The 10,000 Paper Cuts That Teach Women Not to Trust Themselves, with Melinda French Gates

Dr. Becky asks Melinda French Gates, "What happens when women learn to trust themselves?"

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  After my first baby was born, I treated my own recovery like a complete afterthought. If the baby needed something, I showed up immediately. If I needed something, well, it would wait. But research shows that when parents have the support they need, they're better able to care for their children. Taking care of yourself isn't separate from parenting. It's a huge part of parenting. That's why I love Frida's mission to prepare women for the realities of pregnancy, postpartum, recovery, and feeding. Frida creates solutions for the moments that often catch moms off guard. The Postpartum Essentials Kit and Breastfeeding Survival Kit help women feel more prepared for those early weeks of motherhood. Be motherhood prepared and shop Frida at Amazon, Target, and Walmart today.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  I'm good enough.

• 0:44Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I'm good enough.

• 0:45Speaker 01

  I know myself enough. I'm worthy as I am. And I'm never gonna accept somebody else's worth put on top of me. I'm worthy as I am.

• 1:04Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I've been thinking a lot about how women learn to trust themselves, or don't. Or how we start out trusting ourselves and then end up as adults not even knowing what that means to trust ourselves. Think about some of the things we hear growing up. You're fine. Don't be so sensitive. You're so dramatic. It's not that bad. You make a big deal out of things that are just so small. None of these things are necessarily life-changing on their own. We've all said these things here or there. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about when you hear this over and over again, because then any kid would start to think, I guess I'm someone who overreacts. I guess I'm someone who doesn't read things in the right way.

• 1:45Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I guess other people are better at knowing how I feel than I am. Now, what happens to that girl when she grows up? Well, maybe she's sitting in a doctor's office and something doesn't feel right. The doctor says everything is normal or minimizes her story. And she thinks, well, I guess that makes sense.

• 2:07Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I've never been a good estimator of my own feelings.

• 2:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Or maybe she just had a baby and she's thinking, I don't really think I'm okay. But everyone around her is saying, well, of course you're exhausted. This is what having a newborn is like. And again, she invalidates her own story because that's what she's learned. My guest today has spent decades thinking about women's lives and women's power and women's health. Melinda French Gates is the founder of Pivotal Ventures, and Pivotal recently released new research with Gallup about women's health in America. I want to talk to Melinda about what they found, but also I want to put a lens on it around trust and how that all relates to being a mom and raising daughters and getting older and whether we figure out how to trust ourselves more.

• 2:53Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And if we do get there, how? Because I kind of think that's the journey all of us are on. What happens when women learn to trust themselves?

• 3:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I want to start with your sharing the story of your oldest daughter, Jen, meeting you at the door after work. I want to hear it, you know, your voice refresh us all.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  I driven into the garage, got out of the car, went in the back door. And I was still in my business suit from the day. And I walked in the back door and she didn't like that the first time this happened. Like she just gave me the cold shoulder and really gave me the cold shoulder for several hours. Like I was kind of crushed. And so I learned the next time, anytime I came back from a business meeting where I'd been on stage and I, you know, thought I'd done something, whatever, wonderful, it wasn't about me. And I learned I needed to put my yoga pants on and a pair of tennis shoes before I came home. And she would meet me by the back door with the caregiver with a book.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  And I would literally sit down on the mudroom floor and read her book. I needed to be in her world. She taught me that. And she was little, little, like four. Wow.

• 4:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  She, she kind of sees you and says, in some ways, you're in work mode.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:16Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That, okay, that kind of happens away from me. I want to connect to you, not with work mom, but with at-home mom.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And do you know, it's funny that you say that work mom. My youngest daughter said to me one time, Mom, stop using your work voice. I don't want you to use your work voice. Right?

• 4:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  And so, boy, do kids, I mean, you talk about this, I think, a lot. They tune into where we are. And I think as I've learned even more, as I watch my daughter now parent, she's 30 and she has two little girls. I watch her parent. She's really tuning into where they are.

• 4:57Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah. Talk, talk to me about that. What's the difference between coming home and, okay, I gotta read a book to Jen. I've then got to make dinner versus getting in your yoga pants. Was it not just an outfit change, but was it like a mindset change?

• 5:10Speaker 01

  It was a mindset and it was a slow down change. I think, I will say about myself, when I'm in work mode, I am very goal-oriented. I'm very checklist. I'm getting this done. I'm doing that done. Maybe I'm a little short with the person, you know, and even this morning, right? And, um, but when you're with a, a young child or any child, you need to actually slow down to understand what's going on for them.

• 5:38Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Right?

• 5:39Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, one of the things I think about, and it just is on the tip of my tongue as we're talking about this, is how efficiency and relationship building are often in opposition. And I don't know about for you, but a whole day in work mode, I get a lot of praise and endorphins from an efficiency mode. But relationship building mode, which is what happens when you read a book that you've read 14 times, right? The children's book 14 times in the last week is, it's inefficient by nature, but it's all about the relationship building.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  And just slow down.

• 6:18Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Just slow down and try to be where you are with that child. I mean, I think so many of my mistakes in parenting, there are many, we all have mistakes in parenting. And we need to say it's okay to have mistakes. We're all learning and, but when I was like in that efficiency mode, let's go, let's go, let's go. I literally learned with my younger two, because they were then in the same school. Jen was then my older one in a different school. But I learned with them, I had a little rhyme and a sing-song voice when we would go out the door to load them in the car.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  And we had to get, we lived in a hill, and so we had to get a certain amount up the hill before I could really engage with them. So I literally learned to say to them, mommy's in a transition time. Because I get anxious in transitions, I finally realized, I'm in transition mode. So please wait until we get up the hill. And so they would literally say, are we done with transition mode from the backseat?

• 7:23Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  What a gift to them. I'm just thinking about, and I know now they are adults and in relationships. The idea of when my partner, when my roommate walks in the door from work, that version of them isn't necessarily representative of the friend or partner they are. This might be transition, like they might be in a transition time. And often when someone we care about is in a transition time, the best thing to do is nothing, is to just be quiet.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  And I think one thing that I really am so in awe of is the generation that you're in, or my daughter who's 30 and is parenting now and her husband, two young girls, ages three and a half and two, is they are, this generation, you all are talking about your feelings more and expressing it. And it's allowing everybody else to express their feelings. And then consequently, I think they're more in tune with their, in my, in my case, I wa, I literally witnessed them being more in tune with their girls' feelings and where they are.

• 8:25Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes, yes, this generation, right, more in tune with feelings, more, they care more about feelings. I think we know the importance of feelings, right? I think we're trying to be careful not to overcorrect to feelings dictating.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 8:37Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right. For sure. All of that nuance. But I'm also thinking about research, right? You found that half of women still say they struggle with their mental health during pregnancy and in that first year after having a baby. Talk to me about that.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Yes. I just worked with the Gallup organization this summer.

• 8:57Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  To do a survey of 5,000 adults across the United States because we've been hearing so much. I know you're hearing it with the work that you do of these stories of women saying, I struggled in this way. I'm struggling in that way during the pregnancy, after the pregnancy. And I thought, I, I want to see this data to see, is this widespread? And so we did this survey, and in fact, half of the respondents said, half, they struggled with their mental health either during pregnancy or afterwards. That is staggering, half.

• 9:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  And so we do need to tune to that as a society. And to me, it says, we can't put that burden just on the women or the parents. We need to make sure the healthcare system is tuned to that, which it is not today. And that, for me, was the importance of doing a survey, as the data points to us about where the gaps are and what we need to do.

• 9:57Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So here's what I was thinking about, and I'm curious how you think about this. Gestational diabetes. Okay, let me just be clear. Very important. We have a whole system around it. I think I read it affects about 8 to 10% of women. Now, I just want to go on record. Dr. Becky does not think we should undo all the screening we do for gestational diabetes. I should stay. As you say, multiple things can be true. Keep it. 8 to 10%, serious health consequences.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Very.

• 10:25Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And so what we've done as a system and say, so serious, significant percentage, we need to look out for the signs before the woman would even know it's happening.

• 10:40Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Completely different from how we think about mental health, even though it affects half of that same population.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Why aren't we saying, okay, so we know now half of the women will face this. What can we do to make sure we help them catch it? So their partner knows as soon as they see the sign or their primary care doctor or their OBGYN. I was in an amazing clinic earlier this year in Alabama. And I met a woman named Asia Brooks, and she was not screened for her mental health with her first child and had a terrible experience. With her second child, she walked into the clinic and the first thing they do in that clinic, for every single woman that walks in the door, every woman, they screen for

• 11:29Speaker 01

  mental health and they make sure they're tuning to that before they do all the testing and everything else they need to do for the pregnancy, right?

• 11:37Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Why aren't we doing that? We can, I mean, I think the other thing to say is now that we know this, we have a responsibility to do something because we can do things. We should be doing many, many, many things for women's health.

• 11:51Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And if I think about my own journey, my first, at least let's think my pregnancy and then my first, you know, nobody prepared me. And this goes back to our probably joint perfectionistic tendencies. All the things that made perfectionism work for you when you were younger. Effort can lead to outcome. If you try hard enough, you'll get the result you're looking for. It's true, we're not supposed to judge ourselves by results on the outside. But if you're a perfectionist and if you've been a successful one, you're like, yeah, that might be true for the rest of population, but it's fine for me. Okay, then you become a mom.

• 12:27Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I wish I knew going in, I wish I was screened for, hey, Becky,

• 12:35Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  have you been able to turn effort into outcome pretty well? Have you been able to operate with some control with success? Because this might sound like a surprise to you, but that's going to be a huge vulnerability for your mental health. No matter how hard you try, I don't know when your baby's crawling or smiling. And I don't know how breastfeeding is going to go. And your baby might not stick to the schedule that you think is a barometer of being a good mom. And so let's get you ready for that. Like, that would have been.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 13:06Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Oh.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  That would have been great preparation. You're so right.

• 13:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So helpful. Okay, here's, here's another stat from your recent study. One in three women say they've had to push to get a healthcare provider take their concerns seriously. Tell me about that. And I feel like it's worth naming, you're one of the most powerful women in the world. Has that even ever happened to you?

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Absolutely, it's happened to me. And I, again, I'm in an unbelievably privileged situation, right? But I talk about this these days even more in the perimenopause and menopause phase, which is one of the things we also surveyed. In this Gallup survey, we went across the women's lives. So not just to focus on the reproductive years, which are super important, but also perimenopause and menopause, because so many women, which happened to me, my last child was born at age 37, I hit perimenopause in my early 40s. Now, I knew what menopause was, but I didn't know I was in it. I'm like, I just had my last child a few years ago, right?

• 14:16Speaker 01

  And so I had to go to several healthcare professionals to be taken seriously and for them to say, oh, you know what? You might be in perimenopause, right? Now, that burden should not be on women.

• 14:31Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  And so, you know, this is a time in life for women that is kind of unspeakable. It's invisible, you know, oh, women are going to go through it. No, no, no, we should be talking about this. We should have treatments. We should make sure medical professionals are trained, mental health care providers, right?

• 14:51Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  What, what were the things you had an inkling about, that you went to a doctor with? That were met with some version of, I don't know, eh, explain it away.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Well, I started having chronic sleep issues, chronic, right? And, and I'd seen my older friends, luckily I have three very close friends who are just a bit older than me and who had sort of warned me about this. One of them in particular, who's really on top of her health. And I started to have chronic sleep issues, but what really hit me was, I was traveling all over the globe. I was a co-chair, I had founded the Gates Foundation. But I started to have anxiety in my 40s and I thought, this is so odd. I would go in to meet with, you know, the head of a country, a prime minister, a president. I'd done lots of these meetings. I knew how to do them. And I would doubt myself. And I thought, I'm in the top of my career.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  I'm doubting myself? But again, that can happen when you have chronic insomnia and you're not sleeping, you can start to get more anxiety and even starting into some depression, right? And so that's what helped me continue to seek care until somebody said, this is what is going on, I think, for you, right?

• 16:07Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  In some ways, I think so much of our journey as women is like a journey of trusting ourselves. We think, what happens when women start to trust themselves? That's like a big question.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I'm curious how you think that's related to these moments with our doctors, where, you know, things get questioned and not taken seriously.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  I think it happens to women, girls and women all over society. We're told, you're too emotional, you're too this, you're too that. And so we go through life and we get the, as they say, kind of 10,000 paper cuts. And, and we almost learn to not trust our gut, to not feel like, actually, that person just talked over me in that meet, in a meeting. That person just repeated my point. Huh, that didn't feel good, but the meeting moves on. Well, maybe it was just, and then we question ourselves, maybe it was just me. Maybe it was, no, like, trust yourself. You can get feedback. You can go back and ask other people in the meeting.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  And I think when we go into the medical system, I mean, let's be honest, our doctors do tend to have far more knowledge. I have a daughter who's in her last year of her residency, my gosh. Her medical knowledge compared to mine, right? And I've lived a longer life's journey, but she is trained and she's still learning. So we're already walking into an office with the other person, male or female, has, is in the authority position.

• 17:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  But I think so often, women have not been in those positions of authority. So we don't push, we don't ask the question. We almost learn to untrust our gut, right? And, and so what I'm saying, and again, part of the reason I did this survey is I wanted to see what is really going on. Let's look at the data. We can't just say to women, trust your gut, keep pushing. We have to also fix the system. So the system listens to them and says, okay, you really are feeling this issue, this pain, this, you know, and let's make sure you actually get the test for that. Let's consider whether it could be this or that or this third thing, right?

• 18:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I think that interplay is so important. Like, yes, the medical system has to be better educated in women's health. We know the research on women and their bodies is so far behind, right? What it was for men. And I guess the added piece is the more any of us now are raising kids, and yes, raising girls, to learn, people are going to be in authority on a lot of different topics. But you are the authority in what's going on inside your body.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 18:50Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  There is never anyone who will be better than you at knowing how you feel.

• 18:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That doesn't mean, like, and parents will ask me, because I feel like that's really weighty. They'll be like, okay, so when my kid says, well, I'm the authority on my body. I want ice cream for breakfast, right? This is really important, because I think it's important to say to your kid, you're 100% right. You do want ice cream for breakfast. I believe you. Part of my job is deciding what's offered. It's not an option. But I totally believe you that the only thing that sounds good to you right now is ice cream. So I can validate the hell out of my kid's feeling, right? That doesn't ever mean our feelings have the right to dictate other people's decisions. But that distinction, and I think, I believe you.

• 19:42Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  One of the things I find so healing to say to my daughter and my sons is, you were right to notice that. Were you guys fighting over there? Me and my husband, we raised our voices. You were right to notice that. You've been gone so many nights this week. I traveled, you know, more nights than usual. You're right. You were right to notice that. I feel like every time I say that to my daughter.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Beautiful.

• 20:04Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I'm going to make her more able to say to a doctor later on, no, no, this appointment is not over. I know, this is real. I don't know what it is. I feel like I need your help with that part because you have all that knowledge. But I know something's off.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Or I've noticed that you're not trusting what I told you about this feeling I'm having in my body. I noticed you seem to think I don't need that test. Why might that be? Like, I love your language. I've never thought of that saying, it's, you noticed that. Then it, then it gives authority to the person who's in less authority to say, I've noticed you seem to think this about me. It calls out the dynamic of what's really going on in the room.

• 20:53Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  No, I love that addition because you're right. If we, and, yes, a girl who's been told and has that language, wait, I've been right to notice certain things in my life. Then I'm able to say to my doctor, I noticed you didn't bring up this test that someone else said might be helpful. Or you might even say, I've noticed all these things, you might say inside yourself, I'm going to find another doctor, I'm going to find another doctor, right? Because I have noticed feeling dismissed every time I leave. I have noticed my doctors have paying attention. And if I can't make that change, I'm going to still trust that enough to take a different action.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Exactly. Because only we can know what's going on inside of us. No one else has this lived experience, right? Nobody.

• 21:49Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 22:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 23:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 24:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So you have daughters?

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:12Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah, how, how do you think now, how have you thought about raising girls who trust themselves?

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Gosh, I, you know, again, I do see society changing in these ways. You know, I do see younger people, especially by the time my last child came along. So I have a, we talked about this earlier, I have a daughter, and then a son, and then another daughter. My youngest is probably the most feisty of the three. Maybe that's birth order, probably is. But I even noticed, you know, she just was more comfortable, is still more comfortable, talking about her feelings. And she's taught me the language more of feelings and how to tune to those feelings. And I think as a society, I think that's really good for girls and for boys.

• 25:04Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Because I have a son in the middle, and I will say, I see this in the workforce. You know, we've told men for so often to, don't, you know, okay, just suck it up. Just pick yourself up and keep going. Well, guess what? Boys have emotions too, and so do girls. Now, the way a lot of the corporations or workplaces are set up, they're set up for men, so we're not really tuning towards the woman's experience. But I think that is starting to change and needs to keep changing, right?

• 25:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Our workplaces were built for, you know, the work environment we had maybe 50 years ago, but that is changing. We have far more situations where both parents are working, right? And both parents are trying to care for the children. So how do we update even our workplaces? Again, one of the things I've been advocating for now for over eight years is paid family medical leave, not just for the woman, but for the man.

• 26:04Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Because when I meet men in Sweden and Norway, and I've sat with groups of men, they just, they scratch their heads. They can't believe men in the US don't take time off at the birth of the child. They say, are you kidding me? I want to participate. I want to be there. And because they've had a policy for over 30 years, it has changed the norm in society about what dads expect of themselves and what children expect of their fathers.

• 26:32Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I think that's, yes, because, look, as a psychologist, I think a lot about an individual, but at the end of the day, I'm a systems thinker, right? We all operate in the systems we're in, and the most powerful interventions aren't individual interventions, they're systems interventions. So I even think about that phrase people say, and you kind of referred to it, sleep when the baby sleeps, right? Well, you know how much easier it would be for the woman to sleep when the baby sleeps? If they had a partner who was home ordering the diapers during that time and, you know, making the appointment for the pediatrician? Because there are things that need to get done, and if you're home alone, sleep when the baby sleeps can feel, it can feel maddening to hear.

• 27:15Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Like, do you know what it takes to like, get by in my day? I can't always sleep when the baby sleeps.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Of course you can't. There's so much going on.

• 27:22Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  There's so much to do. So tell me a little more what you see in those countries. I'm curious, just the lived experience, the relationships, the mental health, things like that.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Society, so in, in these Nordic countries that have had these policies for so long, literally, it has changed the workforce. So more men and women work, literally, products change because of it. So for instance, in Norway, for instance, many people are biking to work, they're in the snow, so they have bikes now that have a carrier on the side where you can put your things, and you can put the child, and it works in the snow for a man or a woman, right?

• 28:01Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  And so I just think, gosh, when society gets on board and says, we care about the whole family, what's best for the child? And how do we then change our policies? And thus then our workplaces change, right? And just as we're seeing in the United States, as more women come up in society and are working, even products for moms are changing, right? Things, health trackers are changing, the way, my goodness, the way breast pump works today, thank God, is different than when I had children, right? So, but we need women. This is why I am so much on this point about women's health also, is that women's health is connected to women's power.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  So if a woman is healthy, she has to be well to do well. But conversely, again, we're hearing in this survey, women are stepping back in work, or they're taking hours off to seek care because they're not being heard in the medical system, or they're not going for the promotion. Women need to be able, if they want to have their career and have children, they need to be able to reach those places in society, not have to step back because of their health. And that's why we have to change the system of health, to not just be set up for, in tune for a man's body, but for a woman's body for her whole life.

• 29:26Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I'm, I'm thinking about how now all your, your kids are grown and out of the house. You were talking earlier, my kids are not grown and they're in the house, so different life stages. I'll be there probably sooner than it seems.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Sooner than you think, yes.

• 29:37Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  What was that transition like? I think about, we're talking about women and our arcs and our trust and how we stand up for ourselves, and I think this major transition for a lot of us as moms, I haven't been there yet, so I want to hear about it from you, is this huge piece of my identity continues. I'm still a mom, but my guess is it feels really different when the last one's out of the house.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  It feels really different. And I, I will say, especially when my oldest, who's now 30, but when she was little, I could literally, even when she's five, cry at the drop of a hat, thinking of her going off to college, because I would think, I love her so much, I don't ever want her to leave this house, right? And then my sister, who's two years older than me, had said, and she has two children, now adults, obviously, but she said to me, you know, but if you've done your job as a parent... You want them to have that independence and be able to go. It means you've done a good job. My mom used to call it giving us our wings to fly.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  And she said, so you're gonna feel like Melinda, if you look at it from a different angle, when they go, you have done your job. And believe me, you know, they're still gonna want you and need you, and it's different and at different times. But I was, it also made me even more grateful that I did have a career that I also enjoyed. As much as I had lots of parental guilt when they were young, I realized, oh, thank God I had a career because I also had that to stand on as they were launching off to college, right?

• 31:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah, like one part of your identity staying stable.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 31:14Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Like my whole life hasn't changed. This big piece is gonna be new and gonna be different, but still tomorrow, I'm gonna show up to the office and, you know.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, and still do the things that I love and that I've been working on. And then it's like, hey, I actually have a bit more time on my hands. So I had to be really purposeful in that transition. It is a huge transition you go through. How do I want to spend my time? Do I want to let it all get sucked, you know, into work? Cause I do love my work and I love to put my brain there. Or do I want to have more time to try some new things and, you know, even make some new friends, right? How will I make new friends if I don't have kids in school anymore? If a lot of those friendships are coming from school, right?

• 31:58Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  But it can be, the thing I want women to know is it can be such a vibrant time of life. Nobody told me that, that it could just be so eye opening and vibrant.

• 32:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Do you feel like you trust yourself more now than when you were 30?

• 32:12Speaker 01

  100% I do.

• 32:14Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I saw you answer that before I, before I finished my question.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  100% I do.

• 32:18Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Tell me about that and how? How and why did it get there?

• 32:22Speaker 01

  It took a lot of internal work, quite honestly. It was, I had to go back and learn to re-trust myself. I had to really go through in therapy. I have a great therapist. But I had to look at, well, where did I lose it along the way? What life situation, maybe an early boyfriend, maybe an experience I had in college that wasn't so good. Okay, I, I walked into a very male dominated work culture, which I loved. It was hard charging, but I absorbed certain things. And so I had let it dwindle over time in a certain way. And so it was almost a coming back to myself.

• 33:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Two things. First of all, you know, this good inside, we put many things out in the world. One of them is an app and we have these members and one of them said something I'll never forget. And it just mirrors what you said. She said, I feel like this process helps my kid grow, but it helps me return.

• 33:20Speaker 01

  Hmm, beautiful.

• 33:23Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's what, but that's what you're.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:25Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  It's a, it's.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  It's a returning to yourself and who you are, right? In fact, a lot of my friends who've known me since even high school and some of my college friends will say to me now, Melinda, you're more like yourself as when I knew you in our late teen years and inner twenties. And I thought, oh my God, what a beautiful compliment.

• 33:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That really is. The second thing I wanted to double click on, okay, so you mentioned maybe some stuff in high school or a boyfriend and college, and I know people listening, I do think it's so, such an interesting way to think of it. So much of our adulthood is figuring out how to return, right? It's so true. And also we're like, oh, we got so far away. And so to think about these patterns, these moments, like what is it when each moment, a little bit, you're saying we stop trusting ourselves? I'm just like, what do we prioritize instead? What do we focus on instead in those moments? That leads us a little too to abandon ourselves, right? I don't know. I wonder if.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is a form of abandonment.

• 34:32Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah. And what, what gets, what's the story we tell ourselves that ends up? Or for you, what's the story you told ourselves in college in these moments in high school that took over the self-trust?

• 34:43Speaker 01

  I think it was different in different moments, but I don't think I trusted somehow that I was enough. I was in a, I was in a relationship in college where the young man was a year older than me. And it was a relationship that went on too long. I let it go on too long, but it was verbally abusive, very verbally abusive. And I think I started to believe some of those terrible messages he was saying to me about myself, about my looks or not being enough in this way or that way. And when you start to adopt somebody else's belief system, you are abandoning yourself, right?

• 35:25Speaker 01

  And so even though I extricated myself out of that relationship, then I find myself in a work environment that's very male oriented. It's hard charging and we are changing the world. I'm at Microsoft, I love it. But it was kind of a different belief system. This is the way you do things. And I could almost only see myself when I would be away from that work environment. In fact, my best friend, who's still my best friend today, we met on the first day of high school. She came and visited me early in my career at Microsoft. And she was able to point out to me, you act like everything is about being smart. It's not. And I realized I was adopting that from my work culture. That, and I thought, I don't like myself. I don't like who I'm turning into.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Like I could see I was curt or short with people at the grocery store or the cashier or, and I realized, why am I adopting a different belief system than who I want to be? I need, I had to learn even in that work environment to return who I was. I was willing to leave my job if I couldn't be myself. I finally realized how important it was to be myself in that work environment. I'm good enough.

• 36:38Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I'm good enough.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  I know myself enough. I'm worthy as I am. And I'm never gonna accept somebody else's worth put on top of me. I'm worthy as I am.

• 36:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Speaking about growth, you now have grandkids too, as you're saying, girls.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  Two girls, yes.

• 37:02Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I sometimes find myself, and I think the language of you were right to notice that. I think the reason it feels so good to say to my daughter is I'm like also saying it to like my inner child. Or like there's certain things I find feel not only powerful, but like almost healing to me to say to my kid. And I'm curious if you ever find yourself acting in a way with your granddaughters or saying things that part of you like, oh, I could have really used this when I was, when I was younger.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  I would say that's come up more with my adult kids.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  But I would say with my granddaughters, it's much more about the second I walk in the door, it's about trying to tune to where they are. So almost every single time I meet, meet them, I'm sitting on the floor. And wait for them to come to me. If they're not quite ready, one of them comes running and the other just isn't ready that day. I happened to see them yesterday. One had just gotten up from her nap. Guess what? She wasn't quite ready. She was happy I was there, but she was reserved and she needed me to be a little more quiet and, and whatnot. And I thought, I did think afterwards, gosh, I wish somebody had taught me this about my own kids. And I wish I had been tuned to that way, right?

• 38:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Versus the overwhelm we all feel when we kind of take it personally? Is that like, that's it, like, oh.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:29Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I came to visit or why aren't you ready or kind of things like that?

• 38:32Speaker 01

  Yes, I think two generations ago, it was like the child had to be sort of perfect at the front door. Gaze in the eye, shake the hand, all of that, you know?

• 38:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah, which is that actually perfect example. I'm thinking about that mini abandonment.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:46Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Of, I mean, I'm gonna really tear up when I think about how powerful it is for a girl to know, I'm not ready yet.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  I'm not quite ready. I just need another moment.

• 38:56Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  But how early on we teach girls to undo that? And I think the idea of I'm not ready, I'm just gonna put it out there. There's so many, yes, romantic, sexual implications of that. That's not where it starts. But our body, when we have a feeling of, I'm not ready yet, our body isn't asking sexually, emotionally. No, it just knows, am I allowed to not be ready yet? Is that safe? Can I trust that? Or have I learned to perform for others?

• 39:25Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  When they're ready?

• 39:27Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  In a way that I've totally overridden even being able to hear that own voice.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're right. It starts really, really young.

• 39:37Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And it sounds like with your granddaughters, that's so beautiful, you know, where she's not ready yet.

• 39:43Speaker 01

  No, she just woke up.

• 39:45Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Does it's not a barometer on how much she loves you?

• 39:47Speaker 01

  No, and it's not about me. That's the other thing. I mean, I think that's one of the most important things I've learned as a grandparent. It is so not about me. In fact, I am so in the absolutely secondary role. I, you know, I happen to get to be lucky enough to sit at dinner last night with my daughter and her two little girls, right? My job is to sit back and watch how she parents them and just be supportive in some way if I can. You know, it's her rules, or if I happen to be with her husband and he's got the two kids, what are their rules? And I'm just there in the support role or even in the quiet role, right?

• 40:26Speaker 01

  And I'm learning all the time. I'm like, holy smokes, this is amazing. They have patience and spades that I felt like I never had.

• 40:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I can just tell you, Melinda, I know the piece of this podcast that's going to be clipped up and every parent is going to be sending it to their mother-in-law.

• 40:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  My role is to sit and watch and just be quiet and wait. And I mean, it's amazing that you can do that. Are there moments where you're like, oh, they're messing this up? Oh, I want to say something. They should be doing it different. Or you just have the discomfort, or maybe this is a better way of asking it. Are you saying that you've, I think the discomfort that can happen with watching someone do something different? Sounds like you can sit with that.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  I can. I can sit with the discomfort and say, wow, I didn't know that. I didn't know that way of parenting. I wish I had known that. What am I learning here in this moment? What am I learning about that self-tuning? And sometimes you see the way somebody parents you go, you know, I can take that back to a friendship, right? Or work. Or work or other places. Again, to me, life is about growth, right? And I think we also have to acknowledge, like, I look at my parents' generation. They did a remarkable job. My gosh, my mom is such a good listener.

• 41:43Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  And they were doing the best they could with the information they had then and the career that they had. And I tried to do the best I could in a difficult situation at times. Other times it was much easier, right?

• 41:56Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  And so we have to have some forgiveness, but no, I, I definitely don't think there's one way to parent. I think there are many, many, many ways to parent kids. And I just look at it as a, as a learning opportunity for me at this, this age. It's like, it's wonderful.

• 42:12Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Well, also I have to say, coming back to this theme of trust. It sounds like you trust yourself enough and feel good enough inside yourself to approach differences with curiosity and not look at them like they're some sign of your not being good enough.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  They are not at all a sign of, they are their own human beings. And I write, I did write about this a bit in a book I wrote called The Next Day, which is, I wished I had learned the idea of being a good enough parent so much earlier. I learned it when my youngest two were in middle school and because I was such a perfectionist in life, in academics, and then in my work career. And so I thought there was, you know, perfectionist mom. What is, what is a perfect mom? There's no such thing. And I'm doing the best I can. And when I finally learned in middle school that I was a good enough parent, when I learned the concept, I, I looked at it, I'm like, okay, I could say to myself, am I a good enough parent?

• 43:12Speaker 01

  You bet I'm a good enough parent. And my kids, it almost dropped the, it, it did, not almost. It dropped the pressure off me. And guess what? It dropped the pressure off of them because I stopped putting my pressure on them. And, um, and it just kind of calmed things in the house, right?

• 43:32Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  A hundred percent, you know, I know we're coming to an end, but me and my kids always say, perfect is creepy. You know, it's like, kind of just creepy. It's like robots, it's, you know, and it kind of takes, we always laugh about it and, and then it opens up learning and curiosity and connecting and figuring things out together. So I'm right there with you on doing that. Perfect mom narrative is so important. Kids wouldn't benefit from perfect parents anyway. So not possible.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  And there's no such thing.

• 44:03Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And no such thing. Love it. Thank you.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you. Thanks for all you're doing.

• 44:14Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I want to end by taking this whole conversation and making it super practical to you. I'm going to share three lines that always feel really good to me to say to my kids. Yes, they're a little healing. And at the same time, I know I'm building the type of self-trust that is going to help them immensely for the rest of their lives. One, I believe you. Two, you're right to notice that. Three, there's something about this that doesn't feel good. You're sensing that. Now, I want to remind you, you can say all of those things and still set a boundary. You're building self-trust by giving your kid credit for clocking something inside their body.

• 45:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That is totally different than the decision you end up making. This topic of confidence is my latest passion project, and it's one of the reasons I couldn't be more excited and honored to team up to give my confidence program away for free. I mean, totally free, $0. Why? Because I think people in the world really need this. And I think you're going to be surprised as you go through the program, which is a bunch of really short, three-minute videos. I think the first one you can do when you're hiding in your bathroom. You're going to find something super healing and confidence building in yourself as well. Link in the show notes. Go check it out. Let's end the way we always do, but I want to make a quick note.

• 45:43Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Melinda French Gates was saying that the key to her confidence building journey was learning that her self-worth, her good-enough-ness existed within her as a baseline. When I think about the way we always end this podcast, I think that's the exact same message we're building up in ourselves. Though it's never felt more important to do this exercise together. Place your feet on the ground, place a hand on your heart, and let's remind ourselves, even as I struggle on the outside, I remain good inside.

• 46:22Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I'll see you next week.

• 46:32Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 47:15Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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