Dr. Becky Kennedy Interview: Parenting 101 on Call Her Daddy Podcast (Transcript)

And I think we talk a lot at Good Inside about being a sturdy parent, and it’s not a word we often use, but I think in your own life, you probably know someone who feels sturdy and they’re at once able to listen to you and care for you, but they in no ways lose themselves in the process. Like you can locate them as well. I think that’s what we need to go for.

ALEX COOPER (00:05:17 – 00:05:41): Such a good point because I feel like I was having this conversation with my friend the other day, just obviously as I’m preparing to become a parent.

And a lot of my life, I was so fortunate to look up to really incredible parents, my mom and my dad. That’s half the reason I was worried about getting married because I’m like, how am I going to replicate this? Because they did such a great job. And I feel like that’s probably more like less common.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:05:41 – 00:05:42): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (00:05:42 – 00:06:30): Than the other situation. And so I got really lucky. But something I always felt with my mom was like she was so solid in her parenting techniques.

And I really now when I look back, no was such a good word to hear from her. As much as it was probably annoying when I was a child, I know it actually made me feel safe at the time. It pissed me off. But my mother, like telling me no and giving me boundaries, it actually allowed me as a child to feel safe and make me feel like, okay, there are parameters that a sturdy person is putting around me and I’m not the one in control. Because when a child feels in control, like they can do anything, I don’t know who I would’ve — I would’ve become a monster, Becky.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:06:30 – 00:06:31): Okay. Me too.

ALEX COOPER (00:06:31 – 00:06:32): I would’ve been off the rails.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:06:33 – 00:07:03): I think you’re right. I mean, safety exists within a container. If you feel like you can control the edges of the world yourself, that’s terrifying.

You won’t say it as a kid. You seem happy in the moment because there’s no overt conflict, but those are the people — I can’t even tell you how many 20-somethings I’ve seen in my practice who feel really angry later on at their parents. Like, “Oh, I was mad at you so you didn’t set rules that were good for me? That pisses me off now.”

ALEX COOPER (00:07:04 – 00:07:11): Okay, can we talk about some maladaptive behaviors that you see that could come as a result of gentle parenting?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:07:12 – 00:07:58): Yeah, and again I believe we have to let kids know their feelings are real and kids’ feelings cannot dictate parental decisions and world realities, right?

I think we’ve gone from, “You don’t want to go to Aunt Sally’s? Who cares? Stop whining.” To, “You don’t want to go to Aunt Sally’s, so now one of us will stay home and you don’t have to go.” And so if I think about what that means, let’s say then 10 years from now, 20 years from now, it’s a really dangerous thing for people to think my feelings give me the right to change the world around me. My feelings are information, but my feelings are more of a signal than some external truth. It can lead to a lot of narcissism. It can lead to really unhealthy relationship patterns.

ALEX COOPER (00:07:59 – 00:08:03): Right. Because it’s almost like the kid is kind of then in control always.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:08:04 – 00:08:04): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (00:08:04 – 00:08:28): And once they learn that, then it’s kind of a free-for-all because now it’s all predicated on what your child is feeling and then you’re going to adapt for them.

And they never kind of almost have to go through the hardships of learning like, that’s not how this works. And then I can imagine in school or with peers, when they don’t get what they want, they’re going to have friction because other kids are going to be like, we all were told we can’t do that, why are you still trying to do it?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:08:29 – 00:08:49): Yeah, learning how to tolerate things not going your way, learning how to tolerate disappointment, learning how to tolerate jealousy — these are the skills of life. And you can’t develop skills for experiences you’ve never had. So if every time you feel a feeling, your parent gives you an exit ramp, you’re going to expect the world to give you exit ramps.

The Pilot Metaphor

ALEX COOPER (00:08:49 – 00:08:52): Okay. So talking about being a sturdy parent.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:08:52 – 00:08:52): Yes.

ALEX COOPER (00:08:53 – 00:08:56): I know that you have kind of used this pilot metaphor.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:08:56 – 00:08:57): Yes.

ALEX COOPER (00:08:57 – 00:09:04): Before. And I think that could maybe help people understand it even more. Can you explain how this translates to parenting?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:09:04 – 00:09:10): Yes. So imagine being a passenger. Okay. And I’m assuming you don’t have a pilot license, do you?

ALEX COOPER (00:09:10 – 00:09:10): I do not.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:09:10 – 00:09:41): Okay, I would mess up my metaphor. Okay, and there’s intense turbulence, like not normal, really intense turbulence.

And I think in that situation, let’s say you, the other passengers are kind of screaming, you’re nervous, and I think there’s one of 3 announcements that could come on from the pilot, and they perfectly kind of mimic different approaches to parenting.

So one, pilot one says, “Hey everyone, stop screaming back there, you’re freaking out over nothing, you are so dramatic. Why can’t you have one flight where you’re just calm? It’s no big deal, right?” Oh my God.

ALEX COOPER (00:09:41 – 00:09:42): Can you imagine?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:09:43 – 00:09:46): Well, exactly that. I would be more activated.

ALEX COOPER (00:09:46 – 00:09:46): Me too.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:09:46 – 00:09:59): First of all, I’d be thrown off that my screaming is enough to make my pilot unnerved. I also, if my pilot says it’s not even big turbulence, if I felt like it was, I’d be like, well, maybe it is like, are you missing something?

ALEX COOPER (00:09:59 – 00:10:05): Right. You know, why do I feel like I know a little bit more than you in this moment? Exactly. Or why are you trying to downplay this in this moment?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:10:05 – 00:10:34): Right, exactly. So that’s pilot 1, not so good.

Pilot 2 is kind of the opposite extreme, which is, “Hey guys, it’s a lot of turbulence. I’m going to open up the cockpit doors if anyone back there wants to come and fly the plane, because this is a really tricky situation and maybe one of you knows what to do.” And this is when we don’t have any authority, there’s no boundaries, and we look to our passengers to make decisions that really should rely in a closed cockpit. We are not equal decision makers with our kid.

ALEX COOPER (00:10:34 – 00:10:34): Right.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:10:35 – 00:11:02): I mean, I’m not even scared of the turbulence anymore. I’m just scared that this person’s my pilot. Right?

And so I think the first situation is kind of pure reactivity. The second situation is no boundaries. And here’s pilot 3. “Hey guys, I hear you screaming back there. There’s a lot of turbulence. And by the way, if you want to keep screaming, scream away. I’ve been a pilot a number of years. I know we’re going to get through this situation. I’m going to stop this announcement right now and go back to doing my job, and I’ll see you when we land at LAX.”

ALEX COOPER (00:11:02 – 00:11:03): I want that pilot.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:11:03 – 00:11:39): I’m like, yes, exactly. And I think there’s 2 components. They validated my reality. If I think the turbulence is enough to scream, that is based in some reality in my body.

I don’t know if it’s really big turbulence, but I’m already screaming. I want that seen, but I don’t want my feelings to be contagious to my pilot. That’s terrifying. So I literally need that boundary, kind of, I understand you’re upset and your upset doesn’t infiltrate my experience. I can hold my own experience separate from that.

ALEX COOPER (00:11:39 – 00:12:19): Right. And it doesn’t impact my ability as the parent, AKA the pilot, to do the job that you are fully relying on me to do.

And that, putting it in those terms, I think is so digestible because I agree, I would freak out if there was a pilot who was kind of like, unknowing of what’s going on. And I bet that’s how children can sense like, oh, my parent has no idea what’s going on. And that’s again when they are going to act out. You see it with the kids when the parents are like, “I don’t know,” and they’re anxious. Like, what do we do? And they’re like, you don’t know? Oh, let’s wreak havoc because if you don’t know, then I’m going to take charge and it’s going to be a disaster.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:12:19 – 00:12:39): I mean, it’s so thoughtful and insightful that you said that because that’s exactly right where parents will then say, “But then my kid takes advantage of me.” No, your kid gets activated because when we say things like, “Hey, I’m going to change altitude now, okay? Okay, is that okay? I’m going to make an emergency landing, guys, okay?”

ALEX COOPER (00:12:39 – 00:12:42): No, no, okay, don’t ask me.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:12:42 – 00:13:08): Why are you raising your voice? “I’m going to turn off the TV now, okay?” That will make a kid — it’s not take advantage, but they sense that there’s no pilot and I think a 4-year-old is similar to, “I’m going to go out with my friends, okay? And Dad’s going to put you to bed, and I need to go out with my friends to be a happy person.” And my 4-year-old’s like, are you asking my permission to have a life? That is so — that feels so bad for a 4-year-old, right?

ALEX COOPER (00:13:08 – 00:13:11): Because it feels unstable. So it’s not sturdy.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:13:11 – 00:13:12): Why are you looking to me?

Parenting as a Team

ALEX COOPER (00:16:08): So let’s talk about parenting styles though. When 2 parents, you’ve got 2 people a lot of times in these dynamics, right?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:16:08 – 00:16:08): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (00:16:09 – 00:16:41): We have the absolute incredible women who are doing it on their own, which I’m like, you know what? You deserve every award in the book.

Let’s say you do have 2 people in the parenting dynamic. Okay. And one of those people came from a really strict household and the other one came from a pretty relaxed household. And so you have 2 parents that are trying to navigate how to parent, but they have very different approaches. Yeah. How does this impact the child?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:16:42 – 00:17:52): Well, I think I’ll start with the partnership because that matters, which, and you kind of alluded to it, but I think it is important to understand that parenting is a language, right?

And whatever language was in our home is going to be the thing that comes naturally, whether we want it to or not. Because some parents say, “My parents were too strict,” but still when my kid says to me, “You’re the worst dad in the world, you’re the worst mom,” my body is going to look in and say, what do I know about situations like this in terms of how to respond? And you might find the words coming out of your mouth that you told yourself you’d never say.

So coming into having kids or at any point reflecting what happened in my home and what am I bringing to this, whether I want to or not, that’s number one. Number 2, I think you’re talking about what happens when you have 2 parents who aren’t on the same page? How does that impact you, the kid. I think the thing that’s hardest for the kid is when those differences lead to a lot of undermining and overt conflict with the kid, because kids then internalize that and that’s one more thing they’re trying to hold in their body and often is a reason for a lot more acting out. They’re just like absorbing all the conflict.

ALEX COOPER (00:17:52 – 00:17:54): Could you give an example of that?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:17:55 – 00:19:13): So let’s just say it’s me and my husband and he hears me say, “After this episode, I’m turning off the TV,” right? Okay. And I go and I turn off the TV and my kid starts whining.

And then my husband says, “You know what, just give him 5 more minutes.” That’s really, really hard on the kid because now I’ll probably say, whoa, I’m working on holding this boundary and why am I the only adult in this house? And then my kid isn’t just responding to ending screen time, they’re responding to, ooh, again, the system. We live in systems. So the system around me that I need to feel safe doesn’t itself feel so safe.

Versus I say this and my husband thinks, “Becky, you’re a little uptight.” Let’s just say he thinks that. Probably some truth to that. And he finds me later and he says, “Look, I feel like screen time limits, especially it could have been 10 more minutes,” whatever his argument is, right? Finding me outside the moment, but in the moment kind of backing up my choice and tolerating the kid’s whining and not undermining me. We’re never going to agree with everything with our spouse, but how much it comes into play kind of comes alive right next to my kid. I think that’s the biggest difference.

ALEX COOPER (00:19:14 – 00:19:41): I can imagine how, again, also disorienting that is for the child because it’s already hard for a kid to be like, okay, I have to listen to my parents. Right. And if you’re wavering, like we’ve talked about, it’s confusing to them.

So then to have 2 complete people that have authority over you on different pages, I can’t imagine how split their brain is trying to navigate. Because then you’re also not seeing this as a unit.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:19:41 – 00:19:42): That’s right.

ALEX COOPER (00:19:42 – 00:20:14): And so I hear what you’re saying, which is great advice, is it’s like, even if in the moment you disagree with what your partner maybe is doing, it’s a conversation not in front of the child because you want to present as a united front.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY: Yes, yes.

ALEX COOPER: Be so that the children are obviously respecting you, but more so, so the child has that sturdy pilot in front of them and they don’t have to be like, but all the time that my dad does this, or my mom does this. It’s like too much for the kid to process when they’re just trying to be like, I was starting to figure out the boundary.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:20:14 – 00:20:14): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (00:20:14 – 00:20:17): And you guys actually made the boundary more confusing.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:20:17 – 00:20:21): Yeah. It’s kind of like hearing your co-pilot argue about what altitude you should be flying at.

ALEX COOPER (00:20:21 – 00:20:29): Right, right. And like the button gets pressed and you’re not supposed to be hearing it. You’re like, I feel like the plane’s going down. Can you two focus on doing the job instead of fighting?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:20:30 – 00:20:51): That’s exactly right. And it’s interesting because someone asked me this question recently and I brought it to my own husband because I have these kids I call deeply feeling kids who I think kind of need a little bit of a different approach.

And anyway, someone said, “How did you get your husband on board with that approach?” Because he was definitely raised not in the same way. And I asked him, how did I get you on board? And he goes, “I’m not on board.” I was like, oh, what?

ALEX COOPER (00:20:52 – 00:20:53): You know, you’re like, excuse me?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:20:53 – 00:21:37): I was like, that just blew my mind. He goes, “I’m not on board. So much of my body, especially when our daughter was younger, was saying like, I want to do things differently, but I just didn’t get in the way. And I kind of watched it and I trusted you.”

And I just think when I shared this with our community, they found it very liberating. Maybe I don’t need my partner to have 100% agreement. But what if we just chose different lanes where we said to each other, “I’m not going to undermine what you’re doing and let’s watch it play out for a certain number of months, however long, and then revisit it.” It’s kind of like at work, you’re not always going to agree with what another team is doing, but you’re probably going to say, “Let’s give this 6 months. Let’s see how this plays out.” And I’m not going to come to every meeting arguing against this project you’re working on.

ALEX COOPER (00:21:37 – 00:21:47): Well, it’s such a good point too. It’s like there’s never, even when you’re in a relationship without children, there is no winning an argument. It’s finding that middle ground where you both feel heard and respected.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:21:47 – 00:21:47): Yes.

ALEX COOPER (00:21:47 – 00:21:57): And when it comes to a child and parenting a child, I’m assuming it’s then applicable to be like, one of us is going to have more of like an innate feeling of how we should approach this.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:21:57 – 00:21:57): Yes.

ALEX COOPER (00:21:57 – 00:22:11): And if you feel so strongly, I have to respect and trust you. Let’s go with it. And that’s great. And then we can adjust if it doesn’t work. Yeah. But it’s way better than us both walking in and be like, no, I dis— no. And the kids literally sitting there like, which one should I listen to today?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:22:11 – 00:22:14): They’re a ping pong ball. I think like disagree and commit.

ALEX COOPER (00:22:14 – 00:22:14): Right.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:22:14 – 00:22:15): You know, mm-hmm.

Long-Term Greedy Parenting

ALEX COOPER (00:22:15 – 00:22:24): Does this in any capacity, when we’re talking about parenting and being on the same page or any of that, you talk about being long-term greedy.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:22:24 – 00:22:25): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (00:22:25 – 00:22:29): And I am so fascinated. I need you to explain this because I’m like, what does that mean?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:22:31 – 00:24:56): Yeah. Where I think about how many years our kids are young and in our home, and then how many years our kids are going to be older and out of our home.

And those are the same differences in years where our kids are either locked into a relationship with us when they live with us, and then after they’re out of our house, they get to choose the type of relationship they have with us. And also the stakes only get higher in life. Don’t get me wrong, dealing with the sandbox drama is so stressful, but if my kid doesn’t know how to play well with others when they’re in a job or when they’re 45, I think the stakes are higher.

And so I think we generally have kind of 2 options in all of these different hard moments with our kid. I’m either intervening for comfort and happiness today, but in doing that, I’m probably not helping my kid develop the skills they will need long-term. Or, to be honest, because it’s not all fun and games, I am enduring some amount of short-term inconvenience and pain today because I know this ladders up to something important.

So here’s a great example. We’re kind of getting close to back to school. I get the school list and I find out, oh my goodness, my daughter isn’t with her 4 best friends in class and school hasn’t started yet. And I’m thinking, do I call the school? And my kid gets a little anxious and she’s going to be so upset.

If I’m short-term focused, meaning I’m trying to optimize for my kid’s short-term comfort and happiness, I’m going to call the school. Long-term, what gets wired in their body, right? Because a kid’s early years with us forms their default settings for what to expect later on is, I’m sure there’s going to be a day in college where she sees her friends have a dorm room without her. And do I want my kid to call me and be like, “Will you call the dorm?” Or do I want my kid to know by that point, this sucks, but I already have had life experience to see I can survive it and cope with it.

And so when I think about long-term greediness, I think about — and by the way, we don’t do this 100% of the time. There’s some percentage of me too, I’m like, here’s the lollipop, here’s this. We have to, we’re human. But if I have a general long-term greedy perspective, I understand how my interactions with my kid today are going to have a pretty big impact on their coping, their sense of capability, and their resilience versus fragility later on.

ALEX COOPER (00:24:56 – 00:25:53): I mean, that is so fascinating. And I also think it takes such perspective. And I can imagine it is, like you said, very difficult sometimes for a parent to have the wherewithal to be like, I’m literally sitting in a 2nd grade class right now and we’re dealing with this.

And so if you can have that foresight to be like, this is temporarily uncomfortable for them and they will be so much better off for it, and the temper tantrum, or when they tell me they hate me today — they’re actually going to be like, thank God my parents made me walk in and have that conversation alone with my teacher instead of doing it for me. Because now when I’m going into this job interview, I’m like, Mom, if you’re watching this — my mom did that to me all the time. It was always like, no, you have to go speak to the coach, you have to go. And I was like, why can’t you do it like every other parent does it? That’s right, where they all go talk to them for them. And she’s like, one day you’ll thank me, Alex. And I was like, I’m never going to thank you. I’m never going to talk to you after I turn 18. Meanwhile, I was like, thanks, Mom.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:25:53 – 00:26:04): Thanks. Because, and I think an answer to that, if I’m thinking about your mom, is because I’m so invested in you discovering your own capability and I will not steal that from you just so you smile and are happy with me right now.

Building Confidence

ALEX COOPER (00:26:05 – 00:26:06): Can we talk about confidence?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:26:06 – 00:26:06): Yes.

ALEX COOPER (00:26:07 – 00:26:20): Can you explain just from everything you’ve seen, how can parents instill confidence in their kids? And also that sounds so simple. Yeah. But like, what is the actual importance of that.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:26:21 – 00:26:29): So I’m curious if you’re willing, like, just to get into it, does a situation come to mind that you’re like, that was a confidence-building experience for me?

ALEX COOPER (00:26:30 – 00:26:54): I don’t know if this is weird, but oddly enough, I think most of it was the resilience my parents forced me to learn in moments. Kind of similar to what I’m saying, what I was just saying about having to do things on my own. I think my parents were very focused on making sure that I had a sense of self and a sense of independence.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:26:54 – 00:26:54): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (00:26:54 – 00:27:00): And even though things were scary and uncomfortable, I never actually felt scared. Like my parents were always there.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:27:01 – 00:27:01): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (00:27:01 – 00:27:17): But they were never doing things for me. And I think that the more and more I learned, like, oh my God, I would run back to them after I had the really uncomfortable conversation with the soccer coach when I was 12. And I’m like, oh my God, no other kid my age was having to do it. And my mom made me have my one-on-one and I was like so nervous.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:27:18 – 00:27:18): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (00:27:18 – 00:27:46): But every time I came out of those moments and I got in the car with her, I would gush to her about like, and then I said this and I remembered how you told me to say this. The confidence that was built was like, I trusted myself and the trust that I built within myself started to then like, I felt like I had the answers sometimes before I had to go to my mom or my dad. And that built and built and built. And I think that just made me feel so supported.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:27:47 – 00:27:47): Yes.

ALEX COOPER (00:27:47 – 00:27:49): But also I was my own person.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:27:50 – 00:29:57): I mean, you’re saying so many words that are — you stole my words before.

So first of all, there’s the difference, we’ll get to this, between support and solutions. Those are very different things, right? You knew you could always go back to your parents, but they didn’t solve the situation for you. So I think we’ve been fed this idea that confidence means feeling good about yourself, but I believe confidence is self-trust, which is a very different game.

Because if you’re optimizing for feeling good about yourself, or I’m optimizing for my kid feeling good, I’m optimizing toward comfort. “Fine, I’ll do that thing for you.” Or even when my kid says, “I’m the only one in my class who can’t read chapter books, mom.” If I think building confidence is about feeling good, I’ll say, “But you’re the only one in your class who can play chess. Think about that.” Because I’m trying to help my kid feel good.

If confidence is self-trust and my kid says, “I’m the only one in my class who can’t read chapter books yet.” First of all, I’m not going to say you’re right, you’re a horrible reader. No. But first of all, I’ll probably just say something simple. Like, “First of all, I’m so glad you’re telling me that. I believe you. What happened when they handed out the books today?” Because my kid is bringing to me this experience, I’m upset in this way.

And if I over and over say to my kid, essentially, that’s not true, then my kid learns — and this has such long implications, and I think about college girls — other people have a better sense of my internal reality than I do. And I shouldn’t be shocked. I mean this, that when, let’s say, young woman is at a bar and someone’s like, “Hey, come home with me.” She’s like, “I don’t know, it’s a little early.” “Oh, don’t make such a big deal out of it.” And then if her internal circuit is, I do have a habit of overreacting to things, other people outside my body have a better sense of how I’m feeling than I do, it becomes sad but explainable because she’s learned to distrust herself.

ALEX COOPER (00:29:59 – 00:30:00): That is so —

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:30:01 – 00:30:01): Whoa.

ALEX COOPER (00:30:02 – 00:30:48): Because even when you’re saying that too, I also think what comes to mind is it’s, again, it’s easy, quick gratification for the child to feel, I’m immediately going to make you feel safe.

But I could also maybe see then the child then starts to be like, I’m not going to probably bring this up because I feel like every time I bring up something to my parents about how like I was not doing — I was falling behind in class, I feel insecure. Maybe there’s more secrecy and you’re hiding things because you are kind of embarrassed. We’re like, every time I try to tell them, they kind of either downplay it or they tell me it’s not real. And so like, why would I share with them instead of holding the space for them? Not solving it, but holding the space for them. Like, oh my gosh, tell me about how that made you feel in that moment.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:30:48 – 00:31:16): Exactly. I mean, I have this concept of the feelings bench. I love anything with the visual.

So if you think about a kid of any age or an adult going to their partner and they’re kind of wandering around this garden that has a lot of benches, okay? And maybe your kid is on the bench of, “I’m the only one in my class who can’t read chapter books,” but really they’re on the bench of, “I feel less than other people,” right? Or “I’m looking around and people have things I don’t have.” They’re going to be on that bench for the rest of their lives.

ALEX COOPER (00:31:16 – 00:31:17): Okay?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:31:17 – 00:32:09): And you’re right, we often have 2 instincts as parents. I either try to convince them to go to a sunnier bench, like, wait, that’s good. Or some ways I say your bench isn’t your bench. Like, that’s not true.

And if I think about the parent who — it’s so hard and simple — just kind of sits on the bench and they’re like, “Oh, tell me more about that. That happened.” I’m building my kid’s confidence because what I’m saying is even the version of you, I’m going to cry, who is the slowest reader, I like that. I like that girl. I’m willing to sit with her. I don’t need her to just be the star chess player.

And you’re right, when kids are young, they’re kind of learning what’s the range of experiences I can bring to my parent? Who can I be? What’s attachable, right? And confidence actually comes from not feeling like the best at everything. It feels—

ALEX COOPER (00:32:10 – 00:33:07): It’s feeling like it’s okay to be you when you’re not the best at something, and you have a safe home where that yucky feeling that you felt at school of being embarrassed, you can then go home and you can share it with your parents, and they’re going to hold it with you and be like, gosh, I can imagine how that made you feel, and let’s talk about it.

I also can imagine, similar to what you just referenced with that bar example, this is very probably important if you are raising young girls in today’s day and age, or literally whenever you’ve been raising young girls, because so many of us are kind of socialized to doubt ourselves and to be like, you’re being overdramatic, and oh, you’re just being sensitive, and you’re being this and that. If your daughter came to you about a situation that made her feel uncomfortable, how would you respond? And what is your advice to mothers and parents and everyone that’s doing this?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:33:07 – 00:35:23): So number one, we want to believe our kids’ internal experiences. I think the reason that gets tricky is that isn’t a perfect one-to-one with exactly what I will or will not encourage her to do after.

So for example, let’s just say it’s a little bit more of a vanilla situation. “Mom, I want to go back to soccer. I’m not starting anymore. It’s so embarrassing when I’m at practice and then they say starters on the field and I’m not doing it.” First of all, I want to believe her. And again, the first line, it is such a helpful line whether you have kids or not — when someone tells you they’re upset, just to make the first thing you say back, “I’m so glad you’re talking to me about this,” and stop talking.

“So glad you’re talking to me about this. Tell me what happened at practice.” “Well, they said the starters and I started to move onto the field. I’m like, oh nope, not me anymore. And I felt like everyone was looking at me and can’t believe I lost my starting spot.” “That sounds like that sucks.” And then I think what matters, at least in my house, what I encourage parents is, “So I’m not going to practice tomorrow.” I feel like we’ve started to focus a little too much on the “I believe you” part and not enough on — which is also a part of confidence — the “I believe in you” part.

And this is what it sounds like really happened in your family, which is so beautiful, which is the both. “I believe you that soccer practice kind of sucks compared to what used to be. I also want to let you know that you are a kid who can go even when you’re not a starter, and you’re going to get through a practice that feels awful, and I’m going to be there in the car waiting to give you a big hug. Or if you don’t want a hug and you just want to yell at me the whole way home, I’ll take that too. Either way, but it’s going to happen. You’re still going to go.”

Because if I think about the long-term greed focus, I want my kid to be able to regulate when they’re older, and you can’t manage a feeling you believe you’re not supposed to have. You have to try to get it out of your body and it comes out of your body as bad behavior. So I want my kid to be able to say when they don’t get the promotion, “This sucks. I thought I was going to get a promotion this cycle. I believe myself. This stinks. And I’m going to work tomorrow. I’m still going to go. I’m going to talk to my boss. What did I miss? Let’s go over my review.” I want both for my kids.

ALEX COOPER (00:35:24 – 00:35:35): I am like ingraining that in my head of, I’m so glad you’re talking to me about this. Because I’m like, mom, why did I always feel so confident to come to you and dad about things that I’m like, some of my friends are like, I would’ve never told my parents that.

And that is like, because I felt such an open space and I know I was really, really fortunate to have that. But that line right there, I’m tucking that right here, Dr. Becky. Yeah. And I’m going to keep that for when my child is in these situations.

Understanding Boundaries

ALEX COOPER: For maybe some of our newer moms, for me, for the daddy gang that’s just like getting started, I want now to dive a little bit more into boundaries.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:39:11 – 00:39:11): Good.

ALEX COOPER (00:39:12 – 00:39:31): Because obviously you bringing up that one of the biggest parts of parenting is boundaries. I love how you said earlier, I also don’t know if a lot of people even know what boundaries are because that word is thrown around so much and on social media especially. So can you define boundaries?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:39:31 – 00:39:31): Yes.

ALEX COOPER (00:39:31 – 00:39:32): What are we talking about?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:39:33 – 00:40:03): Boundaries are something you tell your kid you will do and they require your kid to do nothing. And I love that definition because every time I say something, when I think I’m setting a boundary, I can just assess like, do I have 2 checkmarks? Did I tell my kid something I will do and does this thing require my kid to do zero, which is why, if my kid’s jumping — actually a better example, because my third kid has 0% people pleasing in him.

ALEX COOPER (00:40:04 – 00:40:05): Zero for him.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:40:05 – 00:40:28): I love that. Yes. Okay. And so my first kid, I live in New York City, right? We’re in an elevator building. So if I said, “Hey, when we get into the elevator, sweetie, don’t press all the buttons.” My first kid would say, “You’re right. That would be disrespectful.” He was just a different kid. If I said that to my third kid, he’d say, “Okay.” And by the way, it would now be so much more fun to press every single one.

ALEX COOPER (00:40:28 – 00:40:32): The scene in Elf, right? Exactly. He does it all. All of them.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:40:32 – 00:43:09): So bright. And so this is a situation where I think parents would say, you have a kid who doesn’t respect your boundaries. And then we get into really common patterns. I start threat, “If you do it, no dessert tonight,” right? And then I give him sorbet for dessert because fruit isn’t dessert and I undermine my authority. Like these awful things. I end up yelling.

Okay, if I say to him, “Don’t press the elevator buttons,” am I telling him what I’m going to do? No. Does the success require him to do nothing? No, it actually requires him to have a lot of self-control. That is not a boundary, that’s a request. All the time as parents, we think we’re setting boundaries when we’re actually making requests. And requests are more frequent, and it’s often we start with a request, but if our kid is showing us they can’t follow it, or it’s more of a safety issue, or my kid is out of control, I have to set a boundary.

So with my kid, I could set this boundary in two ways. “Sweetie, when we go into the elevator, I’m going to stand between you and the buttons, and even if you lunge toward the buttons, I will block you.” That’s what I would say to him. And then my third kid has ninja moves, and I’m ready if you think I’m getting in the elevator holding two bags — no, no, no, no. I’m going to put my bag down and I am ready, and then I’m just going to go like this. Or I could set a boundary because sometimes those words will escalate a non-people pleaser — they’re like, “Oh, game on, game on.” And I might just step in between him and the buttons saying nothing, get ready for the lunge and say, “Mm-mm.”

My kid’s jumping on the couch and let’s say they’re jumping near a glass table. I wouldn’t even care if my kid jumped on the couch, but I don’t want my kid to get hurt. It is not a boundary to say, “Get off the couch.” That’s a request. I’m not telling my kid what I will do, and it requires my kid to do something. And then again, it’s like, “Well, if you don’t stop, I’m going to count to 5.” And a boundary is saying, “Look, sweetie” — and you could say this kindly, it’s kind and firm at the same time — “it looks like it’s hard for you to stop jumping on the couch. I’m going to walk over there, and if by the time I get there you’re not off the couch, I will pick you up and I will put you on the floor. And this matters, it’s my number one job to keep you safe.” That goes back to the job of boundaries.

It’s such a powerful thing as a parent to hear yourself say that and for your kid over and over because it reminds you, it’s not to keep you happy, my number one job is to keep you safe. “So I’m going to put you on the ground and you can jump on the floor.” And then if that’s my house, my kid won’t look at me when I say that and just say, “Okay, no.” Depending on who my kid is and their temperament, they might keep jumping. “I’m going to go over there and I’m going to say, I’m picking you up now.” “No.” “Hey, 5, let’s count to 5.” “No.”

ALEX COOPER (00:43:10 – 00:43:10): Up.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:43:10 – 00:43:39): “I’m picking you up now.” And my kid will melt down when they’re young because that’s what kids do. None of us like to want to do something and have someone stop us. It’s just not a fun experience. But this is where the jobs make so much sense. If I’m like an A+ student, I can do both jobs at once. I set the boundary, my kid gets upset, and I’m just going to say something simple: “It’s more fun to jump on the couch. But that doesn’t mean I’m letting my kid jump on the couch.” Okay.

ALEX COOPER (00:43:40 – 00:43:51): The request. Yes. I get it now. You’re like, the request is like you’re just asking them to not do something or to do something or whatever. The boundary is if this happens. Yes. I’m doing this.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:43:52 – 00:44:11): Yes. A boundary is an assertion, Alex, of your power. This is why it’s especially important for women. This matters just as much in the workplace. We give our power away all the time by making certain things dependent on other people behaving in a certain way versus defining what we need to do to feel good enough.

ALEX COOPER (00:44:11 – 00:44:34): Boundaries are very hard to set, I think, for us as even individuals. Yes. I think especially as women. Again, overdramatic people pushing your boundaries, you being in work settings and learning I had a boundary and then this person crossed it and I still have to endure this. This is uncomfortable. It’s a lot easier said than done.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:44:34 – 00:44:34): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (00:44:34 – 00:44:49): And I’m curious if you ever, obviously you’re a person who’s good at setting boundaries now, but were you ever prone to people pleasing in your life and how did you find this beautiful balance that you’re now in?

From People Pleaser to Boundary Setter

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:44:49 – 00:45:12): Well, first of all, the beautiful balance I talk about is not the beautiful balance I live in my house. Dr. Becky and Becky are, you know, I always say it’s true. My kids don’t have Dr. Becky as a mom and I wouldn’t wish that on them. They have Becky. Sometimes my husband actually says, “You know, I was about to tag your personal account in your latest reel because I feel like you could benefit from such advice.”

ALEX COOPER (00:45:12 – 00:45:14): You know, you’re like the shade.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:45:14 – 00:45:15): Seriously.

ALEX COOPER (00:45:15 – 00:45:15): Whoa.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:45:15 – 00:47:03): But it’s true. And so there’s no perfect balance, right? But I love this question because I was very much a good girl and I think that that is one of the things that has shaped so much of how I think about especially women in parenting.

“Oh, she’s such a good girl, she’s so easy, I never have to think about that one.” And I think all that means, good girl, is this is someone who has learned to gaze out and notice everyone’s needs and take care of them at the exclusion of gazing in and wondering what their own needs are. And then it gets even more extreme because then your own needs become a threat to this job you’ve perfected, which is taking care of everyone else’s wants and needs. Your own needs are very inconvenient if you’re trying to just placate everyone around you.

And one of the reasons I think we have trouble setting boundaries is logically we say, I know my kid doesn’t have to be happy with me, but logic doesn’t dictate our kind of relationship decisions. Our old circuits do. And if when you try to set a boundary around dessert, your kid’s having a tantrum, which is kind of their way of saying, “I’m upset with you,” your body essentially activates, what do I know about someone I love being upset with me? What is my job in that situation? What have I gotten really good at doing? What is my role? And if you were really good as a kid at keeping the peace, first of all, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s probably something very crafty you’ve figured out how to do. You’re going to have a hard time holding that boundary because your body knows how to just make the other person happy to the kind of detriment of what you might need.

ALEX COOPER (00:47:03 – 00:47:34): And I think it’s so applicable for women, like you’re talking about, we’ve been conditioned this way that it’s awkward and it can be uncomfortable to set a boundary. Yes. So then you just kind of appease the people around you and you just forego what you genuinely want in the dynamic and you don’t use your voice.

And so I can imagine then getting into parenting, it may be hard for women to actually use their own voice. It’s almost like for the first time in their life to have authority in some capacity, because we’ve never almost had it.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:47:35 – 00:49:48): Yes. And I listened to your episode the other day about kind of effortlessness, and why is it so cool to like pretend like we don’t care and it just happens? That’s right.

And I have to try very hard to do all the things I talk about, to set boundaries, to stay connected to my kid without them overpowering me, because my initial wiring definitely was being a good girl. I think one of my first times where that came into major conflict was probably my anorexia before I went to college. I think anorexia at the end of the day is a struggle with desire. What am I allowed to want? And want and desire, if they feel so scary — well, anorexia is a way of saying, “I want nothing, not even my basic needs. I want for nothing. I can become very, very tiny,” right?

And that was, you know, a ton of therapy, all the things around that. But I think through that process I started what I would call kind of like gazing in, like, can I develop a relationship with my own wants and needs? Can I be a little bit more like — I think about this idea of going from a good girl to an inconvenient woman. And it’s not like I try to inconvenience people, but if you know what you want and at least some of the time you make decisions around that, people are going to be inconvenienced.

Not everyone’s, I think we have this fantasy like, I’m going to tell my husband I want to sleep in, because I usually wake up and my husband’s going to say, “Becky, I’m so happy you asked me. Nothing would make me happier than waking up at 5:45 with our 2 toddlers because you do it most of the time.” And no, most husbands, nice husbands, their initial reaction is like, “Oh.” And if I can’t tolerate that sigh and know, me getting what I want does inconvenience my husband. Okay. That’s just part of being in a relationship with each other. And I think my own journey has been, yeah, like those little experiments, bracing myself, the panic around it, the calling my friends, the getting support. And it’s still a journey.

ALEX COOPER (00:49:48 – 00:50:29): It is. And thank you for sharing that. Because I also think so many women I’ve talked to that have experienced anything when it comes to struggling with eating and body — and then when you transition into motherhood, it’s like, we have so little control over our lives and what’s happening, and we have people pleasing, and then there’s no boundaries, and then they keep getting pushed.

And so we’re constantly just a victim of our circumstances. Then we find one thing that we can internally control with our body, but really we are hurting ourselves. And so to then get to that point in your life where you were like, I started to look inward of like, how am I going to basically adjust the way that my relationship is to myself.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:50:30 – 00:50:30): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (00:50:30 – 00:50:36): It’s really powerful to get to that point because then you are giving yourself more autonomy. It’s not easy.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:50:36 – 00:50:36): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (00:50:36 – 00:50:40): But I think that kind of also leads me to think about the perfect parent.

The Myth of the Perfect Parent

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:50:41 – 00:50:41): Hmm.

ALEX COOPER (00:50:41 – 00:51:00): I feel like this is something a lot of women I’m sure struggle with, and I feel like it’s such a huge pressure now. And I don’t know if you feel like there’s an uptick, but I feel like everyone’s always talking about like the perfect parent, to be the perfect parent. Why do you think there’s such an all-time high right now around that conversation?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:51:00 – 00:52:05): Well, I think, I guess there’s 2 perfect parents. There’s what happens in your home and then how it looks to everyone else. I don’t know if there’s an uptick in how it’s perceived by everyone else. There’s just an uptick in this world of showing our lives to others and other people deciding whether we’re good enough. So that’s probably been this externally oriented world we’re kind of a part of, right?

I guess, I tell parents all the time, first of all, there’s no perfect parent, but it wouldn’t even be good for your kid anyway. That’s the irony. The model of a relationship you form with your kid is the foundation they take into adulthood. I happen to think attraction is just an activation of your earliest attachment system. It’s what feels like home. And so do I want to set my kids up to only feel naturally attracted to people who always get it right, are perfectly attuned to their feelings, say the right thing, are never distracted? That’s not real.

ALEX COOPER (00:52:06 – 00:52:25): It isn’t real. And I also love how you say it’s not realistic, but I do think it kind of can bring us into the attachment style conversation. So, obviously, attachment theory, which is based on the assumption that our experiences as children inform who we are as adults.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:52:25 – 00:52:25): Yes.

ALEX COOPER (00:52:25 – 00:53:01): And the type of partners we attract, the type of relationships that we seek, our behaviors. But then all of a sudden we all become adults, right? So we’re like, okay, I’m anxious attached, or I’m avoidant attached, I’m fearful attached, I’m secure attached. Great. Then you become a parent. And I think that for everyone listening today, I’m wondering, how does your attachment style as an adult impact your child? Because now we’re just keeping that generational cycle going. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:53:01 – 00:53:31): Yeah. Your attachment style is how you’ve learned to define closeness, what you expect from other people, what parts of you are allowed in relationships, what parts of you you’ve learned to kind of keep out of it. And usually without various intervention, that transfers generation to generation. Not because that’s anyone’s fault. It’s just what feels natural. And our body is generally drawn to what feels familiar versus what’s good for us.

ALEX COOPER (00:53:31 – 00:53:44): So if someone’s sitting here like, “Dr. Becky, yeah, I am a full anxious attached person and I am about to welcome a child into this world.” How is that going to impact that person’s parenting style?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:53:46 – 00:53:49): So first of all, I’d say amazing that you’re thinking about this.

ALEX COOPER (00:53:49 – 00:53:50): Yeah.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:53:50 – 00:53:51): Like you’re ahead of the game.

ALEX COOPER (00:53:51 – 00:53:52): Yeah.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:53:52 – 00:55:22): Like, we can’t — I don’t think insight alone brings change, but we certainly can’t change what we don’t understand. So you’ve done a huge step one. Amazing.

And then I dig in. I’m not one for labels. If we stop there, I feel like, what would you mean? Okay, so you’re anxiously attached. Does that mean it’s hard for you to have a little separation from your partner when there’s distance? Do you tend to interpret that as rejection? Are you a little bit oriented toward seeing someone’s separation as abandonment instead of just separation? And, same time, “Oh yes, yes, yes.”

Okay, so here’s what I probably know about that person. I wonder what’s going to happen when your kids even start walking. It seems like such a great developmental milestone and it is, it’s really a sign that your kid is already ready to kind of separate from you. What’s it going to be like for you when your kid’s really upset with you? Does upset feel like abandonment and threat? So let’s get ready for some of those situations. They’re throwing the toys on the floor, begging for the thing at the store with you. And then we can talk about, okay, well, how do you want to respond?

And that old stuff is still going to feel natural. I think that’s what really matters. And I think that’s what really resonated about that podcast you did about the cool girl, where the only thing that comes naturally in parenting is how you were parented. And so if you want to do things differently, you need a system. You need people to help you. You’re going to have a lot of uncomfortable moments.

ALEX COOPER (00:55:22 – 00:56:11): And yeah, I love that because I think a lot of people, understandably, we recognize we all have baggage. We all have things from our past that we are innately going to just potentially give our kids, project onto our kids, be super hypervigilant to not do it to our kids.

And so everyone is coming from their own perspective of, oh my God, I either want to replicate my childhood for my child, or I want to make sure I change all these things. And having those feelings, it’s a lot and it’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself when you have this past that you’re recognizing can impact your child’s future. And I think it’s hard to sometimes overcome that pressure we put on ourselves.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:56:11 – 00:56:41): Yeah. And look, like you said, we all have our past and so we’re all going to have trigger moments. Our kids trigger us. I think we all think they’re going to heal us. They trigger us. They bring up all the stuff that wasn’t really healed from our past.

And if you know that going in, you can look at these moments like, wow, I had a pretty intense reaction to that. I don’t even remember saying this to my kid. It just kind of flew out of my mouth. I think those are the situations often we want to put away, like, ah, I don’t want to look at that. But if you’re willing to look at that, those become amazing teachers to you.

ALEX COOPER (00:56:41 – 00:57:20): It’s so true because I feel like an example is someone I know, their kid didn’t make the varsity team. Mom was really upset because this was bringing up something for her. She didn’t make the varsity team and she was hoping her daughter could make the varsity team. And so she’s triggered about not feeling good enough. Meanwhile, I don’t even know if the kid cared that much. “Oh, all my friends are actually on the other team, which is perfect. I didn’t even want to make varsity.” But the mom was so upset. How can we essentially avoid projecting our own emotions and our own triggers onto our kids?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:57:21 – 00:58:50): So I think there’s 2 parts to that question. Can we do anything to get ahead of it? And then when it inevitably happens, what do we do next? Because again, we’re not going to be perfect at it.

So there is no superpower that is as important in parenting as knowing yourself, right? I know I had socially hard moments in middle school and high school. As my kids have gotten older into middle school and high school, oh my goodness, have those come alive. I’m like, do I really want to talk to my kid about the situation? I know from the other moms my kid wasn’t invited. And just to be able to ask yourself, is this a me feeling or is this a my kid feeling, right? And to try to pause. Maybe I don’t need to go and say, “Oh, you weren’t invited to that party, how do you feel?” That might be a me thing. That might be a me thing. It probably is a me thing, right?

And so that’s one question — what is coming up for me is a superpower question as a parent. What is coming up for me about this? And then the second part is there’s nothing that matters as much as repair with your kid. And repairing is taking accountability for something, saying you want to try something again, right? And so to be able to say, “Hey, I had a big reaction when you told me this thing. To be honest, a lot of that had to do with me. I’m sorry. What I wanted to say was this.” That’s so powerful because you’re going to make mistakes that allows you to repair and it models for your kid how to take accountability in their other relationships.

ALEX COOPER (00:58:50 – 00:59:37): That’s also — I remember in doing all the research for attachment theories, so much of it is anyone who has secure attachment, really it was mostly built in the repair phase, which you’re discussing, which is like, knowing that it’s symbolizing you are in a safe, secure environment because your parent, although they may have lashed out and they may have raised their voice or they may have messed up, coming back around and recognizing it with the child and taking ownership and accountability and sharing with them like, “Hey, I’m really sorry that I did that.” It shows them like, oh, the world is not scary and I’m not in an unstable situation and my parents even can mess up. But this is how they operate and this is how they handle it when they do make mistakes. Wow. That’s a really good leader.

The Power of Repair

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (00:59:37 – 01:01:05): Yeah. And I think, you know, I was lucky enough to be asked by TED to give a talk and they were like, “I know you talk about all these things. What do you want to talk about?” And repair was the topic because I think the other thing to understand about it, especially with kids, and I hope anyone listening who doesn’t even have kids, it gives us a lot of insight into our self-talk, is what happens for a kid when they’re screamed at by their parent and they don’t have a repair, right?

And again, that happens everywhere. I scream at my kids too, okay? So I scream at my kid, “Oh, you’re so ungrateful, you’re so spoiled,” whatever. We’re now probably separate. Maybe my son is in his room, and if I don’t repair, a kid is in their room feeling very confused because the person they need for safety is now the person who felt scary. And that’s just a disorganized thing. Disorganized attachment is actually those 2 things being kind of fused together, that the person who scares me is the person I go to for comfort. That’s a lot.

And so what does my kid need to do to get back to baseline if I don’t repair? They generally do 2 things. They self-blame. “This is all my fault. I’m a bad kid.” Because there’s this quote I always love from grad school, from Fairbairn, which is, for a kid, it’s better to be a sinner in a world ruled by God than to live in a world ruled by the devil. Which means taking the badness in is safer than believing the world is bad.

ALEX COOPER (01:01:06 – 01:01:08): Oh, especially when it comes to your parents.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:01:08 – 01:01:55): That is your world. So if it’s my parents are bad or I’m bad, you better bet — and that actually gives them a sense of control. And if I think about all the women especially who, no matter what happens in their life when it’s bad, you know what they still do? It’s so old. It’s actually a lot of unrepaired moments.

Or we do the other thing, which is self-doubt. A kid in the room has to say, “You know what, maybe that didn’t happen. Maybe that didn’t actually happen.” And I think about how many women in my practice would be in these dating situations and something not going well, “I’m going to call 5 friends and see if they thought it was a big deal. Do they think it’s a big deal?” It’s kind of saying, I don’t trust my own assessment. And that starts so early. So yes, you don’t have to be perfect. Don’t be perfect, but repair whenever you can.

Fertility Struggles

ALEX COOPER (01:01:56 – 01:02:08): Such good advice. I also was thinking back to the perfect parent and all these things that we’re talking about, recognizing that there are so many women who may be on the journey that they’re really fighting to become a parent.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:02:08 – 01:02:08): Yes.

ALEX COOPER (01:02:09 – 01:02:28): And they’re really like, oh my God, Dr. Becky, I have been on the hardest emotional journey to just simply even get to where you guys are talking about, and I pray to God that I one day can have a baby. Through your practice, do you mind just sharing a little bit about what you have learned about women’s struggles with fertility in general?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:02:28 – 01:04:20): Yes, and I did IVF for all my children too, so first of all, I’d say from life experience, yeah, I’ve been there and it stinks. It’s so hard. I think it’s one of the first times we feel like a failure as a mom before we’re a mom. I can’t even do this thing that my body is supposed to be able to do. I’m already failing.

And one of the things I thought a lot about, maybe you and I could talk offline, is so many of the things that are our superpower coming into motherhood become our Achilles heel. So if I go to fertility, for me, I have been someone who makes things happen. I know effort doesn’t always lead to outcome, but I feel like I have found a way for effort to lead to outcome because I just do more, more, more. And I like to move and I like to make decisions and I like my studying to lead to good grades. And then I try to get pregnant.

And I think for me, I would’ve benefited from someone saying, “Becky, you know how you’ve been pretty successful at effort, effort, effort, and then having pretty good outcomes? That’s going to end up making motherhood really hard for you.” And I’d be like, what? “That’s going to really work against you because from getting pregnant to maintaining the pregnancy to whether or not your kid is an early walker or a late walker, effort doesn’t lead to output.” And that might be harder for you than some of your friends who would say, “Yeah, I’ve kind of been like a B student. It’s fine.” They are better prepared to handle those things well. And so again, I think it’s where knowing yourself really helps you digest your own fertility journey or early parts or any part of parenting.

ALEX COOPER (01:04:20 – 01:04:45): I mean, I can imagine every woman, I think, no matter which way you go about it in trying to get pregnant — and I talked about this a little bit on the episode where I announced my pregnancy — it brought up so much of the failure and the competitor in me from being an athlete. And you’re like, why isn’t it working? Why isn’t it working? And you only have yourself to blame.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:04:45 – 01:04:45): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (01:04:45 – 01:05:02): Which you should not be blaming yourself, but of course we’re going to blame ourselves because who else can we blame? And again, with women, like you just said, it’s too scary of a world where we’re so conditioned, like just blame yourself because it’s the easiest and it’s the most ingrained in us.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:05:02 – 01:06:09): Yeah. Can I say something on that? You know, I had this situation with my oldest, he was a lot younger and it’s become just such a helpful framework for me.

So we were backing out a car from a garage and my husband was driving and my son had the door, the passenger door, open in the back seat. But my husband didn’t know it was open when he was backing out the car. And so he backs out, obviously the door hits the side. And he said, “Why didn’t you close the door?” And my son said, he was probably 6 at the time, “I didn’t know you were about to back out. It’s not my fault.” And my husband goes, “So it’s my fault?” And my son says, “You know, Dad, sometimes bad things happen and it’s nobody’s fault.”

My heart races as I say this. We’re obsessed with fault. When you’re not getting pregnant, it’s probably nobody’s fault. I mean, by the way, look into it, is it what’s going on. But when your kid isn’t talking yet, it’s probably not your fault. Did I not say enough words? And it’s probably not your kid’s fault. It’s probably just hard.

ALEX COOPER (01:06:09 – 01:06:10): Life, it’s circumstances.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:06:10 – 01:06:16): I think, yes, like sometimes things are hard and fault just isn’t a helpful framework.

ALEX COOPER (01:06:17 – 01:06:45): That’s really helpful because I think it then can help release the shame and the guilt that I feel like so many women probably feel who are listening right now, being like, I get it’s not my fault, but do you have any advice for any woman who’s sitting here being like, “But Becky, I am so exhausted. I’ve been doing IVF, things aren’t working.” Is there any advice you have that kept you going or that you can share to just help women just feel, keep going in your resilience?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:06:45 – 01:08:15): Yeah. Look, I think what’s so hard is if becoming a mother is such an important focus for you, I think advice of, “Oh, just put that to the side and work out more or have lunch with your girlfriends,” like I hear friends of mine saying, “Oh, my girlfriends are getting pregnant. I freaking hate them. I don’t want to be around them. I’m not even happy for them.” And so when any one thing in your life becomes so important, it’s really hard when that thing isn’t happening anywhere near the timeline.

So number one, I would just give yourself massive permission. Like, this is really hard. It makes sense it feels that way. This stinks. And then, yeah, at some point we want to find an “and.” Are there other things that give me joy? Not 10 out of 10 joy the way they used to, but 2 out of 10, right? And just fighting for those things, I think, really matters.

I know plenty of people on a fertility journey who said, “What would it be like to give myself a couple-month break?” And I don’t want to say it’s magic, I want to be able to say, and then they randomly got pregnant naturally because they weren’t stressed. Okay, there’s some stories. But I think also, I know you’ve talked about this, noticing when a timeline drives us more crazy than is helpful. Again, I don’t think there’s any simple answers, but just, okay, this timeline, maybe it was never true. Maybe I am going to be pregnant after my friends, or maybe my journey — maybe there are other options for having children.

ALEX COOPER (01:08:16 – 01:09:36): But widening the aperture a little, it’s great advice because I agree there’s so much comparison that understandably we can’t help but do. And especially when you want something in life and you are someone who’s a go-getter, you’re like, why is everyone else getting it and not me? And I totally understand that, but I agree with you. You have to just keep finding the good in life and things will work out. Things will work out as they’re supposed to. You will find whether it’s a different path or the path works, it’s going to work out. You have to believe that for yourself.

I also think something I talked about recently was then to the new moms who are, “Oh my gosh, it worked. I got pregnant. I’m having this baby. Am I allowed to complain for a second?” And I think there’s a lot of shame around not feeling like this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I am a new woman, and I love this, and this life is great. And the changing thing looks perfect, and everything’s organized. And whenever you see these videos, there’s not a thing on the ground. There’s not a toy out of place. And so you start to be like, oh my God, is it me? Is there something wrong with me? And so I want to kind of go through some thoughts maybe that women have, and if you could just give any advice to that person that’s having that thought.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:09:36 – 01:09:36): Right.

Rapid Fire: New Mom Thoughts

ALEX COOPER (01:09:37 – 01:09:42): One woman may be thinking, “Why am I so bored? I thought this was supposed to be the most magical time of my life.”

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:09:42 – 01:10:17): Because having a baby is full of the same thing over and over, and it is monotonous and it is pretty boring. So you probably feel bored because it’s boring. And going back to knowing yourself, I was just talking to a good friend about this. If you’re someone before having a baby who’s loved spontaneity and novelty, you’re the friend who brings good vibes to the party, you’re the friend who says, “Let’s do this for the weekend,” you’re going to find it especially boring. And so I think 2 things are true here: I’m allowed to find this boring, and this season is not a barometer for the whole relationship I’m going to have with my kid.

ALEX COOPER (01:10:18 – 01:10:26): Love it. And also, again, everyone online, calm down. There’s nuance. You’re so grateful and happy and you love this child, but you can have these feelings.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:10:26 – 01:10:26): Yes.

ALEX COOPER (01:10:27 – 01:10:32): Okay, someone thinks, “I thought I was supposed to have a maternal instinct, but I have no idea what I’m doing.”

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:10:35 – 01:11:26): Instinct is what you’ve learned up to that point, full stop. That’s what instinct is. So the idea that what we’ve learned until that point is going to help us in the hardest, most complicated job in the world, especially in 2026 when all the things that help our kids are being slow, quiet, available — all the things in 2026 is fast, more stimulation, distraction.

And so the idea that that’s going to come naturally — probably what’s instinctual for a lot of people is, I love my kid, but knowing how to handle them freaking out during tummy time or their first meltdown or the hitting at the sandbox, that’s not — most people say, “Yeah, if I did what’s instinctual, I’d just scream at my child.”

ALEX COOPER (01:11:26 – 01:12:07): Oh, that’s helpful to hear because I have said that to some friends. I’m like, I didn’t learn this. And again, I like to be an overachiever. I’m like, I’m going to try to read, I’m going to try to do the research. No one taught us. It’s honestly similar to taxes in college. I’m like, why did I pay all of this? And then I got out and I was like, Dad, how do I do my fricking taxes? I got all this education for what? The things that I actually need to know, I have no idea what I’m doing.

It’s the same thing with motherhood where I’m like, I get everyone’s talking about this maternal instinct, like I’m going to lean in, but I don’t know when people are like, “Oh, you need the changing table.” And then you also need — they need enough tummy time. And then I’m like, wait, why do they need tummy time? They’re like, “Oh, because the head and the thing.” And you’re like, where did you learn this?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:12:07 – 01:12:29): Seriously. I think you’re right that especially we’ve put in a lot more time and energy and probably money, all of it, to learning things that are far less important in our life than our day-to-day interactions with our kids. So just to be able to say some of this will come naturally and some won’t, like anything else in life, that’s it. And if it doesn’t, you can learn and get support.

ALEX COOPER (01:12:30 – 01:13:01): I appreciate you normalizing not having to know everything because that to every expecting mother or current mother or future mother is like, thank you, Dr. Becky. Because I’ve been even having that. I’m like, when people are referencing certain things, breastfeeding and this, I’m literally like, sorry, slow down. What do I have to do? And I’m like, I know I will learn as I go, just like I’ve done everything in life. No one handed me a manual, but it does with motherhood feel a little bit like when you’re looking online, you’re like, wait a second, how does everyone know this?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:13:01 – 01:13:01): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (01:13:01 – 01:13:03): And then you just figure it out.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:13:04 – 01:13:04): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (01:13:05 – 01:13:09): Okay, next one. Someone’s thinking, “This baby stole my body.”

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:13:10 – 01:14:12): I think this is so complicated. You’ve been in your own body on your own for however many decades, right? And then you’re growing a human for 9 months. And I think all the movies, they don’t show that after you birth this human, your body is different for a while.

And this is so helpful for you to know: most moms, first 24 hours, 48 hours, first 7 days, the majority of their thoughts after having a baby are about themselves. Because if you ever had major surgery — forget having a baby, any major surgery, which essentially is the same as having a baby, cesarean, vaginal, whatever — think about what someone would ask you. “Okay, well, what have you set up for yourself? Who’s taking care of you? What supplies do you have for your body? Do you know what your body is going to kind of feel and what it’s going to look like?” This is what anyone would do, except when you have a baby, nobody does it. And then you think you’re selfish, and it makes perfect sense.

ALEX COOPER (01:14:13 – 01:14:23): So true. It’s like, no, most people are like, “Rest, take care of yourself, don’t get up, we’ll get that for you.” Then you have a baby and everyone’s like, “Hold on a second. Be the great mom. What are you doing?”

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:14:24 – 01:14:28): Oh my goodness. Your vagina is ripped in half. I’m sorry, your vagina’s ripped in half, right?

ALEX COOPER (01:14:28 – 01:14:34): Or your abdomen — you had abdominal surgery, cut in half, 7 layers deep.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:14:34 – 01:14:39): And then you’re like, why don’t I have this rush of bonding? Because you’re in survival mode.

ALEX COOPER (01:14:39 – 01:14:39): You just had—

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:14:40 – 01:14:42): Right? Of course not. That’s going to come after.

ALEX COOPER (01:14:42 – 01:15:01): That’s so important, I think, to just acknowledge. And I think there’s a lot of women who don’t say it because it feels insane that even to just hear that right after, you’re going to be thinking about yourself because that is survival mode of I’m trying to keep myself alive. Yes, so I can also be alive for this baby, but I’ve got to take care of me. It’s — we’re back to the plane, Dr. Becky.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:15:01 – 01:15:01): We are.

ALEX COOPER (01:15:01 – 01:15:09): When they say put the oxygen on first before you take care of the child. Yeah, you have to be whole and good.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:15:09 – 01:15:33): Yes. And let’s stay with that pilot — because there’s a million pilot metaphors that make sense. Pilots board the plane before passengers do. They have a little time for themselves. And think about a pilot — if you’re on a plane and you hear a pilot say, “I love my passengers so much, I’ve been flying for 3 weeks straight with no rest because I love you so much and I don’t even want—” Get me off that plane.

ALEX COOPER (01:15:33 – 01:15:36): No, I’d be like, you need to go for a nap immediately now.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:15:36 – 01:16:03): And actually, there’s a law, right, that pilots, after a certain number of hours have to go off the plane and take care of themselves because we know their job of taking care of others depends on that. So as a new parent, as a parent of older kids, whatever it is, we’ve created this false binary that I’m taking care of my kids or taking care of myself. You would never want to be on a plane with a pilot who wasn’t taking care of themselves.

ALEX COOPER (01:16:04 – 01:16:13): Oh, we’re loving this. Oh, the ladies needed to hear this one today. Okay. “I don’t trust myself. I feel anxious every time I’m alone with my baby.”

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:16:14 – 01:17:31): You know what I’d start with? It sounds like if I go back to confidence is self-trust, well, it sounds like you actually do trust something. You’re noticing you’re very anxious when you’re alone with your baby. We’re just going to start there. You do trust that experience. Tell me more about it. Tell me, what is that like? “Oh, well, I’m always worried I’m going to drop my baby.”

And honestly, obsessive compulsive thoughts after you have a baby are one of the most common forms of anxiety. And it sounds really scary. “What if I drop my baby when I go down the stairs?” Who thinks that? Oh my goodness, who thinks that? And then what you do is you get in an avoidance cycle. You ask your mom who’s visiting, “Can you take the baby down the stairs?” And then you tell yourself, “I don’t trust myself,” because in some ways it’s been hard to separate that’s a thought. In fact, the thought gives me pain because I don’t want to do it. And so, this is such a good reason to make sure — someone said what I do for all my friends when they’re pregnant is I give them a name of a good postpartum therapist, need it or not. And if they have a partner, I give it to the partner. But also just knowing these thoughts are normal. You’re adjusting to something totally new. I’m taking care of another human who’s completely dependent on me.

ALEX COOPER (01:17:31 – 01:17:48): And I also love how you’re saying, again, thoughts are not facts. Saying things out loud though are so helpful because then, like you just said, “Oh, it seems like you’re anxious. Why?” A lot of times the fear, I’m sure it can be unlocked by talk to me about what’s going on.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:17:48 – 01:17:48): That’s right.

ALEX COOPER (01:17:49 – 01:18:12): Whether it’s your partner, your mom, someone who’s helping you, anyone who’s around. They’re going to — by you just expressing what this fear is that’s being in this intrusive thought, all of a sudden there’s probably going to be a helpful solution around the corner. But we need to be able to feel comfortable enough to actually vocalize what we’re feeling instead of feeling shame to be like, I don’t want to say this out loud because this sounds actually crazy.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:18:12 – 01:18:24): Yeah, and I think you’re right. You’re taking it from something so global and you’re just trying to find the specific nuggets again. “I’m so glad you told me that. When do you feel like that? Tell me more,” and then we can get into something more specific to intervene.

ALEX COOPER (01:18:24 – 01:18:31): It’s a great point. Okay, someone says, “I was happier at work and I’m secretly really excited to go back. Is there something wrong with me? Am I a bad mom?”

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:18:32 – 01:19:36): So you are not a bad mom. Many moms feel like this. And I think this is also probably, Alex, helpful for you to reflect on. If you think about, let’s say, 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest, how stimulating your life is before you have a baby — everyone should know their number before they go in, and everyone has a number that they kind of like.

Some people like a 10 out of 10 stimulating. They like the work, and they love the conversations, and they love hard projects, and they kind of like to travel. They like complex things. They like moving a lot. Being with a baby is very low stim, very low stim. The best your day gets is your apartment looks kind of as good as it did in the start. You’re probably not leaving your house. It’s really hard to leave your house. You’re like, all I did was what? I guess I fed, I washed some things. How is it 6 PM?

And so your body is really adjusting. And if especially your work is a pretty stimulating environment, there’s an understandable crash your body has, totally separate from how much you love your baby, totally separate things.

Partner Support and Postpartum Identity

ALEX COOPER: Do you have any advice for people who, let’s say, are in a situation where they’re staying home with the baby because you just gave birth and their partner has to go back to work? And there’s maybe a little jealousy of like, oh, you’re getting to come home and you’re telling me about your workday and I’m actually speaking goo goo gaga language still. And I love this baby, don’t get me wrong, but I’m starting to go a little stir crazy. How can the partner who is getting to go out into the world and still interact and be an adult human being interacting with other adults and coming back and getting kind of the good parts of both — how can that partner be supportive of the person at home?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:22:03 – 01:22:47): Great. Such a good question. To me, if — and that dynamic gets enacted a lot — I think what it says in terms of, let’s say it’s that mom’s more core internal need is, what’s the wish? I think that’s a helpful framework always. What’s the wish?

“Well, I wish even as I’m home, I had moments of my week where I was out talking to other adults. I was talking about something with someone that wasn’t how many ounces the baby ate.” Okay. And if it becomes less about “you have this and I don’t” and more, okay, well underneath that comparison, is there something I wish for? Then I’d like my partner’s help figuring out how I can carve out time for me to meet those needs. “So on Saturday, can you do this? And I’m going to go get those needs met.”

ALEX COOPER (01:22:47 – 01:23:38): It’s a great point. Again, I think like we talked about boundaries, now it’s actually like a lot of this comes down to vocalizing what you need, because a lot of it is probably you’re internally going through a lot and you just went from essentially knowing one version of yourself and then now you’re meeting an entirely new version of yourself.

And I even will admit sitting here, I’m like, I am so excited for this time off. I’ve never really taken time off. I can’t wait. But there is a little part of my brain that’s like, you think you’re going to be able to go almost 3 months with no work and just this baby? And that sounds to me amazing, but I’m like, oh, I know myself. I’m going to get the itch and I’m going to have these feelings. And to not make myself feel guilty.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:23:39 – 01:23:39): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (01:23:39 – 01:23:49): For not being so satisfied with just sitting in a home with this child, but finding other things for myself to do to feel like I’m stimulated. That doesn’t make me a bad mother.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:23:50 – 01:24:23): No. If I think about my first couple days after having my first, I had an emergency C-section for my first and I had to be under anesthesia. And my son came out totally healthy. But I come home and I’ve always really liked action, and I was baking biscotti. And this is like a totally psychotic thing to do. And I was cooking for people coming over. And I said to my husband one day, I think it was like day 6, “This is crazy, I only need 4 hours of sleep.”

ALEX COOPER (01:24:24 – 01:24:25): No, no.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:24:26 – 01:24:28): Obviously he was like, “Oh my goodness, you’ve gone to the dark—”

ALEX COOPER (01:24:28 – 01:24:30): Like, you’re losing it.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:24:30 – 01:24:31): I’m losing it. And then I crashed.

ALEX COOPER (01:24:32 – 01:24:33): Wait, did you say this on day?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:24:33 – 01:24:35): So it’s probably day six after having a baby.

ALEX COOPER (01:24:35 – 01:24:37): Yeah, no, no, no. And you had a C-section?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:24:37 – 01:24:38): And a C-section.

ALEX COOPER (01:24:38 – 01:24:38): No, no, no, no.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:24:38 – 01:24:52): No, I was not paying attention to anything going on. I think my brain was running, and in some ways I think trying to repeat the life I had had eight days prior.

ALEX COOPER (01:24:52 – 01:24:53): Like just let’s get back to it.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:24:53 – 01:25:29): Back in it. I completely crashed. I had to go back to the hospital. It was so bad. And I think you’re right though, to go in knowing. I wish someone had said, “Becky, your brain is going to want to keep doing all the things. And that’s probably where deep down you’ve gotten value. You get endorphins, you feel like yourself. You are about to meet a totally different part of yourself. Not just Becky as mom, but Becky as someone who stays in bed.” My husband made me nap after that every day. I’d say, “This is insane, I’m not even tired.” Every day I would nap. Every day, but I didn’t know it. I didn’t feel it.

ALEX COOPER (01:25:29 – 01:25:35): You fall asleep in 2 seconds. I’m not even tired. He’s like, good, but you’re like, okay. Literally best nap of your life every day.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:25:35 – 01:25:36): Literally every day.

ALEX COOPER (01:25:36 – 01:25:36): Oh wow.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:25:37 – 01:25:37): Yeah.

ALEX COOPER (01:25:37 – 01:25:46): We have to listen to our bodies and we have to not try to just pretend like something didn’t massively change.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:25:46 – 01:25:46): Yeah.

Rapid Fire: Hot Parenting Topics

ALEX COOPER (01:25:47 – 01:25:55): Okay. You give the best advice. We’re going to do some rapid fire to get your take on some hot parenting topics. Are you ready?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:25:55 – 01:25:55): Ready.

ALEX COOPER (01:25:55 – 01:25:58): Okay. Your kid says, “I hate you.” What do you do?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:26:00 – 01:26:07): I would say nothing in that moment. Probably say it again. I’d say, “I love you. Let’s talk when things are a little cooler.”

ALEX COOPER (01:26:08 – 01:26:11): Okay. Screen time. Do you have any best practices?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:26:12 – 01:26:25): Ah, this one’s so hard because everyone has different lives, we need different things. I really respect that. And screen time tends to be the solution to the problem today and the cause of the problem tomorrow.

ALEX COOPER (01:26:26 – 01:26:35): Oh, that one hurt. That was a good — that’s a good line. Let’s quote that. Okay. Is bribing your kid ever okay?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:26:35 – 01:26:38): Yes. Certain situations require M&Ms to get out the door.

ALEX COOPER (01:26:38 – 01:26:38): It’s fine.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:26:38 – 01:26:39): Okay.

ALEX COOPER (01:26:39 – 01:26:44): I love that. How do you provide for your child without making them spoiled?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:26:45 – 01:27:24): Oof. This is a more nuanced question than it appears on the surface, because I think we’re talking about spoiled and entitlement. Entitled kids are kids who’ve never learned how to tolerate frustration, and worse, their frustration was met with an exit ramp, and so they believe the world should continue to offer that. I am not someone who should feel frustrated, which you can’t blame a kid for when they’re 18 if that was kind of what was taught to them. So the best way for kids not to become entitled and spoiled is to make sure tolerating frustration, not avoiding it or exiting from it, is just part of the everyday life of a kid.

ALEX COOPER (01:27:24 – 01:27:33): That’s great advice. How do you handle the in-law who undermines all of your parenting? Oh my God, I feel like we could do a whole episode on this.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:27:34 – 01:28:22): Yeah, I think this comes down to your marriage and how open you can be together about kind of those dynamics. And then, I do think there’s a kill ’em with kindness approach, and say to my mother-in-law where you can say some version of, “Hey, our relationship is important to me. Let me start with that. And it’s probably only going to become more important now that I have a kid and I know you really care about that kid as well. I’d love to talk to you about something that has been kind of hard in the house that I’d love to be able to shift because I know we both want the best for this kid.” And so being on the same team against a problem — the problem is the different messages, the problem is the passive-aggressive comment — if we can see a situation that way versus the problem is my mother-in-law, we can usually align with someone instead of against them.

ALEX COOPER (01:28:23 – 01:28:24): You’re good at this.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:28:25 – 01:28:27): Whoa, you’re like, easier said than done in real life.

ALEX COOPER (01:28:27 – 01:28:33): Whoa. Okay, if a child goes through a phase where they are strongly preferring one parent, what do you do?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:28:34 – 01:29:15): Totally normal. Again, kids are just playing around with their relationships. They’re trying to figure it out. What do you do if you’re the non-preferred parent, right? “You can’t give me a bath. Only mommy can give me a bath.” Number one, try humor. Just lean into a resistance instead of fighting it.

“I don’t even know where a bath is.” And I pick up my kid, “Is this the bath?” And I kind of hold my kid over the toilet. My kid’s going to say, “That’s not the bath.” All of a sudden we’re connected and usually I can roll with it. Or just the other version is just allow it and just kind of move on. “You wish mom was giving you a bath tonight.” That’s it. And then keep going.

ALEX COOPER (01:29:16 – 01:29:17): I like the humor advice.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:29:17 – 01:29:17): That’s good.

ALEX COOPER (01:29:17 – 01:29:22): Yeah. If you see another kid being mean to your own kid, when do you step in?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:29:25 – 01:30:15): I think there’s probably degrees and then there’s repetition, right? So something seems really out of control, really bullying. I might step in right away and just say, “Whoa, that is not okay in this house. I’m not going to let that happen. I have 2 good kids. You can’t talk to my kid like that. There’s no more of that.” Or maybe it’s lower key and I’m more like, ooh, why does my kid let this keep happening?

And then I’d probably intervene with my kid in a quiet moment. “Hey, I’m noticing whenever Kieran comes around, he takes all your trucks and says you can’t play with any of your own trucks. What’s going on there? Do you like that? What do you want to figure out what you could say? Let’s think about that together, because I know those situations are hard in the moment, but I feel like if we kind of come up with a little game plan, we can figure it out together.”

ALEX COOPER (01:30:15 – 01:30:19): And at what point do you go to the other kid’s parent?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:30:20 – 01:30:47): I don’t know if there’s an exact science to this. Again, it’s probably something to do with how extreme and the repetition. And again, I think these can actually be productive conversations if we assume this kid is probably also a good kid having a hard time, not having enough boundaries, whatever it is. I can say, “Look, I want to share something with you. Let me just say off the bat, I don’t think there’s any bad kid here, but this is something I know I would want to know, and I want to share it in a way that you might find useful in your home. Here’s what I notice.”

ALEX COOPER (01:30:48 – 01:30:53): Great. Okay. What is your take on allowing your children to see you cry or really break down?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:30:54 – 01:32:01): I don’t know if the word allow is how I’d think about it. Sometimes that happens. Again, our kids are kind of assessing our sturdiness. So if I can help it, I probably don’t want to be breaking down all the time, but seeing us cry doesn’t kind of disorient a kid as much as seeing us cry and then not talking about it or making up a random story that doesn’t make sense.

So hard things in a kid’s environment, that’s not what’s hard for a kid. What’s hard for a kid is when they notice things in their environment and no adults talk to them about it because then they have to make up their own story. And the stories a kid makes up tend not to be accurate or useful. And so if you cry, just talk about it with your kid. “Hey, you saw me crying over—” and then whatever version feels developmentally appropriate. “I was talking to a friend who got some sad news about someone she loves, and sometimes when our friends are sad, we’re sad.” And then I think a line that’s helpful is, “I can be sad and take care of you at the same time,” because that’s probably what a kid is really wondering.

ALEX COOPER (01:32:02 – 01:32:32): That’s so helpful. Just everything I think also that you’ve shared today about so much of it is kids really — how did you say it earlier? They’re just wanting to understand who they are in the world and is this real and what’s happening. Yes. And so as a parent, just like giving them guidelines and guidance in those moments where they’re kind of floundering and looking around, not giving them the answer, but just giving them those safety guardrails in moments that feel scary. Is really helpful to take away from today for me.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:32:33 – 01:32:43): And kids notice everything. They notice more than we do because their survival is dependent on their attachment with us because they can’t take care of themselves for an insane amount of time.

ALEX COOPER (01:32:43 – 01:32:43): Right.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:32:44 – 01:33:24): And so they have to perceive everything in the environment. Is that safe? Is that a threat? So they notice everything. And so I think sometimes we think we’re protecting them by not talking about something. They’ve already seen it. So either they’ve seen it and they have a story from you to understand, or they’ve seen it and then they have to make up their own story, or they start to — going back to confidence, Alex — they start to doubt their perceptions. “Well, Mommy’s belly does keep getting bigger, or I do keep hearing my uncle’s name and cancer all the time, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I don’t really notice that because no one’s talking to me about it.”

Current Focus and Final Advice

ALEX COOPER (01:33:25 – 01:33:32): You have done so much work. I’m wondering, what are you most focused on and interested in now?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:33:33 – 01:34:34): It’s such good timing for this conversation because so much of my parenting work started with pregnant women and new parents in my practice, and when I started Good Inside, I had toddlers and then my kids have grown up into teens. And so that’s kind of naturally where so many things went.

But now at Good Inside, we’re so excited to be focused on the pregnancy and baby stage because in some ways I think it’s how we really start to lose ourselves, especially as moms. We’re obsessed with the fruit size of our baby, which by the way, I totally was too, and it’s very fun. And we track everything, which again, I think we can do, but we kind of lose track of ourselves by only kind of focusing on everyone else. And so to be able to help new parents and show up and just say, yeah, let’s help you with the feeding, let’s help you with the sleep, but also let’s help you with you. Let’s help you learn to set boundaries. Let’s help you in your partnership before things explode. And that’s what’s really exciting me right now.

ALEX COOPER (01:34:35 – 01:34:37): You also are writing children’s books.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:34:37 – 01:34:37): Yes.

ALEX COOPER (01:34:38 – 01:34:39): What is different about your books?

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:34:40 – 01:34:59): I love children’s books. I’m obsessed with children’s books. I also think they’ve always helped me be a good parent when I’m too exhausted to be a good parent. I’d come home and I’m like, I can’t. And I’m like, all right, I can read. So let me just pick out a book that feels like it has some good themes and I can ask like one question at the end.

ALEX COOPER (01:35:00 – 01:35:01): I’m like, perfect.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:35:01 – 01:35:25): Pat myself on the back. So I wanted to give parents their tools when they’re the right books. And I always love Robert Munsch books. They show kids doing not nice things, saying not nice things. My kids always loved them and I’ve never been too afraid that seeing those things are going to make my kids act that way. Kids are exposed to all types of things in the real world.

ALEX COOPER (01:35:25 – 01:35:25): Yeah.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:35:25 – 01:36:31): But a book with some hard stuff allows me to say, “I wonder what you would do if you were Charlie. Have you ever felt like Pia? I don’t know if you knew this, but when I was 6, I hit people sometimes.” If you want to have your kid’s mouth drop and have successful interventions with them, you tell them that story. They’re like, what? “My amazing mom used to hit.” And you’re like, oh yeah, let me tell you about that. And now all of a sudden you reduce shame because you can say you’re not the only one. But if they hear a story of when you struggled with something they’re going through, they have proof that they’re not the only one. And nothing changes behavior as much as adding that component.

So I was thinking, let me show real situations. Every parent has them anyway. And also show parents through a picture book how maybe they could intervene a little differently. And then to be able to read a book like that and then say, yeah, I had that, or what do you think? Again, you’re going to have an 8-second conversation. But that’s all sometimes that you need to unstick things.

ALEX COOPER (01:36:32 – 01:36:54): Absolutely. Okay. Last question. As someone who’s about to enter the mom club and to anyone that’s watching that’s also about to become a new mother, what is your last piece of advice? Anything that comes to mind, it doesn’t need to be the best advice. But just anything that you want to leave and impart your wisdom on me and us with today.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:36:54 – 01:37:46): I think the best framework I think about as someone’s becoming a mom is just knowing yourself and making sure you’re in the equation is a foundation to taking care of a child. And so if you know the things that make you feel like you, right, and you kind of — I’m going to get concrete — you write them down.

Hopefully some of them are small, like “I love dancing to some song from high school, it makes me remember I loved that,” or “I really like to work out a couple days a week for 20 minutes, but that makes me feel strong in my own body.” You’ll probably have a hard time doing them for the first number of months, but just knowing that part of your job as a mom is keeping those things alive for your benefit, and for your kids’ benefit. That’s what I want to make sure people know.

ALEX COOPER (01:37:46 – 01:38:46): It’s such good advice. I am definitely going to do that because I could see myself being like, oh my God, I’m losing my way, and what do I want to do? And it’s like, well, what made you happy before and what makes you feel like yourself? And I agree. So you can show up to be the best version of yourself.

It seems simple, but just from everything I’ve heard from friends who have gone through this, you’re in this little vortex and it can be a lot and overstimulating and confusing, and all of that is okay. And you need to make sure you’re taking care of yourself in order to feel your best, because yes, this child is amazing, but you deserve to live also a happy life. And being a mom is not your entire identity. You were someone, like you said, for decades before this. So you’re not just going to drop her off on the side of the road and come up with a whole new persona and identity, you still have to nourish that side of yourself while also embracing the new aspects of yourself.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:38:46 – 01:39:08): I think that’s exactly it. And all the hard parts, the “can I stay with my kid when they’re having a tantrum instead of just making it go away right away” — if I’ve had a couple moments of my week where I feel like me, my ability to do that is so much higher than if it’s just one kind of thing after the next of only taking care of someone else. So I think it all comes together.

Closing

ALEX COOPER (01:39:09 – 01:39:58): Dr. Becky, I can’t thank you enough for coming on Call Her Daddy. I feel enlightened, I feel inspired, I feel more prepared, and I also feel like there’s so much in here that tangibly — I appreciate you giving so many concrete examples because I really feel like there’s so many things that people probably quite literally were writing down today. I know I’m going to go back and write all of this down. You are such an inspiration. You have such a clear vision, and it’s really, really nice to have a woman who can speak so eloquently about something that is very complicated and it is very intimidating. And so thank you for giving us your time, and I know we went a while, but I needed to squeeze everything out of you. So thank you so much.

DR. BECKY KENNEDY (01:39:58 – 01:40:02): You asked such an amazing range of really thoughtful questions. I really enjoyed this, so thank you.

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