Episode Transcript
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Well, it's our special Mother's Dayedition podcast featuring a couple of DJ superstars
and my daughter Danielle. We've gotall different age kids with all different issues,
and we're going to talk about momguilt. I hope you can listen
in to the Data Tyson podcast onSunday, Neddie nine point one. All
right, now, ladies, wehad to do a Mother's Day we have
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we all have kids, we allhave different age kids. I'm a GG
and a mother. Amanda, You'vegot one precious little absolutely the love of
your life. Little boy yep,six How old is he now? Six
years old? I know, andthen I know it's true. And then
my daughter Danielle four kids? Howold are they now? Danny? Because
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I don't remember? Yeah, plusthirteen? A six year old? Also
boy three years old will be fourin a week, and then a two
year old. Wow. So Mother'sDay is very special and I am not
only a grandma and a mom,but I'm also taking care of my mom.
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And Amanda, I don't know ifyou know the whole extent of she's
got dementia and it's super hard.And I talk to my sister a lot
about my mom because my mom andI are very different. I'm more like
my dad, and so I strugglewith the way that my mom is,
especially with dementia, because sometimes weend up taking care of our parents.
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You just don't know. It justhappens sometimes. And I guess if you're
blessed, you will take care ofyour parents, because that means they're still
alive. Right, So Heather sendsthis beautiful note that she got right when
I was struggling with mom. Listento this, It will just touch your
heart. The lady goes on tosay, be gentle with your mother.
There are times that a quick,short answer jumps out of your mouth,
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full of sharp edges that draw blood, and you look away so you don't
need to see the pain. Youknow you caused half of what she does.
You don't understand the things she allowsleave you cold and irritate you.
One moment, you want to foldher in your arms. You wish you
could just shake her a bit.One day, it will all make sense
to you. The things she nevertold you about are the very things that
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hollowed her out insides and then builther up again so she can carry more
and more where no one can seethe weight. Those things that sometimes break
her where you can actually see it, even though you prefer not to.
Her eyes notice everything, yet shekeeps so much to herself. She steps
back and offers her hope for thesake of her child's happiness. The gratitude
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she deserves for doing that is farand few between, Yet her flame of
gratitude reaches close to the heavens.Should you be blessed enough to still have
her breathing the air of this earth, It's time you start digging in your
gratitude archives and find the warmth inyour heart, the forgiveness in your voice,
and the same amazement you had asa toddler for her. I beg
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of you to please today and everyday be gentle with your mother. Isn't
that beautiful? Isn't that amazing?That's perfect? Really, So with that,
I want to ask you, We'vegot our own mother issues, but
what is being a mother like foryou? Amanda? Well, no one
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ever really prepares you for the lovethat you feel for someone you don't know
yet, so you go. Ialways say, like to friends who are
having babies, even when you're pregnant, there's a life before children, and
there's a life after, right becauseevery part molecular level becomes so consumed with
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child, right from babies to andif anyone's about to have a baby or
new baby to toddler to child isin a flash, and so so much
of it is like when they're babies, you know, is he hungry?
Does he need to go to thebathroom? Like is he he's got to
go down for a nap? It'salways about caring, right, They not
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have realized that when you were youngor before kids, how much of a
caretaker you will become when you havechildren, and how you just are always
about providing And it's no matter howmany hours you slept or didn't sleep,
and you're hungry and you're tired,and you're literally on fumes, but you're
like, is he warm? Ishe being loved? Is he being cared
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for? Am I doing enough?And I always struggled when he was a
baby to be like, I'm sucha dummy, I don't know what I'm
doing, Like I need the helpI can get and all the help I
can get to figure this out.Just sort of like you just get into
that role, You just slip intoit. You realize there's not a magazine
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or something the gram profile or abook that's really makes it, just have
to get it. And so Irealized that I was a much more softer
human being after becoming a mother,much more caring. And I didn't realize
how much heartbreak you would have asa parent. I continuously worry about this
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child. Yeah, and my momsays, because you care so much.
It's not because you're really bad atit. You just care so much.
You want to make sure that everyounce is cared for. He's being loved,
he's being taken care of, you'repaying attention to him, is fed,
he's bathed, he's played with,he's entertained, he's stimulated, all
those good things. So I thinkbeing a mother has changed me for the
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better. I think it's the resultof that. I think it's just a
better human being. And I'm empathetictwist, because everybody mother is a caretaker
to them as well. I feellike that is such such true true words.
I never would have. I wasalways very I never thought I was
going to have kids. I neverthought I was going to get married.
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And when my first baby came,I thought, I'm in I want more.
I love these things they've I've neverhad more joy in my life than
having kids, truly, truly,and Danny, I know you you watched
me struggle with five kids and holddown a job, and now you've got
four kids. And that's we callher Nino. That's no Ny, but
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she's changed your name to Nino.You know, her real name is Nora.
She doesn't even know that that's hername. It's you know, what
can you do? Well? Iwas listening to that, the article you
read, mom, and it broughtto my mind. This idea being a
mom changes my the perception that Ihave of you, so of my mom
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because it brings to mind when wewere little, it was my mom.
She would take us, We wenteverywhere, and it was always like there
was always some big task to bedone and she had to do it with
all five of us. And andyou know, now it's so hard just
bringing one kid, but she hadto bring five and work and it was
super stressful. She didn't have acell phone, she didn't have directions,
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she didn't have the other is thatwe have now. But I do remember
that she always made it fun andeven if she was like frazzled, and
you could tell at the end ofit, it would it would come full
circle and she made it fun andit was a fun memory out of all
these stressful times. And so Ithink about myself and I'm like, man,
we go through so many hard thingsthroughout the day. And I hope
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my kids when they grow up tobe my age, that they perceive that
I made it fun. I wanttheir perception of me to be man.
But Mom always made it fun eventhough she was struggling. Now I realized
Mom was really having a hard time, but she sat her comforts for us
to have that memory of fun andexcitement and just being together. And you
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know, we would sit, likewe always tell the story. She would
buy us McDonald's cheeburgers. They werelike twenty nine cents at the time,
a long time ago, sit inthe back of the car, and we
thought it was the greatest thing.Little did we know my mom was struggling
with money and time and stress andall these things. But she made it
the greatest thing. And so beinga mom has just really put on my
heart this. I want these thekids to perceive me in a way where
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they just see there's just joy,and I want them to perceive their life
where there's just joy and take awayall of the frustrations that us adults deal
with every day. Here you goand make it more about how can I
make this day joyful for my kids. They're kids, you know, they
don't they don't get they don't needto take on our stress and our frustration,
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and so I just want to makeit an environment of joy and excitement
like my mom did for me,even when it's really hard, you know.
And it's so good for us though, to put ourselves aside, it's
so easy. I want to justbe. But when we can put ourselves
aside and like join in that joywith them, that's exciting for me.
So that's my that's my that's what'schanged for me about being a mom and
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a man. It sounds like thatyou want to bring joy and good memories
for your little boy. Absolutely.We just have DJ Superstars just joining us
now. I love we're talking aboutyou missed this. This is my daughter
Danielle by the way, And youknow Amanda, yeah Jr. Your daughter
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had has she graduated from high school? Yes? Oh my gosh, yes,
so she is in her like secondyear of college. Uh yes,
oh my gosh. So we're alldifferent age groups and we're talking about what
being a mom has done for us. My daughter just recounted how I tried
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to make it fun. You know, I was a stressed out mess.
Dude. What about you and yourdaughter? And I know we've known each
other for years, and your daughterwas going through as any teenager would,
some tough times, and you'd bein a single mom. You had a
tragedy happen with your your husband yearsago. You have been the backbone of
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the family, and now your daughteris in college. So talk about being
a mom with us. Oh mygosh, so so crazy. So let
me tell you, I would saysituated in twenty twenty two. So what
happened was, well, she wentoff to New Orleans to Xavier University.
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Okay, and you know everything wasgoing cool. Now, during this time
was a very crazy time for mebecause my mom was sick and I was
taking care of her and he actuallypassed away last year. So this is
going to be my first Mother's Daywithout my mom. I'm sorry, yeah,
but I'm trying to, you know, embrace it a different way because
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I don't want to take it awayfrom Zoe. Right. However, let
me tell you what happened. SoDuring that time, I'm thinking everything is
going cool, and she hits mewith, hey, Mom, we got
a note from school about tu wishingbeing owed. So I was like,
what are you talking about? Whathappened to your scholarship, you know,
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And I'm like what. And everytime I would ask her, like what's
going on with school, she wouldalways say, Oh, I got it,
I got it on it controlled byblah blah blah blahlah. To make
a long story short, basically,she kind of had a difficult time her
first year in New Orleans. Andyou know, New Orleans is a fast
paced city. Okay, so shefailed calculus. I would have failed calculus.
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But the thing is, you shouldhave told somebody, you know,
like we could have told you todrop the class something. Anyway, she
came back home and during that time, that's when everything happened with my mom.
So I take it as it's meantfor her to be here, right,
And so we have been in therapyand she's doing really good. You
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know, she's been working out tryingto get herself together, you know,
because I told her, I waslike, look here, kid, I
have done everything that I possibly can. You know, I've even you know,
set these villages up around you tohelp me, you know, being
a single mom, and even yourpeers, and it's like, why you
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didn't tell somebody? So we hadour struggles, you know, but I
think and believe that right now we'recoming out. Yeah. Oh, we
go through so many tunnels, don'twe, so many kiss as a mom
and Danny and Amanda, you guyswill see it. I mean, once
the kids are in high school,it's a whole different world. Bullying,
peer pressure, I know, Ihear. It's like the transition to it's
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just transitioning into one stage for another. That was my sister's like, you're
just transitioning from baby to toddler,from toddler to child, to child to
teen and so on and so forth. And then when they get to adulthood,
you're still you know, they're mom. So it's just she's like,
case yourself, because you have along marathon to go when you're an adult
with adult children. To me,that's the hardest ever, wouldn't you agree
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Danny that for me, that's beenthe hardest. I love my babies,
but adult with adult children, whoo. And then they bring in spouses,
whole other world dynamics. Oh yeah, dynamics totally changes now. We had
a caller this morning. Talk aboutit. Every Friday, she's got a
little girl named Charlie. Every Fridayshe has a half day at work,
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Charlie's at daycare. She goes tothe back of her favorite restaurant, gets
a glass of wine, and sitsand reads a book. So I thought
you're a genius. She found herhappy place. So what would be your
happy place, Amanda. Oh,my goodness, happy place where you're completely
Amanda. You put me on thespot here. So I have learned at
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this particular age, when I slowdown and I'm quiet, and the baby's
taking care of her, the husband'sdoing his thing, and I can have
my alone time. I am aferocious, ferocious reader. So if I
could be in the back of abookstore on my couch with a drink,
glass of wine, a cup ofcoffee or something where I can just literally
escape for a few minutes to readit as much as possible, that's my
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happy place because I get to stopthinking about zeg I gotta go to the
bathroom, like I gotta go pickthis, I gotta drop this top,
I gotta do this all that it'sjust where my brain just released all of
the schedule. That's my happy place. If I like work, the radio
stations, a production, the endorsements, not enough time, time time,
that's my happy place. Really quiet, reading something, a book, anything,
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I don't even care what it is, just reading DJ happy place.
So two things, okay, welltwo or three they kind of go together.
So I find myself and I haveto go back hot yoga. Really
it does something for me because mymind is always going, and when I
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start back to practice, it's likeit just does something to my insights and
it makes me slow down, evenin traffic it's Houston traffic. It makes
me like a So I'll do that. And then another thing that kind of
just like Amanda said, like I'vebeen on Audibles, the Audibles like the
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books and so well yeah, sowhat I do is I'll just like even
in my car, since I'm alwaysaround music, I have to turn it
off either I'm like completely silent likenothing, or an audible or or hot
yoga like all that. Like Ihave to I do that. Those are
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healthy happy places. And that's whatabout you happy place. I'm the same
as both of you. I goboth directions. So I'm not a mourning
person. I can't stand it.But I have found waking up early in
the morning before the kids do.I don't do it on purpose. I
don't set an alarm. I thinkI just wake up and because it's like
my brain knows I need it,and I just go sit out. And
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I love to research. I loveto read anything. Just sit in my
little chair with my lamp that Ireally love and just sit there in the
quiet with my blanket. And thenand then I go and make the kids
breakfast and it's a little bit morepeaceful, like I like that. That's
good for me. And then alsoexercise, like I've started these, I
do these YouTube videos and just evenwhen the kids are there, it's like
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just you know, just that adrenalineand that that it's just like feeling good
doing something good for my body.That is where I feel really really good.
So both of those things. Hey, you know what, you know
what like really really quick, Danielle, let me tell you something what your
mom told me, Like I rememberthis a long time ago, and I
tried to do this, Dana.I don't know, I don't know what
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year this was, but I rememberyou saying, Oh, I get up
at four o'clock in the morning beforeeverybody gets up, and you have you
know, that's your time or whatever. And at one point I was on
a roll. Now, but rememberit wasn't four. It's like three o'clock.
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I exercise and read the Bible andthen I go to work. Is
it's the only time I have,right, But these are healthy things.
Got to talk about mom guilt.What's the one thing that makes you feel
guilty about your parenting skills? Amandaeverything. Oh, I'm sorry early in
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it that I'm still learning, butI really have learned about how to like
be compassionate about myself because I becauseI, as I said earlier, you
know, you can read the books, you can read the magazines, you
can look at the instra gram accounts. No one has it together because their
kids are also different. Everybody's kidsare different, right, So I have
learned that I cannot compare my parentingskills or what I do with dominic to
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anybody else because that's their journey,that's their child's needs, that's their that's
their household. So it's been areal awakening to be like, well,
he wants to do that and youknow, you guys are just gonna have
to deal with it. He's notgonna be in softball right now. He's
gonna take taekwondo, and that's whatI want, Like that where he's not
a football is not in softball,So it's a little bit of reprogramming.
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Like yeah, but what I'm doingis not bad. He's still being taken
care of. But my journey isdifferent from your journey, and I don't
think that's healthy for my household andyou think it is for yours. So
that was a really big thing becauseI felt so guilty about that and I
still struggle with it today because youknow, what I do is different from
everybody else, and I don't wantto get criticized for it, but I
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know that you know, you justcan't care, but you just don't care
what other people think. That's that'show you move with this. And he's
all right, and I'll be okaytoo, but that's it. Everything makes
me feel guilty. Hey, thatwas a good answer. I kind of
want to show, but you knowwhat, to be honest with you,
I feel I have mom guilt aboutkind of like like around Zoe's middle school
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years, which were like the hardyears. I do have guilt about out,
like if I would have made adifferent decision around that time, what
would it have been like, Orif I would have kept her in private
school, because you know earlier duringthat time, that was when I lost
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That's when she lost her dad,and so I was trying to figure it
out. I was becoming DJ Superstarand so's it was like what do I
do? You know? And soI do have mom guilt about that.
I'm trying to let that go orwhatnot. But other than it, he
focusing on the past. How areyou gonna get the future right? Right?
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So, yeah, that's it forme, but everything that's a good
question. What about you, Danny, Honey? What about mom guilt?
Mine? Because I'm watching her gothrough the refrigerator, Mine is probably feeling
like I'm just not doing enough,Like I could have done more. I
could have done more. I couldhave done more. Maybe I shouldn't have
been sitting there on my phone.Maybe I should have been playing with them.
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It's always like, maybe I shouldhave given them another hug or sat
with them longer at bedtime. Butat the end of the day, I
can only do so much and Ihave to trust that, like they know
that they're loved and they know thatthey're taken care of. But that's always
my thing is just should I bedoing more? I don't know. And
then Amanda, I love what yousaid that always comparing and and that's so
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good that you just know that you'redifferent and we're all different and we can't
compare ourselves to other people. Andeveryone's stories is different, everyone's kids are
different, have different needs. Andthat's something I always have to remind myself
because I want to do it alland I want to get it all right,
and I just you know, whenI mess it up, it's like,
oh man, but you just haveto keep going and keep that perspective.
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I love that perspective that you have. All Right, worst Mother's Day
gift, Danny, did you everget a quirky bad Mother's Day gift?
No? Well I don't. Usuallymy husband doesn't do guests. He doesn't
like to celebrate those things. Youneed help, Okay, we'll go get
it go for you. A manis like what I guess, he's like
holidays all but he did one timehe left, he like took all the
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kids. I was it last year, maybe two years ago. He took
all the kids and left me inthe house and we have one car.
So I was like, am Igonna go? What am I gonna do?
This is terrible, nobody's around quiettime. Well, I ended up
cleaning the house like this is nothow I want to spend a Mother's Day,
Like this is the exact opposite ofwhat I want to do. But
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he took the car, took thekids for my quiet time, so he
thought he was doing something nice.That's hysterical. We talked about the worst
gifts. Some guy got his wifea golf gift card to his country club
and she doesn't play golf. Hoh wow. Another one got her windshoal
wipers. She goes the car neededWinchal wipers, but not for Mother's Day.
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Oh oh, that is practical.That's a good right, exactly,
DJ, your worst Mother's Day gift? You know, I don't know.
I don't really I'm kind of likeDanielle, I don't really dude, Like,
I'm not really into the Mother's Daygifts. But I did have a
boyfriend one time, ex boyfriend,I guess gave me like this. I
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don't know if it was like aceramic rose or something, and I was
like, but I still was receptiveto take it because I was like,
it'll never die. Yeah, ButI was like, Okay, I'll take
it. Amanda. Your husband's amusician. Did he ever like serenade you
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for Mother's Day? No? Andthat is perfectly fine. I will say
though, I have not had abad Mother's Day because he does it,
you know, by proxy of dominicand I love cats, so he always
gets me a lot of like catcentric Mother's Day gifts. But if I
can just say very quickly for thefloor that if you're if you want to
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get your partner a mother's take,I've been. I've been campaigning for this
one to get my card detailed.Do you know how many gold fish crackers
I have in there? I havespilled liquids that have dried, and I
mean there's just I really just wouldlike the vehicle to be detailed inside and
out, you know, the backseatarea. Taking care of that would be
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a fantastic mother's take it And inorder everyone's saying hallelujah, amen to that,
and on that we will close.I hope everyone has an amazing Mother's
Day. And we are all sodifferent and our hearts are good and we
try our best, and if ourkids don't like us, that's their problem,
right And I say that to youDanny in jest. I love you
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all, guys. Thank you forjoining me in a very happy Mother's Day.
Happy day everybody,