12. PARENTING: How do we make this thrilling, terrifying roller coaster ride a little bit easier?

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Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.

Thanks for showing up.

Today we're talking about parenting.

So a lot of you know my story of how I became a parent.

19 years ago, I found myself on a cold bathroom floor holding a positive pregnancy test, shaking from terror and a vicious hangover.

I was so broken, so alone.

I'd been an addict for a decade and a half at that point.

And as addicts often do, I'd burned every bridge in my life.

I just remember thinking, there could not be any worse candidate for motherhood on earth than me.

And yet I so badly wanted to become this one's mother.

It was the first thing I ever wanted more than I wanted to be numb.

And I stayed numb because being human just felt too brutal to survive.

It all, all of it just hurt too much.

But that day, staring at that test, I realized that there was beauty to be had too.

And that if I wanted this beautiful thing called motherhood, I was going to have to accept the brutal too.

That life was brutiful.

Both or nothing.

So that day, I got sober.

I decided to open myself up to love, to annihilation, to come back to brutiful life.

My son Chase was born eight months later.

He is the boy.

who brought me into the world.

When Chase was a toddler, Craig lost his job and I was teaching, but money was tight.

So we moved back in with my parents to my childhood home just as the 17-year cicadas arrived in Virginia.

If you have not experienced the cicadas' arrival, it's as if you wake up one morning and the entire world is covered in a layer of black and the air is filled with a sharp screeching sound, like a constant alarm.

I was terrified.

Chase was enchanted.

He'd beg to go for walks and he'd stop every three seconds and bend over and pick up a cicada and pet it with his eyes wide and all lit up.

And I would walk beside him with my smile frozen on my face, trying to keep my hand steady so I could hold his.

I was just desperately trying to hide my fear because I didn't want him to catch it.

because I wanted him to love the world, to live in awe of the world instead of in fear of it.

I just wanted him him to live less afraid than I did.

When Chase was three, his sister was born, and then when he was five, his other sister was born, and all beautiful hell broke loose.

Those days of three little ones at home were the most holy and hardest of my life.

Every day was far too much and not even close to enough.

I was somehow constantly both completely overwhelmed and thoroughly underwhelmed at the same time.

I so loved being needed and yet I was oversaturated by touch and other people's needs and every day was a lonely eternity.

And then this very weird thing kept happening back then.

I'd be in Target, dripping with the children, just trying to buy diapers and get the hell out of there.

And I'd be in the checkout line and a kind-looking older woman would stop her cart and look at us for a long moment.

And then, while the kids were screaming for candy and climbing on my head like monkeys, and I was panic sweating, she'd say to me,

Oh, honey,

these are the best days of your life.

It goes by so fast.

Enjoy every moment.

And I'd try to smile and say thank you, but my heart would drop every time.

There was something about that that made me feel so guilty because those days, those early days, they didn't feel like they were going by fast.

They felt like eternal groundhog days, many of which I found myself crying alone in the bathroom.

And so.

It always made me feel like, great.

So not only am I clearly doing this all wrong, but now I'm somehow missing the best years of my life these are the best years of my life and is it not enough to just try to be a decent mother but now i also have to make sure i'm enjoying every sweaty moment

i vowed if i made it to chase's adulthood i would never be those ladies in target I'd remember how hard it all was.

I'd remember the beautiful, excruciating reality of parenting young kids.

I'd remember that parenting young kids kids is like climbing Mount Everest.

You don't have to smile or enjoy every moment of the climb.

You just got to stay hydrated and keep climbing.

I remember one afternoon watching two-year-old Chase pet one of those god-awful cicadas with his chubby dimpled hand and thinking,

whoa,

the next time these cicadas come, he'll be 18.

My little boy will be 18 years old.

And I remember that felt like a fairy tale.

No way.

We will be this forever.

So

the cicadas are back.

Last week, Chase graduated from high school.

His hands are no longer dimpled and chubby.

He has the elegant hands of a writer, often dirty from tending to his many plants.

He is a creator and a nurturer.

He is in awe of the world he is about to go out into.

He is less afraid than I am.

It went by so fast.

Parenting is like a roller coaster.

The first decade is so slow.

Every day

climbing that hill just tick,

tick,

tick.

And then

you're at the top of the hill.

It's the crest.

It's maybe around 10 years old.

And then,

whirr, all done.

Down the hill.

The car jerks and you're in the station and you look up

and they're walking out.

Chase and I have been roller coaster partners since that day on the bathroom floor when he invited me back to life.

And the car has stopped now.

He's climbing out of our cozy car and walking away.

And I'm still in the car watching him go.

And you probably assume that now is when I tell you how we're supposed to deal with this gorgeous, lucky heartbreak, and you would assume wrong.

I don't don't know.

I am Elsa this month.

I have frozen my heart so I don't die from feeling all of this.

And I know I'm the one who told you to feel it all, but what can I say?

I am a human.

I contain multitudes.

But here's something I can do.

There are many of you listening who are just starting this ride.

who are parents of little ones, who still woke up this morning too early to dimpled little hands in your faces and morning cartoons.

You're just climbing onto the roller coaster, just getting strapped in in those eternal early days, crying in the bathroom occasionally, maybe?

Every time I see you in the target lines, kids screaming and melting down and climbing on your heads like monkeys, I send you love and strength and solidarity.

I never tell you to enjoy every moment.

But if we had time, there are a few things I'd tell you.

Like, it gets better.

There are far better times than these coming.

Like, you will get your life back.

You're still in there.

And other things I wish I'd known during those early days.

So I'm going to tell you some of those things now.

Let's begin.

I'm excited.

for this conversation today.

I don't know exactly where it'll go, but I do know that I

have

three kids who are, let's see, their ages change every year and there's three of them.

So it's really hard to know this, but one is 18, one is 16.

15.

Oh, shit.

Okay, wait, let me start over.

Chase is 18.

Tish is 15.

And Amma is 13.

Nailed it.

Okay.

And then, sister, you have.

I have Bobby, who is turning

nine

in next month.

And Alice, who is turning seven next month.

So we have a very different, we're in different phases, really different phases.

And so I think it's going to be fun to talk to you about these things.

So I just, in preparation for this conversation, I just was thinking of what five things would I tell young moms or dads

about parenting little ones.

And it's funny when I look over these, I realize none of them are about kids.

Like none of them are about

how to make your kids smarter or better or whatever.

They're all just for the parents who I feel like need more support and

goodness and kindness and grace than even the children do.

So

they're really just about how to do the hard thing of parenting and make it a little bit easier, I think.

That's golden.

Right?

You're going to talk about how to do the hard thing of parenting and make it easier?

I think so.

This should be the most popular episode.

We'll see.

The first thing I kept thinking about, I was on my walks.

You know, I take a walk every day, my quiet time.

It's my be still time where I just listen to myself.

And I kept thinking of this idea that when I first became a parent, I thought that I had to be what I would call this perfect parent, which basically just means

it was like this parent who never showed any weakness or never lost their temper or never just was like an android, basically, you know, was always perfectly even-tempered and never got sad and never got tired and was just this Stepford parent, right?

And every time.

Do you mean a droid, sister?

You mean a droid?

What's an android?

An android is like the opposite of an iPhone.

Well, you could have been like an Android too.

That would have have been fine.

Okay.

So whatever is a robot.

Yes.

Droid.

Whatever word means.

These are not the droids you're looking for.

Okay.

Okay.

A troid.

So I don't know.

I just feel like we got that, this kind of memo, my parenting generation, that was just like, here is this version of parenthood.

And this mother is always calm and always smiling and always loving and always giving and was an energizer bunny and never lost it and didn't have any human needs and just kind of ceased to exist and

I guess just wasn't human anymore.

You know, that once you became a mother, you weren't going to be human anymore.

And

at some point, I realized,

oh, wait, but I'm raising people who are fully human.

So isn't the job of parenthood not to be perfect or this robot version of human, but actually

to show with your being and your life and how you deal with shit,

showing your kids how to deal gracefully

with being fully human, right?

Because at some point, these kids are going to

wake up one day and understand that they are fully human.

They're going to have anger.

They're going to have rage.

They're going to have doubt.

They're going to get tired.

They're going to screw up.

They're going to, and if we haven't shown shown them how to do that out loud, they're going to feel shame and alone.

So it's like they might feel great about us if we're trying to be perfect people for them.

They might be like, oh, my mom's perfect, but they're going to feel like crap about themselves when they realize that they, in fact, are fully human.

Yes, not prepared.

It's like

we think, it's like when we get this baby, we think of it like a...

a little mound of clay and we're we're potters and it's spinning around and around and we think if we if we mess it up if we do anything

if we if we make any wrong moves we're gonna like indent the clay or we're gonna and then they'll just have that forever and we've ruined the thing that came to us perfect but but it's not clay it's a person yeah exactly that's a better that's a better way of looking at it but i that's how i always feel i'm always like well

that's gonna be with them for a minute yeah it's forever it's like we We think we're potters shaping clay.

And so my brilliant genius, expert parenting advice is to tell parents: they're not clay.

They're humans.

Like 100%, they're human beings.

So they're going to feel all the things.

They're going to make huge mistakes.

They're going to like try and fail.

All the things that you feel every day, they are going to feel every day.

So why not let them see you mess up?

Let them see you apologize.

Let them see you cry.

Let them see you

lose it every once in a while and apologize.

Like all of that is okay,

right?

It's actually maybe a relief to a kid to feel her insides

and understand that her parent also has those same insides.

And isn't hiding any of it.

So they, in fact, don't have to hide any of who they are.

Yeah.

It's all okay.

I mean, I screw up so much and apologize so often that I think I told you this last week.

So Chase, he's 18 now.

I think we've established.

I

did something dumbass.

I don't know.

I lost my temper or something.

He was in his room later and I was just walking up the stairs and I didn't even get to his room yet.

And he yelled at the room, it's okay, mom.

It's okay.

It's cool.

We're good.

He's like, are we going to have to talk about it again?

Yeah.

But like, they know the pattern.

Like, here she comes.

She's going to apologize.

It's,

I don't know.

I just think Abby and I had a moment early on where she wanted to apologize to Emma and she didn't know we could do that because she didn't have parents who did that.

Like that you were supposed to be invulnerable.

You were supposed to.

And I was like, oh, no, no, do it.

Like, that's the good stuff.

It's so true because so many people of our generation grew up in this way.

It's almost like if you were to say,

like somehow your authority or parenthood is derived from this

what I say is true and what I do

is gospel, that

we think that we're somehow undermining that.

very precarious role because none of us know what the hell we're doing.

So it's like we're trying to pretend we know what we're doing so much that if we ever admit we didn't know what we were doing, that it's some, it's like a house of cards and it all falls down.

That's it.

Because if that's the, if that's what you have in your mind that a parent should be, you will live that way.

Right.

But what if a parent is just someone who's walking,

you know, in front of this other human, just a little bit further down the road, just trying to show them how to forgive yourself for being human and treat other people and yourself with some kindness and decency.

I just,

that's what I would, if I could start over, it wouldn't be knowing I didn't have to become this robot of a person, that that was the opposite of my job, that I was just supposed to be walking in a way that I would want them to watch.

I was trying to human well,

but still not denying any of my humanity in front of them.

So they are not clay, they are human, and also you are human yeah so act like a human yes okay so that is our first piece of of of earth shattering advice you are in fact human the child's human keep humaning okay great

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The second one is this.

So I figured out early on that after trying to read 17,000 parenting books that wait, okay, I'm going to not, I'm going to stop trying to be like a better parent.

And I'm going to just like start trying to be a better person

and let them watch me, right?

That was like a big shift for me.

Except that there was this one woman that I loved when I was raising the little ones.

Her name's Susan Stiffelman.

We've, I loved her books and and she was just the best.

And I remember having a conversation with her one time.

This is the second little hot tip.

And

she was a child therapist and also a teacher of things.

And she told me that a funny thing about being a family therapist is it's almost always the case that if a parent is coming in to try to learn how to like understand their kid better or fix a problem or whatever, that it's almost always the case that they're fine anyway.

That, like, she's never worried about those kids.

Because

if you are a parent who is the kind of person who will be humble and

realize that there are some things you don't know and reach out for help in any way, whether it's through a therapist, if you have that kind of privilege and money, if whether it's through a book, whether it's through a chat room, like if you are the kind of parent who's actually actively

trying

and questioning and thinking, then almost by default, she knows you're fine.

If you're asking for help, it's almost like you don't need it.

Right.

Well, that's a freaking relief.

Yes.

Yes.

So should I be worried that I never read a parenting book?

Maybe I'm the one that, maybe I'm in the student stiffening bullseye.

You should be worried.

So like, if you're not worried, you should be worried.

And if you are worried, you should not be worried.

Second hot tip.

Okay.

No, but I will never forget that she said to me, What kids need at the end of the day is one steady role model.

Okay.

So, like, all of these people are like, there has to be two parents in the house.

There has to be whatever.

That's actually not true.

There needs to be one steady, dependable role model.

And the second thing is that the role models for a child need to be open

to getting help when it's needed.

Meaning help can just be information, help can be conversations with other parents, but this idea of openness that like relating to small people is a lifelong journey and you might need

more than just your own ideas because we were all raised.

in particular families and particular family cultures.

And if we don't open ourselves up to other ideas, we might only be passing down what we've learned.

That's good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So

the third thing.

So that second hot tip was be open

to other ideas and other help.

And if you're already out there seeking resources

and trying to broaden your understanding of what you should be doing, then you're probably

already all set.

Yeah.

If you're listening to this podcast, if you've made it this far, right?

That means you're the type of person, if you're the type of person to constantly wonder, am I a good enough parent?

Am I a good enough parent?

Yes, you are.

The people who are not good enough parents have never considered that possibility.

Okay.

So

fourth.

Are we on three or four?

We're on three.

Oh, damn it.

Okay.

All right.

This is the third one.

And I will tell you that I didn't figure this one out out until maybe child two or three.

Okay.

I used to think of parenting as this,

it was like the kid was born and then you had this list of like goals,

like an expectation list, like things like a dream situation would be like this kid would be this and this and this and this and this.

And then when they're a teenager, they'd be this and this.

And then when they're an adult, they'd be this and this and this.

And that my job was to get them from this

ball of clay

to this checklist of expectations, right?

Right.

And then

after a while, well, after parenting humans, also talking to friends who have parenting humans, watching how this thing works, you realize that is never, ever how this gig goes, ever.

That no one on earth really has ever gotten the kid that they thought they were going to get, right?

That there is this other way of parenting that throws away that sheet completely.

There's no sheet, right?

And instead of

expectation parenting, it's like a treasure hunt parenting.

It's like you come to them with basically a blank slate and you have all of your ideas about how to be a decent human being.

That's not what I'm saying.

But in terms of who they are and who they will be, it is not your job to make them what your idea is of who they should be.

It is only your job to discover,

to spend your entire parenting life as a treasure hunt, just trying to create the sort of loving and open environment where that child feels

safe to constantly tell you who they already are.

Right?

So, what's an example of that?

Well,

okay, so my,

you know, this, but Tish came home one day,

a couple of years ago, a few years ago, and she said,

so Chase wants me to join all of these clubs in school.

And I don't want to.

I don't want to join these clubs.

I'm not like a club person.

So I said, okay, well, then what's the big deal?

Just don't join the clubs.

And she said, well, mom, I don't want to disappoint him.

And

I said to her oh honey like your job throughout your entire life is to disappoint as many people as it takes so that you never disappoint yourself

and she said

even you

and i said oh especially me

right because so many of us are living i mean i have friends who are fierce you know leaders and activists and people out there in the world and still, at the end of the day, they come home and they're really living their lives to not disappoint their parents.

It is like, and, and, you know, maybe their parents have been dead for 20 years.

It doesn't matter.

Right.

That is the ultimate like taming, this idea that we have to live not to disappoint our parents.

And I was talking to Liz Gilbert about this.

a while back and she said, she told me to think hard about the word disappoint, because even in the word, it's like if you're scared of disappointing your parent that means you have already appointed them

the guide of your life

right

right right like disappoint is unappointing and reappointing yourself yes that's what i want the kids to do like i want i don't want them to live

to try to as me as their guide, right?

I want that, I want to teach them to trust themselves to guide their own lives.

And so

if disappointing is like an active thing, because in that scenario, Tish was actually considering

disappointing herself.

Somebody was going to get disappointed in that scenario.

If she joined the club, she was going to be disappointing herself.

If she did not join the club, she was going to be disappointing Chase.

So

I don't know.

As a parent, I just want them to always know that their job is to unappoint everybody else as the guide of their life and trust themselves.

This one is so, that's so true because you want them to live true.

You want them to find what they're, what their particular version of

success and joy and fulfillment is and not just be like, okay, if I go to the school, if I get these grades, but there's so many, there's so many layers to that that make it so much harder because there's obviously, you know, if you're,

if I told Bobby, disappoint me, only do what you want to do, he'd be like, that's cool.

I'm going to be playing Fortnite for eight hours because I have appointed myself, and that's what I want to do.

So there's, there's the lower level of that, right?

And then there's this kind of higher level, which is, we just so desperately want

them

to have the best things.

And we want them to be,

whatever route helped us,

we want to be able to

give to them.

And so you only have the tools that you have, like you only, you only have the experience that you had.

So if, if playing sports was your way of connecting to people in the world and getting self-confidence, you super want them to play sports because that was so helpful to you.

And then it is confusing and hard when you have

a kid who's a poet and wants to stay in their room all day and is a super sensitive artist.

Right.

And then there's this higher level of that, which is a very

different

than I think what you're talking about was when you have kids with special needs, when they have, you know, different brain structure and we're learning about that in our family.

And there is

a certain amount, you actually do have to go through the process of grieving.

What

it's not a disappointment because you love your kid exactly as they are, but there is a grief of

a certain

way

that was always your assumption that it would be.

And

then

you do have to go through that.

You can't shame yourself of saying,

you know, shame on you for being

disappointed or whatever it is.

I think it's a process.

And then, but I think eventually then when you reframe it in the way that you're saying and you just say like the treasure hunt, every one of those flip sides of that letting go of what you thought it would be does really come with this

incredible

when you can look at them not through that frame of what they're missing,

but look at what they're bringing that you never thought

would be part of your life.

It really, it is a powerful thing.

Yeah.

And you can see them.

You can actually see them.

When you're not seeing what's not there, you can actually see what's there.

Yes.

It's like that idea, like, don't become so obsessed with raising the perfect kid that you forget you already have that.

Right.

Yeah, that's really interesting.

It's like also that idea of just fiercely seeing your child for who they are and

expecting the world to adjust to who that child is instead of for that child to adjust to the world's expectations of them.

It feels like a personally powerful way to parent, but it's also kind of a way of reshaping the world.

Because the more parents who just allow their kids to be exactly who they are instead of conforming, then that gives other parents permission to do it.

And it's like this ripple thing.

Like you can, we could actually change the rigidity of how people are allowed to show up in the world if we stopped making our children conform.

And that starts it with you, like in your heart as their mom, if you

have to first say,

I truly believe you are okay.

I truly believe that you are exactly what you need to be.

And,

you know, because you can't just say that about the world if you haven't first shifted that

or you just keep saying it and keep trying to believe it.

And then I almost,

almost disagree.

Like I almost feel like I never truly believe the shit that I believe.

Like I'm always like

at the same time practicing it and saying I believe it and doubting myself and still doing it.

It's like an everyday, do you know what I mean?

Yes, I do.

Yes, I do.

You're like, I believe that I can swim.

I believe that I can swim as you go and you're like, look at me.

I'm not drowning.

Yes.

Like love wins.

Love wins.

Does love win?

Love wins, right?

Love wins.

Let's, yeah.

So

love wins.

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Okay,

so the

next one, we're now on to number four.

Okay, this is this idea that we might have to do a whole episode on this, actually, but it's on I think we should do an episode also on the letting go of embracing the child you have versus the child that you expected yourself to have.

Agree.

Agree.

Okay, so number four.

It's about pain and kids pain.

I have,

I think because we as human beings don't trust pain, like we are taught as a culture that we should just, that like there are a few feelings that are okay to have, which are all like the comfortable feelings, like happiness and gratitude and yada.

And that any painful feelings are failures that we should just not admit we have or deflect or numb, then that's what we pass on to our kids, those ideas about pain.

So this is this, and this was part of our parenting memo from my generation.

It was like, your job as a parent is to never let your kid feel any pain, to fix their sadness, to protect them from,

you know, discomfort, to never let anyone be mean to them, to to

never let them fail.

Just like,

just like the clay will melt.

The clay melts.

Yes.

Or like, it was like in eighth grade, I remember we had to do this,

it was this parenting

experiment or something and they tried to-don't get pregnant scare tactics.

Yes, they tried to scare us by giving us an egg.

And it was like, if you can keep this egg not cracked for a week, I don't know.

But I had to carry this freaking egg around.

I was terrified all the time that this egg was going to break.

And that is literally how we parent, like the egg experiment in real life.

Like they, they give this human, and we're like just panicking.

Like, what do I do not to break it?

Because successful parenting is if I return this egg

unbroken, right?

But like, once again, listener, you came here

to hear the earth-shattering revelation that your child is neither clay nor an egg.

Okay.

So like, I'll never forget being at this parenting convention.

And this woman stood up and she was amazing and she started crying.

And she said, Glennon, my family is broken and there's nothing I can do to fix it.

And every day I look at my son and he's in so much pain.

And all I can think of is, it was my one job to protect you from pain.

And I couldn't do it.

And I'm such a failure.

I feel like such a failure.

And all of the other parents are just like nodding and nodding.

First of all, they're at a parenting convention.

So we know they're fine.

Their kids are fine.

Scene number two.

Susan says, you're all good.

Probably just best to relax.

But anyway.

So I said to her, it was this moment of understanding, like what the problem is not that our kids have pain.

The problem is that we have the wrong memo of what parenting is.

She said, it was my one job to protect them from pain.

That's why she felt like a failure.

But actually, when you think hard about

what kind of people humans were trying to raise, right?

Everybody says, I want to raise somebody who's kind.

I want to raise somebody who's wise.

I want to raise somebody who's resilient.

Right.

It's always some version of those three.

And when you think hard about what is it in a human life that creates wisdom and kindness and resilience, it's pain.

It's the struggle,

right?

It's not not having anything to overcome.

It's overcoming and overcoming and overcoming, right?

That's what builds.

Kids, people who are kind are people who have felt the sting of unkindness and don't want to pass it on.

Right.

People who are resilient are people who have screwed up and failed and gotten back up and saw that that doesn't kill you.

Right.

And people who are wise have sat in the ickiness of making mistakes and being human and like gleaned, you know, the gold that comes from that.

So it's just this idea, number four,

which is it is not our job nor our right to protect our kids from their pain.

Right.

It's our job to just actually like let them sit in it, sit beside them through it, just say to them over and over again, like, I see your fear and it's big, but I see your courage and it's bigger.

You can do hard things.

We can do hard things because that's the dream, right?

That when we're gone, they aren't these people who are just constantly avoiding every fire of life because we've taught them they can't handle it, that they know that they are fireproof because they've walked through so many fires and they're still standing.

And just that be, that's exactly right.

And the being,

the being with them in it, I mean, that's all of it.

and not being i'm so afraid of your pain that i'm scared to talk to you about it that i'm scared that that this has broken you i'm just gonna

ignore it because it's too overwhelming for me i mean i think any pain if you know that the person who loves you most is sitting with you in it

it's the best we can do

That's the best we can do.

I love that.

So it's not, it's, it's looking at it with them, right?

Sitting,

sitting in it with them.

I love that.

Okay, last one, which I feel like we kind of, you already kind of nailed, but

this one's going to be tricky for me to

explain.

I was trying to think of how I want to say it on my walk, but I,

okay.

I feel like we create stories about our children.

Okay.

We create these stories in our mind about who our children are.

I should say I have.

I have done this.

Oh, Chase is the, this one.

Amma's the this one.

Tish is the sensitive one.

Amma's the sporty one.

Like

we create these stories about who they are.

And

I think more than anything, what I've learned now that the kids are older is that the story of who I've said they are have kept me from seeing who they actually are.

That they're

you know, okay, quick example.

Like, you know, when Abby and Craig wanted Tish to try out for this like really elite soccer team, and I was like, Tish cannot do that.

Like Tish, she was struggling.

She was having a hard time.

She's super sensitive.

She's, no, she can't do that.

That's not, this is the wrong time.

I had this story about who she was and what she could handle.

Thankfully, I differed at that point to Abby and Craig.

She crushed it.

It's, it's.

one of the things that has saved her during these last four years.

That story I had about her was not true, right?

And the story we have about them, even though, even when it's positive,

is dangerous, right?

So, oh, you're the artistic one.

Really?

So, now I'm in that cage for the rest of my life.

Now, I think that's my parents' expectation.

So, I'm constantly trying to live up to that, right?

Or I'm the sensitive one.

My parents say I'm the sensitive one.

So, that means my sister's not sensitive, first of all.

And that means that I can't handle life, right?

It's like their issue is never.

What I've learned about my kids is that their issue is not,

it's not,

it's not theirs.

It's like the story I have about their issue is their issue,

right?

So it's kind of like if I could tell a parent

that parenting at the end of the day is just about seeing them each day.

And when you're staring at them, because you have this story about them, you don't see them,

right?

It's like every story we have about our kids is a cage and there's this there's this idea in buddhism called beginner's mind that we actually can only see a situation or an idea or a person when we come to them with absolute freshness

right when we let go of all of the stories we have about them and they walk into a room and we're like oh there you are fresh to me in this moment and so and you know that old very famous

quote from, I believe it was Toni Morrison who said that all a child needs is for when they walk into a room to see their parents light up, their parents' eyes light up.

Like if at the end of the day, if we can just look at our kids with bright lit up eyes freshly.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

I love that.

To delight in them, to delight.

Like just, and that, I love that too, because that quote, I think about it all the time, because it's just when they walk in the room and I think about it.

I'm like, you go total from school and you walk in the door and I'm like, how is your dad?

Love you.

I missed you.

And that's it.

Okay.

That's it.

That's all they get.

But it's, it doesn't, she doesn't say all a child needs is three hours on the floor of delighting in them.

She said when they walk in the room.

That's right.

That's right.

And by the way, if you need to walk out right away, just flash them some love and light and get the hell out of there.

It's so true.

That thing that you said about labeling them is so important because I always wonder: are we doing that for our needs?

Are we like, we have a checklist of things we require among our cohort?

And so we're like, Well, you're going to be the sporty one because I need to have a sporty kid.

You're going to be the smart one.

You're going to be the, and, and we carry those.

I recently

was

with a therapist.

I have just always thought that I am 0% sensitive.

Always my whole life.

Sister.

Oh, sister.

100%.

Like with all honesty, I am not sensitive.

And

I think I'm wondering it's because you were always the sensitive one.

That's right.

And

but

turns out, shock of the century,

for me, truly was shocked that I might be sensitive.

At first, I was like, let me see your credentials.

I don't know about this.

But those stories are true.

And even the things we, it's like when you say an untamed, be careful of the stories you tell about yourself.

When I'm talking about us, even I'm like, well, she's the creative one.

I'm the analytical one.

And that's an insult to both of us.

That's right.

It's, it's not an, I don't feel it as insulting.

I feel it as it, it's true for me.

I am not analytical, but

I will tell you that that's a conversation that Abby and I have been having that like, you are so creative.

You are so,

I mean, it's just, it's, it's, it's interesting.

Okay.

That's for another, um, also, I just want to add that mom has always told me that I was a good singer and dancer.

And

you know that, right?

Yeah.

She's always like,

she's like, Glennon has such a good voice.

Like, Glennon is, she can dance.

She's the one who dances.

Do you, were you in the room?

I thought it was at Christmas when I was dancing and you and Abby just were like, No, you can't.

This is terrible.

I was stunned.

I was stunned.

So, we have to be careful of the stories both ways.

We can really

lead our children into a life of delusion.

Don't lie to them.

God.

Okay, we love you.

Let's come back with some hard cues.

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Okay, we're back with some hard cues.

Let's go to a write-in question, which actually is maybe we got some version of this question 49 million times, which is, how do you handle the sleep deprivation of being a parent with young children?

What are they talking about?

I don't.

Y'all's sister has not slept for eight years.

She has rough sleepers, non-sleepers, people who don't believe in sleep.

They're doing their best to disappoint me.

Yeah, and so they don't disappoint themselves.

And bless their hearts, they disappoint you every damn night, don't they, sister?

Listen, you don't handle sleep deprivation.

You barely survive sleep deprivation.

I mean, I'll never forget talking to this person who was

training for some crazy military situation.

Okay.

And this person, I don't know if this is like top secret.

I'm not supposed to talk about it, whatever.

I didn't sign anything.

So,

in order to, this person was being trained by a government to withstand torture.

If this person got caught by an enemy, okay.

Now, I need you to understand that what they did to train this soldier to resist torture or to survive torture without caving was that they put this person in a room with no with just walls, and then they played over a loudspeaker, a baby crying,

or maybe it was a toddler because the toddler would cry, scream, and then yell, Mommy, mommy.

That was the torture, okay, that broke most of these highly trained soldiers and then they and then they'd wake them they'd wake them up they wouldn't every time they went to sleep they'd wake them up so yes they kept them yep yep i remember so

how do i explain this to you the reason why you feel like you were being tortured is because you are actually

being tortured okay but unlike these

soldier people you don't get to cave you don't get to you you just just have to day after day survive being actually

psychologically and physically tortured.

That's why you feel crazy.

Okay.

You are not crazy.

You're just a goddamn parent.

So we're, we're basically all special forces is what you're saying.

You are a freaking, freaking hero, a global hero.

Okay, our last question is from Christina.

I'm wondering, Glennon, what are some tips that you have for moms who are going through the worry of kids growing old too fast?

For example, I have a 13 and a 14-year-old, and on the daily, I count to myself how many years I have before they're leaving, and that brings me just immense sadness to think about them leaving.

So I'm looking for some ways to kind of comfort myself maybe, or just

make sure that I'm maximizing the time that I have with them so I don't look back on these four and three years, just an abundance of regret.

So, I don't know if that's really a question.

Maybe just

help with the transition.

I know you're going through it too.

Thank you so much.

I think you're doing a great job.

Christina, she's counting the years.

Oh, I know this feeling.

I know this feeling.

And how do we maximize the years?

And how do we enjoy it so much that we never have regret?

So, um, I'm Christina.

I'm gonna read to you, just for you, Christina,

part of

an essay that I wrote years ago called Don't Carpe Diem.

Okay.

Um, really, this essay is how I became a writer, all right?

This is the essay that went viral all over the place and, and kind of how this whole shebang got started.

And it's about those women at Target who looked at me and told me it goes by so fast.

Okay, so this is for you, Christina.

My point is this.

I used to worry that not only was I failing to do a good enough job at parenting, but that I wasn't enjoying it enough.

Double failure.

I felt guilty because I wasn't in parental ecstasy every hour of every day and I wasn't making the most of every moment like the mamas in the parenting magazine seemed to be doing.

I felt guilty because honestly, I was tired and cranky and ready for the day to be over quite often.

And because I knew that one day I'd wake up and the kids would be gone and I'd be the old lady in the grocery store with my hand over my heart.

Would I be able to say I enjoyed every moment?

Nope.

Clearly, carpe Diem doesn't work for me.

When it comes to parenting, I can't even carpe 15 minutes in a row.

So a whole Diem is out of the question.

Here's what works for me.

There are two different types of time.

Kronos time is what we live in.

It's regular time.

It's one minute at a time, staring down the clock until bedtime time.

It's 10 excruciating minutes in the target line time, four screaming minutes in time out time, two hours until daddy gets home time.

Kronos is the hard, slow passing time we parents often live in.

And then there's Kairos time.

Kairos is time.

outside of time.

It's metaphysical time.

Kairos is those magical moments in which which time stands still.

I have a few of those moments each day with my kids, and I cherish them.

Like when I actually stop what I'm doing and really look at Tish,

I notice how perfectly smooth and brownish her skin is.

I notice the curves of her teeny elf mouth and her almond brown eyes and I breathe in her soft tissy smell.

In these moments, I see that her mouth is moving, but I can't hear her because all I can think is this is the first time I've really seen Tish all day and my god she is so beautiful.

Kairos.

Or when I'm stuck in Kronos time in the grocery line and I'm haggard and angry at the slow checkout clerk, but then I look at my cart and I'm transported out of Kronos.

I notice the piles of healthy food I'll feed my children to grow their bodies and minds.

And I remember that most of the world's mamas would kill for this opportunity, this chance to stand in a grocery line with enough money to pay.

And I just stare at my cart, at the abundance, the bounty.

Thank you, God.

Kairos.

Or when the kids finally fall asleep, when I curl up in my cozy bed with my dog asleep at my feet, and I listen to her breathing, and for a moment I think, how did I get so lucky to go to bed each night surrounded by this breath?

This love, this peace, this warmth.

Kairos.

These Kairos moments leave as fast as they come, but I mark them.

I say the word kairos in my head each time I leave Kronos.

And at the end of the day, I don't remember exactly what my kairos moments were, but I remember I had them.

And that makes the pain of the daily parenting climb worth it.

If I had a couple Kairos moments, I called the day a success.

Carpe, a couple of kairos is a day.

Good enough for me.

So, all of you lovies parenting the little ones on the climbing side of the parenting mountain on the

climbing the hill of the roller coaster so slowly,

forget about carping the whole day.

Our next right thing is going to be just find one Kairos moment a day.

Right?

Just one day that stops your breath, that stops your heart.

That is beauty.

And you call that a parenting success.

And when life gets hard this week, don't you forget we can do hard things.

Our theme song, We Can Do Hard Things by Tish Melton, is available now for streaming and download on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music, Pandora, and YouTube.

And now I give you Tish Melton and Brandi Carlyle.

I walked through fire, I came out the other side.

I chased desire,

I made sure I got what's mine.

And I continue

to believe

that I'm the one for me.

And because I'm mine,

I walk the line.

Cause we're adventurers, and heartbreaks are map.

A final destination

we lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places

they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a heart game.

I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new start.

I'm not the problem,

sometimes

things fall apart.

And I continue

to believe

the best

people are free

and it took some time.

But I'm finally fine.

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

A final destination

we lack.

We stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do a hard pain.

We're adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

We might get lost, but we're okay with that.

We've stopped asking directions

in some places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do hard things.

Yeah, we can do hard things.

Yeah, we

can do hard

things.

We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios.

Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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