Pod Insights The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos How Not to Repeat Your Parents' Mistakes (with Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach) About this episode Parents are never perfect - but their mistakes can have a lasting impact on their children. We all carry with us ideas and attitudes planted in us during childhood - and they're not always very helpful for leading a happy life. How can we unlearn some of these things and also prevent ourselves from passing them on if we have kids?
Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach have raised three children together - so have lots of thoughts on this topic. The couple behind the hit podcast We Can Do Hard Things https://wecandohardthingspodcast.com/ (and a new book We Can Do Hard Things) tell Dr Laurie how they've learned from their upbringings and decided to do a better job with their own family.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
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0:32 Laurie Santos? The holidays have a way of reminding us what matters most: our health, our loved ones, and making memories together. That's why MassMutual's Living Well Rider is now included with eligible MassMutual Whole Life Insurance as part of their commitment to supporting policy owners' total wellbeing. It's about helping people live well so they can live on. Learn more at massmutual.com/wellness. That's massmutual.com/wellness. Flu season is here, and it's a great time to take a simple step to help protect yourself and your family. That's why I'm headed to CVS Pharmacy to get my flu shot. And honestly, scheduling my appointment was a breeze. With CVS, you can schedule appointments for up to four family members at once
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1:55 Laurie Santos? Pushkin.
2:01 Laurie Santos? Modern parenting has its challenges. Lunches to prep, laundry to do, homework to help with, soccer drop offs to shuttle. There's just a baseline level of stress and busyness that comes with being a mom or dad today. But life sometimes turns in ways that sends these usual parental burdens into stress overdrive, like when there's a scary health diagnosis, or a death in the family, or a job loss. What wisdom can moms and dads turn to during these extra difficult parenting moments? What can you do to find solace as a caregiver when it feels like you're the one that needs care? Well, today's two guests have some answers. As the power couple hosts of the hit podcast, We Can Do Hard Things, bestselling author
2:42 Laurie Santos? Glennon Doyle and soccer legend Abby Wambach are used to handling tough family situations. Since getting married a few years ago, the pair have navigated the typical challenges of raising three teenagers. But recently, as Glennon explains, life decided to hurl a series of nasty plot twists their way.
2:59 Speaker 03 A couple of years ago, all within like a six month period, I was diagnosed with anorexia. Abby lost her beloved brother Peter and our sister Amanda was diagnosed with breast cancer. And this weird thing happened was, you know how in your friend groups or in your family, there's usually like one person who is okay? And so when you lose your shit, you like, you can go to somebody to remind you of who you are or of what is true. And so I think for the first time, everybody was unmoored.
3:30 Laurie Santos? How do you cope when your entire family support system is falling apart when everybody is unmoored? Well, Glennon and Abby decided to turn to what they do best on their show, sharing short bursts of wisdom with one another.
3:42 Speaker 03 Like for Abby, I was, I was writing things down for her about grief. A lot of the things that we had talked about on the pod, like moments that were anchoring and grounding to remember. Abby was doing it for my sister in terms of like health and recovery and resilience. And I and Abby were collecting moments of wisdom about body peace and all of the stuff I was going through. I think when I think about it now, I think we couldn't find the hope and wisdom inside of ourselves, so we were externalizing it. And they became these like little treasure chests that we just kept returning to over and over again. I ended up sending it to a friend who said, well, this is the most helpful thing that anyone's ever sent me. And she was joking, but she said, can you make something like this for every category of life?
4:24 Speaker 03 And so we laughed. And then I said, wait, we should do that. Because I've always wondered why in moments of like challenging moments in life, the times when you most need to access what you know and your wisdom, you lose it completely. So we just thought, why not have an answer to that where you can go to this one place and remember everything that you have learned and what other people have learned by walking these paths that will light your way?
4:50 Laurie Santos? That one place where Glennon and Abby can remember everything they've learned, they've decided to share it with their fans in the form of a new book, co-authored with Glennon's sister, Amanda Doyle. Like their podcast, it's called We Can Do Hard Things. And this little treasure chest of advice in book form wound up becoming much larger than at least Abby expected.
5:09 Speaker 03 Actually, Larry, let me tell you what she said when she opened the package with the book in it. Yesterday, we got the book. She opens it up, she holds it up, and she goes, I cannot believe that I wrote a book that's 496 pages.
5:24 Speaker 04 Ninety-seven.
5:25 Speaker 03 And I was like, why is that the thing you're... It's so weird.
5:28 Speaker 04 It's just so uncommon for a former athlete to produce and publish a long... Like, my books are shortish.
5:37 Speaker 03 The new book is a very long book. Yeah. And it's incredible for so many topics, especially the one that we're talking about here today, which is parenting.
5:47 Speaker 04 Oof.
5:48 Laurie Santos? Oof is an apt way to put it, because Glennon and Abby's book tackles at least two hard topics that I wanted to dive into during this special series on happier parenting. First, how can we parent our own kids in ways that don't repeat the mistakes our parents made? And second, how can we reparent ourselves in order to fix what our own caregivers got wrong? Take, for example, the challenge of understanding what we really want out of life. Even as adults, many of us are walking around with a set of outdated scripts about the way we should be living. That our parents wrote for us many years ago, and that simply may not fit with our current goals or identities. If we're not careful, these outdated narratives can keep us from becoming the people we want to be. And this is one reparenting challenge that Glenn and Abby talk about a lot.
6:33 Speaker 03 We are a lesbian couple. We talk about this all day, every night. We don't, we don't need to just understand each other. We need to overstand each other. So Lori, this is something that we spin around constantly because I think we do have a moment where we kind of wake up and we go, wait, is this who I really am? I've developed a certain facade, personality. I mean, in my childhood home, what was important was that I was like sweet and polite and small and controlled and disciplined, that I was always achieving. My dad used to say, you can rest when you're dead. He was a football coach.
7:11 Laurie Santos? Wow.
7:12 Speaker 03 So I think all of us, everyone listening can probably relate to the moment where you look at yourself in the mirror and you're like, have I met you yet? And besides that, there's a family role that we all get put into. I have a sister who was the hero of the family. I was an addict and had a lot of mental health challenges. So I was kind of like the designated patient and she had to be perfect. And now she's still trying to have a life where she doesn't have to be perfect. I mean, you, Abby, you talk about the facade that you had to create.
7:42 Speaker 04 I'm the youngest of seven, so the particular family system that I came from was kind of fend for yourself. You got to get what you get, whether it was a second helping of food at dinner or the true unbridled attention that I was longing for from my parents. It's virtually impossible with that many human beings in one space. And that projected onto me in a way that made me make decisions as a person, as a kid, as a young adult, that got me pretty far down the sports route. You know, I played for the United States and I won gold medals.
8:24 Speaker 04 Literally, they handed me a trophy that said I was the best player in the world, which is insane. Sanity, when you think about it, like, that's impossible. And then when I look at myself in the mirror, the night after I get that award, I'm assuming, I'm thinking that this is going to finally make me feel the thing that I have been in search of, right? The worthiness, the love, the enoughness, right?
8:50 Laurie Santos? You will be enough, finally, with this trophy, right?
8:52 Speaker 04 And so I looked in the mirror and I thought, you are the same, you still have that same weird acne. You just look the same, you feel the same. And so, I mean, the way that we both were brought up has shaped so much of the people we now know ourselves to be. But when have we ever given ourselves the space to really analyze, like, why actually am I like this? How did I become the person that thinks the way that this person thinks? Or the person that reacts in the way that this person reacts?
9:21 Laurie Santos? And this is the problem, right? Is these incredibly loving, well-intentioned parents who are trying to protect you, who are trying to do right by you. Why end up pushing this kind of thing that's not you? It's not your real self and it becomes this facade. But the sad thing is that I feel like often parents do this out of care and love. There's something that they're scared about. They're worried that you're going to be rejected for some aspect of your identity. And they're like, don't be like that. Like, it's just this misguided attempt to protect. And Abby, I know you've talked about how that played out in the context of your queer identity especially too, right?
9:53 Speaker 04 Yeah, and I think our parents really were trying the best that they could and doing the best that they knew how and making decisions in the way that was best for them at the time. I want to give them the most compassion and put them in the light most favorable and also say that it wasn't what I, in my particular personhood, needed. And I was able to do some really awesome stuff with it. So the paradox of it all blows my mind on a consistent basis. The paradox of wondering what if things were different? How would I have turned out? And I wouldn't change a thing. Some of the stuff that I experienced fortified me. And I was explaining this to Glennon.
10:38 Speaker 04 There's a part of me that feels like so grateful to my parents for, in some ways, not really accepting my sexuality at a young age.
10:48 Laurie Santos? Wow. Grateful for that.
10:49 Speaker 04 For putting me in a position to like really be striving towards this love and worthiness and acceptance. Because I created my life in a lot of ways off of the foundation of that. And she just said, yeah, honey, I get that. And also, I wonder what could have happened if love took that place? If acceptance took that place? I wonder how much more you might have been able to grow and to become. And that was tough to hear because there's so much truth in that. And I've got what I've got. I had what I had. And so I feel like I made the best of it, you know?
11:26 Laurie Santos? Yeah, if this is what like terrible trauma and your parents not accepting you looks like, you know, it's not so bad in your case, Abby, by being the best in the world. This gets to another blueprint that parents inadvertently give kids as this idea of like, what love looks like? It's not always the healthiest version. Abby, you had a story from the book about learning that love was transactional that I think played out with your kids, if you wouldn't mind sharing it.
11:52 Speaker 04 Yeah, when I was younger, my dad paid me for scoring goals. The better I did on the field, the more quote unquote pride they would have for me. And then the story in the book, I think that we talked about, was it the cake pop story?
12:08 Laurie Santos? Oh, gosh, yes. She tried to buy their love for love.
12:11 Speaker 04 So I'm very new to the family. I'm still like getting to know the kids. And I just thought, okay, I'm gonna really try to court them. So we were in line to get a coffee and I see that they have got cake pops on the menu. And I turned back and I was like, hey, girls, you guys want a cake pop? And they said, yes. And so I order the cake pop at the drive through. They said, yeah, how many did you like? And I said, I'll take all of them. And Glennon was like, wait, no, no, no, that's not parenting. And I'm like, oh, really? Now it's like a family joke because I'm like, how much, what do you guys want? And they're like,
12:48 Speaker 03 All of them.
12:49 Speaker 04 All of them.
12:50 Laurie Santos? All the everything. Yeah. But it's so easy to fall into, right? Because you want to kind of get your kids to think that something's rewarding, right? Your dad, maybe not the best strategy, but he wanted you to think that like scoring goals was rewarding. So it's like, I'll slap this other external thing on you. I'll pay you to do it. And what we forget is that our psychology is set up that when you add an extrinsic reward to something, you pay somebody or you give love and cake pops, then that makes you kind of feel completely empty when it comes to the intrinsic rewards. Like, that's the quickest way to make your kid hate soccer or feel like the only goal of soccer is just so you can get the money afterwards or something.
13:24 Speaker 03 Even the pride. I do try to think about the thing that I'm saying feels like a gift. I'm proud of you feels like a gift. But what is the shadow side of saying that? Like, I'm proud of you because you did well in a game. Implicit in that is I am less proud of you when you do not do well in a game.
13:43 Laurie Santos? There's a because in there. I'm proud of you because... Dot, dot, dot, right?
13:47 Speaker 04 One of the things I'm very conscious of now, we have a young daughter, our youngest. She plays soccer. One of the things that's the most important to me is to not get too high or low about any kind of performance that she has. Because I want her to know that whether she does well or doesn't do well, that I just love her, period.
14:07 Speaker 03 Right. So that's just another form of what we were talking about in the beginning. Like, you learn what makes people happy and then you amplify those parts of your personality. And you find out what makes your parents or family uncomfortable and you mute those parts of your personality. And then you turn 40 and you wonder why you're half a person, right? So asking these questions, like even saying, why am I like this, is the beginning. Because inherent in the question is the moment where you start to notice the water you're swimming in, which is being conscious. Like, if you don't notice the water you're swimming in, you just think that's the way it is. But if you can figure out what parts of your personality you amplified and muted,
14:50 Speaker 03 then there's a bit of a hero's journey you can go on to like explore the parts you muted and start to amplify those so that you can become more fully human and you're not just like playing a role your whole life.
15:01 Speaker 04 I just want to say one thing really quick about the pride thing because I just had this like aha moment in my body. I think parenting, what it comes down to is if we can control the centering of ourselves, then I think that a lot of parenting issues would get solved because when I say that I'm proud of you, I am now centering my opinion of you more than you, your life and your experience. So what we say is, I'm so happy for you because that is how I feel. I feel so happy for you. And it gives them the autonomy of the experience and it also takes my experience and what matters to me out.
15:40 Speaker 03 Yeah.
15:41 Laurie Santos? I love that because there's so much science that backs up that if you're allowing it to be their intrinsic reward that's about them, that's not about the identity that you want for them as a parent, then that's going to be the thing that drives them into the future, right? You're helping them develop their real self as opposed to whatever facade you want for them.
15:58 Speaker 04 That's good.
15:58 Laurie Santos? But it's very hard.
16:01 Speaker 03 Yes, sir.
16:02 Laurie Santos? When we get back from the break, we're going to hear what you've learned about how to do this better for your own kids and also what the science shows about healthier strategies we can do to kind of reparent ourself if we didn't get that from our own parents. So the Happiness Lab, we'll be right back.
16:18 Laurie Santos? There's nothing quite like having pieces in your closet you love and know you can count on for any occasion, except maybe giving someone else that same feeling. And I have to tell you, when it comes to my go-to gift this season, I think this might be the year of the hoodie, specifically Quince's Mongolian Cashmere Full Zip Hoodie, which I bought for myself and absolutely love. You know, when you get something that's so comfortable, so soft and so easy to throw on that you suddenly want to wear every day? That's where I am with this hoodie. And I started to think that instead of agonizing over what to get everyone on my holiday list, I might just buy them all one of these. I mean, who on my list wouldn't love a gift of perfect coziness? But it's not just hoodies. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere and organic cotton.
17:03 Laurie Santos? And if a cashmere hoodie isn't quite right for someone on your list, Quince has so much more. From leather bags and jewelry to cozy scarves, down outerwear, and even hotel-quality bedding. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was the Happiness Lab. It's the best way to support the show. The holidays have a way of reminding us what matters most: our health, our loved ones, and making memories together. That's why MassMutual's Living Well Rider is now included with eligible MassMutual
17:45 Laurie Santos? Whole Life Insurance as part of their commitment to supporting policy owners' total well-being. It's about helping people live well so they can live on. Learn more at massmutual.com/wellness. That's massmutual.com/wellness.
18:04 Laurie Santos? In their new book, We Can Do Hard Things, podcasters Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach explore the complex experience of raising three children while trying to come to terms with their own complicated childhoods. For Glennon, the process of truly confronting the past began at the start of her parenting journey, when she was forced to really start thinking about her future.
18:23 Speaker 03 When I found out I was pregnant with Chase and I was 25, I had been lost to addiction from the time I was 10, like, believe me, alcoholism, drugs, the whole thing. So when I found out I was pregnant, I think I just really had a moment of, oh, this is it. I felt very close to death. Like, I felt like either I clean it up now, or I don't ever clean it up. And I largely became sober, became a human being.
18:51 Speaker 03 By figuring out, what would this kid's mom do? Like, I formed a personality completely based on mom. Because I didn't have a developmental track like most people, because I was last to addiction for so long. So I really didn't go through all the things that one is supposed to go through, which has made the kids growing up, I think, harder for me than the average bear.
19:14 Laurie Santos? Mm-hmm.
19:15 Speaker 03 I've really been struggling a lot with them growing up and growing away because my only identity, not only my only identity, but my only feeling of belonging. And I think that's what I've really noticed about this time, which is that I am a person who struggles mightily to feel like she belongs anywhere. And the little microcosm in this family has been the only environment I've ever felt belonging. So to lose that now, sending all my love to all the people who are losing their belonging and identity.
19:47 Speaker 04 Because we're coming up. We, in a year and a little bit, we are going to be empty nesters. We also have artists, so likely they will be back and living in our homes.
19:58 Laurie Santos? But I think this is something that so many parents go through. You know, the parents that I work with most closely are parents whose kids are going off to college. And you have parents who've set up their whole identity, like, I am a mom, or I am a dad. And then a lot of kids are needing you less or less in the ways that you got used to. And I think this can be incredibly hard as an identity change for parents. And so, how do you navigate that while doing what we suggested before the break of not centering yourself?
20:25 Speaker 03 I've found that every phase of parenting just requires a completely different self. Because it feels like what they need from me is so different. I think if I could go back and do anything different, I think that I, a little bit too much, created in every scenario this feeling in them of mom's got me. And I thought that that was good parenting. What I'm trying to do now is more of like responses that say, oh, you've got you.
20:53 Laurie Santos? Mm-hmm.
20:54 Speaker 03 You've got you. That is a big frickin' difference. Like, I had this weird moment recently where I was thinking about, okay, me on my deathbed, the kids all around me. And I've always thought that what I wanted in that moment was for them to think she was the best mom that ever lived. And then I thought, oh, my God, that's not what I want them thinking. What I want them thinking is, I've got this. I'm OK. Not, I'm not OK now because my guide, my life, my everything is leaving. But I want to have parented them in a way where in that moment, they think, oh, yeah, I'm good. Which is two different things, right?
21:37 Laurie Santos? And I think parents can, again, loving parents who have incredibly good intentions can like, mess this up. You made this claim that it's worth pushing back on this idea that we need to mold our children, like that that's not the right metaphor. What's a better metaphor for parents to think about?
21:52 Speaker 03 I think that there is this idea that goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning, that there's a world out there and that we have to prepare our kids for that world, which really means that whatever your worldview is, based on your childhood trauma, your own, your kid's this poor bonsai tree and you're just like, cutting parts off and you're doing it out of love because you think, well, like in Abby's situation, bless her mom's heart, she was Catholic, she thought the world was gonna crush Abby.
22:19 Laurie Santos? Yeah.
22:20 Speaker 03 With her queerness, so she crushed it first.
22:22 Laurie Santos? Yeah.
22:23 Speaker 03 But what we forget is like, we are the world for our kids. So we bring them the rejection that we're afraid they're going to experience outside because we think we have to prune them to make them able to grow out there. But that doesn't work. I guess the metaphor, because I'm obsessed with metaphors and can't do anything literally, would be, it feels more to me like they're not lumps of clay to mold. Because the last thing I want to do is mold anybody in my own image. Like, good God, I'm working hard enough to change my own situation, right? And they know more than we do. Like, that is almost like moving backwards. I always think about that line from the Khalil Gibran poem about like,
23:06 Speaker 03 they are life's longing for itself, like they belong to the future where we can't even go in our dreams. I think they're more like seeds. They have everything in them when they're born that they need to become. And so our job is not to touch it, actually. Our job is just to create a fertile soil that allows them to grow into whatever they were meant to be without pruning too much.
23:31 Speaker 04 That's really good. It's kind of a faulty system, too, because it's like, this thing that we do by creating this big identity around parent, mother.
23:41 Speaker 04 Rather than creating the mindset that I am raising this child, I'm guiding this child through all the different phases of their life so that I can leave them.
23:52 Laurie Santos? Yeah, that's like the point. That's the goal eventually is they can do it on their own, right?
23:56 Speaker 04 Yeah, exactly.
23:57 Speaker 03 And bless our hearts, it's a heartbreaking, terrible system. No, I'm not giving five stars to this system. I think it's awful. But it is, in fact, the situation is all I'm saying.
24:09 Laurie Santos? And it winds up helping you because if your child wasn't a seed, if it was really up to you to mold them, then you'd have to do that perfectly, right? Your every mistake as a parent would be deeply messing them up. And this is something I know you've both talked about a lot in the book, right? Is that striving to be the perfect parent is actually incredibly dangerous and probably really harmful for your child. Part of what you need to do as a parent is that you have to show your humanness, right?
24:32 Speaker 04 Yes.
24:33 Speaker 03 What I've been playing with lately is becoming aware of your repetitive behaviors and how those affect your children. And I'll give you an example because this was like a breakthrough for me that just happened. I am doing a lot of work on myself with eating disorder stuff and yada, yada. I have like one song. I've learned that humpback whales have like one song they sing their whole lives. I just have one song and it's this eating shit and I just will keep spinning around it forever. Anyway, in therapy, I have learned that I am very judgmental. Okay, I use judgment as a way of keeping people away. I'm scared of people. I use judgment to keep myself safe and my family safe.
25:18 Speaker 03 So my family has experienced that for me many hundreds of times, meaning they will bring someone up or something up and they will hear mom go into a list of the reasons why this person is bad, why they should stay away from this person, et cetera, et cetera. Recently, I was doing that at the dinner table. I saw my little one kind of dim. I saw it in real time. Abby and I talked about it. We took her to dinner and I said to her, here's the thing. I learned some strategies when I was young because I am scared of people. One of the strategies I've learned is judgment. So when you hear me going through a list of reasons why someone is bad and you should stay away from them, that is my very unhelpful attempt to keep you safe. And it has nothing to do with the person I'm talking about.
26:03 Speaker 03 So when you see your mom doing that, I want you to not look at the person I'm talking about. I want you to only look at your mom and think, oh, she's doing that thing again. Because Lori, like, I don't know what to do with the gap. Like, I know this isn't what I want to teach my kids. I know I don't want to be doing this, but I have this gap where my body keeps doing the things. So how we, how we deal with the gap is we just point out the gap. Because what we do to our kids is we put our dirty lens over their eyes. And they don't know that that's the water they're swimming in. They just think that's the way it is. But I want her to not put my dirty lens on. I want her to see the world with her lens, which is better than mine.
26:48 Speaker 03 It's more open, it's more trusting. So that is, I think, a way, that's like the next step. It's identifying the patterns that we don't want to pass on completely. And even when we can't stop them, at least pointing them out to our kids. So that they see it as our worldview.
27:05 Laurie Santos? You also in the book talk about these cases where you really encourage kids to push back against adults, whether those adults are, you know, their parents or other authority figures in their life, so that they can develop their own views and their own story. Glenn, I think you had a version of this with your daughter and her high school guidance counselor recently. Could you share that one?
27:24 Speaker 03 I mean, look, everybody out there trying to teach their kids to be brave and stand up to authority figures, like, just look out, because we did that and now our kids are just really
27:32 Laurie Santos? That's tough.
27:33 Speaker 03 scaring the crap out of us.
27:34 Laurie Santos? That's tough. Buyer beware, I guess, on this one.
27:37 Speaker 03 Oh, wow. I mean, we're so proud, but also constantly terrified. So I think the moment you're talking about is when our middle child came home and she said, "Look, my counselor wants me to join all these clubs and I don't want to join the clubs. I'm not like a club person." And I said, "Okay, well, what's the big deal? Just don't join the clubs." And she said, "Well, I don't want to disappoint him." And that was a big moment for me because I really think that our job and what I told her is like, we need to just walk around every day with the express goal of disappointing everyone. That should be not something we avoid, something we strive for, because even that word disappoint, think about it, it's like disappointing someone else as the decision maker of your life and
28:22 Speaker 03 reappointing yourself. So I said, "Oh, honey, you got to disappoint your counselor. You got to disappoint everybody so you don't have to disappoint yourself." And she said, "Oh, even you?"
28:31 Laurie Santos? Hmm.
28:32 Speaker 03 And I said, "Oh, especially me." Like, I know people who are doing like the biggest, huge lives and they're all still just living not to disappoint their parents. Their parents aren't even alive anymore. It's the most important thing we can do in our entire lives is to stop recreating what we think our parents would have wanted us to and create what we want to create.
28:55 Laurie Santos? Creating the life we want to create. It's such an important goal, but it can be surprisingly hard to actually do. So when we get back from the break, we'll look at strategies we can use to become the people that we really want to be, in spite of what our parents may have wanted. We'll hear Glennon and Abby's tips on successfully reparenting ourselves and not making the same mistakes with the next generation when the Happiness Lab returns in a moment.
29:21 Laurie Santos? The holidays have a way of reminding us what matters most: our health, our loved ones, and making memories together. That's why MassMutual's Living Well Rider is now included with eligible MassMutual Whole Life Insurance as part of their commitment to supporting policy owners' total well-being. It's about helping people live well so they can live on. Learn more at massmutual.com/wellness. That's massmutual.com/wellness. Flu season is here, and with everything we have going on, it's easy to put getting a flu shot on the back burner. But taking a few minutes now can help protect you and your family. That's why I'm headed to CVS Pharmacy to get my flu shot. And honestly, I was really impressed by how easy it was to schedule.
30:04 Laurie Santos? With CVS, you can schedule appointments for up to four family members at once, so you can take care of everyone in one go. Just visit CVS.com/flu or use the CVS Health app to find an appointment that works for you. So make protecting yourself this flu season one less thing to worry about. Did you know that flu shots are free with most insurance plans? Visit your local CVS Pharmacy for your flu shot and get a $5 off $20 coupon with any vaccine. Schedule today at CVS.com/flu. Flu shots are no cost with most insurance. Eligibility varies by patient and insurance plan. Coupon offer not available in select states and is subject to availability. Restrictions apply.
30:47 Laurie Santos? Visit CVS.com/flu for details.
30:55 Laurie Santos? It's no secret that parenting can bring up lots of unresolved experiences from your own childhood. Watching your child mess up might trigger your own memories of feeling criticized. A big move or divorce may lead you to reflect on how your parents navigated big life transitions. In their new book, We Can Do Hard Things, Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach explain that we can embrace these moments as opportunities, not just to do better for our own kids, but also to reparent ourselves.
31:21 Speaker 04 I had this experience with my kid early on when I got into the family. We do kind of nightly ritual where we lay in bed and we'll take a moral inventory of the day and things that didn't sit right with us. And one of the things that wasn't sitting right was the way that I responded to our youngest, who came to me and said, "My knee hurts." And I just went into the way I was parented. I basically said, "You know, you'll be fine," in not so many words.
31:49 Laurie Santos? Toughen up, Buttercup.
31:50 Speaker 04 Yeah, and it felt very like I was pushing her away. And that was kind of the way that I was raised. And I think in this moment, when I was telling Glennon, she just said, "Well, you can apologize to her." And I was like, "I'm sorry, excuse me?"
32:07 Laurie Santos? Head blown, yes.
32:09 Speaker 04 I'm like, but parents don't do that. Parents don't apologize. That had never happened in my whole life. So the next morning I wake up and Emma's eaten her cereal. And I kind of explained the story, like this thing happened last night and you came to me with your injury. And I didn't handle it right and I'm so sorry. And I want you to always feel confident and comfortable coming to me with anything, even if it's a toenail that you're feeling uncomfortable about. And she just was like eating her cereal and she was like, okay, great, moving on. And it was this really important moment for me that not only did it feel unnatural
32:49 Speaker 04 to apologize to a child, my own child, but it also felt very healing. Like, I think that what we get wrong is that we think that we are just the way that we are and this is the way that it will be. But parenting is this beautiful, unique opportunity to reparent ourselves. And so in this apology with my child, I was having this experience. I felt uncomfortable, I felt scared. And then it happened and she was so great about it and loving that I just thought, oh, I bet you there were probably a lot of things my mom wanted to apologize for. And maybe she can't find the words for it.
33:26 Laurie Santos? Abby, you brought up the idea specifically of parenting ourselves, like reparenting ourselves. Why is it so important?
33:33 Speaker 04 Being the youngest of seven, I was always watching my parents and my brothers and sisters and trying to like, figure out what worked, what worked for me, what I would do different. And then you get to do that with your kids. You get to then express your own idea of parenting on your children. But I didn't know that there was so much possible healing in it for me in the ways that I wasn't parented that I might have needed. And we do have to analyze and think about, really from the beginning, like, why am I so anxiously attached? Oh, probably because my mom didn't hold me as much as I needed to be held. Because there were six other people that she was having to fend off of her body. Probably because every single one-
34:18 Speaker 04 One of my brothers and sisters left to go to college. In fact, when my sister, when the oldest went to college, she was kind of my second mom. She was the one that was holding me and changing my diapers. And when she went to college, I was starting to act out. So they brought me to a therapist, like a school counselor. And I said, like, I think that my sister Beth died and nobody is telling me about it. And so parenting and reparenting has to begin with actually really doing a deep dive on the environment that you grew up with. And if we're really present and really awake with this idea of what parenting can be, what it was for us as children, what it might currently be for you as a person
35:02 Speaker 04 right now in your parenting life, like there are ways for healing. Honestly, I've never felt more happy in my life in just watching these children experience the lives that they're creating for themselves.
35:18 Laurie Santos? Yeah, and this idea of kind of mindfully noticing what you missed, mindfully noticing what you need, it kind of fits with something that we talk about a lot on the Happiness Lab, this idea of giving yourself self compassion, which I think is one of the like fastest ways to kind of parent yourself. Like mindfully noticing, I'm struggling right now. This is not feeling good. I'm sucking. But then it comes also with this idea of like, this makes sense. No parent is perfect. No childhood is perfect. I'm just dealing. But then also treating yourself with kindness. And I know that this is something that both of you have struggled with at various points. Any strategies for parents or anybody who's struggling with this and trying to reparent themselves of giving themselves some kindness?
35:59 Speaker 03 I feel unable sometimes to figure out what I want for myself without seeing it through the lens of what I want for my kids first. And I wish I could do that, but I'm not yet able to do that. So what I would say is I think that when we talk to parents about just be kind to yourself, we're just so obsessed with doing things right or well, that that feels a little bit like BS.
36:24 Laurie Santos? Yeah.
36:26 Speaker 03 Until you start to think, okay, then forget about yourself for a minute. You think about your kid. And when your kid makes a big mistake at school, or your kid feels left out, or your kid says something awkward, or your kid loses a job. What do you want them to do after that? You probably don't want them to feel like, I'm such an idiot. Guys suck. I just am the worst. Like, okay, so if that's not what you want for them, because the only thing we know about human beings really is that they're just gonna keep screwing up constantly, like that's just what we do. So since that's the model we have to work with, we know that's gonna happen to them. The only way that they're gonna have a self compassionate inner voice is if they've seen that.
37:11 Speaker 03 That's what got me. I wish what got me is just like, obviously you should be kinder to yourself. But thinking what I want my kids to have as their inner voice when they screw up is what I have to become and model. That's what reparenting is.
37:25 Laurie Santos? Yeah, and I think that's such great advice because there's evidence from Kristin Neff's lab at UT Austin that if you want your kid to develop a self compassionate voice, you have to model that self compassionate voice and ideally model it out loud. Like Abby, your story about apologizing of like, Mom messed up. I probably should have been nicer to you about not feeling well. I'm gonna try to do differently in the future. I'm gonna take some time to think about this. That's so much nicer than secretly beating yourself up inside or than watching the consequences of you secretly beating yourself up inside. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable actually helps your kids because then they get to sort of see how you do it, which is so important for their own development.
38:01 Speaker 03 Even naming the patterns, like I could have gone to Emma and said, I suck. I'm just so judgmental. That's not the whole story. Like, I learned that as a coping mechanism. And I said, Emma, like, I'm doing my best with this. This is something that I learned to keep myself safe. It's not my favorite part of myself, but this is how human beings work. So when she's 40 and she's, okay, when she's 49 and she's talking to her kid, I don't want her beating herself up about her coping mechanisms, but I do want her telling my granddaughter what hers are because I feel like all we're trying to do each generation is like you get a certain hue of paint from your parents and you just add more white to it or whatever. You just
38:46 Speaker 03 try to like clear it a little bit each generation. So all we're doing is trying to get each other to look at our stuff and say, I'm not going to take that with me.
38:55 Speaker 04 And compassion has been really difficult for me personally. It's been my life's journey, self-love, right? Worthiness. And so for the listener who also struggles with this, like I totally get it. And it is extraordinarily hard. Like I'm my biggest critic, right? If I didn't get it perfect, if I didn't get it exactly right. There are therapists that are really helpful around cultivating a practice of this because it has to be a practice. I mean, I'm a very optimistic person and I see the very best in so many people around me. And yet, when it comes to myself, I can be so critical and so unloving.
39:39 Laurie Santos? You're so not alone. I often joke that if people could hear what we say to ourselves, we'd all get fired because HR would be like, you know, would put us all up for harassment.
39:47 Speaker 04 Yes.
39:48 Laurie Santos? And like, we're so mean to ourselves.
39:49 Speaker 03 Harassment. Oh, that's amazing.
39:51 Speaker 04 And so it is difficult, but I think when Glennon told me that too, this is early days. She said, you know, one of the most important things around parenting that we can offer our children is just the modeling of the way we live. That really got me thinking like, oh yeah, my dad drank every day and that was something I aspired to do. Oh yeah, then I became an alcoholic. Oh yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. Like I put my dad and his drinking ability on a pedestal as something that I wanted to become. And the same thing happens and it might not be as obvious and as detrimental as alcoholism. It might be snark. It might be
40:31 Speaker 03 Judgment.
40:32 Speaker 04 Judgment. It might be what kind of food you choose to eat, like modeling therapy. Like if I'm not getting this compassion for myself thing right, I'm modeling to my kids. I go to therapy every single week and they know it.
40:45 Laurie Santos? And the modeling is so useful. Because one of the things we know from the research is that a very quick emotion that parents go to is guilt. And when you start to realize that treating yourself nice, working on yourself, putting in that work, that's actually parenting for the future. That's so like when your kid's 49, they'll talk to, you know, your granddaughter in a really nice way. I think that can just give parents permission to like, take the time and put in the work to take care of themselves, which they wouldn't normally do, but when it's for their kids, they do it. There is so much good wisdom in this book. I hope all the parents listening, all the non-parents listening, go out and check out your book so that they can get as many glimmers from you as I have. Glenn and Abby, thank you so much for coming on the Happiness Lab.
41:23 Speaker 03 You're the best. You make us happier, Laurie. We just love hanging out with you. Thank you.
41:28 Speaker 04 Thanks for having us.
41:30 Laurie Santos? Parenting young children while simultaneously reparenting yourself is tough. But as the title of Glenn and Abby's book suggests, we can do hard things. And while reflecting on the past may be hard, it often comes with the opportunity to shape a more intentional future, both for ourselves and for our kids. And showing that you're willing to take care of yourself is pretty much the best way to teach your kids that they can also navigate life's challenges with self-compassion. In next week's special episode on happier parenting, we'll dive into what we can learn from parents who live in the happiest countries on the planet. We'll meet a mom from Denmark who's found that adopting a Scandinavian approach to parenting can lead to way less stress and surprising increases in family resilience.
42:13 Speaker 05 For a Danish parent, it would be no good if your child was top of the class but miserable. And actually, I spoke to some parents in Finland. He said they sort of told their children to study a bit less. It didn't matter about being top of the class. It matters about being happy.
42:26 Laurie Santos? Until then, don't forget to check out my new free online course, The Science of Wellbeing for Parents. You can learn more by heading to drlaurysantos.com/parents. That's D R laurysantos.com/parents. We'll see you back soon for the next installment on happier parenting here on the Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.
42:54 Laurie Santos? The Happiness Lab is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. You know what they say, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." So go with Amica and get coverage from a mutual insurer that's built for their customers, one that looks after what's important to you together. Auto, home, life, and more. Amica helps you protect what matters most. Visit amica.com and get a quote today. A business gift should do more than check a box. It should reflect your brand and show someone they're appreciated, recognized, and truly seen. That's why teams trust Forimprint. With thousands of high-quality, customizable products like premium apparel, drinkware,
43:36 Laurie Santos? tech, and more, it's easy to create a gift that feels meaningful and on-brand. And with Forimprint's expert support and their 360-degree guarantee, you can be Forimprint certain your order will arrive exactly as intended. Explore gifting with confidence at forimprint.com. Forimprint, for certain. Here's something the happiness research shows time and again. Small moments matter more when we take time to savor them. And I think the best gifts are ones that make it easier to be present so that we can savor those small moments. Think the kinds of pieces you notice every time you use them. That's why I've been recommending the Woodstock Red Wine Glass from Simon Pierce. Hand-blown, one at a time, with the kind of character you only get from a human hand.
44:21 Laurie Santos? Something made with that much intention has a way of getting you to notice it, which makes being present and savoring things even easier. Find yours or theirs at simonpearce.com. That's S-I-M-O-N-P-E-A-R-C-E dot com. Simon Pierce, made by hand, one at a time.
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