101. Breaking the Rules, Living in Our Values: A Conversation with Tracy Gillett of Raised Good

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Welcome to the Good Enough Mother. My name is Sophie. I am a mother and a motherhood studies sociologist. I believe that we need broad social and cultural change in our societies in order to adequately support the mother to feel empowered, held, revered and respected in our society and culture. I have conversations here with experts and change makers who want to expand the conversation that we're having about motherhood. Thank you for joining me. Hello and welcome to another episode of the podcast. I'm having a conversation in this episode with Tracy Gillett and I want to tell you a little bit about Tracy. But first I want to let you know that Tracy is organizing the Raised Good Online Summit, which is a free summit and it is running from September 21st till the 25th. So a couple of days after this episode airs, the summit is looking incredible. I've just been looking through some of the speakers. I could read out the entire list, but some of the ones I'm most looking forward to are Dr. Shefali Tesberry who is speaking about consciously creating the ultimate parent child relationship. Dr. Dan Siegel is speaking, as well as Lael Stone who I am planning to get on the podcast in a conversation here to share with you. Dr. Gabor Mate, Dr. Vanessa Laponte, Maggie Dent so many, so many names. James McKenna and Greer Kirchenbaum Dr. Gree Kirchenbaum who I had a conversation with a few episod prior to this one. Go and have a look if you haven't listened already about the Nurture Revolution. So I have popped a link in the show notes of this podcast for you to be able to register for this summit for free. You will also get some information when you do register if you would like to upgrade to an all access pass and you get a bunch of bonuses as part of that. So do register for the summit and share the link around with anyone else who you think may be also interested in taking advantage of the opportunity to listen to these speakers share their experience and wisdom and knowledge. So a little bit about Tracy. She is an adventure loving mum, a writer and a natural parenting advocate. She's originally from Melbourne and she now calls a small island off the coast of Vancouver, Canada home. And she's the founder of Raised Good. Raised Good is an award winning blog and a community which supports and empowers parents to trust and follow their instincts. Tracy was a veterinarian for many years, which I didn't know before this conversation. We speak about that a little in the episode and before she started Raised Good, she loved diving into the science and making things accessible as a veterinarian, and she's brought those skills across now for this work within parenting support. She's also the author of the Lost Art of Natural Parenting, is the host of the Raised Good online Summit, and she offers online courses to support parents with infant sleep and developing a secure attachment, as well as a natural parenting membership community called Gather. In this conversation we talk about parenting through connection, we share some examples of when this can feel easeful as well as really challenging, and Tracy also shares about the journey she's been on in building her business and her community and platform and being able to sustain a level of focus and dedication and passion and commitment to this work after almost a decade. So I hope you enjoy this episode. Register for the online summit if you're listening to this as the episode goes live and would love to hear your key takeaways. Let Tracy and I know via social media. You can find all of Tracy's details in the show notes. Enjoy.

Thank you for being here with me, Tracy, and I think I actually came across Raised Good before I even started my business. I remember seeing some posts around and maybe a blog about biologically normal infant sleep and challenging sleep training. I know that's been a big one for you. So thank you for the work that you're doing because it's impacted me as a mother and it's impacted so many other many thousands across the world. So I would love for you to share a little bit about yourself with us and what led you to starting Raised Good.

Oh well, thank you so much for having me, Sophie, and thank you for those kind words. It's really, that's the reason why I do what I do at Raisedgood, you know, is just to know, shine a light for other mothers for sort of a less conventional parenting path, which is the one that I found myself on. And that's really where Ray's Good came from. I actually had fertility struggles before I got pregnant with my son. It took us three years to get pregnant, and on that journey I always thought that I would start a blog about fertility and that I would go down that track because I'd learned so much in that time. And then when I became pregnant and started going down the parenting path and thinking about my baby, and then when my baby arrived, everything changed, as it does for all parents or mums and dads. And I remember I've shared this story quite a bit, that when I was sort of fairly heavily pregnant, my midwife was talking about where my baby would sleep and I said, well, he's going to sleep in the cribs. And I've just, I've ordered it and it's put together and it's got a non toxic mattress and the paint is low VOCs or whatever it's supposed to be and the organic bamboo sheets and all that stuff that we do, you know, trying to prepare for this monumental event of our babies arriving. And she said, no, he's going to sleep in your bed. And I said, what are you talking about? Like, and she was English and she was so she was like, just, you know, gave it to me straight and she was just said no, he's going to sleep in your bed. I can tell. And so my curiosity was aroused at that point. I thought she was a bit mad to start with. And then I left and really thought about it and we'd gone down this sort of natural path when it came to fertility and I'd had so many illusions, you know, that we're fed in society, shattered already. And with my background, I used to be a veterinarian, so I love animals and you know, just thinking about how a mother wolf would baby her cub, baby her pups, or your mother bear, which is sort of the symbol of raised good and looking to nature and just really thinking about how are we supposed to raise our babies if we were just dropped on a desert island, what would we do? And it wouldn't be going to, you know, a baby store and putting them separate and sleep training and baby monitors and all these things where the original baby monitor and when I started down this path, so my midwife was right, he slept with us from night one. I remember in the hospital seeing the sign on the wall, you know, that says like the baby must sleep in this, that sort of universal plastic, clear bassinet thing. And I put him in there and he was fine, he was sleeping, but I wasn't fine. Like I just had this baby in my belly for 42 weeks and, you know, finally met him and just the instinct to hold him close was so strong and so it's not particularly safe pulling a baby into a hospital bed, but I did it at the time. And then as soon as we got home, he just was in our bed from, you know, the night that we got home. And it continued that way. And through my early motherhood journey I took, you know, different paths to sort of what mainstream says to do. But I just found that I was so happy, I was so connected to my baby and my baby was so happy. And other mothers in real life started to notice that and were saying what's your secret? Like, are you sleeping or what's going on? I was like, no, but, you know, it's. I was exhausted. But I was just so deeply connected to my baby and. And I just really wanted to share that with the world that, you know, there is another way. It doesn't have to be how society tells us to do it. So that's really where raised Good came from. And. And it was also a creative outlet for me as a new mum, which is something that I've never considered myself to be a creative person. I always sort of went down the science math route, you know, wanting to become a vet. And so I didn't pay that much attention in English class. And then I started writing and kind of surprised myself with that ability. And yeah, it sort of became a real outlet for me and I shared what I needed to hear as a new mum. And then so many mums from all over the world have been touched by this and so I keep doing it. So, yeah, that's where it came from.

And how many years ago was that now, Tracy?

Well, being a mum, nearly a decade. So I started, yeah, probably eight or nine years ago. Like I started just writing blog posts on my phone when my son would be, you know, napping beside me and just taking notes and learning about how to write blog posts and stuff like that. And yeah, so it's, yeah, eight, nine years ago now.

That's such an interesting journey. I mean, particularly because it sounds like you had that connection to yourself and your baby from the very beginning. And I think that's something that, if I think back to my early mothering journey, that was there this sense of wanting to have my baby close and hold her close. And there were all of the shoulds as to why I shouldn't be doing that, but also lack of information even about what it means to safely bed share. And I wish that I'd had access to that earlier on. And I will pop some resources in the show notes for those listening. But I remember my baby kind of decided for me that she wasn't gonna. She wasn't going to sleep in the bassinet. And this level of almost what am I meant to do then? And actually that first night when we were home, I didn't know what to do because she was wrapped up, she was swaddled and every time I'd put her back, she'd go to sleep and I put her back in the bassinet and then she'd cry. And I was thinking, what is this meant to happen? Why And I pick her up. And then I thought, how am I going to sleep? And I sort of tried to position her next to me and I sort of lay down on my side. But then I was. That didn't seem safe to me at all. And it wasn't. She was swaddled. And so I thought, I. I'm just gonna have to get up and hold her. And so I went into the. Into her nursery and I just sat in the rocking chair and I was feeding her and just holding her, and I didn't sleep at all. And I thought, is this what mothers everywhere are doing? Like, how do we survive this? And so I think just going back to those very early days of even when you first become a mom and going, well, what was your access to information? What was your level of support? What was your tendency in terms of information seeking and gathering? And it sounds like, as well, what you've said around your infertility journey, did that lead you down this path? You mentioned it a little bit. But I'm curious, did you need to navigate and filter through lots of different type of information and get practice at resourcing yourself or navigating with health professionals? How do you think that set you up for that entry into mothering in the way you've described?

I'm grateful for my background, for having a little bit of a medical background. And that really helped me go into appointments, you know, when we were trying to get pregnant and to be able to not just take things at face value. I remember I had one, we were living in New Zealand when we started trying to get pregnant. And there was one fertility specialist there who said, you've got a 2% chance of ever falling pregnant. And I was just heartbroken walking out of that, Walking out of that. But pretty quickly a fire inside of me was like, I'm going to prove this guy wrong. And I remember then we moved to Canada and going into appointments here and just being told something. But I had the information behind that to ask the right questions and asking those right questions, and then the specialist saying, oh, no, actually, you're right. Like, that doesn't, you know, that doesn't make sense. So, yeah, I think definitely that information gathering and just not always taking something at face value and always asking, what is someone's agenda behind this? And so often it's just that they're trying to help, but also being aware of what tools people have in their toolbox. So when it comes to the, you know, conventional medicine, understanding that they don't have all of the answers that we're after. It's an incredible way to, you know, diagnose like just the diagnostic capabilities of conventional medicine. And if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, then I want to get taken to the hospital, not to the homeopath. But we need to hold space for, yeah, sort of getting help from many different places. And I think. Yeah, so it definitely played a part in it sort of having that. I've always had the attitude that I'm the decision maker and you know, because when things go wrong, really we're the ones that deal with the consequences of that and that the health providers, their service providers, no different to. If I've got a problem with my sink, then I'll call the plumber. So I can go to the doctor and I can get advice, but it's up to me to make a decision, not up to the doctor. So, yeah, that's kind of always been my approach to it. Yes, I think it definitely helped me in my early mothering journey.

Yeah. And part of what I'm hearing in that reflection is that centering of your own agency and so coming back to center to connection with self and going, okay, well here is the level of information that I have access to. What am I not seeing here? So what can I get curious about? What other information might exist out there and how do I position myself in a way to try and tap into that? And then how am I going to filter all of that through the lens of my own understanding and my own experience? And so when you came into mothering and you started your blog and you started writing about essentially, I mean, I would frame it as countercultural, but I wonder how you would frame it. What was the. Obviously you had a positive response from that online and that's part of what has allowed you to grow the platform that you have. But I'm curious as to what that has been like for you as an experience and navigating that perhaps also with your in person community and relationships. In speaking about your experience, that may kind of go against the grain of what we traditionally think of or conceive as culturally as what it means to raise children.

It's definitely countercultural, you know, in the countries that we live in, you know, in Australia and New Zealand, the uk, like in western countries. And I. You brought up a point earlier, you know, when you were sitting with your. With your baby in the rocking chair thinking, goodness, is this normal? My baby's sleeping, but I'm not, I'm wide awake. And so I think one of the things that I love to do is to look cross culturally. So to look at what other cultures do around the world and pretty quickly realize that not everybody is doing it the way that we're doing it here and looking back through time as well, so looking at our history as well, to get an understanding of how humans are designed to parent. And when we do that, I think it can be so empowering to know that others aren't doing it, aren't expecting mothers to parent in the way that we're expected to, sort of with this emphasis on separation. But yeah, in. I mean, for me, the experience has just been like, what I do at raised good has become a part of who I am. And I've never really experienced that with a job before. This doesn't feel like a job. It feels like activism in a way. You know, fighting for mums and for babies and for children, that we need to leave a lot of these behaviorist ideals behind and sort of move on and really promote connection. And I think what we do in our homes has got the ability to change the world. And as a teenager, that was what I was all about. And so it feels like it's, you know, at my roots to try to live that way. And for me, authenticity is a really strong value. And so I kind of. As hard as it can be sometimes to go against what those around you are telling you to do, if I don't sort of follow what feels true to me, then that little spark inside of me kind of dims a little bit. And I don't want to do that at the price of, you know, it always comes at a price. So in real life, I tend to just be so positive about the things that I'm doing rather than trying to pull down mainstream. And I think sometimes that can be infectious and can take other people's defenses down and get them curious about what you're doing. And, yeah, generally it's been a really positive response, But I'm no stranger to negative comments. You know, when I post about something on social media that's, you know, to do with sleep training, I know that the negative comments are on their way. And that doesn't bother me anymore that I just take that as a sign that I'm saying the right thing. So, yeah, it's been a real journey, and, yeah, one that I'm just extremely grateful for.

I'm thinking about some conversations I've had recently in the motherhood studies course with people who are looking at ways of parenting differently. And it's really tricky, isn't it? Because it's also not this clear cut binary dichotomy of like, this is a countercultural way to parent and this is a mainstream way to parent. Like, it's kind of messy, isn't it? But looking at the ways in which actually the way that we are able to support ourselves, center our own needs and self connection as parents and as mothers and look at ways to support our children in alignment with our values, that that is essentially part of what we create as their socialization. So that's part of what we're talking about when we say we're changing the future of the world because we're changing the way that our children are socialized into particular stereotypes of what it means to be a good little girl or to be quiet or compliant or to have shame used as a discipline strategy. And part of the. In the conversations I've been having with some mothers around, this is the trickiness when there is a clash in values not just between yourself and the mainstream, but also in partnerships. Right when parents, and I wonder if you've had experience with this in your community of one parent coming to your community or membership or being part of this movement and being really invested in learning and then how. What are some strategies or tools that people can use or that you have witnessed parents using in coming into that sense of confidence that you describe and having that sense of. Well, other people make negative comments. They sort of bounce off you. Like, how do you think you got to that place? What would you say about that?

Well, first of all, yeah, it's very common and I think it's often mothers that are the ones that are saying, you know, I want to co sleep or I want to breastfeed longer or don't really want to do timeouts or whatever. The thing is, and we're often the messengers, we're often out there gathering the information. And I know in your work as well, we have lost the village. So it's not just sort of passed down to us. So we're kind of having to relearn a lot of this stuff. Ideally it would be that we wouldn't need to read any parenting books or read any parenting blogs that would just be passed down. But we got a bit off track and people in sort of who are natural parents or conscious parents or positive parents, whatever word we want to use, are trying to get back on track with what our kids really need. I think as far as negative comments bouncing off, they don't just bounce off, they do hurt and they do sting sometimes. And certainly when I first started. They really did, and I took it personally. But I think, you know, like, we learn with our kids when they say things to us, we learn that we're not to take it personally and that we've just triggered something in somebody and that that's within them. That's nothing to do with me. And I think, yeah, when it comes to partners wanting to do things in a different way, it's very common. You know, it's a common question that comes up in my community and how to deal with that. And so much of it is about that often where that step ahead of the other person in terms of information gathering and sort of listening to all the podcasts, like listening to your podcast and watching the summits and taking courses and all the things that we do as mums and really trying to help our partners in a gentle way, you know, let them know the reasons that we're doing these things. But I know, certainly for me in my relationship, your child starts to become evidence of what they need. And pretty quickly. And you pretty quickly see how happy the child is in front of you. And once that connection starts to grow, you know, I remember my son getting to. He must have been about three, and we're at a friend's house, and my friend's son had done something. I don't know what he'd done, but she said, I'm going to count to three and then I'm going to put you in a timeout. And my ears pricked up. I was like, oh, shoot, are we at the age where timeouts happen? Like, is that you know what's going to happen here? Because. And it had just never really entered my mind to do those things. So it's kind of like once you start to get into that flow, then the idea of punishing your child or putting them in a timeout, it just doesn't sit with where you are. So I don't know if that makes sense. Does that resonate for you?

It's interesting. So I'm thinking I probably have a bit of a different experience, but in a few ways. Well, one is I went to the timeout route initially because I didn't know what else to do. Well, then timeout. And it was kind of a bit of a fumbling. And I think this is also. This is also an example of, as you mentioned, like, that lost community and that lost sense of connection, because I've had in my friendship, relationships now, I was sort of the first person. There was one other friend I had who had a baby earlier, but in my social group to have a baby. And now a couple of my really close friends who are probably listening. Hello, girls. They send me the episodes when they listen. They're like, I love this guest, but they've got their babies now. And it's been so interesting for me watching as they've navigated through different stages that I had went through at an. At an earlier phase in my life and that I was having conversations with them then about what I was learning and what I was finding. And the same with my sister, who's not a mum. But looking at the ways that actually the sharing of information and different strategies and even witnessing other parents parenting, how often do we get opportunity to do that? And especially when we're in oftentimes nuclear families, we're having less children as years go on. So there isn't necessarily that extended network that we have access to to gain modeling and information. So that was part of what shaped my experience early on, I think. And then the second part of that is also, in some ways, I think there is the perception, and it's sometimes correct, right, that actually going down a punitive route or using shame or using strategies that are actually designed to quell and quash down our children's feelings can sometimes seem to be more effective in the short term if we're using the outcome of a quiet child as our measure of effectiveness. And so I found that in some ways actually going an alternate route to in parenting and how I want to nurture relationship with my child can feel like from the outside and also for myself. Sometimes it takes a lot of work. It. Sometimes I have had to remind myself, like, I'm doing this for our relationship. This is a connection we have. It's a relationship we're building. This is another human being that I'm raising, not somebody that I'm trying to become compliant and fit into a whole bunch of boxes. But I wonder what your thoughts are on that in terms of when you don't necessarily get that outcome of the happy child in front of you. And sometimes it can be. It can feel like you're winding potentially a longer route in comparison to what are some of the more behaviorist strategies that are put out there.

You're so right, Sophie. Like, it is much quicker. You know, kids will comply quickly. Like, I'll count to three and I'll leave. Like it's time to leave the playground or. And you can get very fast results with a young child because you're leveraging connection against them. They will do anything to maintain connection, particularly when they're little. And so when we're using connection against our kids, then it can have very fast results. And like you say, we talk about being the perfect mother myth. And then in your work as well, you talk about this idea that to be perfect mom, then we need the perfect kid. And so a lot of what I've had to shed is the idea that my child's behavior is not a reflection on my parenting. It's not a reflection on me. It's how he's feeling in the moment. It's a reflection on his emotions. I don't need to make him happy all the time. So this is not about having happy kids all the time. It's about having authentic kids who are allowed to have their experience. And for us to hold the space for that and growing up is really messy. Like, it's really messy. It doesn't look easy. And so, like you say, it's parenting through connection. It's not the fast route. It's the scenic route. It's, you know, it can be. It can look like a slower path, and it can look less efficient. But in the long run, we're building connection and we're building our. You know, we're letting our kids be who they are instead of making them be somebody else so that they can get love. It's this unconditional way of parenting. Like, I will accept you not just when you're at your best, but when you're at your worst. And if we can't accept our kids when they're at their worst, when they're melting down and screaming and shouting and telling us that they, you know, they hate us, who is going to accept them when they're at their worst? And to have somebody who does that, it's not easy, but for me, it's totally worth it. And, you know, the methods like timeouts and punishments and I'll take away your iPad if you don't do this. Or no, you know, whatever. No cookie later or whatever. The thing is, you can imagine that if we use those things in our relationships with other grownups, like, how long would our marriage last if I said to my husband, like, if you don't, you know, put the bins out, then, you know, I'm taking away your phone, whatever. The thing is, like, it seems so silly when we say these things, if we were thinking that we would say them to other adults. And for me, that's one of the easiest measures to use is, would I say this to another adult that I love? And is this going to strengthen the connection or weaken the connection because there's so much unlearning to do. So many of these things are just automatic programs that we come with into parenting. So. And I still do it. Like, I will say things, you know, and. And I've taught my son over the years how he deserves to be treated. And that's with respect and with compassion. And so when I don't. When I'm having a rough day, when I break, when, you know, and I do yell or threaten or whatever, the thing is, he'll say to me, mom, that sounds like a threat. We don't do threats in our family. And I'll go, oh, shoot, I got to rewind, buddy. Like, I'm so sorry.

And.

Yeah, he holds me accountable, like, since he was, like, five. Like. And, yeah. So this type of parenting, it's not like saying. It's not like wanting to get out of mainstream, but then just putting us onto a different path, which is another set of rules. It's saying, like, there are no rules. Like, make up your own rul. I don't want people to parent the way that I parent. I just want people to be able to parent authentic. What is authentic in an authentic way for them. But I do think that we've become so disconnected in our culture. And we look at. We look for ways to, you know, numb our feelings all the time. We scroll on social media, we grab another cookie, we have the chocolate, we shop alcohol, whatever. The thing is. And so it's trying to set our kids up to have better mental health than what we're currently experiencing in our society, which I think is pretty hard to argue with.

There's so many things that come to mind as you speak, Tracey, and one being the threat of Gabor Mate's work. Right. When you mentioned all of the use of addiction essentially, as a symptom of a sick society and the ways in which children. He says, you know, if there's the choice between attachment and authenticity, then our children are going to go with attachment. So if they need to, well, and quash parts of themselves to maintain that attachment relationship, they need that for their survival. So. So that's what's going to come out on top. But then there's this wrestling that I'm sure many of us can relate to, because I think this continues as we move into different phases of our life, looking for a sense of belonging and connection. And how do I. And Brene Brown talks about this difference between belonging and fitting in. Right. So am I molding myself to fit in or Do I find a sense of belonging here? But the other thing that I was thinking about as you were speaking was I really appreciate actually what you've shared there around the times in which you may still yell or use threats or punishments or whatever that can look like. Because I think also there can be, as we're listening to parenting experts and people who speak really publicly in this space, it can be really easy to set another pedestal in our minds of this is the way of how to be an excellent natural parent or conscious parent. And just sort of breaking that down and coming back to what you said in terms of we want to be really careful not to switch out one set of rules for another. And. And when you were reflecting there about your son, when he says, we don't use threats, I love that. And it reminded me actually of some instances when I've had in my own parenting of using threats or punishment. And it's usually when I'm feeling most out of control myself that I try and exert control and power. Even. I mean, even this morning, we were running late getting to school, and I was feeling stressed because if we don't get to school early enough for her to play with her friends, she is upset. And so I was wanting to avoid her feeling that way. So there's the first thing, all right, Avoiding being with discomfort, but also valid, right? So it's kind of both. And I was rushing to get out, and I was going through the routine, as I usually do, which involves everything I'm doing everything right, like getting her clothes out, making sure they're ironed, doing the lunchbox, all of that. And as time started ticking away and I started going faster and we got out the door, I started becoming more heightened, and I was going faster. And I was anticipating dealing with her being upset on the drive to school because she wasn't going to get enough time with her friends. And in the car, I said to her in the kind of heightened state, you know, you're going to have to start taking more responsibility in the mornings. Mommy can't do everything. It's not mummy's job to do everything. And I started kind of going on this track. And she said to me, well, I was trying to put my shoes on, and you just said, hurry up. So I was trying to hurry up. And then you just bent down and did my shoes for me. And so part of what I'm trying to get at in retelling part of this is that in order for us to be able to parent in a way that, yes, holds at the center, a connection and authenticity and developing attachment and attunement with our kids. It's like we need all of that for ourselves in order to be able to do that. And it kind of brings in the importance of what I know we're both passionate about in the support of parents. If we want to talk about raising our children differently, we need to talk about how the people who are raising them are supported and connected with themselves. Right.

I think so little of parenting has to do with the child. It's all to do with the parent. It's, yeah, our kids. And like you say, like trying to stay connected to yourself and finding that belonging when you see a baby come into the world, I mean, toddlers, like, they are just full of authenticity. They know what they want. I just love toddlers. They haven't had it squashed out of them yet. And so many of us spend our adult lives going to therapy, trying to get back to where we started out, you know? And I think that if we can just get out of our kids way and allow for the messiness of childhood and brain development and so much of their behavior that we find irritating or annoying is just because they're immature. Like, it's just immaturity. But it can be other things too. It can be because we're rushing them too much. It can be because we're trying to take them to five things in one day when really only two is realistic. There's so many things that we can do to reduce those things, to reduce the meltdowns and things that we can do that increase them, you know, like when we're rushing them. So, yeah, it's not about making it look perfect or Pinterest worthy or Instagram or any of that stuff. It's just about being willing to surrender to the realness of it and. Yeah. And just accept that it's messy and motherhood's messy and we're all just trying our best. Like, I don't think there's a parent on the planet that's not trying their best for their kids and holding the space for others and just saying, me too. Like, yeah, it was really hard this morning. I was trying to get my kid out and I could hear myself saying these things and I'll be the same. I'll go into those automatic tapes and it's almost like I can watch myself from the outside and I'm like, I can see that I'm doing this, but I still. It's so ingrained, isn't it? So it's not about getting it right all the time.

That's right.

It's not.

And following it through.

Right.

So how that story ended from this morning was in the car. I know. I said I heard myself. And I thought, hang on a second, I'm just going to stop and just be quiet for a moment. And then I just reflected and I said to her, you know what? You're right. And I think I was a bit stressed because I was rushing and I wanted to give us enough time to get to school for you to play with your friends. And I feel worried that we didn't, because I know that's really important to you. So trying to say, like, I know your value here and I was trying to meet it, but I didn't. And here's where we are. And then also maybe there are some more things that we could change about the morning. And she came up with this idea. She's like, maybe I can get my pencils sharpened and I could get my notebook ready when I come down. And I was like, that's a great idea. Let's try that. And maybe I can get up earlier and we'll see how that works. Right. So almost also, like allowing ourselves to apologize to our kids, to let them in a little bit on that process of self reflection, because that's what they're going to need to do and already are doing in various ways. But I want to move to something that you mentioned earlier, Tracy, to have as part of this conversation, which might be a little bit of a different tangent, but I think connects to what we're saying here, because you spoke about when you began, raised good, that that became a really important creative outlet for you, and that's something that you've sustained now for almost a decade. And when we're talking about being able to be in connection with our children and support them in a particular way, and we connect that in with having our needs met as mothers, as parents, and being connected with ourselves. I think a really big piece of this that isn't spoken about enough is how we are creatively nourished. And creativity can look like a lot of different things. But I wonder if perhaps you could speak to your experience of that, of what it's been like for you and any even tips or strategies or insight that you can offer those who are listening to develop, sustain, maintain and nurture a connection with a passion, a project, a sense of your creativity alongside or outside of your mothering. What does that experience been like for you?

I do have a trait that I don't give up because it is very easy. It's very easy to put the needs of others above our own. Like, I'm not going to. You know, sometimes I'm like, you know, I'm taking this time to do this when I could be with my kid right now. And, you know, and most of the time he's with his dad. It's good, but it's. Being able to prioritize yourself sometimes is really important because there have been many times when I've wanted to give up where I'm like, it would just be easier if I just stopped doing this. But I miss it. And for me, it feels like, you know, an alternative to therapy. Almost like it's just this way of expressing myself and feeling like I'm doing something for myself that's not just. And I don't want to say just being a parent, but so many of us fall into that and think that that's how we're defined. So I think giving myself another outlet has just been. Yeah, it's been really healing in so many ways, and it inspires me. I've connected with so many people as a result of this, you know, people like you who I wouldn't have met otherwise. And I'm inspired by seeing, you know, so many mums doing it now. Like, when I first started, I don't think there was two. I wasn't even on Instagram when I started, but. And then. Then I was on there and. And I see so many more people coming out there now, which is just amazing. And I love that we're all kind of, you know, helping each other go in the same direction. And. Yeah, I have a friend, friend of a friend in New Zealand who's, you know, started, you know, has just realized that she's actually an amazing painter. And, you know, and that's come out in motherhood. And you hear of so many mums finding their creativity once they become mothers. But, you know, particularly as a young mum, it can be really hard to find the time to do those things because young kids, so intense and need so much time. So I think one piece of advice would be just that even if you only have 10 minutes or if it's half an hour, those little bits of time add up. And they certainly added up. For me, it was typing as my son was sleeping next to me, napping, or a little bit at nighttime before I fell asleep, or waiting in a queue for something. Those little moments can add up. And also trying to tie our creativity to the times when we're with our kids too. If we can, depending on what kind of creative outlet, you know, mums are drawn to. But that's one thing that I found, you know, I parent on the other side of the world to where my family live. I don't have very much support at all. And you know, one of the best things about COVID was that my husband didn't travel so much. But it's finding those small moments where you can, I think is really important.

Thank you for that message and that sense of consistency and resilience and tenacity and kind of fidelity to your own self expression of going, you know what, yes, this 10 minutes if I feel called to. And sometimes it can feel hard to do that even though you get the rewards. And it's this form of expression and moving through of something that you would like to create or say or sing or move through to actually get going can be difficult, I've found. Do you think that it comes back to what you said about yourself that you're. It's part of a sort of personality trait that you've got that sense of not giving up and just keeping on, forging ahead? Or have you had periods with raised good where you found it difficult to write or difficult to access that or. Or has it been quite a sustained experience for you?

I think it's.

No.

There have definitely been times where I felt like giving up and wanted to give up, but I've always sort of, you know, the reason that I became a vet was because I wanted to stand up for those that couldn't speak for themselves and that was animals. And then when I became a mom, I saw that it was babies and kids. I saw that kids were being treated different to adults and that childism or adultism, you know, perpetuates in our society. And so yeah, when I want to give up and then I look at my son, I'm like, I just, yeah, I want to keep doing it because it. I do think that it makes a difference. One of the things I would say also with creativity is to do it for the sake of it. Like do it for the process, not for the outcome. So to have no attachment to the outcome. I had no attachment to the outcome. When I started doing what I was doing, I didn't think anybody would be reading it and. And I just did it because it was what I needed to do. Not focusing on the outcome of where it ended up. So yeah, doing it for yourself I think is really important. But yeah, I think I do kind of. I am a bit stubborn and do tend to yeah. Not want to give things up when something really means a lot to me. I think it just means so much to me just to. When I get messages from mums around the world who are like, you know, I just discovered your blog. And I've been, you know, binge reading the blogs and they've just made such a difference and I finally feel seen. And I thought I was the only one doing this. Like, I'm like, yes, that's another baby who's not being left to cry it out tonight. So that's why I have to keep doing it.

That's so powerful. I hadn't made that connection that you just articulated as well between your passion as a vet and for doing this work in being a voice for the voiceless and those who can't speak and advocate. That's such a powerful. Yeah, that's such a powerful articulation, Tracy. And thank you for the work that you are doing. I think in so many ways it is a form of activism and creativity and self expression and a form of community building and creation and forging of new pathways into what it means to be a parent and a mother and ultimately for us and for our children. I wonder if there's anything else you feel called to share as part of this conversation before we finish.

I think parenthood can be so much fun and I think we kind of suck the joy out of it when we follow mainstream rules, when we follow anybody's rules on anything. And I think just allowing, you know, I don't think that we just naturally know how to parent when we become parents necessarily, like you say, how many of us have. I don't even know if I. How many people I had seen breastfeeding before I breastfed full term. You know, it was foreign to me. We don't just instinctively, necessarily know how to do it, but we do have intuition and we can connect with our babies and we can go into this dance with them and we need to lead that dance because we're the mature parent and they're the immature child. But it can be so much fun along the way if we just throw out some of the rules. And I've just always been someone who questions the rules and loves to break them if I don't think they make any sense. But, like, I remember we were in New Zealand one time and my son was 4 and it was like in Auckland, it's like tropical rain. It's like rain in Queensland. It's like tropical rain. And it was just pelting down and my son wanted to run outside on the deck at this Airbnb that we were staying at. And I was like, no, we don't run in the rain. Like, it's. That's not safe. That's the thing. And then I was like, hang on, where did I get that from? Like, where did I get this idea? I've just, you know, I've just taken that from culture, like, from. And then I say, actually, like, it's quite warm. We can run around in the rain. I can hold your hand. We can have fun. We can come back in and have a bubble bath afterwards and warm up. Nobody really gets colds from running around in the rain. And we went and ran around in the rain and had so much fun and then came back in and had a bubble bath. And so I still remember that experience, whereas I wouldn't have remembered that experience if I would have just said no. So I think just this commitment to being willing to evolve with our kids, we kind of have this idea that when we become parents, we're supposed to know it all just because we're grown ups, like, we're not supposed to know it all. We can be learning until the day we die. And so being willing to evolve alongside our kids, being willing to show them our imperfections, like you said earlier, apologizing, that's one of my biggest things that I do as a parent, is to apologize because it takes me off that perfect parenting pedestal. I often like to think of showing my son my imperfections as being similar to. He loves rock climbing. So I think of a rock climbing wall, and if a rock climbing wall has got no cracks and crevices to grip into, then you can't climb it. You can't climb a glass wall. That's perfect. And so I think showing those imperfections, having a sense of humor about it, not thinking that you need to know exactly what to do all the time, but just being willing to surrender to that unknown and having a confidence in yourself that you'll figure it out as you go along. Yeah, I have no idea how I'm going to parent a teenager, but it'll be coming down the path for me. But I know I'll figure it out and I know that I'm in it with my kid. So, yeah, I think just letting that I talk about that whisper of your intuition becoming a loud, raw. And in order for that to become a loud roar, we need to silence mainstream other people telling us what to do and really have confidence in ourselves that we are the parent that our kid needs and we get to make up how we're going to do it. So yeah, my message would just be to be authentically yourself and then your kid can be authentically them.

What a beautiful way to finish.

Thank you so much for this conversation, Tracey.

Oh my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Sophie. I love everything you do and I'm so grateful for everything that you put out into the world and you continue to teach me. And yeah, I'm just happy that we get to be on this journey together.

Yeah, me too. Thank you.

I hope you've resonated with something from today's episode. Please consider leaving the podcast a review to help me have these conversations reach more people. If you're someone who works with mothers, check out my online training, the Motherhood Studies Practitioner Certification and you can head to my website for more information about my other services. Dr. Sophiebrog.com thank you for being here.