Episode 470: It's Not about the Details - Or is it?

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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 Greene.

Welcome to the Whiny Palooza podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Greene. 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 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, hello everybody!

Happy Whiny Palooza Wednesday and happy Yesterday was Teenage Tuesday. If you didn't know, Ella writes a column every Tuesday. You can find it at winnieplousa.com. She is wise beyond her years and her columns are amazing. And I did write today. My blog today is called It's Not About the Details, or Is It? And you can find that at winnieplousa.com. I did not share it yet, but I will make sure to share the blog too. So we had Lily's bat mitzvah on Saturday. It is complete.

It's over.

And relax now.

I am so excited that we are done with that. That was the hardest event I have ever thrown.

I think you've thrown some amazing events in my life.

Um, I watched the biggest one. No, I walked into the PTA meeting And I was like, that was the hardest event I've ever done. And they go, why? And I started telling them, and one of the women had me laughing hysterically. And she goes, oh, your client was difficult.

Yes. The 12-year-old. The 12-year-old client. It's not PTA moms.

Um, so no, when I throw huge ginormous events at school, everybody's just like, thank you. Thank you. Um, yeah, we've thrown events with like, I don't know, 300 kids before. Yes. So this one was 100 people. 50 adults, 50 kids. More like 55 adults and 45 kids, but you understand. Yes. And, um, I know it's not supposed to be about the details, so what is— Ella, start with your Teenage Tuesday points and then we'll move into my points.

Uh, so my first lesson was you are not always in the spotlight, but that doesn't mean you have to be in the dark. And essentially, to sum it all up, It doesn't always have to be about you. You don't have to usurp the spotlight or be in the spotlight, but that also doesn't mean you have to limit yourself and what you do and your enjoyment of event in order— of an event in order to not be in the spotlight, if that makes sense. Right.

So one of the ways that you explain this is you got your hair and makeup done. You're still important. You still deserve to have your hair and makeup done, and you look— and you looked Fantastic.

Thank you.

Um, what is the title of your column?

Uh, just Lessons from the Bat Mitzvah.

And what is your second lesson?

My second lesson is focus on what matters most. This kind of ties into my mom's blog, but essentially my main advice about that is if you're ever stressing about something about an event, try to remind yourself why you're holding that event in the first place and why it matters to you. And chances are that it will relieve some of your stress because you'll realize the little stuff doesn't really matter.

Really good advice. So Nikki is one of my counterparts at school. Um, we've planned a lot of events together, and one of the things that Nikki taught me along the way— because we have a budget at school for what we spend money on— and one of the things that she taught me is forget the decorations. Like, do that last. Like, don't worry about spending money on the decorations. Get the DJ, get the food. Like, do the important things, and then if you have If then, if you want to spend a little bit of money, she's like, don't waste money on decorations. And Lily was not in agreement with that.

Lily did not get the memo.

Uh, Lily was hysterical. She was like, I want a balloon arc, I want lights everywhere, and I want flowers everywhere. So Lily was all about the decorations.

Yes.

She's also a budding interior designer, if that tells you anything.

Yeah.

Lesson number 3: Uh, everyone already appreciates you. This one summarized is they already appreciate you trying. They already appreciate what you do do. So don't worry about like how it turns out as much. I essentially, this can be summed up by the phrase, it's about the effort, not the outcome. We all already appreciate your effort. The outcome is out of your control.

So you're talking to, so for those of you who don't know, this was directed towards her mother who was me and Ella, why does that not necessarily work with this event? So I agree with Ella. So when I planned Ellis' bat mitzvah. It was, oh my God, I love it! Oh my God, I love it! Oh my God, I'm so excited! Thank you, Mom, you're amazing! Like, it was just like a joy, a joy. Appreciation, appreciation, appreciation. So why does that not work? So why do I feel differently this time?

Because of Lily.

I'm just saying that you're telling me— yeah, so one of the moms— so we shared this in my group. There's a Whining Who's a Mom group, it's free on Facebook, come find us. It's supportive community. One of the moms said, moms need to remember this, Ella, that we have to remember that we're appreciated, and the event does not make us appreciated, or the event being perfect doesn't make us feel appreciated. It's, it's the effort that we put into every day of parenting. And one of the mothers said that in my group and agreed with you. And the reason why I would argue with both of you is it's not Ella, it's not Max, It's not that I don't feel appreciated, and it's not like I'm trying to earn anything with this event. It's that Lily had a vision and I was trying to give her what she wanted. But I'm gonna be honest with everybody, I stressed myself so much that my chiropractor told me I was having migraines. So I put so much pressure on myself to try and make her happy. I was trying so hard to make her happy that I was having headaches every day, um, and was feeling very stressed. So I know that she's a perfectionist, and I know that she wanted it to look a certain way, and it really stressed me out. And, um, it wasn't worth the stress. Like, when people walked in and saw all the details and saw everything that I put into that event it wasn't worth the stress. I'm telling you now, like, it was way too many hours, way too much time, way too many headaches.

The people just wanted to dance together. They didn't care what the room looked like.

Yeah, I could have had a blank room.

Well, so I had a blank room for my apartments for many years ago. So the events manager, when we went— when Lily and I went— she was really good with Lily, and she said you could have nothing here and it would look gorgeous. Like you could literally do nothing. It's a nice room and it's just beautiful how it is.

Yep.

Um, so I was trying to focus on, okay, here's my list of what it's really about. And, and I, and I listed this to myself many times during the planning. It was months of planning. My friends were like, aren't you done? Like, what are you doing? I was like, oh, today I'm doing picture boards all day. Oh, today I'm making an album. Oh, Today I'm doing place cards, like there was something every day. So what is the bat mitzvah really about? So let's parents remind ourselves of this. And I also want to say the service was perfect. Yeah, the service never stressed—

simple service.

The service never stressed me out. The only thing that stressed me out a little bit and my mom and husband helped me is who to call up for what, because I wanted everyone to feel the love, and I wanted everyone to know how much I loved them and how much we love them and how much we appreciate them. The rabbi, the cantor, Harvey, Joanne, Bruce took care of everything. I did essentially barely anything for the service. We showed up, it was perfect. The bat mitzvah is about the service. The service wasn't the stressful part. When we met with the rabbi, I said to the rabbi, the service isn't stressing me out, the party is, right? And he goes, oh, I totally understand. So what is the bat mitzvah really about? It's about reading from the Torah. That's the point of the bat mitzvah. It's about continuing the tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation. Yep. It is about family, it is about friends, it is about community, it is about being together. That is what the day of bat mitzvah is about. It is not about flowers and lights and decorations. So I go to the party, so I'm in la-la land, absolute la-la land at the service. Like, I'm in awe. My daughter studied for months She did a perfect job. I loved it. Did you love it?

Yes.

And then we go to the party and we walk in and it's gorgeous and beautiful, and then I discover the food is out. So the events manager wasn't there. I didn't know she wasn't going to be there. The general manager was there. But I didn't— like, there's— I say it's not about the details, but there's so many details that I needed to ask. Will you be there the night— like, I didn't even know I needed to ask if she was going to be there. Will you be there? Will you run the evening? I didn't know I was in charge of the evening. I would have hired someone to run the evening. Yeah, so we say it's not about the details. Well, can I freaking hire someone so that I don't have to worry about the details, so that I can enjoy myself and not be worried that the food is out and nobody knows. So then Seth and I are running the night. Seth, thank you. Seth looked at his wife multiple times and just jumped in and helped. We— were you like paying attention to where I was and what I was doing? Very much, because that's how I was able to jump in and help. So tell me more. So how were you like— tell me what you were doing. You were mingling and paying attention. So I was always—

one eye was always on you.

So you were like, what What is my wife doing and does she need help?

Pretty much.

I'm so sorry.

All good.

I didn't know that I was running the night, people. I didn't know.

You did a great job.

Okay, so Seth and I are telling the tables, please go get your dinner. Like, get up, go get your dinner. Seth and I noticed that the rabbi showed up. Can you do the blessing over the bread? Seth and I noticed the garage door is down. The garage door was supposed to be up, people. People were supposed to be on the patio. We were supposed to be letting air in. It was a beautiful night. You asked to have the garage door opened.

Twice.

You asked twice?

Well, you asked once and I asked once.

I'm trying to remember what else. I needed gluten-free chicken, I had to hunt down gluten-free chicken. I wanted the cake cut, I asked ahead of time. See, we say it's not about the details, but I'm going to tell you that you have to ask the place if they will cut the cake. That is a question to ask at an event. Will you cut the cake? I was told that they would cut the cake. The woman who was there was like, we don't typically cut the cake. I'm like, well, I asked ahead of time, please go cut the cake. People are leaving, and I'm like, don't leave, the cake is coming! And we're trying to find the freaking cake. I mean, it was just like thing after thing that I was like, I just want to enjoy myself and not be running the party. I thought that's what the events manager did, but I'm clueless. See, I learned a lot. So if I could do it over again, I would have hired somebody to run the evening. I thought I had somebody to run the evening.

Yeah, that person should have done it. We shouldn't have had to hire somebody separate.

And then I'm trying to enjoy the end of the night and they're telling me to pack up the food. I was told the food would be packed up for us. I didn't know that we had to pack up the food. So there's all this food left that we paid for that we're supposed to pack up and not enjoy the end of the evening. So was it gorgeous? Was it beautiful?

Yes.

Was everybody texting me and telling me how perfect the event was? Yes. Everybody loved it. The kids had a blast. Lily told me it was perfect. Lily said it was the best night ever. If you saw Lily and her friends, my friend kept telling me, Liz kept saying, oh my God, these kids are going to remember this forever. Like, it was— everybody looked like they were having a good time. I think everyone had a wonderful time. I know Lily had a wonderful time. So really, that's what it comes down to. But for freak's sake, I want to have a good time. So did I have a good time? I would say yes, but I would say it was way too much on me. Yes, way too much on me. Where is where, where are the managers to take the stress off, right? I feel like if someone is throwing an event at your place, take the stress off of them and let them enjoy their evening. Yeah, the DJ was amazing. Yeah, he was fun. He played games with the kids. He was fantastic. The photographer was amazing. She is such a good woman. Um, okay, so we used Toy Brothers DJ. Jeremiah came, he did a fantastic job. Then we used 42 Photo, which was a referral from Jamie, from my friend Jamie, and they did her son's bar mitzvah, and I checked out the pictures and they were awesome. So I hired Sarah to do ours, and, and she, she was fitting right in. Yeah, she was fantastic. She, um, was laughing and dancing with the kids. She was getting in there and taking awesome pictures. I am so freaking excited to see her pictures. My friend Claire did favors. She made a whole candy table for the kids. She brought me decorations. Oh my God, and Michelle putting up all the artwork. So my friend Michelle, who was my 6th grade teacher, came and—

I thought it was 2nd grade.

6th. No, when we talked about Minka going into 2nd grade, I said, I remember my 2nd grade teacher. That's why you guys keep thinking she was from second grade. Sixth grade was Michelle. Michelle, everybody thought I was her daughter. Did you— do you see the resemblance? Yes, everybody at Mill thought I was her daughter. So, um, I just teased her on a photo that she commented on and I said, do I still look like your daughter? I gotta go see if she responded. But she put up her beautiful flower artwork. So the whole theme of the event was the Blossom Bash, and Michelle put her artwork all over of all these flowers, and she made Lily a rose as a present. And so Lily's name is Lily Rose, if you don't know that. So it was— there were so many amazing parts, and I left the event pissed off, and I was like, no, I talked to you about cognitive therapy all the time. I was like, you focus on all the, um, all the things that went right, all the amazingness of the evening. You focus on the fact that your daughter is happy and that was your goal, you achieved your goal. I feel like I achieved my goal. I drove myself nuts. I don't recommend that. I would say, so how— I guess the question is, how could I have handled it better? How could I have handled it better? At one point during the whole process, I decided to enjoy it. And I was like, you are going to do picture boards all day. It's going to take you all day. I want you to enjoy going through all those memories and making beautiful— right, making beautiful picture boards for your daughter. I want you to enjoy this today. So I like made an appointment with myself. You're gonna spend the whole day doing this.

You made an emotional appointment to be happy.

Yeah, awesome. Yeah. And I was like, okay, you're gonna make this L. I made a giant L for Lily. I mean, it's right out of the frame. It is freaking gorgeous, if I do say so myself. It took me 2 hours, and I was like, you're gonna fucking— oops, I swore. You're gonna— am I allowed to swear?

It's your show.

You're gonna enjoy making this L. You're gonna enjoy it. Like, enjoy the journey. So I think that if I would have blocked any stress from Lily. Like, when Lily's like, ah, what if I could have just like— towards the end, like, I knew I was having daily headaches. So when you're not happy with how you're feeling, you're feeling sad, you're feeling anxious, you're feeling depressed, you're having headaches, that is a sign to you to do something different. So I knew that I was having headaches every day, so I knew I had to do something different. So I was like, you need to— when she comes at you with blah blah blah, you're going to let it roll off of you. I did say at one point, I need you to appreciate all the work that I'm doing. And she, you know, like, she hears me, she hears me, she takes it in if I say things nicely. She hears me. If I'm mean, she totally shuts down.

If I'm short, you know, any emotion that's not happy at all, she shuts down.

Anyways, sorry. No, no, you can be honest. I want you to be honest. We have challenges. We are not perfect. Um, I was just talking to my friends today about, um, advice We seek advice. We get— it's easier to give advice than to walk the walk, and we are walking the walk every day as parents. We do our best. We learn from daily things that happen, and I think we do a good job. I don't think we're perfect, but I do think we're doing a good job, and there's challenges every day. I mean, I will tell you I don't ever want you to think that we think parenting is easy. Seth and I do not think parenting is easy. We come on here and we talk to you about stuff, and I hope that you're hearing that it's not all roses and sunshine, because I don't like when people think that other people's lives are all hunky-dory. I think that that is one of the biggest stressors to people, is that they look at other people and think and compare and think that the other people are doing a better job. And I am telling you, every Every house has challenges with their kids. No kids are perfect. Every kid has their own insecurities, and you know, little kids have little problems, and the older they get, the bigger the problems they get. And they're teenagers now, and they have teenage problems and teenage mood swings, and Seth and I are learning along the way. So I don't ever want to come on here and make anyone think that we're getting it all right, because there's days where I give myself a high five and I'm like, you did a good job, 'Like, that was really good.' And there's days that I turn to Seth and say, 'I screwed up today. I didn't do a good job.' I'm very self-aware. I would say get self-aware, because I will say to Seth, 'I have no patience today.' Yep, like, tag you're it, right? Like, I'm like, 'My patience is zapped. I think she's— I think my patience has been used for so many days that I need to borrow your patience.' Happy to share. And you know, I'm thankful that I have a partner to parent with because I can't— you know, I feel bad for people who are doing this alone. I hope if you're doing this alone, you are using your supports.

Yeah.

Um, I will tell you, there was a couple SOSs to my mother during this. It was, come do the seating chart. It was, please come set up with me. It was, she's driving me crazy, please talk to her. Like, use your supports.

Amen.

So it takes a village. We did it, we did it! We pulled off an amazing event, and, and Seth's mom said that I made it look easy. It wasn't easy.

I'm telling you, nothing worth doing is.

I'm telling you that that was hard work, and it worked out.

It's worth it.

It was— I don't think it was worth the daily headaches. I think that I definitely could have handled that better. So I told—

I appreciate it, you did an amazing job and I will treasure that forever.

So at one point, and I don't know if I have shared this with you, but at one point I texted Seth when I didn't like someone's behavior and I said, she doesn't deserve this, like, why are we doing this? And Seth said, "You're doing this for me. You're doing this for our family." And it was like the perfect thing to say to me because I was like, "I want to bring people together. I want to bring our family and friends together." Yep. And when we have an event and we can bring people together, I don't know that there's anything better than that.

It's pretty awesome.

So That was like the perfect— sometimes he says the right thing.

Yeah, it's on camera, we got it on tape. It did that, she did say that.

So, um, so anything else that you guys want to share?

You did a great job.

Um, oh, I know who's on the podcast this Friday. I was gonna say I didn't look who's on the podcast this Friday. Okay, so we have We have so many amazing women that I have interviewed coming up. So if you go back a couple weeks, Shana James, my dear friend, I interviewed her and it was a fantastic— I think I did a fantastic job. I think Shana did a fantastic job. Not only did I interview Shana, but she also interviewed me.

And Shana is an expert in her field. She's not just your friend.

Oh, I am so sorry. She is a coach. She is a relationship coach. And, um, I'm trying to remember the specific title. I know it was about intimacy. After 40. Go listen to the interview with Shana. And the most recent episode was with Laura Brand, who has successfully sent 2 kids off to college, and she teaches us how to do it. So go listen to Laura. This week, this Friday, Shayna interviews me.

Go learn from these two lovely, wonderful ladies.

And that was so much fun. So that's coming up on Friday. We had our August challenge and it was so much fun, all about summer. I'm gonna give you like 2 more days to go jump in. There are 5 days of challenges, August 1st through August 5th. Every question that you answer, every comment that you do gets entered for prizes. So you can jump into the challenge and maybe we will pick you to be the August winner. And what else, Seth?

Did you know that August is National Romance Month?

I did not know that.

And you should go to whiningpalooza.com, find the Linktree with all of Rebecca Greene's resources, sign up for them all, especially her amazing email newsletter. And help her reach more moms by liking, commenting, sharing, rating, reviewing, and subscribing, because that tells all the algorithms to show her content to more people.

Seth was hysterical at the bat mitzvah. He had a QR code for people to, um, use to get free photos. Um, oh God, I have to do that because I'm gonna print all the photos.

Well, you probably have hundreds and you could print them all for free.

Did— where'd you put the QR code?

I still have it on my phone.

Oh good, I have a ton of pictures to print. So anyways, so he's telling everybody we finished the beautiful candle lighting. Lily did this awesome candle lighting and called all these people up to light a candle who are special to her. And he's like, okay, now there's QR codes on the bar, go get it and you can get free photos. If you don't know how to use a QR code, there's all these kids sitting here who could help you. So I am— so that brings Brings me to my point that when Seth says to review the podcast and give it 5 stars and write comments and share things and like things, if you don't know how to do that, please ask us. We will help you. My wonderful friend texted me and said, I really want to, to give you 5 stars and write a comment, but I don't know how. So we're happy to help if you don't know how, or ask one of your children to help you.

Yes, maybe we should make it a 2-minute tutorial video and you could post Oh, that's a wonderful idea, right? I can—

I'm making chocolate chip banana bread. Oh, I'm so excited! So Lily's gonna bake for me, and I lost my thought of what I wanted to tell you. Go share this with a friend. That's what I wanted to say. Um, so we are going to go relax, and we hope you have a wonderful night. Thank you for joining us, and we will be back next week.

Happy Wine and Blues Wednesday!

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