Call It what It Is with Jessica Capshaw and Camil Luddington, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello Call It crew, and welcome to another episode of Short and Sweet.
We have another episode about parenting, just the trials and tri relations, the things that come with it and how it all shakes down.
This all spurred a little bit because I sent a link to Jessica and I couldn't believe this. The US Surgeon General had issued an advisory on parents' mental health, and to sum it all up, this is what they said.
I don't know why I took them as long.
According to the advisory, at this forty eight percent of parents say most days their stress is completely overwhelming. Compared to twenty six of other adults without kids. Forty eight percent of parents say they're stressed most days is completely overwhelming. It's that to me, when I honestly read that, I thought that was horrifying.
Well, I think, I think, yeah, because I think it's the overwhelming part. It's it's that being overwhelmed is not good for anybody. Right, you're under it. You don't have a chance to come a prairie. You're not You're you're completely submerged in whatever you know it is, and in this case, it's stress, and it's stress specifically about parenting. It's stress about your kids. Do you were your parents stressed when you were growing up? Do you remember that?
So stressed? Extremely stressful.
But one thing that they're talking about in this article is not only like financial difficulties. Those are conversations that I heard my parents having as I was growing up, But now there's also the social media issues with kids, which we've we've i mean, we've talked about this before, but that statistic just sounded insane. And what they're saying is is that parents tend to focus on their kids' health and well being. But there's also this sense of
shame and guilt sometimes around being a struggling parent. So parents aren't typically talking about how much they're struggling, right.
Because it's meant to look like it's a big deal.
Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you got it all.
Well, because yeah, there's this like movie like quality to parenting things that happen on social media, and you're thinking like, oh my gosh, if someone's making, you know, a movie that's actually compelling about how to pack lunch, then I'm getting this wrong because I'm about to die. Well, I pack this second lunch, not packing any more lunches. I don't want to pack one more lunch. That's just that's an imagined conversation. That's not a conversation I've hashed with myself.
It's really funny that we are having this conversation because this weekend there was a point where Hayden said something It bugged the crap out of me, and I was so lost in the moment. I had my instinct, my my own instinct on how I should deal with it right, but all it's crazy, And I actually talked about this in therapy. All of these voices in my head from all the social media doctors were like, you can't say that, that's projecting, or you can't say this because it's this,
and you can't. So I think, what when I told Natt I was I said, I just need five minutes to like step away and gather my own thoughts. I think as parents now, what we get that was not happening before is so many cooks in the kitchen. Everyone has an opinion on how we should parent, and it's not just coming from like our parents anymore. It's coming from all the experts that you can find in two
seconds on your phone. You're not even looking for advice, and suddenly you're scrolling and it's like, this is why you shouldn't feed them this or talk to them this way, or mention this thing. And so I'm to the point where I'm overly advised. Yeah that I'm that there are days where I lose my own instinct on what like we I do know how this is my kid. I do know in this moment what I should be saying and doing, But there's an over analyzing of our parenting now that was not happening.
No, I agree, I agree, And there's you know, there's someone and and And it's funny because I actually, as someone who goes online and has benefited so greatly from some of the people you're talking about, I've learned so much from you know, a Berne Brown or a doctor Becky or and not necessarily maybe with my own instance or they haven't been describing exactly what's going on for me, but it's been them naming the challenge and then you know, a strategy or a way to think about it. And
I felt so helped by that. At the same time. Yeah, it's another voice in your head, which sort of makes me think that whenever things get overwhelming, right, which is I think what we're talking about in that forty eight percent, that that forty eight percent feel that their stress is completely overwhelming. Whenever I feel overwhelmed. You hear me say
this a lot. I love to hit the reset button, and or I do like to take that five minute time out, and or I do like to check in with myself and get real, real simple, where's it come from? That might tell me why I do it? And then what am I gonna do about it? And what's my next best step? And one of the things I saw this somewhere where someone said, you know, what's your best shot at being honest? Just telling the truth. Yea, So if in your moment as a parent, you're just telling
the truth. I mean, I do think that kids can handle.
They're so resilient, and you know, they're half you, and they're half you know your partner's genetics in a lot of cases, right, so they they will be compassionate towards your perspective and your opinion, and they will understand it on some level because they are partly you and I think that sometimes when I feel stressed and overwhelmed, I really too have to like go like, oka, I'm gonna get really simple, and you know, one of my kids just said something super annoying and either I need that
five minutes or in that moment I can say and I have that was really annoying, Like I felt, I experienced that is really annoying. Yeah, And I mean, obviously they're a little bit older in this case, but like they can say why or what do you mean or whatever? And I think that when I tell the truth, I'm always happier with the outcome.
I do think that there's a little too much there's a little too much educating parents on social media on every element of parenting. I think we can find out. You know, it's like if you sleep train your kid, there's a reason why that's going to be traumatizing later on. Now you're feeling guilty about sleep training, right, And if you don't sleep training them and they're in your bed, there's gonna be a reason that that's terrible, and now
you're not helping them in this way, right. So I just feel like a lot of times as a parent will be we're being fed so much information, some of its contradictory, and you're and you're losing sight a little sometimes of being like, wait, this is my household, these are my kids. What do I feel like is best for my particular child? Because by the way, what's good
for Hayden isn't good for Lucas. I'm going to communicate differently, and and I think that that's on top of financial stress and all the other things that are happening in the world right now. I mean I and I did live in a household that had, you know, financial stressful situations growing up, and the doors were open for those conversations and sometimes I wish they were closed, and it
was overwhelming as a kid. But how I guess I guess my question for us and I don't know the answer to this, but how do how do we as parents feel less stressed? How can it be a smaller percentage of that or not feeling this every day? Is
it having converse? I do think it really helps to have conversations with other parents and be really honest because when I'm like Hayden's do or Lucas is doing this, and I'm just I don't know how to handle or I'm feeling so stressed out in this moment, and then another parent says, oh my god, my kid's doing the same thing, or I've been through this too. It helps so much for sure.
I Mean, the number one way to feel less stressed and understand your para sympathetic system and everything else is to not be alone. Like even just like saying this is by this was on an episode of Grades and not to me that when you're super stressed, to stimulate your parasympathetic nervous.
System, Well, what is it? What do you do?
You hug them? That having your whole body hugged creates a response within your parent sympathetic Okay, that calms you. And so just the fact that you're not alone changes your neurobiology.
Are you saying hug If somebody hugs you, you hug them. Is it like a self like wrapping your arms around yourself?
How did we do it on the show. I'm so interested when we talked about this.
We had a character who came on the show and she was this is going back into the like, I think I was a guest star.
She was.
I think she was on the spectrum and she was a doctor and she was having a flip out and they were like hugger and Sandra had to hugger and she was like, what are you talking about? Why am I hugging this doctor? She had to hugger in order to calm her system down. But to get to my point about this, I think that when we are feeling overwhelmed, it helps a lot to know that we're not alone.
And sometimes that's physically whether or not it's your partner or your friend, but truly like stimulating their nervous system, their parasympathetic responses by hugging them. And I think that when you're not in the same space as someone talking about it, I think that you know, there's a lot of understanding what your own particular brand of decompression or releases, right, Like,
what is that? I mean? I don't know. It's sometimes I've heard people I don't meditate, but I know so many people who have whose lives have been changed by meditation, having moments of peace, going for a walk, having these, you know, open conversations with your partner. And I'm not trying to hide it, not trying to act like, oh, I've got it all figured out, but saying I'm struggling and allowing yourself to get help.
I think that piece is so important, Jess. I think that piece is so important being able to I don't think we need to be acting like we have.
It all together, No at all.
Those people are annoying by the way.
Those people don't have it all together.
Now, No, they don't. Nobody does. I mean some people have together better, I get. I mean, you know whatever, there's the spectrum of everything, but nobody has it completely together.
Hello.
All we do is watch TVs and film about how you think one thing, and that it's completely different, not the surface. No, here's the other thing that needs to happen. And it's not going to happen by us talking about it. But maybe it will end up happening because we talk about it here and then other people talk about it somewhere else, and then we start to actually demand that it happened. Is that in our country we do not demand or ask for extended family leave, paid family leave.
We have a healthcare system that's really struggling and doesn't allow for all the things that might help parenting be a little bit less stressful. I mean, people are parents,
you know, the parents are stressing. These forty eight percent are saying that they're overwhelmed because of the demands on their time, sometimes their children health, sometimes they're children's safety, they're feeling the parents are feeling alone and lonely because they don't have community because all they're doing is working
and then going home to their kids. And then you added the piece where it's technology and social media, where it's like it used to be that you'd worry about leaving your kids at the playground because you know there might be a threat. They're a physical threat, but now the threat is everywhere because of technology. I mean, it's it's it's in this tiny little phone, but it's you know, the like the world, like it's Pandora's box. There's a million things that can hurt them, and you can't unring
a bell. And once you see something, you've seen something, and so you're also really I think, I mean I am particularly, I definitely know that I have been stressed that there's something that I'm not gatekeeping, something that I'm not doing well, that that my kids have too much screen time, or they're going to have access or they're going to find something that's going to make them different. Because we've all heard the stories of the kids that
are made different again. I mean, I'm amping myself up here right now.
But it's the stress.
It is it's the stress, it's the you know, once you get into the world of having teenagers, there's if you go looking for them, there's enough stories of just you know, kids that were just completely unwitting and online and thinking that they were you know, ordering some anti anxiety medication and the next thing you know, it's fentanyl. Right, And we're living in a really really scary time and I don't think it gets less scary. I think we
get more able to deal with it. But right now we're having we're living in a moment of crisis, which is why I think that the you know, US Surgeon General has is speaking to this because we need help and we need to be talking about it, and we need to figure out how to help each other, and we need to figure out how to ask for help with it on the regulatory basis, with our government and
our communities. I particularly again you can laugh at me and my you know, in the middle of the field with my horse, but actually, when you know, when we go to school, we have a pretty small community, and I'm really grateful for that. Like there's there's people around every corner. Like you know, if your kid, you know, went to a soccer game and acted like an asshole, or was you know, hanging out with the wrong situation, or you know doing something that was you know something.
I mean again, it's community. It's community, community, community, So wherever that is. If you live in a big city and it's in your smaller community, or if it's in your small town, who knows.
It's interesting because one of these statistics in here also says that three out of four parents are worried about their kid having anxiety depression and a lot of this comes from social media.
Right.
There's this new sort of thing called pledge. Wait until eighth Wait until the eighth, Yeah, wait until the eighth. And it's basically a pledge that you can make as a parent, and you can send it to other parents, you can get a group together, and it's basically that your kid, you know, it can your kid can get a phone that can make calls and texts and stuff, but they don't have access to social media until they're in eighth grade.
The aim is to let their neurobiology catch up a
little bit more. Yes, like be able to understand not as much sort of like the immediate responses to the liking or the hitting that that dopamine hit that they get from, you know, having access to the entire world Wide Web, which again seems just absolutely preposterous, right, which I imagine would be if you weren't thinking that they had the world in their pocket, you might be a little bit less stressed, right, Yeah, I think that, And I think that that might be a way if people
are listening and wondering, like God, the whole phone thing, and I have kids growing up, maybe there's a way to get other parents together to have this conversation. And so it's a whole You can look it up and you can pass it out to other parents, and you can sign it, or maybe you create something of your own that.
Feels right for you in your community. But I think there's safety and numbers in this situation. And yet it actually did make me feel I signed it. Hayden's gonna have, you know, a landline until she's twenty five, But no, I think it's I think that those things all help each other. That you know, group of moms got together and discussed all that and sent it out, and I was totally on board.
And that other thing that really helps in terms of like in terms of the stress is every if you do have a kid that has a smartphone, every smartphone has screen time limits and you can you can control you know when they can be on, when they can be off when.
What does that mean though? What does that look like if you set a limit on a phone. I'm so curious right now does a phone shut off? Like they can't use the Internet after a certain amount of time? Ayeah?
Interesting?
In every smartphone there is a screen time limits part of it, and you can you can set time limits on every app that's on the phone. So if you if a kid has Pinterest or Snapchat, they can they can use their maybe they you can use their phone all day long, but they can only use Snapchat for fifteen minutes and then it literally just shuts it off and the screen time limit has gone off. And they can ask you for more time, or they can ask the administrator the parent for more time, but it's done.
It's closed off.
Could they go into their own phone and change it or no? It's something that you Yeah.
So I do find that it reduces stress in order to again, if we're going off of the fact that neither one of us, nor should anyone want to see forty eight percent of parents expressing feeling overwhelmed by stress. There are ways in which you can help yourself. Taking care of yourself is a very, very very key part of managing stress. Being in connection with other parents and other caregivers in your own family if they're helping you
out with your family. Definitely making sure that you are supported by your insurance and that you have access to mental health care, and then understanding that you're not alone. That mental health challenges affect everyone. Some of them are more diagnosed, some of them are just feelings. None of them are any less valid. So if you are feeling like you need help, then please please ask for it.
I actually feel like this is such a huge topic and it can be really overwhelming, and that can make me feel sad or depressed or even more worried or a little anxious. And so what I like to do when I'm feeling all those things is laugh. How about you?
Yeah?
Always, so I want to go to our friend Kelly.
Let's do it. Let's end on Kelly.
Let's end on Kelly, because a little laugh at the end of all the things that can go wrong while parenting might be welcome. Kelly wrote in and said, I'm just going to say it. I hate PTA, I hate team moms, I hate parental get together I hate all of it.
Now that I got that off my chest, how do I get over the guilt of this.
I'm just not that type of parent. It gives me anxiety and stresses me out.
I don't have time to be at all these places and pretend I enjoy the mom get togethers.
I feel this pressure that I need to be infested in all aspects of being a parent together. Now, Hell, this is hard because I you know, I do have a group of moms I absolutely adore at my school, and they would make the PTA meetings really fun. But that's because they're my vibe and that I'm just lucky. I have also been in situations where I've been with moms that are not my vibe, and those things grind on me. And so I think it's okay. I think it's I don't think this isn't high school. You don't
have to find a click. The clicks are annoying anyway. I think if you're not vibing with the moms, it's totally fine. Yeah.
Absolutely.
Again, I'm a parent of four, so I'm at a lot of these things. A lot of the times I would rid yourself. Top note of that guilt. Do you not feel guilty about this? We already have enough on our plate. You don't need to add feeling guilty about any of this. If you enjoy it, great, if it's your jam, great If you don't, great, Like, it's all fine.
Your children are all all gonna be who they are, and you know, I mean, I would say, like, if you really hate it, make yourself do something else right, like a drop off, identify one other person that looks like your jam, and be like, hey, you want to grab a drink, you want to grab a coffee, you want to do you want to have a plate? Eate, like something right? Like I wouldn't side stuff it all together because I think there's a lot of nourishment in that.
But if you're not into the forced, forced fun, no can I say I I had. I don't think it affects your kid. I mean, maybe some people will disagree with me, but I grew up with a mom that was never at any PTA meeting. There was no she didn't have time. There was not time. She wasn't like making the cookies. She wasn't friends with the moms. I think she probably hated all the moms. She was not friends with anybody. She couldn't pick anyone out of a lineup.
That was my mom.
I had the best social life. It didn't affect me at all. I didn't care. It was totally fine.
Yeah, I think when they're younger. It came only because it happened to me once where I just wasn't on top of it, and I think I had just another baby and another baby and another baby, and so I wasn't on I wasn't on my front foot about playdates, and all of a sudden, Luke's best friend got a new best friend, and I was like, well, how did that happen? And it was evidently playdates scheduling place.
Yes, maybe when they're when they're more little, but still, you know what, they have siblings.
Oh yeah, for sure that your kiddos have siblings. Oh my gosh, Josie.
I gotta get her out of the house. She's much rather stay at home. Yeah, we're fun.
Yeah. So anyway, long story short, I get it, and it doesn't it really doesn't matter, and don't feel guilty about it.
No, And also, guess what, We're all in it. We're all in it. So phone a friend and let's let let's let's actually make a conscious choice to change this. Let's stop being so stressed.
Let's just let that.
Let's let that go, let that shit go. That's hard, I know, but you see how I'm trying to just turn that though.
I yeah, no, but I think the intention is right. Yeah, life is hard to begin with, and it's like, you know, we got to shake some of the shit off that we can. Yeah, anyway, this will, this will be a conversation that will never stop because we're always all in the thick of it.
No, And you know what, I actually really do want to know. And I don't know if this will if this sounds interesting to anyone. I'm just floating it out there. I know we have a lot of listeners that are in their teenage years. I would love to hear from you about your parents and how your parents can better manage their stress or their worry. I hear a lot from teenagers like you're worried about things that are never
going to happen. And I remember being a teenager and being like, that's never going to happen, and then it does and you're like, oh, I guess it could. But I would love to hear from you all, so please please teenagers way and on this.
Yeah, and I would love to hear from anybody. You know, we didn't grow up with social media, we didn't have smartphones. Well, jess my in high school, right, so I want to know, you know, if you're in your twenties, even like looking back, or if you're a teen, what age do you think kids should have phones. I'm curious, would you go back in time and say, like, God, I wish I kind of had been made to wait until X age. I'm very curious about people.
Yeah, and they're out there giving their truth all right, a delight as always, even through the hard stuff.
And we will call this the end of the episode.