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Nov. 18, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:30:04
"HELP! I'm A Lazy Wife Who's Avoiding My Kids!" Freedomain Call In
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All right. Hi, everybody.
Stefan Molyneux here with Sarah, who has an interesting tale to tell and something not uncommon.
So Sarah, thanks for taking the time today.
Thank you for having me.
So why don't you bring the world up to speed on all things Sarah?
Okay, well I'll read my email that I sent to you.
I'm a stay-at-home mom with two little boys and a girl on the way.
I've been married to my husband for over 10 years and we've been together for over 12.
I've been a homemaker for over three years now.
I was able to quit my full-time desk job when my oldest boy was two years old after my husband started making really good money as a salesman.
The reason I'm contacting you is because I'm struggling pretty badly with my not-so-new position as a homemaker.
I know it probably has a lot to do with my mother in some way because of how she raised me and my sisters, but I can't figure out why I'm so lazy, why I don't take advantage of my perfect circumstances, and why I feel that I have no connection to my kids.
I'm so frustrated with myself in general, I can't seem to keep my house even presentable for unexpected guests.
I'm supposed to be homeschooling my six-year-old, but on most days I struggle to get anything done with him regarding schoolwork, and this third pregnancy has me very hormonal and hypersensitive.
Anything and everything overwhelms me and I feel like no matter how hard I try, I'll never even be a halfway decent mother or homemaker.
We have three dogs that I feel like I can't even handle.
One that's still got a puppy bladder and I can barely keep up with the messes he makes every night while we're all asleep and one that just barks incessantly and I wish I could get rid of her but I can't because it would break my oldest son's heart.
So sometimes I feel like I won't even be able to handle being a mom of three.
I can't even handle being a mom of two with dogs and a house to take care of, which I don't even really take care of.
I'm lazy, self-absorbed, and failing miserably at doing what I feel like most homemakers probably love doing, taking care of their kids, cooking delicious healthy meals, educating their children, and keeping a comfortable, clean house.
I long to be this kind of woman, but most days I feel like it's as unattainable as being a supermodel.
I fantasize about my home being spotless, well-organized, about homeschooling my kids in a perfect little schoolroom, about taking care of my family, but it's just that, a dream.
One that on some days I'm able to achieve a tiny little part of, but on most I'm just an anxious, neurotic, lazy mess.
I just want to be a good mom for my kids, That's an incredible email.
And, you know, very, very brave.
How do you feel reading it out?
Oh, I started to get emotional, but then I pulled back.
I heard that. I heard that.
For God's sakes, don't let your passions engage with this topic.
Yeah, don't get upset.
Yeah, this is purely rigorous analytical spreadsheet stuff, right?
No feelings allowed in terms of parenting and so on, right?
Yeah. Now, when you've, I guess it's been a little while since you wrote, and then reading it back, was there anything that struck you about the letter in particular?
Well, in the email, well, it's funny because after I talked to my husband about it, my real concern, my main concern is how I don't have a connection to my kids.
And I kind of have this anxiety that just overwhelms me, but it mainly affects my parenting.
But it seems like in my email, the most important thing that I talk about is how I can't even keep my house clean.
But that's really not the most important issue.
Right. It's the parenting.
And I agree with that, so very astute.
But the other thing that I noticed, Sarah, is, man, you harsh on yourself.
Oh, am I? Yeah, okay, just have a look back and read to me, if you can, just have a quick skim through it, and read to me the negative words that you have in there about yourself.
Okay, let me see here.
Lazy. Yes, a couple of those, right?
Yes, yeah. I don't take advantage of my perfect circumstances.
No connection to my kids.
Other moms are doing it easily and well?
Well, I mean, based on their social media, it looks that way.
Oh, for God's sakes, you can't judge people by their social media.
It's so accurate, right?
Yeah. There's this pretty funny video, guys, on YouTube.
They're called Dude Perfect.
And they have the stereotypes of skiing.
And one of them is a guy who does like half pipes or whatever, goes up a ramp on skis.
And he can't do it, but he just takes a picture at the top.
So it looks like he can do it right before he falls.
Yeah. Yeah. So you don't want to be judging people by their social media.
That is not fair.
I mean, so anyway, okay.
Anything else that was negative?
Um, no connection to my kids.
Um, I struggle to get anything done regarding the homeschooling.
I'm hormonal and hypersensitive.
Well, sorry, those aren't particularly negative.
Those are descriptions of issues.
I mean, pajamas. Right, right, right.
Okay. Certainly like lazy and unmotivated and all of that seems to be...
Right. Anxious, neurotic, lazy mess.
That was my last negative.
And then I think there's another part where I say, what did I say?
Self-absorbed.
Well, there's that too.
There's that too. All right.
Yeah, so, I mean, that's the first thing I want.
We don't have to deal with it right now, but it's sort of my bookmark is this negative language regarding yourself is really important to recognize.
Because, you know, bullying demotivates people, right?
And if you have these negative terms towards yourself...
Well, you're not going to motivate yourself into doing something better by bullying yourself, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Okay.
All right. Now, give me a day that you have, like your typical day.
And, you know, we don't need to sugarcoat anything, right?
Because it's all right there in the letter.
But what is it that goes on during the day for you?
Well, sometimes I manage to wake up before my kids, but usually I wake up with them at the same time.
They'll wake me up. We'll get up.
I'll let the dogs outside.
I'll make breakfast.
Feed the dogs and then you know I try to get my kids dressed but that becomes hectic a lot of days because they don't like to get dressed you know we're home all day pretty much every day because we only my husband and I share a car and he has it to go to work so we're just home all day but um so we'll get up sometimes we get dressed and honestly sometimes we don't we just stay in our pajamas all day um And sometimes I'll homeschool if I'm feeling up to it and sometimes I just don't feel like doing it.
So my kids will play.
I have two boys.
They like to play with each other.
They'll play video games or they'll just play with toys and I'll usually end up either reading or getting All absorbed in social media or something.
But I feel like I waste most of my days just sitting around and doing nothing.
I mean, my kids.
Wait, sorry. So doing nothing.
I assume you don't mean that literally, like you're absolutely just staring at a wall, slowly darken with age.
I mean, like you're on social media or whatever, that kind of stuff.
Yeah, I'll be on social media or I'll be, I don't know, like I find different things to do online.
I have like a church ministry thing I do.
I spend a lot of time being absorbed in that.
Yeah, I'll just be on the computer all day.
Or sometimes if I feel physically up to cleaning, I'll clean.
But I just, I don't really feel like I spend time with my kids.
They just play with each other all day.
And I'm kind of doing my own thing.
But you know, I'll make breakfast, I'll make lunch, I'll give them snacks, we'll have dinner.
But that's pretty much what most of our days are like.
If I feel like homeschooling, we homeschool.
And if I don't, we just skip it.
But I really spend a lot of time just on the computer.
When you're doing computer stuff, Sarah, do you feel like there's like a larger mission that's going on?
Like, are you trying to be an influencer?
Are you trying to save the world?
I mean, what is online that gives you like the sort of eclipses your kids, so to speak?
Well, right now I'm really into this ministry that I'm doing.
It's a church watchdog website.
And I basically check churches for financial transparency and things like that.
And I feel like it's really important because transparency doesn't really exist and people should know about it.
But anyway, but yeah, I mean...
It is really important to me and it kind of takes up a lot of my mind.
And whenever I'm talking to my husband, he'll say, what did you do today?
How was your day? And I'll end up talking about that for most of the time.
And then he'll say, what about the kids?
And I'll just feel terrible then because I didn't really do anything.
Right. Okay. Okay.
Right. Okay. Okay.
Is there anything else that you wanted to mention before I start the excavation process?
No, I don't think so.
Sounds very exciting, doesn't it?
All right. All right.
So, of course, the first thing is that if you're having trouble interacting with kids of a young age, I mean, what's the first question that would be sensible to ask from the outside?
I don't know. How did I relate to my mom as a young kid?
Well, actually, it would be more along the lines of how did your mom relate to you?
Because she would set the tone, she would set the standards, she would set the process, right?
Right. No one just spontaneously invents speaking English, right?
Or whatever language you grew up with, because that comes from the parents, right?
So what was your mom like with you when you were very little?
I really don't remember what she was like with me before the age of...
My oldest son is six right now, so I don't remember what she was like when I was four or five years old, but...
She was a stay-at-home mom before my parents got divorced when I was four.
So they divorced when I was four and I have no memory of her before they got divorced.
It was like she suddenly entered my memory once they got divorced.
Okay, so that means that she was absent, right?
I guess so, yeah.
Well, I mean, listen, don't let me tell you anything about your experience, but it would seem to indicate that she was absent, right?
I mean, if you can't even remember her presence before the divorce.
Right. Yeah.
I don't. I have a lot of memories of my dad before that, of him coming home from work.
And my sisters and I would see him through the bedroom window, like we'd be just playing in the bedroom together.
And we'd see him come home and then we'd race down the hallway and he would play with us for a few hours later.
But I feel like that's probably what it was for all three of us.
We would just be playing all day together back in the bedroom or something and my mom would be doing her own thing.
Okay, so I mean, that's not too shocking, right?
And it's very much a pattern that you need to be aware of, right?
That you have not been instructed on how to interact with little kids, right?
Right. In fact, you've been instructed on quite the opposite.
You've been instructed on how not to interact with little kids, right?
Right. Right. All right.
So, I mean, I don't speak Japanese because I wasn't raised with Japanese.
How would you speak kid if you weren't raised with kid, right?
True. All right.
And it seems to me the image I get when your dad would come home is like, finally, someone to interact with.
You know what I mean? Like your kids, thirsty kids running to a drinking fountain kind of thing.
Yeah. Yeah, it was this big, exciting thing, like, yes, someone to play with us.
Someone who cares, right? Right.
Okay, so how do you think when you were a toddler, when you were very little, how do you think you interpreted your mother's doing her own thing?
I don't know. Sure you do.
Sure you do. I mean, it's nice that you try that with me.
Everybody listens to these calls and says, whatever you do, don't say you don't know.
And then, of course, when you're in the hot seat, it's like, I don't know.
I should have known that. Yeah, of course, of course.
I mean, I know you've listened for a while.
So, yeah, I mean, if your mom is off doing her own thing rather than spending time with you, your sisters, and so on, how do you interpret that as a kid?
She doesn't care to spend time with me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Other things are more important.
And I mean, look, there are times when you're a parent, other things are more important, right?
You got to do your taxes or it's bill payment time, whatever it is, right?
There are other things that are in the moment more important.
But your child should know that you enjoy your child's company.
And you can explain, of course, when you have other things to do, right?
Right. Right.
Right. Right. No, I don't know what she was doing.
Yeah, I really don't know.
I'm sure she was cleaning or occupied her time with something.
I remember us having babysitters.
It's busy work, right? I mean, the primary job of motherhood is not cleaning.
Right. What is the primary job of motherhood?
Being a mother. Mothering.
Mothering, right? Yeah. It's not checking on church transparency.
It's not social media.
Mm-hmm. It's not cleaning.
I mean, these, you know, I'm not saying you stare at your kids 24-7 or anything like that because they also need to see an adult who's engaged with the world, but the primary job, the definition of why you're home is for your kids, right?
Mm-hmm. Okay. So, what do you think your kids are experiencing when they see you on the computer all day?
She's... Something's more important than me over there, and...
Well, not just something, but almost anything and everything, right?
Right. Right. So, if you can get into your six-year-old, maybe younger, if you get into your six-year-old, if you get into his mind, what's going on in there?
What's he thinking? Maybe not consciously, but what's going on?
Why doesn't she play with me?
Why doesn't she spend time with me?
How could she think that that computer is more important?
Right. Go on.
Sorry, I'm trying not to...
Well, he probably thinks very poorly of himself.
Because they're not questions for him at the age of six.
He has answers, right?
So you're framing them in the form of questions, right?
Like, why is mom doing this?
Why is mom doing that? But by the time he's six, he already has formulated answers.
So what are his answers to these questions?
I'm not important to my mom.
I'm not very much fun.
I'm not as important as anything else that she has to do.
And she doesn't care about me.
Okay.
He must imagine that he is fun, or he must believe that he is fun in general, because, as you say, he plays with his brother all the time, so they enjoy each other's company, and I know that there's sibling fights and all of that.
I'm not saying it's paradise. Right.
But he doesn't think he's not fun, because if he was not fun in general or overall, then his brother wouldn't want to play with him either, right?
Right. So he knows he's fun.
So then maybe she's no fun.
Right. There's something.
Again, I don't know what the answer is because I'm not your son, obviously, but there's something that's going on in his formulation because children will relentlessly work to explain the world around them.
science and technology and can have this kind of conversation and so on.
But that's really, really important to understand.
And I know you do, right?
I'm just sort of reinforcing it for the non-parents out there that whatever information you give to your children, positive, negative, neutral, they will work to incorporate that into a worldview with explanatory and predictive power.
But that's what we as conceptual human beings do.
We integrate everything we experience and try to create explanatory and predictive power.
So the question when we're parents is what kind of explanatory and predictive power are we germinating in the minds of our children?
What kind of world and life are we giving them?
And how are they explaining that?
The world that they're in to themselves.
Right. Now, because you can't remember your mother until she left at the age of four, it's kind of tough because what you have to explain with regards to your mother's early effects on you, what you have to explain is beyond the reach of memory, right?
Right. Right.
So that's really tough.
Yeah. That's really tough.
But you have the knowledge within you, which is everything that you do remember.
So what happened with the divorce and what were the circumstances afterwards?
Well, I actually remember the day that she left him because she had my grandparents come over while he was at work and pack up all of the stuff that we could fit into the car.
And she basically snuck off while he was at work.
And then we moved to a different city.
We kind of moved around a lot to different apartments until we had a home, until we had a house.
And then we didn't see my dad for a while, and then we started visiting him.
Every other weekend, we got to drive three or four hours and go see him for the weekend.
But I remember feeling very bad for him because he basically got everything taken away from him.
In the divorce, I didn't know this at the time, but...
He basically ended up having to pay $1,500 a month in child support.
This was like back in the early 90s.
And he didn't make that much money.
But anyway, so he ended up having to live in a one-bedroom apartment with like two pieces of furniture.
And he was very depressed.
And I could tell he was very depressed.
But I remember asking him, what happened?
You know, what's going on?
And he said, your mom doesn't love me anymore.
I'm sorry. Don't apologize.
Don't apologize. Listen, if you didn't feel strongly about this stuff, that would be extremely alarming, right?
Right. I mean, this is the world that you had to make sense of as a kid, right?
Right. And that's a hell of a world to try and make sense of.
It is, and I remember just being angry.
And I said, well, then I don't love her anymore.
But I remember him saying, no, no, no.
You have to love your mother.
And it's okay.
Don't stop loving your mother.
It's okay. Sometimes moms and dads just don't get along anymore.
Do you know what her complaints were?
Well, she claimed that he was emotionally abusive.
But I don't know if I believe it, really.
Because I know how she is.
And she twists things.
She exaggerates things.
She's very unstable.
And I actually think that she's emotionally abusive.
So it's hard to believe that coming from her.
And My dad is a very assertive person, and I never found him to be abusive towards me.
And he would tell me what her complaints were to him while they were married.
Wait, he would tell you at what, the age of three or four?
No, no, no. He tells me today what they were back then.
Okay, sorry, sorry. I just want to make sure I understand.
Sorry. Okay, okay. Yeah, no, no.
He didn't tell me anything when I was a child.
Right. But now when we talk about it, he says that she would complain that he didn't let her work.
She wanted to work and make money for herself because she wanted her own money.
And I just thought, well, that's ridiculous.
No, but that's very common, right?
So this is the story that is told to young women.
Yes. I mean, I saw it on Twitter the other day, right?
This woman saying, well, you know, you got to keep your skills up as a woman because you could get dumped for a younger woman when your husband gets older and, you know, then what are you going to do, right?
Right, right. There's this mentality that you have to be independent and have something to fall back on.
Right. And all that does is lower the standards of who you get married to.
Right. Right? Because, I mean, if you think a guy is going to dump you for a younger woman, wait for a better guy.
You know, that's not super complicated to me unless you don't believe a better guy can come along or whatever, right?
Okay. Yeah.
Yeah, so she wanted to work and he didn't want her to.
He wanted her to stay home and be with us.
And he didn't want to put us in daycare.
And she would complain that he wouldn't let her spend money on anything.
I think she would complain that he didn't like it when she wore makeup.
She said he was very controlling.
And, you know, I could kind of see that.
He was a very strict father, so I could see him wanting to be controlling of her in that way, but...
But did she ever cop to, but she chose him?
Right, right. You know, it's almost like this rubber bone stuff that women do.
Men do it too, but it's a little bit more with women in this circumstance.
It's kind of like, well, I was assigned this husband and the father of my children by the evil forces of the universe, and I just had to struggle to survive, you know, stuff I had nothing to do with.
And it's like, you know, you dated, you got engaged, you got married, you decided to stay with him, you had kids with him.
Like, this rubber bone stuff is very...
You know, I think men are sometimes overburdened with responsibilities.
You know, everything is men's fault.
Right.
But for women to be just like, well, you know, this guy who just mysteriously appeared in my life was just really controlling.
It wouldn't let me wear makeup.
It wanted me to stay home.
And it's like, but you married him.
You chose him.
Well, the interesting thing is, is my after the divorce and everything...
my sisters and I would have to take these four-hour car rides back and forth every other weekend to go see him, and I just remember him apologizing all the time.
And he would say, I'm so sorry that you have to go through this.
And he would say, I picked the wrong woman.
Right. Well, that's his responsibility too, right?
Right, right. How pretty was she?
Well, back then she was really pretty, but she's much older now and she's put on, pretty much right after they got divorced, she put on a lot of weight.
That's kind of unusual because normally people are like, well, I'm back out there again.
I better tighten things up, right?
Yeah, yeah. She just kept gaining weight and I think it's just because she was depressed or I don't know.
I don't know what really caused it, but she definitely has eating problems.
Well, she binge eats and binge diets.
She goes on yo-yo diets and then loses 30-40 pounds and then she gains it all back and then some.
And she just goes back and forth.
That's pretty rough on the system, too.
And she's got a lot of health issues because of it.
But, yeah, so those were her complaints.
But, you know, now when I talk to my dad about it, he's like, you know, back then she had all these complaints and they tried marriage counseling.
They tried to go and she didn't like the marriage counselor because he took or she took dad's side.
And then she didn't want to go all of a sudden.
And it was just like he was trying to figure out what her problems were, but he didn't understand any of it.
It was just like, I have no idea what her problem is.
But now today, she'll tell me that he was emotionally abusive, but I don't know.
I just don't see that. And you've mentioned that your mom might fit that category or that descriptor more aptly.
What What causes you to say that, do you think?
Well, I mean, she has this way about her that I think really spilled over into me and my sisters, and it kind of runs in the women of her family.
And it's like something will trigger her.
I hate that word.
But... She'll get triggered and suddenly she'll just become this beast.
Like, she didn't hit me and my sisters.
Neither of my parents did that.
But she would just become this nasty, mean, easily provoked person.
And, you know, she would ground me for ridiculous things and One particular scenario that comes to mind is it was like my 13th birthday party and she wanted to know exactly how many girls were coming and there was one girl who I didn't know she was gonna make it or not so she said call her up right now and find out if she's coming so I called her I said can you come or are you not going to be able to and I couldn't hear her because it was so loud in our house She said,
I can come, but it sounded like she was saying, I can't come.
But I was so anxious about it because I had to know.
I was like freaking out, panicking, because my mom was mad at me for not knowing exactly how many people were coming.
So I get off the phone and she's like, so is she coming?
I said, I really don't know.
I think she's coming.
But she could have said can't and I just didn't hear it right.
And so she got extremely upset with me.
And she made me go outside at 10 o'clock at night and rake all the leaves in the yard while there was slush and snow over the top of them.
So that was like really hard to do.
But I just thought, really?
I have to do this because I don't know how many people are coming to my birthday party?
One person? So it's just like things like that where a little tiny thing would set her off and she would just make up a punishment because she's upset about it.
Do you have any idea what might have been going on in the back of her mind or underneath the surface for that?
I don't know.
I mean, I always just thought You're crazy, woman.
Why acting ridiculous?
It's just one person.
I mean, looking back on it now, I'm thinking she's probably stressed out because she's planning a birthday party, which caused her anxiety, and she was just anxious in general, I'm sure.
Right. But it seems like with her, any kind of stress or anxiety will turn her into this different person and make her just very easily angered.
And that usually translates into, in my opinion, an incredible capacity for self-attack.
In other words, if you have a kind of sword of Damocles hanging over your head, which is your own self-attack, then anytime something goes wrong, you fear yourself.
And then you've got to find a scapegoat.
You've got to find someone to sacrifice to the dark gods of your own self-attack.
Yeah. I mean, I've mentioned this story before, but what popped into my head while you were talking about this was my mom, when I was, I don't know, 11 or 12, we had this little vacuum cleaner and she couldn't find it.
And obviously she felt really...
She felt that she had lost it or that someone in her head or in her past or in her psyche, I guess, was going to just rip her apart psychologically.
And so she had to find a scapegoat.
And the scapegoat that she came to was that one of my friends who had come over had stolen the vacuum cleaner.
Mm-hmm.
Like, my 11 or 12-year-old friends just want to sneak out of someone's house with a vacuum cleaner.
Like, it just makes no sense, of course.
And then this went on for, like, weeks after, which she demanded that I go to my friends and demand from them where the vacuum cleaner was and so on, which I just, like, sorry.
Like, you can beat me if you want.
I'm not doing that. Like, that...
I would do anything.
I won't do that. And, you know, of course, as it turned out, you know, a couple of weeks later, a friend of hers knocked and said, hey, thanks for lending me your vacuum cleaner, you know, and it was back.
And there really wasn't a lot of apology.
There wasn't a lot of, oh, man, I really got this wrong.
How terrible or whatever. It was like, yeah, glad we got that back, you know, kind of thing and just move on, right?
Yeah. So why?
The why is interesting.
And the why is interesting not in terms of endless forgiveness, although that can certainly happen, but the why is...
Interesting because it replicates in terms of self-attack, right?
Because a lot of what you did in the original email to me, Sarah, was self-attack, right?
Self-condemn, self-criticize, as if that's going to motivate you.
Right. If your son wasn't doing something that you wanted him to do, I'm sure you wouldn't think it would be a great idea to just call him lazy and unmotivated and not as good as other kids.
That would not be a way to motivate your son, right?
In fact, it would probably just motivate him to resentment and maybe immediate compliance like spanking does.
You get immediate compliance, but it sets up these endless waves of...
Passive-aggressive denial and refusal and avoidance and all that, right?
So given that you know that would be a terrible thing to do with your son, that always brings me back to the question.
It's like, well, why is it okay to do that to Sarah but not to your son?
Right. I don't know.
Well, I'll tell you something that I do know.
If you can't connect with your son because that will connect you with your anger against your mother.
If you connect with your son, then you will realize the lack of connection you had with your mother really deep down.
And that's going to be quite painful.
Very painful, I think.
Thank you.
It's going to be very...
It's going to make you sad.
It's going to make you angry. It might make you bitter for a time and so on, right?
Because when we get that real connection, it is wonderful in the moment, but it shines this blinding light backwards through the tunnel of time and highlights everything that we didn't get when we were kids.
So if I were to go out on a limb here in my conjecture land...
I would say that you are following the orders of your mother to stay on the computer.
Yeah. Okay, go on.
Tell me what you think about that. Well, that makes sense to me because my sisters are kind of in the same boat as I am.
And my younger sister...
Both of my sisters try to do the same thing that I'm doing, basically.
They fill up all their time doing other things and avoiding their kids.
Even though they're both homemakers, they still manage to find other things.
My mom is very encouraging of that.
Like stay busy and keep active, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Like my younger sister, she wants to start her own business.
And she has it.
It's not making any money.
But my mom just was very encouraging of that.
And she wanted to do anything she could to help.
And I'm just thinking, why don't you just...
Why does she need a business?
She's got her kids. Her husband makes...
Plenty of money. He's working really hard so that she can stay at home.
And why would she encourage that?
And then my older sister, even though she's a stay-at-home mom too, she spends all of her time being like this...
I don't know if you...
I'm sure you know all about this stuff, but a co-op, homeschool co-op, and, you know, they have several moms that teach classes to these homeschooled kids, and then she's kind of like the principal or the leader, I guess, of this group of homeschooling moms.
But that takes up all of her time, and then they're very involved in church, so it's like she even doesn't spend that much time with her kids We're all stay-at-home moms, and yet we've found ways to avoid our kids all day long.
Well, and listen, you're not alone in this.
I mean, my care and concern for you and your children, Sarah, is very high.
But it's also because there's such a huge problem in the world at the moment, in the West at the moment, which is, you know, the parents on the phones, the parents on the tablets, the parents on the computer, the parents whatever...
It used to be TV, and I just watched this endless parade of brain-dead soaps or whatever, right?
But it's become more digital in terms of distraction.
Mm-hmm. And, I mean, that's not your mom's excuse, I'm sure, but it is terrible.
I mean, I see this when I go out with my daughter and you see the parents on the phones.
You know, I'm running around like an idiot with her at the park and the parents are all around in a ring on their phones and their kids are just kind of wandering from place to place trying to come up with something to do.
Right. And that's, you know, and I think about...
Muslim families and Jewish families and other belief system organizations or groups, and they are pouring values into their kids.
They are... I think?
So, let's do a quick role play.
And, you know, just imagine that you're doing something, looking into the church transparency on the computer or whatever, and you realize that your eldest son is behind you, or maybe both of them.
And you turn around and you say, what do you want?
If they say, and just how would you respond to this, they say, Mom, why don't you play with us?
Well, I just have to finish what I'm doing here, but as soon as I'm done, I'll play with you.
But you never do seem to finish.
I can't remember the last time that you played with me.
See, that immediately makes me emotional.
Good. Well, be emotional.
It's fine. Be emotional and talk to your kids.
I can't remember.
He said the last time that you played with me.
What?
Are we boring?
I mean, we're not interesting?
No.
To you?
No.
Finally?
No, you're not boring.
But we're less interesting than whatever else you're doing, right?
No, it's just something that I feel like I have to do.
Why? Well...
I mean, there's other people...
I don't really know what I would say to them.
But what if you were...
Because I know the tough thing about this is you've got emotions coming up and then you're trying to lie to your children.
Right? And I don't mean that like you're a liar and it's a bad thing.
It's that you want to massage what you're saying so your kids don't feel bad, right?
Right. Right. Okay.
So, and that's interfering with the emotion, right?
Because when you feel deeply about something, the moment you falsify something else, it cuts off your feelings, right?
Mm-hmm. Okay. So, let's just rewind that and pretend that there are no negative consequences to telling your kids the truth, right?
Oh, okay. That's why it's a role play, right?
And not, bring your kids in, let's do it live, right?
Okay. Okay. So, let's go back.
We'll start again. Okay.
Mom, Mom, why don't you ever seem to have time to play with us?
Well, I just have a lot of other things to do, you know?
I have to clean, I have to make food for you, I have to do this work on the computer, and it just always ends up taking up more time than I want it to, I guess.
But you don't, I mean, we could chat while you're cleaning.
We could chat and play games while you're getting food ready, right?
I mean, we could do word games.
We could do trivia games or whatever it is.
So we could play even while you're busy.
But it's the big thing is the computer, right?
Like you spend a lot of time on the computer.
And I don't, I guess I don't understand why.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the computer, I spent a lot of time on it doing just this one thing for church.
And explain that, because we don't really understand it.
Explain that to us, please. Well, you know, I just, you know, how we go to church and it's really important that these churches are being honest with people and I think that they're lying to people in a lot of different ways and I think it's important for me to share that with everybody.
So it's just something that I think is really important to help lots of other people with.
But why is it more important than us?
It's not. No, but it is.
Because that's what you do.
It must be. I can see how you would feel that way, but...
Nothing is more important than you.
But that's...
Like, Mom, with all due respect, those are just words.
Yeah, they are. I mean, when I look at how you act rather than what you say, what you do doesn't match with what you say.
Because my understanding is dad goes to work and your job is to be a mom.
Yes. And being a mom is interacting with us, is talking with us, is playing with us.
I mean, when we go to the church, the church that the priest says that God and Jesus and Christianity is about family, connection.
So I don't even understand why we go to church if we don't listen to the priest.
Right. I mean, doesn't he say that?
Yeah, yeah, he does.
So why are you concerned about the churches lying when you're not even listening to the things that they say that you think are good?
Yeah, I do. I mean, aren't you more false to God than the churches are?
That's true. I mean, I am being a hypocrite.
So you're focusing on the dust in the other's eye without focusing on the beam in your own, right, Mom?
Yeah.
So why?
Well, I guess I just don't know how to be...
I have a hard time being playful because my mom wasn't playful with me.
Did your mom play with you much at all?
No.
How did that make you feel, Mom?
Pretty sad.
Pretty alone.
What else? Unimportant and like I was just in the way.
Like your mom was always interested in other things and more important things and she was too busy?
Yeah. So you know how that feels?
Yeah. But that's what I don't understand, is that if you know how it feels, why would you do it to us?
I don't know.
I guess I wasn't really thinking about it.
Because it doesn't sort of feel like you...
Like you like spending time with us much.
Because there's always something else that...
That's more important that's taking you away.
Yeah. And I think...
I mean, I know I'm only six, but I think, like, the problems out there in the world that you're trying to deal with, they'll still be there in a couple of years, right?
But our childhoods won't be.
That's true. And that's what I have a tough time understanding.
Like, we are kind of flowing under you like water under a bridge, and we're going to come out the other side and be grown up and gone, and you'll be like, well, I kept an eye on some churches.
Right. Yeah.
And who knows how effective it'll even be.
But... You're right.
So why do you hide from us?
What are you running from?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Are we scary? Are we boring?
Are we demanding?
Are we noisy?
I mean, what is driving you away?
Well, sometimes I think I'm just not as interested in what you're doing.
You guys really love to play games and I don't really like to play games all that much, even though you like to play them.
But we play the games we play because there's just us.
Right. Right?
I mean, if you had games or just conversation, we'd do that, right?
I mean, this is what we're doing when we're not being parented.
If we were being parented, we'd be doing other things.
Right. Then I really don't have an excuse.
Do you think that we don't need you or don't find you interesting or don't like you?
Sometimes I think that you don't really need me.
Well, how does that make you feel?
Unimportant. Like I don't really have a job to do.
Like we can just raise ourselves, like kids in the woods with wolves or something.
Right, right. We can just raise ourselves, right?
And we don't actually need to be parented.
We don't need a parent. So you're kind of home and it's like you're a waiter at a restaurant and no one's coming in, right?
Yeah, I kind of just sometimes feel like a supervisor instead of a mother who just has to keep an eye on you and make sure you're not hurting yourselves.
Right. What would you most like...
Like, you know, when Dad comes home and he says, what do you do?
And he says, well, what about the kids?
What would be, like, what we could have done or could be doing during the day that would be a great answer for Dad when he comes home?
Well... What's the perfect day for the three of us?
Soon to be four, I guess.
Right. Right. I think a really good day would probably be if we did anything together.
He just likes to hear about anything that we do.
Me and you guys.
Even if it's not playing a game.
He loves hearing about when we do school and when we create things.
When we learn anything.
So... Doing schoolwork every day I think would be really good because we always learn things and have fun.
But also if we played together, all of us, just those two things I think would make it a good day.
And what games would you like to play?
What did you like to play when you were a kid?
When I was a kid?
I don't think I really played.
I didn't play with my sisters.
Why not? We all had our own bedrooms and we would just kind of sit in our rooms by ourselves and do our own things.
Oh, like you do now?
Yeah. That's very sad.
Yeah. Must be very lonely.
Yeah. Why didn't you guys play together?
Well, when we were really little I think we did because we shared a bedroom and then it was when my parents got divorced and my mom got a house and she got a house with four bedrooms so that everyone would have their own room.
That's just when we started to, I guess, isolate ourselves to our own spaces.
We didn't play with each other anymore.
But it's not the fault of the bedrooms. No, I guess not.
We could have played together.
So why didn't you? I don't know, but...
Did you fight?
Sometimes we didn't get along, but no more than normal siblings, I don't think.
Did you go out and play in the neighborhood?
I would, by myself and my friends sometimes, but I didn't go play with my sisters out in the neighborhood.
Did you not like each other?
I don't think that we did, really.
What did you dislike about them?
Well, my older sister was very mature.
She was way more mature than we were, very responsible, and she didn't enjoy playing.
She didn't want to do anything that we wanted to do, me and my younger sister.
So she would want to be left alone.
She didn't really have any interest in playing with us.
Hmm. And my younger sister and I would play sometimes.
We would play with our Barbie dolls.
But sometimes we would end up getting into fights and not wanting to play with each other anymore.
Did your mom help with those fights?
No. No.
Usually we were home alone when all that stuff happened.
She would be at work still or watching TV or she would be in her room.
So maybe you guys avoided each other because you didn't have any help with your fights?
You couldn't resolve them?
Yeah. I don't remember her ever getting involved in any of our arguments.
So outside of like cooking and cleaning, what value did your mom bring when you were a kid?
Well... I don't know.
She would, and this may seem like something very small, but once a year she would take us camping, which I always really enjoyed.
I always looked forward to that.
But it wasn't necessarily because we would all be together.
I just really loved camping.
So she did do that one thing for me.
But that was the fun, was the camping, not your mom.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah, I never really had any fun with her.
Do you think, mom, that there's a time when it's too late?
And what I mean by that is, it sort of feels like we are...
Drifting away, drifting apart, like every day that we don't have fun, every day that we don't connect, every day that we don't play, every day we don't talk.
It's like little by little, we're not meeting anymore.
And why I wanted to come and talk to you now is it's a very scary thing to think that we could be like two ghosts in the same house.
Can't have any contact with each other in a way.
Do you think that there's a time when it's too late?
Yeah. When do you think that time is?
Do you know when you gave up?
Like I'm talking here to you because I'm scared it's going to be too late soon, but I don't think it's too late yet.
Do you remember there was a time or how old you might be when you said to your mom, I give up?
Like not to her, but in your head?
Like it's too late now.
We can't fix it.
Well, I don't know.
I'm sure there was a time.
I don't know when it was, but I know it was way too late by the time I was a teenager.
Like 13? Yeah, like 12 or 13.
Okay, that's way too late, but when do you think it was too late before this?
Or when do you think, like, you know, you walk up a seesaw, you walk up and then you tip down to the other side, right?
That tipping point. Right.
When was that, do you think? Probably when I was six years old.
Well, that's why I'm talking to you now.
What if that cord breaks and we still have another 12 years together?
Yeah.
That would be the saddest thing ever.
It would.
So let me ask you one other thing, Mom.
Amen.
Thank you.
What would Jesus do?
Would Jesus care more about the finances of a church or His own flesh and blood?
He would care more about you.
What is he telling you to do?
do.
Stop wasting your time.
And you know, mommy, it's okay if we see you cry.
If you play with us and it makes you cry, that's okay.
I would rather that than just see the back of your head staring at a computer screen all day.
Yeah. Because I know you've got a big heart.
And I know that you were hurt when you were little.
But I would rather you come play with us and cry over Jenga than stare at a screen.
Yeah, that's true.
Because then you're showing us that it doesn't matter if you're sad, it doesn't matter if it hurts you, you gotta connect with the people you love, right?
Yeah. Because this frozen in space, running away stuff, corner of the room, another room, another floor, that's just running away, isn't it?
It is, yeah.
And there's nowhere that you're running to, right?
There's no place you're going to get where the running is worthwhile, is it?
No, I don't think so.
And if it is close to too late, you've got to turn back now.
Yeah.
And be with the living.
Amen.
And the growing. Because we didn't really exactly ask to be here, right?
Right. It was just an accident.
You just happened to be our mom, we just happened to be your kids.
I think you owe us.
I do. And I would rather not have a dog, but have my mom.
If you know what I mean.
Yeah. Tell me what I mean.
Well, are you referring to the dogs that are driving me crazy?
Yes.
That I wish I didn't have to deal with.
You say that you don't want to stop keeping a dog because it would break my heart.
But what would I rather have?
You or a dog? Me.
Right. It's not about me.
You like having an excuse to not play with us.
But it's not out of care for us.
It's like, oh, I can't play because I've got to deal with this dog or I'm so tired because I had to deal with this dog.
But it's not about what we want.
What we want, Mom, is you.
And the dog is there in our hearts because you're not as much.
Do you know what I mean? Like we play with each other because you're not playing with us and I'm more attached to the dog because I'm not as attached to you.
That makes sense. And the dog is going to die a long time before you and me.
And then what are we left with?
Each other. But not.
Right. We're just two ghosts standing over the grave of a dead dog.
Yeah. Because we...
Yearn for you. We hunger for you.
We want time with you.
You are the blueprint of who we are gonna become.
You are the train tracks that we're gonna sail down for as long as we can see.
Right?
Yeah.
I don't want a mom to be a ponytail, right?
Facing me and the face facing the other way.
Yeah. What's it going to take for you to turn around and be with us?
What do we need to do?
What do we need to change?
Nothing. How can we fix it before it's too late?
You don't have to do anything.
But we have to do something, because nothing's changing!
Well, it's me that needs to change it, not you.
Well, what are you going to change?
I just got to stop...
I gotta stop caring so much about everything else.
No, I don't think that's it.
It's not an excess of caring.
If you're running away from something, it's not because you care where you're running.
Like, if the house is burning down and you run out of the house, it's not because you want to get somewhere, it's because you want to get away from somewhere.
Right. It's not, like, that's like a self-praise, you know, like, oh, I just care too much.
No, that's not what it is.
What do you need to do?
Well... I probably need to resolve the issues that I have with my mother so that I'm not afraid of spending time with you.
Because she gets mad into your head when you do that?
Yeah. Yeah, she does.
Well, to hell with her then.
Yeah. You didn't choose her, but you chose us, right?
Yeah. And we sure as hell didn't choose her.
And I'm sorry, Mom, for what you went through as a child.
I really am. But isn't it time to stop all that?
Yeah. And be here with us before it's too late.
Especially because we're home all day, too.
Like, we don't go to school. Dad's gone with the car all day.
I mean, you're really keeping us here, right?
And keeping us here without instructing us?
Like, it doesn't have to be, you know, we don't have to play war games.
We don't have to play hungry hippos all day.
Even just talk.
Yeah. Right?
Tell us about the world. Tell us about yourself.
Tell us about your childhood. Tell us about where you've been.
Tell us about your friends.
Tell us about your thoughts.
You know, you are the portal to...
The future us, right?
You're the ship we're going to sail on.
Right. And there's nothing happening.
Yeah. And we are like two babies lost in space almost.
Making it up as we go along, figuring it out as we go along.
Yeah. That's not what you dreamed of, is it?
When you wanted to become a mom?
What did you dream of?
What did you think was going to be?
I thought it was going to be spending all of my time with you.
Teaching you and taking care of you Helping you develop your talents and your skills.
And you think it was your mom that got you so off course?
Yeah. Because aunties are like that too, I think.
It's like a curse.
It's like a family curse, right?
Yeah. Well...
I didn't really see my aunties that much, so...
Well, like when you were a kid and you were all in separate rooms.
Right. Yeah, I would say come back.
We miss you, we love you, we need you.
Yeah. And the job only gets harder if we're not close, right?
Right. Like if that thread, you had this with your mom, you said, when you were a teenager, but even before then, around this age, if the thread breaks, doesn't it just get harder and harder and harder?
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah, by the time I was a teenager, there was no...
She was so confused as to why I was so angry with her all the time.
And if she'd fixed it then, it would have been out of fear, not out of love, right?
Right. Right.
Because if you fix it too late, it's not out of regret, it's not out of love, it's not out of reforming, it's just out of, oh no, these are the negative consequences, I don't want them, so I'm going to change.
Right. It's not out of love, and the kids are very suspicious about that.
Yeah, yeah. Because now that I'm an adult, it's like she's trying to...
Make up for that.
But there's really no...
There's really no fixing it.
It's still all about her, right?
Yeah. Her needs, her preferences.
So how was that roleplay for you?
It was good. Yeah.
You're still kind of circling around the feelings.
I am. I don't like...
I don't like showing my emotions, but I'm a very emotional person.
Why don't you like showing your emotions?
I mean, look, I understand this isn't like, you know, we're talking on the internet.
I get all of that. But I really got a strong sense, Sarah, that you're going to cry when you play with your kids because it's going to hit you what you missed.
Yeah. That's fine.
What's wrong with that?
Yeah. They'll offer you a band-aid for your heart.
It's beautiful. Like, literally, they might offer you a band-aid for your heart, mommy, right?
Or they'll go and get you a tissue, or, like, they'll give you a hug.
I mean, it's beautiful. There's nothing wrong with being sad in front of your kids.
Yeah, that's true.
Show them your heart.
Show them that they can have strong emotions themselves, and it's fine.
Yeah. Yeah. Because by protecting your passions, you're really keeping them at arm's length, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
How often do you see your mom?
Oh, I see her maybe two or three times a year, but she calls me at least once a week.
Um... This is where I'm going to have to hear hard truth.
I basically...
She treats me basically like her little personal counselor.
It's like I'm the mother and she's the child.
She calls me complaining about work stress, her marriage with my stepdad.
The minister of doom and gloom from the kingdom of woe is me.
Yes, yes. Yep, that's all of our phone conversations.
And what do you get out of these?
Nothing. Probably less than nothing, right?
It's probably a negative, right?
Yeah, yeah. Well, I get left with all of her negative emotions.
Well, and what do you think it would look like to set some boundaries in that area?
And say, listen, I got three dogs.
I got two kids. I'm pregnant.
I'm struggling a little here.
And I just, like, I can't.
I can't do it. Like, and it's one way.
Like, it's always you complaining.
And it's not me ever talking about my difficulties.
And, like, no.
This has got to change. Right.
What happens then?
Triggered! Oh, I know you hate that word.
Yeah. Well, that's exactly what it would be.
She would... She doesn't do well with assertiveness, with any kind of...
Well, she just explodes with rage, right?
I would assume, right? Well, she either explodes with rage or she gets emotional or...
Or I can't do anything right, like the sort of rubber-bones, self-crumpling, manipulative stuff.
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
And so? Well, I think I've only...
I've only really said something like that to her maybe once or twice in my life, but both times I had such a hard time, I basically blew up at her because it was beyond the point of, listen, Mom, we're going to do— Do you want to try that?
I know we're role-play central here, and we can just talk about it, but do you want to try a certain—like, I'll be you, you be your mom, or again, we can just talk about it.
It's your preference. Oh, I would like to just talk about it.
No problem. I know these things can be tiring.
No problem at all. Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so if you do try and say, listen, because it's honesty, right?
It's honesty. Yeah.
Right? And one of the reasons I think you're avoiding your kids is...
Is a problem with honesty, right?
And with your mom, like just being honest and saying, listen, I don't look forward to these conversations, right?
But that's an honest statement, if I understand it correctly, right?
Yeah. Right. And it's an honest statement that you are heavily punished for, right?
Yeah. Right. So being punished for honesty, you know, your kids are going to figure that out one day, right?
Yeah. That if they bully you, they'll just get anything they want.
Right. And they're probably going to figure that out in their early teens.
Great. Right?
Yeah. That mom's a pushover if you bully her.
Right. And if your kids were being bullied, you'd want them to stand up to their bullies.
I assume it was safe to do so, right?
Like physically safe. Right.
Right. Right. So, if you, I think it's, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, so correct me if I'm wrong, if I say that you have a bully in your life, and I'm not saying that's all she is, but in terms of like, you do the conversations because you're afraid of asserting yourself, right? Yeah.
Okay, so if you have a bully in your life, what do you want your kids to learn about how to deal with bullies?
Because no matter if you can do it, you can do it at a phone booth three miles away.
They'll figure it out sooner or later, right?
Right. Probably sooner rather than later, just based upon how you interact with people as a whole.
So what do you want your kids to learn about how to deal with bullies?
Well, I mean...
I shouldn't let people hurt them.
Shouldn't be there to be exploited, right?
For other people to just use you, right?
Right. Right. You should have your own mutual needs in a relationship, right?
Yeah. Okay. Okay.
So you're not asserting your needs with your mother.
You know what that leads to? Your kids not asserting their needs with you, which is why they go off and play on their own rather than have the kind of conversation that we role-played earlier.
Right. Because you're modeling that behavior, right?
You're modeling not don't have your own needs, right?
Right.
for your mom, right?
Because you think your mom's going to get triggered and enraged and maybe abusive or whatever and then they think that if they say, no, mom, come play with us, right?
Like, please.
That it's going to be right?
Right.
And you don't, you want to keep those lines of communication open with your kids, right?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Thank you.
And it's fine to apologize and do better.
Right. You don't want all this time to fly by, right?
You don't want all of this to slip by.
No. And for them to grow up and say, Mom sure did a lot of typing.
Yeah. Yeah. And for them to be calling me in 15 years, right?
Right. Well...
And that's why I'm glad you're calling now, right?
Yeah. It's you or them, right?
Yeah. You can connect with your kids, I believe, when you stand up to your mom.
You sound like my husband.
I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
He's been telling me that for a long time.
He's really jealous that I get to talk to you, by the way.
Oh, I see what you mean. He never gets to talk to you.
I get it. I get it. But listen, confronting your mom, though, doesn't mean like sitting across from the table with her and pounding.
It doesn't mean anything like that.
Because the mom that's out there that you see a couple of times a year that calls, that's not the mom that matters.
She's distant, right? It's the mom in your head.
That's the confrontation that you need to have.
Oh, okay. You understand?
Yeah. Right?
I mean, you've heard me roleplay people's moms, like women in particular, man.
It's like... It's Oscar-worthy stuff on their part, right?
You can hear the tone change.
You can hear the entire mannerism change.
It's like Meryl Streep comes to life or whatever, but without the supporting of the pedos and all.
But... So...
It's the mom in your head that you kind of have to confront, right?
And the mom in your head is trying to protect you from the mom in the world, but guess what?
The mom in the world is a thousand miles away, or whatever, right?
And so when it comes to the inner mom, like, she's your friend.
I know she feels like an enemy, she's going to punish you, but she's your friend, right?
Like, whatever happened to my mom probably in the war, Second World War, whatever happened to my mom that made her want to blame an 11-year-old's friends for losing a vacuum cleaner, like, that...
Level of perfectionism and terror and so on.
I don't know. I mean, was she tortured in the war?
Who knows, right? I mean, I'll never know because even if I asked her, I'm never – even if I was in contact with her and I asked her, I'd never know if she told me the truth.
But obviously it was something, you know, pretty extreme and pretty terrible, right?
So the inner mom that you have, she's like really trying to help you.
time you're around your mom, you activate your inner mom because, you know, every time you fall into a lion cage, you can't nap, right?
You've got to get out of a lion cage, right?
And so it's the inner mom that is where the real confrontation, like, you know, because your inner mom has needs, right?
Your inner mom has needs.
Now, in general, your inner mom, her need is for you to not be passively triggered by your external mom.
Does that make sense? Yeah.
You ever do that game when you're a kid where you flick your fingers at somebody else's eyes and you try not to blink?
Yeah. Okay, so the finger flicking is your mom and your inner mom is like the blink reflex, right?
Uh-huh. So your inner mom wants to feel safe and secure so that she can let down her guard and permit you full and free emotional access to your children, your husband, yourself, right?
And that's why the boundaries need to happen.
That's why the boundaries need to happen.
When I was... I don't know, 20 or whatever.
I was in a tent in the middle of nowhere on my own and I thought that there was a bear outside the tent.
It scared the living crap out of me.
Now, if I'm in a house and there's a bear around, it's kind of cool, right?
Yeah. Because I got walls.
So it's not going to rip through the brick.
It could rip through the fabric of the tent, right?
Right. Right?
So, if you have boundaries, then you have less anxiety, right?
You say you feel anxious and so on.
Well, I would assume it's because if you don't have psychological boundaries with your mother, then your inner mother is perpetually activated.
Yeah. And if your inner mother is perpetually activated, your fight-or-flight response regarding your mom...
And, you know, we're just picking on your mom here.
It could be your dad too, but, you know, we're just sort of focusing on what we've had more time to deal with.
So if you keep getting activated by your mom, then your inner mom can't lay down her arms, right?
Like you're not in a house, you're still in a tent and there's a bear around, right?
So you can't relax, right?
Yeah, yeah. So the boundaries, you can still be, I mean, you can still be in contact with your mother.
You can still have conversations with your mother as long as you're alert and aware, right?
Because if you're putting all of the self-protection on your inner mom, she's not going to be able to relax, right?
Whereas if you're like, okay, we're going to take this call from my mom, she's going to whine, she's going to complain, maybe I'll try and set some boundaries, maybe I won't, but at least I'm alert and aware to what's actually happening.
Does that make sense? Yeah.
As opposed to just, I imagine, and tell me if I'm wrong...
You kind of just go passive and limp and rubber bones when your mom calls and you like, I don't know, is it the speakerphone and muted and staring at the TV kind of thing or staring at a computer screen or whatever?
Sometimes. Sometimes I'll find other things to do while she's complaining to me.
It's just this background rain that you stop hearing after a while, right?
Yeah. My mom was such a talker.
Good thing I broke that cycle.
No, but I'm a listener.
But my mom was such a talker, like she was in the bath, door was closed, she's just yammering, yammering, yammering her way.
And I'm like, I can't take it.
And I went to the mall. Yeah.
And I had a slice of pizza.
This is back at Appian Way, Don Mills Mall.
You could get a slice of pizza for 75 cents and a pop for 25 cents.
It was a good deal. Sometimes if you were really broke, you could get the leftover batter from the fish and chips place for 10 cents a bowl.
Oh, man, that was pretty rough, though.
Wow. Anyway, so I went and had a slice of pizza, chatted with some friends, came back, you know, 40 minutes later.
She hadn't even noticed I was gone.
Oh, my goodness. Doesn't even notice, right?
That's lageria, right? That's just verbal diarrhea, right?
Yeah. And I think that's between you and your kids.
Now, how that plays out in terms of how you assert or whether you assert or whatever, it can be just in your head.
I mean, I think ideally, you need to see the price of self-assertion, which is, you know, if you do actually try and set some boundaries with your mom, and, you know, I mean, I've told people about the conversation I had with my mom, where it was just like, you know, we have like one topic.
And that topic is X, right?
I mean, it was her problems or issues or whatever.
It's like one topic. You don't really ask me how I'm doing.
It's kind of a one way. And I find myself tuning out.
I can find myself not listening.
And that's really unsatisfying to me, right?
Let's not have a pretend conversation, you know?
And she, I mean, she hit the roof, like something like literally hit the roof.
Almost pushed the roof, right? New skylight from Triggered Mom.
So for me, it was very powerful for me to see that as an adult, because I realized the pressure cooker slash emotional terrorism that I was living with growing up.
So I could assert myself as an adult with my mom, having the independence and having my own place and all that, and being in a position where she needed me a lot more than I needed her.
So I could confront my mother as an adult, and it was still really scary.
And then I realized, oh my gosh, this is the powder keg that I lived with as a child for like 15 years straight.
And that gave me a lot of sympathy for myself as a child.
And when you have a lot of sympathy for yourself as a child, you know what you never do?
You never sit there and say, well, I'm lazy and I'm unmotivated and I don't do as well as other moms.
And all of this garbage that was in there coming from your mom in your opening email.
You live with a pressure cooker and I bet you there's a lot of emotional terrorism that goes on if you try to assert yourself.
And that's terrifying.
And once you get how much pressure you were under as a child and how much you had to lie and fake and falsify, I think you'll have a lot of sympathy for yourself as a child.
And when you have sympathy for yourself as a child and your child's needs that were unmet and you grieve and you deal with all of that, then you can actually have sympathy for your son's needs.
And meet what they need.
Which is you. And pretty soon too.
Yeah. Because every day that they're not getting what they need from you, they're finding other ways to do it.
They're finding other ways to get their needs met, right?
Yeah. And...
After a while, you know, let's say that okra is your favorite food, right?
And some local farmer is selling okra all the time, right?
You're like, hi, this is great, I'll get my okra, right?
And let's say that the farmer then stops growing okra, goes to grow something else, and it's really inconvenient to get your fresh okra or something.
You'll just find some other thing that you like, some other food to eat, right?
And after a while, you kind of forget about the okra.
And that's like, if you're not there providing what your sons need at this time in their lives, they'll just find some other substitute, right?
Now, right now, it's each other, maybe older.
It'll be something on the internet or a peer group or some group or whatever it is, right?
But they'll find something.
They'll find a substitute.
And once they have found that substitute, man, it is really tough.
It is really tough to reconnect.
Yeah. And actually, confrontations.
I know they're scary, but they can actually be kind of fun.
Because if you do it with the full alertness of what's going on, and knowing that you're an adult and you're independent and you've got a husband who loves you and you've got kids, right?
Right. You can have that kind of...
It's not like you're four and still have 14 years to go in this nuthouse, right?
Right. And that's...
That's the majority of what I wanted to get across, but tell me how you're doing.
I ought to you. No, if you wouldn't mind.
See? Bullying gets what you want, Sarah.
Anyway. No, how are you doing with what we're talking about?
No, this is really good.
It's really helpful because I've listened to your other conversations with other people in sort of similar situations.
You talked to this father one time who was having a hard time connecting with his son.
And I was like, yeah, that right there.
I need to listen to that. But it was still missing my specific situation, so I didn't get it all the way.
So this has been really helpful because I knew that it had to be with my mom.
I've been complaining about my mom to my husband for our entire relationship.
It's just like it clicked.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, you want to be there for your sons.
You want to have fun with them. You want to enjoy their company.
You want to engage with them.
Yeah. And you want them to look back when they're adults and say, man, my mom was a blast.
Right. But you've got to get past your mom first.
She's in the way, I believe.
And you can. You can.
You absolutely can. I know you don't have a car during the day, and again, I don't want to step on your husband's financial toes or anything like that, and you don't have to tell me how you guys are doing financially, but I'll put the offer out there, of course, that if you can find a good therapist and you need money, just let me know.
I'm happy to cover all that. This is for your kids, and just let me know anything that I can do to help with regards to this, because, I mean, you've got a huge heart, and it takes a huge amount of courage to have these kinds of conversations, and Especially with a new child on the way.
Anything I can do to help, just let me know.
But I'm sure you've got it sorted, as they would say in England.
Yeah. Well, actually, I did see a counselor for a few years before I had children.
But I don't think she was very good because it didn't seem to help.
Keep casting about.
I mean, you know, people are saying to me, well, can't you find a vet therapist?
And it's like, nope. No, I really can't.
I really can't. But I hope that I know that you will be able to.
And usually it's just a matter of Getting the lay of the land, right?
Like even a tiny bit of light can help you navigate.
I don't know if you have like a little watch or whatever that might have a little flashlight on it and you're trying to get through a dark room.
Just turning that, like it's not enough to see properly, but it's enough to get you through the room pretty easily.
And sometimes just that first bit of light can be so powerful and helpful.
So yeah, that's what I wanted to say.
I really, really hope you will keep me posted.
And I just wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your openness in this conversation.
It's incredibly admirable and for your commitment to your kids and connecting with them.
It's certainly not too late.
I would do it sooner rather than later.
But I think it's going to be a job well done and a lot easier than you think.
Well, good.
I really appreciate you talking to me.
You're welcome. I look forward to hearing how it goes.
And how long till the new one?
I'm seven months now.
All right. No sudden moves, no trampolining, no holding in sneezes, and no spicy food.
All right. Take care, Sarah.
Thanks again for the chat. Thank you.
Bye. Bye. Well, thank you so much for enjoying this latest Free Domain show on philosophy.
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