This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to kf I Am six forty, the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. Happy Sunday, Happy Sunday. Oh, by goodness. I know last week I went down the Princess Kate Middleton rabbit hole. You know, I had some time during the week and TikTok was just so entertaining with all their theories. So sorry to say that all the theories were wrong about the
affair the fake girl. There's only one theory that still hasn't been completely disproven with her, I'm sorry to say, cancer announcement, cancer diagnosis, and that is that she is partly a big distraction so that people aren't talking about the just as big story, which is the King King Charles being treated for cancer. We've heard nothing about that. So anyway, it was very sad for many people who have been following everything to see this young, vibrant woman
now going through what she calls preventive chemotherapy. So I'm not a medical doctor, but I'm going to go with the fact that whatever surgery she had, you know, maybe she had some kind of tumor they saw and they took it out and said it's probably benign, and then they sent it to pathology. So she's recovering from the surgery, and then they go, oops, there's some cancer cells in there, and then they just want to shoot the body with chemo. I'm not a medical doctor. I'm making this up.
Shoot the body with chemo, sort of like Trump would say with bleach or something. No, no chemo, so that if there are any errant cells,
so they won't metastasize and move around and just get them. It's still chemotherapy, not fun, uncomfortable, And I do think they were wise to wait until their children were out for Easter break from school because they have three young kids, right school age kids, and you know how mean kids can be on the school yard, so they wanted to wait until everybody went it would stop the frenzy. I want to talk a little bit about if that C word cancer is in your family right now, ways that we can talk
to our kids about cancer. Before I do, I want to tell you that, you know my parents, Both my parents died of cancer in the same year when I was thirty, so I wasn't a child, but I still, no matter how old you are, when your parents die, you feel like an orphan, like you really do. And my family, in a well meaning way, made what I would call some mistakes. Now I
was here in Los Angeles. I think I was at KCP. I think it became UPN by then it was UPN News and I was anchoring, and they just hid it from me. All that they like, let's not worry Wendy. She's busy in California, you know, let's not worry her. Part of that was set up by my mom herself, because she was such a fighter. Now, it is important if you do have cancer to have hope. Right Doctors don't say, oh, you've got three weeks to live, you go to eight weeks to live. You got four months to live,
because that's exactly how long you'll live. If somebody says that life is a self fulfilling prophecy, So having hope, even if it's a tiny hope. I saw this very touching video online that was going around with the is it America's Got talent or the voice with the Howie Mendel and Simon and is it American idol? Sign no no, no, no, America's talent said this girl singing, and she had a very advanced cancer. By the way, her her singing voice was just beautiful. I cried, I welled up,
look at your singing. And apparently she died soon after this performance. But when they interviewed afterwards in the video, she goes, I have a two percent chance of living. Isn't that great? What if I had a zero persaid chance of living? Like this is a chance? So being in love with that hope is important. So my mom did that, and I
think there's a difference between hope and complete denial. The day she died, she demanded a chemotherapy treatment when you know, the breast cancer had advanced to the point that it was lung cancer and her lungs were filling up with fluid and she could barely breathe and shed an oxygen mask on, et cetera. I got there thirty minutes before she passed away, and I didn't even have clothes with me for the funeral, folks. I thought I was just coming
to cheer her up. Nobody told me how advanced her cancer was. So in my case, I wasn't really happy about that. So what if you do if your kids are young, what kind of information do you give them? So the most important thing mom and dad and aunts and uncles and grandma and grandpa can do is prepare in advance. Don't try to wing it.
This is a conversation you want to maybe write out ahead of time, take some notes, have some keywords, and find a time and place where everybody's calm and it makes sense to have the conversation right, not just when you're running around in the middle of your day. Have a place where you're really you can be with them, hug them, look them in the eyes. When you talk about cancer, you want to be clear and direct. See, here's the thing. Kids are little sponges and they pick up on everything.
So your words can be saying, now, mom is going to be just fine, don't you worry. I'm just going to go through this little chemotherapy, and they can sense the fear in your stomach. Instead, you might say something like, you know, we don't know what the outcome is going to be. We're definitely hoping for the best, and being optimistic is really important for all of us, right, So be clear and direct and
talk about your feelings. I'm scared. It's scared, scary to go through this because I don't want it to end up in a bad way and I don't want to lose you. Also ask questions, because kids might have all kinds of myths about cancer. What do they know about cancer? And that way you can clear up the stuff that's wrong and say, well, that's not true. I don't know why the kids said that. No. On the other hand, well, I want you to be clear and direct.
Don't overload them with information. It's too much information, and obviously it's dependent on how old the child is. Right, young children, simple to the facts. Mommy's sick, they're going to put or daddy sick, whatever, Grandma sick, whatever. They're going to put a chemical my body to fight off the bad cells. And I'm going to get better, I hope, and you know, just very simple stuff. Right. Also, don't just
close that conversation. Wait, give them time, give them space to share their own feelings about what's going on, and when they do, you do ask questions, answer as honestly as possible. Also, let them know that they can keep coming to you and they can bring up their questions all the time. More than anything, comfort kids, reassure them, remind them of all the people in their lives who love them. Indeed, spend time with all those other people as well, right, and just be patient because they
might act out their feelings. Kids are different than adults. They might start regressing bed wedding and taking tantrums and doing all kinds of things that you're like, where did this come from? And that's just the way that their feelings are working their way out. Right. It's a hard, hard thing to go through with a family. But I'm not a big believer in lying to children. I think children sense what's going on. I personally didn't like to be lied to at the age of thirty, and I know my mom put
them up to it. I'm sure they said. She said, don't tell her, don't you know? And she was in her own kind of denial speaking of I don't know if you've been following me online lately, I didn't go I didn't post very often or more infrequently over the last few months, And in the last couple of weeks I started posting more frequently back onto the old TikTok. I guess you know when I feel something might go away.
I might as well just use it till the kids banned. You had a real hot take on j Loo and I watched that video from beginning to end, like I don't agree, but I wasn't gonna I was. I wasn't gonna come in, but I was like, that's it. That's a perspective.
I just don't like any human being ganged up on on them. Yeah, and Jlo right now they are beating up on her and myself having been attacked by trolls and the general public who don't agree with me so many times, I know what an impact is on mental health, and it doesn't make people nicer. It doesn't being told you're bad doesn't make you better, It makes you worse. Jenna, guys, so that makes sense. But yeah,
you can go on line and see by Jela. But I've been talking about my identity transformation that I feel that I've been going through for a couple of years and I'm not even to the other side yet. So I started to document it. When we come back, let's talk about identify what is it? Is it stable? What are the things that change it across the lifespan you are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty. AFI AM six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. Kayla, what a great song that put me in a good mood right there. It's a feel good song that got me through my identity crisis right there. You know, I am a professor of psychology and one of the things I teach is developmental psychology, and as part of that program, we talk about identity. What is identity? You ask,
well, identity is who we feel, what we feel like. I remember when I took my very first psychology class. We had to go around and introduce ourselves and there was a girl in the back and they said and she said her name, and they had to say something like something about ourselves and why we're here or something, and she's I said, well, I lost my job and it has been my career for years, so I lost
my identity. So I'm trying to figure out who I am. And at the time, I was like, wait, a job is something you do it's not who you are, but for many people it is who they are. Right, So identity can be this mosaic picture of all kinds of pieces of you and your values. You might self identify based on your gender, your politics, your religion, your sexual orientation, your age, your marital
status, whether you're a parent or not, maybe your health. I'm always concerned with people who identify with their disease, like I'm a diabetic instead of I have diabetes. It's a big difference, big difference. Of course, jobs, careers, moves where you're from, people identify you. Know. You'll hear people saying, well, I'm from the Midwest, right, or I'm this way right. Somehow we find a way to create a composite picture of ourselves and this is who we believe we are. But here's the thing.
Identity isn't stable. It's shifting ever so slightly across the lifespan. As we age, as we get more education, as we get married, as we get divorced. Right, this changes our sense of self, our identity. We have a baby, all of a sudden, we're parents, right, and it's a big life change. Right. So the developmental famous developmental psychologist Eric Erickson referred to an identity crisis as a period of internal conflict and
confusion about our own self, identity and a role in life. Now here's how I know I've been in an identity crisis in the past couple years. Or transformation. Let's call it transformation, folks. Is It starts out with clothing. Everything I try on doesn't feel right or look right. Then I go shopping and I can't figure out what I want. And that's a great
example of I don't know who I am. I am I don't know what And for many women, for instance, you know, you'll hear women get criticized for being what do they call it, a sheep in Lamb's clothing or whatever, mutton and Lamb's clothing, meaning they're dressing too young for their age. Now, there are no rules. There should not be any rules,
and we should not judge women for whatever they want to do. But when I do see an older woman, you know, plastic surgery up and wearing stuff and trying to you know, it's like she's fighting the fact that you know, your identity is changing. When Williams was a huge advocate of that, being in her sixties fifties, and just wearing the Daisy Duke shorts and the sexy tops and you just thought it looked amazing. What do they They
could look amazing, but what are they clinging to? Are they denying their wisdom and their new status in life, or maybe they're just clinging and doing to youth being sexy and feeling sexy, being youthful. And if they lose their idea of their value as a sex object, what value are they adopting?
Right, That's the main thing. So I would say the biggest identity crisis that I went through in my life was definitely the transition from hot TV babe to mother because the hormonal changes of my brain were ginormous and no one could seem to see it. I had friends say, you need to come out with us. I don't want you to get that mom. Look you no, you need to still be hot, and you need to know get a babysitter. You can do it. And I just didn't want to.
You know, I didn't have my first baby till I was like thirty six, so I had seen everything. There's nothing going on outside my doors that I had not seen. Right, And I can have a funny story when I had the full premonition like a year or two, maybe just a few months before that. That New Year's Eve, I drove with a young TV host who I had been hosting a few shows with, and he and I drove to Vegas to do He had like a big suite because he knew these
football players. Is college I don't know what it was, but anyway, so we were on New Year's Eve in Vegas. I was thirty five years old. We were up in this VIP section. We were looking down on the whole crowd. Now, remember I was modeling when I was a teenager. I was cocktail waitrons by the time I was seventeen. You just needed to show fake Ida no and even asked for ID. What am I saying? You just said you were eighteen? Anyway, So I had been in
nightclubs with fake ID since I was fifteen. And I remember looking down on this scene and saying to myself, I've seen this for twenty years now. There's nothing new here. And I said to my friend, I'm going back to the room. We'll drive back tomorrow together. He's like what, And I remember him the look on his face, like what are you doing? Because he was younger than I, and he was just so excited that this hole was happening. All the celebrities were hanging out with I'm like, nah,
I'm done by the way that guy was Ryan Seacrest so funny. He doesn't know he was my premonition or not premonition, what's the word transformation? Like, that's just moment, my epiphany, that moment. So that was my first when I settled down to my babies. And I always was known for my long blonde hair, which I have it back now, but I cut my hair short and dyed it brown because you probably know my kids are biracial, and it really I wanted my kids to be like I wanted people
to know, there's my baby. And everyone kept saying everywhere I go, oh, what country did you adopt your baby from? And I just kept hearing it over and over again. So once I got my hair short and dark, it was a little less often, you know, or they'd say they try to find funny ways to say it, like where did your baby get her carls from? And I'd go, well, actually, mine, I have a flat iron, but my hair's curly. I love that. My friend who has inter racial kids goes through the same thing, like they
don't think that her kids are hers either. Yeah, very sad. It's a weird feeling if you want your kids to be like you. But I do remember doing the I don't know who I am stage and it affected my work because a lot of the producers wanted to have that hot TV thing or whatever. So anyway, I'm going through another one. I don't know what's prompted it. It might be age. No, I think it's that the last baby's about to leave the nest soon, and also my age, and
so I've been questioning my own self identity. I see many people women who I went through the TV business with. Don't imagine I'm saying it to you if you're listening, Okay, looking like flippin' cartoons on social media, the pressure to look young and sexy, the plastic surgery, the makeup, the botox, the fake eyelashes, the filters, the girdles, theo spanks, everything they're doing. I'm just like, ladies, you're in your fifties.
I know you look beautiful, but what is the value of trying to look twenty? What is the value we need you as the wise voice and the supreme mind in the village, not someone who's trying to compete with the twenty year olds. Like honestly, so I look at all those peer women and I know they're under pressure to be those things. So it's not their fault. They're a victim of their society and their culture. And I say, that's not me. It's just not me. So I've been starting to do
more social media with less makeup or no makeup. Gone are the days that eyelashes will ever go on me? Again? Why bother? I do feel some weird like feelings of where am I going, What's next, what's my next act, et cetera. And it's fun, it's fun to experiment, but there are moments where I'm just like, you know, what is it all for? So the reason why I'm sharing this with you, by the way, is because think about your life. Think about the identity transformations you
might have gone through before. Oh. Also, when I got my doctorate, that was a big identity transformation and it was really now I'm not just a TV host girl. Now I'm a mother and a PhD. And that was a really like self confidence boosting one. But now I'm kind of like I'm about to be a married woman, and maybe that's what's causing this, the wedding this summer. I haven't been married for decades and decades, uh like four decades. Oh my god, that's so exciting. You know.
One of the things I say about relationships like my relationship with Julio, is that it is an exchange of care. But love relationships shouldn't be really, really transactional. While there are other relationships that I think is perfectly okay. If you guys are transactional, I'll explain what I mean when we come back. There's certain relationships it's okay to do quid pro quo, but not you love relationships. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show and KFI AM six
forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty AFI Am six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. It sounds negative, but when you say to somebody, oh, that relationship so transactional, it sounds critical. Right. You know what I'm talking about a kind of relationship where people do something for another person, they're keeping score. They expect
something in return. It's a real give and take a bit of a quid pro quo. Each person's there to help each other out. Like all scratch your back if you scratch mine. You know, there are some relationships actually that a transactional relationship works. So let's talk about which ones work for sure? In business, think about it. You keep a bunch of business contacts because you send your friend clients, and then you know that your friend's going
to send you clients and your business later. Right, we're there for a transaction when people go to work. I know you love your co workers. I don't know you have good friends there, But if you were not paid, you probably would not go to work, right, it's a transaction. You give your hours, your talent, your time, they give you money. And so there are many workplace relationships that are friendly what I call it friends with benefits, because if you stopped providing to that workplace person, it
might not even be in the workplace. It might be like another friend that you're giving business context too. If you stop that, then that relationship was only based on that. It might just go away. And that's okay. Another place where transactional relationships happen all the time we're seeing it all over the news is in politics. Of course, when lobbyists give money to a politician, they expect that that politician is going to vote for the things they care
about. Right, So in politics it is very common, even between heads of states in different countries internationally, very transactional relationships. They have agreements with each other, there's given takes. Right now, Let's talk about friendships for a minute. A close intimate friendship should never be transactional. But there are lots of different kinds of friends. Some of your friends might be just social
connectors, people that know good people. You know, I was actually reading this article a research study and which kinds of friendships help people live the longest, have the longest lives. And so they compared close intimate friends, sort of distant casual friends, and then how many friends, et cetera. Guess what they found out. The people who had the most not intimate friends, but sort of a wide social network tended to live the longest. You know
why, because they had a built in referral system. You need a doctor, you need a lawyer, you need a specialist. Call your friend, Your friend knows somebody you need a contractor for your house, call your friend. Your friend's got something right. So, people who are able to maintain wide social networks they don't have to be intimate friends can be really really beneficial to us. And those are those are kinds of transactional relationships. Well,
you know, there is some positive things about having a transactional relationship. First of all, everybody knows the rules. You're not assuming. I mean, it only becomes a little bit weird if you think that it's a real friendship. When I say real, they're all real. Uh. You think it's an intimate friendship that's based on emotional needs and emotional commitment to each other,
when actually it's transactional. So as long as both people know it's transactional, then it's the rules are clear, there's mutual give and take, the expectations are very clear. These kinds of relationships are productive, they're efficient, everybody knows what's expected of them. And also they're obviously very helpful in supporting your goals. But there there's a downside. All your relationships are transactional, you're
emotionally avoiding you're emotionally avoiding real intimacy and closeness. Right, So when you have a lot of transactional friendships and business friendships, you've got shallow interactions and you're thinking in your mind all the time about keeping score. What do I owe that person? What did they do for me? And that becomes the
weight that you value the friendship. Also, maybe you're in a transactional relationship and you're doing more than the other person, so you feel completely undervalued in that sense. And the other thing that often happens with transaction transactional relationships is that they tend to be short term because they're just looking at the immediate right, So that's kind of the downside. Now in love relationships, I have
always said that love relationships are an exchange of care. That care can take many, many, many forms. That care might be financial care. It might be sexual care. It might be affection. It might be instrumental care when someone's sick and caring for them. It might be childcare. It might be intellectual stimulation care, it might be domestic responsibility, division of household labor. All that is care, but it's not keeping score, right, it's
not transactional. So I don't want to say that all transactional relationships are bad obviously. Workplace politics, lightweight social friends all good places to kind of keep score and go ash. I keep that person around, Is she give them that much? To me? I think I'm doing more for her, whatever. But when it comes to our more intimate relationships, you can't keep score. You can't. It can't be transactional. Now you have they have been
raised in a family of origin where your family talk that way. You know, well, you do this, they've got to do that. Well, if you pay that, they've got to pay that, et cetera. Right, but real love. You know what someone asked me recently, doctor Wendy, why would you, in your status of life not marry a man who's rich. Don't you need a rich man? I'm like, I don't. It's about love, it's about caring. It's about doing all those other things
in the relationship that literally the caring. I do. Want to just throw in a little commercial for Julio. I've never met a man who cleans house so well in my whole life. You know, it's not transactional, but I'm sure glad he does it. I cook, he does the dishes afterwards.
I like that. So when we come back. Let's continue to talk about this and an interesting video I saw this week with Rene Brown talked about this eighty twenty rule in her own marriage, and it's something we should adopt instead of trying to be fifty to fifty all the time and always trying to keep score. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor
Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty. KFI AM six forty, you have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walls Show. I'd like to welcome my TikTok audience. If you would like to come into our studio and see what we're doing here, just log onto TikTok. My account is at doctor Wendy Walsh. That at Dr Wendy Walsh. Just want to let everybody know after I talk about this segment about why love relationship should not be transactional, I am going to be taking your calls live.
So if you have a relationship question, you are welcome to call in the numbers one, eight hundred five two zero one five three four. So after the segment one eight hundred five two zero one five three four. Now, as I mentioned before the break, transactional relationships do get a bad rap and they have no place in love relationships, but they're fine sometimes in business and politics and sort of light social friends. I'll scratch your back, you scratch
mine, et cetera. However, although I mentioned that our love relationships are an exchange of care, then that care can take so many forms financial, sexual, childcare, instrumental care, domestic responsibility care, et cetera, all kinds of different care. It should never be fifty to fifty. I saw an interesting video I think it was actually on TikTok with Brene Brown this week, who said that she practices the twenty eighty rule or never the one hundred
percent rule. If anybody thinks that any love relationship is fifty to fifty or should be fifty to fifty all the time, you're going to have a lot of problems in your relationships. And so she explained that she and her husband have a deal that when someone walks in comes home, they say, if they don't have a full hundred percent to give, they give a percentage they say, you know what, I'm good for about eighty percent Right now, I'm in such a bad day, and the other partner says, got you.
I got one hundred and twenty for you. We're in it together. I want you to think of your relationship as this little pot of gold that you both pour gold coins into, and some days you can pour a lot in and other days not so many. Right, And so in your love life, you never want to keep score to the point that it's always got to be fifty to fifty. That is a death sentence to a relationship instead
of think of it as this community basket. So there's some things you can do to not have a what I would call a transactional relationship in your love life. The first one is I've already mentioned it, and it's really important. Stop keeping score. And also never use the words always and never look I said never, never use the words never, try as hard as you
can to not say the words always. En Ever, you always leave me, la la la whatever, you're always late, or you never take out the trash, because that's giving somebody a hundred percent and nobody is always one hundred percent anything, right, So try not to use those words, What I want you to focus on instead of what you may perceive are the imbalances of labor is focus on the nurturing, the love, and the mutual trust. There's so much more in the relationship than oh, what did you do
for me today? Right? Also, you know you're in a relationship with a human being. No human being is perfect. We are not robots, which means that you have to learn to embrace imperfection. You have to learn that people are gonna make mistakes, and that you shouldn't put the weight of your happiness on somebody else. Remember, another person should never be responsible for
your happiness. Ever, happiness is an inside job. If you're one of those people, for instance, who's constantly mad at your exes and mad about relationships that didn't work out, it means you didn't learn how to make yourself happy. You gave someone else the power. You gave away your power, right when. Really, happiness is always an inside job, and happy people tend to have happy relationships. I also think that you should, in your
relationship divide your responsibilities unfairly. In other words, don't divide them based on well I took out the trash three times this week. You're going to take it three times next week, and then the fourth time, we're gonna alternate every other week. I'll do it four times, right. Why don't you divide things based on somebody's abilities, somebody's preferences, somebody's availability to do it. If somebody's working long hours, they can't be expected to do as much
in the house. But don't think of it. I was always having to be fifty to fifty. You know. As I mentioned in my relationship, I love to cook. I hate to do dishes. And one of the things I love about my relationship is that after dinner, I take my glass of wine over to the sofa and I watch a little comedy and I sip my wine, and in the corner of my eye, I see him over in the kitchen clean in my pots and pants, and that feels so good. I'll tell you why it feels good for me, because I would have
never allowed that level of dependency in my past. I would have said, no, no, let me do it, let me do it. I was independent to a fault, right, independent to a fault. Think about it. Also, to keep yourself from keeping score, express gratitude and appreciation, even for the little things in your relationship, catch your partner being good. You know why. First of all, they get rewarded for the good behavior, so they want to do more of that good behavior. So they're
growing in their ability to do nice things. But the other thing it does is it reminds your own brain. You're hearing the words too. It reminds your brain of why you're there, right, And so I really caution you
to not have a transactional relationship in your love relationship. Now. Having said that, this is different from being in a relationship that's completely abusive, where you have no boundaries, you have no voice, you can't stand up for yourself, you can't say no, and you're doing ninety percent of the labor and you're absolutely depleted and you're exhausted. I've been in those kind of relationships
too, especially with little kids. Right by the way, I saw this very interesting video from you know, there's this trend on social media right now about being a trad wife, a traditional wife, or a live in girlfriend or stay stay at home girlfriend. Like somehow young women are bragging that this is a cool thing. This is the worst job security that exists in our culture today. I want to say that right now. Don't right now in twenty twenty four, think your dream is to be a trad wife because the
laws are not protecting you. The lawyers, if you try to go to divorce court, will make the most money out of anybody. There's no job security in this. So I saw this divorce attorney online saying that he had
this great idea. If you do want to be a trad wife or one partner whatever your gender, wants to stay home and take care of children, which is very valuable important work, set up a separate bank account in that person's name who's doing the work, and every week get a paycheck that's only in your name, a paycheck, because that's the only way you're ever going to get it back. But anyway, don't think of fifty to fifty. But if you're in a ninety ten relationship, ask yourself why you're there?
Why you're there? All right? When we come back, I will be taking your relationship calls. Remember I'm a psychology professor, not a therapist, but I have a lot of life experience and some wisdom. I've written three books on relationships. I did my dissertation on attachment theory, and I would love to weigh in with the science of love. Pick up the phone. Producer Kayle's going to answer right now. The numbers one eight hundred five two
zero one five three four. That's one eight hundred five to zero, one five three four. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty were live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Waalsh. You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.