Good Inside with Dr. Becky - One & Done

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Even though the myths about only children have been debunked, the stereotypes remain. Only children are more selfish. Only children are spoiled. Only children are lonelier. In this conversation, Dr. Becky talks with a one-and-done mom who is tired of answering the question "Are you going to have another?".Join Good Inside Membership: http://bit.ly/3GG4xTsFollow Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinsideSign up for our weekly email, Good Insider: https://www.goodinside.com/newsletterOrder Dr. Becky's book, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, at goodinside.com/book or wherever you order your books.For a full transcript of the episode, go to goodinside.com/podcast

One and done. But sometimes what you're not done with are people's comments. Really? You don't want them to have a sibling? Isn't she going to be lonely? Or your own self-doubt? 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 kind of scary to things. And I think in any uncertainty, people saying things like spoiled, no social skills, 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 glued in on? And if it is, I don't like what you guys are saying anyway. 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. We'll be right back. If you're like most parents, I know you're busy. The last thing we want after a long day is to plant in her shop for ingredients and

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Get 50% off your first order at LittleSpoon.com when you use the code GoodInsideVIP at checkout. Hi Sunita, nice to meet you. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. It's inside of here. Tell me a little bit what's going on for you and what's on your mind for this conversation today. Yeah, so I have a two-year-old daughter, almost two, should be two in April. And I have loved your podcast. The whole time I found it so helpful

and just being able to navigate, even at such a young age, all the things that are already coming up, like helping with the 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 kind of what made me want to ask this question today is, so my husband and I made a 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 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. It's just so crazy seeing what it's like having a child and telling people, yes, as our only child we're going to have the reactions that we get, the characterizations of her

as such a young age already, where she's being called to in things of, like, oh, you know, she could be spoiled or selfish or have poor social skills or being lonely and like, she's not even too yet. How can we already think this about her? So I think it's just been wondering how to support a kid when people make these kind of comments about her. So I think it's just been wondering how to support a kid when people make these kind of comments about her. Well, no, that's gonna happen when I'm there

and when I'm not there as well, I'm just gonna have to help her. 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? Yes, yes. That would be so helpful. OK, 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 hurt us the most are the ones that somewhere deep down, we're like, oh man, I kind of worry about that too.

And you bring it up, makes it that much bigger. Am I responding to your comment? Am I responding to my 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 flush it out a little. 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 you're willing

to share. Yeah, I think coming from a family with siblings, so I have a younger sister and older brother, and I'm incredibly close with both of them, particularly my sister. She is truly up in my best friend's spent so much time together. And I always imagined on my head, when we would have kids, we would have kids plural. And then, you know, plans all completely without the window once we actually started trying to conceive and we had miscarriage and then another miscarriage.

And then we just kept me having to revision our future over and over. Yeah, it is interesting when we find ourselves as adults, like we're like living a life that you're like, I know I'd be living this life. And other people seemed to have a lot of certainty 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 telling me this, right? 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 kind of like pushing that stuff away for me?

Exactly, that's the thing is, I don't wanna lose the truth, it's true. Yes, based on the family that we have, we do need to be more intentional and 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 want to stay tuned to that at the same time. I don't want to, I guess I don't want her to hear those things too. I mean she's only,

only going to be two here soon, but she speaks up so much. I worry about what she can hear in those messages. Yeah. First, I'm thinking about this really concretely right now. I'm going to say three things that I think 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 not really relevant. OK.

One, I want to 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 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? What are our zingers we come back with? Or what are some scripts for what we can say to respond? Or if possible, it's not always is to keep that out, to keep it from never being said.

So those are the three things I'm thinking about. Does that resonate? Any of them feel like no, Becky, that doesn't really strike me as important? I like all of them. I had immediate thoughts and reactions to all of them. Great. Yes.

Can you share a little bit about your fertility journey and what that was like for you? Yeah. You know, I think it was so many things. It was devastating, using, 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 of those. We really try to be intentional about what we want our family to look like, what does family even need to us? I think had our first pregnancy been successful, we would just kind of keep going. We don't have a question to 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, we didn't realize we wanted. I think that's the piece when I think about even just having one child. There's a lot of

the story that we have, but there's also almost excitement and relief and definitely a lot of surprises. 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, not only, we want this family that we have. Yeah. So, it sounds a little bit like there,

there was like a lack of intentionality. Like we each kind of came from bigger families. So that version of a family just kind of, you know, was the one we filled in. Like somehow that was colored into the book. And then it sounds like that still was on your mind early on. Yes. What did it take to bring this child into the world?

Like was it miscarriages? Was it in vitro? Was it just month after month? Was it like, what, what, what did it take? 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 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 of how they have 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 along with the people who would do the next thing that someone else says. But instead realizing, oh, I think we have actually 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 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 even do IVF. I say just go ahead and start trying, see what happens.

And that's what we ended up having our daughter. We had, I had like some like, progesterone and other things just to help just knowing that I've had the miscarriage history in the past. But that's what happened for us when we... Yeah. And there she was. Yeah, it was crazy.

During that past, 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. I'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah. And I'm guessing that's a thing that will come up again. This idea of, are we locked into like one story of like we have miscarriage, we kind of 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 maybe there's different versions of happiness, you know, that we could find. Is that right? Yes. I mean, it sounds like your journey to having your daughter involved tough moments, involved

surprises, and then also involved a lot of intentionality around having her. Like we really want to do this. We're trying this again. There was kind of like active decision-making to make that happen. Yes, definitely. A lot of conversations. Yeah, a lot of thinking and rethinking things.

Yeah. Which I want to 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'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, this 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 the 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 in some ways involves always untangling. Like, what was the story given to me? What's the story I want to write? Are those two things the same? And where they're not, like, what do I want to 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. Yes, completely. 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 sounds like that's not a very big part of your experience right now. Yeah, it really is. I think I talk about it, my husband a lot. And sometimes he worries that because I talk about how,

how is she like amazing and confident and good I feel about the decision 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 I'm like are you sure about some like actually I can talk to him so surprised but I don't think about it this is just feels so right for our family I don't think I would have 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. It's both great.

And maybe it sounds like silly or concrete, but I actually recommend writing that down, either as a reminder on your phone that goes off or as opposed to somewhere. So there'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, Sanita, I feel like it would be truly like grounding for you. It feels calming me just hearing it. Because 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 in 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 not as confident as Sunita is. 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 my family with our one kid or my one kid, 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 churppings, right? That's kind of step two, we said. What about what people say? Maybe does, you know, kind of click into a concern or where 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 chirping people right, say, I'm just curious if we just take those comments, you need to, 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 because again, we're just separating you from me. So which of those even right away? They're never going to have anyone to play with. They're never going to learn how to share. They're going to be really selfish. Which would you identify as, ooh, Becky, that's the the loudest one in my body? I think it's the play with part, 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 when people say, oh, she'll be lonely. There's the loneliness of being interracial that we are not, both of her parents are not. So being able to look like if she has a sibling

There would be someone else who Has someone similar experience that we can't replicate that ourself If we will never be that we want to have her lived experience even if they were the siblings They wouldn't necessarily have her experience anyway But I think that's the piece that hit me a lot. She's gonna be a different kind of lonely than either of us ever experience 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 the truth, right? Neither you nor your husband is interracial.

Is that correct? Yes. Yes. So my child won't have someone else in the family who's living through that with her. Yes. And so there might be times he wishes she had someone to play magnantiles with or throw a football with. There also might be moments where she's looking up

at the view and I'm just gonna say it's like, you don't know what this is like. Yes. Yes. And what is that bring up for you? You don't know what this is like, Mom. Dad, you don't know what it is like. Yes, yes. 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, why I'm part.

Indian, that is so hard. You don't know what that's like to navigate that. I didn't have the first reaction. It was like, God, I mean, you're exactly right. You are so right. I know, and that's the thing. I think I kind of pulled to my own experience of know what it feels like to be,

not Indian enough, to Indian to be in certain circles. But that's just even as someone who was fully in this group. So I think that's, man, like, yeah, you're exactly right. I don't know that. I don't think about that, and that's scary. 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, so need to write our both psychologists and probably all the time we hear people's stories that You and I, so you need to write are both psychologists and probably all the time we hear people's stories that we're curious about, want to help them kind of figure out their struggles. But inherently, we've never walked in their shoes. Ever.

Does that ever come up in your private, do you have a private practice, do you see people individually or are you working in a different capacity? Yeah, I work at a group practice with adults and you know, right, if you're saying it, I think it's like, yeah, you're right. 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 be like, yeah, I'm curious. I want to know all the stories. And I think already, as a parent, I have this expectation of like, well, I should know how you do this, but I can tell you how to do it. If I don't know how to tell you how to do it, then how do I help you? Hey, so I want to let you in on something that's kind of counterintuitive about parenting. The most impactful way we can change our parenting actually doesn't involve learning any new parenting strategies.

The most impactful way we can change our parenting is by giving ourselves more resources so we can show up as sturdier, so we can show up as calm amidst the inevitable chaos. It's what our kids need from us more than anything else. This is why I'm doing my mom rage workshop again. I'm doing it again because it is one of my most popular ones to date. It's coming up July 19th, but no worries if you can't make it live. It'll be available as a recording for whenever you have the time. I promise it's really the best investment we can make, not only in ourselves, but also

in our kids. Can't wait to see you there at GoodInside.com. For every family structure, someone has one kid. Someone has three kids, all, you know, 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 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 the million brothers and sisters will say, I wish you didn't have these brothers and

sisters. They both happen. And your stance, I feel like that will just leave you so prepared, happen. And your stance, I feel like that will just leave you so prepared, is it's a different version of your 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. Yes. It's such a good point and it's funny even though my daughter is so young, I feel

like saying that in the language she understood now about us so glad you're talking about this. Right now, she's been getting so upset that she wears the angles that which the Indian bracelets and she loves wearing them. And I don't like it. I cannot wear these at night, to bed. But she wants this with the sit there. When we just talk about, we talk about it. I'm like, you want to wear the bangles.

You want to wear the bangles. Yeah, tell me about that. We're going to take them off eventually. But just having that as 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'm gonna catch that work. You're letting me take this off without a full meltdown?

Yeah, right. That worked. I know those are like the most things. You're like, wow, there's something to this. Yeah. 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, I'm so glad I know how important this is to you, which is another version of, 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. 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, 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? Oh, that's true. And so I think when it comes to that worry you have or that fear, the worries and fears we have about our kids

as they get older. What if they're lonely? What if they come at me one day saying, I wish I had sibling, 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. 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. It really does and you know even hearing about waves taking that this is going to happen. I feel like it would take me away from spending so much time having the thought to circulate, circulate,

circulate, circulate. I've been a number of times that probably might have been like, how are we going to 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. I think that's so right. And I'm sure there's people listening and you're thinking, 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 de-escalates

when you're mind 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, you know, what about when my kid, you know, asked 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 energy transitions into like, wow, I'm kind of a badass energy.

Mm-hmm. Yes, it really does. It does like it gives me somewhere else to go. Well, there it is, I wanna handle it. And I just love learning. So I'm like, when they learn about how to handle it or if you're like like it gives me somewhere else to go. Well, there it is like I want to handle it And I just love learning so I'm like, what about how do I know or if you're like, yeah, I'm gonna handle that So I'm gonna focus on things that are actually happening right now in my life. I love that. I love that decision tree I'm gonna handle it. Do I want to spend my time now thinking about I handle it or I'm gonna handle it So actually what else do I want to put energy towards in the meantime? Yeah, 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 are you doing here in the grocery store? And random person X behind you is like waxing poetic about 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? I think where comes up the most probably is within family gatherings and things like that. I could think of a time recently where we were at some extended family. And a cousin asked, I was going to have another child. I was like, no, we're just going to have one and we love it. And she's like, oh, I don't want to give another sister.

Give my Sheila my sister. She's like, you don't want to give her a Sheila. I'm like, I don't want to recreate my, I have an entire recreate-to-recrate relationship I had with my sister with my immediate response, which landed awkwardly. And then it kind of fizzled away from that. And I think that's what I usually do.

People say something. I have to snap that quickly with the think that's what I usually do. People say something, I just snap that quickly with the first response that comes to my mind. And it's, it's usually go well. Yeah. Well, I guess we have to figure out what going well means, right? One of the things that happens a lot in conversations is people do say you're 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 they're just like a pawn in their game and that never feels good. And the visual I always think about Sinita is like, that person puts this like awkwardness on us. And one thing you're saying you do is like you just kind of give it back to them,

the awkwardness. Which I can say, I think especially especially women are socialized against that. I think in general, society, people give women a lot of awkwardness and worse than that. They give a lot of aggression or a lot of really inappropriate, really uncomfortable statements. And that as women somehow, society, we've been taught like our job is to just digest that for them. 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 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. 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 miscarriage.

Whenever people would ask about, why aren't you just having a kid? They're going to have a kid and he would just just respond to me like, we had to miscarriage just to take our time grieving right now and thinking about what we want to the family. And it would just usually be a pretty conversation-ender at that point. But I always remember loving that response too, but I'm glad you made it awkward right now because 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 as someone made it awkward for me growing up but make it awkward. That feels nice, that feels true. 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, I'm just giving it back. And then often I think as women, again, it's a bigger discussion. We're like, oh, you're so sensitive or, oh, like you don't have to say it so aggressively. And 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.

That's an act of self-protection. That's really not an act of aggression. Yeah, that's a still entrepreneurship side. You have a, I didn't make it awkward. You made it awkward. And I think my impulse is to almost somehow contorted 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. That's exactly right. Like serves in tennis that are hard. And even if you just put a racket up, it tends to go back hard. That's because it was served hard. You know, so, now I think there's a couple of other nuances here.

Whenever I think about comments that are said to us that are inappropriate, or often am asked, like, what am I supposed to tell my kid to do when they're kind of bullied, or when someone says 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, oh, just one kid, do you worry? She's gonna be like, kind of lonely and selfish. Like, okay, there's the tennis ball. You're allowed to say whatever you want back, but I feel like more important, Sneetha's, what might you say to yourself in that moment?

Yeah. I feel good about the family that I've created. I feel proud of it. I just want to 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, Taylor worries 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. Mm-hmm. And then you're on your side to say to yourself, like, I felt really good about my family. I felt really proud of my family and the decisions that led to this family.

Like, maybe bolstering that a little more to say, like, I know that. And no one can take away my family and the decisions that led to this family, like maybe bolstering that a little more, just like, I know that. And no one can take away my knowing that. Yeah. And then if we played the movie from there, you know, the irony is when we bolster ourselves in that way, we create a little barrier. We're like, yeah, this comment now is no longer

infiltrating me, it just kind of lives in the ether outside of me. And then the irony is whether we want to come back with the like hitting that ball back or like a zinger or whether we just decided that moment, like, I just actually think I'm going to kind of get up and get a glass of water and or just say like, yeah, great question. Anyway, tell me about work. Like, you know, 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.

So what happens next is like, neither here nor there, which feels very freeing. It really does. When you say that visual upstand there, saying that, and then this other stuff, it really matters. It's almost my mind went to thinking, all of that, what if you even say, I don't even remember your comment anymore, I'm kinda going to this moment now.

That's exactly right, and then I can tell you in my own life, there are moments I'm like, I'm feeling kind of spicy today, I'm just gonna, and I know this person, and I'm in the mood, like I'm gonna give it back. 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.

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 want to hear it. I just give myself freedom to say any of it because I've already done for myself what I needed to do for myself. Yes. Yeah. That's also grounding to know that regardless of what they do, I know what I needed to do for myself. Yes. Yeah. That's also grounding to know that, regardless of what they do, I know what I'm going to do. And no one in mood hits me because it does. Sometimes I do feel like you're being back up and zing or something like that,

to the satisfaction of seeing a man feels nice. But sometimes I don't feel like doing that. That's exactly right. It's not like you've nothing to prove. You're just like might be in the mood, you know? Yeah. Yes, I feel like playing this word kind of program. Exactly.

One day when your daughter faces these things, whether it's, oh, you don't have a brother, sister is that so sad 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 want to 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're no good at soccer. No one likes you. We don't want to 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, we'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. Yeah. I think that's what I would really want. And I think that's so helpful to hear. Because I think the part of my fear, how do I culture in those moments? I don't have no idea what the script is going to be.

So I can tell her what her learning 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. That's exactly right. You can talk about that.'s feeling afterwards, what that was like for her. That's exactly right. You can talk about that. You can teach her. I think kids learning the idea of a mantra. So a mantra is something you say to yourself when everything feels really big.

A mantra is 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 turn the math class or wherever they feel vulnerable. We don't have to change whatever one says to them

if we're focused on like kind of what they do and say for themselves. 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 did her feeling spicy, she you know serves out some whatever service you would like to that day. I just have an image of someone asking her a dumb question.

Her just coming back with, like, how do you ever get some sad thing on it? I'm like, yes, very sad. Now, what would you like to do with this? Where's the conversation going to go? I think there's something that I get. I hope she gets to do both. I do too.

I feel like I will go on record saying, I feel like we need some more women like throwing out some spicy kerosene serving the awkwardness back to you know to wear it originated. So I will I will go on record you know with you saying we we sign we sign our names to that. More spiciness yes agreed. Thanks for listening. To share a story or ask me a question, go to goodinside.com slash podcast. You could also write me at podcast at 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 Newsom at Magnificent Noise. Our production staff includes Sabrina Farhi,

Julianna and Kristen Muller. I would also like to thank Eric Obelsky, 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. you