November 13, 2024 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, popular social media influencer and mother Tiffany Jenkins talks about her secret to being a mother.... (hint: it's not what you post on social media!)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we return to our American stories. Tiffany Jenkins is
a wife and a mother of three. She's acquired a
huge social media following on her blog Juggling the Jenkins,
where her videos received millions of views. Tiffany wrote a
highly successful memoir, High Achiever, the shocking true story of
one addicts double life. Here's Tiffany Jenkins with the rest
(00:33):
of her story and what it means to be a
good mom.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
You know what I want to talk about today. I
want to talk about what it means to be a
good mom. Okay, because listen, if you look on social
media and YouTube. Okay, let's take YouTube for example. They
have tons of videos of families announcing pregnancies to their
loved ones, right, and it's always so joyous, and everybody's
still excited and screaming and yelling and they're like, oh
(01:00):
my god, finally, thank you. Look at these little booties.
I'm gonna have a grand kid. Okay, that was not
how my pregnancy announcement went. I had been living in
a halfway house for two months and I started dating
this guy and I got an overnight pass. Okay, one weekend,
I got one overnight pass. I'm not going to go
(01:22):
into detail about what happened on the overnight pass, but
let's just say that two weeks later, my body started
acting a little weird. I didn't have a job or
a car at the time, so I screaped together some
quarters and walked my butt down to the dollar a
tree and bought a pregnancy test. I took a pregnancy
test in the bathroom and the halfway house I was
living at with six other women, and when the second
(01:44):
line popped up, I collapsed on the floor and lost
my mind. It was not joyous. I was not excited.
I was here by I had just started gaining trust
back with my family. What was I gonna tell them?
I wasn't going to tell the owner of the halfway
house that I've used the one overnight pass. They finally
gave me. What was I going to do? I couldn't
(02:07):
even take care of myself? How was I going to
take care of a child? I was terrified. I prayed
out and I said, listen, technically, physically, I know why
this happened, but like spiritually and mentally, I don't know
why this happened. Please help me. What am I supposed
to do? I can't have this baby. And it was
(02:31):
in that moment that I realized suddenly I wanted this
baby more than I had ever wanted anything in my
entire life. I told my sister, you have them, basically like, Okay,
you're an idiot. I told the owner of the halfway house,
and he could have kicked me out, but he didn't.
He let me live there and pay rent until I
(02:53):
could get out on my feet. So I married the
man who got me pregnant five months after we started dating,
and I continued to live in the halfway house up
until near the end of my pregnancy. My recovery didn't
stop just because I was pregnant. I had to keep
working on myself. I got a job, busted my butt,
got a car, we got an apartment, and my son
(03:14):
was born on my birthday. It was the greatest gift
that I've ever received. When my son was six months old,
I found out I was pregnant with the closter. She
burst into the world a cologuy pury of tears and chaos,
and I got postpartum depression two weeks after she was born.
(03:36):
My bonus daughter came to live with us full time,
and I was battling postpartum depression full on. I went
from being a single, sexy bachelorette living in a halfway
house to a married mother of three in the span
of two years. Okay, when it comes to motherhood, I
(03:58):
have no clue what I'm doing. I don't. When I
was suffering from postpartum depression, I used to go to
social media for support and you know, to try to
see what other people were doing because I had no clue.
And I quickly realized that it seemed like everybody else
had their life together while mine was crumbling. Everybody's home
(04:22):
looked beautiful, while mine looked like a hurricane just ripped
through the living room. All the moms were posing with
their babies, looking so perfect and wonderful, while I wanted
to leave mine in the crib and run out the
front door and never come back. I can't explain what
that did to me internally as a person. It made
(04:43):
me feel like a failure. It made me feel a sheen.
It made me feel like maybe I wasn't meant to
be a mom. There was one day, one day, especially
where I resented my children just for existing. I didn't
want to take care of them more. I didn't want
(05:03):
to be a miling war So I called my doctor
crying and I said, is it bad that I don't
want the kids anymore? And they had come into the
office right now and they got me in the essay,
and the doctor and I worked on a recovery plane
for me. Once I started to feel better, I started
(05:24):
to write, and I wrote for numerous reasons. I wrote
because it was a really therapeutic for me to get
it out of my head and onto paper. And I
chose to share my writing because everywhere I looked everything
looked so perfect. So I thought, maybe if there's just
one person out there who's feeling the same way as me,
(05:47):
they can read what I've written and see that they're
not alone. And that's where Juggling the Jenkins was born.
A good mom is not measured by her ability to
keep a clean home. Some people have more money than
other people, some people have more possessions than other people,
but none of that matters. Life is going to go
(06:09):
by like this going to be over before you know it,
And I promise you that it is not going to
say anywhere in your obituary her house was really clean.
We got to stop stressing about the little stuff. We
got to stop wasting time beating ourselves up over the
little stuff and start spending more time creating memories with
(06:32):
our kids, taking on places, putting our phones down, chilling
with them, going outside. When they come up to you
and they say, Mommy, will you play with me? Instead
of saying no, just a second, just get up and
play with them, because I can promise you that neither
of you will ever regret that decision. I have to
remind myself of this daily. I'm the queen of in
(06:54):
just a minute, babe, I'm the queen and do it
all day long. So I have to remind myself that
that minute will never come. And I know that and
they know that, so it is up to me to
make the minutes count. Now, what makes a good mom?
I don't think there's one answer. A good mom is
(07:17):
somebody who doesn't spend hours obsessing about how they aren't
good enough. A good mom is somebody who regunizes that
they have a problem and does whatever they can't fix it,
whether it be addiction, alcoholism, anger, depression, pigging. Action makes
a good mom. But it all boils down to love.
(07:41):
Being a shining example to the kids of what love
is about showing them love and showing others love as
often as possible.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
And that was Tiffany Jenkins you were listening to. And
what a voice and so straight, straight as an arrow.
And by the way, that line in the beginning, what
was I gonna do? I can't take care of myself?
How am I gonna take care of this child?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
You know?
Speaker 1 (08:08):
It reminds me of the narrator And there goes My
Life by Kenny Chesney. If you remember the lines. All
he could think about was I'm too young for this,
got my whole life ahead. Tell I'm just a kid myself.
How am I going to raise one? By the way,
we're never ready to raise a kid. I've had so
many people say I'm not ready. Well, you're never ready.
And she jumped in and raised this child. And what
(08:29):
great advice. And mom's, good ones and good fathers do
this too, show them love and show others love as
often as possible. I have no idea what I'm doing,
she also said, and you know what none of us do.
And people like love to give a lot of advice
about parenting, but it's not easy. And if anybody had
(08:51):
the formula down, well care it with the world. You'll
be a billionaire. It's no duck walk, but that advice
love others and yours as often as possible, about as
good as it gets. Tiffany Jenkins' story here on our
American Stories
And we return to our American stories. Tiffany Jenkins is
a wife and a mother of three. She's acquired a
huge social media following on her blog Juggling the Jenkins,
where her videos received millions of views. Tiffany wrote a
highly successful memoir, High Achiever, the shocking true story of
one addicts double life. Here's Tiffany Jenkins with the rest
(00:33):
of her story and what it means to be a
good mom.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
You know what I want to talk about today. I
want to talk about what it means to be a
good mom. Okay, because listen, if you look on social
media and YouTube. Okay, let's take YouTube for example. They
have tons of videos of families announcing pregnancies to their
loved ones, right, and it's always so joyous, and everybody's
still excited and screaming and yelling and they're like, oh
(01:00):
my god, finally, thank you. Look at these little booties.
I'm gonna have a grand kid. Okay, that was not
how my pregnancy announcement went. I had been living in
a halfway house for two months and I started dating
this guy and I got an overnight pass. Okay, one weekend,
I got one overnight pass. I'm not going to go
(01:22):
into detail about what happened on the overnight pass, but
let's just say that two weeks later, my body started
acting a little weird. I didn't have a job or
a car at the time, so I screaped together some
quarters and walked my butt down to the dollar a
tree and bought a pregnancy test. I took a pregnancy
test in the bathroom and the halfway house I was
living at with six other women, and when the second
(01:44):
line popped up, I collapsed on the floor and lost
my mind. It was not joyous. I was not excited.
I was here by I had just started gaining trust
back with my family. What was I gonna tell them?
I wasn't going to tell the owner of the halfway
house that I've used the one overnight pass. They finally
gave me. What was I going to do? I couldn't
(02:07):
even take care of myself? How was I going to
take care of a child? I was terrified. I prayed
out and I said, listen, technically, physically, I know why
this happened, but like spiritually and mentally, I don't know
why this happened. Please help me. What am I supposed
to do? I can't have this baby. And it was
(02:31):
in that moment that I realized suddenly I wanted this
baby more than I had ever wanted anything in my
entire life. I told my sister, you have them, basically like, Okay,
you're an idiot. I told the owner of the halfway house,
and he could have kicked me out, but he didn't.
He let me live there and pay rent until I
(02:53):
could get out on my feet. So I married the
man who got me pregnant five months after we started dating,
and I continued to live in the halfway house up
until near the end of my pregnancy. My recovery didn't
stop just because I was pregnant. I had to keep
working on myself. I got a job, busted my butt,
got a car, we got an apartment, and my son
(03:14):
was born on my birthday. It was the greatest gift
that I've ever received. When my son was six months old,
I found out I was pregnant with the closter. She
burst into the world a cologuy pury of tears and chaos,
and I got postpartum depression two weeks after she was born.
(03:36):
My bonus daughter came to live with us full time,
and I was battling postpartum depression full on. I went
from being a single, sexy bachelorette living in a halfway
house to a married mother of three in the span
of two years. Okay, when it comes to motherhood, I
(03:58):
have no clue what I'm doing. I don't. When I
was suffering from postpartum depression, I used to go to
social media for support and you know, to try to
see what other people were doing because I had no clue.
And I quickly realized that it seemed like everybody else
had their life together while mine was crumbling. Everybody's home
(04:22):
looked beautiful, while mine looked like a hurricane just ripped
through the living room. All the moms were posing with
their babies, looking so perfect and wonderful, while I wanted
to leave mine in the crib and run out the
front door and never come back. I can't explain what
that did to me internally as a person. It made
(04:43):
me feel like a failure. It made me feel a sheen.
It made me feel like maybe I wasn't meant to
be a mom. There was one day, one day, especially
where I resented my children just for existing. I didn't
want to take care of them more. I didn't want
(05:03):
to be a miling war So I called my doctor
crying and I said, is it bad that I don't
want the kids anymore? And they had come into the
office right now and they got me in the essay,
and the doctor and I worked on a recovery plane
for me. Once I started to feel better, I started
(05:24):
to write, and I wrote for numerous reasons. I wrote
because it was a really therapeutic for me to get
it out of my head and onto paper. And I
chose to share my writing because everywhere I looked everything
looked so perfect. So I thought, maybe if there's just
one person out there who's feeling the same way as me,
(05:47):
they can read what I've written and see that they're
not alone. And that's where Juggling the Jenkins was born.
A good mom is not measured by her ability to
keep a clean home. Some people have more money than
other people, some people have more possessions than other people,
but none of that matters. Life is going to go
(06:09):
by like this going to be over before you know it,
And I promise you that it is not going to
say anywhere in your obituary her house was really clean.
We got to stop stressing about the little stuff. We
got to stop wasting time beating ourselves up over the
little stuff and start spending more time creating memories with
(06:32):
our kids, taking on places, putting our phones down, chilling
with them, going outside. When they come up to you
and they say, Mommy, will you play with me? Instead
of saying no, just a second, just get up and
play with them, because I can promise you that neither
of you will ever regret that decision. I have to
remind myself of this daily. I'm the queen of in
(06:54):
just a minute, babe, I'm the queen and do it
all day long. So I have to remind myself that
that minute will never come. And I know that and
they know that, so it is up to me to
make the minutes count. Now, what makes a good mom?
I don't think there's one answer. A good mom is
(07:17):
somebody who doesn't spend hours obsessing about how they aren't
good enough. A good mom is somebody who regunizes that
they have a problem and does whatever they can't fix it,
whether it be addiction, alcoholism, anger, depression, pigging. Action makes
a good mom. But it all boils down to love.
(07:41):
Being a shining example to the kids of what love
is about showing them love and showing others love as
often as possible.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
And that was Tiffany Jenkins you were listening to. And
what a voice and so straight, straight as an arrow.
And by the way, that line in the beginning, what
was I gonna do? I can't take care of myself?
How am I gonna take care of this child?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
You know?
Speaker 1 (08:08):
It reminds me of the narrator And there goes My
Life by Kenny Chesney. If you remember the lines. All
he could think about was I'm too young for this,
got my whole life ahead. Tell I'm just a kid myself.
How am I going to raise one? By the way,
we're never ready to raise a kid. I've had so
many people say I'm not ready. Well, you're never ready.
And she jumped in and raised this child. And what
(08:29):
great advice. And mom's, good ones and good fathers do
this too, show them love and show others love as
often as possible. I have no idea what I'm doing,
she also said, and you know what none of us do.
And people like love to give a lot of advice
about parenting, but it's not easy. And if anybody had
(08:51):
the formula down, well care it with the world. You'll
be a billionaire. It's no duck walk, but that advice
love others and yours as often as possible, about as
good as it gets. Tiffany Jenkins' story here on our
American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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