Zaiba Hasan is a host of the Mommying While Muslim podcast, as well as a parent coach who’s trained in Positive Discipline, Spiritual Mediation, and Adolescent Brain Cognition. (Ep. 361)
Bethany Saltman is an author, editor and researcher, and my work can be seen in magazines like the New Yorker, New York Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Parents, and many others.
Strange Situation: A Mother’s Journey Into the Science of Attachment, (Ep. 337)
Dr. Lynyetta Willis is a Psychologist and family empowerment coach. She helps frustrated families break free from Stable Misery and create more joy in their parenting or partnerships. (Ep. 366)
400: Parenting Wisdom
Hunter Clarke-Fields, Dr. Lynyetta Willis, Bethany Saltman, and Zaiba Hasan
It’s the 400th episode of the Mindful Mama Podcast!!! To celebrate, Hunter hosted a party/roundtable with a few of her favorite guests. She talks to Zaiba Hasan, Bethany Saltman, and Dr. Lynyetta Willis about how parenting has changed in the last 20 years; What should parents be focusing on? What do you wish you knew as a young mother? And so much more.
Parenting Wisdom with Hunter Clarke-Fields, Lynyetta Willis, Bethany Saltman, and Zaiba Hassan [400]
Read the Transcript 🡮
*This is an auto-generated transcript*
[00:00:00] Zaiba Hasan: We are not raising children for a world that existed when we were young, cuz that world no longer exists. So we do have to alter and change our Parenting to accommodate for that,
[00:00:18] Hunter: you are listening to the 400th episode of the Mindful Mama podcast. I am so thrilled you're here today. I am having a round table slash party with three of my favorite guests talking about Parenting wisdom.
Welcome to the Mindful Mama podcast. Here it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have. And when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, hunter Clark Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children.
I've been practicing mindfulness for over 20 years. I'm the creator of Mindful Parenting, and I'm the author of the bestselling book, raising Good Humans, A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind Confident Kids.
Welcome back to the Mindful Mama podcast, my friend. I can't believe that I am welcoming you to the 400th episode of the Mindful Mama Podcast. My God, when I started this podcast so many years ago, wanting to have the conversations I wasn't hearing. I would've never ever in my million years imagined we have done 400 episodes.
Holy moly. Listen, if you have gotten some value from any of these 400 episodes, please do me a favor, wish us a happy birthday and go over to Apple Podcasts. Leave us a rating and review, and it just helps the podcast grow more and it takes just a few seconds, and I hugely appreciate it. It makes such a big difference.
And to celebrate this 400th episode, I have invited on three of my favorite guests from the past to talk about, just get into the nitty gritty with some Parenting wisdom. So I'm so thrilled. Today on the podcast, we are bringing back Zeba Hassan, host of the Mommying, while Muslim podcast, as well as parent coaches trained in positive discipline, spiritual mediation, and adolescent brain cognition.
Bethany Saltman, author, editor, and researcher and her work can be seen in the New Yorker, New York magazine, Atlantic Monthly Parents, and she is the author of the great book that I recommend, so often, strange Situation, a Mother's Journey into the Science of Attachment. And as well as Dr. Lynn Willis. And she's a psychologist, family empowerment coach, and she helps frustrated families break free from Stable Missouri and create more joy in their Parenting and partnerships.
And Zebo joined me on episode number 360 1. Bethany joined me on episode 3 37 and Lata, join me on episode 360 6, if you wanna hear more about these amazing people. And so we are gonna be talking about how Parenting has changed in the last 20 years. What should we parents be focusing on? What do you wish you knew as a young mother?
And so much more. Yay. And it's the 400th episode. I'm so thrilled. I'm so glad you are here. This is such an awesome episode. You're gonna love it. So let's just dive right in.
So this is such a great treat for me to have you all here. As you were some of my favorite people on the podcast. And so this is the 400th episode. Oh my God. And I wanna get philosophical a little bit with you. And I was thinking about like how has Parenting changed in the last 20 years and is it going in the right direction?
And maybe I'll start with you Ava, cuz I know you had some thoughts about that.
[00:04:00] Zaiba Hasan: Part of my specialty is breaking intergenerational trauma, right? So that is my big focus. And I love doing what I do because Parenting has changed. And how has it changed is that we have more knowledge now, right?
Like these are things that in theory we could read about. But now that are showing up on the m our MRIs are like, it's physically changing our brainwaves. We are not raising children for a world that existed when we were young, cuz that world no longer exists. So we do have to alter and change our Parenting to accommodate for that.
I was at a recent workshop that I was leading and there was a young a young dad there with the younger kids who was like, my kid, he just doesn't listen back in my day if I didn't listen to my dad, he would just have to gimme a look. And he said that kind of with pri right?
You hear that a lot, right? And they say it with pride. You are a mid thirties man that's still talking about it. Is that something you wanna be talking about? And that's what you wanna do for your child. So that's a question that I pose is that the fact that you as an adult are still being triggered by something like that, a look from your dad, which was probably, let's be honest.
I was raised up with corporal punishment, so there are certain trigger factors that I had to deal with as well. Do we want that for our kid? And are there other ways that we can get them, by the way, not get them to do what we want them to do, but direct them to be ultimately become the people that they're meant to be.
There are many ways to do that, and when you know better, you do better.
[00:05:38] Hunter: I agree. Do you think it's the fear factor, you guys, do you think that, Lynette you also work with change changing intergenerational patterns? Are people torn about this? Whether they should be using the fear factor or not?
[00:05:52] Zaiba Hasan: Be, everything is fear-based, right? And I'm sure Dr. Willis but for me, for the intergenerational trauma, fear is the number one thing. And that's ultimately why parents do a lot of the things we're do cuz we are fearful of the outcome. Yeah. And the other thing that I
[00:06:06] Dr Lynyetta Willis: noticed too is that we tend to, when we're stressed and we're overwhelmed, we go back to what we know, right?
We revert back to old habits. So a lot of the parents that I work with and my programs and one-on-one, what I find is that there there's this pendulum shift experience that they have where they will come out and they'll say, okay, I wanna do this differently. I wanna switch how, raise my kids differently from how I was raised.
And what ends up happening is they will listen. And should I say, interpret a lot of the present day suggestions on Parenting? And what they'll interpret that as is I should just basically be a doormat and I shouldn't say anything or do anything and just, I can't have opinions or needs or anything. So I'm just gonna be yeah, that works for an hour.
And then all of the sudden the stress builds, the pressure builds the, nervous system gets activated and then they swing all the way back to what they were doing before, which is the yelling. And I call it the four horsemen mindset. The pain, the blame, the shame, and the avoidance. Those, so those are the four horsemen come out and then they feel a ton of guilt and frustration and overwhelm.
And then the fear that comes up is, oh dear God, I'm screwing up my kids. And so they just keep going back and forth on this pendulum. And then also the other thing, so there's the habits that they were raised with, and then also there's this sense of This sense of not only am I going to, will I screw up my kids, but also a fear that, when my kids go off to college, will they wanna come home?
Am I gonna have the type of relationship with them where they're gonna be excited to come home? I actually had a mom who was in my program and she literally sent me a text. She was in my program when her kid, I think was like a sophomore in high school, and she sent me a text and she said, I'm driving to pick up my son from college as he wants to come home.
So there is a lot of fear and overwhelm and a lack of trust of internal self. I don't know what to do. I can't do this right? I don't know how to get this right. So there's also this lack of self-trust that I can figure this out. And so I think all of those factors come together and throw in social media and all the perfect.
Images of everybody else doing it perfectly. All the Photoshop stuff and yeah, it does bring forth a lot of fear and anxiety and overwhelm and lack of
[00:08:41] Hunter: confidence. Yeah, I guess we like know so much more, right? So we know so much more about psychology, about resilience, about all these different things, but then we weren't taught these all things aren't native languages to us.
So we're off in the woods, right? And so we're changing things, but we're like on this unsteady ground because we're changing things. But then another thing I think is like in the last 20 years, things have gotten really a lot more protective. It's a lot more safety too. That I see is a major challenge for kids.
I don't know. Bethany, what do you think? Yeah, I'm,
[00:09:13] Bethany Saltman: it's interesting. I'm noticing my reactions to what everybody is saying. I think that, in terms of the question of, the 30 year old man who is saying, who's remembering, I just needed a look from my dad in order to get in line.
I would say I'm a 53 year old woman and I would say I remember the lack of attention when I was feeling unmoored and unhelped. And I just had a really interesting conversation with my teenager. We were in Cancun with friends of ours who we brought the kids have grown up together that our 10th time going to this same resort.
And no, I won't tell you the name of it, it's, we're, it's under locking key. We're not telling anybody, so no one knows. So we were talking about just my daughter loves to, she was 17 and amazing and she really likes to reflect on how she was raised. And and I was the scary mom, and I wrote about this in my book.
Everybody knows it. And she will, she loved to shoot me a little look across a dinner table cuz she knows, we all know that I was, I had a temper and was wanna manage that. And I think that I I certainly, what am I saying? I'm saying that she now talks about feeling help.
She's proud of learning how to behave because she sees other kids in the world who are walking all over their parents who don't know how to sit at a table, who are disrespectful, who don't get the positive reinforcement of being in the world as a kid with manners who is raised with a mom who could shoot her a
[00:11:01] Dr Lynyetta Willis: look and say,
[00:11:02] Bethany Saltman: don't you dare say that thing I see in your mind out loud.
Because, not that I was going to physically hurt her, but I was very much like really wanting her to have an experience in the world where people responded positively to her. It was really important to me based on all kinds of things in my own history. So I was that person who with a look could really get in there, and she's absolutely pretty happy about it.
Now she's only 17 and a half, so there's lots of room for her to reflect and say, oh my God, I was so triggered all the time. And if and when that happens, I'm totally here for that conversation. But I, I think what you're saying Dr. Willis about going this pendulum, like I, I'm a doormat.
I'm I'm an abuser. That's where we really wanna look at as. Know, I think the best thing to happen in Parenting, which is really humoring right is this idea that we should, and that we can take care of our own inner landscape and that's what's going to really
[00:12:10] Zaiba Hasan: help our children.
A hundred percent. And understanding Dr. Boza, this permissive Parenting and authoritarian Parenting are very different. And that's how I explain it. You don't have to let your kids walk all over. Like my son is now, he's he's almost 20. I have, my oldest is 20, my youngest is 10.
So I have, and I have two in between. And I have that 20 year old who literally will tell me he's a boy who will tell me everything. Does he, did he go to beach week? No. Was he the only one of his friends that didn't go to beach week? Yes. Did he go to spring break with his friends? No. He came home instead and did it and was with his family.
So this is not saying you have to be permissive and you have to go along with everything. But this is saying, I can say it in a calm way. He knows that you mean it when you say something. There's a very different thing. When I say no, it's yeah, don't ask me. That's not happening, but I can still be loving when you need me to make.
He called me other day, he's I need you to make me brown people food and drive it down because I have, I, I will go give, make you brown people food and bring it down because that's what you need. This is not saying that it's gonna be all one thing or the other. And to your point, Dr. Willis, finding the tools and techniques so that you can be in the middle is ultimately what we wanna give parents.
So that pendulum swing doesn't happen on a day-to-day basis.
[00:13:40] Hunter: Yeah, the middle path is messy. It's all we know, right? Like a lot of us know are like, oh, I don't wanna be like my valor. I'm not gonna be like raging down the hall to spank my child. And I could see, I could see when I was yelling at my daughter and I was scaring her when she was two, I was that person with that temper too.
And I could see, oh, this is really what I don't want. But then I knew I didn't wanna swing all the way to permissiveness. Like I've had conversations with so many experts about Parenting and sometimes, in the realms of conscious Parenting, I've heard, the only expectations I have for my kids are.
You know that they're nuts. She's not pregnant and she's not on drugs by the time she's 18. And I'm like that's great, but
[00:14:23] Zaiba Hasan: that's a bad expectation. You're setting them up for failure. Okay.
You clearly don't expect anything out of them. Okay. Just
[00:14:40] Dr Lynyetta Willis: don't be a sociopath and we'll be good. Be good.
[00:14:43] Zaiba Hasan: Don't be a
[00:14:44] Hunter: sociopath. I know.
[00:14:46] Zaiba Hasan: Stay off the pole, ladies. That's all I care about. I have much
[00:14:50] Hunter: higher expectations. Like you, Bethany I want them to sit at the table with me. I expect them to do chores around the house.
I don't, I saw them not have their knees up while they're like sitting at the table. Boy, that's still the one we're working on. But and it's hard. Like we, we can take all this fear of what was, and the harms of what was, and those harmful patterns where was, and then just throw everything out.
And it, the middle path is a little messier. It's not as clear. It's not as cut, stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
I
[00:15:34] Bethany Saltman: just wanted to say one final thing about fear. I think we're too afraid of fear and I think we're too ashamed of shame. And I think healthy shame and healthy fear are really important. Like kids should be a little afraid of their parents if they did something really bad, if they, hurt someone or have made a big mess and didn't clean it up or whatever the thing is.
I'm not saying shaking and so afraid that they can't move forward, but fear is part of the human repertoire of emotion and parents need to feel it. Children need to feel it. We need to come together on it. We need to know, when is enough and how to attune to what's really going on in ourselves and in our
[00:16:20] Hunter: kids.
Yeah, I guess it's part of any relationship, right? If you make a big mess up in any relationship, you're gonna be scared that you have. Messed up that relationship. So that is natural and normal.
[00:16:33] Dr Lynyetta Willis: That's what I was gonna say. It depends on fear of what, when my kids go off, if they find themselves in a really hairy situation, I don't want their first thought to be, how can I hide this from my mom?
Because that was my first thought. Oh, dear God, way over my head, can't handle this. I need an adult right type of moment. But the first thing I'm thinking is, how can I hide this? I want my child's first thought to be, I've gotta call my mom. I've gotta call my dad. And so I don't want them too afraid to call me when they really need me.
I do want, I don't spank or any of that stuff, and I can give my kids a look, and it's funny though, when I give him the look, they're like, ohoh, he kinda, he comes almost this little comical oh, all right, we get it. And it's this sense of That's not okay what you're doing right now.
And they have an internal reaction. I don't even think it's always in a fear of what I'm going to do, but it's like this reminder like, check yourself. And then they're like, oh yeah, no, okay, I probably don't wanna do that.
[00:17:45] Zaiba Hasan: It's like
[00:17:45] Hunter: relationship based, right? What you're describing, Lynette is like the relationship base.
Like they intrinsically see that. If you're upset, like it matters to them because your relationship is dropped, right?
[00:17:56] Bethany Saltman: That's our job.
[00:17:57] Zaiba Hasan: That's our
[00:17:58] Dr Lynyetta Willis: job. Unless they're dysregulated, I'm gonna be real. My kids will. My kids are not perfect. Like their are things that they do that if I did when I was their age, it would've been game over.
I would not be sitting here with you right now. And for me, the way I look at it, and often what I talk to parents about is looking at it through the lens of what I. Lesson are you teaching me right now? And what lesson can I teach you, right? Or are you telling me that it would be helpful for you to learn in this moment?
So it's not so much stop embarrassing me, stop it. You can't talk to me like that. It's, whoa, that was, what was that, right? And then it becomes, what are you teaching me right now? Maybe you're teaching me that electronics two minutes before bed is not a good idea cuz it's really hard to get you off the electronics.
Thank you for that lesson very much. And sometimes I'll say that to my kids, I'll say to them, you are teaching mommy right now. Please make sure it's the lesson that you want me to learn. And that will also get them
[00:19:03] Bethany Saltman: like, ah.
[00:19:06] Dr Lynyetta Willis: Because often when I say that it's something I've allowed or I've permitted, maybe I shouldn't have, maybe I should, think twice about that.
So being able to let them know this is, I'm learning too. And my favorite word in the English language is experiment. It's all an experiment. Try it out. See what happens. And I tell my kids that, they're like, can I do blah, blah, blah? We can experiment with that. I'll be honest with you, my fear is that like with electronics, at the end I'm gonna say, it's time to get off and you're gonna one more minute, me about 15 times.
That's my concern. No. I won't do it. And then one more minute. Remember what we talked about 30 minutes ago? Oh yeah. And so it's one of those things where, again, it's that relationship. It's me reflecting back to you, you reflecting back to me, and it's not me shutting you up, shutting, stop crying before I give you something to cry about.
Get up to your room. You can't talk to me that way. Talk to me that way. That gives me really good information that then I can use to make a choice about is there a boundary that needs to be said or held? Is there a lesson that needs to be learned? Is there a conversation that needs to be had? For me it's definitely the, that situation where I've switched my thinking away from I need you to do this and you need to be this way.
And more as we do these things and as these things happen, what am I learning? What are you learning? What are we teaching each other, and where do we wanna go from here? So I'm
[00:20:40] Hunter: hearing from this, like we, we are at we are in an authoritarian place and we are moving away from that, like culturally.
And as we move away from that, we don't wanna just go to the extreme. We wanna have those boundaries, wanna hold those boundaries, but hold them more skillfully than, with a little more emphasis, with more emphasis on relationship and our needs and our kids' needs than we had in the past. So I love this.
There's a lot there. So I'm curious about, there are a lot of things nowadays that parents are worried about. And I know there are some things that parents worry about a lot that maybe we shouldn't be so worried about when we should actually be focusing on something else. Any ideas on what are these things that we are a little too worried about that we could just chill out about a little bit more?
I guess for me it goes back to that idea of. Safety, like this idea that we have somehow gotten. So maybe was the faces on the milk cartons in the eighties or whatever it was, but like we, yeah. Yeah,
[00:21:43] Zaiba Hasan: or our own experiences. I've been in multiple situations where I've had people lock me in a bathroom.
Like I, I've mean, granted, I grew up in the inner city of Chicago, so perhaps my experiences are a little bit different than other people. But I had those experiences being in a very urban setting that now in my suburban world, my children are like, Why are you so hyper vi vigilant? Because I've had those experiences and maybe a lot because by the way, we weren't I'm probably like, I'm gonna be 44 in May.
So like I, by par I was a latchkey kid at five because we weren't necessarily as supervised. We were totally the opposite, right? Where my mom didn't know what we were doing, who we were doing with any, as long as I didn't bother her in their life, they didn't really care. So then you do have that response or that reactionary that I'm gonna be super vigilant.
Like I have to admit that when my son went to college, the first thing he said to me is, I want to go off of life 360. I'm paying for my own phone now. Which is what part of that was our thing. He's I said, if you wanna be off of life 360, you're paying for your phone. I, he's I will do that. It was the hardest decision that I had to make and you know why he wanted me to be off of it.
He said, because you are gonna be so stressed out about what I'm doing, where I'm going, cuz I know you're gonna be watching me. And taking it off the table means you will be relaxed. I will text you or call you every single day, which he has. And that's what I did because I went the opposite where I had to know where they were, what they were doing because of those e experiences.
So I do agree that pendulum that, but that safety thing is I think a product of some of our the parents that are Parenting, that we didn't have any, we didn't have any buddy looking out for us or wondering where we were to now we're like, oh, all these things could happen. And the access to information.
[00:23:36] Hunter: Also we were actively shamed. Like we parents were actively shamed for not knowing where their kids were. If somebody gets
[00:23:43] Zaiba Hasan: kidnapped, it's 10 o'clock.
[00:23:45] Dr Lynyetta Willis: Do you know where your kids are?
[00:23:48] Zaiba Hasan: Yes.
[00:23:48] Dr Lynyetta Willis: Oh yeah, I forgot about them.
[00:23:51] Zaiba Hasan: They were ads for that, right? Exactly. Wasn't it? I was like, it's 10 o'clock.
Where is he? Where are
[00:23:56] Dr Lynyetta Willis: they? Wait, your parents were shamed, like how was
[00:23:58] Hunter: it? No. I don't think it affected my own parents personally. But my kid, my daughter, when she was 11, she went on, she had a friend over at the pool with her that was 10 years old. And I was like, okay, we live I dunno, we live like a quarter, just like a five blocks about from our pool.
And so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go head home now with the car. I'll see you guys later, you can walk home. And her friend told her, oh, this is the first time I've ever walked anywhere without an adult. And I was like, Oh my gosh. She's 10 years old, she's never walked anywhere at all without an adult.
And it was just shocking to me as like one of those kids who was like latchkey all around town kind of thing. I dunno.
[00:24:40] Dr Lynyetta Willis: Yeah, I remember I had a key, it was literally the key around my neck. And I would get home and I would let myself in. I think for me too, there's another element because I am that mom a bit and I mean I grew up in relatively safe environments.
And I do think it does have to do with the information piece being a black woman in America with a black son and a black daughter. And my d my son, he's 14, and he's taller. He's six feet tall. And we know that research says that children look. Older, right? Black children of color in general, but especially black children, are often perceived older than they are.
So you have an eight year old who's acting like an eight year old, but they're assumed to be 12 or 13, and so they're treated very differently. And so there's a part of me that is absolutely very protective of my child. When I see things like George Floyd or I see things like, all of these things where I'm just like, I'm that mo.
Like I have that inner Mama bear. Or I'm always very aware of. Where are my kids and what's happening and what are they, what did that person say to you? And so for me, it's definitely something that I've thought a lot about personally because I would like, especially in the summer, we would be out of the house after the cartoons went off, cuz there was a time, remember back in the day, cartoons actually went off, right? Like cartoons actually went off and you just had to be home before the streetlight came on. They, somebody fed us. I'm guessing at some, maybe we drank out of our house somewhere, right? Now that idea is comical for me with my kids.
I'm like, really? That's gonna be really
[00:26:19] Zaiba Hasan: interesting.
[00:26:21] Hunter: But it's such a shame though. It's such a shame. I totally understand all of that, but it's such a shame because then the kids go outside and there's no other kids, like the kids whose parents are like, go outside, go play. There's no other kids.
They're all inside. Because inside is so much more interesting and parents are really worried about things like abduction, which, you would have to sit your kid out on the street for something like 2000 years to be able to like, literally, like that's who sta from Lenore. It's 2000 years you would have to stand out on a street corner in order to be abducted.
[00:26:56] Zaiba Hasan: And statistically it's gone down, right? That's what people don't realize. Yeah. But you'd be surprised cuz we are that family, like my two younger boys go play outside. They're the only ones that. Play outside when they were younger, even though I would be watching them periodically. I had a neighbor, this is not a joke, come to my house and tell me that I should be outside watching my children.
[00:27:19] Dr Lynyetta Willis: Wow, okay. I don't sit out and watch 'em when they're outside.
[00:27:23] Zaiba Hasan: That's just at the time there were six and eight. Okay. Wow. They're, and they're playing, and they're very watchful. They know not to go in the street. They had two older siblings, so they're, they're a little bit more savvy.
But that's the other thing. You have a lot of these, I guess what my son would call a Karen that's, sorry to all the Karens out there and literally came to me in my house. Why are your children out here by themselves? They're six and eight. They're playing together. They know our boundaries. So I used, I had to start sitting on the porch with them when they were outside.
Really? Wow. Just because I, it just wasn't worth, it was one of those things where it's I just would take my compu, it was the same shame factor. You're like, gosh, I'll, and I would take my computer and I would do my work outside and and it is what it is. But there is that piece too.
And I think to your point, it's the access to information we now know of kids being kidnapped in Australia that we probably didn't know before.
[00:28:29] Dr Lynyetta Willis: Actually, I didn't know that. Thank you for putting that in my head. Appreciate it. Exactly.
[00:28:33] Zaiba Hasan: Like I'm really sorry about that. But or like right now, unfortunately with all the gun violence, all of these types of things, like that's a legitimate, we're not trying to make this a political thing, but that's a legitimate thing that people aren't, that fear factor that it, that's increased by social media.
The ins like having a computer in the pocket of our pants. Like having that access to information. Also increases even parents like ourselves that are relatively informed and educated, we are heightened in certain things and we can become a little bit stressed out. Granted, we have the tools to help walk us down those lines a little bit, but that's not the normal everyday parent.
So of course they're afraid, when that's what's being thrown at them every single day. I never thought of this before, but
[00:29:21] Dr Lynyetta Willis: it's so funny because now we, like you hear play date all the time, right? And it's like that wasn't a thing you just went over to Jenny Hey, can Jenny come out and play?
Right? There's no date. And now it's like there's always a play day. Let's have a play. Which denotes some sort has to be scheduled and it has to be from this time to this time and cuz mom's gotta come pick you up. So it's a really interesting thought, like where did those come from? I was
[00:29:49] Hunter: gonna say
[00:29:50] Bethany Saltman: that one of the things that.
I think that we are really worrying about that we maybe shouldn't be worrying about in this way is all the fear about our teenage girls. Yes. There is a lot of anxiety about girls anxiety and as someone who used to be a teenage girl and who is now raising a teenage girl I think, I can only speak for my own experience plus everything I've, read and learned in all of the teenage girls that I know of, azalea's friends and what's out in the world.
But I really, my sense of the way that we understand Peelings is just that we are so overwrought and yes, there's a lot of danger and I think it comes through patriarchy. Which I don't think we worry enough about. Yes. And I don't think we worry enough about pornography. Yes. I don't think we worry enough about eating disorders, about diet culture.
And I don't think we worry enough about phones in children's pockets. Yes. Children's. I don't think we worry enough about screens in children's faces chil specifically children like babies, toddlers, adolescence. It hurts my heart. It hurts me so much. And that's another thing that Azalea really, bopped against when she was young and now she looks at kids in restaurants on screens and she's mom, oh my gosh, that poor kid, that poor family, they can't talk to each other.
But I, so there are all these
[00:31:37] Hunter: things that we just because
[00:31:40] Bethany Saltman: there's so much pressure to let it happen, the phones. The dieting, the, Instagram when you're freaking seven years old, whatever.
[00:31:48] Zaiba Hasan: Yeah. Heck to the, no. Oh my gosh. I'm not even on
[00:31:51] Bethany Saltman: Instagram. That's a whole nother conversation.
But I think what we worry, what we are worrying too much about is girls ability to have big and deal with their stuff. Because girls are powerful human beings when given the chance, and I think we're giving the wrong message. It's like we're and I'm making I'm figuring this out as I'm saying it, but there's something about the tools versus the attitudes.
It's like we're giving the wrong attitudes and the wrong tools. And something needs to change in there. We're, we need to empower girls, maybe don't raise them on this steady diet of harmful tools. Empower them, help them feel them like themselves, help them feel like they can handle what's happening in their lives and in their relationships.
Again, back to relationships relationships are complicated and they can do it. And I think we also don't worry enough about medicating children and worrying about every problem that comes along and medicating it. Instead of, having the wherewithal in ourselves to really handle what are the feelings?
How can I do this? What can, what do you need? What do I, as your
[00:33:10] Hunter: parent? Yeah, we're like, we're worried about the feelings, right? We're worried about our anxiety, we're worried about our kids' anxiety. If, God forbid, it used to be like, just don't have any feelings at all. Go to go, don't cry, go to your room.
That was the sense before and now we're switched to yeah, feelings are okay, but it's still that, that whole idea that feelings are not okay or are still pervasive. But now the feeling that ki feelings are not okay, is this idea that, oh, if our kids have some anxiety or worry, things like that's not okay.
It's something that we have to fix. We're not allowed to have that full range of emotion either for ourselves or for our kids. Yeah, I think that there's obviously a line here, right? Where like they're, but I think you're right. It's it's gone to an extreme. I could really see that.
Linea what were you gonna say to that?
[00:34:04] Zaiba Hasan: You
[00:34:04] Dr Lynyetta Willis: know what's interesting? I was having this conversation with someone recently where it's really. I think a product of projection, right? It's hard for us to tolerate in someone else the theory things we can't tolerate within ourselves. And a lot of what I teach, I would say most of what I teach is around awareness and acceptance of our own feelings and our own bodies.
Since I just did a recording today about that, and around how easy it is. Even for me, when I get super stressed, I shut off. I can shut off my emotions and body sensations like that. I walked on a broken foot for an entire week, didn't even realize it's broken entire week. You wanna talk about that as some like Olympic size level stuff right there?
Not, and I don't even get a medal for it, and I really reflect on that. I'm like, who does that? Oh yeah, somebody who's really good. I got a PhD in that too. How to shut off my emotions and body sensations really good at that, so I think a lot of it has to do with. We as adults, as parents, creating a relationship with our own feelings and our own body sensations where we can view them and experience them without freaking out.
Like we can't even stand in a line at a grocery store and just be, we have to pull out phone like, oh, gotta do something stillness. Ah, because we don't know what's gonna come up. It's like a fear of ah, I might think and feel and ah, so when our kids who are magnificent mirrors in teachers, when they come and they're like, I hate you.
And we're like, no, not ok. It's because I think when those parts come up within us, we're like, bye bye. No, not ok. And we reach for the phone and the Netflix or the bottle or the pill or now I wanna say, That there are absolutely 100% legitimate reasons for a child, a teen and adult to be on medication.
So this isn't like an anti-medication. I don't hear any of you saying that. I just feel like we need to explicitly state that we're not like bashing medication. It can literally save lives. And being able to just be with the discomfort. Is something, is a gift that we can give ourselves.
And then by giving it to ourselves, well by extension, teach our children how to do it cuz they're fine. If you watch a toddler, they're totally fine with their feelings and body sensations. They don't give a flying flip. But then as they stay in our presence long enough, eventually they will give a flying flip.
So being able to teach them how to moderate and modulate those feelings in a way that's appropriate and will allow them to keep their friends and be invited back for play dates without completely dousing them and squishing it and, making it a completely unacceptable thing. Like it's the challenge that's the middle path
[00:37:05] Zaiba Hasan: again.
Yes. That by the way, like Hunter says, requires a lot of work, right? That's ultimately it. It requires a lot more work than I think parents have time
[00:37:18] Hunter: for. It's easier to distract. It's easier to. And it's more comfortable distraction. We're told to do that and it, and we don't want, it's like just, we wanna just avoid all those things.
And so the thing about what Bethany's saying, what Leonard is saying this I, this idea that we need to model just tolerating the discomforts and being bored and stand in the line without the phone and things like that, is that it takes some like effort in the front end. It takes some effort and intention to understand like, what is it doing?
And I think part of this conversation is to just show that these are the ripple effects of us taking those shortcuts and just opting for comfort every single time is like, the ripple effects are like, is that it really is affecting our children in a way that we should be aware of, that we may be raising a generation that's like afraid of feeling anything, and having those difficult feelings.
And that's, that's what life requires of us if we're not gonna be just plugged into the matrix the whole time. Yeah. It's
[00:38:20] Zaiba Hasan: what ultimately builds resilience, right? And that's the key to having I don't necessarily believe in happiness or trying to find happiness, but in building contentment in your every day, that concept of resilience, like you can go through something difficult and it wasn't easy, but you survived and you made it.
And then that's the lesson like Dr. Will saying, that's the lesson you learn for the next time, right? If you take away that your child's ability to develop a skill and a skill set that is needed for long-term success, you're crippling them for life. And that's and I'm not just saying that lightly, it's truly if you're taking away skillsets that they need in order to be sane, logical content human adults.
What is that gonna say for our society and the future? So that's something we really need to pay attention to.
[00:39:27] Hunter: Stay tuned for more Mindful, Mama podcasts right after this break.
And I think it shows up in like little moments, right? Like it shows up in little moments that we don't pay attention to. For instance, like. My daughter, she's, she likes going on a run. She's been doing that. And sometimes though she gets involved in YouTube or whatever, and what I'll say to her, I'll try to give her that perspective, right?
Which is one of those things that we can do as parents. It's later when you're older, are you gonna regret either not going on that run or, watching that show with mom and dad or whatever the thing was that was a little more uncomfortable than staying plugged into the YouTube.
You know what I mean? Or are you gonna say, man, it was so great for me to have watched those seven YouTube shows. It just to give us that perspective of is that, to go into the storytelling mind versus the experiential mind. Like it is will that ultimately when we tell the story of our lives and what we experience in our lives, And for us to, as parents, we can give our kids that perspective as long as like we have it ourselves, so we gotta practice it ourselves.
[00:40:37] Dr Lynyetta Willis: Hunter, I don't know. I could see people on their deathbed going, man, I wish I had just watched more twerking TikTok videos. Those twerking TikTok videos gave me life. Man, I just, dang it.
[00:40:48] Zaiba Hasan: It's the cat video. The cat videos make me happy. Okay. The cat
[00:40:53] Dr Lynyetta Willis: videos.
[00:40:56] Zaiba Hasan: But I have to set a timer for those cat videos because otherwise I'm like, 10 minutes, I'll watch this, then I'll get up and do something else.
But again, it, we're not saying we're anti, no one's saying be an extreme, right? No one's saying throw out the phones. No saying this go off the grid though. I do fantasize about that sometimes. But what we are saying is that middle ground is something that can be achieved, but it will require internal introspection as parents so that we can model that behavior first.
So in the end of the day, for me, it's about the parent. It's coaching the parent so that they can then model for their children. Yeah. And
[00:41:35] Bethany Saltman: I wanted to just add to that when Azalea was young I really, look it this way, the first thing I ever wrote, Was in high school about how much I hated tv.
[00:41:47] Hunter: Do you have the book, 10 arguments for the elimination of television?
[00:41:51] Bethany Saltman: I don't, but yes, it says, but I've changed a lot. Okay. So now things have changed. My point is that I grew up that, I was raised, I raised myself really that way. I never had a tv. I was totally not into any of that stuff.
And then I, Azalea came along and, very little bit of, media here and there. Then when she got older, she became really into TV and then became obsessive about shows like friends, like Hardcore and then, and now she watches and watches. And it was so annoying to me when I, when she was younger and so difficult, so challenging, and I felt oh my God, I have failed this child.
Now she's getting ready to apply to her film school. So this is a, not just. A, a random thing, but like the girl is into it. She was studying.
[00:42:49] Zaiba Hasan: Exactly. We're cha we're flipping the narrative. She wasn't watching tv. She was studying for her future career.
[00:43:01] Bethany Saltman: And I've been, and I have, I've become quite interested in all kinds of screens myself, but it's just, it is just a really interesting thing that I remind myself of.
You never know. You never know.
[00:43:15] Hunter: Yeah. You, we don't have all the answers. That's a perfect segue into my next question, which is, what do you wish you knew as a young mother?
[00:43:25] Zaiba Hasan: So I do have to say, I'll start off just because I had the benefit and the hindsight of having two sets of children. And I say that because I was in my early twenties.
I had my first at 24, my second at 26, I thought I was done. And then my husband as I was approaching 30 was like, are you sure you're done? And then I had my second set of kids at 31 and 32. 31 and 33 actually. So I have had the life experience to be like, okay, with my second set, or like my oldest said, I'm the beta model and my younger brothers are the alphas because you figured it out.
I had a lot more energy physically when I was younger with my older two. But what I recognize now in looking back with my younger set and I'm enjoying them, it goes by so fast. And you know when people tell you that, when you're in the throes of breastfeeding, it's like you wanna beat them. So trust me, I understand that, but I, in a blink of an eye, Is gone.
So that's how I look at everything. Is it worth the, stress about he didn't make this AAU team and this dad is talking in, or is it I get to be there? I'm with them and honestly it's not about the dishes or the laundry or, we read those memes and you're like, yes, that's right.
It's really is about, are those five minutes that you focus and you're with your kids? Do they mean something? It doesn't have to be a hundred minutes in a day. Is it five? Am I there? Am I focused? Because it does go by quickly. And so enjoy every moment. That's for me, like I'll cry now just thinking about it, the good, the bad, the ugly because you get to experience people that you physically created turning into their own autonomous human beings.
What a freaking amazing thing that we get to do. But then I'm gonna cry. I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna stop and let you guys finish up. Can you tell that I love, I just love it like their own people, their own opinions. Like even if I don't agree, you're watching that and you're like, wow, I had a small piece in watching this person become an adult.
And that's such an amazing thing. So enjoy every moment because when you're in it, you don't want to, but it goes by so fast and so just enjoy it.
[00:45:50] Hunter: And now all the breastfeeding moms who have no sleep on hit you.
[00:45:53] Zaiba Hasan: Yes, I know. Trust me, I've breastfed for. Oh my God. No, I'm telling you, I've breastfed all of my kids for two and a half years each.
Okay.
[00:46:08] Dr Lynyetta Willis: Ooh, you just got your boobs back, man.
[00:46:11] Zaiba Hasan: Oh. And they're deflated and hanging down to my waist. But I wear these boobs with pride cuz I'm like, I fed pee human beings with this. It's an amazing thing. So trust me, I've been there and I get it. And it does go by quickly. I
[00:46:28] Dr Lynyetta Willis: think for me, it's okay to have favorite periods, so we were like, oh, it's just, they're gonna be, it's gonna be this magical thing.
Their whole, you know what, there were periods where I was just like, what the heck? I didn't like it. And now my son is 14, I think now I enjoyed every period, like I was able to find joy in every period. But if I had, I could rank. Okay. And so realizing if there are certain periods where you're like, this isn't my favorite, that's okay.
And I know you got that friend who's I have this one friend who I swear she comes up with these like amazing things to do with her kids and they create, and they're always going out and finding magical experiences and I'm like, I wish I could have done that when I, when my kids were her ki they're very young.
But that just wasn't my gift or my magic, but now they're like, my son's a teenager. My daughter, I guess is in the tween stage. I love this age. They're able to do things on their own. They're funny. They have senses of humor. They get I mean it's like this is so cool. Like teenagers are forget, and I know people are probably throwing things at the screen right now, it's, they are it's okay to have periods where you're like, not my favorite.
I'm okay with that. And not, don't let yourself feel guilt or shame or anything. It's all right. It's all right. Find joy. You don't have to enjoy the period, but those are the areas where you just consciously seek and create joy so that you have lasting memories to reflect back
[00:48:10] Bethany Saltman: on. Yeah, I love that. And I love teenagers too.
Love, love, love teenagers. And certainly like some stages more than others. And I would say the thing that I kinda wish I knew and now I really know, is that it's never too late. People ask me this all the time and it's never ever too late and poor mommies of babies think it's too late sometimes.
I'm like, honey, oh no, you've only just begun. And there is so much room inside the human heart to grow and forgive and to change and forget and transform and, forwards backwards, up and down. It is never ever too late. And and that it really matters what we do on the inside.
[00:48:58] Hunter: I agree with all that.
If I think about what I wish I knew as a young mother I honestly wouldn't take away all my struggles cuz that's like what has helped me, create this whole podcast and all the different things and Mindful, Parenting and the things that I do. It would be so boring. I'd be like, I'm
[00:49:16] Zaiba Hasan: amazing and
[00:49:17] Dr Lynyetta Willis: your book would be really boring.
[00:49:26] Zaiba Hasan: Oh my God. But I think telling it like it is, so without taking away my struggles in that way, I think what I would, if I could go back, what I wish I knew as a young mother is if I could go back and do anything, maybe I would I there's a couple things I would do. I would now know not to try to implement mindfulness practices when my kids are in a bad place.
[00:49:50] Hunter: Not, don't do that. Like that, that just destroyed them forever. That didn't work. And then also and also I think I'd be more intentional about creating community that's within walking distance to my house. I, we have some community that's within walking distance around your house, but like a lot of people, even though I actually live in kind of a intentional community that was found in 1901 as an artist retreat, and so I, I can go on a walk and I can see four people I know and talk to them and say hi, which is very unusual I know in the United States.
But I would be more intentional about seeking out families with kids of the same age and saying, do you want to come over here? And regardless of how messy my house was and things like that, and just making those awkward steps to make more lasting, solid connections with regardless of, the people that are within walking distance to my house.
I wish I, my kids had that sense of like, when I was a kid, I could go leave the house and go to someone's house and I could be like, hi, I'm here. They don't have that anyway, so that's one thing I wish I could have done. That's just like my two. If I could rewind, that's where I would go.
So I would just love to offer, I'd love this conversation. I wish I could do for hours. Any last words for the listener who is like struggling to kinda raise, good humans and stay steady and grounded, what would you say to that listener? Bethany, you go ahead.
[00:51:22] Bethany Saltman: Oh my gosh. What would I say? I would say you've got everything you need and the more you can relax into all the feelings, the more you will have access to exactly what your kids need.
And is that anything outside of you? Don't feel like you have to do anything or buy anything or be anything other than exactly who you are, which is that child's parent, which is that child's king or queen. And that's the beginning of lean, the
[00:52:00] Zaiba Hasan: whole thing. I could say this cuz this is something that I think about all the time.
There's two things. One, self-care is not selfish and we need to change that. Within our community, anthropologically speaking, we were supposed to be raising these children as part of communities and we have lost that. So as a result, all of that burden, that mental load, like that mom burnout is extremely real.
So being able to take care of yourself, whether it's, I say I'm gonna work out and my kids know do not bother me. And they have a huge thing. Even if they wake up before seven, do not come downstairs before seven. I'm not ready for you yet. And they know that and they, granted when they're teens, you don't have to worry about it.
They sleep till one o'clock in the afternoon anyway. But, having those boundaries as a mom is actually okay. And the last thing that I would say is you are the most imperfect, perfect parent for your child. And that's okay. There are gonna be days you're gonna be like Mary Poppins, amazing, awesome.
And they're gonna be days where you're like, I'm wanna be, I'm just coming off of a hospital, week in the hospital, unfortunately. And I was just like, mama's the house of the mess. I'm wearing pajama bottoms from the waist down. Not gonna lie. I thank God for lipstick and right after this I'm gonna go take a nap.
And I've already, my kids know that this is something that I have to do, but this is all, everybody has those times and saying that it's okay to not be your perfect self all the time, I feel like also helps your children in the long term. In the long run, I
[00:53:38] Dr Lynyetta Willis: would say, I say parents all the time, the fact that you're asking the question means that you're probably doing the work, right?
Sociopaths don't say, how can I be a good person? It's just not something they think about. It's just not something. But the fact that you were even saying like, how do I do this right, is already tells me you're on the path, right? And you're probably doing better than you think.
Honestly. So giving yourself grace and a lot of self compassion, we do not do that enough. The other thing, piggybacking on what Zeva said the mantra in the Parenting program I have is my needs matter. That's one of the mantras and it's fascinating to me, like the deer in the headlights look that I get when I say that to pair, like when my mom actually said to me my needs pretty sure I had to turn those in order to be able to leave the hospital with my baby.
And realizing even back to the pendulum swing, this idea that. Yeah. If your child is doing something that makes you feel, then you, and you're like, I'm not comfortable with this. I don't like, it's okay to say I don't like it when you touch me that way. I don't do that. That's ok. It's not you being bad or mean or just saying.
It's teaching them that they can do that too, so re recognizing and remembering that your needs matter. Okay. And then the third thing I would say, and I alluded to this earlier, experiment is my favorite word, right? So one of the things that I think parents worry about a lot that maybe they shouldn't worry about too much is, will this thing work?
And you sit there and you like think about it for 20 years will it work? And I tried, I don't know, blah, blah, blah. And see what happens. Within reason, of course, I'm not saying beat your kid and see what happens. No, not what I'm saying. But if there's something that you're like, I wonder how this would go, throw out a line, learn from it.
Course correct. If necessary, try it again. Try something different, but don't be afraid to experiment with things. It's okay.
[00:55:46] Hunter: Yeah. I love that there's so much wisdom here. I knew I invited the three of you on for a reason, cuz I enjoy your perspective and your voice and your wisdom so much.
It's been such a pleasure. I could do this for three hours with you. I'm so sorry to be only on an hour. I
[00:56:06] Zaiba Hasan: know. I was just like, oh, we could talk about this. Honestly, even for me, I'm sure we'll edit this out, like the black experience of the Muslim experience you like, there's so many amazing things because it is very different in how you parent, because of the life experiences that you have. How the world perceives you is also how you change and alter your Parenting. So like it's, I mean it's fascinating to me, like it's one of the things that I love love learning about. Thank you guys so much for coming on. I want you to just stay for one sec after I press stop, and I thank you for being here for this.
[00:56:43] Hunter: Celebrate the 400th episode with me. Woo.
[00:56:47] Bethany Saltman: Yay, hunter. It was wonderful to meet you all and I hope to stay in touch and I love this conversation. Thank
[00:56:53] Zaiba Hasan: you all so much. Yeah, no, you guys too. I love it. Thank you for all
[00:56:57] Dr Lynyetta Willis: you both are doing in the world. It's such important work.
[00:57:08] Hunter: What a fun time wasn't that I honestly could have talked to these powerful women for hours and hours. People have been asking for an in-person event, and I would love to do it. Wouldn't it be so fun to gather in a room and talk to these people? I would love that. Love it. So if you got something outta this episode, if you want to help the Mindful Mama podcast, celebrate our 400th episode.
Help my team, help everybody. Please go over to Apple Podcast and leave us a rating and review. And it just helps in the algorithm, helps the podcast grow more, and I really greatly appreciate it. And really on behalf of my team, thank you to everybody who has done that. Thank you from my team members, Chelsea and Emma, and Lynn, and Yvonne and Alex, and we all appreciate you listening to the podcast and being part of this team and sharing it and rating and reviewing and making the, spreading this message wider into the world.
It makes such a big difference. If you have things to say about this podcast, if it sparked anything in you, I would love to hear you. Find me on Instagram and Facebook at Mindful Mama mentor. Let me know and I will love it. Anyway, can't believe it. 400 episodes. Wow. I'm gonna go take a nap now. I wish you a nap time today, and I hope this has watered your good seeds and helped you be a better parent to your kids, give you perspective as a human and to what's most important.
I think that's like really the goal here. And I wish you a beautiful week, my friend. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. I can't wait to connect with you again next week. Thank you, my friend. Take care.
I'd say definitely do it. It's really helpful. It will change your relationship with your kids for the better. It will help you communicate better and just, I'd say communicate better as a person, as a wife, as a spouse, it's been really a positive influence in our lives, so definitely do it. I'd say definitely do it.
It's so worth it. The money really is inconsequential when you get so much benefit from being a better parent to your children and feeling like you're connecting more with them and not feeling like you are yelling all the time, or you're like, why isn't things working? I would say definitely into it.
It's so worth it. It'll change you
[00:59:45] Dr Lynyetta Willis: no matter what age someone's
[00:59:46] Hunter: child is. It's a great opportunity for personal growth and it's great investment in someone's family.
[00:59:52] Dr Lynyetta Willis: I'm very thankful I have this. You can continue in your old habits that aren't working, or you can learn some new tools and gain some perspective to shift.
Everything in your Parenting,
[01:00:10] Hunter: are you frustrated by Parenting? Do you listen to the experts and try all the tips and strategies, but you're just not seeing the results that you want? Or are you lost as to where to start? Does it all seem so overwhelming with too much to learn? Are you yearning for community people who get it, who also don't want to threaten and punish to create cooperation?
Hi, I'm Hunter Clark Fields, and if you answered yes to any of these questions, I want you to seriously consider the Mindful Parenting membership. You'll be joining hundreds of members who have discovered the path of Mindful Parenting and now have confidence in clarity in their Parenting. This isn't just another Parenting class.
This is an opportunity to really discover your unique lasting relationship, not only with your children, but with yourself. It will translate into lasting connected relationships, not only with your children, but your partner too. Let me change your life. Go to. Mindful Parenting course.com to add your name to the wait list, so you will be the first to be notified when I open the membership for enrollment.
I look forward to seeing you on the inside, Mindful Parenting course.com.
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