The Art of Communication: Bridging Gaps with Adult Children

Prepare to gain invaluable insights into the intricate dynamics of family relationships as we chat with Rachel Haack, a seasoned mental health clinician, mother, and daughter-in-law. We discuss everything from daughter-in-law issues, being a good mother-in-law, grandparent and we even have a poll our guest is going to share about what bugs young adults the most about us - and vise-versa!

Rachel opens up about her early conflicts with her mother-in-law, offering vital lessons on empathy, understanding different perspectives, and the power of effective communication in mending strained family ties.

We also discuss the high expectations often placed on mothers and the need for them to adapt as their children grow into independent adults. Rachel’s journey provides a blueprint for navigating and healing complex familial relationships, even when they start off on the wrong foot.

We explore grand parenting and  identify common pitfalls such as criticism, discipline, and favoritism, emphasizing the importance of offering advice only when asked and keeping a balanced perspective on grandchildren’s strengths.

Rachel shares strategies for initiating open dialogues and handling silent treatment, as well as the importance of self-soothing and emotional regulation. We examine the balance parents need to strike between maintaining their sense of self while being open to feedback from their children. This episode is packed with practical advice on addressing past conflicts, avoiding common communication pitfalls like stonewalling and passive aggressiveness, and nurturing healthier parent-child relationships in an age where social media influences are ever-present.

Huge thank you to Connie Gorant Fisher, our audio engineer.
Send ideas to biteyourtonguepodcast@gmail.com.
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Chapters

• 0:03 Navigating Relationships With Adult Children
• 11:47 Grandparents in Parent-Child Relationships
• 17:52 [Ad] Modem Futura
• 18:37 (Cont.) Grandparents in Parent-Child Relationships
• 24:52 Navigating Family Dynamics With Adult Children
• 39:22 Navigating Communication Challenges With Adult Children
• 45:15 Nurturing Healthy Parent-Child Relationships
• 56:52 Social Media Influence in Parenting

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

I think it's alarmingly cruel what we do to women. When we basically tell them that what you need to raise a healthy child is full investment, attention, attunement, focus, attachment, self-sacrificing. Do all of this. That's what makes you a good mom. Then suddenly those become her greatest liabilities that are used against her once her children are adults. We expect this switch to just to happen organically, because she just needs to know her place. I view that in a way as like kind of using women. Have we given any credence to her experience in the attachment? Given any credence to her experience in the?

Speaker 2: 0:45

attachment. Hello everyone, welcome to Bite your Tongue. The podcast. I'm Denise.

Speaker 3: 0:51

And I'm Kirsten, and we hope you will join us as we explore the ins and outs of building healthy relationships with our adult children Together.

Speaker 2: 0:59

we'll speak with experts, share heartfelt stories and get timely advice addressing topics that matter most to you.

Speaker 3: 1:06

Get ready to dive deep and learn to build and nurture deep connections with our adult children and, of course, when to bite our tongues. So let's get started.

Speaker 3: 1:17

Hello everyone and welcome to season four of Bite your Tongue the podcast. We are so glad to be back and excited that you are here with us. We're going to cover everything from daughter-in-law issues being a good mother-in-law grandparent and even have a poll our guest is going to share about what bugs young adults the most and what bugs us. Let's see if we all agree with this. Denise, would you like to introduce our guest today?

Speaker 4: 1:40

Yes, kirsten, can you believe we're heading into season four? This is sort of amazing, but welcome everyone. As Kirsten said, we're glad you're with us. Today. We're going to have Rachel Hack and I've been following Rachel on social media for a long time. I love all her posts. I love what she has to say. Then I looked further into her and she's a mental health clinician and she has so many degrees I can't even list them all. But what I like most about her is she's walked the walk. Not only is she a parent to five children her oldest, I think, is 18 or 20. She's also a daughter-in-law. Both of her kids have grandparents and she talks personally about all these experiences on her social media posts and that sort of thing. We're going to learn a lot from her today. I hope all of you like her as much as we do. Welcome, rachel, we're so glad you're with us today.

Speaker 1: 2:28

Hi, thank you so much for having me Should we get right to the meat of this interview.

Speaker 4: 2:32

Yeah, let's do it, let's talk. Okay, I love so much of what you talk about on Instagram, so I want to start with. You're a daughter-in-law. You've been a daughter-in-law for 20 years. You have an 18-year-old daughter. How do you start on the right foot with your daughter-in-law? Your son or daughter brings their significant other over, welcoming not welcoming too much.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Let's start on the right foot. What's your advice? Okay, so my advice here? First, I want to say I actually have no personal experience in this. Okay, I guess I'll start by saying that I did not start off on the right foot, so I'm not an expert in that department. I'm actually more of an expert on how to get things back in alignment when things have gone so terribly wrong foot.

Speaker 1: 3:16

So my mother-in-law and I did not get along initially in our relationship. My husband and I had been high school sweethearts. We had dated since we were like 16 years old. I'd known his family and his mom for a few years by the time we decided to get married and in high school it was a very just, sweet, standard high school relationship between her and I. She was very kind to me, would give Christmas gifts. I accompanied them on a trip to go visit him. In college we went away to separate schools so I went with them. It was a very cordial, kind relationship and it was really when my husband and I were dating at the time, through a real curveball at her. So I can see that right. Here is where you begin to have, like these, two very separate perspectives and, depending on which perspective you're looking at, you can really figure out and see the legitimacy of why one person feels one way and the other person feels another way. So my husband announced quite unexpectedly to his mom that he was going to be converting to a new faith. He also.

Speaker 1: 4:19

Within six to nine months we were engaged, we were getting married, we were 20 years old, we were in the middle of college. We really just threw this right on her lap and really with the expectation of huh, we're adults, we know what we're doing and this is totally fine, she understandably, from her perspective, protested. Let's say she absolutely was blindsided by it because my husband, he's a peacemaker by nature, somewhat conflict avoidant in that way, so he didn't really bringing her in on what his decisions were until they were made. They had a historically very close loving relationship. So she was completely blindsided by this. She reacted strongly. I reacted strongly right back because from my perspective it was like here I am living my life, I'm an adult, we can make our decisions.

Speaker 1: 5:15

This is an overbearing, enmeshed mother. She's behaving like a narcissist. I don't know about language at the time, but if I had a TikTok account and Insta therapy, I would have been armed with all the psychobabble and I would have used it To my perspective. She's lacking boundaries here. She's toxic. She was angry, she was irate.

Speaker 1: 5:36

She absolutely let us know what she thought about these decisions. She was begging us to think and take more time and consider this and he had been raised in a different faith. She wanted time, she wanted to consult as a family and all of this, and we were kind of like, no, it's our life, it's our decision, we're doing it, you can get on board, or too bad was how we approached it. So thank thank God that this woman decided to fight for her relationship with her son. She decided to get a therapist. So she said, can we do therapy? I don't know what voodoo magic this man worked back in the day I wasn't in school for counseling. None of this was in my even awareness, but I agreed to go to these group, family sessions and individual.

Speaker 1: 6:25

This therapist really did a great job. I don't know how he did it, but somehow I came out feeling understood. She came out feeling more understood. We had a family reconciliation conversation that went very well and it really changed the trajectory of us being able to plan the wedding and go through things with civility and some respect. I won't say that everything just gets buttoned up perfectly. The next few years it was a lot of little ruptures, mini ruptures, repairs, as we really got to figure each other out throughout the years. I worry that if this had been today versus 20 years ago, I really think I probably would have, without any guilt, pursued the path of like no contact. This has been too much. We need to just live our life and I would have really missed out on the opportunity to build something. That's been that I'm very proud of now.

Speaker 4: 7:19

Now as a therapist and you have people coming to you, many of them, you say, are over 50 and they're mother-in-laws. What advice do you give to these women, or even father-in-laws, on someone's going to marry too young, someone's going to marry out of their race, religion, whatever it might be? How do you advise people? I'm in the age where our kids are getting married and this and that and how do we become part of their life, but not, like you said, overbearing, narcissistic, you know that sort of thing.

Speaker 1: 7:49

I think it's really important to examine your expectations and the sort of unenforceable rules that come with your expectations. Like what is it you're really dreaming of or expecting when your son or daughter partners and ends up with another person? Are you expecting that this person is going to absolutely want to be a part of your family system because you're warm and you're loving and you invite, and that they're just going to want to join in and it's going to be great? Is that the expectation right now? Is the expectation that in-laws are a nightmare? Is that the expectation right now? Is the expectation that in-laws are a nightmare?

Speaker 1: 8:24

It's like an invasion to your family system. It's probably going to go poorly. The best you can hope for is kind of a distant civil relationship with each other. I think we come to the table with a lot of unconscious expectations based on our history, our experiences, what we've observed, cultural messages, all of that. So I recommend that you examine your expectations and start to erase them. Like, the more you can create space for the unexpected, more you're going to be able to adapt to create a truly unique story, because that's what it really is going to be. It's going to be a unique story of your family and how you all relate to each other.

Speaker 3: 9:07

So that's a complicating factor because they throw stuff back at us and I don't know that we have the tools to address whatever's going on there. Like we don't understand it, we're not going there, we probably won't be going there. So how does that play into us healing those relationships? Assuming that we set aside the expectations, because one of the things I see is a lot of kids are like oh well, on TikTok, tiktok, they're saying I should do blah, blah, blah, blah, and that's the direction they go. And here we are saying, well, let's do therapy, let's all do family therapy, and they're like uh-uh, I got it, I'm doing it my way.

Speaker 1: 9:58

Yeah, yeah. Well, the first thing I counsel parents on with this one, because I even come with kind of a heavy critiquing lens on the whole TikTok insta-therapy world and the sort of oversimplified messages, so I come hard at that. But I don't recommend you actually do that in your relationship with your child. So say they're bringing up the words and you're hearing. You're like that's that weird TikTok stuff you guys are listening to. This is garbage. I don't recommend you say that. I don't recommend you just say oh, this is all that nonsense. You guys and your boundaries and whatever. I don't have to listen to any of this.

Speaker 1: 10:33

The more defensive of a posture you assume, it's more evidence of your guilt, according to the TikTok Insta therapy world. So defensiveness is never going to be the posture you want to approach with this. So, as hard as that is because it is very hard when you're actually in interaction with your children in that way, if you need to go disarm your defensiveness with somebody else and really just pop off, go on about oh I'm so sick of this, I don't want to deal with this, I'm feeling so defensive, go ahead and go do that with somebody else. But when you're with your child and you're trying to like interact, really adopt a posture of curiosity, like, so okay, what do you? What do you mean by that?

Speaker 1: 11:13

Let me, okay. I heard you say boundaries. What boundaries do you feel are being violated right now? Okay, what would you like me to do differently, and how can and how would you like to move forward together? What do you need from me? What changes are you seeking? I think you'll get off to a much better start if you adopt that posture versus the defensive one that understandably comes up naturally, but you've got to get that one in check.

Speaker 4: 11:38

I think that's really important and I think we're going to cover some of that when we get to this poll, and also the pros and cons, or the things that you learn from your 50 plus patients. Anyway, let's move to grandparent real quick. We're just going over these three periods of life real quickly and then we're going to get into the real meat. Give us what listeners should know that make a loving grandparent and what are the pitfalls they should avoid. Okay, here.

Speaker 1: 12:03

I'll actually give some personal examples because my children have grandparents on both sides and they're very different and they grandparent differently. But I see them very much as these beautifully unique puzzle pieces to my girls, like mosaic, that they really fill in very unique spaces for my girls' hearts in their relational world.

Speaker 4: 12:22

I have a question Are all five of your children girls? They are yeah, oh, for some reason that didn't click with me. Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 1: 12:30

Five daughters, yeah, and what's weird is my brother just above me has five boys, so we can't figure it out really what's happening.

Speaker 4: 12:37

So yeah, it's pretty funny. Oh, my gosh, okay, go ahead.

Speaker 1: 12:39

The family is very large so my kids get a lot in the grandparent realm of like cousins and chaos and loudness and activity. And then on my husband's side of the family it's smaller and they get a lot of that really focused attention, quiet, special trips, things that his family provided in a unique way. So I love that. First of all, they have that blend. But the feature that both sets of grandparents have in common that I think is really the thing that makes them amazing is they are unabashed cheerleaders of their grandchildren cheerleader to enjoy them, to notice everything that's good about them, to take the photos, to show up at the celebration you know the award ceremonies to be really well-versed in your grandchildren's strengths. Let your grandchildren see that you're well-versed in those strengths.

Speaker 1: 13:39

The pitfalls that I see I think it's in three categories kind of criticism, I see. I think it's in three categories kind of criticism, discipline and favoritism. I think those are pitfalls in grandparenting. So a grandparent might see things that they think are deficits in their grandchild, things that need to be corrected behaviorally. You know, you really need to teach them this. Have you noticed that they do that Again, I just don't think, from a strategic place, it's wise to go with that route. You might think you're helping, but often your child is just feeling judged. They don't want to feel judged, so they'll remove themselves from areas that they feel judged. Your grandchild doesn't want to feel judged either, so they're less likely also to solicit your opinion or your advice. And when you're already offering up judgment in the form of criticism, so that's a pitfall.

Speaker 4: 14:31

Okay, so you're their greatest cheerleader. You see the positive. Now your son or daughter comes to you for advice. Okay, I'm struggling with Sally's X, y or Z. Are you allowed then to say yeah, I've seen that too. Or here are some ideas.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Yeah, okay, cause I worry.

Speaker 4: 14:48

Then I'm suddenly not a cheerleader, I'm saying that's something, yeah, you know, whatever. I just wonder if I can then give a little bit of suggestion.

Speaker 1: 14:58

Absolutely. I think when you're asked for advice like that's such an important role you serve as an elder, a mentor, a parent, a guide that they will need that sort of advice from time to time. They'll feel more safe to come to you with it when you haven't already been offering it here and there. I also think that you are in a unique position, too, to help your child keep their child in perspective. So if you're really well-versed in your grandchild's strengths, you can help remind your child keep their child in perspective. So if you're really well-versed in your grandchild's strengths, you can help remind your child of that, to help them buffer their own anxieties and concerns as a parent and keep it in context. So, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 4: 15:36

I love that too, because if the parent's really concerned, you can say you know what, I see all of her strengths and it doesn't seem anything to worry about. But if you're what, I see all of her strengths and it doesn't seem anything to worry about. But if you're worried you can talk to the doctor. You don't want to play down everything On Instagram. You took a poll. I was so shocked at the huge replies you got. You asked young adults what bugs them the most about their parents and then you asked parents what bugs them most about their young adults.

Speaker 4: 16:01

I think the listeners will be surprised. Let's start with the number one thing was bad-mouthing your siblings. So this is your adult parent bad-mouthing a sibling to another sibling, meaning I would say to my daughter your brother's driving me crazy. I wish he would do this, because I do this sometimes. I'll say could you call your sister? And that's really the wrong thing to do. I'm sure I'll say you know she can't make a decision on this. Can you call her and help her, or will you tell her she needs to do this and that's bad, huh.

Speaker 1: 16:34

It can be. It's so hard because I don't think there's any real black and white rules here. So what you're kind of alluding to is the triangulation that can happen in families, right? So you're having conflict and tension with one child and so it's kind of like you rope in another child, express to them. They seem to be listening or they're more understanding, so you end up sharing more with them, and then sometimes they can help in the role of mediation, right? Like, can you talk to your brother about this? Sometimes that can be helpful and beneficial.

Speaker 1: 17:07

Other times it can just really start to burden the whole system because you start avoiding more and more the direct conversation that needs to be had, because there's too much anxiety around that and there's too much volatility. Instead of addressing that, it's like I can go over here and unburden myself in this way and maybe this child will help take care of that. So I do recommend caution in doing that. I think that when you're having interpersonal conflict of any kind, try to keep the lines as direct as possible. If you need more support, pull it from an outside source.

Speaker 1: 17:45

That's more objective than the family members that are so deeply involved in all of the relationships there.

Speaker 4: 18:29

Well, and typically what happens to me? If the siblings have a good relationship, they tell each other. Mom told me to call you.

Speaker 1: 18:36

Yeah, Well, and I think too, when there's just an explicit understanding too, that, hey, I talked to mom, you know she asked me to talk to you.

Speaker 4: 18:45

She's worried about this right?

Speaker 1: 18:47

Yeah, I think that that's better than pretending we're not talking behind the scenes and everyone forgets and can't keep track of the secrets of who said what to who and said not to say it. It just can get really messy like that. I think it's okay to give some leeway for the fact that we talk about each other in the family, Like that's just something we do, but if it's coming from a place of goodwill and an attempt to reconcile versus just an attempt to feel heard and justified in my position and don't you understand me that's important that we're really clear about what's my goal in saying this to the sibling. I'm actually thinking this is going to help aid in reconciliation or is this just me getting to unburden to my child? Who's a better listener?

Speaker 3: 19:28

So one of the other things that came up in your poll is that, from the kid's perspective, is that parents never got to know the child as an individual. Tell us about this.

Speaker 1: 19:36

I think that there are children, once they become adults, they really feel like my parent doesn't actually know me, like they don't know what I do at work.

Speaker 1: 19:46

They don't know my friends, they're not very curious about that. I start to really confront the fact that I really felt like I'm a piece in my parents play in their story and in their dreams and I felt that way for a long time instead of really feeling like they know a lot about me and my dreams and that absolutely can happen. I mean, you can have parents that are just very much wrapped up in the dream of what they were building for their family and their life. The children are just supposed to integrate and follow along and obey and do it the way we do it. In those types of systems that I would call very low in differentiation, oftentimes an individual child will feel unknown because anytime if they tried to express what was different about them, it was kind of clamped down on because it didn't really match with the broader system and what the parents wanted to think of the family as.

Speaker 4: 20:42

Yeah, it makes sense. But I'm wondering, as a parent of an adult child, how do we know whether we've done that? Can we ask the child? You know, I read somewhere that sometimes kids don't feel seen? What if we have been doing that all along and now we want to change our ways?

Speaker 1: 20:57

Yeah, well, what you just said there I loved, which is I read something somewhere. Sometimes kids feel like they're not seen, and that really bothered me because I thought have I done that in any way? If I have, I really want to know. A question that I like to have parents ask their kids is to say I know I have blind spots, so would you help point them out to me when we go? And we do it with that approach. Oftentimes our children will respond and they'll be appreciative too that we've just acknowledged we have blind spots and we'd like to learn more, and I find that they will deliver their feedback more gently too in those moments. So it doesn't feel as wounding because it is wounding to hear your blind spots. Nobody likes that we have them.

Speaker 4: 21:43

We know everyone does this. This is just across the board, I don't know how outwardly. So I guess we want some advice on how to either completely bite our tongues or and here's the issue being critical of the child's choices or not being supportive. So, whatever it might be, your child who was going to be a doctor is now an artist living on a growing organic food up in Wisconsin or something, and you were dreaming of the child that was a doctor, or lots of different choices they make. How do we bite our tongues, I guess? But also, are we allowed to let them know how we feel? What do we do?

Speaker 1: 22:19

I think this one goes back to really examining your expectations and your dreams. So we have dreams for our children as parents. Of course we do. We really see so much potential in them and we picture things going a certain way for them, and so sometimes we need to grieve our dreams. And it's okay to grieve your own dreams. But I think when you share that disappointment with your child, you're making them responsible for your grief then and you're really communicating disappointment in them. So I think you have to ask yourself is that really the message I want them to ingest? For me, Is this sort of existential disappointment that they aren't doing what I hoped they would do. When I talk with parents like that, most of them go absolutely not. I don't want that to be the resonating theme of my child's life. So if you don't, then you do have to bite your tongue and also clean the slate of expectations and be open to a new story with your child that there's something unique going on here and it might just be beautiful.

Speaker 1: 23:31

I recently counseled with a family. There was a lot of friction leading up to a wedding. It looks like everything was going to really go to crap pretty fast, but we were able to do some really great work together and to salvage things. They had a wonderful wedding and later the dad expressed and said you know, I've really learned a lesson in this. I've learned that I need to have more faith in people and I need to have more faith in the process. That even though I'm not in control and it's not being done the way I want to do it or how it would be, that it could turn out really beautifully too, it's not being done the way I want to do it or how it would be, that it could turn out really beautifully too.

Speaker 1: 24:05

That's a resonating theme even in my own life with my mother-in-law that when she yielded and just showed up as a support figure, she really did it so well. And we've been through variations, even in our faith. We, the faith that my husband converted to we 10 years later, left that faith. So she's there as a supporting figure through every chapter, every decision we've made that I know she never agreed with exactly or would have done that way, but just that theme of support in all my variations has built a sense of real trust and comfort in the relationship that I think a lot of parents yearn for. They want their children, to see them that way.

Speaker 4: 24:43

I want to add something For those listening. If you listened to our Pride Month episode last season with Matthew Rodriguez, he said something to me because I said to him don't parents have an opportunity to grieve what their dreams were for their child? They had a little girl and now the little girl's a little boy. And he just point blank looked at me and said maybe when they imagine, they ought to imagine bigger. Instead of she's going to grow up to be a bride, I'm going to walk her down the aisle, she's going to get married. Maybe there's a larger world out there that we're forgetting to imagine. And I really love the way he said that. He said something like it's not the Cinderella story anymore. I loved it. It's really stuck with me.

Speaker 1: 25:29

And to echo that there was an interview, I think it was, with Cheryl is it Sandberg? She's the. I remembered when her husband passed away suddenly and she was in the process. There was something that really struck me. She said you know, sometimes life does not go according to plan A, and when it doesn't, we have to learn to kick the shit out of plan B, and I think we can adopt that as parents too.

Speaker 4: 25:43

That I like that.

Speaker 1: 25:45

Yeah, but how can I kick the shit out of Plan B here?

Speaker 4: 25:49

I think that was the name of her book. Plan B, Was it Plan? B, I think that was the name of her book. Plan B yeah, Okay.

Speaker 3: 25:57

So this one's kind of a hot button of mine and uses the word trauma Parents downplaying or dismissing the trauma in a child's life or marriage in their experience, what they view as trauma. The reason why this is a hot button for me is because I overhear the word trauma being used for things that to me that was growing up, it's life. So this word trauma triggers some things for me.

Speaker 4: 26:25

Triggers, some trauma. Triggers, some trauma. I'm like guys, what this?

Speaker 3: 26:29

isn't trauma.

Speaker 1: 26:31

Yes.

Speaker 3: 26:31

So anyway, if you could explain a little bit more about what you were hearing on that.

Speaker 1: 26:41

Yes, there's actually a therapist online called Joe Nucci Joe Nucci Therapy, and he did this video called I'm so over the cult of trauma. I think that that's what a lot of parents are feeling is just this word. It's taking on a new meaning and first of all, yes, it has taken on a new meaning. Like trauma has undergone what we call concept creep, which is it's expanded in the boundaries conceptually, what we consider trauma, what we consider harmful behavior. So we use that word to describe a lot many more things than historically we've ever used that word for.

Speaker 1: 27:11

This is an example of where I think it's so easy to inhabit the defensive posture. When that comes up, you hear your kids say trauma, give me a break. Like you want to know trauma, I'll tell you trauma. Like, or I actually have trauma in my history, or you don't know trauma. So, again, not a strategic move, though. Even if it's correct, it's not strategic for the relationship. So when that comes up, you're going to want to again adopt the posture of curiosity. So it's okay.

Speaker 1: 27:44

What do you mean by that? How do you think that's impacted you? You can even avoid saying the word. You don't have to say trauma back to them, but you can say tell me how this was traumatic for you, help me understand, and I also want to understand what you consider trauma. What does that word mean to you? If you can come from that posture again, you might learn a lot as far as, yeah, maybe you wouldn't name it trauma, but there was some uncertain thing that happened in their life that changed the way they thought about themselves at that time, or they felt like their trust was betrayed or something. They went through a really dark period emotionally following something happening and that needs to be fleshed out. And what a great opportunity if they'll do it with you, like if we can kind of get over our hang up about the name and the way that we think about it. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3: 28:34

yeah, the words used without dismissing the actual experience. Yes, yes.

Speaker 1: 28:40

I think the trauma. When people use that word, I'll sometimes substitute it in my mind as an experience that really shaped me in some way. So if I think in my head, okay, this was an experience that shaped them in some way and they're probably thinking it has shaped me for the worse, in some way it's impacted me negatively. I need to find out what those negative impacts are and what we can do about them to find out what those negative impacts are and what we can do about them.

Speaker 4: 29:05

Right, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. All right, this is a hot one for me, and I just actually read or heard something about it too. So the son gets married, and when a son marries, his allegiance is now to his wife. I do believe that that's hard for the mom. So the kids say this is a biggie when the mother doesn't understand that the son's allegiance now is to the wife. Do you agree with that? How can the mom approach this? And mother sons have a really interesting relationship. I think in most cases the mother feels attached to her son.

Speaker 1: 30:00

Okay, I have a lot to sayoration how beautiful the mom and her baby and this boy and he loves his mama and she loves him and it's the most precious sweet thing and everybody loves that. And then it's like a switch gets flipped. When he becomes an adult it's suddenly a one of disgust. It's like if there's closeness, if that bond is still there, if there's any allegiance still to that bond in any way, it's often viewed through yeah, it's disgust, it's and we question his masculinity of like you're a real mama's boy. We also like to test their masculinity of like you got to prove to me now as your wife that I'm more than her. I think it's a very like binary way of looking at things, because I think it's entirely possible for a son to have full allegiance to his marriage and his wife and to have allegiance to a relationship with his mother in the broader system, for those two things to be kept separate. That there's kind of like your, there's your nuclear unit where you reign supreme right, your decisions and your autonomy there, and then there's kind of like your, there's your nuclear unit where you reign supreme right, your decisions and your autonomy there, and then there's the extended, broader family system that it might be okay to show a little deference to.

Speaker 1: 31:13

One of the reasons I think it's important to maybe consider this is because I think it's alarmingly cruel what we do to women. When we basically tell them that what you need to raise a healthy child is full investment, attention, attunement, focus, attachment, self-sacrificing do all of this. That's what makes you a good mom. Then suddenly those become her greatest liabilities that are used against her once her children are adults. We expect this switch to just to happen organically, that she just needs to know her place. I view that in a way as like kind of using women. Have we given any credence to her experience in the attachment Like? When we talk about attachment bonds, we're always talking about it to the benefit of the child and we don't pay a whole lot of attention to the how much this changes the mother, how deeply this impacts her. And so when that bond, if that bond is just completely broken and cut off, cut the apron strings, you don't need her anymore. Her involvement is superfluous and integrating her in is just inconvenient to your wife. So you need to go with your wife's preferences on all of this. I see it as really discarding a woman in the system. I like to advocate for the truth that inside all of us we are girls. We are girls who want to belong and need love and want to belong in our family systems.

Speaker 1: 32:43

When we get too callous about this without ever taking into account the mother-in-law's experience, the mom's experience of loss necessary loss, yes, like you're supposed to lose your child in that sense, to their marriage, to their life but there's grief and there's pain and there's fear that comes with that. But there's grief and there's pain and there's fear that comes with that. And oftentimes a woman going through that protests or has an emotional reaction to it. Instead of that being sort of normalized or viewed with some compassion, I see it really pathologized. Oh, this is how dysfunctional she is. She's whining about him not texting her enough in the week. So I kind of first see that as, oh, that's a protest behavior, about loss. That's something she's experiencing and while the behavior might not be excusable like we don't need to guilt trip and maybe she's being overbearing with what she's doing or trying how she's trying to go about it, I think that we we could seriously benefit from a little bit more compassion in this area towards mothers and mothers-in-law with adult children.

Speaker 4: 33:51

Well, I think you're right on some aspects of it.

Speaker 4: 33:54

I think it just depends on the situation, because we put our sons in a tough situation when the mom I mean I don't want to say know her place, because I understand everything you're saying okay, but if the wife is saying your mother wants me to do this, this and this all the time, or your mother is not being understanding that we can't go to Christmas, or your mother is coming into our house without knocking or not even letting me know that she's coming over, she says to her son you've got to talk to your mother. I've tried. Now we put our son in this situation and I do think at that point it is the son's role to say listen, my wife's really struggling with this. She's talked to you a lot about this. I love you very much, but I do have another nuclear family. You know what I mean. There's a real catch 22 in this. I agree absolutely what you said and when it's done right, it should be done the way you're saying. The mother can be valued by both the daughter-in-law and the son.

Speaker 1: 34:51

Yes, absolutely, and in those cases I would say that that is, a person has not confronted or accepted the necessary loss that's involved here. I also think of it as it's not like second-class citizenship. It's just there's primary, there's the primary role of what your adult child needs to do in their life to create their, their stability in their relationships. And then there's the secondary supportive roles, and it's like you are shifting now to the secondary supportive role Exactly Of their main event right, exactly.

Speaker 1: 35:23

Exactly the secondary supportive role of exactly an event, right, exactly, exactly, absolutely. There are absolutely behaviors that just totally cross the line, cross boundaries. We need to have them, but I, I think I would add that I'm kind of curious about the way that we still do it through the sun, like in these cases. I see it a lot, right, you, I'm like it's 2024 ladies, we're grown ass women and we can have direct conversations with each other. Like I don't necessarily need to go through my husband and be like you need to go say this to your mom, you need to go to this room and when it gets to mom, mom already knows that it's coming through daughter-in-law anyway. So it's like why don't we just confront the anxiety and the difficulty of learning to communicate with each other and laying down the boundaries with each other, instead of sort of triangulating the son in a particular way that puts strain on the marriage and puts strain between the two of them? I know that I don't hear anyone else advocating it this way, but I do.

Speaker 4: 36:26

I'm kind of like you're a big girl.

Speaker 1: 36:28

I think you're right. I think you're a hundred percent right.

Speaker 4: 36:31

If you can bring it out. A lot of it also depends on the personality of the wife and the husband. I'm more talkative than my husband and sometimes I want you need to speak up and tell your mom too. I can't be the only one, so there's so much going on here. But you're absolutely right, bring it out. Okay, let's get to the parents. Yeah, let's do the parents Okay, so go ahead. Kirsten, you can take the first one.

Speaker 3: 36:53

So the first one is minimizing your experience or your knowledge. I mean, we've all had a lot of it by the time we have adult children, so how do we navigate that? They don't really care about our experience, they don't.

Speaker 1: 37:07

They don't and it's such a bummer because it's like we have so much to offer and so many. It's like you could avoid so many unnecessary detours if you just absorb my wisdom here. But I really think it's again that the inverse of the relationship of those who know the most know, to say the least.

Speaker 4: 37:29

Oh, I like that. Say that one more time. I love that.

Speaker 1: 37:32

Okay, so those who know the most know, to say the least.

Speaker 1: 37:37

If we know what it's like to be a young adult or an adult that's getting started, we should know that we had our own levels of ignorance and confidence at that time.

Speaker 1: 37:48

That's actually what my grandpa my grandpa always said ignorance and confidence. It's like the feature of youth and it's true. It's like we really don't know what we're doing, but we have this sort of like crazy confidence sometimes to our approach and the new things we know and we think everything is old that our parents know. And it's really a part of the developmental process that your child at that point is in that they think they know more than you and they think that your information is old and outdated. But that is part of the process and often, as the years go on, it starts to make more sense to them the things that you once said or the way that you live your life or the values that you've sort of demonstrated throughout your time as a parent and I find that a lot of kids start absorbing that, but not so much later in life, and you might not ever get that vindication, Like your child might not ever validate your way of seeing things.

Speaker 1: 38:44

I think that's again another necessary loss of parenting.

Speaker 3: 38:48

So it has a lot to do with the whole idea of people learn best by doing, and so they may need to make some of those mistakes and I guess, if we've done our job when they're younger, you hope that the mistakes that they do make and the decisions they make as they are adults, that they're comfortable with, whatever the consequences are, and be able to say, okay, that's your path, that's your life. I just raised you to be independent.

Speaker 1: 39:15

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 39:15

This next one is one that I think myself and a lot of my friends talk about a lot, mostly the critical part. Young adults tend to be very critical of their parents in terms of wanting them to say everything politically correct, not talking so much to the waitress in the restaurant I could come up with a thousand things. Don't talk to the checkout woman. Why do you have to tell everyone everything? Why do we have to change so much to make them happy? They seem a little selfish in their control of who we are.

Speaker 1: 39:44

Knowing who you are as a parent, versus allowing your child to define you based on their critiques. Like there's a way that we can go at parenting where we're really seeking their validation of us, like am I doing it right? Okay, let me change. And then there's another way of being really grounded in our values and our principles as who we wanna be and then leading from that place so that even when our kid is lobbying every little criticism about things, when we demonstrate a comfort with ourself sometimes that's like the best thing we can model to our child is I'm kind of okay being the weird, quirky mom who talks too much to the waitress. I'm sorry that bothers you, but I'm okay with it. Instead of why do you think that about me? I'm not like that. No, it's kind of like we need them to be okay with it or we have to change it.

Speaker 1: 40:32

When there's another stance here which is I'm okay with my quirky, weird mess. That you're that or that you're seeing is not okay, I'm actually okay with it. But there's other times when our child is pointing out a blind spot. It's like we can self-reflect on that and think do I do? Do that? I didn't realize I do that and now that it's more consciously, I'm more conscious of it. Now I have a choice Am I okay with it? Is it part of who I am and I'm fine with that, or is it something that I'm actually not so fine with and I would like to change? So cause, yeah, I do think your kids are constantly critiquing or making fun of I think it's also part of that them wrestling with the fact that, as they get older, parents get removed from the hero status in our minds, the simplified version that we have of the all-knowing, competent person.

Speaker 1: 41:23

And we're just sort of like observing this humanity to them. The more a parent can demonstrate that I'm comfortable with my humanity, like I'm comfortable, I'm okay with who I am, am, and can demonstrate that to their child in those conversations without flipping out and being like why do you always think this about me? I don't like that you think this about me and I'm so upset that you said that about me instead of thinking or approaching it for more of a place of yeah, I do that, I do. I talk a lot to the Uber driver. I like to talk to the Uber driver. I like to talk to the Uber drivers. It's okay that you don't like to talk to the Uber drivers. That's a joke.

Speaker 4: 41:57

No, no, no, that's exactly. So, yeah, you've been there. You've been there.

Speaker 3: 42:01

Okay, the next one is refusing to communicate to solve problems, and also how that somehow allows them to hold access to our grandchildren.

Speaker 1: 42:15

You're asking that like when the children refuse to communicate.

Speaker 4: 42:18

Yeah, we've actually gotten a lot of letters on this, and I almost want to combine this with the next question. If that's okay, they don't want to solve the problem, so then they don't include us. We don't see the grandchildren, as often A lot of parents of adult kids feel that way. They live an hour away, they offer to help, but the kid doesn't want them there. How do they deal with that?

Speaker 1: 42:36

So I think that one cannot not communicate. It's like a mantra. When we are actually giving the silent treatment, that's a form of communication, right, we can bring that explicitly to the forefront. You can say I'm troubled that our communication seems to be primarily just silent treatment. I say something and you don't respond. Can we work on that? Is that something we can figure out?

Speaker 1: 43:04

I do find that a lot of times kids they stop talking to the parents after there's been already some red flags going on, that a parent can pick up on the communication that they have attempted at multiple times, but it's going poorly each time. It's like it's escalating into something, or there's just defense and criticism cycles going back and forth and then the withdrawal happens. If you can look in your history and you have your child who is refusing to communicate, you might want to look back and say, okay, what were the last few times when we addressed this? What actually happened there? And do I need to bring that up when I ask them to have another conversation? So I know we've attempted this conversation a couple of times before. I want to apologize. I said that thing, or I said that your wife was behind all of this, just trying to ruin the family or whatever it is, and I think that maybe that's why you're not wanting to have a conversation now with me.

Speaker 1: 44:02

Would you be open to trying again? Would you be open to attending family therapy? Pick the therapist, you can offer those kinds of options.

Speaker 4: 44:11

You say you have a lot of patients over 50. They've had this great relationship with their kid. Now they're walking on eggshells. I want to talk about three things. You talk about that sometimes adult parents can do Stonewalling, defensiveness and passive aggressiveness. Explain them what they mean and how we do it.

Speaker 1: 44:27

Okay. So stonewalling is actually an involuntary response in us. We don't intentionally do it. It's just like when you are in conflict and arguing with somebody and you just get to that place you're like I can't anymore. I can't, I have nothing more, I don't want to talk, I don't want to say anything. You can feel yourself sort of just like stoning up, Like I, I'm so upset, I need to withdraw into myself in that moment and to withdraw into myself in that moment.

Speaker 1: 44:56

And so someone who's stonewalls they might they emotionally withdraw. They won't come to the table for the conversation anymore because it's too upsetting. It often looks like the silent treatment too. They withdraw everything and just kind of clam up we're not going there anymore.

Speaker 1: 45:08

If you find yourself doing that as a parent, like I see it where a parent and their adult child the adult child criticizes, gives feedback on something that really has bothered them about the parent and the parent is so wounded by that they feel misunderstood and they're hurt. Parent shuts down. Nope, If that's the way they're going to talk to me, if that's how they actually feel about me, I'm done the emotion that shows up when that happens. We can't move beyond that until we learn to self-soothe and figure out okay, can I get myself regular enough and calm enough that I will reinitiate this conversation to seek a repair again? But sometimes, when we get to the stone wall phase, we just shut down and then everything gets swept under the rug or the relationship becomes more and more distant, or we start faking that things are okay when they're not because we can't go there Interesting.

Speaker 4: 46:07

Okay, defensiveness.

Speaker 1: 46:08

Defensiveness is just basically like not taking accountability. You know you make excuses or you are in denial. So, like a common, exaggerated example, your child says you forgot my birthday when I was 14 and left my friends and I at the mall that day. And the mom goes oh, I guess I was okay. All right, I was a neglectful mom, I never loved you, I didn't care for you enough. I'm just so terrible. And she kind of has this really inflated response to this criticism or this memory and in that moment all your child is learning is don't say anything to mom.

Speaker 1: 46:48

It's not safe to actually work out and figure out and get some understanding in these departments if it's going to be something that mom feels defensive about. So what should mom say? So when you feel that defensiveness arising, you can actually just say did I forget her at the mall that day? Oh, I did. I did. I forgot your thing that day. I'm so sorry. That was definitely not my intention, but I'm sorry. Tell me more about what that day was like for you. So that would be to adopt the non-defensive posture. The defensive posture might look a little bit more like well, I need you to understand that I had three other kids to take care of and I was working two jobs at the time and I don't really appreciate that you're bringing up you know that I'm somehow some kind of neglectful mother because I forgot you at the mall that day. Right, that's a defensive posture.

Speaker 4: 47:43

Okay.

Speaker 1: 47:44

It's understandable. It's understandable that we feel that way because we have the whole history here, Right and but your child has a perspective and it's and it's worth exploring with them.

Speaker 4: 47:54

A lot of work on our part, kirsten. Always have to think about what to say, how to react. Ok, passive aggressiveness I don't understand this completely. In fact, you and I were talking about that, kirsten, at one point. What does it mean when a parent is passive aggressive?

Speaker 1: 48:09

So it's kind of expressing negative feelings indirectly rather than openly. Giving the silent treatment is a very passive, aggressive form of communication.

Speaker 3: 48:19

Because you know inside you're seething right, but you're not coming out and saying anything because you're stonewalling. No, I'm fine.

Speaker 1: 48:27

I'm fine, it's fine. No, I'm good, I'm good. Aggressive form of silent treatment and response right, right, I don't have any needs, don't expect me to. Okay, you know, that's kind of passive aggressive, like you are bothered but you're saying you're not bothered. Everyone's confused now.

Speaker 4: 48:44

So one of my kids was home for the holidays and they were leaving for the airport in an hour and no packing was done. I was trying not to be nudgy, but I was saying things like do you think you should be reading that now? Do you think maybe you should be starting to pack? And they said to me you know, you're kind of being passive, aggressive and I wasn't sure what that meant at that point.

Speaker 1: 49:06

Okay, so in that moment I'm guessing you felt something. Oh yeah, I was really mad that they weren't packing. What you're feeling is you're mad. So it's like I feel mad right now. So I feel mad because my kids aren't packing and they need to get to the airport. I feel mad because they should be more responsible in this or they should be timekeeping more than this.

Speaker 1: 49:25

So you can choose to go at it that way and just directly say I'm mad, you guys should be packed already. And and I'll say then that at least is not passive, it's somewhat aggressive if direct. But you could also look at it and say are these my adult children? If they miss the flight, am I the one paying for it or are they the one paying for it? You know, your response might be different. Like, is it? It's understandable for me to be mad about this. It's irritating, but is it something I need to bring up? Or is this one of those things I can practice like a healthy non-attachment to? Like? You know what, however you guys get to the airport is on you, so long as I'm not paying for the tickets, I might need to say I'm actually mad because I paid for these tickets and I want you to get to the airport on time.

Speaker 4: 50:11

So I like the way you said something about not non-attachment.

Speaker 1: 50:14

What did you say? I thought practicing healthy non-attachment.

Speaker 4: 50:18

Yeah, healthy non-attachment. I really like that it's not silent treatment.

Speaker 1: 50:22

It's not I don't care about you guys, whatever, I'm just not going to care. It's just I'm choosing in this moment that this is not what I'm going to attach to you getting to the airport on time Not what I'm going to attach to you getting to the airport on time. I'm mad right now about the way you guys are managing time and packing, but I could choose in that moment to just healthy non-attachment.

Speaker 4: 50:39

With five kids, you have to practice non-attachment all the time, don't you? Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 50:53

Although I will say I'm still in the phase of really active parenting, in that I only have one adult child and four that aren't, so I sort of know that I have these challenges coming my way. There's the saying they know the literature but not the life. I know a lot of the literature. I don't exactly know the life directly as the mom yet of all these children Right and and your adult child.

Speaker 3: 51:11

You've still got some stuff coming up, which is why our podcasts exist.

Speaker 4: 51:14

Yeah, these are the early years. Your daughter's only 18. You're at the way beginning.

Speaker 1: 51:20

No, I need all the time, all the advice, all I need it all. I think maybe this is a part of that process too developing more compassion as we go throughout our lifespan. For others including our own mothers, our own mother-in-laws like this is so much harder when you're doing it.

Speaker 4: 51:39

Well, and also, like you said, you're in active parenting. It's hard to flip that switch right off. Yeah, you know so that's really yeah, you got to flip the switch suddenly. And when do you?

Speaker 1: 51:51

I'm like are you still going to check in when you get home, like, like, I'd like a text you know, like wait, no, she doesn't have to tell me when she's home, but how will I know she's safe? I guess I just have to practice healthy non-attachment. But she's going to be out there doing her thing and I don't get to know every single day that she's home safe If she doesn't text or call or whatever. I just have to work on that.

Speaker 3: 52:14

So there are two great questions that you suggest parents of young adults ask. Would you be willing to ask those and explain why they're important?

Speaker 1: 52:23

Yes, I think that these are kind of my two ideal questions that both the parent can ask to their adult child and an adult child could ask to their parent. Okay, first one is how can I show up for you as a parent now, at this point in your life? So I think that captures the ever-changing nature of our role as parents and checking in with our kid. What do you actually need from me at this point in your life? Because it's going to be different than what you needed from me 10 years ago.

Speaker 4: 52:53

Or two years ago or a month ago.

Speaker 1: 52:54

Yes, Especially with how much things can change in adulthood for them, right, exactly. And then I think it's so helpful for your adult child to ask their parent is what feedback do you think would be helpful for me to hear?

Speaker 4: 53:13

And what do you mean by that? What are we asking exactly in that question Like?

Speaker 1: 53:17

as a kid. It's kind of like mom or dad helped me see my blind spots. I know I have them. I'm an adult. Part of my adulting is knowing that I have blind spots too and my parents sees me in a particular way and I could use some feedback on my life. Sometimes we want it, sometimes we don't, and we avoid it because we don't want to hear what they have to say, because we might be dealing with our own shame about our own choices. We don't like where we're at in life. But other times it's like I need you to help me see my blind spots. I do that sometimes with my mom, like, help me, what am I not doing as a mom? What do you see with my kids? What is it that you think would be helpful for me to know?

Speaker 4: 53:57

And my guess is that question doesn't come out until they pass that phase of ignorance. And what was it? Ignorance and Ignorance and confidence. Ignorance and confidence. That's exactly right. I love that.

Speaker 1: 54:07

If you find that an adult child, you're doing a good job, don't worry.

Speaker 4: 54:13

That child. You're doing a good job, don't worry. That's exactly right, exactly All right. So, as we wrap up, we always ask our guests to leave our listeners with two key points they want them to take away from this interview. Can you share with your two key points you hope our listeners will take away?

Speaker 1: 54:26

Yeah, I haven't said this actually yet, but I think it will encapsulate a lot of what we talked about. I think we're living in a unique era right now where we have an allergy to ambivalence. Ambivalence is really the presence of conflicting emotions. It's kind of the love and the loathing, the needing someone and feeling burdened by them. Motherhood captures this really well, because every mother knows I love my child, I would do anything for my child and I just want them to go away for a few hours and leave me alone and let me have some peace. How can you think, coexist at the same time they do. That's part of what it is to be a loving human in a loving relationship.

Speaker 1: 55:04

I think that we are in an era right now where we really want to collapse this ambivalence. We don't like it. It has to be all or nothing. I think, when that plays out, particularly in family relationships and parenting relationships, that we fail to make space for the natural complexity and complication that just arises as our children grow older, as our lives become increasingly layered, as more and more people enter into the family system. I think if we could develop more distress tolerance for ambivalence or just tolerance for ambivalence, then our relationships are going to go much better. That's my main takeaway, or what I hope people take away is that your family is complex and complicated, not because you're particularly dysfunctional and awful and you failed as a parent, but because these things are naturally so. The more we can create some compassion for that reality, the better our relationships are going to go with each other.

Speaker 4: 56:04

I love that. It's kind of like give up the perfection.

Speaker 1: 56:07

Yes, I actually have a post that said stop trying to create the perfect family. Right, exactly, well, except we will we will share your Instagram account.

Speaker 4: 56:16

You want to tell everyone what your handle is right now, before we go.

Speaker 1: 56:19

Yeah, it's just my name, rachel Hawk, and like hack H, a, a, c, k. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 56:25

That's never misspelled, right Right, it's mispronounced all the time. Rachel, thank you so much for joining us. You're just really a breath of fresh air we really appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 56:37

Thank you, this is great. Well, I appreciate being here. It was really fun. Thank you, okay, take care.

Speaker 4: 56:43

So that's a wrap. I really enjoyed it, kirsten. We covered some of the same topics we've talked about, but with a whole new perspective, and I hope some of you watch this on YouTube because she's pretty amazing, and check out her Instagram at Rachel Hawk at R-A-C-H-E-L-H-A-A-C-K.

Speaker 3: 57:01

Yeah, definitely worth following her on Instagram If you're somebody that is on there. I think that her perspective takes into account where we are and who we are, and there's a twist to it. Well worth it for all of, not just for us, but also for our adult children, I think would give them a little bit of perspective.

Speaker 4: 57:20

Absolutely. And thank you Connie Gorn Fisher again, our absolutely extraordinary audio engineer. She has just done so much for this podcast behind the scenes. Check out our website, biteyourtonguepodcastcom. You can press our support tab there. Donate. We still need money, guys, to keep going. So thanks again and remember sometimes you just have to bite your tongue.

Speaker 3: 57:45

Thank, you.