July 23, 2025 ⢠33 mins
Battle-Tested: 10 Parenting Tips Every Boy Mom Wants to Know
What do you get when you raise 7 kids (4 boys) and survive to tell the tale? A whole lot of wisdom â and even more heart. đ
This week on the Mothers of Boys Survival Guide, Suzy and Cheryl sit down with Mary Pat Gaeng, a mom of 7 and grandmother of 6, to share the 10 boy mom truths sheâs learned the hard way.
- Learn why physical affection matters more than you think
- Find out how to stop power struggles in their tracks
- Discover the power of simple meals and shared responsibility
- Hear why raising a good human matters more than raising a âtypical boyâ
Whether you're in the toddler trenches or navigating teen years, this episode is packed with relatable stories, practical tips, and encouragement that will meet you right where you are.
đ Listen now on your favorite podcast platform đ Grab the book:Â Mothers of Boys Survival Guide đ Join the community:Â MothersOfBoys.life
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Episode Transcript
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Battle Tested (00:00):
Ten Tips Every Boy Mom Wants to Know.
She raised seven kids, including four curious and fearless and sweet
adventurous boys. In this episode of the Mothers of Boys Survival Guide,
we talk with Mary Pat Geang, a seasoned mom of 7 and grandmom of 6, with 1 on the way.
(00:22):
Mary Pat shares her top 10 parenting tips for raising boys with grit, grace,
and a sense of humor. From channeling big energy to teaching responsibility
and resilience, her advice is both heartwarming and hilariously honest.
Welcome to the MOB, Mary Pat. Great to have you here.
Thank you.
(00:44):
Mary Pat, thank you so much for coming on to our MOB podcast. I have been in awe of you for a very,
very long time, and I truly don't know how you and your husband, Chris, raised such amazing humans,
and so it was my request that you come on the show and help us, share with other moms
(01:08):
of boys your tips and life lessons that you've learned through doing it, right?
So, 7 kids, you have so much knowledge and so many great tips, you can't help to have
with all that experience. So, let's start with, let's count down from like 10 to 1,
(01:32):
and let's start with number 10. How about a tip from when your kids were little?
The advice I would give, I guess, was IÂ constantly was touching and kissing and
hugging them, and telling them how much of a gift they were from God
(01:53):
and how important they were in our family and how much we love them.
Get as much physical contact and touching and reminding them of how important they are when
they're little to give them that sense of self-esteem of belonging to your community,
your family, and how important they are, and value and realize how precious those moments are,
(02:20):
because once they're gone, they're gone.Right, right! Okay, so tip number 9.
How about a tip for setting boundaries without crushing little spirits?
Setting boundaries. As humans, we all like boundaries. That's why there's speed limits,
(02:43):
there's laws, there's all sorts of constraints on us,
because that gives us security in the fact that we know what to do and we're not just rambling.
So, we were very strict, but we respected them, and now talking to them as adults, my son said,
yeah, I might have thought that was crazy as a kid, but now I see all you did was
(03:08):
love us and give us those boundaries to keep us safe and to direct them.
So, don't be afraid of encroaching on them and giving them boundaries, because that is one of
our main jobs other than keeping them safe, is to help them learn how to navigate through life that
(03:30):
is full of boundaries, and if they aren't there to learn how to set them themselves,
to keep them on the straight and narrow, and just give them the confidence by letting them know that
you love them, but it's through your wisdom and that it's your job. You have no other choice.
Yeah, that's great advice, because I think that sometimes it's easier
(03:52):
not to set boundaries. Sometimes it can be hard because you set a
boundary and your child is so upset with you and doesn't talk to you,
or it's just maybe they can't participate in something that they really wanted to,
and so their feelings are hurt and they're crying and all their friends might be doing something.
So, I think most of the time it's harder to set boundaries and it's harder to watch
(04:19):
your child go through that short phase of getting through it. You know you're
doing the right thing, but it is easy to cave in sometimes, so that's great advice.
Something that totally aligns with that is just teaching in general right from wrong.
Do you have any tip for number eight? Teaching right from wrong, just basic.
(04:48):
Well, basically when they're little, right from wrong are basically safety issues. So,
you know putting their hand in an outlet, pulling a glass off of a counter, and I always found that
it was easiest if the very first time they did it, I over exaggerated it and I put a little
(05:11):
fear. I was hoping I would make an imprint on them because it was such a significant response
that I had that that imprinted something like, âwow, I should never do that again.â
And I guess is, and then when they became teenagers, kind of the same thing,
like it's this is non-negotiable, you're not going to talk back to me like that. You know,
(05:34):
I'll hear your opinion, but you're not going to be disrespectful and set the boundaries
right away because there's only a few of them you can set right away because other ones keep
coming up and keep coming up later, so on the ones you can set the boundaries on right away,
and like this is the way we're running it here, or this is the way I want to be treated right away,
(06:00):
it takes, they know they're, they know it's not going to be accepted, so you know, don't bother.
One of the tips I would give to a girl, mom, not a boy, maybe a boy if they're argumentative,
but the one power I realized, and it took me a while to learn it, and I was like, wow,
(06:20):
this is so freeing. When they're trying to get and pull you in and suck you into an argument,
you have the best power of all. You just turn around and walk away. It's over. You're not
sucked in, and you're not saying things you wish you didn't want to say, and you're not letting
(06:42):
them feel as though they've controlled you. You just turn your back and simply walk away.
That one almost deserves number 1. That even shouldn't be number 8. That's a,
you know, that is a really, really great, IÂ have friends, like we've talked about that,
you know, that we didn't learn later until our kids were much older, and a lot of times
(07:06):
you don't have to apply that until they're older, right? That becomes a little bit more
of a challenge where they start to, you know, they're much more capable, they're very smart,
and they're much more capable of knowing how to push your buttons and, you know,
how to get what they want or try to get what they want. So yeah, that's, this is good, good stuff.
(07:27):
Yep, good, very good stuff, and I think of it when they're little kids as no means no, right?
Exactly.
I mean, if you don't teach them when they're really little that no means no,
that's it, we're not discussing it, it's just no, then you can't build on
that when they're older and you're trying to tell them they can't do something else.
(07:50):
So you've got to teach them no means no right from the get-go.
Exactly.So Mary Pat,
I'm sure you had some lovely bouts of wrestling going on in the family and just physical,
you know, fighting and pushing each other around. How did you deal with that?
(08:13):
First of all, I have to say, I feel as though my boys weren't the average boys,
I guess. They were just like another person in our household. I mean, trust me, they definitely,
a lot of boys stuff. But wrestling, yes, I'll get to that. But the fighting,
(08:33):
if they were to fight or, you know, start to push around on each other,
it wasn't accepted. It was like, no, that's not going to happen. And you two are now going to hug,
which hurt them so much more then the joy of fighting with their brother, the pain of hugging
each other was probably more painful to them. Hug and the instigator had to apologize right away.
(09:01):
But then in terms of wrestling, my husband took care of that because he loved the rough house
with them and wrestle. One of the favorite fun kid games was at the end of the night,
my husband would hold a quarter in his hand and he'd say, whoever can get the quarter out can stay
up late. They can stay up later than anyone else. So it was a whole brawl in our bedroom, bodies all
(09:27):
over each other trying to get my husband's hand and rip the grip open off of his hand to get that
quarter. And I really don't know how much... And then if they got it, they'd be running out of the
room and they'd be pulled back by the ankle and by my husband to rip the quarter out of
their hand. So I have to say, my husband was an active participant in the wrestling of the boys.
(09:56):
So Mary Pat, how did you handle work within the house? You know, chores and distribution of,
you know, activities, just even getting the boyâŚI made the boys empty the dishwasher. They had to
clean the kitchen and empty the dishwasher, you know, every after every meal. And you would have
(10:18):
thought that I was sending them off to the gallows because they were going to have to do it with each
other too. And then they negotiated. Oh, I don't really want to do this with you because the older
one would do all the work for the younger one. And so then they came up with their own schedule.
Nice.
How did you do it?
(10:39):
I would say that was probably one of my weaknesses was being more of a delegator in some sense.
Having a large family I didn't want it to seem as though they had to run the house. You know,
so many times you'll run into people be like, oh, I don't want to have any kids because all I had to
(11:01):
do was work as a kid because I came from this many kids. So I was really kind of sensitive to that
because I did have a role and I did have a job and I was a stay-at-home mom and that was my job.
However, I used to always emphasize to them that we are communal living. We are a communal living.
(11:22):
You make your bed, you pick up your room, you hang your backpack up, you put your shoes where they
are, you pick up your toys, you're part of the community and you help out. Now they did shovel,
they did do yard work, they would set the table, but it wasn't, I tried the old like,
okay, on Mondays, or we're going to have a hat. You pick out your chore and we're going to do
(11:46):
that. And this will be your chore for the week. Those great things might work for other families.
Didn't work for me, probably because IÂ wasn't consistent with it. But, I mean,
we had a pretty tidy house all the time because everyone picked up. I picked up,
they picked up. They'll have their own little community chores, so to speak.
(12:11):
How about feeding seven children? I, that, this is tip number 5. How do you, how do you even,
I mean, I can't imagine because preparing a meal, that's, that's probably half of your day right
there, starting preparing all the meals, preparing the lunches, you know, preparing for the day,
(12:34):
for the school day, breakfast, feeding 7, well, feeding 9, the dinner. Any tips there?
So for lunch, my husband helped out with that. He would make the sandwiches. I
would get all the other stuff ready. And then as they got a little older,
(12:55):
I would make the sandwiches. And I said, you pick out the things that go in there the night before,
like you empty your lunchbox and then you build it back up. Of it was, you know,
the non-perishable items. You guys do that. And they knew the game,
what went in there and what was allowed and what was not allowed. So they did that.
For dinners, I just did their favorites. I had probably 6 meals that I just always
(13:21):
repeated and repeated because I knew they, they liked them. It wasn't a time
in my life to be fun and adventuresome with meals. It was to feed the masses
and to feed basically what I knew they liked. Chicken divan was my family's favorite meal.
Meal time is important to me because I feel like gathering around the tables is a super important
(13:44):
time because you may not have throughout the day taken a lot of time to interact with, you know,
one child more than the other or a sibling to the other. I just think it's important
and it's a message to send. This is our time to sit down, to relax, to share time together.
It got really hard with sports. My husband would coach, I would coach and, you know,
(14:09):
sports you're in, you're out, this and that. There were times when we would go
and I grabbed fast food, but that kind of grossed me out a little. So I would make
chicken salad sandwiches and I'd bring the other children if I was coaching and we'd
have a picnic on the side while I coached. So I knew they were getting a healthy meal.
(14:31):
But then when we came home that night, I would like to either have a dessert
or fruit and we would all sit around the table and just spend time. That little bit,
it might not have been lengthy, but we shared that time at the table together. And I think
sharing a time at the table together is really important. There's some odd
stats and I don't know the numbers on it, how little amount of eye contact you have
(14:57):
with your child each day. And I feel like the table gives you that opportunity to do that.
Oh, another fun thing at our dinner table, we would have occasionally we would say,
everyone write, take a piece of paper out and write your thoughts on that person. And
you would pick a different person or draw a picture of that person. And it was kind
(15:19):
of nice to think, oh, wow, that person, I never knew they thought that about me.
That's fun. We had a game that I called High-Low. So each person had to share
the best moment of the day and the worst moment of the day. Like, let's just skip
(15:40):
all the stuff in the middle so that we could get a sense of how each person's day went. And
I think that helped build empathy and also just a general understanding of each other.
That's a great idea. My daughter does that with her children. And I think that's especially good
with boys because like you said, understanding of their day, because we all know as moms of boys,
(16:05):
what did you do today in school? Absolutely nothing, nothing. So that was a good way to
pull that out of them. That's a great way, Suzy.Yep. Yep. So Mary Pat, my boys totally struggled
with executive functioning, especially in elementary school and middle school,
(16:31):
organization, and finding homework. I would go through their backpack. I would find homework
that was never turned in ever, ever. And by high school, there were times when we even
hired somebody to come in and be the coach, the organizational coach for our older son
(16:51):
because he was just struggling so much and he wouldn't take anything from me by that point
anyway. So did you, can you give us tip number 4 on executive functioning and organization?
Well, it sounds like you hit it on the nose. How was hiring someone?
Did someone work? Did that work?
(17:12):
It did work in high school, you know?
Wow.
But that was because he essentially, you know,
wasn't taking any advice from anybody in the house by that point.
Right, right. Yes, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in my house. Iâve struggled with
ADD my whole life. Famous for list making. I have to say that with my boys, definitely,
(17:41):
the executive functioning was definitely very apparent. The girls not as much. Yeah,
that 's very difficult and I feel badly that they get that trait from me.
I would go send them up to do homework. They went to Catholic school and got ridiculous
amounts of homework, which is frustrating in and of itself because I felt as though they
(18:05):
were robbing me of time with my children. Half of an hour's plenty. Hours is they're
taking my precious time with my children away from me. So I resented that. I would
go upstairs and be like, all right, let me go check on them. How's the homework going?
Only to find that say one of my sons had built this awesome clay man of Anastasia and like done
(18:32):
clay man for the last hour. It only led to yelling and fighting. And so did I have any answers?
No, I think yours sounds the best, Suzy. You know, hire someone to help you out with that
until the school system changes and they're not bound down with these piles of homework. I think
(18:56):
we really can't help that much because it just, it ends up being a little bit more of a battle.
I've tried incentives, I've tried everything. Darn it. So I think your way works, Suzy.
What I also found interesting was the amount of homework based on different schools. So
we did transfer the kids to different, different schools and we moved at one point and I would go
(19:24):
into elementary because I felt the same way like you, a half an hour of homework is it. I mean,
that's really all it should be in elementary school. And I went in and did have several
conversations with teachers about that, that I was not going to, you know, to torture my, my child.
(19:52):
Right. Same here. Right. Right. Right.
So I do, I do think it's really important to advocate, you know,
for your, for your kids in school.
Mary Pat, do you, do you have any tips for building independence?
Obviously, it's a lifelong thing that we need to learn how to have. I think it starts when they're
(20:15):
little. When you are sitting there with them with a puzzle and they keep putting the piece
back in the wrong spot or they can't figure it out and you have to sit on your hands to
control yourself not to put the piece where it belongs and solve their problems where
it belongs and solve their problems and just teach them to try, try again. And then maybe
(20:39):
you'd have to step in and help them. But the point was that they learned that they could
try on their own and they could keep trying and they could learn that try, try again
mentality. Didn't mean it was always going to be resolved, but they learned how to do that.
And I think that helped them to learn independence and we would let our kids
(21:00):
fail. We weren't the parents to immediately think,
my child didn't do that. Of course we advocated for them heavily if it was true that they didn't,
but we didn't always jump to the false conclusion of my child would never.
So you let them suffer the consequences that, you know, we taught them that life was all
(21:22):
about their choices, their consequences and their outlook. Those were the only
three things basically in life you could control. And it was up to them to do that.
And it was within the power of them to do that. So I think that gave them a sense of
independence of this is my world. This is my journey. And these are the ways I can do it.
(21:43):
And if I choose not to, you know, that's up to me, but I know what life entails.
Yeah, I totally agree. And the repercussions that come with decision making, you know. There was a
moment in college when exuberance lost the keys to the old car that he had at school. And I said,
(22:12):
well, it seems like a personal problem for you because they wanted me, the car dealership wanted
me to drive two hours to sit in the dealership all day to get the thing re-keyed. And so we
made him work with AAA and had the car towed back to where we lived so that it could be,
you know, keyed, they could build a new key in the local dealership. And then he's like,
(22:38):
well, how do I get home? Like, again, this is not my problem. This is your problem. And
he never made that mistake again. You know, it's the repercussions, right?
And that gave him the sense of learning how to solve his problem versus I'm a
loser. I lost the keys and self-deprecating feelings. It enabled him to feel, okay,
(23:02):
I solved this problem. I'll never do this again.Right. Learn. Absolutely. How during adulting,
did you help your boys with compassion and how to treat a girlfriend and those sort of life skills?
(23:23):
Adulting, I tried to teach them always to look for the good in someone else and to understand,
say a kid was a punk in school and, you know, a real brat or rude or mean to them. I would
always try to let them think, hey, you don't know what went on in that child's household
(23:44):
the night before. You don't know what took place last night that made them so angry
today. Or you don't know how they're treated on a daily basis from other people or home
that is making them lash out on you and be the mean person that they are to them. And that,
(24:04):
you know, don't let that mean person have control over you.
In terms of adulting and behaviors, dating, we never, we weren't big encouragers of dating.
They went to dances and to dates and I mean, you know, occasional dates or what have you and
had heartthrobs. But I never, we never really encouraged it because I didn't, first of all,
(24:32):
it's skating on thin ice, physically and emotionally at that age when they can't
even figure out, you know, where they left their backpack giving them adult,
you know, relationship situations. So I didn't think that was a good idea.
And it all would come naturally anyhow, evolution of relationships would happen.
(24:55):
And I didn't want them wasting, we didn't want them wasting their middle school and child,
high school years on something that was going to be fleeing a relationship versus a time in
their life when they can be building lifelong friendships. And that's where their mindset
should be on building relationships with friends that will last them a lifetime.
(25:19):
And compassion, that was on a daily basis, just, you know, to look at the good and,
you know, imagine how someone else would feel if you were treated that way,
you know, treat each other as you will want someone to treat you.
Yeah, that's wonderful. And we didn't encourage the whole dating thing either.
(25:39):
In fact, when the boys were in middle school, I told them, girls are really expensive,
and we're not paying for it. So if you're going to, if you want to take somebody out,
that's your hard work, birthday money, you know, job money, whatever, that's up to you,
(26:00):
but we're not paying for it. And that curtailedâŚ, they like their money, right?
Okay, Mary Pat, we're ready for your number one tip drum roll.
Okay, don't treat boys as boys. Treat them as a human being that's kind, and loving,
(26:27):
and thoughtful, and sensitive, because that's who they are. They're not only what society
says they are, that, oh, boys, your house must be a disaster. It must be crazy. It
must be rough. I was always like, no, it wasn't. I have boys, and I have girls,
and they're all my children, and human beings. And I think it's really important to treat boys
(26:54):
as other human beings, and not just put them in a category of, oh, you're a guy,
because that's denying them of being another really important part of being a human.
And I feel as though we as women have a huge job, and it's a job to grow men,
(27:18):
not to grow wussies. And by teaching them that they can be kind, and loving, and compassionate,
and caring is a part of being a human. It's not making them a wussy, but standing up to
what's right, standing up to defend the truth, to defend someone that's not treated properly,
to respect women, to respect me, that's treating them as a man. And teaching them how to be a man,
(27:47):
and to be strong, and be steadfast in their values, and take control,
and use their strength in those ways, and not by denying the important things of
being a good human being, because that's not being a man. That's being a good human being.
(28:10):
And I guess that's it. And to treat them as they're the most awesome human being,
and to continue to touch, and kiss, and hug them. I hugged and kissed my boys the second
they got out of middle school, and all the way through high school if I'd see them. That's what
it is. Being loving and affectionate is not being meek, or weak, or not manly. And I think that's
(28:34):
important to teach them to be all-encompassing so that they're the best human they can be.
Love, love that. That was really heartfelt.
Well, yeah, it sounds like you really, you need to make your,
you need to enable your boys to feel comfortable in that environment, right, with affection,
(28:59):
and just teach them with respect, and teach them how to be respectful to their sisters,
and their mom, and their dad, and everyone around them. And that's wonderful advice. And I mean,
all of your tips, I feel like could be number 1 tips, because they were all amazing.
(29:19):
I'll have to say that it is a partnership. And even though I'm the mom, I bring other things
to the game. But it is really important that my husband taught that respect,
and my boys saw the ultimate respect to me as a wife, and from him, and a helping hand. And it was
(29:41):
a partnership. And I think that that's important as women that we, in raising boys and girls,
that we can't expect that our partner knows what we want. We need to express it so that
we can come together as a united front with our children, and for the husband to show
(30:03):
respect to the woman, and that it's not a man job, or a woman job. This is all of our jobs.
So Mary Pat, we ask each of our guests to share a mantra, a guiding light,
something you might say to yourself, another mom might say to herself,
as they're in these challenging and fun child rearing days. What was your mantra?
(30:32):
I guess it was dualfold. One of the mantras, I would always tell myself,
breathe. The baby cleansing breaths, when you go through labor, they got me
through life. Those deep cleansing breaths to get rid of the stress.
The verbal mantra was, dig deep. I would constantly tell myself,
(30:54):
dig deep. Playing sports and being athletics through high school and college, I would think,
okay, to get up that hill, you have to dig deep. And so if I physically thought about,
you know, come on, I can do this, you know, IÂ mean, it's mayhem, homework here, sports there,
running out the doors, someone's forgetting a shoe, this, that, didn't hand homework,
(31:15):
and then you see an F on a test because they didn't hand something in. But it's like,
all right, dig deep. I got to get in the car. I got to do this. I got to dig deep because you
can do it. It's in you. You just have to dig deep and get up that hill. And each moment is precious.
(31:36):
That's all good stuff. Each moment is precious too. And when you can, when you dig deep like
that, then you're sort of saving some of your energy for the times that are bigger,
right? Because there's so many little moments that can be stressful, but if you just kind of
dig deep through those little moments and save it for when you, you need a little bit more energy
(31:58):
for particularly 7 kids, there's more moments.The other thing I think is important is to always
remember, this is their childhood. They're never going to get this time back. So yeah,
it might be this or that to us, but these, these are their memories. This is their
(32:19):
childhood. And this is, well, they'll never have a childhood again. So to treat them like a child,
they're not adults. And they shouldn't have to be in the worries of our adult world.
This is their childhood and it's a very precious time and should be respected as that.
Well, thank you, Mary Pat. We really appreciate that you joined us today.
(32:43):
Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. This was
kind of fun. Girls just talking about girls, girl and mom stuff.
Thanks for being just vulnerable and sharing all your stories and you have so much great
advice and so many great tips. So it was wonderful having you here today.
And thank you all for joining us today. Follow the MOB on Facebook, Instagram,
(33:06):
YouTube, and your favorite podcast platform. Be kind to yourselves moms and have a great week.
Ten Tips Every Boy Mom Wants to Know.
She raised seven kids, including four curious and fearless and sweet
adventurous boys. In this episode of the Mothers of Boys Survival Guide,
we talk with Mary Pat Geang, a seasoned mom of 7 and grandmom of 6, with 1 on the way.
(00:22):
Mary Pat shares her top 10 parenting tips for raising boys with grit, grace,
and a sense of humor. From channeling big energy to teaching responsibility
and resilience, her advice is both heartwarming and hilariously honest.
Welcome to the MOB, Mary Pat. Great to have you here.
Thank you.
(00:44):
Mary Pat, thank you so much for coming on to our MOB podcast. I have been in awe of you for a very,
very long time, and I truly don't know how you and your husband, Chris, raised such amazing humans,
and so it was my request that you come on the show and help us, share with other moms
(01:08):
of boys your tips and life lessons that you've learned through doing it, right?
So, 7 kids, you have so much knowledge and so many great tips, you can't help to have
with all that experience. So, let's start with, let's count down from like 10 to 1,
(01:32):
and let's start with number 10. How about a tip from when your kids were little?
The advice I would give, I guess, was IÂ constantly was touching and kissing and
hugging them, and telling them how much of a gift they were from God
(01:53):
and how important they were in our family and how much we love them.
Get as much physical contact and touching and reminding them of how important they are when
they're little to give them that sense of self-esteem of belonging to your community,
your family, and how important they are, and value and realize how precious those moments are,
(02:20):
because once they're gone, they're gone.Right, right! Okay, so tip number 9.
How about a tip for setting boundaries without crushing little spirits?
Setting boundaries. As humans, we all like boundaries. That's why there's speed limits,
(02:43):
there's laws, there's all sorts of constraints on us,
because that gives us security in the fact that we know what to do and we're not just rambling.
So, we were very strict, but we respected them, and now talking to them as adults, my son said,
yeah, I might have thought that was crazy as a kid, but now I see all you did was
(03:08):
love us and give us those boundaries to keep us safe and to direct them.
So, don't be afraid of encroaching on them and giving them boundaries, because that is one of
our main jobs other than keeping them safe, is to help them learn how to navigate through life that
(03:30):
is full of boundaries, and if they aren't there to learn how to set them themselves,
to keep them on the straight and narrow, and just give them the confidence by letting them know that
you love them, but it's through your wisdom and that it's your job. You have no other choice.
Yeah, that's great advice, because I think that sometimes it's easier
(03:52):
not to set boundaries. Sometimes it can be hard because you set a
boundary and your child is so upset with you and doesn't talk to you,
or it's just maybe they can't participate in something that they really wanted to,
and so their feelings are hurt and they're crying and all their friends might be doing something.
So, I think most of the time it's harder to set boundaries and it's harder to watch
(04:19):
your child go through that short phase of getting through it. You know you're
doing the right thing, but it is easy to cave in sometimes, so that's great advice.
Something that totally aligns with that is just teaching in general right from wrong.
Do you have any tip for number eight? Teaching right from wrong, just basic.
(04:48):
Well, basically when they're little, right from wrong are basically safety issues. So,
you know putting their hand in an outlet, pulling a glass off of a counter, and I always found that
it was easiest if the very first time they did it, I over exaggerated it and I put a little
(05:11):
fear. I was hoping I would make an imprint on them because it was such a significant response
that I had that that imprinted something like, âwow, I should never do that again.â
And I guess is, and then when they became teenagers, kind of the same thing,
like it's this is non-negotiable, you're not going to talk back to me like that. You know,
(05:34):
I'll hear your opinion, but you're not going to be disrespectful and set the boundaries
right away because there's only a few of them you can set right away because other ones keep
coming up and keep coming up later, so on the ones you can set the boundaries on right away,
and like this is the way we're running it here, or this is the way I want to be treated right away,
(06:00):
it takes, they know they're, they know it's not going to be accepted, so you know, don't bother.
One of the tips I would give to a girl, mom, not a boy, maybe a boy if they're argumentative,
but the one power I realized, and it took me a while to learn it, and I was like, wow,
(06:20):
this is so freeing. When they're trying to get and pull you in and suck you into an argument,
you have the best power of all. You just turn around and walk away. It's over. You're not
sucked in, and you're not saying things you wish you didn't want to say, and you're not letting
(06:42):
them feel as though they've controlled you. You just turn your back and simply walk away.
That one almost deserves number 1. That even shouldn't be number 8. That's a,
you know, that is a really, really great, IÂ have friends, like we've talked about that,
you know, that we didn't learn later until our kids were much older, and a lot of times
(07:06):
you don't have to apply that until they're older, right? That becomes a little bit more
of a challenge where they start to, you know, they're much more capable, they're very smart,
and they're much more capable of knowing how to push your buttons and, you know,
how to get what they want or try to get what they want. So yeah, that's, this is good, good stuff.
(07:27):
Yep, good, very good stuff, and I think of it when they're little kids as no means no, right?
Exactly.
I mean, if you don't teach them when they're really little that no means no,
that's it, we're not discussing it, it's just no, then you can't build on
that when they're older and you're trying to tell them they can't do something else.
(07:50):
So you've got to teach them no means no right from the get-go.
Exactly.So Mary Pat,
I'm sure you had some lovely bouts of wrestling going on in the family and just physical,
you know, fighting and pushing each other around. How did you deal with that?
(08:13):
First of all, I have to say, I feel as though my boys weren't the average boys,
I guess. They were just like another person in our household. I mean, trust me, they definitely,
a lot of boys stuff. But wrestling, yes, I'll get to that. But the fighting,
(08:33):
if they were to fight or, you know, start to push around on each other,
it wasn't accepted. It was like, no, that's not going to happen. And you two are now going to hug,
which hurt them so much more then the joy of fighting with their brother, the pain of hugging
each other was probably more painful to them. Hug and the instigator had to apologize right away.
(09:01):
But then in terms of wrestling, my husband took care of that because he loved the rough house
with them and wrestle. One of the favorite fun kid games was at the end of the night,
my husband would hold a quarter in his hand and he'd say, whoever can get the quarter out can stay
up late. They can stay up later than anyone else. So it was a whole brawl in our bedroom, bodies all
(09:27):
over each other trying to get my husband's hand and rip the grip open off of his hand to get that
quarter. And I really don't know how much... And then if they got it, they'd be running out of the
room and they'd be pulled back by the ankle and by my husband to rip the quarter out of
their hand. So I have to say, my husband was an active participant in the wrestling of the boys.
(09:56):
So Mary Pat, how did you handle work within the house? You know, chores and distribution of,
you know, activities, just even getting the boyâŚI made the boys empty the dishwasher. They had to
clean the kitchen and empty the dishwasher, you know, every after every meal. And you would have
(10:18):
thought that I was sending them off to the gallows because they were going to have to do it with each
other too. And then they negotiated. Oh, I don't really want to do this with you because the older
one would do all the work for the younger one. And so then they came up with their own schedule.
Nice.
How did you do it?
(10:39):
I would say that was probably one of my weaknesses was being more of a delegator in some sense.
Having a large family I didn't want it to seem as though they had to run the house. You know,
so many times you'll run into people be like, oh, I don't want to have any kids because all I had to
(11:01):
do was work as a kid because I came from this many kids. So I was really kind of sensitive to that
because I did have a role and I did have a job and I was a stay-at-home mom and that was my job.
However, I used to always emphasize to them that we are communal living. We are a communal living.
(11:22):
You make your bed, you pick up your room, you hang your backpack up, you put your shoes where they
are, you pick up your toys, you're part of the community and you help out. Now they did shovel,
they did do yard work, they would set the table, but it wasn't, I tried the old like,
okay, on Mondays, or we're going to have a hat. You pick out your chore and we're going to do
(11:46):
that. And this will be your chore for the week. Those great things might work for other families.
Didn't work for me, probably because IÂ wasn't consistent with it. But, I mean,
we had a pretty tidy house all the time because everyone picked up. I picked up,
they picked up. They'll have their own little community chores, so to speak.
(12:11):
How about feeding seven children? I, that, this is tip number 5. How do you, how do you even,
I mean, I can't imagine because preparing a meal, that's, that's probably half of your day right
there, starting preparing all the meals, preparing the lunches, you know, preparing for the day,
(12:34):
for the school day, breakfast, feeding 7, well, feeding 9, the dinner. Any tips there?
So for lunch, my husband helped out with that. He would make the sandwiches. I
would get all the other stuff ready. And then as they got a little older,
(12:55):
I would make the sandwiches. And I said, you pick out the things that go in there the night before,
like you empty your lunchbox and then you build it back up. Of it was, you know,
the non-perishable items. You guys do that. And they knew the game,
what went in there and what was allowed and what was not allowed. So they did that.
For dinners, I just did their favorites. I had probably 6 meals that I just always
(13:21):
repeated and repeated because I knew they, they liked them. It wasn't a time
in my life to be fun and adventuresome with meals. It was to feed the masses
and to feed basically what I knew they liked. Chicken divan was my family's favorite meal.
Meal time is important to me because I feel like gathering around the tables is a super important
(13:44):
time because you may not have throughout the day taken a lot of time to interact with, you know,
one child more than the other or a sibling to the other. I just think it's important
and it's a message to send. This is our time to sit down, to relax, to share time together.
It got really hard with sports. My husband would coach, I would coach and, you know,
(14:09):
sports you're in, you're out, this and that. There were times when we would go
and I grabbed fast food, but that kind of grossed me out a little. So I would make
chicken salad sandwiches and I'd bring the other children if I was coaching and we'd
have a picnic on the side while I coached. So I knew they were getting a healthy meal.
(14:31):
But then when we came home that night, I would like to either have a dessert
or fruit and we would all sit around the table and just spend time. That little bit,
it might not have been lengthy, but we shared that time at the table together. And I think
sharing a time at the table together is really important. There's some odd
stats and I don't know the numbers on it, how little amount of eye contact you have
(14:57):
with your child each day. And I feel like the table gives you that opportunity to do that.
Oh, another fun thing at our dinner table, we would have occasionally we would say,
everyone write, take a piece of paper out and write your thoughts on that person. And
you would pick a different person or draw a picture of that person. And it was kind
(15:19):
of nice to think, oh, wow, that person, I never knew they thought that about me.
That's fun. We had a game that I called High-Low. So each person had to share
the best moment of the day and the worst moment of the day. Like, let's just skip
(15:40):
all the stuff in the middle so that we could get a sense of how each person's day went. And
I think that helped build empathy and also just a general understanding of each other.
That's a great idea. My daughter does that with her children. And I think that's especially good
with boys because like you said, understanding of their day, because we all know as moms of boys,
(16:05):
what did you do today in school? Absolutely nothing, nothing. So that was a good way to
pull that out of them. That's a great way, Suzy.Yep. Yep. So Mary Pat, my boys totally struggled
with executive functioning, especially in elementary school and middle school,
(16:31):
organization, and finding homework. I would go through their backpack. I would find homework
that was never turned in ever, ever. And by high school, there were times when we even
hired somebody to come in and be the coach, the organizational coach for our older son
(16:51):
because he was just struggling so much and he wouldn't take anything from me by that point
anyway. So did you, can you give us tip number 4 on executive functioning and organization?
Well, it sounds like you hit it on the nose. How was hiring someone?
Did someone work? Did that work?
(17:12):
It did work in high school, you know?
Wow.
But that was because he essentially, you know,
wasn't taking any advice from anybody in the house by that point.
Right, right. Yes, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in my house. Iâve struggled with
ADD my whole life. Famous for list making. I have to say that with my boys, definitely,
(17:41):
the executive functioning was definitely very apparent. The girls not as much. Yeah,
that 's very difficult and I feel badly that they get that trait from me.
I would go send them up to do homework. They went to Catholic school and got ridiculous
amounts of homework, which is frustrating in and of itself because I felt as though they
(18:05):
were robbing me of time with my children. Half of an hour's plenty. Hours is they're
taking my precious time with my children away from me. So I resented that. I would
go upstairs and be like, all right, let me go check on them. How's the homework going?
Only to find that say one of my sons had built this awesome clay man of Anastasia and like done
(18:32):
clay man for the last hour. It only led to yelling and fighting. And so did I have any answers?
No, I think yours sounds the best, Suzy. You know, hire someone to help you out with that
until the school system changes and they're not bound down with these piles of homework. I think
(18:56):
we really can't help that much because it just, it ends up being a little bit more of a battle.
I've tried incentives, I've tried everything. Darn it. So I think your way works, Suzy.
What I also found interesting was the amount of homework based on different schools. So
we did transfer the kids to different, different schools and we moved at one point and I would go
(19:24):
into elementary because I felt the same way like you, a half an hour of homework is it. I mean,
that's really all it should be in elementary school. And I went in and did have several
conversations with teachers about that, that I was not going to, you know, to torture my, my child.
(19:52):
Right. Same here. Right. Right. Right.
So I do, I do think it's really important to advocate, you know,
for your, for your kids in school.
Mary Pat, do you, do you have any tips for building independence?
Obviously, it's a lifelong thing that we need to learn how to have. I think it starts when they're
(20:15):
little. When you are sitting there with them with a puzzle and they keep putting the piece
back in the wrong spot or they can't figure it out and you have to sit on your hands to
control yourself not to put the piece where it belongs and solve their problems where
it belongs and solve their problems and just teach them to try, try again. And then maybe
(20:39):
you'd have to step in and help them. But the point was that they learned that they could
try on their own and they could keep trying and they could learn that try, try again
mentality. Didn't mean it was always going to be resolved, but they learned how to do that.
And I think that helped them to learn independence and we would let our kids
(21:00):
fail. We weren't the parents to immediately think,
my child didn't do that. Of course we advocated for them heavily if it was true that they didn't,
but we didn't always jump to the false conclusion of my child would never.
So you let them suffer the consequences that, you know, we taught them that life was all
(21:22):
about their choices, their consequences and their outlook. Those were the only
three things basically in life you could control. And it was up to them to do that.
And it was within the power of them to do that. So I think that gave them a sense of
independence of this is my world. This is my journey. And these are the ways I can do it.
(21:43):
And if I choose not to, you know, that's up to me, but I know what life entails.
Yeah, I totally agree. And the repercussions that come with decision making, you know. There was a
moment in college when exuberance lost the keys to the old car that he had at school. And I said,
(22:12):
well, it seems like a personal problem for you because they wanted me, the car dealership wanted
me to drive two hours to sit in the dealership all day to get the thing re-keyed. And so we
made him work with AAA and had the car towed back to where we lived so that it could be,
you know, keyed, they could build a new key in the local dealership. And then he's like,
(22:38):
well, how do I get home? Like, again, this is not my problem. This is your problem. And
he never made that mistake again. You know, it's the repercussions, right?
And that gave him the sense of learning how to solve his problem versus I'm a
loser. I lost the keys and self-deprecating feelings. It enabled him to feel, okay,
(23:02):
I solved this problem. I'll never do this again.Right. Learn. Absolutely. How during adulting,
did you help your boys with compassion and how to treat a girlfriend and those sort of life skills?
(23:23):
Adulting, I tried to teach them always to look for the good in someone else and to understand,
say a kid was a punk in school and, you know, a real brat or rude or mean to them. I would
always try to let them think, hey, you don't know what went on in that child's household
(23:44):
the night before. You don't know what took place last night that made them so angry
today. Or you don't know how they're treated on a daily basis from other people or home
that is making them lash out on you and be the mean person that they are to them. And that,
(24:04):
you know, don't let that mean person have control over you.
In terms of adulting and behaviors, dating, we never, we weren't big encouragers of dating.
They went to dances and to dates and I mean, you know, occasional dates or what have you and
had heartthrobs. But I never, we never really encouraged it because I didn't, first of all,
(24:32):
it's skating on thin ice, physically and emotionally at that age when they can't
even figure out, you know, where they left their backpack giving them adult,
you know, relationship situations. So I didn't think that was a good idea.
And it all would come naturally anyhow, evolution of relationships would happen.
(24:55):
And I didn't want them wasting, we didn't want them wasting their middle school and child,
high school years on something that was going to be fleeing a relationship versus a time in
their life when they can be building lifelong friendships. And that's where their mindset
should be on building relationships with friends that will last them a lifetime.
(25:19):
And compassion, that was on a daily basis, just, you know, to look at the good and,
you know, imagine how someone else would feel if you were treated that way,
you know, treat each other as you will want someone to treat you.
Yeah, that's wonderful. And we didn't encourage the whole dating thing either.
(25:39):
In fact, when the boys were in middle school, I told them, girls are really expensive,
and we're not paying for it. So if you're going to, if you want to take somebody out,
that's your hard work, birthday money, you know, job money, whatever, that's up to you,
(26:00):
but we're not paying for it. And that curtailedâŚ, they like their money, right?
Okay, Mary Pat, we're ready for your number one tip drum roll.
Okay, don't treat boys as boys. Treat them as a human being that's kind, and loving,
(26:27):
and thoughtful, and sensitive, because that's who they are. They're not only what society
says they are, that, oh, boys, your house must be a disaster. It must be crazy. It
must be rough. I was always like, no, it wasn't. I have boys, and I have girls,
and they're all my children, and human beings. And I think it's really important to treat boys
(26:54):
as other human beings, and not just put them in a category of, oh, you're a guy,
because that's denying them of being another really important part of being a human.
And I feel as though we as women have a huge job, and it's a job to grow men,
(27:18):
not to grow wussies. And by teaching them that they can be kind, and loving, and compassionate,
and caring is a part of being a human. It's not making them a wussy, but standing up to
what's right, standing up to defend the truth, to defend someone that's not treated properly,
to respect women, to respect me, that's treating them as a man. And teaching them how to be a man,
(27:47):
and to be strong, and be steadfast in their values, and take control,
and use their strength in those ways, and not by denying the important things of
being a good human being, because that's not being a man. That's being a good human being.
(28:10):
And I guess that's it. And to treat them as they're the most awesome human being,
and to continue to touch, and kiss, and hug them. I hugged and kissed my boys the second
they got out of middle school, and all the way through high school if I'd see them. That's what
it is. Being loving and affectionate is not being meek, or weak, or not manly. And I think that's
(28:34):
important to teach them to be all-encompassing so that they're the best human they can be.
Love, love that. That was really heartfelt.
Well, yeah, it sounds like you really, you need to make your,
you need to enable your boys to feel comfortable in that environment, right, with affection,
(28:59):
and just teach them with respect, and teach them how to be respectful to their sisters,
and their mom, and their dad, and everyone around them. And that's wonderful advice. And I mean,
all of your tips, I feel like could be number 1 tips, because they were all amazing.
(29:19):
I'll have to say that it is a partnership. And even though I'm the mom, I bring other things
to the game. But it is really important that my husband taught that respect,
and my boys saw the ultimate respect to me as a wife, and from him, and a helping hand. And it was
(29:41):
a partnership. And I think that that's important as women that we, in raising boys and girls,
that we can't expect that our partner knows what we want. We need to express it so that
we can come together as a united front with our children, and for the husband to show
(30:03):
respect to the woman, and that it's not a man job, or a woman job. This is all of our jobs.
So Mary Pat, we ask each of our guests to share a mantra, a guiding light,
something you might say to yourself, another mom might say to herself,
as they're in these challenging and fun child rearing days. What was your mantra?
(30:32):
I guess it was dualfold. One of the mantras, I would always tell myself,
breathe. The baby cleansing breaths, when you go through labor, they got me
through life. Those deep cleansing breaths to get rid of the stress.
The verbal mantra was, dig deep. I would constantly tell myself,
(30:54):
dig deep. Playing sports and being athletics through high school and college, I would think,
okay, to get up that hill, you have to dig deep. And so if I physically thought about,
you know, come on, I can do this, you know, IÂ mean, it's mayhem, homework here, sports there,
running out the doors, someone's forgetting a shoe, this, that, didn't hand homework,
(31:15):
and then you see an F on a test because they didn't hand something in. But it's like,
all right, dig deep. I got to get in the car. I got to do this. I got to dig deep because you
can do it. It's in you. You just have to dig deep and get up that hill. And each moment is precious.
(31:36):
That's all good stuff. Each moment is precious too. And when you can, when you dig deep like
that, then you're sort of saving some of your energy for the times that are bigger,
right? Because there's so many little moments that can be stressful, but if you just kind of
dig deep through those little moments and save it for when you, you need a little bit more energy
(31:58):
for particularly 7 kids, there's more moments.The other thing I think is important is to always
remember, this is their childhood. They're never going to get this time back. So yeah,
it might be this or that to us, but these, these are their memories. This is their
(32:19):
childhood. And this is, well, they'll never have a childhood again. So to treat them like a child,
they're not adults. And they shouldn't have to be in the worries of our adult world.
This is their childhood and it's a very precious time and should be respected as that.
Well, thank you, Mary Pat. We really appreciate that you joined us today.
(32:43):
Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. This was
kind of fun. Girls just talking about girls, girl and mom stuff.
Thanks for being just vulnerable and sharing all your stories and you have so much great
advice and so many great tips. So it was wonderful having you here today.
And thank you all for joining us today. Follow the MOB on Facebook, Instagram,
(33:06):
YouTube, and your favorite podcast platform. Be kind to yourselves moms and have a great week.
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