1.11 Broken Moms: Millennial Mom

Hello, you were listening to one broken bone, the podcast dedicated to raising awareness about mental health, parenting, and self improvement. I'm the host for Kone one. Broken Mon is not a family show. It is intended for adults only and may contain adult language. Sometimes the topics are serious, but you can count on the episodes to be entertaining. Also, when broken, mom is not offering any psychiatric or medical diagnosis. We're just here giving away useful information that I also think is pretty important for you to hear. So if you're ready to hear real talk by real people so that we can all get better. Yeah.

Rather than you're in the right place. And welcome today I have with me Amina. Um, she has just released a podcast called parenthood, which is a weekly program that tells the true stories about pregnancy, parenthood and entrepreneurship for first time millennial parents. Now, Amina and I connected because she actually has a story to share today about broken moms. So. Hi Amina.

Hi. So are you.

I'm good. I'm totally good. And you're out on the east coast somewhere way out there. Um, and I want everybody to talk about and hear about first. Um, let's, let's tell everyone who you are and where you live in, what are your details?

Yeah, for sure. So I'm here in Toronto, Ontario, so I live in Canada. So my perspective on things like healthcare and stuff might be totally different. And I said I'm 28 years old. I am living with my fiance. We don't really have plans on getting married anytime soon because we have a baby coming along as well. I'm currently officially today 27 weeks pregnant, which means that the baby is the size of a very large cucumber or I think they use the reference of like a long Romaine lettuce growing like crazy weed and we actually had a missed miscarriage last year in December. So us being super open about being millennial parents and telling our story really came from our mis miscarriage. So I was about 12 weeks along when they found out that I was miscarrying. But it was missed, which means that the baby had stopped growing at like six weeks. So I was walking around like a happy little lamb thinking that I was getting a beautiful baby, but for six weeks we had no idea that I was actually ms dot Karen the entire time. Oh, that's devastating. Oh yeah. It was not fun. I don't recommend it in this whole being totally lost because even though our healthcare system was super, super great here, we kind of felt like we were dumped by our midwife. We didn't really know what we were doing. It was honestly like pandemonium and our key and nobody knew what to tell us or what our next step was. So we had to rely on like googling everything and not really feeling like we can trust a lot of doctors and all of that. And so we were sort of navigating this journey all the while not realizing that we were consciously making these decisions about who we want it to be as parents and who we want it to be as people based on how we had grown up. I have an undiagnosed mother who my sisters and I have three sisters. One of them shares has a different father, the other to share the same father that I do think that she is like a narcissistic, which has a narcissistic personality disorder, totally undiagnosed and will be under the undiagnosed for the rest of her life. But through all of the difficulties of navigating being her child, it made me realize all of the things that I did and didn't want to do, not only as a parent but as a partner to, um, to my fiance as well. So that sort of, especially in the last, I would say eight months, a year of my life has really put me on this path of being an empowered parents woman, partner and entrepreneur as well. And so all of that sort of ties into bryce and I starting on a parenthood, the podcasts that I had reached out to you about, um, and us really just being as open as possible to sort of show that to other millennials, especially the ones that aren't having kids, that it's totally okay and that we all have our problems, but being able to talk about things in a super light. Funny Way. So that we can, so we can be more vulnerable with, with everyone else as well. So that's a little bit, a little bit about me

and it's actually, you know, I, I, you know, I'm with you. I totally agree. And um, and I had done the math in my head and so I had suspected I was about 20 years older than you. And so we're close. We're close. Um, but the um, it's surprising how many people, you know, desire and the transparent conversations, but yet they themselves aren't necessarily comfortable with providing, you know, that. And, and so I get, I get a lot of messages, you know, personal messages to me, you know, where people like to hear that, you know, they need to hear, they need to listen to the stories even if they themselves are not really okay with sharing their own. And um, and so sometimes they'll just send me their story, you know, just because they feel like they want to, they want to say it, you know, but doing it publicly like you and I have made these choices to do were like, yeah, we're blabbing it all out for everyone to listen to, um, is not, is not the norm, but getting it out there in, in, in being able to communicate and be a truth teller about everything. Um, and, you know, and so for me, part of this and having you talking with me this morning or today, if somebody is listening at night is because we make here ourselves in some of these things. And so as you were talking, I mean, I'm sitting here going, yeah, that was me. I remember being your age and I'm remember thinking these are the things I absolutely do not want to do because they happened to me and that sucked and I'm not going to be that, you know. Um, and I also then remember, you know, fast forwarding 10 years and then doing some of the same things that I swore I would never do because of not knowing, you know, that I, that I was affected by them at a, at a primal childhood level. Um, so you, you talked about your mom and she's undiagnosed and will never be diagnosed. And so I gathered that means that she's never been through therapy or a counselor or anything like that.

So she has, she's never gone voluntarily to see like a counselor. Anything. She at one point had to seek out anger management by that is as far as her, her like self awareness journey and like self help goes. Is, is that, is the mandatory anger management and I don't think she even finished

because it wasn't really her fault, I'm sure. Right.

Never her fault. It is always a victim of circumstance.

Right, right. Yeah. Um, and so your parents were young when they had you, is that right?

Another caveat to that story, and probably what makes it a little bit easier to swallow is that my mom was 17 when she. I was pregnant with me. My Dad was a bit older. My Dad was seven years older than my mom. My Dad was a was that is an immigrant. He was a first generation immigrant and he met her while she was so she was working at like during the summer, so they met in the summer and it was her summer job and it was his full time, real job at the time and they had met and she was 17 and this was in the summer and by December she, they were getting married because by March I was born. So it was a total shock and wedding and I remember my grandpa telling me stories of how he like punched my dad in the nose when he found out that my mom was pregnant and my mom had always been looking for a way out. So as far as I can gather and she sort of the same way now is she's always wanted more. She's always thought that she deserves more. She's beautiful and smart and that can also as manipulative, but she is, she is a great person to every to most other people. She is this fantastic lady that you would never suspect that she's actually just really being super manipulative, but she's doing all of these things because she's always trying to get out. She's always trying to find the next best thing and nothing's ever good enough. So that is, that was her way of trying to get out of my grandparent's home was I guess getting pregnant, keeping me thank God and, and uh, and marrying my father and they were together for until I was about 18. Eighteen is when they officially got a divorce. But throughout that their relationship was super small twist and they were, she was always trying to find the next best thing was always finding a new boyfriend was in and out of our house. My youngest sister has a different father, like it's her is. She's never been okay with just with what she had, no matter what it is, which is, which to me is, is totally fine to want more and to expect more. But this was like wanting more on steroids.

Yeah. Yeah. And that sounds so painfully familiar. I mean, I, I know that I've been around people like that and it's hard to be around those types of people because you never feel like you're going to ever measure up. You see somebody in front of you that is, you know, wanting something else other than what they have. And as a kid, you are one of those things that they presently have, you know. Um, and I know that that shaped me personally growing into an adult where, you know, I found myself kind of an attraction, you know, when we talk about narcissism, um, and I've spoken about this topic a lot, um, because, you know, people think that narcissism is something that they, you know, is attracted to you, but you have an equal attraction to it as well. And, um, and you know, when I'm listening to your mom's story, I, I, you know, I've said this before to, you know, in a couple of episodes that, you know, I took journals and I wrote in a journal when I was a young girl and I can see those words in my own journals because at a certain age I didn't feel like I was being listened to and I wasn't being understood. And so I have pain and empathy, you know, hearing that story there because, you know, people, when we become adults, you know, it is a result of something that happened to us as we were growing up. And it's sad when you think about children, right? That are being treated in some capacity that forms and into this place of I need out, I need to get away. Um, what do you know about your mom's life growing up? Uh, you know, I mean, again, feeling comfortable with what you can talk about so that you don't end up feeling like you're shaming or pointing fingers at anybody in your family.

Yeah. And I really liked that. You talk about how it's, how this isn't about shaming or bashing, you know, the, the mothers that have done this to us or, or whichever, because I think at one point it was very much like, oh my God, I hate her so much. I can't believe she did this to me. And my sister is, she's so crazy. She's so that she's so this. And then it was that radical acceptance that I had to learn through my own therapy of radically accepting who this person is and they are this way because of their circumstances. And yes, it sucks. Yes, she's my mom and I wish she did more things, but that doesn't mean that she is like the devil, right? She, she is a victim of these circumstances and of her growing up. Um, so yeah, no, I, I don't, I feel like I'm totally comfortable with sharing these things and in a way that isn't, isn't shaming at all because I totally have empathy for, for her and I, and I accept her for who she is, but I think her, her childhood was, and, and I see it in my grandmother now and it has become more apparent to me, especially now that I'm pregnant and that lack of sympathy and love and warmth and emotional connectedness is totally lacking between her and her mother. So you can see that invalidation and that nonacceptance and the constantly, like, you're not good enough. You can seek that coming from my grandmother, her mother. Um, so you can see how, how she wanted that[inaudible] reason why I can see this so clearly now is because my fiance, bryce has borderline personality disorder and because we've gone through such extensive therapy together and he's gone through extensive therapy and we've, we've done so much research and stuff on all of these personality disorders, we're able to sort of step back and see, okay, so she's not getting that validation. And it's like there's this circle that continues to happen because they've lived together their whole life. My Mom, my grandmother now lives with my mother and she was always around when we were kids and was taking care of us. But my mom has never really gotten away. She's always been in that cycle of invalidation and not being apted for who she was.

Yeah. And that's so sad. And I, and I've seen that too, right? And Narcissism, you know, a lot of people I shared with you and interview, I just did it and publish it this week with Michelle Piper who does narcissistic mother.com. And you know, we touched on this a little bit, you know, narcissism isn't always about grandstanding, you know, it's not about just trying to draw all the attention to you and showing off with money and stuff. There is this covert subtlety to it as well, which is the, I'm just robbing autonomy from somebody and that can be done in a million different ways. You know, it can be from telling somebody exactly what they need to do every day or it can be just never letting a child do something on their own. You're always in their swallowing them up, you know, every minute and when a kid then suddenly wants their own definition in their own freedom and they can't get it, you know it that generates and creates this, I need somebody to see me. I need to feel important. And that I think that when we see people with sometimes with a really, really severe personality disorders, they're narcissistic parent because they had a narcissistic parent as well, is probably the least. The least likely suspect, you know?

Exactly, yeah, because I think that we, like when we see people on TV and in cartoons and when we think of what narcissism is, we don't like, we think it is that that grandiose person that walks around with a wad of cash in their hands and is like, has a very expensive car and is just like, look at me. I'm so important. But in reality there's so many more facets to that spectrum of narcissism. That's, that basically boils down to that need for admiration and the lack of empathy, right? So it's that I need you to like me, so I'm going to show you all of these things that you might not even like. So I'm going to show you the money, ammunition, show you the car because I need that acceptance and validation from you because I've never gone that, that validation as a child. So that's sort of comes from and that is what has made me be radically accepting of, of her. Because you can, once you, once you hear that and once it's sad, right? It's very, it's very sad that you have gone through your whole life feeling like you need that validation and I've never learned how to do the whole self care thing or learn how to validate yourself or learn empathy. Right. If you're able to look at somebody and and say things. And like I remember when my, I was like maybe 10 years old and we got a flyer sent to the house that said it was like a boxing, like a tween boxing camp or something. And I wanted to do it so badly and I thought it would be so cool and I wanted to learn how to like be a cool box or, and I think it might've been a time when like a boxing movie was out or something. And I remember her saying to me, no, you can't be a boxer because you'll get hit in the face and then nobody will like you because you won't be pretty anymore. Okay. So my 10 year old self, like pre pubescent, like not even thinking about what I was looking like at the time. I'm just like walked away and was like, Oh okay, I guess I can't do this because I won't be anymore. And so now all of these things that I thought I had forgotten about my childhood are slowly starting to worry about because I'm trying to actively think about the kind of parent that I want to be. And I'm reminded of what my childhood was like and how I don't want to do these things. And I liked that whole gender stereotype. And that gender binary, like traditional two parent household is something that we don't prescribe to. So it's all of these things that have come out of her mouth, what we think is happening inside of her head.

What are, what are some of the things that, you know, growing up that the choices that your mom made that you know, kind of alienated you?

Um, the most alienating experience was probably when my father asked if my mom had been talking to a guy that day on the phone and I think this was probably when I was around 11 or 12 years old possibly. And I couldn't lie to him anymore. I felt so bad because this whole entire time my mom was using me as her crutch. Right? So she didn't have any friends because she had me when she was super young. So she would tell me things. She would have me in the room when she was on the phone with other people. She would. I remember being on dates with her and like other crazy things. But this one particular time I could not lie to my father anymore. And all I said was yes, and then he had confronted my mom, sad, you know, I mean, it told me that you were talking to some other guy and she lost it. She absolutely lost it. She told me that I wasn't her daughter anymore. And for I think it was about two weeks, she did not talk to me. So we lived in the same house. Gosh, our bedrooms were right beside each other because I'm obviously a child at this point and she literally ignored my existence. And so I would walk by the bathroom and she would ignore me or um, she just literally wouldn't interact with me. And I was devastated because at the time I was obviously a child, but I was always looking for my mom's. I was always looking for that validation from my mother and that's validation that she was looking for from her mother. I was looking for. And uh, I didn't get that. And I remember the reason why we started talking again. And it sounds so crazy to say because it sounds like a, like a lover's spot. Um, I had to make that first move. I had to say, like, I, I made me need some small talk, like, can you straighten my hair or something? And then that was, and then it was over. There was no apology. There was no, wow. I treated you like shit for two weeks. So there was nothing. It was just moving on. Yeah. It was probably the most like alienating, alienating of experiences that I had with her

as a child. And that's, I mean, for, for people, adults, you know, um, you know, think about this stuff, you know, when you're a kid, you were supposed to, you know, need and, and have your parent there with you and in, you know, in most cases it is mom. And so, and it's a part of the brain development process, you know. And so when that gets excluded, that's a powerful factor in what happens and how, how, uh, you know, the child ends up being shaped. I mean, that's where you know, the abandonment comes in and that's where the, you know, the memory and the triggers that you have much later in life when you, when you don't get that resolved and figured out, you know, I think a lot of people just assume kids are tough and I've had this conversation with plenty of experts. Yeah, I mean their, their tasks and you can fix them, which if you mess up because we're all gonna mess up his parents, but I'm ignoring it and just assuming that every mistake we make doesn't have a longterm impact to me, I think that's a dangerous idea because our brains are shaped while growing up. They didn't, they didn't come out of the box ready to go. You know, at the end of the month, I'm actually going to be talking with Dr Lindsey Gibson who wrote a book called adult children of emotionally immature parents and it was, it was a good book for me to read because know narcissism and self centered little kids, you know, those attitudes, those go hand in hand quite a bit when you're talking about sometimes a narcissistic person or a parent, you know, they appear childlike in, you know, people call and Peter Pans or are they ever going to grow up or whatever. And there's a lot of truth to them. You know, their, their growth and development was likewise stunted, you know, and interfered with as a child and they're kind of locked into that. It's all about me right now because they never were able to emotionally progressed past that point in their own life. And then we end up with these adults around us that, you know, still act like, you know, you're sitting there going, you should know better. Um, and it's tough when you're then the kid that is highly capable. Um, and you know, suddenly you kind of flipped the, you know, everything turns around, you know, you became a confidant and you became a parent in your own life. You had to kind of take care of your own stuff. And, um, and that's hard. I mean, that's really, that's really tough to do. Um, let's, uh, you touched on Bryson, this really wasn't about him. It was about you. Um, but you know, what do you think through the therapeutic process was a little bit of the contribution of Bryce's personality and some of the things that you guys are dealing with today as a couple that maybe came out of his childhood.

Oh my God has. So his borderline personality disorder, I'm really came to the light, uh, about three months into our relationship there were like little hints of switches between emotional and logical minds and he'd be stuck in emotional mind. And then one day he was stuck and emotional mind for about four days. So we had to go to, again, in Ontario and Toronto, we have a pretty good mental health care system. It's not perfect, but we actually have this place called chem h where there's an emergency department attached to it, so it's literally like an emergency room triage, but for mental health. So we ended up, I ended up trooper literally dragging him. Um, and obviously I don't recommend this to most people because most people should get therapy on their own, but because he wanted to get better, it ended up working out for the better, but all of his borderline personality disorder can really, really be attributed to the way that he was brought up. And he grew up in a rural part of Canada that I think right now has a population of 250,000. And right now, like in Toronto, like our population in this suburb that we live in is like a million. So he grew up very differently than the way that I grew up. But he grew up with his father being Chinese and his mom being white and his dad having not being able to be very emotional with him. Not Super validating the whole bia man. I'm like, stop crying. You're not allowed to. Right? Or you're not allowed to be creative because you're a boy. Um, and that had a lot to do with it. So with borderline personality disorder, it's not just being a product of your environment, but it's like the perfect storm of being a super sensitive kid and being invalidated by the people around you. So not every super sensitive kid will have borderline personality disorder. But because it was the perfect hurricane for him, he ended up with it and, um, it is a direct correlation of the way that he was brought up. And it was interesting because I got a very, a very interesting perspective on this because I was in the room like in my therapy sessions with the loved ones that are people with bpd who were in the same program as him. So I was the only one that was in a relationship with the, with the person. And then everybody else was, we're parents. So I got to see how invalidating all of these parents were because you could see the way they converse and the way they spoke about their child and the way they spoke about themselves and the way they spoke over other people. And so I got a very interesting perspective on, on how like borderline personality sort of gets made basically. Um, so yeah, his is bps totally, totally a sensation of, of, of the that he grew up for. Sure.

That's painful. Um, that's like, again, my heart is breaking in here. So where do you think, um, you know, what do you think those influences were with that type of parenting, you know, how have they made you who you are today, what have you been able to kind of recognize and pinpoint? You've talked a lot about identifying the parent you want to be and not want to be. Do you see other, other things that have kind of came, came into you as a result of, you know, having this type of a mom

mean? Growing up I was obsessed with this idea of love and romance and I remember

I'm laughing because I hear you, I hear and I want other people to hear that. Like it's, it's startling that suddenly your focus is on something that you know, you shouldn't really be focused on romantic love at 12, but you are when you're starved for love and your house. So go ahead, go on. Yeah,

I remember like reading weathering heights when I was like 10 years old and I remember the lady at the bookstore was like, this is a little bit above your age group, like your reading level. And I'm like, no, no, it's fine. Just give me the damn book. And I, um, I was obsessed with like Rom coms and I read all of the sweet valley high books when I was like eight years old and I would always skip to the love parts of or the relationship parts and skip all the friendship stuff. And all my life. I, I remember this one crazy thought that I had when I was in grade six and I was on like I am chat on my computer with one of my friends saying I think I love him and I might marry him and I obviously didn't really like him and I obviously didn't end up marrying this guy from elementary school. But like I laugh because were, I didn't realize and I don't think I realized it until like a little while ago that I had always been obsessed with, with love and that took priority. So being in a relationship, not doing my homework even though I was like, uh, I, I did really well in school, but I just wouldn't hand in an assignment because I was too busy talking to my boyfriend all night or, or something. And, and it sounds like a regular teenage problem, but it was kind of excessive for me because I was always on that search for love because I wasn't getting that from either of my parents really. Because my dad was always working and my dad and mom were always fighting. So my poor father didn't know how to turn off that resentment towards my mom that you would have on me for a few years and we, my dad and I now have a great relationship because he can sort of see that I've accepted that my mom is crazy and you know, is always going to do this to me, sort of in, is just really a big disappointment. And I think that he, he likes that a little bit because he likes that I can see what he is, what he had gone through for 18 years of his life and he didn't like when I would side with her because he was like how can you not see how she is or what she's doing to you sort of deal. So that really put a damper on our relationship. But that obsession for love. And, and it's funny because again, my fiance having, having bpd so he has, he is still in, he does like three hours of therapy a week. So we're like a very all over the therapy family and I. There was a family sessions group that is done in conjunction with his dbt training, so dialectical behavior therapy has a family sessions group where the parents loved ones can attend and it's sort of like a, you learn the same skills that your partner or a child or whoever is learning so that you learn how they should be coping with the problems in their life, but you can also learn how to cope with them better and how to cope with yourself. So I actually found like that I learned so much about me and my relationship with my own mother through this therapy that was really supposed to be making my relationship with my fiance better boat. It really just was so enlightening because I was learning things like radical acceptance and all of this and it. It made me so empowered when I chose to finally accept that like she is who she is. And that sort of shaped my relationship with my fiance now as well because I remember my really what my relationships were like when I was a teenager or in my earlier twenties. And I totally exhibited some behaviors of like that obsession and that need for validation and that was like that cycle that just wouldn't stop for my grandmother to my mother and then to me. And the only thing that really made that cycle of obsessing, obsessing over love was was really the therapy. And then I started doing better health outcome, which is amazing. Especially if if therapies and accessible to you because they have financial aid as well. So it's$40 a week for unlimited therapy, which means you can message them whenever you want and video call with them or talk to them on the phone. And it was. It was amazing to learn how to validate myself, how to not rely on somebody else to make feel the way I want it to feel. Because if somebody else is having a bad day and I relied on that to make me happy or to make me excited or to make me whatever. That's so much responsibility to be putting on one other person for my own happiness. That when I learned how to validate myself, it was like this huge pressure was totally lifted off of my shoulders and I didn't have to rely on someone else to bring me any sort of joy. It was literally just what I had to do for myself.

Yeah. They call that reparenting, you know, because because you know, it comes from that place of where if you had a solid resource, you know, good solid, you know, unconditional love, you know, parents that, you know, that they taught you how to do that on your own. When you're absent that you have to learn how to kind of pull your, you know, kind of be a split personality to some extent. You have to divide off the wounded child in you from the parents in you and have that parent inside of you. Be able to attend to that injured, hurt child piece until that, that part is healed. Um, and so that word repairenting comes up a lot when you know, you've got an adult who's like, okay, I've got to Redo the brain. You know, I, it's now my job, the opportunity my parents had to help me with this is gone. Like they can't fix it for me now it's up to me. Yeah. That's uh, that sounds like a great resource for people to, to, to kind of tap into your, the better health.com. And I'll have a link to that in the, in the podcast notes for anybody that wants to explore that. Um, so, you know, here's a question that I think people will have. I mean, we, you know, I've got a millennial on the phone, so I'm going to talk to you about this. Everybody loves to like throw darts at this generation and of course I'm sitting here as a parent, I'm an ex gen and I'm like, well these are our kids. So what do you think is, you know, what's going on here with everybody that you interact with in contact with and stuff. Do you see a lot of similar stories? I mean, maybe not as extreme as what you've gone through, but within the people, I mean if we're going to make a generalization about, you know, this entire generation, um, do you, what do you see as maybe some, some things that might be influencing your generation? I mean, that could relate back to what their parents were doing. You know, those of us

for sure. I think that there is definitely a pattern of what, of the people that I have, not just in my circle, but anybody that I sort of network with that, that is considered a millennial, so anyone right now that is I think from the age of 24 to 34 millennial, but there is a theme of not getting validated. Then that whole nonacceptance and obviously that doesn't mean that every parent is a bad parent. It just means that there was this cycle of behavior that nobody knew how to stop because my dad would never go to therapy. Not because he thinks it's useless, they're stupid, but because he wouldn't even know where to go to start getting therapy or like he wouldn't know how to have access to all of these things that we can google and find out how to get access to these. So I think that a lot of them, especially the children of immigrant parents and the children of parents that are people of color as well, um, that like either came here or have all of these super, super strict traditions on what they think that family life is supposed to be or what gender norms are supposed to be like. And that is a big, a big thing in, in how millennials can sort of come off as entitled or it can come off as, you know, wanting this crazy lifestyle without earning it or whatever the stereotype that people like to apply to that. But what it is, is it's not that, it's not that we feel entitled to this life that we want and don't want to work for it. It's that we have different priorities. So for Bryce and I, our biggest priorities, being able to be at home as much as possible, not because we're lazy, but because we want to be able to spend time with each other and also spend time with our child. So because we grew up with these parents that didn't give us that love and didn't give us that space to grow and be creative, we want to create that space so we're actively pursuing it and I know that we, we were in our barbecue area for, for our apartment and I'd heard this gen x are saying millennials don't work and they don't want to get a job and they are like freeloaders and all of this. And I turned around and I was like, you know, I'm, I'm a millennial. We could totally have this conversation, but I don't really appreciate you having this conversation in my presence where you're literally speaking of me. And she got very flustered and ran away. And I was like, no, no, we can talk about this. And she literally ran for her life. But I think that is something that millennials are starting to really do, is wanting to talk about everything and going to be super empowered to make these decisions based on knowing everything. And it makes people like, my parents nervous because they're like, oh no, we don't need to know everything. You need to know everything. Like sex side is bad. You shouldn't teach your kids about sex, you shouldn't teach your kids about anything. They should just focus on books in school. Whereas we're sort of coming at it as no, we want to teach our child absolutely everything so they can make the best decision. So I think that is where, at least in my experience with my parents and my network of people, that's where that divide sort of is millennials that are crappy, but they're also like gen x or is that are crappy. Like there are just crappy people. Pretty good. Right?

Right. There's always going to be crappy people and you know, and that's sad. You know, growing up Gen X. and I've reflected to quite a bit on, you know, what I remember and recall from childhood, you know, in some of the stressors in it, man. I remember being in grade school and we thought we were gonna get nuked by Russia. Do you know that stress that is on kids to actually know that that's the, that there was that fear, that underlying fear in your life. And then I looked back on like, you know, my parents, you know, they um, my mom was born in the early 19 fifties and so she's in a boomer generation and you know, a piece of that was also, you know, a lot of stress and strain and her parents came from the depression. And so, you know, you go back four generations here really quickly and nobody was ever out of the woods, you know, in terms of some sort of sociopolitical elements. And then parenting trends changing. You know, one of the topics I'm going to be covering is the, you know, some of the really, you know, history of parenting ideals that people had, you know, and what you were supposed to do with your kids. And how that influenced one generation to the next. But I think you're right with the talking piece of it is, is, um, there's a, there's this little bit of fear of accepting responsibility because if, you know, and that's why, again, in my approaches is, you know, accepting your responsibility in it doesn't mean that someone's going to drag you off to jail, you know, for, for this. And that's not what I want anybody to feel about this part because it is scary to say and be reflective and go. There are things that I probably messed up on and I've had to do that publicly. And in fact, I had somebody just a couple of weeks ago who, you know, I forgive this person, you know, whatever. But um, because he thought he was being clever called me a piece of shit, you know, because I was a mom that when I got divorced from my, um, from my kids' Dad, we didn't do the normal well. Mom takes the kids, get dad is the weekend parent. We did the reverse of that because that's what sit us. And that's what fit life and everything. But, you know, because I was the mom who didn't do that, you know, in his eyes, I was a piece of shit, you know, for failing my kids and you know, and all that other good stuff. And so that, that, that scares people into not wanting to ever admit failure because they don't want to have targets painted on them. And so that's why, you know, I, I commend you for having the bravery to talk about these things and to get them out there because that's how people become less fearful, you know, you know, be willing to take an Arrow in the back for somebody else, you know, for 10 other people to feel like they can say something. But that gen x experience there that you had with that woman is probably a piece of that, you know, we see it on facebook, right? Nobody really wants to talk to each other. They just want to yell at one another and you know, and stand on their pulpit. Absolutely. Yeah. Um, so, you know, you and I talked a little bit, um, I hit the record button and um, and I had said that the fact that you all have, have had this awakening and enlightenment early in life for you is going to do you really well. Mine came 20 years after, you know, um, you know, unfortunately, and, but it doesn't mean that again, changes possible and you know, I'm working my ass off to make sure that, you know, I'm doing what I can. Um, but, uh, you know, there are mine fields out there and I guess, you know, I had equated it to um, you know, I had to step on a few landmines before I realized I was in a minefield. You get to go forward, you know, in motherhood and I'm in partnership in life knowing that you're already walking a minefield, you know, that was kind of presented to you by, by your experiences. And so, um, you're going to be, you're going to be okay. Even if you clip a mine every once in awhile. Um, so do you, um, do you do your own therapy now? Or is it still something that you're doing with your, um, with Bryce?

So as of now, I believe the program starts in October again and again it would be like the family sessions dvt and the reason why I liked it so much was because at first it was totally supposed to be a thing, like people thought that you did it in order to make your person better, but in reality you're doing it to make yourself better so that you know how to set boundaries, you know, like what, how to not trigger yourself, you know, how to get yourself out of the, the, the, um, out of the situation. So I really loved that. I'm still doing better help about like an hour a week. But one thing that I've been starting to do is like mindfulness and meditation, which I'm very bad at, but it's apparently supposed to be really good, especially during pregnancy. So that has helped me keep saying. But it is, it is very hard to do, but, but it's, it's so easy because you can just download an app like calm or headspace and you can do it literally from anywhere for three minutes a day. And it's like a total refresher.

Yeah. And a lot of people meditate. A headspace is one of the apps that I actually used to, um, because, you know, especially if you're triggered, you know, and you've got triggers in you and you, you know, that you do because they, you know, they stem from this relationship of, you know, growing up with a narcissistic mother, um, but it, it can kind of help pull you back in and at least get you back to that prefrontal cortex in the front of your brain instead of the, you know, all of your emotional places.

Exactly.

So what do you think that this experience with your mom is going to shape you? I'm with you being a mom yourself.

I think what's funny is as people ask me all the time, if I'm afraid of being a mother and I'm always like, no, you know what I'm afraid of like crowning and pushing a baby out of me naturally in a home birth. Like that's what I'm afraid of. I'm not afraid of being a mom or, or parenting because because I feel like I've done this 15 times already with my sisters and not that I feel like I'm good at it, but I just feel like I'm so aware of, of all the things that I don't want to do and not just aware of them. Like all my mom used to make me corn beef sandwiches and I don't want to make my kid Columbia sandwiches or I don't want to nag like my mom. Like I feel like there are very serious things that my mom has done that I don't want to do and not just. And not just that, but I feel like I'm very aware of like my value set. Um, so I feel like that is what is preparing me for parenthood. And I know that a lot of people will read parenting books and, and they're all great and they're like a 20 page read and then you're falling asleep. But for me, what has been my parenting book has really been that awareness has been learning. Learning how to deal with like my partner who has bpd and learning how to deal with myself and learning what I want and learning how to communicate what I want and what I need and what's important to me because I feel like if I'm the one that's making myself better and I'm communicating what I need, then my child will be able to communicate what they need because they're being brought up in this space where we're communicating and we're, we're validating each other and we're asking the other person what it is that they would like to do. And we're not just assuming, you know, because we're having a girl that she's going to want to be putting ballet or, or all of these things. So I think that for me, the best parenting thing that I can do is learn how to be the best person that I can be. So my partner to, you know, other people that I see in the streets because like we can do all the hip, no baby stuff and do all of the mindfulness stuff and that's all fantastic with our child. But if you are still carrying around this, like your parents shit in this a surrounds and it's not, you can read all the parenting books that you want, but nothing's going to help you.

Yeah. And that's, that's what one broken mom is. We, you've been broke, but you're fixing. And that's huge, right? Like you're, you're going to that place where you're, you know, you're healing the whatever cracks and fissures that materialized in you. And that's that. You're right. That is completely, that's totally powerful for that. Um, I, you know, I'd said to you that, you know, I, I did the same thing and this is what I want other people to listen. Like I did the same thing you did. I sat down before I had kids. I was like, man, I am so ready for this, like I'm going to be amazing. And I said, this is what I don't want for my kids life, you know, I don't want to move around a places. I don't want this, I don't want that and I don't want that. And despite the knowing, um, and this is the difference in path that you and I are on, despite knowing all of that at some point in the future, 10 years forward, I ended up replicating a handful of those things that I swore I would never do. And I did it without A. I didn't even understand my, my ex. And I sat there and they were like, you said you didn't want any of these things and yet you're doing all of them. And I'm like, I have no idea why I'm doing all of them, but all I know is that, you know, panic set in and um, and it all just kind of materialized. But the difference is, this is for people to understand is that I didn't have what you have right now, which was opening up that Pandora's box, you know, and understanding what that relationship was with the self, help the therapy and then being able to start the repair work early. I had to be broken down several times before I realized, you know, all that was coming into you. So you know, you, you, you will discover new things about yourself as you go because parenting does that to you. I'm sure you already know that. But having the tool boxes, you know, available to you to be able to sort that out as you move along is better than just kind of blindly feeling along the walls and hoping for the best.

Yeah, for sure. Like it's like if you try to put up a picture frame and you like have the screwdriver but you're missing the wrong, like you're missing the right like head and you need a phillips head but you don't have one, it will be useless. Right? So it's. I know that there are going to be things that I will fuck up, like there will be things that I do that will, that might be like my mom might like my dad that I didn't want to do because I'm also human, but it's knowing if I do these things, if I tell my kid that they look silly in their outfit and it really hurts them and I can see that I've invalidated them, what do I do to fix that? Right? Like, what do I do after to remedy the situation is I think even more important than knowing to not say that to not be a jerk. Like we know to not be mean to somebody, but sometimes shit just comes out of her mouth. Like how do you, how do you fix the problem? And I think that's what's, it's not trying to be perfect, but it's knowing how to put a bandaid and fix the situation afterwards. That's what I think is important.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and you know, there's a reassuring elements, all of this, which is you can't actually fix it because we are humans and we are going to fuck up, you know, and there is an empathy is one of the things too, that I think is a big thing is, um, you know, I find it surprising sometimes that, um, that people even developing, you know, I have my own, you know, it's healthy narcissism and, and, you know, you, I tell everybody only a person with some narcissistic personality is willing to think that their story is important enough to tell everybody which is what compels, you know, certain people like us to go, I'm going to do a podcast when I have to do is really fucking important. And that's part of growing up with the narcissism around you. Um, and that whole, like, you know, the validation but from a good place for it. But then there is, you know, knowing that you know, I a lot for other people and that's the salvation of like somewhere along the way, empathy is in me and it's powerful and strong. And that's the motivation of knowing that you have the power to be able to change people's lives, which some people call manipulative, especially if they don't like what you're doing, but at the same time, doing it from a place of deep understanding, deep commitment and deep passionate love, um, is how survivors, you know, have a narcissistic, you know, people, um, you know, ended up making lemonade out of those lemons. So let's talk about your lemonade and the show that you have going on and what you're doing for other millennial moms and parents out there

that's so funny that you bring up making lemonade out of lemons because there is a coworking space out here in Toronto called make lemonade and it is a female focused coworking space. So all of the members are a women and they're women entrepreneurs. And it's all about like how they came to be by like making lemonade out of lemons. And I ordered a, like for one of the walls in our bedroom for an accent wall. It's like a lemon tree wallpaper for like the part of the nursery that we have in our bedroom. So we're all about making lemonade out of the wetlands.

You didn't even know that.

So the one way that we've brought lemonade into our lines, like that constant reminder of the miscarriage was shitty. The way that Bryce was brought up was kind of Shitty to the way that I was brought up was shitty too. But, um, how we are making lemonade is by one talking about it. So we launched on a parenthood. So all the things that expectant parents mostly geared, some millennials don't really know or don't really know what to talk about. Um, and what they can expect. Nobody talks about miscarriage. It happens in one in four pregnancies and one percent of those end up in mis, miscarriage is so they don't even know that they're having one. Um, so that's sort of what pushed us to be like so many things have happened in their life and we are like good narcissism is we wanting to us to wanting to talk about it and being really, really open. Because as soon as we are open with our miscarriage on social media, people would start messaging us like crazy saying, oh my God, me too. I never knew anybody else went through this. And it was, it was so annoying to us because we're like, why is, why aren't, why aren't? Why isn't anybody talking about this? This is crazy. And then we said, well, we can't expect other people to talk about it if we're not talking about it. So the podcast to expectant parents, zero clue is about us not really knowing what we are getting into obviously because we're first time parents and as millennials, but everybody thinks that we know everything really pretend to know everything, but we really know nothing. So that's sort of our journey of, of finding out, you know, what childbirth birthing classes we do and also talking about race and gender norms and then bringing on experts and women co founders and talking about that. And then also building the online publication to be a quick read articles on like what a Doula does and how to find them and how to be supportive of your partner and things like that. So that is, that is our lemonade.

That's awesome. Yeah. And so, and you just started it. So how many episodes have you guys been able to read?

Just released our fourth episode last night. We've been live for less than two weeks now I think. So we're still super new and we are in the kids and family category as we are a parenting podcast. The publication has been launched for about a month and a half, month and a half now.

Cool. Cool. Is there a facebook page somebody can find you on?

So unapparent Hood, U N A, P P a r e n t h o d, I'm sure it'll be in the show notes or, or whichever, but we're on instagram and on facebook. Um, our podcast is also under parenthood, so you can click on that as well. Search for us in the. We're on itunes and spotify, Google play where we're literally, our podcast is anywhere that you listened to your podcast and unapparent had.com for our publication.

Cool. Very cool. Amena, um, like I said this earlier today, you know, there's a lot of bravery and talking about family and sharing experiences because we all love to talk about how amazing life is, but you know, people do. They are starved for knowing what's really going on because sometimes seeing all the glossy stuff is overwhelming, especially when you're sitting there in your own home going, my life isn't that glossy. Like I don't, I don't get it as everybody, you know, everybody have a better life than, than me. So thank you so much for, um, for reaching out and for taking the time with me this morning to, to talk about this. Um, and so again, like she said, I will have all the links in the podcast notes and in the podcast description. So if you want to find out how to reach me and I had to listen to the podcast that they have and to see the online publication, you can totally do that. So thank you again for being here on one book,

Mom. Thank you so much. It was pleasure. Thank you for listening to one broken mom. You can find podcast notes on my website at

[inaudible] dot com, and they're all provide all links to all of the resources that we mentioned on the episode. Also, if you have any questions, comments, or ideas for other episodes, feel free to send me an email and if you are interested in sponsoring the show, I'd love to have you be a part of the team. Finally, if you like what you hear, please share the podcast and leave a review so that others can find it. You're all here to get better together. I am the host and as always, I am super grateful to have whisper. Until next time, have a great day.