Berner Phone - Lenore Berner: Being My Mom & Reparenting

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

The woman, the myth, the legend, my mother, is in hell today! We talk about understanding our anxiety, reparenting the voice in our heads, how parenting has changed, Dr. Becky's best advice, and becoming a better person from understanding how you were raised. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Burning Hell Oh my gosh, it is a very special, very special episode in hell today, because I am with the woman who pushed me out of her home, the one and only, former principal, mother of me my brother and four cats and current jazz musician slash hgTV enthusiast slash nana still got its daughter that we're speaking to lenore burner hello don't i'm scared now i am you listen to burning in hell every week right i have been a fan from the very beginning yes i know people always ask He's like, what are your parents think? And I'm like, honestly, my mom is giving me edits. She's giving me feedback.

She's telling me which episodes she loved the best. Who to book? Exactly. She's my momager. But it's interesting. We're doing a Mother's Day episode. And I was thinking about the people who listen, my little devils. Some of you might already be moms.

Some of you might want to be moms. Some of you might have never even thought about it. So to talk to you just about like being a mom, I feel like is a little corny. I wanted to start off with the concept of in mental. health, re-parenting. Oh, I love that, yeah. Because you're my parent, and my mom is not just my parent. Anyone who knows me knows that we're like that annoying mom and daughter, best friend.

We call each other five times a day. My role model, I've always looked up to you. You've been a lot of what makes me who I am. Oh. I mean, there's really no words to give you what you deserve. however one thing that's always important to know is how to reparent yourself and I think me and you together later in life both realize that we have very high functioning anxiety yes and before we talk about our very high functioning anxiety that I never that I never knew not that I never knew we had

until you helped me understand what that was I just want to say like I always laugh when you say like we're like best friends you know like you know in my i i sometimes think people think badly of you know you think about i'm the cool mom for mean girls you know i wasn't like that i was not the cool mom you need a condom no no no no no i was not that mom no i'd like to think that i was very much a mom mom mom until like you're we're an adult but i was like a weird people pleasing child where like i never rebelled against you i remember you being like you can rebel like you like wanted me to get a boyfriend you like wanted me to like but you were already like 16 yeah so i think with us i realized i was calling you all the time sometimes because

you always knew what to say and i felt like okay if my mom is wiser than me why not ask her everything going on in my life and i think as a person who's type a principal you were like i'm to be the best mom I can be. Yeah and you know I've also learned in these like past five years I would say through actually through the coaching experience that I went through toward the end of my career as a principal I was in this really cool program of performance coaching and and not so much working with adults and helping principals but helping kids even and then I realized you know giving advice is sometimes the worst thing you can do. And I would practice on you sometimes. You'd call me and ask me for advice and this and that, you know, going back five years, let's say. And I remember thinking the right thing

to do right now is not to give her this advice that she so badly thinks she needs, but to ask her a question that will make her really think about what she wants so she can learn to trust herself um because a lot about when you give advice or mentor someone you basically are just telling them what to do it's like you're throwing them a life raft yep but you're not teaching them the skills they need to actually make decisions for themselves and to um you know actually build trust and confidence in themselves yeah and i think with this episode through being a mother and through understanding what makes a good parent, you actually learn so much about yourself. And for people who don't know what reparenting means, it means when you get older,

you have patterns that you've learned from your parents, from your family. The voices in your head are sometimes things that you heard growing up. Absolutely. So reparenting is you taking control of your life and saying, I don't have to listen to those old voices or the old traditions or the way. things were if it was toxic or abusive or even just not authentic to you, you can actually change the voice and narratives in your head and the story that you're telling yourself and reparent yourself the way you wish you were parented. I would go even farther to say that

while you're learning this about yourself or while you're in therapy and you're healing yourself from various traumas in your life, that what you're actually doing is you're learning to like have compassion for yourself and love yourself more so that when you are a parent, you're going to have that same inner voice, that same compassion toward your child. And like a lot of old-fashioned parenting, I should say, is didn't like come at it with that approach. Do you think parenting gets better with the generation? Well, I mean, they always say like, you know, you're trying to break cycles of, you know, what, what former generations did? But I feel like your generation, ooh, this is interesting because your mom's generation

was very like, let the kids play outside, don't get involved type of thing. Yeah. And then for the millennials, we were parented with the, air quote, helicopter parents that were over-controlling. Right. And you talk about, I think it's important for the kid to understand with their gut kind of you're basically like a you're like a bird that wants to know that when you kick the bird the little baby birds out of the this is a metaphor stay with me out of the nest that it's going to be

okay yeah so it's like you either just let them figure it out for themselves or you hold their hand the whole time to make sure what is your opinion on that because also you as a principal have seen so many parents i have seen all kinds of parents yes and you know parenting changes with changes in culture we're in a culture war right now so i mean culture is always changing so yeah i mean i grew up in the 70s and i'm sure my parents were influenced by even though they were probably more on the conservative side they were probably very influenced by peace signs and smiley faces and yeah the world was a different place you went outside you played yeah i mean i had i had a bike i would go outside for the entire day

and I wouldn't come home until the sun was setting. I'd hear my father whistle for me. Oh my God. And that's how I knew it was time to come home for dinner. Like we were just, yes, I guess we were free range. But there were other things about that generation's parenting that was also a lot more strict in other ways. Yeah. But it is, it's funny that you mentioned trends because also think about the 80s like nutrition-wise.

Like the trends that they were telling you like to keep margarine. Oh, yeah. That was a. Oh, yeah. Well, a lot of that, well, that's all just, like, commercializing food. I mean, in the 50s, they were telling people to eat TV dinners because that was a fad, but, like, it wasn't healthy. And they were telling moms not to breastfeed. Do you know, I also heard that in the 80s, someone said that 50,000 children get abducted a year and, like, everyone freaked out.

Oh, yeah, there was always kids on the milk container. Yeah, and then there was, like, do you know where your children are? And then it came out that that scientist was wrong, and it was only 500. I know, I heard that. So he was off by literally 50,000. I think some comic did a joke about that. So it is just funny. But I noticed like a lot of changes in parenting. I was a principal for 14 years. And over that period of time from 2006 to 2020 when I retired, I cannot tell you how different my job became from the start to the finish. and my relationship with students and their parents were was completely different by the time I how so I felt like when I began um kids loved school kids school was where the fun was it was like a combination of just the socializing obviously I was a middle school principal for people don't know and so like six graders to eighth graders like they are very social creatures and playful and And we had a great arts program, so kids were, like, so into just coming to school, and we just had a fun program.

And then, I mean, I hate to blame everything on iPhones, but somewhere around 2012, when I think they were pretty much in the hands of just about everybody, kids changed. And, but that wasn't the only thing that was changing. but the way kids bullied or the way kids related was definitely now complicated with phones and and parenting was somehow different too and um there was a lot of like competition also like I mean this could be unique to New York City but kids have to apply to go to high school and there's you know millions of kids and there's but there was always that competition there was was but there used to be like if a kid wanted to go to the best school or one of the top

five schools or whatever and they didn't get in you know they'd shed a tear but life went on now it was getting like if if they didn't get in it was like their life was over and they were going to um not get in you know that meant their whole life was ruined forget college forget like these are things that make me nervous to have a kid because you're like oh my god they have to get into everything or their life is horrible but i but to this day i don't believe any of that is true it's not like i never did and i would try to tell parents create like a lot of comparison and like they see too much stuff going on where before they didn't even know who's going where and i'm very sad to say like that mental health just got worse and worse and worse in um parents students and

And my last year at school for the first time, you know, in all my years, my 30 years in education, a child committed suicide. Oh, my God. But think about it. Happiness is living in the moment. Everything that phones are are not living in the moment. Right. So like whatever you're doing on the phone, whether it's comparing yourself to other people or judging yourself or researching things and getting misinformation. about things like this is all not living in the moment or making a mistake and I'm fully addicted

to my phone so yeah so am I but so am I but like um yeah I just I felt like and if a kid made like a mistake or said something stupid at a party or something they came into school on Monday and like our jobs as administrators were just becoming helping kids deal with this tremendous like tragedy that happened over the weekend online and trying to get everyone to like take down their posts or to take down the mean comments or to take down the picture or the embarrassing picture or you know and it just got out of hand.

This is fascinating. But you know honestly when I think about parenting it's funny we're talking about teens and preteens but I when someone will ask me about parenting I always think like about babies you know but it's it's a job that actually only starts there and kind of never ends. It's like getting a puppy.

you're like oh my this puppy so cute and then you realize like oh I have a dog for 15 years 15 years and I think there's a lot of women who listen to this pod who might be a similar position to me where like you're the first female in our family to in your lineage to go to college to go away to college to go away I had one other cousin Kara's mom yes yes shout out to Amelia, who she was from Queens and she went to St. John's. So she, you know, I always say she was the first, my oldest cousin to go to college in like my mother's side of the family. And, but I was the first one to go away to college. And you did go to an Ivy, which is very impressive to Ivy. Sorry, then you got your, you're smart. You're the smart one of the family. Connell and Columbia.

And, but it's funny because women before you, they knew there wasn't confusion. You're going to marry and you're going to have kids. That's all women had for generations. Tell me if I'm wrong. True. And it's funny. As a, as a, as a, as a, as a parent, like, she was, she actually never knew what to even say to me half the time because, like, my life was so different.

It was so different. Also, I just want to explain, this is Nana still got it. daughter that we're speaking to and now I still got it you should all listen to her on the pod via del Leo but she always told me that she told her dad that she wanted to go to art school and her dad sobbed and then she got married at 18 and had a beautiful lovely family and thank god she did because now I'm here with this incredible podcast but I it's crazy that yeah you didn't have a mom to even show you what it could be like to juggle a successful career and a family. Shout out to Nana.

She would have been a fantastic. She's now a full-on influencer. Right. I'm saying. She obviously is brilliant and smart and artistic and creative and loves to write and like it's so. Oh, please. Her fashion, her beauty is beyond. But like it is sad that for her generation she would say to her dad, I want to go to college and be an artist and he cried. He cried. He cried. Just get married.

Meanwhile, I mean, the poor guy, he was a. immigrant from Sicily and he was so he was a little out of his comfort but it's funny because now I've gotten so far to the other side where I'm about to get married next week shout out to des where I'm literally thinking about the tradition of getting married and it's kind of giving me the ick like I'm like is getting married chugie like I feel like it's like as such a feminist I'm like a little grossed out but I have it's because there's so many horrible things that marriage used to represent in the past of like you know giving your what is it your dowry and your dad basically giving you to another man to then like like yes i'd like to think it evolved

so yeah i like to think it evolved but there's still something about it then i'm like there's something icky happening however it's then i get the question oh my gosh i'm about to get married and then that means you a lot of people start a family eventually after that and there's no right order to do that but that is like tradition well yeah and i think your generation is also is faced with like a new way of doing that so so there i was like going away to college for four years and obviously like my parents were slightly horrified um but i was like such a good student and i got into cornell and that was like a big deal and i met up with a whole bunch of girls just like me um from new york and all over and we are still some of them were trying to get their

MRS degrees which is well people would joke because some of the majors at the school were well you know you know Cornell did have like some traditional colleges within it that I think historically you know might have been where girls got their MRS which is finding a husband yeah they became mrs where was in your head your career versus becoming a wife and mother um yeah it was you know was definitely a juggling kind of thing i mean i was very focused on this very specific career that i had in mind i was a science major and nutrition back in the 80s was like a brand new science and cornell had this amazing program and it was like the only one in the country and i thought i was like gonna come out of there and be like this doctor you know you solve ids yeah yeah solve all the

world's problems, obesity, heart disease, everything. Looking back, well, I got far away from that career because I did see how none of it was making sense after a while, but that's a whole another. But it also goes back to mental health where you realized. Well, I realized it was not, my job as a nutritionist wasn't helping anyone. Most of the people who needed, who thought they needed my help really needed a psychologist to really help them work too. Because they knew what was healthy and what wasn't yeah i mean intellectually most people know what to eat and what you know maybe isn't something they should eat all that whatever i don't want to talk about nutrition but it is interesting that you were i could write a buck you were you've always been kind of ahead of

the curve in your thinking right so i mean i graduated and i i i had to do this like fifth year internship i mean the amount of school i went through and then i only did it for seven years before i was like this is bullshit this is the stupidest thing i hated hospital AIDS was happening. It was terrifying to go to work every day in New York City hospitals. And I just realized I wanted a happy place. I went back to school to become a teacher. Of course, a science teacher.

And schools were fun. And they were definitely a much happier place. So career was and meeting dad, where did you decide I want to start a family and were you ever afraid it was going to hurt your career so it's very interesting

it's so long ago it's hard to remember those little thoughts I was having but we did go into college with this like cultural message you can have it all yes that was like a thing

that was like a campaign And then people were like, can you have it up? I know. Like they would call you superwoman or super mom. I don't know whether. Yeah. But like I just remember when I gave birth to you, I, you know, had all this energy of, you know, this educated person that's going to like put all their effort into all their smarts into like being this parent and raising this kid. But honestly, I was so bored after the first like two.

months I was going crazy. I was home alone with an infant living in that apartment at Riverdale and I was just like I what what was happening I'm supposed to be happy this is supposed to be my life's calling and I'm about to put my head through a wall was it did you suffer from any postpartum depression no no I don't think so I had a lot of nervous anxiety because I was terrified you don't come with instructions no and i was like alone home every day did you ever think that you might not want to have children no no that never crossed i don't think that ever crossed my mind i mean i was married and i was you know also in my 20s i think i was like kind of like bopping around with different career ideas because i wasn't loving the hospital and so i did like

a few different types of nutrition related jobs so it was like a maybe a good time to be like let's try mom yeah like I think a lot of women in their 20s so I was 24 when I got married and which is a child bride nowadays in New York but if you think about you and a lot of friends you know when you were in your 20s like you did every year yeah like every year you're like let's try this career let's try that career different guy different job this one I mean like I honestly like I felt worse about that than anything else like I'm a worker and I wanted to work and like have this career and this career was like really not fulfilling me so when daddy like three years into our marriage was like let's have a baby oh so he was the one I think he was definitely it was definitely

not me because I was just like trying to find myself and you're right I think there was a part of me that was like oh this will be a fun project did you fear at all that you were going to like lose yourself after having a child yeah I think that probably crossed my mind. And then I think that I, like I said, after I had you, like two months into the job, I was like, oh, there's this part-time teaching job at a college where I can teach dietetic technicians or something. And maybe I'll do that two days a week. And I remember getting a nanny and like trying that out and I really liked that. And then we moved to Brooklyn when you were only nine months old.

From the wrongs. And I had one last hospital job there in Park Slope. And then I got pregnant for Daniel. And you were having like a lot of ear infections. I was juggling a lot. And I just remember quitting that job and just finished. Oh, I think I was already already in school for my master's too. I feel like you never know what it's like to be a mom until you're a mom.

And now with technology, I'll see a lot of stuff where people be like they have two things they do the this changed my life this child gave me a purpose this is the greatest thing that I've ever done that I've ever happened to me and then there's the like realistic mom TikTok where they're like I'm broken I'm so tired I can't do this anymore I feel horrible and you're just like uh which one is it because it's all it's all those things and it's normal to feel all of those feelings because you can't like return it no but I do remember at one point like in the middle of the night, handing you over to daddy saying, I'm not doing this anymore, like 3 o'clock in the morning.

And he's like, but I don't have boobs. And I was like, figure it out. How afraid were you of fucking your children up? You know, it's funny. Maybe because I had been a dietitian, I was very, like, fascinated by this constant, of like oh now they just drink milk when do we introduce like foods like I was like really into a science of like looking at a human and how they evolve from this to that and so I wanted very much

to make sure that my kids had a really healthy relationship with food because you know I come from a generation of the first eating disorder children and you know like knowing girls in college who were throwing up and doing weird things and I remember thinking like I want my kids to not have any of those problems and there's a great um I think she's a psychologist or um slash nutritionist um from a long time ago but her books still hold up her name was Ellen Satter greatest books um two or three books that she wrote on you spell Satter S-A-T-E-R where she about introducing food and it's like I think one of the names of her books is like how to get your child to eat but not too much and um smartest books written on the topic

if anyone is struggling with that nowadays people could probably argue that that's how you start eating disorders by being like don't eat too much no no she doesn't she doesn't say that but it's the process behind like you want your child to eat healthy you don't want them to oh read you don't want them to. But you also just want your kids to like know how to eat. Exactly. And that's that was sort of like I you I grew up with the joke that you what was the method that well so one of the methods and I don't even remember if this was an ellen satyr method or not um but it just made sense to me like this whole like old fashioned thing of you like spooning food into a child's mouth doing an airplane. Yeah like it's very like forceful um like the whole cajoling them to

eat and I'm thinking to myself you know you know from a cat like they'll eat when they're hungry right so this idea was just like we had this really cool like table that like a little baby table that you sat at and I would just put like food that you could manage yourself with your hands that weren't very dexterous at the time yet but like you could actually when you're old enough to start to feed yourself so of course when you're an infant and you're introducing foods like you might put a spoon in a baby's mouth but then as soon as soon as they can and so i'd put down like a little bit Cheerios like some fruits um whatever you can handle and you would just go to town but they joke and then you put oh no and then you got so frustrated sometimes because you like

wanted to eat faster but you couldn't you just put your mouth to the table and just started like licking things and i would have Cheerios all over stuck to my face all over your face i think there's some good photos of that yes um but yeah it is interesting like it's like with great power comes great responsibility it's like this living thing exists because of you and you can kind of mold it and i think there's that in between of like do i want to make this kid an incredible athlete and i'm gonna at two years old start training it whatever but then you realize like i think the kid's gonna be whatever the kid wants to be at the end of the day children are definitely born with a certain temperament.

Yeah. Like, we always talk about that. Like, when, when you were born, I could tell what your personality was going to be, and it's still the same. And the same with your brother. Yeah. But, um, yeah. Because especially with the like competitive millennial style type thing, it's like,

I feel like some parents are very, like, I never thought like that. I need, like, my kid needs to be amazing and I want my kid to have. this and that and do this no i never thought that but we did but we could tell from a very early age that you were incredibly athletic and you know that made daddy very excited um like you you were walking at nine months you were like running you were like crazy did i just call you crazy yeah but that's hilarious honestly and i was like little right you were tiny like you were like a foot and a half tall and um running around running around the house like and it was frightening um no but but yeah you were very very athletic from the start

so i'm sure like daddy was throwing balls at you and stuff yes did you feel like having kids you ever felt like it took away from like your relationship or like feeling who you are this is just me like the fear of like if i'm about that of kids like holy crap my whole life's gonna change and it's just like doting over your children all the time which by the way like i love children yeah so like I actually like that idea, but the concept of like, okay, 18 years dedicated to these children. It's a lot of fun. And I think that's like an important message. Like try to try to have a better, it's, I'm talking to myself now, but like I wish I could

go back and have a better sense of humor about the whole thing. I think kids are hilarious. If you, and I've always noticed that about you actually, which I remember even when you were like a little kid interacting with kids, like the way you had so much fun with them and you saw it as a fun thing and I'm not I'm not saying like you can't be the parent that's always like funny like as if that's not like a good parent like if you have a good sense of humor about what's happening like you can't fight with a two year old you have to laugh yes maybe not at them but that wouldn't be good but like you it's great if you you have like that inner

love and that I do have that inner child you do I love that perspective because that's how I feel. I want to also go to you've had a recent kind of interest in this woman, Dr. Becky, on Instagram, who talks about parenting. And at first I thought you were sending it to me because you're like, oh, you might be a parent one day, which is true. But I feel like you're learning about yourself through this woman's kind of modern view of being a parent.

I'm obsessed with Dr. Becky. Oh, where was Dr. Becky when I needed her? Yeah. Can you give me some of the tea? first of all go listen to dr becky's podcast because um it's i mean definitely keep listening to burning help yeah yeah yeah but i don't want to just regurgitate what she says because she has an amazing podcast um called good inside and like that's really just her whole premise and it is different from like my parents generation i think my generation of parenting like we were taught like

put kids in time out and like the whole freaking school system is so like based on discipline, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, like, that's a whole, I mean, that's a whole other conversation of, like, how my thinking started to evolve as a principle as well when it came to discipline, and a lot of the teachers sometimes weren't on board, um, sometimes the parents weren't on board, but like, Dr. Becky talks about how, like, if you have this true belief that kids are really, really, really good inside, um, that your response to whatever it is they're doing will be different. And what Dr. Becky and her community that she's created,

I think has really come to terms with, especially during the pandemic, is that we're realizing, like, the moms have to first take care of themselves. And, like, so the podcast is a lot about, yeah, it's a lot about, like, you want advice about how to deal with this X, Y, and Z situation. But it's also about, like,

them coming together as mothers and being like, you know, we have to change the voices in our own head about how we think about ourselves and reparent ourselves before we can really do the right thing with our own kids. That's amazing because what I was about to say is if you are thinking that your kid is like you're afraid it's going to be bad. Yeah. Then that stems from you. This is your child from your genetics. That means do you think that you could be bad? Like, don't you understand that you know who you are and your, like, instincts and your intuition?

I started following her because the thing she was saying was, like, the stuff that, like, you're learning in therapy or that I'm learning as an adult now about what all humans really want and need. We want to be validated. We want people to empathize with us and connect with us. And those three things are really like almost how you approach every parenting situation. So I have a question. I think this is the stereotypical situation. You're at the grocery store. Your kid wants candy because they're human.

And they start saying, mom, mom, I want the candy. And everyone's looking at you and you feel like the situation could escalate. What would Dr. Becky say? Dr. Becky, you know, first of all, she always points out those situations. And she's like, I've been there. I was there today. This happened to me. Like, you know, it's all, those are all very normal things.

That's what kids do. Yeah. Once as a mother, once you come to terms with every kid is going to do that, every kid's going to do the other thing. And stop with the shaming, like, oh, like people staring at you in the grocery store because your kids having a meltdown. Like, everyone stop. Yeah.

Like, that's what kids do. Like, everyone calm down, first of all. If you look at, I was watching this Jane Goodall documentary where she, random, I know, but she's observing. the parent the parent chimpanzees and the children chimpanzees and these children chimpanzees are so freaking annoying but that's just what these little kids are these little chimpanzees are and she see the way the mom was so patient with her child helped her in her own parenting by watching just like how human it's like I mean how parents and kids are in general I don't know what dr. Becky would say

about that exactly so I'm not going to speak for her but I know she sells a whole like uh handbook on what to do when but i know what i know that she would say like let the kid cry let the kid let the kid feel his feelings about the fact that he wants a candy but he's not going to get a candy let him feel it let him feel the pain of that discovery and then go home and if he's and if little johnny's still having a tantrum or little becky still having a tantrum sit them down and just be like I know like I would really want a candy too or I I can see from all you're crying you really wanted that candy didn't you and you know just at that moment the kid all of a sudden feels like she understands me like even as an adult as an adult don't you love being understood

by someone like oh my god she sees me she sees my problem you're validating feelings you're down the feeling and then you just say um you know you you might say see i'm a pleopple pleaser i'd be like we can get candy later like i'd immediately like throw that which i shouldn't but this reminds me of that thing you said that was very powerful to me when you said when a kid falls instead of looking at the kid and saying you're fine you're fine it's okay you're fine or not even like that but but to just even even more subtle than that you just quickly pick them up and pretend it didn't happen oh little johnny look at the birdies look at the birdies nothing happened nothing just happened right now that kid is confused like ouch i just fell and my knee is bleeding and you're

telling me nothing happened and let's look at the birdies so the advice would be when your kid falls instead of doing all those things you say that must have hurt that looked like it hurt Ouch Falling hurts Yeah Can I wash that for you Can I wash that for you? Yeah and and that reminds you of like

How you should parent yourself Reparent yourself When something bad happens you don't go It's fine, it's fine You shouldn't be upset Move on, you're fine You're being emotional You say damn

That hurts And it's okay to feel upset Yeah But then that's a version of reparenting That's a really really good example 100% And I also love how doctor Becky talks kind of like you can't pour from an empty glass and you mentioned that today in the

New York Times is a great article called the motherhood advice you actually need. Oh, I loved it. I read every one of them. And they actually like reached out to Times readers and they got 3,000 responses. It's written by Melanie S McAfee and Danny Bloom. And they have some really interesting piece of advice that you don't normally hear. Oh, is that. so fun one is just stay hydrated which i love one of them is like be overwhelmed um maximize kid free time pick your battles consider the epidural release the guilt let them play start fresh daily chat early and often don't panic my favorite one of my favorite ones was ditch the blame and it's it's because it just talked about exactly what we just talked about about like the falling down or the um

um the tantrum like once you validate their feelings like oh you must be so sad or frustrated whatever um you'll see that the child like starts to become like immediately more cooperative and then the author writes like as soon as i started doing that with my husband my friends and myself we all need love and acceptance more than we need blame I thought that was a great it's funny because I just clicked on don't get smug I'm like what does that mean it says whether it's good or bad it's temporary that applies for your children's behavior school situation friendship issues don't get too smug when parenting is easy although you should enjoy it

and don't get to despond it when it's hard it all passes this is literally advice for how you should deal with your own life which is never getting too high or too low kind of the art of stoicism Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, it's funny, they said consider the epidural, because this is bringing up some beef between me and you, because I joke, my mom went through a full natural pregnancy for both her births, and I feel like if I don't go natural, then I'm like being a weak bitch. But do you see what it says in this article?

It says, there's no trophy at the end. I thought of you. Yeah, these powerful words were from the labor and delivery nurse at the hospital when I checked in, considered the epidural. Nurse consent, I was trying to prove something to myself, and she said, honey, no, one walks out of here with a trophy just remember that only thing you want to walk out there is a healthy baby exactly um but yes some of these are very powerful the last one i liked was chat early and often um honestly the nicest compliment i ever got was one of my guidance counselors um because he noticed that

like when you and daniel were teenagers that you were like always asking me questions and oh and i would tell them like all these chats we have and he was like how do i get my kids to talk to me and this thing says exactly what I said to him was you got to start young yeah really young you have to like make them really comfortable and ask them you know have them talk to you like about real important things in life not like stupid little things and like talking about issues at school or something you learn the family dynamic starts early you can't at 16 suddenly be like tell me about what's going on your life son and expect him to open up to you dania was the funniest teenager I mean I never I always say I said this to my to my guidance council which probably prompted the conversation but he when he he was like 16 going on 17 and he came home from hanging out with his boys and he's like mom I just tried pot and I was just I didn't know like there was one of those parenting moments where you're not sure read a book on this you're not sure what to say or do so I didn't I didn't say anything and he kept talking and he was like but I really didn't like it and I'm never going to do it again which we know wasn't true which is not true but um I just remember

that moment and I laugh hysterically every time I think of it just because your brother is hilarious to begin with but that was just like one of those funny teenage moments that I was so proud that he told me well I have another weed moment where Daniel was like let's I don't smoke weed I can't whenever I smoke I cry but Daniel tried it and he was like I'd love to smoke weed in the backyard but like mom and dad would like smell it and I was like let's just ask them and he's like are you crazy and I'm like I'd rather be honest with that I'm like let's just ask them and I asked you and you were like absolutely not and Daniel was like you fucking ruined it and you were like Well, you really think that I should know that this is happening in my backyard.

Like, once again, I was not the cool mom. I was a mom. Well, did you care if your kids liked you? No, I mean, that's like, that's the whole thing that Dr. Becky actually talks a lot about. She defines like permissive parenting and authoritarian parenting. So like most traditionally, most kids have been raised with more authoritative. or Terry and parents, anything from, you know, hitting to just some fear involved or punishment involved, right? And permissive, I think Dr. Becky defined it as more like, it's not that

you're just like a pushover. It's that you actually fear that your child is like not going to love you if you parent them. And that's a whole different power dynamic, which is not healthy. So those both are not... They're both a little too far. What does she name the like correct one? I don't know. I'm not sure. Um, I mean, I'm not sure what she, if there's a word for it or if there's just like a balance of just being, you know, a parent who believes that their kid is good inside. Um, there's so many good... She uses a term a lot like, be curious. you know be empathetic um but but that's not being permissive that's not being a pushover it's again it just goes back to that same thing of just like what every human wants validation empathy

connection um you know but but like she talks about how like so much of authoritarian parenting makes you feel shame you know the whole like I think back like we were we were We were taught as parents to, like, do the whole timeout thing. Oh, Daddy, love timeout. I know, but I look back at that now and I kind of cringe. Like I, I, sometimes I remember feeling like, because you went from like parents to suddenly this like weird rule. Like it didn't, we felt disconnected.

Like you were just this like king suddenly who was like, okay, five, four, three, two. I'm like, what's going to happen? What are you going to do? And it was weird. Well, when you're little, I mean, it's kind of scary. And you do feel shameful. Like you're put in the dunce corner or something. you know so so a lot of what I hear her say kind of speaks to me because that never felt like

totally good and it didn't really work I mean a certain age I'd put you down you know for who knows what you did to your brother and then you and then you just you were just like at some point you're smart enough you're just like I'm going to get up and walk away I'm like there's no like shield invisible shields she going to tie me up now yep yep and so like that obviously wasn't wasn't perfect um sorry i was finding one more that i liked there's so many and i clicked on all of them oh yeah um did you ever deal with any like mom shame like other people maybe shaming you or like the fear of other moms judging you um no honestly like i have to say like sometimes i feel like everything's a blur right and i don't know if what i was doing was

working well or if like you and daniel just had pretty good temperaments and were just like kind of good kids like you guys were so good maybe i don't remember i think that's what the human race does it makes you forget so you keep having more babies but i found this good thing called settle for good i'm like what is that mean you know the new york times article and it just said i was sorting out the pros and cons of child care options and i just was scared of the long term impacts and like just trying to be like the perfect parent and not fuck up your kid and he said someone gave him really good advice and they said you want the very best for your children but they don't really need it liberating and true dr becky talks about that a lot actually it's she calls it good enough parenting

yeah because that's what i think i'm a perfectionist and you are too that i would struggle with and then you deal with the shame and that's also my issue with myself being a perfectionist and thinking i need to do everything right oh my god perfect she had this whole thing about um perfectionism that of course I think I read it and sent it to you because I was like where she was just like when a kid like has a little tantrum because you can't get the math problem let's say an elementary school age kid right and and like your your first response is just be like oh honey don't be so hard on yourself but that doesn't help no it because you just are you can't convince someone out of that feeling that they're feeling at that moment guilt and shame

comes when you say you shouldn't be mad why are you upset at yourself right right so the way you can try to change though the way they relate to that feeling they're having that's frustration over not being able to do the math problem um but but like she says like perfectionism is probably a part of all of us but but change the voices in your head and model for the child how to deal with that very bad moment they're having that stems from perfectionism. So be like, you know, I hear that voice telling you, you want it to be perfect. Like, we want it to be so perfect. But, you know, you also have a good enough voice inside your head.

And there's also a voice in your head that's like, it's okay to mess up voice. And another voice in your head that's like, I can do really hard things. And, like, you teach the child that there's, like, other ways of thinking about this problem. That it isn't so black and white that you're either stupid or smart or you're either bad or good. And then she goes as far as, like, drawing, like, a little paper, like, to model it for the kid. And what you're doing is you're building the child's resilience. You're showing them how to bounce back. So she, like, she, like, draws this, um, there's, like, lessons and everything.

Yeah, she draws this, like, little card that says, like, happy birthday, but she spells happy wrong. and she's like oh no oh it's not perfect anymore but you know what oh it's okay i'm just going to do look what i'm going to do i'm just going to like cross that out and oh i have an idea here it is and it's good enough and like just showing the kid like oh okay and that kind of reminds me of the concept of adversity and that it's important for you not to be like so protect all the time even of yourself it's a that like learning that failure you get you train those muscles in your brain to be like oh I'm strong I'm capable I'm not afraid of failure I'm not afraid of messing up because I know I can come back and I just feel like there is such a beautiful connection and guys

whether you choose to be a mom or not or dad or not it's this is not what the conversation is about it's what you can kind of learn about we all had some kind of of upbringing and how that affected who we are and how that affects how we talk to herself that we can change and going back to your initial question about reparenting we were talking about it's it's like this thing I just keep thinking about over and over again and I've actually played some scenarios in my brain of like things I should have said and done maybe to you or Daniel and things that maybe my parents should have said and done with me but the thing that I love so much that the last thing I'll say about Dr. Becky is like she she says that while

you're screwing up in front of your kids, which you will do, you're going to have a meltdown. You're just going to scream and yell at your kids one day knowing that it's the totally wrong thing to do and that you're totally like scaring everybody in the house. But it's okay if you like later on just say, you know what? Guys, can we have a talk? Like, I'm really sorry. mommy was just having a really frustrating moment and I'm you know I made a mistake and I'm and I'm and I'm really sorry and I just want you to know like I'm I'm okay and like she just says like no matter what you do as long as you address it with your kids and again this is just like adults need to do this with each other as well like as long as you address it and just be like I shouldn't have said that well you're also humanizing mommy like yeah you kind of put your parents on this pedestal they're perfect or whatever and but you can be perfect in your

imperfection yeah instead of like one day they wake up and they realize wait my parents aren't perfect and i hate my parents and da da da da instead it's like being your authentic self with your kids yeah and i think that also helps with your relationship moving forward and i just feel very lucky to have you as such a just strong amazing like sidekick in my life for everything that i do because you, you know, you don't choose your family, but we're lucky that we love each other so much. I love you. And, well, you have been, I've always said you've been a very exciting child to have.

Never a dull moment. I did a TikTok of me crying, being like, think of how bored my mom was before she had me. Oh my God, that is so true. Can the educator and me just recommend to your listeners three books that I love. I would love that. And this kind of goes back to like my job as a principal.

Like I was always so into this whole like, you know, parenting stuff. And I thought it could be helpful. Some of it backfired on me. Like a lot of parents did not want to hear about it. Even though, you know, I would just, I would have me, I would have, I started a book club for parents. And we read these two books. One was called The Gift of Failure by Jessica Leahy.

And I was trying to teach them what you were just talking about. Like, we learn from making mistakes and we learn how to be resilient from making the mistake and then working through it and then eventually realizing like, wow. That didn't take me down. I did it. And I have confidence and I can do anything. And the other book was How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lithcott Hames, which was like one of my favorite books um and again it just it talks about like how you um give children like confidence

and ready them for adulthood by giving them really good responsibilities and i i'm cracking up now because in my brain i'm thinking about that show on is it Netflix with the japanese toddlers being sent like so i'm sure american to run errands i'm sure american parents are watching this like oh my god but i'm telling you these kids are going to be rock stars because at two years old they can go to the grocery store remember a list of three items and walk two miles home by themselves i mean the confidence the the incredible like that's are they young in it i can't the first one the first episode i it's adorable i just couldn't believe it and they and they show all kinds of make sure they're safe during it like no one well there's someone with a camera filming

them so yeah I guess and the last book I wanted to recommend was something that I did very late in my career was like we started advisory classes for kids and the book that the teachers were studying was called Permission to Feel by Dr. Mark Brackett from Yale and it's it's the simplest simplest thing every class would start their day with kids looking at this like grid of feeling like a hundred words of feelings and the kid walks into the classroom and like puts a little note on the feeling and I'm telling you kids just want to you to know how they're feeling yeah it validates like so like the teacher would be like oh everybody's like in a happy mood today or like oh I know some of you are feeling the Monday blue like it makes kids feel so

seen and heard and like feel like the community cares about them yeah and like that was just a great one. I love that. Yeah. Okay. It's time to get a little darker and play the seven deadly sins. Seven deadly sins. Are you ready?

I've been waiting my whole life for this. Oh my God. Okay. What are you greedy about? You know, I've only listened to three years of episodes and I always think what would I say I you know like I mean I my first thought was time like I'm very like greedy about time how I spend every minute of the day like I I savour it I savour it and like I was like that when I was working

and I'm like that when I'm retiring so whether it was work time or free time I'm like a nut with I'm greedy with my time. I do have to say it's become very trendy. These like, um, they call it hot girl walks, like mental health walks, rich mom walks. My family has been doing these hot girl walks. Like my, I was going to say you're greedy about your walks. Like if you don't get like a walk in in the day, like you're like a dog. Oh, I am.

And I am. And I, we also have some knock on wood longevity in our family. Like my great grandma lived till like, what, 98 or something? We have a couple of the 90s. they're very like fit and all they did was like walk to work and back i mean new york city it's yeah they were city people yeah so i do think that your walks have kept you like physically and emotionally yeah well i mean that was like the thing i i mean you know like i'm i want to spend time with my family like i'm just very like careful and in a way i think of it is greedy

because i'm just i don't give it away easy yes i do think we cherish our time together a lot very greedy about our time. Yes. Like I will like like like be late to a restaurant because I'm like in a conversation with you. Yeah. And we don't. There's not a lot of things that I would prioritize above like when you're like,

hey, can you guys come over? There needs to be like a really good excuse, which I think I'm lucky to have a partner in Des who never gives me any pushback and like loves being with you guys. Because I think I've had some relationships in the past or just imagining someone being like, oh, do you want to go there? like that would be tough for me oh yeah you'd have to break up with them yeah i mean you would break up with them for me um oh my god who are you envious of who am i envious of anyone who doesn't have anxiety and is not afraid to do things i would argue that i do have anxiety but i'm not afraid to do things

that's true i think those are two separate things because when you are living your life and i see what you're doing i always think she's not afraid of any I'm jealous but I'm anxious the whole time but I'm not afraid but you're not afraid because I the more what would be more scary for me is not to do something yeah that's a good attitude that makes sense like yeah I will get more anxiety if I don't try something yeah than to try it and fail um yes but but yeah anxiety like there was a time when I was having a lot of trouble with anxiety I'm much better now but I think no one really knew because you you were so, you were just so put together,

which is like kind of classic type A, like New York City women, but you're also like so successful. You seem very, very happy all the time. So it wasn't anything that I think anyone would notice. And actually looking back to a few years ago when I was super, super anxious, I honestly, like, I'm in, because I'm in such a good place now, I look back at it and I understand like it was a combination of menopause, which no one talks about.

no one talks about but hello um when your hormones go wacko you your anxiety goes up and i when i i started to talk to you messing all the time when i started to talk to some friends my age about it they were like oh yeah yeah yeah but yeah i did you have wild hormones during your pregnancy emotions wise no don't remember don't remember blacked out long time ago um but yeah so um but anyway I was going to say, like, between menopause and just, like, work stuff. I think you, I'm answering this question for you because I was going to ask, how do you think you got out of it? I think you changed some environmental things for you, like some work stuff.

Yes. And then I think you really, like, did the work. You were like, I want to get a therapist. I want to actually look into this more because you came from the generation that literally never spoke about anxiety or depression. And five years ago, when things were feeling really horrible and I actually didn't know what to do, I started meditating. I used the Headspace app.

I've been using it for five years. Changed my life. I actually have been, I've had a lot of trouble with meditation, but I recently read something that was really helpful. Because I just didn't. I'm like, okay, so you practice your brain being quiet, like whatever, then all the thoughts come back.

But they basically said that you're like a machine that sometimes to cleanse needs to stop with the input. And thoughts are in. input so imagine you're like it's like trash we're just putting trash trash trash sometimes you need to stop and throw the trash out like it's literally like a detox for your mind where you just don't have you try not to have as much input for a little bit and and and for me it was like not judging myself like you're not doing this right and you're not like you're thinking too much yeah and like stop judge you're not going to do it perfectly that's not what this is about like and just like go with the flow

and really had to reparent your just meditation practice I I think meditation helped with all of that, yeah. I love that. Okay, what do you gluttonous about? Ice cream from Snowflake and Riverhead. Hell yeah. Shout it out, girl. Shout it out.

Homemade ice cream. Best homemade ice cream. I've tasted them all. There will be a line, but it's worth it. It's worth it. It's worth it. When was the last time you experienced extreme wrath or anger? I don't know if I'm going to get in trouble for saying.

when you filmed your last season of summer house i i thought i was going to i i had extreme wrath um we were a lot of phone conversations of you crying and i sensed um that something really wrong was happening and something really bad was happening to you there and actually i think i might have threatened lawsuits and um you know was afraid for your life at one point and wanted to go and take you home and that didn't happen and i tried to actually come and they wouldn't let me and it was really scary yeah are you going to have to cut that out i don't know you i think some people need to know the extent of what went down but it was really i i've never felt so we're talking about parenting

I mean like a lot of bad things have happened to you in your life you were hit by a car in college there were many times in your life where you almost died a few times from various illnesses I think I saved you from your appendicitis I mean like you've had some pretty

scary things happen to you as an exciting young woman living life getting out there doing things life happens you get hit by cars sometimes you know like whatever But, like, that to me was something that really, I had rage because I saw what was happening. And then, of course, it happened.

A mom's gut is always very right. And I also do have to say, you even had some filmed conversations with me that I think would have really. Oh, yeah, they filmed me, have some scenes with you. They filmed you talking to me on the phone. none of that aired um when was the last oh this is funny when was the last time you were a sloth like a lazy piece of shit never literally never and most most guests say that I'm like you're lying actually actually yes never is my first answer but my second answer would be my little baby kitty kitties help me be a slot sometimes because they fall asleep on you and you can't get up I can't get up

So I had Muffy on one leg one day. I had Willie on the other leg. So sometimes I'll do that. And probably the very last time I was was when I binged Bridgeton. I love that. I also think that you have gotten better. You used to not even be able to like sit and watch TV. I never sit.

You never. So the fact that at night you've been able to like sit, enjoy a show for even like one hour, I'm proud of you. It's very healthy. It's very healthy. Meanwhile, you guys, on the other side, we have my dad who could watch sports. and sleep all day long. It's truly like an Olympic sport for him to veg on the couch.

The yin yang. And I have the combination of both of them. So it's been a struggle. You just work from the bed. Exactly. I work all day from the bed. Like when I say I'm a lazy perfectionist, it is so true and so painful. It is a jail in my mind.

Ooh. Okay. When was the last time you let your ego or pride get in the way of something? You know, it would probably be work-related stuff. like when you're in the same job for 14 years it becomes like your baby no pun intended but like if anyone messed with like my school or or there was bad press about something I would get like really upset and very like I would defend you know my teachers I would always defend my school like I was so proud of the institution that it was so don't mess with my school I get a okay

So the question is when was the last time you blessed over someone? I do want to speak before we go into your celebrity crush, you got a little too excited. I got a long list. You got a little too excited. But I just want to say, as a mom and creating a family, do you have any advice for, like, keeping the relationship a priority and keeping it special while having a family and being a mom? Yeah. I mean you just always have to like make sure that everything you do is like together like communicating a lot you know joint conversations about the kids because if you don't you know if you don't agree on something like you have to come to some kind of compromise I know that sounds cliche but like also just always having making sure you're having fun with that person like daddy will joke to this day. I still laugh at his joke. I still laugh at his joke. I know and I do you guys are adorable you still flirt you guys my parents are still like

in love and it's crazy but it's like I just feel very fortunate to be around that like you guys literally flirt it's annoying he's funny so speaking of celebrity crushes who are we into you know it takes a lot for me to like decide you're my crush you know like I'm super picky I'm very very picky um and like i've had different crushes and different decades of my life yes i mean like when i was a teenager i had this like weird obsession with steve mcqueen who was like older like and of course like robert redford like these are guys from the old days but they were like oh my god we have the same type man you i think in the 90s though i was dying over jude law jude law like in the holiday yeah like i never really got into him i think he was like a little

older for my taste when I was that age he is like my oh and I didn't know you liked a British accent I guess I do I also loved Ray fines oh my god in the English patient like oh my God I loved him I never watched the English patient I was obsessed with him that was also the 90s and but I would say recently recently I don't have a lot of crushes but and then you go on for 30 minutes recently okay um reggae Jean page yeah can't even look at I'm just dying over him he is I mean he is why I watched Bridgeton No he was doing

I mean I like suffered through Bridgeton hoping with each episode He might pop in But I knew he wasn't Did you not like the season as much? No I did like it I did like it a lot But my I think I think my biggest crush

Like recently was Justin Hartley Oh yeah From This Is Us like I love Justin Hartley Like he's he's a gorgeous human He is is i'll stop there i'm like anyone else you want to fuck anyway to wrap this up you've done amazing in hell but i knew you would because i am the spawn of satan i'm just kidding i just want to say oh my god um what advice would you give to people on how to cope with their hell when they're

going through it don't be ashamed to ask for help be nice to yourself you're worth it that's powerful i love that so much normally i'd say where can people follow you or watch your stuff well you do have an account on ticot where you post cat videos you're starting i gave up after five because it was too hard i couldn't figure out honestly you don't want to book a content creator just but i do have an instagram but i don't think people want to follow me i post like once you're also on private I am I don't even accept people you don't accept people you're like who is that I don't accept I you just would not accept any students who wanted to be my friend on Facebook or any creepy man that like do I know you every man who adds you when he does so I usually delete most but you know so anyway this is my mom okay hi I am so so honored and grateful that you came on happy Mother's Day to everyone happy Mother's Day to the moms who are here to the to every kind of mom to the moms who aren't with us any more to the pet moms we love you all i love you hannah my favorite daughter i love you too my favorite mom

bye bye