Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1239 - One Day You'll Miss This

Transcript

#1239 - One Day You'll Miss This · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: What are the things that drove you crazy then as
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: a parent, But it breaks your heart a bit now
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: that that moment has gone. The kids grow up so fast. Hello.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast, Real parenting solutions every
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: and Kylie Coulson Today. A little bit of nostalgia, a
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: little bit of is reverie the right word? Some reflection,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to look back on the things that make
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: parenting so hard and yet make it so meaningful and purposeful. Kylie,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I jumped onto Facebook and asked this question recently. You
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: know what everyone said? Pretty much every single answer we had.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: This pretty much. Toddley is, Yeah, that's right.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I miss I missed when I was exhausted. I missed
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: when my children were biting, kicking, scratching, when they wouldn't
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: eat the food and threw stuff all over the floor.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I miss those days. I miss the stinking I'm reading
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: going Nah.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: No, there were some great ones. There was reading the
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: same book over and over again. Yeah, I missed that
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: bedtime routine where you're going through the motions and trying
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: so desperately to have everything calm and your kids are
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: bouncing on the bed and just having a ball. And
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: you know the sass and the sticky fingers, the dolllet training,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: oh my gosh, toilet training. You know, lying with your
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: children when you're trying to pat them to sleep and
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: you've got to try and hide from them, or trying
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: to work out where the creaky floorboard is that you
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: don't stomp on it as you walk out the door. Yeah.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, I get some of the nostalgia with some
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: of those, but for most of them, I'm just glad
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: that we're not dealing with it anymore now that we've
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: got a granddaughter. I love not having to deal with
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: most of this stuff. I just love the cuddles and
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: the fun stuff. But I already loved that, and I'm
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: literally asking the question, what did drive you crazy? But
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: now you miss it? And I love some of the
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: answers that you gave. Is there anything for you?
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: There is.
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  Speaker 2: There's a couple. The first one is that curious toddler
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: who wants to know why as as a young parent
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: who felt so time poor and so frazzled most of
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: the time. Another why just often would send me over
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: the edge and yet I think back to those years
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: and what was so beautiful about that was our kid's
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: desperate desire for connection and curiosity. They want to understand
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: the world around them, firstly, but they trust that you've
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: got the answers. And now we've got teenagers who number.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: One, they know everything. They're not curious about there at all.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: And we definitely don't have all the answers. So I
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: do I really miss those times and how no one
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: how much easier their questions were that secondly, their desire
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: to connect.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I've got one for you. This is going to be
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: weird because I complained about it incessantly, and I think
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: if I had to start doing it again, which we
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: won't because our kids are older, but if I had
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: to start doing it again, I would complain again. And
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: yet it's still one of my favorite memories, and those
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: when our children wouldn't go to sleep, and I would
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: have to go into the bedroom and I would lay
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: on the floor and put my arm up and through
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: the bars of the cot and I would pat them
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  Speaker 1: off to sleep, and usually I would fall asleep on
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: the floor beside them and wake up at I don't know,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: eleven thirty or one am, and you wouldn't come and
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: get me because you were so exhausted that you would
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: fall asleep waiting for me to finish patting them off
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: and come to bed. So I'd just wake up with
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: a crick in my neck and having slept on the carpet,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: having slept on the floor for an hour or two
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: or three or four. For some reason, as much as
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: I hated that, I kind of it breaks my heart
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: that I don't get to lay on the floor and
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: pat my kids off to sleep anymore. But is that weird?
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: It feels weird saying it, and yet it's how I feel.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't really miss that at all. I'm very
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: grateful to be sleeping in my own bed again, But
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I did used to get really really frustrated with the
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: kids coming into our bed at three am or whatever time.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: And I don't miss that.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: They'd kick you in the back, and they'd sleep sideways
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: and you'd end up with a bum in your face,
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  Speaker 2: like all the things. And again, I guess for me,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: it's just the acknowledgment that they knew and felt so
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: safe with us, and again just knew that when they
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: needed reassurance, there was a safe place to go. I
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: love that they knew that, but at the time I
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: absolutely hated it.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I got one more for you, one more, and I
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: think you're going to think this is a weird one.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: But now that our children are older, so our youngest
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: is eleven, our oldest in him mid twenties, we often
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: now I shouldn't say often, but with a lot more
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: regularity than ever before. We have the house to ourselves
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: some evenings, maybe one maybe two nights a week. The
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: kids are all out and one child's running another child
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: who doesn't have a license around the place, and we
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: can delegate that responsibility and they're happy to be out
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: and driving, listen to music in the car and driving
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: their siblings around, and so we'll be at home. We
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: get to have dinner alone once or twice a week,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: maybe what's a week no kids. I know that when
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: we go out for dinner or when we get to
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: have a date night and we look at each other
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: and go, oh the piece and quiet, how good is it?
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: But it's kind of different when you have an event
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: where you go out and have dinner versus you're sitting
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: at home and it's just the two of you without
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the kids. There's no noise, there's no conversation, there's no
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: discussion about it.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Sounds like heaven to me, I might have a few
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: more years before I'm going to be in the same
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: position you're Maybe that's because for me, I still feel
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: like I'm very much actively parenting.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess so. And we are making it hard
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: for ourselves because we had six kids and there's only
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: with a fifteen year age gap, our youngest being eleven.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: We've got an almost two year old granddaughter running around
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the place as well, so the house is starting to
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: get that toddlery feel again. We've had to lift everything
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: off the bottom shelves and there's toddled toys around. But
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I know it's just the noise.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: The noise.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: We don't get it, and.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: You clearly are away way too much because there is
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: noise in our house.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I miss it, like I.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Think the nighbors sometimes seeing someone's being murdered and that's
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: when they're singing. Yeah, that's right.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of me. Is there anything else that's
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: on you? This might be the world's shortest podcast we've
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: ever done. Is there anything else from you?
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: The last one for me is play Dates in the Park,
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: I used to really really struggle with going along to
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: the park and letting the kids play and just kind
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: of being present, because I would literally be doing a
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: mental take of what I still had to do when
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: I got home. And often those playdates would last for hours.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Because we're all stay at home mums, we were looking
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: for something to keep our kids occupied so they weren't
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: destroying the house or we weren't having to deal with
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: the ongoing challenge on our own. And while there were
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: moments where I really appreciated it, for the most part,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: I actually resented it because there were so many other
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: things I would have liked to have been doing. But now,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: as a woman in my mid forties, I recognize the
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: absolute privilege and blessing it is to have women in
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: your village. I think that with the changes that have
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: occurred in society in general, most families have two incomes
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: mums working as well as dad, it's getting harder and
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: harder for women to come together and spend time together
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: building that village, building that community, and I miss it.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: And it's also the downtime righte like so much focus
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: on efficiency and getting stuff done. Imagine being able to
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: just go and sit in the park and enjoy it
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: and watch the kids and not have that feeling of pressure.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And when I think about that specifically, one
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: of your followers actually said something so profound in relation
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: to that post. She said, I wish I loved it
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: more when I was in it, but I just didn't
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: have the perspective. And I remember so many times, older,
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: more mature parents would see us struggling up to our
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: elbows in mess and kids and sass and the whole thing,
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: and they would look at us with fondness and say,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: one day you'll miss it. You'll miss it, but your
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: wish that you'd loved it, And we would both look
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: at each other and go, they have no idea what
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  Speaker 2: they're talking about. But the reality is there is a
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: part of me that deeply, deeply wishes that I recognized
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: it and appreciated it for what it was in the moment.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Well, normally, I've got to take home message. The key takeaway,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I think you've just nailed it. Soak up the moments,
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  Speaker 1: even the hard ones, be present. One day you look
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: back and you'll miss even the stuff that you can't
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: believe that you that you would miss, the happy families
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: podcast is produced by Justin Rouland from Bridge Media.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: If you'd like more
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Information and more resources to make your family happier, we'd
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: love for you to visit us at happy Families dot
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: com dot au and we'll link to that Facebook post
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: in the shows