Our Parenting Advice: Raising Teens, Family Anxiety & Decision Fatigue
August 20, 2024
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things, the place where we do hard things or we hardly do things, depending on what day it is. Today is a day that makes us so happy because it’s the day that we talk to you. Let’s jump into some glorious voicemails from these hilarious, deep, fascinating pod squadders.
Patty :
Hi, Glennon, Abby and Sister. My name is Patty and I have a question. I was wondering if you are ever going to talk about teenagers. I’m having such a hard time with my daughter. I feel like I’m losing her. She ebbs and flows to me, but she’s mostly gone. There’s also this other vaping thing that’s going on now with the teenagers, like everybody’s on this vaping thing because it’s a cool thing. So she comes up to me and says, “Mommy, I’m going to a party,” She’s 14, “With my friends at school, and I’m letting you know there will be vape. I’m not going to vape, but everybody around me is going to vape.” So I’m just said, “Okay, baby.” That’s what I said, but I’m just wondering if I’m doing the right thing. I was not prepared for that. I always thought, “Oh, my daughter? Never. She’s so sweet.” Thank you so much. Your podcast is a life changer.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, Patty. I love Patty.
Glennon Doyle:
I love Patty. I think Patty’s nailing it.
Abby Wambach:
I do too. She thinks that she’s losing her daughter, but her daughter came to her and told her that there was going to be vape there. Did you tell your parents that there was going to be alcohol at parties? I lied so much.
Amanda Doyle:
All I did was lie. All the lies. All the lies. And then I would also like to talk for a second about the intellectual dishonesty of the shock, when they found us in our lies. I mean, my parents would drink at home, they’d be with their friends and they would drink. My dad would tell stories about how he drank all through high school, and then we’d lie and say we did nothing. And then when we got in trouble, it would be like utter shock. Like, “I can’t believe it.” Can you not? Can you not believe it? That just doesn’t feel honest.
Abby Wambach:
You’re right. It feels dishonest because it is. Their shock, I think, I know that this is true for me, the shock and disappointment is the thing that they hung their hats on. I know for me that if they said, “I’m just really disappointed in you.” That was supposed to keep me in line.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, I have been writing poems about the word liar because I feel like parents who are shocked and angry that their kids are lying is so interesting. It’s like being shocked that your kid is breathing in air. I don’t think it’s an individual responsibility of a child to always tell you the truth. All they’re doing is reading the room of what is acceptable that you have presented to them.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
What are you telling me I should be saying in this context?
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. The amount of times that a child tries to tell the truth, they’re just learning. They’re learning their world. And so if a child tells the truth through their emotion, through their anger, through their words, through their whatever, and the parents react horrifically to that, the child is learning, “Oh, I see. We lie here.” So I don’t think we should call kids liars. I think we should just call kids humans who are in a situation where they don’t feel like their whole truth is safe. Its attachment theory shit. So Patty, freaking amazing that your daughter came to you and said, “There’s going to be vape there.” I mean it’s kind of funny too. It’s just all quite funny.
Amanda Doyle:
Are they smoking tobacco through vape or-
Abby Wambach:
Both.
Glennon Doyle:
Both.
Amanda Doyle:
Or can you do both?
Glennon Doyle:
Both.
Abby Wambach:
You can do either or.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. Okay.
Abby Wambach:
So some are weed and some are like nicotine.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
And it’s an equally horrific nefarious attempt, again from big tobacco, to target children because a lot of the vapes-
Amanda Doyle:
They’re remarketing it now.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, it was spun as safer, of course, as always. And then they all have flavors, so they’re like-
Abby Wambach:
And the flavors are super [inaudible 00:04:52].
Glennon Doyle:
Blueberry, rock and cherry. It’s all marketed completely towards kids.
Amanda Doyle:
We have cotton candy vape.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, I’m pretty sure that was for a twelve-year-old child.
Abby Wambach:
Can we talk about the most important sentence in, I think, her question?
Amanda Doyle:
The, “I am just wondering if I’m doing the right thing”?
Abby Wambach:
No.
Glennon Doyle:
“I’m losing her.” Because I was like, that’s what I wonder every day.
Abby Wambach:
“I just feel like I’m losing her.” and I think that that is essentially the most tragic thing about being a parent.
Glennon Doyle:
Is that the goal?
Abby Wambach:
Well, that is the reality, sadly.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. But I will say this to Patty. This is the thing I come back to as a parent of teenagers who over time, a million times, have felt like this is it, I’m losing them. Just by their energy, their vibe. They used to tell me they don’t. All the different million things is I think that the best approach that I have come up with is we must tolerate the ebbs and flows of losing them because that is individuation. That is what they have to do. That is their developmental job, is to try to survive on their own for what’s coming. So it’s the vibe of telling yourself over and over again that that is not only okay, that means you’re doing it as a parent. The fact that they can experiment with disappearing from you and needing you, it means you’re doing it right. So it’s that tolerance with a steadfast commitment, “To they might leave, but I will not.”
Like a tree in the ground, their job is to throw at you that they don’t need you. Their job is fuck you, I love you. Their job is go away, for God’s sake, don’t leave. The crisis is when a parent actually doesn’t have the maturity to not take it personally and to think they don’t want me. So I’m not going to show up for them or when we do that energetically. But I think that if we can embody the vibe of, “Yes, that’s your job. You go ahead and go. I am going nowhere.” I am the touch tree that you can continue to come back to if you’re gone for a day, a week, a year, whatever it is. That’s how we’ve made it through.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, well, I mean you just actually, that helped me a lot right now because I’m actually feeling a lot of this with our kids right now is just like the leaving and I didn’t get as much time. And so I’m holding on for my dear fucking life over here. And it is true. And I think that I can put more energy in the staying and not going anywhere than the worrying about the leaving.
Glennon Doyle:
Because if you chase them… Nope, nope. You got to be a tree. You got to be a tree. No chasing. Roots don’t run.
Amanda Doyle:
Roots don’t run. So what you’re saying is their job is to be alternatively lovey and an asshole because that’s part of it. And so what you need to not get confused about what their job is. So when they’re being an asshole to you or they’re ebbing and flowing or however… Patty put it nicer. Ebbing and flowing, you’re not reacting to that. You’re just saying, “Oh look, you’re doing your job.” I’m not reacting to that as if it’s at a personal affront to me. I’m just staying steady in my job and we’ll be here.
Glennon Doyle:
I am a tree.
Abby Wambach:
I am a tree.
Glennon Doyle:
My teenagers are the weather. Sometimes they’re going to shine on me, I’m not taking that too personally because tomorrow they’re going to storm on me. Then there’s going to be a tornado, but I am a tree and I am rooted and I am going nowhere.
Abby Wambach:
And one little thing that Glennon and I started doing as the kids started to get old enough, we stopped going into their bedrooms at night to say good night. And so we stay in our bedroom and it was kind of hard at first, but eventually they started to come to our bedroom-
Glennon Doyle:
Every night.
Abby Wambach:
To say good night. And that’s now our dynamic. We don’t encroach on their space, but every single night, these kiddos show up so that they can say good night and then they tell us shit because it’s on their time. They’ve chosen it.
Glennon Doyle:
This is a hack, I swear. And it works for everybody because Abby and I go to bed, we’re in bed by 7:30, like after dinner. I mean, that’s weird, right?
Amanda Doyle:
Trees are tired.
Glennon Doyle:
Trees are fucking tired.
Abby Wambach:
Standing all day, got to lie down.
Glennon Doyle:
And there’s something energetic about teenagers being able to have their own… If I go into my kid’s room, it’s just like everything shuts down. It’s like they’re cooking meth in there. I don’t know what they’re doing that makes them so sketchy every time I walk in.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like a record scratch.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like, “Oh God.” I don’t know. There’s no nervous systems that are regulated when I walk into their bedrooms. But we just sit there in our bed and we watch our TV and little, every single night they trickle in. They tell us their things. They sit on the bed. They need their own agency and their own power to come to us. So there’s something in there.
Abby Wambach:
And the dogs.
Glennon Doyle:
And the dogs are there. Oh, God. If you don’t have a dog, and you’re raising teenagers-
Abby Wambach:
If you don’t have a dog and you’re raising a teenager, they express their physical hugs, need for physical touch, with the dogs. It’s a little bit more complicated with the older. Like, I actually just hugged Tish as an experiment the other day. She came into the bed and sometimes I lean over and I give them fist taps so they don’t have to walk all the way around the bed to give me a hug. But this day, Tish came in and I just was like, “Oh, I’m going to hug her and not let go and see what she does.”
Amanda Doyle:
What’d she do?
Abby Wambach:
So I hugged her, I embraced her, and she goes, “Is everything okay?” And I said, “Yeah, I was just seeing how long it would take for you to notice that I’m just holding the hug.”
Glennon Doyle:
And then what did she say?
Abby Wambach:
And then she’s like, “You’re a really good hugger.”
Amanda Doyle:
You are a great hugger.
Glennon Doyle:
She said, “I needed that.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
I know. Anyway, Patty, I don’t think Patty needs our advice. I think Patty’s crushing it. Patty is a tree.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Pat-tree.
Abby Wambach:
Pat-tree.
Glennon Doyle:
Pat-tree.
Amanda Doyle:
I know. And so I just said, “Okay, baby.” That’s what I said. I think that that’s a great thing to do.
Glennon Doyle:
Because also, what she taught her daughter is that she’s a safe place for the truth. That’s all it was. Safe place for the truth.
Amanda Doyle:
And to be clear, I’m not sure it was the whole truth. She said, “Everybody there is going to be vaping, but not me.” But what’s more important? That she’s not doing that or that she’s sharing with her mom?
Abby Wambach:
She’s testing the waters.
Glennon Doyle:
I have one more teenage tip.
Abby Wambach:
She’s testing the water.
Glennon Doyle:
Can I share it? I feel like this one’s really important. This is another teenage tip that we told our kids in a very confusing conversation. As they move into teenage world, we are their next best move. So when they’re in a situation and they have done a dumbass thing that we have told them not to do a million times, now that we are in teenage land, what we are here for is for an every dumbass moment to be their best resource for how to make it better in the next moment.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
In the future moment. We are no longer going to go backwards with them. We are no longer going to say, “You dumbasses, why did you do that thing that we told you not to do?” We want to be your resource when you are sitting at that party and your friend has had too much to drink and they’re in trouble and you are in trouble, we want to be the call you make when you know that my parents are going to help me figure out how to make this better in the next step.
Abby Wambach:
Because so much shit goes wrong when they don’t make that call. And then they’re in the circumstance and they are continuing to make wrong decision after wrong decision because they don’t have their wits about them.
Amanda Doyle:
Because it’s cyclical. It’s like it’s the parents who are the strictest are doing it in the light most favorable to them, out of a real desire to protect their kid and have their kid not get harmed or not get in trouble or not get all of the bad things happen. But ironically, if you’ve made it so costly to admit that you’ve done the bad thing, then they’re not going to use you to get out of trouble. So you have to do what you’re doing and say, “Here are the ways for you to not get yourself in trouble. And when you do, I want to be the one that you call.”
Glennon Doyle:
That’s what we said. When I say it’s a confusing conversation, it’s intellectually dishonest. That’s why it’s confusing. But being human is intellectually dishonest. So parents who are just that strict, it’s like relying on abstinence in schools or like it just doesn’t work.
Abby Wambach:
It’s not realistic.
Amanda Doyle:
It just makes the person teaching it feel better.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly, by pretending everything’s so black and white. So basically our conversation is don’t do that. If and when you do that… So next Tuesday, when you do that, because we know what it’s like to be human because we were it. But I do think that there’s a version of teenage parenting where your kid gets in trouble and their first thought is one of two things. The last person I need to find out about this is my parent. Conversely, the only person who can help me with this shit is my parent.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Exactly.
Abby Wambach:
Because we have mentioned like, “Look, we won’t be upset if you come to us. If you choose not to come to us…”
Glennon Doyle:
You’re fucked.
Abby Wambach:
“And more shit happens…”
Glennon Doyle:
You’re just fucked.
Abby Wambach:
“Because you choose not to you come. That’s when you’re going to be fucked.” You get a pass. First go around, you’ll get a pass. But if you fuck up two back to back things because you didn’t come to us, that’s when you’re going to be really in trouble.
Glennon Doyle:
And it won’t even be with us. It’ll just be with life. Like, you’ll just be fucked in general.
Amanda Doyle:
We are your only intermediary between yourself and life right now, use it wisely.
Glennon Doyle:
But I feel like teenagerhood is when you really have to embody the truth of what it is to be human. You can pretend they’re not human until being teenagers, and then it’s time to remove the abstinence program, the Dare program from your curriculum, all of the things that don’t work that have to do with shutting down human nature and just work with human nature.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
Although, we do need to do an episode on fentanyl because that is the one, we have had very real conversations with our kids about that.
Glennon Doyle:
Same.
Amanda Doyle:
About like how, when mommy and daddy were growing up, you could experiment with the “not bad drugs”. You really could. It was fine, whatever. And that we are in a brave new world where one experiment with that will kill you. So if you’re going to do that, you need to do it from these kinds of places and not these kinds of places.
Glennon Doyle:
Let’s do an episode on-
Abby Wambach:
We should do it.
Amanda Doyle:
That is the trick of that. They actually can’t be the same humans that we were in some respects because they could die in a hot second. So let’s do a fentanyl one.
Glennon Doyle:
But there’s ways around that too. Our kids all have fentanyl tests.
Abby Wambach:
We have Narcan, which is the antidote to a fentanyl overdose. Lots of states are giving away Narcan for free.
Amanda Doyle:
You need Narcan. The fentanyl strips aren’t always accurate though, so you have to be really careful with those. But we’ll do a whole nother episode on this.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, cool. Love it. Let’s hear from somebody else.
Lauren:
Hi, Glennon, Abby and Sister. My name’s Lauren. I’m a mother of five-year-old twin girls. One of them is very confident and never abandons herself and is just very comfortable and confident in the person that she is. And then her sister is not as confident and is always looking outwards to please other people. And so my question is how do I validate her and let her know that I’m proud of her, but also not make her a people pleaser? So thank you again for everything you do. Appreciate everything. Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. I’m going to say what my reaction to this story, and then you guys just do yours, which I think will be more logical. But my first thought when I heard Lauren say these things about her twins was that if Lauren were on my couch and she were my friend, I would say, “Can you just try throwing those stories away about your girls?” Because when we just have a story about our kid, we are only seeing or looking for evidence that supports that story.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
And then we say that to them in a million different ways. We don’t have to say it like this. We say it with our body, we say it in the way we react. If I were Lauren, what I would do to try to detox myself from these stories that I’ve written about my girls is that I would tell myself the opposite ones.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, that’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
I do that.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
With the kids, I’m like, “Oh, no, no, you’re the athletic one.” In my brain, not whatever. I wouldn’t be as worried about the details of this. What I would really be worried about is just maintaining these stories and what they will keep Lauren from seeing in each girl. And if the girls pick up on these stories about themselves, what it will do to them in the long run.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
And by the way, Lauren, I want to say that because I’ve done this to all my children. So I’m not saying like, this is what I have learned through personal experience that when we have stories about each kid that that helps them individuate at first and then fucks them because they feel like they have to stay inside this little box. And the other kids feel like they are not that thing.
Abby Wambach:
And I think from a human perspective, we all like to put people in our little categories and stories and boxes. It makes us feel safer. And especially when we’re raising kids, it gives you an orientation like, “Oh, okay, so my kids’ like this, so this is how I have to be and this I have to turn towards them.” So I totally agree. I was labeled the athlete and I’ve been trying to unwind from that label pretty much since I started playing sports because there’s so much responsibility that I had to carry as this one thing.
Glennon Doyle:
You identify with the thing and then you squash the rest when you think that’s your single story. So Lauren’s first twin, if she finds out that her family thinks she’s the confident one, she will squash forever, any sort of doubt because this is how she has earned her identity in the family.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
But that’s not how humans are. No human is a story. Each of Lauren’s twins are the whole shebang of the human experience. So if the confident one believes she’s earning her attachment through confidence, she will never admit to doubt, which is a very important part of being human and making good decisions. If the other one thinks she’s a people pleaser, she will not find that inner confidence that she has as much as the other twin.
Abby Wambach:
Sissy, what do you think?
Amanda Doyle:
And not for nothing, I mean, I trust Lauren. And so if she’s saying that the one that’s a people pleaser is looking outwards, I just wonder, it would be interesting to play with that story and be like, are we sure that that’s the case? Because it could be that the one who presents as confident has determined, and rightly so, that that is what is more pleasing to her mother. Which we can see by this because Lauren’s worried about the other one that isn’t presenting that way.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
So it’s not always clear that the presenting symptom is actually the crux of the problem. The one that’s most confident and outgoing could be doing that precisely because it is pleasing.
Glennon Doyle:
Absolutely.
Amanda Doyle:
And the other one-
Abby Wambach:
That’s really smart.
Amanda Doyle:
Could be actually most comfortable in her own skin and doesn’t give a shit that the other one’s hustling so hard to be so pleasing to other people. But the only way that you make sure that that’s the case is by not making a hierarchy of those. By not being like, “This one’s better. And this one’s-“
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
“This one is the aspirational one and this one is the…”
Abby Wambach:
And I also think, I have two things to say. One, I think in terms of the people pleasing piece, it’s hard because you want them to live from the inside out, not the outside in. That’s at least how I want our kids to experience their lives in the world. It’s just not always possible.
Amanda Doyle:
For real.
Abby Wambach:
We are always, and I speak for myself as a people pleaser, I am in therapy now trying to orient, to trying to figure out, “Okay, where does this thing start? Where does the energy start?” I want it to start from inside. I don’t want it to be outside in. And that’s my personal journey, my personal work. And so I don’t think it necessarily needs to be classified as not as good as the confident piece. That’s just one thing. My second thing is, I think we have to be very careful with the word or the statement, “I’m proud of you.” To our children. That really jumped out to me, and what a huge responsibility that is to put on our children because when you say, “I’m proud of you.” What that then gets interpreted in the body and the mind of this child is, “Oh, I just did something that made my parent proud.” In and of that statement, is a people pleasing request.
You are saying to your kid, I am requesting that you please me and I will tell you when you’ve pleased me with these words, “I’m proud of you.” And so I think that we have to be very careful when we use that word. And I really try to, I talk to Glennon about this a lot. When Emma walks off the soccer field and she’s had a great game, I’m just like, “Wow, I’m so happy for you. I’m so happy for you that that game happened and that that moment happened or that play happened.” And I don’t always get it right because it’s just at the tip of my tongue because I do have pride in me because I’m a human and I have an ego and I’m like, “Fuck it. My kid just killed it on that field.” I have it in me. But I think we have to be very careful about how we communicate that with our kids because it’s this responsibility that they’ll carry forever, which is in turn, we don’t want our kids to be living their lives so they can make us proud. That is not why we-
Amanda Doyle:
And the converse of that is true. The veiled threat is, “Well, I know I killed it out there and therefore you’re proud. Which means, if I have a shitty game next week and I come off the field, you have to not be as proud as that.”
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
So I’ve started saying, trying to do that because of what you always say about proud, is that, and my kids are different, so it’s not like the same things.
Abby Wambach:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s not one thing is going to apply to all of them. I can’t just have a meter where it’s like, “This is good and this isn’t. And this is pride and this isn’t.” So I’ve just started saying, like if they have a test or something, they’ll tell me, “Oh, I got an X score.” And I’ll just say, “How do you feel about that?”
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
Not reacting if it was a 10 out of 10 or a six out of 10, and for one kid it might be like, “I feel good about the six out of 10.” I’ll be like, “Awesome, great.” And the other one might get a nine out of 10 and be like, “I don’t feel good about that.” And I’ll be like, “Man, that’s tough.” So I’m reacting to their feelings.
Glennon Doyle:
Their feelings. So good.
Amanda Doyle:
Response to their own thing instead of an arbitrary like, this is my personal response to your grade. That’s weird.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s weird. It’s a revelation of values. So every time a parent says, “I’m proud of you.” What they mean is, I have a value, a personal value that you have just met. And that in itself is what attachment is. It’s like, “Oh, that thing I do makes my mom… Matches what she thinks is important.” I don’t think it gets the kid to understand what they think is important, and everything is reaction. I mean, this reminds me of Emma. She’s got a certain grade on a group project and she was delighted with the grade. Did I tell you the story?
Amanda Doyle:
No, but I’m laughing because I know it from my own home.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. So she got on a call with the group, her group at school, which she thought was going to be celebratory. And she said, “Mom, they said we got an 89.” What are we going to do about it? And Emma thought, “Get cupcakes. I don’t know.” But she just couldn’t believe how differently people could receive the same information, which is really important to remember.
Amanda Doyle:
People went home and their parents were like, “We are not proud.”
Glennon Doyle:
And we were like, “Oh, 89 feels like so many numbers. That’s so much out of a hundred.” So the point being, that’s why that question of yours is so brilliant because it is calling forth an internal reaction in your kid and then helping support that as opposed to blessing it in line with my values or not. It’s very cool, sissy. I love it.
Amanda Doyle:
And to be fair, the answer is usually like,” [inaudible 00:27:04].” It’s not like I’m calling forth a hell of a lot. It’s usually like, “Fine, bruh”
Glennon Doyle:
Listen, you’re not responsible for bringing it forth. That’s their business. You have called it, you have called it, and that’s all you can do.
Amanda Doyle:
I give you a D minus on your bringing forth.
Abby Wambach:
And I don’t know if people have seen this out there, but I’ve seen some videos online about it and I think about this all the time, that when your kid comes home from a test and they’re talking about the grade, no matter what it is, complementing their effort as opposed to their intelligence, especially when they’re super young, it enables them to understand. If you tell a kid that they’re smart when they’re young, they’ll work less hard. If you tell a kid, “I really loved how hard you worked.” And if they worked really hard for it, they’ll actually, I think, develop the skills because they get reinforced with the work ethic rather than just, “oh, I’m smart.”
Amanda Doyle:
They are afraid to-
Glennon Doyle:
Lose it.
Amanda Doyle:
[inaudible 00:28:00] that they’re not smart, which is even scarier than they’re not working hard because their kids’ who view themselves as really smart are very, very much in danger of not challenging themselves because they know when they do a harder thing, they’re more likely to fail at it initially and they don’t want to fail because, and the studies have shown this, because then it will confirm to the people who’ve been telling them they’re smart that they were wrong about that.Glennon Doyle:
Yes. That’s why I won’t go on-
Amanda Doyle:
So when we make it about effort, they will challenge themselves.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s why I won’t go on Celebrity Jeopardy.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh my God, that was hilarious.
Glennon Doyle:
If people tell me that they like me because I do wild things that make no sense and are outside of my comfort zone, if that is what people… Then maybe I would’ve been like, “Okay, I’ll go on Celebrity Jeopardy.” No, no, no, no, no. What people tell me is some things and some people think I’m smart. I’m not going to go on Jeopardy and prove that I don’t exactly know where any countries are. I can’t lose that identity, which keeps me sometimes from doing things that would actually make me smarter.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Let’s listen to the next one.
Heather :
Hi, Glennon and Abby and Sister. My name is Heather and I didn’t know if you all have any advice for what I think many people are calling the parenting decision fatigue, and this super complicated risk assessment you have to do for the most trivial of choices for your kids. From everything, from school to getting together. And it’s just exhausting. I’m just downright weary of the need to make these risk assessments on an hourly basis as a parent. I know I’m not alone. I’m just so tired and I didn’t know if you all have any advice.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, Heather.
Abby Wambach:
I am with you.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Are we a little out of this? I think we’re maybe not as much of in this moment as Sister is because I think when they get a little older, they’re doing a lot of their own risk. What is your reaction to this, Sister?
Amanda Doyle:
I feel like we’re just entering it. I feel like I’m at the precipice of it, and I feel like Heather might be right smack in the middle of where my kids are and your kids are, because it’s developmentally appropriate that they do different things farther away from you for longer periods of time that are inherently more risky, and where’s the line between letting them fly and aiding and embedding their undeveloped brains to do dumb stuff? So I get that. It’s weird to allow your kids to do things that you know aren’t good ideas.
Abby Wambach:
Here’s the other thing, Heather, and this is something that Glennon and I have been talking about a lot recently, and it’s this idea of oftentimes there’s a parent who really thinks about the full-on risk, and then there’s another parent who doesn’t maybe think about it as much. And one of the things that happened is that I came into the kids’ lives a little bit later, and so Glennon took on taking on the risk assessment for the family and she was beautiful at it. And I think as time goes on, you just get fucking exhausted. It’s this parenting decision fatigue. But I came on board and I was like, “Oh, parenting’s about this risk assessment.” I have to be constantly making these risk assessments. But Glennon has been going through it for so long that I think that you are a little desensitized to the risk assessment, especially as they’ve gotten older. And I don’t know if you would agree with that.
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Amanda Doyle:
So are you taking it on more Abby?
Abby Wambach:
I think that I have been, and maybe it’s not because you’re desensitized. Maybe you’re just allowing them to individuate better than I am.
Glennon Doyle:
No, it’s because I have reordered in my head what risk assessment is. It’s because when they’re little, for me, risk assessment was risk of outer danger, cars, seat belts, strangers, risk of injury, risk of whatever. Now I weigh, all the time, psychological risk of control because there’s a way you can go, a road you can take, which is my job as a parent is to minimize the outer world’s risk to my child. And that is where we get Rapunzel and Tangled and the wicked mother who’s keeping her child away from the entire world. So I’ve just added to my risk assessment, the risk of over-controlling them and what that will do to them psychologically, what that will do to my relationship with them. My risk is just widened. If you think I’m relaxing for one second, you don’t know your wife. I’ve just added more risks to my risk assessment.
Amanda Doyle:
She’s just like a layer two. It’s a little bit like Patty, when we were talking about the risk of me coming down so hard and making all of these things totally illegal to you is that you won’t come to me when you need help.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like the risk always turns and comes back on itself.
Glennon Doyle:
There’s no black and white. There’s no, “Oh, okay, I can choose to keep you sheltered from the outer risk.” There’s no risk to that. There’s also risk to that.
Abby Wambach:
Yes. Can I ask you a follow-up question?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, please.
Abby Wambach:
So, this is very interesting. I have never thought of it like that, like you just explained it, like the risk of over-controlling our teenage kids. So my question is, do you loosen the need to consider or think about or ruminate about the physical risk, the cars, that risk assessment of what the world can do to them? Do you loosen your thought process on that? Because you know that I’m covering it?
Glennon Doyle:
Probably a little bit, maybe. But what I want you to know about my personal approach as a parent of teenagers who are out in the world doing dangerous things, who are in cars, who are out at night, who are at schools, where we’re in a country where we will not protect schools or teachers or students from gun violence, from all of the risk that they’re involved, is that my entire strategy is to just fucking go dead inside. I’m serious. I’m not trying to be cute. I’m not trying to… I make the decision. I know that I cannot live out of fear. I know I have to let you walk out the door. Internally, I am not handling that well.
I have no strategy for making it okay. I feel terrified and sick inside and angry that I live in this world where I have to be so scared all the time. That’s my strategy. And knowing that yes, I have to because this is their world, their life, we can’t Rapunzel them. So I’m overriding my own terror and anxiety, and in that way, a little bit instincts, although I must have a deeper instinct than fear that knows… Because if my truest instinct was keep them Rapunzeled, that’s what I would be doing. So I must have an instinct that’s deeper than the fear one.
Amanda Doyle:
The only thing more damaging to them than sending them out into a terrifying, dangerous world would be locking them up away from it.
Glennon Doyle:
Is not sending them into a terrifying, dangerous world.
Abby Wambach:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
And that’s why it’s fatigue-
Glennon Doyle:
It’s fatigue.
Amanda Doyle:
Overriding all of those feelings. It’s not just the decision-making process, it’s the exhaustion that comes from the inner turmoil of knowing like, “Oh God, this is scary and bad and terrible things could happen and okay, go anyway.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. And I think something that’s really important as it relates to Glennon and I, that I experience, and this is so helpful for you to have explained it that way because I get it. I agree. I just can’t let go because both of us can’t let go.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t think you ever have to worry about me letting go. That’s not my strong suit.
Abby Wambach:
No, I know. But what you’re saying is, and I think a lot of people in relationships who have children might feel this way that we might be polarized about this, or one person is taking on this mentality and the other is taking on this mentality and it feels, I feel jealous of you.
Glennon Doyle:
I get that.
Abby Wambach:
And it feels exhausting because it feels like I’m doing it alone and I want to meet somewhere in the middle.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you feel like you’re carrying more of the burden of logistics about the kids? What exactly are you saying?
Abby Wambach:
I think that I worry more about the doomsday possibilities than you do.
Glennon Doyle:
Wow. I never thought anyone would say that to me. I love it.
Amanda Doyle:
I know, that’s really good.
Abby Wambach:
Like, in the middle of the night, you don’t know this, but in the middle of the night, I go to the bathroom at two or three o’clock every night. And when I know the kids have been out and they’ve been out past the time that we’ve actually gone to sleep, every time I come back to my phone, I look at my phone and make sure that they are where they said they were supposed to be. And that’s just an unconscious thing that I do. And then the problem is that when something comes to me, I sometimes have this negative… Because I’m operating my brain, and my heart and my body’s operating almost from this worst case scenario place, and so when I come to them with a solution or they come to me with a problem, I’m like, I’m already ready. I’ve got armor on rather than softness.
And that changes the way that I parent with them. So I want to be able to have softness and playfulness and joy rather than worry and fear. And they’re starting to drive and there’s friends and they drinking and stuff, and it’s like my mind just, I’m like, I don’t know. I feel like I’m hardcore parenting over here, in my mind. Not that you’re not.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. You’re standing on the wall.
Abby Wambach:
That’s it.
Amanda Doyle:
You’re defending.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, I feel like probably there is a level of what you’re saying that maybe part of me does understand that you’re going to be getting up and watching, and so I don’t have to. I think what you’re talking about is mental load. And I think that the truest most honest answer to that is, yeah, probably if you weren’t doing what you were doing, then maybe I wouldn’t have as much freedom to think about the other side of risk. And one way of thinking about it, we’re both analyzing risk and we are balancing each other out because if we were both like you, our kids would be fucked. And if we were both like me, our kids would be fucked.
Abby Wambach:
Totally. My therapist said, “Wow, that’s so beautiful. You guys are covering so much ground.”
Amanda Doyle:
That’s a great way to say it.
Abby Wambach:
“It’s so beautiful. You’re covering so much ground, you’re making this such a big wide breath, but maybe you guys can meet somewhere in the middle rather than being polarized.”
Glennon Doyle:
So interesting. I mean, it’s helpful to me. I didn’t know that we were polarized about this. I literally did not know this. This is new information to me.
Abby Wambach:
I know we were talking about it a couple of days ago about something different, but I think it applies. Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
So maybe after this you can ask Abby what else you’re polarized about because [inaudible 00:39:52] that there was other things.
Glennon Doyle:
I can’t because we already had that conversation, apparently.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. All right. This is polarization part two.
Abby Wambach:
2.0.
Alyssa:
Hi, this is Alyssa and I have a question about anxiety. I have anxiety. I’ve always had it, and now I can tell that my son, my five-year-old son also has anxiety. I can see when it pops up for him, I can see when it’s building, I can see it take over and I’m not sure what to do. I know how to handle anxiety or I know how to attempt to handle anxiety, but it’s like I’ve put him in this club that I don’t want him to be in. So just curious if you have any advice or tips on how to help him handle anxiety and how to help me handle my guilt about this. I’m just kind of at a loss for what to do. Thank you so much. I really appreciate y’all. You help me feel a little less alone in my crazy parenting. Thanks.
Abby Wambach:
Can I just say one thing because I don’t have… I feel like you might be able to talk a little bit more about this.
Glennon Doyle:
No, please.
Abby Wambach:
The only thing I’ll say-
Amanda Doyle:
She’s like, I’m looking at you two with your anxiety.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know. She’s got-
Abby Wambach:
I’ve got it. I didn’t know it, but I’ve got it. I express it very differently. Yep, I’ve got it. One thing I’ll say is it’s a question back to Alyssa. Who do you blame for your anxiety? Because I think that that can help curb some of the guilt.
Amanda Doyle:
I was wondering the same thing. I totally understand that initiating your kid into a club that you don’t want them to have to be in and you feel like it’s your fault for doing it and that sucks. And at the same time, if Alyssa is anything like our generation where I feel like everything was individually, like, “That’s your problem. You’re a crazy person, that has nothing to do with us, your family members.” So if her son has the benefit of being able to commune with his mom and they share that together, then that is already 10 steps ahead of where Alyssa probably was of like, “Oh, I have this. You don’t have to be scared of yourself. Mommy has it too. I can see it in you. I know it stinks. It stinks for me, but also your brain is like mine and this is how we work and let’s figure it out.”
And so I think that the guilt might be getting in the way of being an ally and a friend to your kid in owning your thing and talking about it. I mean, I talk to my kids all the time about anxiety and about how it feels, and I never had the benefit of that. I didn’t know I had anxiety until I was 40. I just thought that that was life and I was weird and high-strung. And so that sucks. Think of how beautiful it is that the fact, you can see this in your five-year-old. I wish someone had seen it in me. That’s already a beautiful thing that you can notice it. And this is super tactical, but one of the ways that it has helped in my family is a lot of the IFS language, like actually naming the part that, “Oh my…” There’s actual names in my house, like Perfectionist Patty or Worry Walter, whatever, whatever. And knowing like, well, this part is saying this to me and making me feel like I have to do this one thing and this other part is super worried about me trying this thing.
And then they’re able to actually figure out, well, do I have motivation? What is my motivation to not listen to those parts? Do I even have one? And if there’s a goal or something I really want, to be able to sing in front of those people. If I want to be able to do that, do I want that so much that I want to help give these parts of me the proof that I’m going to be okay? And that’s how we talk about it. They’re protecting you because that’s their job. And so we have to little by little show them proof that you’re going to be okay as you work towards this goal that you have or this value that you have. And so our job is to present that proof to them, so that they can find another job when they know they don’t have to protect you from this and that proof is in little ladder moments.
Maybe if you want to sing in front of all those people, maybe you could sing in front of me and daddy for a little bit. Okay. That’s a little proof for a little Worry Walrus over there. And then once they’re all settled, then they get quieter because they have the proof they need. So I don’t know. That’s been super helpful in our family.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s so fucking helpful to me right now. That’s really helpful. You’re such a good mama. I’m so proud of you. I just think we should mention that really the theme of these questions is like, okay, if we’re not going to take pride in something about our kid because that’s just a matched value, then maybe we just look at the flip side of that and we don’t claim guilt about something about our kid because that doesn’t match the value that we want for them. That’s just a story-
Amanda Doyle:
And it’s using our kids to be either a referendum on our goodness or our badness, or you’re either a reflection of us as amazing or proof that we are shit.
Glennon Doyle:
And I think that Alyssa, her son is still five, so she doesn’t know yet that, Alyssa, this kid’s going to do so much weird shit that you’re going to be like, where did that come… Our children have, I’m going to say three anxious parents. I think Craig would be cool with me saying, we are not chill. We have a kid who couldn’t find anxiety if you packed it up in a box and handed it to her. So how did that happen? The anxiety in one of them is no more our reflection than the non-anxiety in the other one. It’s just the opposite of pride. It’s like looking at your kid without story and with beginner’s mind because honestly, Alyssa, this is not helpful, but give me some anxious people. It’s easier to chill people out than to tell people who don’t care to care about things.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, they should have a diagnosis for the opposite of anxiety. What is it like, passionate apathy?
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
What is the word?
Glennon Doyle:
Give me Alyssa’s kid. I can work with that. Even the revelation that people shouldn’t be anxious. So I should feel guilty about that. What does that say? Are you sure? I think Alyssa’s kid is probably tuned in to this crazy planet we’re living on.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, these five years have been a real bust. So Alyssa’s kid is like, “This is fucked, y’all.”
Glennon Doyle:
But do you know what I mean about even worrying about that? I understand worrying about that. I’m in mental health, I get it. But there is an element of looking at these people as not killing it or failing, and just that they’re revealing who they are. It’s like that idea of parenting as expectation list. They should be this and this and this and this and this and this and this. And if they don’t have the check mark, I’m failing. As opposed to embodied parenting probably, which is throwing the outer structure and checklist away and just thinking of your kid as a treasure chest. They are revealing their self to you. You are reacting to that. They are not reacting to your list.
Abby Wambach:
I think that that’s one of the most important things about all of the pod squadders today, like Patty, Lauren, Heather, Alyssa, the fact that you are all, even having this question bubble come into your mind like, “Huh, I wonder about this?” Makes me know that you’re doing parenting a little bit, probably different than your parents parented you, and a little bit different than their parents parented them. And that is all your kid could ask for is a parent who’s conscious of their actions, of their responses, of their children, the kid’s behavior, and just finding a little bit of fucking curiosity in the treasure chest of your child.
And how awesome is it to have these little human beings though, whether we want to believe it or not, I do think some of us have kids to learn more about ourselves, to feel a little bit better about ourselves. It’s not just so that we can grow people. It’s like it’s an expression. We’re trying to figure out the shit that’s happening on our insides and Patty, Lauren, Heather, Alyssa, I think that that’s what this is all about. All of your questions are about you trying to figure out more what’s happening on your insides. And I just think that that’s the most beautiful part about parenting, is that it’s been my greatest teacher of myself.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. It’s like we look at a kid and we say, “How do we fix this problem?” Instead of asking ourself, “Why do I even think that’s a problem?”
Amanda Doyle:
It’s a really cool way to cultivate what is super hard to find, which is self-compassion. Because if Alyssa looks at her beautiful son with anxiety and can have compassion for him and his struggles and what he’s going through and seeing how hard it is to deal with all those big emotions, then perhaps Alyssa can take inventory of herself and her entire life where maybe she didn’t even have anybody seeing her in her struggles and say, “Wow, the same compassion and understanding that I have for him, I deserved that my whole life.”
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
And I was struggling just as hard, and good for me.
Glennon Doyle:
And in the universe’s brilliant specificity, and this is just all from personal experience. If Alyssa can do that, if she can find a way to look at her unruly, uncontrollable, unpredictable child and find any peace there, then that is the cure for her anxiety.
Abby Wambach:
That’s so good.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s it. Her son is just representing every single thing she’s never ever been able to fix or control, life itself. So here comes the universe with this beautiful experiment where she gets to do it person to person, that it’s no longer about life in general. It’s about this little life. And so the cure for her own situation is in that relational moment between her and her son.
Lovebugs, we think that you are freaking amazing. Thank you for sending us these beautiful questions. You get us thinking and feeling more deeply than you know. Keep sending us your advice cues. Keep them under a minute because that’s the way that we can play them and we’ll keep doing these.
Abby Wambach:
Yes, 747-200-5307. 747-200-5307.
Glennon Doyle:
Bye.
Amanda Doyle:
And this one was a lot of parenting stuff, but tell us what you want advice on, just all kinds of, we don’t really have answers, we have more questions and responses for you. But yes, one minute, so we can play it. And what advice are we all looking for? Let us know. 747-200-5307.
Glennon Doyle:
See you next time. Bye-bye.
Abby Wambach:
Bye-bye.
Glennon Doyle:
If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you’d be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things. Following the pod helps you because you’ll never miss an episode, and it helps us because you’ll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner or click on follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you’re there, if you’d be willing to give us a five-star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much.
We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle, in partnership with Odyssey. Our executive producer is Jenna Weiss-Berman, and the show is produced by Lauren LoGrasso, Allison Schott, Dina Kleiner and Bill Schultz.