Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #767 The Best Mother's Day Ever?

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#767 The Best Mother's Day Ever? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
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  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
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  Speaker 2: Now for me to do better for Mother's Day, for
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  Speaker 2: my mom, for her birthday. I need your help, of course,
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  Speaker 2: because I don't know how to use scissus. I don't
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  Speaker 2: know how to glue stuff into a scrap book. I'm
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  Speaker 2: toast and the girls did such a great job. Will
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  Speaker 2: you help me?
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  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My mom
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  Speaker 1: and Dad.
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  Speaker 2: Hello, this is doctor Justin Coulson, the founder of Happy
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  Speaker 2: Families dot com, dot you, and the co host and
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  Speaker 2: parenting expert on the upcoming season two of the hit
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  Speaker 2: TV show on Channel nine, Parental Guidance. I cannot wait
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  Speaker 2: for this show quietly, have you seen the promos that
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  Speaker 2: they're pretty compelling, compelling. I feel like I need to
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  Speaker 2: go to the Moha kind of. It's just such great TV. Anyway,
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  Speaker 2: we're not here to talk about that one today, as
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  Speaker 2: much as I wish we could today. It's older better tomorrow.
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  Speaker 2: If you're new to The Happy Family's podcast, welcome, Thank
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  Speaker 2: you so much for choosing to spend your time with us.
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  Speaker 2: What happens every Friday is Kylie and I review the
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  Speaker 2: week that was, and we try to find areas that
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  Speaker 2: we either nailed so that we can celebrate them or
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  Speaker 2: areas that you might say we failed, so that we
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  Speaker 2: can do better tomorrow. And Kylie, I think that we're
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  Speaker 2: probably both going to talk about the same thing, and
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  Speaker 2: that is Mother's Day. Is that what you're heading possibly? Okay,
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  Speaker 2: So obviously for those of you who missed it five
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  Speaker 2: six days ago, now we had Mother's Day in Australia.
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  Speaker 2: I think Mother's Day is the same around the world.
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  Speaker 2: I listened to a fascinating podcast just recently. Mother's Day
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  Speaker 2: is the invention of florists. There's a lady who gets
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  Speaker 2: the credit for inventing Mother's Day, but basically she was
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  Speaker 2: a shill for the florest and when she realized what
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  Speaker 2: the florests had done to her, she tried to get
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  Speaker 2: Mother's Day banned. She tried to get United States Congress
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  Speaker 2: to cancel Mother's Day. Obviously it didn't work. The Florest's
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  Speaker 2: one and well in protest, I didn't buy you any
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  Speaker 2: flowers for Mother's Day.
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  Speaker 3: He didn't. I was feeling really hard done both.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm a bad h been twin. Need to
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  Speaker 2: do better next Mother's Day.
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  Speaker 3: No, just get me some this week when they're too right.
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  Speaker 3: And honestly, who decided that carnations were It was.
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  Speaker 2: The florists and it was back. So here's the thing.
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  Speaker 2: The reason Mother's Day is when it is, as I
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  Speaker 2: understand from this podcast that I listened to, is that
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  Speaker 2: at the end of spring, as America is going into
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  Speaker 2: its summer, because I mean, like we're in mid mid
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  Speaker 2: to late May now, so we've only got June and
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  Speaker 2: then it's July. That's the American summer. And so the
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  Speaker 2: American florists were basically saying, we have all these flowers
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  Speaker 2: that we can't get rid of them.
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  Speaker 3: They're not getting rid of them because they're the ugly flowers.
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  Speaker 3: I literally went to buy flowers for my mum and
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  Speaker 3: I was like, why is it that on Mother's Day
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  Speaker 3: they pull out all the ugly flowers?
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  Speaker 2: Every carnation lover, Oh my gosh. Yeah. Maybe it's because
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  Speaker 2: in Australia it's just not the right season. I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: But anyway, the idea from the American podcast that I
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  Speaker 2: listened to, We Don't Have Taste or something, was that
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  Speaker 2: florists wanted to unload all of their flowers before summer hits,
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  Speaker 2: and this was the time that worked best for them
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  Speaker 2: to have the bountiest harvest and make them aller. That's
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  Speaker 2: that's why. And so I just I won't buy flowers
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  Speaker 2: at Valentine's and I won't buy flowers I don't at
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  Speaker 2: Mother's Day because I'm too cheap.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I completely agree, because I thought it was ridiculous
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  Speaker 3: the amount of money that they charge flowers.
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  Speaker 2: Dodgers are bullet all right, So Mother's Day, this is
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  Speaker 2: this is my quick story, and then I want to
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  Speaker 2: launch into your experience with Mother's Day, and it's as follows.
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  Speaker 2: So I've been away a lot lately and I was
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  Speaker 2: in Perth all week last week, had a great time
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  Speaker 2: across there. But I contacted a couple of the kids
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  Speaker 2: and said, guys, just a quick reminder, it's Mother's Day.
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  Speaker 2: Mom is your mum, not mine, Therefore it's Mother's Day.
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  Speaker 2: The responsibility falls on you, not me. I mean, these
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  Speaker 2: kids are they're grown ups now or they're well into
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  Speaker 2: their teens. They shouldn't need my input. So I gave
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  Speaker 2: them fair warning, gave them a reminders. I said, hey,
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  Speaker 2: if you need me to spot you some cash, I
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  Speaker 2: can even help with that, but you make sure that
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  Speaker 2: mom feels good on Mother's Day. And when I got
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  Speaker 2: home from Perth on a Friday last week, this time
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  Speaker 2: a week ago, I spuck a couple of seconds with
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  Speaker 2: each of the kids and said, what have you done
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  Speaker 2: for Mother's Day? And you know what they said? Nothing?
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  Speaker 2: They said nothing. I was like, Oh, I'm trying to
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  Speaker 2: be the parenting expert here. I've just had a week
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  Speaker 2: away telling everyone how to have a happy family, and
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  Speaker 2: we're about to not have a happy family, Like there's
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  Speaker 2: no one more important in the world than you, and
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  Speaker 2: I just couldn't believe it. So I said, well, you
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  Speaker 2: need to pull your finger out. Something has to be done.
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  Speaker 2: And all day Saturday they went crazy with craft. They
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  Speaker 2: came up with an idea. I bought one of those
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  Speaker 2: books that has all of those questions, and it's actually
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  Speaker 2: a book for lovers. It's a book for me to
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  Speaker 2: fill in.
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  Speaker 3: For you, which are you going to do that?
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  Speaker 2: Maybe for your birthday? I think that gives me enough time.
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  Speaker 2: I need another few months to get it done. But
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  Speaker 2: there's all these questions in there, and some of them
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  Speaker 2: are really really fun questions, and I thought, hmm, I
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  Speaker 2: think that if I use these questions as prompts, the
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  Speaker 2: kids can answer those questions in the scrap booking book
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  Speaker 2: up a whole lot of photos off their phones at
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  Speaker 2: km out or whatever it is that they go and
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  Speaker 2: do that. And honestly, Kylie, the four kids who were
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  Speaker 2: at home sat down and did almost nothing but craft
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  Speaker 2: for like a day and a half. They stay up
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  Speaker 2: late doing craft, and I think that they did an
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  Speaker 2: extraordinary job. They really put together a great Mother's Day things.
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  Speaker 2: So I'm kind of I'm kind of going, look at
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  Speaker 2: me go. I was the good dad. I was persistent
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  Speaker 2: but not harsh. I gave them the reminders, and in
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  Speaker 2: the end, I had faith in their ability to pull
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  Speaker 2: it off. And I'm just going to say, I reckon,
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  Speaker 2: they nailed it. I reckon they nailed it.
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  Speaker 3: Well. I guess there's two sides to this coin. Because
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  Speaker 3: I knew that nothing had been done.
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  Speaker 2: And did you give them a hard time? Were you're like, hey,
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  Speaker 2: it's Mother's Day on Sunday? Do something I did not?
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  Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden there was this mad
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  Speaker 3: dash to the finish line to try and create something
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  Speaker 3: that would be meaningful. I pretty much was banished to
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  Speaker 3: my room. I really wasn't allowed out, and I actually
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  Speaker 3: really enjoy surprises. When I was a little kid, I
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  Speaker 3: used to destroy all of my surprises because I'd find
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  Speaker 3: mum's stash of you know, presence, and would be very
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  Speaker 3: very wonderfully sneaky and find out exactly what was coming
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  Speaker 3: my way before it came, and over the years obviously
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  Speaker 3: recognize it just completely destroyed the whole surprise. So even
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  Speaker 3: when I know things are in the works, I try
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  Speaker 3: really hard to turn a blind eye.
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  Speaker 2: I've just listened to you like that kid. It's like, oh,
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  Speaker 2: I know I'm not supposed to, but a peak. I've
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  Speaker 2: got a peek.
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  Speaker 3: And so I didn't. I had I knew there was
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  Speaker 3: some kind of craft going on, but I had no
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  Speaker 3: idea what was what was happening. And come Sunday morning,
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  Speaker 3: they'd even told you that you needed to take me
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  Speaker 3: for a walk because there was no way in the
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  Speaker 3: world they were going to have it finished on time.
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  Speaker 3: And so the grumpy side of me could be like,
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  Speaker 3: why did you leave it to the last minute? Why
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  Speaker 3: was this not done?
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  Speaker 2: So? In fairness? In fairness, in fairness, we were away
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  Speaker 2: on holidays and then I've been NonStop with the book
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  Speaker 2: launch and with travel and all those commitments. But I
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  Speaker 2: did give them fair warning this is totally on them,
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  Speaker 2: but you are patient.
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  Speaker 3: But I was patient, and the payoff was just phenomenal.
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  Speaker 3: I think after twenty four years of mothering, Yes, this year,
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  Speaker 3: my kids just knocked it out.
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  Speaker 2: Hang on, hang on, my kids, well, it's Mother's Day,
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  Speaker 2: the am I hang on? Hang on? Our kids? Come on? Please? Please?
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  Speaker 2: Are you going to share some of the joy.
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  Speaker 3: Well, so they put together this little scrap book and.
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  Speaker 2: With a whole lot of photos and a whole lot
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  Speaker 2: of great questions, and we got all the kids, even
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  Speaker 2: our daughter who's in England, we got her. She responded
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  Speaker 2: so quickly with all of her answers, so we got everybody.
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  Speaker 3: And what touched me was actually not that the answers
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  Speaker 3: were perfect. They weren't necessarily particularly soppy or in some
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  Speaker 3: cases not even heartfelt, but each of their personalities shone
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  Speaker 3: through and it was like having a conversation with them,
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  Speaker 3: and I was just blown away. So one of the
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  Speaker 3: questions was how much ransom money would you pay to
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  Speaker 3: get me back?
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  Speaker 2: And a great question. I love that one.
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  Speaker 3: My nineteen year old, our.
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  Speaker 2: Nineteen year old I've just because she's ours.
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  Speaker 3: Said I would pay this much ransom money to get
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  Speaker 3: you back exactly four hundred and twenty three dollars, because
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  Speaker 3: that's exactly what's in her bank account right now. She said,
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  Speaker 3: you always told me not to go into debt unless
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  Speaker 3: it's for a house.
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  Speaker 2: She's a crack up.
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  Speaker 3: But what I love about that is that while nine
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  Speaker 3: thousand dollars is in a lot of money, it's all
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  Speaker 3: she has, and that's really really beautiful. And then our
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  Speaker 3: nine year old she's just got I can't even count
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  Speaker 3: how many zeros after.
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  Speaker 2: She's got a number one, number one, and then about
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  Speaker 2: fifteen zeros, and then some of the other things were
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  Speaker 2: my favorite part of Mum.
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  Speaker 3: This is probably where my heart melted instantly.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, So in the book there's a die gram I'm
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  Speaker 2: a diagram of a body. Yeah, there's no it's literally
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  Speaker 2: just the outline of a body, and it says, fill
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  Speaker 2: in the space here where this is your favorite part
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  Speaker 2: of this person.
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  Speaker 3: And so Emily has written I love all of Mummy,
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  Speaker 3: and so she's colored my whole body in with red,
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  Speaker 3: and then again the nineteen year old, she's actually drawn
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  Speaker 3: quite a detailed picture of me and she's colored in
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  Speaker 3: just above my chest, like between my shoulder and my chest,
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  Speaker 3: and she just said, this is the best place to
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  Speaker 3: place my head. And she talked about how she loves
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  Speaker 3: all of my freckles, and she loves that we have
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  Speaker 3: the same broad shoulders, and she said I used to
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  Speaker 3: get made fun of because of how long my neck
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  Speaker 3: was and realized that we both share the same neck.
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  Speaker 3: I love our necks. It was just little things like
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  Speaker 3: that she loved. She loves that when she's when I'm
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  Speaker 3: sitting down and she places her head on my tummy,
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  Speaker 3: she can hear all the different gurgles coming out of my.
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  Speaker 2: You gurgley tummy. I'm telling you now, you have a
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  Speaker 2: gurgly tummy.
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  Speaker 3: But then my twelve year old Lily, she said that
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  Speaker 3: she loves my heart because it's so soft and kind
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  Speaker 3: and it's ever harsh. She loves the amazing things that
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  Speaker 3: I say. And she said, your hair, your hair is
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  Speaker 3: always changing. It no matter what you do, it always
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  Speaker 3: suits you. And just like I said, it's not necessarily
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  Speaker 3: that any of the I mean, some of them were
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  Speaker 3: obviously really noteworthy and touching. So one of the really
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  Speaker 3: cute pages was how much of my pizza would I
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  Speaker 3: give to mum? And the kids have actually pizza drawn pizzas,
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  Speaker 3: and in some cases they've actually cut out the part
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  Speaker 3: that would demonstrate how much they're willing to give me.
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  Speaker 2: And it wasn't much. They're willing to pay a lot
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  Speaker 2: for ransom, but they're not willing to share a lot
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  Speaker 2: of pizza.
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  Speaker 3: So my fifteen year old's willing to give me two
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  Speaker 3: pieces and pizza because she's a growing major and she
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  Speaker 3: gets really hungry.
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  Speaker 2: Just on that, our fifteen year old Annie, there was
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  Speaker 2: another question there. I don't remember where it was, but
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  Speaker 2: it was sort of.
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  Speaker 3: How much do you like?
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  Speaker 2: How much do you love me?
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  Speaker 3: Oh? No, no, sorry, it wasn't It was what's something
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  Speaker 3: that you had told you to mum?
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  Speaker 2: And she said, I love you more than potatoes.
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  Speaker 3: Because anyone reading that would just think, what the heck,
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  Speaker 3: But this kid just loves potatoes. And then I've got
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  Speaker 3: little nine year old miss Emily, and she's drawn a
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  Speaker 3: picture of her pizza and she's literally given me half
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  Speaker 3: of her pizza. But when she talked to me, and
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  Speaker 3: I can see it now, I didn't notice at the time,
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  Speaker 3: she said, I gave you the biggest half Oh, so
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  Speaker 3: it was just all of these little beautiful things, you know,
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  Speaker 3: very raw and uniquely them, and it's so funny. It
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  Speaker 3: costs them hardly anything, but just a whole ber time,
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  Speaker 3: and it will literally go down in the history books.
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  Speaker 3: Has probably been one of my most thoughtful gifts, whether
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  Speaker 3: it be Mother's Day, birthday presents, or Christmas. It was
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: just so beautiful. When I said that to the kids,
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  Speaker 3: they said, what do you mean? What about when we
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: did your day spa and we flooded the house?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that one was memorable too.
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  Speaker 3: I said, that was memorable. That will literally I don't
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  Speaker 3: think you'll ever top that in the memory books.
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  Speaker 2: We'll linked to that podcast episode in the show notes
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: in case you missed it. A Mother's Day a couple
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: of years ago and the kids forgot to turn the
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: bath off.
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  Speaker 3: Oh but this one just so thoughtful.
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  Speaker 2: So I'm really glad that you enjoyed that. My I'll
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: do better Tomorrow. It doesn't quite end with me being
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: an awesome dad and getting the kids onto this. My
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  Speaker 2: old do better Tomorrow is actually me as a son.
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  Speaker 2: Mother's Day and my Mum's Birthday were on consecutive days
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  Speaker 2: this year, and I rang mum a couple of days
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  Speaker 2: ahead of time, and just said, Mom, you're retired, you're comfortable,
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  Speaker 2: you kind of got everything in need. I'm walking around
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  Speaker 2: the shops and have been for an hour and a
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  Speaker 2: half and I've got nothing. I mean, you don't really
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: need another pair of pajamas, even the bamboo ones. What
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: do I What do I do? And she said, I
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: just want something thoughtful, something from your heart. And I said, okay, well,
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: I've been on holidays, I've been traveling, we've had the
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: book launch. There's so much going on. I need to
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: ask for a little bit of leeway. I need a
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: bit of grace. And in a couple of weeks time,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: I'll get your Mother's Day and Birthday present, so long
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: as I can have a bit of time to plot together.
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  Speaker 2: And that's fine. I just want to know that you've
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: thought of me. And I said, you bet you I'm
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: thinking of you. I'm dying as I walk around the shops.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: I hate the shops, right, I'm dying as I walk
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: around the shops. And so what I have decided is
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: that I'm going to do the same thing. You can't
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: tell her she's not going to be listening to the podcast.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Mom doesn't listen to the podcast. I hope I'm going
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: to do the same thing. But here's the thing for
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: me to do better for Mother's Day, for my mum
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: and for her birthday. I need your help, of course,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: because I don't know how to use scissus. I don't
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: know how to glue stuff into a scrapbook. I'm toast
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: and the girls did such a great job. Will you
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: help me?
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: Really putting me on this spark on the podcast? I know,
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: all right, Well, here's my mother too.
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  Speaker 2: The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Rowland from
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. We really
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: hope that you had a special Mother's Day, and if
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: you didn't, we really hope that this has inspired Dad
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: to get his act together for next year so that
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: he can make sure that he does better next Mother's Day.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: If you'd like more information about making your family happier,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: we invite you to visit Happy families dot com dot
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: you or check us out at our Facebook page. Doctor
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Justin Coulson's Happy Families