1KHO 749: Kids Need Happy Mothers | Dr. Meg Meeker, The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers

I'm saying, you can say that you're a hero.

You're a hero, right? But you don't understand. Exactly. It's just a challenge. You're just a hero. You're just a hero. You're just a hero. And if you work, you're just a hero. - That's right. - Save. You're just a hero. - You're just a hero. - Now you're just a hero.

1,000 hours outside. And one of your favorite guests, it's back. We are coming in live from Michigan. That's right. That's right. Yeah, you're in the better spot. I'm not in quite a good spot. But both from Michigan, Dr. Meg, a meager. Welcome back. Oh, thanks for having me, Jenny.

You have got an incredible podcast called Parenting Great Kids with over 300 episodes.

You've got your online community and people can find me at meekreparenting.com. We'll talk about that more throughout the episode. And also just like book after book after book, I've got a small pile here. And I've got some others in my other room as well. And so you're influenced. It's just, I mean,

so many books plus the community.

“Does it seem like parents need more help than ever?”

Yes. Yes. It's very interesting because I'm comparing the difficulties I had raising our kids. And the difficulties my kids are having raising my grandkids. And I was talking with my daughter. She said, Mom, it feels like all I do is say, don't do that. No, no, no.

And I realize that, and this is to older kids, not just two-year-olds or three-year-olds, there's so much more that parents have to contend with today that I didn't. For instance, they give their kid an iPad. Kid wants an iPad. Okay. Then they fight with a kid to get off it. They give their kid video games. Then they fight with their kid to get off it.

The cell phone. That kind of thing. So it seems like there's so much more that their kids have an opportunity to interact with or have that parents just have to constantly say no and fight with their kids to pull them away. I find even with my grandkids. One of the first things I'll do is run in my house and grab my phone and go upstairs and

hide with my phone and they don't even have phones.

“So it's a struggle for parents. It really is and that's why they just need a lot of encouragement.”

Yeah. And in your online community, people can ask you questions. That's right. They can say, "What do I do when my grandkids come over and try to take my phone?"

I always say, you know, authors write books to figure out their own problems.

And it's true. You know, sometimes if I'm trying to figure something out, you sort of work it through in the book. But, you know, I've been practicing medicine for over 30 years. And I've just about any question a parent or kid could ask they've asked. So I always tell parents and kids, no question is off limits. Because if you ask it and you think it's a tough question, I've had tougher.

So I think that's really important for parents to just get straight answers with sort of no nonsense. It's all that's all medically based. Yeah. So I found you through John Acuff who is a huge fan of yours. There's so many people are huge fan of yours. Actually, just this morning I interviewed David, Thomas and Sissy Goff, they have a new book coming out called "Cable."

Anyway, your name was sprinkled all the way throughout the book. Meg Beaker says this, Dr. Meg Beaker says it's so fantastic. So he really talked about John Acuff does about the strong father's drunk daughter. He's got two daughters and how much that impacted him. So you've got strong father's drunk. These are just the ones I have sitting here. I have strong mother's drunk son,

hero being the strong father of your children need. But today and there's more than this. But today we're going to be talking about the 10 habits of healthy mothers. And I just think consciousness is just a wonderful reminder. A wonderful book reclaiming our passion, purpose, insanity. Can you give the mothers a message of hope

“that they're worth a lot? Oh, absolutely. You know, first of all, I think the G word has got”

to go guilt. I don't know that I've met a mother in the past five years that doesn't feel guilty. And when I say, "Why do you feel so guilty?" For instance, mothers will say, "Well, I really don't want my kid to have a cell phone, but I gave him one because everybody else has one. And now I feel guilty." I said, "You know, get rid of the guilt thing because mothers feel no matter what they just can't get it right." And that's one of the

biggest lies going. Guilt takes mothers down. That's something that a younger mother's now feel. I didn't -- I remember feeling guilty, but not that guilty. You know, I remember saying, you know, my kids aren't going to be on the ski team in the evenings because I'm going to tell them to craft with them. You know, I mean, that's the decision I made. I just wanted to do it.

them up saying, "Why didn't you -- you should? How could you? Why did you give your kids

“drive through McDonald's?" Let it go. Give yourself some grace. You know, you're probably doing a”

lot better job than you think you are. So just really, you got it. That battle in your mind is intense. And it's just -- it's all lies. Yeah. One of the things that you see because you're dealing with families and you're dealing with children is you see the way that kids look at their moms. And you talk about that in this book called The Ten Habits of Happy Mothers. You know, talk about that part. You know, it's like we don't really see it. You don't see it. But from an outside

perspective, you see it. You know, one of the things that I'm trained in is watching and observing. And it's one of the reasons that computer now in our medical office is really thrown me off. Because 90% of what I do is watch kids and watch their mothers. I watch how the kids talk to their mothers, interact with their mothers, how they're walking, how they're looking and so forth. And so I get to observe how kids look at their mothers, respond to their mothers, and how mothers respond to

their kids. And you can tell so much about the relationship just by watching it for 10 minutes. And what I find is this that when kids look at their moms, they're aching for mom to say something positive to show that she's interested to show that she even likes them. You know, likes being in the room and not to freak anybody out. But I tell this to dad's a lot, you know, kids get their identity by reading cues from their parents. So when a parent walks in a room, if moms and really

bad mood and she just had a fight with another kid and she comes in and she barks with, you know,

her second kid, that second kid feels like, well, what is my mom not like me to do? What did I do

to make her upset? Kids take their parents very, very seriously. And so I often encourage mothers, you know, if you're in a bad mood in your bark at your kid, tell them that. Just say, you know, I'm in a bad mood and I did me to bark at you, I'm so sorry, then move on. Your kids are the most forgiving people you'll ever meet in your life because they need you. And kids buy and large adore their mothers. They try very hard to please their mothers. And most mothers don't believe

me when I say that. I say they do because they need you. You know, most mothers are the primary attachment person. And kids need that attachment so much to feel secure that they feel they

“want to do anything they can to please their mothers. So just remember that your kids are looking”

at you with much greater favor than you think they are. They're not, they're not just trying to criticize you or take you down. If they have a temper tantrum, it's not about you. It's not because you're a bad mom. If your kid is getting argumentative with kids at school, it's not necessarily about you. Maybe your kid just has a really argumentative personality. But see, mothers blame themselves for everything. You know, how can I get my two-year-old or three-year-old to stop

having temper tantrums? You can't. Oh, I know I know, but my friends, kids don't, yes, they do, you just don't see it. Let it go. It will pass. It's not about you. And if you blame yourself for everything, you're not going to be a happy mother. Oh, oh, oh. Well, that's where it all begins is realizing what we're really responsible for and what we're not and we're not responsible for a whole lot. And I've learned this, you know, talking to my kids now is they're older and grown and looking

back on things that I did. If you teach your kid to ski and he falls down, it's a mom's fault. If the kid doesn't like his lunch, it's mom's fault. Even if it's a cafeteria lunch,

“everything is mom's fault. That's what our kids want us to believe so don't”

believe them. They're just kids. Yeah. So this is 10 habits of happy mothers, but you lay out

this groundwork and your books are always so compassionate, you just feel like I can do this,

you feel expanded, like breath has been breathing to you and you say you are worth more than you imagine. You say you see kids in your practice. You see kids who love their mom. I see how your kids look at you. Hang on to your knees and hold your hand. I see how you are needed, loved, and cherished. We are valuable, simply because we are our kids mom and we are loved and needed because of that. When a mother truly understands her value, she has more self-confidence.

you are more precious than you know. When you walk into a room your son changes immediately.

He relaxes because you are there and life feels safe again. And then you say you're far too critical

of the job you're doing. Can you talk about, and I know you write people write books at all different times. So I don't know if you'll remember all the different people from this book because it is from 2011. Yeah. Well, and also you know, also I change names and I tweak the kids because I have for liability standpoint. But you go ahead. Well, there was a mom. The format of this book is that you bring in real world stories. And so I'll bring up the mom's name, which is not actually

her name. But the context of it was there was a mom that taught you about self-value. You called

her Julian in the book. But you came in and she it was almost shocking because everyone else is

feeling guilty for everything and blaming themselves for everything. And this mother said, I like

“myself as a mom. Yes. Yes. And I said, I wish you could tell everybody that I think that it takes”

tremendous amount of courage to like yourself as a mother. It's terrifying to say, I'm going to like myself as a mother because you even feel guilty for making that statement, which is ridiculous, because we are taught. I mean, you know, you and I are taught as professionals and women that are value comes from, you know, what kind of job we have, how many kids are house, are we divorced, are we not divorced, are we this, are we that? And it doesn't. As a mother, our sense of value as

a mom comes from the deep connection we have with our kids and just the fact that we love our kids and our kids love it's so, so simple. But we won't allow ourselves to allow that value

to be enough. We always have to add to it. Yeah. Okay. I think I'm a pretty good mom, but I need

“to this and that why? Why do you need to, but, you know, mothers who are full-time at home mothers,”

I praise them up and down. You know what? You know how hard that is to be a full-time at home mother. I was there for a while. My husband and I flipped locked our schedules. We work in a practice, medical practice together. And it, you know, it was being full-time at home with four kids was much harder for me than going to work. Because going to work, it was mental and it was physical effort. At home, it was mental, physical, and emotional. I found that I would allow my kids to just

take me down and feel like the worst mother because I blame myself for everything. So being willing to really look at ourselves in the mirror and say, I am valuable because I'm my kid's mom. And I adore my kid and I have everything I need to be a great mom. I'm okay. Period. Don't add to it. Don't add to it. And the kid will come at you and try to teach you get you to not believe it. Well, you this and well, you that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

“And so I really think we need to do some serious and hard pivoting to embrace ourselves and”

love ourselves as mothers. And women are women's biggest critics, which is kind of weird. You know, I think that women mothers in particular are really competitive with one another. We don't say it, but we are. You know, well, you know, Julia's kids are in two sports after school and my kids in one sport. She was, maybe I need to go find something else for him to do. Why? Well, because, you know, my friends' kids are into, no, but we do that all the time. We feel like we're

not being a good enough mom. If we're not towing the line that our friends are, or if our, oh, I hear this all the time. I need to give my 12 year-old a 10-year-old daughter a cell phone, because all the kids in her have class have went, that's not true. Okay, that's a lie. And also, because I don't want to feel like she's the outcaster. I'm the outcast mom. I want to fit in with them. No, you don't. And so those are the kind of things we need to really have some

self-esteem ago. You know, my instincts are telling what to do, what not to do, I'm going to listen to them. Yeah. You know, this mom that you called Julian in the book, the ten habits of happy mothers, there was a part of it that just one sentence that really stuck out to me in particular, because when you think about your own kids becoming parents, you're like, oh, I hope they enjoy it. You know, kids are delight. And it's, it's really overarchingly, even though the day-to-day can be

To be able to raise a kid. You know, so you think about your own kids and you hope that they

will enjoy it. And here's what really stuck out to me about Julian. She's a Julian comes in.

She has an aura of self-confidence. She's not of noxious, but she has a, you have the genuine, you get the genuine sense that she likes herself. She likes her life. And you said she, she doesn't say, oh, you know, my kids do these sports and reading groups and art or music lessons and they grown and, you know, and they're exhausted. She would talk about how that she enjoyed her kids. Yeah. Yeah. Here's what we do together. We, we like being together. And here's what she says.

I guess I take after my mother. She loved being a mom. I'm that change the whole thing, Meg, because it changes your whole reasoning as to why. Of course, it's like, yes, I want to enjoy this season of parenting, you know, it's one season. This is it. It comes once. It doesn't

come again. I want to enjoy it. But more than that, I want to model that it is something to be

enjoyed. That kids are to be enjoyed. Yes. You know, and kids, I know exactly who you're talking about. She's a great mom. And I mean, even after all these years, she keeps having kids.

“But you know, her life is very, very simple. And she just is determined to enjoy her kids. And”

here's the trick about that. Parents say, Mom's it, why can't enjoy my kids? They're pills. They're this way to minute. If you show your kids that you want to be with them, and you say, let's go do something fun. And your kids get the sense that you like them. Guess what? They're going to act a whole lot better. You know, if you say, guys, let's go for a bike ride. I know you have homework. I don't care. Let's go. Or, you know, it's one o'clock in the

morning. And we get Northern lights up here in Northern Michigan. Beautiful, beautiful. And I remember my husband, one in the morning, waking all our kids up and coming here, coming, you've got to see this, you guys. And that sense that, you know, as a mother, even as a father, wanting to share life with these little people when they pick up on the sense that you like being a mom, even though it's incredibly stressful and hard. But there's a big part of it that

is fun because they're fun to be with. They're whole attitude and demeanor around the house will change. And, you know, fun sort of breeds this a really positive attitude, which breeds more fun and a more positive attitude. And it's, it's like a real positive cycle that you can set. Because what I find parents typically do, I did this, is you see what your kids are doing wrong, and then you try to correct it, and then it doesn't correct. So then you get mad at yourself.

So then you get harder on your kids and matter at yourself, rather than saying, hold on a minute, I'm going to back away from that walk out of the room, ignore the thing that kids just did. And in

“an hour, I'm going to say, you know, guys, let's make pancakes for breakfast. I need help. Who's in?”

You know, and kids when they go, what? You really want to have fun mom, they love it.

And you just see from this story of this mom that basically is shocking to you, because almost

all the other moms are just complaining about how tired they are. And this mom is not that she didn't learn that from a parenting book. She didn't learn it from a seminar. It was legacy that was passed to her. And so if we can take some of this, these habits of happy mothers know that not only will the now be better, but this could create generational impact of our kids that enjoy being parents down at the road, you know, kids don't care if you're thinner plump. They don't care if you make brownies

from scratch, from a boxer, if you buy them. They just want to eat the brownies with you. Understanding our value and then feeling good about the mothers that we are is one of the toughest challenges mothers face. So you kind of lay this groundwork out at the beginning of this book, talking about how we're precious then we know more precious then we know we're worth more than we imagine. March is when home school families start looking ahead. You can almost see the finished

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talked about it a little bit already. I wanted to read this so this was from, okay, this was from an article and you'd put it in the book. Is it okay to forego sending Suzy to Obo camp in the summer and take walks on the beach? Make peanut butter cookies at midnight and paint the family room

“all summer long. Aren't we just wasting a classable amount of time? Is that one your kids?”

Or is it from? Oh, I've done this with my kids. This is a real struggle I've had. Yeah, it was an Obo but it was other things absolutely because again, you know, we want our kids to be the best they can be and so we figure out what the best is by looking around at our friends kids. The kids that are excelling. The kids are going to be happy. The kids who are this and we see those kids on tracks. You know, they're going to, you know, around here we have interlock and academy which is

of arts, oh yeah, it's very, very intense for kids. It comes out a lot of great artists and so I see a lot of these kids and I've talked a lot and they come from all over the world and there's a lot of pressure these kids feel and a lot of it comes, you know, from parents who want their

kids to be happy and successful in life. But here's what we need to forget is that we do a

huge disservice to our kids by comparing our kids to our friends kids and believing and believing that the way we get our kids to be successful and happy is to mimic what our friends are doing with their kids. You know, it's not in come, I grew up on the East Coast. It's not in common now for parents to get a college tutor to help the kids get in a college seventh and eighth grade. And I just scream when I hear that because maybe that kid doesn't want to go. Maybe that kid's a carpenter.

Maybe, you know, but we believe with our heart, this is where a kid needs to land in order to be happy. But that's not true. Kids who are going to go to the Olympics, I see this all the time with athletics. They're going to get there. You know, you don't have to start training them since the time they were five or eight. If they're talented and they love it and they work hard, they're going to get there. And so the very best thing that we can do for our kids is to say, I won't fall into the competitive

track of a trap, of a parenting my kids, according to my friends, the way they parent the kids.

“What I'm going to do here's how I struggle it exactly with that. I remember that, you know, a lot of”

kids ski up here competitively. And I remember my kids were all, you know, skiing age and they all ski on the ski team from six at night to nine at night. And in my neighborhood, all my neighbors started bringing their kids to skiing. And my kids weren't on ski team. And so I started feeling really guilty. And I thought, what's wrong with me? You know, why am I not doing that? My kids may need this to get into a better college. Did, did, did, did, did. And then I decided to hold on. What are you doing?

You're doing exactly what you tell people not to do. So right now, I'm going to sit down and I'm

not four year old kids. I'm talking about saying, my kids need more family connection, more time

“with me, more fun with me than they need to be on a skiing team. Because that's what gives your”

kids solid feet and ground to stand on. Yeah. And now you have the gift of hindsight to look at all those kids who lived in the neighborhood and to see what percentage of them would owe their success to being on the ski team. Probably not any. Maybe one percent. Yeah. Made. But I can't convince parents of a six or an eight or a 10 or a 12 year old who's excelling in hockey or excelling in gymnastics that that could may not have extraordinary talent may not get to the Olympics. And if they do get

to the Olympics and they win a gold medal, what then? You know, parents, because I'm taking care of, I worked for the NFL for a while. Okay. And these guys, you know, are handed a lot of money

in their early 20s. And they say, we never call the NFL a career. It's not a career. It's a time

“in your life. It's what do they call it? I don't know. But it's not a job. It's not a career. It's”

it's a time in your life, a short period of time. Then you move on to real life. Wow. And so real life really isn't about pushing your kid to get to the Olympics because again, most aren't going to get there. And even if they do get there, are they going to get to the Olympics? It's so short lived. Yeah. Given the big stuff, get the big stuff right and forget about the smaller stuff and let yourself believe that maybe even going to the Olympics for your kid could be the

smaller stuff. Wow. There, then there's the whole piece of social media because, you know, for a while, it was like, yeah, you would see what your friends kids were doing. But now you can see basically whatever kid is doing. And this past year, the band for King and Country, they do, they have this drummer boy song. And so they had this competition where you could have your kid play the drum. And then they had the winner play with them, like somewhere in Nashville, like, at a

cool place, the opera or something, I don't know. Anyway, so it was like, that's a cool thing. So our kids, they like to mess around on the drum. So we gave it a go. But my husband was like, you know, there's a kid on here who's eight years old that plays better than most adults I've ever heard. You know, and it's just compounded. It's like you can see every kid and how talented they are. And still, your advice is to find ways to live simply. You say, every mother must ask herself,

why have I been put here on the earth? And you talked about this mom, I thought, wow, this was a really powerful story, Meg. She had one, I can't remember what the situation was. So I'm how she had

eight million, jade millions of dollars. And her kids never knew. And I thought, wow, what a difference.

You know, there's some parents that if they had that many resources, well, what they be doing would be putting their kids in the elite like athletic school and every single advantage known to man, they would be getting the tutor for the seventh and eighth grade to get them in the Ivy League school. So can you talk about, I think that that was such a great showcase of, I think we sometimes we have some abundance. And so we automatically feel like we have to spend it on that. Exactly.

And I know, I have a couple, a couple moms like that. And it's so fun because I still know all these

“moms and it's bringing, you're bringing, um, absolutely because I'll never forget, I was talking”

to the kid who's probably about 12 at the kid, her kid. And they had a second home. It was lovely. And it was really hot. And I said to mom, kind of teasing her a little bit. I mean, they were multi multi millionaires. Um, it's hot, but you don't have a pool in your backyard. Are you going to get a pool in your backyard? Kind of like, come on, mom, come on. I'd put a pool in the back. And the sun looked up and you know, we're not going to put a pool in the backyard because we need

a new lawnmower this summer. My mouth dropped open. I thought, wow. But the whole point was they

never wanted their kids to believe that they had an edge over other kids that they could flaunt

any money. They made their kids work. You know, and I'm all about kids working. Even if they're 12, our kids started working in the summers at 14. Now, I know that's illegal some places, but there are places if you can work. You know, where you can work, we have cherry farms. They can help pick cherries. I'm not talking 40 hours a week or even 20 hours a week. Teach them the

paid, you know, because we work around the house, whatever. But the value of work and the value

“of money. And so you don't hand kids things. And I've seen some kids come from very wealthy families”

who are less spoiled than kids from lower middle-income kids who've been handed everything because their parents feel guilty. And but I thought that was a beautiful parenting example because she did not want money to be the focus in their home. And it wasn't. It wasn't. I mean, she was a thrifter. You know, I'm a thrifter. It's kind of a game, but she plays with me. But it really is just to teach kids that. And when you teach your kids, you work hard to teach your kids that money is not the center

of the home or something to be thought of highly. Kids adopt that. And then you start to believe. It's just money. It's out there in a bank somewhere. But it's not necessarily, it doesn't define my life or who I am. And so what you teach your kids, you adopt, and you believe,

“and then they believe. So, yeah, she was extraordinary. And since that time, I've known some”

other mothers, and I'm amazed by them. Yeah. You see how much street you'd never know. They were so

wealthy, you know. Wow. And they're not using those resources to throw their kids into this rat race. Exactly. As a matter of fact, they refuse to do so. They're going in the opposite direction. They're making their kids save up for college. Now, they're going to pay for college, maybe the kid has to pay for his books or something like that. You know, they're not sure changing their kids. But they're teaching their kids that the value in life isn't the stuff you buy or it's

it's the work that you do and the love that you extend to others. Many of the happiest mothers and kids I find to are families who serve. Those serve, they work in, you know, in the the homeless shelter or community kitchen every month. And kids, the kids love it. Kids love to feel they have something to give. And if we, if we teach them that we're going to make a path for them,

so they're successful and happy, they never learn the joy of giving to others and understanding

they have something to offer the world. And that we can only teach them by getting them to give to others. And that goes back to this question that every mother should ask herself, why have I been put here on earth? Every mother should get a deep knowledge of who she is and why she was born and men in those types of instances. You're also passing that along to your kids. I want to read a couple other things you wrote here. So this mom with eight million dollars,

you wrote, she embraced a lifestyle of simplicity because she knew that it gave her and our family something that money couldn't freedom, freedom from the pursuit of that, cutting activities from a child's

schedule seems heretical for a modern-day parent. I have never met a mother who has simplified her

life only to later reintroduce activities and behaviors back into her life once she's given them up. The benefits of simplifying are far too rich. Kids need better relationships more than they need practice at any sport or extra-curricular activity. So one of the things that you're going to get from this book is to aim to try and live a little more simply. Yes. Okay. This is one that I feel like I fall into the trap of often which is friendships. So

you talk about maintaining key friendships. You talk about your friendship with Marie and riding ponies together on Saturday mornings. Yes. And we're still friends. I love it. All these people. We're still friends. We're just now all friends. We're not riding ponies anymore.

“You know, it's so true. If you want to, if you want to get along really well with your husband,”

you have to have some good women from. You have to. Because he's just not going to do it. He's not going to, he's not going to get you where you need to be. He's not going to, you know, we put so much pressure on our husbands or so many expectations that they should, you know, do this and help us with this and discuss this. Most don't. And so it really frees you up to have a good relationship with your husband if you have good women friends, kind of like simplicity.

But we all need our tribe. It can be two women. It can be 10 women. But we need that deeper connection with women because we get each other. That's right. And I think when you're first Mary, those first 10 years, you really believe your husband's supposed to get you. He doesn't. He's not going to. But it doesn't mean he's a bad husband, you know. Yeah. So what you say is,

you're trying to get your kids ahead. You say friends are the first thing to go. And you have this sentence about they're not being catch up time. And I believe that that's whatever one thinks. Well goodness, in five years, you know, I'm not going to be running my kids around from this

that to the other thing. I'll play catch up. But here's what you say. Life gets even more demanding

as we age. Yep. It does. So we wait for a period in our life where I go, oh, okay, now that's done. Now I can do this. Well, really things get more complicated. Parenting can get more complicated. You know, parenting teenagers, parenting young adults. You say, we don't have to parent to 25 year old. What you do when you don't. I mean, I'm not telling them what to do. I'm not recommending them. But if you have a good relationship with your kids, they're always going to

“come for your advice. And they're going to come for more important advice. Should I marry this guy?”

Should I date this woman? This woman did this to me. What do I do? So, you know, they're bigger problems and bigger issues. So, so you really do have less time. But again, I think that women are great at sort of being martyrs. My job as a mom of a 10 year old and a 15 year old is to do everything during the day to make sure I get them to all these places. After school, on time, you know, hopefully I can feed them by seven, maybe by nine, whatever, and sacrifice

everything else that we do. And it turns us into miserable people. And then guess what happens. Our kids become miserable. And I believe, you know, it's interesting since I wrote that, things have only gotten a lot worse because life is far more complicated for parents than it was even then because there's a lot more stuff to do. You know, I mean, have cell phones made your life

“easier? No. You know, I mean, no, no, I take my cell phone on vacation and I check my inbox.”

And I say to my team, oh, I'm on vacation, but. And my team goes, no, no, no, you're on vacation, turn it off. It's so it's so much more complicated. If we aren't, if we don't discipline ourselves to prioritize a few things and have the courage to really prioritize those things, which means cutting other things, then allowing ourselves to bring some real happiness to our home. Nobody's going to survive. Your kids do not want you to stress out all the time.

It's miserable being married to some of you stressed all the time because they never sort of

refill their tank. And if mom ain't happy, it really is true. The house is miserable. So the one of the best things you do, I talked to a lot of younger mothers who had babies at home, who have their baby on them 24/7. I said, you can't be a good mom if you never get sleep. Your baby needs you to be happier, more than they need breast milk, which is terrible thing to say, lalachi, but it's true. You know, kids need happy mothers.

Yeah, yes. Yeah. And so one of the components here are friendships. You read when something needs to be cut out in the crunch of daily demands. Friend are the first to go. So sometimes friendships seem expendable unnecessary. So we put people off and think that we're going to catch up later. You say we must fight loneliness fiercely. I mean, even in your situation, you know,

you think, okay, you know, grandkids multiply. Not always. You know, you meet someone who has

six kids and then they only have three grandkids. But most of the time it's opposite. Yeah, three kids. We got six grandkids. You got ten grandkids. That's a lot to keep up with. Maybe you've got

“aging parents. You know, you're trying to figure out about your own health. So it's, I think it's a”

really important thing for you to clarify that life gets more demanding as we age. And it's tricky. I'm interviewing this woman. Her name is Dr. Tracy Dalglish. She's got a whole book about mother-in-law's. You know, if she's like, interview me right before Easter. But it's for the holidays. You know, it's just so tricky. You have all these other dynamics that come in. So a key to a happy mother is to maintain key friendships in your life. It's a really

important one. Here's another one. So there's ten. So people can pick up the book to read all ten. The ten habits are happy mothers. Another one is faith. Yeah. We can't live without faith in God. Many try. But when our days dress shorter and our bodies wilt, the existence of God is an issue. The everyone must must face in one way or another. Absolutely. And I learned that really pretty early on. I didn't grow up with a faith. You know, I just, I'm sure my parents had a faith.

start to live with a lot of stress, you have to have somewhere to go. You have to know that there's somebody behind you around you, in you, who has your back, who can show you how to get out of it and who can keep, help you keep your wits about you until pain passes. Because as you get older, you know, pain can get greater, disappointments are there. Maybe your kids get divorced.

“Maybe you get divorced. You know, life is just really hard. And we have to have something other”

than ourselves or our friends or our spouses to help us keep moving forward. You know, God is hope. Christ is hope. And if you hang on to him, you will have hope. Now, this is a very interesting

thing. Some others sailed to me. Well, I get that. But here's what I want to do for my kids.

I want my kids to choose their own faith as they get older. And I say, okay, I understand that kids having a choice is important thing. But if your kid is 15 and you haven't taught them about any faith, they don't know what to choose from. They don't know whether they should be Buddhist or Hindu or Muslim or Jewish or Christian. They don't know. So you really have to teach your children. If you really want your kid to choose, you have to go in depth about different kinds of faith.

Now, I did not do that. I'm a Christian. My husband is, we believe that Christ is the center of our lives. And we taught that to our children because as parents, we must teach our kids what we believe is important in life. We make them go to school. We teach them how to read. They have to learn how to read and do math. They have to learn how to work. And they have to learn about who God is. Now, they can reject it when they're older. But I'm not going to be the kind of mom that a kid

in their 30s says, I just learned about God, mom, how could you have not told me about him? That's

“very different than G. Mom, I just disagree with you. Well, I did what I believe was right. And I think”

a lot of parents are afraid to dig deep with God and have a strong relationship because it's can be a little scary. You know, God knows everything about us. But they're afraid to teach their kids about their own faith because they don't want their kids to be made fun of whatever. Who cares? You know, it's it's way too important for that. So, um, and one of the best ways to do that by the way is take your kids on mission trips. Our kids went on missions all over the world

and it changed them. They would come back for, I mean, they went to the truly poor places. They go to Peru and hike up in the mountains on medical mission trips and they would come home and for the

first two weeks of coming home, they couldn't go into a big grocery store. It was overwhelming

to them. See what happened? You move back into that simplicity. You carve away all the excess.

“You focus on what's really important, helping that person get drinking water, seeing that person”

who has no electricity. You come home and you're used to focusing on what's really important. Make almost make you sick to your stomach to see complexity and, and, and too much stuff. Yeah. And what a perspective shift. What a perspective shift. So, you check a amount of information strips. You wrote in the book, medical studies. This is what you and I talked about. It's been a bit, but we talked about it in your book about boys, where you said

boys need God. And then you talked about kids whose fathers aren't in the picture. Maybe they've passed away or maybe they're just distant. And you're like, and I said, you know, in this book about boys and being rampant, and, you know, playing outside, and all the things that boys need, why did you put in, you know, as one of the things that boys need God? And you said, because it's true. I love that. I love that. Because even in this book, you say medical studies,

medical studies show that people who have faith in God live longer, enjoy life more, and have better health. They suffer less depression. And they raise healthier kids. The sooner we find answers to our spiritual lives, the healthier we will be, because we are fundamentally

spiritual beings. Yes. Yes. Yes. And, you know, and, and here's what's interesting. A lot of

parents also will say, you know, my kids too young to hear about God. They're too young to understand the spiritual. It's the exact opposite. Kids in my experience are far more, they speak far more easily about spiritual things and God than adults do. And I have had so many kids over the years

and the rooms, go stop it. And I said, no, no, no, no, please let him go. And so kids don't have

“the bias. They don't have the sense that, oh, if I believe in Christ and I talk about my faith,”

I'm one of those this and this and this crazy people. Or I'm, they don't have all that baggage. They just talk about what they know and it's true. And I think that spiritually, they're much cleaner and they're much more aware than than we are. I recently had, oh, I have so many wonderful stories. Had a little kids 11 years old, having sleep if difficulties and just couldn't go to sleep and was scared and I went through the trauma of this and this and this, no, no, no, no. And she said,

but my parents, she said, I used to go in my parents room, but then she said, one night, oh my God, kids humble you. One night, I looked at my doorway. Now my doorway goes into hallway that goes into the kitchen. And I don't think it was very late at night, but I looked at my doorway in the doorway of my bedroom to the hall. There was a beautiful figure standing there that was white and bright.

And she said, at first I was really, oh, I was late, skip. And then all of a sudden, this, this sense

of it's okay, you can go to sleep, came over me. And from then on, I can sleep. And I said, well, what was that? She goes, Dr. Meeker was an angel, kind of like, you dummy. And in their her mother said, no, no, no, no, I said, no, please, I said, she's right. I said to her, she's right because I've had kids describe the same thing to me and they're in hospital rooms, in cancer wards. As they're dying, so many times. And so children teach us so much about faith. So if our kids start talking about

God, answer their questions. You know, every kid who has pet or grandmother is inevitably going to ask you, mom, what happened? Where did grandma go? Where did my dog go? I experienced that with our young granddaughter when she was two, we found my dog dead in my backyard. And I was babysitting. And I thought, oh, no, we both started to cry. I've been taken by Ohio. And we had a discussion where

“is it? And I said, honey, I believe that dogs are in heaven. And here's why. And for the next, you know,”

half hour we cried and we talked about, your kids going to ask you about heaven, you better be ready to answer the questions. Yeah. Yes. I read at least Robo's book that came out last year. And we got to talk about it's called Seeing the Supernatural, which is such an interesting book for him to write because he's an evidence person. You know, we wrote the book, The Case for Cranks is like a lawyer type, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And he's similar to what you say. It says that how

could it be that all of these people have the same experience? You know, this eight-year-old didn't talk to that seven-year-old didn't talk to that 10-year-old that's come to your practice. And yet they're all saying and describing it the same way. I talked to this woman Jenny Allen. She has this part in her book where someone was like, you know what, your situation calls for a stronger angel. She was like, what? And apparently there's some story in the Bible where like this one angel didn't

cut it. They were like, call it Michael, but it's April. Or never the other one. Call in the beginning.

I think that didn't Billy Graham write a whole book on angels. And the reason, you know, kids are the ones that strengthen my faith because I see their faith. And I see they're just cut and dry about it. They believe because it's real. They believe because they sought and it just is. And you talk to people who don't mission work in different countries

“and real poor countries. They will talk a lot about it. And again, because their life is simple”

and they allow themselves to see. And I think that as mothers, we're our brains and our minds have so much stuff flooding it all the time. And we're so distracted by money or friendships or stuff we need to do our emails or social media, whatever that we don't have the freedom to see. To see what's really important or to see what God has for us. And you know, and you think about it too, God was pretty clear about what He wanted us to be and do. He didn't need us to do

anything. He wants us to have communion with Him, but He really wants us to just live with Him and enjoy Him and walk humbly with Him and help fill in the rest. And to really, as I said, overcome the fear of giving things up. We're afraid to give things up. We're afraid to lock our phone

a cell phone until you're 16 or 18 or no. We had a rule in our family. Our kids all had one extra curriculum activity after school, per semester. That's all I could handle. And they're pretty happy kids, adults now. And so, and I didn't feel the fear to sort of say no, you're not going to play piano and play on the soccer team at the same time. Or no, you're not going to play on the travel soccer team. You're going to play on the school soccer team because our family's

not going to be a part of weekends. That's a gutsy thing for a parent to say. But my, my husband just put down his foot. He said, we're not going to be separated all the time on my weekends.

“Being together as a family is more important. And I think now our kids are so grateful that”

he had the um, or the character to say no, you're not going to do that because I don't want to be away from you. And then you become a happier mother because you're not running ragged. And like the circular exactly. So get, I would say to mothers, whatever it is that you're afraid to give up, get past that fear and believe in yourself. If you believe that you want to try giving it up

or it would be better for yourself or better for your kids, try it. Do it. You can always add it

back in. Yeah. But give it up and just see. I will tell you in studies show kids who stay out of their cell phones, teenagers, for a month or two or three, don't want to back afterwards, because they, they see how much happier they are. Yeah. Yeah. You are, I feel, I do feel strongly

“that most mothers are exhausted because we do a lot of things we don't need to do to be good moms.”

But we do them because we believe they're expected of us. Should you talk about, you know, there needs to be some time for solitude. The moms are like, are you kidding me? But you're talking the book about how to get there. Solitude making different decisions about those types of things and also dealing with, you know, conflict and there's everything in your fear, hope, optimism, it's phenomenal. Just one of so many, make thank you for saying yes and coming back on.

I adore you and everybody who listens, adores you. So you have a book about how to be a happier mother and so many other things. Can you let people know about the online community where they can come and ask you questions? Sure. You know, I have an asked doctor, make a community and it's mekreparenting.com. And basically, I answer any question any parent has. Nothing is off limits. And I also have a course on how to, which is kind of fun. How to talk to your kids about puberty and sex at any age.

Because that's another thing. Parents don't want to talk to their kids about puberty and sex. Because it's embarrassing because we have naturally built in modesty. But it's something that I want parents to do, not the schools because the schools don't do the job you want. Either medically behind and be, they don't, kids want to know what you think mom and dad about them being sexually active at 14 or 16 or 20. They don't want to know what their teeth. They want

you to tell them. So again, it's overcoming that fear and I walk parents through that in that

course. So that's a particularly real fun course. Yeah, that's interesting. You know, I never have

really considered that too much, but you remember your own thing from fourth grade or whenever they do a fifth grade. And it's, I don't know if it's changed, but like back then it wasn't value's based. It was just information. So to your point of, no more, no more, no more, no more. And I work, I'm on the board of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, which is amazing. It's a group of physicians who've been working together and we put out research medinstitute.org as a website.

And we give medically accurate information on everything. And I testified on congressional hearing a number of years ago on prevention of cervical cancer and women. And basically the CDC

“director then came out and said the only way to get rid of cervical cancer and women is to teach”

girls this. One, delay the sexual debut as long as possible. Reduce the number of sexual partners to as few as possible. That's way until you're married and have one partner because the gals who get cervical cancer are the gals who serve sexual activity early in who have too many partners. And that's what our culture is teaching them. Teachers are not out there saying, hold on,

just wait, you can do it. They're saying, when you do it and if you do it, here's what you do.

No, parents, please teach your kids about it. I read a statistic that said when both have

crazy I will last. And I was like, oh, that's it. That's an important value is basically it's all about

“bonding because the first sexual encounter or second, second encounter, you bond very closely because”

oxytocin during the sexual act shoots up in your brain and it causes you to bond. But then you have

another partner, another partner, another partner and it goes down and down and down. It's kind of like

“taking two pieces of tape to stick them together for the first time it's hard to pull apart.”

But you keep doing that eventually, they won't stick together. Same principle. So the bonding,

the emotional bonding is much more intense when you wait until your partner. But who's teaching

“that? But let me tell you a secret, parents, only 50% of high school kids who graduate high school”

are sexually active. The ones who aren't don't talk about it, the ones who are talk about it. So parents are a little bit dupped into believing they can't get their kids to wait. Yes, you can. You know, I saw one little boy when little was 23 took off his promise ring the night before he got married and he threw it into the lake. And he was one of the happiest people were, you know, and so I've seen it. I've lived it. I've watched it and I've taught it. So yeah,

I know we're going way over time, but that's my question. It's good. I love it. People can buy more at megreparenting.com. Thank you. You are delightful and you have just such a host of resources for today's parents. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much. I'm just a little bit of an integral and a little bit of a little bit of an integral. And the time and the money that I can't be able to stay there. For all of you, in Waxtum. Now, the host of "Shoppy-Fi.de" is on the list.