Oh my gosh , I have all these sort of templates of what it means to be a good mom , based on my culture , that develop into expectations that we hold ourselves to .
Hello , my dear friends , welcome back to another episode of the Curious Neuron podcast . My name is Cindy Huffington and I am your host Today . I'm joined by a special guest . I have my eight-year-old daughter sitting beside me today and she just wanted to say hi . She enjoys listening to or watching me record the podcast sometimes and she wanted to join in today .
So let me just pass you to my daughter . Hello , what do you want to tell them ?
Today I'm helping my mom with her podcast .
Why do you want to help me with my podcast ?
Because I like what you do .
Thank you , Okay . So I think the one question people might be wondering is how am I as a mom , what is something that only you know , that nobody else knows they're like hmm , does Cindy yell at her kids ? Is Cindy following Curious Neuron information .
Well , when you get mad sometimes and you don't know what to do , well , sometimes , yeah , you get frustrated and you yell , but when , sometimes , you just got to take a breath , step out of it and then come back and help .
So that's what I do I take a breath and I step out of it . Oh good , okay , that works . What are some like Sometimes ? What are some things I do that people might not know ? Some like inside information .
No , sometimes .
Like poopy face or something . No , like the bad ones .
What's the bad one ?
There's eight Spell it Sometimes , yeah , sometimes .
I say that , okay , no more .
You can leave now , Okay bye .
Thank you very much . Have a nice day .
Thanks .
YouTube Bye . All right , so that was some insider information . All right , my dear friends , let's get back to business . So today we are focusing our conversation on motherhood and how sometimes we tend to lose ourself with this new role as a mom , and I know this happens .
This can happen as a mother or a father , but I do want to say that for today , I just wanted to focus on moms , because a lot of the moms that I get emails from or DMs from are talking the same sort of language , in the sense that once they become moms , they focus a lot on their children and their family and nurture them and forget to do that for
themselves . So I wanted to have an episode where we focused on that . I am going to be speaking with Dr Morgan Cutlip today , and you can find her on Instagram and you can also read her new book called Love your Kids Without Losing Yourself . It is available anywhere .
You purchase books , and we are going to talk about it a little bit in the episode as well , and you can click the link in the show notes if you want an easy access to her book . But before I begin , as always , I'd like to ask you to take a moment to rate the podcast and reviewed on an on Apple what is it called On , apple Podcast or Spotify ?
And if you do , please send me an email at info at CureStoroncom . Let me know that you rated it and reviewed it and I will send you a free PDF from our CureStoron Academy , which is called Meltdown Mountain and it's a visual for your child .
So if your child is struggling with their emotions , it's a visual that you can print out and post on the wall and it'll help them understand how our emotions , you know , follow the sort of mountain pattern and that when we're at the top of the mountain , what we need are certain tools and ways to kind of bring ourselves back down .
So if you'd like that PDF for free , send me an email and review the podcast , send me a screenshot . Or if you just want to send me an email to say hello I get I've been getting a lot more emails of people just wanting to say hi and connect Please do so .
I love knowing who I'm speaking with and who you are and how I could support you and your journey as a parent . And if you are not doing so yet , you can also follow us on Instagram at curious underscore neuron and you can visit our website at CureStoroncom .
Join our mailing list , download a freebie that we have on our website and you can purchase our courses , our workshops and our PDFs on CureStoron Academy on the same website . Just click on Academy and if you have a workplace that loves supporting your wellbeing and parental wellbeing , send me an email at info at curious dot com .
At the end of this year , I've been giving lots of talks for lunch and learns at different companies and companies who want to finally put more focus on their employees and how their wellbeing is such important and that will help increase productivity and all that . And what I like to bring to the table is that we don't only have to focus on employees .
We have to realize that parents have some specific needs . So I've been giving talks at lunchtime to companies and also creating some support for companies .
So if you are HR , you work in HR for your company and you know that they're helping support the employees and you'd want a little extra support for your parents , send me an email at info at curious dot com and we can jump on a zoom . And lastly , I'd like to thank the Taninbaum Open Science Institute for supporting the CureStoron podcast .
Thank you for everything that you do for this podcast . It would not be possible to have this podcast without you , and the fact that you support us and the fact that we want to put out all this science for parents just means the world to me and I can continue doing what I love . So , thank you . Let's not delay this episode anymore .
I had such a wonderful conversation with Morgan Cutlip and I know that she's going to help you with your day today and make you feel better and feel like you have an action plan . So , without further ado , here is my conversation with Dr Morgan Cutlip . Hi , morgan , welcome to the CureStoron podcast . Thank you so much for having me .
I'm excited to speak to you about your new book that's coming out . First , just the title itself Love your Kids Without Losing Yourself . I love that you've taken that approach of it's so hard sometimes to parent the way you want to and to be present for your kids the way that you want to when you neglected yourself .
That's the missing piece that we don't realize once we're in it .
The title was so intentional because it's exactly what you're saying I feel like as moms , especially as parents in general , but moms especially we so deeply desire being good moms , loving our kids well , having that close , connected relationship . But you're so right , we do it at the expense of ourselves oftentimes . They have to go together .
We want to be good parents , but we want to feel good in parenthood too .
Exactly . I was just talking to a friend of mine this afternoon and they told her that we were going to have a chat . She said tell her or ask her . Why do we do this as moms ? Is it a mom thing ? Because we think we were talking back , we were reminiscing about when we became moms the first time .
I have three kids now she has two With that first child and still now to some extent . But there was so much guilt around asking for help . There was so much guilt around stepping to the side or saying I need a bit of time alone or I need my needs aren't met right now .
There was guilt around all of that To the point that we would do these ridiculous things of just trying to do so much on our own . Why do we fall in this cycle of guilt and not taking care of ourselves and neglecting ourselves ?
I think there's lots of reasons . I think one of the most just powerful things is that , as women in general and mothers specifically , we're sort of I don't know if you want to call it programmed or conditioned to really exist in our relationships in a way that we will self-sacrifice in order to preserve our relationships .
We will give up our self in order to keep everything sort of working smoothly and functioning really well . We are so quick to make our needs small so that everyone else is taken care of . This has been stuff that we've absorbed through our cultural experiences , through the kind of social structures that we exist in .
Then , I think , just generationally , this is something that we've just kind of passed down from one generation to the next .
I think we're changing the conversation a little bit , but I think it's sort of like motherhood has this way of accentuating this tendency , because in order to really like keep our babies alive and to care well for them , in the beginning we sort of do need to self sacrifice in order to love our kids and care for these babies .
We kind of it's a necessity and so we do it . And then all the cultural messaging and all the early childhood messaging , all these things , really starts to weigh in on us , creating these feelings of maybe guilt or pulling us back in line .
But what I find that happens a lot is we have to self sacrifice in the beginning , but we sort of get stuck in that mode and over time our kids get older and we don't need to really be as intense of parents , we don't need to be stuck in this self sacrifice place , but we get so used to backburning our needs , to making them small , that before you know
it it's like they're five , six , seven , maybe 18 years old and we're like I don't even know what I need anymore . I don't even know what my needs are and at that point I think it becomes hard to figure out . You know , what do I do to make a difference ?
That's so true . And you mentioned a bit about that cultural piece and I was talking to a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago . She , for the first time , left , took a plane and left her family to go left her family , you know , left the home for the first time in the sense , and it really marked her . It was a really big moment for her .
And she did this to just take a couple days to go to this retreat and kind of reconnect with herself . And she comes from , she's Asian and her mother was extremely against this .
I mean , there's a cultural aspect to some of these , you know , kind of thoughts that we have and these feelings that we have around how we protect our kids and how much we do for them . And it's hard to get past that , especially when it's so ingrained in the culture that you're living in or you grew up in , right Like it's hard to disconnect from that .
It really is , and especially then when you know it's our cultural messaging and then it's like our caregiver messaging , so your friend's mom was even just kind of like pushing back on something , that which makes it really extra challenging to step out of line .
I think that a lot of us , you know , we have absorbed what it means to be a good mom from our culture , from our relationships , and so this stuff really comes out and impacts us in powerful ways after we become parents , where it's like , oh my gosh , I have all these sort of templates of what it means to be a good mom , based on my culture , based on my
upbringing , that develop into expectations that we hold ourselves to and motherhood . And then when we , you know , maybe our life looks different and so we don't live up to these expectations , or maybe they're just not realistic , and then we end up feeling like we're falling short really regularly , or that guilt creeps in .
And so I think that it's so important for us to examine some of these expectations and determine like , is this really , you know , is this really working for me ? I is making me think so . The other night , when a family dinner and it was actually for my birthday , it was my birth .
My mom is so great , she's a wonderful mom , but she does this thing where she like makes everybody whatever dinner they want for their birthday . And so it was mine . And so I'm go over and this is like this giant table and all the foods out , like a buffet kind of thing or family style , and she goes okay , mom's , get your kids food ready .
Oh gosh , it's my birthday . There's a lot of dads at the table and it's funny because and I tell the story actually in the book that's different . But it's also something my mom said and she's like somebody who's always advocated for me to speak up for what I need and take a break . You know all the chat , chat , do it .
You know she's kind of like she pushes for that stuff , but still , this messaging Right and I identify all the time is regularly coming out reinforcing . It's my job to do x-rays . It's my job to stay home with the kids . It's my job to not leave them on a trip and go on a retreat . It's my .
So I think that these are really powerful factors in our experience in motherhood .
So now I know somebody who's listening . They're like , yeah , I can . You know I could connect with that . I , that's exactly what my life looks like right now . But now what ? How do you kind of step back from that and realize I need to , something needs to be different within what I'm doing here in my home and I need to prioritize myself and my needs .
Now , you know , is what ? Where does that person who's realizing that ? Now , where do they begin ?
Yeah , I think there's . I'm not very prescriptive , so I tend to believe there's lots of points of entry for some of this stuff , and one really nice place to enter is through unpacking the question . The type of mom I thought I'd be is , I think that the and if you're already , if you're like 10 years into motherhood , you can still do this . I don't .
I my mom , I think she still struggles with us like leaving the house , and I'm 41 . I think there's not .
It's not too late to unpack the sentence , because what it will do is it will reveal some of these expectations , and then I call expectations that go to the extreme , impossible standards , and then there's a lot of guilt comes in , and when you unpack this question , you'll be able to put all that stuff on the table , shed some light on it and be able to say ,
all right , does this work for my family , does this work for my life circumstances ?
Maybe yes , maybe no , maybe I need to step up in some ways , maybe I need to shift my expectations because this is not working for us , or maybe there's juggling of priorities that needs to look a little bit different , a rearranging of priorities , and so it empowers us , as moms , to do something with this information then , instead of it just living in the dark
. So I feel like I'm telling all these things about my mom . But my mom was adopted Okay , and she was adopted as an infant and so she actually just recently reconnected with her birth mother within the last year , which is pretty crazy . But she was adopted by a woman who was really actually pretty cold .
She was somebody who it's like she cared for everybody in the community but like didn't care for her own child at home , type of thing . So there's a lot of neglect . My mom felt very lonely in childhood and so she went into . She came a mom at a really young age . She had me at 21 . So she went into motherhood , sort of doing this pendulum swing .
I had all this pain and from my pain I'm going to take that fuel and change how I parent my kids .
I don't want them to be mothered in the way I was mothered , and her pain was my gain , really Like she was an excellent mom , but she was like insanely good and really just her standards of mothering were so high because this is , it was like her calling and her reparative experience and all this stuff .
So , when I reflect , I went into motherhood with all her expectations on me . I worked part-time , you know , had a husband who travels almost every single week .
I could not function at that level and it took me a while to really identify that and then say , okay , this is a cool part of being a grown-up I get to choose the type of family I create and what this looks like for us , and so had to make some adjustments .
That's such a powerful story to remind us also that the word just said choose right . In the end we do bring in everything that we've learned from our parents and my mom's a single mom , so she had the kind of like strict and no emotions and no time for anything kind of thing , and it was really hard to kind of experience that .
And I came into my journey as a parent saying I'll never do any of that , you know , like I'll be there for my kids and so I could understand , and I think many of us do that . I think we come into parenting saying maybe I'll never be as good as that good parent or I'll never do what they did right , Like we want to do the opposite .
So it becomes so difficult because we have all these pressures on ourselves as parents now and we have to kind of understand where it's coming from , which is why that past is so important .
Yeah , I encourage moms in one chapter of the book we do like a little bit of a deep dive on some of this stuff . That's how the book is structured too , just so people know , because I think a lot of times we're like what am I getting into ?
You do a deep dive and into five primary areas which make up the meat of the book , and then you come out of it and it's like okay , here are the practical tools .
But I do a deep dive on family , because family shapes how we show up as parents in such major ways , and ask moms to reflect on three things what do you want to take from your family into the family you create ? So what do you want to repeat ? The second is what do you want to do differently ? What do you want to like ? I don't want to do that .
I'm going to do the opposite of that , or I'm going to kind of repair this in our family , and what do you want to remove ? What do you not want to do ? And then , what do you want to add ? Because sometimes there's new things , these new traditions , new ways of showing up . I know , gosh , millennials are parenting so differently than the previous .
You know our parents generation , and so I think it becomes moves from like this happened to me to a more powerful stance as we enter parenthood .
I like that , what you want to add piece , because you're right , everything is so different in the way that we're parenting and I think our parents don't really understand it . Some do but some don't .
Most don't , from what I hear , and it's hard because I've had this discussion with my mom and my mother-in-law where they feel that we're changing so much that it's as if they were doing it wrong . But I just tell them that they did what they could with the tools that they had .
My focus is on emotion regulation skills and , like that , emotional development and obviously that's kind of new research . So I tell them that you didn't know that you had to do certain things or respond to our emotions . Of course , when we were afraid of something , they'd say there's nothing to be afraid of , just let it go right .
Or when we were sad , they didn't teach us what it meant to kind of like sit with that emotion . They just said , like , get over it , just get up and smile . And they did it right , exactly . But it came from a good place . Most of the time not all the time , but for some parents they did what they could .
So I think that applies to everything that you're saying now . I love that piece of like . What do I want to add to that ? What do I want to change ? We're not saying what they did was wrong or everything they did was wrong , but it's okay not to do the same way that they did , including that self-care piece .
Yeah , I know I think there are a lot of people in our generation who are having these painful conversations with their parents , and I love how you put that , which is that you didn't do anything wrong , you just didn't know , and I do think a lot of our parents were just very well-intentioned . I've had this similar conversation with my dad .
He was reading something in my book and I think it was an example of someone and he's like is that you ? And he's like is that your story ? And I was like not quite .
And he's like , and I think he felt a little defensive about his parenting , and we had the same conversation , which is , dad , you did the best you could , and no child leaves parent , leaves childhood without something they've got to work on , and so I don't even know if you intended some of the things I absorbed , but that's how I made meaning of it , and so
now it's my job to decide how I want to relate to this part of myself now , and that's not really on you and you did a good job . So I think that there are a lot of conversations like that happening .
Those uncomfortable conversations . So I originally when I reached out to you , first of all , I love everything that you do online and I really encourage everyone to follow you . We'll give all the notes , or all the links in the show notes of this episode and you'll have a chance at the end also to let us know how to follow you and where we can find you .
I think you know there's something that you bring up in a really comical way and it sometimes gets people really upset or happy . It's whenever you talk about like the dad . Sometimes you know like when you there's a , there's a real about when they don't finish tasks , it's so good .
And then there's the other one of you in the pantry and you're kind of like I'm going to People got mad . Oh my goodness . Yeah , I was . I thought it was pretty interesting .
I was at a grocery store , my kids were at an extracurricular and I was just killing some time and I think I just like stopped middle of the aisle reading a comment like oh I .
So , but it's mean Some people they're not , you know , they don't choose their words wisely . But in the end , what I took from those is first of all , the the . They're both arguments I've had with my partner . You know , like , like just things , when they're left there , just you can continue it or finish it , or the searching for something .
Like he'll say , like you know , I forget what it , like you said , there was some hand soap left in the cupboard . There's nothing left . I'm like , well , did you look , or did you look the way you usually look ? Did you look , look ? And ? But these are just light things for us . That really had the conversation around .
How do we ask for help from our partner and how do we kind of follow through with it ? Right , because I know sometimes and I've experienced this too where you kind of say , hey , can you help me out with this ?
And their intention is there , but then they get busy with something else and it doesn't get done , and then you get so frustrated and you just feel this weight on your shoulders of having to balance everything with the kids , with your work , with you know what's going on in the home .
So how do we bring our partners in without sort of pointing fingers at them and getting into arguments around the workload .
Yeah , I feel like this is such a massive topic , so I did create a free guide on this one , because it's it's how to have a conversation with your partner about the mental load , and particular because I feel like it's such a big and it's so nuanced , because there's this like continuum of defensiveness and willing and willingness , like I think that there are some
partners who are passive , like have passive willingness , they're all the way to this active resistance , and then we want our partners to be initiative takers . That's the actual goal .
Yes .
But a lot of us don't have the active resistance , but we have this passive willingness which is like just tell me what to do , we're like no , no , no , we're like the manager of the thing .
That's what it feels like .
You still carry it around in your head , which means you don't get a break from it , and so I think it's tricky . So I created the guide to help people navigate the conversation , because I think a lot of times what comes up is defensiveness , and so I walk people through . How do you navigate the defensiveness ?
And I think there's usually three areas that people bump up against . Which is the defensiveness and the other one is mindset . I think sometimes there is these different , just completely different worldviews on what this looks like in the home , where it's like , wow , I went to work and so that's what I do , and you're like so did I Right ?
So you have to sort of break through some of that stuff before you actually get to the logistical piece , which is how do we make these shifts . And then the last one is role expectations , which is a lot of stuff we don't discuss but we should before kids .
So I do recommend people check that out because I think that that's really helpful and jam packed with scripts and things like that . But I think you know one thing is people push back on this one . I do think it's okay to ask for help , and a lot of people will say they should just know . But I have this theory about how part one reason .
There's many reasons why the mental load can get really full , but I think one of the reasons is that as women , we tend to do things for our partners out of love and care and we don't tell them that we're doing them .
And so early on in our relationships we , like you know , respond to an RS , you know a birthday invitation , and we do the RSVP and we buy the present and our partner doesn't even know we did all that . Or we stock their deodorant and all their toiletries and they just think it never runs out Right .
We do the things because we love them , but when we take care of it it's out of their awareness . They have taken it officially off their plate and out of their mind . They're very good . I feel like partners can be very good at just taking the stuff out and being done , and what happens is it gets really , really full .
And then we have kids and overnight responsibilities exponentially grow and things are really overwhelming . And so I think there's lots of ways you sort of walk back this pattern , and one of them is asking . So I think we can ask in the moment for things and we can also ask in anticipation Tomorrow is a busy day .
Can you do or I need you to do x , y or z so we can function through the day . This is the support I need . I think it's okay to do some of these things , and that's just a piece .
That's not all of it , and the reason why it's important is because it also starts to make some of these invisible things visible again , which is part of walking back that process .
I do think it is that it's important to speak to them and ask them , because I've seen it myself where you kind of assume they know , let's say , that the toothpaste you just bought and you put it on the staircase to go upstairs , that it needs to go upstairs , but then it stays there for a week if you don't touch it .
It's interesting because they're little things that I thought were like universal understandings of like that it belongs upstairs . But I think it's important because I've had this discussion with my partner . My partner is somebody who participates a lot , but there's little things that still get to me and then I feel bad because he participates a lot .
I work at night , so he takes care of the kids and puts them to bed , and it's a different kind of life in our home . But even little things still get to me and I noticed that we do have to say it out loud , and that we say it out loud they're like oh , I didn't know the toothpaste needed to go upstairs into the cupboard .
Yeah , I'll just bring it up . And then it's like well , why did I spend a week getting mad every time I saw it on the stairs ? Why didn't I just say it ? So I do think you have a really important point where not assuming that they really know what needs to be done , but just saying it out loud , at least having that conversation .
It's not saying that they don't do anything , but it's just saying , hey , would you mind helping me with the laundry this week ? Or , you know , I need you to take over dinner on Tuesday . Whatever it is , for whatever reason , but saying it out loud really makes a difference .
Yeah , I mean I find that because I've had the pile at the top of the stairs or bottom of the stairs many times and I remember being like do you not see it ? Is this invisible ?
And he was like he cracked up and he's like I just didn't know if you had plans for that , and so it's funny how we create all these stories in our heads about what it means . Like you think you're made , you don't respect me , yeah , like did you think I'll just take care of it ?
And it's like no , they're just kind of like we don't want to get it wrong , right , I don't know . Yeah , I mean , it's not always the case Again you have the partners who are like I won't do it , and that's a whole nother ball game .
But I do think we need to sometimes just like give a more gracious interpretation and just put it out there , and I think a lot of times our partners are willing . I think some other things , too , are like .
You know , something that I want , I've always tried to encourage people to do , is to regularly talk about the mental load , like actually schedule a weekly meeting to talk about it . I have a course that I've not talked about in a long time , but it's called the mother load , and that's what I teach people how to do .
Because , you know , the thing is is like we don't often talk about our relationships , except where , when something is wrong and so we have all this defense , like we just are like scared to talk about our relationships . Defensiveness usually creeps up when we say can we talk ?
And so when we talk about it regularly , it sort of starts to chip away at that belief system and it just makes it a normal part of our relationship rhythm , which is what's going on for your week . How can I step in ?
Here's where I need support , and maybe in the beginning even you're talking about more logistical things like I'm handing finances off to you or you know , doing these bigger negotiations of who does what , but the mental load's changing all the time .
We have to get good at talking about it regularly , or else it's just going to kind of always be this thing that is stirring up frustration and resentment in our relationships .
And anybody who's kind of questioning that regular conversation , saying like why would that actually make a difference ? I have like a bit of insight in terms of that regular conversation , but I've had it with myself .
So this for the first time this year I started journaling and it's been a game changer for me because it's just allowed me to gain insight on myself , just talking to myself . So I could only imagine that regular conversation with your partner .
It's not , it doesn't become because it's so normal to have it every single week , the same way that now it's normal for me to just put out my thoughts and to question how I responded to somebody or or what I could have said differently . I think that when you're doing that together with your partner , it becomes normal .
So it's not like an attack anymore , it's just a conversation and makes it totally normal . Yeah , I get that .
Yeah , and I think too it's . It's like you know , at first it might feel a little bit mechanical and just kind of maybe when you started journaling or like this is a little weird , I don't know .
Yeah , and I think that's the thing with doing anything new , whether it's a relationship skill or it's like a sport , if you're going to be a great free throw shooter , you're going to like stand at the free throw line and shoot them over and over again . It's the same for these relationship changes .
At first it's going to be kind of weird , kind of like okay , we're just sitting on a meeting , you know just feel that awkward tension . You know , hopefully we don't fight , right , you know all these things . But it then becomes more natural .
Like my husband and I , we don't need to set a meeting for this because we just naturally integrate into our conversation , and so that might be something that you kind of get to that place . And I think too , you know , we need to sometimes think of our relationships in the same way we think of a business .
My husband , for example , he's in the business world , he has meetings . About meetings , yeah , constantly In the meetings , yes , why would you not ? And like checking up on financials what are the sales reports ? How do we ?
go market share All the things that I'm like , whatever .
I would not check in on the most important relationships of our lives by doing the same . Why do we think those run themselves but nothing else in life does ? It makes no sense .
I have a podcast episode called parenting is like being a CEO , because it really is . You are . You and your partner are co CEOs , and or one's a CEO , one's a CFO or one's a C whatever it is but you have to figure out how to run your household . And it's the same thing with our kids .
And I'm going to bring that into the conversation because I love how you have some advice on your Instagram account about , like , how to bring in your kids to help you with that load as well . It's not just your partner , but it's your kids too .
And I think when you're looking at your household and your job as a parent , as the CEO , you're like okay , what are the strengths of this child ? What are they good at ? What can I assign to them as a task ? What about this child , Not just their ?
We look at weaknesses like , oh , they're , they're , they're never going to do that , or they really struggle with putting things away . But maybe the other child is really good at putting things away and the other one likes to organize or do something different .
I don't know , but when we start doing that , there's a really big difference in how we manage our home . You mentioned the zones of a house and I was talking to my kids about that today . I was like I think we're going to change things up here , because asking you to put away your own toys is it's not working . Right now .
I have a four , six and eight year old . So the eight year old she's good , she , she puts her things away . The two boys were we're still we're still working on it , but what is this idea that you've that you shared about , like the zones of the house ?
Yeah , this came out of a conversation with one of my friends who's from Denmark and it was such a light ball moment for me . I wish I could claim it as my own idea , but it's not so . But she talked about in her growing up experience .
Every kid had a zone of the house they were in charge of , and I think this is so smart because I've tried chore lists , I've tried this idea of before you leave a room , everybody look around and notice one thing that needs done and do it .
But I I'm actually really bad at enforcing rigid structure , so I think I'm the one who doesn't continually do this , and then I want them to do it on their own . And they don't do it on their own and then I'm like I don't feel like fighting the system . So the zone thing was helpful .
So every kid gets a gets to be in charge of a zone of the house , and so you make it reasonable depending on their age , their development and , for example , our daughter's in charge of the living room .
The reason why I think this is so cool and so effective and it's been working for us really well is that it's a shared space , so it it sends the message that it's not like you only are in charge of your own stuff , which I think is like a mentality we're always trying to break even as grownups in our relationship .
You know what about my stuff Like all of it , so it's near not just in charge of your stuff is a family team . We all take care of our spaces , so it enforces that .
The second thing is it's on them to notice it and take care of it on their own , so it enhances the sort of self like this awareness skill in in the home , looking around what needs done and also then this initiative taking , so they're in charge of doing it without me asking .
And our daughter , I mean it's , I can't tell you it's so nice I never have to fold up all the blankets that thrown around Are they snack , snack bowls in there . She just takes care of it and it's been great . And it's funny because it's just so Instagram-ish for this experience of like . I share a reel on this and the comments are mostly good .
But then people are like , oh well , what about ? My kids are just gonna mess up the other kids zone and then they're gonna create it's gonna create a fight and that's too much hassle and it's like okay , guys , I mean let's just think a little bit less black and white around this .
If that happens , if it hasn't happened for us , which is , our kids would think of that . They would definitely think they're clever children , they would think of it , but they just haven't .
But if it does , what a great opportunity to talk about whatever , to talk about how we relate to members of our family , to talk about how we're all in it together , to create some sense of collectivism in our family unit . So these all become teaching moments . It's also not in replacement of like other ways of helping and chores . It's not an either or .
So there's always of making it work for your family .
Exactly . And , like you said , you've tried the list . I've tried the list too . I think mine are just too young . It works for like two days and then it's over . And like today , there was a puzzle on the floor and I said who took it out ? And then the boys are like no , he did . No , he did .
And they're like I said I'm sure I saw you guys doing this together and they're like no , well , he played with it more , so he has to . So , I think , the zones I told them about the zones today and I'm excited to get it started this week and give that a try .
So we've spoken about , like our partners and now our kids , and I kind of want to like end this conversation focusing on ourselves . You know , in the end there's so much work to do , I think , and for myself .
I turned 40 this year and I feel like the past three years have been monumental for myself , where I've kind of rediscovered who I am and what matters to me and learned how to set boundaries , which I didn't before .
And one of the things I had reached out to you about was values , because it made such a difference for me to understand what were my values before and to be clear on the fact that they might have changed and they have but certain things are the same . For me , connection and growth have always been part of my values , but I've added family to that .
So where do we begin that sort of journey , that work that we can do ? You know somebody who might not be there yet . Maybe they just had a child and they want to make sure that they're aligned and then they don't like get off track in terms of nurturing their own needs and maybe rediscovering who they are now as a parent .
Do we change when we become a parent ? Should we reevaluate our values and our needs ? There's like so many questions to impact in there .
So , I'll just ramble , then you redirect me if I need it . I think so . Do we change after we become parents ? I think absolutely . I think we change and then we kind of change the same too .
I think that you know I've heard people talk about becoming a mom as , like you , mourn the person you were before , and I think if you need that , then by all means don't let , like my opinion , get in the way of having to . You know , of needing to do that and mourning that loss of self .
But I think to you know , you sort of hope that eventually , maybe not right away , when you're in the throes of those like early days of the motherhood fog , but you really hope that motherhood becomes expansive for you .
And part of how it becomes expansive is , I believe , that in the container of relatively secure and safe relationships , light is shined on parts of us that need to develop , and it happens in our partnerships , if we're doing the work in our . This is why people say marriages work , probably because it's highlighting stuff .
You need to change and shift , and you hope that both people are willing to do it . I think motherhood does the same thing . I think this is one way we really benefit from becoming moms and we grow to and we gain as well as obviously we're giving a lot , but I think we gain too .
So I think that that's just like an important thing to remember is that there is this opportunity that might feel really hard sometimes , but to grow and change as a result of being , of being a mother and a parent .
So yeah , ask me the next question . Yeah , no , but I just said so much at the same time . But you're right , though I think you know I just embracing those changes and that's what happened to me as well . I don't know if you get this , you know , because I specialize in emotion .
Specifically , it's like , oh , you probably are always calm , you probably have never yelled at your kids , but I think , appreciating that we're learning about ourselves and although I knew the research around something , I didn't know much about myself until I had a child and started yelling and realized hold on a second , this is not what I talk about .
And so there was a lot of learning about myself , and that's where everything else kind of fell through or came through , I guess , like in terms of understanding well , what are my boundaries ? I don't even know how to communicate a boundary , and I brought back all of that stuff .
So I guess , once we realize we need to do the work , what are the steps that you recommend that we take to do this ?
Yeah , I so relate to that too . I always thought I was really chill and then I'm like , oh , I think I'm kind of angry sometimes .
Right , yes , I'm like , oh , I don't like who I am , and I think a lot of mom have that experience of just getting into the throes of it and being like this is like either I'm not the fun mom I thought it would be , this is not who I . I never thought I'd have this rage and all of these different things , and so we feel really out of alignment .
So in the book I walk moms through five steps , and the five steps are really centered around the idea that we have to get good at managing our relationship with ourselves . So I believe in self , I believe in check ins , in like every relationship with your kids , with your partner and with yourself , and that's what my book walks moms through .
How do we do this ? What is the structure ? When you say manage a relationship , you're like what does that mean ? And so the five steps are five areas of our relationships . So I give moms a model . It's called the relationship attachment model and it's basically a picture of a relationship and five areas that you manage .
And so they don't I say their steps because that's easier to understand , but really they start to kind of work together and integrate . But I'll walk you through them . So the first is know deeply , and the idea behind this is that if you're going to really take care of yourself in ways that really make a difference , you have to know yourself really well .
And so the chapter goes deep and helping kind of unearth some insights about who you are .
And then it comes to a more practical place , which is how do you get more into alignment with the mom you thought you wanted to be or the woman you thought you wanted to be in motherhood and live out your way in your life in a way that feels meaningful , doing the things that feel important ?
But in order to really care for yourself , all you have to know yourself deeply . And I feel like that's common sense , like say it and it's like sounds so cliche , but I know probably you've had this experience , I know I've had it where somebody has been like hey , morgan , how are you ? And I was like yeah , good , you're like , no , really , how are you ?
And you're like I don't know . Yes , tuned in to me , yes , exactly , yeah , just , we move through life with such momentum , we lose touch with ourselves .
So that's why we're disconnected and that sort of understanding yourself deeply is that connection part , which I didn't do until recently . So I do think , as cliche as it is , it's not something that we're doing . We're kind of like just on autopilot through life .
Totally . We're just numbing out , we're scrolling when we have a minute , we don't , yeah . So the second step is to trust accurately . And this is actually around self-concept , and I think this is one of my favorite chapters , because moms are really good at seeing the worst in themselves .
And focus .
We are focused on all our shortcomings . This is how we conjure up the guilt and the shame and the I call them we should on ourselves , which I don't think that's new to me .
I think other people have said that but so it talks through how do we see ourselves in a positive light and it walks you through how our self-concept develops as well as how we shift it in the moment . And it's such a powerful intervention that can be done without leaving your kids .
And I think that's so important is you know , if I feel yucky , how do I change it ? When I'm like playing Legos on the floor with my kids , yeah , because sometimes you can't get away . And so the third one is rely boldly . This is all about assessing and asserting our needs .
I think that a lot of women have a hard time even getting to a place where we feel like we're entitled to needs and then getting to a place where we actually speak them out loud is like no , no , no . So it walks moms through how to do that . The last is commit wisely , which is about I kind of pack a lot in that chapter .
It's about prioritizing your your just competing demands of life , which moms are regularly dealing with in a way that you feel at peace with . How do we do this , how do we negotiate this ? What's our checkpoint ? To make sure we're , you know , doing this well . And then I also cover willpower , which is their energy and things that deplete it .
And then the last chapter is touch purposefully , and this is this is the closest I get to traditional self care . I was a really tried not to say self care in my book , but I had to say it in this last chapter and but it goes a bit deeper . I talk about the way that our body speaks to us , but we're really good at ignoring what it's telling us .
I think we chalk so much stuff up to like , oh , whatever it's mom thing , like my back hurts , whatever from carrying the baby , you know , and and we just ignore this stuff for so long and I think moms are really struggling physically because of this . It also talk about in that chapter some body image stuff and sex a little bit .
So those are the steps that you walk through and what moms do is a quick self check in and , where you do , like an assessment because it's a visual , so it's really easy to do and then what you end up doing is either making the adjustment in the moment or you just end up defining the area of vulnerability , knowing what you can do to fix it and putting a
pin in it for later , and sometimes just defining what's going on with us provides a bit of relief in the moment .
It's that that's first step . That important first step is just defining and being aware of it . You know like I absolutely love everything that you share with us . I know that this is going to give a lot of parents and moms some first steps .
I'm saying parents and moms because there could be some dads also who are strongly with us , but I know that it's very common in moms .
I think also that the more we can do this kind of work that you've just laid out for us , we could avoid the burnout sometimes that many moms are going through as well , and we know through research that when a parent is very stressed or going through burnout , there's an impact on the child .
So it's so important for us to start with us and to start that work . It's never too late , like you said , it doesn't matter if your child is 10 , 15 , one you need you can start that today , absolutely . Thank you for the book that you've written and for the work that you do and share with all of us .
Where can we find you and how can we connect with you ?
Thank you so much for having me . This is such a pleasure . You can find me at my website , which is drmorgancutlipcom . You can find my book information there . You can buy my book anywhere Amazon , barnes , noble Target , all those places and then you can find me on Instagram , drmorgancutlip as well . I will add all of those to the show notes .
Thank you so much again . You are just lovely to speak with and I enjoyed this conversation . I hope we get to chat again soon . I hope so .
Take care .