Raising Values: Being Mom

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Raising Values Podcast where the traditional family talks. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram. You can support the Raising Values podcast through Patreon. The Lingillian are behind

[00:00:17] the mic and we hope you enjoy the show. Welcome back to Raising Values and Happy Mother's Day everyone. Good morning. Happy Mother's Day. So as I kind of front loaded in the

[00:00:37] comments, I kind of expect this to be a short show because it's Mother's Day. I'm sure everybody has, you know, mothers to attend to. Yeah. And I'm a mom. Very obviously. And while I

[00:00:53] love the podcast, I don't want to work today. I wouldn't call this work. I was going to embarrass you with all the words, but you know. Oh, okay. Well, proceed. So like I personally think mothers are extraordinarily important and I would say to a degree almost undervalued

[00:01:14] and in more modern society. Stop fidgeting. I'm not fidgeting. I'm adjusting. But anyway, I think moms are a little undervalued. I think that, you know, for quite a few years now, there's been this push to demean stay at home moms and motherhood in general. I think

[00:01:35] there's been a lot of effort paid towards encouraging women into the workforce and out of the home and out of traditional motherhood roles. I've seen a lot of discussion around like telling women, well, you're wasting yourself if all you do is be a mom. And that

[00:01:52] that's always kind of wrangled me because like I think of motherhood in much the same terms as you fatherhood where like this is like your old this is like a woman's ultimate calling in a lot of respects, not for all women. Some women choose not to be mothers.

[00:02:08] But I think that being a mom is a freaking difficult job. I mean, I mean, being a dad can be a difficult job, but it's Mother's Day. I'll try to I'll try to accept all of these things.

[00:02:22] I'm just saying motherhood from from the outside perspective is an incredibly difficult job because like it requires you to be selfless. It requires you to put other people in front of yourself.

[00:02:34] It requires you to sacrifice. It recalls even down to the physical. Oh yeah, I wasn't even there yet. I didn't know if you had even thought of that, but I mean, sacrifice your body to to having children there. I have to admit like watching you go through pregnancy,

[00:02:54] I did have a flashback to the movie aliens, the alien that burst out of the person's chest and everything like I've said time and time again, like, you know, I don't get into the whole

[00:03:06] women or the fair sex or the weaker sex. I look at men and women as being uniquely designed for the roles that I believe they were supposed to take on and women putting their lives on the risk

[00:03:20] online at risk. Women in some cases, like irreparably harming their bodies to bring life into this world is incredible. Like the fact that y'all the fact that your bodies can do that is amazing to me. I saw something today, I heard something today that said childbirth is the

[00:03:40] second most painful thing a human can go through. The first one is being burned alive. Oh, I thought it was going to be a man catching a cold which doesn't mean oh no, I was actually thinking like

[00:03:51] real like it I think I don't know if that's true but well but it's also worth pointing out that prior to like the mid 20th century or at least the early 20th century like childbirth was

[00:04:03] the leading cause of death for women. Yeah. The leading cause now that's twofold. First of all, the fact that like back in those times men traditionally took on more dangerous jobs so

[00:04:14] that women didn't have to but childbirth was like you have to we all ended up dying anyway because we were giving birth to your children. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess what I'm saying is

[00:04:25] like you know it's worth pointing out that like every and you and I went through this when when a woman decides to get pregnant like there is a risk involved. It's not always nine months of

[00:04:37] rainbows and unicorns and you know you're back to washing dishes the afternoon after you give birth like sometimes there's even above and beyond the pain sometimes there's physical damage, sometimes there's psychological things to unwind afterwards. It's it's it's a it's not without risk.

[00:04:56] I mean I could go into a really long story but I've been there done that. We have. So no it is it's not without risk and it's not the same for every woman either like becoming a mom

[00:05:11] everyone has their own it's a scale and every you know women land on it in every place you know so yeah I don't know I don't know what to say I'm just like yeah okay I'm a mom I did that.

[00:05:27] Kyle tell Holly we said happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day Kyle I mean to the Wilson's. Yeah but yeah to our tribe mom I didn't see that. I refer to you as the matter of fact is a grandmother.

[00:05:45] I love that I can't wait to see all my kids in three weeks. You're the ones that are older than you. Even all the ones that are older than me. Oh that's sweet. But yeah I don't know like like from my perspective the simple act of

[00:05:59] becoming a mother is like terrifying and amazing enough but then having watched you be a mother for 12 years has been it's been something to behold for me you know like when I when I look back on like my own childhood and looking back at my mother retrospectively

[00:06:22] and my relationship with her I look at from a child's point of view whereas I feel like when I watched you with our child I can see it from that from that third party you know

[00:06:31] saying from like the 30,000 foot perspective and be like oh that's how it works. Like mom mom does get overwhelmed and mom does have worries and mom does get you know overloaded sometimes but mom is still mom even when she's overloaded. Like yeah I know I talked

[00:06:48] to you about this like in reference to my father but like watching them go through open heart surgery was it was world-altering for me because I had always just assumed he was

[00:06:58] he was superhuman. Like I never saw this man break I never saw him I never saw him lose control I never saw him I never saw him shaking until then and then I was like holy crap you are human.

[00:07:10] Look I can't cry and you cry. Well then you have to stop crying because that's going to make me start. Well you have to stop saying nice things about me. But in any case and looking at you with

[00:07:23] Piper I now see my mom in a different light because I know that there are days when you talk all the time about how you can't pour from an empty cup and yet you try to if your daughter

[00:07:36] needs you you will dig down in that cup for the last little drop and give it to her. Absolutely all day any day. Yeah it is the ultimate act of selflessness. Well then there's no question like

[00:07:51] at least for me and like I said mom's land on the scale in very different places all the time. Oh I just got a happy mother's day from my sister well my sister-in-law.

[00:08:01] I love my mother very very very much. I love her very much. I learned watching her that now being a mom and seeing just how stressful it is with one child I can I understand why she went

[00:08:23] crazy especially with three especially knowing you and your sisters. Yeah right we gave her that gray hair and but it merged nicely with the blonde at least. Yeah right I think I would hope and I'm gonna say this in the nicest way possible but

[00:08:47] I think women look at their mothers and at their fathers but they look at their parents and once they become a mother then they can then see through different eyes how their mother raised them

[00:09:05] and they can see what worked and what traditions there they'll continue with their children and then what didn't work and what things that you know I guess not really traditions but what elements worked for their mom and what elements didn't work and you can look at that subjectively

[00:09:24] as a child and think I don't want that for my child or I want to continue that for my child and um so it's you know I I was telling you this yesterday because Piper was I when Piper was born

[00:09:42] I went into the hospital on Mother's Day and so I was in labor this close to getting a Mother's Day present. I was in labor on Mother's Day for 18 hours wasn't it? Yes for 18 hours.

[00:09:54] That little girl did not want to come out but she waited she's like no mom I'm gonna let you have your day and ever since then she's been slow to get out of bed absolutely um I don't know where I was

[00:10:07] going with that. I almost got my mother's my first Mother's Day present with Piper but um gosh dang it I can't remember where I was going with that but oh I know what it was um so yesterday we

[00:10:18] celebrated Piper's birthday so she turned 12 on Tuesday but you know you have to do it on a weekend because friends aren't available during the week especially in May I mean May is just such a

[00:10:29] hard month for everybody I've said that time and time again and it's even harder when you're a teacher end of arm um so Mays are hard but we dedicated yesterday to Piper and her birthday

[00:10:42] but before all the festivities happened me and Phil were sitting on the back porch drinking our coffee and of course I'm a blubbering mother who's just crying because she's 12 which means

[00:10:54] she only has one more year until she's a teenager which also means she has one more year until she's in high school and where did the time go and I'm gonna start crying again and um

[00:11:09] motherhood was really hard for me in the beginning I didn't think I was supposed to be a mom after Piper was born I thought I'm really sorry y'all I wanted four kids and I thought I had I

[00:11:27] had believed the I had believed the myth of motherhood being this easy magical experience and I didn't get that and I was so convinced that I wasn't supposed to be a mom

[00:11:46] in three years I don't think I had the connection that I was led to believe that I would have with my child and I thought that I was a failure for so long

[00:11:59] and I unfortunately hold on to that in a lot of ways I'm I've always been a very very harsh judge of myself and I try my best to do my best in every situation with every relationship

[00:12:21] but my focus has been on making sure that my husband is loved and cared for and my child is loved and cared for and I try I think the one thing that I

[00:12:34] I have to tell myself every day because it's always in the back of my head the interactions I have with her daily is don't fuck her up don't fuck her up and I'm so scared sorry for the F word

[00:12:50] I'm so um I'm so scared that I'm gonna give her some complex or I'm gonna tell her something that it's gonna stick with her for the rest of her life and I'm gonna do something that's just

[00:13:05] it's going to change the course of how she thinks and you know the direction she goes in and I'm I try to there are things that I don't want to carry over from my childhood

[00:13:23] and I'm very much aware of those things on the daily but motherhood was in the beginning was not easy for me and it's gotten easier but now we're getting into a different stage of her life as a teenager

[00:13:42] and it's getting harder again and I'm you know you become self-conscious where do you fit into your child's life do they really value you do they you know you have to now navigate

[00:13:56] teenagers and that's hard um because I mean I remember so many things from being a child and I always thought I always had these moments when Piper would come up to me and she would say

[00:14:14] different things or she would ask different questions or she would do something and I can remember myself asking those same questions and saying those same things and doing those same things and thinking that is so cool like she's a little me like I feel like she's a little

[00:14:30] me in that instance but she's definitely a daddy's girl and that's totally fine that is so common with girls to to navigate to their dad and you give her so much that I can't and

[00:14:48] so much that I've never been able to give her um and it's nothing it's nothing that she's done it's nothing that she has said and it's it's well besides her teenage tone that the teenage

[00:15:03] tone in her voice gets to me and um a lot of it is just me and my um not lack of confidence mom guilt I have a lot of mom guilt I don't know if I'll ever get

[00:15:18] rid of the mom guilt do you think any moms I I'm not saying that my case um was harder and different and better in a way like it was harder than most moms but my my case is really hard and so I don't

[00:15:38] know if I don't know if there's a huge population of women who go through what I went through I mean I don't know if the mom guilt will go away she had she's not affected by it

[00:15:57] well at the end of the day like that's the important part is that but we we put her on the path she needs to be on regardless of what's going on with us but yeah the one thing I thought of because you and I have talked before about

[00:16:14] we have to catch up on comments I see all that okay so guide the comments I don't know who you are but I'm wondering like I'm wondering if you and I've spoken offline before but um

[00:16:26] this this stands out to me being vulnerable not because you are but because you and your family depend on it you have to be yeah I mean you know call call what it is like to me I've always

[00:16:41] looked at situations as you know our children look to us for a lot of things but one of those things is like reassurance like is everything going to be okay is is it is mom going to get better

[00:16:56] is dad going to get better if somebody's going to the doctor the hospital is somebody sick in bed you know all those things like our children depend on us to they look to us to say okay as

[00:17:06] long as mom is a freaking out everything's going to be okay and you can be in the middle of a grade a like USDA prime shit fit inside of your head but know that I have got to hold my I've got

[00:17:19] to hold this together I've got to because if I fly apart she gets worried I do that or you do that both of us I've I've seen you do it yeah I mean when the adrenaline pumps and you've got to act

[00:17:34] and whatever of course I know I can I've done it before many times and it's not always fun but yeah yeah and call was just echoing Harrison is a mom this boy and I I I don't have any science

[00:17:51] to back this up I can't point you to a website that gives you statistics but I think that is just boys go to you know they they go to mom and then girls go to dad I was a daddy's girl I still

[00:18:02] am a daddy's girl you know there might be something to that I wonder if it's not more like personality aligned because like because there are aspects of hypers like you and I've talked about

[00:18:15] the soup that is our child and on the one hand there are aspects of her personality that are 110% me yeah she's she's hyper rational she's you know in some ways thrives on structure in some ways extremely organized very very gifted intellectually as or as is her mother

[00:18:41] did you just call me dumb no but what I but what I was getting at is like she is obviously inherited like whatever my talent is for mathematics she's inherited but she's also

[00:18:53] an amazing artist which did not come from anywhere in my genetics she's she grasps science and biology in a way that I see mirroring you emotionally I think she's much closer to the way you operate

[00:19:10] than I do that just is because she has a uterus and ovaries yeah I can't help that but I guess my point of view is like I wonder if the reason why she's quote unquote a daddy's girl is because

[00:19:23] her personality is closer to you so then why wouldn't because I mean obviously you like having me around I hope so why wouldn't she if y'all's personalities are kind of similarly aligned you know I'm saying it's the old opposite to track thing but at the same time like

[00:19:40] there are times when she absolutely will not go to me with certain things yeah a lot of times it's like you know 12 year old girl type stuff but they're I mean sometimes it's stuff like you know

[00:19:53] talking about friends at school or fight she's been in there's just there's times she'd rather talk to you and I think that is because she whether instinctively or intellectually understands

[00:20:05] I can get what I need from mom or I can get what I need from dad those are different things and they always will be I mean this is not to get really biblical but like I think there's a

[00:20:15] reason why biologically man and woman are designed to come together and create a child supposed to take two of us you know I I'm all I Gillian always tries to help me be careful like

[00:20:29] about getting too hard on like single mothers because there are quite a few out there but like I just I've I've I've seen I see people out there trying to raise children by themselves

[00:20:41] as being at a serious deficit because you don't have that other side I agree with you with that I mean we won't go down that road but um yeah they are at a deficit which means they have to work

[00:20:54] harder yeah but I guess I'm saying is like from my perspective mothers mothers give children something that fathers I don't think can like fathers again on the average is on the whole are very

[00:21:10] are to usually very important for things like structure and discipline and you know like the fathers are the ones that are like it sucks but you're gonna have to put on a helmet again over it

[00:21:20] and then I I feel like most of the time on the averages mothers are the ones that are a little bit more you know nurturing and understand your feelings and your emotions and you have

[00:21:31] to have both those components for children but I I know and this could just be you and me individually but I feel like the average is applied but like I know where I struggle and you don't struggle with those areas I um I heard another thing

[00:21:48] because it's Mother's Day so there's a lot of doctors who come out and psychologists or whatever and they're on their tiktoks or instagrams or whatever and I don't so again I don't know how

[00:21:58] true this is and I don't have any websites to back up with statistics or scientific data but she said um she said a child's adult mental health so as this child is growing up and becomes an adult

[00:22:15] their mental health is established and that's probably not the word but it is determined by the mental health of their mother growing up so if mom is probably shouldn't read too far

[00:22:31] and if mom is cuckoo bananas their mental health will not be intact as an adult that that will that will continue on with them and in some cases I've seen that and then in others like myself

[00:22:49] um I've I've worked to I I am not I have to say this I'm not um trying to talk negatively about my mother she's she was a great mom she she did she made a lot of sacrifices and did a lot of

[00:23:06] things and made um made our childhood the best that it could be for what my parents were able to do emotionally physically and so forth monetarily all that stuff um but I can see that I can see a

[00:23:26] daughter following in mom's footsteps I could see a son being emotionally unhinged because that's all he's ever known is mom was socially I mean emotionally unhinged and so that's just that's just the norm that's how you act and that's why it's so important and

[00:23:44] the two of us before we even had children um agreed that we we are the example set for her she has to be able to look to us even when we're not performing and now performing is not the

[00:23:59] word I want to use but what I'm saying is like when we're even when we're down she's still looking to us for the example exactly and not even down is the right word that I'm trying to say it's

[00:24:11] when we're not thinking about it when we're not in the moment of this is a teaching moment or whatever when it's just an everyday we're in our own element we're thinking of our own things

[00:24:20] it's still a teaching moment for her she's still watching and seeing how we react to different things um I don't know I mean I like I said earlier like I am I'm constantly thinking of

[00:24:33] those things I'm I'm even thinking of those things when I'm teaching her class you know because I do have to wear two hats with her and it's unfortunate sometimes that

[00:24:45] teacher hat has to rule out rule mom hat but um I think about me being in front of my class teaching and how I'm treating other children and what I'm saying to her because I don't want

[00:24:56] her ostracized because I am her daughter but I can't count how to hurt too much because I am her teacher um so I don't know your your best a child's or you know a younger

[00:25:13] young adult's best example of what a relationship should be and how or maybe not even example but they're going to look to their mothers their model yes thank you they're but they're going

[00:25:27] to look to their mothers and and say to themselves I'm either going to continue this trend good or bad or I'm going to go my own way and do things my own way because that's just how I want to

[00:25:40] break away from that and I have definitely broken away from and it's not just my mom it was it's generational you know it's just it's just generational yeah I mean I know generational

[00:25:54] trauma is a phrase that's thrown around a lot a lot in modern times but you know I've long said that you know even though I'm notorious for quoting your father-in-law many

[00:26:06] things because I think he was right about a lot I mean he was certainly a lot of my model for how to be a dad and a husband but there are still things that he and I do differently because

[00:26:14] I looked at the way he did things and I was like it worked for you it just doesn't work for me it's not the way I want to do things but um even I'm forced to admit much more often than I prefer

[00:26:26] he was right about a lot of things I didn't take the entire pops rabble a manual and throw the whole thing in the trash I just yanked a couple of pages out said those pages go over here this

[00:26:37] this book gets state put yeah but I do want to catch one a couple of these Joe said morning happy mother's day from Joe and Jen happy mother's day Jen Kyle said I get called mother

[00:26:53] every day at work but knowing where you work I don't think it's in quite the same context yeah that one that one needs a little bit more explanation Kyle and it might not be

[00:27:03] you might just need to text us yeah I don't think it's quite the same context but you know and I do want to throw this up because I agree with Joe that's too much weight on just mom

[00:27:14] both parents mental position affects the child parents not parent I and and I agree Joe and that's why I said um I shouldn't read too much into this or think too much into this

[00:27:26] because then the mom guilt will just shoot back up and then the mom guilt cup will be filled again and I agree but yes I do wonder though if the reason that the if the reason that is still

[00:27:37] the can be the preconception at this point though is because traditionally mothers do spend more time with the child and fathers are out doing other things so the child again like when you're talking about psychology especially child psychology you're looking backwards so I wonder if they're

[00:27:54] looking at like our generation that was largely raised raised homes by stay-at-home moms yeah largely not exclusively unfortunately but largely like I was raised by stay-at-home mom so yeah my mom's

[00:28:07] mental health was absolutely going to impact me as a child because I spent much much much more of my time with her than I did my father my dad worked mom stayed home so until I started like kindergarten

[00:28:18] I was with my mother every hour I wasn't asleep yeah but on that same line though I do believe that it is it is the mother's responsibility and even the fathers it falls to both the parents that

[00:28:34] if something is wrong with your mental health it's not just affecting you it is affecting your husband or your spouse or your significant other and it's definitely affecting your children

[00:28:44] and you owe it to yourself and all of those people that you care for to get help and get through that there was a point in those horrible years after Piper was born that I had to say to myself

[00:29:00] I'm not just killing myself I'm killing them like they need me they my husband needs a wife and my daughter needs a mother and so there it wasn't so much a hard decision because I knew

[00:29:15] it needed to happen but it was finding the strength to just call and make an appointment to talk to a psychiatrist to figure out was there medication that needed to be taken or was there a holistic way to get through this maybe it was just through counseling

[00:29:34] but there was absolutely not there was so many hormonal imbalances that happened after Piper was born that I was just a can of soup that made no sense you know what I'm saying like the

[00:29:48] hormones were just so so badly out of whack but um so many people depend on your mental health if you're not going to do it for your just yourself then you really need to consider who

[00:30:05] else it's affecting especially if it's affecting your children that may sound really harsh and not the most politically correct thing to say about mental health and you know may sound selfish or whatever or not whatever but I don't think it sounds selfish at all

[00:30:23] I think that I think that by its very definition being a mother means you're responsible for other people besides yourself yeah it's go ahead well but again parallels here and I know you you know

[00:30:36] I've talked about this every time I get philosophical and you you bear with me while I'm letting it out but like I draw a lot of parallels between motherhood fatherhood and being a spouse

[00:30:48] like being a spouse means I have to like in my pyramid of things I care about Phil is no longer at the top Phil has to go down a couple of notches and I need to install

[00:30:58] wife and then child above me that's the way it's supposed to work being mom means yeah you're still a spouse and you should care about your husband but that child has to come ahead of you

[00:31:12] and I've I have repeatedly and firmly said you know regardless of what other people believe that's their own business but like I personally believe that in order to be a mother or father

[00:31:25] you have to be selfless you have to care about your child more than you do yourself it gets a lot more sticky when you start talking about do you put the child above

[00:31:35] the spouse because I don't think that's appropriate either but I don't think there's a debate about like at least the way that I am as a father my child comes ahead of me if there's if there's two

[00:31:46] meals left in this house I'm going hungry or I'm gonna go kill something the woods eat it I'm not I'm not taking from you and Piper because my responsibilities take care of both of

[00:31:55] y'all and in much the same way when we get past the physical realm you're talking about like the emotional psychological realm your responsibility is to make sure that she feels loved and heard and respected and cared for even if it comes at a contemporary cost to you

[00:32:14] but like you just said when you're talking about when you're talking about like the situation you were in after birth where like you you weren't there but you knew you had to be so you made a

[00:32:28] very difficult decision to go get counseling to go get treatment and to do whatever it took to get yourself back on the path you felt like you need to be on and I feel like yeah you're right

[00:32:38] if a person won't do for themselves and if they won't do for their spouse damage better get due for you kid and I just I will always upset people when I tell them I don't accept excuses

[00:32:50] for that like you and I came in to be in parents different from other people's experience we intentionally had Piper we wanted to be a mother and father like this wasn't a

[00:33:05] an oops and this wasn't uh well if it happens it happens it was like a it was a very it was a very concerted directed we want to be parents and we actually even put that off for a while

[00:33:17] to make sure that when we became parents we kind of had things we had the groundwork laid you know we weren't living with roommates we weren't living at home with mom and dad

[00:33:26] we weren't living in a slum we both had jobs we were both working our butts off to get ourselves established we were saving money we did every we did every bit of this in a very directed manner

[00:33:40] and I feel like as a result of that like we we understood the weight of what we were taking on or we thought we did thought we did I thought I knew what it was going to be like to be a mom

[00:33:52] and to go through the physical and the mental parts of being a mom I was and it's uh broadsided yeah I will point this out the guy that comments said no risk no reward

[00:34:08] this is why I adopted the always risk always reward mindset and I will just say this much like from my own experience because I am adopted if there's anybody in here that's really close to me that's watching they know that about me it's not something I'm secretive

[00:34:23] about but like for a lot of listeners like I am adopted so I've been with my parents the Ravallese since I was I think like three four days old and they are the parents I've always known

[00:34:37] and if they had never told me I was adopted I would have no earthly well I would have probably figured out eventually because I don't look anything like either one of them but like

[00:34:46] in terms of the way they treated me you could you you wouldn't know you couldn't because they treated me like no less than their own flesh and blood and so even for those mothers out there

[00:34:56] that become mothers via adoption like one of the families that's on right now like even though you may not put your body at risk there's still a lot to I mean all the same responsibilities

[00:35:09] and all the same adjustments that come with how to be a mom I think women who adopt have it harder and I don't know I need to talk to my mother-in-law about that but that

[00:35:23] when you're pregnant you have nine months to go through you're growing and you you know you're going through this whole you have something growing inside of you um and it makes itself

[00:35:36] known well yes it makes itself known but you're going through those changes just as much as the child is going through those changes but when you adopt that woman is most likely not pregnant um

[00:35:48] and then there's a baby placed in her arms and then now what are you supposed to do kind of thing but I mean your mom knew what she was doing so um I don't know what I'm trying

[00:36:00] to say here I what I'm trying to say is I I don't believe that it's easier to adopt than it is to have your own child I think in a lot of ways it's harder and those moms should be who those are some some

[00:36:13] superheroes that don't wear capes those moms that adopt well yeah that was kind of the whole point of me doing me wanting to do the show with you this morning it's because like I think

[00:36:23] all moms are superheroes and again like I you know like when we in the past when we've talked about like fathers and the masculine role in raising children everything like I'm very I'm I pulled

[00:36:37] no punches I think there's been a lot of effort placed upon like get dad out of the picture we don't need men to raise children and toxic masculinity his entire term I wish would just

[00:36:48] disappear off the face of the earth it aggravates the hell out of me but I also feel like there's been a a minimizing of the role of motherhood and a minimizing of like the incredible

[00:37:02] sacrifice and the incredible challenge it is to be a mother like there are people in society that would tell you the best thing you could have done instead of arranging your career around having

[00:37:14] work-life balance you should have stayed in the career you were in before chase gone of the corporate ladder and so on so forth and like that was a pursuit worthy of you but taking

[00:37:26] a step down downshifting to have more time at home with your daughter to be a mom that that that wasn't that's beneath you and I I cast that aside I think that's an incredibly boneheaded thing

[00:37:38] to say to a mother I think for the women who decide to take that challenge on I think it is incredibly humbling to watch I think it's incredibly difficult and you know quite frankly I

[00:37:55] without no I hate to use the old trope of without mothers none of us would be here but it's the truth you know yes it is I mean yes it is yeah so is there anything else we want to talk about

[00:38:13] in relates to Haitian and motherhood like I think all moms are mothers that don't I think all mothers are superheroes that don't wear capes I agree like I've I have watched you over the past 12 years

[00:38:24] and you have a hundred percent convinced you know like not like I've redoubted it but like you firmly convince me that I don't I think all mothers are unsung heroes but there's always

[00:38:37] a lot of people that are like I think it's not just me crying again but there's also one other thing like and I guess this this little bit of advice is almost more for the men out there oh fiasphiebe

[00:38:51] this is her sister she is one of the best mothers I know seeing y'all's daughter in the way she navigates her life it shows how good y'all are as parents thanks sister why do you have

[00:39:05] good mom too you've had your struggles and if anyone can say mom who doesn't wear a cape I think by Piper god I will always do that Bailey is pretty lucky to have you too I'm super proud of

[00:39:26] you you haven't always been in the best spot to be a mom and you you've come such a long way as a person and now she's a pretty cool grandma and now you're a grandmother of six and um but

[00:39:45] I'm really really proud of you baby so yeah anyway well this is not this is not our normal podcast we don't ever do a normal podcast I guess that's why people tune in maybe that's why you listen

[00:40:00] but what I was gonna say yes y'all fieve y'all are both crying sorry not sorry but I was just gonna end this last little bit is really like for me and the men out there

[00:40:10] and this is this this might sound this might sound a little bit crazy but it's me y'all have to give me that but like I told Gillian a while ago that whether she realized it or not the time we

[00:40:23] were dating she was auditioning to be my wife and the mother of my children like I am probably I probably came around to this thought of like so-called intentional dating much younger than

[00:40:38] most most men do but then again I've always been an old man at heart so but like I came around to this thought process a long time ago that like if dating isn't leading to marriage

[00:40:49] and a family then what's the point it's it's it's aggravation I don't need it's a drain on my money in time I could be I'd be better off pursuing my own things so when I was dating you like whether

[00:41:01] you realize it or not you were auditioning to be mrs. Ravelle from the from from me standing on that have on that sidewalk and you standing on the sidewalk with your hands covering your

[00:41:11] mouth because oh damn he's home a day early literally from that moment you were auditioning to be who you are now in my eyes and without ever saying it I was looking for things in you

[00:41:26] that I knew I had to have as a spouse but also things I wanted as the mother of my child my child I wanted a person who was who could nurture because I know that's something I

[00:41:37] fall short on sometimes I don't fall short of nurturing I don't think I'm a very good nurturer you do better you're better with her than you are with me at least with me you're very much

[00:41:49] suck it up buttercup suck it up buttercup it's cold out there life sucks get a helmet but to be fair like I was looking for someone that can nurture I was looking for someone who

[00:42:00] was more emotional intelligent than I was because I've always struggled with that I was looking for the woman who could compliment everywhere I fell short so that the together the two of us could pursue parenthood see I was not thinking those things at all cute

[00:42:19] cute big muscles well he's really cute and there's btu's let's see what will happen from here 20 years later 20 years later here you are next to your knucklehead husband you know podcasting with a child with almost a teenager almost a teenager why you have to say that

[00:42:46] I guess I have one more year make the year count excuse me yeah but like I said I mean that that's my message to men out there even though it's Mother's Day is if you are dating if you're at the age

[00:43:01] where you're not married yet start asking yourself right now is this woman going to be the mother of my children because if she's not she might be a fine lady but like you need to pump the brakes

[00:43:14] and consider where you're going because if your ultimate goal is to have children in behind establish a family this isn't so much an amorous thing as it is a it's a it's a it's a job interview

[00:43:26] you know like you need to ask yourself is this part does this woman have the quality the qualities of being a mom and I don't I don't fall in there's two things I don't fall into one

[00:43:39] is thinking that all women are supposed to be mothers some or not some don't want to be no no fault no no anger at them I know women who are like dead set I don't want to have kids and

[00:43:50] I'm like good you shouldn't have kids like if you don't want to if you're not prepared to put your life on hold if you don't want that don't do it don't go down that road it's fulfilling it's a

[00:44:01] wonderful experience but it's freaking hard and it requires you sacrifice something to do it properly in my opinion but the other thing I'm going to say is that I don't believe

[00:44:13] I know that when you first had Piper you expressed to me that like you'd always been told like well when when when the child is born they're placed in your arms you have this like this motherhood

[00:44:24] moment and like oh I'm a mom now and all that just comes to you and I don't I don't buy that I think it's I think it is I think it is an intentional decision you have to make I

[00:44:36] think that I think that if you have a person who's not displaying the qualities of being a mom before they get pregnant they're not likely to suddenly start binding it afterwards okay but

[00:44:48] did I before yes but I didn't when I had her you had a couple of complications along the way that caused you to stumble out of the box but once you got your funeral you started running

[00:45:01] I'm just I'm just saying like to use the track the track and field analogy like from my perspective yes I absolutely saw in you I saw in the way you dealt with other small children in your profession

[00:45:13] before Piper was born I knew you had it in you to to be that nurtured to be that gentle person who could act as a mother I knew you could I'd seen you do it just just seeing you with

[00:45:28] your nieces and nephews who were babies when we were we first got together like there are people who you hand them a small a small screaming child you know child in a diaper and they just immediately

[00:45:40] fly apart and you were not that person so I mean that person you became and then you you went and got help and fixed it no I can't even walk over to the preschool

[00:45:52] you might have a little bit of trauma I can't hear a baby cry I don't I just can't do it I didn't even hold my great-nephew Bailey's baby Jackson I wouldn't even hold him until he was months old

[00:46:12] I don't know how I'll be with Dante either and Gigi will love you from afar my sweet boy baby see me with a big beard and the resting the rbf and they they're just like nope nope I don't

[00:46:23] want anything do with that man give me big she sweats with Jackson I did I kept going what what do I do he's crying what do I do with this child pat him on the back and love on him but he'll chill out

[00:46:36] eventually anyway well that was a sweet episode you made me cry I haven't cried on the podcast in a very long time in like what two months no I don't know probably I just I want to take the

[00:46:55] opportunity because like the title the episode is being mom and I just I think that I think that moms go without recognition a lot and I think some of that is because like because of the selfless

[00:47:11] aspect of it they kind of fall into being like the unsung hero you know like I'm not I'm not doing anything stand out to deserve praise I'm being mom like that's that's what I'm supposed to be

[00:47:23] it's kind of like all the time when you tell me some some things you compliment me on and I'm like that's what I'm supposed to do I'm your husband I'm Piper's dad I'm supposed to do those

[00:47:33] things you don't at least in my where I come from like you know men don't get participation trophies for being men you're supposed to do that either but again this is why I want to take

[00:47:47] 48 minutes and you know just give you a little bit of praise because I see what you do as a mom and I see how difficult it is and I just wanted all the other mothers out there to know that

[00:47:57] you know even if we're not the greatest at saying it out loud like those efforts are definitely noticed and even if you think they're not they reflect in your children if you have a happy well-adjusted child that's not like a stuttering blubbering mess hiding in the corner

[00:48:14] you've done something right as a mom well you can't say that I can't say that because there could be some hidden problems with the child Gillian never just lets me have like a literary moment

[00:48:28] like the whole point of say of using flowery speech is that it doesn't have to be 100% keep you truthful and honest you she's gonna eat these words later when she says something that's not

[00:48:40] exactly pinpoint perfectly true but it's meant to illustrate a point and I say that's that's not perfectly true that's only 99.9% true well there are children like that and that's not because they they're not like that because of the failure of their mother mom's 99.9% of time

[00:48:57] if your kid is halfway well adjusted you've done an okay job still too much of a percentage okay we're gonna it's Mother's Day I can say what I want to say we're gonna kick this out of the door

[00:49:10] you're gonna go get your nails done and I'm gonna go run some errands with the child and what are we eating for dinner we need to figure that out I love food if I get back

[00:49:22] quick enough we might be able to do some pot roast if you feel like it again or if you're not over it you're over it you're over for now anyway y'all have a great sunday we'll figure out

[00:49:35] dinner on our own and um happy Mother's Day to everybody who watched I love you all thank you and have a great day yeah bye happy Mother's Day everyone