Episode 124: Are You Teaching Your Kids to Dread Adulthood?

ITUNES | SPOTIFY

What if the picture you're painting about adulthood is making your kids dread growing up? An Instagram post from another mom who talked about choosing to see her responsibilities as privileges, not burdens, stopped me in my tracks and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

Adulting IS hard. There are so many responsibilities, decisions, and things that we have to do. And how many times have our kids heard us complain about how exhausted we are by all of it?

In this episode, I talk about my commitment to sharing not just the challenges of adulting, but the highs, the good times, the perks, and privileges too. I don't want my kids to be in a rush to grow up. I'm certainly not ready for them to. But I know that it'll happen eventually, and I don't want them to dread it.

Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

• Learn more about what it's like to work with me: www.themothernurture.com/work-with-me

• Submit an application to see if you'd be a good fit: www.themothernurture.com/application

• + Click here to read the full episode transcript

  You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode.   Hello, hello. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast, and welcome to a new month. We turn the page on August and into September, and officially the ber months, as they say. I'll have a lot coming for you in the last four months of the year. I love this time of year. It gives me so much energy. There's so much that I'm doing in my life right now to reset things, as I mentioned a couple of episodes back, on sort of harnessing this back to school season for yourself and for your own life. How are you feeling about all of it? I'd love to know. Well, I'm coming at you today in this episode with some hard truths. I have been sitting with this idea, with this concept for a few weeks now, and I can tell you that it's not always been comfortable as I have wrestled with it. And there is no better way, at least for me, to think through or walk through something than to talk about it, to share it, to hear other people's perspectives on it. What I've been thinking about is the portrait of adulthood that we present to our children. The vision, the image, what they think of when they think of being an adult. What are we teaching them about how it feels to be an adult? Not just the facts that you, at least in this country, become a legal adult at the age of 18, you can vote at that age, or that, again, here in the States at age 21 you can get a drink if you want, right? Not just the privileges that unlock at these, quote-unquote, adult ages, but how it feels to find work that you love, hopefully, or that you find meaningful enough. How it feels to pay bills, to make lots of decisions, lots of big decisions, and to carry responsibility If you are listening and you are the mom of an infant or a toddler, right away you might be thinking that this doesn't apply to you. I definitely would have agreed when my kids were young. I didn't have any space for this kind of thinking when I was just busy changing diapers and worried about feeding and sleep schedules. But I would encourage you to not dismiss it, to not hit pause or stop or, or skip this episode, because I know for me that the portrait I'm presenting today is one that I built when they were that age, when they were young. My experience of adulting was created years ago, and at times, 12 years into this parenthood gig, it feels a little set in stone, and I do wish that I had at least had this seed planted or considered this back then I also wanna start this conversation by acknowledging the nuance here. I always say I don't have all of the answers, but I do have questions, lots of questions, questions of my own, but also questions that I hope all of us can ponder, or I hope that you will ponder them, think about them. I recognize that there is nuance in this conversation around the way that you were raised, how your parents viewed this topic, the culture in which you were raised, how the adults in your circle and your community talked about responsibility and work and work ethic. And there's also privilege here that we definitely need to acknowledge as well. The experience of having privilege and, and not, I'm sure directly shapes the way that each of us thinks about and experiences the responsibilities of being an adult So what I'm talking about today are my own experiences, not because they are the only ones, but because they're what I know. And I hope that through some of my sharing, you might be able to think about your own experiences and how they've shaped you, and then also think about what you want to choose moving forward So this topic did not just fall from the sky, though I do spend a lot of time in my head thinking about different things like this. But this particular concept or idea or this seed was planted when a rather large influencer account on Instagram wrote a post about how she very intentionally thinks about the impression that she is giving to her four children about adulthood. She has thought about this and intentionally wants to create a picture for them of an adulthood experience that has responsibilities and chores and Big things to tend to, of course, but that is also fun. She wants to show them that being an adult has its perks, that you get to choose how you spend your money, for better or worse. You get to choose how late you stay up to go out with friends on a school night. I still call it a school night. Of course, it's relevant or applicable to my own children, but I think even before I had kids, I would think about going out on a school night But this, this influencer shared that, that to have that kind of responsibility as an adult is not something heavy, but that it is a privilege, that she chooses not to feel that the things that she does as an adult to keep their household running, to pay their bills, to, support the kids are things that she resents or does grudgingly And I admit that in that moment, as I was reading her post and all of the comments and the dialogue and conversation that was happening surrounding this topic, I realized that I had not ever really thought about it like that before And my memory is a little rusty, but I would imagine that maybe in my 20s when I was getting my first couple apartments, when I got my first paycheck, when I did choose how to spend my money, though I admit I was living in big cities that were quite expensive on a very low salary, so there wasn't a lot left over for fun. But I would imagine maybe I thought about it as fun, as a privilege. But what I do know is that in this last decade and a half of working my way up in my career in the corporate world, buying and caring for a car and then home, raising children, securing childcare, dealing with a broken AC unit and a leaking roof or a performance review at work that didn't go as planned, that it has felt like a lot of work, never-ending work, to be more precise. And it all felt and, and still feels really expensive. Just this week, we had one of our cars in the shop, and as my husband and I were driving, you know, we have to drive together in the one car to pick up the second car and have a driver to bring it back home. As we were driving to the shop to pick it up, my husband commented that he just hates dealing with cars and maintenance and repairs. It just takes so much time, and you're calling, and you're getting an update, and you're approving an estimate, and the work and the cost and all of it, and I couldn't agree more. It's one of those adulting tasks that I, I really wish I could outsource to somebody else And so it, a lot of it does get wrapped up in that feeling Now, don't get me wrong, there have been lots of fun times, continue to be lots of fun times. We have gone on trips and vacations and go out to dinner or have evenings out. I love to buy a new pair of shoes or a new outfit and, quote unquote, "Treat myself" for those things, and I can do that as an adult. I don't have to ask anybody for the money, don't have to ask for permission. But I know that when you have young kids, time for those things diminishes significantly. You have less energy and less money for hobbies or trips or nights out or Anything that feels fun, and you have less time, a lot less time. It's not just up to you anymore You have to arrange childcare. You have to consider their schedules, and, and as they get older, they have their own extracurricular schedules too that you have to take into account. And so you can see, I can see how easily and quickly adulting can turn into something that doesn't feel that fun, that feels like a never-ending to-do list And while I work with women who want a life outside of that list, that is specifically who I work with, women who want to create space for something for themselves so that they feel alive, so that they have this unique part of their day-to-day experience where they're not just a mom or an employee But even in doing that work on a daily basis, I have not thought about the narrative, the story that all of this sends to my kids, to our kids. I mean, think about how many times have you overheard or been the adult to say something to children like, you know, "You're so lucky to be a kid"? Or you have it made, right? No responsibility, just fun and play. Or heard an adult tell a child, "Don't be in a rush to grow up. Like, being a child is so great And it's usually coming from a place of this story that being a grown-up is hard. You don't want this. Trust me. Stay a kid where you don't have a to-do list and chores and responsibility and have to think about bills and money and repairs and all of that stuff Even for me, as I have transitioned into middle school alongside my son, yes, at times it feels like I'm going back as well, I have caught myself thinking about how I would actually enjoy going back. Not to middle school, I don't think anybody wants to go back to middle school, but to high school or college even. How I had so few responsibilities back then. I would take better advantage of it knowing what I know now. I would have even more fun Oof. I don't want my kids rushing to grow up. I love having them at home. I love the stages that they're in right now. I know that my house will feel empty and quiet without them someday. If any of you are in that season where you're dropping kids off at college right now, my heart is with you But as much as I don't want them to grow up, I also don't want them dreading becoming an adult I don't want them to get the idea from me that being an adult is all work and no play, that it's so hard, that it's so exhausting I want them to be equipped to make the decisions they'll need to make to handle the basic responsibilities of being a healthy, responsible, independent, contributing adult. But I wonder what I could do to also help them see how it's not all bad, that it's actually fun and it does have its perks Which takes me then to identifying and seeing those perks in my own life, making sure that they exist and that I see that they exist. And I think that is where the work is for all of us, to accept that responsibilities as an adult are par for the course. That is part of it, yes. Just like they say, you know, owning a home, if you choose to own a home, it comes with work and it comes with challenges, but you choose it anyway because you want a place that's yours we all age. We all grow up despite what Peter Pan told us. And so can we accept the parts that come along with being an adult and also see the perks that come with being an adult? We get to choose what we watch and what we listen to, and we get to choose how we spend our money and who we spend our time with, even if those things feel limited I have made a really intentional effort since becoming a parent to talk about my work in a way that shows my kids that I chose it and continue to choose it, that I enjoy it even. Even before I was working full-time as a coach, I would talk about my corporate job and how I loved solving problems at work and helping people. I openly share still about the challenges that I face and how I solve them from little things, like nowadays, I am my own IT department. How do I figure those things out? Or when I make a mistake and I have to repair it. I share my wins and I share my hard days. Usually, that's around the dinner table. We do high, low, buffalo, right? A high from the day, a low from the day, and then something random that you want to share, and I try to make that about work. Not all the time, but most of the time. And so as a result of that, I don't think, I could be wrong, but I don't think that any of my kids are dreading finding their own work someday Because they have a full picture of what that looks like And so I'd like to broaden that scope to include being an adult in general. I'd like to talk more about the privileges and the perks, the decisions I'm making and why I'm making them. And yeah, I'd like to have more fun. I'd like to do more things that are for me, that are my choice because they are a privilege of being an adult I wonder if that's something you'd like to join me in. If this question of what kind of a vision or portrait are we painting of being an adult has struck a chord with you We can change that. Even if it feels like things are a little set in stone, I do think we can change it. Now, I think it's easier for a lot of you to have fun with your kids, to orchestrate fun for them, play dates, outings, adventures, to find those things that you can play with them that you do find fun. You know, I love doing games with my kids or puzzles or art, and I do enjoy that. But I think the challenge now is to orchestrate fun for yourself in the way that maybe you used to do before you had kids, to create space outside of your to-do list, or add it to your to-do list if that's what will make you prioritize it. That's okay, too. Maybe that's an outing, maybe it's time with a friend, a hobby, a class, a concert, a sporting event. I don't know. Something you get to do because you're an adult. And if those things feel like too much of a stretch right now, you don't have the time or the budget or the childcare, then start with the things that don't require any of that A simple example would be you choosing the music the next time you're all in the car. No Kidz Bop, no Taylor Swift or whatever your kids are into unless you actually do love their music. You choose because it's your car and you're the driver. Introduce them to, your throwback music from high school or college since we're thinking about times when we had less responsibility. Your choice. You get to choose that. Or I'm chuckling because my husband and I sometimes if we buy a carton of ice cream, we'll scoop out three little bowls for the kids to eat, and then we just stand at the counter and eat right out of the container like animals. And sometimes they do say, " What?" You know, "Why are you eating right out of the container?" And, and I get to say, "It's because I'm the adult. I'm the mom." I mean, that was just a silly example, but find the things in your everyday life that could be a perk that you get to choose because you're an adult. And then don't just do the thing, but also acknowledge the thing. Acknowledge, "I'm the adult and I get to choose. This is a perk of making the money, of paying the bills, and doing the other things that are required of me as an adult," and you can let your kids hear that from time to time. Not to make them resent you, but to paint a different picture. We can share stories about what we love about this season of our lives I'm not here to say that being an adult isn't a lot of work. It is, and in certain seasons, it can feel relentless. I know. I know. But it is also a privilege. I recently started following this, she's like a 60-plus-year-old woman on Instagram who posts videos. She does shuffle dance. I think that's what it's called. Tell me if I'm getting that wrong. And she always writes again and again that aging is a privilege. Aging is a privilege. Not everyone gets to do it Now, not being afraid to age is a whole other topic we could tackle in another episode, but aging itself is a privilege. Being an adult, we have made it. Not everyone gets to do this, and we are here, and hopefully we are doing more than just surviving. And what a miracle I, for one, would like to instill that thinking in my own kids, and maybe you would like to instill that in yours as well I think every season has its highs and lows, its ups and downs, its perks and its setbacks. I do not think we should be aiming to be happy all the time, that that is the measure of success. But I do think That the highs deserve as much airtime as the lows, that the perks of this season deserve to be talked about as much as the challenges What do you think? Where does this whole concept and idea land with you? And you can feel free to challenge anything I've said here. As I said, I'm still grappling with a lot of this, and I do understand that everyone's experience is different. I just know that this is something that made me pause over the last few weeks and, and has me thinking about it and I'd love to see us all talking about more topics like this even before we've sorted out any perfect answer. I don't think there is a perfect answer. But I do like the idea of talking and acknowledging the perks as much as we do the challenges in adulthood I welcome your emails, your DMs on Instagram. You can find all of my contact information in the show notes. And If you are someone who wishes you had the time for more fun, for things that you might consider the perks of being an adult, but you just cannot create the space, make the time, prioritize it over all of the other responsibilities that you have in your life, or if adulting does just feel relentless that is exactly what we aim to change in my coaching programs. I would absolutely love to talk to you to hear more about your story and to see if you would be a fit for either one-on-one or group coaching. So if you'd like to learn more, you can head to my website at themothernurture.com/work-with-me. Or if you're ready to talk, If you know this is probably something that you need, you can go ahead and answer a few quick questions in my application and I will get back to you to set up a time for us to talk. You can find the application at themothernurture.com/application. All right. I hope to hear from some of you after this episode, and until next week, I hope you take care. I'll talk to you soon Thank you for listening and as always, for being a part of this working mom community. You can find everything related to this episode in the show notes at themothernurture.com/podcast, you can also find information about how I support working moms just like you through one-on-one, and group coaching, as well as access a number of resources and articles all on my website at themothernurture.com. I will see you again next week for another episode of the podcast.

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