Episode 145: "Mother's Day Special with My Daughter Lillie"
In this Mother’s Day episode of the Whiny Palooza podcast, host Rebecca Greene—licensed clinical social worker, wife, and mother of three—converses with her nine‑year‑old daughter Lily. The dialogue covers why Rebecca became a mother and a social worker, the realities versus expectations of parenting three children, the hardest and most rewarding aspects of motherhood, and practical advice for new moms. Rebecca shares coping mechanisms such as self‑talk and reliance on a support network, reflects on her own childhood insecurity, and outlines her hopes for her children’s futures. Lily asks forward‑looking questions about where the kids will be in ten years and what Rebecca would tell her younger self. The episode also highlights the evolving mother‑daughter communication, the value of interviewing each other for deeper connection, and includes promotional mentions of the Whiny Palooza blog, app, and social media channels.
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No need to whine, it's whiny palooza! Have some wine and join us on the whiny palooza podcast with Rebecca Green.
Welcome to the whiny palooza podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Green. I'm a wife, mother of 3, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have 3 fur babies at home too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles, failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family.
Hello everyone, this is Rebecca Green for the Winey Palooza podcast, and I am so excited I'm so excited to have my daughter Lily on with me today. Hi, Lily.
Hello.
So I, I wanted to do for May, I wanted to do a bunch of Mother's Day specials. And Lily is my youngest child. For those of you who don't know, Max is 15, Ella is 13, and Lily is 9. And Lily is my baby. And instead of Lily going last, I decided that for once I was going to have her go first. Is that a good idea? So Lily, I think that you are going to ask me a bunch of questions.
Mm-hmm.
Do you want me to tell them a little bit about you, or do you want to jump into questions?
We can jump in.
Okay, ask me some questions.
Okay, my first question is, what inspires you to be such a good mom?
Oh, um, I would say first and foremost my own mom, right? Because Grammy is such a good mom and she did such a good job raising me. She's still raising me. Um, and she's such a good mom and she showed me how to be a good mom. And I think that it is the most important thing I will do in my lifetime.
That's a great answer. My second question is, out of all the jobs there is, why did you pick social worker?
Oh wow, okay, um, well, I don't know what you know and what you don't know, Lily, but in high school I was a peacemaker, and every time my friends were fighting, I would hate it. I didn't like when my friends would fight, and you know me, I was never wanting to fight with anybody, and right, so I was always trying to help my friends work out their problems. I saw my parents go to a social worker and I saw how the social worker helped my parents. And I said, you know what, I really like to help people solve their problems. So I want to, I want to counsel people. So that's how I landed into social work.
I love that.
That's a good question.
My next question is, is being a mom what you thought it would be like?
Oh my goodness, no, you can never know how amazing being a mom is until you're a mom. It's so much better than I ever thought it would be. The love that you feel for your children is like nothing that you can describe to people.
Is there anything you want to do different as a mom than you are doing?
Yes, I work on that. So, um, what do I want to do differently as a mother? Uh, Lily, I'm always striving for calmness and I want to be calmer for myself and for you. So every day I'm working on my thoughts to try to be a calmer force in the house.
This question is kind of like a few of the other questions, but what do you think is the hardest part about being a mom? There might be a few, there might be one.
Um, what is the hardest part? About being a mom? Oh my goodness. I think that not necessarily feeling like there's downtime is number one. I think that when you have 3 kids, life is really busy. So you have to have a lot of stamina or you have to just say, kids, I need a break. I gotta go sit down. And, um, just making sure You know, I always want my kids to be okay. So it's really hard for me. Like, I want you to talk to me, but it's hard when your kids are having issues and I can't solve everything. I'm here to support you through everything, but sometimes I have to let you figure things out and I have to let you go to school and deal with things. And I just want to protect you and I can't always protect you. So all I can do is try to help and be there for you.
What's the most rewarding thing that has happened as a mom, or what's the most rewarding part about being a mom?
So, Lily, I knew, I knew you were going to ask me this question. I was like, what is Lily going to ask me? There is nothing like raising children to be really good people. And when I see you— and I'm so— I'm such an emotional person, so of course I'm tearing up. When I see you helping someone, or I see your heart and how you care so much, and how you tell me stories about helping a first grader, or how somebody was upset at lunch so you checked on them. And I obviously, I love that you work hard at school, but what you need to remember and what I need Max and Ella to remember is even though you want good grades, the most important thing is your heart and what kind of person you are. And you're all becoming such wonderful people, and it makes me so very proud to be your mom.
I love that answer. What's the most helpful advice you could give to a new mom?
Oh my goodness, so much. That's a good blog. Let's remember that. That's an awesome blog post right there. There. So what I want to tell new mothers, any mother listening, your child does not need you to be perfect. You do not need to do everything right. They need, they need you. They need you to just try and do your best and be happy. They want a happy mom who's trying, and you do not have to do everything right. There are a million books On parenting, there isn't a cookie-cutter answer that any social worker or counselor or therapist or psychologist can give you for your child. You figure out what works for you and your child, and you do your best, and you realize that trying is good enough, that you are good enough, and that your kid is lucky to have you for their mom.
What helps you the most with your ups and your downs? It could be a person, it could be—
I have, I have a couple answers to that awesome question. Number 1 is my thoughts. I really work on my self-talk all day, every day. I found myself saying yesterday, I'm so anxious, I'm so anxious, I'm so anxious. And how am I going to feel if that's what I'm telling myself?
Terrible.
I'm going to feel horrible. I'm going to feel anxious. And I was like, listen to how you're talking to yourself. And then I changed my self-talk. So my self-talk is the biggest one. But the other biggest one is my support system. I talked to your dad. I talked to your Grammy. I talked to my friends. And I use my support system. And mothers can't do it alone. So I want to tell mothers listening that number one, work on what you're saying to yourself all day because you're in charge of that. And that goes for you too, Cookie. We talk about, we talk about Lily's self-talk all the time because we don't realize how much we can control what we say to ourselves. It just takes a lot of practice. And please reach out to people. We're not supposed to mother and parent alone. We're not meant to do this job alone, so use your support system.
What are your hopes and dreams for your kids?
My hopes and dreams are that you find things that make you happy in life, and I want you to find a career that you enjoy doing every day. So I want you to get up and be excited to go to work and be excited about life. And be excited about how you're contributing. And I want you to contribute to the world in a way that makes you happy. And I really hope that all 3 of you meet somebody wonderful to marry and spend your life with, somebody as wonderful as the person that I spent— I found to marry and spend my life with. And I'm really hoping for grandkids, but it's whatever my kids want. If my kids don't want kids, then that's my dream, not theirs. So I want my kids to do in life what makes them happy every day.
All right, my next question is, if you were able to say one thing to yourself as a kid, what would be the first thing you would say?
I was so insecure as a child, and If I could go back, I would love to talk to that child and tell myself that I'm good enough and to have more confidence in myself and to believe in myself more.
I love that answer. If you could bring one person from heaven, who would you bring?
Oh, oh God, I have to pick one?
You can pick two.
Question, Lily. I almost called her Ella. Ella's my other daughter who's next. I am— I'm going to cheat and say 3 because I would love to talk to my grandmas. I would so love to talk to Grandma Ray and Grandma Tilly. I'd love to be able to interview them about their lives and ask them questions and get to hug them. And I would love, love, love to hug my— my cat is not a person, but I would love to be able to hold my cat hope again. So I cheated, Lily. I said 3.
Okay, so where do you see me, Ella, and Max 10 years from now?
10 years from now, so you'll be 19. You'll probably be in college. If you go with what you're doing now, what you're interested in now, you might be going to a college for interior design because because you have such a good eye, and I think that you could make homes and businesses beautiful. So we'll see if you follow that interest. Um, so I think you'll be in college. I think that Ella will be 23. So hopefully she will have graduated college and working professionally as an actress. And Max will be 25. And hopefully in an amazing career. Um, hopefully he will be working and doing something that he loves, and it would be awesome if he was dating someone special, engaged to someone. Um, that's what I see.
Okay. When you were younger, did you think being a mom would be as hard, as hard as it is now?
No, absolutely not. Nobody can prepare you for being a mother. You will never know how hard it is until you do it, but it's as hard as, as hard as it is, it's the best job in the world. It's the best thing in the world, even though it's not easy.
Okay, I think I have like 2 more questions.
Okay.
If you hadn't become This is kind of like my first question. If you hadn't become a social worker, what was your second choice?
Um, your, your grandma gave me— your Grammy gave me really good advice. Um, I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. Do you know that?
Yes, because I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher.
I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher, and I told your Grammy that I wanted to be a teacher And she said that she wanted me to find a career that I could do part-time because she knew I wanted to be a mom. And her advice was that she felt like moms should have jobs that they can be flexible with to work around their kids. That's not to say dads shouldn't do that too. I think it's good for any parent to have a job that can be flexible. Teaching is not very flexible, but it's very rewarding, and I think I would have loved it. But I think her advice was really good. Okay, anything else that you want to ask your mom that you haven't gotten to ask me?
Not that I can think of right now.
Okay, well, what do you think that you and I are doing well together?
Um, I think that we We used to have like little complaints about things like about hair and stuff. And now we've gotten better at like maybe like walking away, taking a deep breath, just like calming ourselves down.
Okay, so that goes with my next question of what we can work on. And what I want to tell everybody listening is that Lily and I used to get into a lot of fights. And it's not that we don't, but I think we're doing better at managing it. And I think we're doing better at stepping away and calming ourselves down so that we don't yell at each other. Right, Lil?
Mm-hmm.
I think we're doing better. And I think we just keep, I think we just keep getting better.
Okay. And I just came up with one really, really good question. Why are you such a good mom?
Do you think I'm a good mom?
You're an amazing mom.
Oh my gosh, that means the world to me that you think that. Um, I just love it so much. I think it's the best thing in the world. I love spending time with you. Um, I love the love. I love the talks. Um, like I told you, I had a really good mom who taught me how to be a really good mom. And I was born wanting to be a mom. Not everybody is. Not everybody is even sure they want to be a mom, which is OK. Not everybody wants to do it. I just have always loved babies, have always been a kid person and couldn't wait to be a mom. So I think it's in my blood. And I think I'm just one of those people who always wanted to do it. And it's, you know, it's not easy. Everybody knows parenthood is not easy. But I'm so glad and so blessed that I get to be a mom.
I just want to say how happy I am that you're my mom.
Well, I just want to say how happy I am that you're my daughter, and I love you so much, and I'm so thankful for you, um, doing this interview and interviewing your mom for Mother's Day. And you are the best gift. You and your brother and sister are the best gifts that I could have for Mother's Day, um, the best gifts in my life. And, um, This was Lily's first time on the podcast, so congratulations. Congratulations, you did an awesome job. You are a really good interviewer, do you know that?
I think I do now.
Um, I think you're really good at this, and I think we will do this again.
I would love to.
Maybe next time I could interview you. What do you think?
Yes.
Yes, Lily is such a sweetheart. She loves to help people. She has such a big heart. She's a determined person who works super hard in school, a fabulous dancer. Anything else you want to tell them about yourselves, about yourself? Um, I think I'm good.
Yeah.
Well, I want to thank Lily for being a fantastic guest. Thank you, honey. You were actually kind of in charge. You were actually kind of in charge of this podcast.
I was?
Yeah, you took over and interviewed me. You did a great job. So I want to thank everybody for joining us, and this is something fun that you could do with your kids. You could interview them. You could have them interview you. It's so much fun, and you learn more about them, and they learn more about you. I hope all the mothers listening have a wonderful Mother's Day. I want to thank you for all your support, uh, listening to the podcast, sending me guests, reading the blog. The blog is at whinypalooza.com. You send me wonderful topics for my blog, and you even watch the vlogs that you can find on YouTube and Facebook. And, um, I have a new app, the Whiny Palooza app, that you can go find. And Lily got me on TikTok, so you can also Also find me on TikTok as @whinypluzaMom. I'm having fun doing TikTok. Come do it with me. And every time you give me a 5-star review and comment and give me feedback, I really appreciate it. It helps this be heard by other people. So thank you for continuing to like, comment, share, and join me. This is Rebecca Green reminding everyone to stay I spend every day laughing, learning, and loving.
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