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Good Daughtering [with Dr Allison Alford] · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Today on the
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Speaker 1: pod a special guest, the author of a book called
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Speaker 1: Good Daughtering, Doctor Allison Alford, is going to tell us
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Speaker 1: a whole lot about what it means to do daughtering,
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Speaker 1: how to do good daughtering, and the millions of women
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Speaker 1: every day who are carrying the invisible, emotional and logistical
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Speaker 1: cares of aging parents, husbands, partners, their own children and
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Speaker 1: everything else that they're trying to do is reshaping the
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Speaker 1: lives of an entire generation court in the middle. Today
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Speaker 1: we talk about what's going on with that and specifically
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Speaker 1: this idea of eldest daughter syndrome. I'm really excited for
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Speaker 1: this conversation because I've got six daughters and a wife
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Speaker 1: and I just I watch this happening around me all
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Speaker 1: the time. I'm fascinated by it. We're going to get
0:54
Speaker 1: stuck into some questions for doctor Allison Alfred. Next, stay
0:58
Speaker 1: with us. Hello, Welcome to the Happy Families podcast, where
1:03
Speaker 1: you get real parenting solutions every single day. This is
1:05
Speaker 1: Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. Manam stops Justin Colson and
1:09
Speaker 1: today I'm speaking with doctor Allison Alford, a communication scholar
1:12
Speaker 1: at Baylor University in Texas. Author of the new book
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Speaker 1: Good Daughtering. Allison spent well years a career researching something
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Speaker 1: that millions of women do every single day, but they
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Speaker 1: rarely talk about the invisible, emotional and logistical labor of
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Speaker 1: caring for aging parents, raising their own children, often raising
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Speaker 1: their husbands or partners as well. She calls it doing daughtering,
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Speaker 1: and it's reshaping the lives of an entire generation of
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Speaker 1: women called in the middle. Her research is what we're
1:41
Speaker 1: going to talk about now, looking at family dynamics, mental
1:44
Speaker 1: health and whether we're doing it right, whether we should
1:46
Speaker 1: be doing it differently. Allison's so good to have you
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Speaker 1: on the pod. Thanks for joining me.
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Speaker 2: Thanks for having me doctor justin. Great to be here
1:53
Speaker 2: and a pleasure to talk to busy women about ways
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Speaker 2: they can make their life better real quick.
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Speaker 1: I want to start with just the idea of doing daughtering. Daughtering,
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Speaker 1: like parenting, seems to have become a a rather than
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Speaker 1: a noun. It's not something that you wind out, something
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Speaker 1: that you do. Why is this idea of doing daughtering
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Speaker 1: being I don't know if invisible is the right we'll
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Speaker 1: values it anyway. Has it been invisible for so long.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, making daughtering a verb is so important that it
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Speaker 2: recognizes the effort that women are putting into keeping their
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Speaker 2: families running, particularly the stuff you do with your parents
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Speaker 2: and extended family. And this really gone invisible or under
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Speaker 2: the radar for a while because we don't have the
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Speaker 2: words to talk about it, and nobody has said, hey,
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Speaker 2: that's really important and valuable. So we all just keep
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Speaker 2: doing it. We keep showing up to visits and holidays
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Speaker 2: and doing phone calls, and we keep squirreling away money
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Speaker 2: for the future, or we're giving mental space, we're giving
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Speaker 2: worried time concern, and yet we're not clocking that that
3:04
Speaker 2: is actually depleting our resources and our energy and is
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Speaker 2: something that deserves notice and deserves our attention.
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Speaker 1: I don't think challenges the right word here, but there's
3:16
Speaker 1: there's something about this that kind of I'm wondering if
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Speaker 1: this is an indicator of what twenty twenty five, twenty
3:22
Speaker 1: twenty six, twenty twenty seven is a side of the time.
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Speaker 1: What I mean by that is I reflect on my childhood.
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Speaker 1: My mom was the kind of daughter who we would
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Speaker 1: drive an hour and a half every Sunday to her parents' house,
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Speaker 1: so that we could have the traditional Sunday roast once
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Speaker 1: a month. We jump in the car and we'd drive
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Speaker 1: about three hours from where I lived on the New
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Speaker 1: South Wales central Coast to Canberra, the nation's capital, where
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Speaker 1: my great grandmother lived, and we would go and visit
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Speaker 1: my great grandmother. And as kids, we'd be just like, oh,
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Speaker 1: this is the worst because we had to sit in
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Speaker 1: the car for three hours there and then three hours home.
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Speaker 1: But Mum, Mum always saw it as it's what you do.
4:00
Speaker 1: You spend time looking after your parents and your grandparents
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Speaker 1: if you're lucky enough to have them. And I remember
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Speaker 1: she used to pull out the whip and crack it
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Speaker 1: until my dad that he had to ring his mum
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Speaker 1: every Sunday night otherwise, because this was in the days
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Speaker 1: before mobile phone and we had the communication that we have,
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Speaker 1: he would go weeks without calling his mom to say
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Speaker 1: hi if my mom didn't tell him to call his mom.
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Speaker 1: And just I look at she was raising six kids,
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Speaker 1: she was running two businesses, and she was still doing
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Speaker 1: all of that. And this is a long way of saying,
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Speaker 1: does it have to be emotional labor? Like for my mom?
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Speaker 1: I felt like it strengthened her, It energized her, It
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Speaker 1: gave her vitality, It connected her with previous generations and
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Speaker 1: with the relationships that matter most. I wonder if we
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Speaker 1: have too negative a spin on this by talking about
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Speaker 1: doing daughtering its emotional labor. It's just one more thing
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Speaker 1: that we have to do. Asking as a man.
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Speaker 2: Great question. Well, the key here is that women aren't
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Speaker 2: wanting to it being daughters. We love being daughters, we
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Speaker 2: love being in families, we love having a support system,
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Speaker 2: but we want a little bit of credit for doing that.
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Speaker 2: And by doing that, we start to recognize a reasonable
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Speaker 2: amount of energy we should put to it and its
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Speaker 2: proper place in our lives. Without identifying it and figuring
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Speaker 2: out how much we should give to our extended family,
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Speaker 2: our career, ourselves, our children, and giving each one sort
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Speaker 2: of a set amount of resources, we can outsize expectations
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Speaker 2: for doing daughtering and constantly feel like we're not doing enough,
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Speaker 2: that there's more to be done, that if you visited
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Speaker 2: your mom and grandma once a month, maybe it should
5:41
Speaker 2: be once a week. Maybe the people next door are calling,
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Speaker 2: you know, four times a month instead of once a month.
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Speaker 2: So a lot of what helps about naming it and
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Speaker 2: investigating it is that we get clarity around it, and
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Speaker 2: then we can make decisions about how to effectively keep
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Speaker 2: daughtering in place so that we can keep loving our parents,
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Speaker 2: we can keep loving our extended support system, but not
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Speaker 2: burn out.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I get that. I mean it's really easy. I've
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Speaker 1: watched this happen. Well, I don't want to speak too personally,
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Speaker 1: so I say I've watched this happen generally that it's
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Speaker 1: it's easy to start to resent your parents, maybe your
6:23
Speaker 1: mum or your dad because they don't appreciate it, the
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Speaker 1: effort that you're going to that you've you've you've done X,
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Speaker 1: Y and Z, and they didn't even acknowledge it. There
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Speaker 1: was no no gratitude, no thanks, and it meant turning
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Speaker 1: your world upside down. You kind of go, what am
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Speaker 1: I doing this for? When when you've spoken to women
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Speaker 1: through the years and and and putting the book together,
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Speaker 1: what's the most consistent pattern you've seen, Like, what are
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Speaker 1: the things that almost every daughter struggles with?
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Speaker 2: Every daughter struggles with the hidden costs that are associated
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Speaker 2: with being the family glue, and some daughters have to
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Speaker 2: be the whole The CEO of the whole posse, and
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Speaker 2: it can just be this exhausting thing that you're right
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Speaker 2: to say. Many of us just want kudos, We want thanks,
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Speaker 2: We want to be seen, we want to feel like
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Speaker 2: our work matters, and we as a society, we've gotten
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Speaker 2: to that with things like parenting, right, parenting is hard now.
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Speaker 2: Our children don't generally say thanks so much, mom, you know,
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Speaker 2: for doing all this hard stuff, but we are aware that,
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Speaker 2: you know, they're tiny people whose brains aren't fully developed.
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Speaker 2: When it comes around to our adult parents, we would
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Speaker 2: like them to notice that we're juggling so many things
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Speaker 2: and need a little bit of praise and acknowledgment for
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Speaker 2: all that we're doing, but also maybe a pass at
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Speaker 2: what to set down. So many women that I've spoken
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Speaker 2: to after getting this idea of what is daughter ing,
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Speaker 2: what is it in my life, and what is a
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Speaker 2: reasonable place for it so that I can like being
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Speaker 2: part of a family, they end up feeling a lot
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Speaker 2: of relief once the issues come to light and you've
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Speaker 2: taken the time to consider it and talk about it.
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Speaker 2: And that's kind of the cool thing that communication can do,
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Speaker 2: is if we talk about something more, we can actually
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Speaker 2: find that we don't have to make these vast changes
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Speaker 2: in our life to see really important, relevant changes happen
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Speaker 2: in our families. And that's what I want for your
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Speaker 2: listeners is to think small changes can have a big impact.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So with that as a backdrop, let's step into
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Speaker 1: a quick lightning round. This is meant to be fun.
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Speaker 1: It is a lightning round, So answer as fast as
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Speaker 1: you can. Yes, No, one would one sentence like really tight.
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Speaker 1: I know that every single one of these questions you
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Speaker 1: could talk on for half an hour, so it's unfair
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Speaker 1: and I love doing it. Question number one, is there
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Speaker 1: such a thing as being too close to your mother?
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Speaker 2: No?
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Speaker 1: Should adult children have regular scheduled check ins with their
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Speaker 1: aging parents, like a weekly phone call? Or is that
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Speaker 1: too rigid?
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Speaker 2: It's not too rigid, but it only works if it
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Speaker 2: works for you, and it is an expectation of the parent.
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Speaker 1: If your sibling isn't helping with your parents and you
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Speaker 1: are the daughter who is carrying the weight, whether it's
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Speaker 1: a brother or a sister, should you call them out?
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Speaker 2: First, try to think about what they might be doing
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Speaker 2: that is invisible to you, but it doesn't mean they're
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Speaker 2: doing nothing. Then start narrating what you are doing, and
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Speaker 2: then consider calling out.
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Speaker 1: Can you be a good daughter? I'm using scare quotes
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Speaker 1: or you know, I tell it so whatever when I
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Speaker 1: say good daughter, can you be a good daughter and
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Speaker 1: still say no to your parents?
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Speaker 2: Absolutely? The best daughters say no to things that don't
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Speaker 2: serve them, don't serve the family, and recognize that all
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Speaker 2: daughtering is good daughtering and you're already enough just as
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Speaker 2: you are.
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Speaker 1: Okay, unfair for a lightning round, but I'm going to
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Speaker 1: do this anyway. Is guilt a useful emotion when it
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Speaker 1: comes to family caregiving and good daughtering?
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Speaker 2: Typically no guilt shame. Those are the boogeyman and these
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Speaker 2: ghostly rules of emotions that often lie to you. It's
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Speaker 2: much more impactful to think what's efficient effective for making
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Speaker 2: a family run, like what is needed to make this
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Speaker 2: family go? Not what should I be doing or what
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Speaker 2: kind of person should I be?
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Speaker 1: Okay, last lighting around question, and they were going to
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Speaker 1: take a quick break. This is a bit of a
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Speaker 1: tricky one. I want to sort of spin it around.
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Speaker 1: We've been talking about good daughtering, but I want to
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Speaker 1: look at it from the aging parent perspective. For just
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Speaker 1: a sick true or false most mothers recognize and appreciate
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Speaker 1: the emotional labor that their daughters do.
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Speaker 2: I'm going to have to go right in the middle
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Speaker 2: at maybe many many mothers appreciate their daughters, but still
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Speaker 2: fail to see the size and the amount of emotional
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Speaker 2: labor that their daughter is doing and the toll that
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Speaker 2: it's taking. So the mothers aren't this mean grumpy person
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Speaker 2: who's just trying to do the whip and get their
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Speaker 2: daughter to do more and more and more. They do
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Speaker 2: appreciate it, but they only have what they can see
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Speaker 2: as their benchmark. So we, as the daughters, we have
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Speaker 2: to say more about what we're doing and what it
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Speaker 2: means to us.
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Speaker 1: That was definitely not a lightning round answer, but since
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Speaker 1: it was the last one, I'm going to let you
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Speaker 1: get away with it. Okay, after the break. Dr Allison
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Speaker 1: Alfred on eldest daughter syndrome. Is it real? Is it not?
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Speaker 1: Or does it just apply to all daughters who are
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Speaker 1: trying to be good daughters? Plus, what do we do
11:42
Speaker 1: about setting boundaries when you're feeling trapped because you are
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Speaker 1: trying to be the good daughter and there's just too
11:48
Speaker 1: much to do. Stay with us, We're back. This is
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Speaker 1: the Happy Families podcast. I'm speaking with doctor Allison Alford
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Speaker 1: from Bailey University who's written the book Good Daughtering. Fascinating conversation,
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Speaker 1: especially for a guy who it's so funny because I
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Speaker 1: don't know if good sonning like daughtering. I can actually
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Speaker 1: see that as a verb. I don't see sonning as
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Speaker 1: a verb. I don't feel like the expectations are nearly
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Speaker 1: the same. And I remember when I was doing my PhD.
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Speaker 1: The research that I saw Allison was very much that
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Speaker 1: if you are a father of daughters, you are going
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Speaker 1: to be looked after well in your old age, whereas
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Speaker 1: if you are a father of sons or a parent
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Speaker 1: of sons, you shouldn't expect too much. You're going to
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Speaker 1: kind of be flying solo quite a lot. Does the
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Speaker 1: evidence still point in that direction.
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Speaker 2: The evidence on sonning is limited, But I think sonning
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Speaker 2: is a great term to describe how men show up
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Speaker 2: in their families. But you nailed the key part of it,
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Speaker 2: which is men are just not expected to do it,
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Speaker 2: and when men do it, then they are congratulated, praised,
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Speaker 2: and it's blown out of proportion.
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Speaker 1: Well it's very very noble firm.
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Speaker 2: Yes, Well, so no to be a man who loves
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Speaker 2: his family. But a key part of what we're discussing
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Speaker 2: here is that daughtering and stunning, as I would describe it,
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Speaker 2: are starting way before you need to care for your
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Speaker 2: parent in elderhood. You're a woman in your twenties, thirties, forties, fifties,
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Speaker 2: you've been doing daughtering, and it's not just something that
13:24
Speaker 2: sparks up as soon as your parents need a driver
13:28
Speaker 2: when they're older. But the caregiving research, which I would
13:32
Speaker 2: say is slightly offshoot of what I'm talking about, does
13:37
Speaker 2: suggest that daughters do the majority of the work. But
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Speaker 2: after the idea of gender, the next most the next
13:46
Speaker 2: biggest indicator is geography, the closest child to the parent,
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Speaker 2: And the next most important indicator is economics. Who has
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Speaker 2: the finances to help their parent? So there there's a
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Speaker 2: little more nuanced than just daughters. But if you have
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Speaker 2: four daughters, as you do, you are a lucky, blessed
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Speaker 2: man who's probably going to be well taken care of.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well six, six, So I mean I'm gonna I'm
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Speaker 1: just said six, I know, I know. Okay, let's talk
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Speaker 1: about eldest daughter syndrome. It hit the media pretty heavily
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Speaker 1: last year. Yeah, twenty twenty five. I think it really
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Speaker 1: kind of had its moment in the sun. A double
14:24
Speaker 1: battled question here. Number one, is eldest daughter syndrome a thing?
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Speaker 1: Is it legit? And secondly, how much does eldest daughter
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Speaker 1: syndrome or just daughtering syndrome but good daughtering apply across
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Speaker 1: the board? Is it really that different whether the eldest
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Speaker 1: or whether you're just a daughter.
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Speaker 2: So it's definitely a thing if the women who are
14:45
Speaker 2: living in that experience say it's a thing, right, I
14:48
Speaker 2: believe women. I believe these eldest daughters, many of whom
14:52
Speaker 2: have been parentified in childhood, many of whom have lots
14:56
Speaker 2: of siblings or come from immigrant families. These women are saying,
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Speaker 2: I had a particular experience in childhood and that's led
15:03
Speaker 2: me to have these outcomes in adulthood. A lot of
15:07
Speaker 2: what is being described, though with the eldest daughter syndrome,
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Speaker 2: I would call more oldest female child syndrome because it
15:17
Speaker 2: had to do with being a female child and having
15:20
Speaker 2: siblings in childhood. So the research doesn't show that birth
15:25
Speaker 2: order impacts how much you do or don't do in
15:28
Speaker 2: a family. But I'd never like to say that's something's
15:31
Speaker 2: not real, because it's real. If the women who are
15:33
Speaker 2: living it are saying this is showing up in my family,
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Speaker 2: I think we just haven't seen middle child syndrome, youngest
15:40
Speaker 2: child syndrome, or only child syndrome come up yet with
15:45
Speaker 2: the narrative power that the eldest daughter has. So that
15:52
Speaker 2: is a really I think there's some nuanced ways to
15:54
Speaker 2: investigate what women are saying when they're bringing up eldest
15:58
Speaker 2: daughter syndrome, and then to think differently. Okay, so if
16:03
Speaker 2: I disregard or kind of put in its place what
16:05
Speaker 2: childhood was like, what is my life like now as
16:08
Speaker 2: I relate to my parent, not necessarily to my siblings,
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Speaker 2: But how do I do daughtering directly in that line
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Speaker 2: between my parent and myself?
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Speaker 1: Okay, so we need to sort of move to a conclusion.
16:21
Speaker 1: But if I'm a if I'm a daughter and I'm
16:23
Speaker 1: listening to you talking about good daughtering, I'm thinking this
16:26
Speaker 1: book sounds like it could be useful. But what I
16:28
Speaker 1: really want to know is I want to set boundaries.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: I feel like I'm the expectations are high, I'm being
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Speaker 1: pulled from pillar to post. I'm not getting the recognition
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Speaker 1: or the reassurance even that I'm doing the right thing,
16:40
Speaker 1: let alone recognition for how hard I'm working. So many
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Speaker 1: daughters I'm thinking of people that I know quite close
16:47
Speaker 1: to me now really feel trapped between what their parents
16:51
Speaker 1: need or what their parents try to guilt them into
16:54
Speaker 1: giving them, and what they can actually give, either because
16:58
Speaker 1: of as you said, economics and resources or proximity to parents.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes we live a long way away now, and there's
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Speaker 1: still this expectation that if we're going to jump on
17:07
Speaker 1: planes or go for long drives to support How do
17:10
Speaker 1: you set boundaries as a daughter without You talked before
17:15
Speaker 1: about guilt and not being helpful, and I really wanted
17:17
Speaker 1: to go back and pull that in. How do you
17:19
Speaker 1: set boundaries be a good daughter, do the stuff that
17:24
Speaker 1: you're trying to do and want to do and have
17:26
Speaker 1: a desire to do, but not drowning guilt. How do
17:30
Speaker 1: you get this balance right?
17:33
Speaker 2: First? You have to notice the invisible work. Notice your
17:36
Speaker 2: invisible work. What am I doing in my head, in
17:39
Speaker 2: my heart, not just with my hands and feet for
17:43
Speaker 2: my parent Give credit to that in your life. And
17:46
Speaker 2: of course, if you want to be a generous sibling,
17:48
Speaker 2: you'll try to notice the ways that your siblings do
17:50
Speaker 2: things that you don't do, and how those things might
17:54
Speaker 2: help you with your parents, especially supporting them emotionally or
17:59
Speaker 2: financially even if they're not around for a monthly visit.
18:04
Speaker 2: The next thing to remember is that feeling responsible doesn't
18:08
Speaker 2: mean you are responsible. And so there's a tension there
18:13
Speaker 2: that can occur between adult daughters and their parents or
18:16
Speaker 2: members of their family, and we have to allow that
18:19
Speaker 2: tension to be there without feeling like we are the
18:22
Speaker 2: ones who need to fix it. So lowering the expectations
18:26
Speaker 2: and setting the cultural you know, zeitgeist for what is
18:30
Speaker 2: a good daughter? Starts with me. Starts with me telling
18:33
Speaker 2: myself I am a good daughter and one of the
18:37
Speaker 2: ways that I do that. The last tip is aim
18:40
Speaker 2: to be a B plus Okay, instead of going for
18:44
Speaker 2: an A plus plus student, try to be a B
18:47
Speaker 2: plus daughter and reserve some of your resources for other things,
18:52
Speaker 2: for other people who are important, for other things in
18:55
Speaker 2: your life that are important. It's not your job to
18:57
Speaker 2: make your parent happy all the time. It is your
19:01
Speaker 2: job to live in a world of balance that you
19:04
Speaker 2: can manage, and to both participate in being a family
19:08
Speaker 2: member but also get value back from your family. They
19:12
Speaker 2: should be giving to you as well.
19:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, the reciprocation, and I love that. There's a theme
19:16
Speaker 1: you might have heard of in parenting. This a guy
19:19
Speaker 1: called Winnicott who talked about being a good enough parent.
19:23
Speaker 2: That's where it comes from. That is absolutely if you
19:27
Speaker 2: can think of being a good enough mother and you know, hey,
19:31
Speaker 2: the kid will survive, things will be happening, you can
19:34
Speaker 2: do the same as a daughter. Hey, these folks are
19:36
Speaker 2: going to be fine. They have each other, they have
19:38
Speaker 2: a credit card, they have a car. You know, let
19:41
Speaker 2: them go and you have to let some of those
19:44
Speaker 2: things go and be satisfied that you were a B
19:46
Speaker 2: plus daughter.
19:47
Speaker 1: I often remind my wife when she's complaining about her
19:51
Speaker 1: parents on mine, because let's face it, old kids complain
19:53
Speaker 1: about their parents as their parents' age. I often remind
19:57
Speaker 1: her that they're in their seventies, they've they've made it
20:00
Speaker 1: this far. They'll be okay, Like, we don't have to
20:03
Speaker 1: rescue them all the time. They're they're grown ups. They'll
20:05
Speaker 1: they'll be okay. And that's I feel like that's being
20:08
Speaker 1: a good enough daughter, just giving them, giving them a
20:10
Speaker 1: bit of rope. All right, we need to wrap this up.
20:12
Speaker 1: I've really enjoyed the conversation, Alison, thank you so much.
20:15
Speaker 1: In some ways, I feel like that is an answer
20:18
Speaker 1: to the last question, but I'm going to ask it anyway,
20:20
Speaker 1: because maybe there's a tweak or something else that you
20:22
Speaker 1: want to throw out there. But if you could give
20:23
Speaker 1: just that one piece of advice, that one nugget for
20:26
Speaker 1: a good daughter who's listening to this podcast right now,
20:29
Speaker 1: right in the thick of it, and going, Okay, this
20:31
Speaker 1: has all been really nice, But what do I do today?
20:32
Speaker 1: What do I do now? Because I'm drowning in guild
20:34
Speaker 1: or I'm feeling like the boundaries have just been blown away?
20:38
Speaker 1: What would you tell her?
20:40
Speaker 2: Being good enough isn't about doing it all. It's about
20:43
Speaker 2: doing what is sustainable. Talk to your friends, your partners,
20:48
Speaker 2: your loved ones, your online communities about the daughter and
20:51
Speaker 2: you're doing, and watch your world shift with that use
20:55
Speaker 2: of language and communication around this important.
20:57
Speaker 1: Experience, Alison to people want more INFOWK, Can they find you.
21:01
Speaker 2: Find me online at dotting one o one dot com
21:04
Speaker 2: or on socials like Instagram, TikTok and Facebook at doddering
21:08
Speaker 2: one oh one.
21:09
Speaker 1: Beautiful. Thank you so much, doctor, Allison Alfred is the
21:13
Speaker 1: author of the brand new book that you can find
21:16
Speaker 1: everywhere you get books, Good Dordering, the work you've always done,
21:20
Speaker 1: the credit you've never gotten, and how to finally feel
21:24
Speaker 1: like enough. I really enjoyed the conversation Alison. Thanks for
21:27
Speaker 1: being on the Happy Families podcast.
21:29
Speaker 2: Thanks so much.
21:30
Speaker 1: The Happy Families Podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
21:33
Speaker 1: Bridge Medium. Mimammon's provides research, admin and other support. We
21:36
Speaker 1: will link to doctor Allison Alfred's book in the show
21:40
Speaker 1: notes so that you can get easy access to Good Daughtering.
21:43
Speaker 1: And if you'd like more info and resources to make
21:45
Speaker 1: your family happier, you'll find it all at happy families
21:48
Speaker 1: dot com dot au