Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
In this episode, Jess and Scott answer a listener's question about sharing the mental load of parenting. Jess talks about times when she felt like she carried most of the mental load and how Scott and her now split the work of parenting. They discuss the challenges of balancing roles, especially when one parent feels like the default decision-maker, educator, and emotional support.
Key takeaways for listeners include:
* How to approach conversations about mental load in a way that strengthens your partnership.
* Strategies to encourage reluctant partners to engage more fully in the parenting journey.
* Ideas for setting boundaries and creating shared responsibilities so neither parent feels solely responsible.
Whether you feel overwhelmed as the default parent or want to be a more engaged partner, this episode offers practical wisdom for creating a united parenting team. Don't miss Jess and Scott's candid discussion of their own parenting journey and struggles!
During the episode, Jess mentions an episode with Josh, a skeptical dad. You can listen to his episode here. [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/as-a-skeptic-husband-i-couldnt-see-the-value-in/id1740816838?i=1000669677881]
Want more support on your parenting journey? Check out our incredible blog full of articles & advice here. [https://nurturedfirst.com/blog/]
Get 10% OFF parenting courses and kids' printable activities at Nurtured First [https://nurturedfirst.com/courses/] using the code ROBOTUNICORN.
We'd love to hear from you! Have questions you want us to answer on Robot Unicorn? Send us an email: podcast@robotunicorn.net.
Learn more about the Solving Bedtime Battles course here [https://nurturedfirst.com/courses/solving-bedtime-battles/].
Credits:
Editing by The Pod Cabin [https://thepodcabin.com/]
Artwork by Wallflower Studio [https://www.wallflowerstudio.co/]
Production by Nurtured First [https://nurturedfirst.com/]
Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
How was your night last night?
Yeah, that was a very leading question.
Uh my night was fine, actually.
Oh, okay
Other than some concern that I had for our youngest.
But how was your How was your night, Jessica?
Uh it was
Not great.
Tell me why, please.
This is a quick aside and we'll get into the episode.
But yesterday our youngest and our second youngest were playing and then the middle child pulled the
youngest arm.
And anyway, she ended up pulling out her elbow.
So I had to drive her to the emergency room, but it was during rush hour, so it was like took me over an hour to get her to even the emergency room.
She screamed the whole time
Scream for like two and a half straight hours.
It was a quick fix, thankfully.
It was best case scenario.
So I was very grateful for that.
It's like the nursemaid's elbow.
A lot of kids have it.
Yeah, it wasn't very fun coming home to that.
Yeah, it was a
A tough night.
It's always hard to watch your kids be in so much pain and then to watch the older sister be so sad that she hurt the younger sister.
I just feel like today just a little tired and like emotionally drained after that.
So I just want to see that.
She cried for a long time.
Yeah.
Very hard.
It was a lot of validating, a lot of holding space for feelings.
So I just want to name that as we're entering into the episode that I'm in a interesting emotional space today.
Okay.
What do you think of our new setup
It's cute.
Hopefully people are fans of this when we end up at some point in the future, who knows when, launch some video We are planning, just so everyone knows, because a lot of you ask us all the time, when are you gonna release the full video?
We will.
We are planning on releasing the full video of the podcast.
But it's just it does take a lot of time on the back end to do it.
But hopefully this new setup we ha if you're obviously listening and not seeing it, we have
A beautiful table.
That was a great auction to find.
Scott found it online.
Scott's addicted to the online auction sites.
Not actually addicted, but he does enjoy
He does enjoy to be on.
Honestly, this one I thought it could be a complete piece of garbage.
I kinda wanted for a house.
It's too heavy.
I'm not moving it again
Well fine.
But I do really like it.
Alright, let's get into the actual episode.
Please.
Welcome to Robot Unicorn.
Today we're starting the show with a question from
We have received a lot of interesting, kind, thought-provoking emails over
the past just over half a year now that we've started this podcast.
And we are going to base this episode on a question or a few questions, I guess, kind of all related to each other from uh listener
whose name is Janelle.
Thank you very much, Janelle, for reaching out to us.
Uh just because of the length of it, I'm going to paraphrase a few parts of it just so
We can be a little more specific on the question, but it's a very interesting set of questions she has here.
So this is directed to you, Jess.
Do you ever feel that you are the one doing all the behind the scenes work of parenting
For example, do you feel that you are always needing to guide Scott, me, or tell him how to respond in certain situations, why you respond in a certain way, etc.
?
Just because you're the one with the background knowledge
So for context, this person is a pediatric occupational therapist.
So child development is something that they understand, but their husband doesn't have that understanding, which is, I mean, the same as
how I am too.
I learned it through you.
But so this person, Janelle is constantly finding they have to guide their husband and it's leading to like exhaustion or It's just a lot of work, right?
You're kind of the one that carries the work of parenting and constantly trying to guide
your partner in how they should do things.
So how do you navigate this?
And do you have any suggestions?
Because Janelle feels like they're not the only parent that feels this way.
So she felt like it was a good question to ask, which I agree.
This is uh quite interesting.
Yeah.
Thank you so much, Janelle.
First off, I think that was an incredible question.
As soon as it came in, we were actually about to record a different podcast when this email came in, I think last week.
And immediately Scott and I read the email.
We're like, we're doing an episode on
this.
This is such a good topic.
So thank you.
And I think so many parents can probably relate to the feeling of one of the partners taking on the mental load.
or the load of parenting and making the decisions around discipline.
Like I would say outside of you and I, we'll talk about our experience, but even in my private practice
So often it's just one parent, sometimes the mom, sometimes the dad, a different partner, taking on the responsibility of kind of the child rearing and the way that they're going to discipline and then relaying that information back
to the other parent.
And especially if the other parent is skeptic, like someone in this room was, it can be a lot because you feel like you're constantly having to kind of explain your rationale.
I think we were in a unique situation from my perspective in that you were very open to hearing my suggestions
So I think Scott and I as hard as it is to grow up in trauma and it's not to ever, you know, say that that's not hard
But there was a piece of you that was like, I already know I don't want a parent in the same way that I was raised.
Yeah, right.
Like you had already determined you wanted a different approach.
So yes, I had to do a lot of teaching
And yes you were skeptical about things, but you came into it with an open heart and an open mind of like you were willing to learn a different approach because you knew you didn't wanna spank and you didn't wanna yell and you didn't wanna do those cycles.
So there was.
that I was raised with.
Yeah.
And so yes, I would say when we started parenting and especially when we started having tantrums and child sleep issues.
I feel like it was really around that toddler age.
So it was
I don't know, two years old, roughly, maybe a little bit older.
I don't know.
Somewhere around that that time frame where all of a sudden it started to really kick in.
You have a toddler having meltdowns all day.
Yeah, exactly.
And we've shared the story before, but we can share it again.
There was a certain point in time where we hadn't had too many conversations actually about discipline.
I had worked always
with parents and in behavior.
So I think it was kinda known that when the time would happen, we would talk about it.
We just hadn't really talked about it
And then our toddler was in the middle of having all sorts of tantrums and meltdowns and was angry about everything, which is interesting now in hindsight, because now our third daughter is there and it's so much easier to navigate.
But when the oldest is there, it's your first time.
And so for you, it was your first time really being around a toddler that had that many emotions.
And so yes, you had an open heart, but you also didn't know how to respond
So you had said to me, Jess, like how do we respond to tantrums and why wouldn't we send her to timeout?
Yeah, because it tells her.
In my mind, it was a distinct way of telling her
Hey, what you're doing is wrong, and there's a consequence to that action.
Right.
So that was the logic that I had in my mind.
And that kind of made sense.
The one thing that I would say made sense to me at that point was you have a consequence to
an action like a tantrum and hitting or whatever and yeah, timeout or not necessarily spanking because I would never I would never have done that.
That was never on the table.
That was never on the table for me.
Because again, I saw how ineffective that actually was.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I thought that
It would make sense to have a consequence like that.
Yeah.
So I'd say earlier on in our parenting journey, it was definitely a lot of Scott having questions or being like, well, why wouldn't we do a consequence?
Why wouldn't we do timeout
And so I think it was a little bit heavier on me educating you at that time.
Now I do think it's important to point out though, I was traveling constantly.
So I was home maybe fifty percent of the year, the other fifty percent I was gone.
So I would be home on
Most weekends.
Mm-hmm.
Pretty much every weekend.
And then half of the weeks I would be home.
But my job was so involved that
You were still taking our oldest two daycare.
You were the one still kind of raising them.
And I often felt like I was coming into a situation where I was sort of interrupting the flow of how you were already parenting.
Right.
So it's not really comparing apples to apples when you have two parents that are home.
All the time.
And you're still having issues agreeing on or one parent sort of being the default in terms of
disciplining or taking care of the kids.
I don't know that's exactly apples to apples.
Like I tried, but then I often felt like I was just not.
Yeah, I think because you were traveling so much, when you got home, I already had a whole
So I didn't want to mess with that flow either.
I think that's the case for a lot of parents who stay at home and the other parent works.
Like whether or not they travel all the time.
time, but if they're the stay-at-home parent and the other parents working, usually during the day they have some kind of systems, some ways of responding, and then their partner gets home from work and they do something totally different.
And this kind of feeling can come up of, oh now I have to educate them and all of that
So anyway, when our toddler was little, then I started educating you a lot on the child development and understanding her brain, which was huge for you at the time.
And I think that since then
you have been invested as well.
I actively try to learn a lot of things because of that.
Yeah.
And I would say that's something I've always appreciated from you is that I feel like we have been
partners, even though I often will tell you, hey, this is how I'd respond if she's worried or this is, you know, I feel like you have taken an active role in trying to learn more on your own time as well.
Like I don't feel like I'm the only one teaching you these things.
Do you think that's fair?
Yeah, I think in general that is just the way um I like to know things.
Like to learn about them.
I'm by no means do I think I'm an expert in
Anything that I do, I want to constantly learn how to be better.
And that includes parenting.
I had a conversation with a friend recently about parenting and how I think my upbringing, although
Terrible.
Kind of made it easier for me to understand that the way I parent.
I'm kind of a blank slate at this point.
I I understand that there's certain things that I will do inherently because it's ingrained in me
But because I know that I'm actively reflecting on how I parent the kids in a day.
And I'll know, hey, I didn't do that quite properly, either apologize to them or change it the next time.
But for someone who had
good parents, like someone who had parents that they could look up to and want to parent in a similar way.
It's harder to then find things that I don't know you want to do differently
Because your default is to just do everything in the same way that your parents did, but that's not Yeah.
I don't know.
That was easier for me.
I just kind of
I knew I had to be a blank slate for that.
Yeah, exactly.
So in a way, because you grew up in that trauma, you came into it more open minded.
Like you're willing to learn because you don't want to do the same thing.
Whereas friends of ours, like you were saying, the one friend you were talking to
He grew up and his parents were there and they were present and they're good grandparents.
But maybe they did some things like the timeouts or spanking, that type of thing.
that he doesn't now feel like he wants to do, but it's harder to ch change that when you actually look back at your childhood and you're like for the most part it was pretty good.
Yeah.
And I think too for parents who were good overall.
Yeah.
It's probably offensive for them often.
They get offended by like anything you do differently from them, which again that goes back to a conversation we had a few episodes back.
I just find that
that mindset to be completely ridiculous because there's no way that anyone is going to do parenting perfectly.
We're all human.
Yeah.
That's just the way it is.
So to be offended by your kids doing things slightly differently than you
Yeah.
That that's how some grandparents are.
Yeah, and I think specifically in this scenario we're talking about a male partner.
I I feel like a lot of the men that I have worked with actually do have that fear of offending their parents or being like, well if I don't spank my kids, you know, are they gonna think that I think terribly of them because they spanked me?
And I think then we can become even like really spanking it.
It's literally any difference in how you the expectation for kids maybe to sit at the dinner table for forty-five minutes when
They're four, and that's just not really an expectation that is realistic for a four-year-old.
Yeah.
I mean, sure, you can force them to sit there, but is that actually helpful in any way?
Right.
And then let's say in that scenario, so you grew up and when you were a kid, you were forced to sit at the table for 45 minutes.
That's a sign of respect to your family.
You know that that doesn't work for your toddler, but now your parents are over for dinner
and you want them to see that you're a successful parent, right?
So now you put that pressure on your toddler to sit for the entire forty five minutes at the table.
I feel like that's the type of thing that often happens.
And then the other partners trying to educate you and say, well that's not realistic.
And you're thinking, well, but if I don't make them sit the whole time my parents are here, what are my parents gonna think?
Are they gonna think I'm letting my kid be defiant or rude?
And that's how I think we get into some of those battles and having a hard time moving forward or seeing something different
Right.
So I was thinking about Janelle's question and I was wondering from your perspective as a dude.
And as someone with a lot of guy friends who have been in this situation, what do you think would be helpful if you are a female partner like me?
And you feel like you have to be constantly educating your husband or partner and like telling him what do you think would be a good idea.
Truly, I think most of my buddies are highly involved
Dads.
True.
Like it's hard for me to think of any of them that aren't involved.
Super involved.
Yeah.
So I yeah, I don't know that I can necessarily give that advice.
Like, I know the mindset of
Again, most of my buddies is that it's a value of theirs and maybe that's just because that's who we surround ourselves with.
I don't know.
Yeah.
But that is
the value that they have, that they want to be with their children and spend as much time with them as they can and do things with them and have fun with them and like as a family.
So I don't know
You don't know if you've had if you'd have advice for the mom who's like, I feel like I just keep trying to educate him and it's feeling tiring.
I mean at a certain point, I think, I hope, that what you have to say
will click.
Yeah.
I know what worked for me is I would challenge you and you wouldn't get offended by it.
Mm-hmm.
You know how I like to consume information, which is like, I don't know, statistical data or
I don't know, I try to live my life with logic and wisdom, and so that's the way you tried to convey the information to me?
It wasn't like you are offended, and
You're snapping back at me.
It's more you were actively trying to explain the reasons why we need to deal with the tantrum in this way, and we have to get on their level and we have to be their calm and whatever, all the things that you teach everyone
You explained it based on information that is backed up.
So like a child develops in this specific way and it takes roughly this amount of time for their brain to develop.
These abilities and therefore what you're expecting our two-year-old to be able to just control is completely unrealistic
Yeah.
And here are some other things you can do.
So I think that's why it worked, because you kinda know me and you know I'm very direct in my questioning.
I'm not gonna like I don't know, I don't beat around the bush with when it comes to these questions and you
responded kind of in kind the way I prefer.
Yeah, I found that for me with you when you were a little more skeptical, coming at you with research and very factual information instead of leaving with
like all the tools that we now teach.
I think sometimes for some partners feel a little bit woo-woo possibly.
Like if you just lead with that, if you lead with get on their level and validate their emotions and get curious with them, all
important things.
But if that's what we're leading with, you could easily be like, well that's like, no, I don't have time for that.
I'm not gonna do that.
So for me it was really helpful to lead with
Here's what the research says.
We both agree we want to use uh style of parenting that's backed by research and is gonna be effective for our kids.
Right.
So I had your buy-in by just doing that and you're like
show me the articles.
I'm like, yeah, no problem.
And then I would, right?
And so I know that when we even started our mama village, like everything I did basically had like
APA citation before that.
It was probably just the race blog already.
Yeah, before we're going to be able to do that.
So we had Nurture First, Our Mama Village, and before
For our Mama Village for the OGs, Jessica Grace blog, that's how I started.
And I would just write blogs that were filled with research, like APA citations on why this style of parenting is effective.
Yeah, and how to actually do it and And how to do it.
When I started doing that, I'm sure there's still some still up.
You can find them on our blog, which is incredible, by the way.
Plug for the blog
When I was writing those initial articles, I was thinking about the parent like you who needed to know that it's not just some fluffy new age parenting style as Bach
by research.
But then the other thing that I found really helpful when I was kind of coaching you and even in the clients, like this situation with Janelle is
common thing that we see in our practice too where one parent is taking the reins is giving some specific readings or things that the partner can do
whether it's as simple as sending them a podcast episode, that's part of the reason why we wanted Scott on this podcast, is so that parents could hear from a different perspective and and get Scott's skeptical questions that you've all
come to I think like I feel like I'm not that skeptical.
No, you're pretty good actually.
I'm kind of on board now.
You're on board.
For the most part.
But you will you will still question me or push back.
Yeah.
And I think people really appreciate that.
But that's like a simple way to get them to start to feel invested themselves.
And I think the best thing that you can do is if you feel like you're constantly trying to teach your partner through modeling
Right.
I think we had the episode on with Josh, our friend.
That would be a great episode to listen to.
He was a skeptical dad and was unsure about the style of parenting, but the more he watched his wife Shannon
do this style of parenting in an effective way that was actually changing the behavior of of their son, he realized that her method was way more effective than his
And I think a lot of the time we focus so much on teaching, but the best way we can teach is just through doing it ourselves.
And it's actually okay if your partner's not
100% doing the same thing as you.
It's not your job to change his or her behavior.
Yeah.
I think Josh and Shannon though, that's a little bit unfair because he is also
Like he will spend a lot of time thinking through the way he's done things and that's the type of person he is.
Yeah.
He's constantly analyzing what he's done and
the kids and like that's just his style.
So I don't think every parent is gonna be like that either.
So modeling, wow.
Yes, I think in some situations that will help.
I don't know that that's always gonna help either.
Yeah, it might not always help.
Right, because I could foresee someone who, let's say, doesn't agree, so now wants to do things in a totally different style, sees you being
so gentle and thinking they will think you're being too gentle on them.
It's not going to work.
You just need to do whatever.
Give them a consequence right then and there and that will help.
Yeah.
That will stop it from happening.
So I don't necessarily think that that's always going to be that effective.
The modeling.
Yeah.
Yeah.
In some situations it will, but again, in others, uh that's not gonna be like a catch-all.
It's not always gonna work.
Yeah.
And not any one thing is gonna change the mind of your partner if they're unsure or teach them everything that they need to know.
Hey friends, so at pickup last week our daughter asked Scott a truly
kind of tricky question in front of her younger siblings.
Scott was telling me that when he heard a question like this, he used to panic, but this time he had a plan.
And he said to our daughter, Thank you for asking.
Let's talk tonight when we've got privacy.
And that's a line that he learned straight from
our new body safety and consent course at Nurture First.
So this new body safety and consent course is taught by me, so Jess, if you listen to this podcast, you know me.
I'm a child therapist and a mom of three and I have taught body safety and consent education for years.
This course takes all my years of experience teaching this education and gives you calm, age-appropriate language for body parts, consent, and boundaries.
You'll learn how to teach your kids that no means no, you'll learn how to teach them to read facial cues, you'll talk about safe and unspeakable.
safe touch and you'll even teach them about their uh oh feeling.
There's guidance inside this course for the real life stuff like tickling that goes too far and even the difference between a secret and a surprise.
We made this course at Nurture First because research shows that body safety education helps kids speak
up sooner and we want that for our family, for Scott and I, but also for you.
So check the course out at nurturefirst.
com/slash body safety and to save 10% use the code
robot unicorn.
And just full disclosure here, we are the creators of this course and we're so proud of it.
So I think if we think about this
situation.
In the partner's perspective, I was going to talk to you about a time I kind of felt like her, above and beyond the toddler years.
I would say it made sense that I was in that position, but when our babies would struggle with sleep.
Yep
I would often feel like that was on me to do the educating and to do the reading of the sleep blogs and figuring out what we're doing in the night because
A, a lot of the time you were working or you weren't around.
So I was doing the night wakings or I was just doing the night wakings because that's what we had agreed upon and I was fine with being the one doing the night wakings.
Yep
But I would often be the one doing the research on, okay, it's a sleep progression or okay, we need to try Yeah, that's true.
I mean I would say that I sort of just defaulted to you on all of that.
Yeah, so I would say I can relate to her mostly
in terms of the sleep and maybe that's because we both didn't feel as confident in the baby sleep era of our lives.
I know that was probably the hardest.
It's different than discipline, but it's the same kind of thing where I was the one doing the research.
I was the one educating you
And I would say that there was times when I felt quite exhausted by having to do all of that.
So I can definitely relate to that feeling of
Feeling like you're the one who has to do all that work.
But what I will say is I do remember one time we had an argument about this because
I was reading all these blogs about sleep and telling you everything that I was reading and and I was kinda mad at you, I think, for something.
I mean I was also very sleep deprived, so I was mad at you, I think, about
Something related to sleep.
What else is new?
Yeah, I mean fair.
And I think we came to this part of our discussion where it was like
Okay, but you're also not letting me help you.
You're not loosening the reins.
Like you are doing everything, all the reading, all the stuff, all things related to sleep.
But I wasn't e I was never giving you an opportunity to actually try and help with sleep or try
To learn on your own because I had taken it all on myself.
And that's not for me to blame myself or for me to resent you
But sometimes I think in relationship we can get into these roles where we think we have to do it all ourselves and we never pull back the reins enough or even ask our partner and say, hey, look, I need you to research a four-month sleep regression
and figure out what the heck we're supposed to do because I'm so tired.
Yeah.
I can't figure it out.
I never gave you the opportunity to do that.
But then I also was angry at you at the same time.
And I remember you saying to me, Jess, like I would actually help you.
I would do the research for you, but if you're gonna do it all and then be mad at me, then I can't.
So I don't there's I think there's a piece there too where maybe sometimes it is that conversation of like maybe one parent needs to pull back and allow the other parent space to do some other research and stuff.
I don't know.
So I mean yes.
But based on Janelle's question, she's saying she's the one that knows more things, like you, and just kind of feels exhausted by the fact that she's constantly having to teach.
So yeah, I mean in maybe in the
infant sleep time like age of our girls.
Maybe that was sometimes the issue.
I d I don't know.
I guess that's the one thing that
Like infant sleep was not something that you were trained heavily in, so then it's maybe your expectation was more on me to help with that.
Yeah, but it I never communicated that expectation.
And I guess my default again was with anything related to the kids.
You kinda know.
Yeah, exactly.
So I'll I'll follow your lead.
And I mean interacting with the girls in basically all of their aspects.
I don't really need your input.
At all at this point.
Mm-hmm.
Like we talk about it constantly between the two of us and we're we're trying to analyze the way either one of us has done things, but
Yeah, maybe it was just the I don't know.
Maybe it was just the default.
Yeah, that's what I think.
I think it was the default thing of like, well Jess Jess is the one that knows this stuff, so I'll let her do the research and then she can tell me.
And I think that's fine if I agree with that, right?
So I think it does come down to a communication thing and for us in that scenario with baby sleep
I wasn't communicating my feeling to you of being overwhelmed and exhausted by doing all the research.
Well say with each of the girls too, the first six months at least, I wasn't like it's not as though I felt like it could help really
Right.
I remember with our first I was thinking, we have a five month old and like if I'm left alone with her, what am I supposed to do?
I have no idea.
Yeah, exactly.
And again, I think if I look in hindsight at some of our friends who have recently had babies and are like really sharing the load, like
they've equipped their partners to be like, make sure that the babies take a bottle early on and make sure that their partners are used to putting the babies to bed.
But I didn't have that chance because you were traveling.
Yeah, I was traveling.
We also were completely flooded out of our house.
We didn't have a house or anywhere to stay permanently for like three months.
So in those early days for us, and I think this is the case for a lot of parents, it was all on me because you you weren't there.
Not that you didn't want to be there, but you were gone, right?
So then we got in that pattern of, well, Jess just is the one to do this research because she's the one home.
I think in terms of Janelle's situation and and so many other parents, I wonder
from my therapist lens about how that can be communicated to a partner.
Because yes, Janelle's an expert, I'm an expert, but it doesn't mean that there's not other places that you can learn from as well.
Right.
And so
Just because you have access to an expert in your home doesn't mean that they always want to be in that position of educating
Right.
And so I think even for you, something like I am already mentioned that I love about you is that you'll just learn things on your own.
So yes, you'll ask me questions and I'm willing to answer them because I know you also do your own research on things.
Like you read books on parenting.
You know, you got to know other information that was out there and you became deeply invested in wanting to be a good parent outside of just the interactions that you had with me.
Yeah.
And honestly.
To be truthful, I probably did some of it in an effort to try and discredit some of the things you were telling me.
Right, but
Yeah, I think you're successful in that.
You're like, okay, well Jess is saying this, and she's saying this all back by research, so let me go out and read my own stuff and my own research.
Oh.
Okay.
Yeah.
What about this?
And then you have another reason for it.
Yeah.
Again, it was all logical.
It's just you don't know what you don't know.
Yeah.
That's I feel like a big part of parenting.
And what And that's even a part of what you're talking about, the communication between us too.
Yeah.
I think we're just we communicate with each other quite well.
Yeah.
And so I think if I was ever at this point in my life to feel overwhelmed by the questions that you were asking me, like let's say something you don't know about, we've talked about this a lot, and we will eventually teach Scott, but you don't know that much about puberty in girls
Right?
That's a topic that you've been very honest that you don't know.
Do I even know that much about boys?
I d I went through it.
Yeah, right.
Does that mean I understand?
No, you probably don't.
That much I don't know that I l really learned that much about it
So that'll be something else that eventually I'm telling Scott.
But like we're gonna do it on air.
Yeah, we're gonna do it on air.
But let's say I don't Lucky everyone.
have the capacity to teach that to you, right?
To teach you about puberty and periods and everything like that.
That's on me to communicate with you.
Hey Scott, you know what?
We've got a lot going on right now.
It's a lot of work for me to have to have my therapist brain on to teach you about periods in puberty.
I would love for you to learn about it and why don't you read a book on it?
Or, you know, listen to a podcast episode on it
To be honest, even if you teach me, I'll probably read books on it anyway.
But again, that's on me to communicate that to you so that I don't build up frustration towards you about it, right?
I think a lot of the time as whatever the default parent, we just feel like, okay, well they're asking us questions, so I should turn that part of my brain on and I should educate them.
And it's okay for you to set boundaries around that too.
Or like, hey, you know what, Scott
Let's say we didn't have a podcast together and you're like, Jess, I really want to teach the kids about puberty.
It's coming up.
I need to learn.
Like, yep, on this night, that's when I'll feel like we can have that discussion
So you can also set boundaries around when you're having those discussions.
You can set boundaries on like how much you feel like having your expert brain on
And how much you want to, you know, tell your partner, hey, you can spend that same amount of time listening to this podcast.
That's what I listened to.
And then let's discuss the podcast episode together.
So it's okay even in relationship to communicate what your boundaries are
And vice versa, like maybe you are getting annoyed because you don't want to hear me talking about validation and toddler tantrums all the time either, and you don't want me to constantly be educating you
I know I'm not saying this specifically about you, but I know some partners who are the ones who do all the reading.
There can come a time when you're constantly just critiquing your partner, right?
Like
Nope, I wouldn't have responded that way, or you ha you can't yeld so much, or you can't do this, or you can't do that.
And when we're constantly critiquing, you're also
Maybe not creating the most positive relationship with the style of parenting for your partner either because they just feel like don't they're never gonna get it right and
Yeah, you're always gonna have something negative to say about me type thing.
You're always messing it up.
So I would also encourage the partner who has more information.
You know, sometimes we need to step back, let them make a mistake in the way that they respond
And then when there is a time and place when everyone's calm, maybe you can talk about it then.
What?
I can already teach when teachable.
Am I right?
It's all the same principles that we have with our kids, right?
When are we gonna have a conversation with our kids about hard things?
Are you always using that with me?
Yes, of course.
And I want to talk about this because I actually was thinking about this last night.
It has to do with this conversation and the critiquing.
Sometimes we as the people who have
Let's say more of the information, I would say that right now we're pretty equal.
But we need to know when to just allow our partners to take the lead without us overstepping, right?
So for example, last night
I was heading to the hospital with our toddler who had the sore arm, and I knew you were home with our preschooler, who was the one that hurt her by accident
And our preschooler was very, very sad about the fact that she accidentally hurt her sister.
And my gut instinct was to call you and tell you how to respond to her.
And tell you, make sure you're nice, make sure you validate her feelings, you make sure you check in with her.
And I actually had to catch myself and say, Jess.
Scott's fully capable of handling the situation.
Even if he wouldn't handle it in the exact words that you would use with her, he's capable of handling this.
And I had to release control a little bit and not coach you through.
And I think I did pretty well.
And you did good, but honestly, I had you like I had your number up and I was about to call you and micromanage you and I was like
You know what?
That's not what he needs right now.
He needs an opportunity to handle this without me micromanaging him.
And I know that that comes with the trust.
And
the fact that you are on board.
Yeah.
But also if I always micromanaged you just because I have a very specific way.
Yeah 100% I'd be so annoyed.
You'd be so annoyed.
So I think that there is a piece like from the partners on my end of like
Okay, it might not be exactly the words I'd say, but if I know his tone and his like posture is gonna be what I want.
Can I tell you what I did?
Yeah, let's hear it.
I can't remember how it started, but I ended up like just grabbing her head and putting my forehead against hers.
That's cute.
I know.
That's a terrible.
It is very cute and adorable.
And I said, I know you didn't mean to hurt your sister.
It's okay.
Mom and Dad aren't mad at you
We love you.
And I hope you know that we know you're not trying to hurt her on purpose.
Yeah.
And I just kind of repeated a few of those things a few times and then finally she just gave me a big hug.
And I know she just needed to internalize it a little bit, but that's that's what I did.
That's beautiful.
Did I do okay?
See, that's exactly what I would have told you to do.
Yeah.
See?
I'm more capable than you even
Imagine.
Yeah.
Jessica.
And I know in in our situation, it is because you've put in the work to learn, right?
Right.
I'm just thinking a lot about the parent who has a partner who's just
not super committed to learning and growing and I know that Well, just kind of allowing.
Like let's say in our situation, I might just allow you to do everything.
Yeah.
And in that situation
The person who's in my role is gonna feel super frustrated and overwhelmed at some point because it is hard to be the only one doing that
So I know a common situation that I have heard and I'm sure in the community that we have here and that's can be common.
There's a stay-at-home mom and then the dad is going out to work, working long hours or whatever, making the money for the family.
And then the expectation, however old fashioned this is, and in my opinion, ridiculous.
Their expectation is
You as the stay-at-home mom are the one that's required to parent the kids.
I'm the one that's required to go out and make money for the family and care for the family in that way.
Yeah.
So how would you deal with that kind of situation?
Because I think that's maybe not the most common, but that is a relatively common way of parenting.
So there's one
whose default is to be with the kids and there's the other that's the default to go out and make money for the family, pay for things.
Right.
And I I feel like I mean I personally have such a struggle with that too, because it
it almost implies that the person who's home, the time that they spend at home with the kids isn't like worth anything.
Right.
So what would you say to those parents then?
And how can you get the one that's exhausted the help from the other parent?
Yeah, I have to think about how I would respond to that if I was talking to both of them.
I think I would probably say something along the lines of like
Yep, when you're at work, she's at home doing the work at home.
And she's taking care of the discipline, she's taking care of the children
you're both doing your roles.
But when you come home, then the shift of both of you being on and both of you being parents together, that's when that shift starts.
So if you want to see it as shifts, that's when that shift starts.
And now you're both on and you're both parenting together and you're both splitting your parental duties
And the the problem with saying that is I know a lot of people would be like, Yeah, but I just worked all day.
I just she's been home, you know, with the kids, I'm tired.
Yeah.
And so that's really hard to know how to respond to because also the person who's at home all day with the kids
also has been on all day and also probably is tired and also probably has had a draining day even if it means that they were doing groceries and stuff like that.
Like I've that's where I was trying to go with like that's still work.
You're still on
For sure.
I don't disagree with that.
I'm just saying I don't know that that would convince it.
That alone wouldn't convince someone.
A parent who's not as involved to become more involved.
Yeah.
So what is I guess what is the most important I'm what I'm trying to get out of you is like how can you convince
the parent that maybe is not learning how to be, I don't know, how to attach, create a secure attachment or how to discipline in a way that's effective.
How can you convince that parent who's not even bothering to learn any of those things to start learning those things and like help them understand the importance of doing so?
I feel like that's such a big probably the most common question I get on nurtured first, like how do I convince my husband
And I think we can't ever convince someone to do something, right?
Like that's the the hard part either is I can't give you like a
quick script or plan to convince someone 'cause convincing someone to read and to take time to learn parenting techniques.
Uh
it's also convincing them that that should be a priority and that should be important and helping them develop that bond with the kids.
Like it it's it's deeper than just that.
You know what I mean?
Right.
Well I think
So what I'm trying to get out of you basically is for a parent like that, I feel like what they are hoping for their kids often is to be successful later in life.
Right.
So why is learning how to be an involved parent an important aspect of helping create that quote unquote success later in life?
Yeah.
Strong evidence to suggest that being an involved parent leads to greater success in many things later in life.
And not like monetarily, but relationship wise, which I mean that ends up
Translating if that's what you care about, your kids are more likely to be better off because you were involved as a parent.
But
They have better outcomes when it comes to relationships and mental health outcomes and grades and all these things are benefited by
being an involved parent and learning how to create that secure attachment, whether you use that term or not, I think is kind of beside the point.
But
Secure attachment and discipline and all that.
What can we agree on in terms of our goals of parenting?
Yeah, I think that's a great place to start.
Yeah, that's a great place to start because most often you and your partner might agree on some major goals
Right?
Like we want our kid to grow up and be able to hold down a job.
Okay, we both agree on that.
Great.
We want our kid to grow up and have a healthy relationship.
Okay, we both agree on that
So sometimes it's starting with your partner on what do you both agree on?
What is similar in terms of your goals, right?
And then we can backtrack from there.
So yeah, if we both agree we want our kids to have healthy relationships
be able to hold down a job, be mentally well.
I feel like most of us would agree on those things.
Okay, well then here's the style of discipline that research has shown is the most effective in helping those outcomes happen
And I need your involvement in this to make that happen.
Yeah, and I need us to be a team.
I need your involvement in this in order to make that happen.
So if those are your goals and those are my goals, here's a way that we can reach those goals.
Right?
And so it's maybe having a meeting like that.
That would be the first conversation I'd have with the parents in therapy.
I feel like we should almost end the
this episode on if that's the one thing that you can do with a partner who is not as involved and you feel like you are the default.
parent in most situations and you have the knowledge and you're trying to guide them constantly, maybe start by having that conversation, that conversation with them.
The goals.
Yeah, what are our goals for our kids, our family?
And then after that, I feel like that's just going to spur on conversations.
I like that.
And then what I would even suggest to clients in my practice about the goals is then maybe
make a couple practical things that you can do.
It doesn't have to be crazy, you know, to help meet those goals and then have check-ins with your partner.
Maybe once a month you
Put it on your calendar, hey, we're gonna meet on first Monday night of every month we're gonna have coffee and just talk about how things are going in our house
and how our family goals are going, right?
And your goals might look different depending on your values.
And maybe that's just one way you can start to have that buy-in.
And just have that intentional time together.
I think that is good.
Honestly, even probably for us.
Yeah.
and extracurriculars and moving or whatever, different life circumstances that you sometimes don't specifically
Often I think you don't specifically spend time talking about how are we meeting our family goals?
Yeah.
And what are they?
Maybe they change over time.
And then the parents like Janelle or like myself
Maybe then you know you have that opportunity for talking, for teaching, for whatever that is, but it doesn't feel like it has to be all the time.
Right.
And that can help release some of that weight and that pressure too, which might feel good.
And over time, the hope would be if you have are having those family meetings, you are intentionally talking about it when you're calm and you're ready to talk about it.
Maybe you do start to see more buy-in because now you're having that time and maybe you want to come to the family meeting and say, hey, I watched this podcast this week and
Scott said this and I disagree with him.
Let's talk about why.
And I think that could be a really beautiful way to start those discussions
Perfect.
I think we should end there.
Yeah, I think that's a good place to end.
Thank you for sending in your question.
We love your questions.
If you have any more, please
Send us an email anytime, Scott and my love to read them.
And again, thank you so much for being here.
We always love talking to you.
See ya
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode.
We are glad that you are here.
If you enjoyed today's episode and found it interesting, we'd really appreciate it if you'd leave a rating and a review.
Scott and I actually sit down together and read them all.
A five-star rating helps us share our podcast and get these important messages out there.
Thank you so much for listening and we can't wait to talk to you again next time.