When Does Parenting Actually Begin? With Kate Littlefield

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated with the help of AI and may contain minor errors or inconsistencies. Please refer to the audio for the most accurate representation of the conversation.

Alyssa: [00:00:00] You're listening to Voices of your Village, and today we're diving into a question that has so many layers. When does parenting actually begin? In this episode, I'm joined by Kate Littlefield, a therapist, mom of twins, and all around Rad Human, to explore how parenting starts long before birth. We talk about how our own histories, our inner child work, and our nervous systems all shape the way we show up in the caregiving experience. From navigating different needs in a family of unique humans, to figuring out how to parent intentionally in a way that's true to you. This conversation is about letting go of one size fits all parenting advice, and embracing the idea that thoughtful, connected parenting can look different for every family. All right, folks, let's dive in.

Alyssa: [00:00:49] Hey there. I'm Alyssa Blask Campbell. I'm a mom with a master's degree in early childhood education and co-creator of the collaborative emotion processing method. I'm here to walk alongside you through the messy, vulnerable parts of being humans, raising other humans with deep thoughts and actionable tips. Let's dive in together.

Alyssa: [00:01:11] It's been interesting. Like as the platform has grown, I have had more of a disconnect with it because I didn't know. It felt like it went from this like little community of 10-K to now 300 and like, I don't know your names or your kids or their grandparents or the whatever, and I yearned for so much more of that. I'm like, please DM me. Just like, let's chat. I want to hear about your life. I want to send you a voice note back. Like, I love that part of social and that as everything's grown, that like, I can't send a voice note to everyone that DMs me. But I hope it doesn't make people stop DMing me because I send them every day to as many people as I can, and it's something that fills me up.

Kate: [00:01:55] I love that, I love that. I love community so much, and it's at the center of everything that I do. And I have gone into social media with thinking about like, how can I make this feel like community for me? And also the energy of sharing living space with somebody is so different, and I haven't figured out yet how to translate the energy of live interaction, which even gets lost on a video like there's I still prefer in-person work. I'm happy telehealth exists. I think it's a great evolution, but I love in-person stuff and I'm like, oh, we just met. Hi, I'm Kate. Tell me everything. Let's let's build some relationships, some community. Let's figure out where we overlap and what we have in common and like, get to know each other. And and I think it just makes for a more, like, kind and gentle experience.

Alyssa: [00:02:50] Agreed.

Kate: [00:02:51] I'm like an empath who's tender hearted, and I'm like, if I know everybody, they're gonna be nicer. Like, I think that's just like a I think when we're invested more deeply. But on your space, I'm like, nobody's not going to be nice there. Because, like, that's your brand.

Alyssa: [00:03:05] Yeah, that's so kind. There are people who are nice. Everyone lives with triggers, right? Like I. I will say at this point, I'm not offended by anything anyone says to me on social media. I really at this point, that wasn't always the case. I at this point can recognize, like, this isn't about me. This is a dysregulated human. And I still I'm such a curious person. When somebody says something like, we did a post one time about practicing consent with babies, and it was a dumpster fire, and we'd done this same type of post a million times, and it wasn't. And all of a sudden it had just gotten picked up from a certain channel of folks that came in and they were calling us pedophiles, etc. and I was just like, so curious. I curious. I was like, what is it about this that screams pedophilia to you? You know, like, so curious. And I had tried to engage a few times with folks to no avail, with nothing in response until one human I had just said like, help me understand, what about this? I'm truly curious. Like, I want to hear what's coming up for you.

Alyssa: [00:04:19] And she was like, well, you can't practice sexual consent with babies. And I was like, oh, okay. Consent for her means sexual. Yeah. And I was just like, oh, okay. Yeah. If you thought that there was anything sexually happening with a baby, you should fight like hell for them. Like, thank you for doing that. What if I switched that word to respect? Practicing respect with babies? And she was like, well, that's totally different. I was like, okay, but those things I love about social that I get to have conversations like that and chat with people who I wouldn't have the opportunity to have that conversation necessarily in another space where I post something that they are so appalled by because they perceive it in a way that wasn't my intent. And we get to have a convo about it and I get to learn from that. It actually informed we ended up changing in tiny humans, some parts where we had written about consent to respect because I was like, I want this to be something that isn't just for one group of people. And in order to do that, I have to be mindful of my language.

Kate: [00:05:29] Yeah. It's I have so many things about all that you just said, but I think the one that, like, rises to the surface, like, very quickly and powerfully is like, you must be a very well regulated human being.

Alyssa: [00:05:41] I'm a pretty regulated human being.

Kate: [00:05:43] When I enter into those conversations, like with curiosity and genuine like it has to be genuine for me or it's not going to go well. I tend our joke in our house is that I cook fast and hot. I always cook by the burner. Setting is always on high and my spouse is low and slow. And I'm like, can you just like, cook it already? I could have been done 15 minutes ago.

Alyssa: [00:06:04] I will say, that's me too. And Zack. Zack is the low and slow. I'm fast and hot.

Kate: [00:06:09] Yeah, and that's what it makes me think of, is like, I feel like I need to bring that low and slow energy, which is effortful for me to tap into, into those kinds of conversations, that it doesn't come naturally to me. Like temperamentally, it doesn't come naturally. Defensiveness comes first, and then I have to, like, cognitively work on shifting to like, is this really? Do I need to respond with defensiveness or like shift into curiosity? 90 plus percent of the time?

Alyssa: [00:06:40] Yeah, but it takes consciousness. Same. I actually one of my like, goals for this year was to engage with a few people. I grew up in western New York. In the town I grew up in is a lot of like Trump's base. It's a conservative, Christian white Republican area and low income, hard working folks. And I was like, my commitment going into this year was to personally connect with three humans who I can have consistent dialogue with, who voted for Trump and really believe in the work that he's doing and understand more. Yeah, as a white woman in a hetero marriage, I was like, this is something I need to take on of. Like, I've got to be in a space to enter into curiosity. I chose three humans who I knew might be really challenging for me, but that would give it to me straight and weren't going to sugarcoat things on their end, and it has been very cool. But I started off saying, like, I really want to learn, and I really am feeling curious and I want to have these conversations with you, and there are going to be times where you respond and I don't respond for like a week, because I'm not ready to be kind to you yet, and I need time to get to a place where I can be curious again. And so if you don't hear back from me, it's not that I'm ignoring you, it's me waiting until I can really be in conversation with you and I will return to it. And all of them have been super rad about that. And right now I have four DMs that are sitting from one person that I am just like, yeah, I'm not ready to tap into this yet. I will at some point carve out the time to regulate and have curiosity, but it's not an always thing.

Kate: [00:08:36] Yeah, I will sometimes like at the end of the day, my spouse will be like, how was your day? And I'll be like, oh well, I, I wrote and wrote for rage. Emails are like all like feverishly type a reactive emotional response and indulge that part of myself. And then I'll be like and delete all of that. And then I'll do like multiple if I can't let it go out of my brain because I tend to also fixate if I can't, like, let it go, I'll just do another iteration and it will be a blank email or like a blank somewhere that can't get accidentally sent anywhere. And I'll just like rage. All the red thoughts. That's what I call them. Everything that I like, think and feel. But I wouldn't say out loud was not going to come out of my mouth. I'll do that like multiple times. So how many times I write an email is often an indicator of like how I'm doing across the board, how my day was, how I'm how I am in that moment. It's funny that you say that because I do a similar thing.

Alyssa: [00:09:35] Yeah, I use AI for my emails a lot for that response where I'll just say like I, that I will rage my response and say like, write this in a kind way as a response to this email. And it just rewrites it for me. And I'm like, thank you so much. I have a question for you. I know I want to keep a lot of this in, because I think it's helpful for folks to just hear real conversations with real humans. But I'm curious, so you are a licensed clinical mental health counselor? It's a mouthful for me. You work as a therapist, right? You are super into like, when parenting begins. Is this right? Break this down for me. What do you mean by this?

Kate: [00:10:15] Well, okay, so I started my career. Kind of. This winding road. I was in advertising and graphic design, and I didn't have the skin for it. I was like, this is brutal. Everybody thinks everything is bad. Always. And so I kind of like, you know, floundered a little bit. And then I ended up working in this after school program, and there's kids in after school who get services and supports at school during the day and then don't get them in after school and they struggle like very predictably. If they don't, it's not like you just don't have the skills at school. Like if you struggle socially or with regulation, it's going to show up everywhere. And those are my favorite kids in after school. And that kind of pushed me into going to graduate school. And I went to graduate school for community mental health, focusing on children and families. And I did multiple internships. So I did an internship with elementary school aged kids. I did an internship with high schoolers, and I did an internship with adults because I didn't know what I wanted to do. I ended up working with teenagers for a long time. And then I got an opportunity to train in a therapy model called Child-parent psychotherapy, which focuses on birth to five.

Kate: [00:11:29] And I just fell in love. I was like, why aren't we moving this upstream? And I just loved that work. I loved that it was like targeted play therapy with the parent and the child together, because it never made sense to me. Like I can't integrate therapy most of the time by myself. Like, how would we expect a child to do that? Never made sense to me. Not to disparage anybody's practice who works individually with kids, but for me, clinically, I couldn't reconcile that. And so child parent psychotherapy really brought those things together. And I was like, right. If we deal with trauma and attachment and regulation earlier with the parent, and everybody gets to learn together, and the parent is also learning about their own stuff that they're bringing to these interactions. Like it kind of made like my whole life and my whole world make sense and come together. And so I did that. And then I had my kids, I had twins, they're now six. And I totally blew up my whole life. And I left my job and of of over ten years where I had grown up professionally. I thought I was going to be there literally the rest of my life, and.

Alyssa: [00:12:46] Wow.

Kate: [00:12:47] I had my kids and I was like, everything changed. And I couldn't describe it, but I was like, this isn't right. Something's not right. And I had major postpartum challenges, mood challenges. I was anxious, I was like I was depressed. It was really hard for us to get pregnant. And so then to not like it was like a terrible feeling. It just felt awful. Like we worked so hard and now I don't I wish it didn't have like I wish it.

Alyssa: [00:13:13] I'm supposed to be grateful and loving this and I hate it.

Kate: [00:13:16] And I wasn't. And because I blew up my life and were not independently wealthy, nor do we have a money tree in our yard, I got a job back with teenagers, which was kind of like where I started my career, and it felt familiar and comfortable and not easy because teenagers aren't easy, but like, I love the population. It felt like I was going back to some foundations that I was really comfortable with, but I couldn't find my own care to deal with my stuff. And I was like, I am educated. I have this like very unique, advanced training in this field and I have no, I'm totally I feel like I got absolutely side walled by a mack truck with postpartum mood stuff. And I was like, they didn't cover it in my birth class, my newborn care class. Maybe somebody mentioned it somewhere, but it was like, oh, you're at high risk for 80 million things because you're geriatric and you have twins. I was 35, by the way, which I don't geriatric obvi, obviously. Look at the geriatric. So I, I sort of got baffled and was like, we do classes like on all this stuff, why aren't we doing classes just on making, like, these plans and understanding yourself and what your risks are for this being the path, and so that you're not also feeling shame while you're feeling all these other intense emotions.

Kate: [00:14:39] And as I was doing that work drawing in the child parent psychotherapy, parts of like the work that you do with the parent before the kid even comes in, I was kind of drawing in some of those ideas of like, how do we start thinking about what we're bringing to the table in parenting? Is it postpartum? If we get hit with a challenge in parenting, is it prenatally like before we even know really who we're going to be as a parent? Is it? And then I was like, I think it goes back to like when we were born, like, that's our template. And then it just sort of like turns into this whole beast where I'm like, it's like the chicken and the egg. You don't know when parenting begins. So this is like a long, convoluted way of saying like, this is the it was an odd path that brought me here. And I still do all of it like I do perinatal. I work with teens. I do child parent psychotherapy still and I focus a lot on like how do we make comprehensive, accessible care across the board in ways that really resonate with people?

Alyssa: [00:15:40] One of the things that just came up for me, as you were sharing that, that I feel like we've had a hard time with. It's kind of like how I, I feel like it's really hard to have people care about child care until they need child care and they can't access it. And until you're in it, you don't really understand the experience of like, why you wouldn't just send your kid just anywhere or what you're looking for in a space, or the challenges around it, or all the things. And this is similar to me with parenting, honestly, with so many things in life where like until you're in it, it's so hard to wrap your head around it where so many folks come into it and they're like, well, I would never or my kid would never. This is how you have this vision of how it's going to be for you, how it's going to be for your kids, who they're going to be, who you're going to be. And then all of a sudden you're in it and it's not what you envisioned, right? Like, now you are up all night with a human that you're like, well, I swore I was never going to Co-sleep because of SIDs or whatever, and I'm so scared. But also I'm falling asleep in a chair and I don't know what to do, and nobody's telling me anything that's helpful.

Alyssa: [00:16:54] And they're just saying that, like, babies need to eat every whatever, and they're just going to wake up and you get up and you see them and and now you're like, wait, I'm going to do something that I said I wasn't going to do. And that just over and over and over and over, because you're a human, you're living with humans, you're raising humans. And they didn't know the vision that you had for who they're supposed to be. And I find that when it comes to like, parenting support, we've had folks who have been like, you should do these classes for folks more prenatally. And I'm like, yeah, we've tried that. And to be honest, until folks are in it and they have their unique child, it is so hard to have folks understand some of this work. Even the idea that there are going to be times where you do not like the child in front of you, you're going to feel annoyed by them, right? Like all these things that you're like, I would never my kid. No, they're gonna be so cute and I'm gonna love it. And they're gonna put them in these clothes, and we're gonna have this perfect nursery and whatever, and then they're human. Yeah, and I think it's so hard to prep people for what they have not yet experienced.

Kate: [00:18:06] Yeah, yeah. I think that's a very real possibility with the work that I'm doing. Because what my not.

Alyssa: [00:18:13] To, like, knock the work. I think there's so much value in therapy at any point. But that's just a challenge. I'm like, have you figured this out? Because we haven't.

Kate: [00:18:20] No. But I did go on ChatGPT and I was like, how did Lamas become a household name? Because I feel like since I was a little kid, there's been like societal messages of like, Lamas and the, you know, and I'm like, so everybody, I feel like everybody, when they think about getting pregnant, they're like, I need a birth class. It's not Lamas anymore, necessarily, but they're like, I need a birth class. And I'm like, so how do I make it as standard and common as Lamont? And I literally went on to ChatGPT and I was like, tell me the history of how Lamas became a household name. Essentially if you want the answer, it's because the breathing sounds were so funny. They got picked up in like movies and mainstream media, which was not as expansive back then. And so, like, it really caught fire because people were, like, making fun of the breathing sounds and and that's, that's essentially what happened. So I'm not sure how to create some catchy, trendy viral joke for or like something that people can make fun of when it comes to.

Alyssa: [00:19:32] Sure.

Kate: [00:19:32] These topics, I haven't gotten there yet. I haven't figured it out. I'm trying to bring a vision to life, and for a chunk of the time that I was doing this work, it was about healing myself. To be honest, totally like creating this resources that I didn't have and I wished that I had. I'm only just now getting to a point where I'm like, I think I'm ready to like, see if anybody else wants it.

Alyssa: [00:19:54] Yeah, that's what happens.

Kate: [00:19:56] Like, and so I'll figure it out.

Alyssa: [00:19:58] You've brought this up a few times the like us part of it the our own inner child parts of it. One thing that we are seeing, like trending in the space and in our work is there's so much talk about the inner child. And I think that's so rad. And now there's this fear of like, oh my gosh, we're doing these things to our kids and that they're going to have to heal from and whatever in a way of like, we're not supposed to. Yeah. And I just really want to call bullshit on that and let people know that I don't know, at least personally. My goal isn't that my kids are not in therapy working on things. It's that they know that therapy is an option and it's there for them, and that they have toolbox and places where they can turn to for support. But if I moved through parenting in everyday life, being like, my goal is to make it so that this kid has nothing that they need to process externally or grievance ever. Oh my God, I would be so guilt ridden. I would be very overwhelmed and burnt out and I would I wouldn't be able to function. Yeah. And so when I see it, this like this fear that we're supposed to raise humans who have nothing to process. I'm just like, how do we talk about our inner child work and things that we are navigating and working to uncover and heal and and dive into without sending the message that it is failure if our kids also do some of that work.

Kate: [00:21:35] Yeah, well, you know, I am a therapist. I try to keep it turned off because I find it really annoying when people who are therapists are like, go therapy therapist. But I just have to say, like, let's stop right there. Let's pause right there at that moment that the parent is like, I will have failed if my kid ends up needing the same resources, like, that's the inner child part of you that I want to tend to right in this moment. Right is like, so what's happening for you right now that you feel that feeling, that fear, that anxiety? What did you not get when you were a kid? That it was okay to make a mistake like that would be my first question is like, what was making mistakes like for you growing up? What did your parents do when you made a mistake? Was there room for you to make a mistake? Was there room and space for you to have feelings? What did your parents teach you about feelings? This is how it's all a loop. Because now I'm back to the like. When does parenting begin? Right? Like the skills that you're bringing into your parenting now that you are a parent, are skills that you learned back when you were a child. And so how are we pausing in those moments of anxiety, of not wanting our kids to end up in therapy? Like, tell me more about that.

Kate: [00:22:46] What was the emotional landscape of your childhood like? What do you wish your parents had done for you back then, when you felt a big feeling? When you felt anxious or scared, how was that held and how can you hold that for yourself now? Like, that's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about inner child work is how do you give to yourself what you wish that somebody had given you when you were a kid? And by giving it to yourself, I believe is the only way we can then give it to somebody else. We can only take somebody else as far as we ourselves have gone. And I feel like we as parents do this a lot, where we ask kids to do things that we ourselves aren't doing. Like, how many times have I said to my own kid, stop! Calm down. Like, look at look at you right now. You are. You are like, out of control. You are not calming down your own self, but you're, like, demanding it of somebody else. And so what messages did I get as a kid around how much space there? How much my parents could tolerate my big feelings and emotions? And then how do I create the space to then give that to my own kids now? So I.

Alyssa: [00:23:53] 100%.

Kate: [00:23:54] And then by healing myself, I'm actually engaging in the kind of parenting that I genuinely want to do.

Alyssa: [00:24:02] I pulled out my phone not to be rude, but to share this thread that I posted last week. If we can't get calm for a child, it's not fair to expect a child to get calm for us. And it's truly this. Like we so often are, asking our kids to do what we cannot do. And I think so much of it is from this place of perfection and not being able to make mistakes. This is one of my pills I'm going to die on lately is like the idea that kids need to always have full capacity. Like I put Sage's shoes on him every day and usually his jacket and help him get out the door. Those are things he knows how to do himself, and he has to do them himself at school, when his teacher can't do it for the whole classroom, and he will do it himself at school. And I do it for him getting out the door, because I know it increases his capacity to do other things throughout the day. And I know there are 7 million things that I'm capable of doing myself. And if somebody were to pop in and be like, hey girl, want me to cook dinner and do the dishes and clean your house for you? Like, yeah, come on in, sister, anytime. And it's not that I can't do those things. And I think it circles back to this. Like we feel like we can't ask for help because we're supposed to do it all and be able to do it all all the time. And then we're now saying like, this is exhausting. We're also overwhelmed. We don't want to do it all, yada yada. But then we turn to our kids and we're like, you need to be able to do it all, all the time by yourself. I'm not going to help you. I know you're capable of that. Yeah, I think so often we are asking kids to do what we aren't yet able to do or aren't desiring actually for ourselves now, but that we're just carrying on from habit and social programming. And that's all inner child work.

Kate: [00:25:54] Yeah, it makes me think of I brilliantly. After my kids were born, I went back to school. I went to Vermont Law School and studied restorative justice. And I think it was all, like, meant to be. I was looking for something clearly. Right. Like professional. Yes. But I always say the restorative justice work I did at Vermont Law changed my life. It was the best educational experience that I've ever had in terms of my learning style. And it made me think of when you were talking about, like, could I read the article and summarize it? Yes. But if the professor is going to summarize the key points to make sure that I get the most out of the article and don't get lost in extraneous detail, am I going to take advantage of that resource? Absolutely. And that was one of the things that helped me in that program, was that a lot of the professors did that. They would give a really heady article, and then they would do like a little video recording summary of the key points they wanted us to look for as we read, and it made it so much better. I was like, we should be doing this everywhere. The other thing that that training did for me is it helped me to start talking to my kids not as equals, because they're not, but they are humans and they have real feelings and real needs and real experiences. And it really helped me to start asking them questions, especially with twins.

Kate: [00:27:12] I don't know if this is your experience now that you have two kids, but I've only ever had two kids. I don't know any different. And so there'd be times that I'd be alone with my kids and I would say, there's one mama and two kids, so how can we help each other? Like kind of bringing it back to this community orientation, that family as community. And what do we all need and how can we help each other? And what does each of us what? And I literally do this with my kids. If they were here right now, they would be like, oh, okay, let's let's have a family talk about what's happening. One mama, two kids, and what do we need? You want to go outside? You want to snuggle? I'm hungry. So let's make a plan. And working together versus me prioritizing my needs first, which sometimes I do like your own air mask first. That kind of concept, for sure, especially in more urgent situations, but it's also really pushed me to think very much so about what even is urgency and why is it my need that's coming first? Why is it there need that's coming first? And to slow down and just create a little bit more space to learn about each other and our needs and how we move together in our family community? You know what I mean?

Alyssa: [00:28:25] I love this. Yeah. No, I love it so much. And similarly, I will say like, oh man, you really wish that data was also here so that you could have 1 to 1 time with somebody, or you could have quiet time with just one of us, and sissy wouldn't be present. Right. Like we.

Kate: [00:28:45] Same here.

Alyssa: [00:28:49] So and like and it's just like, yeah, but what I'm hearing from this is like triage and that your needs are part of the triage where it's not, hey, I'm running triage on like, which kid needs me more right now. Or how do I prioritize whose needs? And it's just about the kids? Or that it's you first and then the kids, but it's really looking at the three of you and saying, yeah, who needs what right now and what? How do we order this?

Kate: [00:29:15] Or I think actually more commonly it's me last and kids first. So I'm going to meet my kids needs at the expense of my own. Like I just won't eat. I'll just take you outside. I'll just do this totally. And then I get increasingly dysregulated. But I don't want to screw up parenting. And if I don't meet their needs, then I'm a bad mom or I'm a bad parent. And here we are, back to the inner child. Back to when does parenting begin? So that's why I'm obsessed with the concept of like, it never began and it never ends. It's like constantly, it's constantly happening.

Alyssa: [00:29:50] Yeah, totally. And that we're. But I love just like the community aspect of like we're all in this together. And it does feel like triage to me so often of like, okay, well needs a snack and Seiji needs quiet and I need to drink water. And like, in what order do these things happen if they all feel like everyone's individual need feels like, well, this is most important right now. And so how do we structure this? Yeah, I feel like that triage is something we're running all the time in my household. And I feel like the more kids you add to it, just the more that triage is, it's still the same community approach. You just add more humans and human needs to it.

Kate: [00:30:33] Yeah.

Alyssa: [00:30:34] I'm curious for you when it comes to this work as a like hot and fast person, which like similarly a hot and fast person. It's so interesting. Zack and Sage are so similar. Their nervous systems are so very similar. They're like a slow to boil, but then once they're boiling, it's like boiling over and Mila and I are like, you put us in the microwave, right? Like it is 32nd. We go from we are not cooked to in 30s we're cooked and Zach and Sage are like, you're waiting for the water to boil. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh shoot, I missed it, and it's boiling over. And it's easier for me to parent her because I am fast and hot and I totally see where she's coming from. And it doesn't hit me in the same way that his stuff does, where I'm like, yeah, maybe you should have said something freaking 20 minutes ago and we could have addressed this, and now you're exploding because you didn't say anything. And with Mila, you know exactly how she feels. She wears her heart on her sleeve.

Alyssa: [00:31:35] It is out there. There is no, like, guessing where she is on something, or what her mood is, or how she feels about something. It's in your face and it's often going to come with like she's throwing something or she's screaming at you. In our household, we use animals for the for nervous system reactions of fight, flight, freeze or fawn. And we use a lion for the fight response. And Mila and I generally go into a fight response and Seiji will go into a freeze response. So she and I both we can fight, man. We get fierce. And Seiji the other day was like, man, it's hard to live with a lion. I totally and I'm like, totally. But it is so much easier for me to live with her as a lion because I'm like, I know what it's like to be a lion. And it makes sense to me. And I know that it's not an emergency. And I also know like what feels good for her because we have very similar nervous systems and I have to use my brain more to parent him.

Kate: [00:32:39] Yeah.

Alyssa: [00:32:40] You know what I mean? So I'm wondering, with your twins, like, do you see that? And do you find what does that look like for you in parenting when there is one who requires more of your capacity?

Kate: [00:32:54] Yeah, it's interesting in terms of neurotype, I'm much more similar to my son Ozzie. In terms of nervous system, I'm much more similar to my daughter.

Alyssa: [00:33:07] Tell me what you mean by these. How your neurotype.

Kate: [00:33:11] Yeah. So for me, neurotype is sensory processing. Sensory needs, the way that my brain works. Like, I have ADHD, everybody knows that I'm pretty open about that. And something that most people don't know about me though, is that I was diagnosed with autism in my late teens. And ozone also has a lot of those similar features. So like ADHD, autism are things that I put under the umbrella of neurotype, not necessarily related to environment. So there's my neurotype and then there's my nervous system. And my nervous system is like my low brain, my limbic system, my low brainstem, my fight flight freeze fawn.

Alyssa: [00:33:48] Okay, so the four responses would be under your nervous system category. Yes.

Kate: [00:33:53] Yep. So those responses are what I would put in the camp of nervous system. And then neuro type is like how I move through the, the world. So I do really well with Ozzy. Like Ozzy's tantrums. I'm like, put me in coach. Yeah, because I understand. I feel like I really for him, so much of it is about that sensory input. And I'm like, me too. When I'm upset, I'm like, can I just have a hug or quiet? And I understand that when Ellie has a tantrum, I'm like immediately triggered. I cannot stand it. And immediately I go back to the way that me and my mom actually used to engage with each other, where she would be like, that's enough now. Yeah, it's time to be done. And I go there. So like, she'll be crying for like 30s and I'm like, done, that's enough. Ozzy can cry for like so long and I'm like, oh, my baby. And Ellie cries for like, 30s. And I'm like, that's enough now. And yeah, I don't actually. But that's the feeling in my body, right? And I know that that's still very much a work in progress, still an area of my own self that I'm tending to very gently. And it's hard for me to have compassion for that part of myself still as an adult. And so it is understandably hard for me to give her the compassion that I want to give her, because I can't even give it to my own self, of course, and that feels really clear to me.

Kate: [00:35:13] So I practice, I do small doses, I do it when I can. I tap out liberally without judgment. Part of this for me is like I'm going to step back, and when I step back, I'm not just going to check out or tell myself what a failure I am, I'm going to tell myself what I wish that somebody would tell me right now if somebody could take care of my tantrum right now, which is about her tantrum, I wish somebody would be like, you're okay. It's going to be okay. Just let's let's just start with a breath. And as I'm like, I'm not breathing, you know, that somebody else is like, totally right there. Just like keeping the energy low. Offering of this? Have some ice water. Can I get you something? And just because I can't give that to her doesn't mean that I'm, like, globally a bad parent to her. It means we're growing together. And I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be her mom and their mom and get these chances to learn more about myself, and grateful to my own parents and my life path that has gotten me to a place where I can sit here and talk to you about this with so much more clarity than I had even six years ago when they were born.

Alyssa: [00:36:22] Yeah.

Kate: [00:36:23] About the way that we dance together.

Alyssa: [00:36:26] Yeah. Seiji is a kid who requires way more consciousness for me. And way less for Zach, because they're so similar. And, like, when sage is having a hard time, what he wants is what feels right for Zach. And Zach can swoop right in and he just like, shuts up in his present but gives him no touch, which is what he wants. He's like, stop touching me and stop talking to me for the love. And I'm like, would you like a hug? Can we talk about it? And Mila wants what I want. And so parenting her when she's having a hard time feels so much easier for me and becomes so much more naturally. And the opposite for Zach, where, like, he will be quiet, letting her express and just holding space for her at a time where she wants validation and she wants you to say like, oh man, you were working so hard on that. It's not working. Like, she just wants to, like, basically yell about it and express and have that back and forth be like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And that is not what comes naturally to Zach for him. He wants silence and proximity where he still feels connected, but definitely no touch. And that's when I am at capacity or beyond capacity. Meeting Seiji's needs feels so much harder. I have to tap out to Zach Moore with sage than I do with Mila, and I don't have guilt around that.

Alyssa: [00:38:04] I look at it as for me, the growth here comes in. How do I help him understand that we all have different needs and that I am going to do my best to show up for his, and if I don't show up for mine, sometimes I can't show up for his. And also same with Mila, right? That like she has a really strong connection need and he has stronger sensory needs than connection needs that for him. He gets so flooded by the environment. He can get very overstimulated and needs more sensory breaks. And she's a sensory seeker and can take a lot more stimuli than he can, but really wants to know that she's connected to you. Yeah. And their sensory mismatch living in the same household looking for there needs to be met. That for us is like our work that I now see as a blessing. It's often very inconvenient and annoying, but now see it as a blessing that he gets to be exposed to her and practice. What does this look like? How do I show up with this in other humans in the world? And for her, she gets to practice with him. Like, what does it look like to navigate the world with somebody who has conflicting needs, where I want background music and to be dancing, and he's like, turn the music off. And how do we balance both?

Kate: [00:39:36] Yeah. It's hard. It's really hard. And I don't think that there's an easy answer. Even with the triage stuff we were talking about earlier. Like, it's not there's not some, like, magical formula for like. And here's how you do it to make it all. I think to me, it's like the awareness is definitely a huge first step is like, how do we even understand each other? And then let's just think together about how we're gonna how we're going to do this, whether it's parents thinking together, me thinking together with my own self in an intentional way or thinking with the kids. I think that's like where I, I tend to start.

Alyssa: [00:40:17] Yeah.

Kate: [00:40:18] You said something about guilt, and I was like, oh, yeah, I talk a lot about guilt because I don't feel guilty about most things with my kids, because guilt to me is my body's way of telling me that my actions have not matched up with what is important to me.

Alyssa: [00:40:33] My yeah, your values them.

Kate: [00:40:35] And largely when I am making a parenting choice to tap out or like, not do XYZ. It is. It is actually me living in alignment with my values. Like if I do this, I'm going to not do it well and I'm going to probably snap and I don't want to snap. That's not something that I believe in, and I'm not in a place where I can manage that part differently. Sure. So the fair thing would be for me to not do XYZ. And I don't feel bad about that because that's the right thing for all of us, actually. And I and I just wanted to take a minute to just, like, sit with that because I feel like guilt is something that comes up in parenting all the time, and it weaves right back to what we were talking about around triage. Like feeling guilty about what to do and who to put first and what to choose. And the more that we can understand guilt, I also think the more we can soothe some of our, our our nervous system. It can be very activating.

Alyssa: [00:41:30] When we are looking at guilt. I think about like the times where I can't tap out, right? And those are the times where I will parent outside of my values sometimes and get to navigate, repair and come back to it. I will experience guilt when I parent outside my values, and I love that. As a nod to like, hey Liz, you have to repair with him later or slow down because this isn't an emergency and you're treating it as an emergency or whatever. It's a signal to me. It's communication that I'm doing something that doesn't feel right. And then usually it means like I got some repair to do at some point with somebody. What I notice in a lot of work with both teachers and parents that we work with, is that then the narrative continues after the repair. And that's, I think, where it's shame and not guilt of, oh, I'm always snapping my kids. I'm such a bad parent. I'm a yeller and I'm ruining them or whatever. And I was like, man, it's so much harder to ruin humans than we think it is. Social media has led us to believe that, like, oh, you said you're okay instead of these other things like you've ruined them. And again, I'm just going to call bullshit. Like, it's just so much harder. I was giving a presentation to a group of parents in the Upper East Side in New York a few weeks ago and got to like, Q&A and answering some questions.

Alyssa: [00:43:00] And it started to get to the point where the questions were, it's the minutia of parenting. It is the like, you're okay instead of whatever. And I said, listen, I am happy to answer any of these questions and hang with y'all. And I want you to know that if this part of your parenting never changes, your kids gonna be fine. This is not going to be what makes or breaks them as a human is whether or not they heard you're okay instead of you're safe. Like that's not going to do it. And if you feel like you have the capacity to go deeper into some of this work, and that's something you want to focus on, great. If that just feels stressful for you, you don't have to worry about it. Yeah, and the entire audience was just like, oh, thank God. Right. There was like a sigh of relief. And I want that to be more broad that we're talking so much about parenting and about being in relationship with ourselves and other humans. And sometimes I think we need to just, like, binge Netflix a little bit and eat ice cream instead and be like, I'm doing okay. This is fine. I am doing okay. And not be obsessed or so anxious over the details and the minutia.

Kate: [00:44:16] Yeah. I can take the pieces that work for me and I can leave the rest. And that's the empowerment that I want parents to have is like, instead of like, gentle parenting where you, like, never yell. I'm like, I'm never gonna be that human. I cook only on one heat level. That's not a realistic thing.

Alyssa: [00:44:33] I'm not a yeller, but I get snappy and sarcastic and rude.

Kate: [00:44:37] Yeah, I wouldn't say that. I'm a I don't know what yelling. I get a tone, I get a.

Alyssa: [00:44:43] Yeah. Me too. There's a tone shift for me. I'm not like a loud yeller in general in life, ever. Almost. But there's a tone shift for sure. And there's a lot of nonverbal snappy.

Kate: [00:44:54] I don't know if you can see this about me about, like, facial expression. There's a lot of non-verbals same. You know, I want to be an intentional parent. I don't want a parent on accident. I don't want to look back. And that's something that I think about is like, if my kids are in therapy, I don't want to look back and be like, I worked their entire childhood and I don't actually know what their childhood was like. Like, that's important to me. So, like, what are the things that are grounding me in my parenting that I'm not I'm not looking for perfection because it doesn't exist. It's not real. And what is it based on? It's like I also am like a health at every size. So when people are like, you're overweight, I'm like, over what weight? Like, are we calculating my bone structure and, you know, whatever.

Alyssa: [00:45:34] Oh. For what?

Alyssa: [00:45:35] Weight over.

Kate: [00:45:35] What? Like, I don't know what we're talking about. Like, perfect. Compared to what? Like, I'm not perfect compared to, like, the way that my parents were raised in alcoholic, abusive homes. Definitely. I'm better than that. Am I you? I don't even know what your house looks like, so I don't even know. How do we get to some level of instead of going towards, like, here's the ways to parent, here's the manuals and the guidebooks. How do we come back to ourselves and be like, what do I even want? How do I want to do this? How do I want to live this life?

Alyssa: [00:46:02] Yeah.

Kate: [00:46:03] What kind of relationship do I want with my kids and with other people? What do we believe in?

Alyssa: [00:46:08] Like, yeah.

Kate: [00:46:09] What am I kind of overarchingly? What am I doing?

Alyssa: [00:46:12] This is like when we were writing Big Kids Bigger Feelings. Rach and I both were. There was a lot of topics that were requested of, like, can you talk about because we're looking at ages 5 to 12. So talking about screens, talking about taboo topics. How do we talk to kids about these things? And we sat there for a while and we're like, I was like, I don't want to give a script. I don't want that at all. What I want for folks in all of these is to know how to come in and out of connection and disconnection, to know how to like, maintain being in relationship with each other and that they're going to be things that feel uncomfortable or rocky conversations that we have or things that don't go as well. And how do we navigate that ebb in the flow?

Kate: [00:47:01] Yeah.

Alyssa: [00:47:02] And cultivate a relationship with our kids where they know they can come to us, even if it is uncomfortable and have these conversations about tricky topics? And how can we respond? Not by like, what are the words you say? But how can you respond verbally and non-verbally in a way that communicates? Yeah, I'm a safe person for you to come to and my work at seed for me is about helping everyone understand how their brain and body works so that they can show up in the world with intention. Yeah, and I don't give a shit what that means after that. Like, I don't care if showing up in the world with intention means you say certain words versus other words or whatever. I want you to just be able to have access to conscious choice when you want to have access to conscious choice.

Kate: [00:47:48] Yes.

Alyssa: [00:47:48] And that requires knowing how your unique brain and body work, I guess. Period. End of story. That is for me like what the intention piece is. And that you were saying like, I don't want to like kind of miss my kids childhood and not know what it was. And I was thinking about this human who I love and adore, who is so fueled by work and that fires her up. And she's a parent of two. For her, it's not about quantity, it's about quality. And so she wants to be in relationship with her kids and of course see them sometimes, but more. Having more of them wouldn't lead her to being the parent that she wants to be.And that's where I think it's just about like, yeah, who are you? And that you get to understand who you are and what fills you up and move forth with that, but that there isn't a one right way.

Kate: [00:48:43] Exactly. That's like that's my whole we're 100% on the same page. That's my whole thing is intention and what works for you. And if something's not feeling right, how do we how do we ask curious questions about judgment? Like if she's judging me or I'm judging that mom who's working a lot? That's not saying that either one of us is doing it right or wrong. It's just saying that we need different things. And and like, you know, infancy was not for me. And I will never be a full time stay at home parent. I love my work. I love what I do, I love people, I'm social. It fills me up. It drains me. It's all the things. And that doesn't mean that people who love that and feel really fulfilled by being with their kids all of the time, it's not wrong or bad. It's just we're different people. And are you doing it because this is what you want? Is this are you doing this because you're aware? Are you doing it because systemically, your family can't afford to have both parents working. You can't afford childcare. You can't. Whatever. And then how do you still access the kind of parent you want to be when systemically, you're not able to get there? Like, I want to work and I can't because of X. And so that's depleting my resource to be the kind of parent that I want to be. I'm having to act outside of my values because I'm under a lot of stress pressure that's, you know, where I start to talk about like it's not at the expense of the other. Right? Like intention, you can still have intention while having these other external oppressive factors existing. You know, it exists.

Alyssa: [00:50:16] I dig this, yeah. Just very much in alignment here. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us and joining me in conversation. Where can folks find you learn more about your work, all that jazz.

Kate: [00:50:29] Yeah, my website is through the thrive. Org. We have to go through hard things to thrive on the other side. Therapy is only in Vermont. I've got a couple workbooks. I've got an online class. You are mentioned in all of them because I love the work that you do, and I think it's really important. And I'm so happy to be here, and I hope we can find a way to collaborate in the future.

Alyssa: [00:50:49] Thank you. That's a lovely feel honored. You're gonna keep doing it. Doing the damn thing. Same.

Kate: [00:50:56] Let's do it.

Alyssa: [00:50:57] Stay tuned. After this note from our sponsors, Rach and I will be right back with the breakdown.

Alyssa: [00:51:08] We get to do so much of this work with schools, and it fills me up so much. And we know that the way that the school system as it stands today was built for middle class humans whose basic needs are met, who would respond to fear in a way that would be advantageous for the adults around them.

Rachel: [00:51:34] Like they would be compliant.

Alyssa: [00:51:36] Correct. Obedient. And obviously with decades into this industrial system for school, we know now that for neurotypical humans who are especially in that like neutral space where they're not high sensory seeking, they're not super sensory sensitive, whose nervous system reaction is generally fawn or freeze. It looks like compliance and obedience on the surface and even the threat of you might get in trouble, for this does breed compliance. And because they're largely able to filter the stimuli of the school day, they can often still learn throughout the day. Yeah. So the threat of if you're talking to your friend in class, you're going to get embarrassed because I'm going to call you out or you're going to get in trouble and removed from the space. And because they're not overstimulated by this space or under-stimulated in this space, they can continue to engage and show up, led to those humans being successful in school. But what we know to be true is that kids who are sensory sensitive and get overwhelmed by the stimuli of the day without any supports throughout the day, and then you add in the screens that are happening in classrooms today, not even at home, just in classrooms, the way that screens are utilized and the drain that that has the lack of movement that now happens. The decrease in recess, the increase in standardized testing. You had all those things in. And now we see more kids struggling in school. And then you take in our high movers, our high sensory seekers. And then they're struggling in school. And now we hear a lot of the like kids these days in their behavior. I'm like, is it kids across the country in all different settings.

Rachel: [00:53:48] Just have shitty behavior.

Alyssa: [00:53:49] Now they've all come together and they're like, let's do this, y'all. If we rebel against the system, the system will change. Or is it a broken system?

Rachel: [00:54:03] Yeah. Are we expecting things from kids that they aren't designed? They're not designed to be able to meet the expectations that are placed on them in a traditional school environment.

Alyssa: [00:54:15] And I hear from adults, you know, we have the privilege of working with all these teachers. And I hear from some teachers things like, yeah, well, I mean, I figured it out and I have ADHD and anxiety and these now they're listing their things and and look at I made it through school and now I'm here and I'm a teacher, I'm a teacher's aide or whatever. And they don't connect that they're actually not thriving.

Rachel: [00:54:41] Totally.

Alyssa: [00:54:43] I'm in this place where I'm like, how do I help you understand that the way that you're living actually doesn't have to be the way that you live.

Rachel: [00:54:51] Yeah. And it doesn't have to be the way that kids live. And it shouldn't be the way that kids live.

Alyssa: [00:54:55] Correct. And I think it it starts with self-awareness of what is annoying you. What does drive you nuts like as a teacher, as a human, you recently have a friend who? She's a high, sensory seeking human, and she was having a hard time having compassion for her sensory sensitive husband and child. Where for her, it's just like, yeah, sometimes you got to power through. Like, I recognize that a big family hang isn't your favorite thing. Or wearing these clothes aren't your favorite, or everybody hanging and talking at the dinner table isn't your favorite. And this is a part of being a human on planet Earth. And you kind of just got to power through. And then she had this moment where she learned that not everyone in the world hates the sound of Velcro and wants to throw up when they hear it. And it was for her the moment where she realized, oh, this is my experience of the world. This is something that drives me nuts, and there are things that are the Velcro experience for them that are not that way for me. But that self-awareness of, oh, the sound of Velcro drives me nuts. And then learning that wasn't just universally true for all humans was the inroad for her. Yeah.

Rachel: [00:56:16] Totally.

Alyssa: [00:56:17] And then I hear this in classrooms where, like, one teacher is like, oh my gosh, when kids just cannot stop moving and they're twisting in their seats and they're getting up and they're going to grab a thing and they're coming back to their seat and they can't move. Drives me bonkers. And then another teacher who's like, oh yeah, it doesn't bother me if they're moving. It drives me nuts when they keep turning to their friend, and I can see them tapping their foot under the table, or they're trying to get their friend's attention and they're just so attention seeking, and they already had time to connect with their friend, but they can't stop and won't stop. And the other teachers are like, oh yeah, that doesn't bother me. It's the movement thing, right? And so it starts with, I think, us recognizing and coming to terms with the way that we experience the world isn't just universally true for all people. That's our experience of the world.

Rachel: [00:57:07] Correct.

Alyssa: [00:57:09] I think that's news for a lot of people. I think people are just like, these are just inherently annoying behaviors or annoying things without the understanding that, oh, no, this is annoying to me for a reason.

Rachel: [00:57:23] How my nervous system filters it, or my social what I learned as a kid.

Alyssa: [00:57:27] Like, yeah.

Rachel: [00:57:29] Yeah. When I think about adults who are like, I dealt with that, like, I, I have ADHD and I have anxiety, and I was able to sit still in class or I was able to do, you know, part of this is understanding that at some point somebody has to break the cycle of asking humans to suppress their needs. And it's hard if you were a human who was asked or forced to suppress your needs to then turn around and have compassion. When you have kids who are expressing needs and there was never a space for you as a kid to express and have those needs met. So there's a part of you that's going to come up that's like no, I had the same diagnosis and I saw it still. And you're going to do the same thing.

Alyssa: [00:58:13] Exactly.

Rachel: [00:58:15] But then we have more adults who are not thriving or raising another generation of children who don't know what to do with their needs, to recognize them, to meet them. And it just builds on itself.

Alyssa: [00:58:25] Correct. I think the work that we get to do as schools feels so. Because there's this opportunity to teach thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of kids self-awareness and how their brain and body works and what they need to thrive in school, rather than saying, how do we reach hundreds of millions of homes separately? We have the opportunity to do this in schools, but what it requires is that the adults teaching them do this work first that they say, oh, the way that I experience the world isn't universally true. It is my truth. And so that kid has their truth too. The way that they experience the world is the way that they experience the world. That is true for them. And I get to figure out what tools they need to thrive and teach them that, so that they know someday when they're sitting at the DMV. Oh, I'm a sensory seeking human. I'm going to need to move. I'm not going to sit in this chair. I'm going to stand off to the side so I can, like, stand and kind of wobble. You know, the sway you do when you have a baby in your arms, but then you don't have a baby in your arms anymore. That sway, because that's going to get me enough movement or.

Rachel: [00:59:43] Get through your three hour wait at the DMV.

Alyssa: [00:59:46] Correct. Or I'm going to bring headphones and I'm going to listen to something because it's so loud and obnoxious in here. And I'm a sensory sensitive human and it's overwhelming. Here's what I'm going to do. The goal isn't that they don't know how to be bored at the DMV. The goal is that they learn how their brains and bodies work so that they can thrive in any situation, so that they know. What do I need to thrive here? It's the same can access it.

Rachel: [01:00:13] As when we talk about hard emotions. Like the goal isn't to make the hard emotions go away, right? It's for them to know how to navigate them. Kids will grow up and be bored at the DMV. They will grow up and have an environment that's highly stimulating that they have to be in. They will experience all of these things, and we can either ask them to suppress, and it can be very maladaptive and stressful for their nervous system and lead to poor outcomes. Or we can teach them how to meet the needs in a way that works for the classroom environment, or works for the home environment.

Alyssa: [01:00:46] Yeah, yeah. And when we're looking at schools who are trying to increase test scores or academic success for kids, it's so hard for me to wrap my brain around admin or teachers not connecting that to a child's well-being. That if a child is emotionally well and regulated from a sensory perspective, they can access the academics.

Rachel: [01:01:12] Totally and like. We believe that for some sensory needs like sleep and food. We believe that, right? But for some of the other of the nine senses, we view them as extraneous or irrelevant to learning.

Alyssa: [01:01:25] Yeah. Or even those connection needs. Like I had a fourth grader this past fall that I was in the classroom observing, and he had come from lunch, and basically a conflict had happened, and he was mad. And he came back into the classroom and they were getting ready for math. And he just went right over. They have like a corner that's kind of this little nook really was designed for sensory sensitive kids to take a break. But he went right into there and the teacher started teaching math didn't make him come back to his seat, but there was no emotion processing or conflict resolution, and so he would have missed math that day. He would have not had access to the academics. And I went over and I sat next to him and just said, like, hey, bud, I don't know what happened, but I noticed that you're over here. If you want to talk about it, I'm here to chat. Or we can just sit here for a minute until you're ready to go back to math. He needed to feel seen for a minute, and then I acknowledged, like his facial expressions, something about how like, I thought he kind of looked sad and he was like, no. And then he told me what had happened at lunch, and it ended up that he was mad at somebody.

Alyssa: [01:02:36] He was like, I'm not sad, I'm mad. I was like, oh yeah, no, for sure. I have had a lot of people who have told me they were going to do something, and then they didn't do it, and I feel mad about that too. That makes sense. I'm here if you want to chat about it or if you just want to take a little time. Something that's really cool about our feelings is that you'll feel mad for a little bit, and then your body will start to feel something else, and you won't feel mad anymore. When your body stops feeling mad and you're ready, you can head on over and jump into math. And we sat there for about 90 more seconds in silence before he went over and went back to math. It was less than five minutes of time, but it would have required the teacher to get the kids started in math, and then pause and pop over to him and do a little emotion. Coaching really just help him feel seen so that then he could access the academics. If we don't see the need for regulation from a sensory perspective and a connection and emotional perspective, we are not going to see an increase in test scores in academics.

Rachel: [01:03:43] Absolutely. They're very much interconnected.

Alyssa: [01:03:46] Yeah. And I don't understand what the barrier is to people seeing that.

Rachel: [01:03:50] I don't either. But also, it's like the air we breathe. You and I. So it is very difficult to understand.

Alyssa: [01:03:57] I guess I would like here's what I want.

Rachel: [01:04:00] Okay. Tell me.

Alyssa: [01:04:01] I would like to take this first 15 minutes and make it a clip and put it on YouTube. And I would like people who see this differently and see how you could increase academics without meeting sensory and emotional needs. To comment below because I want to learn more, like genuinely have a discussion with you because I want to learn more about your perspective. I'm having a hard time understanding it. So if people can comment below and share more, especially if you're in the education system, if you're a teacher, you're an administration. I want to learn from you of what you think could be successful in increasing academics and test scores. That's not related to meeting sensory needs or emotional regulation needs. Great. Who are we hanging out and chatting about today? Butler also. Did you like how we didn't call ahead, but did get the memo on what you're supposed to wear today?

Rachel: [01:04:54] I know it's well, it's so cold today.

Alyssa: [01:04:57] Said Rachel. Never.

Rachel: [01:04:59] I know. Hold on one thing before we dive into this episode that I want to share. Is that so? Nora has anxiety. I think I've talked about this, like, ad nauseam on here, but I was excited because she was telling me that something had happened at school and she wanted to call me, which is an option that they've let her do before. But her teacher, she was like, Nora, you can call your mom. But first I want you to spend like 15 minutes sitting with a weighted stuffie and then afterwards, if you still want to call your mom, you can. And Nora sat with the weighted stuffie. It helped her calm down. She didn't call me. She shared all this with me after school and like, it's fine if she needs to call me and I'm always available. But I really like seeing her building skills for navigating it at school without feeling like she needs me to be there to, like, navigate it with her over the phone.

Alyssa: [01:05:51] That's huge.

Rachel: [01:05:54] It's big growth for her.

Alyssa: [01:05:56] It's huge because the goal isn't codependence, it's interdependence. And so when she knows that, yeah, she can come home and process with you after school, but that she has a toolbox to be away from you. It's crucial. It's.

Rachel: [01:06:09] Yeah. And like, she's in a school that, like, some of the teachers are.

Alyssa: [01:06:14] I'm surprised by the school's response, actually.

Rachel: [01:06:17] Me too. She has a wonderful teacher. But just in general, the school culture isn't super focused on regulation.

Alyssa: [01:06:25] Exactly what we were just talking about. Yeah.

Rachel: [01:06:28] So I and I think it's not like a lack of care. It's they're a very conscientious school community, but it's truly just a lack of, like, not seeing the connection. So I was jazzed that her teacher, like, was implementing regulation strategies like that.

Alyssa: [01:06:43] That's incredible. Love. Love that for her.

Rachel: [01:06:47] Okay, so we are talking about Kate Littlefield, and this is like, when does parenting actually begin? The biggest takeaway for me from this was when you guys were talking about, like, postpartum mood stuff and how you can't really understand it until you're in it, which also applies to so many other pieces of like parenting and motherhood and all of it. And I, you know, didn't have any postpartum mood issues after Nora.

Alyssa: [01:07:16] And you were just like, I'm the best parent on the planet. This was so easy.

Rachel: [01:07:21] This is the best. We're thriving. I'm obsessed. I love being a mom. Give me ten of these things. You know? Plus, she was she was a really she was a really easy baby. So I was, like, mentally balanced. And she her needs were very easy to meet. So it was just like, cool. This is the dream. And like, I had always wanted to be a mom too. So it was like very fulfilling for me. So when I was pregnant with Abel, my midwife repeatedly was like, what's your plan for postpartum? Like, what are you going to do to take care of yourself? And I was like, yeah, I mean, I like, I'm gonna have some meals in the freezer and like, we've got family around, so it should be chill. And then obviously had the least chill baby I had ever met and then had raging postpartum depression. And I have experienced mood issues or mood disorders or mental health issues for the vast majority of my life, and I have never experienced the depths of postpartum. I mean, it was just like in a class of its own. It was like regular depression or anxiety on steroids.

Alyssa: [01:08:32] I have such distinct like burnt into my brain memories in those early weeks of coming to see you. And just being like, oh yeah, that's what's happening here. Like it was the clearest depiction of postpartum depression I'd ever seen.

Rachel: [01:08:54] It was bad.

Alyssa: [01:08:56] It was bad. It was real rough. It actually not that this is your fault, but skewed my perception of postpartum depression. So then when postpartum depression came my way, I expected it to look like that. And then it didn't. I was like, yeah, I can. I mean, I remember at one point we were just trying to make a phone call for, like, you needed to call for maybe his hearing test or something.

Rachel: [01:09:22] And couldn't do it.

Alyssa: [01:09:24] No, literally could not do the one task. And I was like, yeah, we're in this. And then I think when I left that first time, I was like, I'm coming back. Then I came back and stayed for a few days and I was like, I'm just gonna do overnights. And maybe if you get some sleep, it'll be helpful. And then you were getting sleep and it still wasn't helpful. And then we were like, yeah, we gotta move forward on some meds over here. It was so, I mean, right in itself.

Rachel: [01:09:50] I was in a better mental place when I was diagnosed with cancer and went through chemo like I.

Alyssa: [01:09:55] Yeah. It's true.

Rachel: [01:09:57] And it's just right. It's the hormones. It's the it's all of it. And I just was like.

Alyssa: [01:10:01] It was so clear that it was out of your control or anybody's control.

Rachel: [01:10:05] Yeah. I mean, I was doing all the things to try to be better. And it was like, this isn't something that you can, like, think yourself out of.

Alyssa: [01:10:13] Or do you know, it's like going for a walk or getting to sleep or eating the food or whatever. There was nothing you could do that was pulling you out of it. You needed additional support. And that is something that drives me nuts when I see it on the internet. There's a couple humans that I've followed over the years that I've had to mute and or unfollow. Actually, one of them works in the birth space and does not have kids, but has a lot of thoughts on all the things you could do so that you just like, love your life all the time and everything. Your kid is sleeping and things are great, and your conflict with your partner is navigable all the time. Like all this.

Rachel: [01:10:59] And she's got it all figured out

Alyssa: [01:11:02] Oh, she has it all figured out with no kids. But it was her discussion around postpartum mood disorders. That was my unfollow moment, where it was very like all these things you could do to avoid postpartum depression or anxiety. I just imagine, like you seeing any of that in your state and being like, I, I'm failing when you are.

Rachel: [01:11:26] Me feel.

Alyssa: [01:11:27] Like a failure. Yes. And I should be doing all of these things to feel differently, when in actuality, when you did those things, you did not feel differently.

Rachel: [01:11:37] That's exactly it. And I feel this is especially pervasive in the home birth online space. And as two humans who had home births. It's like if your minerals are balanced and you protect your birth space, and you protect your postpartum space and your skin to skin with your baby, and nobody's interrupting you. And yeah, I did all those things with able. I had a beautiful home birth with able. My minerals were in check, like everything was great. Okay. And I had an incredible midwife who thankfully recognized the signs and was like, yeah, this isn't going to work out holistically, but there is there's this messaging of like, yeah, if you just do X, Y, and Z, if you're good enough, you won't experience postpartum depression or anxiety.

Alyssa: [01:12:23] Yeah, I think it comes from a place of fear and control, because we want to believe that if we do all these things, it wouldn't happen to us, right? That if I am making sure I'm trading off with my partner for sleep and whatever, or if I'm co-sleeping so that we're getting as much sleep. Whatever the thing is, then it won't happen to me. It's the same thing we saw with cancer in you where, like, people want to find out what caused it and assign their own thing so that they can then avoid that, because then then it's something that won't just sneak up on them.

Rachel: [01:13:00] Right. It's that perception of control.

Alyssa: [01:13:02] Correct.

Rachel: [01:13:03] And I think this is especially amplified for when we're talking about mood disorders, because as cognitive beings, we really want there to be like a way that we can cognitively work through this or work around this. And sometimes that's true. I mean, cognitive behavioral therapy is an evidence based thing, and I'm not trying to discount that. But I think especially when you're looking at postpartum mood disorders, where there's this hormonal cocktail that's affecting your neurotransmitters. You can't think your way out of that.

Alyssa: [01:13:36] No, no you cannot. And I actually, looking back, I have very few regrets in life. One is not going to the eras tour and another is I couldn't justify the cost of it. But now I'm like, man, I should have just done it anyway. And the other one that comes to mind is not having sought out medication for prenatal depression, that when I look back, I'm like, oh, it started for me in pregnancy. And it was really early on in pregnancy. But I kept being like, yeah, well, I'm not really sleeping and I'm parenting another kid. And now all I had known my dopamine was low. Going into pregnancy, because I'd done a hormone panel and I was like, oh, all the dopaminergic activities I was doing I now don't have access to. And I kept coming up with the cognitive, the like, why and trying to like work through it from a cognitive perspective. And I remember at the end of my pregnancy saying to my therapist, I just want to have this baby so I can feel like myself again. And then I had that baby, and then I did not, in fact, feel like myself again.

Rachel: [01:14:44] Yeah.

Alyssa: [01:14:45] Yeah. And and she was sleeping nine hours stretches for the first four months, like, all that was in check. And mama did not feel back to herself until I got on. What was it, sertraline or whatever? Yeah.

Rachel: [01:14:58] Medication was. Your postpartum depression was more insidious because you you weren't crying all the time, and.

Alyssa: [01:15:06] I was functional on the outside.

Rachel: [01:15:08] You were very functional. But you mentioned several times that you felt disconnected from your own life and those insidious symptoms that are kind of happening inside your own mind, but aren't visible on the outside can be really hard because you're trying to cognitively think your way out of it. If somebody hadn't seen me on the outside, I'm like, you need medication. I was in a space where I was like, I have to fix this. This is my fault. I'm the mom. I'm supposed to be doing all the things and meeting the baby's needs and taking care of my older kid and being good to my husband, and all I'm doing is sitting in a chair and crying all day. And I was like, I'm just a shitty person and this is my new life. And then you and my mom and my midwife are like, you are unwell. You need help to get better.

Alyssa: [01:15:54] And then when you got the medication we had to be like you need to take it. Yeah I know. But yes with no outward symptoms. It was, it was really tough. Like I was just like oh maybe this is just like I'm overwhelmed with two kids like can I not handle two kids? Does this feel like too much? Are you kidding me? I'm one of five and I've been a teacher and whatever. Like, how can I not do two? And I found myself escaping into books or podcasts or anything where I was like, I just don't want to be in my life. And eventually I was like, I think I have postpartum depression and like basically whispered it like that.

Rachel: [01:16:35] I know, I remember.

Alyssa: [01:16:37] And it was a full year after having symptoms because I distinctly remember in May of 2023 and Mila was born in December, I came to Maine and I remember saying to you on the beach, and it was kind of the first time I'd said anything out loud, or I was like, I'm not doing great, and I think my dopamine is low and I can't figure out how to access more dopamine. And and it was the first time I'd said anything out loud. And then it wasn't until May of 2024 that I got on meds.

Rachel: [01:17:11] Yeah.

Alyssa: [01:17:12] And so that's one of my only regrets, is like, I wish I could go back to prenatal Alyssa and say, you don't have to power through this. You're not just tired because you already have a kid and you're pregnant or whatever. Like publishing a book and going on a book tour when you're a billion weeks pregnant. There were so many things that I could turn to to say, that's why this feels this way. And now I wish I could just go back and just pop her on some meds and enjoy the journey a bit more.

Rachel: [01:17:41] Yeah, I also regret that about like, I wish that I had been medicated at the beginning of Abel's infancy because the first couple of months, like I look at pictures that I'm in and my eyes look dead. Like I'm just not. I'm not there.

Alyssa: [01:17:55] Totally not having a good time. I remember actually saying those exact words multiple times where I was like, I'm just not having a good time. Yeah.

Rachel: [01:18:04] Yeah. I don't like my life anymore. No.

Alyssa: [01:18:07] Like, no. Yeah. Help, please! I mean, I have an incredible doctor who. When I said I think I have postpartum depression, she was like, let's rock and roll. And there were no questions. I mean, she did the screening and was like, yes, you do. And here you go. Like, let's go. And she was so rad in that one thing she said to me when I started taking the medication was, this doesn't have to be a forever thing. And there's no shame in that game if your body chemistry has changed and there's a pill that helps you thrive in life for the rest of your life. Because she knew me well enough to be like, okay, is this just who I am now? Like, what does this mean? And to just give me permission that either way, it was fine. Yeah.

Rachel: [01:18:53] Which is that's what you need to hear. It's so vulnerable to be like, this is supposed to be a really happy time in my life. And actually, I hate it.

Alyssa: [01:19:03] And and I loved it with sage. I had a postpartum high with him.

Rachel: [01:19:08] I mean, same with Nora. I was like, I'm the best mom and I have the best baby. And this is like my dream come true. Parenthood is.

Alyssa: [01:19:14] The best. Oh my gosh, how are people ever saying newborn phase is hard? This is amazing.

Rachel: [01:19:20] Literally, I was like, just.

Alyssa: [01:19:22] Shot myself in the foot.

Rachel: [01:19:24] Same. And also then the layers of guilt of like, well, sorry, Abel, Nora got the best of me and you're getting the fing worst of me. Welcome to the world. I'm your mom.

Alyssa: [01:19:38] Welcome to the world. I'm your mom.

Rachel: [01:19:41] Fuck yeah.

Alyssa: [01:19:43] It's so real.

Rachel: [01:19:44] So you really need a care provider who's like, hey, you're not doing anything wrong here. And no matter how this shakes out with your medication and your treatment and whether or not you're on it forever, you're on it for a short time, like this is not your fault.

Alyssa: [01:19:59] Yeah. Yep. And for me, it just turned out like that was a season and I needed support in that hormonal season. But dang, hormones are bonkers. Well, I'm grateful for this conversation and that we I got to chat with Kate about how are stuff from childhood comes up in parenthood and all the different ways that we get to be good parents and that there just is not a one size fits all in what being a good parent is. And grateful to you. In my village, where there wasn't an ounce of shame or guilt that I felt when I was like, I think I have postpartum depression.

Rachel: [01:20:42] Then I was like. Oh, I had that too. I know what we can do.

Alyssa: [01:20:47] You were like, yeah, yeah you do. Let's go. And that was incredible. And I am grateful for your vulnerability the years before in that, like, I knew that you knew parts of what I was feeling because you'd been vulnerable enough with me to share them. And I also knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of all the phone calls and the panic texts and whatever. And I remember at one point you were like you were deep in the depression, and you at one point said something to the effect of like, If I'm reaching out too much, you don't have to respond. And I was like, oh, you're not a burden like this is you're not inconveniencing me with your hard stuff and knowing how it felt to get all the texts and be a person you could turn to and connect with and feel supported by. It helped me then reach out to you and to Francesca and other humans in my life where I was like, oh, I know cognitively I'm not a burden and that they are happy to show up for me in this season.

Rachel: [01:22:00] Yes. And it's it's. 

Alyssa: [01:22:02] So thank.You for your vulnerability.

Rachel: [01:22:04] Well, thanks for freaking helping me get through Abel's early days. That was. Some of the darkest times and you need some help to get through.

Alyssa: [01:22:14] Nora's teen years too.

Rachel: [01:22:16] You need somebody who you can reach out to, who you know, like, can really handle your messiness and the darkness that you're feeling and and see you through it and not make you feel bad about it.

Alyssa: [01:22:28] Yeah. It's huge. And I feel so lucky to have that. Thank you. I l ove you.

Alyssa: [01:22:34] Thanks for tuning in to Voices Of Your Village. Check out the transcript at Voices Of Your Village. Com. Did you know that we have a special community over on Instagram hanging out every day with more free content? Come join us at CW. Take a screenshot of you tuning in, share it on the gram and tag. To let me know your key takeaway. If you're digging this podcast, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. We love collaborating with you to raise emotionally intelligent humans.