How Has Motherhood Changed?
A Conversation with Tammy Peterson
SEASON 1 | EPISODE 22
Are there hierarchy issues within modern parenting? Today we explore the ever-evolving landscape of motherhood with Tammy Peterson – a seasoned mother and host of The Tammy Peterson Podcast. Together, host Liz Durham and Tammy delve into the impact of feminism, the significance of outdoor play, and the importance of self-directed learning for young children.
Tammy shares hard-learned lessons, thoughts on the impact of birth control pills in the '60s, and the over-parenting phenomenon that plagues many families today. She offers valuable insights on the dangers of social media and media consumption, as well as the challenges of being a young mom in today's society.
Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion on hierarchy issues within modern parenting as Tammy shares hard-learned lessons from her own experience. Plus, find out why Tammy’s one rule is: “Be a better person today.”
You can find The Tammy Peterson Podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
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Being Different with Liz Durham is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production
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Liz 0:02
All right. Hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of being different. Today I am joined by Tammy Peterson and I am very excited to talk to her about just some parenting questions and how she would handle things if she was raising her kids in this society. And Tammy, you're kind of famous. I've been listening to your husband for years. And I don't know if he was famous when I started listening to him, but I feel like he's definitely famous now. And so I'm really appreciate you taking the time to do this. I'd say you guys are pretty busy these days. So thank you for doing this. Yeah, yes. Well, it's
Tammy 0:40
really nice to meet you. And yeah, I know. It's something different. Who knows?
Liz 0:45
So basically, your kids are older. Right? I think your daughter might be close to my age. How old are your kids?
Tammy 0:54
Mikayla? I think okay, too. She's 31. And, Julian. Okay.
Liz 1:00
I'm 33. So right around their age, when they were little Did you work or what was life like when you're raising them?
Tammy 1:09
Well, when I first had Mikayla, I was working as a massage therapist and I, I worked until I couldn't get around the table anymore. My stomach is too big. The room was too small for me and my baby. And so then I brought my table home, and I did massages from there. So it was a really good thing for me to do, because I could do it at home. But then we moved to the States and I didn't have a green card. Jordan had a green card. I didn't have a green card. We were there when my son was born in 93 until 98, so for about five years. And I didn't have a green card. So I had Julian. And then when he was just a little guy, I met the ladies in the neighborhood. And we when we went to Boston, we didn't know the city. We spent six months driving around finding a place to live where there were people, and not just dogs and, and cars. Because we would just go there in the middle of day and open the door and you just hear dogs barking and nothing else. And so we found this one really cool neighborhood that's just north of Cambridge, where there were people with strollers, I saw people around, and we found a house really near a park near a primary school. And it was like a 1950s neighborhood. It even had a five and dime store on the corner. That's so cool. It's funny, like big all the way cod and Valdez. Yeah, it was it was really funny. And so we moved in there. And Jordan went off to Harvard. And he was thrilled to be working there. So he was there. And because I didn't have a green card, he was working all the time. Because I didn't have any money. So that was okay with me. And I was learning to be away from family because I was now a long ways away from family. And one of the things I decided to do was try to find family where I was. And one of my neighbors had a baby at the same time that my cousin back home had a baby. And I couldn't go. So I went over to my neighbor's house and I gave them a dinner and the baby present. And she ended up giving me her kids. So I took care of her kids three times a week while she went off to be a physiotherapist. And they were about the same, about the same age as my kids. And so I raised them, I raised those kids and my kids together and just took care of her kids. And so my kids just played in the basement mostly, and in the backyard and and then I joined like a neighborhood mother's group. And we went off two days a week to do something like going to a petting zoo or going to a marketplace or going you know, just going and doing things with our children. And that took up quite a bit of my time. And then I ended up being a little bit well known for that. So people would drop their kids off at my house when their nannies weren't, you know, their nanny didn't show up, they call me and I was always home. So, you know, I continued to do some massages, but I was like, You know what, clients? I'm raising kids right now. And I just don't seem to be able to really focus on my clients right now because I just I have this kid thing going on. So I just left that aside and picked it up again. Once my kids were older and we moved back to Canada, then I worked for 25 years as a massage therapist. But at that time when they were between. I guess Mikayla was to when Julian was born or just about to end and we moved to Toronto when Mikayla was five. I stayed home with my kids I didn't know Till I drew some portraits, there was a professor of a number of professors at Harvard, who were senior professors, very well known. And the psychology department wanted portraits of the majority of my wife can do that. I was like, what my wife could do that. Okay, so I did. And that so that was fun. I did five, I think portraits that hang there. So that was something to keep me doing something other than taking kids taking care kids. And I had a dream early early on. So when I first had Mikayla, we were still in Montreal, Jordan was still in his postdoc. And I was wondering, do I stay home Do I go to work, I was never one to wear a suit and carry a briefcase, I knew that I was an artist type person. And so I kind of realized that that just wasn't gonna happen. But I must have gone to bed one night thinking that thought and I had a dream. I dreamt that I looked in my closet, and I found my grandmother's shoes. And my grandmother, this is my father's mom. And when she died, everyone who came to her funeral, her grandchildren thought that they were her favorite, that they were her favorite. So she was a real, a real Grandma, you know. And she stayed home with their kids, but she played the piano in the church, and she was an active person. But she did stay home with her kids. And I put her shoes on, and they were a bit too small. And I thought, well, that's interesting. What does that mean? I think it means that I'm not just going to be a mum, I'm going to do other things. It's not going to be enough for me. And so I won't be able to just stay home and nurture my children. But I will stay home. I'll just do other things when they come up. And so that's how I ran things is I stayed home with my kids. But and I stayed home with my kids even longer because Michaela ended up having chronic illness. So I stayed home even longer than I might have otherwise. But I supplemented that with the things that I was interested in. I ended up building a house in Toronto when we moved here. I worked as the contractor and built the house. And so I did things, but more like artistic things like creative endeavors. I was never did people
Liz 7:19
send their kids to daycare a lot back then or did most moms stay home.
Tammy 7:27
Um, there were still moms in the neighborhood where we lived in Atlanta, I was these were educated moms. And they were, they were staying home. Some of them were staying home, some of them were working. But I would say it was more like part time work. It wasn't full on nine to five, five days a week. And so now it's much different. I know that my son has two kids, and my daughter has a child. And they both have one of them. My son has an au pair who lives with them. And my daughter, always since her little one was born always had someone who was helping her. And I never had that. But I never had the money either. We didn't have the money. We didn't even have magazines, we had no money. And so we decided that I would stay home because we couldn't afford anything else to write. So in a way it was necessity. But we knew we knew that being at home with the kids would make them happy. There's research that shows that children who live close to home who go to school close to home, that that's a sign that's one thing they take off as a sign of happiness is they can go home for lunch they can they can get to school and go home on their own. And we did end up buying a house here that was close to a school. And they did come home every lunchtime. And after school and people thought even when my kids were in school that I had more than two kids because they were always at my house because I was so did your
Liz 9:03
kids start school when they were five then and then just continue.
Tammy 9:08
Yeah, four and five, four and five Junior junior kindergarten in Canada and senior kindergarten. Gotcha. Great.
Liz 9:14
And then they just been totally in public school all the way through high school.
Tammy 9:20
Yeah, they had alternative schools like smaller schools. But they were in school and I thought about homeschooling them. But we weren't in agreement on that. And so and it really wasn't a necessity yet. I would say now it's largely a necessity. And maybe not homeschooling. Maybe you find there's a there's in the States.
Liz 9:45
I listened to Jordan interview that guy from Texas. That was very cool what they're doing.
Tammy 9:51
Uh huh. And I think that my daughter in law is going to start an act and type school cool and her Kids are three and one right now. So I think she's going to do that she's pretty excited. Even before she had kids, she was thinking that she would set something educational app. So I'm really relieved of that, because the Toronto School Board is
Liz 10:15
neither not in the United States, I'm sure as you know, as well as a disaster right now. So and even what's interesting is, I'm in East Tennessee, which in my mind was like, always a conservative, very conservative place of the world. It's very, very far left liberal now, even in the private schools, which is interesting. I'm just now learning this because my son is three. So it's like, oh, geez, well, what do you do, then you've got to find an alternative. Or, I've, I've finally come to the conclusion that my husband's like, oh, all schools are just super liberal, you have to accept that and then train them when they're at home. I'm like that the math doesn't work. They're at school, eight hours a day, and they're only at home and awake for two and a half or three hours. So you can't untrain what they're learning eight hours a day, and two or three hours, it's just not possible. So it was interesting with my mom, she was very, my mom's really smart. She would let us we had all of our topics. And if we mastered something, then we can move on to the next one, as soon as we mastered it, but we didn't, we had to spend more time on it. But she was very big about letting us be outdoors, like my little sister was very hyper and like needed to get her energy out. So we would do like our math subject for 30 minutes or an hour or whatever it was. And then she would go outside and do like 50, cartwheels, and then come inside, and we would start whatever was next. But I think that probably a regular day for us to get all of our subjects done was maybe only four or five hours, it was not eight hours, it was way less than whatever kids in school were doing. And my mom did a lot of, we did a lot of field trips, like, I'll never forget, one of my siblings was being really bad when we were young, like just a bad phase. And so she took us and we did a field trip of the jail like the local prison. And I remember us like standing in the drunk tank at a very young age and her being like, if you don't get it together, and you end up being a lifelong criminal, this is where you're going to end up. So just interesting stuff like that. But I think that we did way less actual hours of schooling per day than what was done in school, there's
Tammy 12:31
no way, there's no way that you need more than four hours a day, I can't believe that if you do a reasonable job of educating four hours a day is plenty, then you got half the day, you can the kids can go play again, which is when I
Liz 12:46
think that I was an ag major and I spent a lot of time outside growing up. But I feel like half of what kids need to learn now anyways is not learned in a classroom, it like you just need to be like outdoors and nature and stuff. But I was listening to the podcast you did with the German lady. And I thought that it was very interesting when she was talking about like societally, how you learn from having older and younger siblings, like the different ages. And I'm listening to you talk about how you always had a bunch of different kids in your house like not just to two year olds, or you know, something like that. And I'm like, Oh, that makes a whole lot of sense. I've never really thought about it that way. But I think that that's pretty important, too. And you would not get that in a school setting. Not in a classroom setting, you know? No, not the
Tammy 13:36
way the classes are now, you know, the act in schools, they have multiple classes, and they have free rein to go between classes. So the older kids educate the younger kids. So you have to start that at an early age so that people know that they're self directed. And they will get help when they ask for it. But other than that, they're on their own. Yeah, to take them where their interest is. And their curiosity is. And then problem solving goes that it's up to them. And so that happens naturally at home if you have a large family, or it happens in your neighborhood. Now, because people don't have large families very often anymore. But it can still
Liz 14:21
it's interesting though, because now I'm seeing I don't know if it's this way where you all are but because of I think the news and social media, moms and parents in general are just terrified to like let their kids be outside because they're afraid they're going to be kidnapped or run over by a car or whatever. So it's like, and I think kids watch screen so much now that even if you're in a large neighborhood, they're not necessarily outside playing with kids like you and I did when we were little it just I don't really see that happening as much as I used to which is also concerning.
Tammy 14:57
When we were in Boston, so the kids were less Old, they were only three and four, I think we went on sabbatical to Montreal. And Montreal is about a five hour drive from Boston. And we rented the house to a German family, I'm pretty sure they were German family. And they had four kids. And they rented the house for six months. And then we came back. And our neighbors said, Oh, my God, you wouldn't believe these people let their kids by themselves to the park. And the park had a duck. Yeah, had a duck pond in it, it had lots of rolling hills. I can't remember how many acres it was. You it was I can't remember how many acres it was but a reasonable size, it was definitely a reasonable, you could get lost in there. You could yell and not hear the other person who's at the other end of the park. Right. So it was a big part. And these kids, I guess, would just go to the park and come home and just have a wonderful time. And these Boston parents thought that that was terrible. How could they let those kids out of their sight? And we know God, you know,
Liz 16:01
so you know, that was maybe back then. And I don't know which podcast of yours. Did you actually did you let your kids walk to school? Or did you walk them to school? I remember you saying you would like learn stuff from your son on either the walk to the bus or the walk to school or something. Okay.
Tammy 16:16
Well, that was in high school that was just in order to listen to anything. He might tell me. No, they they walked to school and back by themselves. It was only two blocks. It was you know, they went by the
Liz 16:29
house doesn't happen here. That would never happen here. That's crazy. But I feel like Yeah, and it's no and it's that's not I. So my husband sometimes gets mad at me. We have 10 acres. And we live in Knoxville, which is a decent sized city, but still like 10 Acres is a decent size. So I'll let my three year old outside and I can usually see the window. But sometimes he's outside for five or 10 minutes, and I cannot see him. But he knows the rules. And he's a smart kid. Like, you're not going to go in the road and stuff like that. My husband's like, oh, my gosh, I cannot believe you did that. And I was like, well, what's the worst that can happen in 10? You know, five or 10 minutes. He's like, he could die. Like, when we were kids, you know, we would use? We would go we would leave the house. And we just had to be back by the time it was dark. And my parents had no clue where we were,
Tammy 17:19
you know? Exactly, yeah. When the street lights, or they were they would
Liz 17:25
start yelling for us out the front door. And then we knew we were in trouble for something. But we would come back.
Tammy 17:32
You know, we had a we had a street party on Saturday, and it was the 42nd year. So this has been a street party. That's and that's why we live on this street was because it looked like a community when we moved here to and we thought okay, this is a good place for the kids. But I tell you, it was very, very interesting, because I haven't been to the street party because we've been traveling on this tour first. Really? For a very long time. We got a plaque the other day, January 2020. Oh, wow. He left. That's a long trip. That's how long we were gone. That long trip. Oh, God. It was long trip anyway, I am home now. But we so we had a day where it was street party. What do you do in the morning? Well, everybody cleans the streets so that the streets clean, and you put up barriers at the end of the street. So there's no cars on this one. It's just one street long. And the first thing you do is there's a parade and every all the little kids decorate their bikes, and decorate their faces. And everybody has some sort of musical instrument. And they and they have a banner at the front that says it's the street pride and they walk up and down the street. And everybody says, hey, you know, here's the start of the day. And then at noon, there's kids games, and they are put Vaseline on your nose and stick your nose in the thing and get a cotton ball on and you know, or have dress up clothes at one end. And then everybody has to put on some clothes. But so it's just these really basic 50 year old games that anybody can play kids or adults anybody can play. And so you do that for like an hour and a half. And then you end with a balloon toss and an egg throwing toss and an ice cream eating contest. Well, this year. The organizer was a young woman, middle aged woman, I guess her kids are in just finishing high school. And for some reason, when my husband my son came home from the park, they said there was no egg toss. I mean, what do you mean there's no egg toss in 42 years, we've been having an a dot know the organizer decided we couldn't have an egg toss because there are people in the world who don't have enough to eat. And so we couldn't have an egg toss. So Jordan was saying virtue signaling or more virtue signaling in our neighborhood. But you know, I mean, that was silly. Anyway, that's an aside. We so we add that and then the afternoon the kids sleep. So it's pretty quiet. It's just finger painting and face painting. And you know, that kind of Quiet quiet. And then everyone puts their plate or their tables on the street, and, and they have a potluck, and everybody eats together. And then we set up a microphone, and there's a talent show or a non talent show. And then they set up a movie where everybody can take, the kids can take their sleeping bags out and just lay on the street and watching movie, and then it's over. Right, then it's over. And that's the day. And I was thinking, you know, it's like a village. This is like a village. This is what a village would have been like, I would have been able to go outside and said somebody, have you seen Julian? And they'd say, I think he was over there. You know? I think he was. That's okay. I think that he was over there playing in someone's backyard. Okay, thanks. You know, and so there's people outside they kind of are, and then you can go outside, you can help people, which is a biblical thing to do is to get out there and do service. Or you can ask for help, which is another biblical thing to do is to ask for someone to help you. But there are people that you can do that with. Because now the way that the street usually is, everybody is right. You don't see anybody. You know, we talked about this 93 year old woman who just died. And this was a, an Italian neighborhood. She just died in one of the ladies who knew her. And when they were the group that started the street party got up to speak. And she said she used to stand on her porch Oh, housing during the day. That's,
Speaker 1 21:39
that's hilarious. I love that. Yeah. It's not like that, anyways,
Tammy 21:46
have changed so much now that everybody has they have their car and they have their purpose. And it isn't in the neighborhood, it's outside. So everything, it's a necessity to go somewhere and do something, but not to actually be living where you are. And the kids have such a good time that day. They just oh, they just, they just love it. They get to make kids love it. It's the one day a year. Yeah, they just get to run around and
Liz 22:20
do whatever they want. What are the main challenges that you see young moms having today? And what advice do you have for them? I know, that's a very broad question. I
Tammy 22:31
guess that? That's a very broad question. But well, I know that I know that deciding to have a child is tricky now, because the narrative is is that your career is going to be more important. And that is such an old story. Now, that's got to be that's from the 60s when feminism really wasn't taking hold and the birth control pill came out. And so then they had a chance they had a chat women had a chance to just leave the house and, and work and put adults first is really what it did. They finally had the chance to put themselves before children. And that isn't the way we're bio biologically set up. We're set up to put children first. And there's a reason for that. But we thought we'd try this experiment to put adults first. And we've been doing that now since the 60s. And now the if
Liz 23:26
you've seen haven't seen that, no. But have you seen the movie business? Birth control? By Ricki Lake? You gotta watch that. That's great. No,
Tammy 23:35
no. Okay, okay. Yeah, I'll watch that. almost 10 years, little while when I was young, it terrible. Oh, it did nothing good. For me. It turned me into a different person. A person who was not stable, like an unstable person. It was. And so I've been waiting for years for somebody to say, oh, yeah, I've done all the research, and it's definitely there. And that's why I interviewed Dr. Sara Hill.
Unknown Speaker 24:04
She's on that documentary too. She's really good. And
Tammy 24:07
I was. Oh, yeah. I thought, yep. You know, that's true. That's true. And people have to have to, you know, my mom didn't know I went on the birth control pill when I was 15. She didn't know. So when I changed, she didn't know why I changed. Actually, Jordan, but when you were 15 each other back then Right? Because we Oh, cool. Even knew each other when we were
Speaker 1 24:29
eight. But you started the pill when really last time so when I was a teenager
Tammy 24:33
when I was 15. And he said how did you how did you have access to a pill? Right. So he noticed it. I just went to the doctor and asked for
Liz 24:42
it. So like Planned Parenthood or something like that, or just the regular doctor?
Tammy 24:48
No, I just went to the doctor went to the doctor. My family doctor. Yeah, yeah, that would have been 75 or so 1975 or so. And there was really no follow up and I wanted it. And I didn't have to tell anybody. Well, that's a mistake, that's a mistake, that's going to get you into terrible trouble. Because if you haven't told anybody, you know, it's monitoring your mood. And you're just your basic habits. And you need that you need that feedback. And that's, that's something that I think today with parents is that we need a community of other parents, because we have to ask questions, and our kids have to relate to one another of all these different ages. So that a challenge today would be getting parents to devote regular time to community. Being there, being there, but not being you don't have to be controlling, you don't have to be the one who's saying what the kids have to do. You just have to be there. So that's a challenge is to be to make yourself available. And this all takes negotiation, right. You negotiate with your children, you negotiate when once they're like, seven or so you can start negotiating with your kids. But before that, not so much. You can negotiate with your husband, and whatever other people are in your circle, your community circle, about how you're going to spend time with your kids, and other kids. Not with them, but to be available for them. You know, I never even went outside. I was I had all these kids in my house. They were out in the neighborhood. I never even went outside. I remember when the kids were quite young, quite young. They were in school, maybe kindergarten, maybe kindergarten. And I had this little Japanese kid that used to come over and then dueling would go over there on Wednesdays, over there and over there. So I like to set up those kinds of things where the kids could go to each other's houses. And one day the mom comes in Hello, Tammy. Where's Ray? And I go and I look out the back. Because I'm on the second floor. And I look I know, none of the kids aren't they're gone. And there's like a basketball hoop and sandbox and all this all the things kids need, but they're gone. And we are right across from University of Toronto, right downtown, right downtown. And I think, oh, kids are gone. So I go outside, and I look and I look up the back alley, and I don't see anybody and I call and nobody there. And this goes, it's probably like 15 minutes or something of thinking what was he wearing today? I don't remember what he was wearing.
Unknown Speaker 28:00
Oh, wait, you still weren't paying at this point. And then
Tammy 28:02
I know, but I was thinking, this probably isn't very good. And, and then I see them coming down the back alley. They've gone over to visit somebody that they know from school. And when they went in, the mom said, Does your mom know where Julie's like? Yeah. No, Mom doesn't know where you are. But so I sat them both up on the picnic table. And I said, you know you, you're smart kids, you're really smart kids.
Speaker 3 28:32
But when you're together, you only have half a brain, half a brain. That's all you have.
Tammy 28:40
But you know, you gotta you gotta give your kids that kind of freedom. Because they got to learn. They have to learn like he knew now oh, I screwed up. I screwed up. And he knew that and so did Ray. They knew they screwed up. How else are they going to learn that if they don't make mistakes if we don't give them the freedom? And he didn't go very far. He was just, you know, at the back alley. He scared me. He scared me for sure. And he scared the other lady too. But he wasn't in any trouble. And how often they're in trouble. Not very often. This is. Yeah, this is uh, I mean, I had a pretty good place. So you have to have a good place before you give your kids some freedom. Yeah, right. So you have to have a reasonable area. Like you said, you have 10 acres. You have water. We have
Speaker 1 29:40
a pool, but it's I can't get to the pool area. Yeah.
Tammy 29:44
Yeah, right. So Right. What's the problem? It might climb a tree? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Right. Or he might find a wild animal like a little a weasel or something and get spit out or something. But Really, and Him who knows he might fall and twist his ankle or whatever. But, you know, that's being a child. You know, don't we? We all maybe we all have to read Huckleberry Finn, and all of those things again to see Yes. Children need adventure. Yeah, they do. And we have to set. You know, I know, we know, we live in the cities now. And we live side by side and there isn't any space. But still, you can take your kids to a park. And you can be there, you can be there thing I've
Liz 30:35
noticed. I hate going on playdates because I just don't like how they are nowadays. But if I go on a playdate with another mom 90% of the time, if the kids have some type of altercation, which they will, because they're little kids, we have to intervene immediately. We cannot let them push each other or anything like that. And me personally, I've, I want to be like, let them duke it out, let them this is how they'll figure out like, I don't like being pushed. So maybe I shouldn't push somebody else, you know. But I feel like if you don't stop whatever is happening right away, there's so much judgment from the other mom, like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe that you would not like keep them from hurting each other, which they're not even really hurting each other. But you know what I mean, that's just like, that seems to be very common now is that parents feel the need to like, control every single interaction that small children have. And I don't know that that's right, that we should do that. Sometimes I feel like we should let them work it out. You know? No, that's
Tammy 31:41
a mistake. I think that's a mistake. When kids when Julian was little guy three, we went to one of these big likes a gymnasium full of climbing structures and things like that. And I was there with them. And I walked by Julian and there were two little boys and Julian and I could tell that they were not getting along, there was some sort of hierarchy problem having status problem mapping, I don't know what was happening. But I walked by, and I looked and I thought, No, I just walked by, you know, and I thought, he's either going to, this is going to be the moment, I'm going to decide that he isn't able, he's not able to find his place in the pack. And those other little boys aren't going to allow him to find his place in the pack. Or I'm going to always be finding his place for him. And that, that wouldn't have been a good outcome. So I agree with you. And I'm sure that Jordan was behind my knowledge. Because I don't think I had a lot of knowledge before I had kids. He helped me, you know, know what to do with children. And so kids have to find their own way, you know, afterwards, they can come to you and say, you know, Johnny hit me. You know, what do I do? Well, then, you know, just like anybody, if anybody you learn as you get older, you don't give advice to people unless they ask for it. Well, kids aren't any different from that you don't give them advice without them asking for it.
Liz 33:25
That's, that's pretty smart. Actually, I feel like we have to. We almost like absent parent and then over parent in this day and age, which is very extreme, very odd.
Tammy 33:40
I have another thing to say. So the other day, my son was here with his wife, they had we had dinner and then they were going to leave. And I have toys, right? I have toys. And her three year old wanted to take home the stuffies that I had, I guess he had decided that those pretty nice stuff is. And while we were in the house, he decided to go out the front door. And he was gonna say get those stuffies in the car or something, you know. And his one year old sister, he didn't shut the door. And his one year old sister went out to and we have brick steps. We have brick steps. And it's brick. It's brick. It's hard. And he saw her outside. And he screamed, so he knew Oh, surely is at the top of the stairs. This isn't good. And screamed, and so his mum came out, but and brought them back in and told him he couldn't do that he wasn't supposed to leave. But she said she said to me so when we're at home, he also has figured out how to get the front door open and he will go outside we'll see him walk by the window. And and we don't know how to stop him from doing that. And I he goes, what do we do? And I said let's wait till Jordan comes back in because he'll tell you what to do. So George came came back in and I said So Jill, tell Jordan what you have to say And George said, Well, she, he said, when he, when he goes out there, you bring them back and you make him sit down. And you make him sit down until it's uncomfortable for him to sit there. And then you let them up. And then you take him back to the door. And you say, if, if you're going to leave the house, this is what's going to happen, you're going to have to sit. And so and if they don't listen, then they sit longer. And so sitting is a great deterrent, because it can be a two second set. But it can be a 10 minute set, you know, depending on what has happened, and so but it's, but it's because it's only one variable, a tiny little kid of three can understand that. If it's any more complicated than one variable, they will not get it. So the only variable is that you're going to sit for a very varied amount of time and not be able to do anything, you sit with your hands at the side, and you sit properly, up straight, you don't like complain and lay down and suck your thumb, you have to actually sit up straight on the stairs. And until you want to have a good day is really what we always told them sit there until you want to have a good day. And my son, my daughter was easy. We never even had to really put her on the stairs. But my son, you'd say don't do this. And you'd say what about this? What about that? What about this? What about how about this way? And you know, so then sometimes that would get to be too much? We put them on the stairs? And just when we say no, we mean no. I mean, if it's we just we didn't have very many rules. You can't run in a parking lot. That's a misdemeanor, you know that that's something you're going to be you're you're going to be quarantined for a little while if you do something like that. And I don't remember the kids running away outside. But if they ran away outside, that would be the same sort of thing. But if there were no cars around, it probably wouldn't have bothered me as much. But you know, if there's an our neighborhood, I guess it's more urban. It is more urban here than where we were. But he's only three. And there are people walking through our neighborhood. We don't know. For sure there. Are there people we don't know. And so he has the backyard he could play in the backyard. The backyard is just as fun as the front yard. So no, no to the back no to the front yard. And that No. Has to be a final No. Like there's no negotiating No, otherwise no loses its meaning. Yeah. And so people who say no, and then say, Oh, well, maybe today, then no doesn't mean no anymore. So if you make a rule and you don't want I think we used to have no more than 10 rules for our kids, we didn't we tried to really keep them number of rules minimum, so that well so that they could comprehend so that their life wasn't too complicated. Because they're just little they can only comprehend so many rules. And the rules have to be like I said one dimensional. So they have to be able to grasp what the consequences are. And the consequences have to be immediate. Or they or they won't remember why they're sitting on the stairs. Yeah, so there's all of that if
Liz 38:18
you were raising kids now, would you let them have iPads and cell phones and social media and stuff? Obviously not three year old, my son is three, but when they get older, like 6789, which is when most kids are getting cell phones now. Would you do that?
Tammy 38:37
Well, the I know that my granddaughter whose parents are divorced, has a phone to call her parents when she's with the other parent. And she's five. And other than that, I wouldn't see the necessity for it at all. You know, so in fact, my kids and my kids watched kids movies. When they were little that's all they watched. There was no TV in my house. There was no you know, people used to watch TV. Not in my house. I might have no wasn't allowed to watch TV,
Unknown Speaker 39:16
cable or anything.
Tammy 39:20
No, no, we didn't have we didn't have any hookup to our TV. And when my kids were little the internet was just really getting going so there were a few games where you could learn to tape by shooting ducks on the on the screen. But it was it that was about as as interesting as it got. Now it's so interesting that you know kids have all of these all of these games they can play and everything but you know, I think you know we have phones. We can set up music for them. We can set up a little movie for for them if we want, why do they need a phone? Right? I think that there, these are like these things. They're not. It's not it's not this big. It's a huge, it's as big as the world. Yeah. So we, I don't think we look, we look at phones, we don't think about actually what they are. They're a gateway to the world. And so when somebody's ready for the world, really, you know, when they're teenagers, they're just barely ready for the world at that point. So I would definitely think about that. I know that people have phones, for kids, and there is no net internet. It's just a basic, a few number of games they can play. Yet. When the kids come to my house, they can, there's lots of things to do, you don't have to play on a phone. And so I think that I think that parents who have only children resort to phones and iPads and things because they don't have a playmate. But when you have a playmate, then you don't need it. You know, they have these, they have these boxes, you can put phones in when you go to someone's house to write, and you can say I'm here for dinner, and I'm leaving at nine. And that's when you can open the box, and that it just stays closed. That makes quite a difference to an evening with people, if no one has access to their phones. And we don't we don't we don't talk about that. Because some people are so important. They have to have their phones. Because whatever they're doing is of so as such importance that putting that phone away is just not possible. But I don't know, I think that it would be I think it's a good hygiene, I think it's good hygiene, to put those phones away. And in terms of children. I would put that off for you know, like playing games, computer games aren't bad for kids. It teaches them but you have to be a little older. Why do you have to be before you play computer games that are that are good for kids? I don't know anymore, because I don't have little kids. So I don't know how young kids are actually playing games. And having that be useful. There's probably research on that is how help. But then again, it's really easy to to leave the kids with that.
Liz 42:45
Parents use it to babies. Because even though I have two kids when I was working Yeah, I worked from home when my kids were little, but I still had to be working. So it was very, like if I didn't have a babysitter and you're too young to go outside by himself then or anything like that. Parents turn on a movie and say watch this movie or watch this show or you know, do look at YouTube or whatever. Yeah, that's what it's used for now.
Tammy 43:11
Yeah, and it's used in the back of a car to keep kids quiet in the car. Yeah, what did I give him? I gave him candy. So I don't know. I don't know if there's it. I don't know if televisions? Candy. I think candy is pretty horrible. So. So I'm not sure about that. Maybe I'd rather give them a movie. I think I'd rather give them a movie then.
Liz 43:32
What about so like a teenager? If you have a 15 or 16 year old? Would you let them have Instagram, and Snapchat and all these things?
Tammy 43:40
No way, you know, I went over to visit my brother, Jordan and I went over to visit my brother. We don't see them very often. And we hadn't seen their grandkids at all really. And the grandkids were 12 and 15 or something like that. And they were on their phones the entire time. They never even looked at to say hello, or goodbye. And we both thought that was brutal. It was it was not? That was not good.
Liz 44:12
Yeah. It's what I'm noticing is like kids can do all this stuff and communicate so well on a phone but they can't they're human communication is terrible now. And even like, yeah, make it a point. I'm probably overly hard on my son. But when we go to a restaurant, I make him have the interaction with the servers and the waitresses like you're going to say please, and thank you and you're going to give them your order and tell them what you want to eat and stuff like that. Because well I feel like now like that's a lot of parents say see, just stick a phone in front of their kid to silence them so they don't have they can have a meal and peace or whatever. But then kids don't even know how to have a basic conversation with somebody that they don't know. And I'm like, You should be able to say hello How's your day? Please? And thank you. Yes, I would like fruit or oil or whatever it is. And so
Tammy 45:08
yeah, absolutely. You know that that's what makes kids likeable is that parent when, when an adult comes in if if a kid can be respectful and communicative, then yeah, they then then they're gonna get more attention. They're just gonna get more attentive, more good attention, not bad attention, but good attention. When when we used to take our kids out, and we always went out. We actually had people comment on our, on our strictness, you know, and want to want to report us to the authorities, or whatever they were because we were making our kids sit at the table. You know, so. And I imagine it's much, much worse than it was. So you get other people watching when you're in the restaurant. And so then if you just give them a phone, the little kids are found, and they're not, you're not gonna get any attention from other nosy people. And so there's a lot, there's a lot of incentive to do that, to make them quiet. But they're not going to learn, they're not going to learn their manners, and they have to learn their manners. We could always take our kids everywhere we went. And we met Julian, we used to ask him to pay the bill. But he was too shy. He was always he didn't want to take them. The credit card house at this kid's counter, he just never wanted to do it. Mikayla, she was fine with it. She's super extroverted. And Julian, he's, he's extroverted enough, but he's also pretty disagreeable, and he doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do. So I'm not quite sure what it was that stopped him. But he didn't think that that was something that he had to do, you know. But but we remember those things, because we did them. Every time we went out, we did them. But the kids they sat, they ate, and we knew that a children 45 minutes is about that's about it. You so you know you so you have to, you have to know your kids well enough to know how long they can sit in a restaurant and be civil. And after that you leave. You don't try to extend that for the convenience of adults. No, don't bring your kids. Don't bring your kids. If you're if you want an adult evening, well then have an adult evening but don't try to make children conform to the adults in the room. Our society is so big on can on adults coming first that anything I see that settles first now I think yeah, probably not. That's probably not the right choice. Because they don't have any say and I
Liz 47:59
I've been thinking a lot about, you know, with birth control and feminism and everything, women being able to delay having children and I also was listening to Shiloh above he's an app pretty famous actor. And he was talking about like, what makes a man a man, when do they enter into manhood in a lot of societies have rituals and certain things, but Americans don't really have anything like that. And so I was talking to my husband about it, and some other people. And this one guy was like, Oh, well, it's when you have sex. And I was like, Absolutely not. That's not what makes you a man. And in my mind, I was thinking, I agree with Shaila. He's saying, when you're responsible for another human being, that's when you become a man. So like fatherhood is what he was alluding to, I believe. And I think it's the same for women too. Like once you have kids, then you women mature quicker than men, obviously. But it makes you grow up. And so we have a bunch of adults walking around that are adult children and my opinion. And so they expect us, they expect children to conform to that. So which is stupid, because a child cannot conform to what they expect or want or desire. So our expectations are so out of whack. But then it's like a lot of people are either not having kids or prolonging it for so long, that they're staying adult children for longer than they ever have. And it's just it's very interesting to me, I don't know I was listening to Jordan say the other day it was he put this out a long time ago, but you have to make your child socially acceptable by the time they're four years old. And I'm like, Whoa, crap. I only have a few months left, my son's three and a half. I don't know if we're gonna make it by that date. I feel like we're decently socially acceptable but not totally.
Tammy 49:50
Think decently.
Liz 49:52
I think what he's saying is is good because you know, it's, if you just put things in front of your kids to sign wants to them or distract them. And they're not actually learning how to be socially acceptable. And they just grow up to be these adult babies, these adult children, and then you have to like, tiptoe around them and everything. Yeah, I don't want to raise my kids to be that way. I want them to be able to function in society and other people genuinely enjoy interacting with them and being with them. But it's becoming more and more difficult to find good guidance on that. Because I feel like all these people that give all this parenting advice, I look at their kids, and I'm like, your kid sucks. Why would I listen to what you're saying. And so one reason I respect you and Jordan, so much as I've listened to I haven't ever heard her son talk. But I've heard Makayla talk several times. And she's well spoken. And she's polite. And she says what she means. But I can also tell that she very much respects you all, as parents. And so I think that's very telling of the job that you've done raising your children.
Tammy 50:56
No, thank you. Yeah, well, that's, that could be, you know, and Julian, Julian's a good, he's good with his kids. He's playful. He's playful with his, but he doesn't let them get away with anything. And when he and he means it, you know, you can, I think if I was a little kid, and he was my dad, I'd pay attention when he told me pay attention, I'd definitely pay attention. Like he, so he has authority, right? Yeah, thority. And you have to have authority. And your kids are going to cry. They're not, they're not, they're not going to be pleased sometimes with being stopped from what they're doing. And given a lesson, they're not, they're not going to be happy about that. But suffering is the way to learn. We all have to suffer. And through suffering, we learn to be better people. And that starts from the time we're little. And it doesn't stop through our lives. So those kids who grow up without having had any boundaries taught to them. And where they think everything, it they get everything, whenever they want it. The world is going to hit them hard. At some point, because that isn't what the world's like, the world is a place where you learn through suffering. And yeah, you want to be ready for that, you know, you want to be ready, you want to have some tools in your pockets about how you're going to deal with being uncomfortable. And now we're told, Oh, my goodness, if you're uncomfortable, everyone has to change around you know, that's, that's not life. That's not going to happen when you're working. When you're say out on a outside working with a whole bunch your guy and you're outside working with other guys, huh? That's the best thing. You know, that's something that I'd like to talk about this a little bit. To see what you think of this. Well, you know, schools schools used to be, or at some points anyway, they were single sex schools, even universities, right, that used to be all male, all male universities. And it's not that I don't want to educate women, you know, this, that's not true. Kids do a lot better if their mothers are educated. And so I know that I know that it's super important that women are educated, but women have spent through feminism, women have been taught that they've been oppressed, and that they need to get into men's spaces. And so now many women are in men's clubs, associations, the workplace. There's sports teams, like everywhere. And now men, in the guise of dressing up as women have started to infiltrate women's spaces and women are going wait a minute, and I agree, I agree. Wait a minute, that's not gonna work. Women are much smaller than you and that's not gonna work. And it's gross. You're gonna be in my bathroom. Like, that's gross. But But what have we done? What have women done to set this up as a, as a as a reaction? And it's not nothing. It isn't that we haven't done anything to cause this trouble. There's got to be something that we've done to make this happen. What can we do? What can we do now to try to set things right? And I think one of the things that we have to think about is how much we have infiltrated men spaces, and so that men can't be alone anymore with other men. And when men are alone with other men, they, they push on each other, and they move they they form them into men, they form each other into men, and the men who are, I guess, the better at developing and change Teaching and taking advice and creating, they end up rising, they end up rising. And they end up being leaders. There's there are people who are leaders, and people who are managers, like there's different kinds of people, but but boys will organize themselves like that. But if there's a woman involved, then the hierarchy somehow loses its focus. And I see think that men have lost their focus in in their hierarchy building. About what who's who's in control, and who isn't. Who's Who's first. Who's second, like they know it, they know it women, you know, we, we were in the house, we're in the community. We had we had, and we had control of that. We were the ones who made that work. And now we think, Oh, well, we're going to leave all of that and go off into the men's world. And that's when we're going to made and now life is gonna be good, you know, but now women aren't having children soon enough. So the birth birth rate is falling. And it's seriously falling. And who's responsible for that? Well, it's women, because women are the ones who have the babies. And they're the ones who choose their husbands. So women choose their husbands. And on a birth control pill, you choose a friend instead of a lover, because you choose narrow, narrow jawed, more feminine men, if you're on the birth control pill because you don't ovulate. So you never get to that point where you think I want a baby and I'm going to marry and I'm gonna have sex with this amazing, you know, masculine man, no, that doesn't happen anymore. And so that doesn't happen anymore. So what are we doing to create this problem? Let's think about it. Let's think about it. Let's talk about it. And let's make some changes here. Ladies, like we can do that. We're we're tough is boots. Women are so tough. We're so tough. That's why men need us, because we're so tough. You know, and we need to support our guys. So that they can be so they can get out there and do what they have to do. You know, everybody, and I know, people are very kind to me, they say, you know, it's nice to have met you and your Jordans wife and Jordans amazing person. And he is he's an amazing person, you know, we can be so busy. We can be in an airport late for our flight. And someone stops Jordan. He goes, Oh, hello. Hi, what's your name? How are you? And what have you been listening to? And how does it make you feel and and he always does that he never says, I'm busy and I'm late. I don't have time for you. That's not him. That's not him at all. And I support him. I do support him. I've learned I've known him a long time, right. I've known him for 54 years. Right? So that's, I'm lucky that I've known him that long. I know him pretty deeply. And I've tried to do my work on myself to become supportive and kind, and generous and grateful. And forgiving, and all the things all the virtues of the standard, traditional, Judeo Judeo Christian virtues, I'm trying to embody those virtues, because I know his work is important. But he can't do it without me, either. You know, he calls me sometimes and he's just in a complete, you know, he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what to do. And he needs to talk. And we talk, or I listen. And then come to some sort of like, basic, really basic, common sense kind of idea. And those are the things that you need help with. It's not his philosophy and all of that, that he needs help with. It's really this woman who knows how to be hospitable. When people come over, that's what he needs. That's what he needs, so that he has a place to be where he can do the things he needs to do without worrying about hospitality. And his children being respectful of him. And so then he can be with his kids and play with them. And I mean, there's just so much women can do to make this all go right.
Liz 59:43
That we you're like me and you did it all the wrong way. Trying to trying to unlearn it. I did to not leave the band and the relationship is really hard. It's that's been a very big struggle for me because I was really successful and dominant and a A male driven career, and then coming home and trying to be the things that you're saying, like more hospitable and supportive and a sounding board and all those things. It doesn't come naturally after you've been trying to be a man. You know, I mean, so it's it's hard to right, right, right. I think it can be done. But it's just more difficult if you learn it all the wrong way, and then try to relearn it the right way, a little
Tammy 1:00:28
bit. It'll flush you out. Because in some, in some instances, what you've learned so far is very, very useful. Yeah. But there's more to it. There's more to it. And we've we've forgotten some of those things that sound
Unknown Speaker 1:00:46
they're not easy. Yeah.
Tammy 1:00:49
But they're not easy. They're not not easy. It's not easy to be. To be humble, it's not easy to listen, you know, I'm going to give a commencement speech to a couple of high school students at a small Catholic school tomorrow. And I'm going to talk about listening, I'm going to talk about listening to others. So learn, like teaching kids to listen. That's the first step on them listening to themselves. Right, so you listen to each other, you listen to each other. And pretty soon, you start to hear who you are, and what you're like. And then you get to hear what God has to say. And I think it's an evolution from that first listening that you do when you're a child. And so people like parents have a, they have an obligation to teach their kids to listen. It isn't what it isn't, it isn't just what the kids want. And it isn't just what the parents want. It that isn't that isn't the story. That isn't the story, the story is, too, listen to one another, and try to bring both of those experiences to a better place. But it's about listening and noticing, and acting on the next right thing. And that's all you've got, as far as I can tell. You know, because when you try to control something, when you try to make it, suit your, what you what you feel you need, it doesn't work. The only thing that works is to be in the moment with these little kids are with your husband, and to notice the next great thing that has to be done. And that's all that's necessary. It's hard to believe that it can be that way. And it sounds easy. And it kind of is easy. If you practice it, you know, when I was really sick, and George was really sick. And I've said this a number of times, but and we were apart from each other for at least two years, maybe more. And I changed a lot when I was sick. And then when he was gone. I really took on a very intense spiritual journey when he was gone. And when he came back, and we were home together, and he was still suffering terribly, so he wasn't in a good place at all. Here we were in the house together one night night, and we had had a practice of dating three times a week, twice a week. And I say, Well, maybe should we have a date? I don't know, maybe we should have a date. Like we didn't even know if there's anything left of our marriage by that time. And so but we knew what to do, because we've done it. So this is what you want to do you need, you need to decide what are you going to practice through your life? Because when you go through a crisis, whenever you practice is what's left of you. Yeah, and so what was left of us? Well, we knew we had to shower and get on something nice and tidy up the room and get our heads wrapped around the idea that we were going to be nice to one another and go downstairs and dance together. And not be resentful. You know, I mean, maybe we were resentful, but we knew what to do have a shower, get dressed in something nice. Make sure the room is is nice and there's some music on and then come together and look at each other. Look at each other and remember who they are. Yeah, and be grateful. That's what you do. Yeah. And you do that with your children too. You don't just do it with each other. But this is a daily practice of being grateful. We have to be grateful because life is very long. It's not very long, but it's so it can be so joyous if we can be present. Do the next right thing, and then be so grateful that we didn't do something harmful that we did something good. Right? No no harm. If we can stop from harming ourselves and other people got that'd be, that'd be worth. That'd be worth, the time it takes to practice these things. And Being
Liz 1:05:21
grateful is harder than it seems for somebody like me, I'm like, very critical, like, if I should have done this, that my kids have to be better, better, better. And I'm like, I cannot just be grateful for all the blessings that I have so far.
Tammy 1:05:37
Yeah, just one thing at a time, just one moment at a time, then you can do it. Don't get ahead of yourself, you know, when you're very smart, like you are, it's easy to get too far ahead. You know, I meet with some ladies once a week and one of them. She's a professor, and she's, she's smart. I've known her for a long time, she was a graduate student, same time, my husband was working on a very long time. And last night, we were talking about patients because I was I was chairing the meeting. And I was talking about patients, patients with ourselves, patients with other people. And, and not being too judgmental of other people. Like not saying get off your pity pot. What's your problem? When somebody might take longer to deal with something than you do? You know, so. So we were talking about these things. And my friend said, yeah, she said, I'm always she likes to meditate. But she's, she's critical and
Unknown Speaker 1:06:41
something I would do.
Tammy 1:06:44
You know? Right, you know, and she was like, Yeah, that's probably not right. That's probably not how you do.
Speaker 1 1:06:51
Funny. Yeah, I would be that way, though. Totally. That's why I don't meditate.
Tammy 1:07:02
Yeah, well, I started meditating when I was 13. I left the church, which was, which was a mistake. But I did you raise your kids? And thank goodness for that? No, we didn't, I wanted to. But I didn't. I didn't insist. I should have insisted. And I've learned that too, is I have had things that I wanted for my self and for my children that I didn't insist upon. I didn't baptize them. I want to baptize them. I didn't, I didn't insist. I want to see my parents more. I didn't insist. And now my mom's dead. And my dad's 92. You know, and I could have, you know, Jordan, he's not. If I would have said, I want to go see, let's go see my parents. He'd say, okay, for so but for some reason, I didn't think what what I needed was important enough. I was, and women make this mistake, often, I'm sure that we think we know what's great for everybody else. But we certainly aren't very good at doing what's what we need. It's not what we want, particularly, but like, see if my parents I needed that. Baptizing my kids, I needed that. Taking them to church, I needed that too. And I but I didn't insist. And so I can insist for myself. But that's all I can do. And then I can lead by example. And so you know, I'm not going to beat myself up too much about that. Because hey, you do the best you can, as you get older and you make terrible mistakes along the way. And you've made them I've made them. But there's nothing to do except for go forward in a better way. And that's hard enough. It's hard enough without beat yourself up about what you didn't do the day before. Like, that's why Jordan has that one rule, though, be I can't remember what it is. But today be a better person than you were yesterday. And don't compare yourself to the rest of the world. But just try to go one step at a time. And that's, that's a meditation on do the next right thing. I think that that's what that is. And that means that you can get up in the morning and start a new day. You can finish the day by making sure that you've crossed all your T's WT