August 24, 2023 • 53 mins
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When I first became a mother, I remember feeling like an island - alone and isolated. But then I met mothers like Danika Norman, a mother of three and founder of Victory Mamas, who took a simple idea of starting a mom's group and turned it into a thriving business. Today, Danika and I are going to share stories, experiences, and insights about motherhood, and the crucial role of community in navigating these early years.
We'll explore the stark contrast between the nurturing communal structures of early civilizations and our modern day society that often leaves mothers feeling unsupported and isolated. We'll challenge the common belief that postpartum depression is simply to be expected, and discuss how this narrative has shifted our power and knowledge as mothers. We will also dig into the medicalization of motherhood, and how it has led to a disconnect between mothers and their children. With Danika's expertise, we'll highlight the importance of support systems like midwives and postpartum doulas in bridging this gap.
Finally, as two mothers who have experienced the difficulties of building our own villages, we will share practical steps on how to find and foster relationships in our local communities. We'll talk about the power of understanding ourselves, initiating conversations, using social media, and hosting meetups to connect with others. Whether you're a new mother or a seasoned one, whether you're finding your village or just interested in the dynamics of motherhood and community, this conversation is sure to offer you both rooted wisdom and tangible solutions.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello and welcome back to all our little messes.
This is episode five, and todayI have a guest for you guys
that I'm really excited about.
I've been looking forward tothis for a couple of weeks.
Her name is Dana Cudnorman, andshe has a lot of really great
insights for this episode thatwe're going to be talking about.
(00:23):
We're going to be talking aboutbuilding a village and how
difficult it is in today'ssociety.
So, danica, why don't you juststart off by telling us a little
bit about yourself and yourbackground?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Cool.
So my name is Danica.
I'm a mom of three.
I basically started my businessVictory Mamas and it was built
around this concept of needing avillage as a new mom and I had
(01:03):
found myself in a new communitywith a lot of fear at the time
of what was going on in ourcountry and COVID and everything
like that, and I really wantedfellow moms to help me figure
out how to navigate earlymotherhood in light of
(01:24):
everything that was going on andI just had a lot of fears
around like, oh my gosh, my kids, they need people, they need
friends, like how do I?
create that for them.
And so, yeah, I started mymom's group, which eventually
evolved into a business andotherwise.
(01:47):
My background is just inmarketing and that has
definitely helped me along theway.
And I come from a family offour girls and you'd think that
with that came a really strongvillage background, but actually
I don't think that was true inmy case.
(02:09):
It's really interesting.
So that's part of my story.
Yeah, that's me.
I'm from kind of from thegeneral North Idaho, pacific
Northwest area.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Nice, nice, yeah, and it's really interesting that
you mentioned that you came froma family with a lot of
daughters, because I also hadthat experience where I came
from family that I'm the oldestof 14, and there's eight girls
in there and yeah, there's notthat I don't have that sense of
community either, which I thinkis like such a big contrast to
(02:48):
what life used to be like, wherewe had these generational
villages where everybody kneweverybody, everybody was related
.
We even lived in generationalhomes.
You look at early civilization,like native cultures and things
like that, or even reading theBible the Old.
Testament where they talk aboutthat.
(03:08):
And yeah, it's very differentfrom how society is structured
now, where we're almostencouraged to figure it out
alone.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of pressure put
on us.
Yeah, there's this crazy storythat I heard through my
husband's grandma and she's oneof my favorite people who has
definitely become part of myvillage after marriage and in
(03:42):
motherhood, and she I can'tremember the exact specifics,
but basically she was anordained minister in an
evangelical church and thisstory had been around since the
70s or something like that, andone of the ministers, back when
(04:04):
there was some kind of missionwork being done, they went to
somewhere in South America whereit was tribal and this minister
missionary fell in love withone of the village girls and
they got married and theneventually they lived there for
(04:24):
a little bit and then eventuallythey came back up to the United
States to raise their firstbornchild and this is around the
60s or 70s and the native SouthAmerican woman eventually, just
(04:45):
one day, left and it wasn't likeyour typical divorce situation,
you know, right, but she wasjust like this is not how it's
supposed to be.
She felt so isolated, she couldnot understand how American
women were living as mothers,and I just think that's such a
(05:09):
powerful story, however muchtruth is to it, however much
folklore is there, but it ringstrue because I've lived that and
I know what she's talking about.
I know that side of the storyand it's so true.
American primitive culturesknow that it needs to be a
(05:35):
community effort, that it needsto be.
It's like some of the earliestknowledge we have and it's lost
right.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah Well, and I think it's like even ingrained
down into our biology, likewe're not wired to be alone ever
.
No, we start to have majorpsychological problems when we
are alone.
And you can see that in societyWomen are isolated and alone
(06:05):
and there's been this huge risein postpartum depression and
things like that.
And I feel like I haven'tactually looked into this, but I
feel like if we start tracingit back, then we can actually
see where it started to happen.
And even early mothers and I'venoticed this, my experience
(06:27):
giving birth in hospitals theydon't send you home with
resources.
They don't send you home, evenasking if you have a support
system.
I was never asked if I had asupport system when I left the
hospital.
They would ask me hey, is yourcar seat?
Do you have a car seat?
And that was it.
(06:47):
That was it.
So this is your firstappointment, your pediatrician
appointment, and then I was senthome and I was basically
expected to just figure it out.
So yeah, I'm this 23-year-oldnew mom with no idea what she's
doing, but I'm expected tofigure it out without any help.
And it didn't used to be likethat.
(07:08):
Everyone used to just take careof each other's children and it
was like an expected thing andit was considered an honor.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Well, so much of it is tied to.
In my opinion, it's just oncewe started to give away our
innate knowledge and our innatepower in ourselves of knowing
our health and knowing oureducating our kids, once we
(07:39):
started to shift that power awayto the quote-unquote experts
that's a huge part of thispuzzle where the lack of support
started to happen.
It's like, okay, we give awayour power and our community
power over to the experts andit's just this top-down model
(08:03):
rather than this nice communallevel playing field and
generational playing like moreterrorist rather than just a
vertical line.
That's how it should be.
There should be elders andthere should be current, like
(08:26):
your own mother not necessarilyyour grandma, but your own
mother who can walk alongsideyou.
Yeah, I've heard of so many momshaving that similar experience
and it varies hospital tohospital, caretaker to caretaker
, you know and it's gettingbetter in some places, but
that's not an uncommonexperience that women have,
where they're just sounderrepresented, so not
(08:54):
supported, and it's reallyreally heartbreaking for me Well
, and it goes beyond not beingsupported, like because you're
so isolated and because youdon't have that support system.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
If something pops up during early motherhood, you
have no knowledge to fall backon, and so if you have a health
problem or your baby has ahealth problem, you honestly do
feel attacked.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Like I and I experienced that like for the
first month after I had my firstbaby, I never left my house.
I didn't leave the house andwhen I finally did, it was to go
to the doctor and we were inand out of the doctor's office
every week for the first threemonths and I was really
(09:43):
struggling with breastfeedingand just with general infant
care.
Like I had this tiny littleperson that I was expecting to
take care of and you know, beingthe oldest of 14, you would
think I would have lots ofexperience with that.
But there's a huge differencebetween babysitting your
siblings and actually raisingyour own.
And like nothing had preparedme for that and I had, I had no
(10:05):
support and so, like, when westarted having like health
problems and stuff with the babylike it was a very isolating
experience I was, I felt,attacked because I had even the
people that I thought were thereto support me, like his, his
caregivers were the ones thatwere actively like Attacking me
(10:26):
and calling me a bad mother andstuff, and so, like it was it
was horrible.
It was very isolating and so,yeah, they've like society,
especially in the US, and I was.
I was talking to my husbandabout this the other day and
I've noticed it is a Problemthat is kind of just in the US.
So you look at how society isstructured in Europe and even
(10:50):
places like Canada and theirhealthcare system and family law
is very much centered aroundSupport and community for
mothers, even even down to youknow, even down to things like
paid time off.
If you're a working mom, youknow there's places in Canada
where you get up to a year ofpaid time off and that's
(11:11):
actually written into into laborlaw.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Here.
Yeah, it's, it's.
That's a tough one, you know.
Because, yeah, because likewhen?
So this is a great point for usto go off of like where do we
think?
Like we can Talk all day longabout how horrible it is, but
it's like okay, well, where doesthe solution come from?
And, in my opinion, I don'tthink it should come from the
(11:38):
state.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
No no.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Once it's written into laws like that, then it has
to be supported with funding,and then that's requiring
Taxpayers to financially supportyou, you know, in your
decisions as a mother, and Idon't and I don't agree with
that, but but I Do think it doesneed to be more part of our
culture.
Yes, yeah it has been taken awayout of our culture, like I said
(12:04):
for so long, and given to theexperts.
And you know Like I feel for myown mom, who the way she
birthed Versus how I chose tohave my children, which was by
home birth right, thankfully,with her presence and support
there during during laboring forall three of my kids.
(12:26):
But she had four daughters,mm-hmm.
All Three of them were naturalDeliveries, not all of them by
choice.
That way, like some of themjust arrived too soon, you know,
alone in a hospital room, youknow, without my dad necessarily
(12:52):
present.
All of them, wow, definitely,definitely not like a Super
useful.
Yeah and just a nurse up untilthe moment the baby is literally
coming out.
You know, some in a cold, youknow the hospital room and With
(13:17):
no pain, help and just I justshudder at the thought of that's
so unnatural.
So what her experience was likethat compared to what my
experience was, I mean to herthat's huge.
That's a huge and it's a hugepositive leap.
But still, for me, inpostpartum, you know, I had a
(13:37):
similar experiences.
You were Granted it was like2020 and I felt like the world
was ending, you know, and it wasall that crazy, just very hard
as a new mom, yeah, having yourfirst child and not knowing what
you're doing and then all of asudden the world is shutting
down and you can't, is a wholeother aspect.
(14:00):
But knowing, yeah, that you know, my mom watched me care for my
kid for like a week, a week anda half.
Then she was like, okay, yougot it.
Um, that first first, like week, week and a half, was really
good and it was really abeautiful time for me to have
with my First kid and my mom wasthere trying to help me a
(14:22):
little bit.
But she's like, oh, you'renatural, you've got it.
And then, by week or by monthto, the anxiety started to set
in where you are, just like Idon't know what I'm doing, and
then the sleep is not as easy.
And so then you're, you know,in a spiral, sleepless, like it
(14:43):
just really starts to calm acompound, right, the lack of
sleep and the anxiety about itall and not knowing what you're
doing and the frantic googling.
And this is when I was, this iswhen I'm still, you know,
trusting the experts andGoogling the experts.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
They had me using an app to track his feet.
Yes his diapers like everythingit was horrible.
I was setting so many timersand googling so many things and
pumping and the formula and likeyes.
Yeah, and like you know, it wasfunny because once I stopped
(15:24):
all that and like I was justlike you know what, I'm just
gonna trust the child to tell mewhen he's hungry, instead of
just putting him on a timer andforce-feeding him.
Yeah it was so amazing howquickly that anxiety went away
Once.
I was just like screw it all.
He will tell me when he'shungry.
(15:45):
He will tell me when he's tired.
I'm not gonna wake him up tofeed him because, yeah, you know
.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
It's such a huge step for a mom to take to Rick to
realize I know how to be amother.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I know how to be a mother.
It's built in me.
It was God-given.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Got.
The Lord gave me this strengthand this knowledge, and I just
need to tune out everything andlisten.
And so on one hand you can sayI Need all this support, you
know, but the more information Itook in, the more overwhelmed I
(16:25):
became, and so I really neededto stop and and just tune into
myself and tune into my ownmothering instincts.
And my own mothering instinctswere Far superior than anything
I was reading, yeah, but it alsowas so Enriched by now my
(16:47):
experience of having like asolid village to mother Within,
and there's so many questionsthat I have answered in such a
better way than Frantic Googlingin the middle of the night,
yeah, and so many moms that I amconnected to that know so much
and have given me resources thatI would not have been able to
(17:09):
necessarily figure out on my ownintuition.
But that's a very importantfirst step is like first silence
, the noise, get into your heartand your body as a mother,
because Without it motherhood isgonna be such a struggle.
It's gonna be.
(17:30):
You're gonna be fighting yourearthly desires.
You're gonna be thinking youdeserve this or that.
You're gonna be Ten times moreanxious, I guarantee you, until
you just like step into yourmother's skin.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
I like that your mother skin, yeah, yeah, I like
that, no, and body it, you know,yeah, and I Mean, and like I
think that one of the firststeps to with that would be like
you, if you can't, if you don'thave a family unit either,
because, like a common problemwith a lot of new moms is, like
(18:11):
we're spread all over the globe,like when I gave birth, my
family was down in Oregon and Iwas up in Alaska, so there was
1500.
That's a far away, yeah, andlike I was not native to the
area I'd moved to, and when Igot married I kind of drew into
myself a little bit and then itgot worse when I got pregnant
(18:34):
and so like I hadn't activelyworked at building a support
system outside of my family andso I didn't have anything.
I had no support, I had no oneI could call up and say, hey,
what is this?
What is happening?
(18:55):
Why is he doing this?
Why won't he stop crying?
So, yeah, google was my only,was my option.
I Googled and so, yeah, likestepping away from Dr Google and
just trusting myself andtrusting my baby was just, it
was a huge, huge first step.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Huge first step, but Some moms don't even get there.
You know, unfortunately, in ourmodern culture, like there's
some new moms that I know thatnot new moms, but some fellow
moms that I've known and you cantell when they haven't done
that because they're you canstill sense that they're
(19:38):
disassociated from motherhood.
You can sense that they're alittle uncomfortable with their
children.
And you can sense that they'relacking their mother instinct.
They're not stepping into it,you know, and like.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I think the part of that problem too is that we as a
society, especially in the US,have taken children out of
society.
We have tried to removechildren out of society instead
of building our society aroundchildren and recognizing the
fact that they are the future ofthis world and so we have to
(20:16):
build that we have to build oursociety around them.
We're expecting these children,these little people who have no
concept of the world around themoutside of themselves, to build
their life around society, andso that's also like we've
removed children from societyand so they've become like very
(20:40):
clinical.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, and they're an afterthought.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
They're an afterthought and so and they're
seen as a problem, which is whyI mean all of these I'm probably
gonna get a lot of hate forthis one, but all of the doctor
visits that you have tocontinuously bring them to and
just the act of giving birthitself is so medicalized these
(21:04):
days, because giving birth andhaving children is seen as like
a clinical problem that has tobe fixed.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah, it's a medical condition.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, yeah.
And they're not something thathas to be revered and taken care
of.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Which is so heartbreaking, because the
experience that I had goingthrough home birth for each one
of my babies, every single birthwas different.
Every single birth addedsomething to me as a mother and
it is an incredible,transformative experience that
every single woman who has anormal pregnancy which is the
(21:46):
majority of pregnancies can havethis experience and have that
ability to get a leg up, to stepinto their motherhood, and it's
just medicalized and it's juststerilized, and so you don't get
to have that same type ofexperience and instead you have
(22:09):
so many moms who have birthtrauma in our country, which is
a whole other conversation.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Birth trauma is huge, and then the postpartum issues
are huge and instead of havingthis like amazing transformative
experience, connection to God,I mean literally the veil is the
thinnest it will ever be as ahuman.
Yep, it's so thin during thebirthing experience.
(22:37):
If you birth naturally and withsupport.
I've got intended, you know, inthe hands of good midwives or
you know, however you choose todo it.
But the connection to God andthe connection to purpose and
the connection to becoming amother, to stepping from maiden
(23:00):
to mother, it's so important andso awesome to have that
experience and it breaks myheart how many women are even
like, scared out of it andbelieve that it's so dangerous.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
They're robbed of that, but that belief and that
understanding, like because youknow from the very first moment
you step into an OB office,everything is very, it's all
medical, the blood draws, thetests and all this fear
mongering.
Oh, if we don't test you forthis, then you can't do this
(23:35):
when you give birth 100%, andthat's a whole other
conversation because I know Icould talk about that.
You work for me, dude, yeah, sodon't tell me what I can't do,
but yeah, so that's a wholeother conversation.
But yeah, so, like for themoment, you step into an OB
office.
It's, and like, I, I, I, I thisclaimer here I still go to a
(23:59):
midwife.
I go to a midwife who works inan OB office, but she's, she's
amazing, she's just so, so chill.
It was so different going toher versus going to my first OB.
My first OB was just, it waslike he was performing surgery.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yeah, because they were surgeons.
Yeah, he was so cold anddetached and afterwards like
this is surgery and that's, andthat's where birth, that's where
the origins of our modern,modern hospitalized birthing
experience comes from, isbecause they are trained
surgeons.
Obstetrics is surgery andthat's how they were are making,
(24:40):
that's how they're like.
Standardizing childbirth?
Yeah, Because by more and moreC-sections, our C-section rate
in this country is in ordinary,it's so high for a Western
developed country.
And why?
Because our model is off ofprofit, it's a business.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
We even have things like planned C-section.
I've actually talked to momswho had a planned C-section and
when I asked them I was like whydid you do C-section?
And they're like, oh, I justdidn't want to go through the
trauma of giving birth.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah, and I'm just like it's really sad.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Oh my gosh, what did he say to you?
What did your doctor say to you?
Right?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
How, what there's, but not even, not even.
What did your doctor say to you?
But for some of these womenit's what did your mother say to
you.
What did your mother say to you?
Yes, because honestly, some ofit comes from that, where they
experienced the previousgeneration was so traumatic and
(25:43):
was so formed at that point thatthey're like oh, no honey, no
honey, you don't want to gothrough birth, you just schedule
a C-section cut out that baby,get it done.
it's clean, you don't havenothing to worry about and they
are robbed of a huge humanexperience.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I mean, when I was young, I had a very deep fear of
childbirth, but I was luckyenough to actually attend a
couple of my siblings' birthswhen I was a teenager, and then
I also started training to be adoula when I was a 17 or 18
years old, I can't remember andso through my training, I had to
(26:26):
go to multiple births andassist as an assistant doula,
essentially, and so During thatprocess I actually got to see
what birth really was.
Even though I was at a coupleof births that ended up there
was a couple of emergentsituations it still showed me
(26:51):
what it was.
It was the miracle of life.
I remember the first time Iever saw a child being born.
I just broke down in tearsbecause this was just not at all
like Hollywood.
Hollywood, you watch a movie ofa show with somebody's giving
birth and there's screaming andcrying and everybody's running
around frantically.
(27:11):
It's an emergency.
What I was seeing happening wasnothing like an emergency.
It was like this naturalbreathing kind of thing.
She literally just breathed thebaby out.
It was like, from that point onI was like huh.
Obviously there will be paininvolved, but it's not the kind
(27:37):
of pain that people think is sopsychologically damaging that
you have to cut into yourselfand take the baby out that way,
because it's just-.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Oh yeah, pain is a whole other conversation,
because pain will be intensifiedif you're in an environment
where your body shuts downbecause it doesn't feel safe.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, once you go into that fight or flight mode,
everything becomes that part ofyour body.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
That's why labor stalling and all the
interventions that happen inhospital.
That's why it's a pain.
Obviously that's a whole otherconversation, but yeah, it's sad
, it breaks my heart.
Birth trauma is a real problemand I try to spread the word as
much as I can of the glories ofhome birth and mid-birth free
care.
(28:23):
If you can at least do thatPostpartum doulas, postpartum
doulas Postpartum doulas areamazing Postpartum doulas.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I had one woman who, while I was training to be a
doula, she was like oh, I don'tknow if I could be a doula, I
don't know if I could be thereand be responsible or something
wrong.
I'm like, well, there's othertypes of doulas.
There's this huge, huge needfor postpartum doulas, because
women don't have a village, theydon't have a support system.
So a lot of times, thepostpartum doula that you hire
(28:56):
is your village and is yoursupport system during the first
couple of weeks after givingbirth.
And so that is a huge, a hugemission that I think a woman
would definitely be blessed totake, because there's definitely
a huge need for that.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
It's funny that you say that, because my own mom
trained as a postpartum doulaand was planning to put it to
use for all of her daughtershaving their kids, but she
really did not step into thatwhen it came time to actually do
it.
At least for me and I thinkpart of that for her comes from
(29:37):
a place of like difficultyseeing how different my
experience is versus how hersprobably was.
We haven't really talked aboutthat a lot.
It's just about giving her graceand her experience versus my
experience.
And yeah, I'd love it to look alittle different, but I also
(30:03):
consider myself looking for howmuch support I have compared to
some women out there that I know.
So it's just not ingrained inour culture.
We're not the third world whereit's still a part of their
entire structure, societalstructure.
It's so far gone, unfortunately, but it is kind of like coming
(30:26):
around again.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
And yeah, that was the thing, because the first
time I ever heard the whole ittakes a village phrase.
I was just like, oh, hillaryClinton was the first thing that
popped into my head.
And then I think I was probablylike 14 or 15 and my dad had
repeated it and he was he's avery politically minded person
(30:51):
and so, like Hillary Clintonsaid it and so I was just like,
ah, so, and like he was talkingabout how she wants the
government to raise our childrenand everything else.
And I never questioned it, Inever looked into it.
And then, a couple of years ago, I was like, huh, I wonder what
it really is.
Because I was like raising, likeyou know, taking a village,
(31:14):
because I'd run into, you know,like social media influencers or
whatever who are talking abouttheir village.
And so I started looking intoit and it's like it's not
letting other people raise yourkids, you're still their parent,
you're still raising your ownchildren, you're just building a
support system.
And, like you said in thebeginning of the show, it's it's
(31:36):
building a village so that yourkids can have one as well, so
that your kids can have friendsand your kids can have a support
system as they grow up and sothat your daughters can have
that support system in thatvillage.
It's like a multi-generationalthing that it needs to be.
It really needs to be rebuilt inour society because, yeah, we
(31:58):
have been robbed of that andyeah, yeah, so what advice would
you give to people who don'thave that support system and
don't have that village?
Like how would you tell them tobuild that village from scratch
Ground?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
zero.
Well, I think that, like thatfirst step that we talked about,
where you got a step, you gotto silence the noise and you got
to, like, step into yournatural, innate motherhood
wisdom, and it's there, it'sdeep in grain, and every single
(32:38):
one of us, if you birthed achild, it's there, I promise you
, and it may take a lot of workto get to, but it's there.
God gave it to you.
So you know, that's reallyimportant.
It comes from knowing yourselfwell.
It comes from knowing, like,what you want out of life, well,
and so you've got to get clearon those things.
(33:05):
And so, like how I continued tofigure out how to build my
villages, I was like, okay, I'mlooking for a certain type of
woman, one that is like-minded,right, what am I into?
I'm into really old fashionedthings, like old fashioned
skills.
Right, I know that I reallywant to learn how to sew, how to
(33:29):
can, how to blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah, all the
things that grandma used to dothat I never learned from my
grandma.
That's the kind of woman thatI'm into.
They're probably conservativeand or, at least you know,
appreciate traditional values.
(33:50):
And if I can find that kind ofwoman around me, then I know
that I'll at least have oneperson you know to rely on, yeah
, and so I just like put thatidea out there.
And then I was like I canprobably use social media and so
(34:12):
, like some thoughts that werebubbling in my head over several
years actually just started tocome together.
And then one night, in a fit ofinspiration, I was like I know
the name and I put together likeall the little brand assets and
I just started Instagram, so Iutilized social media because I
(34:34):
was like looking for anythingthat's out there, like that in
my, in my community, here inNorth.
Idaho, and I was not reallyfinding exactly that, and so I
was like I'm going to just buildit myself, you know, and so
it's always an option to start.
Whatever it is you're lookingfor yourself, look and see if
(34:58):
it's out there, but if it's not,let that be a kick in the pants
to like do something about itfor yourself.
And that's the glory of ourmodern world, right Like right.
We don't have to just rely onthis village that was already
built around us, that maybe wehate everybody.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, I see like, for a lot of reasons, I kind of
hate social media because I feellike it's isolated mothers even
further.
Yeah, but it can be an amazingtool to to bring people together
and, like I've, I've met somepeople through, you know, the
use of things such as, like justthe peanut app, for instance.
I've met some moms through thepeanut app, where I have a hard
(35:46):
time actually carrying on aconversation and then taking it
from the conversation online toan actual in real life meetup.
But in spite of that, I'veactually used social media and
modern technology and I'veactually made a couple of
connections and we still talkand we're still friends and we
still meet up and our kids arefriends and yes and no, it's
(36:09):
definitely an amazing tool touse, yep.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah, but that's how I was able to leverage like a
platform, I guess, for VictoryMamas, for the Moms group that I
started is.
I was like you know what?
I have a bread recipe that waspassed down to me from my mom
(36:36):
that I've been making for 10years.
It's not sourdough, but it's asolid bread recipe that I use in
my own family every single week.
So I'm gonna share this onething that I have and see what
happens, and I just put it outthere.
I don't even know how peoplefound it.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I don't know, it exploded though.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
But the first class that I held first meetup you
could call it first gatheringwas eight women who trusted me
enough to come into my house andlearn a bread recipe for me
from a perfect stranger on theinternet, and I had to trust
them too, that I could share myaddress with them, right, and
(37:28):
they wouldn't murder my children, and so, yeah, so I even I did
it that way and I also,concurrently, was connected
through a social media group,the Freedom Keepers, to a
(37:49):
different mom's group that islarger, and it's just amazing,
right, I love these moms so muchand we're such a force, and so
in both cases, social media wasmy tool To meet all these moms.
But the cool thing aboutVictory Mom is about my mom's
group that I started.
(38:10):
Is it started with social media?
Right, but the priority is tomeet in person and to learn
something from someone in thecommunity.
So how I structured it is I.
The idea was like I have thesethings that I want to learn.
There's got to be someonearound me that knows it, and I
want to meet them.
First of all, I want to talk tothem, and two like maybe I can
(38:36):
learn some things aboutmotherhood while I'm at it, or
at least we can like commiseratethe difficulties, because at
that point in my life I wasstill holding onto a lot of that
like whoa, it's me as a mom,and a lot of that like isolation
, right.
(38:56):
But now that I have such astronger village around me, I
wallow a lot less in that, whichis a cool, I think, byproduct
of the positive outcomes of avillage.
But yeah, so it's like if youleverage people around you while
(39:19):
you're building it yourself,you're basically calling upon
people to step into that.
And so, yeah, I was like okay,so I'm gonna start.
I'm gonna start just like yougo in class.
Like okay, I'll start.
I have this recipe, I have thisbread recipe, let me do a class
.
Then, from there it justsnowballed.
Someone was like okay, well,I've been sewing my whole life.
(39:43):
It's like great, I would loveto talk to you and I would love
to pick your brain, because Idid not.
I was not raised sewing.
I took one like summer quiltingcourse because my mom threw me
into it, you know, and it wasnot part of our daily life.
We were not brought alongsideto learn how it used to be,
(40:05):
which was kind of the more Idon't know past couple centuries
in our country type way ofdoing the village.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Yeah, it was just a way of life before modern
technology came in and just madeeverything easier and made us
all lazy.
Yeah, and toys, you know.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Rather than just learning how to be a human, toys
were thrown into the mix.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
We don't need those skills anymore.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Play with this toy, because you don't need to learn.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Yeah, that was my three-year-olds, or my
four-year-olds, for anybody whohears that, this is a parenting
family podcast.
So you might hear children inthe background occasionally.
So yeah, and like it's funny,you mentioned, you know, the
(41:00):
mental funk that you foundyourself into and how that was
kind of lessened after yousurrounded yourself by these
women and started learning onfrom them and leaning on them
when you needed help.
Like mental health is a hugepart of like building a
successful village and asuccessful community of women
around you.
(41:20):
Like don't be afraid to askthem for help and because that's
like that's the way it shouldbe, we should use them for
support and they should use usfor support as well, because you
know, we're kind of we're allin the trenches together.
So yeah, it's true, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, it's a huge part of that is is like taking
that step from it being surfacelevel to to jumping down into a
deeper relationship and buildingthose personal relationships.
And that's something that I wasnot, that was not ingrained in
(41:58):
me as a child, and it'ssomething that I've struggled
with my entire adult life, ishow to build solid relationships
, because I don't know if it waspart of my, my childhood being
raised in a small town wherethings were just like arranged
and we didn't really have tolike work for anything Right.
My parents didn't do a greatjob at teaching me social graces
(42:22):
.
I don't know what it is that islike broken in me, but it's
just always been really hard forme and it still is.
You know, I don't have it allfigured out by any means, but
but yeah, I think it's notnecessarily that like I've
(42:43):
leaned on these people superhard and like hard times or
anything like that, but it'seven just like having
conversations Right About thiskind of stuff, like how you and
I are talking and being like wow, I'm not crazy, I'm not I'm not
alone in my thinking this.
(43:05):
Right, you've had thatexperience too as a mom.
Cool, like I'm not doing it allwrong, you know?
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah, yeah, I haven't completely failed, you know,
and I suppose beyond that too,because like once you realize
you have like a common problem,like sometimes you're like okay,
what can we do to fix thatcommon problem?
Speaker 2 (43:26):
How can?
Speaker 1 (43:27):
we help each other and that's kind of like the
start of the whole the village.
That's that's the start of yourvillage is like how can we help
each other?
So, totally yeah, yeah.
So before we close, do you haveany words of encouragement for
anybody who's struggling tobuild their village?
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Oh yeah, I would just say, like it's not an
impossible thing.
You know, there was probably apoint at which it felt
impossible for me and that wasjust like what am I going to do?
Right, like, you know, rightafter I moved here and we were
into our new house, and I wasoverwhelmed, and and it's just
(44:08):
one day at a time, you know,with any new undertaking it's
just one foot in front of theother.
So, you know, start to knowyourself well, like I don't know
how many personality tests I'vetaken in my life.
I've taken a lot and I like,really, I really know myself
(44:29):
pretty darn well and I thinkthat's a really important thing
to do is just get to knowyourself really well, then
you'll figure out what you'relooking for.
And that will like make you bedrawn to certain people and
you'll be able to spot them outa lot easier.
And then, you know, you may bein a public place where, like,
(44:51):
you're at the beach, forinstance here in North Idaho, at
our lovely Lake beaches, andyou see a mom who you're like,
she looks like she's very likeminded, like she's into the same
kind of things that we're, youknow, and I even met a mom that
way and I struck up aconversation with her and I was
like, hey, you know, and ourkids were kind of playing with
(45:13):
each other a little bit and wegot to talking and oh, you guys
just moved here too, cool, youknow.
And I told her about VictoryMamas and so she ended up coming
to one of my Victory Mamas andsupports it, you know still, so
there's just just like, getyourself out there, know
yourself and put yourself outthere and utilize social media.
(45:35):
But then, like, get in person,make in person meetings a
priority, like, stop, stoprelying on other people, to like
make the thing happen.
You know, show up and make.
You know, start meetups, startwhatever it is.
You know, even with your podcast, veronica, you could start a
(45:55):
local meetup and say hey ifyou're, if you're a local North
Idaho mom and you like mypodcast, come, you know, to my
monthly meetup and we'll liketalk about all this stuff in
person.
So we have our own supportsystem.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely All right.
Well, thank you very much,Deanna, because this has been an
amazing conversation to havewith you, and I'm hoping we can
have something like this again.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Yeah, sounds good.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Yep, thank you.
Thank you so much, everybody.
Bye, bye.
Hello and welcome back to all our little messes.
This is episode five, and todayI have a guest for you guys
that I'm really excited about.
I've been looking forward tothis for a couple of weeks.
Her name is Dana Cudnorman, andshe has a lot of really great
insights for this episode thatwe're going to be talking about.
(00:23):
We're going to be talking aboutbuilding a village and how
difficult it is in today'ssociety.
So, danica, why don't you juststart off by telling us a little
bit about yourself and yourbackground?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Cool.
So my name is Danica.
I'm a mom of three.
I basically started my businessVictory Mamas and it was built
around this concept of needing avillage as a new mom and I had
(01:03):
found myself in a new communitywith a lot of fear at the time
of what was going on in ourcountry and COVID and everything
like that, and I really wantedfellow moms to help me figure
out how to navigate earlymotherhood in light of
(01:24):
everything that was going on andI just had a lot of fears
around like, oh my gosh, my kids, they need people, they need
friends, like how do I?
create that for them.
And so, yeah, I started mymom's group, which eventually
evolved into a business andotherwise.
(01:47):
My background is just inmarketing and that has
definitely helped me along theway.
And I come from a family offour girls and you'd think that
with that came a really strongvillage background, but actually
I don't think that was true inmy case.
(02:09):
It's really interesting.
So that's part of my story.
Yeah, that's me.
I'm from kind of from thegeneral North Idaho, pacific
Northwest area.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Nice, nice, yeah, and it's really interesting that
you mentioned that you came froma family with a lot of
daughters, because I also hadthat experience where I came
from family that I'm the oldestof 14, and there's eight girls
in there and yeah, there's notthat I don't have that sense of
community either, which I thinkis like such a big contrast to
(02:48):
what life used to be like, wherewe had these generational
villages where everybody kneweverybody, everybody was related
.
We even lived in generationalhomes.
You look at early civilization,like native cultures and things
like that, or even reading theBible the Old.
Testament where they talk aboutthat.
(03:08):
And yeah, it's very differentfrom how society is structured
now, where we're almostencouraged to figure it out
alone.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of pressure put
on us.
Yeah, there's this crazy storythat I heard through my
husband's grandma and she's oneof my favorite people who has
definitely become part of myvillage after marriage and in
(03:42):
motherhood, and she I can'tremember the exact specifics,
but basically she was anordained minister in an
evangelical church and thisstory had been around since the
70s or something like that, andone of the ministers, back when
(04:04):
there was some kind of missionwork being done, they went to
somewhere in South America whereit was tribal and this minister
missionary fell in love withone of the village girls and
they got married and theneventually they lived there for
(04:24):
a little bit and then eventuallythey came back up to the United
States to raise their firstbornchild and this is around the
60s or 70s and the native SouthAmerican woman eventually, just
(04:45):
one day, left and it wasn't likeyour typical divorce situation,
you know, right, but she wasjust like this is not how it's
supposed to be.
She felt so isolated, she couldnot understand how American
women were living as mothers,and I just think that's such a
(05:09):
powerful story, however muchtruth is to it, however much
folklore is there, but it ringstrue because I've lived that and
I know what she's talking about.
I know that side of the storyand it's so true.
American primitive culturesknow that it needs to be a
(05:35):
community effort, that it needsto be.
It's like some of the earliestknowledge we have and it's lost
right.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah Well, and I think it's like even ingrained
down into our biology, likewe're not wired to be alone ever
.
No, we start to have majorpsychological problems when we
are alone.
And you can see that in societyWomen are isolated and alone
(06:05):
and there's been this huge risein postpartum depression and
things like that.
And I feel like I haven'tactually looked into this, but I
feel like if we start tracingit back, then we can actually
see where it started to happen.
And even early mothers and I'venoticed this, my experience
(06:27):
giving birth in hospitals theydon't send you home with
resources.
They don't send you home, evenasking if you have a support
system.
I was never asked if I had asupport system when I left the
hospital.
They would ask me hey, is yourcar seat?
Do you have a car seat?
And that was it.
(06:47):
That was it.
So this is your firstappointment, your pediatrician
appointment, and then I was senthome and I was basically
expected to just figure it out.
So yeah, I'm this 23-year-oldnew mom with no idea what she's
doing, but I'm expected tofigure it out without any help.
And it didn't used to be likethat.
(07:08):
Everyone used to just take careof each other's children and it
was like an expected thing andit was considered an honor.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Well, so much of it is tied to.
In my opinion, it's just oncewe started to give away our
innate knowledge and our innatepower in ourselves of knowing
our health and knowing oureducating our kids, once we
(07:39):
started to shift that power awayto the quote-unquote experts
that's a huge part of thispuzzle where the lack of support
started to happen.
It's like, okay, we give awayour power and our community
power over to the experts andit's just this top-down model
(08:03):
rather than this nice communallevel playing field and
generational playing like moreterrorist rather than just a
vertical line.
That's how it should be.
There should be elders andthere should be current, like
(08:26):
your own mother not necessarilyyour grandma, but your own
mother who can walk alongsideyou.
Yeah, I've heard of so many momshaving that similar experience
and it varies hospital tohospital, caretaker to caretaker
, you know and it's gettingbetter in some places, but
that's not an uncommonexperience that women have,
where they're just sounderrepresented, so not
(08:54):
supported, and it's reallyreally heartbreaking for me Well
, and it goes beyond not beingsupported, like because you're
so isolated and because youdon't have that support system.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
If something pops up during early motherhood, you
have no knowledge to fall backon, and so if you have a health
problem or your baby has ahealth problem, you honestly do
feel attacked.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Like I and I experienced that like for the
first month after I had my firstbaby, I never left my house.
I didn't leave the house andwhen I finally did, it was to go
to the doctor and we were inand out of the doctor's office
every week for the first threemonths and I was really
(09:43):
struggling with breastfeedingand just with general infant
care.
Like I had this tiny littleperson that I was expecting to
take care of and you know, beingthe oldest of 14, you would
think I would have lots ofexperience with that.
But there's a huge differencebetween babysitting your
siblings and actually raisingyour own.
And like nothing had preparedme for that and I had, I had no
(10:05):
support and so, like, when westarted having like health
problems and stuff with the babylike it was a very isolating
experience I was, I felt,attacked because I had even the
people that I thought were thereto support me, like his, his
caregivers were the ones thatwere actively like Attacking me
(10:26):
and calling me a bad mother andstuff, and so, like it was it
was horrible.
It was very isolating and so,yeah, they've like society,
especially in the US, and I was.
I was talking to my husbandabout this the other day and
I've noticed it is a Problemthat is kind of just in the US.
So you look at how society isstructured in Europe and even
(10:50):
places like Canada and theirhealthcare system and family law
is very much centered aroundSupport and community for
mothers, even even down to youknow, even down to things like
paid time off.
If you're a working mom, youknow there's places in Canada
where you get up to a year ofpaid time off and that's
(11:11):
actually written into into laborlaw.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Here.
Yeah, it's, it's.
That's a tough one, you know.
Because, yeah, because likewhen?
So this is a great point for usto go off of like where do we
think?
Like we can Talk all day longabout how horrible it is, but
it's like okay, well, where doesthe solution come from?
And, in my opinion, I don'tthink it should come from the
(11:38):
state.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
No no.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Once it's written into laws like that, then it has
to be supported with funding,and then that's requiring
Taxpayers to financially supportyou, you know, in your
decisions as a mother, and Idon't and I don't agree with
that, but but I Do think it doesneed to be more part of our
culture.
Yes, yeah it has been taken awayout of our culture, like I said
(12:04):
for so long, and given to theexperts.
And you know Like I feel for myown mom, who the way she
birthed Versus how I chose tohave my children, which was by
home birth right, thankfully,with her presence and support
there during during laboring forall three of my kids.
(12:26):
But she had four daughters,mm-hmm.
All Three of them were naturalDeliveries, not all of them by
choice.
That way, like some of themjust arrived too soon, you know,
alone in a hospital room, youknow, without my dad necessarily
(12:52):
present.
All of them, wow, definitely,definitely not like a Super
useful.
Yeah and just a nurse up untilthe moment the baby is literally
coming out.
You know, some in a cold, youknow the hospital room and With
(13:17):
no pain, help and just I justshudder at the thought of that's
so unnatural.
So what her experience was likethat compared to what my
experience was, I mean to herthat's huge.
That's a huge and it's a hugepositive leap.
But still, for me, inpostpartum, you know, I had a
(13:37):
similar experiences.
You were Granted it was like2020 and I felt like the world
was ending, you know, and it wasall that crazy, just very hard
as a new mom, yeah, having yourfirst child and not knowing what
you're doing and then all of asudden the world is shutting
down and you can't, is a wholeother aspect.
(14:00):
But knowing, yeah, that you know, my mom watched me care for my
kid for like a week, a week anda half.
Then she was like, okay, yougot it.
Um, that first first, like week, week and a half, was really
good and it was really abeautiful time for me to have
with my First kid and my mom wasthere trying to help me a
(14:22):
little bit.
But she's like, oh, you'renatural, you've got it.
And then, by week or by monthto, the anxiety started to set
in where you are, just like Idon't know what I'm doing, and
then the sleep is not as easy.
And so then you're, you know,in a spiral, sleepless, like it
(14:43):
just really starts to calm acompound, right, the lack of
sleep and the anxiety about itall and not knowing what you're
doing and the frantic googling.
And this is when I was, this iswhen I'm still, you know,
trusting the experts andGoogling the experts.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
They had me using an app to track his feet.
Yes his diapers like everythingit was horrible.
I was setting so many timersand googling so many things and
pumping and the formula and likeyes.
Yeah, and like you know, it wasfunny because once I stopped
(15:24):
all that and like I was justlike you know what, I'm just
gonna trust the child to tell mewhen he's hungry, instead of
just putting him on a timer andforce-feeding him.
Yeah it was so amazing howquickly that anxiety went away
Once.
I was just like screw it all.
He will tell me when he'shungry.
(15:45):
He will tell me when he's tired.
I'm not gonna wake him up tofeed him because, yeah, you know
.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
It's such a huge step for a mom to take to Rick to
realize I know how to be amother.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I know how to be a mother.
It's built in me.
It was God-given.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Got.
The Lord gave me this strengthand this knowledge, and I just
need to tune out everything andlisten.
And so on one hand you can sayI Need all this support, you
know, but the more information Itook in, the more overwhelmed I
(16:25):
became, and so I really neededto stop and and just tune into
myself and tune into my ownmothering instincts.
And my own mothering instinctswere Far superior than anything
I was reading, yeah, but it alsowas so Enriched by now my
(16:47):
experience of having like asolid village to mother Within,
and there's so many questionsthat I have answered in such a
better way than Frantic Googlingin the middle of the night,
yeah, and so many moms that I amconnected to that know so much
and have given me resources thatI would not have been able to
(17:09):
necessarily figure out on my ownintuition.
But that's a very importantfirst step is like first silence
, the noise, get into your heartand your body as a mother,
because Without it motherhood isgonna be such a struggle.
It's gonna be.
(17:30):
You're gonna be fighting yourearthly desires.
You're gonna be thinking youdeserve this or that.
You're gonna be Ten times moreanxious, I guarantee you, until
you just like step into yourmother's skin.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
I like that your mother skin, yeah, yeah, I like
that, no, and body it, you know,yeah, and I Mean, and like I
think that one of the firststeps to with that would be like
you, if you can't, if you don'thave a family unit either,
because, like a common problemwith a lot of new moms is, like
(18:11):
we're spread all over the globe,like when I gave birth, my
family was down in Oregon and Iwas up in Alaska, so there was
1500.
That's a far away, yeah, andlike I was not native to the
area I'd moved to, and when Igot married I kind of drew into
myself a little bit and then itgot worse when I got pregnant
(18:34):
and so like I hadn't activelyworked at building a support
system outside of my family andso I didn't have anything.
I had no support, I had no oneI could call up and say, hey,
what is this?
What is happening?
(18:55):
Why is he doing this?
Why won't he stop crying?
So, yeah, google was my only,was my option.
I Googled and so, yeah, likestepping away from Dr Google and
just trusting myself andtrusting my baby was just, it
was a huge, huge first step.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Huge first step, but Some moms don't even get there.
You know, unfortunately, in ourmodern culture, like there's
some new moms that I know thatnot new moms, but some fellow
moms that I've known and you cantell when they haven't done
that because they're you canstill sense that they're
(19:38):
disassociated from motherhood.
You can sense that they're alittle uncomfortable with their
children.
And you can sense that they'relacking their mother instinct.
They're not stepping into it,you know, and like.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I think the part of that problem too is that we as a
society, especially in the US,have taken children out of
society.
We have tried to removechildren out of society instead
of building our society aroundchildren and recognizing the
fact that they are the future ofthis world and so we have to
(20:16):
build that we have to build oursociety around them.
We're expecting these children,these little people who have no
concept of the world around themoutside of themselves, to build
their life around society, andso that's also like we've
removed children from societyand so they've become like very
(20:40):
clinical.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, and they're an afterthought.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
They're an afterthought and so and they're
seen as a problem, which is whyI mean all of these I'm probably
gonna get a lot of hate forthis one, but all of the doctor
visits that you have tocontinuously bring them to and
just the act of giving birthitself is so medicalized these
(21:04):
days, because giving birth andhaving children is seen as like
a clinical problem that has tobe fixed.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah, it's a medical condition.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, yeah.
And they're not something thathas to be revered and taken care
of.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Which is so heartbreaking, because the
experience that I had goingthrough home birth for each one
of my babies, every single birthwas different.
Every single birth addedsomething to me as a mother and
it is an incredible,transformative experience that
every single woman who has anormal pregnancy which is the
(21:46):
majority of pregnancies can havethis experience and have that
ability to get a leg up, to stepinto their motherhood, and it's
just medicalized and it's juststerilized, and so you don't get
to have that same type ofexperience and instead you have
(22:09):
so many moms who have birthtrauma in our country, which is
a whole other conversation.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Birth trauma is huge, and then the postpartum issues
are huge and instead of havingthis like amazing transformative
experience, connection to God,I mean literally the veil is the
thinnest it will ever be as ahuman.
Yep, it's so thin during thebirthing experience.
(22:37):
If you birth naturally and withsupport.
I've got intended, you know, inthe hands of good midwives or
you know, however you choose todo it.
But the connection to God andthe connection to purpose and
the connection to becoming amother, to stepping from maiden
(23:00):
to mother, it's so important andso awesome to have that
experience and it breaks myheart how many women are even
like, scared out of it andbelieve that it's so dangerous.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
They're robbed of that, but that belief and that
understanding, like because youknow from the very first moment
you step into an OB office,everything is very, it's all
medical, the blood draws, thetests and all this fear
mongering.
Oh, if we don't test you forthis, then you can't do this
(23:35):
when you give birth 100%, andthat's a whole other
conversation because I know Icould talk about that.
You work for me, dude, yeah, sodon't tell me what I can't do,
but yeah, so that's a wholeother conversation.
But yeah, so, like for themoment, you step into an OB
office.
It's, and like, I, I, I, I thisclaimer here I still go to a
(23:59):
midwife.
I go to a midwife who works inan OB office, but she's, she's
amazing, she's just so, so chill.
It was so different going toher versus going to my first OB.
My first OB was just, it waslike he was performing surgery.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yeah, because they were surgeons.
Yeah, he was so cold anddetached and afterwards like
this is surgery and that's, andthat's where birth, that's where
the origins of our modern,modern hospitalized birthing
experience comes from, isbecause they are trained
surgeons.
Obstetrics is surgery andthat's how they were are making,
(24:40):
that's how they're like.
Standardizing childbirth?
Yeah, Because by more and moreC-sections, our C-section rate
in this country is in ordinary,it's so high for a Western
developed country.
And why?
Because our model is off ofprofit, it's a business.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
We even have things like planned C-section.
I've actually talked to momswho had a planned C-section and
when I asked them I was like whydid you do C-section?
And they're like, oh, I justdidn't want to go through the
trauma of giving birth.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah, and I'm just like it's really sad.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Oh my gosh, what did he say to you?
What did your doctor say to you?
Right?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
How, what there's, but not even, not even.
What did your doctor say to you?
But for some of these womenit's what did your mother say to
you.
What did your mother say to you?
Yes, because honestly, some ofit comes from that, where they
experienced the previousgeneration was so traumatic and
(25:43):
was so formed at that point thatthey're like oh, no honey, no
honey, you don't want to gothrough birth, you just schedule
a C-section cut out that baby,get it done.
it's clean, you don't havenothing to worry about and they
are robbed of a huge humanexperience.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I mean, when I was young, I had a very deep fear of
childbirth, but I was luckyenough to actually attend a
couple of my siblings' birthswhen I was a teenager, and then
I also started training to be adoula when I was a 17 or 18
years old, I can't remember andso through my training, I had to
(26:26):
go to multiple births andassist as an assistant doula,
essentially, and so During thatprocess I actually got to see
what birth really was.
Even though I was at a coupleof births that ended up there
was a couple of emergentsituations it still showed me
(26:51):
what it was.
It was the miracle of life.
I remember the first time Iever saw a child being born.
I just broke down in tearsbecause this was just not at all
like Hollywood.
Hollywood, you watch a movie ofa show with somebody's giving
birth and there's screaming andcrying and everybody's running
around frantically.
(27:11):
It's an emergency.
What I was seeing happening wasnothing like an emergency.
It was like this naturalbreathing kind of thing.
She literally just breathed thebaby out.
It was like, from that point onI was like huh.
Obviously there will be paininvolved, but it's not the kind
(27:37):
of pain that people think is sopsychologically damaging that
you have to cut into yourselfand take the baby out that way,
because it's just-.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Oh yeah, pain is a whole other conversation,
because pain will be intensifiedif you're in an environment
where your body shuts downbecause it doesn't feel safe.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, once you go into that fight or flight mode,
everything becomes that part ofyour body.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
That's why labor stalling and all the
interventions that happen inhospital.
That's why it's a pain.
Obviously that's a whole otherconversation, but yeah, it's sad
, it breaks my heart.
Birth trauma is a real problemand I try to spread the word as
much as I can of the glories ofhome birth and mid-birth free
care.
(28:23):
If you can at least do thatPostpartum doulas, postpartum
doulas Postpartum doulas areamazing Postpartum doulas.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I had one woman who, while I was training to be a
doula, she was like oh, I don'tknow if I could be a doula, I
don't know if I could be thereand be responsible or something
wrong.
I'm like, well, there's othertypes of doulas.
There's this huge, huge needfor postpartum doulas, because
women don't have a village, theydon't have a support system.
So a lot of times, thepostpartum doula that you hire
(28:56):
is your village and is yoursupport system during the first
couple of weeks after givingbirth.
And so that is a huge, a hugemission that I think a woman
would definitely be blessed totake, because there's definitely
a huge need for that.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
It's funny that you say that, because my own mom
trained as a postpartum doulaand was planning to put it to
use for all of her daughtershaving their kids, but she
really did not step into thatwhen it came time to actually do
it.
At least for me and I thinkpart of that for her comes from
(29:37):
a place of like difficultyseeing how different my
experience is versus how hersprobably was.
We haven't really talked aboutthat a lot.
It's just about giving her graceand her experience versus my
experience.
And yeah, I'd love it to look alittle different, but I also
(30:03):
consider myself looking for howmuch support I have compared to
some women out there that I know.
So it's just not ingrained inour culture.
We're not the third world whereit's still a part of their
entire structure, societalstructure.
It's so far gone, unfortunately, but it is kind of like coming
(30:26):
around again.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
And yeah, that was the thing, because the first
time I ever heard the whole ittakes a village phrase.
I was just like, oh, hillaryClinton was the first thing that
popped into my head.
And then I think I was probablylike 14 or 15 and my dad had
repeated it and he was he's avery politically minded person
(30:51):
and so, like Hillary Clintonsaid it and so I was just like,
ah, so, and like he was talkingabout how she wants the
government to raise our childrenand everything else.
And I never questioned it, Inever looked into it.
And then, a couple of years ago, I was like, huh, I wonder what
it really is.
Because I was like raising, likeyou know, taking a village,
(31:14):
because I'd run into, you know,like social media influencers or
whatever who are talking abouttheir village.
And so I started looking intoit and it's like it's not
letting other people raise yourkids, you're still their parent,
you're still raising your ownchildren, you're just building a
support system.
And, like you said in thebeginning of the show, it's it's
(31:36):
building a village so that yourkids can have one as well, so
that your kids can have friendsand your kids can have a support
system as they grow up and sothat your daughters can have
that support system in thatvillage.
It's like a multi-generationalthing that it needs to be.
It really needs to be rebuilt inour society because, yeah, we
(31:58):
have been robbed of that andyeah, yeah, so what advice would
you give to people who don'thave that support system and
don't have that village?
Like how would you tell them tobuild that village from scratch
Ground?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
zero.
Well, I think that, like thatfirst step that we talked about,
where you got a step, you gotto silence the noise and you got
to, like, step into yournatural, innate motherhood
wisdom, and it's there, it'sdeep in grain, and every single
(32:38):
one of us, if you birthed achild, it's there, I promise you
, and it may take a lot of workto get to, but it's there.
God gave it to you.
So you know, that's reallyimportant.
It comes from knowing yourselfwell.
It comes from knowing, like,what you want out of life, well,
and so you've got to get clearon those things.
(33:05):
And so, like how I continued tofigure out how to build my
villages, I was like, okay, I'mlooking for a certain type of
woman, one that is like-minded,right, what am I into?
I'm into really old fashionedthings, like old fashioned
skills.
Right, I know that I reallywant to learn how to sew, how to
(33:29):
can, how to blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah, all the
things that grandma used to dothat I never learned from my
grandma.
That's the kind of woman thatI'm into.
They're probably conservativeand or, at least you know,
appreciate traditional values.
(33:50):
And if I can find that kind ofwoman around me, then I know
that I'll at least have oneperson you know to rely on, yeah
, and so I just like put thatidea out there.
And then I was like I canprobably use social media and so
(34:12):
, like some thoughts that werebubbling in my head over several
years actually just started tocome together.
And then one night, in a fit ofinspiration, I was like I know
the name and I put together likeall the little brand assets and
I just started Instagram, so Iutilized social media because I
(34:34):
was like looking for anythingthat's out there, like that in
my, in my community, here inNorth.
Idaho, and I was not reallyfinding exactly that, and so I
was like I'm going to just buildit myself, you know, and so
it's always an option to start.
Whatever it is you're lookingfor yourself, look and see if
(34:58):
it's out there, but if it's not,let that be a kick in the pants
to like do something about itfor yourself.
And that's the glory of ourmodern world, right Like right.
We don't have to just rely onthis village that was already
built around us, that maybe wehate everybody.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, I see like, for a lot of reasons, I kind of
hate social media because I feellike it's isolated mothers even
further.
Yeah, but it can be an amazingtool to to bring people together
and, like I've, I've met somepeople through, you know, the
use of things such as, like justthe peanut app, for instance.
I've met some moms through thepeanut app, where I have a hard
(35:46):
time actually carrying on aconversation and then taking it
from the conversation online toan actual in real life meetup.
But in spite of that, I'veactually used social media and
modern technology and I'veactually made a couple of
connections and we still talkand we're still friends and we
still meet up and our kids arefriends and yes and no, it's
(36:09):
definitely an amazing tool touse, yep.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah, but that's how I was able to leverage like a
platform, I guess, for VictoryMamas, for the Moms group that I
started is.
I was like you know what?
I have a bread recipe that waspassed down to me from my mom
(36:36):
that I've been making for 10years.
It's not sourdough, but it's asolid bread recipe that I use in
my own family every single week.
So I'm gonna share this onething that I have and see what
happens, and I just put it outthere.
I don't even know how peoplefound it.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I don't know, it exploded though.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
But the first class that I held first meetup you
could call it first gatheringwas eight women who trusted me
enough to come into my house andlearn a bread recipe for me
from a perfect stranger on theinternet, and I had to trust
them too, that I could share myaddress with them, right, and
(37:28):
they wouldn't murder my children, and so, yeah, so I even I did
it that way and I also,concurrently, was connected
through a social media group,the Freedom Keepers, to a
(37:49):
different mom's group that islarger, and it's just amazing,
right, I love these moms so muchand we're such a force, and so
in both cases, social media wasmy tool To meet all these moms.
But the cool thing aboutVictory Mom is about my mom's
group that I started.
(38:10):
Is it started with social media?
Right, but the priority is tomeet in person and to learn
something from someone in thecommunity.
So how I structured it is I.
The idea was like I have thesethings that I want to learn.
There's got to be someonearound me that knows it, and I
want to meet them.
First of all, I want to talk tothem, and two like maybe I can
(38:36):
learn some things aboutmotherhood while I'm at it, or
at least we can like commiseratethe difficulties, because at
that point in my life I wasstill holding onto a lot of that
like whoa, it's me as a mom,and a lot of that like isolation
, right.
(38:56):
But now that I have such astronger village around me, I
wallow a lot less in that, whichis a cool, I think, byproduct
of the positive outcomes of avillage.
But yeah, so it's like if youleverage people around you while
(39:19):
you're building it yourself,you're basically calling upon
people to step into that.
And so, yeah, I was like okay,so I'm gonna start.
I'm gonna start just like yougo in class.
Like okay, I'll start.
I have this recipe, I have thisbread recipe, let me do a class
.
Then, from there it justsnowballed.
Someone was like okay, well,I've been sewing my whole life.
(39:43):
It's like great, I would loveto talk to you and I would love
to pick your brain, because Idid not.
I was not raised sewing.
I took one like summer quiltingcourse because my mom threw me
into it, you know, and it wasnot part of our daily life.
We were not brought alongsideto learn how it used to be,
(40:05):
which was kind of the more Idon't know past couple centuries
in our country type way ofdoing the village.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Yeah, it was just a way of life before modern
technology came in and just madeeverything easier and made us
all lazy.
Yeah, and toys, you know.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Rather than just learning how to be a human, toys
were thrown into the mix.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
We don't need those skills anymore.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Play with this toy, because you don't need to learn.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Yeah, that was my three-year-olds, or my
four-year-olds, for anybody whohears that, this is a parenting
family podcast.
So you might hear children inthe background occasionally.
So yeah, and like it's funny,you mentioned, you know, the
(41:00):
mental funk that you foundyourself into and how that was
kind of lessened after yousurrounded yourself by these
women and started learning onfrom them and leaning on them
when you needed help.
Like mental health is a hugepart of like building a
successful village and asuccessful community of women
around you.
(41:20):
Like don't be afraid to askthem for help and because that's
like that's the way it shouldbe, we should use them for
support and they should use usfor support as well, because you
know, we're kind of we're allin the trenches together.
So yeah, it's true, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, it's a huge part of that is is like taking
that step from it being surfacelevel to to jumping down into a
deeper relationship and buildingthose personal relationships.
And that's something that I wasnot, that was not ingrained in
(41:58):
me as a child, and it'ssomething that I've struggled
with my entire adult life, ishow to build solid relationships
, because I don't know if it waspart of my, my childhood being
raised in a small town wherethings were just like arranged
and we didn't really have tolike work for anything Right.
My parents didn't do a greatjob at teaching me social graces
(42:22):
.
I don't know what it is that islike broken in me, but it's
just always been really hard forme and it still is.
You know, I don't have it allfigured out by any means, but
but yeah, I think it's notnecessarily that like I've
(42:43):
leaned on these people superhard and like hard times or
anything like that, but it'seven just like having
conversations Right About thiskind of stuff, like how you and
I are talking and being like wow, I'm not crazy, I'm not I'm not
alone in my thinking this.
(43:05):
Right, you've had thatexperience too as a mom.
Cool, like I'm not doing it allwrong, you know?
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah, yeah, I haven't completely failed, you know,
and I suppose beyond that too,because like once you realize
you have like a common problem,like sometimes you're like okay,
what can we do to fix thatcommon problem?
Speaker 2 (43:26):
How can?
Speaker 1 (43:27):
we help each other and that's kind of like the
start of the whole the village.
That's that's the start of yourvillage is like how can we help
each other?
So, totally yeah, yeah.
So before we close, do you haveany words of encouragement for
anybody who's struggling tobuild their village?
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Oh yeah, I would just say, like it's not an
impossible thing.
You know, there was probably apoint at which it felt
impossible for me and that wasjust like what am I going to do?
Right, like, you know, rightafter I moved here and we were
into our new house, and I wasoverwhelmed, and and it's just
(44:08):
one day at a time, you know,with any new undertaking it's
just one foot in front of theother.
So, you know, start to knowyourself well, like I don't know
how many personality tests I'vetaken in my life.
I've taken a lot and I like,really, I really know myself
(44:29):
pretty darn well and I thinkthat's a really important thing
to do is just get to knowyourself really well, then
you'll figure out what you'relooking for.
And that will like make you bedrawn to certain people and
you'll be able to spot them outa lot easier.
And then, you know, you may bein a public place where, like,
(44:51):
you're at the beach, forinstance here in North Idaho, at
our lovely Lake beaches, andyou see a mom who you're like,
she looks like she's very likeminded, like she's into the same
kind of things that we're, youknow, and I even met a mom that
way and I struck up aconversation with her and I was
like, hey, you know, and ourkids were kind of playing with
(45:13):
each other a little bit and wegot to talking and oh, you guys
just moved here too, cool, youknow.
And I told her about VictoryMamas and so she ended up coming
to one of my Victory Mamas andsupports it, you know still, so
there's just just like, getyourself out there, know
yourself and put yourself outthere and utilize social media.
(45:35):
But then, like, get in person,make in person meetings a
priority, like, stop, stoprelying on other people, to like
make the thing happen.
You know, show up and make.
You know, start meetups, startwhatever it is.
You know, even with your podcast, veronica, you could start a
(45:55):
local meetup and say hey ifyou're, if you're a local North
Idaho mom and you like mypodcast, come, you know, to my
monthly meetup and we'll liketalk about all this stuff in
person.
So we have our own supportsystem.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely All right.
Well, thank you very much,Deanna, because this has been an
amazing conversation to havewith you, and I'm hoping we can
have something like this again.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Yeah, sounds good.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Yep, thank you.
Thank you so much, everybody.
Bye, bye.
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