@DrWendyWalsh is talking the relationship with Simone Biles and her estranged mother. (09/01) Hour 1
September 2, 2024 • 31 mins
Dr. Wendy is talking the relationship with Simone Biles and her estranged mother. The Students are healing and you can strengthen your happiness too. Dr. Wendy is telling you how. There is hottest bachelor to ever touch the franchise. It's all on KFIAM-640!!!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty the Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome to the Doctor Wendy Wall
Show on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. If you're new to my show, I'm a
psychology professor at cal State Channel Islands. Can you believe
we don't have school tomorrow. We just started. We just
(00:22):
had one day of classes and now we have a
holiday Labor Day weekend. So students you're listening, you have
two weeks of homework to do. Okay, get those chapters read.
But I am a little bit obsessed with the science
of relationships. My dissertation was on attachment theory. And in
the news this week is the fact that Olympian Simone
(00:46):
Bile's birth mother, Shannon, is now talking to the media
and saying that she wants to have a relationship with
her daughter. She was not at the Paris Olympics. Shannon
was four thousand miles away. She basically is living, as
(01:07):
she calls it, in a world of hurt, feeling like
she's been rejected by her daughter. If you don't know
the backstory. Simone or Shannon. The mother lost custody of
Simone and her sister into foster care when Simone was
just three years old, and then she and her sister
were eventually adopted by their grandfather, Shannon's dad. But Force
(01:30):
hold the fort here. There's also two other kids that
were adopted by their aunt, so that would be Shannon
the mom's sister. But in total, but Shannon the mother,
who struggled with addiction for years, actually has a total
of eight children, so it's not clear who raised some
(01:50):
of them or botht of them, but we know that
four of them at least were raised by her father
and her sister, one of those being Simone Biles. They
have not talked, they have not seen each other. The
Apparently the birth mom gets news of Simone over the
years through her dad, but her dad says it wasn't
(02:14):
healthy for her to be in touch. So Simone biles mother,
instead of calling her daughter or writing a letter, calls
the Daily Mail and this is what she told them.
I want to let her know that I love her.
I'm very proud of her, you know, but I'm just
(02:34):
still waiting, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I would like to sit down and talk to you,
answer any questions you may have.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Now, I want to be clear about something. When someone
struggles with addiction, especially for decades as this woman did,
the brain can change. There could be all kinds of
reasons why she's for her daughter to reach out. Interestingly enough,
(03:05):
this interview went viral online and one of Simone's other
sisters also spoke out on TikTok defending her mother. Listen
to this.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I want to come to this internet and defend my
mom because she might not be everything that we expect
it for her to be, but at the end of
the day, she's still a work in progress.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And we give her that. So yes, the big question
is if one is estranged from their parent, or their
child or another family member, is it a good idea
to search for reconciliation. I should tell you that this
(03:50):
is a fairly common situation. One nationally representative study showed
that twenty seven percent of Americans are actively estranged from
at least one family member. That's almost one in three Americans.
So this is very very common. Now, let's talk about
(04:11):
who is more likely to be estranged from a family member.
One study found that six percent of respondents reported estrangement
from their mother, while twenty six percent reported estrangement from
their father. So more often people are rejecting a father. Also,
(04:34):
white adult sons, they're the ones more likely to be
given the cold shoulder and not talking to mom. Black
sons and daughters in this particular study were both more
likely to be estranged from their fathers and less likely
to be estranged from their mothers. Now Also, members of
the LGBTQ plus community were more likely to be estranged
(04:57):
from their fathers than their heterosexual appears. Fully, thirty two
percent of gay or lesbian adult children thirty six percent
of bisexual adult children have reported estrangement from their fathers. Okay,
so why what does the research say? What are the
most common reasons that people are just saying that's it,
(05:17):
you're not allowed in my life. The most common reasons
cited in the research have to do with abuse, and
that abuse could be emotional, physical, or sexual. In the
case of LGBTQ plus children, it is about coming out
to their religious parents.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
So it is.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Religiary religiosity that creates the final straw. So what does
the research say about getting back together? Can people reconcile well,
the good news is yes, one in three, almost one
in three Americans aren't talking to some family member at
this point. But the research suggests that very few of
(06:00):
these estrangements are permanent. In fact, there are many studies
that show that there are periods of estrangement are often
followed by periods of reconciliation. So how do you reconcile? Well,
according to therapists, it's all about helping the parent take responsibility.
(06:23):
Some therapists work with parents to help them write a
letter to the child that they have wronged. They want
the parent to be able to say things like, it's
clear I have some significant blind spots as a person
and a parent, and I don't have a better understanding
of what caused this, or maybe the parent can simply
say I'm sorry I let you down. Simone Bile's mother,
(06:50):
I don't know if she's ready to say this, if
she's written a letter, if she's done anything to try
to contact Simone. But if you look at just her interview,
it implies that she's just waiting for the phone call
from her daughter, and I think it should come the
other way around. I do want to say that not
every relationship needs to be reconciled. You know, friends are
(07:14):
the family you choose, and working with a licensed therapist
who's empathetic can help you get reparented, get the love
and the warmth and acceptance that you might have missed
out on in childhood. I'm very sorry if any of
you are going through this, Kayla. We should try to
(07:36):
get Simone Bile's mother, Shannon on the show because she
seems to be wanting to do media, because I'm really
curious to know if she's reached out to her. Yes,
I'm definitely going to be working on that. Okay, great,
all right, when we come back, guess what are teenagers?
Their mental health are finally starting to get better. I'm
noticing it in the college classroom. By the way, let
me explain when we get back. You are listening to
(07:57):
the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on k I AM six
meters already live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
AM six forty, live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. So,
if you're a parent, you probably worry like I did
and do about the impact of what happened during COVID
to our kids. Now, most of the stuff you're hearing
about is this delay in learning, right, because let's be honest,
(08:34):
ume learning is not the same, especially for the younger kids.
We were so worried. But I remember during COVID. When
I say COVID, I mean when we were on lockdown
and we were doing our radio shows from our kitchen table.
I had a psychiatrist on the show and she predicted
something very interesting. She predicted that the younger kids not
(08:57):
only would be least impacted by going on zoom and
being stuck at home, but that they might benefit from it.
And I'm thinking, like, what do you mean? Now? What
you should know is there's a huge range of developmental
milestones intellectually with kids. It's not that one is smarter
(09:19):
than the other when they're five or six years old.
Some of them just aren't ready yet. In fact, there
is a whole school of thought amongst the homeschool moms
that you shouldn't even begin to teach a kid how
to read until age seven or eight. So if there
is a kid who's younger and who's reading they could
easily be doing that and the other ones by the
(09:40):
time they get back in the classroom. They're now all
being taught together at the same time and everybody's ready.
So you could say that for many kids, that the
younger ones I'm talking about kindergarten, first, second, third grade,
I think third grade, second and third of the big
reading years, right, that it might not be so much
(10:00):
of a problem. But the other thing the psychiatrist said
which really hit home for me, is that younger children
need more than anything their parents. They need to have
a secure attachment, they need to have consistent caregivers. They
need to have people around them at home, a tribe
not shuttled around to day carees and schools and after
(10:23):
school programs and just moved around while parents worked. And
this psychiatrist, I think it was doctor Eva Ritfoe from Miami,
said that many of these young children would hugely benefit.
So we also know that teenagers probably wouldn't do well.
(10:44):
You know what I say to Mike, I have been saying,
We've been back in the classroom for what two years
now or something two and a half years. I can't
keep track. It's like Rip Van Winkle Town with this
COVID time, but I always ask them every year, can
you remind me what years were you on zoom? Like,
what school years did you miss out on? And at
(11:04):
the beginning, of course, they would say eleventh and twelfth.
Then they started to say tenth and eleventh, and then
they started to say ninth and tenth, right, And I
could see that those students had lost a lot socially.
My joke, it's just a joke, folks, but it makes
the students laugh that I say every year, wait a minute,
(11:27):
you were supposed to be out kissing boys and smoking weed.
What were you doing sitting in your room scrolling through
social media? That's not good for your mental health, right,
And they all laugh. I noticed that those students soon
after COVID had social issues. They were extremely shy, They
had a lot of social anxiety. I would put them
(11:49):
into discussion groups. I'd step out to go to the
bathroom and come back and the whole group would just
be staring at their phones. It was silence in a
discussion group. Right. Well, I'm really excited to tell you
that I taught last week two different classes of freshmen,
and again I said, what year were you guys on zoom,
(12:09):
and they all said eighth grade. And I'm like eighth grade.
And these kids didn't seem to be as mentally impacted
as the other ones. So maybe doctor Eva Ritvau was right.
The younger the better because they're home, or they're still
their primary attachment figures, are still their family of origin. Right. Anyway,
(12:32):
it was a delight to teach all you guys, if
you're listening. We broke into discussion groups. I had to
calm everybody down. The room got so loud. Isn't that great?
They were all talking to each other. This is, you know,
my little non endorsed analytical study. It's just me. Okay,
nothing official about that study, but I feel I'm feeling
it all right, So let me tell you this. The
(12:57):
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released to report this
week that says that young people are faring better in
their mental health in the past few years after a
period of increased sadness and hopelessness. This is what I
have been witnessing. The data released last week showed a
(13:17):
two percent decrease from twenty one to twenty three in
high school students reporting they felt sad or hopeless. That
meant it dropped from oh I'm sorry forty two percent
to forty percent. I'm sorry, teenagers, forty percent of you
are still feeling sad and hopeless. I want to say something.
Can we normalize sadness amongst teenagers? I remember locking myself
(13:37):
in the bathroom with those rushes of hormones when I
was fifteen years old and just crying for no reason
and being so confused about it. I think depression is
a normal part of I don't know, maybe not. Anyway,
this study showed that the most meaningful improvements were among
marginalized groups. Now, you got to remember it wasn't so
(13:59):
long long ago that the US Surgeon General issued a
health advisory that highlighted the impact of social media and
isolation on young people as well. But I think we
are seeing an increase in mental health partly because of
the return to in class learning and also the return
to all those extracurricular activities, all the sports and clubs
(14:22):
and everything. This is what improves mental health. I want
to remind you across the board the number one thing.
It's not what you eat, it's not how you exercise,
it's not how you sleep. All that's important, but The
number one thing above all of those that improves our
mental health are healthy social relationships. It's people, and it's
(14:45):
about being around people that is good for our health.
And I think the kids are finally out there. I
do want to say that looking at some of the
other research that's come out, kids with an above average
household income said the pandemic had a positive impact on
(15:09):
family relationships. However, that was about sixty four percent. Only
thirty four percent of kids with a below average household
income experienced a positive impact of family relationships. Duh, because
the parents were still working. We're talking about essential workers
who were still out there working by the hour and
(15:31):
coming home stressed because they were in masks and gloves
and face shields and dealing with cantankerous, anxiety ridden customers.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Of course, the high income households had kids who improved
because their mom and dad could work on zoom and
be at home with them. Kids need their parents. Hey,
when we come back, how about some news on how
we can all learn to strengthen our happiness muscle. All
from a new book written by a UCLA psychiatry professor.
(16:03):
I want to be Happy.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Did
you know that happiness or optimism versus pessimism is partly genetic?
They say that about fifty percent of whether we're generally
a happy person or a curmudgeon has to do with
(16:33):
our genes, and then about ten percent has to do
with our economic situation. The research shows that people who
are below the poverty liner in living in poverty and
then move into the middle class get the biggest boost
in happiness related to economics. However, people who move from
(16:55):
the middle class to the upper middle class or the
upper middle class into the healthy don't get a new
boost of happiness. Think about it. Now, they have to
keep up with the Joneses. Now, it's very competitive. They
have to worry about their image right, and they have
to worry about paying for all those bills. In fact,
there's research to show that it is the upper middle
(17:16):
class who are most unhappy when it comes to social
class consciousness because they're pretending they're rich and they have
a lot of big bills to keep up that thing anyway.
Bigger point here is that forty percent of happiness is
all about us, what we do and what we think.
(17:36):
A new book out by doctor Jenny Taits at UCLA
is called Stress Resets, How to Sue Your Body and
Mind in Minutes, and she has a prescription for how
all of us can learn to strengthen our happiness muscle,
and some of it has some very interesting exercises in it.
(17:57):
So one of the things she suggests is simply to
plan a happy activity every day and don't put it off.
Make it a priority on your schedule. Right. So it
might be something like, you know, treating yourself to a
favorite snack, taking a break to read a few pages
(18:18):
of a juicy novel you've wanted to read, facetiming a friend.
For me, it's often like if I'm working at my
computer at home and I'm feeling like I'm not getting
enough bright sunlight, my happy thing is always to just
go outside for a brisk walk in the bright sunlight,
(18:38):
and that's my treat and I do it when I
hit on things like hit numbers on my to do list, right,
I always make sure there's a reward in it for me.
The other thing is we have to learn to become
more aware of the good things that happen and take
time to focus on them. Great example, as you know,
(19:00):
and I'll keep talking about it for an entire year,
right right, Kayla, I can talk about it for a
whole year. That's what I say. Okay, I got married
a few weeks ago. And there is a tendency things
happened with weddings. Right. A friend of mine warned me
about this. She goes there will be people who will
say yes, yess, I'm coming at the last minute, don't come,
and there could be very legitimate reasons why they don't come,
and you can feel very disappointed. There can be people
(19:22):
who leave early. They can be all kinds of things
that happen, and it's really easy to focus on the letdowns.
But every time Julio says something like oh I wish
my friend so and so could have made it and
they were working or something, I always say, don't spend
one second talking about what wasn't at our wedding or
(19:44):
who wasn't at our wedding. Only focus on who was
at our wedding, like producer Kayla for instance, who was
there like the whole time. In fact, she was there
an extra day and night because her plane got canceled,
so we had a treat of getting to have her
at our house for I had to treat that farm
is to die for. It was amazing that we got
to keep you for an extra day and spend that
(20:05):
time together. One of the other things that doctor Tates,
I hope I pronounced it way right. It's t ai
t z sure sounds like Tates to me. Doctor Tates
suggests is that we work hard to expand our joy vocabulary.
Many of us struggle to give names to good feelings.
(20:27):
We'll say fine, or that's good or that's great. But
how about that you learn to use greater emotional language
when it comes to positivity, like oh my god, I
went on this walk it felt so serene. Or I
was listening to music in my earphones and it just
I felt so elated. It was exhilarating when I hit
(20:49):
that cold water and went for a swim. Oh, I
was so delighted when he called. You know, whenever I
talked to you, it inspires me so much. You hear
those words serene, exhilarated, delighted, inspired, Those are really cool
positivity words, and we need to practice them and insert them,
insert them into our vocabulary more often. But here's the
(21:12):
other thing. You know what people say to you, how's
it going, How's your day going? Right, even if it's
the cashier at Trader Joe's. I fully am convinced by
the way that they give all their employees before hiring
a Meyers Briggs personality test, and they only hire extroverts.
Have you ever met a cashier at Trader's Joe's who
does not chit chat chit chat chit chat And they'll
(21:32):
see something in your bag and go, you know what
I do with that? I like to mix it with
this other sauce and put it over pasta. You have
you tried our little and they're upselling you while they're
standing there. But it's fun because you're having this great conversation.
So the next time somebody, it may be the Trader
Joe's cashier or maybe somebody else, says how's your day going?
Instead of saying good things are all right, how about
(21:54):
spread the cheer and say, actually, the coolest thing happened today.
Do you know how you're going to be able to
respond quickly with the coolest thing happened today, You're going
to record them in your head as they happened. That
means becoming more aware of the good in life. So
much of life is just where we put our attention,
(22:17):
what we're focusing on. Here's my favorite example of this.
Let's say you've decided you're going to buy a new car.
You've decided to make modeling color. You just haven't had
a chance to go in and get the financing and
go to the dealer, but you know you're going to
get this car. Do you notice, once you've decided on
this happy little car that you're going to get, every
time you pull up to a red light, there it
(22:37):
is there, it is someone's driving it. It's right there.
But you see it everywhere because you've brought your attention
to that idea. So if you spend your day catching
others being good, catching yourself feeling good, looking at the
world around you, and going that is so neat. I'm
(22:57):
so lucky to be here to see this right, And
I promise you those little moments are in your day,
all day long. That is how you strengthen your happiness muscle. Hey,
when we come back, can we talk about the Bachelor?
And there's a specific Bachelor. Did you know, producer Kayla
(23:21):
that the Bachelor is in thirty seven countries. I did
not know that it's very popular. Uh huh. Well, there's
a bachelor in the Ukraine that crashed the whole Bachelor
website because so many women tried to sign up to
meet him.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
He must be hot.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yeah, he is hot. Let's talk about him when we
come back. You are listening to the Doctor Wendywall Show
on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
So you should know that that Bachelor franchise that you
keep hearing about that we're all addicted to, which Okay,
I'm just going to say it's not my favorite representation
of love and dating because intimacy is supposed to grow
(24:11):
in private. I don't mean physical intimacy, I even mean
emotional intimacy. And when you've got cameras around you and
a makeup team, it's not really real if you don't
know what The Bachelor is. Of course, it's a relationship
reality TV show where you get one dude and a
whole bunch of bachelorettes and vying for him to choose
(24:32):
one of them. This also defies basic human nature because
the Bachelorette is far more realistic, where there are a
bunch of men vying to impress one woman who eventually
might share her bloodstream and her eggs and her heart
and her love, maybe some of her saliva. No, that
happens during the show. That's wild. Okay, So there have
(24:56):
been so many spin offs from this show I mentioned
the Bachelorette. There's also something called the Bachelor Pad, Bachelor
in Paradise, Bachelor in Paradise After Paradise. Oh, that sounds
more realistic. The Bachelor, Winter Games, The Bachelor Presents, Listen
to Your Heart, The Bachelor, Greatest Seasons Ever, The Golden Bachelor,
The Golden Bachelorette. By the way, I was right, Kayla.
(25:20):
Remember the one Joan who looked the youngest out of
all the women on The Golden Bachelor. Yeah, you said
she was gonna win, right. She got the sympathy vote
because she left the show to go take care of
her daughter who had just given birth. Right, And I
said in Ano, there's something in a contract. Something's going on, right,
Remember at the talent contest she didn't really have a
good talent and didn't like doing that or whatever. She's
(25:41):
the new bachelorette really, oh wow, So they knew, like,
let's just put her on the sideline so she won't
make any mistakes and they'll all love her and she'll
get the compassion vote. Because I almost feel they did
this to Kamala Harris. They said they gave her no
prassa as a vice president so she wouldn't make any mistakes.
And now all of a sudden, oh oh, it's a
new Bachelorette. I will say you you called it. You
(26:02):
called it with the BA with the Bulger Bachelor for sure, Okay,
and now she's a new bachelorette anyway, but I digress.
The Bachelor franchise is in thirty seven countries and about
to launch. Well it's been in the Ukraine for a while. Wow,
a new episode starring a bachelor named, let's see if
I can say it correctly, Alexander Budko. He's twenty six
(26:26):
years old. He was working as a barista at a
restaurant in Kiev. He's a student of graphic designs. His
dreams were pretty down to earth. He just wanted to travel,
discover the world, and grow professionally. He also hoped someday
to start a family. And yes, he's darn good looking. Well,
(26:49):
when they announced that he was going to be the Bachelor,
let me say his name again, don't forget it. Alexander Buko. Oh,
it's like Alexander but with an Oh. Alexander Budko twenty
six years old. When the producers announced that he was
going to be the next bachelor on the Ukrainian version
(27:10):
of The Bachelor, literally millions of women went to their
computers to apply to be one of the women vying
to win the hand of the bachelor, and it crashed
the entire computer system. Okay, before I tell you one
of the many reasons why I know a guy who
(27:30):
makes coffee for a living a barista, Right, was he
that gorgeous? I mean, he's good looking. I'm going to
quote some other research. So there's been research done on
what men could or should put in their dating profiles
that get the most swipes. And this particular study was
done in the UK, and in the UK they found
(27:50):
they made up a whole bunch of fake profiles. Sorry, ladies,
just the researchers did just to see if they were
getting hits or not, and they tried them different ways,
like I'll put this same picture, but I'll say this
about myself, same picture, but I'll say this about the guy.
And they found that the number one thing that was
causing swipe rights that means I like you, I want
to get together with you was military service. Now here's
(28:13):
the craziest thing. Even somebody in the military who had
a desk job as an accountant and never saw a warzone,
he got more swipes than the dude who worked in
advertising or whatever. Now, evolutionary psychologists like to analyze this.
They like to figure out why is it that women
are so into military service. And I've actually seen dating
profiles with guys full on in fatigues holding machine guns.
(28:39):
It terrifies the heck out of me. I would not
click on that at all, maybe because I know that, Okay,
they can be our protectors, and that's what I think
women are going for. They could be nice protectors, tough guys,
high testosterone isn't that great. But they can also be
a murderer. I'm sorry. If a woman dies, she's more
likely to be offed by hermantic partner. So it goes
(29:01):
both ways, all right, So as you can guess. In
the Ukraine, Alexandra Bhutko in twenty twenty two, when the
Russian forces began to invade, he was one of the
first ones to volunteer to join the military. His unit
was also one of the first ones to be attacked.
(29:24):
Two years ago, Alexander's life was turned upside down. He
was stationed near I'm gonna say all the names wrong
i Islium isiam izi yu am Isium, an occupied city
on the front lines of the Russian advance. It was
invaded in the early days of the war and used
(29:45):
by Russia as a key military hub. So he was
seriously injured while he was defending a Ukrainian position. His
quote says, I felt the earth shift onto me. I
felt a terrible pain my legs, and I realized that
it would mean the amputation of both my legs. I
(30:07):
screamed from horrific pain and shouted for people to hear me.
They found him amongst the ruins at the time they
found him among four hundred bodies around him. He survived,
and yes, he had his legs amputated. He has now
(30:29):
become a proponent, a spokesman for amputees. For the disabled.
He moved from a wheelchair to having prosthetics. He learned
that Kiev and many other cities in Ukraine are not
accessible for people with disabilities. So he's fighting to, you know,
(30:51):
find ways to have ramps and less cobblestones and all
those things. You know. I was visiting my daughter in
Paris in January and all I kept thinking is we're
going up all all those stairs in the Metros. Is
how do people with disabilities get around Paris? And She's like,
I don't know, Like, honestly, I don't know. So anyway,
he has also been named the Bachelor and millions of
(31:12):
women are vying to get his proposal. Isn't that exciting? Caleb?
He's good looking. You shall love that story, Alexandra Boutco. Okay,
when we come back, I am going to be going
to social media and taking your relationship questions. You are
listening to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM
six forty with live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've
(31:36):
been listening to Doctor Wendy Waals. You can always hear
us live on KFI Am six forty from seven to
nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the
iHeartRadio app
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty the Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome to the Doctor Wendy Wall
Show on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. If you're new to my show, I'm a
psychology professor at cal State Channel Islands. Can you believe
we don't have school tomorrow. We just started. We just
(00:22):
had one day of classes and now we have a
holiday Labor Day weekend. So students you're listening, you have
two weeks of homework to do. Okay, get those chapters read.
But I am a little bit obsessed with the science
of relationships. My dissertation was on attachment theory. And in
the news this week is the fact that Olympian Simone
(00:46):
Bile's birth mother, Shannon, is now talking to the media
and saying that she wants to have a relationship with
her daughter. She was not at the Paris Olympics. Shannon
was four thousand miles away. She basically is living, as
(01:07):
she calls it, in a world of hurt, feeling like
she's been rejected by her daughter. If you don't know
the backstory. Simone or Shannon. The mother lost custody of
Simone and her sister into foster care when Simone was
just three years old, and then she and her sister
were eventually adopted by their grandfather, Shannon's dad. But Force
(01:30):
hold the fort here. There's also two other kids that
were adopted by their aunt, so that would be Shannon
the mom's sister. But in total, but Shannon the mother,
who struggled with addiction for years, actually has a total
of eight children, so it's not clear who raised some
(01:50):
of them or botht of them, but we know that
four of them at least were raised by her father
and her sister, one of those being Simone Biles. They
have not talked, they have not seen each other. The
Apparently the birth mom gets news of Simone over the
years through her dad, but her dad says it wasn't
(02:14):
healthy for her to be in touch. So Simone biles mother,
instead of calling her daughter or writing a letter, calls
the Daily Mail and this is what she told them.
I want to let her know that I love her.
I'm very proud of her, you know, but I'm just
(02:34):
still waiting, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I would like to sit down and talk to you,
answer any questions you may have.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Now, I want to be clear about something. When someone
struggles with addiction, especially for decades as this woman did,
the brain can change. There could be all kinds of
reasons why she's for her daughter to reach out. Interestingly enough,
(03:05):
this interview went viral online and one of Simone's other
sisters also spoke out on TikTok defending her mother. Listen
to this.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I want to come to this internet and defend my
mom because she might not be everything that we expect
it for her to be, but at the end of
the day, she's still a work in progress.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And we give her that. So yes, the big question
is if one is estranged from their parent, or their
child or another family member, is it a good idea
to search for reconciliation. I should tell you that this
(03:50):
is a fairly common situation. One nationally representative study showed
that twenty seven percent of Americans are actively estranged from
at least one family member. That's almost one in three Americans.
So this is very very common. Now, let's talk about
(04:11):
who is more likely to be estranged from a family member.
One study found that six percent of respondents reported estrangement
from their mother, while twenty six percent reported estrangement from
their father. So more often people are rejecting a father. Also,
(04:34):
white adult sons, they're the ones more likely to be
given the cold shoulder and not talking to mom. Black
sons and daughters in this particular study were both more
likely to be estranged from their fathers and less likely
to be estranged from their mothers. Now Also, members of
the LGBTQ plus community were more likely to be estranged
(04:57):
from their fathers than their heterosexual appears. Fully, thirty two
percent of gay or lesbian adult children thirty six percent
of bisexual adult children have reported estrangement from their fathers. Okay,
so why what does the research say? What are the
most common reasons that people are just saying that's it,
(05:17):
you're not allowed in my life. The most common reasons
cited in the research have to do with abuse, and
that abuse could be emotional, physical, or sexual. In the
case of LGBTQ plus children, it is about coming out
to their religious parents.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
So it is.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Religiary religiosity that creates the final straw. So what does
the research say about getting back together? Can people reconcile well,
the good news is yes, one in three, almost one
in three Americans aren't talking to some family member at
this point. But the research suggests that very few of
(06:00):
these estrangements are permanent. In fact, there are many studies
that show that there are periods of estrangement are often
followed by periods of reconciliation. So how do you reconcile? Well,
according to therapists, it's all about helping the parent take responsibility.
(06:23):
Some therapists work with parents to help them write a
letter to the child that they have wronged. They want
the parent to be able to say things like, it's
clear I have some significant blind spots as a person
and a parent, and I don't have a better understanding
of what caused this, or maybe the parent can simply
say I'm sorry I let you down. Simone Bile's mother,
(06:50):
I don't know if she's ready to say this, if
she's written a letter, if she's done anything to try
to contact Simone. But if you look at just her interview,
it implies that she's just waiting for the phone call
from her daughter, and I think it should come the
other way around. I do want to say that not
every relationship needs to be reconciled. You know, friends are
(07:14):
the family you choose, and working with a licensed therapist
who's empathetic can help you get reparented, get the love
and the warmth and acceptance that you might have missed
out on in childhood. I'm very sorry if any of
you are going through this, Kayla. We should try to
(07:36):
get Simone Bile's mother, Shannon on the show because she
seems to be wanting to do media, because I'm really
curious to know if she's reached out to her. Yes,
I'm definitely going to be working on that. Okay, great,
all right, when we come back, guess what are teenagers?
Their mental health are finally starting to get better. I'm
noticing it in the college classroom. By the way, let
me explain when we get back. You are listening to
(07:57):
the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on k I AM six
meters already live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
AM six forty, live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. So,
if you're a parent, you probably worry like I did
and do about the impact of what happened during COVID
to our kids. Now, most of the stuff you're hearing
about is this delay in learning, right, because let's be honest,
(08:34):
ume learning is not the same, especially for the younger kids.
We were so worried. But I remember during COVID. When
I say COVID, I mean when we were on lockdown
and we were doing our radio shows from our kitchen table.
I had a psychiatrist on the show and she predicted
something very interesting. She predicted that the younger kids not
(08:57):
only would be least impacted by going on zoom and
being stuck at home, but that they might benefit from it.
And I'm thinking, like, what do you mean? Now? What
you should know is there's a huge range of developmental
milestones intellectually with kids. It's not that one is smarter
(09:19):
than the other when they're five or six years old.
Some of them just aren't ready yet. In fact, there
is a whole school of thought amongst the homeschool moms
that you shouldn't even begin to teach a kid how
to read until age seven or eight. So if there
is a kid who's younger and who's reading they could
easily be doing that and the other ones by the
(09:40):
time they get back in the classroom. They're now all
being taught together at the same time and everybody's ready.
So you could say that for many kids, that the
younger ones I'm talking about kindergarten, first, second, third grade,
I think third grade, second and third of the big
reading years, right, that it might not be so much
(10:00):
of a problem. But the other thing the psychiatrist said
which really hit home for me, is that younger children
need more than anything their parents. They need to have
a secure attachment, they need to have consistent caregivers. They
need to have people around them at home, a tribe
not shuttled around to day carees and schools and after
(10:23):
school programs and just moved around while parents worked. And
this psychiatrist, I think it was doctor Eva Ritfoe from Miami,
said that many of these young children would hugely benefit.
So we also know that teenagers probably wouldn't do well.
(10:44):
You know what I say to Mike, I have been saying,
We've been back in the classroom for what two years
now or something two and a half years. I can't
keep track. It's like Rip Van Winkle Town with this
COVID time, but I always ask them every year, can
you remind me what years were you on zoom? Like,
what school years did you miss out on? And at
(11:04):
the beginning, of course, they would say eleventh and twelfth.
Then they started to say tenth and eleventh, and then
they started to say ninth and tenth, right, And I
could see that those students had lost a lot socially.
My joke, it's just a joke, folks, but it makes
the students laugh that I say every year, wait a minute,
(11:27):
you were supposed to be out kissing boys and smoking weed.
What were you doing sitting in your room scrolling through
social media? That's not good for your mental health, right,
And they all laugh. I noticed that those students soon
after COVID had social issues. They were extremely shy, They
had a lot of social anxiety. I would put them
(11:49):
into discussion groups. I'd step out to go to the
bathroom and come back and the whole group would just
be staring at their phones. It was silence in a
discussion group. Right. Well, I'm really excited to tell you
that I taught last week two different classes of freshmen,
and again I said, what year were you guys on zoom,
(12:09):
and they all said eighth grade. And I'm like eighth grade.
And these kids didn't seem to be as mentally impacted
as the other ones. So maybe doctor Eva Ritvau was right.
The younger the better because they're home, or they're still
their primary attachment figures, are still their family of origin. Right. Anyway,
(12:32):
it was a delight to teach all you guys, if
you're listening. We broke into discussion groups. I had to
calm everybody down. The room got so loud. Isn't that great?
They were all talking to each other. This is, you know,
my little non endorsed analytical study. It's just me. Okay,
nothing official about that study, but I feel I'm feeling
it all right, So let me tell you this. The
(12:57):
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released to report this
week that says that young people are faring better in
their mental health in the past few years after a
period of increased sadness and hopelessness. This is what I
have been witnessing. The data released last week showed a
(13:17):
two percent decrease from twenty one to twenty three in
high school students reporting they felt sad or hopeless. That
meant it dropped from oh I'm sorry forty two percent
to forty percent. I'm sorry, teenagers, forty percent of you
are still feeling sad and hopeless. I want to say something.
Can we normalize sadness amongst teenagers? I remember locking myself
(13:37):
in the bathroom with those rushes of hormones when I
was fifteen years old and just crying for no reason
and being so confused about it. I think depression is
a normal part of I don't know, maybe not. Anyway,
this study showed that the most meaningful improvements were among
marginalized groups. Now, you got to remember it wasn't so
(13:59):
long long ago that the US Surgeon General issued a
health advisory that highlighted the impact of social media and
isolation on young people as well. But I think we
are seeing an increase in mental health partly because of
the return to in class learning and also the return
to all those extracurricular activities, all the sports and clubs
(14:22):
and everything. This is what improves mental health. I want
to remind you across the board the number one thing.
It's not what you eat, it's not how you exercise,
it's not how you sleep. All that's important, but The
number one thing above all of those that improves our
mental health are healthy social relationships. It's people, and it's
(14:45):
about being around people that is good for our health.
And I think the kids are finally out there. I
do want to say that looking at some of the
other research that's come out, kids with an above average
household income said the pandemic had a positive impact on
(15:09):
family relationships. However, that was about sixty four percent. Only
thirty four percent of kids with a below average household
income experienced a positive impact of family relationships. Duh, because
the parents were still working. We're talking about essential workers
who were still out there working by the hour and
(15:31):
coming home stressed because they were in masks and gloves
and face shields and dealing with cantankerous, anxiety ridden customers.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Of course, the high income households had kids who improved
because their mom and dad could work on zoom and
be at home with them. Kids need their parents. Hey,
when we come back, how about some news on how
we can all learn to strengthen our happiness muscle. All
from a new book written by a UCLA psychiatry professor.
(16:03):
I want to be Happy.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Did
you know that happiness or optimism versus pessimism is partly genetic?
They say that about fifty percent of whether we're generally
a happy person or a curmudgeon has to do with
(16:33):
our genes, and then about ten percent has to do
with our economic situation. The research shows that people who
are below the poverty liner in living in poverty and
then move into the middle class get the biggest boost
in happiness related to economics. However, people who move from
(16:55):
the middle class to the upper middle class or the
upper middle class into the healthy don't get a new
boost of happiness. Think about it. Now, they have to
keep up with the Joneses. Now, it's very competitive. They
have to worry about their image right, and they have
to worry about paying for all those bills. In fact,
there's research to show that it is the upper middle
(17:16):
class who are most unhappy when it comes to social
class consciousness because they're pretending they're rich and they have
a lot of big bills to keep up that thing anyway.
Bigger point here is that forty percent of happiness is
all about us, what we do and what we think.
(17:36):
A new book out by doctor Jenny Taits at UCLA
is called Stress Resets, How to Sue Your Body and
Mind in Minutes, and she has a prescription for how
all of us can learn to strengthen our happiness muscle,
and some of it has some very interesting exercises in it.
(17:57):
So one of the things she suggests is simply to
plan a happy activity every day and don't put it off.
Make it a priority on your schedule. Right. So it
might be something like, you know, treating yourself to a
favorite snack, taking a break to read a few pages
(18:18):
of a juicy novel you've wanted to read, facetiming a friend.
For me, it's often like if I'm working at my
computer at home and I'm feeling like I'm not getting
enough bright sunlight, my happy thing is always to just
go outside for a brisk walk in the bright sunlight,
(18:38):
and that's my treat and I do it when I
hit on things like hit numbers on my to do list, right,
I always make sure there's a reward in it for me.
The other thing is we have to learn to become
more aware of the good things that happen and take
time to focus on them. Great example, as you know,
(19:00):
and I'll keep talking about it for an entire year,
right right, Kayla, I can talk about it for a
whole year. That's what I say. Okay, I got married
a few weeks ago. And there is a tendency things
happened with weddings. Right. A friend of mine warned me
about this. She goes there will be people who will
say yes, yess, I'm coming at the last minute, don't come,
and there could be very legitimate reasons why they don't come,
and you can feel very disappointed. There can be people
(19:22):
who leave early. They can be all kinds of things
that happen, and it's really easy to focus on the letdowns.
But every time Julio says something like oh I wish
my friend so and so could have made it and
they were working or something, I always say, don't spend
one second talking about what wasn't at our wedding or
(19:44):
who wasn't at our wedding. Only focus on who was
at our wedding, like producer Kayla for instance, who was
there like the whole time. In fact, she was there
an extra day and night because her plane got canceled,
so we had a treat of getting to have her
at our house for I had to treat that farm
is to die for. It was amazing that we got
to keep you for an extra day and spend that
(20:05):
time together. One of the other things that doctor Tates,
I hope I pronounced it way right. It's t ai
t z sure sounds like Tates to me. Doctor Tates
suggests is that we work hard to expand our joy vocabulary.
Many of us struggle to give names to good feelings.
(20:27):
We'll say fine, or that's good or that's great. But
how about that you learn to use greater emotional language
when it comes to positivity, like oh my god, I
went on this walk it felt so serene. Or I
was listening to music in my earphones and it just
I felt so elated. It was exhilarating when I hit
(20:49):
that cold water and went for a swim. Oh, I
was so delighted when he called. You know, whenever I
talked to you, it inspires me so much. You hear
those words serene, exhilarated, delighted, inspired, Those are really cool
positivity words, and we need to practice them and insert them,
insert them into our vocabulary more often. But here's the
(21:12):
other thing. You know what people say to you, how's
it going, How's your day going? Right, even if it's
the cashier at Trader Joe's. I fully am convinced by
the way that they give all their employees before hiring
a Meyers Briggs personality test, and they only hire extroverts.
Have you ever met a cashier at Trader's Joe's who
does not chit chat chit chat chit chat And they'll
(21:32):
see something in your bag and go, you know what
I do with that? I like to mix it with
this other sauce and put it over pasta. You have
you tried our little and they're upselling you while they're
standing there. But it's fun because you're having this great conversation.
So the next time somebody, it may be the Trader
Joe's cashier or maybe somebody else, says how's your day going?
Instead of saying good things are all right, how about
(21:54):
spread the cheer and say, actually, the coolest thing happened today.
Do you know how you're going to be able to
respond quickly with the coolest thing happened today, You're going
to record them in your head as they happened. That
means becoming more aware of the good in life. So
much of life is just where we put our attention,
(22:17):
what we're focusing on. Here's my favorite example of this.
Let's say you've decided you're going to buy a new car.
You've decided to make modeling color. You just haven't had
a chance to go in and get the financing and
go to the dealer, but you know you're going to
get this car. Do you notice, once you've decided on
this happy little car that you're going to get, every
time you pull up to a red light, there it
(22:37):
is there, it is someone's driving it. It's right there.
But you see it everywhere because you've brought your attention
to that idea. So if you spend your day catching
others being good, catching yourself feeling good, looking at the
world around you, and going that is so neat. I'm
(22:57):
so lucky to be here to see this right, And
I promise you those little moments are in your day,
all day long. That is how you strengthen your happiness muscle. Hey,
when we come back, can we talk about the Bachelor?
And there's a specific Bachelor. Did you know, producer Kayla
(23:21):
that the Bachelor is in thirty seven countries. I did
not know that it's very popular. Uh huh. Well, there's
a bachelor in the Ukraine that crashed the whole Bachelor
website because so many women tried to sign up to
meet him.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
He must be hot.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yeah, he is hot. Let's talk about him when we
come back. You are listening to the Doctor Wendywall Show
on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
So you should know that that Bachelor franchise that you
keep hearing about that we're all addicted to, which Okay,
I'm just going to say it's not my favorite representation
of love and dating because intimacy is supposed to grow
(24:11):
in private. I don't mean physical intimacy, I even mean
emotional intimacy. And when you've got cameras around you and
a makeup team, it's not really real if you don't
know what The Bachelor is. Of course, it's a relationship
reality TV show where you get one dude and a
whole bunch of bachelorettes and vying for him to choose
(24:32):
one of them. This also defies basic human nature because
the Bachelorette is far more realistic, where there are a
bunch of men vying to impress one woman who eventually
might share her bloodstream and her eggs and her heart
and her love, maybe some of her saliva. No, that
happens during the show. That's wild. Okay, So there have
(24:56):
been so many spin offs from this show I mentioned
the Bachelorette. There's also something called the Bachelor Pad, Bachelor
in Paradise, Bachelor in Paradise After Paradise. Oh, that sounds
more realistic. The Bachelor, Winter Games, The Bachelor Presents, Listen
to Your Heart, The Bachelor, Greatest Seasons Ever, The Golden Bachelor,
The Golden Bachelorette. By the way, I was right, Kayla.
(25:20):
Remember the one Joan who looked the youngest out of
all the women on The Golden Bachelor. Yeah, you said
she was gonna win, right. She got the sympathy vote
because she left the show to go take care of
her daughter who had just given birth. Right, And I
said in Ano, there's something in a contract. Something's going on, right,
Remember at the talent contest she didn't really have a
good talent and didn't like doing that or whatever. She's
(25:41):
the new bachelorette really, oh wow, So they knew, like,
let's just put her on the sideline so she won't
make any mistakes and they'll all love her and she'll
get the compassion vote. Because I almost feel they did
this to Kamala Harris. They said they gave her no
prassa as a vice president so she wouldn't make any mistakes.
And now all of a sudden, oh oh, it's a
new Bachelorette. I will say you you called it. You
(26:02):
called it with the BA with the Bulger Bachelor for sure, Okay,
and now she's a new bachelorette anyway, but I digress.
The Bachelor franchise is in thirty seven countries and about
to launch. Well it's been in the Ukraine for a while. Wow,
a new episode starring a bachelor named, let's see if
I can say it correctly, Alexander Budko. He's twenty six
(26:26):
years old. He was working as a barista at a
restaurant in Kiev. He's a student of graphic designs. His
dreams were pretty down to earth. He just wanted to travel,
discover the world, and grow professionally. He also hoped someday
to start a family. And yes, he's darn good looking. Well,
(26:49):
when they announced that he was going to be the Bachelor,
let me say his name again, don't forget it. Alexander Buko. Oh,
it's like Alexander but with an Oh. Alexander Budko twenty
six years old. When the producers announced that he was
going to be the next bachelor on the Ukrainian version
(27:10):
of The Bachelor, literally millions of women went to their
computers to apply to be one of the women vying
to win the hand of the bachelor, and it crashed
the entire computer system. Okay, before I tell you one
of the many reasons why I know a guy who
(27:30):
makes coffee for a living a barista, Right, was he
that gorgeous? I mean, he's good looking. I'm going to
quote some other research. So there's been research done on
what men could or should put in their dating profiles
that get the most swipes. And this particular study was
done in the UK, and in the UK they found
(27:50):
they made up a whole bunch of fake profiles. Sorry, ladies,
just the researchers did just to see if they were
getting hits or not, and they tried them different ways,
like I'll put this same picture, but I'll say this
about myself, same picture, but I'll say this about the guy.
And they found that the number one thing that was
causing swipe rights that means I like you, I want
to get together with you was military service. Now here's
(28:13):
the craziest thing. Even somebody in the military who had
a desk job as an accountant and never saw a warzone,
he got more swipes than the dude who worked in
advertising or whatever. Now, evolutionary psychologists like to analyze this.
They like to figure out why is it that women
are so into military service. And I've actually seen dating
profiles with guys full on in fatigues holding machine guns.
(28:39):
It terrifies the heck out of me. I would not
click on that at all, maybe because I know that, Okay,
they can be our protectors, and that's what I think
women are going for. They could be nice protectors, tough guys,
high testosterone isn't that great. But they can also be
a murderer. I'm sorry. If a woman dies, she's more
likely to be offed by hermantic partner. So it goes
(29:01):
both ways, all right, So as you can guess. In
the Ukraine, Alexandra Bhutko in twenty twenty two, when the
Russian forces began to invade, he was one of the
first ones to volunteer to join the military. His unit
was also one of the first ones to be attacked.
(29:24):
Two years ago, Alexander's life was turned upside down. He
was stationed near I'm gonna say all the names wrong
i Islium isiam izi yu am Isium, an occupied city
on the front lines of the Russian advance. It was
invaded in the early days of the war and used
(29:45):
by Russia as a key military hub. So he was
seriously injured while he was defending a Ukrainian position. His
quote says, I felt the earth shift onto me. I
felt a terrible pain my legs, and I realized that
it would mean the amputation of both my legs. I
(30:07):
screamed from horrific pain and shouted for people to hear me.
They found him amongst the ruins at the time they
found him among four hundred bodies around him. He survived,
and yes, he had his legs amputated. He has now
(30:29):
become a proponent, a spokesman for amputees. For the disabled.
He moved from a wheelchair to having prosthetics. He learned
that Kiev and many other cities in Ukraine are not
accessible for people with disabilities. So he's fighting to, you know,
(30:51):
find ways to have ramps and less cobblestones and all
those things. You know. I was visiting my daughter in
Paris in January and all I kept thinking is we're
going up all all those stairs in the Metros. Is
how do people with disabilities get around Paris? And She's like,
I don't know, Like, honestly, I don't know. So anyway,
he has also been named the Bachelor and millions of
(31:12):
women are vying to get his proposal. Isn't that exciting? Caleb?
He's good looking. You shall love that story, Alexandra Boutco. Okay,
when we come back, I am going to be going
to social media and taking your relationship questions. You are
listening to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM
six forty with live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've
(31:36):
been listening to Doctor Wendy Waals. You can always hear
us live on KFI Am six forty from seven to
nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the
iHeartRadio app
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