The Mother-Daughter Conversation Most Families Never Have

In this Mother’s Day special of SHE Asked: Tools for Practical Hope, therapist and host Anna McBride sits down with her twin daughters, Francesca and Alex, for an honest conversation about motherhood, generational trauma, emotional inheritance, healing, people pleasing, codependency, family dynamics, and what it truly means to break unhealthy patterns.

Together, they explore the complicated question: What did we get from our mothers — and what do we choose to do differently?

From stories of immigration, resilience, and community service to candid conversations about therapy, emotional intelligence, boundaries, relationships, caretaking, and healing family wounds, this episode offers a vulnerable and hopeful look at the evolving relationship between mothers and daughters across generations.

This conversation touches on:

Mother-daughter relationships
Generational trauma and healing
Emotional intelligence and communication
Therapy and self-awareness
Codependency and people pleasing
Family systems and childhood patterns
Millennial healing culture
Boundaries in relationships
Parenting and emotional inheritance
Women’s healing and self-growth

Whether you’re navigating your own relationship with your mother, healing childhood wounds, becoming a parent yourself, or learning how to communicate more honestly in your relationships, this episode is filled with practical hope, humor, honesty, and compassion.

✨ ABOUT THE PODCAST
SHE Asked: Tools for Practical Hope is a podcast hosted by therapist, coach, and storyteller Anna McBride, exploring healing, resilience, relationships, grief, identity, emotional wellness, and personal transformation through deeply human conversations.

🔔 Subscribe for weekly conversations on healing, growth, relationships, therapy, mindfulness, women’s empowerment, and rewriting your narrative.

#MotherDaughter #GenerationalTrauma #Healing #Therapy #WomenHealingWomen #Codependency #PeoplePleasing #MentalHealth #FamilyDynamics #EmotionalHealing #SelfGrowth #RelationshipHealing #MothersDay #SHEAsked #AnnaMcBride

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Transcript

Mother’s Day And Family Inheritance

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome back to She Asked, Tools for Practical Hope. I'm your host, Anna McBride, and I am so glad you are here. Today's episode is a special one. I have two very special guests here today. My daughters, Francesca Dorward and Alex Dorwart. Welcome girls. Hi. And I feel a little vulnerable, not just because they're here, but because of the topic. We're going to be talking about what I got for my mama. So since it's Mother's Day weekend, I thought we would talk about this topic. Talk about what every family carries. What we inherit, what we keep, what we struggle with, and what we choose to do differently. That's why we're calling it what I got from my mama and not what I kept doing like-minded. And before I ask my daughters what they got from me, I want to begin with a story about me. I want to begin with a story about me. And my what I got from my mama. So for a long time I thought that whenever I thought about what I got from my mom, I thought I had to apologize, like lead with the apology. Because I thought everything I did that was like my mama was wrong. But there were a lot of things that my mother did that were amazing. She was born in Guatemala, which you guys know. And in 1952, at the age of 21 or 22, she got on a flight, headed back to Guatemala that had a layover in Washington, D.C. And she got off that flight, and somewhere between getting off the flight and before it reported, she made a decision not to get back on. She didn't have a plan. She didn't have a family. She did not have a job. What she did have was courage, resilience, tenacity, audacity, particularly because she did not even consider, I don't think, whether she even had permission to do it. And that's one of the things I definitely got from my mama was the idea of not asking for permission. Eventually she met my father, and they had together 12 children. My mother believed very deeply in service. Every week it seemed we had more people moving into the house. Some of them were families of children that were getting some care at a local hospital. Others were people who needed care themselves, and then there was that bunch that just needed some refuge. My mother's motto was, what's a few more in a house that's already overflowing. When Guatemala suffered a devastating earthquake in 1976, she organized fundraisers, gathered equipment, and mobilized a community to help her country. And she also mobilized her children. There's this memory I have when I was barely 12 years old, where she took us to a candy factory and she pointed to me and said, You go in there and get free candy and don't take no for an answer. I didn't have a script, I didn't have a plan, I didn't even know it was going to be me. I was pretty sure it was going to be somebody else. But I went anyway and it worked. My mother was known to corner politicians in bars to call them out on their voting record, particularly around immigration. She didn't care if it made them uncomfortable. I had to go get her because it happened to be a bar where one of my sisters worked. My mother helped to create a Latin community center for our community because she knew people needed a safe place to gather. Now, the people who organized that were mostly men and they did not care for her ideas or her way of doing things. So they fired her many times. My mother had this way of getting things done and not always considering the impact of it on other people. Now, as her daughter, I kept seeing how the world saw her as this amazing person who cared for people who needed caring for. A story that these girls have heard more than too many times about the things that she did that were wrong, the way she neglected herself and also neglected us, the way that she needed me, I felt way too much, and we were enmeshed and codependent. And so I grew up to become very angry, and I felt like I wasn't going to be like my mama. And then I became a mother. And I became very humbled by the fact that you inherit a lot of the ways that you act as a mother from the mother you had. And I started paying attention to all the ways that I wasn't showing up for my girls. And they have a brother, him too. And I thought I have to become more accountable for what I'm doing. And unfortunately, that wasn't from the day they were born, it was a little bit later. However, I can sit here in front of you and say, Oh, I'm grateful. I've I realized that there's a big difference between what I got from her and what I can choose to do with that. And so that brings us to today's episode because I feel like, again, it's not about what you get from your mama, it's what you choose to do with it. And it has me a little curious about these two women who are sitting across from me about what it is that they think they got from me. So, girls, let's talk. When you hear the phrase what I got for my mama, what comes to mind first?

SPEAKER_01 6:31

I think very layered reactions come up, but I think that's mostly because I did my homework and I wrote down a list with several categories.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

We are fraternal twins. Which means that we're different. I didn't do any of that. You just showed me the note that you had in your phone, and I was like, damn, I thought about doing that for weeks.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

And but I have my list broken down into categories of things that I got from you that I it's really just two lists that I needed therapy for or that I didn't need therapy for.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

And then I also have a list of things that you got from me. What comes to mind? I'm jumping in. What comes to mind for me, what I got from my mama, I think the first thing I think about is predominant personality traits. And then, like Francesca said, the stuff that you talk about in therapy. But it's two lists, just to be clear. Okay, so I'm on two of what five? You said five things?

SPEAKER_01 7:24

No, just two lists. Things you got in therapy, things that you don't have to deal with in therapy. Start with the things you don't have.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

My predominant personality traits also show up in therapy.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

You should be working on everything. Is that true? Can I look at my list? So one thing I didn't get from my mom, let's start there, is the quality of my phone. And it's to say that my mom takes better care of her things. So things that I don't mean therapy for. I think naturally to follow through with your story, I think something that comes to mind is the community service that we did a lot when we were younger. Mom always emphasized during holidays or anytime we were off from school that we would be doing something in the community to either volunteer at the soup kitchen or at the local restaurants for Thanksgiving to make sure we were participating and giving out meals where people couldn't afford them or going to candy. Yeah, exactly. And then when I was in high school, I continued that with one of my best friends, and then continued that to the point where now I'm finding my way into the medical healthcare space for the sake of having uh what do you call it? Uh career of service. And similarly to you, mom. And then I feel like that would have been something that would have been a little harder to come by if it wasn't as emphasized if in our childhood. So I'm very grateful that we did that.

unknown 8:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Same. What's something you wish you hadn't gotten from me?

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Oh, I'm not done with my first list.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Oh, I'm so there's so much more. There's so much more. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Continue. Okay. Things I also don't need therapy for. I learned to love remote biking from you. So I think the very first road bike I ever got was your cannon, your red cannon. And I granted only got that after my GM what? Anyway, my first bike didn't work out for long term, but then you gave me a cannonale. And I love riding that around the city, and I was like a city commuter for 12 years. And I remember the first time getting on it. The wheels were so thin, thinking I was gonna fall over and just riding in a different position than I was used to riding. Felt so unfamiliar, but I was like, if mom can do it, I can do it. And so that helped to motivate me to stay on it and maybe if anything, just raise the seat or lower it. I don't know what I did to make it feel a little bit more comfortable. Maybe you should get used to it. What's the bike you just gave me? It's a kestrel. Okay, gotcha. Okay, she has one. You're gonna maybe this will be me in the next podcast. Yeah, we'll circle back in a decade. I got my face from my mom. It's almost identical. People tell me all the time. They don't tell me that. Didn't hate therapy for that.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

I'm a big fan. I got my sense of curiosity from you too. So I learned to ooh and ah at everything in a very nice way.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Yeah, it's also I think more like wonder and curiosity. It's the same thing. Anyway, uh semantics. Yeah, I think I'm a stickler for being right, just like my mom, but that's what we're bleeding into the other category now.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

This is the bridge, bridging the divide.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Did you want to add anything? Or did you before we move on to the next question?

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Oh, family is really important.

unknown 10:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Family. Curiosity to be curious about people's stories.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Did I not just say that?

SPEAKER_02 10:35

We're allowed to have different answers. We're different people for Charlotte.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Anyway.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

Alex is copying my answers. What do I get from you that Francesca has no impact on? Woodworking?

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Alex likes being outside. She loves exploring nature. Am I gonna do your homework for you? Alex loves exploring nature and parks, just like mom does.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

I do. I like to travel. I definitely got traveling from you, and that's a really good positive. I like traveling from you. Road trips. Yes, I like traveling. I like road trips, I like driving, I like long stretches of time where I not disassociate, but safely disassociate in a car where you just get sucked into a thought and you don't probably don't even have anything on the radio. You're just sitting in silence, and all of a sudden you're like, Yeah, I did that for 45 minutes. And the entire time I was thinking, like, I'll put a song on when I'm done with this little thought process. And then an hour and a half goes by and you're like, oh, I've been sitting in silence for an hour and a half just thinking and vibing, which feels great. But definitely travel and definitely how we travel, which is which you and I went to Portugal recently, so that was a really great example of how we travel very similarly, which is wake up and figure out what you're doing that day, that morning. Have a general plan, we're in Portugal, an even more general plan, we're in Lisbon. Then you wake up, we're in the north part of town. That's what we're doing today, is figuring out what we're gonna do in the north part of town, and then traveling in some way. Yeah, I'm hearing age fans are both bad at planning. That's how you would travel, and this is why we didn't take you with us to Portugal. All right, but it was a really good trip, and I really like also we're both morning people. Yes, wake up early, immediately start functioning, and then go throughout the day. The flip side to that coin is that my eyelids get so heavy at 8 p.m. in a way that I can't always bounce back from. Mine too, yeah. I fall asleep at 10 p.m. so easily, so easily. Yeah, I watched over the last at least five years of my life. Five years in the sense of now that I'm in my 30s, I'm watching it hit me in a generational genetics type of way, where all the women on our side of the family, or on your side of the family, when you sit them down on something soft, and it doesn't even have to be super soft, it just you know not standing, they will fall asleep anytime.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

It has to be a napkin right there.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

Something soft, a paper towel, and you can just put them on it, and if it's past the hour of 4 p.m., their eyes get heavy and they start to sit and they start to fall asleep a little bit. I'm watching myself on that trajectory, and it is yeah, it's scary actually. Is it scary? Yes, it's scary to sit down on a chair and be like, I could fall asleep right now. Uh-oh. It is 3 p.m. And I haven't done enough today to think that's warranted. So that's also what I got.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

You think you're undeserving of rest? She also got that for me. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Yeah, I got that from my mama too. Yeah, I haven't done enough to earn rest.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yeah. That might be just a woman then.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Okay.

The Traits We Took To Therapy

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Can we pivot to the next question? Oh, yeah. So, what's something you wish you hadn't gotten from me?

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Okay, so second list, because I did need therapy for taking in codependency.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Yeah, codependency right there. Codependency, yeah, people pleasing, people pleasing, which I learned. I think part of it was from you, but I think also part of it was just the natural birth order of things where I'm the oldest, even though we're technically twins, I'm two minutes and two point three four seconds older. Yes. And uh you are an older sibling. I was there to count, and so I think the way that it felt to be the person who was observing conflict in the home or conflict within the siblings, what in the sense that Alex just let's just say there were things that needed tension, and I was not one of them. And it then felt because I didn't create conflict, it felt as if I could naturally then resolve conflict. And so I think it was a combination of observing your natural kind of withdrawn patterns, like when you were younger and we were younger, and as well just sensing that because I wasn't a touch point for some sort of irritation that I could come in and be some peacemaker, and so which may have been how you felt when you were the middle child of 12 or 11, and you felt like you needed to insert yourself to resolve conflict. That was the same way I felt finally, even though I'm the oldest, definitively, and um I think that just blossomed into a career people pleasing. Okay, but now I think you and I have both been able to come back around both through therapy and by just finding a career field where we can direct that tendency towards our work and then reclaim our sense of self in our personal lives. So it's not just about like all the time, we can kind of have a little bit of both, but yeah, but then definitely codependency as well, not to automatically segue into the next thing, but you had said codependency in your story, me. Right, and uh, which meanie is just what we called our grandma, and I feel like because of that people-pleasing, caretaking nature that you had with me, which was probably again born of a similar need to just reclaim some sense of calm and reduce conflict, I had that what felt like a power in our family to do that with you, and then I think it became this codependent dynamic where I felt like I needed to care for you, and then you felt like you needed me around in order to have that sense of calm environment, and then let's just say it maybe resentment buildeth in therapy happened, and apologies were made, and at the end of the day, now here we are where maybe I don't even know if we're still codependent or not, but I don't mind. I'm happy with it.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

I think everything is I think everything is relational, and I I view you guys uh codependent, but in a way where it was worse and now it's not what it was, it's not pathologic, so it's not severely dependent. Like it's I think I look at it all as relative, it's all relative, so in relation to my experience with both of you, I don't have the as close of a relationship with you guys as you guys have with each other. She doesn't get it. That's what codependent people say. She doesn't get why we're so close and why we need each other. So, Alice, what's something you got for me you wish you didn't? People pleasing, people pleasing. I'll be getting the same answers, we have the same mom and the same upbringing.

unknown 17:26

Okay, fair. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

Codependency and caretaking, definitely the caretaking one where it was just I observed in myself over time that I, and maybe this is the part where you and I connect on the most, is that I'm not highly functioning, but I'm functioning every day. I can do A to B to Z. And from that pathway, I can get a lot of things done in a way that someone with ADHD might not. So in that I caretake. I see what needs to be done, what call isn't being made, what appointment isn't being set up, what isn't being taken out to the trash, and I'm just like, I'll just do it because I can. And then I do it, and then I've done 30 things for somebody else that they would have done if I had just let them do it. Okay. And so I know that you did that for us a lot because jump in and do it, just jump in and do it because if no one's gonna get it done, I can get it done real quick, and then you just do it. And you did a lot of it without talking about it, but I've watched myself over time just do that myself. Just I could ask someone to do this because technically I did already, and it is their thing, it's not my thing, or I can just do it because I can just get it done. Right. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

So things I also needed there before. I already talked about those two things. Bat boundaries, and I think in that same vein, bad choices in men, which I think we've I did not get that from you. I have no choices in men. Yeah, yeah, she's lesbian. I wish. So the choice of my first long-term partner was, I think, very evident in the dynamic I watched drawing up, which don't we just all say that we get our we're all trying to marry our father, so to speak.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

So it's just that I chose someone who embodied you dated what was familiar to you, which was the dynamic between mom and dad's relationship, and then you just it felt familiar.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Yes, because I thought that's what love looked like or a good relationship looked like, or even if I knew that mom and dad necessarily weren't going to be end game, because I remember you and I token, we were leaving high school, they're gonna get divorced, and I remember saying I don't remember if I said that to you, but I remember saying that to dad.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

That you thought I wish you guys would get a divorce.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yes, but we also I wasn't talking to mom, I was talking to you when I said that we talked about that a lot. Yeah, yeah, and so anyway, I I was aware that was the not the goal, is what I'm saying, and yet I felt like unconsciously that was what I was ending up picking because I think I thought that being a patient and uh loving person meant that I was supposed to be with someone who was withdrawn and didn't show affection willingly and didn't treat me well and didn't make me a priority, and I thought that was what I deserved, and that I was supposed to be giving more than I received, and that was just a dynamic of maybe male-female relationships. And little did I know after a decade of therapy that was not the way he needed it to be, and now we're in a much better situation. Uh, we all approve of the way that my love language has healed, and we're in a much better relationship now, and um you're with a new person, let's be clear. Yes, yeah, no longer within that old relationship, and so I think that what I'm trying to say is I feel like I got both the bad boundaries or poor boundaries and poor choice in romantic partners from my upbringing, but also having watched you go through the work of uh putting better boundaries in place and putting more of those boundaries even in your romantic life also had an impact on me in the sense that I could then also take those away and add it to the work that I was doing on my own. And so it felt like I both got the good in that sense and the bad together on both fronts. It's complicated.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

It is complicated.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Yeah.

Rewriting Our Story Of Mom

SPEAKER_00 21:42

All right. What's something you didn't appreciate growing up about me?

SPEAKER_02 21:47

That's your emotional range. When I was younger, I definitely took dad's interpretation of your emotions, which was that they're hysterical and too much because life is a spectrum. He was the complete opposite of no emotions. So growing up, I saw your emotional anything as hysterical and too much. And wow, she is overreacting to a situation that was only seen as overreacting because dad wasn't reacting. He had zero emotional involvement or rage or anything in a situation. So from growing up through that, I remember interpreting you as highly emotional and irrational sometimes. Like I remember there were so many moments at home in high school where you and Dad would be on the phone. Obviously, he wasn't physically at the house, and you we only ever heard your side of it. And so because we would only hear your side, and I knew dad's side, it wasn't very emotional. And he so he would not engage with you, you would engage or over-engage to try to get something from him, any type of reaction. And my interpretation of that was like, oh, mom's being over-emotional, overreacting, stuff like that. Now, as an adult, I'm just like, oh, mom was having an emotional reaction to something that was emotional and it was purely normal. And I actually really like when someone can say what they're feeling, then not engage or not know one of my pet peeps now is when you everyone needs a moment to figure something out. But when you try to talk to someone, they don't know what they're feeling and then won't sit and try to figure it out or come back to you later once they do figure it out. So I do like now, as an adult, your emotional range.

unknown 23:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

I wasn't given this question beforehand, so I didn't write a list, but I would say same. Oh, copying me now? Yeah. To be fair, the second you said it, I was absolutely in total agreement because when I think about the things that I love about you now, one of the things that I really appreciate is the way that we can act emotionally and can talk about the things that either bother us or rub us the wrong way, or even if it's just breaking down the psychological dynamics of uh relationship ours, which is just code for gossiping. But anyway, but in uh intelligent way.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

I'll take you over. Yes, I agree, and then one thing I really like is your excuse me, one thing I do really like is your therapy language or shared emotional intelligence language. When I was younger, when you were doing predominantly mostly your therapy work in the cottage, and I was in high school, I remember being like, oh, I just want my mom, I don't want to be therapized right now. But now as an adult, I really appreciate that you have both sides of the coin where you're like, oh, I'm alt person. And at the end of the day, I also have this extensive knowledge that comes with vocab and communication skills that I can bring to the conversation because I like that.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

So I agree.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Okay, gotcha. Same again, same. But in the context that I feel like I own this one a little bit more as someone who I think really resented when I went to college initially, I wanted to go for art therapy, or at least I knew that I was going to college and I wanted to study art, and I knew that I was really interested in psychology, the why of what people did. And I knew at the same time that you were going back to school to study psychology, and I couldn't even realize or think about which one came first. I just felt like it was mine and that you had taken it, and because maybe you were older or you had already gone through some part of school, you were further ahead, and I really resented that, and so then I pivoted and I was like, fine, I'll do something else. And so then I ended up going down the art history route, ended up doing every other thing besides psychology or psychiatry, and then eventually now I am here in medical school, want going into psychiatry, and so I feel like now when I'm studying or when I'm discussing like experience that I've had with patients, being able to talk to you about those experiences and for you to relate to them, not just as a mother listening to her daughter's stories, but as an actual practitioner of sorts who's had her own experiences and clients and who can have that language that Alex is talking about that then adds a layer to our connection on that front that other people just wouldn't understand. And so I feel so grateful that that's something that we can share.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Thank you. What's the most mom thing that I say or do?

SPEAKER_01 26:33

The most mom thing now or then?

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Whenever. Whenever.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Something that you did when I was really young there that I think you gave up was the because I said so.

SPEAKER_03 26:44

Because I said so.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Because that didn't work for either, at least it didn't or for me. Because in the same vein of being curious, I was always just why. Give me a reason. Why? And so the because I said so make no sense. Yeah, you were exhausting. Yeah, I didn't expect it.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

What's the most mom thing? Immediately I think about how you elongate my name whenever I'm in trouble, or you have a disagreeing idea. But that's not to be fair, I not a lot of people say my full name anymore. It is very much exclusively you. Yeah. It's a lot of syllables. She gave it to me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Some of the things that come to mind are when you're upset. I don't know if this is like specifically mom, but I think about it feels kind of maternal, but this like passive aggressive quiet that you get when dishwasher sliming. Yeah, that was more back in the day. Yeah, no, she's laying less on the aggression, more in the passive, where she just uh plants a seed and then walks away. And I'm like, okay, again, you're upset, just say it. And you've gotten better at that, mostly because we pointed it out so many times and you're actively working on being less passive aggressive. So there's that, and then this isn't passive aggressive, but it always reads passive aggressive. And when you text us with so many ellipses, it's so long. It's like people have people complain about their parents not knowing how to use emojis, and I'm just like, talk about basic grammar. It's just you can't say I love you God.

unknown 28:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 28:16

It's so passive aggressive, mom.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

I guess I love you. Yeah, what do you think is the passive?

SPEAKER_02 28:23

No, I think it is the ellipses because I don't know anybody else that does that except for moms. And by that I mean you.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:29

I know one other person who does it. And she is intentionally being passive aggressive.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

I'm not. I'm just pausing in my communication.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

You could also just send, and then it's a natural pause.

unknown 28:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Thank you. She's sewing sewing the table. It's explainable. What family trait feels strongest in all of us?

SPEAKER_02 28:50

In all of us? Humor is a deflection.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Yeah. Hard. Hard deflect.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

Humor in the right moment and the wrong moment. Like but I think it's out of an effort of just trying.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

And like it's in the wrong moment, it just didn't work. Try again harder next time.

SPEAKER_03 29:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

I think here's the thing though, is if you keep pushing it, eventually it'll be the right moment. You just look her back around and it'll be funny again. Yeah. How relentless.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Leading with humor.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

When you don't know what else to do.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

What was the push? No, I'm asking.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

What's the strongest family trait that we all share?

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Our dark hair.

unknown 29:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Yeah. Gray. Again, I can't say enough how much I get told, how often I get told that we look exactly alike, but I don't think that counts. Because of this lunch.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

I think our social awareness and social, I don't want to say justice, but our desire and need to help people out in our social circles andor the world.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

I think is something that our family is really good at. Yeah, our empathy, yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Our empathy, I think we got from you, but that we all share it, and it's one of the things that we really align on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

So let's go a little bit deeper.

unknown 29:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Dare I say. Can we? Can we go deeper? Yes. We already touched the ellipses. Okay, so apparently I'm learning more and more. It wasn't always easy to grow up with. You brought that down. What were some of the hardest seasons for you to be around me?

SPEAKER_02 30:17

Any moment that uh you wanted to connect with dad and he was shutting down.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

And what did you what helped you move through that?

SPEAKER_02 30:25

To leave the house.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

Go to college. To get out of the house. Yeah. That helped you the most.

unknown 30:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

I think Yeah. The hardest season to be around felt like high school.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

Mostly because we were in the house ever present. Dad was very absent. It also felt again you guys were attempting to make your marriage work. At least one of you was. And um and yet I knew that I had a really close relationship with dad. Again, mostly as peacemaker. And so he and I got along in the way that worked for him. And so whenever he was in town or around, I felt like we got along really well. And sometimes I would sense jealousy from you that it wasn't that easy to get along with dad and just be there. And I remember, for example, we were on the family vacation. I studied abroad in like 11. So I was just 21. And you guys came over to visit, and then we traveled a bit together. And I remember we were in Rome, and it was fantastic. We were like looking out the window of the hotel, and you can see the street down below, everyone's walking on the snow pathway. It was so cool. Dad and I are like looking out the window, talking about just what it would be like, or for him specifically, he was daydreaming about what it would be like to live in a city like this. And I was talking about how that was part of why I loved New York City so much, and we were bonding about just that. And I think you and him had probably had some sort of disagreement of some sort, and you would come over and made some comment under your breath about oh, so you could talk to her, but not me. And it really felt like at that point the wind had been like taken out of my sail of being allowed to have that moment with him, and so it felt like I was constantly having to be hyper-aware of just how my actions were being perceived by not just who I was directly talking to, but also just who was in the room. And so it was challenging.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Yeah, I can understand that. So the tagline for the show is tools for practical help. Oh, okay. So for other daughters that have are going through seasons that are difficult. Move out. Yeah. Move out. What are some tools besides moving out that you could offer to them to consider and to help? Because I think what we haven't really gotten to is that our level of communication, our level of acceptance and connection, quite frankly, has grown.

SPEAKER_03 33:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Consciously, I think intentionally, I know on all our parts.

SPEAKER_02 33:12

I have a I have a obviously we all have a lot of people in our lives, but I have a lot of people in my life where they don't have the uh a relationship with their mom specifically, where they can talk about emotional depth-based. I know maybe of all the people I know, I'm only really connected with two or three people who are like, well, I can talk to my mom about anything. Because some people, when they say that, they're like, I can talk to my mom about anything, they mean about what's going on in their life, not my mom said something and it hurt my feelings, and I'm gonna go talk to her about it because I don't want to make sure that we don't do that again. That's a lot of conversation that people can't have with their parents that we do, which feels good.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

I think as far as practical hope goes and tools, supposedly, is it's it's hard to give, hard to imagine giving advice, so to speak, on how to have this type of healthy relationship with your mother when it didn't necessarily seem that way growing up. Because the challenge I think that we worked our way through wouldn't have resolved itself if you hadn't also been doing the work. And so it's not to say that you know you can try this or we did this and now we have a better relationship. It wasn't just on us, it was something that you also did.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

I appreciate that. I think though, to be fair, yeah, a lot of why we are in a much better state is because of the work that you guys have done on yourself in order to communicate differently with me, more honestly, more directly, more concisely about any situation as it arises, which to a point that you made earlier that when people don't address what they're feeling in the moment, it bothers you that they don't think about it.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

One of the things alongside us doing work on ourselves that I think needed time to become consistent in a message, and it wasn't something that I recognized a lot when we were younger. I think it's because you were learning it, but I see it a lot now is acknowledgement of what happened. And so a lot of times the most normal thing to do is just be like, oh, that sucked, and then just kind of let it go. But you do a really great job of circling back on something, maybe the day after, maybe an hour later, whatever the timeline is, you bring it up and you acknowledge it. And if it's something to apologize for, you do, if it's something to just acknowledge, you do. And I think that is a great tool to opening communication because when you leave something unsaid, then the other person doesn't know if they can bring it up, if what the vibe's gonna be, but when you the person bring it up on your end, it opens the door for the other person to be like, okay, actually, yeah, that didn't actually feel good. I didn't like it, and so I do that you oftentimes will bring something up or just join in the conversation, and I think that is a good practical tool for better communication.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

I would say, as far as the things that you were saying something and it triggered a thought, but now I wanted another thought of what I was saying just then, yeah, and I had a thought that went with that, and I wish I could have used it as a segue, but I forgot it. What I was thinking though is trying to find maybe this is in line, but trying to find a way that you can communicate with the person that works for your relationship or dynamic. So, for example, I know sometimes when we were first starting to be honest with each other, there could sometimes be a lot of hurt feelings in the room. And it was difficult, I think, for anybody, but for you to receive the type of feedback that you were getting about the way that maybe we uh experienced our childhood or what we were working on in therapy or what we were experiencing at a specific event like recently or something, and like whether it was recent or in the far past, it was sometimes not always, but sometimes hard to hear, and then that would trigger, I think, a defense mechanism on your part of uh deflecting or being hurt or simply just wanting to deny and walk away. Where to some extent, just obviously it wasn't where we wanted to go. I wanted to be honest and for you to uh receive it and acknowledge it, and then whatever needed to be said about it for that to occur. So obviously not always that simple. I think the thing that helped is realizing the thing that we share, which is our sense of humor and our empathy, could be used as a tool for delivering that type of information because I know, for example, nothing makes mom laugh more than whatever it is I do or say, I feel like the silliest person around you, and you are so easy to make laugh to the point where I think I'm so hilarious, but I think it's really unjustified. But I honestly think I'm like I crack up my mom more than anyone cracks up anybody, and so therefore I must be like SNL level funny. Yes, and I think I should have like a type 10 routine. I'm so convinced because of the way that you laugh and at what I say or do. I could make you laugh. I'm not gonna do it now because no pre because I don't want to do it as pressure throws. Yes, it's unprofessional, but pop. Yeah, see, she's doing it right now. But then I could again grab the thing that I knew worked well for us, which is just like a giggle or a joke that I could insert. So whether or not we opened with that or not, it's almost like the thought of a compliment sandwich where people, sometimes therapists are told, or they tell people, when you are giving critical feedback, you start with a compliment of what someone's done well, you give the piece of constructive criticism, and then you end with something else that someone's done well. And so instead of a compliment sandwich, I give you like a giggle sandwich. And so we start when I always try to give criticism or not really criticism at this point, but I always try to give you like whenever there's a hard conversation that needs to be had, I'm like, okay, let's find a good time. And that is where I'm like, okay, we need to start with positive feelings, and so that way we're starting at a good place, and then I think, okay, now that we're in a good place, this might be a time to say, my friend's in a good mood, mom, there's this thing I need to talk to you about, and do five minutes of chat about it. So you're setting up the scene. I deliver the information. I think naturally anyone is just maybe coming down from the high roll of giggles, and they're just like, okay, I received that, and then you end with a joke, something along the lines of, but I really hope that we cannot just then we can discuss this at our next employee review or something of that regard. Just create some sort of sense of I don't know, irony, formality. Let's just say that's what works for us, and I know that I don't ever worry about coming to you with something because I know that I found the way to do it. Okay, and it always without a doubt works, but again, it also helps that you've done so much work to be able to receive things without taking them personally, and so again, I can't say enough how lucky we are that we have you as a mom. It's not just about the work that we've done. I like what Alex was saying. Like, we have so many friends who say that they wish that they had such a close relationship with their mom, like we do.

SPEAKER_02 40:37

Or such an open one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

Which is not something we ever have to worry about.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Yeah. People say about her mom. Like she's available. Do you have a baby? She can babysit. Should that would get her there?

Repair Skills That Build Trust

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Wow, wow, thank you. So I think every generation inherits something different, right? My mother's generation survived, my generation started questioning things, and your generation I think talks more openly about what's about what you're doing towards healing. Do you think millennials approach a family and healing differently than my generation or my other people? Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

Oh, yeah. For sure. No comment. No, I think that going off generational inheritance, like you said, or timelines, the generation before you was all about survival. I see your generation as I'm gonna carve a different path for myself than my parents did. And then our generation was like, I'm probably gonna do that, but I'm gonna also carve it out emotionally as well. And I'm gonna make sure that I don't bring forward with me all the traumas that or all the triggers and traumas and issues and good things that I do want to bring with me. I'm gonna focus on all of it and be very intentional.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

So okay, so that's what you intentionally try to change. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 42:07

I think intentionality is something that millennial generation does tries to do really well.

unknown 42:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

I feel, and I feel like now I've been listening to myself. Every single time you add a year, but I feel. Well, I do that. No. I said like you do that.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

I do that.

unknown 42:28

Hold on. Anyway.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

Yeah, we all try we also millennials are trying to be better at saying I feel and like talking about themselves. I think that is something that our family it's hard to speak about generational stuff without just like thinking about our family, because our family isn't necessarily an outlier, but we are not like we don't fit in with everybody else in mainstream in the sense of like we can talk to you about a lot of things, we have conversations that not a lot of other people's families have. So I do wonder what if I can even speak to millennial, but I do know from friends of mine that watching us grow up, we are trying to recognize things that we want to change and then do those things.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Mostly I see that in Friends of Mine and Becoming Parents themselves. When you were talking about the difference between millennials and your generation, as far as how they are coping or having these conversations, or dealing with trauma, the thing that I've noticed, and maybe this is just a difference in our friend groups, is that the way that our generation is coping with trauma, or at least having the trauma be a part of their family, is just acknowledging that maybe not having children is an option, which I also think is maybe a part of just the economy these days. We've been through so many recessions in our lifetime that we haven't been able to accrue a lot of wealth, and things are just so expensive with inflation that. Owning a home feels impossible unless you built it yourself. And so it's hard to imagine having uh like financial stability in order to be able to family plan. And with that kind of going on at the background, sometimes it feels like an option is just all right, I'm gonna focus on me. I'm spending my FSA account to pay for a gym membership in therapy. So then why don't I just focus on that? And I'm not ready to have a kid until I've dealt with my own trauma because I don't want to put that onto them. Meanwhile, I feel like the few people in your generation who have done the work have done it later in life. And then thankfully, again, we're able to meet in the middle in that regard. But I feel like when other families or when other people within your generation think about family trauma, they put it onto someone else. They either will focus on what their mom did to them or what their what they did to their kids, and there's either this thing of self-blame or blaming the people who raise them. It's not a lot of self-work that they're wanting to do. And then that kind of externalization of it all becomes the blind spot that they can't quite find that resolution for. Yeah. And some of those are more willing to acknowledge that there's a part of them that needs to change as well.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Yeah. If I don't want to carry that forward, I have to not carry it forward. More accountability.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Yeah. Yeah. So since most of our listeners are women, um one thing I want to talk about is the emotional things that we inherit and from our mothers. So what do you hope, or what do you think first that you inherited emotionally from me? And what do you hope future generations will inherit from you? From people from us, from women of your generation.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

I'm so sorry. What's the question one more time?

SPEAKER_00 45:56

So the question is what did you emotionally inherit from me?

unknown 45:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

And what do you hope that women of future generations will inherit from our generations?

SPEAKER_02 46:03

My gosh, that no man needs to be making decisions, and that just because he is doesn't mean you have to listen to them. And also, if you don't like them, you can come up with your own decisions. Okay. And then also a bunch of women will probably just rally around you because at the end of the day, women make better decisions.

unknown 46:18

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

Definitely just trauma. The body cares is for basic score.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

I think that women from their mothers inherit like a quietness and a I'm going to be um part of the group societally. We all want to collect and make connect and make sure that we are always within a network and that anything that can rock the boat can be seen as like um just like something that women don't do. And so I think that that's something that is inherited as a woman generally generationally down the line that you want to be part of the group, you want to be agreeable, and you want to be someone who delivers something with niceness. I mean, women are the ones who do exclamation points at the end of all of our sentences when we don't need to because we want it to be received softer. So I think that that's something that we should shake the boat on, shake the boat up on. That's not even a phrase. I think that's something that we should rock the boat on as we continue to, you know, live our lives in future generations, is that uh women can be just as um I don't know, abrasive is a word I don't want to use, but at the end of the day, we can be abrasive, we can be argumentative, we can be rash and bold and in charge, and it shouldn't make us difficult.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

When I think about daughters or even children in general and hearing things from their mother, I I kind of in agreement where it's kind of in the mothers keeping peace at home and then kind of bringing that sense of calm and um like social lubrication to the scene where it's all about like ending the peacemaker, and maybe that's just women's natural inclination, sometimes the feminine urge to people please. I think that children also get, and they don't necessarily properly attribute it, is the any leadership qualities that they end up getting, simply just because the way that a home feels, at least in our family, but something that I've also observed in a lot of my friends' homes, our friends' homes, um, seems to be somewhat at least national, not universal, is that like the home really is like the space of the mother, and even if like you know, the man or whatever is the one going to Bredwyn or whatever, like he's very rarely even home. And so in our life, it always felt like the home was like mom's domain and she managed it's project managing. Yeah, she administrated it when it came to our schedules or in life. Like mom was the CEO, and it really felt like if you wanted to like get something done, or like if you needed help with something, or if you wanted to ask for permission, you went to mom. And I feel like that type of leadership is something that children, if they do end up having that desire to similarly lead, whether it's at work or in their own home, they get it from their mom because that's who they're watching do it, and that is something that I feel like just needs to be properly attributed.

SPEAKER_02 49:41

Yeah. I mean, one thing I definitely got from you is to do sound harsh, do whatever you want, which is a good trait to have. And the way that I attribute that story-wise, when I tell people is that when Francesca and I used to take piano lessons and we dropped out, you kept going with them, even though you weren't the one originally who signed up for piano lessons. You were like, I paid for these lessons and I'm gonna be taking them and I'm going to learn piano myself. And I remember listening to you play piano as I would walk past you to go doing nothing. I had no follow-up hobby. I just wasn't doing piano, and you just sat there and you were playing piano and learning and you would go to the lessons. And so I remember being like, Oh, well, you can do if you want to do piano, you can do piano. And I think that it is a quiet way that I continue that in my life, that thought process of you can do whatever you want, but it's definitely something that I think about.

What We Want To Pass On

SPEAKER_00 50:36

Interesting. So, one thing I realized is that family stories become healing stories when we you know finally tell honestly what happened, and you know, it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be dramatic, just truthful. Um, and I think that all three of us are what we're doing here is having an honest conversation, and um and healing comes from that. Um and maybe what I got from my mama doesn't mean um you know to have to be ending with just tame, right? It's what you definitely do with it. It's the wisdom that comes from that, it's the choice that you can be from that, and it's the connection that can grow from that. Um so I want to thank you for showing up and taking part in this uh exercise today, this conversation. Of course, it's really great. It was really, really great. Thank you. Do you want to say something?

SPEAKER_01 51:32

Yeah, I didn't need to finish my list. I just I just want to be clear. I also had a list of things that mom got from me at the very beginning, and I don't need to go into them very depth deeply, but I'll just mention um my sense of style, which you talk when you moved here. Uh speaking of New York City, you talk because I was her first.

SPEAKER_02 51:50

Um I mean to be if we're being honest, I wanted to come to New York City first. And Francesca was originally gonna go to California. That's not true. And yes, it was. No, I was the one who always talked about living in New York. Francesca was originally gonna go out to California, and then that whatever happened there failed, fully failed. And she had to pivot to my dreams, which was New York. Well, he's deleting the last one because it was a duplicate.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

I uh sense of humor. Uh I taught you my sarcasm. Um biking in New York City. I'm not biking from you, but you got biking in New York City from me. You would never be crossing all those bridges. I think class line first, you're welcome. And packing open techniques. And then packing techniques. Mom's a great packer now. Because of me. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_00 52:33

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 52:34

I just really want to get that off my chest.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

Appreciate you sharing it.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 52:37

I don't attribute packing to Francesca. Okay. You should. I don't attribute it to anyone actually. You should.

unknown 52:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:44

Anything else?

unknown 52:46

No.

Closing Thanks And Share Prompt

SPEAKER_00 52:47

Okay. Well, you've been listening to She Ask Tools for Practical Hope. I'm your host, Anna McBride. And if this episode resonated with you, have dongers.

SPEAKER_02 52:59

Have twins.

SPEAKER_00 53:00

Please share with someone you care about as an invitation to talk about what you got from your mama. And tell all the mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day. And until soon, be well.