Season's of Raising Children

Raising Children comes in seasons-and each one changes us.

In this heartfelt episode, Tammy and Staci talk about the milestones that define parenthood, from those first kindergarten goodbyes to the emotional journey of senior year and beyond.  With honesty, humor, and real-life experience, they explore how to stay connected, prepare your kids for life, and navigate the beautiful challenge of letting go.

Because in the end, we're not just raising children... we're raising future adults.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So I was thinking about graduation coming up. Lots of feelings for a lot of people. Yep. And then it got me thinking about, you know, the first time you put your kid on the bus. Right. What that feels like, like separation, anxiety. Um and well, did you put your kids on the bus or they just you did? Okay. And how how did that first time feel for you?

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Was it terrifying? Did you cry? I don't remember crying. I I remember seeing other kids cry, like getting them on the bus and trying to help my kids understand that, like, may try and be friends with that person today. Try and, you know, they're having a hard day, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was the mom that drove away from the bus, held it together. And when I started to drive to go back home, I was bawling like a baby. So this is what this next this episode is gonna be about is the seasons of raising their children.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Yep. And letting go and letting go while still holding on to them as best we can.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Yeah. Yeah. It's a beautiful chaos. It's a roller coaster. It's a beautiful chaos. Sometimes I love sometimes I hate. But with gratitude, I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

This beautiful chaos. Welcome to Beautiful Chaos. I'm Tammy Ramsey and I'm Stacy Miller. And today's episode is Seasons of Raising Children. So I've said this quote. This is one of my favorite quotes, and I can't remember who the author is, but I've said this through multiple of our episodes. Children are meant to be unfolded, not molded. Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

And I think that that's really gonna help us through this whole episode, through hopefully it will help you as a parent of all of kids of all ages, you know, no matter where you're and I think if we just unpack that for a second, so we always think that we are molding our kids, that we are applying our um belief system, our thoughts, our activities, and we're molding our kids and we're making them into what we want them to be. And our kids come, parents, you know this, they come with their own personality and their own ambition, and they turn out being their own person. And yes, they're gonna have our traits and they're gonna have some of our beliefs, and they're still gonna pick up on some of those things, but they are truly their own person, and it's about uncovering those personality traits in them and helping to nurture who they already are.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Yeah, that's beautiful. And I think that um recognizing, making sure that you're addressing that um like gentry is like the kind and caring, the caretaker. And so I'm continually saying, Oh, this is such a great quality that you have of that. I feel like that's unfolding, that's letting just bringing light to their personality traits, their strengths, their strengths, yeah. So um I I feel like like when kids are little, you you you just feel like it's um well if you have multiples, it's it's loud and it's chaotic, and it's um it's a constant in your day. You yeah, they're your whole life, they're your whole life, they're everything. And and even if you're working and you're coming home tired, you're trying to find that time to to spend with them because you just want to keep them little and and keep them the best thing when you come home from working and they're run to you and hug you, and they're so excited to see you. That's that's fabulous. So the first well, actually, I I originally was thinking the first um milestone is kindergarten, but really it's do you ever remember your kids being like glued to you, and then all of a sudden they're glued to dad, and you're like, What?

SPEAKER_01 4:26

What just happened? Or just when they start walking. Well, yeah, because then they're not so dependent on you, you're not holding them all the time, you're not carrying them from room to room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. There's a lot of milestones, and I they're all worth celebrating. It's so exciting when they learn the first word, or when they start walking or crawling or go to kindergarten or whatever, all these stages we're gonna talk about. But each one is as sad as it is exciting and happy and proud moments of what your kids can do.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Because you, I mean, there's a part of you you'd love to have them little forever, but you know they're not gonna be. Um, so and and like in the opener, you know, putting your kid on the bus for the first time. That's one of those big key moments because that's really more to me was more of an awakening of this child is independent of me for the next eight hours or five hours, whatever. I think it was a half day in kindergarten, but yeah, but whatever. But like they're they don't need you, and you're like, yeah, oh.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

So now I'm gonna tell you my story of my my first first day of kindergarten because it was it was scarring literally, and it has to do with the bus. So I'm gonna tell you guys this story. So I was mistaken. I did not put my kids on the bus, they took the bus from school to daycare. Oh, so I I missed that one. But I took them to school in the morning. We saw the the poor, you know, the kids that were crying because they were leaving their parents, and I did have those speeches with my kids, like be nice to that kid, they're having a hard day, you know, be the be the friend, be the good kid, whatever. And I I I let my son off to to school. I did not walk him to his first class. I he he walked to the line like every other kid, and he found his way and all the things, and and all day I thought, I just hope he gets on the bus to go to daycare. I hope he gets on the bus. I hope he gets on the bus. And we had it worked out to where his dad was available to be at the daycare when he got off the bus so he can take a picture of him getting off the bus with his little backpack for the first time, and just so that we can ease our minds that okay, he figured out what bus to get on, he got to daycare, we've got this pattern down, we're good. Yeah, and I ended up getting a text message, um, well, Blake made it to daycare on the bus, but you don't want to know what he looked like when he got off the bus. And I said, Excuse me. And I was terrified immediately, and just to make a very long story short, my son fell at recess. Oh no. He went face first into the rocks with little tiny pebbles, had a huge gash on his head that they put this wonky band aid over. I think they got most of the rocks out, but they they put this wonky band-aid on across his forehead and cleaned up his face, but he had blood all the way down his clothes from bleeding out on the playground. No one called us. And while I appreciate that in this lovely small town, they had everything under control. We had just moved here and I am losing it. That why didn't anyone call me and tell me my but it wasn't, he didn't need stitches, he didn't have to go to the hospital, it wasn't the end of the world, but it was the end of the world to a brand new mom who sees the first picture I get of my kid getting off the bus. This is massive band-aid, this gash in his pretty little face, and blood everywhere. And of course, my son gets on the bus and he's bored, so he starts scratching at the band-aid. So what his dad sees is band-aid, goose egg, blood dripping down his face, and old blood all over his clothes. And that's the first picture I have from his first day of kindergarten. And just to tie the story up, weeks later, we're still trying to heal this wound, and we're doing like our bedtime stories and bedtime prayers, and he's like, Mom, my forehead itches, it itches so bad, it itches. And I'm like, I'm sorry, buddy, like it's still your wound healing, and he's scratching it and he pops a pebble out of his forehead. Oh my god. Weeks later, and he you can't see the scar anymore. He's gotten plenty more scars since then, so we all recovered, but um no first day. Yeah, no first day could compare to that. So after that, when it came time to send my second, I was like, You're gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Yeah, because you can't beat your brother, you can't beat your brother on that one. That was the worst, so yeah, yeah, it was the worst. But that was my bus story. Oh, that's terrible, terrible and funny all at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Yeah, we laugh now, yeah. But that's one of the joys of parenting too, and I think we'll touch on that later in this podcast that there's a lot that happens growing up, and when your kids get older, they start telling you like the other side of stories that you didn't know. Yeah, and you're like, glad I didn't know then. But today, that's funny. That's funny, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

That's right, that's right. We always had we had a gremlin in the house because things would get broken and no one would fess up that it was them. I had a glass top stove and it was shattered, and I'm like, What? What and nobody, yeah, it was just Trishelle and and Ashley, but nobody did it, right? And and nobody plugged the toilet, and nobody lost the remote. Yeah, it was I found out who, but yeah, it's like then it's funny, yeah. But um, we still don't have a glass top stove, and I love them. Um so um, so it's our job as parents to teach our children, and sometimes it's tough. And I'm I'm thinking this because uh kindergarten, they're learning stuff, first grade, they're learning stuff, and then we're still having to um teach them. Well, you teach them all of their lives, right? But um sometimes it can feel very overwhelming for you because you're like, I don't know. I going through menopause, I think it was easier with the girls, but with James, I was already starting menopause, and um I really had an issue with that with the timing of things, like oh, but I'm so tired, more irritable, more tired, yeah. But you have to do this, you have to do this, and so you know, and one of those lessons could be like you were, you know, a goodbye, like hey, be this person's friend because you know, they they're having a tough time with saying goodbye, and that's a really great opportunity for you to teach your kids how to say goodbye, right? Um so the other transition times are I felt were like when they switched to go to different schools. The next school up, yeah. Yeah, so in here we we had an well yeah, yeah, we have four years.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

So we have an elementary and then an intermediate because our elementary was too overcrowded. So we have an intermediate school with just fourth and fifth grade. Then they go to middle school for sixth, seventh, and eighth, and then they go to high school for ninth through twelfth. And then ninth through twelfth in high school, I thought was gonna be the longest period of our life because it's four years finally, when they were only three years, two years, three years, four. And no, high school goes by, they go from freshman to a senior overnight.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

It's wild. Yeah, it's so fast. Well, and I feel like, yeah, the older you get, period, yeah, the faster time goes. But but there's definitely those transition periods when you feel like it's very emotional when they switch schools because you feel like it's very apparent how independent they are. They're growing up, they're getting bigger, yeah, they're independent. And you see it every day in conversations with them and and and the way that their thinking changes or whatever. And a really good way to keep family connection because I think it's very important, and we did this always was to have sit-down dinners. I mean, I know like in between of chaos of chasing your kids in various sports and everything, you know, it's very important to have those sit-down dinners so that you can always have conversation and you can find out what's going on in your kids' life and how they are changing as a human, right? How they are unfolding, because the point that they go to school, it's not just you, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:27

It's teachers, everybody's influencing them, everybody's adding to their life somehow and helping to form who they become, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:36

And things that they're reading, things that are learning or forming who they're becoming. So some great, great questions to ask around dinner table are what made you laugh today? Because if you say, How is school's your day?

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Good. Yeah, exactly. What'd you do? Nothing, nothing. What'd you learn? Nothing. Nothing. We all got the same one. So what I did with my kids, and I started this right from kindergarten, because one, I was just really curious what they would actually do all day. Yeah. And what kind of a friend they were gonna be and and who they were gonna hang out with. So ours were what was your favorite part of the day? What was your least favorite part of the day? What's one thing that you learned? And I would pick a subject each day, which one thing you learned in social studies today, or what's one thing you learned in math today? So that they actually had to tell me a thing instead of just saying nothing. Yeah. And then um, so is your favorite thing your least favorite thing? One thing, oh, and who did you play with at recess, or who did you sit with at the lunch table? One of those two things. Because I wanted to figure out like who who were they making friends with? Were they making good friends? And it would open up a whole conversation to okay, tell me more about that friend. And what did you guys talk about? And what did you guys what did you play on the playground? You know, did you play with your toys or did you play on the swings or did you whatever play pretend? And that opened up a lot of conversations with my kids so that I could have more conversation. I highly recommend, you know, asking those questions, if the least favorite and the most favorite. Um, the other thing about the sit-down dinners, we all get busy with kids. We're running them from this game to that game. Sometimes your sit-down dinner is in the backseat of the car eating McDonald's on your way home from a game in Pocatello, but instead of having the radio on playing Disney radio, you turn the radio off and you still have those questions. Yeah. And I will say there's also a lot of really cool things. Like if you go to like the um game section of any like Target, Walmart type store, there's little card deck of cards that you can get. And we had a couple of those where it was like um it would ask you a very specific question to ask your kids or a very specific question that your kid could ask you. Because they because that's also a thing. We're always the one asking the questions and expecting an answer from them. Let them ask you questions and say, Mom, what did you like to do at the playground when you were in school? You know, what book was your favorite book to read? And remind them that it's okay to ask you questions because they want to learn about you too. And also they just need to remember that you're just another human doing this life for the first time, just like they are. But we did kindergarten once, so now I can tell you that in kindergarten I really love to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Do you like to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar? And then we can talk about the book. Yeah, yeah. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

That's one of my favorite books. I read that to all, I've read that to all my grandkids. Um, yeah, and that's that's beautiful. Those questions are fabulous. And I do, I miss whenever I get the opportunity to pick up grandkids from school or from dance, I enjoy those moments because I do ask the questions. I don't ask the well, what friend did you play with? That's a really good one, too. Um, but I feel like that once you ask a few of those open-ended questions where they have to respond with a full sentence, yeah, like that, you know, what's your favorite and all that, right? And what's the worst thing and the best thing? Yeah, yeah. Then um, it gives them the opportunity to also open up and they'll usually just start chattering on about yeah, what you learn so much happen in their day. Yeah. So then they become teenagers. Yeah. Yeah. And this is where um, so I I did that song, The Beautiful Chaos. I wrote a wrote the lyrics for Beautiful Chaos, and I just did it through AI. Our original first chorus is um original and done by David Bowman and sung by Jordan Bowman, but I just decided one day to just throw the lyrics in the thing. And I it hits on this portion of this teenage thing because you sometimes your teenagers turn into people that you don't even know anymore. Yeah, you struggle with like why why are you acting that way?

SPEAKER_03 16:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Like the eye rolls. Um, I had one that was an eye roller that I and would not just roll the eye, it was like the whole head was rolling, but like you could just tell with the whole body what was happening. And I don't know, that would always just set me off. And I would just be like, just breathe.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Well, and you don't want fight with the person you love the most. And you feel like in your teenage years you do argue with your kids more. Yes. And at the end of the day, you're just like, why am I yelling at my favorite person? Yes. Yeah, or my whatever. I always say I have one son, one daughter, so I always say my favorite son, my favorite daughter. Yeah. Because I can have favorites because I have one of each, but I never say my favorite kid. You know, it's always my favorite son, my favorite daughter. So it's like, why was I yelling at my favorite son? Yeah. Why was I yelling at my favorite daughter?

SPEAKER_00 17:31

That's not, I don't like that. I love that. I love that. So, and and and really the reason why they're rolling their eyes is because they're they're their identities are are shifting, they're changing, they're trying to grow, they're trying to push away from you, right, and not be um well, it's like two roosters. You can't have two roosters in a hen house. Yeah. So to me, I feel like that that is with girls. You're you they they need to be the boss. They don't want uh mom to be the boss anymore. They're trying to find their footing as the boss, right? And so they're gonna push back on you the hardest. Yeah, and boys will push back hardest on their dads because they can't be two roosters in the hen house, they've got to be the boss, and so I feel like that's part of that identity uh shift at 13, also they're starting to assert their independence even more so, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:29

And I think that there's also ways that we can nurture those things, so you know, one of the big milestones is when they get to drive, and so they get a lot of independence from that. So the the way that I helped with that, I I think, is that um I would not pay for a car, and I would not pay for, yeah, I'm gonna give you 20 bucks once in a while for gas or whatever. And I put them on my insurance, that kind of stuff until they were 18, and then but they knew that the car was their responsibility, and so they had to get out into the world and they had to find a job and they had to work for somebody that was not helping me. You know, yes, I would give them money from running the lawn and you know, different shorts around the house, but I can't be their boss and I can't be the only one that they listened to, so I couldn't be the one that was giving them a paycheck. So they went out and got jobs at 14 and a half-ish, because that's when you can get your permit around here and then save their money and bought their first cars. And so I think that they we can help them be independent and we can nurture their independence by helping them, you know, with their sports, with their jobs, with whatever it is that they're going to continue to do to gain their independence, but still finding time to connect when you can because we don't want to lose, you know, their time in our lives as much so quickly. Because it's so fast when you're teenagers.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

It is. You blink and it's and it and it's gone. And that's why I think so. For a lot of years, we always did a Sunday dinner. Yeah. Like no matter what, like you had to be at Sunday dinner and we would play games. Like we have dinner, we have conversation, and we play games, and we laugh and tee and carry on because a lot of the times during the week it could feel like no one connected, you can't connect. Yeah. Either it's time or it's attitudes or it, whatever it is, but yeah. And and we did the same thing with the two girls. James was a little different because I think I felt guilt from letting the girls um being so hard on them because they got jobs, and then like Ashley quit dancing. She ended up, she played volleyball for one year and then she quit that because she was working, and then Trochelle, she did she did, I think she did cheer and dance till the or just cheer. I think she quit dance also and just did cheer. I can't remember, but I just remember that they kind of gave up some of the activities of high school to have these jobs to support their themselves, and it was very character building and it was awesome. And I would definitely wish I had stuck with that uh version because with James we were a little more well, all right. I'm gonna say sports doesn't help either because you it you know, back in my day, you could work and you could play sports because you'd go to school, your practice would be right after school by six o'clock, you could go work a part-time job till nine or ten, and then or you could work on the weekends on whatever day you didn't have a game.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Well, James was like, Well, he'd go to school, it gets done at you know 3 15, and then their practice wasn't till seven o'clock that night. Yeah. How how do you make that function? And then and then, you know, so, anyways, I think that that needs to change a little bit too.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

But I think there's a balance to all of it, and you just have to find where that balance is for what makes your kid happy and what works for your family. But you know, I think the important thing is that we're we're We're unfolding, not molding. Right. And we're letting them be who the best version of themselves is, and also helping them to learn independence in this transition because our goal as parents, and this one's really hard to hear, so let's all listen up real close. Our goal as parents, and somebody very wise taught me this, um, my best friend in New York, that is not to raise kids that will continue to depend on you their whole life. You are to raise children who are ready to move out. You know, you need the bird to fly the nest someday. And my kids, I unfortunately, I did that really well, apparently, because they both moved out at 18. And I was like, wait a second, like you the economy is bad. And don't you want to stay living here? And I won't charge you rent, and you can live here as long as you want to. And you it'll be you'll only have to pay for gas to get to school and back, and you won't have to pay rent. And nope. Like, I want my own place. And and it was never like, I gotta get out of your house because I can't stand you. It was, I wanna, I want to have my own house and I want to do my own thing, and I want to have roommates, and I want to have my job, and I want to whatever. And thank God my kids are incredibly lovely and successful and on their own and doing their own thing. But for some reason, I'm just like, why didn't they want to live with me a little bit longer? But and then I remember what I was taught, which is the best my identity belongs to me. My identity does not belong to my children. Yes. That was another one that she taught me when they were really young. Like, your whole life cannot be what you do for your kids because your kids will move out someday and you're going to be lost and you're not going to know who you are. And so I was lucky that I was taught that by somebody who uh understood, and now I know that my identity is bigger than mom of these two kids. And while it's the most cherished and the most precious thing that I do, and like with seeing my kids is such an exciting reward when I get to see them, it is not my entire identity, and I am a whole person with or without them. And they also are whole people without me, and they're really good at it, and it's okay, and that's it.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

See, and that's the sweet sorrow. It's a sweet sorrow. It is, it's always bittersweet with with kids. It it really is, and you know, along those lines, Kevin would say, Well, do you want to raise good children or do you want to raise responsible adults? And I'm like, Well, I want to raise responsible adults, so therefore, you've got to teach them with with a uh a soft hand, but not a like giving them. You don't want to give them entitlement. You don't want to entitle them, you don't want to give them, you know, and that's one thing that that I see in in some families. We and we're all this way. We think we want our children to have everything we didn't have or the experiences we didn't have and all these things, but oh, you can do that, and then all of a sudden they become these entitled people that think that life should just be easy. They should just at 20 years old have everything that mom and dad has, and we were all the toys. It took us 50 years to, well, actually, it was uh 40 years to get a new boat. Like Kevin had a boat since he was 18 that was a uh POS. Well, maybe not. I mean it functioned. But anyways, but you know, you move up. It floated, that matters. It floated, yes. Yeah, but you know, you you build up and you move up. So to all of a sudden you have these nice things. We're 60 years old. It's like, no, we it took a long time for us to get and a long time to be able to vacation. So, anyways, right. Um, so basically we don't lose our kids all at once, right? We're we lose them, but in a good way because they're growing, they're they're learning to be independent, they're learning to be good adults. Like I think all of us, we both have great adults. Um and I think they're all you know, well, yours are getting ready to get married, mine are married and have kids and yeah, and good jobs and everything. So uh the main reason why I I was thinking of this episode was because of uh graduation coming up in May. And I was reflecting back on how I felt with uh with each child because it was a it was a it's a sweet sorrow. Yeah. Because you're sorrowful for yourself that this season of your life with this child is over. Yeah. And it's going to change. You know, this and in most cases, all my kids moved out because um well, for one, I used to tell them when they were little, you know, when you're 18, don't let the door hit you in the butt. You know, you're you're welcome to come back and visit. Well, we live an hour out of Maine, you know, the bigger city. And so nobody wanted to live here, anyways. They couldn't even go to school here and for a cheap cost. So so anyway, so it's very emotional because you know, you you have that sadness of change. Change is hard for all of us. I don't care what it is. I don't even care if it's a good change because this is a good change, right? And it's just it's hard.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

And yet you're so proud of their accomplishment and the fact that they graduated, that they're they're moving on, that they're capable of taking whatever the next step in life is, because that next step is probably not padded by mom and dad. It probably is their own next step. So it's important that we are, like you said, raising them not to be great kids, but to be great adults and that they are going to be adults someday. So we have to prepare them for all of the next steps that happen in life, also. So, and that's ever all little things. As soon as they get a job, you're you're teaching them the value of a dollar. I know that my kids would realize like they would see the schedule at work and know that I'm only working two nights because I have all these other things, my paycheck's gonna only be X. And then if I work all these other times when you know, if I really work a lot during spring break, I can take home a paycheck that looks more like this, and then I might have this much more to put towards my vehicle that I want to buy or whatever it was. And so we're teaching them the value of a dollar, what their money looks like, how to save, how to invest, um just different types of responsibility that comes with becoming an adult. So make sure that we're nurturing those things also because they're not going to stay little forever, and we do have to teach them that the value of a dollar. I think that's the most important one because like you said, huge. If we're if we're going to the store and you know, kid says, Hey, I want this toy, I want this toy, you buy the toy, but they don't understand that that toy is 50 bucks. You know, my kids, I would say, when they were really little, and it was so much easier with boys, it was really, really hard with Lindsay, but it was so much easier with boys because I would say you can have one dollar. One dollar, because I'm not giving you a $10, $20 toy every time you go to the store. So once in a while it would be like one dollar. Well, hot wheels are 99 cents, and they can do that. And he knew he can get a hot will every time he went to the store, but it was so hard to find something that would work for Lindsay, but half the time she'd be like, just let me have the dollar, and then you know, five trips later, then she could buy something for five dollars, and so she was really smart about it.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

But she taught her to save. So and and I want to say, like, what Trish or Ashley is probably my best penny pincher out of all the kids. And when she was little, um, I did the jar, she had jars for 10% tithing, 10% savings, 10% college, 10% retirement. Yeah, yeah. I did all those for her, and then and then she could spend whatever was left over. So she would do that with birthday money, Christmas money, all these things. She learned to have these jars. Yeah. So what does she do now? Yeah, she has accounts that are for Christmas, for vacation, for her kids' college, for her retirement, for you know, all these things. And I'm like, that's and I tried it with James. I don't know if it's because I switched from jars to envelopes, but uh he spent all of his money in his envelopes. Yeah, it might be a boy thing because my my girl and boy are the same way. Yeah, it's crazy. But but yeah, that's our job is to teach them and social etiquette. Now, sometimes in the schools they they have that class where they teach them um social etiquette, like how to set the table, the manners class. Yeah. But I think that good table manners are still appropriate because if if your child gets a job and they go to a business dinner, you want them to be prepared to not look like an animal while they're eating or you know, yeah, so that they can look like they have some manners. And then job interview skills. I I love that um junior miss because they they provide and educate the girls that participate in. And I know that there's classes for that, but I I really think that if your child doesn't have that experience offered to them in school, that you could make that as a game of some sort and teach them how to do a good job.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

What you're getting your kids involved in matters too, because I I I had my kids in theater when they were young, and I knew getting them out there and auditioning in front of people was really going to give them a lot of confidence for interview skills later or for public speaking later, or for just being confident in a in a crowd of people or at a new job. And it ha it did pay off because they would have to memorize a um an audition and then they would, you know, present it in front of some uh directors, and then they would either get the part or not get the part. And there was plenty of times that they got the part, and there are plenty of times that they did not get the part. And one director told my kids one time, it was not you. I'm sorry, I can't give you credit for this one. But remind your kids that they are they're not just auditioning when they're on the stage at the audition, they're auditioning all the time. And that was really important because that's like a life lesson, right? Because yes, when you're when when my kids are doing a show for Tammy, she's seeing what they're like backstage, behind the scenes, on stage, sitting in the audience, in between acts. And now they know she knows that the next play she's gonna do, that they're they already know these certain skills. She already knows that they're capable of doing X, Y, or Z, or that they're not capable of X, Y, or Z. And so, regardless of how great that audition might be in those 60 to 90 seconds, she knows that they also have A, B, and C that they can or cannot contribute to the part. And so that's gonna help her determine, well, I already know all these other things about them, and they can do this part and they can do that part. And we're like that in life. You know, if you see me at work, I hope you're seeing the same person that you see at music in the park, the same person you hear today, et cetera, et cetera. And I I have to remember that all of life is an audition and I'm constantly putting out what I expect you to know about me. Um, and another quote I think I always think about is I'm always looking up to somebody. Somebody's always looking up to me. Oh, that's good. And so even though I'm trying to like look at this person and put them on some sort of pedestal and be like, I want that trait, I want that trait, I want to be more like this, I want to incorporate that into my life. Somebody is looking at me somewhere in my life and saying, I don't want to be like that, or I do want to be like that, or I want to do that more. So just remember that for your kids too, that they're they're always trying out for basketball when they're sitting in the sidelines and acting like a good fan. Because if you can't be a good fan, you're probably not gonna be great at sportsmanship, things like that. So just try and remember that for your kids too.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Yep. And then remember that when they do leave home and um you know, they're living their lives and they might not call you as often. You might not, you know, you're gonna have this disconnect or feel like a disconnect. The house will feel different, like everything is just quieter and you can feel really lonely. But then the fabulous thing is that when they do come back, like when your kids call you up and say, Hey, let's go to lunch or let's go do this, yeah, then you you you know it's so much sweeter, so much sweeter, yeah. Because they're choosing that. They don't have to be with you, they get to be with you and you get to be with them. Right. And then um when they come around full circle and get married, um, and this my favorite thing is well, the first thing is is that when you're able to kind of help your kids, if they're uh the first year of marriage is always tough, so you'll go through this, you know. But well, and you probably already have, but sometimes it helps for you to sit down with your kids and kind of be the mediator and listen and and and try to help them to see each other's side and be of help. But when you hear them repeating things or using techniques that you've done, then that's one of those oh I did something right. Yeah. Or when they have kids of their own, my favorite is you hear them saying something to their child and it's just what you've always said to them, and you're like same pat on the back. Yeah, exactly. Pat on the back. So uh every stage feels like the most important one while you're in it. It feels like the biggest loss or the biggest celebration, or like it's like we were talking about with teenagers and their first in the previous episodes. You know, it it's their first big feelings, yeah. It's the same with us, yeah. Those are all our first, just like it's with our kids, it's their first. Right. All the emotions are are very, very strong.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

And so um but always remember, like we're calling this like the seasons of parenting, yeah. That just like seasons just like seasons, or just like other seasons in our life, however you want to say it, there is always another season coming in. Yes. So you might be in that, oh man, the house is quiet, this stinks, but things are about to change, and then there's gonna be the next season, and there's gonna all of a sudden be for me, weddings and all the next things that come with that, or whatever. I mean, that's that's what they say. Don't rush my kids, they're not ready for that yet. But there is though these that behind every season is the next season, and there's always gonna be something. We have to let those all those hard moments come with all those sweet moments, and just remember that just be present for it, don't rush it, let your kids grow, let them change, let them develop, whatever it is. Um, because again, we're not raising children, we're raising future adults, members of society, people who are going to vote, and people who are going to make decisions for their kids someday. Um, but it's all beautiful and it's all worth it. And so if you're having a hard time getting through a season, just remember the next season is around the corner.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

Yep. Very good advice. Thank you for joining us today. Um, we sure appreciate it. And please subscribe if you're watching us on YouTube and like us on Facebook. We appreciate any comments, you know, whether you think we're crazy people. Because we're just fair. Or that you love the content that we're sharing with you. So because we don't know.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

We're just out here, you know, in my office slash studio chugging along, chugging to let us know what you think. Um, hope you have a great week. And in the meantime, stay empowered.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

It's a beautiful day.