Latest / The Parenting Podcast / Mom Guilt - It's real - but is it good or bad? | Ep. 34

Transcript

Mom Guilt - It's real - but is it good or bad? | Ep. 34 · The Parenting Podcast

• 1:02
  Cheryl: Welcome back to the parenting podcast listeners.
• 1:05
  Cheryl: So glad you're here with us today.
• 1:08
  Cheryl: Did you all get in here?
• 1:09
  Cheryl: Dry?
• 1:10
  Christie: Oh my goodness.
• 1:11
  Christie: It is raining like crazy today.
• 1:13
  Danae: Yes, it is just storming and storming
• 1:15
  Ellen: and forming this isn't this like day two.
• 1:17
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 1:17
  Ellen: And then we have another day, one more day.
• 1:19
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 1:20
  Ellen: Well, I, the only good thing is, especially for those of us who like to garden, this is perfect weather.
• 1:26
  Ellen: Most of us have planted and I'm a big rose person.
• 1:30
  Ellen: So I just planted a new white rose in my garden.
• 1:34
  Ellen: So the rain is just drenching everything.
• 1:37
  Ellen: And I hear my.
• 1:38
  Ellen: Singing and happiness as they're drinking up the rain.
• 1:42
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 1:42
  Christie: And I'm a new gardener, so I'm singing in happiness.
• 1:45
  Christie: I don't have to water them kind of high more.
• 1:49
  Christie: And I plan,
• 1:50
  Cheryl: unfortunately I have big trees, so I only have a tiny area that has in the whole yard that has sun full sun.
• 1:59
  Cheryl: So I have my full sun perineal thing and I have rocks around it and I've chosen.
• 2:03
  Cheryl: Cause I'm like, I don't want to have to work on them.
• 2:06
  Cheryl: I want them just to grow and grow and grow and come in.
• 2:08
  Cheryl: And every year they just get better and better.
• 2:10
  Cheryl: But when I looked at their, after this heavy rain, it's a little bit of a low spot, I guess, or where there, where I've dug in it it's softer than the dirt around it because it's been area.
• 2:23
  Cheryl: Oh, please.
• 2:23
  Cheryl: Don't rock.
• 2:24
  Cheryl: So now you need a fish.
• 2:30
  Danae: in my driveway, there was a toad bigger than my and, uh, Zoe, my youngest, she and I are very much alike.
• 2:40
  Danae: She goes over.
• 2:40
  Danae: And what does she do that?
• 2:41
  Danae: What does she do?
• 2:43
  Danae: I picked that big old toad up and set it on the dry ground.
• 2:47
  Danae: Oh
• 2:49
  Ellen: yeah.
• 2:50
  Ellen: I used to bring toads and frogs into the house to keep his pay too.
• 2:55
  Ellen: And so then my grandfather would sneak and let him go after about three days.
• 3:00
  Ellen: But.
• 3:01
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 3:01
  Ellen: So
• 3:02
  Cheryl: was kinda fun.
• 3:04
  Cheryl: I actually, out back I was sitting when the weather was nice and as it cooled off, it's happened two times.
• 3:11
  Cheryl: Has it begin to go to dusk?
• 3:13
  Cheryl: Cause it was just beautiful weather.
• 3:16
  Cheryl: We've had.
• 3:17
  Cheryl: I could hear a frog and I've gone over try and find him.
• 3:22
  Cheryl: And I can't find
• 3:25
  Christie: Ellen.
• 3:25
  Christie: You do a better frog.
• 3:28
  Cheryl: Well, this was high pitched it.
• 3:30
  Cheryl: Wasn't.
• 3:31
  Cheryl: Yeah, that was a cool, all right.
• 3:35
  Cheryl: I've got a question from a mom that I get this question all the time, many different ways, and we've touched on the subject.
• 3:42
  Cheryl: Many different episodes, but let's just address the one subject and said, what do I do about mom guilt?
• 3:51
  Danae: I wish I had a magic wand or could go sprinkle fairy dust on myself.
• 3:58
  Christie: Yeah.
• 3:58
  Christie: I was going to say sprinkle myself and then sprinkle my friends to not have this mom.
• 4:03
  Christie: Yeah.
• 4:04
  Christie: Yes, for sure.
• 4:06
  Ellen: And you can still have it even when your kids are
• 4:07
  Cheryl: adults
• 4:08
  Christie: or even more so maybe is that because of me, do I need to own
• 4:16
  Ellen: here?
• 4:16
  Ellen: Did I fail to help them with that bad attitude?
• 4:20
  Cheryl: I will say my children is saying.
• 4:23
  Cheryl: Begun exiting the teen years and going through early twenties, they were very willing to let me know my mistakes and what mostly, what they said was legitimate, you know, but let's just say in the area of education, You ruined me because the academics were too much.
• 4:42
  Cheryl: You ruined me because you didn't do it enough academics, or you ruined me because I didn't do enough sports.
• 4:48
  Cheryl: You ruined me because I did too much.
• 4:49
  Christie: Here's the thing is I've heard that from my kids.
• 4:52
  Christie: And then the same kids, I'll say, I'm sorry.
• 4:55
  Christie: I acknowledge my error in this area.
• 4:57
  Christie: Mom.
• 4:57
  Christie: It's not all about you.
• 5:00
  Christie: I can't win for taking responsibility or not.
• 5:03
  Christie: I heard the same thing.
• 5:04
  Cheryl: You always have to turn it back, right?
• 5:07
  Ellen: Well, you know, sometimes.
• 5:09
  Ellen: It does work out because your kids become moms and dads and they'll come back and say, thank you.
• 5:16
  Ellen: Or, well, maybe not.
• 5:17
  Ellen: Thank you.
• 5:17
  Ellen: But now I get it right.
• 5:19
  Ellen: The right thing that they say, and they really do get why you did what they thought was so criminal and weird when they were young.
• 5:26
  Cheryl: Well, I remember when I was struggling with this younger age and, um, of the older team, young adult and Ellen, your kids are older than mine and, you know, Wait till they're about 30.
• 5:41
  Cheryl: So I will say even the ones that are married, that there has been maturity and they found out, oh, wait, it's not easy.
• 5:49
  Cheryl: Life doesn't always work out just right.
• 5:52
  Cheryl: And so that perspective.
• 5:54
  Cheryl: It's honed in and helped with this.
• 5:57
  Cheryl: Well, then I was
• 5:57
  Ellen: going to say, It was, it was funny when my, uh, son had joined the military and he was in bootcamp.
• 6:03
  Ellen: And when he came home during a break, I remember him telling me, he said, oh, I'm never gonna think about you as this really strict hard mom.
• 6:11
  Ellen: Because when I heard some stories of my friend's mothers How hard their lives were.
• 6:16
  Ellen: I realized, oh, I can't even complain.
• 6:18
  Cheryl: Oh, well, we're talking to a whole gamut of moms and all ages, all places.
• 6:25
  Cheryl: So let's focus on this, about the guilt.
• 6:30
  Cheryl: We all experience it, like from when they're little and then
• 6:34
  Ellen: increasingly.
• 6:34
  Ellen: And you have to look at your own childhood.
• 6:37
  Ellen: I had shared with this, with the group before that, you know, my family was guilt and shame centered.
• 6:43
  Ellen: So that's just a pattern you grow up with.
• 6:46
  Ellen: You just naturally reflect it back and say, oh, it must be my failure.
• 6:50
  Ellen: It must be I'm the wrong here.
• 6:52
  Ellen: And so you're just kind of constantly everything you do is filled with guilt and recognizing no that wasn't a healthy way to raise a child.
• 7:01
  Ellen: And it took me a long time, even with my own children, not to use guilt and shame.
• 7:06
  Danae: Yeah.
• 7:06
  Danae: So I'm feeling really heavy about just a memory.
• 7:10
  Danae: It's kind of a, a time period in my life.
• 7:13
  Danae: Uh, when one of my daughters, it needed a lot of special help.
• 7:19
  Danae: She was in therapy, she was an occupational therapy, and I had a lot that I needed to do with her, you know, the homework that I was given.
• 7:31
  Danae: Okay.
• 7:32
  Danae: Two or three hours a day.
• 7:35
  Danae: You know, these therapists said you have to do these things or your daughter will dot, dot dot, you know?
• 7:42
  Danae: And so then here I was with, uh, five children, one younger than her three older than her and I had a lot to do.
• 7:52
  Danae: And then let's just add on all of this therapy.
• 7:55
  Danae: That was a very emotionally draining because my daughter, it was very hard for her.
• 8:01
  Danae: It was a big stress.
• 8:02
  Danae: And so, you know, it was a season where I held home and operated out of a lot of guilt.
• 8:09
  Danae: It just feeling like there's not enough of me to go around for all of these children to do all that they need, like truly need.
• 8:17
  Danae: Right.
• 8:18
  Danae: You know, and I mean, we muddled through, um, but I still, yeah.
• 8:24
  Danae: Like I said, so it's kind of heavy on my heart, remembering back to that version of me and going to bed at night, you know, never feeling like, I did enough.
• 8:33
  Christie: Yeah.
• 8:33
  Christie: Well, those, those therapists had put on what we had done, what we do to ourselves and put on expectations on you.
• 8:40
  Christie: And you felt like you were carrying all the weight on your back and it would make or break dependent on
• 8:46
  Ellen: any performance.
• 8:47
  Ellen: They didn't that's what you heard, right?
• 8:49
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 8:49
  Ellen: That's mom guilt.
• 8:50
  Ellen: We just hear, somebody says, oh, you should make sure your kids get carrots.
• 8:55
  Ellen: It's good for them.
• 8:56
  Ellen: Then we sit there and go, oh my gosh, I need to go buy I'm a bad mom.
• 8:59
  Ellen: I didn't have any maybe
• 9:01
  Cheryl: read and go, oh no, they're high glycemic index.
• 9:03
  Cheryl: And like, to me, what you just talked about.
• 9:09
  Cheryl: Because there's true guilt and false guilt if you hear good psychologist or people that analyze things saying healthy and unhealthy guilt, which I never would have said that before, but healthy guilt or real guilt.
• 9:23
  Cheryl: And what you described, I think would be the guilt of limitations.
• 9:27
  Cheryl: And it's a false guilt because you just didn't know.
• 9:33
  Cheryl: I'm limited.
• 9:34
  Cheryl: I can't feel guilty about I CAN'T I can't do more.
• 9:38
  Cheryl: I'm offering all I have, I had it during single parenting.
• 9:42
  Cheryl: And so, so much of my, you know, my parenting was single parenting and there's limitations and I wasn't realistic.
• 9:51
  Cheryl: So I carried that kind of guilt, just what you're describing, which is not healthy guilt.
• 9:58
  Christie: Well, and then Alan gave us a good example of good comparison with her son, but you know, the comparison is a killer.
• 10:06
  Christie: It's just, you look around, we always put ourselves on the bad side of that, looking at the parents that we assume are doing better than us in every area.
• 10:15
  Christie: So that's another
• 10:15
  Cheryl: level of guilt.
• 10:16
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 10:16
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 10:17
  Cheryl: Unhealthy guilt is comparison
• 10:20
  Danae: and I think it's when we compare ourselves to others, but then also when we compare ourself to that ideal, Picture, if I were a good mom, then
• 10:28
  Christie: I would all the things you say when you're pregnant with the first that you're like, I'm going to do these things.
• 10:34
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 10:35
  Ellen: I call it the Phantom mother, the Phantom mothers, just lurking out there showing us how perfect she is.
• 10:43
  Ellen: And it's so hard to break away from that, you know?
• 10:47
  Cheryl: And, or I want to do this.
• 10:50
  Cheryl: My parents didn't do that.
• 10:51
  Cheryl: I'm going to nail this and that unrealistic.
• 10:56
  Cheryl: And then as it's beginning to unfold, that all of us are a mess if we carry that guilt.
• 11:02
  Cheryl: So I think the guilt of condemnation that I would, what do y'all think?
• 11:08
  Cheryl: Unhealthy guilt, we've kind of nailed different areas.
• 11:12
  Cheryl: How do we recognize unhealthy guilt like this?
• 11:17
  Cheryl: I
• 11:17
  Ellen: think unhealthy guilt is even when you apply a remedy to the guilt, you know, you feel like, okay, I'm not being good enough in this area.
• 11:24
  Ellen: So then you race around and do all these things.
• 11:26
  Ellen: Then you go to bed at night and still feel guilty.
• 11:30
  Ellen: Not recognizing that.
• 11:31
  Ellen: Okay.
• 11:31
  Ellen: I did what I knew to do.
• 11:34
  Ellen: We're done.
• 11:35
  Ellen: And we move on to the next
• 11:36
  Christie: thing.
• 11:36
  Christie: Right.
• 11:37
  Christie: And that also puts too much pressure on our kids too, as we're looking for the result.
• 11:42
  Christie: So then we're putting pressure on us and pressure on the kids to validate our efforts.
• 11:47
  Ellen: That's a really good one that validated.
• 11:49
  Cheryl: So self-focused okay.
• 11:52
  Cheryl: And what she just said I'm cause I'm listening to y'all I'm thinking about the moms and me back in the, you know, it's tearing down.
• 12:01
  Cheryl: It has no capacity for building up, right.
• 12:03
  Cheryl: It's just tearing down.
• 12:05
  Cheryl: Right.
• 12:06
  Ellen: Whatever the source.
• 12:07
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 12:07
  Ellen: Cause you go to bed and, or you just have some alone time and you're just miserable because you go through the list in your head of everything you didn't do, or just because your children didn't respond in a positive way in that moment, then somehow you failed again and it's a moving target.
• 12:23
  Ellen: Yes, that's a good one.
• 12:24
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 12:25
  Danae: It's a moving target.
• 12:26
  Danae: I am thinking that my mindset I'm kind of laughing to myself of something that popped into my head.
• 12:33
  Danae: Of guilt is something like this.
• 12:36
  Danae: When my youngest daughter, I left her at dance a few times.
• 12:42
  Ellen: One of those things she'll remind me still
• 12:45
  Danae: that she's forgiven me.
• 12:47
  Danae: And the first time maybe it's because I was too busy or I had a lot
• 12:51
  Ellen: to do, but
• 12:53
  Danae: that conviction over.
• 12:56
  Danae: You know, um, the conviction over not wanting to leave my daughter someplace and feel upset and hurt and, and safe.
• 13:07
  Danae: I felt like now I need to look at my life.
• 13:10
  Danae: What do I need to do differently?
• 13:13
  Christie: That's really good
• 13:15
  Danae: to kind of see, maybe Cheryl you're talking to me about the unhealthy guilt and the healthy guilt that conviction.
• 13:21
  Danae: I'm in error I need to change.
• 13:23
  Danae: Yeah, I'm in error.
• 13:25
  Danae: And maybe it's just, I need to look at my list for the day and not try to do that one more, 10 minutes, stop, you know, at the store or pick up that one more thing or do one more thing I needed to change.
• 13:37
  Danae: And so that guilt was helping me right.
• 13:40
  Danae: You know, um, helping me to make a different decision, you know, and to say I'm not a terrible person, right.
• 13:47
  Danae: Because I left her.
• 13:50
  Danae: But if I keep leaving her and not changing my ways, that's going to have some consequences in our relationship, you know, in her fear over being left.
• 14:01
  Danae: I mean, just so many consequences advocate my job because I
• 14:04
  Cheryl: felt guilty.
• 14:05
  Cheryl: Wow.
• 14:06
  Cheryl: So.
• 14:07
  Cheryl: 'cause you just, you talked about the difference between condemnation and conviction that conviction builds this building up and improving relationships and change.
• 14:20
  Cheryl: Whereas the condemnation just destroys is
• 14:24
  Danae: terrible about
• 14:25
  Ellen: myself because guilt is a good motivator.
• 14:27
  Ellen: Um, because I'll say, oh, I feel guilty that I didn't do that.
• 14:30
  Ellen: Okay.
• 14:31
  Ellen: Well, here's an opportunity that I have to change that and to fix it and do it right the next time.
• 14:36
  Ellen: And that's, that's what guilt is there for is to make you kind of rise up and evaluate, or I might even have to be honest and say, I don't need to feel guilty about this.
• 14:46
  Ellen: This is false guilt.
• 14:48
  Ellen: I'm making a mountain out of a molehill or whatever you want to
• 14:51
  Cheryl: call it.
• 14:52
  Cheryl: Very good because.
• 14:55
  Cheryl: When it has to do with our identity.
• 14:58
  Cheryl: I think that there's so many things.
• 14:59
  Cheryl: We come back to like what a bad mom I am.
• 15:02
  Cheryl: And we had that destruction that it has to do with my identity rather than.
• 15:08
  Cheryl: Oh, this is about I miss my daughter.
• 15:10
  Cheryl: I forgot I was doing too many things.
• 15:13
  Cheryl: You could go to your identity.
• 15:15
  Cheryl: I did it a hundred million times.
• 15:17
  Cheryl: What a bad mom I am, what, I'm the snow good, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is that downward spiral of deep deconstructing destroying, rather than face it and say, I'm so sorry, and I will change.
• 15:32
  Cheryl: Right.
• 15:33
  Cheryl: I'm going to change.
• 15:34
  Cheryl: So it's fuel rather than.
• 15:36
  Cheryl: I guess fuel could look at that.
• 15:39
  Cheryl: fuel can build up.
• 15:40
  Cheryl: Like it doesn't make you go in a car or fuel can be a fire that burns something down.
• 15:44
  Cheryl: Oh, so which way are you being fueled?
• 15:47
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 15:49
  Ellen: and I think sometimes we also just need to learn to laugh, you know, because yeah.
• 15:55
  Ellen: Like, oh, I feel.
• 15:57
  Ellen: But idiot.
• 15:58
  Ellen: I forgot to pick you up.
• 15:59
  Ellen: Sorry.
• 16:00
  Ellen: You know, and just kind of beak, it happens and I'm sorry.
• 16:04
  Ellen: I put too many things on my schedule and I mean sometimes, and that teaches our children, that everything isn't a pass or fail.
• 16:11
  Ellen: Right.
• 16:11
  Ellen: Everything.
• 16:12
  Ellen: Isn't a heavy thing, you know, it wasn't like you left her in the middle of the freeway.
• 16:17
  Ellen: I remember
• 16:22
  Christie: clarify.
• 16:24
  Christie: I think I may have shared this before, but I remember one time I was really struggling.
• 16:30
  Christie: I always did struggled with screaming at my children and reacting in frustration or anger.
• 16:35
  Christie: And I had this moment where I was sitting running bath water for one of the kiddos.
• 16:41
  Christie: I think a toddler and the two older ones were fighting and yelling and running around the house in the new.
• 16:47
  Christie: Sleeping in her crib, which shared a wall with the bathtub that I was running.
• 16:51
  Christie: So I'm sitting there, you know, running the water and I scream at the fighting older kids, stop screaming.
• 16:59
  Christie: You're going to wait the baby.
• 17:02
  Christie: And then the baby leaves.
• 17:05
  Christie: And I just had this out of body moment where the conviction, like you were saying settled into me, that.
• 17:11
  Christie: I was the problem there, but then I instantly started crying and feeling condemned and horrible about myself.
• 17:19
  Christie: And my oldest came to me and said, mommy, it's okay.
• 17:23
  Christie: I'm so glad you're not perfect because that makes me feel like I don't have to be perfect.
• 17:27
  Christie: And so tobacco to what you were saying, Ellen, you know, that we're modeling for our kids.
• 17:32
  Christie: How will we respond to our shortcomings?
• 17:35
  Christie: Yeah.
• 17:36
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 17:36
  Cheryl: And I love it because I'm not the same person I used to be.
• 17:40
  Cheryl: And I have grown in this area and I'd like, what you said about laughing it off, but you want to be sincere and not make fun of it now, but to look at it and then say, okay, This is not me.
• 17:56
  Cheryl: This is what I've done, I've blown it.
• 17:59
  Cheryl: And so now how can I build my way out of this and to talk it through?
• 18:05
  Cheryl: And I will tell you one of the very best tools I have is a good friend or a good voice, or when bill was here having a voice speaking to me and listen, because if I was on the downward spiral, I'll go, no, you just don't understand.
• 18:20
  Cheryl: I'm terrible.
• 18:20
  Cheryl: Terrible, terrible.
• 18:22
  Cheryl: Taking the time to listen to someone speak into it.
• 18:26
  Danae: Okay.
• 18:26
  Danae: Yeah.
• 18:26
  Danae: Because a lot of times we'll have grace for someone else.
• 18:29
  Danae: Right.
• 18:30
  Danae: That's good.
• 18:31
  Danae: We will not for ourselves.
• 18:33
  Danae: We won't let ourselves off the hook,
• 18:35
  Cheryl: but grace is not a free pass to do anything you want.
• 18:38
  Christie: Oh, no.
• 18:39
  Christie: Yeah.
• 18:39
  Christie: Having that friend that will also say, Hey, you probably need to go back and apologize to that child and call you out.
• 18:47
  Cheryl: And.
• 18:49
  Cheryl: That's really good.
• 18:49
  Cheryl: We've been talking about good guilt, bad guilt, constructive guilt.
• 18:53
  Cheryl: I really like that.
• 18:55
  Cheryl: What are some more helpful tips?
• 18:57
  Cheryl: If you would say, what are some more things I'd love the idea of having someone in your life that you process with who'll speak truth to you.
• 19:05
  Cheryl: And one of the things.
• 19:07
  Cheryl: What Ellen's are saying.
• 19:08
  Cheryl: I think I needed, when I was young, I needed someone significantly older.
• 19:12
  Cheryl: Cause a peer was kind of stuck in the same boat with me and we just splashed water on each other.
• 19:18
  Cheryl: That's true.
• 19:18
  Cheryl: And so to get someone that will speak honestly and listened to.
• 19:24
  Cheryl: To look for that.
• 19:25
  Cheryl: What else?
• 19:25
  Cheryl: What are some other, I think
• 19:27
  Christie: I, I, my mind just goes back to my child's actions are not always a reflection of my parenting and remembering, you know, Cheryl, you're always saying, this is me.
• 19:39
  Christie: This is not me.
• 19:39
  Christie: This is my child's behavior and immaturity.
• 19:42
  Christie: Not necessarily.
• 19:43
  Christie: Yes, exactly.
• 19:45
  Christie: Yeah.
• 19:45
  Christie: Which is so important because, you know, we, we can that identity thing, it wraps us up and we think I'm failing as a mom because my child is imperfect.
• 19:55
  Christie: You know, your child is a human, right.
• 19:56
  Cheryl: I think that's it.
• 19:57
  Cheryl: My child is imperfect that we have.
• 20:01
  Cheryl: False vision of the, that's totally unrealistic that in whatever I can do enough and organized enough, I love enough.
• 20:09
  Cheryl: I can go enough, whatever it is and fix all the brokenness.
• 20:14
  Danae: So having so many children.
• 20:17
  Danae: So close together, really cured me or B cure this.
• 20:23
  Danae: I remember taking my first two daughters, let's say maybe four and two to church and oh my goodness.
• 20:30
  Danae: They were so cute.
• 20:31
  Danae: They had matching dresses and their hair was curled and
• 20:35
  Christie: the bows I'm.
• 20:36
  Christie: Sure.
• 20:37
  Danae: And everybody would just praise them.
• 20:40
  Danae: Lo and behold, I was a wonderful mother.
• 20:45
  Danae: My own eyes then comes third, you know, and then it comes forth and all of a sudden, I mean, maybe their hair is washed.
• 20:54
  Danae: Maybe I even remember.
• 20:59
  Danae: Someone in my life saying if I had a daughter, this was probably about one of my other daughters, you know, when they were babies, if I had a daughter, I would just always have a bow in their hair.
• 21:08
  Danae: And I remember base being able to chuckle and send me like, yeah.
• 21:13
  Danae: So let that go.
• 21:15
  Danae: Yeah.
• 21:15
  Danae: So other things I struggled to let go, but that is one that I just thought my identity is not.
• 21:22
  Danae: And how cute and how they all match with how they behave.
• 21:27
  Danae: That's a little harder, you know, when the child is screaming through target, you know, that's a little harder to not feel that mom guilt of, if I were a better mother, my child was.
• 21:37
  Danae: And throw themselves on the floor.
• 21:40
  Ellen: Right?
• 21:40
  Ellen: Well, you know, it's one of those hard things, because if we're going to take the compliment, somebody comes up and says, oh, your kids are so well-behaved and, um, you know, and then they're not, we have to be willing to have both sides of that coin.
• 21:54
  Ellen: We have to be willing to say, yeah, today my kids really were well behaved and all the things they knew to do today, they did it.
• 22:02
  Ellen: And tomorrow it, or an hour from now, it may be completely the opposite, but I have to be willing to take both.
• 22:09
  Christie: That's good.
• 22:10
  Cheryl: And not get your identity out.
• 22:11
  Cheryl: Correct.
• 22:12
  Cheryl: That, you know, that just takes, okay.
• 22:15
  Cheryl: It's going to take margin and again, that I had to have enough distance.
• 22:21
  Cheryl: Emotional energy to not get my identity out of what you're saying, the bows or whatever it is.
• 22:29
  Cheryl: So don't take the condemnation from moms,
• 22:31
  Ellen: especially the moms that may be home all day with their children.
• 22:36
  Ellen: And, um, cause I know that was, I struggled with that because I felt like, well, this is all I ever do.
• 22:42
  Ellen: Change diapers
• 22:43
  Danae: and president of this company and how's the company
• 22:49
  Ellen: And so trying to get into relationships maybe with that older mom or a friend.
• 22:56
  Ellen: Maybe doesn't have children or whatever, so that you can kind of still remember, oh, I'm a person too.
• 23:02
  Ellen: It's not, I'm not just being a mom 24 7.
• 23:06
  Ellen: That is my role that I have right now, but that's not who I
• 23:10
  Cheryl: am.
• 23:10
  Cheryl: And I think key to that, if you're married is that your marriage comes before being a parent and that you invest in your marriage because that is so easy to get completely swallowed.
• 23:23
  Cheryl: I'm very.
• 23:25
  Cheryl: You know, very swallowed up in parenting and then you have nothing left over.
• 23:29
  Cheryl: And so I
• 23:31
  Danae: love both of those ideas.
• 23:32
  Danae: That's definitely on my mind is, is, um, not only finding your identity and being a mom.
• 23:40
  Danae: So whatever avenue that is, whether it's working outside of the home, having hobbies, volunteering, go into the gym, to the gym, whatever your relationship with your husband or, or friends.
• 23:53
  Danae: You know, for you to go and, and have your identity be who you are as a person.
• 24:00
  Christie: Right?
• 24:00
  Christie: Because we are always there, mom, but I heard somebody say one time, these kids are just passing through and it's really true in 18 years or 20 years, or
• 24:11
  Cheryl: maybe 20 some time.
• 24:13
  Cheryl: You can be in a place and I've been there where the only space you can get is between your ears.
• 24:19
  Cheryl: I was there too, for sure.
• 24:21
  Cheryl: But you have to have the space
• 24:24
  Danae: physically.
• 24:24
  Danae: You go to the bathroom.
• 24:30
  Christie: Or even just little things like the music you enjoy or hobbies that you can fit into with your kid's schedules at nap, time and bedtime, just finding.
• 24:39
  Christie: Cause it is hard to find time away, physically thinking your own thoughts and reading and reading
• 24:45
  Danae: a book, listening to a book while you're following.
• 24:48
  Danae: Well, back in
• 24:49
  Ellen: the days before they had mobile phones, um, talking to my friends was a really important yeah.
• 24:54
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 24:55
  Ellen: So my husband bought me a 25 foot
• 24:59
  Danae: so
• 24:59
  Ellen: that I could go from room to room,
• 25:02
  Christie: stay connected to the outside world
• 25:04
  Danae: and
• 25:04
  Ellen: talk to friends and sometimes might be an hour conversation, but it was, I mean, that was just my link to sanity is just having a girlfriend to laugh with and
• 25:14
  Danae: talk about stupid stuff to kind of normalize that.
• 25:19
  Danae: Being a parent it's hard.
• 25:21
  Danae: So, you know, that helps.
• 25:23
  Cheryl: Oh, sorry.
• 25:23
  Cheryl: I think something absolutely.
• 25:25
  Cheryl: And the world as I'm out of devices and instantaneous, everything.
• 25:31
  Cheryl: And we've talked about it before, but I think that so much.
• 25:36
  Cheryl: The now we have basic Tik TOK.
• 25:38
  Cheryl: Perfect.
• 25:39
  Cheryl: But the Pinterest perfect.
• 25:41
  Cheryl: The Insta perfect or whatever that, that can bring so much condemnation and so much guilt that I can make to it.
• 25:50
  Cheryl: I can, you know, like if you looked on it, let's say if you had had your phone back in the day when you had those 3, 4, 5, and you're lucky they're out of their pajamas to go somewhere.
• 26:01
  Cheryl: And you look on here and they've done it all so perfectly that, and the
• 26:05
  Christie: influencer mom, that's sponsored by this shoe company and this company and this cleaning product company
• 26:12
  Cheryl: and this that, so I would encourage mom.
• 26:15
  Cheryl: Be aware of the negative influences on your identity or your guilt, are they speaking into it?
• 26:23
  Cheryl: Get away from it.
• 26:24
  Cheryl: And if you have a friend that's doing the same thing, listen to the negative voices and stay away
• 26:30
  Ellen: from them.
• 26:31
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 26:31
  Ellen: Youngest daughter has seven children.
• 26:33
  Ellen: And so she's always confronted with that on Instagram and things like that.
• 26:37
  Ellen: So she just posts and this is my life.
• 26:42
  Danae: That's fantastic.
• 26:43
  Danae: Yes, she's
• 26:44
  Ellen: she is how much time to post a lot, but she's very real.
• 26:47
  Ellen: And she's trying to counter that, that here's the real life.
• 26:51
  Christie: Tell her, thank you for being a voice for the real moms out there.
• 26:55
  Danae: Yes.
• 26:55
  Danae: I have an example of that.
• 26:57
  Danae: I still can't believe, but I remember.
• 27:00
  Danae: Um, having something at my house and a mom coming up to me and she said, you know, I am so thankful.
• 27:07
  Danae: I went back to the bathroom and I happened to look in your bedroom and it was messy.
• 27:14
  Danae: I am so glad.
• 27:16
  Danae: Your room was messy.
• 27:17
  Danae: That makes me feel so much better about myself.
• 27:20
  Danae: And that really meant a lot to me
• 27:21
  Christie: because you say you are welcome.
• 27:26
  Danae: That's where all the
• 27:27
  Ellen: stuff from at here, rent.
• 27:30
  Christie: Wow.
• 27:31
  Christie: It's funny that we put a front up for people, but really that's what men.
• 27:35
  Christie: Yes, I have
• 27:36
  Danae: kids.
• 27:37
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 27:37
  Cheryl: And this false thing that's presented over electronic, whatever your device, anything it's so hard.
• 27:45
  Cheryl: One of the things before we leave this subject, I want to encourage a mom.
• 27:51
  Cheryl: That's really struggling with this and it's not something she just needs an attitude adjustment, but maybe it's, she's pretty overwhelmed with the guilt mom.
• 28:03
  Cheryl: We've said it before.
• 28:04
  Cheryl: I would go talk to someone, maybe just your doctor or, uh, if you have a pastor or if you really think so find a counselor or a therapist.
• 28:16
  Cheryl: Really overwhelming.
• 28:17
  Cheryl: You don't take, well, I can knock this out.
• 28:19
  Cheryl: They told me, you know, just do this, go get a good voice that can speak truth and help you work your way through.
• 28:27
  Ellen: And so, you know, don't be so hard on yourself.
• 28:29
  Ellen: You have to look at how you were raised, the things you were taught, the environment you're in.
• 28:36
  Ellen: Move a little, learn a little bit, learn new ways of doing things.
• 28:39
  Ellen: Apologize a lot and try to love the best you can.
• 28:44
  Danae: I would think that people that are listening to this podcast are really wanting to love their children well.
• 28:52
  Danae: And so just remember that, you know, that you are here to listen and to learn and to be encouraged by that.
• 29:01
  Christie: Yeah.
• 29:01
  Christie: If you're worried that you're not doing a good job, you're probably doing a good job.
• 29:07
  Christie: That's right.
• 29:08
  Cheryl: Really good.
• 29:09
  Cheryl: Uh, some months, if you want to talk about it some more, let us hear from you.
• 29:15
  Cheryl: And I just hope.
• 29:17
  Cheryl: The S encourage.
• 29:18
  Cheryl: If I had been a young mom or a middle-aged mom, listening to all of this, I needed to hear what y'all said.
• 29:26
  Cheryl: This was really good.
• 29:28
  Cheryl: And let's just kill that old, false, bad mom, guilt facts out moms.
• 29:34
  Cheryl: Remember, hang in there, keep loving, keep persevering because it's worth it.