94. "Mothers Don't Need To Be Reminded" and Why I Disagree

Welcome to the momset podcast, my friend. I'm your coach, Tessa Romero, and as a woman of God, an adoring wife, and a mother of three darling boys, I am passionate about giving you the tools you need to build a mindset skill set that enriches your experience through motherhood and daily life. I've had my fair share of challenges and hardship throughout my life, and that is exactly how I came to this place of finding purpose to my pain and helping you do the same. I know we can thrive right where we are at, and it's time for us to take back motherhood by being the mommy that we want to be right right now. Thank you for being here and making this a wonderful place for me to show up alongside you. All right. Feeling just a little bit fired up about this. And it might be an unpopular opinion or it might be a shared perspective, or maybe this is just going to be brand new to you and you're like, huh? I am not sure if I share this perspective with Tessa or even if it's unpopular. I just want to sit with it. And that's all I can ask you to do at this perspective I'm going to share, is to. To take the time to sit with it, digest it, and let yourself decide, really decide for yourself what you're gonna choose to think about this. So I have recently seen a message quite. Gosh, it's just come across in so many different ways. And it's. It's about how mothers don't need reminding. We don't need to be reminded that this all goes by so fast. We don't need to be reminded that some. Someone else would do anything to be able to have what we have. And we don't need to be reminded by those that have closed these chapters of everything they would give to just relive one of these days, to have one of these sleepless nights back, to be able to experience pregnancy one more time, or birth and postpartum. And gosh, don't even get me started on all the times we've heard how badly they'd love the opportunity to do it over again and this time do it better. This time they would be more patient, they would be more slow, they'd be more still. They'd understand how fast it all goes by. They would approach their kids, coming down to their knees and giving them a hug in those hard moments instead of jumping to conclusions or punishments and discipline. They are so generous in these perspectives that they share with us. And the. The feedback that I've commonly seen about it on social media is what I'm referring to is that mothers don't need reminders. We already know these things. We already know that you would give anything to go back and experience it. We already know that it all goes by so fast. We already know that we're gonna miss it. And you know what? That doesn't make it easier in the moment is what we've declared. And it's the common messaging that I've seen how no matter how much these generous perspectives, insights, and wisdom are shared with us and honestly, just flat out reminders, no matter how often they're shared with us, it doesn't make now easier. And I've been sitting with this, and it's probably because I'm pregnant, honestly, and that's a whole, whole thing to unpack. Oh, my gosh. With this pregnancy, I've just. I've had a lot of perspectives hit me, and I have felt extremely lucky and blessed. We just had our first ultrasound. I'm 19 weeks now, and we just did an ultrasound. And I swear to you, the whole time driving to the ultrasound, I was just crying and praying that I could have another healthy baby. Like, how much luck could one girl possibly have is how I was thinking about it. And I just so badly wanted a healthy baby. And it was like, the most relief I think I've ever felt in my entire life. Um, besides, when a baby actually is birthed. That's. We really do really, though, seeing our healthy baby on that ultrasound, I just felt so relieved, so blessed, so grateful. And it's like all those messages of how much I'm gonna miss this, how lucky I am, how much the mom in waiting is desperate for what I have right now. It all kind of just, like, hit me even harder. And I've been really sitting with this message through this pregnancy and. And just every day, and I want to share it with you here, that I highly disagree that we don't need reminders. I think that is a foolish approach to hard circumstances, is to try and get rid of and pluck out every reminder that could be given to you about time and perspective and how fast this goes and how much we'll miss this. And. And to think, like, well, if I just get rid of all of those reminders, then I'll have an easier time in these hard moments. To me, that seems so backwards. That seems so bizarre. And I refuse to live a life where I ask people to stop sharing their experiences and their hindsights and their wisdom with me. I think that's A really foolish, silly thing to do, especially as mothers where we don't know what we don't know. And I, I need to know what's coming my way. I, I want to be prepared, I want to take it in, I want to know what you know, what are the best ways to talk to teens? Sure. My oldest is six and that sounds like I've got a few more years on my side to be able to start practicing and holding these perspectives for him and knowing what to watch for. Like, I want to learn, I want to be reminded, I want to really experience this. And as much as, as much as the message goes around and if you grief it or not, that mothers don't need reminding of these things because it doesn't make, you know, our current reality any easier. Regardless if you agree with that. Since when does complaining make it easier? Since when does blaming our spouse make it easier? Since when does justifying our behavior or why the TV is on when we don't want it on make the reality of our circumstances easier? It doesn't. It doesn't. It just temporarily feels like this soothing aid that comes in and then we're still left with the harsh reality. And typically when we've been complaining, blaming or justifying, we haven't actually taken actionable steps towards making the changes that we want. We've just wasted a day not making progress, going the direction that we want. Whereas if we were to do the controversy of that, the flip side of that, and taken the reminders, taken the advice, listen to the wisdom, and just, just considered another perspective, if we would have done that, how would we have showed up today? How would we have treated those hard moments? Would we have caved and gave in to the easy thing to do in that moment when we know what we really want is that clutter free home or we want that, that calm down time. We want to be off of this reliance of TV and screens and entertainment, like we want our kids to entertain themselves. We, we have to be able to hold what we want most over what we want now. And I'm telling you, I really do not see how complaining about it and the way that it is helps us do that. I think we lose sight. We lose sight. And the more I've thought about this perspective of mothers don't need reminding of how much we'll miss this, because you know what? It's hard right now. And that doesn't make it easier. The more I think about that perspective, the more, the more I, the more I just feel like the real truth is you can hear something a thousand times. You can be reminded a thousand times and never feel it once. You can be told a thousand times and still not experience it yourself. So how the heck am I supposed to know how badly I'm going to miss something when I have it today? And I have it, I have it right now. I'm looking at my kids. I'm seeing their gentle faces right now. Their little hands are on my shoulders. They're sitting saying, I love you. They're asking me to sleep with them. They're wanting to be involved in all the things that I'm doing. How do I know? How do I know how much I'm going to miss it when I still have it? What do I know about. How do I wrap my mind around the longing for something that I have? How do I know what that feels like? And why on earth would it be on the front of my mind when it's not my reality, it's someone else's? And when you think about the loss that a mother has faced when she's lost a child, be that through miscarriage or. Or as a newborn or goodness, as an older child, just any mother that's lost a child, don't you think she has remarkable insights and wisdom and perspective to give us that in those hard moments? Talking to her would be the most relieving. Talking to her would be the most fruitful for us that we could have a little bit of perspective shared with us to say, how much of this actually matters? How much of this am I still going to be wishing away in five years or even five hours from now? Like, give me some freaking perspective. Don't let me sit in all of this hardship. And gosh, when we freaking compete with hardship. Oh, well, you think that's bad? My kid does this? Or they were up. Yeah, well, you're lucky. They were only up three times. Mine was up seven. And back and forth, back and forth. I do all the cooking. My husband doesn't help at all. You're lucky. He even takes out the trash. Like this comparison of hardship and who has it worse, who is that serving? Is it really serving you? Is it really serving the other person? Or do we walk? Or do we both just walk away feeling worse? Feeling like I don't have my needs met, I don't have what I want. I can't move these mountains. And that's the perspective that I get from this, is that we just look at the mountain and talk to the person next to us about how we can't move it Instead of asking the people that have done it how they did it, and allowing people to share their insights with us so that we can have more hope, what's going to help us through hardship, more through those sleepless nights, through the times our kids are sick and throwing up multiple times a day, or the tantrums and the way they fight each other and just the hard. The hard realities of motherhood is not what I'm arguing with. I know it's hard. Oh my gosh, I know it's hard. And I also know that me sitting in that and shutting off every possible stream of hope, every possible stream of added faith and perseverance and insights and wisdom that could be flowing to me, shutting off those streams is not the answer. I'm just going to experience a severe drought. A severe drought. For however much longer. I have toddlers for however much longer. I'm in the newborn stage. For however much longer I'm. I'm in this pregnancy. Because I'll freaking tell you what. When I was at that ultrasound and I got to see a healthy baby up there, oh, I'm grateful for Riverico Spains at that point. I'm grateful. I'm grateful that I get to feel so tired and grow a healthy baby. Like, having perspective is the biggest, best gift you can give yourself because it doesn't matter what the circumstances are or are not at that point in time, just so long as your mind has a different perspective of it. A different perspective. And that's all I'm asking you to do here, is if you've carried this idea that we don't need reminding. Yeah, that. That's right, we don't need reminding. Whoever the frick started that. I don't know, I just don't see it as being very helpful for you if you've been carrying that perspective. I really just want you to ask yourself, how is it serving you to shut off the streams of wisdom and insight and experience and emotion from other people to shut off the streams? What does it leave you with? A drought? Feeling like you're just so thirsty, Right? And. And when you're left feeling that way, it doesn't make the hard stuff easier. In fact, it makes it harder because now you're becoming depleted in the circumstance. Rather than seeing the circumstance, knowing the innocence of it, changing the entire dynamic of it and taking those action steps. Remember when we are sitting with our complaining, blaming and justifying mentalities and, and we're sitting around doing that, how much action did we take that day to get caught up on the laundry? How much action did we take that day to change the screen time limits in our home? How much action did we take that day to meal prep or meal plan or just try to be two steps ahead? How much action did we take towards that? Not much. We were probably scrolling our phone. We were probably trying to numb with something. We were probably trying to avoid an escape instead of accelerate through it. Accelerate through it. Stop. Stop crashing on your brakes, stop pounding your brakes. Just see where you're at, press the gas and go through it. Be who you. That's, that's what I mean when I'm constantly referring to being who you want to be right now. Be who you want to be. No matter who you're with or where you're at, the circumstances that you have, there's always an opportunity to be who you want to be. And, and when we allow those perspectives to flow into us, we can say, yeah, I'm hitting this turn and I may not know around what's around the corner. I also know that braking is the fastest way to lose control of my vehicle. So I'm going to accelerate through this. I'm going to really lean in and be who I want to be. And you might find that, yes, these times were really hard. And you'll also be able to reflect back on them and say, I am so proud of the way that I showed up. Yeah, it was really hard to have disrupted sleep, to have those tantrums with the toddler years, to hear I hate you from my 5 year old, to see them be so sick that whole month. It was so hard to be in all that. And I learned so much about myself. I learned so much about them. I learned how to rely on others and to include them in my life and to, to experience a true peace and acceptance in life that I didn't have to fight with life when I could just accelerate through it and then decide the direction that I was gonna go in. That's what I want for us. So please just consider if the perspective of mothers don't need reminders is serving you as much as it feels like it is. Because I really pray and hope that the time does come long from now that we can say, wow, I missed that. I hope we have the opportunity to keep living this as long as we're meant to and then be able to reflect back and say, I would give anything to have toddlers at the park again. I would give anything to have my kids cooking with me in the kitchen again. I would give anything for noises to fill My home. Because right now it's silent. And how on earth are you going to know what that feels like years and years and years from now and when right now, there's noise. There's noise and there's multiple voices and there's sounds in all directions. You're. You just don't know. You don't know. And it's insane for our mind to think that it does. So remember, thoughts are not facts. If your mind is taking you in a direction that is not leading to your greater good, then you can course correct. Your mind is malleable. It will accept a new perspective. You just have to be the one that. That convinces it. The only person you have to convince is yourself. That's it. And believe me, I have convinced myself. Remind me every day. I want every reminder I can get. I want the reminders from the new mom of how just miraculous this life is and how much we should cherish it and how just amazing it is every first that they have and that this human came out of me. This is crazy. I want every new mom to feel like she can remind me of that. I want every seasoned mom to help me have perspective of what really matters, what is worth drawing the line in the sand, right when does it really matter for me to have a boundary there? What do I actually need to do without my kids around? Like, help me have those perspectives. Because you have so much experience. And gosh, I want the grieving moms to know that they can look at me and say, you are so blessed. You are so lucky. Because I'm not offended by my blessings. I'm not going to become defensive if somebody starts counting them for me. If you want to stand by my side and count my blessings, I will count them with you. I will acknowledge them. I will take them in. And I don't know why the heck we feel so opposed to doing that. And I sure would like to see that change that. Maybe the person next to you saying how lucky you are and isn't starting an argument. You know, maybe she's not trying to, I don't know, do anything negative. Maybe she truly is just looking at your life and the blessings are just so obvious. They're so big, they're so bright that she was stopped in her tracks and just wanted to acknowledge that alongside you. And at what point in our life do we stop? Do we stop doing that ourselves? Maybe that little reminder of how blessed we are is exactly what we need. I am. I'm so fortunate. My husband and I set a goal eight years ago that him and I would both be able to be stay at home parents. And we had no idea how we were gonna do it. And this could be a whole episode for another day. Just when we got married so goodness, eight years ago, I've been telling this story a lot. When we got married nine years ago now we made a goal that we both want to be stay at home parents. And you know, we didn't know how we were going to do it. And we both worked jobs at that point and we didn't know it was coming or when we were having kids or anything. We just knew we both really want to be in our kids lives. Like he wants to play baseball with them every day, he wants to say yes to that play and that engagement together. And I knew I wanted to have every ounce of time that I could with them. I wanted to homeschool them. I wanted to just really create this family unit where we have the freedom to, to be together and goodness, we couldn't afford it, that's for sure. That's actually how my first business started was because I really wanted to be a stay at home mom. And when I had Liam, I had a couple job interviews lined up and I had job offers and I turned them down. I said, I have to stay with him. And we were short on the money and Marcus went through it with me, he said, this is how much we need. And I said, okay, I'm going to figure it out. And I did. And my point in sharing that with you is I am so blessed. I am remarkably blessed that I have three healthy children. I'm pregnant with my fourth healthy baby on the way. My husband and I are home together. We work as a team and as a unit and we tag team it sometimes and we're together a lot of the time. And if someone were to come up to me and say, wow, you're so lucky you get to work from home, I would give anything to have that type of time with my kids. I would say, you're right. I'm so lucky. We are so fortunate. Does that mean we didn't work hard to get here? No. This wasn't handed to us. This experience of being together as a family has not been easy to acquire and it requires daily effort and intention and hard work. And believe me, there were adjustment periods I did not foresee coming. And all in the same breath, I am so blessed. I am so lucky. If someone were to see my husband playing with our kids and say, wow, those kids are, they're so lucky. They don't even know how good they have it. I would say. I know. I know. They don't. They don't know yet. They don't know how good they have it. And we're just. We're all so heated and we're all enjoying it. Because if someone comes up to me and sees my blessings shining so brightly, why should I feel offended by that? Why should I back down? Why should I feel insecure? Why should I ignore that or create an argument or become defensive? Why on earth should I do that? Why not just stand with that person and look at the blessing, too, and be reminded once again of how fortunate we are, of how much that we have, of who we are and what we get to do each day. That's what this message is about, is, gosh, just how much you get to do. And some things that we get to do aren't easy. And you know what? Most things that I do, I know that the harder they are, the more purpose they have. The harder it is to be up with my kids in the middle of the night, the more sacred and purposeful that is. The harder it is to take my whole family out on a walk instead of just going by myself. The more purpose it has. This isn't just serving me. I'm not just serving myself anymore. I'm serving all of them. And that's. That's what I want you to allow your mind to consider, is that every little reminder, every reminder of how much you'll miss this, Every reminder of how much you have. Every reminder of how much you get to do. Maybe it's serving you more than your mind is allowing it to right now. Maybe you've tried to cut the streams of. Of faith and wisdom and experience and knowledge that could be poured into you and increasing your well of hope. Maybe you've cut the streams and it's time to open those suckers back up. I want that for you. I want that for me. So I want everyone to know that they have full permission to remind me. You can remind me how lucky I am. You can remind me how much you miss this. You can remind me how much I'm gonna miss this. What you would give to do it all over again. You can remind me how fast it all goes. You can remind me how innocent they are, how hard I'm trying. How hard they're trying. Remind me of all that. Please. Please remind me of all of it. I. I sure do love you guys. I sure do appreciate you. I love that you're here on the podcast alongside me and that we get to consider these perspectives hand in hand. And again, if you consider this to be Tessa's unpopular opinion that I do not share or now we have a shared perspective together. Either way, I appreciate you, I respect you and your time, and I hope that I can always pour something good into those. Oh my sweet friend, thank you for joining me on this week's episode of the momset podcast. Please take a minute to leave a review and share the show. Loved it. I'd love to stay connected as we continue to learn and grow in motherhood right alongside each other.