Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / What Women Feel About Their Kids Growing Up

Transcript

What Women Feel About Their Kids Growing Up · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody and welcome to the doctor, psych mom ship.
• 0:08
  Today I'm going to be talking about what women feel about
• 0:11
  their kids growing up. So many of you are in your, you
• 0:15
  know, around my age right now. I'm in my early 40s, so a lot of
• 0:19
  you are the same age. And I've seen that that's the
• 0:22
  most common group that listens is 35 to 44.
• 0:26
  Of course, there's other groups as well, but that's the biggest
• 0:29
  percent. And so this will be applicable
• 0:32
  for many of you listening because men frequently don't
• 0:37
  understand how difficult a time this can be and how it makes the
• 0:41
  woman reimagine her whole identity.
• 0:43
  And it leads to basically an identity crisis.
• 0:46
  So we will talk about that right as soon as I tell you to
• 0:48
  subscribe. My most recent subscriber
• 0:51
  episode was, I think, the honeymoon bait and switch.
• 0:53
  Let's check that. Yeah, honeymoon stage and why?
• 0:57
  There's no bait and switch, and there's many, many others,
• 1:00
  including oral sex on women. Always got to get that one in
• 1:03
  there and just loads of others. And it's really quite a lot of
• 1:07
  listening for 899 a month. But if that is too expensive,
• 1:10
  there's a cheaper option of joining my Facebook group for
• 1:13
  499 a month. And that has loads and loads of
• 1:15
  interesting threads about relationships, intimacy people
• 1:19
  share about their individual marriages.
• 1:22
  There's divorced people in there.
• 1:23
  They're single people. There's married people.
• 1:26
  I mean there's just a range of people that have what they have
• 1:29
  in common is that they enjoy discussing issues on a deeper
• 1:32
  level and they are not the trolls that can sometimes be on
• 1:36
  the main page because people don't pay to troll usually.
• 1:40
  All right. Anyway, So what are the range of
• 1:43
  emotions that women feel about the kids growing up?
• 1:45
  And this can mean anything from going off to kindergarten to
• 1:49
  going off to college, you know any, or going through puberty,
• 1:53
  your daughter having getting her period, your son growing taller
• 1:56
  than you are, whatever it is that is, means growing up to
• 2:00
  you. And it could of course be many,
• 2:02
  many things as it is a constant process of of growth that you
• 2:07
  know is forever after. They're out of the house as well
• 2:11
  and they get married or or they, you know have a serious
• 2:14
  girlfriend, they go to college. All of these things, you know
• 2:18
  are major in terms of a person thinking about their own self at
• 2:23
  that age they how they have helped or not helped their child
• 2:28
  get to this point. So what are the major feelings?
• 2:31
  Well, the first one is sadness because many women are raised to
• 2:36
  think of this isn't just sociological, From my
• 2:38
  perspective, this is biological. You know, you're very close.
• 2:41
  It's both. Everything is both.
• 2:42
  But you, You know, you grow your children and your body and then
• 2:47
  you nurse them or or not, you know, whatever.
• 2:49
  You feed them, you cuddle with them and you, you take care of
• 2:54
  all of their little needs and you're so interested in them.
• 2:57
  When kids are little, they're all potential, you know, and and
• 3:00
  people really miss this and sometimes they can't articulate
• 3:04
  it. And what I've realized it is, is
• 3:06
  as kids get older, they have less and less potential.
• 3:09
  At first they could have been anything.
• 3:10
  They could have been, you know the the you're like your little
• 3:15
  soul mate in a way you know and not not in a creepy way but like
• 3:18
  a child. And for some it is a creepy way.
• 3:21
  Like, for some people, they had a terrible relationship with
• 3:23
  their own parents, and they put way too much on their
• 3:25
  relationship with their kid. But for many, it's like this
• 3:28
  child could be like the child that is just like you, you know,
• 3:33
  but even better because you're going to give them the
• 3:35
  opportunities that you didn't have.
• 3:36
  Or the child will be the one who finally, you know, cures cancer
• 3:41
  or is the next president or something like that.
• 3:44
  You have no idea, right? It could.
• 3:46
  This child could be the child that is, you know, all of your
• 3:50
  deepest hopes and fantasies about what having a child would
• 3:53
  be like. So as a child gets older, they
• 3:56
  close on more and more variables.
• 3:58
  More things become apparent in their choices and their
• 4:01
  preferences and their personality traits.
• 4:03
  They're not going to be everything, you know.
• 4:05
  They're going to be one thing, and if you like this one thing,
• 4:08
  that's great. If you don't, then that's hard.
• 4:12
  And that starts to happen more as the kid gets to be a
• 4:14
  teenager. So a big thing that makes women
• 4:17
  unhappy is when the child is, you know, disrespectful during
• 4:22
  the teenage years and rolls their eyes and acts, you know,
• 4:26
  like they don't care about you. Because this is a repudiation of
• 4:29
  everything that the woman really tried to instill in the child,
• 4:33
  which is, I love you, I care about you, I'm here for you.
• 4:36
  And then the child doesn't even want any of that.
• 4:38
  That could be very, very difficult, you know?
• 4:41
  And also, the child develops in ways that the mother doesn't
• 4:44
  really like much of the time. You know, maybe they're not
• 4:48
  doing well at school, or maybe they're kind of an asshole.
• 4:51
  You know, maybe they're a mean sibling and maybe this triggers
• 4:55
  things in the mother, You know, maybe she had a mean sibling and
• 4:59
  now her oldest is acting like a mean sibling, etc.
• 5:02
  So these things can be very triggering.
• 5:04
  The more of your identity you put into something, then the
• 5:07
  more you're going to be upset when it doesn't go well.
• 5:11
  So particularly stay at home moms, you know, of course every
• 5:15
  mom working stay at home at all moms are committed to their
• 5:18
  kids. But particularly if you're stay
• 5:20
  at home mom and you are driving your kids to all these things
• 5:23
  and that your entire life is around being the best parent
• 5:27
  that you can be. Because that is it.
• 5:29
  Like that is your role. Then when the children are are
• 5:33
  not, don't behave in ways that you like.
• 5:36
  And that's very difficult. And when there's this death of
• 5:38
  potential. So you thought you would have
• 5:40
  the kid who was a good teenager and was nice and was respectful
• 5:44
  and turns out that they're not, you know, and they crashed their
• 5:47
  car and they, you know, drove drunk or they did all of these
• 5:51
  things. This can be is horrible for any
• 5:53
  parent, but the more that your entire identity is based on
• 5:58
  being a parent than the more of the worse it hits you, Right?
• 6:02
  If like the only thing that was in my life was, let's say,
• 6:05
  seeing clients as a psychologist, that was all I did
• 6:08
  is I got up and I saw clients and I went home.
• 6:11
  Then if something bad happened with one of my clients and I,
• 6:14
  then that would be a that would kill me, right?
• 6:17
  You know, that would be so terrible because that's all that
• 6:19
  I have in my life. And so it can be like that.
• 6:22
  It can feel like that when you've focused a lot on your
• 6:24
  kids and you don't have other outlets, then then that's why
• 6:30
  sometimes, as I've written posts about, sometimes stay at home
• 6:33
  moms can get depressed, you know, because they have mostly
• 6:36
  the kids to focus on. And if things don't go well with
• 6:38
  the kids, then they feel really bad, worse than if they had
• 6:41
  other things going on too. Because it's a larger piece of
• 6:45
  the pie, right? It is the whole pie of their
• 6:47
  identity. Also, and I've discussed this
• 6:50
  before, women start to feel very, you know, personally upset
• 6:56
  that they are getting older, that the if if your daughter is
• 6:59
  getting her period, it's unlikely that you're going to
• 7:01
  have yours for a lot more years. You know, I mean you're at least
• 7:04
  halfway through having it. And so, you know, your own
• 7:08
  fertility and and youth is waning very obviously because
• 7:12
  your children are coming up and getting older and they're
• 7:15
  turning into, you know, people that have their own little
• 7:18
  crushes on their own as they get older, You know, still their own
• 7:22
  relationships and sexual identities and so forth.
• 7:26
  And that really hammers home that you feel that you're
• 7:29
  getting quite a bit older. I've discussed how women's
• 7:32
  bodies and brains change in their 40s.
• 7:34
  That's the title of a podcast I have.
• 7:35
  I've discussed perimenopause. And you know, men can feel
• 7:42
  energetic for a lot longer than women can biologically.
• 7:45
  And this is amplified when the child is growing and they're
• 7:51
  doing their sports and they're like super energetic and they're
• 7:54
  staying up super late. Then it can make it pretty
• 7:56
  obvious to the mom, whose energy is waning quite a bit, that she
• 8:00
  is not as young as she used to be, not even remotely.
• 8:03
  And so that can be upsetting as well and as much as it's
• 8:06
  upsetting to anybody to kind of reckon with their own mortality
• 8:11
  and that there midway through their life or more and you know
• 8:15
  they did, did they really accomplish everything that they
• 8:18
  wanted to accomplish and that that's another thing to think
• 8:21
  about too, is that often women took off and scaled back their
• 8:26
  career when their children were young.
• 8:28
  Now if their children are older and they're they don't seem to
• 8:31
  be very appreciative or grateful for that.
• 8:34
  As many people struggle with as your children hit more difficult
• 8:37
  years then you start to wonder what it was for.
• 8:41
  You know you have those memories of doing those nice little
• 8:44
  things with your little kids. But there had also been a
• 8:46
  fantasy that they would appreciate it and and remember
• 8:50
  it. And when some when a child is in
• 8:53
  a stage of life where they're trying very much to individuate
• 8:56
  and gain their independence, which is totally developmentally
• 8:58
  appropriate, but they feel like they don't even remember the
• 9:01
  mother who took them to you know, library class and swimming
• 9:05
  and all these little activities. So if that is is what you put
• 9:09
  your career on a back burner for, then many women can feel
• 9:12
  kind of like they made a stupid decision.
• 9:14
  And it's taboo to say that because we're supposed to put
• 9:17
  our kids first in every way. But I'll tell you from working
• 9:20
  with many women over, you know, 14 years, however long I've been
• 9:24
  in practice, let's see. Yeah, 14 years in private
• 9:28
  practice. Then you know it it can be hard.
• 9:33
  You know, you're you have a lot of resentment.
• 9:35
  You're like basically like fuck you kids.
• 9:37
  You know, like I basically gave you my whole life.
• 9:40
  Like Charlotte and Charlotte's Web, the spider who dies when
• 9:42
  she has kids. That's an analogy that many
• 9:45
  people have made, you know, about having kids, what it does
• 9:48
  to your body and what it does to your life.
• 9:50
  You know, you there's really kind of no coming back from that
• 9:53
  for a lot of people. So if the kids are now
• 9:57
  independent and out of the house, and maybe they don't call
• 10:00
  very much, or they're teenagers and they don't even text you
• 10:02
  back, it can be a lot of resentment.
• 10:05
  Honestly, like, why did I ever stop focusing on myself if if it
• 10:10
  was only going to go like this? And even if the children are
• 10:13
  lovely and they are just the most wonderful, engaged and
• 10:17
  empathic teenagers, they're still going to have their own
• 10:19
  lives. And you start to realize that it
• 10:21
  was just a small amount of time that you were ever going to have
• 10:26
  had them as little. And now there's like this whole
• 10:28
  second-half of your life where they're not can be around, you
• 10:32
  know, and they're not gonna be around as much, certainly.
• 10:34
  And they may not be around really at all.
• 10:36
  And you go to college, they may live in a different city, like
• 10:40
  you may be seeing them on holidays and stuff.
• 10:42
  And so that is a big change for a lot of women compared to what
• 10:49
  they themselves experienced because generationally, things
• 10:52
  have changed and children are no longer thought to have to remain
• 10:56
  close to their parents out of any sort of obligation or duty.
• 11:00
  So it's kind of tough for people that I work with who they still
• 11:05
  visit their mother or, you know, every week or something, or they
• 11:09
  still go to their motherinlaw every Sunday for dinner.
• 11:14
  But then nobody's going to be doing that for them.
• 11:16
  And so they, they always kind of thought that they would
• 11:20
  eventually get their child to, you know, not out of any
• 11:23
  nefarious intent, but that their child would eventually be giving
• 11:26
  them the same sort of visiting or the same sort of respect or
• 11:31
  whatever it is that they felt that they had to give to their
• 11:34
  own mother or motherinlaw. And then this does not happen.
• 11:37
  So it kind of changes their whole idea about who they are in
• 11:41
  the world and what the second-half of their life is
• 11:43
  going to look like. So now you know, your wife is
• 11:46
  faced with kind of this whole yawning chasm of the second-half
• 11:49
  of her life when the the most recent years were just
• 11:53
  completely focused on the children, even if she was
• 11:56
  working, you know. And as I've discussed, this is
• 11:59
  kind of a downside of our child centered society is that it
• 12:04
  doesn't make sense anymore. Like if you're super child
• 12:06
  centered, but then your kids stay around forever kind of in
• 12:09
  the same neighborhood and you definitely get to hang out with
• 12:11
  your grandchildren who are being had very young, etc.
• 12:14
  And then you can always kind of stay child centered as so many
• 12:17
  women did in previous generations.
• 12:19
  Then that's one thing. But it's not like that anymore,
• 12:22
  you know? And so you have this child
• 12:25
  centered like 2 decades. And then after that, it's like
• 12:28
  the kids just, they do whatever they want.
• 12:30
  And some of them have kids and some of them don't, and some of
• 12:32
  them live in the same country as you and some of them don't.
• 12:35
  And so it's kind of like then what?
• 12:38
  And for many women, they have to think up an entire different,
• 12:42
  you know, path. And they have to shoehorn in a
• 12:46
  lot of things, you know, like socializing, that they may not
• 12:49
  even really want to do it first, especially if they're not
• 12:52
  extroverted. If they're more introverted,
• 12:54
  then they were pretty much focused on the kids and they
• 12:56
  didn't have this huge friend network and now they kind of
• 12:59
  don't have the kids. So now what are they going to
• 13:01
  do? So there are all of these sorts
• 13:03
  of things that men who are generally more focused on career
• 13:08
  and generally have more hobbies, you know, in general, women
• 13:12
  don't have hobbies that much. If they do, then it's double
• 13:14
  dipping, like cooking, which also feeds the family, or
• 13:19
  walking, which is also exercise or, you know, I can't really
• 13:23
  think of any others, quite honestly.
• 13:26
  Shit, what the fuck do I mean, women don't, I don't know.
• 13:30
  Any women do like, really collect anything.
• 13:32
  I certainly don't know women that do like any sort of hunting
• 13:34
  or fishing or anything like that.
• 13:37
  Generally the women's hobbies after they have kids or the kids
• 13:42
  and exercise if they want to, or cooking or reading, which is
• 13:46
  frequently something about the kids too.
• 13:48
  So you know, it's the what I hope to give you from this is a
• 13:54
  different window into why your wife is, is not wholly excited
• 14:01
  as you are about what retirement is going to look like and all
• 14:03
  the travel and all the hanging out.
• 14:05
  Because everything was focused on the children and now she has
• 14:07
  to completely redefine herself whether she was working or not.
• 14:11
  If she was working, then it's easier.
• 14:13
  You could throw yourself more into your career and gain a lot
• 14:15
  of fulfillment from that. If you weren't and you're not a
• 14:18
  super big extrovert, then it's like kind of what do you really
• 14:21
  do? And a lot of people are
• 14:24
  reckoning with this now. For some women, it wouldn't be a
• 14:26
  full episode without saying. For some women, it's a relief as
• 14:29
  the kids get older because they never felt super comfortable in
• 14:32
  the role of mother and they had the kids, they love the kids,
• 14:36
  but they weren't ever really kid people and they can't wait to
• 14:39
  get back to their own life. And this is something that
• 14:42
  they've been looking forward to and travel and hanging out with
• 14:45
  friends and all of these things. Now, one thing that I do not
• 14:49
  frequently see, and I discussed this another podcast, is a woman
• 14:52
  who just can't wait to hang out with her husband more.
• 14:55
  You know, I mean, I don't see that ever like you like in any
• 14:59
  kind of life, like the way that men talk about it.
• 15:01
  Because I think that men, I know that men think that maybe now if
• 15:05
  all these years she was saying there was no intimate life
• 15:07
  because the kids were in the house, then now somehow it did
• 15:10
  post menopausal age, their woman's going to be having sex
• 15:13
  again. I mean, it doesn't make any
• 15:14
  sense when you think about it, but a lot of men do think this
• 15:18
  because people don't really talk to each other, which is what I
• 15:21
  try to help people with both in my therapy sessions and on this
• 15:24
  podcast. But a lot of guys have thought
• 15:28
  that then like their their intimate life will rejuvenate.
• 15:31
  I don't know one woman that thinks that you know because
• 15:34
  women feel themselves getting older and more tired and their
• 15:36
  sex drive dropping, etc etc. And nobody really had the role
• 15:42
  model of, like, a grandmother who was like DTF all the time,
• 15:46
  you know, I mean, for real, like, like, I always, like,
• 15:49
  think about this when, like, better coming in at age 60
• 15:52
  something. And they're like wanting to have
• 15:53
  more sex. It's like, like, do you think
• 15:55
  your grandmother was having that much sex?
• 15:57
  Like there's just like a certain age after which people don't
• 15:59
  have that much sex. I mean, that's like a thing.
• 16:02
  And, you know, Yeah, sure, like maybe once a week.
• 16:05
  That would be cool, you know? But to think that the kids are
• 16:08
  going to be out of the house and then you're gonna be swinging
• 16:11
  from the chandeliers and that's when the sex dungeon's gonna
• 16:13
  happen with your post menopausal wife.
• 16:16
  I mean, no, you know that. That isn't that that doesn't
• 16:20
  happen except in people that were already super sexual.
• 16:25
  So there's people that are in the lifestyle community,
• 16:27
  swingers, etc, you know, and those people, sure, they're
• 16:31
  still doing things like that, you know, and going to parties
• 16:34
  and all this sort of thing. But to think that somebody who
• 16:36
  is never very sexual is going to start now is just doesn't make
• 16:40
  any sense. Like saying my husband, who
• 16:42
  could never really hold down a job when he was in his twenties,
• 16:45
  30s or 40s, now it's his 60s, he's going to be a CEO.
• 16:49
  He's not going to be a CEO of shit, you know, So he's probably
• 16:52
  just going to get laid off one last time and sit around.
• 16:56
  So anyway, expecting somebody to have a whole different
• 16:59
  personality after the kids leave the house is really not a
• 17:01
  winning strategy, as you can imagine from how I'm saying it.
• 17:05
  All right. Well, I hope that you guys got
• 17:06
  something out of this podcast, and I hope that it promotes some
• 17:09
  sort of discussion. You do not have to send the
• 17:12
  podcast if people don't like to hear it.
• 17:14
  You can use your own words to summarize it and bring it up
• 17:16
  with your spouse. And if you don't know how to do
• 17:19
  that, then couples therapy is always wonderful as a way for
• 17:23
  both people to kind of be coached through how to express
• 17:27
  what is on their mind that they may not previously have known
• 17:29
  how to communicate. All right, guys, thanks for
• 17:31
  listening. Talk to y'all soon.
• 17:32
  Bye, bye.