The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - How Not to Repeat Your Parents' Mistakes (with Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach)

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Parents are never perfect - but their mistakes can have a lasting impact on their children. We all carry with us ideas and attitudes planted in us during childhood - and they're not always very helpful for leading a happy life. How can we unlearn some of these things and also prevent ourselves from passing them on if we have kids? Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach have raised three children together - so have lots of thoughts on this topic. The couple behind the hit podcast We Can Do Hard Things (and a new book We Can Do Hard Things) tell Dr Laurie how they've learned from their upbringings and decided to do a better job with their own family.  Get ad-free episodes to The Happiness Lab by subscribing to Pushkin+ on Apple Podcasts or Pushkin.fm. Pushkin+ subscribers can access ad-free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all Pushkin shows.  Subscribe on Apple: apple.co/pushkinSubscribe on Pushkin: pushkin.fm/plusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, it's Dr. Laurie Santos. It's no secret that I love to travel. Not too long ago, I had an amazing experience in Italy. I could go on and on about the food and all the sights I got to visit. Our Airbnb was in the perfect spot, surrounded by these little family-run restaurants. I keep going back and forth about what was better, the pizza with the most amazing fresh mozzarella or the handmade pasta that literally melted in your mouth. Hey, if you're plotting your own adventure filled with great food, why not let your place earn you some extra travel money while you're away?

Whether it's for a few nights or a few weeks, you can host your entire home or just a spare bedroom. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. Modern parenting has its challenges, lunches to prep, laundry to do homework to help with soccer drop-offs to shuttle. There's just a baseline level of stress and busyness that comes with being a mom or dad today. But life sometimes turns in ways

that sends these usual parental burdens into stress overdrive, like when there's a scary health diagnosis or a death in the family or a job loss. What wisdom can moms and dads turn to during these extra difficult parenting moments? What can you do to find solace as a caregiver when it feels like you're the one that needs care?

Well, today's two guests have some answers. As the power couple hosts of the hit podcast, We Can Do Hard Things, bestselling author Glennon Doyle and soccer legend Abbie Wambach are used to handling tough family situations. Since getting married a few years ago, the pair have navigated the typical challenges of raising three teenagers. But recently, as Glennon explains, life decided to hurl a series of nasty plot twists their way.

A couple of years ago, all within like a six month period, I was diagnosed with anorexia. Abby lost her beloved brother, Peter, and our sister, Amanda, was diagnosed with breast cancer. And this weird thing happened was, you know how in your friend groups or in your family, there's usually like one person who is okay? And so when you lose your shit, you like, you can go to somebody to remind you of who you are or what's true. And so I think for the first time, everybody was unmoored.

How do you cope when your entire family support system is falling apart, when everybody is unmoored? Well, Glennon and Abby decided to turn to what they do best on their show, sharing short bursts of wisdom with one another. Like for Abby, I was writing things down for her about grief, a lot of the things that we had talked about on the pod, like moments that were anchoring

and grounding to remember. Abby was doing it for my sister in terms of like health and recovery and resilience. And I and Abby were collecting moments of wisdom about body peace and all of the stuff I was going through. I think when I think about it now, I think we couldn't find the hope and wisdom inside of ourselves, so we were externalizing it.

And they became these like little treasure chests that we just kept returning to over and over again. I ended up sending it to a friend who said, well, this is the most helpful thing that anyone's ever sent me. And she was joking, but she said, can you make something like this for every category of life? And so we laughed.

And then I said, wait, we should do that. Because I've always wondered why in moments of like challenging moments in life, the times when you most need to access what you know and your wisdom, you lose it. So we just thought, why not have an answer to that where you can go to this one place and remember everything that you have learned

and what other people have learned by walking these paths that will light your way. That one place where Glennon and Abby can remember everything they've learned, they've decided to share it with their fans in the form of a new book co-authored with Glennon's sister Amanda Doyle. Like their podcast, it's called We Can Do Hard Things. And this little treasure chest of advice in book form wound up becoming much larger than at least Abby expected.

Actually, Larry, let me tell you what she said when she opened the package with the book in it. Yesterday we got the book, she opens it up, she holds it up and she goes, I cannot believe that I wrote a book that's 496 pages. 97. And I was like, why is that the thing you're, that's so weird.

It's just so uncommon for a former athlete to produce and publish a long, like my books are shortish. The new book is a very long book. And it's incredible for so many topics, especially the one that we're talking about here today, which is parenting. Oof is an apt way to put it, because Glennon and Abbey's book tackles at least two hard topics that I wanted to dive into during this special series on happier parenting. First, how can we parent our own kids in ways that don't repeat

the mistakes our parents made? And second, how can we reparent ourselves in order to fix what our own caregivers got wrong? Take, for example, the challenge of understanding what we really want out of life. Even as adults, many of us are walking around with a set of outdated scripts about the way we should be living. Scripts that our parents wrote for us many years ago, and that simply may not fit

with our current goals or identities. If we're not careful, these outdated narratives can keep us from becoming the people we wanna be. And this is one re-parenting challenge that Glenn and Abbey talk about a lot. We are a lesbian couple. We talk about this all day, every day. We don't need to just understand each other. We need to overstand each other. So Lori, this is something that we spin around constantly because I think we do have a moment where we kind of wake up and we go, wait, is this who I really am?

I've developed a certain facade personality. I mean, in my childhood home, what was important was that I was like sweet and polite and small and controlled and disciplined that I was always achieving. My dad used to say, you can rest when you're dead. He was a football coach. Wow. So I think all of us, everyone listening can probably relate to the moment

where you look at yourself in the mirror and you're like, have I met you yet? And besides that, there's a family role that we all get put into. I have a sister who was the hero of the family. I was an addict and had a lot of mental health challenges. I was kind of like the designated patient and she had to be perfect. And now she's still trying to have a life where she doesn't have to be perfect.

I mean, you, Abby, you talk about the facade that you had to create. I'm the youngest of seven. So the particular family system that I came from was kind of fend for yourself. You got to get what you get, whether it was a second helping of food at dinner or the true unbridled attention that I was longing for from my parents. It's virtually impossible with that many human beings in one space. And that projected onto me in a way that made me make decisions as a person, as a kid, as a young adult, that got me pretty far down the sports route. You know, I played for the United States and I won gold medals. Literally, they handed me a trophy that said I was the best player in the world,

which is insanity when you think about it. Like that's impossible. And then when I look at myself in the mirror the night after I get that award, I'm assuming, I'm thinking that this is going to finally make me feel the thing that I have been in search of, right? The worthiness, the love, the enoughness, right? You will be enough finally with this trophy, right? The worthiness, the love, the enoughness, right? You will be enough finally with this trophy, right? And so I looked in the mirror and I thought,

you are the same. You still have that same weird acne. You just look the same. You feel the same. And so, I mean, the way that we both were brought up has shaped so much of the people we now know ourselves to be. But when have we ever given ourselves a space to really analyze

like, why actually am I like this? How did I become the person that thinks the way that this person thinks or the person that reacts in the way that this person reacts? And this is the problem, right? Is these incredibly loving, well-intentioned parents who are trying to protect you, who are trying to do right by you, wind up pushing this kind of thing that's not you, it's not your real self, and it becomes this facade. But the sad thing is that I feel like often parents do this out of care and love. There's something that they're scared about, they're worried that you're going to be rejected for some aspect of your identity,

and they're like, don't be like that. Like, it's just this misguided attempt to protect. And Abby, I know you've talked about how that played out in the context of your queer identity especially too, right? Yeah, and I think our parents really were trying the best that they could and doing the best that they knew how and making decisions in the way that was best for them at the time.

I want to give them the most compassion and put them in the light most favorable and also say that it wasn't what I, in my particular personhood, needed. And I was able to do some really awesome stuff with it. So the paradox of it all blows my mind on a consistent basis. The paradox of wondering what if things were different, how would I have turned out? And I wouldn't change a thing. Some of the stuff that I experienced fortified me.

And I was explaining this to Glennon. There's a part of me that feels like so grateful to my parents for, in some ways, not really accepting my sexuality at a young age. Wow. Grateful for that. For putting me in a position to really be striving towards this love and worthiness and acceptance.

Because I created my life, in a lot of ways, off of the foundation of that. And she just said, yeah, honey, I get that. And also, I wonder what could have happened if love took that place, if acceptance took that place. I wonder how much more you might have been able to grow and to become. And that was tough to hear

because there's so much truth in that and I've got what I've got. I had what I had. And so I feel like I made the best of it. Yeah, this is what like terrible trauma and your parents not accepting you looks like, you know, it's not so bad in your case, Abby, like being the best in the world.

This gets to another blueprint that parents inadvertently give kids is this idea of like what love looks like. It's not always the healthiest version. Abby, you had a story from the book about learning that love was transactional that I think played out with your kids, if you wouldn't mind sharing it. Yeah.

When I was younger, my dad paid me for scoring goals. The better I did on the field, the more quote unquote pride they would have for me. And then the story in the book, I think that we talked about, was it the cake pop story? Oh gosh, yes. She tried to buy their love for a while. So I'm very new to the family. I'm still like getting to know the kids. And I just thought, okay, I'm going to really try to court them. So we were in line to get a coffee and I see that they have got cake pops on the menu.

And I turned back and I was like, hey girls, you guys want a cake pop? And they said yes. And so I want a cake pop? And they said, yes. And so I ordered the cake pop at the drive-through. They said, yeah, how many did you like? And I said, I'll take all of them. And Glennon was like, wait, no, no, no, that's not parenting. And I'm like, oh, really? Now it's like a family joke.

Cause I'm like, how much, what do you guys want? And they're like, I would like all of them. All the everything, yeah. But it's so easy to fall into, right? Because you want to kind of get your kids to think that something's rewarding, right? Your dad, maybe not the best strategy, but he wanted you to think that like,

scoring goals was rewarding. So it's like, I'll slap this other external thing on you. I'll pay you to do it. And what we forget is that our psychology is set up, that when you add an extrinsic reward to something, you pay somebody or you give love in cake pops, then that makes you kind of feel completely empty when it comes to the intrinsic awards.

Like that's the quickest way to make your kid hate soccer or feel like the only goal of soccer is just so you can get the money afterwards or something. Even the pride. I do try to think about the thing that I'm saying feels like a gift. I'm proud I'm saying feels like a gift. I'm proud of you, feels like a gift. But what is the shadow side of saying that?

Like, I'm proud of you because you did well in a game. Implicit in that is I am less proud of you when you do not do well in a game. There's a because in there. I'm proud of you because... Right? One of the things I'm very conscious of now, we have a young daughter, our youngest, she plays soccer. One of the things that's the most important to me is to not get too high or low about any kind of performance that she has, because I want her to know that whether she does well or doesn't do well, that I just love her, period.

Right. So that's just another form of what we were talking about in the beginning, like you learn what makes people happy and then you amplify those parts of your personality and you find out what makes your parents or family uncomfortable and you mute those parts of your personality and then you turn 40 and you wonder why you're half a person, right? So asking these questions, like even saying,

why am I like this is the beginning because inherent in the question is the moment where you start to notice the water you're swimming in, which is being conscious. Like if you don't notice the water you're swimming in, you just think that's the way it is. But if you can figure out what parts of your personality you amplified and muted, then there's a bit of a hero's journey you can figure out what parts of your personality you amplified and muted,

then there's a bit of a hero's journey you can go on to explore the parts you muted and start to amplify those so that you can become more fully human and you're not just playing a role your whole life. I just want to say one thing really quick about the pride thing because I just had this like aha moment in my body. I think parenting, what it comes down to is if we can control the centering of ourselves, then I think that a lot of parenting issues

would get solved. Because when I say that I'm proud of you, I am now centering my opinion of you more than you, your life and your experience. So what we say is, I'm so happy for you. Because that is how I feel. I feel so happy for you. And it gives them the autonomy of the experience, and it also takes my experience and what matters to me out.

Yeah. I love that because there's so much science that backs up, that if you're allowing it to be their intrinsic reward, that's about them, that's not about the identity that you want for them as a parent, then that's going to be the thing that drives's about them, that's not about the identity that you want for them as a parent, then that's gonna be the thing that drives them into the future, right? You're helping them develop their real self

as opposed to whatever facade you want for them. That's good. But it's very hard. Yes! Yes! We'll get back from the break. We're gonna hear what you learned about how to do this better for your own kids and also what the science shows

about healthier strategies we can do to kind of reparent ourselves if we didn't get that from our own parents. So the happiness lab, we'll be right back. Hey, it's Dr. Laurie Santos. It's no secret that I love to travel. Not too long ago, I had an amazing experience in Italy. I could go on and on about the food and all the sites I got to visit. Our Airbnb was in the perfect spot, surrounded by these little family-run restaurants. I keep going back and forth about what was better—the pizza with the most amazing fresh mozzarella or the handmade pasta that literally melted in your mouth.

Hey, if you're plotting your own adventure filled with great food, why not let your place earn you some extra travel money while you're away? Whether it's for a few nights or a few weeks, you can host your entire home or just a spare bedroom. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. In their new book, We Can Do Hard Things, podcasters Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach explore the complex experience of raising three children while trying to come to terms with their

own complicated childhoods. For Glennon, the process of truly confronting the past began at the start of her parenting journey, when she was forced to really start thinking about her future. When I found out I was pregnant with Chase when I was 25, I had been lost to addiction from the time I was 10, like bulimia, alcoholism, drugs, the whole thing. So when I found out I was 25, I had been lost to addiction from the time I was 10, like bulimia, alcoholism, drugs, the whole thing. So when I found out I was pregnant, I think I just really had a moment of, oh, this is it. I felt very close to death.

Like I felt like either I clean it up now or I don't ever clean it up. And I largely became sober, became a human being largely became sober, became a human being, by figuring out what would this kid's mom do? Like I formed a personality completely based on mom, because I didn't have a developmental track like most people because I was last to addiction for so long. So I really didn't go through all the things

that one is supposed to go through, which has made the kids growing up, I think, harder for me than the average bear. Mm-hmm. I've really been struggling a lot with them growing up and growing away because my only identity, not only my only identity, but my only feeling of belonging,

and I think that's what I've really noticed about this time, which is that I am a person who struggles mightily to feel like she belongs anywhere. And the little microcosm in this family has been the only environment I've ever felt belonging. So to lose that now, sending all my love to all the people who are losing their belonging and identity. Because we're coming up, we in a year and a little bit, we are going to be empty nesters. We also have artists, so likely they will be back

and living in our homes. But I think this is something that so many parents go through. You know, the parents that I work with most closely are parents whose kids are going off to college. And you have parents who've set up their whole identity, like I am a mom or I am a dad. And then a lot of kids are needing off to college and you have parents who've set up their whole identity like I am a mom or I am a dad and then a lot of kids are needing you less or less in the ways that you got used to and I think this can be incredibly hard as an identity change

for parents and so how do you navigate that while doing what we suggested before the break of not centering yourself? I've found that every phase of parenting just requires a completely different self because it feels like what they need from me is so different. I think if I could go back and do anything different, I think that I, a little bit too much, created in every scenario this feeling in them of mom's got me.

And I thought that that was good parenting. What I'm trying to do now is more of like responses that say, oh, you've got you, you've got you. That is a big fricking difference. Like I had this weird moment recently where I was thinking about, okay, me on my deathbed, the kids all around me. And I've always thought that what I wanted in that moment

was for them to think she was the best mom that ever lived. And then I thought oh my god that's not what I want them thinking. What I want them thinking is I've got this. I'm okay. Not I'm not okay now because my guide, my life, my everything is leaving. But I want to have parented them in a way where in that moment they think, oh yeah, I'm good. Which is two different things, right? And I think parents can, again, loving parents who have incredibly good intentions

can like mess this up. You made this claim that it's worth pushing back on this idea that we need to mold our children, Like that that's not the right metaphor. What's a better metaphor for parents to think about? I think that there is this idea that goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning, that there's a world out there and that we have to prepare our kids for that world, which really means that whatever your worldview is based on your childhood trauma, your own, your kids, this poor bonsai tree, and you're just like cutting parts off,

and you're doing it out of love because you think, well, like in Abby's situation. Bless her mom's heart. She was Catholic. She thought the world was going to crush Abby with her queerness. So she crushed it first. But what we forget is like we are the world for our kids.

So we bring them the rejection that we're afraid they're going to experience outside because we think we have to prune them to make them able to grow out there. But that doesn't work. I guess the metaphor, because I'm obsessed with metaphors and can't do anything literally, would be, it feels more to me like they're not lumps of clay to mold because the last thing I want to do is mold anybody in my own image. Like good god, I'm working hard enough to change my own situation, right? And they know more than we do. Like that is almost like moving backwards. I always think about that line from the Khalil Gibran poem about like, they are

life's longing for itself. Like they belong to the future where we can't even go in our dreams. I think they're more like seeds. They have everything in them when they're born that they need to become. And so our job is not to touch it. Actually, our job is just to create a fertile soil that allows them to grow into whatever they were meant to be without Pruning too much. That's really good It's kind of a faulty system too because it's like this thing that we do by creating this big identity around

parent mother rather than Creating the mindset that I am raising this child I'm guiding this child through all the different phases of their life so that I am raising this child, I am guiding this child through all the different phases of their life so that I can leave them. Yeah, that's like the point. That's the goal eventually is they can do it on their own, right? Yeah, exactly.

And bless our hearts. It's a heartbreaking, terrible system. It hurts. No, I'm not giving five stars to the system. I think it's awful. But it is in fact the situation is all I'm saying. And it winds up helping you because if your child wasn't a seed, if it was really up to you to mold them, then you'd have to do that perfectly, right? Every mistake as a parent would be deeply messing them up.

And this is something I know you've both talked about a lot in the book, right? Is that striving to be the perfect parent is actually incredibly dangerous and probably really harmful for your child. Part of what you need to do as a parent is that you have to show your humanness, right? Yes. What I've been playing with lately

is becoming aware of your repetitive behaviors and how those affect your children. And I'll give you an example, because this was like a breakthrough for me that just happened. I am doing a lot of work on myself with eating disorder stuff and yada yada. I have like one song. I've learned that humpback whales have like one song they sing their whole lives.

I just have one song and it's this eating shit and I just will keep spinning around it forever. Anyway, in therapy, I have learned that I am very judgmental. Okay. I use judgment as a way of keeping people away. I'm scared of people. I use judgment to keep myself safe and my family safe. So my family has experienced that for me

many hundreds of times, meaning they will bring someone up or something up and they will hear mom go into a list of the reasons why this person is bad, why they should stay away from this person, etc., etc. Recently, I was doing that at the dinner table. I saw my little one kind of dim. I saw it in real time.

Abby and I talked about it. We took her to dinner and I said to her, here's the thing. I learned some strategies when I was young because I am scared of people. One of the strategies I've learned is judgment. So when you hear me going through a list of reasons why someone is bad and you should stay away from them, that is my very unhelpful attempt to keep you safe. And it has nothing to do with the person I'm talking about.

So when you see your mom doing that, I want you to not look at the person I'm talking about. I want you to only look at your mom doing that. I want you to not look at the person I'm talking about. I want you to only look at your mom and think, oh, she's doing that thing again. Because, Lori, like, I don't know what to do with the gap. Like, I know this isn't what I want to teach my kids. I know I don't want to be doing this, but I have this gap where my body keeps doing the things. So how we deal with the gap is we just point out the gap. Because what we do to our kids is we put our dirty lens over their eyes and they don't know that

that's the water they're swimming in. They just think that's the way it is. But I want her to not put my dirty lens on. I want her to see the world with her lens, which is better than mine. It's more open, it's more trusting. So that is, I think, a way that's like the next step. It's identifying the patterns

that we don't want to pass on completely. And even when we can't stop them, at least pointing them out to our kids so that they see it as our worldview. You also in the book talk about these cases where you really encourage kids to push back against adults, whether those adults are their parents or other authority figures of their life so that they can develop their own views

and their own story. Glenn, I think you had a version of this with your daughter and her high school guidance counselor recently. Could you share that one? I mean, look, everybody out there trying to teach their kids to be brave and stand up to authority figures, like, just look out, because we did that and now our kids are just really scaring the crap out of us.

That's tough. Buyer beware, I guess, on this one. Oh, wow. I mean, we're so proud, but also constantly terrified. So I think the moment you're talking about is when our middle child came home and she said, look, my counselor wants me to join all these clubs and I don't want to join the clubs. I'm not like a club person. And I said, okay, well, what's the big deal? Just don't join the clubs. And she said, well, I don't want to disappoint him. And that was a big moment for me because I really think that our job and what I told her is like, we need to just walk around every

day with the express goal of disappointing everyone That should be not something we avoid something we strive for because even that word disappoint think about it It's like disappointing someone else as the decision maker of your life and reappointing yourself So I said, oh honey, you got to disappoint your counselor You got to disappoint everybody so you don't have to disappoint yourself. And she said, oh, even you? And I said, oh, especially me. Like I know people who are doing like the biggest,

huge lives and they're all still just living not to disappoint their parents. Their parents aren't even alive anymore. It's the most important thing we can do in our entire lives is to stop recreating what we think our parents would have wanted us to and create what we want to create. Creating the life we want to create. It's such an important goal, but it can be surprisingly hard to actually do.

So when we get back from the break, we'll look at strategies we can use to become the people that we really want to be, in spite of what our parents may have wanted. We'll hear Glennon and Abby's tips on successfully reparenting ourselves and not making the same mistakes with the next generation when the Happiness Lab returns in a moment. Hey, it's Dr. Laurie Santos. It's no secret that I love to travel. Not too long ago, I had an amazing experience in Italy.

I could go on and on about the food and all the sites I got to travel. Not too long ago, I had an amazing experience in Italy. I could go on and on about the food and all the sites I got to visit. Our Airbnb was in the perfect spot, surrounded by these little family-run restaurants. I keep going back and forth about what was better, the pizza with the most amazing fresh mozzarella or the handmade pasta that literally melted in your mouth. Hey, if you're planning your own adventure

filled with great food, why not let your place earn you some extra Hey, if you're plotting your own adventure filled with great food, why not let your place earn you some extra travel money while you're away? Whether it's for a few nights or a few weeks, you can host your entire home or just a spare bedroom. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. It's no secret that parenting can bring up lots of unresolved experiences from your own childhood. Watching your child mess up might trigger your own memories of feeling criticized.

A big move or divorce may lead you to reflect on how your parents navigated big life transitions. In their new book, We Can Do Hard Things, Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach explain that we can embrace these moments as opportunities, not just to do better for our own kids, but also to reparent ourselves. I had this experience with my kid early on when I got into the family. We do kind of nightly ritual where we lay in bed and we'll take a moral inventory of the day and things that didn't sit right with us. And one of the things that wasn't sitting right

was the way that I responded to our youngest who came to me and said, my knee hurts. And I just went into the way I was parented. I basically said, you know, you'll be fine, in not so many words. Toughen up, Buttercup. Yeah, and it felt very like I was pushing her away. And that was kind of the way that I was raised.

And I think in this moment when I was telling Glennon, she just said, well, you can apologize to her. And I was like, I'm sorry, excuse me? Head blown, yes. I'm like, but parents don't do that. Parents don't apologize. That had never happened in my whole life. So the next morning I wake up and Emma's eating her cereal and I kind of explained the story,

like this thing happened last night and you came to me with your injury and I didn't handle it right and I'm so sorry and I want you to always feel confident and comfortable coming to me with anything, even if it's a toenail that you're feeling uncomfortable about." And she just was like eating her cereal and she was like, okay great moving on. And it was this really important moment for me that not only did it feel

unnatural to apologize to a child, my own child, but it also felt very healing. Like, I think that what we get wrong is that we think that we are just the way that we are, and this is the way that it will be. But parenting is this beautiful, unique opportunity to reparent ourselves. And so in this apology with my child, I was having this experience.

I felt uncomfortable, I felt scared, and then it happened, and she was so great about it and loving that I just thought, oh, I bet you there were probably a lot of things my mom wanted to apologize for. And maybe she can't find the words for it. Abby, you brought up the idea specifically of parenting ourselves, like reparenting ourselves. Why is it so important? Being the youngest of seven, I was always watching my parents

and my brothers and sisters and trying to, like, figure out what worked, what worked for me, what I would do different. And then you get to do that with your kids. You get to then express your own idea of parenting on your children. But I didn't know that there was so much possible healing in it for me in the ways that I wasn't parented

that I might have needed. And we do have to analyze and think about really from the beginning, like why am I so anxiously attached? Oh, probably because my mom didn't hold me as much as I needed to be held because there were six other people that she was having to fend off of her body, probably because every single one of my brothers and sisters left to go to college. In fact, when my sister, when the oldest went to college, she was kind of my second mom. She was the one that was holding me and changing my diapers.

And when she went to college, I was starting to act out, so they brought me to a therapist, like a school counselor. And I said, like, I think that my sister Beth died, and nobody is telling me about it. And so parenting and reparenting has to begin with actually really doing a deep dive on the environment that you grew up with. And if we're really present and really awake

with this idea of what parenting can be, what it was for us as children, what it might currently be for you as a person right now in your parenting life, like there are ways for healing. Honestly, I've never felt more happy in my life in just watching these children experience the lives that they're creating for themselves. Yeah, and this idea of kind of mindfully noticing what you missed, mindfully noticing what you need, it kind of fits with something that we talk about a lot on the happiness lab, this idea of giving yourself self-compassion,

which I think is one of the like fastest ways to kind of parent yourself, like mindfully noticing, I'm struggling right now. This is not feeling good. I'm sucking. But then it comes also with this idea of like, this makes sense. No parent is perfect. No childhood is perfect. I'm just dealing. But then also treating yourself with kindness. And I know that this is something that both of you have struggled with at various points. Any strategies for parents or anybody who's struggling

with this and trying to reparent themselves of giving themselves some kindness? I feel unable sometimes to figure out what I want for myself without seeing it through the lens of what I want for my kids first. And I wish I could do that, but I'm not yet able to do that. So what I would say is I think that when we talk to parents

about just be kind to yourself, we're just so obsessed with doing things right or well, that that feels a little bit like BS. Until you start to think, okay then, forget about yourself for a minute. You think about your kid, and when your kid makes a big mistake at school, your kid feels left out or your kid says something awkward or your kid loses a job, what do you want them to do after that? You probably don't

want them to feel like, I'm such an idiot. God, I suck. I just am the worst. Like, okay, so if that's not what you want for them because the only thing we know about human beings really is that they're just gonna keep Screwing up constantly like that's just what we do So since that's the model we have to work with We know that's gonna happen to them. The only way that they're gonna have a self Compassionate inner voice is if they've seen that That's what got me. I wish what got me is just like, obviously you should be kinder to yourself. But thinking what I want my kids to have as their inner voice when they screw up is what

I have to become and model. That's what re-parenting is. Yeah. And I think that's such great advice because there's evidence from Kristin Neff's lab at UT Austin that if you want your kid to develop a self-compassionate voice, you have to model that self-compassionate voice, you have to model that self-compassionate voice, and ideally model it out loud. Like, Abby, your story about apologizing of like,

Mom messed up, I probably should have been nicer to you about not feeling well. I'm going to try to do differently in the future. I'm going to take some time to think about this. That's so much nicer than secretly beating yourself up inside or them watching the consequences of you secretly beating yourself up inside. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable actually helps your kids because then they get to sort of see how you do it, which is so important for their own development.

Yes. Even naming the patterns. Like I could have gone to Emma and said, I suck. I'm just so judgmental. That's not the whole story. Like I learned that as a coping mechanism. And I said, Emma, like, I'm doing my best with this. This is something that I learned to keep myself safe.

It's not my favorite part of myself, but this is how human beings work. So when she's 40 and she's, okay, when she's 49 and she's talking to her kid, I don't want her beating herself up about her coping mechanisms, but I do want her telling my granddaughter what hers are, because I feel like all we're trying to do each generation is,

like, you get a certain hue of paint from your parents, and you just add more white to it or whatever. You just try to, like, clear it a little bit each generation. So all we're doing is trying to get each other to look at our stuff and say, I'm not going to take that with me. And compassion has been really difficult for me personally. It's been my life's journey, self-love, right, worthiness.

And so for the listener who also struggles with this, like I totally get it. And it is extraordinarily hard. Like I'm my biggest critic, right? If I didn't get it perfect, if I didn't get it exactly right. There are therapists that are really helpful around cultivating a practice of this, because it has to be a practice. I mean, I'm a very optimistic person and I see the very best in so many people around me. And yet when it comes to myself, I can be so best in so many people around me and yet when it

comes to myself, I can be so critical and so unloving. You're so not alone. I often joke that if people could hear what we say to ourselves, we'd all get fired because HR would be like, you know, would put us all up for harassment and like we're so mean to ourselves. Harassment. Oh, that's amazing. And so it is difficult. But I think when Glennon told me that too, this is early days. She said, you know, one of the most important things around parenting that we can offer our children is just the modeling of the way we live.

That really got me thinking like, oh, yeah, my dad drank every day. And that was something I aspired to do. Oh, yeah. Then I became an alcoholic. Oh, yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. Like I put my dad and his drinking ability on a pedestal as something that I wanted to become. And the same thing happens and it might not be as obvious and as detrimental as alcoholism.

It might be snark. It might be- Judgment. Judgment. It might be what kind of food you choose to eat, like modeling therapy. Like if I'm not getting this compassion for myself thing right, I'm modeling to my kids. I go to therapy every single week and they know it. And the modeling is so useful because one of the things we know from the research is

that a very quick emotion that parents go to is guilt. And when you start to realize that treating yourself nice, working on yourself, putting in that work, that's actually parenting for the future. That's so like when your kid's 49, they'll talk to your granddaughter in a really nice way. I think that can just give parents permission to like take the time and put in the work to take care of themselves, which they wouldn't normally do,

but when it's for their kids, they do it. There's so much good wisdom in this book. I hope all the parents listening, all the non-parents listening, go out and check out your book so that they can get as many glimmers from you as I have. Glenn and Abby, thank you so much for coming on the Happiness Lab.

You're the best. You make us happier, Laurie. We just love hanging out with you. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Parenting young children while simultaneously reparenting yourself is tough. But, as the title of Glennon and Abbey's book suggests, we can do hard things.

And while reflecting on the past may be hard, it often comes with the opportunity to shape a more intentional future, both for ourselves and for our kids. And showing that you're willing to take care of yourself is pretty much the best way to teach your kids that they can also navigate life's challenges with self-compassion. In next week's special episode on happier parenting, we'll dive into what we can learn from parents who live in the happiest countries on the planet. We'll meet a mom from Denmark who's found that adopting a Scandinavian approach to parenting can lead to way less stress and surprising increases in family resilience.

For a Danish parent, it would be no good if your child was top of the class, but miserable. And actually, I spoke to some parents in Finland. He said, they sort of told their children to study a bit less. It doesn't matter about being top of the class. It matters about being happy. Until then, don't forget to check out my new free online course, The Science of Wellbeing for Parents. You can learn more by heading to drlarisantos.com slash parents.

That's drlarisantos.com slash parents. We'll see you back soon for the next installment on happier parenting here on the Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Lari Santos.