Uncovered: Life Beyond
Join the conversations of Rebecca and Naomi, two ex-Amish Mennonite women who jumped the proverbial fence in their younger years and later experienced college as first-gen, non-traditional students. They discuss pursuing formal education while raising a family, navigating the hidden curriculum of academia, and other dimensions of reimagining a life beyond high-demand religion. Send your questions to uncoveredlifebeyond@gmail.com.
Uncovered: Life Beyond
39. Caregiving and College: How one Midlife Mom Manages
Ever wonder how midlife moms juggle college, caregiving, and running a business? Today Rebecca walks us through the ways that she has combined her college career with all her other responsibilities. She gives us a glimpse into typical features of her daily life, describing the ways her days have changed over the past decade of her long, determined march to graduation. We find out how she motivated her teens to take responsibility around the house and how she explained a pile of dirty tissues to her daughter on a particularly rough day.
Rebecca describes how her classes have changed since the pandemic and her complicated feelings about online courses. Along the way she offers practical tips that anyone can use to help manage the chaos of adulting and keeping everyone fed. We also find out which hallowed family tradition she dropped, and why she feels no guilt for doing so. Her advice for her younger self changes depends on the realities of different life stages, but always includes grace for doing the best she could at the time. Ultimately, letting go of the need for external validation or others' permission to pursue life goals is the first step toward reaching them.
And you'll never guess what Amish tradition Rebecca's twins insisted on taking with them to college. Here's a hit: you can't really enjoy potpie or yumazetti without it! (IYKYK)
Thanks for listening! Connect with us via
- Facebook: Uncovered: Life Beyond
- Instagram: @uncoveredlifebeyond
- Email: uncoveredlifebeyond@gmail.com
- Website: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2171591
Subscribe (for free) to Uncovered: Life Beyond on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts so you'll never miss an episode!
What topics at the intersection of education, high-demand religion, career, parenting, and emotional intelligence are of interest to you? Help us plan future episodes by taking this quick listener survey. We appreciate your input very much!
This is Rebecca and this is Naomi. We're 40-something moms and first cousins who know what it's like to veer off the path assigned to us.
Speaker 2:We've juggled motherhood, marriage, college and career, as we questioned our faith traditions while exploring new identities and ways of seeing the world.
Speaker 1:Without any maps for either of us to follow. We've had to figure things out as we go and appreciate that detours and dead ends are essential to the path.
Speaker 2:Along the way, we've uncovered a few insights we want to share with fellow travelers. We want to talk about the questions we didn't know who to ask and the options we didn't know we had.
Speaker 1:So whether you're feeling stuck or already shaking things up, we are here to cheer you on and assure you that the best is yet to come. Welcome to Uncovered Life Beyond. This is Naomi.
Speaker 2:And this is Rebecca.
Speaker 1:So today we're going to get to hear all about how starting college and midlife has shifted things for you, rebecca, on a day-to-day level. I think you know, for myself and for lots of us who are the first in our families to go to college, it's hard to know what to expect, like you know, in terms of what's going to change day-to-day. And if you've got dependents, you've got family depending on you to be the primary caregiver and you're considering going to college, there's this whole. There's a sense of uncertainty about how making this change in our life is going to affect others, and not just in the big picture, but also day to day, and so it's hard to know. Is this something that could fit into my life or is this going to cause so much chaos? So thank you for agreeing to do this.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. I know how it is to kind of worry about things you don't know about, right Well, when you aren't sure what to worry about. Someone tell me what I should be most concerned about, Right?
Speaker 1:exactly. I remember when I had I'd finished undergrad, I was thinking about grad school and like I was just trying to get a feel for like what is different about the experience of grad school and I could not get a straight answer from the handful of people I had access to at the time.
Speaker 1:So I just had to you know, I just had to dive in and figure it out as I went and pretend I knew what I was doing. I think for any of us there are things we are concerned about and then turn out not to be an issue, turns out to be a piece of cake. There's always the plot twists, and hearing what others have experienced can kind of give us a sense of whether something is maybe doable for us or whether it's something we need to realistically hold off on for a while.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, and I think sometimes the unknown is what can trip us up the most, and sometimes it's kind of like, okay, well, if someone else can do that, I probably can figure it out too.
Speaker 1:Right, right, well, and I also think about it that if you come from a background of educational neglect, it's probably a background that hasn't really valued education, formal education, and so I mean we grew up with lots of warnings about college, you know. And so if you don't know much about it and all you have to go on is warnings, you know as far as what the experience is like, then yeah, you're not really working. You're probably not working with accurate information. That's not good information to make decisions off of Absolutely.
Speaker 1:All right, so let's give this a go. And true confessions. We recorded a ton of content yesterday and then we ended the call and I started editing and realized I had not turned my mic on, so we decided to get up early this morning, monday morning, and give it another shot.
Speaker 2:And it's the first day back to school for both of us, so we're winning. We're winning.
Speaker 1:We've got our coffee.
Speaker 2:We've got our coffee. We've got to go on.
Speaker 1:It's a step in the right direction. That's right. So I think the way we'll structure this conversation is breaking it down into a day in the life, and we'll break it down into like five sections. So we've got early morning, late morning, early afternoon, late afternoon and evening, and what I'd love to hear are the ways that being a student shifted those routines in your family's life, in your life, and what that's been like for you.
Speaker 1:And I should say for background, that you've been the primary caregiver in your household and that's been probably a central role for most of your life, for most of your time as a mother, and I think it's important for our listeners to know that you have also been running a business during this time a very successful one, I might add and you've also been working outside the home. And also you are the person that so many people come to when they are in a crisis, and so you're an unofficial one-stop shop for recent immigrants, for people who find them, maybe young girls who need a place to stay because they can't live at home anymore All kinds of situations that you've stepped in on a voluntary basis to help folks out. So it's not just that you went from taking care of your own house to including college, but you're including college on top of all these other things.
Speaker 2:And that's probably a large reason that it's taking me as long as it is, and while I'm kind of reaching the point where I am over it, at the same time I'm grateful that I've been able to do what I've been doing. When I first started, the twins would have been freshmen and Chase would have been in fourth grade and we had conversations about how things would change and I would need more help. And they were fabulous. My family really was fabulous about it. Something that I I don't know magically kind of fell upon was, instead of having specific chores everyone had to do, I would make lists of what needed to be done and everyone would get to pick what they wanted to do, and it felt like that kind of gave them some control. They also saw me studying. They saw me always kind of doing homework in between everything else and it seemed like they were proud to be a part of that.
Speaker 2:And I think it's easy to worry about maybe the mom guilt and not having put your family first. I think it's good for your kids to see you working towards something that kind of redeems a part of your life and it gives them an awareness of what they have. I'll never forget one day I picked them up at school, front seat, looks at the floor and she's like what's going on here? And it was like littered with tissues and I was like, well, I had my own bad day and it was a day where I realized how much I did miss in math and how far behind I was and I was really struggling. And I just told them that and they absolutely immediately were like well, here, I know that stuff and they tutored me through it. They really did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's been really neat to. It's been really cool. It's been really affirming to watch my family jump in. Matt tended to do more of the meal planning not always, but often If there was meal planning he did it and, yeah, my family absolutely jumped in. It helps.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's wonderful, and what I'm hearing you say there is like you gave your family, your kids, more ownership, or gave them an opportunity for ownership by letting them choose what they wanted to do instead of you telling them. But then also that scene in the car oh my goodness, that is such a touching scene and I think about what that's modeling for your kids in terms of resilience, in terms of what is possible with midlife pivots and really getting through a tough time. Those are incredible life lessons.
Speaker 2:It's kind of tricky knowing how much grief to expose your kids to how much personal grief, because I don't want them to carry my stuff and it wasn't planned. I never thought about the fact that I should maybe clean up my tissues before I pick them up, probably because I didn't have time, that I should maybe clean up my tissues before I pick them up, probably because I didn't have time. But yeah, it's kind of interesting how some of that stuff kind of plays out the way it needs to and it's redemptive moments.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, absolutely. So. Let's talk about the different parts of your day, then, and what that looks like Early morning. What does that look like at your house? Is it a quiet coffee and contemplation kind of scene, or are you cranking up the tunes to wake everybody up? What is your life like, and how has that changed since you've brought college as a thing onto your plate?
Speaker 2:So what changed the most probably for me was I get up a little bit earlier. I tend to get up between 5.30 and 6 o'clock and I'm more of a quiet coffee and blumbling around the place first thing in the morning. But I tend to try to get up and kind of work on some homework first thing. I feel like my brain works the best then and it's quiet and so I want to take advantage of that. So I try to get about two hours of that in before my morning really starts going, before the kids start getting up, and that again has changed a bit in the last several years. There's a little girl I take care of and so she usually comes around 730. So I'm kind of trying to figure out how to work my school schedule into that. But I do have another friend who takes her some mornings just so I can have that routine, and that's been helpful as well, and I think maybe that's part of the deal.
Speaker 2:What worked when I was first starting school has kind of changed. I now have kids in college, but now I also have a second grader I'm taking care of. So things keep shifting and changing but it doesn't hit for all of us. I mean, that's nothing new. That's nothing new.
Speaker 1:That reminds me of something I heard recently that, when it comes to productivity and this kind of thing, so often all the how-to books are telling us how to keep a schedule, but the reality of most of our lives as caregivers is that we need more skills around pivoting and about how to do that, how to shift gears, and I'm really glad you made that point.
Speaker 1:But what I'm hearing you say is that when you started college, the twins were in high school or finishing high school and starting college, and then they've been off to college the last few years, and so I can imagine that just having fewer people wandering around the house in the morning, even if you're not actively getting them ready for school the way you would have years ago, right right, makes a difference. It makes a difference. And then having a second grader makes a difference, and then you take her to school, is that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, she doesn't know English real well and I don't know I feel kind of bad putting her on the bus. I'm like I don't need to do that so and it's not schools really close to where we live, so I just run her up to school real quick, it's yeah that's really sweet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure she and her mom appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Well, you know they'd find me if I lived in their country as well.
Speaker 1:That's what we hope, right? So shifting gears then to what a late morning might look like when the morning rush is over. What does a late morning look like for you these days?
Speaker 2:You know, it kind of varies a little bit depending on what day of the week it is. I've realized I tend to kind of categorize what happens on specific days of the week almost more. Monday and Tuesdays tend to be my heavy schoolwork days. That's kind of when I work on my business stuff mostly. And I mean like, if anyone cares, thursdays are the days I water my plants, but then Wednesdays I work, and often either Thursday or Friday I work. Some weeks I work both Thursday and Friday, but often it's one of the two. So it kind of depends a little bit.
Speaker 2:You know what day of the week it is and what my work schedule is. But late mornings tend to be when I kind of throw in laundry and get a load of laundry started. And on Monday and Tuesdays I might work on homework but I might also kind of try and get some of my orders put together. And also I find myself making a lot of doctor's appointments and phone calls those days in the morning, simply because I know I need to get that taken care of too. And mornings tend to be easier If I'm working. I usually leave their house around 1030, 11 o'clock and often what I try to do is if I have something I need to take to the bank or something I need to drop off or something even that I might need to pick up. I just throw all that, and maybe a note for a reminder, in a basket. I know that, okay, I need to make these stops and it makes it a little bit more.
Speaker 1:There's less forgetting that happens and I can kind of remember what's going on and what I need to get taken care of. I love that. It's like you're putting, you're giving yourself less to remember. Yeah Right, because it's right there in the basket. I love that.
Speaker 2:I love that idea.
Speaker 1:So do you want to talk a little bit about what school has looked like for you at different times, in terms of attending class on a campus or courses at home, online courses, that you meet online with a group or that it's all asynchronous. You just kind of turn in your work and you work independently. What does that look like and how does that affect your days?
Speaker 2:My classes all started out in person and on campus, and how it works is it kind of depends on what your credit hour is for the class and how long the class takes. If I'm remembering correctly, I think my class has always met either Monday, wednesday or Tuesday, thursday and that was kind of nice because I kind of had the set schedule and typically you go to class and you can expect to be in the class for about an hour and 15 minutes. If you're having that type of schedule the Monday Wednesday, the Tuesday Thursday schedule For the higher credit hours I think those might have gone a little longer. If I'm remembering correctly, I think some of the classes I was in class for an hour and a half.
Speaker 1:Does that sound right? I could see that, especially if they're maybe a four hour, four credit hour course. Yeah, I could see that.
Speaker 2:I think it might have gone a little bit longer, and typically, if that happened, the professor would give us a break in between. Does that mean, then, that you were on campus four days a week? I just couldn't do it, and so I tried to juggle classes that might be more back to back or even a class that might have a 45 minute wait period in between. But I was prepared then to do homework or make those doctor phone calls then and tried to make sure that when I was on campus I was using that time wisely. You can always find spots in the library or lounges where you could hang out and work, and of course I always tried to find little corners where no one was sitting so that I could have the world to myself.
Speaker 1:Right. So when we're talking about three credit courses, four credit courses, that determines the amount of time that you'll spend in the classroom, right, right. But I think when we're talking about what this looks like at the college level, then I think it's important to remember that the expectation is that expectations of homework I mean, it's not that it's, it's not that the expectations of homework are new, but, like, the extent of what's expected, the substance of the homework, I think, takes them many of them, by surprise at the college level, because they're maybe used to something just being kind of. Maybe they just kind of have to, maybe it's reviewing something they talked about in class, or they just kind of. I'm guessing this is true for you, because this is certainly true for my experience that it's about setting you up in class to then spend two to three times the time you've spent in class doing homework. And homework is not just review usually, but it's learning, it's applying things you've learned about in class.
Speaker 1:Writing papers, writing papers which takes a ton of creativity, Like what's expected is not just writing things stream of consciousness or kind of. Here's what I think about this, you know, opinion papers.
Speaker 2:You've got to go look up information, and and so what that means is, if I spent, like on a Monday, wednesday, if I spent two hours in classes, the advice is that I can expect to spend between four to six hours each day doing additional homework. I think that's a generous rule, and maybe I shouldn't say that I'm pretty sure I don't spend that much time doing homework.
Speaker 1:You and lots of other folks.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, you know, it's kind of hard to measure that, because if I'm getting up mornings, yeah, it adds up it does add up.
Speaker 1:And I wonder if you find that some weeks you spend more time on it than others.
Speaker 2:That would be absolutely true. Yeah, absolutely yeah. I've often wondered how much COVID changed my experience and how much of it would have happened anyway. How much COVID changed my experience and how much of it would have happened anyway. But obviously, at COVID we went to more online classes and even then those met at specific times primarily, and I was glad for that time. I was glad that when they made the shift they still tried to meet online because I felt like the, even though it was a virtual, you still had those connections.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite professors was during COVID and it was completely online. But the more time passes and the more and I don't know whether it's the more advanced my classes are or if it's just kind of the way the ship is sailing they tend to be asynchronous and which means they give you the work to do and you just do whatever you need to do it and typically there's no face-to-face communication. Oftentimes the professors will put up like conversation boards and you have to engage in conversation throughout the week, but not always. I've had classes where that wasn't even happening and sometimes the students have to engage, but the professor never engages. For that you can probably tell me more than I even know.
Speaker 2:But my guess is I think colleges find that this saves them a lot of money and I think they throw a lot of classes at professors. So I think a lot of the professors are overworked. But I will admit that the asynchronous classes are difficult for me. If I wouldn't be committed, I would probably. I can see why people would quit, right. Right, it's got some triggering elements of the whole CLE, bce.
Speaker 1:Study carols.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's the sense of oh my goodness, here I am alone again.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 2:But I've also had professors who have. Actually, it was one professor and at the beginning of the semester she sent out individual questionnaires and I remember her one question being tell me what you feel might be your major-.
Speaker 1:Challenge barrier.
Speaker 2:Yeah at achieving or completing this class, and I really appreciated that because it kind of at least made you feel like you were being humanized and that she wanted to be intentional on being proactive and I felt like those types of connections really do help. So I think people are trying mostly.
Speaker 1:So I think people are trying mostly Right. Yeah, I think you're right about some schools, a lot of schools, seeing online instruction as a way that they don't have to pay for classroom space. But the thing is for those of us teaching those classes and I just had a taste of it during COVID but it feels to us like it takes more time and effort than an in-person class and I don't know how much of that is actual time and effort and how much of it is just kind of the. When you don't have that social reward of face-to-face interaction, then it makes it feel more taxing.
Speaker 2:Well, I can't believe that the completion rate is good, which would also have to be frustrating for a professor.
Speaker 1:It's bad and I don't know back it's been over 10 years now. It was while I was in grad school. There was a lot of talk of MOOCs, massive open online courses, and these are courses that were being offered by big universities. It's a handful of well, no, I'm not even sure if it's universities, maybe it's just private entities but the idea was that you could go and study, you could take a course with this famous scholar of this and this expert in this or this area, and there were fears that this was totally going to devastate higher education and we were all going to graduate, we're all going to finish grad school, and there'd be no jobs. There's still didn't have a lot of jobs, but it wasn't as bad as as as some predicted, and a big part of it was that the completion rates on those MOOCs, on those massive open online courses, were was was just abysmal, and I think that probably the thought is well, people aren't paying money, they aren't invested, and so maybe because I've also taught so during COVID I taught a couple of composition, so first year composition courses online and after doing that a couple of times, I didn't feel I could ethically offer that again because of the completion rate.
Speaker 1:And these were students who were going to be on the hook for that tuition and they were going to be every bit as much on the hook, whether they finished the course or not, because they weren't dropping it early on, they were just getting. Life was happening. And I guess my other concern is that I can imagine someone a well-intentioned onlooker might say well, oh, if you can take college classes at home on the computer, then you can just keep being the primary caregiver and just do it on top of all the other things you're doing. And I just want to say, no, it doesn't work that way. You've got to have dedicated time, because caregiving is a job all on its own Right and doing the kind of intellectual work that schoolwork is going to expect of you is takes your full attention to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I would also throw out the suggestion that, be aware, even if you're a parent sending your kid to college, my one kid has two of these classes asynchronous classes this semester and just from previous experience I know that I have to keep asking about it because it's really difficult for them to stay engaged and in some ways, as much as I hate it, cle probably prepared me for this so that I'm better at it. So know yourself and know your kids. It's not ideal, but I also know that at this point in my life it's not going to happen any other way, and so it's a suck it up buttercup type of Well, we just got to get you into grad school.
Speaker 2:You keep talking about this grad school thing.
Speaker 1:And then you'll be and then, especially if it's Well, some of those are online too, but I think you'll have a much greater chance of an interactive experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially if it's face to face classes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay, so that was late morning. Let's talk about what your early afternoons look like. So let's say, after lunch I imagine this depends on which day of the week it is, but anything in particular that shifted for you during that part of the day, or maybe has shifted multiple times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so something I do fairly consistently early afternoon, and especially when I get up that early. And I had never really thought about it this way. But several years ago there was an Amish girl living with us and somewhere in the conversation she made a comment about her mom. And her mom is one of those Amish women who work circles around the best of us. She's the epitome of hot shafi. I mean, everything is spotless, everything is taken care of, but this girl just kind of like snorted and she's like you know my mom took a nap or read a book for an hour every day. She always said those men get to take an hour off. I can too, and I had never thought about it that way before.
Speaker 2:But it kind of shifted something in my brain and so if I'm home in the early afternoon and it might even just be 30 minutes, but I really make an effort to take a nap. Taking a nap for me feels like a guilty pleasure. Whether I really need it or not doesn't matter. My couch sits where, like, the sun shines in through the window, and I like to time it so that the sun's shining in and you can kind of soak it up. But even if I don't do that. I might read a book or I might, you know, whatever it is that feels like a treat.
Speaker 2:I allow myself to do that and I don't really care what else is going on. I try really hard to give space for it, because I think it's easy for many of us to feel like our value is based on what gets done and what if I'm deserving, just because I'm deserving. So I really make an effort to do that when I'm at home. If I'm not working, if I'm at home early afternoon, I usually kind of start thinking about dinner and I tend to do probably one or two crockpot thingies a week, and that varies a little bit. But of course if I do that I'm going to start that a little bit earlier in the day. But that's when I get serious about laundry or cleaning stuff up. But yeah, typically that early afternoon is when I shift from schoolwork or even business stuff to taking care of household chores.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, I love what you said about. Oh, hang on, we've got all the alarms going off here, oh gosh.
Speaker 2:Outside or like the emergency alarms.
Speaker 1:No, no, wake up alarms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, gotcha, gotcha emergency alarms.
Speaker 1:No, no, wake up alarms. Yeah, oh, gotcha, gotcha. I love what you were saying about the importance of rest or recreation, you know, whatever form that might take, because I think it's easy for us to think of it as a reward, but the reality is it's fuel for us to do the things that we want to do and need to do. It's a necessary luxury. If it is a luxury, yeah, absolutely so. Then, in early afternoon, as you're shifting your attention more to household things, what has your late afternoon looked like? Has there been a lot of chauffeuring kids to activities, getting people where they need to be? What part does dinner play? Do you have like a big sit down dinner every night, or how has that changed over time as well?
Speaker 2:So when I would have started school, the twins would have been in dance. Chase has always been in soccer, dance Chase has always been in soccer. So, yeah, there's always a lot of schedules and making sure that everyone gets to where they need to be. So I typically I primarily cook from scratch. Like you know, a home cooked meal typically.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I feel like you're mocking my bread.
Speaker 1:I'm not, I'm not not at all. I kind of have a self-imposed bread ban in my house because it makes me fluffy and I can't stop once I start. But your bread makes it through the ban.
Speaker 2:So I am proud. One thing that I have found is like if I make a pot of chili soup, I'm going to make a big enough batch so that I can freeze half of it. Or if I make lasagna, I freeze at least one pan, if not two, if not two. And I learned pretty quickly I need to do that type of thing to stay on top of stuff, because it allows you just to kind of pull something out real quick and you have it. And again that has kind of shifted as the twins went to college.
Speaker 2:These days I every so often throw Chase a 20 and tell him to find himself some food. And there's a certain amount of mom guilt that I had to kind of get over. But I realized, like he really does not mind, right, who would what teen, what teen would? But the other thing is, I mean, when he goes to college he's going to have to know how to figure out how to eat anyway and what to eat. So in some ways I don't know, I have kind of dropped the guilt and I'm like man, it's what it is, and I think it's so easy to get caught up in this. Know, everything has to be from scratch or whatever the gig is.
Speaker 2:Whatever the gig is, and while I still kind of lean that way, I'm finding that, at the end of the day, as long as we're fed, that's kind of what's important. As long as we're loved, that's what's important. And I don't need to what's the term you always use. I don't have to light myself on fire to keep everyone else warm. People are able to light their own fires too, and I try to absolutely make sure my kids are fed. I mean my kids. You'll get a kick out of this. The twins decided they needed applesauce at college. Of all the things, applesauce was a thing that we had to can. It had to be homemade.
Speaker 2:And they literally take canned jars of applesauce to college.
Speaker 1:That's precious.
Speaker 2:That is precious. Well, the one kid was sitting in the dining hall and she said I was eating pot pie. And I looked around my table and I said does anyone else feel like we need applesauce with this? And she said they all looked at me and blinked and I'm like, oh my child, you're so Amish, I know, I know, but now applesauce is their gut, their thing.
Speaker 1:That's so funny. That's so funny Because we don't need a ton of applesauce around here. But now that you say that, like the thought of like Yamazeti or some kind of casserole, and applesauce is like peanut butter and jelly, so yeah, absolutely, that's great. So did you make family dinners a priority when everyone was still living at home?
Speaker 2:The juggle was too much. At that point Matt was working about 20 minutes from here and he often worked until 530. So often he didn't get home till six o'clock and the kids needed to be wherever they were going well before six o'clock. So no, we just kind of ate as we dribbled into the house and as the schedule allowed. Around here the high school kids get home an hour before elementary kids do, before elementary kids do, so sometimes the twins would eat and go to their dance or whatever, almost before Chase even got home. So we absolutely ate in shifts. And you know, I know, growing up, this whole thing of you know having the family meal was like this, seemingly foundation of a quote good family.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, you hear that even now. It's the kind of this marker of whether you're functioning as a family correctly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and I just disagree. I mean yeah, yeah and I just disagree. I mean, a few years ago, the popular saying was breast is best when it came to nursing or feeding your infant. And I was always like no fed is best, like, what?
Speaker 1:Yes, the prescriptiveness of it, like it has to happen this way to be right, without any sense of what the context is or any sensitivity to what's going on or what the options are, if you don't what the alternatives are.
Speaker 2:And at first I kind of tied myself in knots trying to make this family dinner thing work and I realized it's ridiculous. The kids come home from school, they're hungry. Matt doesn't get home from work until six. Why should they wait for two or three hours hungry when there's so many other things that I think are so much more important? Are they safe, are they loved, are they heard, are they seen? So I don't know. I guess I push back a little bit on the whole family dinner thing. Now, usually about once a weekend we'll have maybe a big brunch or you know, I don't know, we might get pizza or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:But I guess I wonder a little bit about the whole notion of the family dinner, Like why have we made that?
Speaker 1:the perceived marker, yeah Indicator, like why was?
Speaker 2:it that? Why was it that?
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. No, I agree, I agree, and I think those kinds of things can be sentimentalized and then weaponized against moms when they dare do something for their own benefit. And, like you said, the reality is that the kids are better off having their needs met, you know, eating when they're hungry, rather than being hangry for a couple of hours. I mean, how's that going to help nurture a strong family dynamic?
Speaker 2:Right and face it. We've all had nights where family dinner was in the car, sure Like. So what are we going to do? Not eat because we can't have this perfect scenario? What are we going to do Not eat because we can't have this perfect scenario? And I feel like I think we need to be really aware of these measures of perfection that we're given and in that perfection there can be a lot of dysfunction. So just because you hit that and I think sometimes attempting to hit it causes some dysfunction, so maybe sometimes attempting to hit it causes some dysfunction.
Speaker 1:So maybe no, I agree. It's like if you make the family dinner the pinnacle or the foundation of health in your family, but relationships are frayed, people's individuals' needs are overlooked and minimized, like the family dinner is nothing. It's just a performance. And yeah, I agree, we shouldn't spend too much time feeling guilty about letting go of a performance. Absolutely yeah absolutely. So evening. What does your evening usually look like? Are you usually relaxing, watching TV, drinking tea and reading a book, socializing? What does that look like?
Speaker 2:So in the evening I tend to sort of try to plan tomorrow. I kind of try to know what's coming up. I might have conversations with Matt about hey, I'm working, but this kid needs to go to the doctor, are you still good, or you know whatever? Whatever it might be, and just make sure everyone's on the same page. My kids never like surprises and I think maybe that's part of the reason I did this as well, because then I would have conversations with them hey, I'm going to be working and your dad's not going to be working, and your dad's not going to be home until five, but he knows he needs to take you to dance. So that way they were assured that everyone knew where they needed to be. I tell them where the food is, or whatever, but that way everyone's assured that their schedules matter, that we know what's going on, that we're going to be there. And it took some of the anxiety away.
Speaker 1:Sure, it also probably helped them to be more independent too, yeah, yeah, having a sense of oh, here's what's going to happen, instead of everything magically appearing Right, right, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:For sure. Typically and again this changed throughout the years I might kind of look at homework and just kind of make sure that I didn't miss any deadlines. I am finding out that I don't do so good with the unwinding, or intentional unwinding in the evening. Usually it's more of a crash landing in bed and being like, oh my God, we made it. As the kids got older, that changed somewhat. These days, man, I like being in bed by 9.30, 10 o'clock. That's happiness and it doesn't necessarily happen always.
Speaker 2:Everyone in my family, except for me, tends to be a night owl, and I remember the kids were in high school and they and Matt were doing their thing and it's like 10 o'clock and I'm like, man, you guys, I'm tired, I'm going to bed. And I remember the first time I did that I couldn't believe I wasn't like you know, tucking my kids in bed, making sure everyone was in bed. But you know what? That's not something I have to control, like, at some level, at some point they can go to bed too, and I didn't do that every night, but there were nights. I absolutely did that and I think again, it goes back to, of course, ensuring your kids are taken care of, but it's also okay to take care of yourself, and we have a firm rule at our house of yourself, and we have a firm rule at our house no important decisions get made after eight o'clock, like, unless you are bleeding and about to die, we won't even take you to the emergency room.
Speaker 2:That's not quite true, but we just don't make important decisions after eight o'clock. We're all tired, it might feel overwhelming and scary, but let's go to bed, let's sleep on it and tomorrow morning we'll figure it out. And I am a huge believer in that logic, because trying to figure things out at 10 o'clock has kept me awake until two o'clock far too often.
Speaker 1:Right, and then your energy has sapped the rest of the next.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I just tell myself, I tell the kids you know what? We don't need to deal with it. We don't need to deal with it. We can take care of that tomorrow. That's a tomorrow project, and I've found I think we all sleep better that way.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and then start the day fresh Right, absolutely. And then start the day fresh Right the next day. Yeah, so when you look back and think about your younger self in these different stages of life so single adult and then before marriage, and then after marriage, no kids, and then after kids what is some of the advice you would give your younger self, or maybe somebody who is in those stages who are considering college but not sure if the time is right, if it's the thing to do. Maybe instead of college, it's time to prepare in some way, but what? Or maybe it's not college, maybe it's some other dream. What advice would you give your younger self about pursuing those dreams?
Speaker 2:When I think about myself as a single adult, I've started giving her a lot more grace and even affirmation. These days I'm kind of impressed she survived. Mm-hmm. Affirmation. These days I'm kind of impressed she survived. And while there's a part of me that wonders why didn't you go to college, she was doing good, just paying for rent. And I think the only advice I would give her was the people you're trying to impress will never be impressed. Let them go, just let them go. Be yourself, and it's not your job. It's not your job to impress people.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:There's some people you can never gain approval from and don't put mental energy towards that, just don't. Most of the people I desperately tried to impress back then I'm not in a relationship with today and I also think about the pressure we put on other people. So I think about myself. Are there people in my life who are desperately trying to earn my approval, and what am I going to do with that? So I try to kind of be aware of that, because I think we do that to people and I would like to suggest we are careful about that.
Speaker 2:I do wish after I got married I would have pursued education a bit more. In many ways, that would have been the perfect time to start my education. We were married for six years before we had kids, and that was intentional. I didn't want to be poor my whole life, and so the goal was to earn us money for a solid down payment on our house, which we did, and it was fun just to have that space and time where I was responsible for me and it was me. But that would have, in hindsight, that would have kind of been a really magical time for college, and I think the advice I would give myself now is you don't have to get other people's permission. I think we unconsciously maybe even wait on other people's permission and we need to stop doing that. Unfortunately, the people in my life who I was kind of looking for permission from had been in college and I kind of got the feedback or the message that I probably wasn't smart enough for it, which and again, that was my perceived message whether it was intentional or not, who knows but I wish I wouldn't have doubted myself so much and I wish I would have just done it. It's kind of amazing what happens if you just do what you know you need to do instead of asking for permission all the time.
Speaker 2:100%. People are okay, married with young kids. When my kids were little, I am glad that I didn't try to do college then, I don't know. There's times I really grieve that I'm as old as I am and just finishing, but I think even more than that, I'm grateful that I had the experience I did with my kids when they were younger. I was building my business then and I can tend to be quite competitive and driven. I guess at times my kids have informed me Just a little bit, which is funny. I never considered myself competitive and my kids all snored at me and Matt was in the conversation too and they're like you are the most competitive person in this family and I'm like, really Me. So no, I really don't think when the kids were young, starting school would have been smart and I feel bad saying that it might work perfectly for someone else. I don't know that mentally I would have been able to navigate all the demands.
Speaker 1:Especially when you were the mother of twins.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I had four kids or so sorry, I had three kids in four years.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it just wouldn't have been good.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think now that the kids are older and we're where we're at, I have so much gratitude and appreciation for the love, support and even forgiveness that we get from our kids and the relationships that we have, and I guess I credit a lot of that to the relationships we built when they were young.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I'm not so sure that would have happened if I'd have been trying to juggle college. And I think the thing that I tell myself when I get overwhelmed or even when I'm in the middle of grief these days, which happens this past week, has kind of been a lesson in managing anxiety, again for various reasons. But at the end of the day, I know who I am. At the end of the day, I know what I want out of life. Mostly. I'm still not sure if I went grad school, but we're talking about it. I think maybe the most powerful part of it is, I trust, the process. I don't have to know exactly exactly what is going to happen, but I know we're going to be okay and for that alone I am so grateful.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think that's maybe one of the most important takeaways from our conversation today is that being okay can look so many different ways and it doesn't diminish the effects of something like educational neglect or missed opportunities, or let me rephrase that Not missed opportunities, denied opportunities, right, but knowing that our dreams are still worth pursuing, even if their fulfillment might look differently than we first expected, is so important. So thank you so much, rebecca, for sharing a glimpse into your life, and thank you all for listening, and we'll be back soon, sooner if we can nail a podcast on the first recording one of these days.
Speaker 2:Hey who knows?
Speaker 1:Catch you later, take care.
Speaker 2:Thank you for spending time with us today. The resources and materials we've mentioned are linked in the show notes and on Facebook at Uncovered Life Beyond. What are?
Speaker 1:your thoughts about college and recovery from high demand religion. We know you have your own questions and experiences and we want to talk about the topics that matter to you. Share them with us at Uncoveredbeyond at gmailcom. That's uncoveredlifebeyond at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:If you enjoyed today's show and found value in it, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast app. This helps others find the show While you're there. Subscribe to our podcast so you never miss an episode Until next time.
Speaker 1:Stay brave, stay bold, stay awkward.
