← Talkaboutable with Dr. Susan Swick
Talkaboutable with Dr. Susan Swick
My Mom Is A Narcissist, But I Want My Son To Have A Relationship With Her
00:47:52
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- [00:02]
Dr. Susan Swick
Lemonade.
- [00:06]
Single Mother
I believe that my mom has, maybe she's not a diagnosable narcissist, but I believe she has narcissistic tendencies or behaviors. My son, he's just growing up. He's 13 now. He's becoming aware of things and so he is seeing the behavior patterns and he's talking to me about them, asking why. And a lot of it is impacting him directly.
- [00:35]
Dr. Susan Swick
I'm Dr. Susan Swick and this is talk about Able. Today I'm talking to a single mother of a 13 year old son who's navigating some thorny relationships with the rest of her family. On one hand, she wants to protect her son from some unhealthy behaviors that her parents and siblings seem to be repeating from their childhood. And on the other hand, she deeply wants to stay connected and familiar for her son to have a loving and authentic relationships with the rest of his family. This is an episode about boundaries and especially the ones that don't seem to work right away and how we can keep showing up until they stick. I like to start by asking who lives at home?
- [01:26]
Single Mother
Okay, so my son and I live together. It's just the two of us. I'm a single mom by choice, so he is 13. And we also have a cat who his name is technically Muffin, but. But we're a family of nicknames. So my son has nicknamed him Oopy Goopy Cheeseburger Oil the fourth.
- [01:54]
Dr. Susan Swick
Wow.
- [01:55]
Single Mother
So that's his imagination coming through. I don't know where it came from, but that's the cat.
- [02:00]
Dr. Susan Swick
That is fantastic. You've given me a beautiful preview answer to this question. But my next question is if you can tell me a little bit about your son and specifically what you think his special talent, his special gifts are. You can tell a story if you want that captures them or just your summary. Like what comes to mind when I ask about his special gifts? Yeah.
- [02:30]
Single Mother
Oh my goodness. So I know you know every parent is biased toward their own children. He and I'm no different.
- [02:37]
Dr. Susan Swick
It doesn't mean you're wrong.
- [02:39]
Single Mother
I know, right? He's wonderful. He has been such a gift in my life. He loves learning, he's athletic, he's social, he can be very funny. So he's got all of these great qualities and, but, but the thing that makes him sort of, I think his superpower, which is always remarkable to me because it's, it's just a way that I learn from him constantly, which is he sort of has this wise beyond his years quality and I Don't know if it's him or if it's generational, maybe both. But he will often either call me out on something I'm doing. So that quality, I think has helped us, you know, in our relationship. We have very open, transparent communication.
- [03:29]
Dr. Susan Swick
Right, right. So it sounds like he's got incredible emotional intelligence.
- [03:35]
Single Mother
Yes.
- [03:37]
Dr. Susan Swick
And something of an old soul. Like very, very thoughtful, wise, observant.
- [03:43]
Single Mother
Yeah. Very insightful and really, really intuitive.
- [03:48]
Dr. Susan Swick
All right, so let's jump right in, see if you could describe for me the challenge that's giving you a little heartburn that's keeping you up at night.
- [03:58]
Single Mother
Yeah. So I'm not a psychologist, you may know more about this topic than I do, but we. There's. My mother and I have had a ongoing sort of difficult relationship over my lifetime. And as I've become more self aware and just trying to solve my own personal problems and I've been digging into, you know, I have, I've. I have a lot of anger toward my family of origin and I've been really digging into that lately and trying to figure out where it comes from and why I respond to things the way I do. And I believe that my mom has. Maybe she's not a diagnosable narcissist, but I believe she has narcissistic tendencies or behaviors. And it's, in my opinion, been really, really damaging to the family. There's a certain pattern that shows up over and over and over. One of the things that has kept that pattern in place for so very long is my mother owns a lake house that has been in her family for two generations now, going on three. And we all go there every summer. We've spent a lot of time there over the years and whenever we're there, back into these patterns, playing the roles that we've been trained to play over many years. And I've personally just been really struggling with that. And so now I made a decision last fall to pull out of that situation. We were all intended to become co owners and it just has not been working for. Since my son was born and my siblings, everybody got married and had children and people moved in full time and the usage patterns changed and it just became a very difficult place to be. So I made the decision to pull out. And what that has done is caused a very big ripple effect through the family. It's breaking that dynamic, changing people's roles. And it's really. Even before I pulled out my mom's behavior and some of my siblings also was starting to become my son. He's just growing up. He's 13 now. He's becoming aware of things, and so he is seeing the behavior patterns, and he's talking to me about them, asking why. And a lot of it is impacting him directly, where people are treating him in a certain way. And so now the challenge has been, how do I maintain relationships with my.
- [06:41]
Dr. Susan Swick
Family.
- [06:43]
Single Mother
Perhaps evolve them so that they are healthier and also allow my son to have healthy, positive relationships with the family. I'm sure you can imagine there's been a lot of hurt feelings. People feel betrayed. You know, there's money issues involved because we'd all been paying, you know, into the situation for decades. And, you know, so now I'm out, and so that's falling on other people. And so there's just a lot of emotion.
- [07:15]
Dr. Susan Swick
Tell me what your son understands about this change and maybe was this summer house a place of uncomplicated delight for him? Time with his cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents, or was he aware of the painful and uncomfortable and hostile dynamics that could really fill the space? What. What was it like for him, and what does he understand about it?
- [07:50]
Single Mother
Yeah, it's a combination of both. And I think that the percentage has shifted over the years. So when he was really young, it was probably 95% delight and wonder. And it was just. It really was. There were so many wonderful times that we all had together. And the longer time went on and the more the usage of the home started to impact how we all filled that space. Space and how we felt when we were there, the more there was more frequency of arguments, more intensity of arguments. And so the older he got coinciding with that, he started to see all of that negativity. And I wouldn't say that he was at a point where it was 50, 50. It was probably still, you know, 75% good for him, but he was seeing all of it. And he would see fights, you know, between me and my brother or me and my mom or my brother and my. That could be verbally very vicious. So he witnessed those things, and then he also became targeted in some of those things. My brother. There's just one example where he was helping my brother do something this one season when we're opening the camp. And I didn't realize he was helping him. So I asked my son to come help me do something else. And my brother got really angry that I had asked him to leave this task. And instead of yelling at me, he yelled at my son. And so there were, you know, it just became. It Started to become more directly impactful on him. And the other. The other piece, that's really been hard. When my son was young, my parents both really favored him over the other grandchildren, I think, because I'm a single mom by choice, and he doesn't have a father. And so it was a way he became an extension of that family of origin. They never looked at us like we are our own nuclear family. But one of the byproducts of that that was nice for my son is he had a bigger family than I could provide to him. And he was very close, and he still is very close with both of my parents. But my mom is very manipulative. And so as time has gone on and she sort of intervenes and continues to play the mother role with him, I've had to put very strong boundaries. He is seeing that out loud now, and he talks to me about it, and he'll ask, you know, she was just here the other day, and he asked, you know, she. She just was all in his business about his clothes and his haircut and what is he doing after school and why doesn't he eat the right food? And, I mean, it was everything. And he. When he held his own, you know, he stood up to her and said, you know, this is why, and I'm okay with it. And, um, part of that is coaching from me, but part of it is just his intuitive nature where he feels like this isn't okay and I can say something about it. When I was a child, I never would have dared to say that, you know, but he's been able to draw these boundaries. And then she left, and he asked. He's like, why? Why is she like that? You know, so. So I've had to be careful because, again, I want him to have a relationship with her.
- [11:04]
Julia Louis Dreyfus
Not.
- [11:04]
Single Mother
Not an unhealthy one or the one from the past, but a more evolved one. And I try to be honest with him, but in a gracious, as gracious a way as I can muster, because it's complicated by my own feelings about my own relationship. But I usually say things like, we're humans. We're flawed. Everybody is flawed. We've all got these issues. And he sees me going to therapy and working on myself and trying to be a better parent to him in many ways, so he knows that's possible. And I often will say, look, grandma is from a generation where she has severe anxiety as well that was heavily stigmatized. She won't even call it that. She's 83 years old, you know, so, so she, there's no way she would go to therapy and kind of open herself up and be vulnerable and try to help herself. And this is, we have to accept it. But it's also okay to draw boundaries in a, in a, in a respectful way. Like we don't want to yell at her and we don't want to talk down to her, but it's okay if she says things to us that we make us uncomfortable, like she doesn't like your haircut, you can tell her that hurt you or respond to that in a way that tells her she's behaving in a way that's not okay. And the more she does it, the more she's going to push us away so we can say those things and hope it curves the behavior in that moment. And so we have these conversations when things come up. He'll proactively observe something and bring it up with me.
- [12:40]
Dr. Susan Swick
I just want to step back and observe that. You've done an extraordinary job of raising what sounds like an amazing son. 13. Is he in like eighth grade?
- [12:54]
Single Mother
In seventh.
- [12:55]
Dr. Susan Swick
Yeah, he's seventh grader. He's a middle schooler. And he sounds so wonderfully comfortable in his skin in an age appropriate way. No 13 year old is perfectly comfortable in their skin because their skin is changing. It's changing. And so attuned, so curious, so big hearted that he has space for compassion without necessarily personalizing everything first, which is often what little kids do. And I just want to point out that it's very human to maybe react to tough experiences by trying to do the opposite. And in trying to do the opposite, we often end up recreating a version of what we actually experienced. And that you found a third way through this to stay connected to your family of origin in a way. And you've done it without a partner, which some, I mean, a tough partnership can make that harder, but to do it alone and without maybe just being able to bounce things off of another person of like, did you see that? Did that feel weird to you? It's so true.
- [14:13]
Single Mother
And you know what? I've. I think I've built up this sort of de facto family of choice, you know, around me where I have a few close friends, male and female, that I talk to on an ongoing basis. And that does definitely help. I really appreciate your, your thoughts. Thank you so much.
- [14:31]
Dr. Susan Swick
Yeah, no, it's not easy. That's not easy and it's not done.
- [14:34]
Single Mother
And I'm not perfect. It's not done. It's never going to be Done. I'm not perfect, you know, my son, there was just. This is sort of related, but a little bit of a tangent. There was another moment he had just tying back to your thoughts about his maturity and his ability not to internalize. That was a huge thing for me as a child. I internalized everything. Everything was my fault. And I have terrible self confidence as a result of it. And I'm overcoming that in my, you know, older years. But he doesn't have that. And I think, you know, part of it, when I was, when I had him, if I had to pinpoint one thing I was going to do differently, to break a cycle or treat him differently than my parents treated me. It was this unconditional love. You know, no matter what he does, there's nothing that can change how I feel about him. And I want to make sure he absolutely knows that. Every single day. We proactively tell each other we love each other, we hug each other. I'm always telling him how proud I am. We'll call out very specific things that he's done and you know, there's sometimes constructive feedback based into, baked into those conversations. But, but there's a lot of praise and respect and appreciation and it goes both ways. And, and it's to a point where he can really hold his own against me now. You know, he's 13. You know, I mentioned I, I have anger. I'm too quick to get angry about stupid little things sometimes. And I'm working on that. It's a process. But he called me out on something recently and he said, you know, you, you don't need to be that way. That thing that just happened was not a big deal. I looked at him and I was like, I got the reality check. Thank you. How amazing are you that you're 13 and you turned to me and said something I probably didn't dare to say to my own parents TILL I was 30, you know, but he's able. He didn't internalize that. That was such a beautiful wake up call for me where I was like, I think I'm doing something right. This kid, he's not afraid, you know, and he didn't take it personally. He was like, this is on you. And he was right, you know?
- [16:41]
Dr. Susan Swick
Well, and both things can be true because I will say also, it would be weird if you didn't sometimes have strong responses to things. First of all, we're human and feelings happen. Feelings are like the weather. There's no bad feelings, there's no bad weather. Just like the wrong clothes for the weather sometimes. But anger happens. And it may happen because it's proportional to what's happened outside of you, or it may happen because you didn't get a good night's sleep or you have a flu or because of a pattern of triggers and reactions that you grew up with.
- [17:20]
Single Mother
Yes, all of those are real.
- [17:22]
Dr. Susan Swick
The anger itself is not bad. It's how do you manage it and how do you learn about yourself and helping, helping your son also learn because sounds like he's comfortable with it, but that, that and that anger itself is not a bad thing. And that when we feel angry, we don't have to snuff it out or ignore it. It doesn't sound like he's in danger of this, but an only son of a very thoughtful mother with good open communication. He may be in friendships or relationships with people who expressed emotion who get louder and angrier. And he may have a strong response to it. And so helping him start to feel a little comfortable that like anger's actually just it's weather. Sometimes it's just you have to bear it. Other times it's telling you something really important. So we don't want him to feel like anger is bad, but it's sounds like he has this wonderful capacity to identify what he's feeling, notice what someone else is feeling and find words for it, find words to manage it. Which is unusual at 13, especially in 13 year old boys.
- [18:45]
Single Mother
Yeah.
- [18:50]
Dr. Susan Swick
We're going to take a short break and then we'll be back with more of this story foreign.
- [19:03]
Julia Louis Dreyfus
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- [20:39]
Dr. Susan Swick
I like the phrase you use to evolve your relationships with them.
- [20:44]
Single Mother
Yes.
- [20:44]
Dr. Susan Swick
And of course evolution happens over sometimes decades and that it helps sometimes to make certain active interventions that might help improve things, but they also might just be critical for your well being and then let the relationships adapt to those changes.
- [21:07]
Single Mother
Yeah.
- [21:09]
Dr. Susan Swick
Could you tell me a little bit more about maybe the pattern that you described? Is there a story that captures that pattern? Especially something maybe that your son might have seen or heard about ever?
- [21:24]
Single Mother
Yes. So the pattern that has existed for all time in our family is my mom's the matriarch. She really just runs the show. She controls the narrative. She's very, very domineering. I've also, and I think this is directly tied to all of this. I've had anxiety since I was three and it's been a very severe issue in my life. And I have to say now that I'm learning more about it. I always thought I born with it and there was just nothing you could do but manage it. But I'm learning now that it's maybe partly that, but it's also a learned behavior set. And that's been eye opening for me. So that was sort of my response was just to always try to be good and do the right thing and don't get on her bad side and all of that. And then my sister did the opposite and ironically she has depression, so she would withdraw and retreat and sort of hide and not engage and pull away. And then my brother's coping skill became he would sort of hide in this fantasy world which he's still doing today. It was just a comfort zone thing for him. And he's really deeply connected to things from our past, physical things, experiences and all of that. So our family has that. Those behaviors. But then what happens when we get together is we just regress.
- [22:51]
Dr. Susan Swick
Yep. Is your dad alive?
- [22:54]
Single Mother
He is. Yeah.
- [22:55]
Dr. Susan Swick
Okay. And what role has he played in this dance that you.
- [23:01]
Single Mother
It's interesting.
- [23:02]
Dr. Susan Swick
Square dance.
- [23:03]
Single Mother
Yes. It really is a dance. Again, I'm learning so much about my relationship with him for decades. I always felt much closer to him. He was very, very nurturing, affectionate, loving, supportive. He was a wonderful father. My mom did not behave Those ways, I can honestly say I really can't remember any time where she proactively pulled me aside as a child and said, I love you. I'm just so proud of you. I just want you to know, no matter what you do, I'm so proud. There was never any of that, but we got all of that from my dad, but she was the boss, you know, and so he. I think it became a very codependent situation and he, he never stepped in. You know, with my brother, for example, we fought like awful, you know, growing up, and he never stepped in and really kind of had my back. And so I felt very much like I was out there kind of fighting my own battles. And he would often support my mom, no matter. And he does this to this day where he'll say, you don't understand, she needs this, or you have to support her on that. And he cannot see or refuses to see. And I think his interest is in keeping his relationship together and he has to sort of acquiesce to her in order to do that. And so, you know, you just get to a point where you realize that you. There's no way to win the battle. Like, I could have kept hanging in there for the rest of my life, you know, and it just, it got to a point where we were. We were asked to take actual ownership of the house. And I just had this epiphany where I was like, this is never going to change. I can't keep doing this and I don't want to live like this. I'm unhappy all the time when we're up there together and everybody can see it. And I just. That's not who I am and that's not who I want to be for my son. I really wanted to be. You know, when I envisioned who I would be as a mom, especially in that kind of beautiful environment, it wasn't that. So we're trying to just pull the rug out and reinvent ourselves at this point.
- [25:22]
Dr. Susan Swick
Well, I can't imagine why you decided you didn't want to go into this house anymore.
- [25:28]
Single Mother
I know it's been a 30 year experiment that did not work. And finally I was like, oh, wait, this is never gonna work. But yeah, well.
- [25:37]
Dr. Susan Swick
And I wonder you mentioned, use the word betrayed before, that your family felt betrayed by you pulling out. May, it's mostly about the financial arrangement, but I suspect there's also a piece that is about. You played a really important role in making the family work. And I say work with quotes, but in this square dance, it Required all the different dancers. And although it was painful and repetitive and left probably everyone feeling either anxious, depressed or deeply withdrawn. It's a very vivid. That's a great, vivid story. And that the, the way forward was to step out of the dance.
- [26:25]
Single Mother
Yes. Yeah. And that's really true because as I've, you know, I've tried again to be careful even in our community up there to not, you know, be blasting this around and be protective of our family and the process that we're going through. But one very close friend did ask me, she's like, I just. Because they, they were sort of very punishing there, you know, they wouldn't welcome me back to the property. This summer we went up and rented a place on our own and I, you know, took the high road the whole way. I was inviting them over for bonfires and dinners and water skiing and all of the things. But there it wasn't reciprocated. I think they were very uncomfortable and hurt and. But, but it, it's not just the money. It is that, but it's also. I played a role like I was a buffer between my sister and brother who when I pulled out, they started fighting. And I kind of predict that that would happen. But they need to arrive at Y on their own.
- [27:23]
Dr. Susan Swick
I love your take the high road frame. You're staying in your lane, but you're not needing to win the argument of this is unhealthy and I refuse to participate. That may be true, but you don't need to prove them wrong. They aren't yet as brave as you. They aren't yet in a place where they can imagine that there is a way to have everything that each of them wants or needs. That doesn't hinge on doing the same dance moves. Yes. And it is. You know, I love that you mentioned let them because I think it is a very simple principle. Maybe a little simplistic, but it's simple and it's clear. But what's hard actually for kids, it doesn't apply. When we are kids, when we are little and particularly in thinking about our parents, enmeshment is actually not quite the right concept because our well being does hinge on our parents. Our well being does hinge. And not in every way, but in many ways. And as parents, our well being, we're only as happy as our least happy child. Right. And that's not crazy. That's just what it is to have children. And clearly the way this played out with your mom, your mom is managing something thorny and complicated. Let's say that that's thorny and complicated. That, you know, she clearly loves each of you in her way so much that she will be super involved in your lives, but she has this one way of doing things that ends up being painful and not actually leaving. You know, I often will talk with families who are facing something really difficult and talk about the idea that sometimes we just bear things together. We don't fix them right? That families, the people we love, make the good stuff better and the bad stuff bearable. But sometimes the people that we love in ways that are thorny and conflicted can actually make the good stuff a little hard to bear. They can make it hard, and yet there is love there and finding the way for you to believe that, even if some days you'd fudge it. And the high road may be as simple as responding with grace when your family says, you can't park the boat here. We feel betrayed by you because you're not. You're not playing the role. There's your dad's story of, like, you have to understand, I'm just making this up. But some version of, she's doing the best she can, or she, you know, and we need you to just keep showing up and accommodating her, because that's how we work.
- [30:48]
Single Mother
That's how we do it.
- [30:49]
Dr. Susan Swick
That's how we do it. That's how we work as a family. And you're being brave and getting to say, I love you so much. I love you so much. And I know you love me, and this is what I need to be able to feel like I have structural integrity. And I'm not walking. I'm going to be right over there. I'm not. I'm not going to stay here if you're talking to me that way or you're yelling at me in that way. But I'm not leaving forever. It's not over. That's sort of the difference between being brave and being estranged, right? Where you're like, the only way I can leave is to say, never, never again. I'm going to be sober from you, from this family, and I'm never having a drink of this family again. And instead you're saying, I love you very, very much. And it doesn't mean that I have to keep. Keep doing these dance moves. And if you need to keep doing those dance moves, I know you're doing the best you can. And I'll be right over there. I'll be right over there.
- [32:01]
Single Mother
Exactly.
- [32:02]
Dr. Susan Swick
I'll be coming by with the boat tomorrow and see if anyone wants a ride. It's true.
- [32:07]
Single Mother
I love that.
- [32:10]
Dr. Susan Swick
We'll be right back after this break.
- [32:28]
Single Mother
One of the things I was, you know, I was worried about all of this when I pulled out, because for me, the choice was so easy, and I would have done it.
- [32:36]
Dr. Susan Swick
Yeah.
- [32:37]
Single Mother
Years ago.
- [32:38]
Dr. Susan Swick
Yep.
- [32:38]
Single Mother
Years ago. And now, you know, with my son, I thought, okay, I have to find ways to show him that we're going to be okay and this is actually going to be better. Yes. He's had a wonderful experience there, but things are changing for him. And so this summer, when we rented our own cabin up there, I was like, okay, this is sort of. This is going to be the proof of whether it's going to be okay.
- [33:03]
Dr. Susan Swick
And.
- [33:06]
Single Mother
He was sort of stoic about the whole thing. He didn't really talk much about. He kept asking about the logistics, like, how is this going to work? Like, will I be able to have campfires? Will I do this? Will I do that? And the answer was yes to everything. But we're also gonna have our own space to retreat to, so if things get dicey, we can go lay down and have a nap or be home and have our own dinner together. And so he noticed this the very first day when we were in this cabin. It was a lovely little place right on the water, just what you need. It wasn't big or fancy, but it was just what we needed. And he was just at peace. And at the end of that very first day, we hadn't even spent a night there. And he said something along the lines of, I get it. Like, this is amazing. We can now have the best of both worlds. And that was a really important sort of portal, I think, for him to pass through, where he realized he can still have these relationships, and they're gonna be really good, but we can have our own time, just the two of us together, and get our own space and have our own sense of peace and joy.
- [34:11]
Dr. Susan Swick
That's right. That's right. So maybe some evolution is happening.
- [34:16]
Single Mother
It could be.
- [34:16]
Dr. Susan Swick
It's. It'll be challenging and important for you to remember to sort of keep that. Your job is not to fix things for everybody else, although you're hopeful that the future. That every individual's relationship with each other and the family will be improved by a disruptive change. But the best you can do is show up with love, with curiosity, if. If your sister or brother or mom or dad want to bring something to you to be open to it, but without feeling that you have to fix. Although I think being more attuned to your son and being able to be curious, sort of one step beyond where you say, are you worried about losing something? Do you feel like it's unfair for you that you don't get as much time and just to be able to talk about it with him so that he doesn't bear. Because he may feel he sounds like such an extraordinary boy and he may feel one intellectually that he gets it and he's all in with the program and his heart may still feel a little deprived that he misses a bonfire one night or that whatever it is he might not get as much of, you know, that he's not in the mix with the clutch of cousins. And whether it's at the lake house or it's something else, it's a different holiday. I can only imagine Thanksgiving or, you know, that and being able to make that. Talk about able, giving him permission to feel what he feels and to even be helping him. Helping to find a way to make sure he gets the best he can from this rich, lively, sometimes thorny extended family, but to make sure he knows that he is not betraying you by trying to get all the love that they have for him and that whatever it is he's feeling is you're here for it, you want to hear about it, that your part of it is real and important and it's your part and you're taking care of that. And that it's not a secret, it's not shameful. But also it's not his job to help you. I mean, he sounds like the kind of kid who loves to be like, to be helping you. And there may even come times where you get to say, eh, I'm going to talk about that with my friends. I'm going to talk about that with my therapist. What about you? You know, you get to say, I'm your mom. I want to hear about you now and make sure maybe if you err with any of them, not with your brother or your sister or your mom or your dad, you'd be curious, but it's not your job to fix. But with your beautiful boy, you get to just, you know, always give it a second shot where you're like, well, but is there anything you're missing from this? Is there anything you wish you could still get? Being ready to give him a second invitation to talk about it, about his experience of it, so that he doesn't feel like he has to help you, not because you've asked him. You have not asked him to do that, but because that's how he's wired. That's his superpower. That's his gift. And each of our gifts comes with a vulnerability. Vulnerability, Right. It's like kryptonite or it's like Achilles heel.
- [38:05]
Single Mother
The cost. Yeah.
- [38:07]
Dr. Susan Swick
Yeah. And so if he's that emotionally intelligent and empathetic and attuned, it puts him at risk to sometimes put other people's needs ahead of his own.
- [38:18]
Single Mother
Yes, agreed. And, you know, that's a really good reminder because over the summer, when we're in the heat or the thick of all of this, the conversations were flowing and the was, you know, both sides. My son and I very proactively kind of talking openly about what we were each experiencing, what he was experiencing. And I was doing, I think, a better job at that time because we were right in it of, you know, are you okay? And how did this feel? And whatever. And he acknowledged. There was this one visit before we rented the camp. We were actually staying with them over the 4th of July, and we had given up our room to my niece, you know, so they could use the space. We're not going to be there really anymore. And we were sleeping in a different room. And he did say. He said, you know, I'm. I'm. I forget the wording. But he expressed being heartbroken that he had lost his room, his spot, you know, that he'd known for however long. And that was awful and hard to hear. But then we had this other really great experience later, and he seemed to adapt and connect with it and realize that he. He could still go have sleepovers if, you know, he will one day when they invite us. But, yeah.
- [39:28]
Dr. Susan Swick
Both things can be true. He can be heartbroken about losing his room in the family house and that he's going to be okay, that he's going to flourish and build an amazing future in which his extended family is a part of who he becomes, but in a different way. And when you talk to him, talking, being curious about what's going on, even, and maybe even. Especially if it has nothing to do with his cousins, his aunt and uncle, or aunts and uncles or his grandparents, it could just be about whatever sport he's trying to decide, cultivating curiosity about the world he's experiencing outside of this enveloping family story and the adult relationships that he'll start to build and making sure he hears from you, that's not a betrayal of his closeness with you for him to really like that coach or that teacher. And it's not a betrayal of his Grandparents or his aunts and uncles for him to build meaningful relationships outside of this really enveloping, intense family. And it will be an aid in a way that you're not just making decisions for yourself. You also get to be child centered on his best development.
- [40:57]
Single Mother
Yeah, just back to another thought you had, which was great, was all the kids are so busy now. They're overbooked into all of these sports and activities, and it's overkill. And this year, we decided to sort of slow it down independent of everything going on with my family. But the beauty of all this is that me leaving that situation has been a quest for peace for myself. You know, I'm at that age where friends are dying, everybody's dying. I don't know, maybe it's a midlife crisis, but I. But I feel like I don't want to spend the next 30 years feeling like I felt for the last 10. Who do I want to be? I want to be happy. I want to have peace. I want to have joy. And as I'm on that quest, you.
- [41:43]
Dr. Susan Swick
Know, I've shed this.
- [41:44]
Single Mother
This situation with the family, but also finding ways to connect more deeply with my son, as he only has, you know, six right years left in my household. And, you know, so he's switched it up with his sports, and he's got more time now. And so we've been finding. Not only have I been finding time to myself because I'm not running around, you know, taking him nine different. Different places in a day. But, yeah, you know, I found these opportunities to just sit on my deck with a cup of coffee for, like, two straight hours and just listen to the birds, you know.
- [42:19]
Dr. Susan Swick
Amazing. That sounds really good.
- [42:23]
Single Mother
It's such a luxury. But then also, my son and I have gone. We've had some adventures, you know, where we've gone and done stuff like we used to do when he was really little, but we lost that time. And we've gone. Like, we went to up this bike ride recently down this beautiful bike path in Massachusetts, and it was a glorious fall day, and the, you know, the leaves are sparkling down to the ground, and we rode by a couple lakes, and it was just an incredible, spectacular day. And I think I was feeling so joyful. And then I think he also kind of got caught up in the moment. And at one point, we're biking down the path next to each other, and he reaches over and he holds his hand out, and he wanted to hold my hand while we were riding, and he held my hand for, like, a lot. I Don't even know. It was like eight minutes, you know, just riding down the path, holding hands together.
- [43:16]
Dr. Susan Swick
He's 13.
- [43:16]
Single Mother
I'm like, what 13 year old boy? I'm like, I'll just soak this up as long as I can until he's like, I don't want to be around you anymore. But I just, I'm like, these moments are happening because I've made the space for them to happen because I'm not caught up in all of this drama and I'm starting to sort of manifest, you know, these. This is what I want my life to look like. And that was just such a nice, validating moment.
- [43:42]
Dr. Susan Swick
Oh, you deserve that joy. Thank you. It was so wonderful. And it's so clear that it comes from an authentic place that you're not asking him to service your needs, that you have. You have built a genuine loving relationship with him. And when he reaches his hand out to you, he's not doing it because he thinks you'll be upset or mad if he doesn't. He's doing it because he loves you and he wants to you make the good stuff better and the bad stuff bearable. You do what a nourishing relationship does. And I would say your thought about his inheritance of that house, I would say your wish, your hope that it all gets worked out so none of your worst fears happen. I think that could happen, but not in the way you hope it won't be because, or necessarily because everyone else in the family behaves. Well, we can't control that. We don't know where they'll be in their lives and their development. But he is made of good stuff. You had done a good job, mama. And he's only 13, so in a way you get to say while he's still here with me and thereafter as needed, you want to keep equipping him with the capacity to know himself, to know what he's good at, to know what he needs, to know what he deserves, how he deserves to be treated and loved and to develop some muscle memory for how to engage with people when his needs and their needs don't fully line up so that he can find a way without having to sort of break up with them. He's learning in an age appropriate way how to assert his needs without hurting anyone, but not also pulling his punches when he needs to so that whatever happens with the inheritance of the house, that, that he will be able to manage it in a way that serves him well.
- [46:13]
Single Mother
Yeah, and I think that's a really great way to look at it. I mean, I think that's all we can do as parents, right, Is try to give them the tools they need to succeed and then help them out of the nest and then they've got to execute. And I also feel I can't lose sight of the promising fact that he and his cousin, they're different people. They are all growing up in a different dynamic. They're not siblings, you know, they have different parenting, but they all love each other and get along. And they're also of a generation where people are more self aware, you know, so maybe it won't be awful.
- [46:52]
Dr. Susan Swick
You can't predict how it will go. But I would put money that even with the early skills that he has right now, he's better equipped than many of us were in our 30s.
- [47:05]
Single Mother
Yes.
- [47:07]
Dr. Susan Swick
So those rudiments are there. He still needs you and you get to be riding alongside him on the bike while he's figuring that out. I feel confidently optimistic. You've equipped him with amazing things. You've done a beautiful job. Thank you.
- [47:27]
Single Mother
Thank you.
- [47:28]
Dr. Susan Swick
You if you haven't subscribed to Lemonada Premium yet, now is the perfect time. You can listen to Talk About Able completely ad free. Plus you'll unlock exclusive content like a special meditation from me that'll help you find peace through some of your biggest parenting challenges. Just tap the subscribe button on Apple podcasts. Head to lemonadapremium.com to subscribe on any other app or listen ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. That's lemonadapremium.com don't miss out. Talk About Able is produced by Lemonada Media in partnership with the Ohana center for Child and Family Mental Health at Montage Health and made possible through funding from the Montage Health Foundation. Together, we are committed to helping families talk about the issues that children, teens and young adults are facing today. We believe that when these conversations happen at home, even the most challenging subjects, children build the skills they need to flourish. Because when families are connected, the hard moments become more bearable, the good moments become even better, and it all becomes Talk about Able. This show is produced by Aria Bracci, mixing and sound design by Brian Castillo. Krista Susan Lepore is senior director of New Content and Jackie Danziger is Vice president of Narrative and production. Maggie Crowshaw is our Managing Director of Partnerships. Executive producers include myself, Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Whittles Wax and a very special thanks to Kelsey Talley and Maya Smith. You can help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. Thanks so much for listening. Listening. Talk to you next week.