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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.
# BMP E01.2 YT V2 with Intro
**Vivian Glyck:** [00:00:00] What happens when you realize the battle for your child's wellbeing isn't just happening on the other side of the world, but right inside your own home? In this powerful conversation, I sit down with Sammy Tagt to pull back the curtain on the real origin story behind The Bad Mom Podcast and Project Grit.
From my early work building hospitals and schools in Uganda to working with girls in India to facing the mental health crisis that's gripping kids right here in the us. This episode is deeply personal and it lays the foundation for. Everything to come. We talk about the hidden epidemic of childhood anxiety, the addictive power of technology, and the hard earned wisdom that's guided me through my own parenting journey.
And most importantly, we explore what you can do to protect your kids, take care of yourself, and join a movement that's not [00:01:00] just about parenting, it's about healing. If you've ever wondered where to even begin, this is your starting point. Welcome to The Bad Mom Podcast.
**Sammy Tagget:** They say it's your fault, but the system is what's broken.
This
**Vivian Glyck:** is The Bad Mom Podcast. Parenting the Anxious Generation, real talk for parents, fighting for their kids in a world built to break them where we are left trying to parent the anxious generation. With our hands tied behind our backs, your kid isn't broken. They're under attack. Welcome to The Bad Mom Podcast, parenting The Anxious Generation with Vivian Glick.
This is the resistance.
**Sammy Tagget:** Vivian, it's so nice to be back here. You and I have had this continued conversation for a few months now about. Project Grit, the Bad Mom Podcast, and raising children in an anxious [00:02:00] generation. Your mission has literally caught fire and people are so excited to know more. Learn more about what they can do.
I think it's funny as we, we laugh at this 'cause it's happened 100% of the time where someone says, oh, I love the name The Bad Mom podcast. And then you follow up with Parenting the Anxious Generation and they go completely solemn and they say, whoa, I need that help. So this is definitely the show for anyone that has kids knows.
Parents with kids, which is everybody. Those
**Vivian Glyck:** people who have kids,
**Sammy Tagget:** those people that have the kids that are trying to figure out what to do in this generation. So, you know, walk us back to where this started for you.
**Vivian Glyck:** Yeah. So, um, first of all, I am so excited to open up this conversation about what's going on with kids.
In, uh, in the [00:03:00] US in particular and the issues that are facing parents and communities and schools and our whole workforce around mental health and, and what's happening with this generation. And my background is I've been working with adolescents in the developing world for over, well, nearly 20 years now.
In, uh, 2006, I started the, just like My Child Foundation. It was really inspired by the birth of my own son and really once he was born, taking a look at, oh my gosh, keeping this child alive is, it's a thing, right? Like you are really given this incredible. Honor and fear and all of the things in between with raising a child.
And so I just fell madly in love with my son, [00:04:00] Zach, when he was born and, uh, the minute that he was born, his lung collapsed and he. Ended up being sent into the nicu, taken right outta my arms to the nicu, and I didn't see him for a couple of hours after that because I had had a C-section. I couldn't go with him.
And I just remember feeling like there was nothing that I wouldn't do to get. To get next to him as soon as possible, and as soon as I could stand up, I'm shuffling down the hospital hallway, you know, with that little stupid Johnny on with, with open in the back trying to not let my butt hang out. And, um.
You know, until I got to him. And then I'm like, Y you know, the nurses were like, I don't know if you can touch him. I'm like, oh, you bet I can touch him. Give me that kid. He's mine. And that was kind of like the beginning of everything. And then when I, and then he recovered because he was in this [00:05:00] incredible medical facility in the developed world, and very soon thereafter I started to really see what was going on.
And I think my heart was just. Blown wide open to take in what was happening with kids just like him all over the world, and particularly in Africa. And I started to learn how every 30 seconds a child was dying of malaria, a mosquito bite, a completely preventable. Thing on the other side of the world.
There were 12 million children in Africa at the time who had been orphaned by the AIDS virus, and I found out that nearly 20 million people in Africa had died of aids. And I was like. What, like why isn't this on the front page news, like what's going on that we're wor, you know, we're hearing about at the time whether Britney Spears is wearing underwear when she's getting out of the, um, is getting [00:06:00] out of the her limousine or whatever.
And I just was really. Really my, like my whole consciousness was raised to the issues of kids around the world and sort of concurrently as I was learning all of this, I had a couple of back to back miscarriages and I just realized I could have had another biological baby. I knew if I suited, I could have, but I decided that I wanted to have 10,000 kids and Wow.
The refrain in the back of my, of course, and now it's like 400,000. But, um, the refrain in the back of my mind was, these kids are just like my child. You know, what wouldn't I do? What wouldn't anyone do in order to keep their own child alive in order to make sure that their own kid was healthy? And, um, one thing to led to the other, uh, I ended up in Uganda very first night I was there.
I watched an adolescent girl. Die in [00:07:00] childbirth as her mother looked on. And then her daughter, whom she did give birth to a live birth survived. And so it was ended up being this microcosm of a macrocosm that I was exposed to. Having had this invitation to go to this little clinic in the middle of nowhere in Uganda, which was kind of just something I put out to the universe and then got an invitation for, um, and then I just.
Through the years of what ensued to be a wonderful relationship with this small clinic, I got to see that this was very much not just a individual case, it wasn't an isolated case. It's that this was what was happening for adolescent girls. That what I saw in front of me was in some ways such a gift because it was.
Uh, a reflection of what was [00:08:00] happening for thousands and thousands and millions of girls. We ended up. Just having a miraculous, miraculous encounter in East Africa, in Uganda, and created relationships that I've had for 20 years. But what we really started to see over the years was that no matter what we did, we built hospitals.
We did. Build schools. We brought in new medications, doctors, all of that is fantastic, but nothing was gonna make a difference until we interceed in the life of an adolescent girl to be able to give her the power to say no to forced child marriage, early pregnancy, rape, disease, et cetera. And we ended up creating a program.
Called Girl Power Project, which is now a scientifically proven rec replicable curriculum that is shown to keep girls in school, avoiding forced child marriage, uh, being able to have control over her own body, [00:09:00] her own uterus, as they say. You know, nothing in the world is gonna change until you give a girl control over her own.
Uterus. I mean, that makes all the difference in population growth and the way the kids are, are, are raised in their ability to educate their own kids, et cetera, et cetera. When you take that power away from her, she, she doesn't have the ability to manage her family. And so, um, we ended up being able to put tens of thousands of girls through this program to graduate them through this.
We worked very closely with the community. We never did anything just kind of coming in like, oh, we're gonna save everything, everything. Has just been hand in hand with developing an extraordinary community there, and then we were so successful with that. We have launched in India with only 1.4 billion people and hundreds of millions of adolescent girls who are at very high risk there.
But you know, kind of all along the way, Sammy, this is happening concurrently [00:10:00] where I'm looking at what's happening in the US and really what is happening with that child in the, just like my child name, my very own son. And the issues that were happening with the social media and with technology and what happened during COVID and isolation and this incredible breakdown in childhood for our youth and the, the.
What I saw up close as a mother who loves her kid more than anything, and the struggles that my son ended up going through and the real sort of mental health, uh, struggles and challenges and. Managing myself while this was going on, and then looking a little bit closer and going, holy, come. This is [00:11:00] just this one story.
Just like that girl at the hospital, right? This is that one story, but what's going on with kids in the US around mental health, around consumption of social media, around how they're being completely brainwashed into this like kind of social structure that. Is crazy is making them crazy and it's making us crazy.
And it is just, I gotta say it's evil, right? Because who's, who's doing well with this are the people who are propagating the technology. It's like we say, oh, look at all of these, these tycoons that are. You know, the, the great output of America, technology, et cetera. But we now know the data and the statistics are there of how social media access to technology, isolation, not being able, you [00:12:00] know, not going outside.
We're overprotecting our kids at the same time. How it's really busting their brains. And not only that, this is why. I wanted to start The Bad Mom Podcast and Project Grit is, it's breaking our brains, right? 'cause nothing. Nothing is more heartbreaking than seeing your own kids suffer. And so this is really where I wanna take the project Grit, is to take.
Everything that we've learned about supporting adolescents in the developing world and create toolkits and resources and just talk to the experts. I'm not the expert. I've been learning as I've been going, and I've had so much. So much access to knowledge and information to be able to make an impact for my son and for my own health and wellbeing and my family, that I wanna share it.
**Sammy Tagget:** And let me, let me just kind of summarize what. You're, you are taking on here because [00:13:00] shifting out of being in Africa, like in the third world situation and then realizing that right in your own backyard, in your living room was the biggest issue with dealing with what Zach was going through and the amount of resources that you found to support not just him, but first you had to find a way to support yourself.
And I think that's something that is. You know, severely overlooked when it comes to, Hey, we are parenting the anxious generation. We gotta help these kids. But I think it's really important to talk about the importance of project grit as not just helping the kids, but first and foremost what you have to do, like they say, is pull the mask down for yourself first.
And I think that was something that you really, you really hit home as we discovered what this show's about and what this movement's about. Can you share a little bit about what. Was working for you and what you want to embed and seed inside Project grit. For the parents that are going through this,
**Vivian Glyck:** there's so much [00:14:00] information out there, but what we are lacking is wisdom.
Right, the wisdom to manage ourselves, the wisdom to walk away from the devices, the wisdom to know what we can change and what we don't have control over. And you and I have talked about it, you know, my guiding light in all of this. And I think this should be taught in kindergarten and doesn't have to be, you know, just relegated to the sober.
World is the Serenity Prayer and that I, that has been my guiding light that I think you can hold up any issue in your life to the Serenity Prayer. You know, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, which is. What can you change about yourself?
Right? Whatever's going on out there. Politics, you know, all this horrible animosity we all have, uh, towards each [00:15:00] other. Like you can't get on some, uh, some chat and like, change anybody else's mind about anything. You can only change yourself. The wisdom to know the difference, and I think when it comes to parenting the anxious generation, for me, knowing what was my business, knowing what I could control, knowing what I couldn't control, I just found so much that when I was really able to change my attitudes, to change my behavior, to change my belief systems, that that was when my kids started to get better.
**Sammy Tagget:** I also wanna speak to what's really unique about this show and about, really unique about you in general because of the momentum you had with the, just like My Child Foundation, um, and Girl Power. You amassed such an incredible, uh. Army of people that supported you. Mm-hmm. And the network that you've been and lived for 20, 30 [00:16:00] years.
One thing that struck me as very unique and very potent about this show is that you have so many people in health and wellness, personal development and business like you have like these incredible people with your husband, Mike Kenigs, who's who has been with Tony Robbins, Dean Graziosi on the business front, and then you guys are best friends with people like Dave Asprey and JJ Virgin.
All of these people are focused solely on the health and wellness of people, and you're bringing in some of the conversations and resources from people that know what's happening neurologically, chemically, spiritually with us when we get attacked by these unsolicited devices, that only job to get our attention.
So what are you excited about? Pulling from that because that was some stuff that you really used, uh, to maintain and, and keep yourself sane through all
**Vivian Glyck:** this
**Sammy Tagget:** crazy,
**Vivian Glyck:** yeah. Yeah. So the things that [00:17:00] I know that we're gonna cover in with the Grit kit, under Project Grit, and all of this is gonna be. Through just like My Child Foundation and the Bad Mom podcast is, you know, number one, what is really going on with the mental health crisis with kids due to technology, social media, overexposure?
**Sammy Tagget:** Sure.
**Vivian Glyck:** How can a parent take care of themselves? Like, what does self-care look like? What does your own technology use look like? Because you can only control yourself, right? You know? Also, listen. When, when kids at two years old are given an iPad, you start messing with their dopamine. You start messing with the way that they're utilizing the technology, their access to videos, et cetera, how they start doing it, and it absolutely hijacks [00:18:00] their dopamine receptors.
And you start these cycles of addiction. And so, and, and ultimately you, that that just continues into substance abuse. And this is why we're seeing such a crisis around addiction and substance abuse. So I definitely wanna talk about addiction. Uh, we're all addicts. If you're human, you're an addict somewhere.
Um, but really, what are some of the recourses? What are some of the support systems in the, uh, sobriety world, et cetera? Uh. I also want, like you had talked about, we know so many amazing people who are in brain development, nutrition, food and food supply, sleep. What are the pillars of mental health that we can talk about?
And you know, when, when I talk about bad mom and why is it the bad mom podcast? 'cause I felt like a bad mom, I have wondered what is it that I'm not doing? What am, what have I done wrong? What, what can I be doing better? [00:19:00] And I think, you know. So many, so many people, parents respond to this because there's always a moment where we feel like, am I doing good enough?
And I really wanna address the mental health for ourselves around this. And then also how to create community. 'cause I've really seen this, I just, even over the last couple of weeks, that isolation is the number one detriment to mental health. When you're alone, when you start just like looping in your brain and you're going down the, you know, you're, you're sitting in your room with your device or your kid sitting in the room and like, what are some of the ways that we can really create community and, and to get ideas from the community about what they're doing to restore mental health and that thing that we, I think, have really lost a lot of in terms of how to be with each [00:20:00] other.
**Sammy Tagget:** The Project Grit kit is just going to equip you. With the resources and the community and Vivian's vast array of connections and the conversations that she has so that you are so well equipped to understand what you're up against and knowing that there's little steps we can take. Is that accurate, Vivian?
**Vivian Glyck:** Yes, absolutely. And I think, you know. I kind of came up with this manifesto and you know, I wanna live in a world that cares about children's happiness and is committed to protecting their mental health from, you know, the documented disastrous impact of social media and where children are excited about their future and they know that they're gonna have an amazing life.
And I think that that's. That's something that we can all agree on, and how many things are there out there right now that we, we feel like we can all and crayon
**Sammy Tagget:** or we can all agree on very few. And I think [00:21:00] what is so amazing, Vivian, when we first started this project with you, instantly, I would say overnight, Ray, my wife and I, we, we spread this message pretty far and wide just to be like, Hey, who's interested in this show?
Everybody. Yeah, it's not, I have never seen a show where everyone's like, I wanna see this show. What can I do? How do I support? Where can I go? And for those of you guys listening, all you need to do right now is in the show notes. You can join The Bad Mom podcast, subscribe. Make sure that you are listening, you have the notifications on, that's easy.
Um, for those of you guys that have a friend. With kids, which is all of you. This is the show you need to share with them. This is the show that could literally change the trajectory of their kids' lives and definitely change the trajectory of their enjoyment with their family. Uh, uh, there's, there's no better time right now than than right now to share this episode with somebody that, you know is [00:22:00] struggling with the kid from Ralph's age.
My son, he's two and a half. We if, once we pulled the device from him, he's been a much. Much calmer kid. Mm. Must be understood what was happening. One thing you said in this conversation, which was shocking, you used the words 2-year-old and addiction, like when in the most evil of times is something addictive to a 2-year-old.
That is, other than sugar, that is the worst combination. You could give a 2-year-old who cannot control his dopamine, nor know how to shut it off. And you said it nail on the head that it is evil and it is something that needs to change. And it is through shows in missions like this, Vivian, that we will do that.
**Vivian Glyck:** I am so excited to, uh, to create and build this community and to, you know, just include. Everyone who has a question about what is going on and how you know how to take better care of themselves, [00:23:00] what resources are there? And um, you know, I think this is all about a mindset and a commitment to change. The trajectory of what's been just foisted on us.
**Sammy Tagget:** Alright guys, we'll see you in the next episode of The Bad Mom podcast, where Vivian will be peeling back the curtains on a myriad of different topics and solutions for you and your family to make sure that parenting the anxious generation doesn't have to be scary or something that you're lost in.
Tell Dan we'll talk to you guys soon.
**Vivian Glyck:** You are not a bad mom. You are not a bad parent. You're a badass and a broken system. Keep fighting. We've got your back. This is the unlearning. This is the undoing. This is the uprising. Bad parents unite because they'd rather [00:24:00] you.