Apogee Production. Welcome back to another episode of Am I A Bad MoMA? Podcast? It's the question we constantly ask, am I A bad mum?
It's a great reflective question that we do ask. Painting can get really tough, really, I would say spicy some days. If you were to describe your household, like in a recipe sense, what would it be.
It would be like a Vinderloo curry, like it's there to really mess shit up. It's going to burn your mouth and then you're gonna beat the other end is going to be terrible.
Terrible, and then it carries over the next day as well.
Like just angry, noisy.
Yeah, I would feel like maybe some days it would almost be like a sushi train experience. Sometimes you just don't even know when the train's coming. You're just like, oh fuck, that's gone hour. Oh no, then that's happening, and then I'm meant to beware, and you just I feel like so many moving pieces.
I was in sushi train yesterday. I realized that when you sit on the opposite side, So if you're in a booth and you sit on the opposite side and so the train is going past you that other way, it's not coming towards you.
Yeah, it's quite stressful.
I feel like I keep looking like I'm trying to talk to my kids and you know, ask them about their day and be present, and I'm.
Constantly like salmon and falking hungry.
Am I about mum or over sharing?
Over sharing?
I don't feel like a massive oversharer. You know when people put stuff on social sometimes and you're.
Like, oh, that's out there. Yeah, it's out there.
Now, let's just talk about the fact that we've got a podcast that we share everything on. And this has been brought to our attention several times by all four of our children. But the other side of it is is that your kids are also now of a different age where there probably still are boundaries, but there's probably not a lot that you can't overshare with.
They're quite cluey.
I don't have to make anything PG no no, And when I look at they teach us things at times. Yeah, if you had a look at what they watch on Netflix, it's very adult.
It's all very adult.
I've lost control fully, But this is off the back of going to see a counselor. We openly talk on this podcast about how we feel about psychology. In that we go to the gym for our physical health, for our bodies, we should be going to see people about health as well. It's really important, especially when you've got kids that also need to see psychologists for whatever reason, anxiety, o CD, you know, whatever it might be, to normalize that. Like I go to I think it's really important.
I don't think that anyone should be around that whole area of being exempt of therapy. And it might just be every piece of therapy is different. There's all different types. You might see a psychiatrist, psychologist, you might speak to a therapist that's really just about talk therapy, which is another whole, you know, area of being able to help. There's so much out there on offer, and I think the open transparency from us to our children is a great way of sort of going, look what I do.
I do this for myself, my mental health, my well being, and you know there are options for them as well. I think it's a great way to sort of lead by your actions rather than just words.
Yeah, because I think once upon a time it was like, oh, I'm going to see a psychologist, like there's something wrong with me, you know, whereas now it's like I feel like everyone should. Yeah, I mean it's expensive, so very it can't all the time.
I could claim it back. You can't go every week but claim it back on my parents. No, I mean no, no, no no.
And then I was explaining it to my kids and I just said, you know, I went to you know, see this lady, and blah blah blah.
It was really great.
I feel good.
Yeah.
And Amelia had this moment. We got out of the car and she came around. She gave me a hug, and she went, oh, mom, I wish that you could see yourself like everybody else sees you. And I was like, wow, I had not talked to her about what I'd spoken about to this particular counselor. I don't go into detail. You know, if you go and see a psychologist, then it's your own business, Like you don't want other people knowing about all your fucked up shit.
It's a bag of things that were all carry with us, you know, like we all have a bag of stuff that you go that there is a bag of fucked up shit.
That I carry with me for my whole entire life. I'm ready to leave it here and let it go. We've all got one.
And literally, I'll let my psychologists know about this, but nobody else.
Yeah, it's not leaving this room the wolves.
Later on that night, Holly came downstairs and she was really questioning her ability to play the guitar. So she has been learning the guitar. When I say has been learning, we offered to yeah, we offered to get her lessons. She didn't want lessons.
She picked up a.
Guitar on New Year's Day and she has practiced every day since then, and has taught herself chords and writes them all down in a book, and has learned songs. And she literally goes onto YouTube and learns songs so good. And I do tell her that I'm so impressed, but I wonder whether I don't tell her enough, because she was very much full of self doubt. I don't think it's very good, so and so it is better at it. She's been singing as well, so she's been learning songs
and then singing too. And I just all of a sudden saw this massive insecurity around her self belief, and I was just like, fuck, this is me, look what I've done. And I thought, well, I don't say any of that I remember my mum was constantly dieting, so she would be doing Waitros one minute, and then she'd be doing you know, slimming World the next minute. And she'd go on these like crazy diets and then she'd obviously stop the diet and go back to normal. And
then it was like that was a constant. It was always about wait for her. Yeah, and I was very aware of that didn't stop me as a teenager walking past Makis buying a burger, then walking past hungry Jackson buying another burger, Like, I still didn't really care about that. I feel like Artina is just a lot more educated these days and what's good for your body.
And what's not.
But yeah, I just had that feeling of I've never spoke to my kids about any of my own issues. Yeah, but yet they're picking up on it.
Yeah.
It's one of those harder topics to kind of, you know, explain so quickly in one of our podcasts, which is all about that actions.
Words, behaviors.
They watch, they listen, They soak up everything that you're you know, you're doing. Like you just said, for instance, with Amelia, you hadn't told her anything to do with what your therapy session was about no that in itself shows with just her words and the way that she cares for you, that it was a pretty nail on the head kind of comment to make for you in terms of what you were sort of working through yourself
on a personal level. That's crazy that stuff doesn't just happen, though, Like that is them being connected with you on so many more levels, so many more. Like I am probably not the person to sit here and tell everyone on all of the levels of which that is. I do believe it, though, that there is that connection that you know, once you have that baby, you're connected for life. You know, like when they cut that umbilical cord, the strings never disconnect.
That's your baby. That's how she obviously has picked up on that. She's felt what you're feeling. You know, we do the whole am I bad mum thing. I think that's a positive thing. I look at that and go, wow, you must be really proud as a parent to see your daughter and hear your daughter show that compassion to you as another human being, not just mum, but like as another human being, to go, oh wow, mom's really feeling it today. I wish you could just understand how
much you know they appreciate you. That in itself is such a positive, such a positive, even when you're feeling as blat and low as you you know you might have been on that particular day. I think that's a
win for a parenting moment. And yeah, when you see the other side of it, as in the knock on effect with Holly, with that self doubt and that you know, question her own ability, I think it's a great thing of being able to like look and see and acknowledge that you can see where she's at to be able to then maybe give her some tools to be able to work through it at her age rather than getting to our age and then trying to work through it I'm nearly forty at nearly forty, rather than you know,
at their age at sixteen. When that you're always sort of going, Okay, well, here's why don't you try this and this and this and why don't we work together and you know, seeing a therapist or whatever it is, whatever it is, You're giving her the tools way earlier than what we did.
It's a positive.
Yeah, it's interesting, thank you.
Yeah, yeah, I'm telling you we looked at that.
My thing was ah, you fucked her up as well.
No.
See day, like when you talk to therapists or you know, see what people are saying on social media about traumas and stuff like that, it all comes from your parents mostly. Yeah, so I'm like, ah shit, how did I learn?
And that too late? I think there's a difference though.
I think right now if we were talking about like generations, like this is going really deep for am I bad mom, But generations is that you and I are in our forties and we're trying to do the work. We're trying to get the tools now on this toolkit of life of being able to go, Okay, how do I handle myself when I hit that self doubt? We all do it? Or like what about my self worth? It's really flat right now? Geez, I'm feeling it. How to take yourself
out of that. The thing that they've got now is the sixteen you're seeing that for them, you have the tools in your tool to be able to hand down to them now like at that age doesn't mean that it's going to stop like instantly fix something, but how that is so much more than what we.
Had right that's such positive. I think that's super positive. On you Am I bad mom? How No, you're a good mom.
Seriously, though, I can't afford to put us all through therapy.