker 2: that in public, or whatever it is. We all have
5:19
Speaker 2: those feelings and thoughts. But I think the thing that
5:22
Speaker 2: has really really helped me over the years is just
5:25
Speaker 2: this acknowledgment that I'm better today than I was yesterday.
5:28
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's a progress thing, right, Yeah, yeah, And.
5:31
Speaker 2: I'm hopeful that I will be better again tomorrow. I
5:37
Speaker 2: look at who my parents were when I was growing up,
5:39
Speaker 2: and I look at who they've become now, and they're
5:42
Speaker 2: still not perfect, but they treat our children very differently
5:46
Speaker 2: to the way they treated me and my siblings, and
5:49
Speaker 2: that gives me hope that I'm never going to be perfect.
5:53
Speaker 2: I'm never going to get it all right. But that's
5:55
Speaker 2: not what this is all about.
5:57
Speaker 3: So Michelle Obama's mum, with permission, shared a handful of
6:01
Speaker 3: ideas in this article in this extract for the book,
6:04
Speaker 3: with the disclaimer which comes directly from the grandma herself,
6:08
Speaker 3: and just make sure they know I'm not in the
6:09
Speaker 3: business of telling anybody how to live. But she gave
6:11
Speaker 3: a couple of ideas for and I think this is
6:13
Speaker 3: great parenting advice, great parenting news. She said, Number one,
6:15
Speaker 3: teach your kids to wake themselves up. Number two, it
6:18
Speaker 3: isn't about you. Good parents are always working to put
6:21
Speaker 3: themselves out of business. Love that one, you know.
6:23
Speaker 2: I think that that is the biggest lesson that I've
6:26
Speaker 2: had to learn. When our children do something wrong, it
6:29
Speaker 2: actually has very little to do with us and everything
6:32
Speaker 2: to do with their ability and their maturity at navigating
6:36
Speaker 2: the world around them. It's so powerful, and we've just
6:40
Speaker 2: got to give them the space that they need to
6:42
Speaker 2: be able to do that.
6:43
Speaker 3: Number three, know what's truly precious. I really like that one.
6:47
Speaker 3: That's something that I talk about all the time. People
6:49
Speaker 3: matter things, don't. Number four Parent the child you've got.
6:54
Speaker 3: And the last one that she adds in this extract,
6:56
Speaker 3: which we will link to in the show notes, is
6:59
Speaker 3: come home. We will always like you here great paring
7:03
Speaker 3: advice and parenting.
7:04
Speaker 2: I just change that to love because sometimes I don't
7:06
Speaker 2: like my kids very much.
7:07
Speaker 3: At all, but I'll always love the good one. I'll
7:10
Speaker 3: accept that, okay. Our second parenting in the news this
7:17
Speaker 3: week in parenting A little while ago, I was on
7:19
Speaker 3: a podcast called One Day You'll Thank Me. It runs
7:22
Speaker 3: out of the New Zealand Herald, and this week on
7:26
Speaker 3: that podcast, they've got an article talking about Jason Gunn's
7:29
Speaker 3: genius parenting hack. Let me read this to you and
7:32
Speaker 3: tell me like, we've got to adopt this, and we've
7:34
Speaker 3: got it. We need to adopt it as of right now.
7:37
Speaker 3: He says, You're in the car, the phone rings, Your
7:41
Speaker 3: kids give a look as if to say, just let
7:44
Speaker 3: it go. You pick the phone up, obviously you're on
7:46
Speaker 3: hands free everybody, and you go, hi, gooda, and you
7:51
Speaker 3: watch the kids roll their eyes, and then you say, hey, listen,
7:53
Speaker 3: can I stop you there? I actually can't chat right
7:56
Speaker 3: now because I've got a VIP in the car with me.
7:57
Speaker 3: Can I call you back? Very important person in the
8:00
Speaker 3: car with me. So I'm going to have to let
8:01
Speaker 3: you go, and you'll see you can go. He' joking
8:04
Speaker 3: who's the VIP And you go, dude, you're the VIP.
8:07
Speaker 3: You're the very important person. I'm not going to take
8:09
Speaker 3: a work call right now. Do you like that?
8:11
Speaker 2: I love it?
8:12
Speaker 3: So I just thought i'd shared this week in parenting,
8:14
Speaker 3: We've got this guy, Jason Gunn with a genius parenting hack.
8:18
Speaker 3: And I read that and thought, not only do I
8:20
Speaker 3: have to start doing that in the car with the kids,
8:23
Speaker 3: but I need to with me. Did you say yes, yes, Yes,
8:26
Speaker 3: I definitely definitely said that as well. But I want
8:29
Speaker 3: to tell everyone about it because I thought, what a
8:31
Speaker 3: great hack, which also reminds me that means that I'm
8:33
Speaker 3: not supposed to make phone calls while I'm in the
8:35
Speaker 3: car with the kids.
8:37
Speaker 2: Well, number three, we're going to look at some strict parenting.
8:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm kind of cheating a bit. I know that
8:42
Speaker 3: this is This Week in Parenting, but I'm kind of
8:44
Speaker 3: collaborating with the doctor's desk.
8:46
Speaker 2: Well, if it's recent research, it's this Week in Parenting.
8:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. So some researchers, and I'm just
8:52
Speaker 3: going to read the headline here. Some researchers found that
8:54
Speaker 3: strict parenting can affect the way the body reads DNA. Now,
8:58
Speaker 3: this is fascinating to me, and it's completely consistent with
9:01
Speaker 3: what we think we've been learning for a long time
9:03
Speaker 3: about how strict parenting affects children throughout their lives. The
9:08
Speaker 3: way the body reads the children's DNA, according to the article,
9:11
Speaker 3: might change as a result of strict parenting. These alterations
9:15
Speaker 3: may become hardwired into the DNA of children who perceive
9:18
Speaker 3: their parents to be harsh, raising their biological risk for
9:21
Speaker 3: depression in adolescence and later life. This was work that
9:26
Speaker 3: was presented at the European College of neuro Psychopharmacology, the
9:30
Speaker 3: congress that was held recently in Vienna. The researcher elaborates,
9:33
Speaker 3: we discovered that perceived harsh parenting, so that is that's
9:37
Speaker 3: not necessarily harsh parenting, it's the child believing, yeah, believing
9:40
Speaker 3: my parents are harsh towards me with physical punishment and
9:43
Speaker 3: psychological manipulation. So we're talking about physical punishment and controlling behavior.
9:48
Speaker 3: Can introduce an additional set of instructions on how a
9:50
Speaker 3: gene is read to become hardwired into DNA. We have
9:54
Speaker 3: some indications that these changes themselves can predispose the growing
9:57
Speaker 3: child to depression. Does not happen to the same extent
10:01
Speaker 3: if the children have had a supportive upbringing. I just
10:05
Speaker 3: I love what we're discovering more and more about gene expression,
10:08
Speaker 3: about how our brains and our bodies work, and how
10:12
Speaker 3: the way we raise our kids influencers who we are
10:15
Speaker 3: the way our parents raised us and their parents raise
10:17
Speaker 3: them influence who we are today. We can turn genes
10:20
Speaker 3: on and off by the way that we're paring our kids.
10:23
Speaker 2: I find that really intriguing because we've been talking about
10:27
Speaker 2: this massive shift in mental health and mental illness specifically
10:33
Speaker 2: in the last handful of years, and just how all
10:36
Speaker 2: intents and purposes we're dealing with a pandemic of mental
10:39
Speaker 2: illness across the globe. And when we think about the
10:44
Speaker 2: way the majority of our parents parented us, we would
10:51
Speaker 2: mostly put this into a very strict, authoritarian home where
10:56
Speaker 2: smacking was often a huge part of that process. Yeah,
11:01
Speaker 2: and to have the findings that they're finding now really
11:05
Speaker 2: would support what we're seeing in society in general.
11:08
Speaker 3: Okay, so I've got one more thing for us to
11:11
Speaker 3: talk about with this week in parenting.
11:13
Speaker 2: I'm interested about this one because Dad gets slammed for
11:16
Speaker 2: demanding mornings off on the weekends.
11:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm really interested in your reaction to this one.
11:23
Speaker 3: This was in the Mirror in the UK and the
11:26
Speaker 3: article says he has a six month baby. A six
11:29
Speaker 3: month baby, that's what it says. I mean, Typo, I
11:31
Speaker 3: don't know he has a six month old baby and
11:33
Speaker 3: works full time while his wife is a part time
11:35
Speaker 3: worker and to stay at home mum. But now he
11:37
Speaker 3: is demanding time off. The article goes on to say
11:41
Speaker 3: the arrival of a new baby can be absolutely joyous,
11:43
Speaker 3: but it can also create tensions in relationships as couples
11:46
Speaker 3: work out who is responsible for what when it comes
11:48
Speaker 3: to childcare. It's a scenario confronting one couple, and a
11:51
Speaker 3: solution seems hard to come by. The man shared his
11:54
Speaker 3: gripe on reddits, claiming he needs time out from parenting duties.
11:57
Speaker 3: There were over five thousand comments to his post, with
12:01
Speaker 3: most being unsympathetic to his plight. He claims to be
12:04
Speaker 3: living the dream, but he may soon be living in
12:06
Speaker 3: a nightmare of his demands for a time off from
12:08
Speaker 3: household duties become a reality. Here's what he said. My
12:11
Speaker 3: wife and I have a six month old baby girl.
12:12
Speaker 3: She's mostly a stay at home mum. She works two
12:14
Speaker 3: half days a week and her sister watches the baby.
12:16
Speaker 3: I work full time and I go to school one
12:19
Speaker 3: day a week. We've always had an arrangement where she
12:21
Speaker 3: takes care of household, judy's cooking, cleaning, and our baby
12:24
Speaker 3: care while I happily support her monetarily. He's very happy
12:27
Speaker 3: with the arrangement, adding, honestly, we're both living our dream
12:30
Speaker 3: life and my wife does an absolutely spectacular job taking
12:32
Speaker 3: care of me and our little one. But there is
12:34
Speaker 3: a sticking point, and there's one. It's one that they
12:36
Speaker 3: can't agree on. On the weekends, we share baby duty. However,
12:40
Speaker 3: our girl has hit a bit of a sleeper aggression,
12:41
Speaker 3: waking up every two hours. Since my wife breastfeeds, she's
12:44
Speaker 3: always taken care of the baby overnight. She's a light
12:47
Speaker 3: sleeper unfortunately has insomnia, whereas I'm a deep sleeper and
12:50
Speaker 3: wouldn't wake up for baby cries anyway. Recently, my wife
12:53
Speaker 3: has been asking me to wake up with the baby
12:54
Speaker 3: both days on the weekends so that she can get
12:56
Speaker 3: an extra hour of sleep. Baby wakes up at around
12:58
Speaker 3: seven am, get the baby dressed, and take over for
13:01
Speaker 3: that hour. But sometimes I want to be the one
13:03
Speaker 3: that gets to sleep in an extra hour. So he
13:06
Speaker 3: decides to broach the subject with his wife, who does
13:08
Speaker 3: her best to understand his needs, but it ends in
13:10
Speaker 3: an argument. Kylie, does he have a leg to stand on?
13:14
Speaker 2: I hope there's a spare room that's all I could say.
13:18
Speaker 3: So I want to actually bring some balance here because
13:20
Speaker 3: the internet is known for its outrage. But back in
13:23
Speaker 3: the days when we had a brand new, firstborn baby
13:27
Speaker 3: girl who had tremendous reflux, wasn't sleeping. You were absolutely exhausted.
13:32
Speaker 3: You were a full time mum, full time housekeeper, and
13:34
Speaker 3: I was working as a radio announcer. We essentially sat
13:38
Speaker 3: down and agreed that you were going to take care
13:39
Speaker 3: of it and I was going to sleep because I
13:41
Speaker 3: had to show up. I had to work, I had
13:42
Speaker 3: to earn the money, and being on the radio, I
13:44
Speaker 3: had to actually sound like I was happy to be
13:45
Speaker 3: at work. I had to sound like I was happy
13:47
Speaker 3: to be awake. Now, on reflection, I wish that I
13:50
Speaker 3: had been more supportive. I wish that I'd been more present,
13:52
Speaker 3: more available. But the general idea here is that if
13:55
Speaker 3: you've got a breadwinner and you've got somebody who is
13:57
Speaker 3: full time caring, it seems to me that it's reasonable
14:02
Speaker 3: that the majority of that care would be done by
14:04
Speaker 3: the care Where I'm going to jump in though, is
14:06
Speaker 3: I'm going to suggest that on the weekend when mum
14:09
Speaker 3: needs the sleep, surely he could lift a little I mean,
14:13
Speaker 3: he can do an extra hour or two on the weekends.
14:15
Speaker 3: It doesn't seem like that big an ask, and I
14:17
Speaker 3: do think he's in the wrong.
14:18
Speaker 2: So we've had again, We've had this conversation on the
14:20
Speaker 2: podcast a few times now. The conversations I have with
14:24
Speaker 2: women who are most disgruntled, yes, are the ones that
14:28
Speaker 2: feel like there's an unequal distribution of responsibilities across the relationship.
14:34
Speaker 2: And if I was perfectly honest, I would have loved
14:38
Speaker 2: for you to be more involved in the parenting process
14:41
Speaker 2: when we had younger children, and I.
14:42
Speaker 3: Wish I in hindsight, I wish I had been, But.
14:45
Speaker 2: We learn and we grow. Yes, And this is actually
14:48
Speaker 2: not really about sleep. This is actually about a wife who,
14:53
Speaker 2: for all intents and purposes, just like me, is really
14:56
Speaker 2: happy to be a stay at home mum, take care
14:58
Speaker 2: of the children, take care at the house, look after
15:01
Speaker 2: a husband. But who's looking after her, who's taking care
15:05
Speaker 2: of her on the days that he actually has the
15:09
Speaker 2: capacity to lighten her load, He's actually only thinking about himself.
15:15
Speaker 2: The reality is, if you had come to me and said,
15:19
Speaker 2: because of the way my work is structured during the week,
15:22
Speaker 2: I would really just love to be able to have
15:25
Speaker 2: a sleep and on a Saturday. Do you think that
15:28
Speaker 2: maybe you could offer that to me and then you
15:31
Speaker 2: could have that same treat on a Sunday. But to
15:34
Speaker 2: be arbitrary in your desire to have it for you
15:39
Speaker 2: and you think that it's justified, I think we'd be
15:42
Speaker 2: more damaging to the relationship than just about anything else
15:45
Speaker 2: you could do at that point.
15:46
Speaker 3: I love I love being married to you. I love
15:48
Speaker 3: listening to it. This is why I'm who I am
15:50
Speaker 3: because of the way that you have encouraged me to
15:54
Speaker 3: think through things and grow. I think we're both really
15:57
Speaker 3: saying the same thing. Though it's fine to die the labor,
16:00
Speaker 3: it's fine to split things up, but we've got to
16:02
Speaker 3: be attentive to one another's needs, and that selfishness will
16:06
Speaker 3: ultimately undermine the relationship if it's not nipped in the bud.
16:10
Speaker 3: What I love as well, though, about what you've said,
16:12
Speaker 3: is you've highlighted that's where we were once upon a time,
16:16
Speaker 3: and over time, so long as we are attentive and
16:19
Speaker 3: interested in the other person's well being, we grow through
16:22
Speaker 3: that and we become better because of it. If I
16:23
Speaker 3: could go back and visit twenty two year old me
16:26
Speaker 3: or twenty four year old me when we had that
16:28
Speaker 3: first baby. Oh man, I would give myself an uppercut.
16:31
Speaker 3: I would get myself to do things so very differently,
16:33
Speaker 3: And I reckon this guy is probably having a pretty
16:35
Speaker 3: steep learning curves as a result of the five thousand
16:38
Speaker 3: Reddit comments. At least I hope he is. So that's
16:40
Speaker 3: this week in parenting, Kylie. Love your input and your ideas.
16:44
Speaker 3: As always, Thank you so much for doing that. Tomorrow
16:47
Speaker 3: it's old do better. Tomorrow we'll find out where we're
16:49
Speaker 3: going right, where we're going wrong, and how we can
16:52
Speaker 3: make our family happy. We really appreciate so much that
16:54
Speaker 3: you listen to the Happy Families podcast. The Happy Family's
16:57
Speaker 3: podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig
16:59
Speaker 3: Bruce is our executive producer and more involve about making
17:03
Speaker 3: your family happier. Please visit happy families dot com today