January 14, 2025 • 53 mins
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In this introspective episode, Rachel Sorensen, LMFT, mom of one, and co-founder of Sorensen and Schiller Family Services, joins Reesa Morala, LMFT, to discuss the deeply personal journey of deciding whether or not to have children. Rachel opens up about the societal pressures she faced to follow traditional life paths and how she navigated the internal conflict between her authentic desires and ingrained expectations.
As they dive into parenting insights, self-discovery, and breaking free from norms, Rachel also shares her go-to Pesto Polenta Brunch recipe—a comforting dish that’s perfect for bringing loved ones together.
Subscribe, like, and follow for more meaningful parenting stories, empowering tips, and delicious recipes!
💬 What's been a parenting challenge you've faced? Share your story in the comments!
🍴 Tried the recipe? Let us know how it turned out!
Find Rachel at: http://www.sorensenandschillerfamilyservices.com/
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Pesto Polenta Brunch
INGREDIENTS:
Pesto (can either buy a store bought one or if you’re going to make, you need basil, pine nuts, salt, pepper, lemon juice, garlic, and olive oil, parm cheese)
1-2 eggs
Kosher Salt
Pepper
5 minute polenta
Parmesan cheese, grated or can grate fresh
Italian seasonings (couple of dashes)
Grape tomatoes (just a handful) and/or any other veggie you have on hand (asparagus, mushrooms, peppers, etc) all work
Mini baguette or any kind of crusty bread
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. If using store bought pesto, skip to next step.
2. If making pesto, put all ingredients into a food processor or blender and blend until smooth.
3. Get frying pan prepped with oil or oil spray. Make eggs over easy.
4. Once eggs are in pan, move to side and add veggies of choice to pan (salt and pepper them or use everything but the bagel seasoning). Roast veggies till warm/tomatoes till blistered.
5. Heat polenta according to instructions.
6. When complete, add in Parmesan cheese per your taste, 1/2 tbsp Italian seasonings/parsley, dash of salt and pepper (less salt if you put more cheese).
7. Assemble polenta, veggies and egg in a bowl/plate. Top with pesto and enjoy!
******
Disclaimer:
Please note that the content shared on this podcast channel is for informational purposes only and does not replace professional therapy or mental health services.
If you are facing a crisis, seek immediate help through emergency services or a crisis hotline in your area.
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of
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Host: Reesa Morala, MA, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Reesa is a parenting specialist with a niche in supporting couples. Find Reesa hosting couples and parenting workshops nationwide!
Make sure to like, follow, and subscribe!
For the video version of this episode find us at: https://www.embracerenewaltherapy.com/
If you are a parent ready to share your real-life parenting struggle and dish up a recipe with Reesa, apply here:
https://www.embracerenewaltherapy.com/real-family-eats-guest
If you are experiencing a mental health crisis or need personalized support, please seek help from a licensed mental health professional. If you are in immediate danger or experiencing a crisis, contact emergency services or a crisis hotline in your area.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Oh, well, if I say I'mdoubting it, does that mean
(00:02):
something is wrong with me?
Does that mean, like, are peoplegoing to assume they're like,
maybe I'm not really goingto be a great mom Hey, everyone.
Thanks for joining me.
My name is Reesa and I'myour host.
(00:23):
We are talking to real familiesabout real stories here on the
real Family, where we'vegot food for thought
and thoughtful food.
So let's eat, Hey, everyone.
(00:46):
So joining us today is thelovely Rachel.
Hi, Rachel.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday.
I am so happy to be here.
So for anybody who doesn'tknow you, can you
introduce yourself for us?
Yeah.
So my name is Rachel Sorensen.
I am a licensed marriage andfamily therapist, and I work.
(01:07):
I co-own a practicein the western suburbs of
Chicago.
Some probably, like, half hourfrom the city.
So I see people in office.
I also see people in Illinois,Indiana and Iowa virtually.
I'm licensed in allthree states, and I
primarily work with peoplereally of any age.
(01:28):
Starting at like age 5 or 6with really high anxiety
or OCD symptoms.
That's really my niche.
But then I've beenworking with kids and teens
and young adults on a varietyof things also.
For the last, you know, five,six years.
So that's really, like myreally exciting, like,
(01:51):
I love working with those typesof clients.
And then I also do a lot ofparent strategy working with
parents on creating plansto, you know, parent
with intention.
Really trying to get parentson the same page with what
their family goals are.
So things that are reallyvaluable conversations.
But sometimes, you knowjust how busy life is.
The conversations don'talways happen as often.
(02:13):
Or, you know, they don'talways have a game plan,
you know, in place,especially with how fast
kids grow and different ages anddifferent needs.
So I do that a lot too, and Ireally enjoy that work also.
So it's a little bit awesome.
And a parent yourself.
Correct.
I hear myself.
Yeah.
So my daughter is about to beeight months old.
(02:36):
So a new parent.
So I can definitely relate to,everything I've ever talked
about with any of my clients,I can.
I have a real feelat this point, which is great.
Right.
You when you're in it right now?
Definitely.
I think this is I mean,from what everyone says, to like
(02:57):
this is certainly the you'rethe most in it, you know,
really consumed like theythey need you so much
and you are so aware of how muchthey need you.
So a lot of yourother priorities and needs
sometimes take a backseat.
You really have to tryto make sure you're
getting some sort of semblanceof balance, because it is
(03:18):
hard to do that if you'renot aware of it.
Absolutely.
And that's that'sthe theme, right?
This is hard.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, I was so excited.
When you talk to me about, like,what this podcast is going to be
and what it's going to be about,because I think that there's
even even with a lot of there'sso much content obviously online
(03:40):
about like, parenting and howyou can parent and you're
the ways to improve thingslike all the time.
And obviously, I mean,even right when I just
talked about like having goalswith parents, like all of that
is super great and positiveand it's great that people
want to work toward that.
But I also think there'sa tality that like if you
as a parent do somethingperfectly, then everything goes
(04:04):
as it should, as it should.
And that's because you'renot doing some sort of formula
of accurate way.
And so it, it just treatskids like, well, really
families like, they'reformulas and, and
if everything was just a plus B,it would all work out
and I just don't.
I think that's so unrealistic.
But I think that's whatyou get said.
(04:25):
Online all the time even from,you know, in well-meaning ways.
But that's just what you see.
So I think that this conceptof really talking about
some topics that peoplejust don't discuss the
real struggle, or they mighttalk about the real,
they might say it's a struggle,but you don't really understand
how or why.
I think the solutiona lot of late on
(04:46):
a lot of topics, I thinkit'll help so many people.
That's the hope.
Because you're absolutely right.
There is again, for for manyit is well-intentioned, but not
necessarily.
Really kind of taking a lookat what are the the issues
that parents are trulystruggling with, in real time
(05:08):
and normalizing that strugglebecause it is really difficult
and there isn't, you know,you talk about putting together
a plan.
Those are thingsthat you have to
kind of develop.
Nobody you don't givebirth or adopt or any
of those thingsget given a child
essentially, and a manualto go with it like any of
your other, you know,maybe appliances that you get.
(05:33):
And like you said, if you don'thave that exact formula,
it can be really easy to slipinto that mindset that it's
somehow related to younot studying hard enough or,
not being knowledgeable enoughin a failing on your part,
which is just a really difficultnarrative to kind of get
unstuck from.
Yeah, 100%.
(05:54):
Yeah.
All right.
Well, I'm so excited to chata little bit more
about your story.
And, but first, I would love tokind of for anybody who's in
that area who might be needingof your services, where can they
find you?
This is our shameless plug.
Put it out there so thatpeople can get your services.
Yeah, so they can find me at ww w Dot Sorenson and Family
(06:19):
services.com.
So that's my websiteand my practice.
Sorensen is spelled with e nnot o n just okay.
Does it clarify.
You can also find meon Psychology Today
if you want to read my profile.
If you search Rachel Sorensen,and you can see the different
therapy modalities Iuse, you can see,
(06:39):
information about some of myprevious experience
things like that.
So, those are perfect placesto find me.
Wonderful.
And we'll make sure all of thatgets linked in our show
notes as well.
So, if you didn't catch that,make sure to just click on down
and you'll be able to see itthere as well.
So what is this recipethat you're going
to be teaching me today?
Okay, so I cannot remember whereI originally found this recipe.
(07:04):
Like it's somethingI've just made for so long.
But I thought about itbecause I started making it
when I was living in California,getting my masters
in the program with you,University of San Diego.
And so it was something I madeall the time because, like,
I was living by myself, it hadlike, protein.
It was, you know, likegave me a lot of energy,
(07:26):
but it was really comforting.
And you can really customizeit a lot.
So like if you hadleftover things, which is always
easy to make.
So it's a, egg over cheesypolenta with veggies and pesto.
Okay.
Wonderful.
Well, I'm so excited.
I have not actually ever,I like to cook a lot, and so,
(07:49):
like, that's a that's a thingthat. So, but I have not
ever actually cooked it, so I'mexcited or.
I don't know if I've eventasted polenta, which is
really strange for me.
So I'm excited, but by itselfkind of bland.
But I use like, because it'sbland.
You can do anything you want,you know?
So it's like any seasoningor any toppings.
(08:11):
So it's very versatile.
It's very, satisfying.
Very cool.
Okay.
So can you get me started withsome of the steps that I'll be
doing here?
And then I'll get thingsgoing here while you and I
chit chat.
Yeah, that soundsgreat. So okay.
So you want to get youregg prepared first again?
Okay.
The things you need.
Ready for the egg.
And then, typically I make itjust over easy.
(08:34):
But if people also wantedto poach their egg or if
they wanted to, do it,like over hard or whatever,
you could do it lots ofdifferent ways.
Okay.
Fry the egg as per normaland then the polenta.
You can just followthe instructions on the box.
So I don't know if you didthe instant or the longer one.
(08:55):
But really you're justboiling water and then
mixing in the, corn grits,and then you're letting
that kind of simmer until itsoaks in, like rice and then the
veggies on the sideyou can season.
And I like this too,because if you have, like,
anything in your fridgefrom like the week before,
you can just kind of usewhatever you have.
Season or whatever you want.
(09:16):
And then at the endwe'll combine everything and
put some pasta on top.
Wonderful.
I can do that.
All right.
So while I get things going,I know one of the things that we
were going to chat abouttoday is you maybe had not
necessarily theI been jumping to we kind of
(09:36):
I've always dreamedof being a parent kind of
yeah I'm in it you know I've,I've done this that's I'm
ready to go kind of experienceand which is not necessarily
the traditional in thekind of again Beaver Cleaver
kind of way that it'sjust kind of expected your
(09:58):
you know, you haveyou have a uterus and so
you're going to have a babykind of deal and so I'd love to
hear a little bit aboutyour journey in kind of your
walk through in that regards.
Yeah.
So, so yeah, when youhad reached out, we were,
you know, talking about topics.
It occurred to me that, like,there's definitely
(10:19):
so many topics about parenting,like you talked about earlier
that are really importantto discuss, but something that
I had kind of gone through thebefore I'd gone through it
and had really not heard anyonespeak of it.
And then afterward, nowI hear about it all the time.
Like now that I talk about it,I hear other people
talking about it, which isinteresting.
And it's interesting.
(10:39):
So it is this ideaof like, really whether or not
to have children in general.
Okay.
To your point, or to whatyou reference.
So when I was liketo my early 20s, you know,
I think I was like, yeah, maybeI'll have kids, maybe I won't.
I don't think I ever had thissense of like, I think I know
(11:00):
there are some peoplethat feel like they are
really destined to be parents,like it is what they
have thought about wanted,you know, from a very young age
or younger age or it's somethingthey've always kind of
inherently known.
And I never had this,like strong feeling that
I would never have kids.
I did at a point think like,maybe I won't really have any.
(11:21):
I don't know if I want anyin general.
That was like my early 20s.
It was not really my focus.
I hadn't found a partner,so it was kind of this vague,
like someday I'll kind ofthink about it, you know, wasn't
really that that importantfeeling at the time.
You know, trying is not topof mind.
Yeah, not top of mind, you know,establishing my career.
(11:43):
I was in school,you know, dating.
It just wasn't, it wasn't like,oh, this needs to be decided
upon tomorrow.
So it's kind of neutralor ambivalent about it.
And then I met my now husbandand then, as you know,
when we met and we weretalking about, like, our future,
I could definitely see it.
(12:03):
I felt like, okay, like,he I would want to have children
with him like that.
I see our family,you know, picture
in my mind, like,this feels like this would
really be something like I want.
But again, it kind of felt like,oh, in the future, you know,
like when I'm when we're alittle older, like when we've
been married for a few years,like we'll kind of
(12:26):
talk about it, figure it out.
So it still didn'tfeel like this immediate
decision, I suppose. Yeah.
And then we got married inthe fall, right before
the pandemic, so we justslipped right on in there.
And when the pandemic hit,it's kind of our conversations
(12:46):
about it accelerateda little, like, what timeline
do we want?
You know, we maybe we don't wantchildren right now because
we might not be able to bein a hospital together,
like, so.
There was kind of this, I guess,more detailed discussion
about timeline.
And then with that.
So I'll go ahead, I apologize.
(13:07):
I'm just going to ask, like,is that a conversation that you
were having, having aheadof time in that detail?
Because I know you talked,you know, especially the work
that you do that sometimeshaving those conversations
that maybe you justhaven't had yet and now kind of
kids are already in the picture.
We're having to have some ofthese conversations, and I
(13:28):
and I feel like that's alwaysa toss up that I hear
with parents.
They're like, oh, this isconversations that we've had
before we got married or before,you know, we decided to really
kind of commit to one another.
And there's one that like,no, we didn't really have these
conversations until much laterin our relationship.
Yeah, that's a great question.
So we did talk about it before,getting engaged for getting
(13:52):
married.
And we both were on stage,like, yep, we want children
someday.
What we want to talk about inparallel conversations
was really the timeline.
Okay, I, I don't thinkwe really had a detailed
conversation about that prior.
And then once we were married,like even a couple months after
(14:13):
we were married, before thepandemic hit, we had a couple
conversations about it becausemy husband was ready
actually, right then waslike, ready pretty much about
marriage was like, okay, great,we got married.
Now we can move onto the next goal.
So the next one.
Yeah.
And I was the one who said,and we had the feeling
like we like we haven'treally had like
(14:34):
any newlywed time together.
Just the two of us.
Like I want to have that.
Like, that feels important.
And then we definitelygot that time with the pandemic,
like living together and beingtogether all the time, which is
really nice in terms ofthat goal.
But I think that's when I reallyhad to start looking at my own
(14:56):
kind of thought process on it,because then the pandemic kind
of simmer down.
We were vaccinatedand, so a lot.
And then.
Right, we had all thistime together.
So a lot of the thingsthat I thought were like, okay,
this is what I need.
And this is kind of whatI'm waiting for to
feel comfortable.
We would then to have theconversation again, and I would
(15:17):
just feel a lot of fear.
I would get this feelingof like dread, and I
didn't really understand it.
Like I did not really know,like, right.
I like in my mind,I thought I made this decision,
so I don't know.
I don't know why now.
I still have these like physicalreactions to it or why I feel so
(15:40):
concerned about it.
And, you know, in the back ofmy back of my mind.
But I guess the things that Iwas thinking were also
referencing what youmentioned, like, am I just
doing this because this is likethe expected next step, like,
is this actually what Ireally want to do?
Like have I have I only beenpicturing this because this
is what I'm kind of toldthat I should be doing next,
(16:03):
you know, not about my husband,but like societally,
you know, that that's likeyour natural progression.
Yeah.
Is that is that kind of weirdbecause I heard you mentioned
the words kind of fearand drive.
You know those are, those arebig words.
They're not just words for usto kind of gloss over.
Some people are curiouslike for you I know maybe not
(16:25):
in the moments, but maybeif you were kind of
looking back, are you ableto maybe, have some insight
now or awareness kind of.
What was what was thefunction of that, that you're
in that dread or where was itcoming from for you?
Yeah, I think so.
In retrospect, I thinkthe feeling came from that,
(16:48):
that like, hey, you haveyou don't have a lot of control
of like what channel you have.
If your body's physicallyhealthy during a pregnancy,
you know, if you're going to beeven be able to get pregnant
easily, like all of those thingsor things that like, you
(17:08):
don't really think aboutuntil it's time, right, to like
actually start trying tohave a child.
And so I think some of thefear was like, I just I'm not
going to have a lot of controlor a lot of certainty about
what's going to happento like me.
Will my child be healthy?
Like, I think I havesome parents who have that,
which I think all are normal.
(17:29):
I think most people thinkabout those things. Yeah.
But again, maybe don'tnecessarily talk about how
you think about that,like as you're trying to
get pregnant, you're likejust hopeful that
everything goes well.
And a lot of people,everything does go well.
But a lot of people, you heara lot of stories where things
don't go well.
And so, or there arecomplications or things that
(17:51):
were unexpected.
So I think some of my fearwas that, okay.
And I think my other fearthat I had kind of determine,
which is what led meactually deciding
to have a child, is thatI felt like I just didn't
know how I was goingto be able to manage everything.
Like I felt a really big senseof responsibility that,
(18:13):
you know, once you have a child,like they really are
your priority in a good way.
But they're my priorityand I'm paying attention
to them, and I'm really tryingto tend to all of their needs.
How am I going to, like,do anything else?
Like how am I going to jugglethe career?
How am I going to jugglethe household things
(18:33):
we need to do?
How am I going to make suremy husband and I still have time
for each other?
So it felt more like almostlogistical worries that
were kind of back.
And so then that's whatultimately led to my decision
to have a child, becausethose are all like solvable
problems, right?
Like those those actuallyhave more to do with, like,
(18:56):
how am I going to balanceeverything else?
Because I want to pay attentionto this child, then I want
to spend time with this child.
Okay.
Not like, oh, like they'regoing to get in the way
of all of these thingsthat I want to do.
So that makes sense.
Yeah.
So something it sounds likethat you were kind of
excited for.
And so therefore there was,you know, more motivation
(19:17):
to kind of maybe do a little bitmore of that problem solving
and saying, you know,this is something that maybe
I am interested in makingtime for and then spending
that focus on, and being ableto kind of say, maybe
it can be an and versus and,or it sounds like it's exactly
hit the nail on the headbecause I think, yeah.
(19:38):
And maybe it's because of havingI mean, again, I think there
is this societal pressure.
I think it's changing a little.
But I do think there's thissocietal pressure
or narrative thatlike, okay, you, you, you know,
you go to school and you goto school, you find someone
and you date and youget married, or you at
(19:58):
least find like a long timepartner, then you have children.
And like, those are your steps.
And so I also was just, I think,fearful of making a decision
that was just because of thatand that more from an
Intentional place.
Why was that something thatthat was so present?
(20:19):
As far as I don't want tomake this decision
because society tells me that'sthe decision I'm supposed to
make, is it sounds likeyou were kind of really
like fighting against thatand like, no, you know,
you're not going to tell mekind of what I'm going to do
with my life.
Yes.
And I will say that isa personality trait of mine.
(20:40):
I will say, I'm not shocked.
It's funny.
I actually hear you say thatbecause, yeah, that like,
adds up.
Yeah, I, I think it,I think that that well,
why I didn't want this.
And I think that if you decideto have a child, you are
deciding to take on whateverthat means, right?
Like you don't know what kindof personality your child is
(21:01):
going to have.
You don't know if they'll belike you.
You don't know if they'll belike your partner.
You don't know if they'llbe completely their own
individual.
Like you have no idea.
Right.
And so your yeah, your job,your in my perspective is that
your job is to guide teachlike expose them to things
in the world and really you'rejust kind of trying your best.
(21:24):
You're trying to teach themthese lessons and you hope that
they take them and that they runwith them. Right.
But you don't really havea lot of control over that.
And I think, I thinkthere are people that go
into parenthood becauseit's their next natural step.
Okay.
And like or and even and noteven just, just parenthood,
(21:45):
like they get marriedbecause it's the next
natural step and this is justthe timeline or.
Right, this is the timelinefor kids.
And other people are having kidsthat they know.
And so then you justhave kids because
the other peoplethat you know of your age
are having children, you know,and I don't I don't think
that that's like so conscious.
I don't think people arejust deciding like, oh, I'm
just going to do this, you know?
(22:05):
No. Thought.
Yeah.
And I do think there islike this keeping up
with the Joneses mentalitysometimes and that that's
just what you're supposed to do.
And then, you know, I'm,I just don't.
I feel like you'd be happier.
I know I was going to be happierif I knew all the reasons
I wanted to be a parentthat way.
(22:27):
Like, no matter what kind ofchild I had, no matter
what ended up happening,I was coming from like my values
based on it.
It wasn't just, oh, I knowother people right now that are
having kids.
And so I'm going to, youknow, start now.
That's why it was reallyimportant to me.
And I also think then,like parenting is hard.
So I think it's really easyto have a lot more resentment
(22:49):
of like a child or the thingsyou have to do if you weren't
really, like, fully committed atthe start.
Yeah, I imagine so, likeyou said, because sometimes
it does require some sortof sacrifice, whether it's sleep
or, whether it's time, money,you know, whatever that is,
(23:10):
there's there's some sort of,giving that we're doing
to a being that'sreally only doing
a lot of giving, not a wholeor a lot of taking, not a whole
lot of giving themselves rather.
And so, you know, there arereally hard decisions like
use it to be made. And so,there in I feel like for
(23:32):
most people, in orderto kind of really have that buy
in themselves, there needs to besome sort of like internal
motivation of like, okay,I understand maybe why
I did this or, you know,this decision that was made,
to kind of continue and,and bringing them
into the world, that's, that's,that's a lot to ask of a person.
And so I can honestlyappreciate where,
(23:54):
you know, that's not really fairto ask of someone who wasn't,
who wasn't willing or,you know, kind of
had that buy in.
Yeah, exactly.
So, so I will say somethingthat was super helpful.
So I mean, I did I feel like soI, so I had all these thoughts,
I had all these feelingsand I was like, you know,
I don't.
And my husband, you know,I love him.
(24:15):
He was so supportive.
He was obviously like abiased party because he's
because he's like, well,I want them, you know,
and like, I'm willing,I'm willing, you know, to wait
for your timeline if you give melike an actual timeline
or if that's not in the cardsfor us, like,
I just want to know, so thenwe can have, like, a different
outlook of what we're goingto do, but okay, know like what?
(24:37):
But having kind of like,this vague idea is not like
putting us on a page wherewe're having the same goals,
right?
Which is so valid.
So I was like, okay, right.
Like, I, I just keepspinning on this and spinning
on this decision, I don't know.
So I, you know, googledbecause that was what we all do.
So I was like, you know,what do you do when you
don't know if you want kids?
(24:59):
And there was like all thesedifferent articles and posts
and whatever.
But I came across this bookand I wish, I wish I could
put a banner with this book.
Like everywhere that everyonecould see, it's called the baby
decision.
Okay.
Do you know, do you knowwhich by.
Yeah.
Moral bombarded every therapistand the book actually came out.
(25:22):
The first version of the bookcame out in the very early 80s.
So it's been around a long time.
Oh, interesting.
And I haven't heard of that one.
I had never heard of it.
And so and I like, read thedescription of it and it was
basically like literallyspeaking to exactly what I was
struggling with.
Like, okay. Yeah.
(25:44):
If you, you know, thinkyou want children but don't know
when if you don't knowif you want to have
children yourselfor adopt or like, you're all of
the scenarios, read this book.
There are exercises.
See what kind of comes of it.
And so okay, great.
Every chapter had informationand it exercises
(26:07):
and every chapteryou could do it with yourself
or a partner.
Like both individually.
Both together.
Or just yourself.
Yeah. Okay.
Great.
It led to like so muchclarity about like, I do want
children.
I do have that as a value.
It's just this feeling,like I was mentioning
(26:27):
earlier, like, I don'tI don't know how I'm going
to balance everything.
I feel like I'm so responsiblefor this child I want.
I'm so it's so important to methat my child is growing
in a happy, healthy environmentthat I'm worried that,
like all these other demandsI have, are going to take
away from that.
(26:48):
And so it just led tolike, definitely an moment
where I was like, okay, like,I actually I really do
want this.
It's that I just don't knowwhat this is all going
to look like.
That feels very scary. Yeah.
And but really, likeif that wasn't a component,
then this wouldn't even belike a default choice.
(27:10):
Yeah.
So it sounds like for you, it'svery much some of that,
kind of playing into it,which I think is so super
duper valid because how manytimes a day do we
as human beings kind ofstray away from something
because it's unknown.
And so even though we're,you know, maybe deeply unhappy
(27:32):
or unsatisfied, we go, why,at least I know this.
I know what the end of the dayis gonna look like in this,
you know, unhappiness, ifyou will.
But choosing something differentor choosing to pursue
your happiness is is scarybecause you don't know what
the other side is gonnalook like.
Yeah, like you said, it's like,even if it's uncomfortable
(27:57):
or, like, even if it'suncomfortable what you're doing,
you still have the comfort of,like, knowing what to expect.
Yeah.
So it right.
It's it is kind oflike how do you push yourself to
do something that youknow, you want and you're
just not going to knowthe outcome?
I think that's true for a lotof people, a lot.
To your point, like inyour career, in like where you
(28:21):
decide to move, where you goto school, like all those
decisions.
I feel like it's really similar.
You could apply that toa lot of things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that was really helpful.
And I, I will say I stillthink about like that book
or the decision, like evenafter making it because
there like you mightlike we talked about parent
(28:42):
parenting is hard.
Like especially right now I'm inthe trenches.
I'm certainly not sleepingright now.
We're like in a little bitof a spirit of something
or other, whatever.
You can look onlineand there's like 3000 reasons,
right?
Every day we even that like,who knows what your actual child
is, right?
Yeah. You know,you know nothing.
I have no information.
Don't know why it's happening.
(29:03):
Whatever.
But I like at the end of the dayor like in some of those
tough moments, I always comeback to like, okay, I know
this is really hard,but, like this that I guess
I have comfort in, like,this is so like the decision
I wanted, like, this is thistough moment, but like, this is
(29:23):
something that is reallyimportant to me.
Like caring for her is reallyimportant to me, even if this is
a really tough like day or weekor whatever.
So I feel like it doesprovide me with this anchor.
Certainty, at least in like whatI am doing and why it's like I
depending on, you know, howshe's doing.
(29:46):
Because I was I mean,they're growing so fast
and they change so much, likeevery day is so variable and.
Yeah, like, so dependent on toif you depended everything
on that, like you would notyou couldn't handle it.
That was like so challenging.
Can you say a little bitmore about that?
Because I think that's reallyvaluable to, you know,
you mentioned a coupletimes here kind of that
(30:07):
value driven, you know,way of thinking, you know, when
reflecting on these reallytough times, as a parent, like,
can you say more about thatand more about why for
you, you found that it's beenmaybe more helpful in overcoming
some of those times versus,like you said, if it's purely
(30:29):
just for them, driven,if that makes sense.
Yeah. It does. So so like mylike even before having her
family is really importantto me.
Like having having astrong family unit,
having a family that likeshows care and love for one
another and is kindto one another like that's
so important to me.
(30:50):
And then having, you know,and deciding to have a child,
I wanted to have a childto add a member to our family.
Right.
Not not with the expectationof, like, they're going
to follow this littleformula and like, everything
they do is going to be so easyand smooth and perfect
all the time.
Like you logically know thatthat's not the case.
(31:10):
But since I had madethis decision based on
my knowing, I wanted tolike, guide a child
and support them and show thema lot of love and care
and like, that'smy ultimate goal.
And when these toughmoments happen that I'm not,
(31:31):
I guess I'm not expecting herto like act in a certain way
in order for like myself to feelsatisfied. Right.
Like I'm not thinking,okay, well I'll only feel better
if she, you know, does X or likeeverything will be peaceful
if she just did Y, you know,because that's just not true.
(31:51):
It's just not truebecause you just can't expect
that, especially for her age,you can't expect that
really, of, like, any childof any age.
When that could be saidfor any human right.
Like if you're saying I canonly succeed, I can only
move forwardif this other person
just kind of gets theiract together, or if you will,
(32:11):
you're going tobe waiting around a really
long time because humans are.
I see it all the time.
Humans are fickle creatures.
Yes.
So which is a good thingthat I think that's how
it helps me, because in timeswhere like, for example,
these last three nights,she has gone to bed and she's
(32:32):
been waking up
at like 10 (32:32):
00 for, I don't know, no reason.
She just waking up.
She won't reallygo back to sleep unless you
pick her up and rocker for like,ten minutes, and then she'll
go back to bed.
But if you leave her,she's just like, protest.
She's just, like, uncomfortable.
I don't know why.
Maybe it's time.
Maybe she has a cold coming.
Like it could be a thousandthings.
(32:54):
Right? Yeah.
And so that's tough.
Like mentally that's tough.
You you're like, you alreadyput her sleep.
You're thinking you havesome independent,
like, alone time.
You're getting ready.
And she like knows my headlike hits the pillow.
And then she startscrying, you know, like they're,
they like, have a sixth sense.
Like.
Yeah.
And so sad because I knowlike in those moments
(33:17):
I'm like, oh like okay.
Deep breath I like she's goingthrough something like
I don't know what she's goingthrough.
She's having a hard timeand I want, I wanted to
have a child to like help themand show them love.
Right.
And like, I really this is whyI did this.
And so, yeah, you have todo that in moments
(33:39):
that are hard.
Not just moments that are easy.
You know, it's like easy to likegive love to a child
when they're like laughingand like playing with you
and talking to you.
You know, she's not there yet.
But like, when all that happensand they're like giving you hugs
and they're like, telling youthey love you.
Yes, you can like, love a childvery easily.
(34:00):
In those moments, it's harder tostay calm and remember that
that's like who you'redealing with when they're
having a hard time.
Like they are struggling,they're crying, they're upset.
It's not that you don'tlove them in those moments,
but it's just hard to put asidesometimes.
Like the immediate frustration.
(34:21):
Yeah, you're kind oflong term value.
And so that's where it helps me,because there's never been
a question now ever sinceI made that decision of like,
why am I doing this?
Or like, oh, this isso annoying.
Like, I should like,maybe I made the wrong decision,
you know, like I never havethose doubts, which I think
even having those kinds ofthoughts is normal.
(34:43):
I'm not saying it's not, butI just feel like I have a more
centered view of it, whichI think for me it makes things
easier when it's already tough.
Yeah, absolutely.
I would love to kind of circleback to that before, before
you did make that decisionto move forward in kind
(35:05):
of expanding your family.
And, you know, I'm reallycurious, did you, when you were
vacillating and going,I don't know if this is
really my value.
And something that I want to do.
Is it just because, you know,I'm feeling maybe that
external pressure where thereparticular ways for you
(35:27):
and your kind of journeythat you were feeling,
maybe some of that externalpressure of, like you said,
that this is this is the wayit's supposed to go, that like
what sources of externalpressure I maybe felt.
Yeah.
Like where was that?
Do you do you know, likewhere was that coming from?
Or like what was helping kind ofcreate that narrative for you?
(35:50):
Yeah, I think, I think there wasa little external pressure
that maybe it turned intointernal pressure.
Like people around mestarting to have children,
like friends of mine,some family members
where it kind of felt like,okay, if I want a child of ours
to be raised alongside some ofthese people, oh, gotcha.
(36:14):
You know, to kind of havesimilar ages like this would be
potentially at the time.
But I also think, like I'mfrom the Midwest and I do think,
you know, I'm sure it'sdifferent depending on
where you grow up in theUnited States.
But in the Midwest, it's prettytypical that like you do
follow this natural progression.
(36:35):
Like you, you go to school,you get a job, you get married,
you find a house,you have a kid.
Like there's your those are yoursteps, like in sequence.
And I really don't know.
Honestly, I anyone from herethat, like, has not
really followed that trajectory.
(36:57):
Like within my circle,which obviously could be like
some skewed data.
Yeah.
So like you can't really saywhich came first, but it just it
is kind of to me, it seems likethis assumption that you're
just going to and oncewe got married, I mean, people
ask you about it allthe time, like, when are you
(37:17):
gonna have kids?
When are you gonna have kids?
No one ever really asks.
You like, do you guys wantto have kids?
Like, are you planningon having kids and even that?
Like, I don't know,people have to ask regardless.
But the fact that they askin general kind of shows
like there's this assumptionthat you're going to it's
just like when or what'sgoing to happen with it
(37:39):
versus assumptionthat like, okay, will you
get married and maybeyou'll live childfree,
maybe you won't live childfree like maybe you're right,
maybe you'll adopt.
Maybe you'll do something else.
Like there's really notan inherent discussion
about that.
So like that kind of givesthe vacuum some pressure
(37:59):
where it's like, right.
There's an assumption that it'shappening.
There is no conversationabout like, have you
thought about whether or notyou want kids?
Like, what are youthinking about with that?
How are you making thatdecision?
Like, it's not it doesn't gettalked about, I guess, as if
it's an active decision.
It gets talked about like that'sjust happening.
It's is the next thingyour future.
(38:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which I think whichlike I mentioned before,
the interesting thing is likewhen I started talking
to a lot of my friendsabout like struggling with this
decision and not being surea lot of them were like,
yeah, I've like I've hadsimilar doubts.
I thought similar things.
And like, nobody ever, nobodymentions it because it's just
it's like not in the the lineof communication.
(38:44):
Yeah.
Do you think had itbeen reframed that way, like you
said, of, hey, you know,what have your guys's thoughts
been on the kind of familyplanning?
Is that something that you guysare discussing?
Is that kind of oh, you know,that's not where we're going.
Would that have one beenreceived?
(39:05):
Well, do you think for youand then two, would that
do you think have changedkind of that feeling of
external pressure becauseyou think, you know, hopefully
other folks that are maybe havehave potential parents or people
that are kind ofin that same time frame
as you were in their livesand you think that's such
helpful?
(39:26):
Information for them ofhow can we support from a way
that doesn't necessarilyput that external pressure?
Because I don't know thatanybody necessarily goes
into it going, I'm askingthese questions to be intrusive
or to be pressuring.
However, like you saidmany times, that is kind of just
where our mind goesand it comes out that way,
(39:48):
and it does kind of put thiskind of construct
on what your life maybe ought tolook like.
Yeah, yeah, I think,I think I would have received it
well because I think itit opens up the conversation.
Well, it opens it upwhere it's normal for you
to think about it.
Right.
Like, okay, the whole themeof what we're talking about,
like normalizing things.
(40:09):
If someone had askedyou, asked us or asked me
like, oh, what are you thinking?
For, you know, your futurefamily, are you thinking
of having children?
Are you thinking of livinglike childfree?
You know, say somethinglike you've given thought to.
Then I think it would havethe next line or opening
is like, oh yeah, likewe haven't talked about it.
(40:30):
I'm not sure I'm trying to makethe decision.
You know, it would have led toprobably more honest
conversation versuswhen the question is like,
oh, when are you guyshaving kids?
Like, are you trying yetagain, these to your point,
I think it's all lot ofand actually kind of excitement.
Like people are excitedand hoping you have, you know,
another family memberthat they get to love on
(40:51):
and like it's it comes fromsuch a good, kind hearted place.
But it happens.
It leaves this assumptionthat you've already decided
you're going to have them.
It's a matter of when.
And so the conversationjust starts off, I think, from a
more closed spot.
Because then you feel like,oh, well, if I say
I'm doubting it, does that meansomething is wrong with me?
(41:13):
Does that mean like, are peoplegoing to assume they're like,
maybe I'm not really going to bea great mom because I didn't
go into it, liketotally knowing, you know,
I wasn't someone who is like100% positive.
So is that going to be seenas good or bad?
You know, like ifyou decide to go, if you decide
to move forward, that that couldbe kind of, you know,
(41:34):
the judgment later.
Yeah.
Or like we're just like,it's on.
And again, that might bemore internal, but like
because the assumption isthat you're going to do it
if internally you were unsure.
What is that say about you.
You know, like what doesthat mean. Yeah.
And then right.
Does that mean like you are notgoing to be as good of a parent
(41:56):
or does that mean that,you know, there's like
something wrong that you didn'tknow ahead of time that that
was like exactly whatyou wanted?
So, yeah.
So I think it wouldI think I would have received
that.
Well, and I think if peopletalked about it
more in that way, I think peoplecould come to those decisions
(42:17):
possibly faster, because I thinkit took me a while to decide
because I was kind of on my own,you know, with some of my
husband's support, but a littlebit on my own thinking about,
like, what I wanted to dowithout really knowing
other people or even strugglingwith that, or that other people
would have had doubts too,and that it's okay
to have doubts.
That doesn't mean anything morethan did you have any kind
(42:41):
of narrative for yourselfthat your brain was trying
to kind of convince you?
I have, if you will,if you had come to the
decision of, I don't know if Ido, maybe, maybe my
answer is no.
You know, was there somethingthat was kind of keeping
you from, from going thereor that, you know, your brain
was kind of telling you,if I did say no, this is what
(43:04):
I would say or mean about me.
I, I think personally,I wouldn't have felt that had
I wouldn't have feltlike anything was wrong
with that decision.
For myself, I think I, I thinkthe narrative more so
would have been like,what are maybe other people
(43:25):
going to think about it like,is there going to be
external judgmentfor it, or people going
to understand that decision?
That, yeah, I feel like it wasmore of the narrative is like,
are people going to look at thisas if this was like not the
right decision?
I think other I feel likesometimes too, I hear I heard
(43:47):
this myself, but I, I'vejust heard it anecdotally
through other people thatlike some people say, oh,
like what if you regret itif you like, didn't you know,
if you don't have themand then you wait too long,
it's like, okay, again,like the feedback could be
that I'm like making a mistakewith like an intentional
decision.
(44:08):
And like unfortunate.
I mean, unfortunately, like,you would never know, you know,
if you'd regret it or not,but like that feedback
from people, I guess,just doesn't that doesn't
lend itself to you feeling like,confident in your choice.
So that's more so what Iwould have been concerned of.
That there would have beena narrative that I was like
making a mistake from externalparties.
(44:31):
Yeah.
And I almost I was like,kind of again, going back to
this idea of is it a choicefor you or is it it's already
kind of written for you and youreally have no say.
And I can imagine if if itfeels that way, that's I mean,
I don't know anybodywho likes to feel
kind of powerless in decisions,especially when it comes to
(44:53):
their own life and somethingthat's so permanent, like
a parent becoming a parent.
Yeah.
Well, and I think that's whyit also felt so important to me
because I'm like,there is no like, yeah.
Like, you know, you can'treturn them.
Like there's nothing you can do.
Like you have.
This is your life that you'rechoosing to set.
So it just felt so importantto me because I'm like,
(45:15):
there's no other choice that youcan't change, like in your life
that you make like,you can change your job.
You could change your partnerlike you could.
You could change where you live.
Like everything is reallytotally up to you.
But once you have a child,that's your child.
And like, that's your joband you've you've decided to
take on this role.
(45:37):
And I'm so happy I'm inthat role now.
I'm happy I came tothat decision.
It's been so rewarding even withits challenges.
But I don't think I would havefelt the same if I had just
gone into it without reallybeing methodical about it
and a little on some of that'smy personality.
But I also think, again,it's given me they gave me
(45:59):
a lot of clarity beforehandto kind of whether like
all the things that I couldn'tcontrol afterward, I so maybe,
it sounds like maybe ableto kind of get to some of that,
you know, quote unquote radicalacceptance, maybe a little bit
easier because there was a lotmore of you in that decision
(46:21):
than maybe everyone else.
It sounds like.
Yeah.
And I think it's good toclarify, like we're in a I feel
like we're in an age where you,you can really do a lot like,
you have a lot of jobflexibility.
You can move wherever you wantif you want to.
Like there's I thinkpeople just have a lot
(46:41):
more exposure to like differentoptions, which I think is great,
but also because of that,like you have all these options
or you could like do thistraditional route or, you know,
you could do somethingin the middle.
And I think it's justgood for people to get
clarity on, like whatthey really want their life
to look like because theydo have all these options, which
(47:03):
doesn't mean like, again,like, I, I kind of did choose
that whole path of likeget married and not have
the kids, like I did that, butI didn't do it just because
that's kind of what was assumed.
You know, I really I did itbecause I really know that
that's what I wanted.
Yeah. So yeah.
So I hope that that helpspeople and, you know, again,
(47:25):
I think it's somethingit seems like a lot more people
are thinking about now,especially with timelines
of having kids or like, right.
You can also just have one kid.
You don't have to havemultiple kids.
You know, things like that'sa whole different conversation.
Me but you know, so I thinkit's just helpful,
hopefully that people can seethat there's a lot of ways
to getting to a decision.
(47:46):
There's not like this one BeaverCleaver route.
Absolutely.
And again, that normalizing itand that if the answer is
no, how can we maybe havea little bit more of that, that
compassion and that, you know,acceptance that we all have
to make these decisions,like you said, for ourselves.
(48:07):
And it's really not fairto kind of put our own
expectations on somebody elsewhen we're asking them
to make kind of these lifealtering decisions
or their life.
Yeah, absolutely.
And and if I mean, I thinkthere are more people
now that are deciding tolive childfree and there's
(48:29):
just nothing wrong with that.
Like if people want to focustheir goals on other things,
they also might like be in theseother roles where they can work
with children or bewith children.
It doesn't have to be havingyour own children, like you
could work in a schooland be around children
all the time and not want yourown children, you know.
Or maybe you want a child,but you're not ready right now.
(48:49):
And biologically,like time wise, it doesn't work.
So you adopt at a later time,you know, like, I think just
even the time pressure isso much, you know, it's got to
be within, you know, bya certain time.
So that doesn't work for people.
Like there are alternativesto that don't mean like the door
is always it's either openor shot.
You know, there's a lot of.
(49:10):
Yeah, yeah.
And that maybe it justdoes require some of
that creativity like youwere mentioning of what
it looks like.
And maybe it doesn't look likethe Johnsons, as you mentioned.
And that's totally okay.
You get to kind of createyour own life in your own family
in whatever way that looks like.
Yeah, exactly.
(49:30):
That's really cool.
Yeah.
Is there anything kind ofyou're in this last minute
that if you couldkind of go back
and tell yourself or tellany other folks that are maybe,
in that position, I knowyou've already offered quite
a bit of that for anything elsethat you would kind of offer
to someone or offer toyourself back then.
Yeah, I think I would have justapproached it sooner.
(49:52):
I think that like in my mind,you know, I have all this time
and I'll just like figureit out later.
But that kind of was like a cluethat maybe I was avoiding it
a little because I thinkthat, like with most things
in my life, if I have a decisionto make, like, I'll just make
the decision.
Like I don't think thatit's like I never make choices.
(50:15):
So then okay with this one,since it like I kind of kept
putting it on the backburner,putting on the backburner.
I think that was a clue thatI should, like, kind of turn
toward it and I keepturning away from it.
I would have gotten thatbook sooner, and then I would
have talked to other timespeople about it sooner, too,
because I thinkI started talking to people
about it when I wasreally in the thick of like,
(50:37):
what do I do?
I'm sure, but I could havetalked about it like even
just asking people what theywere thinking for themselves.
And like, I could have donethat, you know, way before.
So probably just beingmore vulnerable about it before
I was that I probably wouldhave given myself that advice.
I love it.
Well, I appreciate you so much.
(50:58):
Thank you for sharingthat with us.
I know I've got all myall my pieces and you've got
kind of a, bready,kind of toasty, crunchy bread,
that you've put on your list.
How how do I construct this?
There's I've got all my pieces.
I put it together, and you putthe polenta in your bowl
first, okay?
(51:19):
And then you put the eggand the veggies on top.
Perfect.
With the pesto sauceon top of the whole thing.
Well, I'll boil, drizzlein the bottom.
Yeah.
And then the toast is for youto just, like, dip and eat
some of the polenta egg mixall together.
Wonderful.
Well, I'm super excitedto try this.
(51:40):
Thank you so muchfor sharing this with me
and your story.
I think that such valuableinformation and like you said,
a conversation that thatneeds to happen more often
because there are it is a verybig decision with, with life
altering kind ofconsequences and,
and normalizing that it's okayto kind of have, like you said,
(52:02):
some of those strugglesand not be like, oh, yes,
this is exactly, you know what?
I want my life.
All of those variantsand those grays like you
mentioned are, are okay.
And it doesn't mean that there'sit makes you any
less of a person.
I think that's hugely valuable.
So thank you so muchfor being willing to share
that with us and being onour show today.
(52:24):
Yeah, you're so welcome.
I'm so happy to have beena part of it.
Thank you so much.
Yes.
Well, thank you everyone fortuning in today.
We'll see you next time.
And if you or anyonethat you know is struggling
with any of the topics that wediscussed in today's episode,
make sure to check outour show notes for support
and resources.
(52:44):
You can get help.
Thanks again for joining uson today's episode of
The Real Family.
Eat.
If you're a parent readyto share your real life
parenting story, make sure toreach out to us and our website
found in the show notes.
And that goes for today's recipesocial media's support
and resources.
All of that can be foundin our show notes,
(53:06):
so make sure to check them outand make sure to follow, like,
share, subscribe, and stayup to date on all things
the real Family Eats.
I hope you'll join us next timefor more food for thought
and thoughtful food.
Enjoy your eats!
Oh, well, if I say I'mdoubting it, does that mean
(00:02):
something is wrong with me?
Does that mean, like, are peoplegoing to assume they're like,
maybe I'm not really goingto be a great mom Hey, everyone.
Thanks for joining me.
My name is Reesa and I'myour host.
(00:23):
We are talking to real familiesabout real stories here on the
real Family, where we'vegot food for thought
and thoughtful food.
So let's eat, Hey, everyone.
(00:46):
So joining us today is thelovely Rachel.
Hi, Rachel.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday.
I am so happy to be here.
So for anybody who doesn'tknow you, can you
introduce yourself for us?
Yeah.
So my name is Rachel Sorensen.
I am a licensed marriage andfamily therapist, and I work.
(01:07):
I co-own a practicein the western suburbs of
Chicago.
Some probably, like, half hourfrom the city.
So I see people in office.
I also see people in Illinois,Indiana and Iowa virtually.
I'm licensed in allthree states, and I
primarily work with peoplereally of any age.
(01:28):
Starting at like age 5 or 6with really high anxiety
or OCD symptoms.
That's really my niche.
But then I've beenworking with kids and teens
and young adults on a varietyof things also.
For the last, you know, five,six years.
So that's really, like myreally exciting, like,
(01:51):
I love working with those typesof clients.
And then I also do a lot ofparent strategy working with
parents on creating plansto, you know, parent
with intention.
Really trying to get parentson the same page with what
their family goals are.
So things that are reallyvaluable conversations.
But sometimes, you knowjust how busy life is.
The conversations don'talways happen as often.
(02:13):
Or, you know, they don'talways have a game plan,
you know, in place,especially with how fast
kids grow and different ages anddifferent needs.
So I do that a lot too, and Ireally enjoy that work also.
So it's a little bit awesome.
And a parent yourself.
Correct.
I hear myself.
Yeah.
So my daughter is about to beeight months old.
(02:36):
So a new parent.
So I can definitely relate to,everything I've ever talked
about with any of my clients,I can.
I have a real feelat this point, which is great.
Right.
You when you're in it right now?
Definitely.
I think this is I mean,from what everyone says, to like
(02:57):
this is certainly the you'rethe most in it, you know,
really consumed like theythey need you so much
and you are so aware of how muchthey need you.
So a lot of yourother priorities and needs
sometimes take a backseat.
You really have to tryto make sure you're
getting some sort of semblanceof balance, because it is
(03:18):
hard to do that if you'renot aware of it.
Absolutely.
And that's that'sthe theme, right?
This is hard.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, I was so excited.
When you talk to me about, like,what this podcast is going to be
and what it's going to be about,because I think that there's
even even with a lot of there'sso much content obviously online
(03:40):
about like, parenting and howyou can parent and you're
the ways to improve thingslike all the time.
And obviously, I mean,even right when I just
talked about like having goalswith parents, like all of that
is super great and positiveand it's great that people
want to work toward that.
But I also think there'sa tality that like if you
as a parent do somethingperfectly, then everything goes
(04:04):
as it should, as it should.
And that's because you'renot doing some sort of formula
of accurate way.
And so it, it just treatskids like, well, really
families like, they'reformulas and, and
if everything was just a plus B,it would all work out
and I just don't.
I think that's so unrealistic.
But I think that's whatyou get said.
(04:25):
Online all the time even from,you know, in well-meaning ways.
But that's just what you see.
So I think that this conceptof really talking about
some topics that peoplejust don't discuss the
real struggle, or they mighttalk about the real,
they might say it's a struggle,but you don't really understand
how or why.
I think the solutiona lot of late on
(04:46):
a lot of topics, I thinkit'll help so many people.
That's the hope.
Because you're absolutely right.
There is again, for for manyit is well-intentioned, but not
necessarily.
Really kind of taking a lookat what are the the issues
that parents are trulystruggling with, in real time
(05:08):
and normalizing that strugglebecause it is really difficult
and there isn't, you know,you talk about putting together
a plan.
Those are thingsthat you have to
kind of develop.
Nobody you don't givebirth or adopt or any
of those thingsget given a child
essentially, and a manualto go with it like any of
your other, you know,maybe appliances that you get.
(05:33):
And like you said, if you don'thave that exact formula,
it can be really easy to slipinto that mindset that it's
somehow related to younot studying hard enough or,
not being knowledgeable enoughin a failing on your part,
which is just a really difficultnarrative to kind of get
unstuck from.
Yeah, 100%.
(05:54):
Yeah.
All right.
Well, I'm so excited to chata little bit more
about your story.
And, but first, I would love tokind of for anybody who's in
that area who might be needingof your services, where can they
find you?
This is our shameless plug.
Put it out there so thatpeople can get your services.
Yeah, so they can find me at ww w Dot Sorenson and Family
(06:19):
services.com.
So that's my websiteand my practice.
Sorensen is spelled with e nnot o n just okay.
Does it clarify.
You can also find meon Psychology Today
if you want to read my profile.
If you search Rachel Sorensen,and you can see the different
therapy modalities Iuse, you can see,
(06:39):
information about some of myprevious experience
things like that.
So, those are perfect placesto find me.
Wonderful.
And we'll make sure all of thatgets linked in our show
notes as well.
So, if you didn't catch that,make sure to just click on down
and you'll be able to see itthere as well.
So what is this recipethat you're going
to be teaching me today?
Okay, so I cannot remember whereI originally found this recipe.
(07:04):
Like it's somethingI've just made for so long.
But I thought about itbecause I started making it
when I was living in California,getting my masters
in the program with you,University of San Diego.
And so it was something I madeall the time because, like,
I was living by myself, it hadlike, protein.
It was, you know, likegave me a lot of energy,
(07:26):
but it was really comforting.
And you can really customizeit a lot.
So like if you hadleftover things, which is always
easy to make.
So it's a, egg over cheesypolenta with veggies and pesto.
Okay.
Wonderful.
Well, I'm so excited.
I have not actually ever,I like to cook a lot, and so,
(07:49):
like, that's a that's a thingthat. So, but I have not
ever actually cooked it, so I'mexcited or.
I don't know if I've eventasted polenta, which is
really strange for me.
So I'm excited, but by itselfkind of bland.
But I use like, because it'sbland.
You can do anything you want,you know?
So it's like any seasoningor any toppings.
(08:11):
So it's very versatile.
It's very, satisfying.
Very cool.
Okay.
So can you get me started withsome of the steps that I'll be
doing here?
And then I'll get thingsgoing here while you and I
chit chat.
Yeah, that soundsgreat. So okay.
So you want to get youregg prepared first again?
Okay.
The things you need.
Ready for the egg.
And then, typically I make itjust over easy.
(08:34):
But if people also wantedto poach their egg or if
they wanted to, do it,like over hard or whatever,
you could do it lots ofdifferent ways.
Okay.
Fry the egg as per normaland then the polenta.
You can just followthe instructions on the box.
So I don't know if you didthe instant or the longer one.
(08:55):
But really you're justboiling water and then
mixing in the, corn grits,and then you're letting
that kind of simmer until itsoaks in, like rice and then the
veggies on the sideyou can season.
And I like this too,because if you have, like,
anything in your fridgefrom like the week before,
you can just kind of usewhatever you have.
Season or whatever you want.
(09:16):
And then at the endwe'll combine everything and
put some pasta on top.
Wonderful.
I can do that.
All right.
So while I get things going,I know one of the things that we
were going to chat abouttoday is you maybe had not
necessarily theI been jumping to we kind of
(09:36):
I've always dreamedof being a parent kind of
yeah I'm in it you know I've,I've done this that's I'm
ready to go kind of experienceand which is not necessarily
the traditional in thekind of again Beaver Cleaver
kind of way that it'sjust kind of expected your
(09:58):
you know, you haveyou have a uterus and so
you're going to have a babykind of deal and so I'd love to
hear a little bit aboutyour journey in kind of your
walk through in that regards.
Yeah.
So, so yeah, when youhad reached out, we were,
you know, talking about topics.
It occurred to me that, like,there's definitely
(10:19):
so many topics about parenting,like you talked about earlier
that are really importantto discuss, but something that
I had kind of gone through thebefore I'd gone through it
and had really not heard anyonespeak of it.
And then afterward, nowI hear about it all the time.
Like now that I talk about it,I hear other people
talking about it, which isinteresting.
And it's interesting.
(10:39):
So it is this ideaof like, really whether or not
to have children in general.
Okay.
To your point, or to whatyou reference.
So when I was liketo my early 20s, you know,
I think I was like, yeah, maybeI'll have kids, maybe I won't.
I don't think I ever had thissense of like, I think I know
(11:00):
there are some peoplethat feel like they are
really destined to be parents,like it is what they
have thought about wanted,you know, from a very young age
or younger age or it's somethingthey've always kind of
inherently known.
And I never had this,like strong feeling that
I would never have kids.
I did at a point think like,maybe I won't really have any.
(11:21):
I don't know if I want anyin general.
That was like my early 20s.
It was not really my focus.
I hadn't found a partner,so it was kind of this vague,
like someday I'll kind ofthink about it, you know, wasn't
really that that importantfeeling at the time.
You know, trying is not topof mind.
Yeah, not top of mind, you know,establishing my career.
(11:43):
I was in school,you know, dating.
It just wasn't, it wasn't like,oh, this needs to be decided
upon tomorrow.
So it's kind of neutralor ambivalent about it.
And then I met my now husbandand then, as you know,
when we met and we weretalking about, like, our future,
I could definitely see it.
(12:03):
I felt like, okay, like,he I would want to have children
with him like that.
I see our family,you know, picture
in my mind, like,this feels like this would
really be something like I want.
But again, it kind of felt like,oh, in the future, you know,
like when I'm when we're alittle older, like when we've
been married for a few years,like we'll kind of
(12:26):
talk about it, figure it out.
So it still didn'tfeel like this immediate
decision, I suppose. Yeah.
And then we got married inthe fall, right before
the pandemic, so we justslipped right on in there.
And when the pandemic hit,it's kind of our conversations
(12:46):
about it accelerateda little, like, what timeline
do we want?
You know, we maybe we don't wantchildren right now because
we might not be able to bein a hospital together,
like, so.
There was kind of this, I guess,more detailed discussion
about timeline.
And then with that.
So I'll go ahead, I apologize.
(13:07):
I'm just going to ask, like,is that a conversation that you
were having, having aheadof time in that detail?
Because I know you talked,you know, especially the work
that you do that sometimeshaving those conversations
that maybe you justhaven't had yet and now kind of
kids are already in the picture.
We're having to have some ofthese conversations, and I
(13:28):
and I feel like that's alwaysa toss up that I hear
with parents.
They're like, oh, this isconversations that we've had
before we got married or before,you know, we decided to really
kind of commit to one another.
And there's one that like,no, we didn't really have these
conversations until much laterin our relationship.
Yeah, that's a great question.
So we did talk about it before,getting engaged for getting
(13:52):
married.
And we both were on stage,like, yep, we want children
someday.
What we want to talk about inparallel conversations
was really the timeline.
Okay, I, I don't thinkwe really had a detailed
conversation about that prior.
And then once we were married,like even a couple months after
(14:13):
we were married, before thepandemic hit, we had a couple
conversations about it becausemy husband was ready
actually, right then waslike, ready pretty much about
marriage was like, okay, great,we got married.
Now we can move onto the next goal.
So the next one.
Yeah.
And I was the one who said,and we had the feeling
like we like we haven'treally had like
(14:34):
any newlywed time together.
Just the two of us.
Like I want to have that.
Like, that feels important.
And then we definitelygot that time with the pandemic,
like living together and beingtogether all the time, which is
really nice in terms ofthat goal.
But I think that's when I reallyhad to start looking at my own
(14:56):
kind of thought process on it,because then the pandemic kind
of simmer down.
We were vaccinatedand, so a lot.
And then.
Right, we had all thistime together.
So a lot of the thingsthat I thought were like, okay,
this is what I need.
And this is kind of whatI'm waiting for to
feel comfortable.
We would then to have theconversation again, and I would
(15:17):
just feel a lot of fear.
I would get this feelingof like dread, and I
didn't really understand it.
Like I did not really know,like, right.
I like in my mind,I thought I made this decision,
so I don't know.
I don't know why now.
I still have these like physicalreactions to it or why I feel so
(15:40):
concerned about it.
And, you know, in the back ofmy back of my mind.
But I guess the things that Iwas thinking were also
referencing what youmentioned, like, am I just
doing this because this is likethe expected next step, like,
is this actually what Ireally want to do?
Like have I have I only beenpicturing this because this
is what I'm kind of toldthat I should be doing next,
(16:03):
you know, not about my husband,but like societally,
you know, that that's likeyour natural progression.
Yeah.
Is that is that kind of weirdbecause I heard you mentioned
the words kind of fearand drive.
You know those are, those arebig words.
They're not just words for usto kind of gloss over.
Some people are curiouslike for you I know maybe not
(16:25):
in the moments, but maybeif you were kind of
looking back, are you ableto maybe, have some insight
now or awareness kind of.
What was what was thefunction of that, that you're
in that dread or where was itcoming from for you?
Yeah, I think so.
In retrospect, I thinkthe feeling came from that,
(16:48):
that like, hey, you haveyou don't have a lot of control
of like what channel you have.
If your body's physicallyhealthy during a pregnancy,
you know, if you're going to beeven be able to get pregnant
easily, like all of those thingsor things that like, you
(17:08):
don't really think aboutuntil it's time, right, to like
actually start trying tohave a child.
And so I think some of thefear was like, I just I'm not
going to have a lot of controlor a lot of certainty about
what's going to happento like me.
Will my child be healthy?
Like, I think I havesome parents who have that,
which I think all are normal.
(17:29):
I think most people thinkabout those things. Yeah.
But again, maybe don'tnecessarily talk about how
you think about that,like as you're trying to
get pregnant, you're likejust hopeful that
everything goes well.
And a lot of people,everything does go well.
But a lot of people, you heara lot of stories where things
don't go well.
And so, or there arecomplications or things that
(17:51):
were unexpected.
So I think some of my fearwas that, okay.
And I think my other fearthat I had kind of determine,
which is what led meactually deciding
to have a child, is thatI felt like I just didn't
know how I was goingto be able to manage everything.
Like I felt a really big senseof responsibility that,
(18:13):
you know, once you have a child,like they really are
your priority in a good way.
But they're my priorityand I'm paying attention
to them, and I'm really tryingto tend to all of their needs.
How am I going to, like,do anything else?
Like how am I going to jugglethe career?
How am I going to jugglethe household things
(18:33):
we need to do?
How am I going to make suremy husband and I still have time
for each other?
So it felt more like almostlogistical worries that
were kind of back.
And so then that's whatultimately led to my decision
to have a child, becausethose are all like solvable
problems, right?
Like those those actuallyhave more to do with, like,
(18:56):
how am I going to balanceeverything else?
Because I want to pay attentionto this child, then I want
to spend time with this child.
Okay.
Not like, oh, like they'regoing to get in the way
of all of these thingsthat I want to do.
So that makes sense.
Yeah.
So something it sounds likethat you were kind of
excited for.
And so therefore there was,you know, more motivation
(19:17):
to kind of maybe do a little bitmore of that problem solving
and saying, you know,this is something that maybe
I am interested in makingtime for and then spending
that focus on, and being ableto kind of say, maybe
it can be an and versus and,or it sounds like it's exactly
hit the nail on the headbecause I think, yeah.
(19:38):
And maybe it's because of havingI mean, again, I think there
is this societal pressure.
I think it's changing a little.
But I do think there's thissocietal pressure
or narrative thatlike, okay, you, you, you know,
you go to school and you goto school, you find someone
and you date and youget married, or you at
(19:58):
least find like a long timepartner, then you have children.
And like, those are your steps.
And so I also was just, I think,fearful of making a decision
that was just because of thatand that more from an
Intentional place.
Why was that something thatthat was so present?
(20:19):
As far as I don't want tomake this decision
because society tells me that'sthe decision I'm supposed to
make, is it sounds likeyou were kind of really
like fighting against thatand like, no, you know,
you're not going to tell mekind of what I'm going to do
with my life.
Yes.
And I will say that isa personality trait of mine.
(20:40):
I will say, I'm not shocked.
It's funny.
I actually hear you say thatbecause, yeah, that like,
adds up.
Yeah, I, I think it,I think that that well,
why I didn't want this.
And I think that if you decideto have a child, you are
deciding to take on whateverthat means, right?
Like you don't know what kindof personality your child is
(21:01):
going to have.
You don't know if they'll belike you.
You don't know if they'll belike your partner.
You don't know if they'llbe completely their own
individual.
Like you have no idea.
Right.
And so your yeah, your job,your in my perspective is that
your job is to guide teachlike expose them to things
in the world and really you'rejust kind of trying your best.
(21:24):
You're trying to teach themthese lessons and you hope that
they take them and that they runwith them. Right.
But you don't really havea lot of control over that.
And I think, I thinkthere are people that go
into parenthood becauseit's their next natural step.
Okay.
And like or and even and noteven just, just parenthood,
(21:45):
like they get marriedbecause it's the next
natural step and this is justthe timeline or.
Right, this is the timelinefor kids.
And other people are having kidsthat they know.
And so then you justhave kids because
the other peoplethat you know of your age
are having children, you know,and I don't I don't think
that that's like so conscious.
I don't think people arejust deciding like, oh, I'm
just going to do this, you know?
(22:05):
No. Thought.
Yeah.
And I do think there islike this keeping up
with the Joneses mentalitysometimes and that that's
just what you're supposed to do.
And then, you know, I'm,I just don't.
I feel like you'd be happier.
I know I was going to be happierif I knew all the reasons
I wanted to be a parentthat way.
(22:27):
Like, no matter what kind ofchild I had, no matter
what ended up happening,I was coming from like my values
based on it.
It wasn't just, oh, I knowother people right now that are
having kids.
And so I'm going to, youknow, start now.
That's why it was reallyimportant to me.
And I also think then,like parenting is hard.
So I think it's really easyto have a lot more resentment
(22:49):
of like a child or the thingsyou have to do if you weren't
really, like, fully committed atthe start.
Yeah, I imagine so, likeyou said, because sometimes
it does require some sortof sacrifice, whether it's sleep
or, whether it's time, money,you know, whatever that is,
(23:10):
there's there's some sort of,giving that we're doing
to a being that'sreally only doing
a lot of giving, not a wholeor a lot of taking, not a whole
lot of giving themselves rather.
And so, you know, there arereally hard decisions like
use it to be made. And so,there in I feel like for
(23:32):
most people, in orderto kind of really have that buy
in themselves, there needs to besome sort of like internal
motivation of like, okay,I understand maybe why
I did this or, you know,this decision that was made,
to kind of continue and,and bringing them
into the world, that's, that's,that's a lot to ask of a person.
And so I can honestlyappreciate where,
(23:54):
you know, that's not really fairto ask of someone who wasn't,
who wasn't willing or,you know, kind of
had that buy in.
Yeah, exactly.
So, so I will say somethingthat was super helpful.
So I mean, I did I feel like soI, so I had all these thoughts,
I had all these feelingsand I was like, you know,
I don't.
And my husband, you know,I love him.
(24:15):
He was so supportive.
He was obviously like abiased party because he's
because he's like, well,I want them, you know,
and like, I'm willing,I'm willing, you know, to wait
for your timeline if you give melike an actual timeline
or if that's not in the cardsfor us, like,
I just want to know, so thenwe can have, like, a different
outlook of what we're goingto do, but okay, know like what?
(24:37):
But having kind of like,this vague idea is not like
putting us on a page wherewe're having the same goals,
right?
Which is so valid.
So I was like, okay, right.
Like, I, I just keepspinning on this and spinning
on this decision, I don't know.
So I, you know, googledbecause that was what we all do.
So I was like, you know,what do you do when you
don't know if you want kids?
(24:59):
And there was like all thesedifferent articles and posts
and whatever.
But I came across this bookand I wish, I wish I could
put a banner with this book.
Like everywhere that everyonecould see, it's called the baby
decision.
Okay.
Do you know, do you knowwhich by.
Yeah.
Moral bombarded every therapistand the book actually came out.
(25:22):
The first version of the bookcame out in the very early 80s.
So it's been around a long time.
Oh, interesting.
And I haven't heard of that one.
I had never heard of it.
And so and I like, read thedescription of it and it was
basically like literallyspeaking to exactly what I was
struggling with.
Like, okay. Yeah.
(25:44):
If you, you know, thinkyou want children but don't know
when if you don't knowif you want to have
children yourselfor adopt or like, you're all of
the scenarios, read this book.
There are exercises.
See what kind of comes of it.
And so okay, great.
Every chapter had informationand it exercises
(26:07):
and every chapteryou could do it with yourself
or a partner.
Like both individually.
Both together.
Or just yourself.
Yeah. Okay.
Great.
It led to like so muchclarity about like, I do want
children.
I do have that as a value.
It's just this feeling,like I was mentioning
(26:27):
earlier, like, I don'tI don't know how I'm going
to balance everything.
I feel like I'm so responsiblefor this child I want.
I'm so it's so important to methat my child is growing
in a happy, healthy environmentthat I'm worried that,
like all these other demandsI have, are going to take
away from that.
(26:48):
And so it just led tolike, definitely an moment
where I was like, okay, like,I actually I really do
want this.
It's that I just don't knowwhat this is all going
to look like.
That feels very scary. Yeah.
And but really, likeif that wasn't a component,
then this wouldn't even belike a default choice.
(27:10):
Yeah.
So it sounds like for you, it'svery much some of that,
kind of playing into it,which I think is so super
duper valid because how manytimes a day do we
as human beings kind ofstray away from something
because it's unknown.
And so even though we're,you know, maybe deeply unhappy
(27:32):
or unsatisfied, we go, why,at least I know this.
I know what the end of the dayis gonna look like in this,
you know, unhappiness, ifyou will.
But choosing something differentor choosing to pursue
your happiness is is scarybecause you don't know what
the other side is gonnalook like.
Yeah, like you said, it's like,even if it's uncomfortable
(27:57):
or, like, even if it'suncomfortable what you're doing,
you still have the comfort of,like, knowing what to expect.
Yeah.
So it right.
It's it is kind oflike how do you push yourself to
do something that youknow, you want and you're
just not going to knowthe outcome?
I think that's true for a lotof people, a lot.
To your point, like inyour career, in like where you
(28:21):
decide to move, where you goto school, like all those
decisions.
I feel like it's really similar.
You could apply that toa lot of things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that was really helpful.
And I, I will say I stillthink about like that book
or the decision, like evenafter making it because
there like you mightlike we talked about parent
(28:42):
parenting is hard.
Like especially right now I'm inthe trenches.
I'm certainly not sleepingright now.
We're like in a little bitof a spirit of something
or other, whatever.
You can look onlineand there's like 3000 reasons,
right?
Every day we even that like,who knows what your actual child
is, right?
Yeah. You know,you know nothing.
I have no information.
Don't know why it's happening.
(29:03):
Whatever.
But I like at the end of the dayor like in some of those
tough moments, I always comeback to like, okay, I know
this is really hard,but, like this that I guess
I have comfort in, like,this is so like the decision
I wanted, like, this is thistough moment, but like, this is
(29:23):
something that is reallyimportant to me.
Like caring for her is reallyimportant to me, even if this is
a really tough like day or weekor whatever.
So I feel like it doesprovide me with this anchor.
Certainty, at least in like whatI am doing and why it's like I
depending on, you know, howshe's doing.
(29:46):
Because I was I mean,they're growing so fast
and they change so much, likeevery day is so variable and.
Yeah, like, so dependent on toif you depended everything
on that, like you would notyou couldn't handle it.
That was like so challenging.
Can you say a little bitmore about that?
Because I think that's reallyvaluable to, you know,
you mentioned a coupletimes here kind of that
(30:07):
value driven, you know,way of thinking, you know, when
reflecting on these reallytough times, as a parent, like,
can you say more about thatand more about why for
you, you found that it's beenmaybe more helpful in overcoming
some of those times versus,like you said, if it's purely
(30:29):
just for them, driven,if that makes sense.
Yeah. It does. So so like mylike even before having her
family is really importantto me.
Like having having astrong family unit,
having a family that likeshows care and love for one
another and is kindto one another like that's
so important to me.
(30:50):
And then having, you know,and deciding to have a child,
I wanted to have a childto add a member to our family.
Right.
Not not with the expectationof, like, they're going
to follow this littleformula and like, everything
they do is going to be so easyand smooth and perfect
all the time.
Like you logically know thatthat's not the case.
(31:10):
But since I had madethis decision based on
my knowing, I wanted tolike, guide a child
and support them and show thema lot of love and care
and like, that'smy ultimate goal.
And when these toughmoments happen that I'm not,
(31:31):
I guess I'm not expecting herto like act in a certain way
in order for like myself to feelsatisfied. Right.
Like I'm not thinking,okay, well I'll only feel better
if she, you know, does X or likeeverything will be peaceful
if she just did Y, you know,because that's just not true.
(31:51):
It's just not truebecause you just can't expect
that, especially for her age,you can't expect that
really, of, like, any childof any age.
When that could be saidfor any human right.
Like if you're saying I canonly succeed, I can only
move forwardif this other person
just kind of gets theiract together, or if you will,
(32:11):
you're going tobe waiting around a really
long time because humans are.
I see it all the time.
Humans are fickle creatures.
Yes.
So which is a good thingthat I think that's how
it helps me, because in timeswhere like, for example,
these last three nights,she has gone to bed and she's
(32:32):
been waking up
at like 10 (32:32):
00 for, I don't know, no reason.
She just waking up.
She won't reallygo back to sleep unless you
pick her up and rocker for like,ten minutes, and then she'll
go back to bed.
But if you leave her,she's just like, protest.
She's just, like, uncomfortable.
I don't know why.
Maybe it's time.
Maybe she has a cold coming.
Like it could be a thousandthings.
(32:54):
Right? Yeah.
And so that's tough.
Like mentally that's tough.
You you're like, you alreadyput her sleep.
You're thinking you havesome independent,
like, alone time.
You're getting ready.
And she like knows my headlike hits the pillow.
And then she startscrying, you know, like they're,
they like, have a sixth sense.
Like.
Yeah.
And so sad because I knowlike in those moments
(33:17):
I'm like, oh like okay.
Deep breath I like she's goingthrough something like
I don't know what she's goingthrough.
She's having a hard timeand I want, I wanted to
have a child to like help themand show them love.
Right.
And like, I really this is whyI did this.
And so, yeah, you have todo that in moments
(33:39):
that are hard.
Not just moments that are easy.
You know, it's like easy to likegive love to a child
when they're like laughingand like playing with you
and talking to you.
You know, she's not there yet.
But like, when all that happensand they're like giving you hugs
and they're like, telling youthey love you.
Yes, you can like, love a childvery easily.
(34:00):
In those moments, it's harder tostay calm and remember that
that's like who you'redealing with when they're
having a hard time.
Like they are struggling,they're crying, they're upset.
It's not that you don'tlove them in those moments,
but it's just hard to put asidesometimes.
Like the immediate frustration.
(34:21):
Yeah, you're kind oflong term value.
And so that's where it helps me,because there's never been
a question now ever sinceI made that decision of like,
why am I doing this?
Or like, oh, this isso annoying.
Like, I should like,maybe I made the wrong decision,
you know, like I never havethose doubts, which I think
even having those kinds ofthoughts is normal.
(34:43):
I'm not saying it's not, butI just feel like I have a more
centered view of it, whichI think for me it makes things
easier when it's already tough.
Yeah, absolutely.
I would love to kind of circleback to that before, before
you did make that decisionto move forward in kind
(35:05):
of expanding your family.
And, you know, I'm reallycurious, did you, when you were
vacillating and going,I don't know if this is
really my value.
And something that I want to do.
Is it just because, you know,I'm feeling maybe that
external pressure where thereparticular ways for you
(35:27):
and your kind of journeythat you were feeling,
maybe some of that externalpressure of, like you said,
that this is this is the wayit's supposed to go, that like
what sources of externalpressure I maybe felt.
Yeah.
Like where was that?
Do you do you know, likewhere was that coming from?
Or like what was helping kind ofcreate that narrative for you?
(35:50):
Yeah, I think, I think there wasa little external pressure
that maybe it turned intointernal pressure.
Like people around mestarting to have children,
like friends of mine,some family members
where it kind of felt like,okay, if I want a child of ours
to be raised alongside some ofthese people, oh, gotcha.
(36:14):
You know, to kind of havesimilar ages like this would be
potentially at the time.
But I also think, like I'mfrom the Midwest and I do think,
you know, I'm sure it'sdifferent depending on
where you grow up in theUnited States.
But in the Midwest, it's prettytypical that like you do
follow this natural progression.
(36:35):
Like you, you go to school,you get a job, you get married,
you find a house,you have a kid.
Like there's your those are yoursteps, like in sequence.
And I really don't know.
Honestly, I anyone from herethat, like, has not
really followed that trajectory.
(36:57):
Like within my circle,which obviously could be like
some skewed data.
Yeah.
So like you can't really saywhich came first, but it just it
is kind of to me, it seems likethis assumption that you're
just going to and oncewe got married, I mean, people
ask you about it allthe time, like, when are you
(37:17):
gonna have kids?
When are you gonna have kids?
No one ever really asks.
You like, do you guys wantto have kids?
Like, are you planningon having kids and even that?
Like, I don't know,people have to ask regardless.
But the fact that they askin general kind of shows
like there's this assumptionthat you're going to it's
just like when or what'sgoing to happen with it
(37:39):
versus assumptionthat like, okay, will you
get married and maybeyou'll live childfree,
maybe you won't live childfree like maybe you're right,
maybe you'll adopt.
Maybe you'll do something else.
Like there's really notan inherent discussion
about that.
So like that kind of givesthe vacuum some pressure
(37:59):
where it's like, right.
There's an assumption that it'shappening.
There is no conversationabout like, have you
thought about whether or notyou want kids?
Like, what are youthinking about with that?
How are you making thatdecision?
Like, it's not it doesn't gettalked about, I guess, as if
it's an active decision.
It gets talked about like that'sjust happening.
It's is the next thingyour future.
(38:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which I think whichlike I mentioned before,
the interesting thing is likewhen I started talking
to a lot of my friendsabout like struggling with this
decision and not being surea lot of them were like,
yeah, I've like I've hadsimilar doubts.
I thought similar things.
And like, nobody ever, nobodymentions it because it's just
it's like not in the the lineof communication.
(38:44):
Yeah.
Do you think had itbeen reframed that way, like you
said, of, hey, you know,what have your guys's thoughts
been on the kind of familyplanning?
Is that something that you guysare discussing?
Is that kind of oh, you know,that's not where we're going.
Would that have one beenreceived?
(39:05):
Well, do you think for youand then two, would that
do you think have changedkind of that feeling of
external pressure becauseyou think, you know, hopefully
other folks that are maybe havehave potential parents or people
that are kind ofin that same time frame
as you were in their livesand you think that's such
helpful?
(39:26):
Information for them ofhow can we support from a way
that doesn't necessarilyput that external pressure?
Because I don't know thatanybody necessarily goes
into it going, I'm askingthese questions to be intrusive
or to be pressuring.
However, like you saidmany times, that is kind of just
where our mind goesand it comes out that way,
(39:48):
and it does kind of put thiskind of construct
on what your life maybe ought tolook like.
Yeah, yeah, I think,I think I would have received it
well because I think itit opens up the conversation.
Well, it opens it upwhere it's normal for you
to think about it.
Right.
Like, okay, the whole themeof what we're talking about,
like normalizing things.
(40:09):
If someone had askedyou, asked us or asked me
like, oh, what are you thinking?
For, you know, your futurefamily, are you thinking
of having children?
Are you thinking of livinglike childfree?
You know, say somethinglike you've given thought to.
Then I think it would havethe next line or opening
is like, oh yeah, likewe haven't talked about it.
(40:30):
I'm not sure I'm trying to makethe decision.
You know, it would have led toprobably more honest
conversation versuswhen the question is like,
oh, when are you guyshaving kids?
Like, are you trying yetagain, these to your point,
I think it's all lot ofand actually kind of excitement.
Like people are excitedand hoping you have, you know,
another family memberthat they get to love on
(40:51):
and like it's it comes fromsuch a good, kind hearted place.
But it happens.
It leaves this assumptionthat you've already decided
you're going to have them.
It's a matter of when.
And so the conversationjust starts off, I think, from a
more closed spot.
Because then you feel like,oh, well, if I say
I'm doubting it, does that meansomething is wrong with me?
(41:13):
Does that mean like, are peoplegoing to assume they're like,
maybe I'm not really going to bea great mom because I didn't
go into it, liketotally knowing, you know,
I wasn't someone who is like100% positive.
So is that going to be seenas good or bad?
You know, like ifyou decide to go, if you decide
to move forward, that that couldbe kind of, you know,
(41:34):
the judgment later.
Yeah.
Or like we're just like,it's on.
And again, that might bemore internal, but like
because the assumption isthat you're going to do it
if internally you were unsure.
What is that say about you.
You know, like what doesthat mean. Yeah.
And then right.
Does that mean like you are notgoing to be as good of a parent
(41:56):
or does that mean that,you know, there's like
something wrong that you didn'tknow ahead of time that that
was like exactly whatyou wanted?
So, yeah.
So I think it wouldI think I would have received
that.
Well, and I think if peopletalked about it
more in that way, I think peoplecould come to those decisions
(42:17):
possibly faster, because I thinkit took me a while to decide
because I was kind of on my own,you know, with some of my
husband's support, but a littlebit on my own thinking about,
like, what I wanted to dowithout really knowing
other people or even strugglingwith that, or that other people
would have had doubts too,and that it's okay
to have doubts.
That doesn't mean anything morethan did you have any kind
(42:41):
of narrative for yourselfthat your brain was trying
to kind of convince you?
I have, if you will,if you had come to the
decision of, I don't know if Ido, maybe, maybe my
answer is no.
You know, was there somethingthat was kind of keeping
you from, from going thereor that, you know, your brain
was kind of telling you,if I did say no, this is what
(43:04):
I would say or mean about me.
I, I think personally,I wouldn't have felt that had
I wouldn't have feltlike anything was wrong
with that decision.
For myself, I think I, I thinkthe narrative more so
would have been like,what are maybe other people
(43:25):
going to think about it like,is there going to be
external judgmentfor it, or people going
to understand that decision?
That, yeah, I feel like it wasmore of the narrative is like,
are people going to look at thisas if this was like not the
right decision?
I think other I feel likesometimes too, I hear I heard
(43:47):
this myself, but I, I'vejust heard it anecdotally
through other people thatlike some people say, oh,
like what if you regret itif you like, didn't you know,
if you don't have themand then you wait too long,
it's like, okay, again,like the feedback could be
that I'm like making a mistakewith like an intentional
decision.
(44:08):
And like unfortunate.
I mean, unfortunately, like,you would never know, you know,
if you'd regret it or not,but like that feedback
from people, I guess,just doesn't that doesn't
lend itself to you feeling like,confident in your choice.
So that's more so what Iwould have been concerned of.
That there would have beena narrative that I was like
making a mistake from externalparties.
(44:31):
Yeah.
And I almost I was like,kind of again, going back to
this idea of is it a choicefor you or is it it's already
kind of written for you and youreally have no say.
And I can imagine if if itfeels that way, that's I mean,
I don't know anybodywho likes to feel
kind of powerless in decisions,especially when it comes to
(44:53):
their own life and somethingthat's so permanent, like
a parent becoming a parent.
Yeah.
Well, and I think that's whyit also felt so important to me
because I'm like,there is no like, yeah.
Like, you know, you can'treturn them.
Like there's nothing you can do.
Like you have.
This is your life that you'rechoosing to set.
So it just felt so importantto me because I'm like,
(45:15):
there's no other choice that youcan't change, like in your life
that you make like,you can change your job.
You could change your partnerlike you could.
You could change where you live.
Like everything is reallytotally up to you.
But once you have a child,that's your child.
And like, that's your joband you've you've decided to
take on this role.
(45:37):
And I'm so happy I'm inthat role now.
I'm happy I came tothat decision.
It's been so rewarding even withits challenges.
But I don't think I would havefelt the same if I had just
gone into it without reallybeing methodical about it
and a little on some of that'smy personality.
But I also think, again,it's given me they gave me
(45:59):
a lot of clarity beforehandto kind of whether like
all the things that I couldn'tcontrol afterward, I so maybe,
it sounds like maybe ableto kind of get to some of that,
you know, quote unquote radicalacceptance, maybe a little bit
easier because there was a lotmore of you in that decision
(46:21):
than maybe everyone else.
It sounds like.
Yeah.
And I think it's good toclarify, like we're in a I feel
like we're in an age where you,you can really do a lot like,
you have a lot of jobflexibility.
You can move wherever you wantif you want to.
Like there's I thinkpeople just have a lot
(46:41):
more exposure to like differentoptions, which I think is great,
but also because of that,like you have all these options
or you could like do thistraditional route or, you know,
you could do somethingin the middle.
And I think it's justgood for people to get
clarity on, like whatthey really want their life
to look like because theydo have all these options, which
(47:03):
doesn't mean like, again,like, I, I kind of did choose
that whole path of likeget married and not have
the kids, like I did that, butI didn't do it just because
that's kind of what was assumed.
You know, I really I did itbecause I really know that
that's what I wanted.
Yeah. So yeah.
So I hope that that helpspeople and, you know, again,
(47:25):
I think it's somethingit seems like a lot more people
are thinking about now,especially with timelines
of having kids or like, right.
You can also just have one kid.
You don't have to havemultiple kids.
You know, things like that'sa whole different conversation.
Me but you know, so I thinkit's just helpful,
hopefully that people can seethat there's a lot of ways
to getting to a decision.
(47:46):
There's not like this one BeaverCleaver route.
Absolutely.
And again, that normalizing itand that if the answer is
no, how can we maybe havea little bit more of that, that
compassion and that, you know,acceptance that we all have
to make these decisions,like you said, for ourselves.
(48:07):
And it's really not fairto kind of put our own
expectations on somebody elsewhen we're asking them
to make kind of these lifealtering decisions
or their life.
Yeah, absolutely.
And and if I mean, I thinkthere are more people
now that are deciding tolive childfree and there's
(48:29):
just nothing wrong with that.
Like if people want to focustheir goals on other things,
they also might like be in theseother roles where they can work
with children or bewith children.
It doesn't have to be havingyour own children, like you
could work in a schooland be around children
all the time and not want yourown children, you know.
Or maybe you want a child,but you're not ready right now.
(48:49):
And biologically,like time wise, it doesn't work.
So you adopt at a later time,you know, like, I think just
even the time pressure isso much, you know, it's got to
be within, you know, bya certain time.
So that doesn't work for people.
Like there are alternativesto that don't mean like the door
is always it's either openor shot.
You know, there's a lot of.
(49:10):
Yeah, yeah.
And that maybe it justdoes require some of
that creativity like youwere mentioning of what
it looks like.
And maybe it doesn't look likethe Johnsons, as you mentioned.
And that's totally okay.
You get to kind of createyour own life in your own family
in whatever way that looks like.
Yeah, exactly.
(49:30):
That's really cool.
Yeah.
Is there anything kind ofyou're in this last minute
that if you couldkind of go back
and tell yourself or tellany other folks that are maybe,
in that position, I knowyou've already offered quite
a bit of that for anything elsethat you would kind of offer
to someone or offer toyourself back then.
Yeah, I think I would have justapproached it sooner.
(49:52):
I think that like in my mind,you know, I have all this time
and I'll just like figureit out later.
But that kind of was like a cluethat maybe I was avoiding it
a little because I thinkthat, like with most things
in my life, if I have a decisionto make, like, I'll just make
the decision.
Like I don't think thatit's like I never make choices.
(50:15):
So then okay with this one,since it like I kind of kept
putting it on the backburner,putting on the backburner.
I think that was a clue thatI should, like, kind of turn
toward it and I keepturning away from it.
I would have gotten thatbook sooner, and then I would
have talked to other timespeople about it sooner, too,
because I thinkI started talking to people
about it when I wasreally in the thick of like,
(50:37):
what do I do?
I'm sure, but I could havetalked about it like even
just asking people what theywere thinking for themselves.
And like, I could have donethat, you know, way before.
So probably just beingmore vulnerable about it before
I was that I probably wouldhave given myself that advice.
I love it.
Well, I appreciate you so much.
(50:58):
Thank you for sharingthat with us.
I know I've got all myall my pieces and you've got
kind of a, bready,kind of toasty, crunchy bread,
that you've put on your list.
How how do I construct this?
There's I've got all my pieces.
I put it together, and you putthe polenta in your bowl
first, okay?
(51:19):
And then you put the eggand the veggies on top.
Perfect.
With the pesto sauceon top of the whole thing.
Well, I'll boil, drizzlein the bottom.
Yeah.
And then the toast is for youto just, like, dip and eat
some of the polenta egg mixall together.
Wonderful.
Well, I'm super excitedto try this.
(51:40):
Thank you so muchfor sharing this with me
and your story.
I think that such valuableinformation and like you said,
a conversation that thatneeds to happen more often
because there are it is a verybig decision with, with life
altering kind ofconsequences and,
and normalizing that it's okayto kind of have, like you said,
(52:02):
some of those strugglesand not be like, oh, yes,
this is exactly, you know what?
I want my life.
All of those variantsand those grays like you
mentioned are, are okay.
And it doesn't mean that there'sit makes you any
less of a person.
I think that's hugely valuable.
So thank you so muchfor being willing to share
that with us and being onour show today.
(52:24):
Yeah, you're so welcome.
I'm so happy to have beena part of it.
Thank you so much.
Yes.
Well, thank you everyone fortuning in today.
We'll see you next time.
And if you or anyonethat you know is struggling
with any of the topics that wediscussed in today's episode,
make sure to check outour show notes for support
and resources.
(52:44):
You can get help.
Thanks again for joining uson today's episode of
The Real Family.
Eat.
If you're a parent readyto share your real life
parenting story, make sure toreach out to us and our website
found in the show notes.
And that goes for today's recipesocial media's support
and resources.
All of that can be foundin our show notes,
(53:06):
so make sure to check them outand make sure to follow, like,
share, subscribe, and stayup to date on all things
the real Family Eats.
I hope you'll join us next timefor more food for thought
and thoughtful food.
Enjoy your eats!
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