3 Keys to Becoming the Parent You Always Needed

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How do we learn to make sure we raise good human beings without messing them up when we haven't been taught how to be good parents?

And to add to that question,

is it possible

to

raise a child that is not traumatized in some way, no matter how good we try to raise them?

I'm going to try to answer all that.

You'll let me know which parts of the question I lose as we go.

So what you started with just resonates with me so strongly.

And I think it really is the reason I like get out of bed every morning.

Right.

Parenting is the most important job in the world and it is the hardest hardest job and it's probably the job we'll have for the longest number of years because everyone knows it's more than 18 years, right?

So,

and someone said to me, I'll never forget,

it's the only job you care about on your deathbed, which I was like, okay, that's heavy.

But I think that's, I mean, I wouldn't know yet, hopefully, but I think that's true.

And it's also like the only job that falls under like very difficult, very impactful, very ongoing that we literally get no training for.

Right.

And like if my friend was a surgeon and called me and said, I'm not doing surgery, right?

And I'm messing everything up and I'm going to messed up this person forever and I'm so bad.

And then I started poking around and it turned out she never went to med school or never went to residency.

I'm pretty sure I would say to her, hey, like, this is not that you're a bad surgeon.

Like, that's not what this is.

You weren't adequately prepared.

And it's probably time to invest in resources.

And I just want to say too, because I think it's important that if she said, don't worry, I got my, I got, I got all my tips on Instagram.

I'd say, okay.

I mean, like, you might, I want to do a little more in depth than that.

You know, like, I think you deserve a little better, you know, than that.

And yet, this is what parents are set up for.

When I've asked parents the number one reason why they don't get the support they even think they need, the number one reason I get, the number one reason I hear is I should be able to do this on my own.

It's like a shame underneath.

Yeah, and there's a shame.

And I think there's a really strong societal message.

As a woman, I can say the maternal instinct is like a real thing that people think we should have, which really is a way of saying parenting has kind of traditionally been a woman's job.

I think they're shifting around that.

It's great.

And it should just be something women have an instinct to do, which is a really great setup.

for any parent when they're struggling to say, I guess it's me.

And I think when we're struggling, I mean, I think when we're struggling with anything, we have two paths.

And this is where I think we'll be talking about parenting, but you don't have kids.

I'm sure some of your listeners don't have kids.

This is in some ways about kids, in some ways 0% about kids and parenting.

Like when we're struggling, we can either say, what is wrong with me?

And it's my fault.

Or when we're struggling, we could say, what resources and support do I need?

And they're two completely different paths.

One is activating and has hope.

and has the likelihood of change.

And one is actually spiraling into an abyss and a freeze state, right, of shame, which makes it impossible to change.

And I think parents have typically said to themselves, what's wrong with me?

Wow.

This should be easier.

You kind of also see on Instagram, it looks like everyone else got their kid to smile for a holiday card.

And you're like, that's not what happened to my kids, you know?

And you feel like it's your fault.

And then you don't talk about it.

And then you fake good.

And then the next person's like, well, that person seems to be having a hard time.

And then honestly, we feel small.

You know, we don't get those resources.

We don't feel empowered.

And kind of happens generation after generation until, until, it's not supposed to be depressing, this is so hopeful.

You know, what we see at Good Inside, and we hear all the time from our members, is, I came here for my kid.

Like,

that is not why I'm here now.

Like, I now ask for a raise.

I now can stand up to my partner when they're mad at me.

I now know that it's okay for me to go away for a weekend with my college friends, even when my partner and my kids are upset.

Like, that's their feelings.

Like, I can have empathy and I can still do the things I need to do for myself.

And in that way, I feel like what we're talking about is a lot of stuff you talk about is actually just, I call it sturdy leadership.

And what's interesting to me is I feel like we have a lot of models for sturdy leadership in the workplace.

Like there's a lot of thoughts now.

Like you can't really just yell at people and expect them to get better at work.

And I even think that's like been modernized on the sports field.

Like the best coaches like kind of know you got to connect before you correct.

And what's kind of amazing and sad, and yet we're there, I think hopefully now is like parenting young kids is kind of the last place to modernize where sturdy leadership kind of gets applied and what it really looks like and how it benefits everyone.

But that's really what Good Insight is.

You know, it's interesting because I don't think I've ever heard that connect before you correct.

And I just had a flashback to.

all the coaches that used to scream at me when I would drop a football or miss a basketball shot or just mess something up or I wasn't paying attention or whatever happened and just screaming at me, belittling me, you know, making me feel less than in front of my peers, my teammates,

and

shaming me to try to get better.

And I remember just feeling like resentful and angry all the time, right?

And afraid.

Now, I would still work hard, but I didn't come from an emotionally good place.

So I didn't want that to happen again out of fear of shame as opposed to

Someone actually sitting down and connecting with me where I did have great coaches also who took the time to connect with me and asked me questions.

And why are you so angry?

Why are you reacting like this?

What's going on?

Why are you so frustrated?

Why did you foul that person that way?

Yes.

You know, what is going on?

I use sports analogies all the time and connect before you correct.

There's a lot of phrases I'll take credit for.

That one's not mine.

I actually can find, I don't know who said it first, but it's beautiful and it gives you an order of operations, right?

Where I think about this all the time, like my kid is hitting their brother or my kid lied to my face about something that, you know, is important.

Like, I don't know whether they studied for a test, whatever the behavior is, right?

And I find out and I see them hitting, and I just kind of send them to their room, or I like take away their iPad or something, which I always say is like the worst thing.

Because when you're a parent, it really is like, now I have to deal with taking away their iPad.

I don't even want to do that.

I like when they have iPad time.

When he wins, like, why did I do that?

You know?

But I think about a basketball coach, and I think about a kid who is missing layups all the time.

And I think about watching my kids' basketball coach, if that's my kid.

And the coach is like, you go to your room and you come back here when you can make a layup.

And I feel like all the parents would be like, why?

Like, why would that even, what's the theory of why that would be effective?

Forget, like, what is my, you think my kid is now going to their room and Googling how to make a better shot?

Like,

yes, you might have to pull the kid out of the game, but you probably want to say, hey, like, this is not your game right now.

I believe in you.

And like, we're going to get in the gym tomorrow and get to the bottom of this and figure this out.

And if that was my kid's coach, I just don't know if the parents would say, that that coach is really condoning bad behavior.

They're really encouraging.

That coach is making it seem like it's okay to mislabs.

Like it doesn't make any sense, but we actually have a system of doing that to our kids over and over.

And then we wonder why

so many teens and adults feel so awful about themselves.

Well, when you reflect back to a kid that they're a bad kid during the stage they're forming their identity, that will stick with them for a while.

And it's hard for them to kind of unwire that, I guess, right?

And believe that they're actually good.

And totally possible.

Like to me, if like there's one thing I ever want someone to take from anything I say is it's never too late.

It is never too late.

Repair is amazing.

It is never too late.

The parent who's listening now is like, oh no, I guess I messed up my kid forever.

You did not.

By the way, I sometimes say bad things to my kids too.

We're human.

But to me, it's the starting point of right.

Like my kid is good inside.

That's why like everything we do is called that.

And to me, that idea isn't just like a phrase that sounds nice.

To me, it's actually a core principle that is very different from a punishment or fear-based approach, which is if I believe my kid is good inside, and I always find visuals helpful.

So I look at one hand, I'm like, this is my kid.

This is who they are.

That's their identity.

And they are good inside.

And then I look at my other hand very far away and say, like, this is their behavior.

This is what they did.

And I would agree with a lot of parents telling me like, oh, they lied to your face.

I would agree.

Like, not great behavior.

They hit hit their sister, definitely not great behavior.

But those things are different.

And it's really important with your hands to keep them separate because you could then look at one hand and say, I have a good kid

who hit their sister.

And the only reason we want to punish and come down so harshly on our kids is because those hands collapse.

It was because I see the bad behavior and I don't even realize it's so fast in my brain, but immediately I assume I have a bad kid.

That that is my kid.

That is my kid.

It's collapsed.

And to me, I mean, good inside is more things, but everything else flows from the foundation of like actually separating behavior from identity, which I think you get this, but not everyone does.

So it's important to name that doesn't mean condoning the behavior.

Like trying to understand behavior, we think means approving of behavior.

But trying to understand

why my kid is missing a layup, I don't think anyone thinks means that I think it's cool that my kid can't make a layup.

They're different.

But that separation is the foundation for everything

what would you say are the three biggest mistakes of modern parenting today

is it okay i don't for some reason the reason mistakes that when i think about feels very like shame inducing so and it feels like final so like what are the three things that i want to like myths or things i'd shift yeah what are the three things that you think parents could do differently today

to have a better connection with their children i think that would be number one number one is that trying to understand your kids bad behavior is the foundation for effectively changing their behavior.

So understanding it first.

You can only change what you understand.

What if you don't understand it?

That's a great thing to acknowledge.

You don't understand why you're doing this.

That's exactly

it, right?

And if a parent said to me, I've been like, really, I'd be like, Lewis, that is so beautiful.

We know exactly where to start.

And this goes back to not having the skills.

Like, why would you understand a kid's behavior?

It's very complicated.

And so it would be like a surgeon saying, I don't understand how to do this surgery.

Like, and I'd be like, yeah, of course.

Well, you don't go to medical school.

Like, let's get you into medical school.

Like, there are places where you can do that.

Like, really.

So we have to understand before we intervene.

Okay.

Right.

I think that's like a principle.

People might have to learn, research, ask questions, get, you know, feedback from other people, whatever it might be, right?

100%.

There might be experts.

It might be the right community.

There's courses we can take.

There's so many resources.

Get inside.

There's the book.

We do a million workshops, right?

Like, the reason I do workshops is because I was like, I have this private practice where I see a very limited group of people.

And I was like, honestly, at the end of the day, I kind of have some version of the same like 10 to 15 sessions all day long.

They're always about the same topics, right?

Slightly different story, but same core things.

And I was like, I would like to democratize access to that.

So that's what my workshops are.

They're just things that would come up in private practice, but to more people.

So there's so many resources.

That's number one.

Okay.

Number two is that our job is not to make our kid happy.

That is so important and so countercultural.

Why is our job not to make our kids happy?

Because when we focus on making our kids happy,

we actually start to make them fearful and less tolerant of all of the other emotions that will inevitably be part of their life into adulthood.

And so

when our kid says, I'm going to make this up, like,

I'm the only one in my class who can't read.

It's like the most painful moment as a parent.

Oh, I feel my kid's pain, right?

And maybe, let's just say it's true.

It really might be.

We have the urge to say,

everyone reads at their own pace, but you're amazing at soccer, but you're so good at math.

I want to make them happy.

All that does for my kid, because during childhood, kids are not just learning about a situation with a parent.

They're taking interactions and they're making generalizations, not for one moment, but patterns about what emotions are safe.

What emotions can I deal with?

What can I tolerate?

And what emotions, as soon as I feel them, do I need to like turn off right away?

And so when a kid says, I'm the only one who can't read, they're true this.

When our kid is an adult, they probably won't say that, but they'll probably say, I'm the only one who, whatever it is, didn't get a job yet.

I'm the only one of my friends who didn't buy their own house, right?

Whatever it is.

Like, we're always going to feel that way.

And so when we make our kid happy, what we actually say to them is, I am just as scared of this emotion you're feeling as you are.

Wow.

And so, then what they do.

I don't want to deal with this emotion.

I'm terrified.

I want to run away from it.

I want to do anything but this.

And so, what a kid's circuit is: I feel, let's say it's this, I feel less than, or could be, I feel jealous, I feel sad, I feel disappointed.

And what gets layered next to that in the circuit is my parents' fear, my parents' avoidance.

Those things get put together.

The irony is when you make

happiness a goal of childhood, you actually set a kid up for an adulthood of anxiety because they have a range of emotions that they've encoded as wrong and fearful.

And to me, anxiety actually isn't a feeling.

It's the experience of wanting to run away from a feeling.

And if avoiding it,

it is.

And you can't really run away from a feeling inside your body.

That's what anxiety is.

You're like, wait, this is not going to win.

And so to me, the idea of we want to help kids become resilient, resilience over happiness.

And resilience comes from being able to tolerate and sit with the widest range of emotions, not constrict ourselves to

I interviewed a brain surgeon on here who's also a neuroscientist, a PhD in neuroscience, but also had done a thousand brain surgeries.

And I said, what's the number one skill you wish every human being could learn?

to be better humans.

And he said, emotional regulation.

Like from doing a thousand brain surgeries and studying neuroscience, the mind, he was like, emotional regulation will support us in being healthier, happier human beings.

And it goes back to what you're saying, which is learning how to navigate all of the emotions and be with them and feel uncomfortable and sad and know how to manage them, not avoid, run away, be distracted by them, right?

That's right.

Because like when I, you know, I always joke, when I was in private practice, I saw a lot of, you know, 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds, and not one of them came to my practice saying, Dr.

Becky, like, I had the best parents.

And, you know, those emotions other people feel, like jealous and sad and like those hard things.

I got rid of them.

My parents got rid of them.

I've never felt them again.

Like that's never, that obviously has never happened.

But what happened over and over, even though no one said it, but their stories and behavior really exemplified it was I am now 23.

I'm now 45.

And I'm literally no better able to regulate frustration and disappointment and sadness than I was when I I was a toddler.

Wow.

And but the stakes are higher.

Way higher as an adult.

Way higher.

So emotion regulation, that is the goal of childhood.

I mean, that's the goal of adulthood too, by the way.

It's still the goal.

We're all working on it.

You've been called like the millennial parenting whisperer.

Is that right?

I think Time Magazine wrote that one.

Time Magazine called you the Millennial Parenting Whisperer.

I've had Cesar Milan, who's the dog whisperer on.

And,

you know, people come in to say, hey, how do you fix my dog?

And he fixes humans, essentially.

He teaches humans how to lead themselves better.

And it sounds like parents come to you and say, how do I fix my kid?

And you're coming to them and saying, well, you need to learn how to be a better leader and heal and reprogram yourself and learn how to regulate your emotions so you can manage these situations.

Would that be accurate?

That is completely accurate.

And I think, you know, I double down on that and say, I think when we have kids, we have this unconscious

wish that they're going to heal us.

Oh.

And they trigger us.

Oh.

That's what happens when you have kids.

So I say it again.

We have an unconscious wish that our kids will heal us.

And in reality, our kids trigger us.

Why do we think our kids will heal us?

Because

I think in general, we all have the wish that something

in the external world, something we can gaze out at, will finally give us the comfort and the sense of safety and security that we've always been yearning for.

And part of adulthood, I think, involves learning to gaze in, not from a place of it's my fault, but from a place of actually like, I have the power, and it's hard, but I have the power to do that myself.

Wow.

Oh my gosh.

Okay, so.

Want to get to the third thing?

Yes, because let's get to the third thing.

The third thing I want parents to know, and like to me, this is, I should have said, it's the first thing.

I messed up my order.

Okay, so I saved the best for last.

Start over.

The second thing was

resilience over happiness.

Yes.

And I want to ask you, before you get to the third thing, how do we raise resilient children?

Okay, then this is,

I'm excited.

I'm excited.

We can put the third thing out there.

We'll leave everyone with a cliffhanger with the third thing.

If this one's important, if that one's even more important.

Okay, so I think first of all, again, and

we have to understand before we intervene.

So how do we build resilience?

Well, what is resilience, right?

And we have to really understand that.

And I think that resilience really is our ability to tolerate hard things.

And the word tolerate is important because we all think it's the ability to like get through it.

The getting through happens when it happens.

And the truth is, the longer you can tolerate something, not something toxic, that is so not what I'm talking about or abusive, but the longer you can tolerate something hard, the success is going to find itself and it's going to be more likely because you were able to stay in the hard place.

Can you give an example of what this would be like for a parent and a child?

Sure, I can give you two different examples very concretely, right?

So this is something I teach to a lot of parents in one of my favorite, my frustration tolerance workshop, which is relevant for school for everything.

So let's say, and say my three-year-old is doing a puzzle.

Like, I can't do it.

You do it for me.

You do it for me.

This is a good example, right?

And as a parent, I get it.

You've gotten home.

You're like, this is like the last thing I want to do.

Tired.

I want to relax.

So I was going to have a nice night with like, you know, my kid.

I get it.

But

I'm really driven by impact.

And so like, I actually get this like sick joy when my kid is on the verge of a meltdown.

Really?

Yes.

Especially when I've been working a lot.

Because I'm like, if I'm going to spend 20 minutes with my kid, like, I'm going to make it count.

And like, it's nice if I'm there for a pleasant 20 minutes, of course.

But if I want to have impact, oh, I like literally can picture my impact on him.

So you're like hoping when you come home that having a breakdown and a temporary term in your life.

Because that's when there's going to be a big breakthrough, right?

But in a way, I think that's a really important reframe.

It's like, especially if you're a parent who travels a lot or you're not around a lot, to be like, wait, like I can have impact.

It's not easy.

It's certainly not convenient.

That's the one word parents need to know.

Having kids is not fun or convenient in most situations.

It's not at all.

And this is like your, it's like your Super Bowl right now.

Like this is your opportunity,

you know, because my kid and how I respond to the puzzle is not going to remember anything about the puzzle.

Their body, not from that one time, but from patterns.

Their nervous system.

Is going to be developing expectations around what can I do when things get hard?

What can I get away with, right?

Or, yeah, and what should I expect?

What is my self-talk?

A parent's words become a child's self-talk.

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A parent's words become a child's self-talk.

Wow.

Yes.

So what your parents say to you over and over again is what you say to yourself.

Especially when paired with an emotional situation.

So when I'm frustrated, did I have someone come?

And I always say like frustration is now like super bright.

Do I expect someone to come and turn off the light?

No frustration.

Or do I expect someone to come come and, like, by the way they're present with me, they dim, they dim the light.

So it's just not so blinding

emotion regulation.

Interesting.

Like, that's the best it gets.

There are drugs that will do that better for you, but they have, you know, that's not what we recommend for people long term.

Like when we're talking about true emotion regulation, we're talking about a dimmer because it's impossible to deal with something when it's a 10 out of 10.

Even nine out of 10 is really hard.

Once you get to an eight or a seven, it's not pleasant, it's not convenient, but you

start to be be able to tolerate it.

And from there, you can, you know, get maybe to a six or a five.

That's the goal for our kids.

So I'll model this.

My kid is freaking out about the puzzle.

Now, to be clear, are there some times that I'd be like, I'm giving myself permission to do the puzzle because I can't deal with this.

Of course, I'm a normal human.

Everybody has to give that permission to themselves.

So Dr.

Becky, you're not a perfect parent.

Like zero.

No, no, no, no.

Everyone listening to what I'm saying, don't think like I actually do this all the time.

You know, every day you come over to that after a long day, you're just like, okay, what do you need right now?

And you're stressed out.

Okay, I'm going to do this puzzle with you.

And that will eventually get to point three.

And I wouldn't wish Dr.

Becky as the real parent on any kid.

It's just like, you learn the most.

I'm sure you too in life.

You learn the most on people who struggle and repair and right.

So, but here's this like moment.

And there's, and I can go through an older kid example too, because it's not as obvious.

But like, my kid is frustrated.

My kid's going to be frustrated for the rest of their life in higher stakes situations.

They're going to be given something from a boss and be like, I don't know how to do this.

And like, I actually don't, first of all, I definitely don't want my kid when they're 25 to call me and be like, can you do my project project for me?

Dumb, I don't want that.

I don't want them to be indignant.

How could this person have, I want them to have some type of weight.

I don't know what I'm going to do, but I have a feeling I can just

think this through or get a little further.

So if that's what I want there, that is not unrelated to the pattern of how I interact now.

Wow.

So I could say, here's the piece.

Once in a while, I do that.

Not great for long-term resilience.

So here's what I might do.

Okay.

And I'm going to, my kid is starting to have a tantrum.

And even he's saying, do the piece.

I can't do it.

I'm going to say, sweetie, sweetie,

this is, this is so hard.

This is so hard.

And I know, I have real kids.

It's not like they are going to say to me, oh, that's so helpful to hear.

No, it's not going to happen.

They're going to still freaking out.

But their reaction is different than the power of my intervention.

Also two separate things.

I might say this.

I might say, oh, so many pieces.

I don't know where it goes.

Does it go here?

Does it go here?

Does it go here?

And if my kid is like, do it for me.

I really, and I've said this to my kid, said, listen, sweetie, I'm not going to do it for you.

Here's why.

I know you're capable of figuring this out.

And the best feeling in the world is the feeling you get when you think you can't do something.

And then you wait a little bit and you see that you can do a little bit more.

And I'm not going to take that feeling away from you.

And so I'll take a deep breath with you.

We can take a break, but like, I know you can do this.

Okay.

And when I hear people be be like, does that work?

Yes.

I mean, doesn't that work for adults?

Imagine you having a hard time at your job and you're saying to your manager, like, you do this.

And if they're like, listen, I'm not, because I know you're capable.

And like, it's okay if it takes some time.

It's okay if you take a break.

I can be here to like kind of think about where could that piece go.

Ooh, is that an edge?

Ooh, edges in the middle.

Probably not in the puzzle.

Where do, oh, you're right.

Edges go on the outside.

Look at you.

My kid experiences the win.

And what their body learns is when I get frustrated, I don't look look for the answer for someone to take that away from me and give me immediate success.

By the way, if we really want to get into it, if we want to know what entitlement is, entitlement is the accumulated experience of feeling frustrated and then having someone else give you immediate success.

Wow.

That's what it is.

Without you having to do it.

And I'll never forget seeing this family of 16-year-olds who was like horrified their kid had a full-on tantrum at 16 because they weren't flying first class.

And they were like,

every parent's nightmare.

And they're like, how do we get entitled kid?

The most well-meaning parents.

But this was a kid, every time something didn't go his way.

And I think money makes this more complicated because you can buy kind of your way out of kids' frustration.

You can.

So it's almost hard to resist that if that's an option.

But every time it was like frustration, success.

Frustration, a new option.

Frustration, I figured it out because someone else did something for me.

Well, when you finally get to the point at 16, if that's your circuit, and then you're frustrated because something's surprising, it's not really about first class.

Your body actually is like WTF.

Like I literally was not built to tolerate this.

And then it ends up looking awful, but really, it's really vulnerable, right?

Super vulnerable.

Super vulnerable.

So I want to give you one more example of resilience.

There's three lines I think every parent needs to know.

And I honestly can almost reframe that saying I think every person in a relationship needs to know, whether you're in a romantic relationship, a work relationship, it's the same stuff.

Because another resilience building moment I can imagine is kind of like what I said to you earlier.

Let's say your kid's a little older.

I'm the only kid who doesn't know how to read chapter books, or I'm the only one of my friends who didn't get into honors math.

So teenagers.

Yeah, I'd say that.

I'm the only kid who didn't get into honors math.

I tried out a little across team.

All my kids, my friends made it.

And I didn't make it yet.

Everyone, me included, okay, my first instinct is to, quote, make my kid feel better.

Oh, you're going to make it next year.

Or...

you made varsity soccer and none of them made soccer, right?

Whatever, whatever the thing is.

Or we say, you're going to see it's not a big deal.

Okay, so here's the image.

I'm big on images.

Mys is going going to matter in 20 years or whatever you're using.

We say, right?

The truth is we kind of say it because we're uncomfortable.

And we're just kind of making a kid a pawn in our game.

But like, if you picture your kid on a bench, and if you picture like them kind of in a garden, that's what I like to say.

That's like the parable for life, the garden.

And there's a bench.

And essentially when your kid says, I'm the only one who didn't make the lacrosse team, let's say they're sitting on the bench of, what is it?

Disappointment or maybe it's embarrassment or both or feeling surprised and let down.

I don't know.

It's something like that.

That's the bench.

And as parents, we tend to have two instincts.

When our kid is on the bench, kind of of some type of distress.

We either want to tell them that their bench isn't their bench.

That's not a big deal.

Even though they're like, but I'm

on it.

Like I'm,

or we kind of see a sunnier bench and we're like, just come with me.

Right.

But like, you're the best at, you know, at soccer.

And so we're like, right.

And both of those reduce resilience.

Because resilience is kind of like your ability in that garden of life to like, whatever bench you find yourself on, you're able to sit in it, not drown in it, but sit in it.

Like, because when you're there, you inevitably will be.

Like, you're not terrified at it.

You're not spending all your energy like running away from a bench.

Like, if you saw that, you'd be like, dude, like, what?

Just a bench, you know, just, and so, how do we help our kid

feel like essentially like it's okay to be them no matter what bench they're on or it's really it's okay to be you even when you don't make the low-cost team because that's really the essence.

That's the core thing that resilience is about.

So, how long should they sit on that bench of emotion?

Great.

So, to me, these three lines will play that out.

So, to me, as soon as your kid says something distressing to you, we have those two urges.

We have to recognize them.

We're not bad people.

Just, I always say, say hi to them.

Hello, urge to make it better.

And here's to me is the first line every parent needs in their toolbox.

I'm so glad you're talking to me about this.

To the child, say that to the child right away.

When they're stressed out, when they're angry, upset, shameful, any any unsettling emotion that you don't enjoy yourself, say back to them, I'm so glad you're telling me this right now.

That's right.

I'm so glad we're talking about this.

Because, and again, if we think about it in an adult context, if I was like, I'm so mad at my husband, he never, whatever, whatever it is, he never is home for bedtime.

And he forgot the one thing I said.

And if I was like, hey, like, you're never, you're never doing anything around the house.

And I am really frustrated.

If he said to me, you know what, Becky, well, you're upset, but like, I'm so glad you're telling me about this.

Like, you know, relationships, I'd be like, I think we're good now.

Like, I don't, I don't even know what was I upset about.

Like,

because what someone's really saying to you when they say that is this feeling in you that you're feeling is real.

And

I still want to be in a relationship with you when you're feeling that way.

Yeah, I still love and accept you.

That's right.

And so.

Our kids need to absorb from us from a resilience perspective.

My parent can tolerate this part of me before I learn

to tolerate this part of me

For me the thing that really sort of pulled the finger out of the dike if you will or broke the seal was kids really yeah 100% how old were you when you had your first kid?

I started late.

I was 42.

Yeah, I'm 41 and I'm starting the process of you're just getting on it?

Getting started with thinking about when in the next year or two.

There's no perfect time.

I'm very good at running other people's lives.

Just do it.

Just do it.

It's really tough.

Yeah.

The first few years, there's just no good, there's never a good time to have kids is what I found.

What was the

biggest thing you learned about yourself after having kids?

And what was the biggest thing you learned about money after having kids?

Well, it's sort of relaxing to,

I mean, up until the point I had kids, My general thought every day was, how can I be more awesome and be around more awesome people and experiences?

And I want more money.

All right.

That was a big focus of mine.

I didn't didn't grow up with a lot of money.

I was very focused on economic security.

I didn't want to change the world.

I didn't have any desire to be a good person.

I didn't want to be a bad person.

I wanted a lot of money.

It was really important to me.

And growing up in a household that was financially strained kind of created those embers or that fire.

What did I learn about myself having kids?

It's relaxing to all of a sudden not be thinking about yourself.

It's so much

sort of cathartic.

Because

this is Friday.

On Fridays, when I was single, it was like,

how can I hang out with more fabulous people?

How can I meet more people where I can make more money?

How can I be at a cooler place?

How can I be at a cooler place with hotter people making more money?

And it was just sort of never enough.

I was like, conscious or unconscious thinking?

Just lizard brain.

And we're a competitive species.

The reason that we're all smarter, stronger, faster than our ancestors is we're competitive.

Some of it's built into us.

Some of it is healthy.

When you have kids, it's like, I'm not worried about how fabulous the place I'm having brunch on Sunday is and who's going to be there.

It's like, okay, I know I'm going to soccer practice.

And the first few years, it's tough because I'm a selfish person and that didn't foot well to being a new father.

And also,

I think there's a bit of a myth that having kids like, you know, bright lights and angels singing, I really didn't enjoy having babies.

I thought babies were awful.

And I'm like, what is everyone, everyone's lying.

This is awful.

Wow.

And then about two or three, when they start recognizing you, they become less awful.

And then it kind of flips and they actually become fun.

Yeah.

And then before you know it, it's just sort of, for the first time in your life, you care about something other than you or for me more.

And that's cathartic and wonderful.

And it gives you a sense of purpose that once you're gone, maybe if you've treated this child better than you were treated and you provided surplus love, it kind of checks an instinctual box.

And there's,

I've never felt sated across anything.

You said off-mic before I got here, oh, you're everywhere.

I'm like pissed off.

I'm not more everywhere.

So I've never been sated and something's broken in me fine.

The only time I ever feel satisfied, there's a few moments that happen randomly.

I'll be on the couch watching Premier League football or something.

My kids, my boys will roll in.

They sit down and they automatically throw their legs over mine.

The dogs come in, they jump on us, and I'm like, okay,

this is it.

I can't imagine more kids.

I can't imagine more dogs.

I just like, this is it.

It's the only time I ever feel that way.

Only time.

And I'm an atheist.

I think a lot about the end.

And I believe that I'll look into my son's eyes and know our relationship is coming to an end.

I do not believe there's an afterlife, but I also know I'm going to just feel more comfort.

Like I actually did something.

Like I checked a really big cosmic box because I've tried to be and I am, you know, I try to be a great father.

I'm not, but I know I'm a good father.

What did I learn or what did I feel?

The first thought I had is I need more money.

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The U.S.

becomes more like itself every day.

It is a loving, kind place for people with money.

It's a rapacious, violent place for people without money.

Low-income homes, the kids have higher resting blood pressure than the kids in middle or upper-income homes.

This is is a violent, ugly place for poor people and for the kids.

And one in five kids live in a household that is food insecure.

So

I didn't have these romantic visions of self-worth and happiness.

When my first son came marching out of my girlfriend, I was like, I need more money.

Do you feel like when you...

That sounds awful.

I mean, it's, I don't sound awful.

Do you feel like it's

I think it's your instinct saying, okay, this is going to be more of an expense.

This is going to take more time.

You know, I've got to invest invest in this.

How do I go find more resources to support and provide for this family that I'm building?

When you

do you think something unlocks in men when they have a child to support them in becoming more financially abundant?

100%.

I always made enough money to have the perception of wealth.

I'm talented and I'm hardworking.

I always made enough money to have a nice place to live, nice clothes, head to St.

Bart's through the holidays.

But once I had a kid, and it was at kind of a strange time in my life economically as referenced before, I'm like, okay, it's no longer about me.

And there's no faking it when you have kids.

When you're young and you're single, you can crash on a friend's couch.

You can move to Houston and do crazy work on whatever, an oil platform or what have you and make a bunch of money.

Once you have dogs and kids, there's just certain expenses and responsibilities you have.

And I do think it's important.

I'm writing a book on masculinity now.

I think a decent place to start for a man is to take economic responsibility for your household.

And sometimes that means getting out of the way of your partner who's better at this whole money thing and being more supportive of her career.

That's also part of taking economic responsibility.

It's about having honest conversations with your partner about what economic weight class you expect to be in and who's responsible for it and who's what's your approach to spending.

Young people almost never have those conversations.

So, but I think that

that stuff is incredibly

important.

And what I say to young people is they can have it all.

They just can't have it all at once.

I made huge trade-offs when I was younger and even in your age.

I didn't see my kids much before the age of five because I got very motivated.

But having kids really focus me on doubling down or really knuckling down, bearing down, whatever the term is, so I could have economic security because I felt a very healthy sense

of obligation to be a provider and a protector.

I think that's a good thing.

I think men should feel that way.

And I embraced that and I said, okay, I'm going to start, I'm going to stop drinking as much.

I'm going to drink less.

I'm going to get very focused on work.

I'm going to be smarter.

I'm going to start saving money.

I moved to Florida to avoid, to lower my burn so we could start saving more money.

And then

the typhoon-like winds of an unprecedented bull market just literally launched me into space.

Really?

But if I hadn't had some of that maturity that I think was forced on me by having a kid, I'm not sure, I wouldn't have recognized the same prosperity.

So for me, it was very,

very focusing.

Interesting.

So you feel like for most men that you've connected with who have kids, they get focused when they have a kid on their career or their finances or saving or investing.

They just get a little bit smarter on that?

I mean,

a lot of it is

specific or individual.

And the key question is

what's your relationship, as it relates to kids, what's the relationship you have with a partner?

So I have have a very competent partner who makes good money and has really thoughtful, like I'm the spender.

She's much more frugal.

Yeah, she was born in Poland.

So she was, you know, waiting in line for fish when she was a kid.

So she's, if we're up to her, we'd have just Krugerands buried in the backyard and maybe take a huge risk and buy like Deutsche Bonds.

I'm the more risk-aggressive one.

I'm the one that likes to spend.

I'm more the YOLO.

The best households are households that bring together, and both of those things are good, a mix of personality traits.

But having a competent partner who can help you

with the kids and the immense responsibilities you can partner with around not only the family, partner with romantically,

partner with financially, I think that's important.

So I wouldn't just tell everyone, have kids.

What I would suggest is if you got a great partner, and a lot of people, specifically women, are deciding now that they don't need a partner.

And I think that's actually quite liberating, good for them.

But do they have people in their life that can help?

Because it's a lot.

It's a lot of work.

It's a lot of financial responsibility.

But I would tell almost anyone that is making a decent living on up that having kids is incredibly rewarding.

Incredibly rewarding.

And for me, it was focusing.

Yes.

We're talking about the algebra of wealth, a simple formula for financial security.

On page 49 in your book, you say that the most important economic decision you'll make in your life is not what you major in, where you work, what stock you buy, or where you live.

It's who you partner with.

And when someone is wanting to choose the right partner,

a lot of people, my past was choosing based on chemical bonding,

sexual attraction, chemical bonding, feeling good, and not really asking those courageous questions about the future, about financial decisions, about how to spending, saving, all these different things.

What would you say are three questions that young people should be asking each other when they're entering a relationship

to see if the potential for a healthy and happy long-term relationship is even possible?

Knowing that money challenges

cite for 37% of the problems in divorce is around money challenges.

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Relish and exquisite flavors harvested from the ocean and the rich soils of orchards and fields.

Maine's makers are rooted in its heritage while boldly branching into new ways of thinking, doing, and being.

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Yeah, well, you sort of got to one of the answers.

So the first is, and young people are very good at asking this question over and over, is sex and affection.

That basically says, I choose you.

It's really important.

And young people are very good at determining whether that works or not.

The second is values, weird stuff, like where do you expect to be living in five years?

Or, do,

you know, my ex-wife expected to be or wanted to be living very close to her parents.

I had not considered that.

I did not think about that.

Do you want to live in a city?

Right?

What's your approach to religion?

You know, there's just a lot of questions around values.

And then the third one you referenced that PPM people are talking about is money.

70% of divorce filings are filed by women.

We have a tendency to stereotype women as being these doughy

victims that have no agency and men as like dopey predators, right?

It's Marge Simpson, incredibly high character, never makes a mistake, and it's Homer Simpson, who is an idiot, but deep down, an okay guy.

And the whole, the whole, all life is Homer coming over his idiocy, while Marge is just this incredibly high character person.

And I can statistically prove that there's a lot of good women and there's a lot of good men.

And there's some bad women and some bad men.

But women, I believe, and we don't like to talk about this openly and honestly, value economic security more in a mate than men do.

75% of women say that economic viability is a key criteria in a mate.

For men, it's only 25%.

Wanting the woman to make money or have security.

Or that it's important.

In the relationship.

Yeah, in some...

Women are much more attracted to a man because of his financial security than a man would be to a woman because of her financial security.

And then it gets speedball in online dating, which is where everyone is meeting now.

And the problem is that people don't give each other enough chance, especially, quite frankly, women who.

If you talk to married couples, 75% of them will say that initially one was less attracted or interested in the other.

And it's almost always that the woman was less attracted to the man.

Women have a much finer filter than men because the downside of sex is much greater for women.

And they have a much stronger instinct to find someone who can protect their young.

And so they are much choosier than men.

So guys are driven by aesthetics initially online, but they're less choosy.

Oh, she looks cute.

Or she looks nice.

Or she looks like she works out.

Swipe right, swipe right, swipe right.

Women are choosier.

In addition, we have this unfortunate trend in society where young men are falling further faster than at any time in history.

And women, generally speaking, mate socioeconomically, horizontally and up.

I'm sorry.

Women mate horizontally and up socioeconomically, men horizontally and down.

And the pool of men horizontal and up is shrinking.

Meanwhile, and this is wonderful, no group of people has ascended faster globally than women.

There are more women seeking tertiary education now than men globally.

And when you look at some nations, don't like women going to college, that's a remarkable stat.

The number of women elected to parliament globally, you know,

the elected body has doubled in the last 30 years.

There are more women, single women in the U.S.

now that own homes and single men.

There's going to be potentially nearly two to one female to male college grads in the next five years.

And by the way, we don't want to do anything that gets in the way of that.

That's amazing.

But what we also have to acknowledge is that if we don't figure out a way to produce more economically and emotionally viable young men, we're going to have a lack of household formation.

Because regardless of the Hallmark Channel movie you see, Women, generally speaking, aren't interested in men who aren't socially or excuse me, aren't socioeconomically at the same level or superior to them.

Interesting.

Oh, there's all kinds.

When the woman starts making, or the wife in the relationship starts making more money than the man, the guy is three times more likely to be on erectile dysfunction drugs.

Really?

And a lot of that is his own issue, his own weird sense of masculinity and his own insecurity.

But again,

those 70% of divorce filings filed by women, we never want to have an honest conversation about this, right?

Because anything that in any way might portray one sex as not being our vision of how the sex is portrayed in media means you're anti-women.

I don't think that's true at all.

70% of those divorce filings, and the number one source of that divorce filing, there's really three things.

He has an emotional breakdown, he loses his business, or some sort of declares bankruptcy.

That's the biggest cause for women wanting to file for a divorce.

When he's no longer a viable provider.

Wow.

People think it's values or infidelity.

It's not.

It's almost always related to money.

Wow.

Money creates

kind of opportunistic infection.

It's sort of like there's just just more likely, and most anger, most households coming apart, financial stress usually is creating the context of anger.

It's the underlying like issue behind why someone's resentful or angry or stressed or overwhelmed.

It lowers the roots, it lowers the immunity system of everybody around the household.

Wow.

So when a woman is with a man that makes less than them, can they truly be sexually turned on and feel emotionally safe as well?

I think so.

But the data shows

it's not as easy.

Guys can find and partner with,

guys have no trouble being attracted to a woman who is not financially secure.

Now, some men are

like that.

I'm making huge reductive generalizations here, but there's some data around this.

Women, if you're on Tinder and you're a guy who's making $80,000 in his 5'9,

I'm sorry, making $130,000 in your 5'9, you're as attractive to a woman as a guy who's 6'2 making $80,000.

So it's about $10,000 per inch.

So

everyone talks about height.

Uh-huh.

Your ability to signal, women are attracted, generally speaking, the research shows to men based on three reasons.

The third is kindness.

They don't want someone who's going to be a good person.

They're impressed by men who are good to their parents and kind and go out of their way to help people and there's no reciprocal expectation.

The second is intelligence because the smarter you are, the more likely you are to make good decisions and protect your family's offspring.

And by the way, the fastest way to communicate intelligence is humor.

I've always said if you can make a woman laugh, you can kiss her.

Wow.

And then the most important thing, though, to women, and people don't like to admit this, is the man's ability to signal future resources.

It's not even he has to be rich now, but he has to have his act together such that he looks like he will be a decent provider.

And the number of people, the number of men we're producing that qualify in this category is shrinking as women get tall.

It's the high heels effect.

Just as 50% of women say they won't date a man shorter than them, I bet it's 80%.

They're just not as drawn to men who are smaller than them because it's very instinctual.

I need someone who will protect my young.

Metaphorically, women are getting taller every day.

They're killing it.

Financially, education, intelligence, opportunities, resources.

Women are killing it.

And it's amazing.

We shouldn't do anything that gets in the way of that.

The question is, how do we lift up men?

Who wants more economically and emotionally viable men?

Women.

Why are men not doing as well in today's society?

And why are...

Versus women continue to thrive, which is a great thing, but why aren't men thriving equally or at the same pace?

So I'm parroting Richard Reeves' great work of boys to men.

There's a lot of reasons.

Biologically, men mature later.

Their prefrontal cortex is literally 18 to 24 months behind a girl's.

So

a senior, two seniors applying to college, a boy and a girl, 17-year-old boy and girl, essentially the girl is competing against a 15-year-old.

Oh my gosh.

So

think about school.

What are the behaviors we promote in school?

Be organized, be a pleaser, sit still.

Basically, education is set up for girls.

I couldn't do it.

And there's a lot of shame when boys, you know, just

my 13-year-old, the idea of my 13-year-old sitting still for an hour and a half and listening to French verbs, I think it's literally torture for them.

Yeah.

You also, so they're biologically inferior.

They're also emotionally and mentally less strong.

While boys are physically stronger, they're emotionally and mentally much weaker.

So we have the second most single-family households in America, as any country in the world.

We're second to Sweden.

And when we say single-family home, single-parent home, 92% of the time

it's a mom.

What's interesting is the girl in that household has similar outcomes, college attainment, self-harm.

They seem to be doing just fine with just a single mother.

A boy falls off the tracks.

The moment he loses a male role model, he becomes much more likely to be incarcerated, addicted, or kill himself.

It's also a really, really scary stat.

Two 15-year-olds sexually molested, a boy and a girl, girl, the boy is 10 times more likely to kill himself later in life.

That's not to say either crime is any less heinous, but what it ends up is that boys are emotionally and mentally much weaker than girls.

And the single point of failure is

when they lose a role model, a male role model.

And there is an entire generation of men.

The dad's gone.

70 to 90% of people in schools are women.

There's more female per capita fighter pilots than male kindergarten teachers.

Wow.

There are just very few men in primary education.

So you have a whole generation of boys who are growing up with absolutely no contact with men.

And so when I think about what it means to be masculine, you take care of your stuff.

You're together.

You have a plan.

You're kind.

You have surplus value.

You begin to take care of your family.

You're a protector.

You're a provider.

You start to contribute to your community.

I think the ultimate expression of masculinity, it's more a call for action, is for a man to get involved in the life of a kid that's not his.

And there's especially a huge need for young boys.

And my mom was always really good at this.

Her boyfriend stayed in my life.

I had a guy across the hall come over one day and introduce himself to my mom.

And then the next weekend, he came over and said, would your son like to learn how to horseback ride?

And I used to go out to a ranch in Calabasas with this guy for the better part of two years every other weekend.

weekend and he taught me how to ride a horse.

Wow.

And he talked to me about stuff.

And the thing is, you don't have to be a baller.

You just have to be a guy trying to live a virtuous life.

And quite frankly, Michael Jackson and Catholic Church have screwed it up for these men because there's an air of suspicion when a young man wants to or a man wants to get involved in a boy's life.

There's a feeling, well, what's wrong with him?

And here's the thing.

99.9% of men have a feeling of paternal and fraternal love.

Yes.

And sometimes they don't have a place to give it yet.

And what I would urge all men to do is:

there's an enormous cadre of young boys who need men in their life and aren't getting it.

What are the clear signs that you could start reflecting and asking yourself if one of your parents were narcissistic in any way?

One of the things, certainly, that I found is that

so many people

grow up under the family trance.

And so the family trance, they don't understand the dysfunction of their family because it's been normalized.

And I've used the term malignant normalcy

because then if I grow up abused and I'm in an abusive relationship, I've normalized the abuse as not something I like, but I will accept or

it's kind of normal.

It's what, but that's a malignant normalcy that's that's not a normalcy you want to have and so when people

when I think about helping people see

and really that's what my work is about it's to help people see outside the box

and to see in a broader way

so much of all the dynamics that are going on within the family.

And if you have a narcissistic family, or there's all kinds of other dysfunctional families too,

there's some universals that go along with that.

But when you say a narcissistic family, I think when you start to recognize, hey, they've always been controlling,

they lack empathy,

guilt and shame.

They could be abusive, but they don't have to be abusive to be narcissistic.

They love you and they have a plan for your life.

And I say love a, and with air quotes,

that we used to say that in religious circles, God loves you and he has a plan for your life.

Well, the narcissist loves you and they have a plan for your life and you better follow it.

Wow, or else.

Or else.

And the narcissist will be very self-absorbed.

Everything is basically about them.

It always comes back to them.

That's the whole focus.

And if you have parents who have some of those type of traits, there are other traits, but some of those, those.

People will always ask me, am I a narcissist?

And I'll go, do you ever feel guilty?

Oh, yeah, all the time.

Then you're not.

You're just dysfunctional.

You're just dysfunctional.

No, right.

A narcissist is not going to feel that guilt.

They don't feel,

what have they done wrong?

They're always right.

So that why would I feel guilt about anything or shame?

So if you felt that, you're probably less likely to be a narcissist.

If you, but a parent can be a narcissistic parent.

They don't, they can abuse you, they can criticize you, they can, but they'll never go, oh, that my bad.

No, that would apologize.

Do that.

Why would they apologize?

You made them do it.

You made them do it.

Or they

did it

for your good.

So why would I ever need to say,

I'm sorry?

There's no need to say I'm sorry.

What's the worst thing a parent could do then to their kids over and over again that will

almost surely make them dysfunctional as an adult?

Is it never apologizing to them when, you know, they that's too symptomatic.

That's too superficial.

Uh-huh.

The thing that's going to make them more dysfunctional as an adult

is to not break their own cycle from their own past,

bringing that cycle to their current nuclear family

and not knowing it.

So bringing the generational trauma onward.

And the generational programming.

And the generational emotional Wi-Fi that's been going on, and they just bring that right into here, that's going to mess them up more than ever.

Now, does abuse and narcissistic narcissistic meanness?

Do all those things affect the kid?

Of course it does.

Screaming and all that stuff, yeah.

Exactly.

Of course, it's going to.

But it's not the screaming that's the underlying problem.

That's a symptom of screaming.

That's a symptom of how the family has been dysfunctional and toxic.

And it can come out in different ways.

Narcissism, alcoholism, abuse, workaholism, sex addiction.

It can come out in gambling and all kinds of symptomatic ways.

But underneath all of that

is an enmeshment to a family

whose trance has never been broken.

Wow.

The origin family.

The origin family.

It's never been broken.

And now you're just living it out.

Only John's living it out that way.

Mary's living it out that way.

But that's the underlying important family.

And if we don't break the trance of the family, the origin family of ours, if we don't break that trance, then we're just going to relive that pattern in our adult relationships as well.

In some way.

And it may not even look like the way mom and dad did it, but the pattern's still there.

So people will go, well, I'm not like my parents.

Oh, hold on just a second.

Let me ask you, but what you're doing is the same theme and it has origins in your family of origin.

You may have chosen the opposite, but

180 degrees from

unhealthy is unhealthy.

So people will go, oh, well, I'm all the way over here.

Oh, now you're just a class B unhalf healthy, right?

And a class A unhealthy person.

And you feel superior over them because you're over here.

Right.

You haven't broken the cycle.

You're living the pendulum life.

Yeah, I'm not screaming at my partner.

I'm not screaming at my partner like they did.

But I'm controlling.

But I'm being controlling, and I still may be self-absorbed or judgmental or

any number of other kinds of things interesting here's the real question then

if we start to think about oh maybe my parents had some narcissistic tendencies and i'm starting to think about it and i'm starting to evaluate my childhood and realize oh i thought this was just normal because this is the only thing i knew how many families did we grow up in yeah right and it wasn't as bad as that family so i got to be grateful for this yeah and we should and my parents were loving at times, and they gave us, and they were doing the best they could.

So I can't think of them as narcissistic, but we start to internalize that.

What are the warning signs then that show up in adult children of narcissistic parents?

Let's then take a look at that:

mom and dad, or whoever was narcissistic,

hyper-critical and judgmental.

Now,

I then grow up and say, I'm not going to be like that,

but what am I to myself?

Hypercritical and judgmental.

So an adult child of a narcissistic family often will have

unbounded

guilt, shame, criticalness, hypercriticalness,

very hard on themselves.

So they just take the voice.

from here and just live it inside themselves.

Really?

Everything is that way.

People go, oh, well,

they screamed all the time.

So many times I've said, so how many times have you internally screamed at yourself?

I don't scream at other people.

I didn't say other people.

I said, you.

Oh, well, yeah, I can be pretty nasty to me.

You know, you stupid.

And

I said, you're just reliving this only in a different way.

And so it's all embryonic in the family.

So everything is happening out here.

The problem,

and that's what I think, that's why I use the term the problem is the solution is not near the problem.

Also,

the problem may not be near the symptom.

Here I am.

criticizing myself and cutting myself down internally and hating myself.

And narcissists, adult children, narcissists can can definitely hate themselves because they've been judged and criticized and you know, emotionally hurt so many different ways, shamed.

And so, this is what they're doing out here.

And they're now doing this as adults to themselves internally and going, Well, what's the solution?

And many will go, Don't look at any of that.

Let's just try to

be nicer to yourself, which is not bad advice, but it's superficial advice.

And it may not hold.

And then you'll try it and then give it up.

And you'll try it and give it up.

Versus, wait a minute, let's get mom and dad out of you.

Wow.

That's what we want to do.

And do you recognize that's not you?

When you are criticizing yourself that way, you're going to be under the hypnosis and the trance that this is me doing it to me.

And I'm, and I go, Let me give you some good news.

It's not you doing it to you.

It's your family still doing it to you

through you.

Wow.

There's a difference, and that's a huge difference.

And so, as adult children,

what should we be thinking about if we felt like we had a dysfunctional childhood?

So, we'd be thinking about how do I get myself to be self-differentiated from my parents and my family?

How do I block my family completely?

How do I heal the past?

Like, what should we be thinking about as we come into awareness as adult children of dysfunctional childhoods or narcissistic parents?

And I think it's a great question.

But your question also has within it a certain paradigm, as all questions do.

Every question has the answer in it.

Every question that someone asks, the answer is in their question.

And so you were asking about, so do I separate myself from my family?

Do I, you know, and certainly if someone, if families are abusive and toxic and have no interest in changing,

well, then we have to look at some no contact or, you know, we may need to go that far.

But self-differentiation.

What I tend to think when someone has a family that's narcissistic,

does the person that I'm working with or talking to or the adult child of the narcissist need greater self-differentiation, which is an emotional state and a maturity state?

Or do they need to physically separate?

If you physically separate, you still need to emotionally separate.

Right.

It doesn't solve the problem.

It doesn't solve the problem.

Now, but I don't want you there being abused, you know, and being taken.

And, you know, there's common sense to this as well.

but self-differentiation is

is the

do you have the maturity and respect for yourself that if you had grown up in a healthy family this is the way you'd be

that's self-differentiation and people go well how can I do that I didn't grow up in a healthy family

It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

Really?

So let's start now.

Wow.

And are you going to take care of yourself or are you not?

And adult children and narcissists don't know how to take care of themselves.

They've never even been told that's a good thing to do.

Many of them would say, well, my church or my whatever teaches me I should not do that because that's selfish.

And I go, no, no, that's not what they're teaching.

Or I don't know.

They may be teaching that.

Certainly possible.

But that's not what, that, that isn't what self-care is about.

Self-focus is healthy.

We've grown up with with no self-focus and only focused on the others in the family.

Now we want to do self-focus, which means inner boundaries, where when you say, well, Jerry, you're, you know, you're such a bad son, and I just think you're worthless.

And inside, I go,

so what?

And

because you are you and I am me,

if we are too enmeshed, then what you said will drive me crazy.

And then I'll try to overcompensate

approval or whatever.

I'll try to be reactive.

I'll get mad.

I'll say, well, that's the way you've always treated me.

Why don't you stop treating me that way?

You've always been this way.

And da-da-da.

Versus,

okay.

I see that's how you feel.

I don't feel that way about me.

But it's okay if you do.

I mean, you have a right to feel that way about me if you want.

I don't care.

I hope it helps you out.

I don't know.

Why is it so hard as adult children to break the family trance, though, of conditioning from parents guilting or you need to come visit me more?

Why don't you call me more?

You're not doing this more or whatever.

Are fantasies.

We're still children.

I the parent to love me.

I want them to accept me.

I want them to take care of my needs.

I've always wanted a parent who would care,

and I'm not ready to give up that fantasy.

Oh, man.

And if I could help someone give up those fantasies,

they'll grow like nobody's business.

Really?

Oh, oh, they just go.

It's the fantasy that holds us back.

That's part of it, yes.

The trance and what we've learned as normal.

And then there's the fantasy of

when you don't get it growing up,

then you will always be looking for it.

I want you to come to me and we work out me helping you to stop looking for it.

Stop looking for what?

A beautiful childhood or whatever?

A beautiful childhood.

My parents love me.

They need to treat me right.

Maybe someday they'll accept me.

maybe that it's not it's it's a fantasy it is a fantasy and fantasies mess up adulthood

goals don't mess up adulthood but fantasies do

and emotional fantasies sure sure and and there's creativity and fantasies and things but But this fantasy of I'm going to have a happy childhood.

I'm trying to have a happy childhood, but every time I go back at Christmas time or the holiday time, it always ends up being a mess.

They just judge me or they judge me and they do the same thing.

I try to be nicer and I bring more food or I bring the kids or whatever they're trying to do to get this so that their parents will one day go, you are okay.

So, what should adult children stop trying to do with their parents?

Stop needing them as parents.

Really?

When does parenting end?

Good question.

I don't know.

18.

Is it supposed to end, though?

At 18 for

I hope.

Aren't you going to be an adult?

That's the goal.

Adults don't need a parent.

But some people live with their parents till they're 30 or 30.

Adults may wish or want to have mothers and fathers.

I'm not saying break up your whole family because you turned 18.

I'm talking about parenting.

Parenting is parent to child, not parent to adult.

Of course, there are exceptions.

Of course there are people with disabilities or problem.

I understand there's all kinds of variations.

But generally if I tell people, I go, and what do you need your parent to do?

Well, I need them to treat me right.

And I'm going, why do you need to treat them?

Why do you need them to treat you better?

Why?

Well, I'll never be happy if I

there you are.

You've just hooked together you'll never be happy unless this fantasy comes true and I can already tell you it's not going to come true because it's been going on for 35 years and I doubt if your parents are going to just one day go

you know could miracles happen of course miracles can happen but I'm not in the miracle business so I that if they do they do it's interesting because the people

watching and listening right now, if you're listening, if you're watching this right now, I want you to leave a comment below and say, if you had a happy, like if your parents loved you, supported you, approved of you,

most of the time, comment below happy childhood.

If you feel like your parent, you could never get the approval of your parents, they were never satisfied with you, they're always judging and critical of you.

Type in challenging childhood in the comments below.

And I'm curious: what is the pro and con

of having a healthy relationship with your parents

versus an unhealthy relationship with your parents, wanting them to approve and love you as adults.

Right.

Well, that's

because then your self won't develop.

You are living a pseudo-self,

waiting on them to give you a self by them going, you're wonderful and we love you.

And the thing is,

the same is true with if parents have caused trauma, once you become an adult, they can no longer fix that for you

ever.

They they could say, I'm sorry, they could say they could be remorseful, but I keep telling clients or coaching people that I tell you,

they can't fix it.

This is now yours to fix.

Whatever they did is now yours to fix, not theirs to fix.

Even if they do apologize, it still may not solve the problem yeah you have to fix it still exactly how does that fix it right and so they always go back i'm gonna confront them and tell them and you're just gonna get caught up in the system even deeper really you're gonna you're gonna go down in the quicksand even more if you go do that and i always tell people the time to confront people is when you don't need to

if you need to you're probably out of sync.

Really?

Yeah.

So not that we can't confront some people or I got to confront if they're not giving me my coffee and you know, I got to, but generally I'm talking about this emotional stuff.

You know what's interesting that you say that?

I was sexually abused when I was five by a man that I didn't know.

And I've talked about it openly on this show many times.

But for those that are here the first time, it was something that haunted me for 25 years.

For 25 years, I held on to it.

I felt shame.

I felt sadness.

I felt anger, rage, all these different things.

And it was a movie that played in my mind over and over again for 25 years.

And it drove me,

without even knowing it, unconsciously, to protect myself, to defend myself, to not trust.

Yeah, not trust.

If someone's trying to take advantage of me, I'm going to, you know, get big and strong and all these different things.

And I need to be right and I need to win.

And in some ways, it helped me accomplish certain goals, but it left me feeling very empty as well.

Bad things have upsides.

Bad things have downsides.

Good things have upsides.

Good things have downsides.

All.

But sorry to interrupt.

And I got to a point when I was 30,

so 25 years later, where it

was too much.

It was too much.

And it all kind of came out, right?

It came out at one point after about a year of just breakdowns continuing to happen

where it forced me to look within and stop blaming everyone else of like, why is these things happening in my life?

And it got to a point where I said, okay, I'm actually going to dive deeper and start working on myself and start unpacking things from childhood and start really reflecting on these things.

And I went to workshops and all the therapy, coaching, all the different things.

And it got to a point where I finally

opened up and talked about it.

in a safe environment.

And then I started talking about it and letting my family know, some of my friends, and started talking about it publicly.

And I don't think everyone should talk about their stuff publicly, but I had a platform I felt the need to, I felt pulled to, I felt like inspired to.

And there came to a point where maybe it was a couple years after I started to process and heal that journey and

self-regulate the memory and self-differentiate from that wound

where I was like, do I need to confront this person?

And I don't even know where the person is.

I don't know where the person is or if they're alive or not.

But I was like, What's that going to do for me?

I got to a point where I was like, I don't need to, and I'm at peace with it.

But what should I do about

that?

Yeah, but I didn't feel like I need to confront this to like finish the job of my healing.

I was like, This is my work to do, and no matter what this person would say, it's not going to help me.

What would be the positive outcome of that?

Yeah, I not, you can if you want, but I'm just trying to think what's the utility of it.

If it provides some something, okay.

But I don't know that I would go through all the to try to find them and confront them.

Unless it's a family member that you want to talk about something.

Or right, some ongoing relationship or something.

Right.

Jerry, this has been powerful.

And I want people to follow you over on YouTube/slash jerrywise and everywhere else.

Jerrywise Relationship Systems.com.

You've got a free training on your site as well where people can go through more of your systems and your processes for understanding how to navigate dysfunctional family relationships, how to start healing, how to start becoming more self-aware, self-regulated, differentiated, all these different things.

I want people to go to your website and check this out.

You're all over social media as well.

Again, Jerry Wise.

And you've got just a wealth of information on how to navigate probably one of the most challenging things, which is family family dynamics and the dynamic you have with your inner child and self.

And so I want to acknowledge you for the decades of service you've had towards understanding, researching, and helping human beings find more peace and harmony in their relationships.

Because like you said, I think the most important thing in the world is the family units and having families be healthy and happy and individualistic as well within a family so they can be authentic and not a pseudo-self.

So, I want to acknowledge you for the work, the journey, and the commitment you have to helping families heal in a world where it seems like there's a lot of stress and chaos in families.

And there's two final questions I have for you.

This one is a hypothetical question I ask everyone at the end of our conversations.

It's called the three truths.

So, imagine you get to live as long as you want, Jerry, but it's the last day in the future for you.

And you get to accomplish everything you want and see the people in your life flourish and everything else all comes true.

But on the last day for you, you have to take all of your work with you.

So this conversation is gone.

All the content you've ever put out there, no one has access to your content anymore.

But on the last day, you get to leave behind three final lessons.

And we would have access to this information.

What would be those three lessons to the world or three truths remember that you can't solve the problem

using the thinking and emotional dynamics that have caused it so you cannot break out of the box by using everything you know in the box two

family is

everything, whether you believe it or not.

That truth is not going to change.

You can resist it,

you can do whatever you want with it, but because of who you are, and as a human being, and growing up in that social

unit that has

mental and emotional dynamics that go on

the rest of your life.

So, family is everything.

Thirdly,

calmness is everything.

If you want to be less enmeshed, stay more calm because reactivity will only make you enmesh more.

So if you're being reactive, you're probably enmeshing more.

You're not de-enmeshing.

I didn't say be a doormat.

I didn't say be, but calmness is everything.

And if you are calm, you can think,

you can regulate your emotions better.

you can regulate your thoughts better, and you can see things more clearly.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness.

Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links.

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And I want to remind you: if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

And now it's time to go out there and do something

great.