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Ep. 62: Emma Campbell on relating to a teenage daughter
3.2k Plays1 year ago
Here I talk to a mum about how she feared she might be repeating the mother-daughter trauma from her own teenage years with her teenage daughter, despite her best efforts to do quite the opposite. Emma Campbell told me how she tries so hard to get teenage parenting right, yet she constantly feels like she's failing. And I sighed a big sigh of relief. It's not just me. In fact, I suspect it's all of us, so as well as the validation you'll get from listening to Emma, I list mine and Emma's best tips for living with a teenage daughter in this blog post. You've got this!
Who is Emma Campbell?
Emma Campbell is an author, speaker, and podcast host. She's also an all-round lovely human being who happily puts all her flaws out in the open for us to see, so that we can all feel less alone with our own struggles. As a mother of teenagers, if Emma’s Instagram posts struck any more chords with me, they’d be a symphony orchestra. On a recent post she says “I’m hugely out of my depth with teenage emotions and seem to be successfully repeating the mother daughter conflict I was SO intent on avoiding. Trying to articulate unconditional love, but it comes out as the opposite. Miscommunication spitting and spinning like a Catherine Wheel.” Emma writes so beautifully of failure as a mother, of the pride we all have for our kids, and of the deep, deep longing to get motherhood ‘right’.
More teenage parenting from Helen Wills:
Helen wills is a teen mental health podcaster and blogger at Actually Mummy, a resource for midlife parents of teens.
Thank you for listening! Subscribe to the Teenage Kicks podcast to hear new episodes. If you have a suggestion for the podcast please email teenagekickspodcast@gmail.com.
There are already stories from fabulous guests about difficult things that happened to them as teenagers - including losing a parent, becoming a young carer, and being hospitalised with mental health problems - and how they overcame things to move on with their lives.
You can find more from Helen Wills on parenting teenagers on Instagram and Twitter @iamhelenwills.
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Transcript
Emma's Observations of Her Children
00:00:00
Speaker
the moments that I love, observational moments, where I'm able to step outside my own noisy head and just go, oh, look at them there, laughing, looking well, healthy, vibrant in their own little world, big brother there or sister there. And in that 45 second period, there was no swearing or there was no horrible words to each other. And it was just a lovely moment. And that makes me, that fills my mum cup up
Introducing the Teenage Kicks Podcast
00:00:35
Speaker
Welcome to the Teenage Kicks podcast where we take the fear out of parenting or becoming a teenager. I'm Helen Wills and every week I talk to someone who had a difficult time in the teenage years but came out the other side in a good place and has insight to offer to parents and young people who might be going through the same.
Emma Campbell: A Journey of Resilience
00:01:06
Speaker
I'm so excited today to be chatting to Emma Campbell aka LimitlessM on Instagram. Writer, speaker, podcaster, runner and long-term cancer patient Emma is also an all-around lovely human being who happily puts all her flaws out in the open for us to see so that we can feel less alone with our own struggles.
00:01:30
Speaker
As a mother of teenagers, if Emma's Instagram posts struck any more chords with me, they'd be a symphony orchestra. On a recent post, she says, I'm hugely out of my depth with teenage emotions and seem to be successfully repeating the mother-daughter conflict I was so intent on avoiding. And I get it. Trying to articulate unconditional love, but it comes out as the opposite. Miscommunication, spitting and spinning like a Catherine wheel.
00:02:00
Speaker
Emma writes so beautifully about failure as a mother of the pride we all have for our kids and of the deep, deep longing to get motherhood right. And for those who are listening rather than watching, I'm doing air quotes.
Balancing Cancer and Motherhood
00:02:16
Speaker
Diagnosed with cancer when her son was six and her triplet babies just six months old, Emma says she was paralyzed with fear and the fear kept on coming in the form of more scary diagnoses on top of the already tough business of life with four young children. Children who eventually turned into teenagers, and we all know how scary a ride that can sometimes be.
00:02:41
Speaker
Emma now speaks openly about how she turned her fear of death into a love of life. Her book, All That Followed, a story of cancer, kids and the fear of leaving too soon, is as honest and raw as it is warm and bolstering for anyone who's facing scary things they don't think they can get through.
The Message of 'All That Followed'
00:03:00
Speaker
Emma believes we all have the power to overcome the worst hurdles in our lives, and I'm going to ask her to share exactly how she does that. Emma, welcome to Teenage Kicks. I'm so glad we finally made it.
00:03:14
Speaker
Oh, thank you. And that introduction, I just was sitting here thinking, I just keep talking. I love it. Introductions are my favourite part. I model my introductions on Elizabeth Day. Do you know her podcast, How to Fail? She always does the most beautiful introductions. And so every time I have a guest, I think, I want to be Elizabeth Day. I want to do that. That was beautiful.
00:03:39
Speaker
Helen, forget Elizabeth Day, but no, I agree. That was just lovely. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Emma, I'm so glad we made it because we've been talking about this podcast, I feel like, for probably nearly two years now. Life, eh? Yes, life. Exactly that. And your life has
00:03:58
Speaker
more than its fair share of shit, basically. Let's mark this down as one of those podcasts that has explicit on the rating because we're allowed to swear.
The Power of Morning Moods
00:04:09
Speaker
You've had more than your fair share of shit. Tell me how you're feeling today. I've just said to Emma, she looks stunning. She's got this bright orange jumper on with stars on it, I think.
00:04:20
Speaker
and it's making me feel all kinds of warm and it's a really miserable, horrible, sleazy day. How are you doing this morning Emma? I'm okay today. I woke up in a kind of refreshingly chipper almost mood and you know I appreciate that. I appreciate that regardless but I also appreciate that because
00:04:46
Speaker
It's been a tough year and when you're low, when you're struggling with low moods or depression or life challenge, mornings, as we know, can often be, you know, when you wake up, you open your eyes and you have that kind of pit in your stomach. So when I actually woke up this morning and I feel quite emotionally robust, but that's right now. Ask me again at three and four o'clock or when the people are clashing in.
00:05:13
Speaker
me and my daughter are kind of shouting at each other. But right now, I feel good. And the orange jumper, I think those who kindly follow me online know that I do love a bright jumper. And I, you know,
00:05:26
Speaker
I do need colour in my life and I need pink lips and a bright jumper.
Fashion and Confidence
00:05:31
Speaker
Well, look, you're preaching to the converted there because I'm, as you know, a fellow lover of all things bright and colourful and it really boosts your mood, doesn't it? It does and your confidence, which I think
00:05:44
Speaker
I'm not sort of, I don't feel like I need to be embarrassed to say that I, if I feel like I look okay, or I've made a bit of an effort on that day, it does, it gives me something, it is like a bit of, okay, I've got this, you know, I've got this. Yeah, you kind of walk with your shoulders a little bit more back and a little bit hold yourself a bit higher. I get that. And I always tell the story of a yellow coat that I've got. And it is bright yellow. And I have been likened to a lollipop lady in it by less kind people. But
00:06:14
Speaker
If ever I need a confidence boost, I go out in that coat because I can guarantee that someone will stop me and say, my God, you look amazing. I love your coat. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was bringing in the kind of not so kind comments about what we choose to wear. It was parents evening last week. And I don't know if you've had this, but I've got, you know, the triplets of two boys and a girl, 13, and absolutely sort of manic about what I was going to wear to parents.
00:06:43
Speaker
You're not going to look like a clown. Are you not going to wear one of those big giant dresses? No need to wear Louis. Okay. Well, and he, he actually kind of chose the, you know, the black trousers, the gray sweatshirt because of how my day unfolded. I wasn't able to change into that outfit. And I turned up with a very muted, very muted pale pink trousers. And he looked me up and down.
00:07:10
Speaker
in utter kind of like you just ruined his life. Get the clown out.
00:07:17
Speaker
Oh my God, they're so harsh. How do you handle
Teenage Honesty and Parenting Challenges
00:07:21
Speaker
that? Because they are brutal. And I actually think at 13 to 15, they probably are at their most brutal. I don't know if you've experienced the same. How do you cope when they throw that kind of stuff at you? I have to say, this is probably one of the biggest challenges I'm having at the moment. I didn't know, I think because their early years and kind of the last 13 years,
00:07:46
Speaker
kind of been one thing after another in lots of ways. And even just take out the health issues, take out the phases of single parenting and all the life stuff, just having multiples is obviously always going to up the ante. And so, and again, that thing of just you, what do you think they're tricky now? Just you wait till the end. But having navigated those early years, I thought
00:08:07
Speaker
Well, no, I always thought I'm going to be one of those mums that's better as they get older. You know, that's the kind of, and in some ways I think that might be true. But at the moment, the brutality, the verbal brutality is really hard to take. And I, and again, having not had the best year or the year where I felt my most emotionally robust, my skin is very, very thin at the moment.
00:08:35
Speaker
you know, I'm giving myself a hard time about things, I'm running on empty a lot, I'm pretty depleted. So, to, yeah, I'm really, and especially with, you know, my wonderful, wonderful daughter, you know, and then it's quite tough. And they do go for the jugular, don't they? They know exactly where to, and I found myself doing that, you know, I'm human too, you know, you know, I've got feelings, you know, because I and I do, I tend to get
00:09:05
Speaker
I'm quite weepy, certainly been quite weepy in recent months. So they sort of see me looking a bit, so, oh, there she goes again. And I'm like, bloody hell, just been, and then I almost go, just be nice to me. Can't you just be nice? Cause yeah, they're just, they just know where to, they know where to go, but I do hope it passes because does it pass? Does this brutal? Well, it comes and goes, I think. I don't know. I have, I've been told that it passes and I've been told that
00:09:32
Speaker
people come, children come back to you in their 20s better than they ever were before. And I'm still holding out for that. But I see glimpses. And that's how to answer my own question to you. That's how I cope is by really being mindful when I get the glimpses of
00:09:48
Speaker
not the old child, but the respect and the love and the esteem that they still have for me, because
Finding Love and Respect Amid Teen Challenges
00:09:57
Speaker
it's still there. It's just really hard to see. And you're right, they know how to wound. Yeah, I mean, I have to say my eldest son is 19. And the change I've seen in him, I mean, he's never really gone through, you know, I've been very lucky in that he's got a very steady
00:10:17
Speaker
low-key, gentle temperament, so he's never, I've never had sleepless nights over him or in those teenage years. But what I've really noticed in the last year is suddenly, almost overnight, the young man in him has emerged. And so the care and sensitivity and the kind of suddenly, and I know this is such a cliché, but suddenly he's giving me spontaneous hugs. Oh love, I cannot tell you. Like about a month ago, he just,
00:10:46
Speaker
I was like, we're in the kitchen and, you know, lots going on. And my mom is also not very well at the moment. And it's just lots of stuff, you know, it's hard. And he just came up and he honestly, he gave me the biggest squeeze, but a proper squeeze and then squeezed me a little bit harder. And it was just, I can't. And, you know, and I, and I, I know with the younger ones, you know, I'm trying to, to remember that, that their brains are evolving. And when I do get the fragments and the moments with them, I've
00:11:16
Speaker
lovely connection and one of my boys in particular is very much like, you do know I love you mum, don't you?
00:11:23
Speaker
I know, and I just try and take those little moments and put them in the tank. Yes, exactly that. Oh my God, I just got some goosebumps with you describing that hug because that's all we want, isn't it? We just want them to give us that physical affection that we almost wanted to get off of us at one point when they were little and were on us all of the time. It's just that massive dichotomy of being a parent that
00:11:51
Speaker
You can never get the balance quite right. I think you do actually. I've got a theory that the golden years are between 8 and 12. I'm not in the business of telling people that if they think it's hard now with a three-year-old, just wait until it's because it hasn't been like that for me. I think teenagers are amazing and I think toddlers are really hard work.
00:12:10
Speaker
but 8 to 12, when they still wanted to be around me, they still wanted movie night, they still were willing to hug, albeit a little bit less than before, but they weren't following me everywhere I went and demanding every minute of my time. It was just golden. I'm finding this phase of, again, almost overnight where we all have that thing as parents where it's like, oh, God, you haven't got an evening, and by the time they've gone to bed, and suddenly I've got my evenings because
00:12:39
Speaker
they are in their bedrooms with the door shut and I'm finding that quite hard because I I sort of turned for it for a long time and now I've got it and you know kind of being a solo parent again it's like oh it's kind of knocked me a bit because
00:12:57
Speaker
it's a funny one. And then I think, well, I should be calling them down and saying, let's all play Uno or let's all, but they don't want to. So then I think, is it okay that they're up in their rooms with the door shut? Is that normal? Or should I be working harder to get them? Yeah. Oh my God, you're speaking my language. Am I being a bad mum because I'm not making them spend all day Saturday with me out on a jaunt somewhere? I don't know. So I just
00:13:26
Speaker
And because I didn't grow up, you know, I've got one older sister who left home when I was 11, she's, you know, older than me. And so it was me and my mum and I spent a huge amount of time on my own. So that was my, so I almost was like an only child in terms of, you know, from that kind of quite a young age, day to day life. And so I was very, very used to solitude. But with them, I think, but again, I just my default setting is, my default setting is
00:13:54
Speaker
depressingly negative about myself as mum. And everyone can tell us, can't they? Oh, but you're doing great, or you're doing your best, and that's all they need. But the standards, the bar we set for ourselves is so, so high as mums, I think. That it's impossible to reach. And then I think other areas of my life where my bar is so low,
00:14:14
Speaker
I'm almost scraping along the floor and sort of putting up this stuff. I absolutely know what you mean. And actually it's really nice. I'm sorry that you're saying it, but it's really nice to hear you say it because I'm the same. And actually, I think I've been like it since they were little.
00:14:32
Speaker
When my kids started to get an attitude of their own, I remember very well going to bed every night thinking, okay, I didn't handle that very well today. I haven't done a very good job. I haven't been a loving mum today. I handled that wrongly. I burst into temper. I shouldn't have done that tomorrow. I'm going to do better. And then tomorrow would come and I would do the same thing all over again. And it's taking me a really long time to learn to be
00:14:58
Speaker
Compassionate towards myself and forgiving of myself.
00:15:03
Speaker
forgetting it and I'm doing the air quotes again, wrong. That speaks to your point about never feeling like you can get it right. I don't know if it is mothers and daughters. You spoke specifically in that Instagram post about your daughter and it spoke to me deeply because I always feel in the same place. We have a lovely relationship at times. I know she loves me, but it's hard to lose sight of that sometimes.
00:15:30
Speaker
and she makes me angry and upset and I'm desperate to... I have to confess to something here because I know I'm desperate. She's 18, she's not yet left for university and I'm desperate to make sure that I've given her all the lessons before she leaves so that she's okay and she can go out into the world and be okay and I have to accept that she doesn't want all the lessons from me and if I
00:15:57
Speaker
haven't managed to give them all to her yet then I haven't failed but I feel like such a failure because she lets herself down here and there in my mind by eating a load of crap and running her immune system down you know all the stuff that all the teenagers do but I still am setting that bar high as you said
Parenting Expectations and Realities
00:16:20
Speaker
and thinking, I'm a crap mum, I've completely failed because she isn't going out into the world at the age of 18 as a perfectly formed human being who's got all her shit together and is going to have a perfect life. And then I listened to myself say that out loud and go, shut up, Helen, that's ridiculous. How perfectly formed are we? We're just, I've said this,
00:16:43
Speaker
I tend to repeat myself quite a lot when I have realisations but it is that thing of there are so many versions of us through our own lives and so many chapters and I am nowhere near perfectly formed. Life strips us back and then we have to rebuild and pivot and shift and gosh, they're babies and we're babies in some way in areas of our own involvement. There might be parts of our life where we're really kind of rooted and solid and then other parts where we're like
00:17:13
Speaker
you know, there's almost been like an arrested development. And I think, I think with my, you know, with Ella, I think it's also as well, what's interesting is the love language, the recognizing the different needs of each
Understanding Children's Unique Needs
00:17:26
Speaker
child. And I think, because I'm, you know, my daughter, at this point, isn't very affectionate, she doesn't want to be hugged or held or huddled up with and I, in my fantasy mind of mum and daughter, we would be
00:17:41
Speaker
You know, I said this recently on a podcast chat with the brilliant Lorraine Candy, you know, who's written her wonderful book about, you know, my idea of motherhood was going to be, you know, Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia. And that could not, I mean, it just couldn't be further from how she and I are currently interacting.
00:18:11
Speaker
But then, again, in this chat, the idea that whether they're having super noodles three times a week or buying themselves McDonald's on the way in from school, it's somehow recognizing that if you just, in the scheme of things, it all kind of balances out. And I have to, I'm trying to at the moment,
00:18:42
Speaker
rather than this. And this is the help of my brilliant
00:18:47
Speaker
therapist that I chat to every week, we were talking about this a few days ago about about sort of, most ring fencing things and different. So rather than getting into bed at night going, Oh, God, it's just all been another, like exactly what you just said, Oh, I did it again, I lost my temper, I slammed the door, I stormed upstairs, or I tussled, tried to tussle the mobile phone out of their hand, and started crying over the dishwasher, and then they're laughing at me, or then they're crying.
00:19:13
Speaker
actually then what I've been trying to do just this week is when I get into bed is actually think okay but hang on there was that moment and that 10 minutes was was really nice yes and then oh god there was that moment just now
00:19:28
Speaker
that was about 90 seconds long where my little interaction on the landing. That was good. And actually, that's really helped me rather than this blanket. It's all a shit show. Yeah, almost like a gratitude diary of but just mindfully noticing it in during the day I do the same because I was talking to people from the therapy chat, but we were talking on Monday and I was talking again about this mindless scrolling and you know, I get into bed, I'm not sleeping brilliantly, my mind starts going and it's that kind of
00:19:57
Speaker
I think a lot of women can relay it. It's your time, so you zone out and whatever. And we're not all reading novels, unfortunately, you know, or writing our book or painting a picture or whatever. We're sort of, you know, midlife on looking for the answers on TikTok, you know. But what he said was, and he said, because I said, oh, and I'm doing all this scrolling. He said, well, maybe not saying a better use of your time, but an additional use of your time would be just to kind of run through the day and think, actually, yeah, that moment was OK.
00:20:27
Speaker
I showed up there and that was a healthy interaction. I don't know, because we overthink and we overanalyse, but I just beat myself with a big stick constantly and it's exhausting and it's like self-harm. Yes, completely. Well, I'm training to be a therapist and I'm learning all these words that therapists know about and I'm guessing your therapist would call it a retroflexion, which is where
00:20:52
Speaker
We push the pain that is inflicted on us and the anger and the distress that we feel for the outside world back inside of us. We take it on ourselves. And mothers are just so good at self-flagellation like that. And it is self-harm. Instead of expressing it, accepting it, being forgiving with ourselves,
00:21:17
Speaker
We're hurting ourselves with it.
Parenting in the Age of Self-Awareness
00:21:19
Speaker
But also we're the first generation, I think, that has so much more self-aware and we're doing all this inner work and we might be on our own self-development path and we've read the books and the conversations are there. I think back to, you know, my mum and dad who did the best they could with what they had. But I look back now and I kind of breaks my heart when I think of 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 year old Emma.
00:21:45
Speaker
who was kind of a bit like a kind of female equivalent of Adrienne Moll, you know, without painting the naughty wallpaper black. You know, I spent a huge amount of time on my own. I was kind of in a bit of a fantasy world. I didn't, I never had boyfriends in my teenage years. I had painful crushes. I was very shy. I had no, I'd just started eating. Self-conscious, just. I'm right there with you. You know, and then, and
00:22:16
Speaker
But I think, God, if I look, if I'm not, there's no blame here, but I think I probably needed a bit of help somewhere along the way there. It's the 80s, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't there. No, it wasn't a thing. Yeah, it wasn't a thing. So, but then the other extreme is that we tend to, we're so highly attuned to what can go wrong and that it's almost like we're managing in a different, you know,
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah. And there's so much content online telling us how to be better parents, even the really well-intentioned stuff that is really valuable and useful. I tend to beat myself up because I didn't know that when my kids were three. I know it now and I sit there every night and think, oh, I wish I could go back to when they were three and do it all differently and I wouldn't have fucked them up as much as
00:23:04
Speaker
as much as I did. But it's in one of my questions to you, when you were talking on your Instagram post about trying to get it right.
The Pursuit of Perfect Parenting
00:23:14
Speaker
Do you think there is ever such a thing as rights when it comes to parenting? Do you know what, I don't feel like I can answer that right now. Because I would say, I think because I feel so kind of, I mean, a phase of life where, you know, the family
00:23:32
Speaker
dynamic has changed and we're readjusting and and as they've become teenagers and I am very much winging it at this point. And even, you know, because the the dream I had, which I think we all get the kind of the mum dad and the fairy tale, I think, you know, I think it's
00:23:59
Speaker
when you realize that that isn't how, A, your life is unfolding, but their life. I mean, God, I'm going off on a tangent. So I would say to you, I would say to any of my girlfriends, just as they would say to me, that they're loved, they know they're loved, that's all that matters. And actually, they've got the warm bed and the roof over their head. And for me, so I know how much I love them. So much gets in the way.
00:24:25
Speaker
And I think that's what I find. So then I over-love them or I overcompensate in a probably less than helpful way. I'm very aware of back to the low, back to the high bar that I can't reach. I'm so much more aware of my inadequacies as a mum than I am of my successes as a mum. So for me that I, and again, kind of,
00:24:54
Speaker
probably reiterating what I might have just said, but I try in every area so much to come back to that thing of moments. And, you know, when the, when the babies were tiny and, oh my God, I've got this big family and I've got all these kids and this is insane and it's so hard, but amazing and all of that. And my fantasy always used to be that I would have these teenagers. This is my fantasy as a mom, my ultimate kind of, I'd have these teenagers and
00:25:19
Speaker
there'd be a point where it would be a Saturday morning and they'd all be lolloping around on the sofa with mugs of tea and a bacon sandwich and ketchup, laughing, chatting, a friend of theirs might pop in and it would all be eaten. And that was my dream vision, I was gonna have these teenagers and we would just, and I'm still, there was one moment about a month ago when my oldest son who's still at home was off, you know, work, and there was a bacon sandwich moment
00:25:47
Speaker
And it probably lasted about 30 seconds. I think it was used by one of them and then there was a fight. Or is that thing of, at least in that moment, I was able to go, oh, oh, that came close to the, not so far off, but I just wish we could be kinder to ourselves because, yeah.
Fantasy vs. Reality in Family Life
00:26:10
Speaker
We all relate to these conversations so much because we all get it and we're all thinking the same thoughts, but still it's, you still feel that you're on your own in that island of failure and, you know, however much we, you know, show up transparently and honestly.
00:26:24
Speaker
I still feel everyone else is getting it better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe that's a universal truth of motherhood because I've felt it all the way through. And interestingly, talking about therapists, I was talking to mine last week about all of this, in that I know all the words now and I know all the theory and I'm able to say to myself that when my kids were three, I did the best I could with the tools and the knowledge that I had at the time and I loved them.
00:26:54
Speaker
I can repeat that like it's a mantra in my head, but I don't yet feel it in my body enough to be able to show any kind of forgiveness for myself. And she reminded me of that poem, the Philip Larkin poem, this be the first, so they fuck you up, your mum and dad. And we talked about that. And I have actually been on the verge of sharing that with my kids and saying, this is how it's meant to be. It's not just, it's not my fault. And then I realized that
00:27:23
Speaker
I'm just I'm just putting my stuff onto them again. And also it finishes by saying the best thing you can do is get out quick and not have any kids of your own basically. And I don't want to tell them that I'm not telling them about that poem. But she said,
00:27:40
Speaker
There's a real point to that fucking your kids up that it's actually important that you fuck your kids up because if you did the perfect job and they had the perfect life, when they eventually had to leave home as independent individuals, they would expect the world to be this lovely, sweet, cocooned place when nothing they did ever bothered anybody and they got everything they wanted and that's not life. So it's our job.
00:28:08
Speaker
paradoxically as mothers to fuck our kids up a bit. What do you think? Yeah, I think I think you're right. I think because I always want to believe that the world is fundamentally, you know, I get a bit Pollyanna-ish, you know, but actually, absolutely, they get the shock of their lives if life hadn't shown them any kind of contrast. And I think, you know, just speaking for my kids, they've
00:28:37
Speaker
You know, if I think of my eldest son who had a certain, his formative years were very different to their, Ellululean Thea's formative years. She's on, you know, mum, well mum, you know, no cancer, a kind of unit, and then suddenly three babies, mum's in, dad's gone. So very, very different formative years, which is already, I can see how it shaped them very, very differently. But we have to believe, don't we, that,
00:29:06
Speaker
And I like the word contrast because rather than, because it implies, you know, because life is just full of contrast, whether it, you know, the wonderful, gorgeous stuff and the tough, painful, and it's just when we can accept that the contrast comes in many different ways. And so life has already given our kids rough edges and smooth, you know, and I think
00:29:34
Speaker
That's so as we're talking, it's making again, it's lovely just to even have the conversation because however challenging I'm finding this bit and have found probably the majority of the last 13 years as a model of four, there have to be and there will be and there are qualities and gifts that they will have as a result of what they've been through, you know, that will serve them and
00:30:03
Speaker
And I think as everybody says, they show those more appealing qualities to the outside world more than they do within those four walls. Exactly. I'm always being told by, oh my goodness.
00:30:19
Speaker
I won't keep naming them, but you know, the manner, the politeness, I wish, you know, it's that classic thing, isn't it? Oh, so polite, so kind. And then you think, what are you talking about? But we have to take comfort in that, that they are absolutely.
00:30:35
Speaker
Yeah, and someone said to me very recently that if your child is throwing all of their worst shit at you, it's because they feel safe to do that with you, which deep down, I'm having goosebumps just as I repeat that actually, deep down shows that there is, they know they're loved.
00:30:57
Speaker
We don't need to seek reassurance that they know we love them when we think we've we've had a really bad day and fucked up massively with them. They know their love. That's why they can bring us their worst possible selves. Yeah. And it's interesting as well. I'm just as you say that because I'm thinking, you know, when you when you're going through a phase where you feel like you're getting a bit of a battering from them. But actually, what I'm trying to do as well is, you know, there's a couple of things that one of my boys has said a few times recently.
00:31:26
Speaker
And rather than kind of, it's easy to go, you're so rude or don't speak to me like that. And God, he's just, yeah. But actually he said it again last night. He said, you keep focusing on, you always, you know, you keep focusing on the negative. You don't focus on the positives as in with regards to him. And that's the last thing I want to be known, you know, that's what I feel I am. And so the fact, and I, when he said it, I thought,
00:31:53
Speaker
Oh, he's yeah, I he's not wrong. But this point with this little thing, actually, and I going with I'm expecting a certain type of behavior. So therefore, that's what I'm getting. And then it's just that, you know, fulfilling. But I thought, Okay, my part of this is, yeah, I don't have to tolerate a B and C. But if there's something that he's saying with his own voice with his own truth, I
00:32:21
Speaker
So I'm trying to kind of be a little bit accountable. It's being accountable without absolutely just tormenting ourselves. Well, then that's the narrow tight rope that we walk on, isn't it? Because we started life with them being in complete charge of them and telling them what we did to them rather than negotiating a contract where it was equal. And over the course of 18 years, we have to get them to a point where
00:32:51
Speaker
We relate to them as an individual in their own right, as an adult, not a child who needs to be shown the correct way, as we see it, to do things. And so having to take feedback from them that is unwelcome and not nice to hear,
00:33:09
Speaker
I guess it's part of that because that's part of an honest relationship with any adult. And we're not great at that with our adult friends either. We put up with a lot without telling our friends how they make us feel. I guess if he's able to say, in a calm way, the way you're making me feel is this, that's useful. And you know, a minute before, he might have been in a very angry, volatile, what angry state. And when he said that, his sort of top lip was wobbling and his eyes were thin.
00:33:40
Speaker
you know, my heart just thought, well, how wonderful that you can write in that moment. I was thinking, oh God, I've got it wrong again. But it was like, you know, it's, I'm grateful that he can express that to me emotionally. And just like when my daughter, her thing is, you don't listen, you don't listen when I think because you're bloody rude.
00:34:03
Speaker
I was going to say something else that, oh yeah, that was it. I was, um, I'm always again reminded of the idea, you know, and I listened to Gabo Marte and his conversations on, you know, childhood trauma and things, but a child just needs acceptance. And I think we're, we're unconditional in one way, but we're also conditional, aren't we? You know, but it's like, but hang on, you're not, it's like, you know, if we,
00:34:32
Speaker
I think the biggest gift if I, and I've got work to do on this, but if I could go to bed at night or look back in five years time and think when they walked into a room, my eyes, they would be able to say, oh, mum, mum's eyes lit up, or mum. They felt they knew they were wanted, they knew they were loved, they knew they were accepted, despite the less than kind of easy,
00:35:02
Speaker
displays. But I just think that's because so much of what we grow up, so many of the problems that we grow up with as adults into whatever space in life is feeling that we're not enough and we're not good enough and we're not enough. And I, gosh, I want my children to know that they are enough. Yeah, that's such a good way of putting it and that acceptance
Unconditional Acceptance of Children
00:35:31
Speaker
unconditional acceptance, even if we may not like some aspects of their behavior, we like who they are, and love them irrespective. And actually, I think, gosh, you know, I need to check in with myself again, because yeah, that's my intention, whether or not I, yeah,
00:35:51
Speaker
anywhere close to achieving it, I don't know. No, I get it. I'm the same. And as you were saying it, I was thinking, yes, I need to, this is also on my agenda, I need to say that to my kids. And I need to do it quick before they leave home because they're 18. But you know, the problem is that by the time they arrive at this age, they don't want to hear it in those words. So you've got to kind of
00:36:12
Speaker
show it in tiny little incremental bites. Because if I sat my daughter down and said, you are good enough, and you are wholly accepted, and I love you for all your flaws, she'd be like, oh, God, for God's sake, don't start that therapy shit on me now. Oh, God, I mean, the way that I talk, they're literally sort of dying inside. Gratitude, gratitude, and it's like, yeah, gratitude, just because.
00:36:41
Speaker
They are. It's going back to them being brutal. I was telling someone last night, I go to choir practice and they're talking about how they sing and the kids join in the harmonies around the house. And I said, oh, there's a stock phrase in our house. My 15-year-old, if I ever open my mouth to sing more than three notes, we go, he'll say, Helen, do you by any chance know how to harmonize? And it's a facetious
00:37:04
Speaker
Basically, it's his way of saying, can you shut up? I don't like it when you sing. It's just really hard. Just slither away somewhere because you're very existent. So we talked a lot about the hardships of teenagers and there are many, but I know that you feel joy around your teens as well as I do. What do you love about your kids now that they're teenagers?
00:37:30
Speaker
I'm very grateful at this point that my eldest son is around and kind of as a big brother, as a positive role model.
00:37:42
Speaker
they might be fleeting but whenever I, I'm noticing that I'm on the periphery more, you know, so it might be that I slither up to bed quite early with the Chihuahuas and then and then I might kind of end up back downstairs, say one of those random sort of nights and it might be that Jake's come in from work and
00:38:06
Speaker
him he and his brothers are sort of messing around on the sofa all having a laugh about something and it's when I overhear them I think the moment I have to be honest and say happy family days out have never worked and I've kind of not a point where I'm even trying very much at the moment it feels like we're all a bit too separate but therefore I come back to that thing of when there's a moment of
00:38:33
Speaker
When I almost get to spy on them with their own relationships, when they're going well, and their own, when I eavesdrop on a conversation and it isn't a fight, that gets my heart up. Because I think, oh, it's okay, they are whole body, separate entities from me, you know, like, it's not, and they've got, and honestly, those moments are quite fleeting, but it gives me such hope because I think, you know, I,
00:39:02
Speaker
I think it would devastate me if we know how many families grow up and siblings are estranged. I think I would find that incredibly hard. I want so much for them to be close and have each other and lean on each other. I think in a way the moments that I love are observational moments where I'm able to step outside my own noisy head and just go,
00:39:25
Speaker
Look at them there, laughing, looking well, healthy, vibrant, in their own little world, big brother there or sister there. And in that 45 second period, there was no swearing or there was no horrible words to each other. And it's just a lovely moment. And that makes me, that fills my mum cup up.
00:39:47
Speaker
It's almost when you see the glimpse of the adult that they're going to be and that's probably when we can, as you say, taking a step back and seeing them a bit more objectively is probably useful. And actually one thing that it's funny because sometimes because
00:40:04
Speaker
I never call them the triplets, but for the sake of this conversation, you know, my three, sometimes because obviously they're all in the same year group and they're in a couple of them, they've all got the old class with each other because it's only three year groups in their school for each year. But occasionally I'll sort of say to one of like, to one of the boys, I said, I said, and he's Louise's identical twin. I said, so what's?
00:40:27
Speaker
How is Louis at school? And I remember he said to me quite a lot recently, oh, Mom, Louis is just so funny. Everyone knows him as the funny kid. And I'm like, not that I don't think he's funny, but that's just so lovely that that's what it sounds like. I think he's got a whole identity that I own and loved for that I only get glimpses of. Yeah, that he created for himself. And he obviously has the confidence to kind of be a bit of the funny one.
00:40:57
Speaker
So that, yeah. That's lovely. And actually, because you've got them, I was going to say so close in age, but identical ages, they are in the same peer group. So they can see all of that. Whereas mine are three years apart, I was going to say, it might, your age gap might be a bit different, but mine is only two and a half years. And
00:41:17
Speaker
It was when my youngest started GCSE's work that my two really became friends because they could then relate to each other about the same work, the same teachers, quite a lot of our dinner party. That's ambitious. Our dinner table conversation is
00:41:34
Speaker
is those who gossiping about who they love and who they hate at school in terms of the teachers. And that's really interesting to listen to. I see a whole other part of their world that individually they would never share with me, but that because they're sharing it with each other in front of me, I get to hear about it. It's the same thing. Exactly. And that's when we've got to think, okay, we're doing okay. We're doing okay. Yeah, absolutely.
00:42:04
Speaker
You talk a lot about connection and I've really been on a journey with what truly authentic connection is over the last few years. But I'd really like to know for you, what does connection look like? It's interesting because I talk about it such a lot in terms of, well, going back, you know, going back
Building Connections Through Online and Personal Interactions
00:42:28
Speaker
and linking it to sort of turning point in my cancer experience in that, you know, when I began stepping into, I guess, an online platform and sort of curtain twitching and seeing how other women were living and managing, even though I wasn't speaking up myself, and then I slowly but surely began to share my story. That was the biggest kind of, the obvious, I'm not alone, oh my goodness, it's connection. And then,
00:42:55
Speaker
I feel more and more and more that it's just this incredible, I talk about sort of feeling held, you know, that's something that I, because I have felt so held in recent times in the most priceless way.
00:43:15
Speaker
by either virtual friends, real life friends, people in my emotionally health, you know, and therefore, and so the connection and the appreciation and the, in the tiniest again, it's, it can be in the most subtle kind of intermittent ways, you know, a gesture, a message or something. And I'm not just talking about online, but I do feel that the connection that I've been fortunate enough to link in with online has
00:43:44
Speaker
being incredible feeling in terms of how I manage my mental health and everything. But then I've also kind of been thinking lately in a slightly, I don't mean to sound negative, but I've kind of almost been asking myself, how connected am I to myself? Because I think I feel very familiar with the
00:44:07
Speaker
the reciprocal connection I have with the people around me, the closest to me. But I also know that I abandon myself very easily. I'm a bit heavy now. But I abandon myself. And so I think my next kind of chapter in terms of under the connection umbrella will be about how connected am I to me truly, rather than
00:44:35
Speaker
kind of, oh, I feel so lucky because I've got this person, that person, oh, we're actually holding each other and we are and that's wonderful. But actually, when you strip all that back, if I jumped ship on my own self, then at the end, you know, and so that's currently what I'm just starting to think about because I, I spent a lot of my life just
00:45:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny how I just said jumping shit, but that's kind of almost like it, you know, deserting myself. Well, it feels like just getting through because you've had so much to get through. So connection to me means closeness, shared vocabulary, silence, just knowing safety. It's a feeling of safety, isn't it? Emotional safety with someone. And I think if I can just implement that a little bit more,
00:45:31
Speaker
with myself, then I think that will be even more a bedrock. Emma, you and I are on a very similar journey from that point of view.
Emotional Connections vs. Shared Activities
00:45:42
Speaker
When you said feeling emotionally held, I feel that and that's the key word, is emotionally held because we can connect with people through a shared love of dancing or singing or
00:45:57
Speaker
Sauvignon Blanc or whatever it is that we like to do with our time. But you don't need to be doing anything in order to be connected to somebody properly if it's an emotional connection. And I too, I'm fortunate enough to be able to say I've got friends who get me.
00:46:20
Speaker
and make it clear that they get me and that is i think that is kind of seventy five percent of the way towards getting ourselves.
00:46:31
Speaker
So that work you're talking about doing, and it speaks to the fact that I've been saying throughout the podcast, I need to feel compassion for myself and have forgiveness for the things that I don't get 100% right all of the time. It's the same thing. I need to be able to feel that in my body and accept myself and see myself. I know, and that's exactly it. And also, I think what I've also
00:47:00
Speaker
become mindful of and aware of very recently is, and again it can sound, people can roll their eyes, but it really is that thing of, it's less about
00:47:11
Speaker
fixing someone or advice. I've kind of gone off any kind of advice giving. It's just, I see you. And I know that can be like a bit of a corny line, but it really is. And when some of the people that have said to me in various ways in recent times, kind of their equivalent of I see you, I see you. That's it. I don't need you to fix me. I don't need you to come up with the answer. I just
00:47:41
Speaker
to just to be accepted for where I am right now, not to be hurried along just to make it easier for you, not to be pushed through a process that I might not be ready to leap through. To be accepted where we're at right now is a priceless gift. And I think, but we say all this, don't we? I'm sure you and I could talk for the rest of the day in these terms. But then going back, I guess, to being the mums we are at this point in our lives and our children's lives, it's like, how do we,
00:48:12
Speaker
that on, you know, when it's a really tough domestic drudgery, reality, you know, and we're, we're kind of, you know, and I think that's it. Like I create, I going back to my daughter, you know, I don't feel connected to her, which is devastating. And it's hard to even say, I feel very disconnected from her.
00:48:40
Speaker
but we're doing a dance and it's just not, we're just not, it's not clicking. Yeah.
00:48:51
Speaker
a few of my, if this was a Monday morning therapy session, I'd be going, help me. How do we, you know, it's just, I don't know, I don't know. I get it. I want to reach through the screen and give you a big hug. Because I feel like you're, yeah, you see me know what you're describing is the same as me. And, you know, if it helps, I know that we all know, don't we, as parents of teenagers that
00:49:18
Speaker
The reason we're not connecting with our kids right now is because we're not meant to. That's the opposite of what we should, we're supposed to be doing. They are actively disconnecting from us because they have to in order to be individuals separate from us. And it's what we've strived for all of their lives, but we hate it when that's happening because it feels so painful. Thank you for saying that because I just
00:49:44
Speaker
forget that constantly. Even that makes my shoulders drop. I forget that that is true. It's not only true. I also had it said to me recently,
Teen Independence and Parental Challenges
00:50:01
Speaker
That is the case and also they still need us and they don't like it. And so that makes it even worse because they are trying to separate and be independent and responsible for themselves. So the fact that they still feel desperately like they need things from us and they need our reassurance, but they don't want it because we're so not part of them anymore. They hate that too and that makes them even tougher.
00:50:31
Speaker
and even more resistant to our efforts to connect with them, which takes us back to that, as you were just saying, self-acceptance, and it's a full circle to acceptance of them. They just want to be seen and accepted by us. We want to be seen and accepted by them, and we know that that isn't going to happen until they're adults with adult brains.
00:50:57
Speaker
So we have to do the work of accepting ourselves and seeing us. Yeah, exactly. Knowing I feel shit. I feel terrible. I need to be my own. I know that's another cliche. I need to be my own best friend. But if our best friend is a truly connected, authentic person who really gets us, we need to just look at ourselves, I think, and go, well, that's who I am. And that's okay. Yeah.
00:51:27
Speaker
I know, I think in my own situation it became or it's been at various points so amplified because I spent so many of their formative years thinking I wasn't going to be here. Sort of very high dial, loud dial of
00:51:52
Speaker
can't afford to get a single thing wrong because either they're not going to remember me so they're going to be parentless or they're going to jump up. So I think that's just such a huge thing that I probably will never fully be able to work through. Because even if I'm fortunate enough to still be here in 10, 20 years time in terms of my health. But I think that's been a really unfortunate
00:52:22
Speaker
layer because it's the one thing I've wanted the most which is to be a present mum is the thing that I found the hardest because I remember writing this in my book it's almost like the fear of not being here for them almost made the pain of sort of loving them
00:52:45
Speaker
too great. So it's almost in some way, I don't know if I've got it right, but there was something I wrote that was quite eloquent around that, that was almost like the fear of, of not being here, almost stopped me from being here, emotionally, because there's like a disconnect and or a self protection or, because looking at their faces and thinking,
00:53:05
Speaker
you know, what if this treatment doesn't work? Or what if, yeah, if I'm, you know, googling, what age will they remember me if I, you know, and I am, you know, and that was in those, you know, naught to 10 years when things felt much more kind of terrifying on that front. And I suppose, you know, it's taken me 13 years or to get to a point of, and the great good fortune of long periods of health stability, you know, and I'm in one of those now. And that's incredible. So that dial gets turned down. But
00:53:35
Speaker
It's that's just been there from day one. So how could that's always going to be a part of my maternal profile, you know, as a mom who has lived with or lives with active or silent cancer, you know, for very, very, very many years.
Cancer's Impact on Emma's Maternal Approach
00:53:55
Speaker
And I wish I could be and what makes me sad is that
00:54:01
Speaker
that's a fact. And yet I still judge myself as harshly as I do. And I've allowed other people to judge me as harshly as they have for failings, which are really you'd have to be pretty, you know, to not have some compassion, you know, areas where, you know, I have struggled with the right type of parenting. Anyway, I've gone off on a
00:54:27
Speaker
No, I think that was really important to say because we've not talked about your cancer actively, specifically in this podcast, but
00:54:37
Speaker
I know that you will have had many, many moments where you've had to have conversations with your kids that you didn't want to have and that would not have just felt difficult for you, but would have felt doubly difficult because they were difficult. You were worried about the impact it would have on them rather than you. Well, it's interesting actually with Jake, yes, but with the younger ones that know it, again, they've got an incredibly lucky them. They've got very, very different
00:55:01
Speaker
You know, Jake was nearly seven when I was diagnosed, so he remembers me with no hair, you know, very, very unwell with the full-on chemo and all the surgery. His siblings were months old. And so by the time my secondary diagnosis came along, when they were five, I'd held on to quite a lot of my hair. They'd just started, what would it be, reception, you know?
00:55:27
Speaker
And so they, they just think, oh, mum's going, they couldn't. They do, but it's like, yeah, I'm off to the hospital. Yeah. All right. Anyway, what's for dinner? You know, they'd be, yeah, in a way great because they just, yeah. And, and I remember, you know, whereas Jake, you know, it's probably much more on his radar. But again, I think he, they're very fortunate and incredibly fortunate as a mic because
00:55:56
Speaker
there've been these horrendous periods of really bad health, but these very long periods of almost a kind of normality. So that's, you know, and that's, that's something that I never, ever, ever take for granted. And we will know that that can change at any time, but I haven't had to have with the younger ones, um, at all, uh, right kids, I need to sit down, you know, because I four years ago when I had another progression, I, I did, but,
00:56:26
Speaker
It was surgery. I don't know, they just kind of took it in their stride, you know. I think it'd be very different if I suddenly, you know, physically look very different again.
00:56:37
Speaker
But that's testimony to the job that you've done with them, though, that they can feel robust enough to do the normal teenage thing of only really caring about themselves, which is completely normal. And you've managed to create that for them, despite everything that you've been going through. Yeah, I think as well. I remember, and in a way, let's hope this is the reality for so many more of us who face a diagnosis and with the advances of treatment and the way so many are living in the longer term.
00:57:05
Speaker
even in the last five, 10 years, it's just changed dramatically, you know, the number of people who are managing to live a life with a kind of chronic illness that is for long periods of time is quite manageable. I remember watching one of the, you know, maybe stand up to cancer or one of the charity kind of telethons, you know, and all those those heartbreaking stories, you know, and I remember, I think it was, you know, one of one of the young one of the kids
00:57:33
Speaker
sort of watching one of those heartbreaking films with me. And it was a mum, I think. And it was very clear that she was about to pass away, or then she did pass away.
00:57:44
Speaker
And I think it was my daughter and she sort of looked at me and went, oh, did she die? And I was like, yes, oh, I didn't think you died from cancer. And this was like, this was she's 13 and this might have been when she was eight or nine, but I remember, wow, God, I didn't know how to, oh, it sort of took my breath away. And well, gosh, are you too naive about it? Do I need to, but at the same time,
00:58:09
Speaker
you know, if a day comes when the conversation needs to change, it will, it will, but I'm not preempted. And you're using that yardstick again to beat yourself up. You haven't given her enough information.
00:58:21
Speaker
We're our own worst enemies and I'm going to go back to that business of compassion for ourselves and connection with who we are because that's what we need to hold on to. Emma, I could talk to you all day. This could be a three-hour episode. But we will probably come to an end, but I want to ask first of all, you do
00:58:42
Speaker
So many things from advocacy and fundraising to writing workshops and public speaking. And now you've got your new podcast open. I mean, what made you start that? Did you just not have enough challenges?
00:58:57
Speaker
Oh gosh, honestly, I'm just in a little happiness bubble with it. It's something I'd always wanted to do. And I was like, oh, I don't know how to do that. And, you know, can't even barely turn on the computer. And then was fortunate enough to be approached by two lovely women who said we'd love to produce a podcast.
00:59:16
Speaker
And so that's what we've done. So season one finished a couple of last week as we're talking. Season two starts in a few weeks. And, you know, who knows? I mean, I hope these conversations can go on and on and on. I really, really hope that
00:59:35
Speaker
I mean, I'm determined that they will, whatever, however many people listen or don't listen. I just, I think, you know, my big thing has always been, why can't, you know, for the last few years, I've been trying to write a second book and, and I've just, it's been this strange resistance that I haven't been able to kind of put my finger on. And again, I've beaten myself up so badly with what God call yourself a writer and why haven't, you know, just hasn't happened. And it's been a painful kind of deep frustration. And suddenly, like,
01:00:05
Speaker
I'm sure they're, I'm hoping there are many more books in me, but actually maybe right now, going back to the connection, it's the conversations like this, like the ones I'm fortunate enough to be creating on my podcast that just are giving me so much because I just, so in answer to your question,
01:00:25
Speaker
Podcasts that I have managed to create with help is kind of the epitome to me of connection. You know, it's called open, but it really is those kind of open hearted, connected, raw, stripped back conversations. And that is what I feel is something I can do. And I know how much comfort I get from listening to these kinds of conversations. We all have our go-tos, don't we?
01:00:55
Speaker
And so the privilege of feeling like maybe I can also create some of those for people. I can't tell you, it just makes me tingle. So it's not a challenge at all. It's more of a radiator than a drain, if you want to go to that analogy. Yeah.
01:01:15
Speaker
I get it. We've all got so much to share. We've all got, and the more that we can feel less separate. Yes. That separateness, you know, which is the more we can kind of minimise that and it's just, yes, I'm very, I feel very, very lucky to be able to
01:01:33
Speaker
you know, create my own space in that in the podcast world. Yeah, well, it's lovely. You've got some amazing guests and you do create beautiful conversations. And it's an authentic is the word that I would use and people are connecting authentically. And the more you and this is why I started the teenage stuff is because
01:01:53
Speaker
that you have a lot of connection with other parents going through the same as you when your children are little in the parenting field and then it all dries up as soon as they become teenagers and we all sort of wander off into the ether but we don't stop needing that connection and that anecdotal support.
01:02:10
Speaker
So the more we know that there are people around in the world who feel the same way we do, then the better for everyone, I think. Emma, tell people where else you are, because you've got the podcast, it's on all the platforms, it's called Open. Where else? So Instagram, you'll find me popping up there quite frequently. So at Limitless M, Limitless underscore M, my, I mean, I have
01:02:39
Speaker
Yeah, the writing workshops, I do regular online expressive writing workshops, which are just lovely. Again, you know, hopefully a safe space where I sort of describe it as letting the pen lead the way. So it's not creative. Journaling style, expressing expressive free flow, working with memory, but also kind of forward thinking, you know, that kind of
01:03:03
Speaker
identifying how you'd like your life to look, but they're just lovely spaces. And so that's something, and I just, yeah, I kind of, I think like many of us, I feel so grateful to be here and to have, to still be standing after certain challenges, but I do want to get that balance right between, yeah, making my own,
01:03:30
Speaker
sort of career or work dreams come true. But at the same time, it's very important to me that I feel like I'm offering, you know, as well. And well, you do you give so much back. I
01:03:48
Speaker
It's all I see in the comments underneath your Instagram posts is how much you're giving and how much people feel you. So you're doing an amazing job. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much, Emma, for talking to us today. It's been a joy. Thank you for having me.
01:04:10
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening. I really do appreciate it. Thank you too to everyone who's already rated and reviewed the podcast. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Amazon, it would mean the world to me if you could leave a review. It really helps get the word out as well as making me very happy to read what you have to say. If this episode strikes a chord for you, please share it with anyone else you know who might be in the same boat and hit subscribe so you don't miss the next episode.
01:04:38
Speaker
If you have a story or a suggestion for something you'd like to see covered on the podcast, you can email me at teenagekickspodcast at gmail.com or message me on Instagram. I am Helen Wills. I love hearing from all my listeners. It really makes a difference to me on this journey. See you next week when I'll be chatting to another brilliant guest about the highs and lows of parenting teens. Bye for now.