Lately, I’ve felt a deep desire to have a conversation with friends and colleagues whose work inspires me. When I have a strong creative impulse, I tend to follow it so here we are and here is the first audio edition of Enough.
Please enjoy my conversation with friend, colleague and collaborator, Rebecca Eudy about her work on relationships, sex and parenting. We discuss the happiness tax of having children, how to navigate change in the family system when a new baby arrives, what makes couples more vulnerable when expecting, what to do when the baby arrives and when to seek couples counseling.
Rebecca is a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) and AASECT-certified sex therapist in private practice. She also holds certifications in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and perinatal mental health (PMH-C). As a mother to two spirited young boys, Rebecca knows first-hand how hard parenting and relationships can sometimes be.
If you enjoy the audio edition of the Enough newsletter please subscribe, leave us a comment or share this conversation with a friend. Thank you for listening!
Here is a transcript of our conversation. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.
Enough Interview with Rebecca Eudy
Kate: Please enjoy this audio edition of the enough newsletter, where I have a conversation with my friend, colleague, and collaborator, Rebecca Eudy about her work on relationships, sex and parenting. Rebecca offers such rich support and wisdom throughout our conversation, which I very much enjoyed. And I hope you will too.
The Enough newsletter is a little passion project of mine, and I'm really excited to bring it off the page today into a conversation with you about the research you're doing on relationships, sex and parenting. I was thinking a lot about the conversations we had recently and one piece really stood out and I thought maybe we could hold it together and see where that leads us, if that's okay with you.
You describe a very common scene, which I think many of us can relate to, which is, essentially the mother or primary caregiver is standing in the kitchen at the end of a long day and their partner comes up and drives by and does this kind of groping, and it just doesn't come together for them, right?
He is feeling emotionally and physically neglected. She is feeling irritated, angry, overwhelmed and is about to potentially explode from another grab or touch or grope in her day. And I go, wow, this moment really captures so, so many things about sex, relationships and parenting, not just in a heterosexual or straight relationship, but I think broadly speaking.
I wonder what it'd be like to start there today as we dive into this conversation.
So I like to get your take on that as it relates to the work you're doing and the research, if that's an okay place to enter.
Rebecca: That sounds great. I agree with you. I think that's such a moment, right? It's like, where did the seduction go?
There's just a grab.
Kate: There's just a grab. And, there's this deep unmet need underneath, for both parties. Right. And on the surface is a real breakdown of that connection. I'm glad that resonates. I've had a number of conversations with folks often about this moment.
As we hold that moment together, is there something in that moment that really speaks to why you're interested in talking about this topic and can we zoom out on, how can parents or soon to be parents think about navigating the arrival of a baby. Tell us about your thoughts?
Rebecca: Yeah, I can definitely do that.
So I think they're so connected and those are two big topics. So let's dive into this moment first, because I think it's' very relatable for people..
So one of the things that I hear a lot from primary caregivers, and this is often mom, right?
And that's not necessarily in a heterosexual arrangement, but in many different couple arrangements, the primary caregiver carries the mental load of which is so huge.
And we really hear a lot from friends, random people on the playground, at pickup or whatever, talking about this idea of being touched out. This phrase is so in our vocabulary—I'm just so touched out. And a legitimate reason why desire sort of withers, this being touched out. But I think what's more accurate is that certain types of touch change when children are in the picture.
So when you have a child, they cannot differentiate between their body and yours, especially in the early years. Your boobs, they're their boobs, right? If you're nursing. Your butt, your hair, there’s no differentiation. You're truly sharing your body with another human. At least for the first, three to five years.
Certainly very heavily in the first couple of years. And so the thing that happens is that these gropes and these grabs, they start to be really familiar. And so when the partner comes up and does this drive by groping, which they're kind of like, ‘hey babe, you know, maybe I'll see you later! but the reaction often is like, ‘hell no, get away! This is not your ass. This is my ass. This belongs to me. You need permission.’
There's an element of—how do we differentiate the adult touch from the touch that's so overwhelming. And that touch is not necessarily unwanted. The little baby that you're gazing into their eyes, you're snuggling them and it feels so good, it feels so intimate, it's so loving, it's so necessary. But the thing is if we don't separate that kind of touch, which gives us a lot, it gives us this intimacy. The bonding hormones are very similar here between romantic love and between the parental love. And so a lot of times what is said is, I'm touched out, you know, I'm done, I'm touched out.
I can't, my mental load, my physical load, like I am done, get away. But what's not always said is I'm satisfied! The primary caregiver who's been with the children all day, may be drained and exhausted. But they've also been in this very loving, exhausting, draining relationship all day long.
So the capacity to enter into any sort of sexuality or sensuality is limited. Especially when we think about this sort of groping touch that brings to mind the way that children touch us, this uninvited groping.
Kate: So beautiful. I love that opportunity to understand the layers of what's there.
As a primary caregiver, we might have very full or overflowing cups in this really satisfied way. And, I think that there's a lovely way of holding that, which we don't make a lot of space for.
I feel like this little sense of relief and warmth in my body around, yes, it's exhausting and there are ways in which it's so deeply satisfying and so deeply nourishing. I really appreciate being able to hold that and sharing this piece which we are really missing in the conversation.
And I think the other piece we're talking about is the family system and the family dynamic has changed completely. Like, hold on a second there's someone else here that's satisfying my partner before it was just the two of us.
Rebecca: Right. And that gets to your second question.
Kate: So tell me a little bit about what we need to think about as we prepare for going from a couple to becoming a family and parents. This is something I feel really passionate about because I'm often worried about the lack of support and care soon to be parents get around preparing for and making the transition.
We see the two working parents, working really hard. The registry is perfect and the nursery is perfect. And then they just go to the hospital from their last day of work. I’d love to hear thoughts on how to think about this really huge family dynamic shift that they're arriving at and moving through.
Rebecca: I think that your point about that is so important. A lot of the research tells us that children tend to make relationships more stable. People are less likely to get divorced when they have children, but it doesn't necessarily make relationships happier.
Certainly my own personal experience was one of a lot of struggles when our first baby arrived. He had sort of a difficult temperament so there were a lot of sleep consultations and tried to figure out how to feed this baby. I really struggled with breastfeeding in the beginning which was really hard.
It was so emotionally like heart wrenching in a way that I did not expect. And in some ways my partner and I really came together. It's like this intense love for each other and for this terrifying, amazing thing that we've created.
And there's moments where I just want to take him by the front of his sweatshirt and shake him, because we can't decide what to do, it's the middle of the night and the baby is screaming and we haven't slept. The highs are high and the lows are low and that's fueled by hormones. It's fueled by the intensity of this experience of falling in love.
You're really entering into this phase of falling in love, which is so intense. It's always intense in the beginning of relationships. It does tend to settle over time, whether we're talking about a romantic relationship or whether we're talking about a parental relationship. But the beginning is intense and I think that we don't do a great job of supporting parents in the United States in particular.
There's this thing called the happiness tax. It's basically the tax for having children. It's called a happiness tax because the happiness of a couple is reduced by having children. There's a correlation for each additional child that impacts the couple's happiness. This is something the WHO actually did a study on. I think it was 28 developing countries around the world. And the United States has the largest happiness tax. Couples in the U.S. report the largest decrease of happiness of any country, any developed country that they studied. This makes sense given the lack of social support. So there's a correlation between happiness and really strong social support.
So subsidized daycare and other sorts of social, like extended paid parental leave, for instance, these sorts of social support tends to really help to reduce that happiness tax. And as we know in our country, we don’t offer a lot of social supports. It's a complicated issue and maybe a conversation for another time, but the reality is that many parents are dealing with limited leave.
They have limited supports and the cost of daycare or a nanny is astronomical. Many parents are faced with the choice of and face real financial burden. In addition to the fact that they're having to go back to work when nobody's sleeping. The downstream effect of that is how is there any time for this relationship?
Because you have a little baby that's literally screaming for your attention so the relationship can just kind of be pushed aside and we don't do a great job of helping parents to prepare in a relationship sense. We're like, go to do a birthing class, get your nursery ready, all of the things that you named, there's a lot of push to prepare around that but there's not a lot of expectation setting about what this does to the relationship.
What is very clear is what it does to the relationship. Seventy percent of relationships report a dip in satisfaction after children are born. But this is not something that's normalized.
Kate: Thank you for that research. I always love pulling on the research to put words to what is felt by folks.
I appreciate all the different elements, like acknowledging the lack of social support which was something I was reflecting on while getting ready to have this conversation today. When my first born came, she cried all the time, didn't sleep for months. It was such a struggle. My entire family is in Australia and we were the first to have kids in our social group, so we very much felt alone, and the financial pressure at that time in life was significant. So we did what I think most couples do, focus on how to become the perfect parents. We did great! We did a lot of dividing and conquering, collaboration and teamwork around parenting.
I think potentially there's a cultural element to being the perfect parent. It's a conversation I have a lot with soon to be parents wondering how to get it right.
Like you said Rebecca, with the lack of social support, the pressure to do it perfectly, the judgment and shame that surrounds parenting and the dedication to doing the parenting role so well, potentially comes at the cost of our relationship. Certainly I felt that pouring all our energy into getting this right for the kids didn't leave a lot of time to focus on the relationship.
I wonder if we're actually missing something really important, which is nowadays, we typically get married for love. The institution of marriage has changed quite a lot and perhaps one of the most important things we can do to help support our kids, is not only be good enough parents, but also nurture and care for the relationship, because there's not a lot of support and there’s not a lot of social support. The family system is counting on the health of the relationship, in the face of some significant happiness tax.
What are your thoughts on being perfect parents, and what do we need to know about nurturing the relationship during this time?
Rebecca: I think you're absolutely right, there is the pressure to get it just right. It makes sense because it's so important. Do we ever do anything as important as raising our children? I don't feel like I do. So it is the single most important thing that many of us, certainly those of us who choose [and are able] to have children.
There are many reasons why people aren't able to fully invest in being a parent and there are many good reasons why they're not able to do that.
But for those of us who do have the ability [and opportunity]. To fully invest in being a parent, it often feels like this is the most important thing, so of course we want to get it right, of course we want to be perfect. Then I think the other piece of that is, especially early on it's so hard. I can remember as a parent trying to get my son to sleep. My second son, he was a lot easier.
All of that is like advice that all of these parents were giving me about trying to get their kid to sleep, maybe they just had naturally really good sleepers because the things that didn't work for my son, worked great for the second. He was like, you know, no big deal.
You don't know what you don't know, right? I remember the misery of just being up and not being able to do it right. It feels like a lot of times, especially if you have a child who has a challenging temperament, you really want to get it right, not just for them, but for you, you want to get it right.
I remember feeling like, gosh, if I can just crack this code, right? It's not a code. It's a human. Then code changes, so there's desperation there. Not only are we culturally conditioned to be perfect parents, in our culture, that means fully investing everything in our children.
This is the most important thing you're going to do. You have to do this perfectly. You have to fully invest. What that means is being there for your child's every need. Trying to save them from any pain. It's selfish to do self care. It's selfish to put your conversation with your partner over your conversation with your child.
We have a very individualistic culture which we very much nurture in our children without even meaning to. And that's this parenting piece I think you're talking about. That's at least how I see it, as I'm thinking about it, and that resonates with what my experience was.
Then not only do we have the feeling that we want to be perfect for our children, or raise our children in the perfect way, we also want our relationships to be perfect, because we do marry for love. For most people there's an expectation that goes with that. This person is going to be your best friend, they're going to be there to support you, they're going to be your lover, they're going to be everything to you, and with the limited social supports we have, we often don't have a lot to rely on outside the relationship. So we're asking the relationship to bear this burden, without dedicating a whole lot of resources to it.
For a lot of people, it feels impossible. What I hear a lot from people is if they want to invest in their relationship, how do they find the time? Where do they find the resources? Where do they get the energy? So it feels really impossible.
So I could sit here, my kids now are eight and nine, and say, my husband and I, we do a date night, and we do all of these things. But you know what, when the kids were little, we weren't doing that. We had a lot of resources, we had family close by, not close enough for day to day, but we were able to draw on, resources that many people didn't have, and it was still incredibly challenging So I think the message that I really would like new parents to hear is that there's this period of time when you have a child, and then if you have another child and another child, there's a period of time that lasts for at least a year, minimum one year, we could probably extend that to 18 months or maybe even two years where there's a do no harm period for the relationship.
Where it's just going to be good enough, nobody's going to be thriving. This isn't going to be the most amazing time. You may have periods of time where you feel really unsupported by your partner. And giving a lot of the ability to recognize that's, that's what happens during this period.
This is normal to feel this way. And it's not always going to be this way. This child is going to start sleeping, they are going to be independent, they are going to differentiate from me and be their own person. Giving permission to have this be a do no harm period, but with the intentionality of we're going to connect when we can and we're going to come back together.
This is a period of time that we agree, together. We're just getting through here. This is nose to the grindstone, heads down. We're dividing and conquering, we might miss each other. We might feel like ships passing in the night. But we're going to eventually come back together. With that intentionality to come back together, a willingness to find those moments when you can, and then those moments get more and more.
Kate: You feel something to hold on to, something to frame this very tenuous, overwhelming phase—let's do no harm. Let's give each other a lot of grace and understanding, that is the work right now. And I think it's really important that you added the intention is also to come back together, to come back into connection. When, if space and time allows, if things open up. It's so simple, but so profound.
Rebecca: And so hard so hard.
Kate: As you know, through the lens of the nervous system. Often in those terms, we are over capacity, which pushes us over our threshold and into the survival response. It's hard to hang on to yourself.
I remember that early phase of new parenting, for the first six months of having a newborn, just being a pretty irritated person. Not feeling like myself, I feel kind of angry and kind of irritated, which is definitely (people in my life might say otherwise) but does not feel like the default baseline for me.
I think it is hard to hold on during that time. So it's helpful to have an orientation point like, hey, let's come back, and understand that we're so overcapacity, we're just surviving and we're not yet thriving.
Are there couples that are more vulnerable during these times? If so, why?
Rebecca: Yes, there are. The research tells us that there's two groups of couples who are most vulnerable during this time. And interestingly, they're very different. So one of the ways in which couples are vulnerable, one bucket or group of couples that are particularly vulnerable during this time is what we might think, the couples who have pre-existing marital issues, which to be fair is every single couple ever.
There’s not a single couple in the world who does not have some sort of communication or marital conflict, but ones who really struggle in that way, who really struggle to communicate, especially ones who really struggle with conflict management. I want to be really clear here that I'm not talking about conflict resolution.
That's communication. That's a way of saying. I see you and you see me, generally speaking, only one person can really get heard in a conversation at a time. So a lot of times what happens when we get into communication with our partner about something that's emotionally charged, which could be unloading the dishwasher or it could be, you know, something very important, like whether we're going to have a child or not.
We all know that big fights can come out of small things. Because it's not really about the dishwasher, it's about what the dishwasher represents, and how you're supporting or not supporting. So, couples who really struggle to communicate, to have conflict resolution, that means, I'm going to hold my feelings and listen to yours, in this conversation. And that way one person can get heard, and then you switch. Sometimes that switch can happen in the same conversation, but sometimes it can't. Sometimes that partner who's listening just has to hold it and they have to say to themselves, wow, that's a tough one. I'm gonna have to do some nervous system work on myself because this doesn't resonate with my experience, but I'm here to hear their experience.
So that's a way of communication and conflict resolution. Now it has to be, not equal, but balanced. It's not fair in every conversation, but to have good communication, it has to feel like both people have the ability to get heard, that's conflict resolution.
So couples who struggle with that sort of larger communication, those couples are at risk, but even more so couples who struggle with conflict management, so there's a way in which we're able to manage conflict. Sometimes we walk away. Sometimes we do our own emotional regulation. So that management piece is really key in these early years because we may not always have the time to be able to fully resolve. And we may not always be able to fully resolve because everything is so intense and raw the way that we feel unsupported or supported or whatever we may not always have the space or time to be able to really be deeply understood by our partner.
So the ability to hold that and to say to ourselves, okay, they're doing, I'm doing the best I can. They're doing the best they can. That got a little sticky, but we're going to walk away. That management of conflict is really a skill that's, and that's really what that is, is emotional regulation to manage the conflict.
Kate: I love this term and use it so much with the people. Will you tell us a little bit about your definition of differentiation?
Rebecca: Differentiation is the ability to see yourself. Now I'd have to look this up. This is my definition, but the ability to see yourself as different from the other person.
So this is a different person than I am. This person has a different experience and the ability to tolerate not only being in connection with the person. Because that, if you are able to tolerate being in connection, but you cannot tolerate being in separation with your loved, with your beloved, that is enmeshment.
And if you can tolerate being separated, but you cannot tolerate being in connection, that's probably like a more of an avoidant strategy. But differentiation means that you're able to separate.
This is a developmental task for children as they grow up, they begin to see themselves as separate. They're able to look at themselves in the mirror and say, this is my nose. They are a separate being than their caregivers, which doesn't happen right away. At first, they are completely merged. Their sense of self is completely merged with us. And then as they grow, they naturally begin to separate.
And they do periods of time where they go out and then they come back to touch in. And so the same thing happens in relationships. In a secure relationship, you're able to tolerate really being in an intimate connection where you're being deeply seen. That's hard. And you're also able to tolerate that your partner is a different person than you, they have a different experience, and sometimes that comes in conflict with you.
They may want to go and do different things than you, and that that's okay. So to have a secure relationship, you have to have the distance and you have to have the closeness. And they very much inform each other, especially we haven't really gotten into talking about desire, but this is really key.
If we can hold this idea in our mind as we start to talk about desire, this is really important.
Kate: That was so in depth and such a detailed example and illustration of differentiation in different ways. I think about differentiation as, how do we hold two different perspectives simultaneously. The simplicity of that, which is what you're talking about in all these different ways, is so hard for folks.
Think about what role does differentiation play as we think about conflict, conflict resolution, conflict management, connection, closeness, desire, distance, and then coming together, which I don't think we've talked about yet, but often when I think about becoming a parent for the first time, I think about the new task of, we have one child and two parents, and now we have to agree or try to reconcile, hopefully through productive tension, how we make decisions about this child. Whereas as individuals, if you want to go to the movies, I want to go out with friends. We can go our separate ways. But there's a new challenge as new parents around, how do we hold these elements that you're describing in this new way and try to get on the same page and navigate these really small or sometimes really big decisions about our child together which often feels very like a unique challenge, I think.
Rebecca: Yes, I would agree. It's a really, really huge joint long term project. I know I wanted to do the group project at school, right? No!
There are people who don't do enough. There's people who are overcompensating. You have to compromise. It's no fun.
Kate: There's a person that does everything and is mad about it.
Rebecca: That's exactly, we've completely described parenting, right? So it's a group project that goes on for years and years and years and years and there's no way out.
Even if you end the relationship, you can't stop the group project.
Kate: We have to make some light because it's so heavy in some ways.
Rebecca: So that's the one bucket and then we have the other bucket, which is a little bit surprising actually, but it's really well demonstrated in the research that couples who do not have realistic expectations of what parenting is going to be like, really struggle. So the parents who say, it's not going to change our life, the parents who say, this is, our relationship is so amazing, this isn't going to change us at all.
Those parents tend to really struggle. Because it is a fundamental shift and change, and there's really no way around that. I think what parents really mean when they say, it's not going to change us. This baby's going to fit into our life. They mean we don't want to give up what we have.
And that is such a beautiful goal to work towards but having realistic expectations, understanding that for 70 percent of couples, having a child does at least short term, make them less happy, that is a reality for most couples. And that's normal. And you can get it back, right? Like, it's not like it's going to make you unhappy forever, but there has to be intentionality around there.
There has to be effort put into getting back, working our way back to each other because having a child does naturally both bring together a couple, but also separate them. So the other thing is having those realistic expectations.
Kate: And I think that’s why this conversation feels so important.
Elements and aspects to help folks think about what's realistic. How do I mentally, emotionally prepare? How do I think about preparing my relationship for this change, even though it's largely, somewhat unknown, it feels really important.
What would you say to folks who are in either of these kinds of places where there's some challenge with conflict management or conflict resolution or some denial about what’s going to change when the baby arrives?
We're really close in our partnership and really don’t intend to compromise a lot of closeness and life won't change and we're going to travel and we're going to do all the things we still do. What would you suggest people do to get some support around those challenges in the relationship?
Rebecca: First of all, I think that pretty much describes every couple. We all, to a certain extent, to want to have children, have to be a little bit in denial. Even if you think you know what you're getting into. Because it's not all so healthy to dwell too much on this is going to be so horrible. You know, it's not, I remember being pregnant and having people say, oh, go out to dinner now, you'll never do it again. So the expectation that this is going to change your relationship in a way that it's like you cannot get it back. That's not really that helpful either.
You know, I think I would say that it is normal. Seventy percent of couples will struggle in one or probably both of these ways. So, if you find yourself in a place where you're saying, oh, gosh, I think we might fall into one of those buckets. There's something really wrong with our relationship. I would encourage you to say, actually, no, that makes us normal, like statistically normal. We all struggle with conflict management and resolution and communication in our relationships. It's not perfect all the time.
Kate: So the work is ongoing, of course. The group project continues and we must be working on it.
Rebecca: That's right. It's an ongoing conversation and it's hard to know before you have a child, what expectations are realistic. It's realistic to expect that it's going to be challenging. It's realistic to expect that you're probably going to be a little bit less happy in some ways.
After the baby is born, at least for a certain period of time. Now, you also will probably feel, for many people, at least at some point, they may feel this really intense sense of love, of purpose. That takes a little while if there's any postpartum on board, there's a lot of things that play into that.
I think it's important to know what support you need and get the support you need. I work mostly with couples. There have been a couple of studies on this, the most up to date research says that couples come into therapy after being unhappy for between two and a half and three and a half years.
As of 2022, this new study came out that said that, but prior to that, the accepted time frame was six years. The couples felt unhealthy for six years before they would come into therapy. So I think getting access to support early and often is really helpful.
Kate: As we're moving through this conversation, I really appreciate lots of the ways we're talking about the depth and breadth of the experience and my hope is to really normalize that, of course, you have challenges with communication and conflict resolution and the shifting dynamics in the family, and that's okay.
How that is held in our culture is really hard. As a really individualistic culture, I think what you're saying, or at least what I'm hearing is, we don't have to do it alone. We can get some support preemptively early, often, like seeking out a couple's therapist.
That you don't have to figure it out on your own, there are lots of different ways. Obviously, we're therapists, individual therapy, couples therapy is one way to think about getting support, but wanting to have more conversations and wanting to invite people to understand that you're not doing it wrong, nobody is family or just not getting it, or not good enough. This is a time when we should do no harm. We should think about how we can get support. How can we reach out and get connections because it's such a challenging time to navigate and that feels like a really important message to folks today. Maybe therapy is not accessible but books and podcasts, like conversations like this, are free and available. I also want folks who are reluctant to maybe see a couple's therapist, because they fear that couples therapy might end the relationship, to consider—what if couples therapy makes things better? What if you get the support and you get to learn how to hold productive tension with each other and differentiation and that there's this real opportunity for growth and expanded capacity.
I'm wondering, as we think about bringing the conversation to a close, I want to acknowledge that there is so much in this topic that we have not even gotten to today.
Rebecca: We didn't talk about hormones. We didn't talk about sex. We didn't talk about desire. There's so much here, you know, I feel like this is the base here. And we talked a lot about this early experience, which is so important, this do no harm period. But what about when that do no harm period's over?
And you still haven't come back together. It's like the playdates and the soccer practices and the sports and the, and then the kids are teenagers and they're, you know, there's always a reason to not connect. There's always a way in which we don't, we can fill up the space. That the relationship you used to occupy with other things.
Kate: As a woman in perimenopause with a teenager, and a preteen, it’s pretty wild at home. Hormones are like flying around. There's so many phases and when I think about it, when does life start to open up, realistically, for me, not until the girls were like eight and ten that life started to feel a little bit more manageable. And that's a long time. And I think we're about to go under again, right into the next chapter.
There is so much we didn't get to and so much you shared today. You’ve been so generous in sharing your wisdom, even though this is really just like the tip of the iceberg.
Rebecca: We talked a lot about the challenges and I think that there is a need for more conversation around this because it’s hard.
This is a big long term project and group project that just goes on and on. But there's also the ability to have this deeper relationship. I just want to leave folks with, even though we've talked a lot about normalizing how hard it is, which I do think is very important. I also really want to leave folks with the a hopefulness, there's periods of time where it gets really hard and then it lightens up a little, there's moments where we are able to reconnect with our partner and the basis of the family.
The basis of what many of us go into this group project imagining is that we have a really strong base of our relationship. That's what we're building our family on. There are opportunities and there are moments and there are chances to strengthen that foundation and that relationship and, you know, we didn't talk that much about that today because, to be honest, some of the advice that I would give about that, it sounds a little like it’s simple, very simple, but just not easy, if that makes sense..
Kate: I think this is a little foundation for opportunity. Often when I'm working with folks sometimes we are just laying things out on the table, as step one, and I think today we're really laying out a lot of what's true or real for many folks in this situation.
Then I get excited because first, I think we need to really come into awareness of something without shame or perfection, and see it with eyes wide open. So what I’m appreciating about today's conversation, is the ability to just really see and acknowledge and validate without any judgment or expectation. And then I get excited and where we get to take this next?
There's another conversation about growth. If we can really see what's here and we can get interested and curious about it, all of what I think we're talking about today. There is this potential for growth. I think back about how much I've grown as a parent over the last 13 years, as a parent and a person, I have grown so much.
I think that is really exciting and such a wonderful opportunity to see how much the relationship, family and parenting allows us to grow.
When we're normalizing these things and then creating opportunities to get support, hold and wrestle with that, I feel the potential for where do we get to take this now?
Thanks so much for listening.
Parenting, Sex and Relationships