Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / "Sittervising" And How Moms Are Made Super Anxious By Media

Transcript

"Sittervising" And How Moms Are Made Super Anxious By Media · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:06
  Hi everybody, and welcome to this episode of the doctor.
• 0:09
  Psych mom show today, we are going to be talking about sitter
• 0:13
  revising and why? That is an example of why women
• 0:16
  are crazy, not on purpose, that they're crazy.
• 0:19
  But they were made Crazy by the media, and by our society,
• 0:24
  honestly, and before we get to that, of course I will tell you
• 0:28
  to subscribe as I always do. I have lots of subscriber
• 0:31
  episodes coming out and I'm going to have more and more
• 0:34
  coming. Every fourth So you will miss
• 0:36
  out on a significant portion if you don't subscribe.
• 0:38
  Anyhow. So supervising was, I read this
• 0:41
  in a scary mommy article and scary mommy's fine.
• 0:44
  I used to write for scary mommy when I was younger.
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  So you know, they're just reflecting kind of the Zeitgeist
• 0:50
  of the time and this one talked about it's for young I think you
• 0:53
  know still it's for moms with younger kids as it was why
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  although you know sometimes I have older people mom's older
• 1:00
  kids stuff in there and whatever, but primarily, you
• 1:02
  know, goes to like Mom's of younger kids obviously, Leslie,
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  because that's who's reading most of the parenting stuff.
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  So, the point here of supervising was that supervising
• 1:12
  is supposed to be a viral new tic toc Trend.
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  If you follow me on, take doc, you can see my Tick-Tock about
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  this and the, the whole new thing.
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  This new trend. This, this this very modern idea
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  that is really antithetical, they're framing it is
• 1:32
  antithetical to helicopter parenting.
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  Really in opposition to that. Is that you're now allowed to
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  sit here. Not to sit when you watch your
• 1:40
  kids. That's it.
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  That's it. Revising combined, sit and
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  supervise. Even the article though made,
• 1:46
  sure to say, please make sure your children are still safe.
• 1:50
  So this is it now. Women, of course know exactly
• 1:53
  what I'm talking about. But men may not so liked the
• 1:55
  idea and this was like, thank God.
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  I think that I think and I predicted this, that helicopter
• 2:03
  parenting, there's finally a backlash against that.
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  That and it's as everything. Does he know the social Trend,
• 2:09
  pendulum swings. And now enough people have been
• 2:12
  driven insane by the demands on Mom's that.
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  Now, people are saying let's maybe chill the fuck out which
• 2:19
  is wonderful. Came a little bit too late for
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  me, but hey, hopefully it's still there for my daughter's.
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  Probably it'll swing the fuck back.
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  But either way, the fact so men aren't even can understand it's
• 2:30
  really what this means. Okay, so what was basically in
• 2:33
  the drinking water, like, for the Past 10 years is that you
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  got to be like seriously literally standing and hovering
• 2:40
  over your kids with everything that they do.
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  If they're playing, you're playing, if they're up your op.
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  And it is crazy. Making literally crazy making.
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  And I see many women that are extremely anxious have
• 2:52
  diagnosable, anxiety disorders, that certainly they had a
• 2:55
  genetic predisposition for. But the way that it came out was
• 2:59
  because of this social construct of, you know this perfect mom
• 3:04
  who's always up and Engaged and hovering psychologically.
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  This isn't even good for your kid.
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  They don't learn how to play with other kids.
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  I mean, I was an only child that only had a parent as Playmate
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  and I'll tell you, if you're playing too much with your
• 3:18
  parent, you don't know how to play with other kids.
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  If you're playing solely with your parent and you can say,
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  well I don't have an only child but if the way the kids were
• 3:28
  supposed to be parented and this last 10 years or so, was as
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  though, each child was an only child the parent and this Why
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  women are, like, forget about having sex with their husband,
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  why? They're, like, literally can't
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  even sleep, or eat out of anxiety, because they're not
• 3:42
  giving every kid. This individual one-on-one play,
• 3:46
  and constant attention. And constant narration, you
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  know, though I've written about over validating your kids and
• 3:53
  over discussing every one of their emotions.
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  This was kind of what was told and still is, you know, kind of
• 3:59
  what is told to Mom's to do, you know that, that horrible, you
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  know, Oh, how do you feel right now in?
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  Are you sure that you feel like that all your, maybe you feel
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  like this or maybe you feel like that and maybe you feel like
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  jumping out the fucking window, right?
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  So this thing is really told virally in this media, you know.
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  And by by experts such as you know, in quotes to that that the
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  kid is not going to feel validated.
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  They're not going to. They're going to be scared,
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  they're going to somehow not be able to communicate.
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  I never met a kid. This generation, can't
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  communicate but that's just me. And you have to do all the stuff
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  to facilitate them constantly engaging in the world and
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  constantly saying with their feelings are.
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  And if you don't you're a bad mom and it's not like just look
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  stupid women that's all for this.
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  There's something it's like, first of all it's a lot of guys
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  too. And it's every woman.
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  Like I mean I remember sitting there with my daughter, she's
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  like fucking like 9 months old when I got pregnant with my
• 5:00
  other daughter and I was like anxious that I wouldn't be able
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  to because I was so tired. Tired of getting pregnant with
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  the second baby. That I wouldn't be able to like
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  engage with her to the level that I had previously been
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  engaging with her, which was, of course, talking to her
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  incessantly and all that does, by the way to make it child who
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  talks incessantly, I can vouch for that.
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  And and and I was so worried about it because it was drilled
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  into my head by the parenting literature that I was supposed
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  to be so cool. Constantly available and
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  engaging. And I'm a psychologist I learned
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  about human development and I still felt, you know, victim to
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  this, this ideology of this constant engagement.
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  So like when men don't understand about how women feel
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  about parenting they've not been exposed, they were their social
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  media feeds. They don't have articles like,
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  you know, 14 different ways to help your four-year-old.
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  Tell you what happened at preschool that day, parental
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  parenthetically. So you can make Sure they
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  weren't molested. Like literally like these are
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  like the sorts of articles that are spamming the social media
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  feeds of women who are just moms like who the algorithm just
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  determines have children. So men can't really kind of
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  understand how how crazy making this is.
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  And so one really good example is to imagine like like imagine
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  that you got something that's said to you like as if you're a
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  man with an office job if you got like something that's a new
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  viral trend, Out to take a lunch break, you know, most people
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  would think like of course you can take a lunch break or
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  better, just the exact analogy you're able to sit down while
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  you have a meeting, you know, and I like dance around like I
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  don't know like a Cirque du Soleil and in front of somebody
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  to entertain. So the point here is that this
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  really epitomized to me this like, complete Obsession that
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  That the media has with telling moms what to do.
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  And it's really, really hard to not, not not really use whatever
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  you're seeing in the media as a yardstick against which to
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  measure your own parenting. Of course, you're going to come
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  up short because, of course, you have to sit down sometimes.
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  So the majority of women that are hearing about supervisor
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  like, oh my God, I was sitting high side for 15 minutes the
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  other day when they were at the playground and then like what
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  did it do to their little brains you know to Me do they feel
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  unloved? Do they feel like I don't care.
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  These are things that intelligent, otherwise
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  intelligent women who are saying, you know.
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  And so then when and of course they are because it's the same
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  as how men say stupid shit when they are spammed with stuff that
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  plays upon their deepest insecurities.
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  Like there's men who like get like penis extension surgeries
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  that like leave them you don't like, I mean, like seriously
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  like I see this on like men Forum, you know, or or men that
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  think that if they just like body build and Like, put on like
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  you do 50 pounds of muscle, you know, that didn't their wife is
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  gonna want them, like she did when she was 18.
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  Like whatever is put into the drinking water.
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  By the media is what any gender? Any type of human being takes as
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  fact at least to some level because otherwise why would so
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  many people be saying it, it's kind of an evolutionary.
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  You know thing where if there's enough people saying something
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  you agree with them, this is a cognitive bias that we I have to
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  agree with others. This is the peer pressure and
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  everybody knows this, the people like to fit it, but everybody
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  thinks that it's me. So people read all this research
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  that's cherry-picked that says o children need the involvement of
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  their parents. Yeah, of course not to die,
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  right? So you gotta love your kid, you
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  got to act interested in their story sometimes, but of course,
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  you could sit down. Of course, you can sit down, you
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  could always have sat down whenever you can sit down, you
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  should sit down sometimes you can because I Amber having three
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  under three at a playground, three under three and a half and
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  then it was even worse was 305 because then like all could run
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  and they could run opposite directions.
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  So yeah sometimes you can't sit down but whenever you can, of
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  course, it's exhausting to be a parent and you should Beast of
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  of small children. Especially you should be sitting
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  down whenever you can, the fact that this would be granted to
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  women, this new permission is just indicative of the insanity.
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  That is, you know. Grunting media culture and, and
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  it drives people literally crazy.
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  So, and like, when men are, likewise my wife, too, tired to
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  have sex with me, why she too tired to do anything, why she
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  acts so tired, all the time, all she is this with kids.
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  She's being told by the media that if she's not Consul
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  engaging with the kids that she's a terrible mother and
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  they're gonna somehow suffer, you know, your wife, she doesn't
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  want the kids to suffer who wants their kids to suffer.
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  So, and this is what she's being barraged with constantly.
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  So if you are a woman, In that is listening to this and has any
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  sort of guilt about sitting down or not fully engaging.
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  Why I've been do you think that for Millennia would be were like
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  is standing next to all their children on the playground like
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  this and saying oh look at you, how many bars are you op?
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  Are you for? Let's count?
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  No, of course not. How would our civilization of
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  gotten built people had to, like eat.
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  They had to, you know, hunt gather, there were always the
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  difference is that there were always other people around now.
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  I'll see. So I feel like, to some degree,
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  the women in the 2010s generation, got like the
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  shittiest, said to the stick, right?
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  Because there was all these crazy, like you have to be
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  hyper-vigilant parent and then men still weren't supposed to do
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  much in the house. So that's changing now in the
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  past 10 years it's like now it's night and day from where it was
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  ten years ago. Men are supposed to be very
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  involved in childcare and housework good.
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  That's very good and however About 10 years ago they weren't
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  but then the woman was also supposed to be doing like being
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  basically cloning herself to be 100% present with 100% of her
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  kids. A hundred percent of the time on
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  her own at least all day during the work day, if she was a
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  stay-at-home mom and it was still passed the generation that
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  most people were very near to their extended family.
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  Now, if you have your mom there all the time, your sister, or
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  something, or your mother-in-law, or if you like
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  her or whatever, then Only different, but the women that I
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  was meeting when I was basically stay at home, mom about, you
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  know, 12 years ago and on till I don't know.
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  So, a few years ago, when my son went to kindergarten now, he's
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  in fourth grade. But anyway, I was only working
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  part-time. So a lot of the women, I was
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  meeting where stay-at-home moms the husband's yet were not
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  supposed to be completely involved.
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  So, therefore, the woman was basically really it was harder
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  to be a stay-at-home mom. I'm than to have an out of the
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  house job because the woman's job is 24 hours a day and she
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  was being told by the constant mommy blogging and a constant
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  media that she was supposed to be engaging in this emotionally
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  nuanced way with the children constantly and to be super,
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  super involved and Vigilant and you know, never sit or never
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  supervised. So, there was like this, like
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  really bad time of parenting and I'm not seeing this as much
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  anymore, think? Todd.
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  And it's because there's a lot more working from home by the
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  men and there's a lot more involvement encouraged by the
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  men. So and there's also a lot more,
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  there's less stigma around mental health issues and a lot
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  more tolerance of individual differences.
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  So, if self-care is a word, it wasn't really a word then.
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  So it was like this like critical moment and this is
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  interesting. Since of course the people I
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  work with are usually in there, you know, 30s 40s, 50s.
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  So they a Have some sort of, you know, overlap with me in terms
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  of the parenting style that was encouraged at the time when I
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  was a young mother and it was a worst of the time.
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  It listen. I mean, these are first world
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  problems certainly. But then again is that anything
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  that leads to horrible depression and anxiety.
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  Really a first world problem. I don't think so.
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  So nobody was starving. However the women were like
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  literally imbalanced, you know, myself included because you were
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  doing Constant self surveillance in order to make sure that you
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  lived up to these parenting standards.
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  And when I was originally writing, by the time I had my
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  first third child, I already was like, fuck.
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  This is can't possibly be right. And I was already writing about,
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  you know, that it should be different and that, you know,
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  mother should cut themselves, some slack and all of this
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  stuff. But this is the PSA.
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  If you were parenting around like I don't know, it was
• 14:01
  probably years before I started. So maybe like And 52 like 2015.
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  You know, if you had little kids then you got to have a
• 14:10
  discussion with your partner. Be very interesting to think
• 14:12
  about how did the Zeitgeist of that time which this sitter
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  revising is now in opposition to the complete hyper-vigilance and
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  also the lack of the necessary involvement by the man in terms
• 14:28
  of the childcare and housework. How did that contribute to any
• 14:33
  depression anxiety overwhelms? Stress that you had at that time
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  also the marital issues that undoubtedly you had when a woman
• 14:40
  feels just constantly crazy and that g is running around like a
• 14:44
  chicken without a head because that is the only way to
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  effectively parent and any of this will be Amplified if the
• 14:49
  meant that if the man's work hours were a lot.
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  If the Woman's Work hours were a lot because even working moms
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  when they were home, felt that they had to do then everything
• 14:59
  you know because that's what the woman should do.
• 15:01
  And so and also of course yours Sex, life.
• 15:05
  Probably went to shit because this was also the time of you
• 15:07
  have to be constantly responsive to the child all night long.
• 15:11
  Well, if you're constantly responsive to the child all
• 15:12
  night long and or they co-sleep this puts a kibosh on the
• 15:16
  intimate time that you have together.
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  So, it's just an interesting thing that I saw that really
• 15:21
  made me think about the entire social context of the parenting
• 15:26
  stage of a lot of my clients. Now, I have older clients than
• 15:30
  that and they do not remember it being this much, they were
• 15:34
  Babysitters. They were having their own life.
• 15:37
  If they were working. Mom.
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  They could, they felt different than the working moms did years
• 15:42
  later where it was like, they were also supposed to be a
• 15:43
  stay-at-home mom. They didn't feel like they were
• 15:45
  also supposed to be a stay-at-home mom.
• 15:47
  Like they felt guilt sure when they're not with their kids a
• 15:49
  lot. But it wasn't to the like the
• 15:52
  level of abject depression that I was seeing at that specific
• 15:57
  time. And I'm not saying that the men
• 16:00
  being involved. Now cure-all marital problems.
• 16:02
  In fact, I have an article, this is the opposite.
• 16:04
  Which is my male. Clients are doing more housework
• 16:07
  and childcare than ever before and their wives are no happier
• 16:09
  with their marriages, but their wives do seem to have overall
• 16:15
  less stress because the guys are being told by the media to do
• 16:20
  more shit. Okay so this is normal is a main
• 16:23
  effect of having less to do is you feel less stress.
• 16:27
  So if you don't have to be the only basically parent in the
• 16:30
  home, then of course you feel less stressed, no shit.
• 16:33
  But you may still may not be as happy with guy.
• 16:35
  Because, you know, emotionally they're still the same problems,
• 16:39
  but the one thing, you know, it's like 99 problems.
• 16:41
  But the splitting of housework and childcare ain't one for a
• 16:46
  lot of women, nowadays versus where it was before.
• 16:50
  So it is really interesting. If you have never talk to your
• 16:52
  spouse about the time of of like, you know, the world, you
• 16:59
  know, that the the environment, the Zeitgeist, the, the whole
• 17:03
  atmosphere, sure that you guys were young parents and it would
• 17:06
  be really interesting to do that and if it's a different time and
• 17:10
  error than the one I'm talking about, that's equally as
• 17:12
  interested. You know, how did the social
• 17:14
  mores of the time impact our marriage and our parenting and
• 17:19
  our whole family life. So that's always a super
• 17:22
  interesting topic. Also of course, how did it
• 17:25
  impact you guys meeting each other and your individual lives
• 17:28
  before? So when you run out of shit to
• 17:30
  say about psychology, which many men, especially don't have super
• 17:34
  high tolerance, It's for sociology is always is always
• 17:37
  very interesting to think about the time and place that you're
• 17:40
  living in and how it impacted you, you know, individually and
• 17:43
  together as a family. So anyhow, the tldr is,
• 17:47
  everybody should sit a revised, sit the fuck down.
• 17:49
  You're allowed to sit. Oh my God.
• 17:52
  Nobody should have had to say that and many of us were alive
• 17:57
  and parenting the time when we were not supposed to sit and who
• 18:00
  was no good for anybody. So, if you have a young parents
• 18:04
  in your life for you, you are a young parent of a young child.
• 18:06
  Tell them to sit down or if you are the parents sit down.
• 18:09
  If anybody tells you should not be sitting down, sit down, sit
• 18:12
  down, they don't know what they're talking about, you
• 18:15
  should be sitting down to standing constantly narrating
• 18:18
  everything and having a knot in your stomach that you're not
• 18:21
  doing it, right? It's not the way to live and
• 18:24
  that's not going to cause you to be a better parent.
• 18:27
  And it is certainly not going to be better for your kid to have
• 18:30
  an anxious parent doing that. All right, I'll talk to
• 18:32
  everybody soon. Bye bye.