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The Bad Mom Podcast is where raw parenting stories meet real solutions for raising resilient kids in today’s anxious, digital world. Hosted by humanitarian and Just Like My Child Foundation founder, Vivian Glyck, each episode blends unfiltered conversations, expert insights, and lived experiences to help parents swap guilt for grit—and discover how imperfect parenting can still support and encourage strong, thriving humans.
Bad Mom Podcast
Welcome to the Resistance
Season 1, Ep. 1
Vivian Glyck
Vivian Glyck: [00:00:00] Hi. Thank you for being here today. This episode is going to be a little bit personal and I'm gonna dive into my story, the pivotal moments that move the needle for me, and how I came to realize. That we and our children need more than just physical health foundation. We need something that equips us mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to face so much of the overwhelm in today's world.
So this isn't just about me, it's about. Every parent and every child, and everyone who feels like they've been bombarded by external forces, social media technology, and I'm sharing how I turned my pain around all of this into purpose and why Project Grit, the Grit Kit, and the Bad Mom podcast became such an important part of my mission and I'm so committed to it.
When my son, Zak, was born in 2002, his [00:01:00] first days were spent at the neonatal intensive care unit with a collapsed lung. The minute that he was born, they took him from me. He was rushed into the nicu and I was laying there for an hour 'cause I had just had a C-section. Not knowing what was going on, not knowing if he was even still alive.
And I felt powerless to make a difference and to know what was going on. And that was a wake up call reminding me how fragile life is. And that moment just changed how I looked at the world, and most importantly, how I wanted to make a difference for other kids around the world.
A few years later, I suffered two back to back miscarriages over two years. And I found myself asking, what am I supposed to do now? What is the next right thing? And it was a profound grief. And if, if you've had an encounter with grief, you know. It can just show up at any time. You can be in the middle [00:02:00] of having a conversation or a meeting, and all of a sudden it just grabs you, this pain, this sadness of what am I supposed to do and how can I heal myself?
And I realized that what I wanted more than anything. Was to impact the lives of other children I wanted to have, not just one more baby, I wanted to have 10,000 kids. And it sounded crazy at the time, but in 2006, I took a leap of faith. I started doing all of this research and studying of what was going on with kids around the world, and I learned that something like.
Every 30 seconds a child was dying of a mosquito bite of malaria in the, uh, in the developing world. And I could not understand how that was happening. And we didn't know about it. It wasn't like front page news every day, and that over 12 million children in Africa had been orphaned by the AIDS virus.
Uh, and 20 [00:03:00] million people had died of aids. I'm like, why? I need to see this for myself. I needed to bear witness, and so I actually put it out into the universe and swirling out of the cosmos. I got this invitation from a Ugandan nun. To come and see her clinic in a very rural part of Uganda. And so I ended up flying there and everybody thought I was crazy.
And I met so many children that I had actually been dreaming of. And I met so many women and mothers who were caught in this plight of whether they were gonna live or die to be able to raise their own kids. And that was really where the. Birth of, just like my child foundation happened. The very first night that I was in Uganda, I heard this woman screaming throughout the night.
I was staying at this little, at this little clinic in a, in the guest house covered in a mosquito net. I was sweating. I couldn't open the windows because the mosquitoes were coming [00:04:00] in, but I heard this woman screaming and in the morning, the nuns, the sisters at the hospital brought us this little baby, baby Christina.
And it turned out that the cries that we had heard throughout the night were a baby Christina's grandmother watching as her 13-year-old daughter died in childbirth. She actually died of sepsis. Um, and that's when the idea for this foundation was born and we were able to actually keep that little baby alive.
For, uh, for many years. Uh, but we started to build on the hospital. We had interventions for maternal care, HIV treatments, et cetera. We launched schools and all of the above, and we realized that nothing was gonna make a difference all of these projects until we intervened in the life of an adolescent.
And girl. And so that is how [00:05:00] we ended up creating Girl Power Project in hand, in hand with teachers, social workers, uh, healthcare workers, law enforcement judges in Uganda to build this incredibly powerful project that now has been scientifically proven to keep girls in school, avoiding forced child marriage like baby Christina's mother, early pregnancy.
HIV transmission, et cetera, and. Every single day I saw the resilience and strength of the children and mothers who were fighting against not just physical challenges, but the emotional and mental toll that it takes to develop grit and to survive. And so we ended up expanding this program to India, which I'm super, super proud of.
It's just taken off and, uh. More than anything. Um, so inspired by the leaders in Uganda and in [00:06:00] India who have made the Girl Power Project touch more than 400,000 lives around the world, but all while all of this was going on after years of kid helping kids stay physically healthy. I realized what in the heck is going on in the United States with mental health?
And at first you kind of look at it and you think, oh, it's like a little issue. Some kids are struggling and there are, you know, this'll, this'll pass on. But when it came to my own home, when I saw my. Son, that one son that I love and adore more than anything. Beginning to struggle with the impact of what was going on around social media, technology, the divisiveness, all of the, you all, all, all of the just opinions that were being.
Spewed online and the ability of the algorithms to grab the kids' brains and to create this [00:07:00] crisis that is so real, that anxiety, depression, isolation, addiction, were becoming more rampant than ever and what was happening in my house as one child, we are really facing an epidemic. In the United States, a mental health crisis that is affecting, impacting and leading our kids to just be unhappy and in a lot of ways unable to deal with the world.
So this is where this idea for the Grit kit and Project Grit was born. We've had all, have had all of these other ideas in our, um. Under, just like My Child Foundation, the Girl Power Project Project Keep a Mother Alive, Project Grace, which was a micro enterprise program. And here we're launching Project Grit.
And the grit kit. And the grit kit is about. Helping [00:08:00] parents to raise resilient kids who can get past some of these mental health issues. 'cause that's really what it's about. Like we've all had bad stuff happen to us. Right? It, it, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And what can we put into this kit that we've learned working with hundreds of thousands of kids?
In the developing world, what can we provide parents with the tools that they need to help their children cope, to gain back their childhood? To say no to rampant technology that go beyond the problems, but act, actually provide practical, holistic methods to regulate the nervous system and promote emotional resilience.
So, you know, throughout this journey I have had the privilege of working with some of the world's leading authorities in all areas. We were part of Michelle Obama's Let Girls Learn Initiative. We were part of the Clinton [00:09:00] Global Initiative and the Worldwide Health Impact. Um, I. Had the, the pleasure and honor of working with Deepak Chopra for many years and learning about wellness and spirituality.
Some of my closest friends from Dave Asprey, who's the, the father of biohacking and my dear friend, JJ Virgin, who is really the queen of wellness and keeping, keeping yourself strong so you can deal with everything else that life is throwing. Uh, is throwing at you, um, Joe Polish, who is really an authority on substance abuse and addiction, and of course, the genius network.
On and on and on. and they've taught me the importance of integrating mind, body, and spirit for true, true wellbeing. So through my work with these incredible mentors, I've learned that the most powerful health modalities, everything from breath work and [00:10:00] yoga to neurofeedback and energy healing and nutrition is what really stuck with me, is how these techniques help regulate the nervous system in a world that's.
Constantly bombarding us with stress and we need to learn these tools and implement them more than ever. So this is what the Grit kit is going to incorporate many of the these modalities. It's a set of practices designed to help children and PA parents regulate their nervous system. Know what tools there are.
You know what, uh. What tools to bring in and practice with each particular issue to build resilience and prepare to face the challenges we face each day. It's about grounding ourselves, mind, body, soul, nutrition, exercise, service, self-care, so that we can face what's coming at us without it taking us down.
So this is a toolkit that [00:11:00] includes holistic health. Practices, including nutrition that's built to fuel the brain from baby brains to grownup ones. The importance of exercise community, so important and how do you do that? How do you build community in your own backyard when it's just sort of. Frittered away from us giving back why service is so important, including emotional regulation techniques and deep spiritual grounding practices.
To build resilience, we've got to get back to the basics.
I've seen firsthand how powerful it is when kids and their parents have the tools they need to thrive. That's what I had to do. I had to go out and learn all of these things to face the issues that I was facing with my son, how to take care of myself. What are the resources that are available for him?
How can I bring it full circle? I unpack. Everything. [00:12:00] There has not been a stone left unturned, and I'm putting all of this into the grit kit along with everything that we learned in Uganda about helping kids just stand up when they've fallen down. Because if there's a place that kids really need to learn resilience, it is.
In places where things are still developing, where water isn't a resource every day, nutritious food isn't a resource. Every day their parents are sick and dying. They're pouring in poverty. These are the the strongest kids there are. And so that is what we're putting into the grit kid to help our kids here in the United States really stand up.
So I'm inviting you to join me in this mission. We need to equip our kids with the emotional tools they need to succeed. It's up to us and we need to push back on all of the technology and the. Access that they have that is really breaking their [00:13:00] brain.
We need to stand up to the madness. So share these resources. Get the grit, kitten, take action. Let's make sure our kids don't just survive, they thrive, and the time is now.
Thank you so much for listening. As always, this is a conversation, not just a monologue. I name this podcast The Bad Mom Podcast, parenting The Anxious Generation, because I have felt like a bad mom at times, and I believe that. All of us really want the best for our kids, and we're always asking ourselves, are we doing the best job that we can?
So this is the place to really put it all on the table to talk about those conversations that are difficult to have because there's so much shame around it. It's like, let's put some light on the story. Let's just talk about what's happening with our [00:14:00] kids. We're all in this together, and I'm so grateful to be part of this community of parents, caregivers, and supporters who are ready to take action. Let's do this for our children and for the future. Of the world.