Thriving Beyond Mom Guilt with Morgan Tucker and Jory Froggatt Part 2

We need to remember as moms is that they don't really care a lot about having an activity for every second of the day, it's about purely your presence. And if we're exhausted and just throwing things at them to do, that's what they're going to remember. Not, not the all the times that we spent.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: Alright, tribe, welcome to awakened greatness with Cliff Fisher, and Morgan Tucker, and my wife, Jory Froggatt. And so I'm super excited for today, we're brought to you by Dream leader Institute where we awaken your greatness give you the tools to find and create your greatest self, and raise the consciousness of the planet. And so, last time, we kind of left off with mom guilt. And we heard from Morgan where Morgan's like this powerful CEO, mom of five, kind of doing it all. And there's spaces in that. And then I just felt like there was this whole missing component with like, with juries perspective, really coming from that space of being the mom holding the house together, keeping everything, you know, running smoothly, wild, you know, Morgan brought it up at the very beginning of this as far as like, how do you do that and do self care. So I think we just wanted to expand this conversation, because we felt it was really important. So, Morgan, I know we were on the last conversation. So I'll check in with you on this first.

Yeah, I think that it's such a real, a real topic that needs to be covered from both perspectives. And I know we've got also a lot of of male CEOs and business owners that that listen, and tune in to what we have to say. And they majority of them have spouses at home. And so this is just as relevant for them in that space as well. So yeah, I was really curious to hear from jewelleries perspective about what's it like to be an entrepreneurial spouse, because I know the sacrifices that I've made, and I've made for my family, and those were conscious choices that I make. But I've never been the reciprocal. And on the other end that I didn't have a whole lot of for Yes, I had an opinion, or given opinion. But ultimately, I'm not the ultimate decision maker. And I would love to hear that from her perspective.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: Awesome. All right. All right. What do you got?

Okay, so we were just talking a little bit about my kids are vamos are almost grown one more to graduate here soon. So I'm definitely in a different space in my life now that the kids are older. But of course, I can think about when they were younger, just how busy it is busy life is, when the kids are young. I think one of my core spaces, it just who I am is what I learned when the kids are young, just to keep the simplicity was really important to me. Because I feel like you can easily get your life and your, your schedule really hectic. So then you don't have any of that downtime, and you're just going going going, which I see so many of these moms doing. So that was really important to me to have that space, the simplicity in our life. And, you know, it was, you know, it's I was talking to Cliff earlier about, you know, one of the things about being a stay at home mom was I just felt like, a guilt from outside about, like, oh, I should be working, just not being at home. Like, that's just not enough. I feel like a lot of times, there's more, you know, importance put on, like, people that are contributing to the, you know, outside in the world versus like, what are we doing at home? It doesn't seem like it's as valued. So

did you feel a lot of pressure to keep budgets tight, and you know, which also limits your ability to do things are what I assume is what you know, we would go we'll go spend money to entertain the kids in some way and you did you find yourself trying to discover as you felt more pressure to find ways to entertain or even for self care? Yeah, limited in those spaces.

I mean, I didn't feel limited. I think it's just I had to be real like in terms of budget wise, like with one income. You know, at the time, it's like there wasn't a ton of money to do like a lot of activities in the week we had enough to do some activities with the kids but it's like I just kept it simple, like being able to play outside with the kids being you know, doing playdates myself care was just like some meditation, some yoga at the house. I wasn't doing a lot of things outside even in that regard and trying to get together with other moms that I connected with able to like have some a, you know, a person to talk to. A mom that was in the same space was really important. I think there's such value there.

I couldn't agree more, I think in one of the spaces that is different for me is I don't have a lot of mom friends that an FYI do their entrepreneurial mom prints. Yeah. And so finding time in our calendar to get to get there can be a real struggle. I mean, it's, it's, it's a challenge and to know that you're not alone in a space like that is truly free. I often wondered, and I mean, for me even just thinking about being a stay at home mom, it gave me some anxiety of via just to even think about that, as you know, because I've always been the entrepreneur. And it's, it's like, okay, well, what would we do for this? And I mean, how could I entertain the kids and how, like, that's just not natural for me. Yeah, I was listening to a really great podcast with Adam Grant and air Robin our zone, the lead instructor of peloton. I don't know if y'all know anything about her or like, he's fascinating. So just a shout out, she's hearing, I'm just a super fan. She's, she mentioned in her podcast that she's like, I've got this kid. And, and I'm not meant to wear a red nose and entertain this kid all day, she'll figure it out. And, like, so, so true. You know, we don't have to spend every waking moment trying to figure out how to entertain our kids, which, you know, is brings up in a different space from an entrepreneurial mom, like, I'm not spending all day with my kids. And so I do feel that mom guilt to entertain them. When I'm when I'm at home. And so, you know, I don't know if you if you share her, or have shared her philosophy or not, but I

definitely do, because it was, like nice, the famous line when the kids would come to me, like, I'm bored, I'm like, I'd suggest a couple of things like, No, I don't want to do that. And I'm like, I'm like, That's okay, be bored. Because like out of boredom, you can create something amazing, like, we don't need to be filled up with, you know, think about, you know, at least when I was you know, I don't know how old you are. But it's like, when we grew up, we didn't have all the activities, we didn't have all the things like we did have to go find our own fun and be bored. A lot of times there was boredom, which is okay to you know,

I just, I was thinking about how that connected with your simplicity, core value as thing and how well that kind of mesh together. And it's like, really, you were really kind of so ahead of the time, you know, saying, Hey, I am going to keep it simple. And there

were behind the times what they used to do years the

way I made it still fit like it is what I think we need to remember as moms is that they don't really care a lot about having an activity for every second of the day. It's about purely your presence. And if we're exhausted and just throwing things at them to do. That's what they're going to remember not not the all the times that we span. And so, you know, like, what were some of your funnest memories or that you created with your kids and what did they were?

I mean, a lot of it really was just and I think you're right with it's interesting. You had that same thing about like feeling alone, because I did have that too. Like because you do have like stay at home moms but the stay at home moms are very busy. I don't put my kids in preschool a lot of people do so I was trying to find playmates for my kids at the time. And that was definitely felt lonely. I was thankfully when we moved to this new area, I was able to find another stay at home mom so I connected with her. Before that I did I felt so isolated and like where are the where are the you know, moms Where are the kids playing out you know, outside. So yeah, that was a definitely a big part of it. But

yeah, can take a huge toll on your mental health as well like and that's just always being on where, you know, I can leave my office and I can leave the you know, the 120 kids that I have at work go back to my five but I mean there and then we're a blended family so we don't have the five all the time but it's it is truly A mentally exhausting a lot of times and so you know what taking care of your, your mental health in that, like, what did that look like for you I know you said you did meditation yoga, which are amazing.

And I mean sometimes it meant just like 10 minutes of like putting my legs up the wall like one of my favorite yoga poses is like putting up my legs up the wall on this blanket. And I would just lay there for 10 minutes and just rest and sometimes crazy enough, I'd fall asleep with my legs up the wall. But it just like it just rejuvenated me. So finding those little pieces of time because I didn't have an hour to sit into yoga class like it was life is busy when the kids are little. And so I mean, when you asked earlier, like some of the fun times is really just seeing my kids like, have fun. Like, I always tell them to go outside, go outside, we have a neighbor, you know, a house, which we have some land that they can go outside and play like that was really important to me just for their health. Just get outside, you know, they hike around, like we have a little small woods area, you know, I tried to connect with whatever kids could come over and play even for just like an hour after school because I think that's so important, like, get off the screens. But it's an easy thing for a lot of parents, like I get why why it's just easy, like, oh, just turn the screen on. But it's like, for the long term, it's not a healthy thing to do, you know, here and there, I get it, you know, sometimes you have to do. So just like just seeing him be a kid honestly, just not the technology, keeping that away from him as long as possible to see him have fun with their friends, go outside kick a ball, like, you know, doesn't have to be organized activity, you know, coming up with games, you know, playing, you know, making for it's all these little, little little clips all throughout the day. So

I that's, that's such a great space, because we do and I think there's there's a lot of guilt that goes into screen time as well. I you know, I think this was the thing that cliff and I established in our last one is, it doesn't matter from what angle what perspective, there's going to be some kind of guilt with absolutely everything that we're doing.

And honestly, it's like just doing the best you can and like, there's no perfect parent out there. And we're all I feel like, if you are if you love your loving, you're kind like those simple things of being present, being loving and kind your kids are such a huge thing that gets overlooked, like the simplicity part. Because like, you know, you have those core things and you're teaching yourself your kid that loving kindness, space, you know, and so yeah, like, there's things that I, I know, I didn't do or I messed up, I'm like, you know, that's life, right? Just and then you're doing better each year. It's like, okay, I've learned from this, my kids have taught me so much. That's the other thing.

Yeah, and I think the interesting space that we've we've have is the social media space. And that's where we're constantly being bombarded with Tiktok, and Instagram of people's like, perfect, shining moment. And where we just feed off of that, which also feeds are some self loathing for us that, hey, we're not doing a great job. And it that's such a lie on so many fronts. And the reason you just say, Hey, stay off of social media,

right? Or just know that like, that's not real. And that's not, you know, and you're just doing the best you can, and it doesn't have to live up to all these things like, you know, what's in your world. And so just to focus on that, like, it was interesting. When I was, you know, young mom, I feel like there was, and maybe there still is like, Oh, it was like the mom working mom versus the mom stay at home mom a bit of like, Oh, that's not right. You shouldn't do that. Or you shouldn't do that. And I'm like, at the end of the day, whatever makes the mom the best version of themselves, whether it's working outside the home or being in the home, like that's the best thing for them. Like, nobody should judge that.

No, I we we talked about that alive. You

Dr. Cliff Fisher: know, I feel like I'm like you over here on off the screen.

Sorry, we're just diving right in. We're connecting. Yeah, no,

Dr. Cliff Fisher: I just want to circle back like I don't want to get in the way this whole conversation. But I just wanted a couple of things that we really did that I think helped a lot is we did turn our Wi Fi off at a certain time when the kids were younger. We didn't do cell phones until they were 15 or 16. And we had this thing called Disney circle. But it limited the amount of time that they would get so they would have two hours of Wi Fi time. And so or whatever it might have been just an hour Yeah. Shifted depending on the age. And

the weekend or weekend weekday. Yep.

So one of the And we had one of these things that you know, because I hear a lot of that genuine thing and all that. But also noted like for me and part of one of the things that we do with our kids that is super impactful. We have a three year old who, right now we're transitioning. And he, one of the big things that he loves to do, especially if when he transitions from one house to another is he loves to have, we do a bag of popcorn. And we sit and he cuddles with me and we watch a 30 minute episode. And it helps regulate him to a point and I know when we skip that for him specifically, we are not in for next day. And so I think, you know, letting them then be alone with screens and stuff. I am 110% agree is not always the greatest time. But it was something that it's an activity you can do together as a family that bonds there's a there's some space for that. Yeah, I'm

Dr. Cliff Fisher: definitely not saying no time or anything like that. But I think one of the things is we look at like, Oh, we don't have any family time. Well, everybody's on the TV all the time. That's a different conversation than 30 minute cuddle or one movie cuddle. Like you look at people's weekends. And they're either watching sports, or they're, you know, they're spending four to six hours watching games or all day like, I think more in that space. And then with kids, they just go into the rooms now because like one of the things we both said was like, We don't want TVs in the kids rooms. But now like an iPad,

I know is a TV. And they're like Well,

are there it is, or it is for sure. And this the difference between you know, I have a 12 year old there'll be 13 this year. And so we're we're going through this dynamic as well, like all her friends had phones, they all you know and have had phones since they were 10. Like no. But I did finally this this for Christmas, I did break down and get her a phone. And one it was more for when she's with her dad and to for her for us to communicate. And she they allow certain cell phone time at school. And so that was also another way that we could communicate as well for pickups and where we needed to go and shifts and things like that. So that was the main reason. But you're you're right, it's become I had to do a lot of limiting. Hey, we're not going to have be glued to our phone every fast. Like it's an it's such a it's it's an easy thing to do for them. And especially when it's not regulated.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: I think one of the things we really enjoyed was like we didn't have phones in the car, usually unless it was a long trip. Because I think honestly, car time as a mom or a dad like is some of the most special time you'll get. Because it's literally focused time. That's not like, you're not staring at him. But you guys are together. And I think there's just something about that time. That's really powerful. And honestly, I felt like we learned a lot from our kids and about our kids and their lives in that time.

Definite definitely got pushed back on the the Wi Fi the phone. I'm like, hold the line, hold the line. And now the kids are my oldest. Our oldest is 22 No, 21 and then youngest is 17. And like the 20 year old like oh, she really appreciates it now. But at the time there she had such pushback. It

Dr. Cliff Fisher: was some family meetings on that many

meetings. Yeah. That's funny. It's not funny, but I because I see so many lies and like I'm getting a window into my future.

You just have to know that the long game not the like, yes. Just give them that thing. And I know you know you have, you have to figure it out along as you go like things change and if you need to do whatever you need to do for your family, but it's like you got to think about long term. What do you want to you know, have? Yes, like okay, yeah, so I'm just getting worn down with five kids. So you might get one.

I can't say that after, you know, a day of work and then coming home and doing that, you know, and so I also recently have just found some more spaces to figure out how to make mom life a little easier. are for, for me. And so we're like, right before we came on here I was meal prepping for the whole week. Oh, really? Just, yeah, my husband is actually running. He has a race this weekend. Has, he's just recently gotten into racing. So what he's done, this will be his second one. But just doing a lot of meal prep, you know, I was doing it for him. And then I realized, this is so, so convenient. Eat something up during the week, because it's, it's so crazy. And so it's been a really good space, right. And I know that I tend to not eat more junk when we're tired and hungry, and and I'm just like, oh, let's just go get a pizza. I've worked all day, where we've come home, and I've already have prepared vegetables, I have prepared meats and things like that. And it's just a much simpler thing. So what was it? I guess? What space was it for you? Um, in when it came to? To? It seems like that's the age old question of what's for dinner every night. Like, how did you do that?

I mean that I brought the simplicity into that too. But it's it is time consuming. If you make healthy meals for your family, like the amount of time I spent in the kitchen, like making and cleaning up is a lot but just the simplicity especially when they're young and like just you know, I do vegetables and either protein or carb I wouldn't do like these elaborate maybe on the weekend do a little more complexity. But just keeping it simple. The joke is like my soup is soup is my favorite dish. Peasy cleaned up and it's healthy. And it's all in one pot. But my oldest like no, not soup again.

Dr. Cliff Fisher: And it's healthy without from college. She's asking for

that. So I bought our while she's about to be 10. She'll be 10 next week. She she came out had fixed dinner. And we we usually get them during the week kind of late because her. Her mom and stepdad are night nurses. And so we kind of get them for overnight stays during the week. And then we take them to school and had fixed dinner and she came in she goes not chicken tacos again. And it was like, Girl

Dr. Cliff Fisher: Yeah, here's some cereal. No, just kidding. Yeah. Can you

just like, had to take several deep cleansing?

Yeah. That's really good. You're doing that.

And I'm like, What did you eat? And so start our dad just was like, oh, because he got he was like, you know, and it just as we circled, you know, took a deep breath circle back around. She's like, I feel like we eat the same things all the time. And I said, Well, why don't mean give me a list of things that you would like to eat. So how about she gives me the same list of things that I've been fixing. She said her mom's house and I'm like, Okay.

Like some cultures, you know, like, I was just in South America, beans and rice, we could just do beans and rice every day. Yeah. You think they're not doing you know, enough variety. Some cultures need the same things like

it's, I've just like, Girl, I don't think you understand how good we haven't that we have variety. Every object we could be eating, you know, the same things all the time. So

that was one thing I think, you know, big lesson I had to learn with, you know, with the kids is like to not take things personally because it's like, yeah, they say things or do things like hurt my feelings. And it's like, I mean, some of obviously be like that. Some of that is like not okay, but sometimes it's like, you can have your opinion you cannot like this, but I'm like this is what's for dinner, you know, unless you want to come and make the next meal. You know?

Exactly. Would you like to help? Yeah. Yeah, I'm a for sure. And then I think you just really struck our topic of the things that our kids say trigger us, unlike any anything else and I think honestly, it's because it's like looking in a mirror. And we you know, they're a reflection of us and and when They say things that are hurtful you, it really can be a lot more triggering than if it had come from somebody else. And so I think that's just, I guess, talk me through that to the teen years for you like, what? How did you how did you keep sanity and thrive during that time of not taking things personal,

I mean, I'm probably like, my oldest was my biggest teacher in that way. Because we would just butt heads. And I would just so instead of sitting there, and just like, I would just push, I would be like, kind of react back to her, like, this is what's for dinner, like, whatever the thing was, like, a lot of it was around food, or the Wi Fi, those are like, the triggers. It was like for her. And I was like, No, you know, and I would just kind of react to it versus like, you know, just acknowledging her space lead and honestly letting her vent if that's what she means. Not in a mean way at me, but it's like an event and complaint, like, okay, but I'm still making this food, you know, we're not going to switch from this, you know, just being able to hold in your space. But I know one of the things I learned with my oldest was How old was she? 15. But it's like, I think with my oldest, I didn't always have the connection time like a little bit of the fun and play and connection. And it was like more like the mom like, Okay, you need to do this, okay, do this, you know, like, you become that because you're busy. And so

Dr. Cliff Fisher: he was busy. He was like in school like spirulina, seven, something, get home at four or five, have dinner and then have to study to like 10 or 12. But wasn't that you were? Yeah, you know, like you would have time available. So

then I think one of the things I learned with Cliff that he shared with me was like, I started making those connections times with her. And it could be like, even just just connecting a knot on it. Like, I'm still a mom, obviously. But like, yeah, you know, more on like, what she's interested in, like, just to kind of slow down or like, go like us go have lunch together, just the two of us, like more that one on one time versus the family, family. So importantly, having that one on one time, and that was a game changer with our relationship. Not that she didn't ever push back. But it's like, it just made a window that like, we have two different relations like we can I have that enjoyment and fun together. And I'm also going to have to lay these law like these rules down and just, you know, and really looking at myself, like why am I so triggered, you know, and don't to not let her Let me react like that's, I'm the parent, I should not be reacting to her. I can just like, Okay, I understand your perspective. But I'm not saying like, I still feel like, it's important that I do this. And this is healthy food. And this is what I'm serving, if you don't want to eat it, that's fine. But it's like, this is what I'm serving.

Right. And I guess for me, I heard I heard somebody say really helped help me change some mental perspective a little bit about that is when my 610 month old is throwing a tantrum or, or my three year old is, you know, being defiant in some way. It's okay, what lesson Have I not taught? You know, and giving them the space and freedom to where, okay, when they need, they have something they're trying to express more times than not, it is an outside environmental thing. We don't have, we haven't had a nap. We're hungry, you know. And so I can kind of mentally go down the list, but it's for teens is definitely a lot harder. And so I have found that it has been true. And we we definitely because we have three, you know, we've got two olders we've got the 12 and 13. And then we've got a five, three and 16 month old, there's just like this great divide. And you're so right about saying you need to do this, you need to do this. It's almost like the older ones. I started relying on them to help with the smaller ones. And remembering that they're not parents. Yeah. And and that they value just as much being a kid as the younger ones do. And so I actually did start with my daughter, we we connected over Harry Potter. She's a big Harry Potter fan. And I was too when I was younger. So I'm I'm 38 for reference, I just turned 38 And so we just she got this new video game and we literally sat there and I let her play and I watched her and she just walked me through all the steps. And it was just a great bonding time. It's something that she loves. She's also autistic. So we have, we have things that that we tried to do and keep to keep her also kind of regulated in a certain space and finding, you know, it's kind of like when, when, especially when they were in that space, it's, they want to talk about what they like, what they want to do and what they you know. And it's really, it is sometimes a challenge to get them to branch out outside of what is familiar or liked by them. And she's done a really great job transitioning, especially when we have little kids. But getting that one on one time with her, I actually found that it's easier to for her to do chores, and for me to get her to do chores, help with things. When I say hey, let's go do this. And then we'll go do our thing. And she just did it. She loves it. And so it's the same thing with the 10, the 10 year old, my husband is going to take her on a daddy daughter date this this Thursday. So it's kind of like that's something he has special planned for her. And you know, because it is is hard. Especially you know, you'll have four we have five, like when you got multiples. Spending individual time with everybody.

Yeah, definitely. We're just talking about that, right?

Dr. Cliff Fisher: Yeah, no, it's really important that one on one time. And I think one thing more than that. You said it was super interesting. I think a lot of women and I think a lot of moms do this is when the when you said the baby's having a tantrum, he says, Well, what haven't I not done? Versus what does that child need? Like? So often? I think moms like up what do I need to do? What do I need to do versus and I think we take it personally versus like, they're going through their stuff. And like Jory mentioned it, you know what I mean? So just asking the child versus like, it's not a lack in you. It's not a lack in all these moms. It's not a lack. And all these women, I think, teach our girls to be brave, not perfect, really does a great job on that TED Talk. As far as like, Girls Just Want to do everything perfect. And I feel then moms exponentially go to the next level with that, because they truly know what's at stake, right? The next generation and the generation and the generation like, so it's not like this little

task. Yeah, without a doubt, and there's so much pressure again, whether it's outside or even just the internal pressure, or even if you if you had a wonderful example, and a mom or a mother in law. Now there's always the certain dynamic, it feels it feels like the weight of the world, it feels like if I don't get this right, my kids are gonna be screwed up for life. And that's such a lie that we tell ourselves that everything that we do is is we give ourselves way too much credit.

types of things. I mean, like the end of the day, loving your kids like that is like unconditionally loving your kids and yes, you're we're not always doing things maybe perfect. Or maybe you think later Oh, I could have done this different but it's like you love your kids and they feel that and that's what's going to stay with them. You know?