EVERY SPOKEN WORD
35 min read · 7,490 words- 0:00 – 1:27
Only-child stigma and the swirl of self-doubt
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
One & Done. But sometimes what you're not done with are people's comments. Really? You don't want him to have a sibling? Isn't she going to be lonely? Or your own self-doubt.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
I think maybe there's uncertainty about I know what it looks like when you have siblings. I don't know what it looks like when you don't, so that's kinda scary to think so. I think and in the uncertainty, people saying things of like spoiled, no social skills, lonely. I'm like, "Shit, is that true? What is... I don't know. I've never had that experience before, so is there something I'm actually missing here that I need to be clued in on? And if it is, I don't like what you guys are saying anyway."
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Only children get a bad rap. They're spoiled. They don't know how to share. They lack social skills. They're too dependent. And while these are gross generalizations, if you grew up in a big family with siblings, it can be daunting to imagine being a parent to an only child, especially if the road to your parenting journey wasn't an easy one, and the family you initially envisioned is different than the one you have now. I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside. Hi, Sunita. Nice to meet you. Welcome.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Thank you. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Tell me a little bit what's going on for you, and what's on your mind for this conversation today.
- 1:27 – 2:53
Sunita’s situation: a two-year-old, a firm decision, and constant reactions
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah. So I have a two-year-old daughter, almost two. She'll be two in April, and I have loved your podcast. The whole time I found it so helpful in just being able to navigate, even at such a young age, all the things that are already coming up, like helping her with her big feelings, trying to support myself as I support her at the same time, trying to deal with other people's reactions. And that's kinda what made me wanna ask this question today is, so my husband and I made the decision to have just one child, and that came after a lot of just challenges and surprises in our fertility experience, having miscarriages, and after that deciding, okay, our family looks different than we ever envisioned it was going to, but we love the family that we have the way it is now. But for both of us, we come from having a lot of siblings, and it's just so crazy seeing what it's like having a child and telling people like, "Yes, this is our only child we're gonna have," the reactions that we get, the characterizations of her at such a young age already, where she's being called certain things of, and like, oh, you know, she could be spoiled or selfish or have poor social skills or be lonely. It's like she's not even two yet. How, how can we already think this about her? So I think it's just been wondering, like, how to support a kid when people make these kinda comments about her. But I know that's gonna happen when I'm there and when I'm not there as well, and yeah, just how to help her.
- 2:53 – 6:32
Clarifying the real question: comments about family size are comments about your child
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
So how do I deal with these kind of unwelcome, unsolicited comments about the type of person my kid is going to be, maybe based on our family composition, but also maybe we stop right there. Like, how do we deal with comments people make about our children about the type of people they're going to be?
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes. Yes. That would be so helpful.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Okay, and just to add a little more context to this, do you come in with any concerns? Right? Sometimes the comments people make about our kids that irk us the most are the ones that somewhere deep down we're like, "Oh, man, I kind of worry about that, too," and you bringing it up-
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
... makes it that much bigger. Am I responding to your comment? Am I responding to my own anxiety? I don't even know. So just, like, help me understand what you come in with. And I know you mentioned, so maybe we could flesh it out a little, um, "I didn't expect my family to look exactly maybe like this." So my guess is there's some more details there that might even be relevant if, if you're willing to share.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah. You know, I think coming from a family with siblings, so I have a younger sister and an older brother, and I'm incredibly close with both of them, particularly my sister. Like, she is truly like my best friend. We spend so much time together. And I always imagined in my head when we would have kids, we would have kids, plural. And then, you know, plans all completely went out the window once we actually started trying to conceive, and we had miscarriage and then another miscarriage, and then we just kept having to revision our future over and over.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Yeah, it is interesting when we find ourselves as adults, like we're like living a life that you're like, "I didn't know I'd be living this life."
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
And other people seem to have a lot of certainty-
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
... about what that version of a life is gonna look like now and down the road. And it does bring up, like, okay, well, I know I don't know. This person seems pretty sure, and they're pretty bold in, like-
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
... telling me this, right?
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Mm-hmm.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Do I wanna take that in? Is there any part of that that is a concern I should look out for, or do I just really need to work on kinda, like, pushing that stuff away from me?
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Exactly. That's the thing, is I don't wanna lose the truth of that 'cause it's true. Yes, based on the family that we have, we do need to be more intentional in making sure that she's around other kids, that she's getting to learn some of the things that maybe when you have a sibling, it's different. It's more built in and all that kind of different stuff. So I wanna stay tuned to that, and at the same time, I don't want to... Like, 'cause I don't want her to hear those things, too. I mean, she's only, only gonna be two here soon, but she just picks up so much. I worry about what's she gonna hear in those messages.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Yeah. First, I, I, I'm thinking about this really concretely right now. I'm gonna say three things that I think-
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Okay
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
... we can do today, and let me know if that speaks to you or if you feel like we've missed something or if one of those things is, like, not really relevant. Okay. One, I wanna spend a little bit of time hearing your feelings about this journey of having one child, as if nothing has ever been said to you about it. But if, again, if there's feelings of, of loss or just other feelings that sometimes come up when our family journeys don't look the same, I wanna do that. Step two is I wanna talk with you about what part of people's comments does kind of hit a concern you might have, and then what can we do with that- And then step three, like, what do you say to people in the moment? Like, what, what are our zingers we come back with?
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes. [laughs]
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Or, you know, what are some scripts for what we can say to respond, or if possible, it's not always is, to, like, keep that out. To keep it-
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
... from never being said.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Mm-hmm.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
So those are the three things I'm thinking about. Does that resonate? Any of them feel like, no, Becky, that, that doesn't really, you know, strike me as important?
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
I like all of them. I had immediate thoughts and reactions to all of them.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Great.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes.
- 6:32 – 10:13
The fertility journey and rewriting the ‘default’ family story
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Can you share a little bit about your fertility journey, and what that was like for you?
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah. You know, I think it was, it was so many things. It was devastating, confusing, sad. Surprising at the same time too. I think there was a lot that I didn't expect. There were even conversations that my husband and I had that I don't think we would have had had we not experienced all this. Really trying to be intentional about what do we want our family to look like, what does family even mean to us? I think had our first pregnancy been successful, we would have just kind of kept going. We wouldn't have questioned the story that we always grew up with. But because we had to do that again and again, it made us just realize things that we didn't s- we didn't realize we wanted. I think that's the piece when I think about even just having one child. There's, there's a loss of the story that we had, but there's also almost excitement and relief and definitely a lot of surprise of, like, I didn't know I wanted this. But now that we have it, I'm like, oh, I actually really, really want this. It's been a huge surprise to us that both of us want only, we want this family that we have.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Yeah. So i- it sounds a little bit like there, there was, like, n- a lack of intentionality. Like, we each kind of came from bigger families-
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
... so that version of a family just kind of, you know, was the one we filled in.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Like, somehow that was colored into the, the book.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Mm-hmm.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
And then it sounds like that still was on your mind early on.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
What did it take to bring this child into the world? Like, was it, was it miscarriages? Was it in vitro? Was it just month after month? Was it... Like, what, what did, what did it take?
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah. So we, after we had our miscarriages, we had gone and then we'd gotten the advice that it could be helpful to consider IVF. And for us, at that point, I was like, I don't know if I want to necessarily do that. I think there's something about, like you mentioned, the story felt like it had been colored in and we just kind of went along with it. And this felt like kind of another piece would be just kind of going, "Okay, let's do the next thing," that someone else says. But instead realizing, oh, I think we have actually some, maybe some limits on what we want to do, what we're willing to do. What we financially, emotionally, physically just feel able to do. So we, we took a break for a couple of years. And then we got a second opinion, who said that, "You know what? You may actually not need to do IVF. I'd say just go ahead and start trying, see what happens." And that's, that's how we ended up having our daughter. We had, I had, like, some, like, progesterone and other things just to help, just knowing that I'd had the miscarriage history in the past, but that's what happened for us when we, when we had... And there she was. Yeah, it was crazy. During that pause, I mean, we had conversations about what would it be like to not even have kids at all, which was a kind of wild thing to think about. But at the same time, there was something that almost felt kind of liberating in that of being like, oh.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm guessing that's a theme that will come up again, this idea of are we locked into, like, one story of like, we have miscarriages-
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
... we couldn't have babies, and it's awful, and my whole life is, you know, over. And it sounds like even in that moment you were able to widen from that story. Like, maybe there's a world where we like each other and we don't have kids. Or, or maybe, maybe there's different versions of happiness, you know, that, that we could find. Is that right?
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
I mean, it sounds like your journey, uh, to having your daughter, you know, involved tough moments, involved surprises, and then also involved a lot of intentionality around having her. Like, we really wanna do this. We're trying this again. There was kind of, like, active decision-making to make that happen.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes, definitely. A lot of conversations. Yeah. A lot of thinking and rethinking things.
- 10:13 – 13:48
Authoring your family narrative: grounding in what’s true now
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Yeah. Which I wanna pause on, because it is interesting. You know, someone once asked me in an interview, like, "Did you always know you wanted to be a mom?" And I was like, you know, I don't know if I'd say yes to that. I also don't think I'd say no to that. Like, maybe it was the book that was given to me colored in a certain way, so it's hard to feel like you're making an active decision either way. And whenever we make decisions that way, kind of like, oh, the story was just kind of given to me, a lot of things can happen after. It's like, oh, wow, I just kind of found myself in this story. I found myself having this number of kids, or I found myself living in this area, or I found myself leaving my job, or not leaving my job. And I do think kind of being an adult [laughs] in some ways involves always untangling, like, what was the story given to me? What's the story I wanna write? Are those two things the same? And where they're not, like, what do I wanna do about it? And it sounds like the story that was given to you and your husband where, like, you're gonna have a family with lots of kids, and then you two actively made a decision of our story that we are going to write involves having one child. We are authoring that story.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Completely.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
And so while it sounds like maybe there was sadness and loss along the journey, just in those moments, which are always hard, right? When we're trying to get pregnant. Tell me if this is right. It, it sounds like that's not a very big part of your experience right now.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah. It really is. I think, I talk about it with my husband a lot, and sometimes he, I think, worries that because I talk about how, how she, like, amazing and confident and good I feel about the decision. And for sure there's moments of loss that is still there. I can feel both of those things at the same time. I think he worries, like, "Oh, are you sure about this?" I'm like, "Actually, I just keep talking because I'm so surprised by, I feel really good about this. It just feels so right for our family." And I don't think I would've known that until I met our daughter. I think that was part of it too, is I don't know how to plan our family until I actually met our family. Now I met our family, I'm like, oh, this is it. This feels great.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
And maybe it sounds, like, silly or concrete, but I actually recommend, like, writing that down, even- either as a reminder on your phone that goes off or as a Post-It somewhere. S- some version. There's no magic to these words, but something like, "I feel good about our family. I feel good about having one child. Right now, in this moment, looking at our family, which is me, my husband, and our one daughter, I feel very good and complete." Actually writing that down, Sunita, I feel like would be truly, like, grounding for you.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
It feels calming me just hearing it.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
'Cause there's such a swirl around us all the time. There's so many... Like, I always call this, like, a lot of chirping always, right? All of that chirping has so much more to do with people's struggles and their own story than any of us, but it's hard to remember that. And so being grounded in our own story, right? And someone might be listening to this thinking, "I have one kid, and I'm, I'm not as confident as Sunita is. I, I actually still have a much bigger piece of my experience that involves loss." That's okay. That's not better or worse, it just is. I would still write that down. Me looking at, you know, my family with our one kid or my one kid. You know, maybe your story is, "I'm grateful for my child, and I do still have a longing for another." Like, if that's your story, that's just as good to write down, but knowing what your story is is really key in separating out what's going on for me and what are kind of the other chirpings all around me. So maybe let's move to those chirpings, right? That's kind of step two, we said. What about what
- 13:48 – 16:40
Identifying the ‘loudest’ worry: loneliness, play, and interracial identity
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
people say maybe does, you know, kind of click into a concern or worry you have? So when people say, "You know, she's never gonna learn to share. You know, she's never gonna have anyone to play with. She's gonna be really selfish," right? These are maybe some of the chirpings people, [laughs] right, say. I'm just curious, if we just take those comments, Sunita, and we say, okay, those are all different comments, but if comments from other people bother us because they tap into some concern or worry we have, looking at that part of it is really, really important and actually really empowering. 'Cause again, we're just separating you from me. So which of those even right away, "They're never gonna have anyone to play with. They're never gonna learn how to share. They're gonna be really selfish," which would you identify as, ooh, Becky, that's the, that's the loudest one in my body?
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
I think it's the play with part.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Mm.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Especially because I think about, so I'm Indian, and my husband is white, so our daughter is interracial. So I think there's something about the, when people say like, "Oh, she's gonna be lonely," there's the loneliness that, the loneliness of being interracial that we are not, both of her parents are not. So being able to, like, if she has a sibling, there would be someone else who at least has a somewhat similar experience that we can't replicate that ourselves. Like, we will never be that. We won't have her lived experience. Even if there was another sibling, they wouldn't necessarily have her experience anyway. But I think that's the piece that, that hits me of like, oof, she's gonna be a different kind of lonely than either of us have ever experienced.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Hmm. So there's this story in general of only kids don't have someone to play with, right? They can feel a little lonely sometimes. But what you're adding is, and tell me if this is right, neither you nor your husband is interracial. Is that correct?
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
So my child won't have someone else in the family who's living through that with her.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes. Mm-hmm.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
And so there might be times she wishes she had someone to play Magna-Tiles with or throw a football with. There also might be moments, right, where she's looking at both of you, and I'm just gonna say, it's like, "You don't know what this is like."
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes. Yes.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
And what does that bring up for you? You don't know what this is like, Mom. Dad, you don't know what it's like. You know, I'm part, you know, white. I'm part Indian. That is so hard. You don't know what that's like to navigate that.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
I think the first reaction is like, yeah, I mean, you're exactly right. You're so right. I know... And that's the thing, is I think I try to pull to my own experience of knowing what it feels like to be not Indian enough to Indian to be in certain circles, but that's just even as someone who is fully in this group. So just, I think that's saying, I'm like, yeah, you're exactly right. I don't know that. I don't know anything about that, and that's scary.
- 16:40 – 20:25
The universal parenting skill: validating before fixing (‘I’m glad you told me’)
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
What I love about your response is when our kids come at us for anything, for you, it may be, you know, you don't know what it's like to be interracial, or for someone else, you know, in their family, it might be, "You don't know what it's like to be the only kid without TikTok." That reaction of like, you're right. I don't know. You and I, Sunita Wright, are both psychologists, and probably all the time we hear people's stories that we're curious about, w- want to help them kind of figure out their struggles, but inherently, w- we've never walked in their shoes, ever.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Does that ever come up in your private... Or, um, do you have a private practice? Do you see people individually, or you work in a different capacity?
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah. I work at a group practice with adults, and you know, right as you were saying that, I was thinking, I was like, yeah, you're right. I, there's so many stories that I don't know, and I think I'm expecting to go into this not knowing the stories so I can just come in and be like, "Yeah, I'm curious. I wanna know all the stories." And I think already as a parent, I have this expectation. I'm like, "Oh, I should know how you do this, so that I can tell you how to do it. If I don't know how to tell you to do it, then how do I help you?"
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
For every family structure, someone has one kid, someone has three kids all, you know, [laughs] 10 months apart, someone has kids who are eight years apart, and they wish they were closer. Like, no matter what your family structure is, there's gonna be parts of that that feel easy and natural, and there's gonna be parts of that that are tricky. Every single one. And one of the moments that you seem to identify with your daughter that will be tricky are those moments of you don't understand, or even some kids will say, "I, I wish, I wish you had another kid." "Why didn't you give me a sister? Why didn't you give me a brother?" Kids say that, right? I mean, kids also with a million brothers and sisters will say, "I wish you didn't have these brothers and sisters," right? [laughs] They, they both happen, and your stance, I feel like that will just leave you so prepared, is it's a different version of, "You're right, but just, like, I'm so glad you're talking to me about this," feels to me like the number one line parents need to memorize. Like, especially when their kids come at them with, like, feeling upset with them. "You don't understand." "I'm so glad you're talking to me about this." "Why didn't you give me a sibling?" "I'm so glad you're talking to me about that. You seem to, you know, have thoughts and feelings about that. You're right to have those thoughts and feelings. I'd love to hear more."
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes. It's such a good point. It's funny, even though my daughter is so young, I feel like saying that in the language that she can understand now about, "I'm so glad you're talking about this." Right now, like, she's been getting so upset that she wears bangles, like, which is the Indian, you know, bracelets, and she loves wearing them. At night, I'm like, "You cannot wear these at night to bed," but she, like, wants this way to sit there, and we just, like, talk about, we talk about it. I'm like, "You wanna wear the bangles. You want to wear the bangles. You have to tell me about that. We're gonna take them off eventually," but just having that, it's all that she needs to. I was, like, shocked the other day. She handed, like, she put her arm out for me to take them off. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, that worked? You're letting me take this off without, like, a full meltdown?"
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Yeah, right? [laughs] That worked. I know. Those are, like, the most, you're like, "Wow, there's something to this."
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
[laughs]
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Yeah. You know, and I use that line with a lot, with my kids when they're younger, when they were younger. Like, they'd have a meltdown about something, and saying to them, [laughs] "I'm so glad I know how important this is to you," which is another version of, "I'm so glad you're talking to me about this." Now, again, that doesn't mean knowing how important it is for them to have, I don't know, the 15th Oreo they're eating, doesn't mean I'm giving that 16th Oreo. Like, actually, those are two totally separate things, but there's something about responding to a kid's big emotional expression to us by saying, like, "I'm so glad I know about this." Again, I think, like, [laughs] if I was really mad at my husband, and I kind of raged at him, and he was like, "Wow, that's a lot, but also I'm so glad I know about how important this is," I would just melt. I'd be like, "Oh, you're right, it is important," you know? [laughs]
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Oh, that's so true.
- 20:25 – 23:29
Turning worry into capability: make the feared moment a ‘fact’ you can handle
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
And so I think when it comes to that worry you have or that fear, right? The worries and fears we have about our kids as they get older. Ugh, what if they're lonely? What if they come at me one day saying, "Ugh, I wish I had a sibling"? Like, in general, I find the things that we worry about with our kids, if we turn it to ourselves and say, "Okay, let me just tell myself that will happen. Ugh, I worry that one day my kid's gonna say, 'You don't understand.' One day my kid will say, 'You don't understand.' I worry one day my kid's gonna say, 'Yeah, I wish you gave me a sibling.' One day my kid will say, 'I wish you gave me a sibling,'" right? Like, making it into a fact and then telling myself, "And I will be able to deal with that, and that will be a point of learning and probably connection between us, and that will actually probably be a really important, hard, painful, have my own stuff come up, and important moment," really changes things from a worry that's swirling around me and making me feel overwhelmed to something I can picture and actually kind of feel competent about. Tell me if that resonates at all.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
It really does, and you know, even hearing it that way, just taking that, like, this is going to happen, I feel like it would take me away from spending so much time having that thought just circulate, circulate, circulate. Like, the number of times I've talked to my husband like, "God, what are we gonna do when she, you know, ask about if she can have another sibling?" I spend so much time worrying about that, that I miss things that are actually happening right now even.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
I think that's so right, and I'm sure there's people listening, and you're thinking like, "Oh, this issue doesn't apply to me," and on the surface, you know, we all have different issues, but underneath, probably one of the things all of us do as parents at times is we lose a lot of time and energy to worries we have about the future. And one of the things about worries and our own anxiety is that we often think we can make anxiety and worry better by kind of, like, going down a rabbit hole and, like, thinking about it forever or game planning about it, but actually, one of the best things we can do for anxiety is just remind ourselves that we're capable. 'Cause anxiety kind of pauses or deescalates when you remind yourself, "Wait, like, I'm a capable person, and if and when that thing happens, I'll be able to deal with it." And so could be, "Oh, what about when my kid, you know, asks for a phone, and I don't wanna give it to them? It's such a swirl," versus, "One day my kid's gonna ask for a phone. I'm not gonna wanna give it to them, and I'm gonna be able to cope with that. I will. When that moment comes, I will get through it. I'm a good, strong, capable parent, and I can do it." And all of a sudden, the nervous, spiraling e- energy transitions into, like, wow, like, I'm kind of a badass energy.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Mm-hmm. Yes, it really does. It feels like it gives me somewhere else to go, whether it is like, I'm gonna handle it, and I just love learning, so it's like, let me learn about how to handle it, or if it's more like, yeah, I'm gonna handle it, so now let me focus on things that are actually happening right now in my life.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
I love that. I love that decision tree. I'm gonna handle it. Do I wanna spend my time now thinking about how to handle it? Or I'm gonna handle it, so actually, what else do I wanna put energy toward [laughs] in the meantime?
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah.
- 23:29 – 24:37
Where the comments come up—and why snapbacks can feel awkward
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Those are great. So okay. So here's the third category of things we said we were gonna talk about. What do we do in that moment? What do you do when you're in the grocery store and random person X behind you is, like, waxing poetic about, you know, your family structure? Or maybe it's not there. Maybe it's at a family gathering, and you have the aunts and uncles and grandparents and great-grandparents, you know, telling you about this decision you made. Where does it come up that's most bothersome or most frequent for you?
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
I think where it comes up the most probably is within, like, family gatherings and things like that. I can think of a time recently where we were with some extended family, and a cousin asked like, "Oh, so are you gonna have another, another child?" I was like, "No, you know, we're just gonna have one, and we love it." And she's like, "Oh, you wanna give your s- give another sister? Give, like, Sheila," my sister's name. She's like, "You don't wanna give her a Sheila?" And I'm like, "I don't really wanna recreate my-" Try to having a child to recreate the same relationship I had with my sister was my immediate response, which landed awkwardly, and then it kind of s- fizzled away from that. And I think that's what I usually do. People say something, and I have to snap back quickly with the first response that comes to my mind, and it's, it doesn't usually go well.
- 24:37 – 27:38
Returning the awkwardness: boundaries, gender socialization, and self-protection
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Yeah. Well, I guess we, we have to figure out what going well means, right? One of the things that happens a lot in conversations is people do say or ask really inappropriate things, like things that are not their business, things that have more to do with their own stuff than anything to do with us. I always feel like sometimes we're just like a pawn in their game, and that never feels good. And the visual I always think about, Sunita, is like that person puts this, like, awkwardness on us, and one of the things you're saying you do is, like, you just kind of give it back to them, the awkwardness. [laughs]
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Mm-hmm.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Which I can say, I think especially, like, women are socialized against that. I think, in general, societally, people give women a lot of awkwardness, and worse than that, they give a lot of aggression or, you know, a lot of, like, really inappropriate, really uncomfortable statements. And then as women, somehow societally we've been taught, like, our job is to just, like, digest that for them. And, and I actually think it's a really powerful thing to think, you know what? Like, that wasn't mine to begin with. I'm not taking that. Like, I'm, I'm giving it back to its owner. So when you say back things like, "Yeah, this isn't really a conversation I wanna have," or, "You know, that doesn't really sound like a curious question. It sounds more like a judgment," or, "No, I'm not looking to recreate the exact family I have. I'm kind of excited as an adult to make my own decisions," it can feel like, oh, that didn't go well. But I think a different interpretation could be, someone gave me something pretty inappropriate, and I just said something to give it back. That wasn't mine in the first place.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
You know, that's such a good point. It's actually making me think something I used to love that my husband would do after we had our miscarriages. Whenever people would ask of, like, "Oh, why aren't you guys having kids?" Or, "When are you gonna have kids?" And he would usually just respond to me like, "We had two miscarriages, so we're just taking our time, grieving right now, and thinking about what we want as a family." And it would just usually be a pretty conversation ender at that point, but I always remember loving that response, too, of like, I'm glad you made it awkward right now because that... They made it awkward, actually, and you're just responding with our truth. And it felt like he was advocating for me, and I think that's something that I think about, is I want my daughter to know that I'm looking out for her. And I think I would have loved it if someone made it awkward for me growing up of make it awkward. That feels nice. That feels true.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
I love that. I love that. And I do think the image of I didn't start the awkwardness. I didn't really make it awkward. It was made awkward for me, and so I can, like, hit that ball back to the tennis court side where it initiated. Like, I didn't serve this ball. You know? [laughs] I'm just giving it back. And then often I think as women, again, it's a, a bigger discussion. We're like, "Oh, you're so sensitive," or, "Oh," like, "you don't have to say it so aggressively." And, um, it's really a perversion of the truth. If you look at it, you're like, "I did not begin it. I just, you know, hit it back over." Um, that's an act of self-protection. That's really not an act of aggression.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah. That's, it's so interesting, just that idea of like, I didn't make it awkward. You made it awkward. And I think my impulse is to almost, like, somehow contort it to make it feel nice and pleasant and not uncomfortable for either of us anymore, but I'm just gonna return it just like I received it.
- 27:38 – 31:33
The most important script is internal: what to say to yourself first
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
That's exactly right. Like, serves in tennis that are hit hard, even if you just put a racket up, it tends to go back hard. That's because it was served hard, you know? [laughs] So, um, now I think there's a couple other nuances here. Whenever I think about comments that are said to us that are inappropriate, or often I'm asked, like, what am I supposed to tell my kid to do when they're kind of bullied or when, you know, someone says ina- something inappropriate? I think often we really do focus on what do we say back, but my take here is what's way more important is what we say to ourselves, and I think that's something none of us were taught. Like, when someone says something inappropriate to us, the answer isn't coming up with a good zinger to them. The answer is actually trying to self-protect. And so when someone says to you, you know, "Oh, just one kid? Do you worry she's gonna be, like, kind of lonely and selfish?" Right? [laughs] Like, okay, there's the tennis ball. You're allowed to say whatever you want back, but I feel like more important, Sunita, is what might you say to yourself in that moment?
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah. I feel good about the family that I've created. I feel proud of it.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
I just wanna pause on that. I actually have the chills. Like, it's really interesting visually, I think, to see that ball coming your way. Like, "Oh, do you ever worry she's gonna be lonely? You know, I don't know. You're gonna think about having another kid?" And just, like, I don't know why in the movie of this moment I picture, like, a pause button.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Mm-hmm.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
And then you're on your side just saying to yourself, like, "I feel really good about my family. I feel really proud of my family and the decisions that led to this family." Like, maybe bolstering that a little more, just saying like, "I know that, and no one can take away my knowing that."
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
And then if we played the movie from there, you know, the irony is when we bolster ourself in that way, we create a little barrier. We're like, yeah, this comment now is no longer infiltrating me. It just kinda lives in the ether outside of me. And then the irony is whether we wanna come back with a, like, hitting that ball back or, like, a zinger, or whether we just decide at that moment, like, I just actually think I'm gonna kinda get up and get a glass of water and... Or just say like, "Yeah, great question. Anyway, tell me about work." Like, you know? [laughs] Like, it actually becomes so much less important because we no longer use the comment we have to someone else as a way of validating ourselves. We've already done that, and so what happens next is, like, kind of neither here nor there, which feels very freeing.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
It really does. When you said that visual of standing there and being, you know, saying that and saying like, none of this other stuff, it really matters. It's almost my mind went to thinking What was that even? Like, what did you even say? Like, I don't even remember your comments anymore. I'm kinda into this moment now
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
That's exactly right. And then I can tell you in my own life, there are moments I'm like, "I'm feeling kinda spicy today. I'm just gonna, like, I just... And, and I know this person, and I just, I'm in the mood. Like, I'm gonna, like, kinda give it back, you know?" And then there's other moments with the same person or someone else, and I'm like, "You know what? It's not that it's, quote, 'not worth it.' I just don't wanna do it." So I'll say something like, "It seems like you have a lot of thoughts about how many kids I have. If you're ever coming at that from a place of, like, actually wanting to be curious about my journey, I'm happy to talk to you about that. If it's coming from a place of feeling like there's one right way, that's not a conversation I'm interested in having. I just wanted to lay out those two options for you." [laughs] Or I feel like saying, "Yeah, I don't really, you know, that's not really on my mind right now, but I really heard that you're reading this book and I wanna hear it." Like, I just give myself freedom to say any of it because I've already done for myself what I needed to do for myself.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes. Yeah. That feels so grounding to know that regardless of what they do, I know what I'm going to do. And then when the mood hits me, 'cause it does sometimes, I do feel like giving back a zinger or something like that to the... The, the satisfaction of seeing it land feels nice, but sometimes I don't feel like doing that.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
That's exactly right. It's not like you've nothing to prove. You're just, like, might be in the mood, you know? [laughs]
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah. Yes. I feel like playing this weird tennis right now.
- 31:33 – 33:48
Teaching your child: mantras, processing after, and permission to be ‘spicy’
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Exactly. One day when your daughter faces these things, whether it's, "Oh, you don't have a brother or sister? Is that so sad?" Or, or maybe it's not that. Maybe it is something much more, in some ways, aggressive. Maybe someone makes a comment about the color of her skin or, you know, or it's just like, "You're no good at soccer. No one likes you. We don't wanna play with you." That idea of, like, I always find it powerful, like, what if we teach that to the next generation? Like, it's not about what you say to someone else. It's really about what you say to yourself. And maybe one day I can see a moment with your daughter where you're like, "Look, actually, there are times people say things to me about having one kid, and this is how I kind of pause and talk to myself." And then you're, like, really in that process together. So powerful.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah. I think that's what I would really want. And I think that's so helpful to hear, 'cause that can fire my fear. How do I coach her in those moments? I d- have no idea what the script is gonna be, so I can't tell her what her line should be in this. But what I do know is how we can talk about what she's feeling afterwards, what that was like for her.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
That's exactly right. You can talk about that. You can teach her. Like, I think kids learning the-
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
... the idea of a mantra. So a mantra's something you say to yourself when everything feels really big. A mantra's something really simple and small, and sometimes it's nice to have something simple and small to say to yourself when things feel really big, right? I don't know, something like that. That's so... Something we can teach our kids. They'll take that with them to the playground or to that sleepover or to the math class or wherever they feel vulnerable. We don't have to change what everyone says to them if we're focused on, like, kind of what they do and say f- for themselves.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yeah, we don't have to change what people say to them. We focus on what's going on with them. And I love the idea of if she's ever feeling spicy, she, you know, serves out some whatever serve she would like to that day. I, I just have an image of someone asking her a dumb question, her just coming back with like, "Oh, do you ever get sad?" Being honest, I'm like, "Yes, very sad. Now, what would you like to do with this? Where, where's the conversation gonna go?" I think there's something that I get... I hope she gets to do both.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
I do too. I feel like I will go on record saying I feel like we need some more women-
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
[laughs]
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
... like throwing out some spicy comments.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes.
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Serving the awkwardness back-
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
Yes
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
... to, you know, to where it originated. So I will, I will go on record, you know, with you saying we, we sign, we sign our names to that.
- UMUnknown (one-and-done mom)
More spiciness. Yes. Agreed.
- 33:48 – 35:12
Closing: resources, community, and the ‘good inside’ reminder
- BKDr. Becky Kennedy
Thanks for listening. To share a story or ask me a question, go to goodinside.com/podcast. You could also write me at podcast@goodinside.com. Parenting is the hardest and most important job in the world, and parents deserve resources and support so they feel empowered, confident, and connected. I'm so excited to share Good Inside Membership, the first platform that brings together content and experts you trust with a global community of like-valued parents. It's totally game-changing. Good Inside with Dr. Becky is produced by Jesse Baker and Eric Nuzum at Magnificent Noise. Our production staff includes Sabrina Farhi, Julia Natt, and Kristin Mueller. I would also like to thank Erica Belsky, Mary Panico, Ashley Valenzuela, and the rest of the Good Inside team. And one last thing before I let you go. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves, even as I struggle and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain good inside. [outro music]
Episode duration: 35:18
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Transcript of episode Yh0jooMG6Sg
