No Magic Words with Mary Van Geffen

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Mary Van Geffen on Gentle Parenting 

  • Outside of Politics: Shorts

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EPISODE RESOURCES

MARY VAN GEFFEN

SHORTS

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:08] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:10] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.  

Beth [00:00:26] Hello, thank you for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics. This is Beth. Sarah is on her summer break this month. You will hear Sarah's voice today. We recorded a very serious conversation about wearing shorts for the Outside of Politics section that we always end our show with. Before I introduce the main topic today, I would love to invite you to join our email list. We send out a note every Friday and we put a lot of care into those notes. I love to write when it's my turn and I always look forward to reading what other team members have written when it's not my turn. I know we all get a ton of mail. I promise this is not a sales piece. It is an expression of our appreciation and love for this audience. So if you would like to see us once a week in your inbox, you can sign up on our website: pantsuitpoliticsshow.com. This has been a summer of curve balls for me and really for everyone I know and love. Some of those curve balls are easily managed. My curve ball of the day is that I plan to record part of this podcast with my dad, and my dad ended up needing a small emergency medical procedure that he is undergoing as I record. He will be okay, and I feel a tremendous amount of gratitude for the fact that he will be okay and that my sister and brother-in-law are with him through this. But there are curve balls that force us to completely regroup, sometimes even start over, to have to rebuild our lives from the ground up. How we respond to unexpected events, canceled flights, sickness, lost jobs, devastating weather events. All of it is shaped so significantly by the messages we learned about ourselves as kids. What is our value? What did we learn about our resilience? How did we come to understand and work with our own emotions? Because of that, here on our show about politics, Sarah and I spend a lot of time talking about parenting.  

[00:02:19] Parents raised citizens and how they do it defines who we become as a nation. Today, I want to share a conversation with Mary Van Geffen. I hired Mary to be my parenting coach a little over a year ago. I never thought I'd be a person who hired a parenting coach. I'm not sure I knew that a parenting coach existed until maybe three or four years ago. But I wanted some specific help from Mary. I needed to understand how to respond when my kids fight with each other. I have such loving, wonderful parents, and I follow their examples around many things in my own parenting. But I'm 12 years older than my only sister, so I never saw their example of what to do when kids pick at each other and yell at each other and sometimes shove each other. Now, I know with my own kids that how I handle any individual argument is no big deal. But I also know that the overall messages I send to them about who they are and how they treat each other and how they deserve to be treated by each other is a very big deal. So I wanted Marry to help me answer the question who do I want to be when my kids are fighting? But I got a lot more than that from my time working with her individually. So I ask her to talk with me here about her work and how parenting shapes the people we become. I hope this conversation might give you some windows into what you learned about yourself as a kid and how that shapes your response to the endless series of curve balls our politics and our lives will continue to throw. I want to first talk about gentle parenting, which is how I understood what I was signing up for. I was getting a gentle parenting coach and I was thinking about gentle as applying to my kids. That I want to be a parent who's not super reactive, who isn't yelling all the time. And in my work with you, I realized that maybe the gentleness is more about me and Chad than it is about them. That we're not signing up to add a bunch of expectations and a bunch of rules for ourselves as parents, we are more saying let's let's talk about who we want to be and how we want to enjoy these years and what that could look like for us as a family. So I'm curious how you define gentle parenting in your own mind and in your work.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:04:53] Well, I think it's a combination of a lot of different schools of thought. And I think everybody's gentle parenting is going to be different. I don't believe that this is the one way to parent. I think there's an underlying foundation of staying calm or coming back to calm, choosing kind and being firm where it's needed, even when it's really uncomfortable. So calm, kind, and firm is to me the foundation of it. It is also respectful. There's mutual respect, not as hierarchical. And yet, these humans are brand new to the earth and they do need us to be in charge. And I think that gets lost a little bit with the gentle parenting method. It's more of a practice than arriving. I don't know if anyone's like, "Yay! It happened today at 9:05. I am now a gentle parent." It's more every day saying I am going to show up consciously and present to not just what my kids are going through, but what I'm going through. And I think that's the gentle part you're talking about that's self-reflective and re-parenting and putting a hand on your heart and your belly to say, oh, this is really hard for you. It's amazing to me how well-meaning parents want to skip, almost like a hurdle. Let me just get over the part about I have needs and I have pain from my past and let me just be the best parent for this child. And not necessarily does everybody have to go to therapy; although, everyone will be better off in therapy. But we do have to start with checking in with ourselves and being a loving and compassionate force for ourselves in order to do that for our children. So we can't really skip it as much as we want. And I get so many clients showing up being like, "Tell me what I'm doing wrong. I just want to hire you so that you can tell me what I'm doing wrong." And it's it's an interesting sort of self-flagellating space that we find ourselves. And some of that is because of the greater culture. I mean, if you're looking at moms on Instagram, then you have an expectation that you're going to have this dreamy, soft focus sitting in a field with your skirt spread out reading Little House on the Prairie. And that's not what gentle parenting ends up looking like. It's a spiritual discipline of showing up over and over again to love someone who's not being lovable. And to know that those messages of what is lovable or not lovable are like packed down from your own past, from the choices you had to make to be the most received. And we kind of have to unwind that whole ball to show up as the parent we want to be. And I just think it's like these poor people did not sign up for this. I just want to have kids. And then you realize what a soul shaping and just fall apart to build yourself up thing that parenting can be.  

Beth [00:08:00] It doesn't surprise me at all that people come to you wanting some rules. Because the other piece of Instagram-- which is primarily where I came to know of your work and where I imagine many people do. The other aspect of Instagram, in addition to the The Meadow mom is the slide mom. I got like five rules on cards on a slide that I can swipe through. And these are things that I don't do or things that I do that make me a good mom. And I wonder how you think about that rule based approach. I feel like it's reflective of what I most learn from you, that all these ideas I have about what makes a good or a bad parent have very little to do with me and more my fear that I will not do right by my kids.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:08:47] Yes. And so often we don't even know our rules. They are these like narratives that we operate off of. Like a good mom has children that sit still at church. And we don't say that to ourselves, but we just believe that. And so when our kid is pinching their brother, we're like, "What's wrong with me?" And meanwhile it's so age appropriate that a kid can't sit still in a pew with boring non-child centric stuff. And yet we are here to to teach them and titrate towards becoming more and more an adult. But I think we force down adult behavior because we're so afraid of these beliefs we have. I think some of us who are people pleasers feel like a good mom means our child is happy. And that's not true. Or there's some of us who have been given an assignment of a very melancholy Eeyore child. And if we are going to believe that we've succeeded if we've changed that child's temperament, it's just going to be us butting heads and feeling unsuccessful. So I think being really clear like what is a good mom? There's no universal answer to that. It really becomes what will feel like I've done my job at the end. And even 'job' is intense because this is a relationship.  

Beth [00:10:07] Yeah.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:10:08] What kind of relationship do I want to build? And I think if you're stuck in the rules, one great place to start is to say, let me fast forward 20 years from now. My child is coming home from wherever they're off with their friend and they're so excited to be back in my home and they're telling their friend and their friends like, "Settle down. What's so great about your parents?" And listening in to that future child's answer, what do they say about what it's like to be in relationship with you, to be in your home? And extract that and write it out. And that is what being a good mom is. And likely it's not like she taught me how to make my bed every day, and I never wear stained clothes. That's not going to be what builds a relationship.  

Beth [00:10:57] I think that you helped me understand too that my relationship, what would make me a good mom, what would have my future children saying beautiful things that I would wish them to say about our relationship in the future, is very much dependent on who I am. That there isn't one script for this. So you had me do a lot of self-reflective exercises when we first started working together to kind of say, what parts of you do you want to pull out in your motherhood? I wonder if you would talk more about why you begin that way.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:11:29] Well, I think our values are so like-- we're like such delicate, unique creatures, each human based on the environment you grown up in, some of our wounding, some of our great strengths, our temperament. And I think getting at the core of what's most important to me? Maybe for me it's independence and self sustainability. And then there's a mom two doors down who's like communal feelings of caretaking. Those are both beautiful sets of values. And the times when we are most upset with our kid or with our self are often when we stepped on our values or when we have to choose one value to honor. Like let's say nature is important, but so is reading. But we bring the books to the park and they won't let us read to them like. Okay, you are honoring the fact that you've got your kid in nature. So I think it's really important to figure out what are your top five values because everything can't be important. That's also just a recipe for exhaustion. If everything's important, nothing happens. And so figuring out what is important to me and also what are my strengths. Maybe I'm not great at playing and I don't want to be playful, but I want to be a person who completely listens when my child talks and is okay seeing who they are versus who I want them to be. That is enough. And this is hard for moms that enter the game with a low self-esteem and a background of having to be a certain way to get love. You're not going to be really conversant in what your strengths are. If you're a person that somebody compliments you and you say, "Oh, no, this thing? Oh gosh, no." If that's your jam, you've got some work in front of you to raise your confidence in what you are good at, which is going to be very different than what I'm good at.  

Beth [00:13:25] I think that it was a real gift to learn what I am good at and to focus on that in my parenting, because it gave me such an appreciation for what my partner is good at and see him focus on that in his parenting instead of thinking again there's just this one way to be a good parent. And I remember having kind of a tough conversation with you where I was talking about how Chad and I get frustrated with each other. He thinks that I am not firm enough. I think he goes a little past firm into a category that's not particularly helpful. And thinking about my strengths and then thinking about his strength and what our kids can pick up from both of us, you said to me as I was talking through this, "Do you think you owe him an apology?" And I did. I absolutely did. Because I really did think on some level there is a right way of interacting with our kids, and I'm closer to it than he is, and he should get on board with me. And it's been so nice, I think, for all of us to let go of that and to say he's parenting from his strengths and I'm parenting for mine.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:14:32] Yes. And I sometimes get sad when I see the missed opportunity for some dads to have like a deep relationship because they're kind of playing that role. Like, oh, who was that? What friend was that? It's their friend they've had since their second grade [inaudible]. There is definitely different styles of handling conflict and one parent might be much more okay with a kid upset, which I think is an important space to be in. And I think sometimes there's this-- I don't know if it's like the sitcom dad trope that's like bled its way into the family. But there's this thought that sometimes the mom is the manager of the relationship and the father is out gathering and hunting or whatever. And that's a detriment because I'm still a person that calls and I talk to my mom and then my dad will speak to her and she says your dad says this or that. What a loss to not have your own one on one relationship. I've been having to-- I don't know if it's weaponized incompetence. I've had to feign not knowing a few times to allow my partner to step in and go ask directly to the children rather than me giving reports of the children's life, which feels like 18th century England.  

Beth [00:15:55] It does. And I think that 18th century England is a nice way to categorize that. I feel the less of that happening in my house because of societal trends that we're a part of. That from the beginning of our marriage, we have both been breadwinners. There isn't like a dynamic of one of us goes out and works and the other one doesn't. For the last several years, we've both worked from home and traveled. So we're both here a lot. We're both here when they get on the bus, we're both here when they get off the bus. And also we both have days at a time when we're away and the other person is the primary parent. So our dynamic just can't slot into that sitcom lifestyle because of the macro factors that have us in a different type of relationship. And I wonder if you're seeing especially post-COVID or during COVID when more people are working from home, any shifts in relationships that created those types of shifts around parenting?  

Mary Van Geffen [00:16:55] Well, I want to commend you because there are many people in your position that are still shouldering 75% of the work and grumbling and bitter and exhausted because it's just ingrained into women that we're supposed to be the selfless ones, the empty vessel expressing ourselves and homemaking. And I think about that statement behind every successful man is a strong woman. Like, what?  

Beth [00:17:23] Yeah, I'm not into that.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:17:25] It's what we grew up in. And so, it's an earthquake in our relationship to begin to say, oh, wow, you know what? I don't want to be in charge of that anymore, and I can't report from the finish line. I'm in the middle of that. But as someone who just started working when my kids were 10 and now they're 18 and 16. So it's been new to our relationship. And what I notice and a lot of the people I coach is just sort of like the mother is in charge of everything and she's trying to figure out how to also educate the dad at the same time about the kind of parenting that she knows to be the way forward and to be more evolved and more conscious. And I think when a woman kind of wakes up and says, "Wait a second, why would I have to be the one to figure out carpool?" I did a revolutionary thing this year, I added all the fathers to the carpool tax stream. And in the moment I thought, oh, why am I doing this? Literally, I had an internal voice sayink "Don't bother them with this." I thought, what? There is so much--  

Beth [00:18:38] Don't bother them with this. Wow!  

Mary Van Geffen [00:18:40] Literally, yeah. And every day there's a message. So and so can't go. This one can. And it felt revolutionary to say we're partners in this. And I think maybe a lot of women listening will get that, that there are just things that we signed up for that we didn't know we signed up for. And then you start to wake up and think, well, why would I be responsible for all meal prep and buying food? And so, I'm kind of making that shift. And I also really want an Alice. I don't know if you grew up watching the Brady Bunch. You might be too young, but...  

Beth [00:19:14] An Alice would be great.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:19:16] And nobody shamed Carol Brady because Carol Brady didn't have a job outside the home that I can remember. She just needed help cause she had six kids and the dynamics of a blended family. And Alice would come in and take care of all the administrative things of running a family, of which there's not a lot of glory in. And as I say, there may be somebody who's listening who's like, "Y'all don't get it. I love to express myself in this way," and that's wonderful. There are people who love to cook or they love to clean and see the closure of a beautiful space restored. But if that's not you, you can really feel like it bleeds into your parenting that you're not succeeding in this other area. And I feel like Instagram and COVID and the quarantine are just waking up women to a story we didn't know we were choosing.  

Beth [00:20:14] It's interesting my version of Alice that I have said to Chad 100 times is that I would like to have a Mr. Belvedere. So I guess I always had like a little bit more of a gender balanced perspective on these type of household chores because I grew up watching Mr. Belvedere.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:20:29] Yes. What were his responsibilities?  

Beth [00:20:32] He was the butler. So he cleaned, he cooked, he was there when the kids came home from school. The kids and the family all had a very close relationship. Would tell Mr. Belvedere about our lives. And I have desired that in my house for a long time. Just one more person to help us out.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:20:48] Yes. There would be a lot less friction in relationships if we took out the time constraint. I think time and deadlines is one of the things that makes parenting the hardest in this modern society. It's like I've got to get this kid to this place by this time. And it adds this intense pressure. And children operate in this like la la land, slow, unfolding space. And when we bring that pressure, we've got to get this done, we've got to leave now, it's so hard to be a good parent. I've had to tell multiple people that, like I can't give you a technique for ramming that kid out of bed at 7:30 and into the car by 7:40. It looks more like we get up at seven and we leave room for staring off into space. And that's an important part of integrating who this kid is into themselves.  

Beth [00:21:45] And I think that just kind of holding on to, again, like that balance of strength because my kids unfold most completely at bedtime and it seems not to matter when bedtime begins, how much space we allow around bedtime. There's never enough to contain everything they really want to workshop before they go to bed at night. Especially my seven-year-old. That is when all of her emotions from the day hit her. I can almost visualize her processing her entire day as her head hits the pillow and she wants to talk it through. So I try to remember that Chad has this excellent strength of bedtime is important. We honor the need for sleep that we have here. We will have a better day tomorrow if we get to sleep now. And I'm pretty good at saying I take your feelings seriously. This is a real thing that's happening for you. Can we do a little bit of processing now and figure out what we're going to leave to talk about tomorrow? I could not do that on my own. We would be up until two in the morning every night just really sorting Ellen's stuff out if it were just on me.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:22:50] Yeah, he brings that structure. So it's like going through the airport. One person might be really good at like, oh, no, this is the gate we need to go to. I'm reading this. And the other person's like, I'm meeting the other travelers. And bringing them into this experience and you need both. And it's not always defined by gender roles. You know what I mean? There can be a very structured female or non-binary in the situation, but usually somebody has to play that almost because they don't see it in the other. And so sometimes I think one parent might double down and become even more family centric because of the fear or the anxiousness that the other parent isn't showing it at all. So we kind of move into extremes of our self in relationship.  

Beth [00:23:47] I'm glad that you said non-binary, because I was thinking as I was preparing for this conversation about how it would be very mother centric. That's who you work with. I am a mother and how I want to do that, not to be exclusive in any way, but to be particular about what we're talking about. Because there is a particularity of parenting as a mom with a dad in the house. And that dynamic you were describing of when you have those two people living together, so much societal stuff comes with that relationship that you are navigating. It is not the only way to be a family. It is a way. And when you are in that way, it has a lot of dynamics that we're still trying to unravel.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:24:31] Well, and I've coached several couples that are lesbians. And I think that there's no one way that that works out either. Sometimes they slip into the roles that it's just easy because that's how culture is set up. And other times it's just gorgeous, just more relational motivated experience.  

Beth [00:24:53] So if we're thinking about motherhood in that lens of I'm trying to stop excluding Dad from the carpool text, we define it a lot as though martyrdom is a goal. I find that especially around Mother's Day, we're doing a lot of celebration of martyrdom. I think in terms of policy, we are resistant to policies that alleviate care giving for mothers because I think there is something in us that really celebrates motherhood as martyrdom. I felt like gentle parenting was in many ways for me an invitation out of that martyrdom. And I wonder if you think of it that way or how you see that manifesting.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:25:37] Well, that just shows how cool your brain is, because I don't think I've put that together before. But I do have a long antenna for victimhood and how that just sabotages a family. And I do think that there are these messages that you should give your all and that like, yes, there's just so much of like, oh, we're so thankful for our mothers and how much they sacrifice. Well, wait a second. Why does it have to be a sacrifice? So I think with gentle parenting, noticing that voice in you that says, "I have to give it all. I'm not important here. Their needs are important." Noticing that voice that's kind of a victim voice or a people pleasing like they need everyone to be happy. Because we've all got an inner critic and a narrator happening, we just aren't always aware of it. So becoming aware of it and deciding what do you believe about that? Because gentle parenting is about being respectful of what is. Noticing who the person is and showing up for that version of the child versus here's who I need you to be. And we can hold the vision for we're a family that uses kind words and we're also a family that loves to learn. And meanwhile, we're looking at this kid who is not using kind words and wants to watch hours three of TV. So we can hold this other space, but if we're operating out of like ugh-- and you can feel it in your body. This is where embodiment really helps. I think when it's time to make sandwiches, if you feel that martyr in you and the martyr tends to hang your head and be in sort of a C curve with their back, like noticing that, like what is that? Where am I believing I don't have choice? Because that's where martyrdom comes from. Maybe not. I think martyrdom is like, I will gladly give my body. There goes my breasts, they're destroyed, and so is my whole pelvic area. I don't think that means you're a better mom. I think if you think about being what it's like to be raised by a martyr, I mean, doesn't that immediately send shivers down your back like, yes, you can't please them? It's never enough because they're they're locked in this vision of themselves as being misused in some way by the experience. I don't know. How do you see gentle parenting dabbing with its martyrdom as mother?  

Beth [00:28:20] Well, I think it has allowed me again to say, here's what I'm good at and here's what I'm not good at. And to not feel guilty about not being good at everything and to recognize that what I'm not good at there are other adults in my kids lives who can do that. I think the focus on you talk a lot about trying to find adults who will pursue your children for loving relationships with them. So saying you are not the center of their universe and don't have to be forever. I think thinking about myself in a different posture based on their ages has been really helpful to understand especially now with my 12-year-old that my goal is so much about ensuring that she has everything she needs to craft her life. So sometimes she'll say to me, "Can you do this for me? Can you ask my violin teacher if we can change my lesson time?" And I'll say, I think that you're capable of doing that. And I just take so many tasks off my own list and see that as better parenting than doing it all for her. It's just really helped me define my role as less about what can I provide all of these people, and more who can I be around these people? And that's been so nice.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:29:37] Who can I be? And what would be the highest good in this moment? Is it to just make nice and get-- like my daughter woke up this morning and was like, "I'm in a real rush. Can you make me oatmeal?" And it's an art, this gentle parenting, because it's like, "Whoa, hold on. Let me think about this a second." In this instance, she had worked last night and she wasn't feeling well. And so it was kind of like a hell yes. But there are other times where I want to help her feel the yuckyness of not planning ahead and sort of that natural consequences, I guess, what people love to say about it. But no one can be like right of one page edict on when to help them and when not, because it really is an art, because we are trying to equip them to be able to walk this earth without us. And so I think part of martyrdom in motherhood is hoping you will always be this huge sun in their life that they need, and that's really bad for everybody. It reminds me so much of this whole-- going through this, this is my second Mother's Day where I'm on the Internet telling people that Mother's Day should really be whatever makes the person in the trenches feel great, the person who is wiping noses and not sleeping through the night. That's what this-- it shouldn't. What ends up happening is that person is then off doing all the work for that older mother, the grandmother trying to make them feel special. And it just it seems backwards and almost patriarchal that we have to go add further weight to this exhausted new-ish mother who doesn't have the brain space to plan some pageantry for some older mother. It's just to me one more example of us kind of creating martyrdom expectations.  

Beth [00:31:31] Yeah. And I think that oatmeal example is such a great one, because another way that gentle parenting is helped me out of martyrdom is that I realize I can think about that calculus. But I don't have to think about it so much every single day that I am constantly worried I'm going to make the wrong decision, that I can say it is an art and it is a long game. So the one time that I do or don't is just a drop in the experience of me for her. And it's okay if I deprive her of the lesson of the consequences or I add a drop to her thinking about me as someone who will always show up for her. You know what I mean? Taking a longer view has been really valuable.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:32:19] Yes, I think of-- is it Maya Angelou or is it Gandhi? Whoever says it's not about what you do, it's how they feel in your presence. What did it feel like to be with you? And you can be saying no in a lovely, pleasant way and holding space for upset and have created a firm long-term relationship versus sort of, "Okay. Ugh, all right. Well, now I got to do this." It's that whole culture of busy when you show up at the car line and someone's like, well, she didn't tell me she needed cupcakes. And it's like they almost love it. That personality loves how needed they are. And oh my gosh, it's really hard. Take it from me as someone who has an 18-year-old who's leaving for college soon, you just aren't needed in that way. And so building up your ability to be separate and distinct, like you said something like it's important that I make sure they have everything they need. Yes. And it's important that you have everything you need. And so, what does that look like as they begin to grow up for you to be doing things that light you up that are separate from your role as mother. How do you express yourself? What tickles you? That could be your own thing. And then it's so amazing that they get to see that, to see you living a full life. It's not just about service.  

Beth [00:33:51] And I can do that thing where it's like, "Woe is me. I'm so busy" because I am pretty hard wired to say hard work is a value. And I've really been trying to figure out how to convey as a mom hard work is valuable, pursuing excellence is valuable. I want that experience for you and in certain places in your life, just not in all the places all the time. And so, for me, pursuing excellence in lunchbox design is just not on my list, but pursuing excellence with my writing is. So what's on your list? What are you excited about? And that's just been a nice shift to realize I can instill that value in them in a more focused way than I have it in myself. And that takes so much pressure off both of us.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:34:42] I can almost see you creating a pursuing excellence yes/no list. Like, yes, I will pursue it in these ways. No, I will let it be okay that it is imperfect and I'm barely done in these other ways because that's the only way it could be sustainable to pursue excellence, is if there were some other areas where you were not and you're pursuing rest and recharging as well, which is sort of that shadow side for some who are real high achievers.  

Beth [00:35:11] I've been thinking a lot about what a luxury it is that I got to work with a parent coach, that I got to spend several hours, one on one with a professional thinking hard about who I want to be as a mom. Identifying cultural reference points that I can come back to over and over again, workshopping specific scenarios. What a luxury that is and how much privilege is in my life that I get to do that. I wonder what you think about the way that social media or classes or other big scale tools could help more people have a new conversation about parenting? How do we level the playing field a little bit so that parents who are in the trenches, who don't have the luxury of time or cash that I do to invest in this, get some exposure to re parenting themselves, healing the wounds, healing old wounds, thinking through who they want to be as parents. I wish more people could have this gift. And I wonder how you think about that.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:36:21] The democratization of parenting skills. Yes. One thing I'm working on is anytime I have either class that's very expensive, Moms of Spicy Ones, and it's almost $500. And so there I'm setting aside scholarships for five people. And then I get totally overwhelmed because it's 20 people that are looking for that. And so I feel that I am so thankful for Instagram because I do feel like you can follow four different parenting people and get a little thing each day to work on. And yet to not have that to process can also start to feel like you're being drowned by parenting advice. I think it's really important to find a listening partner. And this idea comes from Patty Wipfler's Hand in Hand parenting. And it's the idea of having someone you can have never met them. They can just be somebody you jived with on the Internet or somebody you met and you take 15 minutes a week, and they set a timer, and you just talk about your experience of parenting. And when you get to talk through it and have somebody listen and hold space for how hard it is and they're not going to judge you when you say, "I hate this kid today," and you can get that vitriol out and process it with another loving human, that makes a huge shift in the trajectory of your parenting. So if you would be so bold as to ask someone to be your listening partner, it's mutually reciprocal. You give them 15 minutes, they give you 15 minutes. You don't give advice. I think that's crucial. I think being in some kind of community-- and I don't mean Facebook community, but finding your people who are also kind of moving towards being a gentle parent, even if they don't know what that is. And then there's lovely books out there. I love this old book from the late nineties that was super progressive at the time. Becoming the Parent You Want to Be. I think it looks at all these questions about yourself is really crucial. But I'm an activist for the child. I will swoop in and try to protect children from growing up, feeling wrong and broken. But I can see that systemically there should be a parenting salon on every corner where you come in and you get to tell your story and you get a little bit of advice, or at least just a perspective shift and you go back out into that wilderness of family, but there isn't. Do you have any ideas of how to...  

Beth [00:39:02] No. I love that listening partner idea, though, because I think that so much of it. So I think mostly about the political side of things. And something that I think about from my workplace experiences all the time is how many people just don't get affirmed enough. They don't feel seen. They don't feel like anyone understands their experiences, how hard they're working, and they don't feel a sense of affirmation. And I feel like it would radically change our politics if more people felt affirmed more often. And so being able to find that by setting aside one relationship to talk about your parenting, I think that's a wonderful idea. And I just think there are so many ripple effects. I was chatting with one of my daughters last night about a thing with a boy. I will not go into detail. I want to honor her confidence. But a thing with a boy. And it was so interesting because it gave me an opportunity at one point to say, "How a boy feels about you is not your responsibility." And that was a big moment for her because she was feeling a lot of guilt about this boy having a crush on her. And so being able to say, that's not your responsibility, that's huge politically. And then later for her to say, "What if I did like this person?" And just to kind of have room to try on all these things with me, I think she's going to be a really different adult than an adult who's holding all of that in secret. And I feel like politically we are living the result of a lot of adults who are holding all that in secret. So any suggestion like spending 15 minutes talking to a friend, no advice, I really welcome and embrace because I think we need so much more of that.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:40:44] Yeah. And I just want to say, Beth, you're such a good mom.  

Beth [00:40:48] Oh, thank you!  

Mary Van Geffen [00:40:48]  And you're probably mothering so many women who are listening who is like, I wish somebody would have told me that a boy's perception of me is none of my business and not my problem. That's beautiful. One other sort of exercise-- I mean, obviously, I have a bunch of $49 classes, but the $49 is a lot for somebody. Another thing is to journal. And most people roll their eyes at the Journal thing, but hear me out here. Daniel Siegel's work research shows that the strongest indicator of whether or not dysfunction or abuse will continue to the next generation is whether or not the person, this child who was abused or was in an awful situation, can articulate what it was like for them. And they grow up to be a parent-- if they can articulate it, they grow up to break those cycles. So you writing out what it was like to be little as we do this in Moms of Spicy Ones. What was it like for you to be small? What was your reputation like in your family? What do you wish folks would have said to you when you were little? And just being with and listening to the story of that young part of you, if instead you're the type of person that's like, "You know what? My parents did the best they could," or "I was a terror, I deserved everything I got," those are signals. Those platitudes that you have not yet done the work and that you don't have a lot of empathy for little you and even parents that were doing the best they could sometimes didn't give you what you need. And so taking time to be with yourself and journal that and write it out and reread it and just tell your story even to yourself is important.  

Beth [00:42:31] I love that. Well, thank you for saying I'm a good mom, if that is true, in large part because I've had so much good information from you and I am so grateful for it. And if you have the $49, I will tell you that it's worth every penny. I took your class. What is it called? The class about parenting teens.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:42:49] Shift Your Parenting Teens. Yeah.  

Beth [00:42:51] I took so many notes. I think about it every day. It is, in my opinion, such money well spent. My parenting coaching with you is invaluable. So I am so grateful for you doing that work with me and for sharing some of it with all of us here today.  

Mary Van Geffen [00:43:05] My pleasure.  

Beth [00:43:08] Up next, because we contain multitudes here, Sarah and I are discussing all things shorts. Sarah, you wanted to talk about shorts. I think we should just begin with our personal stances on shorts. Are you a shorts wearer or no.  

Sarah [00:43:35] It's a long journey. How much time do you have? I've never loved shorts because I don't love the creep, the crawl, the creep in the crawl. There's a great instagrammer, I don't have her name in front of me, who reviews athletic shorts for the creep in the crawl and will tell you if they hold up or not. And I have never, ever forgotten one time watching What Not to Wear with Trinny and Susanna, the original British team, and Trinny said the problem with shorts is you stand up and they're still sitting down.  

Beth [00:44:05] That's so true.  

Sarah [00:44:06] And I thought, that that's it. It's so good. But you just have to have them. You just got to have some shorts in your life. You have to have them for places like amusement parks. Even though I've worn a dress at the amusement park, I'm not mad about it. But I do feel like they're sort of an important wardrobe essential for the summer. And so I've made my peace with shorts, and I have found some shorts that not only will I wear but I actually enjoy. But it has been a long journey for me. It has been a long journey.  

Beth [00:44:37] It's similar for me. I tried to avoid shorts for a very long time. I decided that I would look back on that decision in life with regret. It is silly for me to tell myself that I'm too old to wear shorts. That is just not true. And there are situations where shorts are clearly the best option. So I have been going through a real experiment with shorts. Try and have a little renaissance around them. A shortissance (sic) something like that. I really like the On-The-Go-Shorts from Summersalt. Those are probably my favorite so far. But I'm experimenting, I'm out there, I'm looking, I'm working with lengths, I'm working with fabrics, I'm trying to find just the thing.  

Sarah [00:45:21] Yeah. I found Instagrammer Sophie Hudson through Jamie Golden. She has this great Instagram highlight reel about shorts, and she calls them starter shorts. Just a nice cheap pair from Target or Old Navy where you can get back into it and figure out what you like. I do think my friend Kate is right. I think the key was shorts, especially denim shorts, a sizing way up. They need to be loose and comfy and I agree with that. I found a pair really that probably got me back into shorts a long time ago. They were like Banana Republic roll up, but they had just the perfect inseam. That didn't creep but wasn't too long because I don't love a Bermuda. I'm going to be honest. I don't love it for me. And so, finding that in between because I'm also not wearing shorty shorts. Obviously, I didn't wear them in high school. I'm certainly not going to wear them in my forties. But I do think finding those nice starter pairs, sizing up-- like I invested in a nice pair from Madewell, but I bought them too small and too tight and so I needed to go up in size. I'm gonna do that next time. But it is quite the journey with the shorts. It just really is. But I do try to remind myself however I feel about how my legs look, I do love my leggings. They are here, they are strong, they are holding me up, they are taking me places. And I want to lay some love on them with a good pair of shorts.  

Beth [00:46:39] Yes, I think all the time about Kathleen Frazier's poem in which my legs are accepted. I want to be a person who looks down at my legs with real gratitude and sincerity and not disdain at all. So it sounds like you have mostly been on a denim short adventure. Am I hearing right?  

Sarah [00:46:55] I do like a denim shorts. Yes. Now I have three pairs that I bought. I found a pair from Target that are like linen, knee drawstring shorts, and they don't by some miracle of magic or witchcraft right up in the middle. And so I bought them in three different colors. I do like those a great deal, but I really prefer a denim short. I like just the little bit of additional structure. I'm just a jeans person. I own a truly ridiculous amount of denim.  

Beth [00:47:24] See, I find that the occasions for which I believe shorts are the correct thing to wear, I'm not interested in denim. It's got to be pretty hot for me to want to wear a short. That's what I really like about this On-The-Go fabric from Summersalt. It's made from plastic water bottles. It's moisture wicking, it's super light. They have it in pants too. And I do prefer the On-The-Go-Pants to the shorts just because I'm creeping out of this bias. But I'm not just full shorts now. But,, yeah, I have bought several pairs of denim shorts over the years trying to get myself to like, this is going to be my summer uniform, and I never end up wearing them.  

Sarah [00:47:59] Because I do. I love a denim cut off short with like a white linen button up. I feel like I'm really living my best coastal grandmother life. Or I love a denim shirt with a cotton summer sweater. I just feel like I'm at the beach. Look at me living my life with a nice wind, a crisp breeze. Oh, bring it. Bring it to me. So I do prefer a denim short. But, again, I just like denim generally. And I don't find denim shorts hot. But again, you got to size way up in the denim shorts.  

Beth [00:48:35] Yeah. And the sizing up is so tricky too, because the hips and the waist, I just feel like we all have a different ratio there. And the short makers have not properly considered how different the ratios can be in the hips and the waist.  

Sarah [00:48:48] I will say my shorts sit lower than my jeans. Like I want my jeans to my neck. Preferably, I would like the waistline to be approximately at my collarbone, but with the shorts I actually don't mind a lower rise. I like them to sit low because I just think you don't have as much pant to balance out the high waist. So they're really going to go high waist on you, you know what I'm saying? So all of my denim shorts are much lower rise than my actual jeans.  

Beth [00:49:20] I think it's hard to find a cute summer top now that's not cropped, which is another challenge with the short wearing because, I agree, I want them to sit a little bit lower, but I am not interested in any exposed skin really below my neck or above my knee.  

Sarah [00:49:39] Can I recommend to you a white linen button up? Let me just tell you, just go out there, behave as if you live in a Nancy Meyers film, like I do all the time. It's great. It works out lovely. I wore one I bought at Walmart out. I finally was like, oh, man-- I think I finally washed it with something in it and it bled. I was so sad. Got a new one from Amazon. I don't love it as much as the Walmart one, but man, I love a linen white button up.  

Beth [00:50:01] I love the look of it on other people. Linen is so tricky though. I just feel like I'm always wrinkled when I'm wearing. 

Sarah [00:50:06] Yeah, you are. But again your shorts are still straightened out, so who cares? Linen.  

Beth [00:50:10] Just be wrinkled, be free. 

Sarah [00:50:12] Yeah. It's summer. You're wrinkled. It's fine.  

Beth [00:50:14] Okay. Well, if you all have shorts recommendations, I'm eager to hear them because it is a complex formula that makes a good short.  

Sarah [00:50:21] Listen, there's a lot going on. A lot going on with the shorts.  

Beth [00:50:27] Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you'll come back next Tuesday. My husband, Chad, will be co-hosting with me. We're going to talk about some headlines. And then by very popular request, to tell you about our experience putting solar panels on our house. Until then, have the best weekend available.  

Beth: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.

Sarah: Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. Tawni Peterson. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Danny Ozment. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. 

Beth: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller. 

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