This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 015 / Parenting

Episode Date: April 29, 2020

Are you a mom who is struggling to adjust and redefine a new normal for yourself and for your family during the COVID crisis? You are not alone! Nicole gets personal about her struggles during this time. She shares her frustrations, her beliefs and adds some perspective to help us shift from worry and guilt to empowerment and confidence as moms. This is an opportunity to break some historical patterns. We get to reinvent the benchmarks we measure ourselves against. This is a time for reflection (if you can make the time), for growth (and we don’t mean just our pant size) and most importantly a time to be gentle and kind to yourself. You are doing great momma, you’ve got this! This is Woman’s Work To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

I am Nicole Khalil, and I have a confession to make. I've had at least a dozen breakdowns since quarantine started, and most of them are associated with being a mom. More specifically, a working mom who's struggling to adjust and redefine a new normal for myself and for my family. I feel like being quarantined at home has brought all of my insecurities as a mom to the forefront. It has forced me to rethink just about everything. Is that just me? I highly doubt it. If any mom tries to tell you that they haven't had a breakdown, they should no longer be trusted.

I call bullshit on you and all of your teachable moments. But I also think this situation is kicking all of our head trash, myself included, into high gear. And as we know, head trash is a confidence derailer. So my goal in our time together today is to offer some perspectives, some ideas, and some options for us to take out some of our trash so that we can choose confidence. Yes, confidence, even while parenting. Yes, I said it, confident parenting during COVID-19. I know it sounds crazy and sort of woo-woo and miraculous, but I actually think we can achieve it. Not perfect parenting. Notice I didn't say that. Not happy all the time parenting. Not sunshine and rainbows parenting. But real, authentic love for our children and ourselves

at the same time. Confident parenting. Let me remind you for a second my definition of confidence. Confidence is when you know who you are and you own who you're not and you choose to embrace all of it. And my definition for confident parenting is pretty much the same. Knowing who you are. And my guess is almost everybody listening in today is probably a good parent. The reason I know this is because you're listening to a podcast like this and you probably read books and research articles and talk to other parents. The fact that you're concerned, the fact that you spend energy on trying to be a good mom tells me already that you probably are one. And the reality is how we define being a good mom is a bunch of shades of gray.

There are some things that fall into black and white. There are some things that we kind of all agree on that makes somebody a good mom or a good parent. But the rest of it is shades of gray. So let's get real basic for a second. What can we all agree on? First, good moms love their children. Good parents supply the basic needs like food and shelter for their children whenever they can. They keep them healthy within

our control, and they keep them safe from the things that they can't recover from. And ultimately, good parents spend some time with their children. I think we can all agree on all of those. Everything else, though, falls into shades of gray. And depending on what you believe or what you want to find, you can probably find an expert or research or information out there on the internet that will support anything you want as a parent. That will tell you that certain things are being a good parent and then turn around and tell you the exact same thing are being a bad parent. There's so much information out there. And I think it's up to us to decide by our own definition of what makes us a good mom. But in the vein of knowing who you are and these black and white issues of parenting,

I'm guessing we all can say by that basic definition, we're pretty good parents. Okay. Now, how do we own who we're not? And this is something I feel a little bit passionate about, especially during this time. I know what I am not is I am not JJ's teacher. I am not a teacher. And some of you might actually be teachers by profession, but my guess is your kid would never be allowed to be in your class. And by that definition, none of us are meant to be our children's teachers. We are meant to be their moms. We are also not their BFF. We are not our kids' best friends forever. We are not our kids' peers. I don't have any interest in being my kids' best friends. Maybe when she's an adult and she's figured out, you know, her career and her relationships and all of that, maybe at some point it will evolve more into a friendship. But I consider being JJ's mama one of my biggest

gifts. It's such an honor. Why would I want to lower that to being her best friend? I also want to point out another kind of pet peeve. And I know people say things without really thinking about it. But one of the things I often hear women say that I just don't think serves us or our children is saying, you know, my kid is my world. No, they're not. Your world is your world and your kid has their world and that's their world. I think I know what you mean though. That feeling of like this, my kid is my heart walking around outside of my body. I can't think of anything more important than keeping them safe and raising them to be good humans. I think that's what you mean, but they're not actually your world.

And let's just pretend for a second that that was true, that they were everything to you, that there was nothing to you outside of being their mom. What kind of pressure would that put on them? How would that feel if they really took a second to think about it? I don't think any of us want to put that on our children. I think we need to be careful about some of the word choices we make. We are not our kids' teachers. We are not our kids' best friends. And they are most certainly not our worlds. And we love them totally and completely and fully. I get that. So here is what I believe, especially right now with everything going on with the coronavirus. I believe that kids observe and are aware and they feel more than we give them credit for.

If you talk to any person who does marriage and family therapy or counseling, one of the things they will tell you over and over and over again is that kids know. No matter how hard you try to hide what's going on with you or in your household, kids pick up on things. And I think that's particularly important for us as moms to think about because we worry, right? I know I do. My mind can go down a rabbit hole and I can spend hours worrying about all the things that I might be doing wrong, all the things that I might be saying wrong that might cause damage to my child. But have you ever considered that it's the worry and the guilt and the pressure and the shame that we carry around as moms, the pressure that we put on ourselves as moms,

that's doing the most damage? Consider this for a second. If trying to do it all and be perfect and do everything right only causes stress, frustration, guilt, and shame. No matter what you're doing, trying to be perfect creates those feelings. Perfection is the enemy of confidence. We know this. So if trying to be a perfect mom creates all of those feelings, is it possible that this strive for perfection does way more damage to our children than an extra hour of TV or iPad time? Like, think about it. If you're freaking out right now and putting all kinds of crazy stress and negative energy on yourself and our kids are observing that and picking up on it, whether we mean them to or not, isn't that the bigger potential problem? Wouldn't it actually be the best thing for our kids if we eased up on ourselves a little bit?

If we gave ourselves some of the grace and forgiveness we want people to give the other people in our lives that we love? I know there's a lot to worry about. And I worry about iPad time too. And I worry about if she's spending too much time doing this or too little time doing that, or if I've been working too many hours without checking on her, that kind of thing makes me a little bit crazy. But I just keep trying to catch myself and remind myself that the stress and the making myself crazy actually probably does more harm than all of the things that I'm worried about. Kids learn. Frankly, we all learn, mostly through experience and demonstration. You can tell your child to be confident, to take care of themselves, to be kind, to give compassion until you're blue

in the face. If you want that for them, though, the best way to teach them is to demonstrate it to them, certainly, but also to yourself. We have an opportunity to teach our daughters and our sons what it means to be a woman in this world and what it means to be a mom for those of them that choose it. Or, you know, those sons who choose to marry somebody who becomes a mom. This is an opportunity. And let's all be careful that we don't accidentally, inadvertently teach them that being a mom means being a martyr with no personal boundaries. That's not what we want for them. But unfortunately, we as moms, I don't know why we choose it so often for ourselves. And the reminder, the loving and gentle reminder here is that we're

demonstrating the opposite of what we want for our children. And children learn via experience, demonstration, observation. And so my ask is for you to take care of yourself, be kind and gentle with yourself, eliminate or catch some of the head trash faster during this situation. And I'd ask you to do it for you because it's the right thing to do. But if you can't find it in yourself to do it for you, then I ask you to do it for your children. We have an opportunity. We have an opportunity to break some historical patterns and not take on the lion's share of all of the work during this crisis. If you look back in history, women do this over and over and over again. We step in and we quietly take care of

everything. And we have an opportunity to not do that, especially if you're a working mom right now. And I say that because if you're a working mom, I imagine that that means that your household depends on your income. And if your partner is working too, then you depend on that income as well. But my point is if you're both working, then you're equally, or maybe not equally, but you're both contributing to the household in financial and providing ways. Okay. But taking care of our children and the household are not automatically woman problems. They're care problems. And not having our kids at school generates a new care problem. Not being able to go out to dinner or to go get easy access to products and things, that creates household problems. But these are not women problems. They're care problems.

And if we're both working, we should both contribute to that second shift, to the care, the education of our children, and the running of our homes. If we're both contributing work-wise, then we both should be contributing to that second shift. That's my firm belief. And we have an opportunity to change the game here. We have an opportunity to flip the script from this historical pattern that we've always played into. Now, if you are a stay-at-home parent and your partner works, then you might need to mix it up. Maybe you do take the lion's share of educating your kids or caring for them during this time and running the household. But most of my listeners are professional working women. And so my guess is inadvertently,

unconsciously, you're still doing your job, but you're picking up the lion's share of the work. And my ask is to just take a step back and don't do it because it's always been that way. Don't do it because you don't know how to ask. This is an opportunity to change the game and break the pattern. Discuss with your partners how this new normal is going to look. Create new ways of doing things, new ideas. Divvy up responsibilities based on skills and strengths and also just like, hey, we've got these three things to do that we all hate, but we got to do them. So what are you going to do and what am I going to do? And hold yourself and each other accountable to the expectations you set. And ladies, we have an opportunity to say no.

Choice management is probably the most important thing in our world right now. And if you've heard me on previous podcasts or things, choice management is my take on time management. A coach told me a long time ago that it wasn't time that we were managing. Time is fixed and neutral. We all have 24 hours a day. We all have 60 minutes an hour. We're not managing time. I've yet to meet anybody who has a time machine that can manage more time than anybody else. Time is fixed and neutral. What we're actually managing is the choices that we make with the time that we have. And the time that we have feels tighter now than probably ever has before. And so choice management becomes even more important today than it ever has been. And what's great is if we begin to practice the skill

right now, when we're on the other side of it, it might actually come easier. We might actually be better at this. And how great would that be for us, for our children, for our families on the other side of all of this? I heard it said once at a conference that I went to, there's a woman named Nikki Stokes, who's an absolute rock star. And I'm sure she heard it from somebody else, but she shared this example of having glass balls and rubber balls up in the air. And as a mom, I know we feel like we're doing the juggling act, right? There's so many balls flying up in the air and we're doing our best to make sure none of them drop. But what I think we haven't been told or what somebody forgot to

inform us about is those balls up in the air are not all created equal. Most of them are rubber balls and some of them are glass balls. And what do rubber balls do when they drop? They bounce. What do glass balls do when they drop? They break and shatter into a million pieces. And it takes a lot of time to potentially put it back together again, if you can. And the reality as moms, as parents to our children, we're juggling a bunch of balls, but most of them are rubber balls. Most of them, if we drop, like if we yell at our kid one day and then go back and apologize, or if we miss something or we're late to something, most of those are rubber balls. They bounce right back up. And that's not to say that we don't ask for forgiveness or try to do better or learn and grow or any of those things, but just a loving reminder that not every single thing you do matters as it relates

to the damage or success of your children. If you think back about your own childhood, you remember moments, you remember snippets, some of them because they're really good and really important. And some of them because they were really bad and really impactful. And some of them because they're totally random. And some of them you remember differently than how they actually happen. Like if you talk to a sibling and you're like, oh, I remember that. And they're like, wait, I don't remember it that way. My point is we all remember bits and pieces from our childhood. None of us remember a three-month period, day over day, moment over moment. So again, a gentle and loving reminder that these three months or however long it shakes out to be,

that we are home with our children, they're not remembering everything. Most of this is rubber balls and they're just bouncing all over the place. And let them bounce. Rubber balls are fun. Just be careful of the glass balls. Right? So, you know, these are the big things like, you know, being kind to yourself. So you don't let stress and frustration get to a point where you do or say something that causes real damage. Like if, you know, you completely lose it and scream hateful things at your children in their face, that might be a glass ball. And even I don't know if that's a glass ball or not. But I think if we take a step back, we can be a little bit more conscious about what those glass balls are versus those rubber balls. And for the love of God, we've got to

stop treating all these rubber balls like they're glass balls. It doesn't work that way. And we're putting way too much pressure and stress on ourselves. And it's doing damage to ourselves, but it's also doing damage to our children. I think we have an opportunity not only to include our partners in the sharing of responsibilities and household and care of children, but also including our children. What can your kids do with you right now? I talked to one of my dear friends yesterday and she was sharing how her and her son were planting in their garden. And she would normally have done that on her own. And her son's head said something like, look what we did together. And it was such a meaningful moment for her and I'm sure for him.

The current situation is forcing us to do more with each other. And I truly believe in my heart of hearts that this is what our kids are going to take forward with them. This is what they're going to remember. I think when they look back on this, we have an opportunity and the most probable outcome is they're going to remember the increased time that they had with us, the things they got to do with us, not even the fun things, but the mundane things. JJ sat with me at my computer the other day and pressed buttons and helped me. And I overheard her asking Jay the other day if she could sit with him at his computer and help him.

And he let her. And his computer is a touchscreen. And that completely blasted her mind. So my point is not everything needs to be an exciting, teachable learning moment. We can include our children even in the mundane things. We need to. We need the help. Ask yourself, what can your kids

do with you? And here's another question, and I'm going to ask you to sit with it for a second. What can your kids do for you? So often, we as moms think our job is to take care of our children and do everything for them. Now, I think there's a lot of reasons to believe that that's not actually helpful and healthy, but what a great opportunity we are in right now to increase their independence, increase their opportunity to take on new roles and new things in the household to make them better today, but also for the future. We have been having JJ make my coffee in the morning and she loves it. Why? Because I tell her it's the best coffee I've ever had. And I actually mean it because the coffee that my

kid makes for me and she steams the milk and she presses the buttons and she puts it together and stirs in. I do ghee in my coffee, which I know is strange. But anyway, she stirs that in. And she is so proud of herself. It wouldn't have even occurred to me. I would have been worried if she got burned and all the things. It wouldn't have occurred to me two months ago to have her make my coffee. But she's doing it now. And she knows exactly what to do and how to do it safely. And I watched her, of course, a few times, but now she does it. And I wish I could show you the look of pride on her face. I caught her a few weeks back, sweet and swiffering the floor. And I got so excited. Um, us breakfast in bed. And by her,

that was cutting up some cucumbers and putting some salt on it. But we couldn't have been any more happy. I think there's an opportunity to ask our children to do things for us, for the household, to become contributing members of our little community. I also want to encourage you to include your children in your feelings. Not all of them. There are probably some things that, you know, aren't appropriate to talk to your children about. Maybe any tension that's going on in your marriage, certainly not your sex life, things like that, obviously off limits. But demonstrating how to navigate through tough feelings right now is such a great opportunity. If you're feeling frustrated, if you've hit a wall, if you're feeling anxious,

if you're feeling worried, if all of those things. Now, again, on an appropriate level, given your children's age, I think there's an opportunity to demonstrate navigating through those feelings, having a conversation about how you feel and what you're doing about it and how there are different perspectives. I think, you know, during all of this, one of the sources of frustration for us as moms is keeping it all in, bearing all the burden and carrying all of the weight of our feelings for our family and our worries and all that, it's not healthy. So when and where it's appropriate, how can you have these conversations with your kids, both so they can have the conversations back with you? Remember, kids learn through demonstration. How will they know how to navigate through their feelings if they don't experience and

observe it? We tell kids all the time now, I hear this all over the place, tell your kids, especially your boys, that it's okay to cry. I think that's wonderful. It is okay for our kids to cry. It is okay for our kids to have their feelings, but demonstrating that, letting them be exposed to and sharing our feelings and letting them see how we navigate through it, that we don't need to get stuck in our feelings. It's okay to have our feelings, but our feelings shouldn't have us

long-term. Our feelings shouldn't own us. How can we demonstrate that with our children right now? I think it's such an important opportunity. Being a good mom has nothing to do with being perfect. It has nothing to do with creating a perfect environment or responding perfectly to everything that's going on. Even if you could, why would you want to create that kind of unrealistic and unreasonable expectation for your kids? Newsflash, they are never going to be perfect. Your children, no matter how unique and special and amazing they are to you, are not perfect

beings. They never will be. And if they think you're perfect and you're striving for perfection, their moments of imperfection are going to weigh so much heavier on them. They might even be afraid to share them. Their entire life will consist with dealing with other people's imperfections. People who don't see the amazing, special, and unique person and may not love them as much as you do, a coach, a boss, a bully, a friend, your children's lives are going to consist of dealing with other people's imperfections all the time. How will they navigate it if you don't teach them?

We have such a cool opportunity right now, ladies, not only to be with our children in a different way, but to lead as women in our families in a different way. And the other thing I want to say on this is just, again, a loving reminder that loving our children doesn't mean that there are no consequences. JJ and I do this thing. We've been doing it for years. When she goes to bed, I ask her the question, when does mommy love you? And her answer is all of the time, because that's true. And then we'll play with it a little bit. Well, what about when mommy's mad? Yeah, you still love me. What about when mommy's traveling for work? Yes, you still love me then. What about when mommy is cooking? Yes, you still love me. What about when mommy's traveling for work? Yes, you still love me then. What about when mommy is cooking? Yes, you still love me then, which by the way, does not happen

very often in my household. I don't know why I came up with that one. But anyways, my point is we go through these scenarios and she will throw out silly examples as well. And then I'll go, yes, I love you during that point too. I think it's important for my child to know that she is loved always, and she is. But I also think it's important to understand that I can still love her and be upset with her. I can still love her and be disappointed with her. I can still love her and have there be consequences to her actions. There is no separation. In fact, I would argue that when you hold your child accountable to consequences of their actions, if you're willing to get uncomfortable for their

development and their growth, you're actually demonstrating love at the highest levels. I remember growing up, my dad used to say, if I ever did anything that landed me in jail, he would leave me there. And listen, I've never once doubted that my dad loves me. He's told me every chance he's gotten my entire life. I know my dad loves me and I know he's proud of me. But I also knew that if I landed myself in jail, I was going to stay there. And guess what? I did a lot of stupid things, but none of them landed me in jail because I knew there were going to be consequences. And thank goodness he loved me hard enough to do the hard things and hold me accountable to consequences like that and many others. Okay, so let me wrap this up. We get to change the benchmarks we measure

ourselves against. Instead of these unrealistic expectations of perfections and the head trash and the beating ourselves, how about we connect with some realistic expectations? Objective truth versus this inner dialogue, this inner head trash, this inner critic. You, my lovely and amazing and powerful woman, are one human. You are not capable of working, parenting, running a household, and teaching all at the same time, plus all the other stuff. It is not hard because you're doing it wrong. It's hard because it's unreasonable. It's hard because nobody can do it. Let your kids be bored a little bit. Teach them to respect your boundaries. Say no. Engage your partner. Teach them to play their part in your little family community.

Here's my perspective and hope during this time. I think it's going to make us better individually and as a family. We have an opportunity to redefine some things, sure. We're going to screw them up somehow. Like really, we are going to screw up our kids somehow. This is a universal truth, period. I don't care how perfect your childhood was. I don't care how loving your parents were. They messed you up somehow, inadvertently, I'm sure. But this is true 100% of the time. This is true no matter what. So let's stop putting extra pressure on ourselves during this time of quarantine. Time, empathy, communication, navigating through hard things, asking for help, asking for forgiveness, demonstrating boundaries, expecting others

to do their parts, playing to our strengths, loving each other all the time. I think those are our opportunities during this time. You are a mom. Only another mom knows what that means. And we get to demonstrate that to our children, what it means to love another person so completely while also simultaneously loving ourselves. And truly, is there a more important life lesson than that? And this, my loves, my mama bears, is most certainly woman's work.