0:05

Hey, this is Emily, and this is and you're

0:07

listening to stuff mom never told you.

0:20

Today, we are continuing the conversation

0:23

on role overload you may have heard

0:25

the other week from our friends

0:27

and author Liz O'Donnell talking

0:30

through the major conflicts

0:32

and challenges that can be a

0:34

result of being both a working

0:37

professional and a daughter caring

0:39

for aging parents. Today, we're

0:42

continuing the conversation on the same theme

0:44

around roll overload and roll

0:46

conflict, which, as a reminder,

0:49

those are the feelings of wearing too many hats,

0:51

or trying to be everything to everyone, or

0:54

that feeling that the roles you're playing are constantly

0:57

competing, constantly competing. We're

0:59

in you can't a good daughter if you're

1:01

also a good mother. You can't be a good employee

1:03

if you're also being a good wife, exactly,

1:07

and that's why we're so excited to

1:09

really hone in today on the

1:11

conflicts that can emerge for working parents

1:14

and specifically for working mothers. Today

1:17

we are excited to

1:19

be joined by our

1:22

incredible friend and

1:24

author Tiffany Doofu,

1:26

who you may know from her amazing book

1:28

called Drop the Ball. Tiffany

1:30

Doofu is a catalyst at large in the

1:33

world of women's leadership. She's

1:35

the author of Drop the Ball, a memoir

1:37

and a manifesto that shows women how

1:39

to cultivate the single

1:41

skill they really need in order

1:44

to thrive. The Ability to

1:46

let Go. Named a Fast

1:48

Companies League of Extraordinary Women, Tiffany

1:50

was a launch team member to Lean In

1:53

and his chief leadership officer to

1:55

Lavo, one of the fastest growing millennial

1:58

professional networks are to

2:00

that, Tiffany served as the president of the White

2:02

House Project, as a major Gifts

2:04

officer at Simmons College in Boston,

2:06

and as Associate Director of Development

2:09

Seattle Girls School, an institution

2:11

committed to giving all girls the power to

2:13

be innovative, confident, critical

2:16

thinkers. Tiffany, you've

2:18

long said that your life's

2:21

work is helping empower women and

2:23

girls. I'm so excited

2:25

for you to join us here at stuff. Mom never told

2:27

you where we share that goal. Oh

2:30

that's fabulous, and thank you for having me.

2:32

I'm excited to be here. We're so happy

2:34

to have you here, Tiffany. So, Tiffany, you

2:37

pretty much do it all. It

2:39

sounds like, how did you get into this work?

2:42

So I will first, I would say that I

2:44

do believe that I have it all, um,

2:47

And what that means to me is that I have a

2:49

really healthy partnership, and I

2:52

have kids who were pretty much on track

2:54

to be conscious global citizens, and I have

2:56

a career that is really

2:58

all about out my past and my purpose. And

3:01

on most days I'm pretty healthy and fit

3:03

and joyful. Um. But I don't do it

3:05

all in order to have it all, um,

3:07

which is I know that which we're going to

3:09

talk about. And I

3:12

got started really

3:14

because of my relationship with my mom,

3:16

which I know that we're talking about today.

3:19

She you know, found out that she was pregnant

3:22

with me when she was nineteen, and she was

3:24

what I call a nonpaid working mom, because

3:26

all moms are working moms, but she chose

3:30

to work inside of the home and she didn't get compensated

3:32

for her labor. And when my parents got

3:34

divorced when I was sixteen, I saw the

3:36

impact of that decision on my mom's

3:39

life. She really struggled after

3:41

the divorce, and so I became

3:44

quite committed to getting to as

3:46

many women as possible and really supporting

3:48

them in understanding that they were the most

3:50

powerful change agents in their own journey

3:53

because I saw the challenges that my mom had

3:55

after the divorce. So that's the root

3:57

of why I do what I do. I

4:01

love how you explain that,

4:03

because for all the

4:05

things we want to cover today, when it comes to the

4:07

role conflict, that can really

4:09

be an issue for women who both identify as

4:12

mothers and as those who are working

4:14

in the paid labor force. We

4:17

do not want to wade into the mommy

4:19

wars. Right, we're often sort of pigeonholed

4:22

as feminists, especially that the discussion

4:24

of women and work sometimes

4:27

leads us down that road to feeling like it's mothers

4:29

who are compensated for their labor in

4:31

the paid labor force and versus

4:33

mothers who stay at home. And that's certainly

4:36

not what we're trying to do today.

4:38

Totally definitely not, And it's so unfair.

4:41

It's just another way to pit women's

4:43

experiences against each other and sort of turn it

4:45

into this unnecessary competition.

4:47

I don't think it has to be that way at all. I love

4:49

the way that you highlight that, Tiffany

4:51

and you in your mom's own experiences and talking

4:53

about that, Oh, absolutely, because

4:56

you know we're there's only one egosyystem

4:59

and and really in order for us

5:01

to do what I would love us to do, which is get more women

5:03

into the highest levels of leadership, we do

5:06

need women who are really

5:08

clear about the choices that they're making. And

5:10

there's no way, to be honest that

5:12

I would be able to do what I

5:14

do every day if it wasn't for the mothers

5:17

who knew what was going on at my kids

5:19

school, who I was texting under the table

5:21

asking them to go pick up my kid when they're picking up

5:23

there. Is because I'm stuck in a meeting. I mean, I actually

5:26

wouldn't be where I am without um

5:29

my nonpaid working moms that are a part of

5:31

my village. So that's part of the reason

5:33

why I think the mommy wars are over and

5:35

dead is because we all need each other. Yeah,

5:37

I mean, it's a it's an ecosystem. Just like you said,

5:39

it's a village. It's all of these different kinds

5:42

of women with all of these different kinds of backgrounds

5:44

and experiences coming together for one

5:46

shared goal. That's so beautiful. I would love

5:48

to see that be the narrative of how we talked about

5:50

these roles exactly the ecosystem

5:53

of women crushing it, love it.

5:55

And I think what you underscore,

5:58

Tiffany, is that idea of women having

6:00

choice in the matter right because

6:02

I think the way that our country

6:04

works right now makes those choices

6:07

for a lot of us feel pretty constrained.

6:10

And so the whole concept of role overload.

6:12

When we first started talking about this last

6:15

week with Liz O'Donnell, there

6:17

was some contrary

6:19

evidence that we uncovered where people

6:22

are saying, Oh, you're feeling

6:24

conflicted between the multiple roles

6:26

you're playing women, Why don't you just

6:28

not playing that many roles? And

6:31

I'm curious because we're going to come back to your

6:33

underlying message of dropped the ball. But

6:36

this message of you know, women

6:38

should stay at home or be forced

6:40

into that kind of a role, or women should

6:43

be forced into, you know, seeking

6:45

professional advancement and not having children,

6:48

those binaries seem so

6:50

ludicrous to me, because it's all about making

6:52

sure women actually have control, making

6:54

sure women actually are able to make those choices

6:57

and in less of a constrained way than they

6:59

feel right now. And so actually,

7:01

one of the pieces of data that I wanted to highlight

7:04

here is that in the Huffington's post,

7:06

Lisa Belkin wrote, and yet another

7:08

study finds working moms are happier

7:10

and healthier. She underscores

7:13

that you know, Gallop found stay

7:15

at home mothers were more likely to experience

7:17

stress, worry, anger, and

7:20

sadness than those who held paying

7:22

jobs. A few days earlier, the

7:24

British Journal of Epidemiology

7:26

and Community Health reported that stay

7:28

at home women were more likely to experience

7:32

challenges with their health than those

7:34

who juggled children and a steady relationship

7:36

in a paycheck. In this particular instance,

7:39

they actually found a correlation between

7:41

obesity and staying

7:43

at home. And so I

7:46

guess the question boils down to, for

7:48

me, what is the challenge that we're

7:51

running up against with role conflict?

7:53

Do you hear about these challenges for women? It

7:55

sounds so much like what you were talking about

7:57

in our previous iteration of this episode. How

8:00

you know you have a specific relationship

8:03

with the people who are your clients, who you who are paying

8:05

for your services, but then when it comes

8:07

to your parents, when you go home for Thanksgiving or for

8:09

the holidays, you get a little stressed out.

8:11

And I think this is the same kind of thing where when

8:14

you're dealing with something that is your work, perhaps

8:16

it's easier to be like, this is my job. I'm

8:19

not personalizing it. I don't have the same kind of

8:21

emotional investment as I do with managing

8:23

all the different things that happened at home with

8:25

your kids, who you have a different, you

8:27

know, emotional relationship with. Yeah, is

8:30

that what you're hearing from women, Tiffany, When you

8:32

were on the journey of writing this book

8:34

and compiling all of the research and all the women

8:36

you worked with to make drop the Ball of Reality?

8:39

What what were the kinds of challenges that you were hearing

8:42

from women both who work for pay

8:44

and who work at home. Well,

8:47

some of the challenges that I hear consistently

8:49

are some of the ones that you're mentioning, Largely

8:52

that I'm stressed and then I've overwhelmed

8:54

because i have a lot of things on my plate and

8:56

I'm not sure how to prioritize all

8:59

of the things that I've committed to.

9:01

I'm not even sure if all the things I've committed to

9:03

are all the things that I want to do, but I certainly

9:05

am feeling the pressure. I

9:08

would argue that we have less

9:10

of a challenge around role conflict

9:13

and more of a challenge around role definition.

9:16

So most of us enter our

9:19

lives fulfilling particular

9:21

roles. If we're a woman, the first role is usually

9:24

daughter. If we become a sibling,

9:26

then a sister, certainly a friend,

9:29

a student, at some point workers

9:31

we eventually some of us become wives

9:34

and mothers. And what

9:36

I've discovered in connecting

9:38

with so many women as it, even though we're

9:40

born in different parts of the world, to different

9:43

families, different cultures, different values,

9:45

somehow we've all ended up with very similar

9:48

job descriptions for what it means

9:50

to be a good anything. And

9:52

if you are ambitious, then you by

9:54

default put the word good in front of all of your

9:57

roles. So it's not sufficient to be a

9:59

mom. You want to be a good mom,

10:01

not just a student. You want to be a good

10:04

student. And the job description

10:07

around what it means to be a good mother, because

10:09

I know that's what we're focused on today,

10:11

has a number of lines in it

10:13

that are problematic and are unrealistic.

10:16

For example, one of the lines and

10:18

the good mom job description says

10:21

that you need to be physically present

10:23

when your child takes their first steps.

10:26

I cannot tell you the number of women who

10:28

I've set across from who are really stressed

10:31

because they have a work event that they need

10:33

to travel for and they know that

10:35

as soon as that flight takes off, their

10:37

child who is about a year old, is going to start

10:40

walking and it will have meant that they were the worst

10:42

mother on the planet. Now, this

10:44

is despite the fact that there's not one

10:47

woman who could tell me that she remembers

10:49

who was there when she took her

10:51

first steps. Yet

10:54

this is apparently a really important moment

10:56

as occasion in life of a child that if you missed,

10:58

means you're you're really terrible. My

11:00

drop the ball journey was

11:03

more about me questioning

11:06

why it is all of these things

11:08

are on my job description to begin with,

11:10

and how I can get really clear

11:13

about what matters most to me and what

11:15

my highest and best use is in

11:17

fulfilling them, so that I can redefine

11:20

what that job description is altogether.

11:24

And when you have agency over

11:27

what it means for you to be a good

11:29

mom, or what it means for you to be a good

11:31

student or a good work or any of the roles that

11:33

you play, then you can

11:36

curate your life in such a way

11:38

that it is possible to be an

11:40

extraordinary mother and a

11:42

wonderful professional and an

11:44

amazing wife and sister all

11:47

at the same time. It's just

11:49

that it's very difficult when

11:51

we're living default mechanisms,

11:53

default molds that tell us

11:56

who we should be and what we should be. And

11:58

so that's really, to me, at the heart

12:00

of dropping the ball, it's dropping these unrealistic

12:02

expectations about who we're supposed to be.

12:04

To begin with, Tiffany,

12:07

I love that. So we're vigorously

12:09

nodding our heads over here at what you have to say.

12:11

I just have to say, Um, your anecdote

12:14

about the kid taking up her steps reminds

12:16

me so much. I have a friend who works in a daycare

12:18

with very young children, and she

12:20

has a young child herself, and the other

12:23

daycare workers have this kind

12:25

of coded way of talking to the moms

12:27

who leave their kids there when their kids

12:30

start walking. So if the mom

12:32

comes, I'll say, is your kid taking

12:34

steps at home? And that's sort of a

12:36

coded way of being like, your kid has taken it's

12:39

his first steps. You weren't here for it, but

12:41

it's not a big deal. You don't need to make

12:43

it you know, a big thing because it happens

12:45

so often, and if you frame it as guess

12:48

what you missed today? You missed your kid taking his

12:50

first steps and you were at a business meeting, you horrible

12:52

mom, the mom that's awful. And

12:54

they've actually honed this way of talking about

12:56

it, in this coded term that says, hey, it's

12:58

actually but how ben it isn't that big

13:00

of a deal. Just so you know, you know

13:03

your kid is taking steps here, but you're

13:05

not a bad mom because you weren't here for it. That's

13:07

beautiful, it really is. I'm

13:10

I was like tearing up over here as

13:12

the mom of a four legged fur baby.

13:14

I'm like, I already

13:17

have internalized the guilt that

13:20

comes with this idea, this ambiguous

13:22

sense of missing out, And that is

13:25

so connected, I think to what

13:27

you were saying about role definition, because

13:30

it is a very generalized

13:32

kind of anxiety that that

13:34

that comes with roll overload or role conflict.

13:37

When you are unsure about what parts of

13:39

being a good mom are important to you,

13:42

it just leaves you feeling like you're constantly digging

13:44

in quicksand tiffany Where

13:46

do you think those roles come from?

13:48

Do you think we internalized messages

13:51

in society, or we get handed these roles

13:53

from sort of the women who came before us. Oh

13:56

all of it, and and and we

13:59

get them, um, you know, when we were

14:01

growing up, whichever women

14:03

we modeled ourselves after. I

14:05

personally modeled a lot of my behavior

14:07

after my mother, who remember, as

14:10

I you know, started off shared, um,

14:12

didn't work outside of the home. She

14:14

worked inside of the home. I should also add

14:16

that she did not have a smartphone, she did

14:19

not have email, she

14:21

did not have to nearly a lot of the pressures.

14:23

And yet I still expected my home

14:25

to look as spotless as the home that I

14:27

grew up in. And so we certainly

14:30

get them from there. For me. I got them also for

14:32

women in the church, because I grew up in the church.

14:34

We get them from popular culture. I

14:37

grew up on The Cosby Show, which was like

14:40

the Claire Huxtable, meaning

14:42

that I was going to have perfectly feathered hair,

14:45

had perfect makeup, and my

14:47

house was always going to be clean, and

14:49

I would have five perfectly well

14:52

behaved children who were all college bound.

14:54

And in the second season of my life, I would make

14:56

partner at a law firm, which

14:59

is kind of ridiculous when you think about

15:01

it, but of course as an adolescent

15:03

growing up, I did have those

15:06

visions. It comes from billboards telling

15:08

us you know who we should be. Everyone

15:10

can repeat, you know, the phrase choosing

15:12

moms, choose jif. So

15:15

we're constantly told you

15:17

know who we should be and what we should be, and

15:19

I think that that is an important part.

15:21

Certainly, it was a difficult part for me because

15:24

I always thought of myself as

15:26

being very ambitious, very

15:29

modern, very much in the change

15:32

in the driver's seat of my own life.

15:34

So to come to a point where it was

15:36

very clear to me that what I thought

15:39

were choices weren't actually

15:41

choices. They were just default norms

15:43

and expectations that I was living out

15:45

That literally, I was living someone else's

15:48

story was a pretty

15:50

daunting, overwhelming and humbling

15:52

realization. But it also gave

15:54

me the agency and the power

15:57

to learn how to write my own

15:59

story and how to live that instead. Was

16:01

there a moment for you where that became very

16:04

clear or was it just an over a certain

16:06

amount of time, or was there a crystallizing time

16:08

or you were like, man, I am I'm living someone

16:10

else's version of what it means to be a good

16:13

mom. Well, there were certainly

16:15

moments when I felt so overwhelmed

16:18

that I knew something had to change,

16:20

that the status quo was not

16:22

sufficient. One of those moments was

16:24

my first day back after my

16:27

first maternity leave. I

16:29

left that day really

16:31

excited about my new job. I

16:34

felt that I was going to be this powerhouse, you

16:37

know, working mommy that had it all and did

16:39

it all. And I had negotiated

16:42

for a place to pump milk at

16:44

the office, so I just thought everything

16:46

was all sick. But the day was such

16:48

a whirlwind that I ended up going from

16:50

meeting to meeting on that first day back

16:53

and honestly forgetting to pump

16:55

milk until my breast

16:57

was so engorged that milk was

17:00

like seeping, you know, through my

17:02

blouse into my jacket, and

17:04

long story short, I ended up having

17:06

to express milk into a

17:09

toilet um and

17:11

just was on a bathroom floor on the first

17:13

day back of my maternity leave, literally

17:15

a hot, milk and teary mess. And

17:18

that day was just kind of a daunting

17:20

day of realizing, wait a minute, if I can't

17:23

I think to do something as simple

17:25

as pump milk for my baby, what are the other

17:27

things now that are going to fall through

17:29

the cracks? How am I going to manage

17:31

all of this? And why isn't it that

17:34

when my husband went on his first day

17:36

back after we had you know, after he also

17:38

had had a child, that he didn't have the same kind

17:40

of pressure. So I had a lot of pressure

17:42

points and a lot of feelings of

17:45

overwhelming That caused me to come

17:47

to a place where I realized, I'm going to have

17:49

to do something about this. And

17:51

it's like my parents taught me, if you want something

17:53

that you've never had before, you're going to have to do

17:56

something that you've never done before

17:58

in order to achieve it or publish

18:00

it. So what am I going to do that's different

18:02

in order to really manage this

18:05

stress? That is so real? I

18:07

know, I'm like, I'm like, you

18:09

must have just caught me on a very stressed out day

18:12

because I'm like so identifying

18:14

with the that feeling of

18:17

oh man, this is too much, this is not going to

18:19

work, and that you know, something has gotta give,

18:21

like something like this can't go on forever. Something's

18:23

gotta change for this to work. It's

18:25

not sustainable. But it's so easy to internalize

18:28

that as a personal failure, right, instead

18:30

of to externalize it and say, Okay, what do I need

18:32

to do differently, which is how you just framed

18:34

it, Tiffany, which is already relieving

18:36

me stress because it's

18:39

not you. It's like, Okay, what am I going to do?

18:41

And I think to your point about having

18:43

it be an external thing, just like Tiffany

18:45

was saying this idea that we get these signals

18:47

of what it looks like to be crushing it, whether it's from

18:50

our own mom, from the church, from you

18:52

know, moms on TV, whatever

18:54

it is, and that we need to understand

18:56

that no one can do that. This is

18:58

that's not always realistic or attainable,

19:01

and that if we hold ourselves up to this

19:03

the standard, we're setting ourselves up

19:05

for failure and overwork

19:08

and burnout and roll conflict

19:10

at all of that. Yeah, And

19:12

I wonder if it's the burden

19:14

is extra for women of

19:16

color. You mentioned the Cosby Show, which

19:18

I think was such an illuminating moment

19:21

of in pop culture of

19:23

the new black elite, almost right

19:25

like black excellence on the small

19:27

screen, which inspired

19:30

a lot of Americans. And I wonder

19:32

if that extra

19:34

pressure of having to prove a stereotype

19:37

wrong, or to live up to high

19:40

expectations and show that you can,

19:42

you know, be twice as good in this

19:44

world, even if the world won't

19:46

always appreciate you and it isn't a

19:48

fair and just in perfectly equitable place.

19:51

Do you feel like for working

19:54

moms of color, and particular Tiffany,

19:56

that this is an added burden. I

20:00

would say that for me it was um

20:03

for a couple of different reasons. One is that

20:05

I was racially socialized,

20:07

meaning that my parents did not

20:10

pretend or believe in a color blind

20:12

world. They told me that I was black.

20:14

They told me that because I was black,

20:16

people were going to perceive me in a certain

20:18

way. They did tell me that I would have to work

20:21

really hard in order to overcome those

20:23

perceptions. They made it very clear

20:25

that those perceptions weren't true. They told

20:28

me every day that I was smart, and then I

20:30

was beautiful, and that I was loved. But

20:32

my consciousness around my racial

20:35

identity did um

20:38

serve as a motivation, and that,

20:40

you know, I felt an enormous sense of responsibility

20:44

because I saw myself in this context

20:46

of history and people who would come before

20:49

me. So there's a sense of gratitude, but

20:51

there's also a sense of if I mess up, it's

20:53

going to be a ding on the entire Black race.

20:55

And that might seem a bit dramatic, but

20:57

that's actually how I felt, in

21:00

some ways still feel about

21:02

failure. And so yes, there's

21:04

this added pressure to do well

21:07

and to be well and to perform

21:09

because one, there are a lot of people

21:11

who were depending on you, but also

21:14

because you represent something that

21:16

that means a lot. So being communally

21:19

minded does have its added

21:21

pressures, and I imagine that there are other cultures

21:24

in that that also have that experience.

21:27

I could not identify with that more

21:29

as a black woman. You know, I watched my

21:31

mom and my dad's mom and

21:33

my aunt's all be these strong

21:36

Black women who I feel like often

21:39

felt like they had to carry on these

21:41

intense burdens, mostly silently.

21:43

That as black women, there's this stereotype

21:45

that you have to be superwoman and

21:47

do it all. They've actually done academic

21:50

research on this. We found a study from University

21:52

of North Carolina that actually indicates

21:54

that black women have more physical

21:57

symptoms of stress associated with

21:59

this idea being superwoman, that they have to

22:02

carry all these mental and emotional

22:04

and sometimes physical burdens and not really

22:06

talk about it, and they feel like we can't actually,

22:09

you know, drop the ball. We don't. We

22:11

don't feel like we necessarily have that ability,

22:13

and we are suffering a lot of time. It's because

22:16

no one can be superwoman all the time. Even if you're

22:18

my mom, who seems like she can do everything

22:20

and you know, never dropped the ball. Ever,

22:23

no one can do it all the time. And I think this

22:25

idea that as people

22:27

of color, we often do

22:30

feel like we have this added

22:32

burden of being perfect and

22:34

killing it all the time because we have to

22:37

make up for the fact that our ancestors before us work

22:39

so hard and didn't have the advantages that we have. And

22:41

it's just it's just a lot. It

22:44

is a lot, and I think it's really important

22:47

that we allow

22:50

young women, particularly young women

22:52

of color, to see us as human.

22:55

I had an experience months ago. I

22:58

had signed my daughter up she's eight years

23:00

old, for a girl's leadership

23:02

program. And one of the things that I love about girls

23:04

Leadership is that it requires that a caregiver,

23:07

ideally a parent, attend the program

23:09

with them. And so during one of the

23:11

sessions, my daughter overheard me share

23:14

in one of the groups that I had

23:16

once felt really sad because I had

23:18

been left out of a friendship group. And

23:20

later she asked me about it because she was

23:23

surprised that I had ever felt sad for

23:25

being left out of a friendship group. And I said,

23:27

and she asked me if it had happened when I was a little

23:29

girl, and I said, no, honey, it actually

23:31

happened recently. But I felt sad that I

23:33

was left out of a group. And she said, well,

23:35

I just don't believe you. And I said, well, why

23:37

don't you believe me? And she says, Mommy,

23:39

when I'm left out of a friendship group, I feel

23:42

so sad that it makes me cry. She

23:44

says, but I've never seen you cry

23:46

ever. And it really took

23:49

me back, you know, by surprise,

23:51

because certainly in the past eight years I

23:53

have cried on more than occasion.

23:56

Realized in her communicating

23:58

that that my children and had

24:00

never seen me cry. And I think it's

24:02

because if I felt tears coming

24:05

on, I would likely excuse

24:07

myself from being in the room with them

24:09

to go into another room to cry. Maybe

24:11

I would prefer to protect them from whatever

24:14

was happening in my adult life or world,

24:16

so they wouldn't have to worry. But I

24:19

recognized in that moment that I was doing my

24:21

daughter a disservice that if

24:23

my daughter didn't see in real

24:25

practical terms, that mommy also struggles,

24:28

that mommy has a bat that has a hard time, that mommy

24:30

cries, that she would likely grow up

24:32

with the same sense that you're talking about, that

24:34

she's got a mommy who has it all and does it

24:36

at all and it's perfect, and that one day this

24:39

child is going to need my book drop

24:41

the ball. Yes, that's so real. I

24:43

mean this. I I probably

24:46

have never seen my mom cry. I've never

24:48

My mom has never illustrated anything other than

24:50

unflappable poise, and it's only

24:53

ever demonstrated like crushing

24:55

it and killing it. And I don't think I've ever

24:57

seen my own mom. Isn't there sort

24:59

of this true hope around watching

25:01

like seeing your own mother cry makes people freak

25:04

out right, like no, like, don't cry

25:06

mom, what's the matter mom? Everyone wants to like instantly

25:09

have this really panicked freak out

25:11

over it, And we actually at bossed up

25:13

came up with a norm at our in person programs

25:16

which we call talk through the tears,

25:19

which is to say we've been so socialized,

25:21

especially as women, although I would say as

25:23

men even more so, to stop

25:27

talking and work on suppressing your own

25:29

tears. If God forbid, you should tear up

25:31

in public. And that

25:33

has taught us, trained us to excuse ourselves,

25:36

to apologize. I'm so sorry, I need a

25:38

minute. I can't believe I'm being so emotionally

25:40

here, as I may or may out

25:42

have already said once today because I had

25:44

a very rough day of travel today as I

25:46

cried in front of a couple of t s a

25:48

Asians about not having the

25:51

right boarding past at the right time. And

25:54

we all we always say at bossed up like talk

25:56

through the tears, like no one's gonna

25:58

make you apologize for crying. We want to see,

26:01

we want to hear what you have to say, So don't

26:03

let the onset of tears make

26:05

you feel like you need to shut down and shut up.

26:08

And it goes back to what you were just saying to me,

26:10

which is allowing yourself

26:12

to be seen as the flawed, imperfect,

26:15

and sometimes hurt human being

26:17

that we all can be, can actually

26:19

enable others to feel permission

26:22

to do the same. I love that so much. Um.

26:24

One of my favorite reality TV characters

26:27

Kelly Cotrone. You ever watched The Hill.

26:30

The name of her autobiography is called if

26:32

you have to Cry, Go outside. Oh

26:35

no, Yeah, It's like I remember thinking

26:37

that, like tough girls, girls who

26:39

can really hack it, you know, they

26:41

don't cry. There's no crying in baseball. Like

26:43

that was something that I definitely internalized. So

26:45

if I if I were to cry, even

26:48

to like a coworker that I'm close with, it

26:50

would be all apologies would be oh my god, I'm

26:52

so sorry. I'm so sorry that you're

26:54

seeing this as if I was doing

26:56

something totally inappropriate. Yeah,

26:59

well, I have to say today my

27:01

two lovely t s A agents who witnessed

27:04

Emily Aries publicly crowing in an airport,

27:06

we're so kind and

27:08

saying like it's okay, you're having a bad days

27:12

to cry in public. All right,

27:14

we're gonna take a quick break. Tiffany,

27:16

hang on, we'll be right back. We are excited

27:19

to continue this conversation with Tiffany Doufu,

27:21

author of Drop the Ball, and when we come

27:23

back, I want to break down what that really means,

27:26

What it means to drop the ball, and

27:36

we're back, Tiffany. We are so

27:38

so fortunate to have you joining us on the podcast

27:41

today, and I want to get into some of these

27:43

solutions. So we talked about the challenges

27:46

that come with role overload, role

27:48

conflict, or a total lack of role definition,

27:51

which, as you said at the top of the podcast, can

27:54

leave women, especially and working

27:56

mothers, feeling this ambiguous sense

27:59

of getting someone down or guilt

28:01

or the stress that comes with that. So you've

28:04

written an entire book about how

28:06

to proactively prioritize, how

28:08

to really define the roles

28:10

for ourselves instead

28:12

of becoming sort of victims

28:15

to societal pressures and the roles

28:17

we've internalized elsewhere. Can

28:19

you tell us what it really means to drop the

28:21

ball? Sure, I can tell

28:23

you what it means for me. I mean, drop the Ball is largely

28:26

a memoir and a romantic comedy. Um.

28:28

I respect women way too much to tell

28:30

them what to do, but certainly if my

28:34

story can support women in their journey, I

28:36

put it all out onto the table. I

28:39

think that the first step to dropping the

28:41

ball is really getting clear about what matters

28:43

most to us as opposed

28:46

to what matters to other people, And in

28:48

my drop the Ball journey, it became very

28:50

clear that what mattered most

28:53

to me was advancing women and girls

28:55

surprise surprise, um, really

28:58

nurturing a healthy relationship if

29:00

my partner with my husband, and

29:02

raising conscious global citizens. What

29:05

matters most to you is usually the first

29:07

question that I ask women when I connect with them.

29:10

Most of the time, we start by rattling

29:13

off areas of our life. So all

29:15

my career is important, my family is important,

29:17

my dog is important. But what I really try

29:19

to coach women toward is achieving

29:22

clarity about what you hope

29:24

to achieve in relationship

29:26

to these areas of your life, because

29:29

it's really that starting point that

29:32

you need in order to do the second

29:34

step, which is really getting clear about

29:37

your highest and best use in achieving

29:40

what matters most to you. So I used to be someone

29:42

who was kind of obsessed with just making

29:45

a bunch of lists, and I would have them

29:47

organized via all kinds of different apps,

29:50

until I got to a point where it was clear

29:52

to me that what you do is far

29:54

less important than the difference

29:57

you make. So I had to move

29:59

from constantly making lists

30:01

and just trying to check them off to really figuring

30:04

out and when I talk about my highest and best

30:06

use, what are the things that I

30:09

can do really well with very

30:11

little effort, probably because I've done them

30:13

a lot, combined with what are the things

30:16

that only I can do? So, for

30:18

example, as a mother, because that's

30:20

what we're talking about here, one

30:22

of the things that I do really

30:25

well with very little effort is

30:27

helping other people to achieve clarity

30:29

through guidance and encouragement. Some people would

30:31

say, you just make a good coach. One

30:34

of the things that only I can do in

30:36

relationship to my kids is instill

30:39

values in them. It's very hard to outsource

30:41

the installation of values in people,

30:44

and so my highest and best

30:47

use in raising conscious global citizens

30:49

is engaging my kids in meaningful

30:51

conversations each and every day. What

30:54

kind of day did you create for yourself today? Who

30:57

did you laugh with today? If and

30:59

Aly in spaceship came down

31:02

and abducted someone from your school today, who

31:04

would they have abducted? Why would they have abducted

31:06

that person? And in that way

31:09

I can help my kids develop a positive

31:11

relationship with themselves, with their teachers,

31:13

their peers, their community. Hopefully

31:15

the world now does that mean that there

31:18

wasn't some Halloween outfit I was supposed

31:20

to have made, you know, for them, or there

31:23

wasn't something else that was due. Sure, but I

31:25

know that I can drop the ball on

31:28

any one of those things. Those are not on

31:30

my good mom job description, and that I'm

31:32

an extraordinary mother if no matter where

31:34

I am in the world, on my travels, over

31:37

Skype or FaceTime or Google hang

31:39

out, I have this meaningful conversation

31:41

with my child. So and for every

31:44

area of our lives, I think

31:46

it's really important that we're really clear about

31:48

what should we be doing so that when

31:51

other people, because that's really the challenge,

31:53

when other people impose their

31:55

behaviors onto our values, you can say,

31:57

actually, I know that from your perspect

32:00

did me attending my daughter's piano lesson

32:02

is something that I should be doing as a good mom, But

32:04

I've actually decided that that behavior isn't

32:06

on my job description. So I'm

32:09

gonna I'm gonna engage in the meaningful conversations.

32:12

And I think the third step to dropping the ball

32:15

is really about how you engage other

32:17

people in your leadership journey.

32:19

You know, we often act as if

32:21

our leadership journey as a solo endeavor,

32:24

but really it's a team sport. And

32:27

you know, there are a lot of people in our lives who

32:29

want us to create lives we're passionate about,

32:31

who really do love us, but we often suck

32:35

at communicating effectively

32:38

with them. And so I personally

32:40

took a big page from my effectiveness

32:43

as a communicator at work and started

32:45

bringing some of those skills home in

32:48

order to really meaningfully engage people

32:50

in ways that I hadn't before. Oh

32:52

wow, Tiffany, I know I've been talking about my mom

32:55

a lot. Maybe that's because I'm not a parent

32:57

myself, but something you just said just reminded me

32:59

of this powerful thing from

33:01

my my childhood. So my mom, I think

33:03

i've mentioned total badass

33:06

doctor, a top medicine while I was growing

33:08

up, seemingly did it all, but we know that's

33:10

not you know, looks can be deceiving, but

33:13

um, she was a working mom, and she worked a lot. She

33:15

she cared so much about her her job.

33:18

When I was in school, I remember a lot of the kids

33:21

always had these meticulously packed

33:23

school lunches, and I would sit at lunchtime

33:25

and they would open their lunch box and it would be like crinkle

33:28

cut carrots and just very lovingly

33:30

like, oh, my mom put a note on my napkin every

33:32

day and things like that. And I always had

33:34

to buy hot lunch, and so people will be like, oh,

33:37

you know hot lunch, Like your

33:39

mom doesn't make your lunch, and I would be like, no, she

33:42

doesn't. And I remember, as a kid feeling

33:44

like I was supposed to feel sad

33:46

about that. But what my classmates didn't

33:49

see is that almost every single day when I came

33:51

home, my mom would make dinner and I would sit on

33:53

the kitchen counter and like talk about my

33:55

day with her, and she would just ask me questions

33:57

about my day. And so for me, it

34:00

was clear that for her, maybe she

34:02

wasn't the kind of mom who could be cutting up carrots

34:04

and writing notes on a on a napkin every

34:06

day for lunch, but that for her, what was

34:08

important for her kid was to make dinner

34:11

and have that special time together. Even

34:13

if nobody else in the school saw that. And so even

34:15

if my classmates thought like, oh, gee, your

34:18

mom doesn't make you a meticulously packed lunch every

34:20

day, what is she a bad mom? My

34:22

mom knew I can my kid can buy

34:24

a lunch and it's fine. But my kid can't

34:26

do is have this special time with her mom, right,

34:29

And I said, the operative word in your

34:32

narrative is that

34:34

it wasn't that she couldn't make

34:37

you a lunch. It's that she chose not to

34:39

make you a lunch because there were other

34:42

things that she chose to do with her

34:44

time that amounted to you being

34:46

the fabulous person that you are now

34:50

see her. That

34:52

was like just what I needed to hear. You're

34:54

like mothering us in real time on this

34:56

podcast. Can you call us

34:58

every night and ask that those same questions kid

35:01

space spaceship one in particular,

35:03

I think would be a good question. Um No,

35:06

I I love that, and I that triggers

35:08

some issues for me around class,

35:11

to be quite honest, Bridget, because your example reminded

35:13

me of how jealous I was of

35:16

the kids who got to buy a hot lunch. What yeah,

35:18

Oh, you're kidding me. I. I was the kid with the

35:21

PBNJ every day, and

35:23

I took for granted the labor that went

35:25

into my mother making my lunches,

35:28

or my lovely leadership

35:31

training that was making my own damn lunch

35:33

for most of my school years,

35:36

and I just wonder, like, what does it look like

35:38

to drop the ball when you don't have the financial

35:40

resources to outsource or to pay

35:43

for school lunch every day? You know, what does

35:45

it really mean in this world where And

35:47

we're going to dive into in

35:49

a future episode about roll overload

35:52

how our government could maybe make this

35:54

a little easier on all of us. But what does

35:56

it look like to drop the ball when you can't financially

35:58

outsource? Yeah, I think I

36:00

think that's a great question, and it's one

36:03

of the biggest reasons why I began

36:05

to drop the ball narrative in the book,

36:08

UM, going back to a time in my

36:10

own life, UM, and my

36:12

family's life when we did not

36:15

have the monetary resources to just

36:17

outsource domestic labor.

36:19

That's the band aid that a lot of professional

36:22

families engage in. But we

36:24

couldn't do that. And that's part of the

36:27

reason why I don't start this drop

36:29

the Ball narrative or even

36:32

philosophy with you shouldn't

36:34

do specifically this, or you shouldn't do specifically

36:37

that. I started with what's important

36:39

to you? And how can you really redefine

36:42

what it means to be a good anything,

36:45

you know. I um, early

36:48

in my career had a

36:50

sitter who in her

36:52

journey had to at one point leave

36:55

her kids um on an

36:57

island and come to the US as

36:59

an immigrant on her own, and the hopes

37:01

of earning enough money to eventually

37:04

send for her kids. So there was,

37:06

you know, in the good mom job description, you

37:08

know, there's this line around just being physically

37:11

present. It's like this antipotent you

37:13

know, pressure that if you're not physically there,

37:15

you're not a good mom. And just in thinking

37:18

about her story and her narrative, I

37:20

mean, I don't think there's anyone who

37:22

would say that a mother who's had

37:24

to immigrant, you know, immigrant to the country

37:27

and is doing the best that she can't earning money

37:29

and sending it back home and the hopes of bringing her kids

37:31

to the US to lead a better life, that she's

37:33

a terrible mother. In fact, we would say that

37:35

she's probably a really good mother and making an

37:37

enormous sacrifice, you know, for her kids.

37:40

So, you know, I think that it's really important

37:42

for us to have the flexibility

37:45

and the power to be able

37:47

to tell the stories that serve

37:50

us as opposed to the stories that serve other

37:52

people. About who we are and

37:54

about you know, what we can do,

37:57

and quite frankly, a lot of the moms who I

37:59

interact with, who come

38:01

from lower socio economic backgrounds,

38:04

who are single moms, for example, have

38:06

a lot less luxury to obsess

38:08

over some of these issues. Um

38:12

like you, you privileged women need to get over

38:14

it and get on with it. Yeah,

38:16

do you ever you know what I'm thinking? Though from our

38:18

perspective, we're basically daughters here a

38:20

musing on a podcast called stuff Mom

38:22

Never Told You talking about

38:25

this issue? Do you ever worry that

38:27

what you choose as being

38:29

most important to you about your your

38:32

own job description as mom? Someday

38:34

your kids are going to be on a podcast saying my

38:36

mom chose the wrong thing, you know,

38:38

Like, so it doesn't align with

38:41

how do you navigate that? How do you feel? Absolutely

38:43

not? You know. A few

38:45

years ago, I was talking to my

38:48

sister. I'm the oldest of four girls, and

38:51

my sister that I was speaking to in this case is

38:53

the one right under me. So we're only seventy

38:55

months apart, and we were

38:57

having a conversation about our mom and I should

39:00

share for the purposes of the story that

39:02

were estranged from our mom. I hate

39:04

that word, but it's the best word

39:06

to describe our relationship with her. And

39:09

my sister was really angry with her mom

39:11

about something that she had done. And I don't

39:13

know if you've ever been in a conversation with someone who's

39:15

upset or frustrated and they want to enroll

39:18

you in their frustration or

39:20

in their anger. Um. But I wasn't

39:23

really going there the way that she needed me to. But

39:25

because she's my sister, she knows how

39:27

to push my buttons, and so she started

39:29

saying things like, I don't know why you're

39:31

not so angry with mom. You

39:34

know, your children don't even

39:36

know their grandmother. She's never sent them a Christmas

39:38

gift, she's never sent them a Birthday gift. And

39:41

because she's my sister, like, I

39:43

almost wanted to burst out in tears,

39:46

But what I said to her was Trinity,

39:48

that's my little sister's name. I said, That's

39:51

not the story that I tell about our mom. The

39:53

story that I tell is that from the time she found

39:55

out she was pregnant with me until I was sixteen

39:57

years old, she gave me everything on other

40:00

could possibly give a child in order

40:02

to set her off on the right path. Every

40:04

day she told me that I was smart and I was beautiful,

40:07

and that was loved. And as a result

40:09

of that early conditioning, I feel that

40:11

I'm a confident, empowered woman. And I

40:13

feel that the greatest gift that she gives

40:15

her grandchildren is having a mom

40:18

who understands why she's on the planet

40:20

and has a very clear passion and

40:23

purpose. And that that's my story. And

40:26

my sister, of course goes, oh my god, you're so pollyannish.

40:29

But my my Tiffany's

40:31

epiphany about that moment had

40:34

then to do with my own children, because

40:36

it occurred to me that here, my sister

40:39

and I are two adult women who had virtually

40:41

the same childhood experience. I mean,

40:43

our mom like made us the same

40:46

fried chicken and collared greams on Sunday. She

40:48

corn wrote our hair in the same direction. Maybe

40:50

there were different colored beads, but it was the same

40:53

church dress. And yet as adult

40:55

women, we have two very different

40:57

stories that we tell, and that likely

41:00

to be the future with my children. My

41:03

son could very well grow up to say,

41:05

I am a feminist man. I have

41:07

this amazing, incredible wife who,

41:10

you know, lived as her passion and her purpose.

41:12

Because my mom was this amazing leader who

41:14

really cared about making a difference in

41:16

the world, and she was such a great role model for

41:19

me. My daughter could grow

41:21

up and say, I have a lot of difficult

41:23

times with relationships because

41:26

my mother's life's work was advancing women and girls.

41:28

But I was the one little girl she never paid enough attention

41:31

to. She was writing books, she

41:33

was always on planes and trains and automobiles,

41:36

really living her passion and her purpose, but

41:38

not really spending time with me and

41:41

finding out what my passion and a purpose was. And

41:43

so now I have a difficult time because my mother, you

41:45

know, didn't spend enough time with me. She always

41:47

talked about how her mother corn wrote her hair. My

41:49

mom didn't even know how to corn role. She said to the Okay,

41:52

now, both of those stories that

41:54

my children might tell wouldn't

41:57

be true. Neither one of those

41:59

stories would have anything to do with

42:01

me. Okay, I don't

42:03

have control over my children's

42:05

future stories. More importantly,

42:08

I don't have a right to them. And

42:10

so no, I'm not concerned

42:12

that the choices or the decisions that I'm making now

42:15

are going to impact my children's future

42:17

stories because right now, in this

42:20

moment, every single day, I'm just doing

42:22

the best I can. And you want to know

42:24

something, I've never met a woman who

42:26

wasn't doing the best that she could every single

42:29

day to do right by herself, her family,

42:31

and her community. I think

42:33

that's so perfect, right, this idea of

42:35

stories, the stories that we tell ourselves about

42:38

who we are, the stories that we tell ourselves

42:40

about others, and how how they can both

42:42

sort of be true. But this version that

42:44

we choose to tell ourselves, that's what really

42:46

can have a lot of power. I think what what

42:49

you just said too is is that you

42:52

have to be okay with your choices,

42:54

and that's probably what's going to set your kids up

42:56

for their best potential. Anyway.

42:59

Like, if you as a mother are

43:01

making conscious choices that you are happy

43:04

with and are living up to the

43:06

role that you've defined for yourself, you're

43:08

setting a role. You're setting an example for

43:11

your kids to do the same, which I think is a really powerful

43:14

way of thinking about not conforming

43:17

to what you think someone else wants you to

43:19

be in real time. Easier said than

43:21

done. I might add about we're

43:24

gonna go to a quick break for a quick word

43:26

from our sponsors, but let's keep this conversation

43:28

going with Tiffany Doofu, author of dropped

43:30

the ball. After this quick break,

43:41

and we're back, and Bridget and

43:43

I are nodding along here to the gospel

43:46

of Tiffany Doofu, who is

43:48

laying it down for us when it comes

43:50

to being a working mother in

43:53

today's world and living up to the job description

43:55

that you decide for what that role

43:57

really means to you. Thank

44:00

so much for joining us, Tiffany, Thanks for

44:02

having me so Tiffany, something that I've

44:04

kind of pulled that of a few of the narratives that you've

44:06

shared with us today, is this idea of making the

44:08

right choices for yourself and not sort

44:10

of falling in line with how society or

44:12

pop culture or whatever tells us we

44:14

have to be as moms as women. So my

44:17

question is do you ever deal with

44:19

other parents or other people

44:21

in your orbit giving you, you know, questioning

44:24

these choices, or giving you shade or attitude

44:27

saying oh, well, you didn't think it was important

44:29

to come to your your daughter's piano recital

44:31

because you thought it was more important to do blah blah, blah.

44:34

How can parents out there deal

44:36

with it when other parents judge them for these

44:38

choices that you're saying that we should all really be making

44:40

for ourselves. Yes, so

44:43

do I experience this? Shore

44:45

I experienced this. Sometimes

44:47

it's in very subtle ways that are

44:49

really unintentional, that

44:52

are just um evidence

44:55

or just evidence of a society

44:57

that isn't quite evolved. So, for example, my

45:01

one of the things that I've delegated with joy to

45:03

my husband is the management of my kids

45:05

social calendar. This is a task

45:08

that often falls to women, but that I've discovered

45:10

should actually be managed by the person who

45:12

is the social butterfly in the relationship,

45:15

and my husband is a great job. The

45:17

challenge, though, is that people

45:20

don't engage fathers. They

45:22

engage mothers with kids and their social calendars.

45:25

For example, no one ever sends

45:27

a birthday party invitation to a child's

45:30

father. They always send it to the

45:32

mom. And for me,

45:35

that is just a subtle reminder that

45:38

in the globe, in the large, you know, in

45:40

the world, I'm the one who's expected to be

45:42

doing this task. So sometimes I commit

45:45

what I would call a little tiny act of defiance,

45:48

which is to forward the invitation

45:50

back to the person and to say something like, thank

45:53

you so much for inviting my daughter to the birthday

45:55

party. Her father is her calendar

45:57

Maven, can you please email him at

46:00

and then I give his email address. Okay,

46:05

then not you will give other women

46:07

permission as that. Oh my god, I can't

46:09

believe, like why did I only send it to the moms?

46:12

Why am I even planning the birthday party? Like how are

46:14

you getting to do that? Right? So you can be disrupted

46:16

in that way, Sometimes the

46:19

pressure is more overt um.

46:22

You know. Someone will literally say,

46:24

oh, you know, all of the other moms are

46:26

you know, doing X, Y or z. Sometimes

46:29

even my children will say, well, you know, mom, all

46:31

of the other moms are doing X, Y or Z. And

46:34

at any point in time I might respond

46:36

because I'm human, Depending up on the situation,

46:39

sometimes I become really defensive to be

46:41

honest, and I'd say, well, is every

46:43

mom trying to make a difference in

46:45

the world for women and girls? You know? Sometimes

46:49

I might respond with humor, you know, and I'll

46:51

say to my kids, I saw

46:53

you showing your friends my YouTube channel. Don't

46:55

try to pretend like I am not the coolest momager. School

46:59

I love UM. I think

47:01

that the biggest difference

47:04

for me is that once

47:06

you drop the ball, meaning once you

47:09

release these unrealistic expectations

47:11

of doing it all, once you love

47:14

yourself as imperfect, once

47:16

you stop judging yourself,

47:19

it's nearly impossible to judge

47:21

other people. So most

47:24

of the time, especially if it's a person

47:26

who is a stranger to me or someone

47:29

who I don't know very well, when they

47:31

impose their expectations, like when my

47:33

daughter's piano teacher tells me that I should come to her

47:35

piano lessons because the other mothers do, I

47:38

usually feel an enormous amount of empathy

47:40

for them, because what I'm clear of is

47:43

that they're still operating according

47:45

to that job description that they were handed,

47:49

and I know that they haven't

47:51

gone through an intentional process usually

47:53

of real really getting clear about what matters most

47:55

to them, but what could potentially

47:58

matter for other people. And so

48:00

I usually I'm just really gracious and I smile,

48:03

and I don't say anything unless I'm

48:05

kind of forced to say something, and

48:07

then I might explain, while you know, I'm working

48:10

during the day to pay for the piano

48:12

lessons, so that's why I'm not able to come. But

48:14

I sometimes I even try to avoid

48:16

that and I just nod and I smile,

48:19

because not everyone's ready for the revolution.

48:22

I I love those examples, but

48:24

they also infuriate me right because

48:27

they're so exclusionary and patronizing,

48:29

frankly to men and fathers, and

48:32

not to mention same sex couples who might

48:34

not have a mom at home. So when that that

48:37

that lingo of all the other moms,

48:39

I just want to I want that to go away. I'd

48:42

love all the other moms as a phrase,

48:44

to just retire with shoulder pads.

48:47

Perhaps you know what I mean. It's just like it's

48:50

so passe, and and if

48:52

we really want to empower all human beings

48:54

period to reach our full potential and lead

48:57

happy lives at home and at work,

49:00

we have to get out of those conditions,

49:02

which, in a very small

49:04

example was I just made the big adulting

49:07

move of getting a membership at one of those

49:09

big box retailers

49:11

like Costco. And

49:13

the person who I was getting this membership

49:16

with it was me and my partner. She could not

49:18

fathom that he was going to be

49:20

the primary account holder. She was like, it

49:23

should be the person who's going to do the majority

49:25

of the shopping here more often, and because

49:27

I'm on the road all the time, and because I'm

49:29

not really into grocery shopping at

49:31

big box stores. That was Brad. That was

49:33

Brad the booze role. And she was

49:35

just like, are you sure? Like she almost

49:38

didn't couldn't believe what I was suggesting

49:40

about how we divide up work. Well,

49:44

takeany Something that you mentioned is that your husband

49:46

really does a lot of the social calendar

49:48

ing for your child. I'm curious if you're comfortable

49:51

sort of talking a bit about what does your romantic

49:53

relationship look like, how how are the roles

49:55

sort of divvied up, and how does that how does that

49:57

look like in your household? Well,

50:00

we implemented a tool many

50:03

years ago that we call a MEL. It's

50:05

a management Excel list. We

50:07

call it MAL for short, and it's kind of like

50:09

a third person in our marriage. So

50:12

every once in a while when balls literally

50:15

do drop, will say, oh, we need to have a conversation

50:17

with MEL, and I'm like, go, no, you need to have a conversation with

50:19

mel um and but our

50:21

MEL is really important. It's basically

50:24

an Excel spreadsheet that lists

50:27

everything that's necessary in

50:29

order for our home to function smoothly.

50:32

And I mean every little thing from people

50:35

getting haircuts, to the car being maintenance,

50:38

to our taxes, two beds

50:41

being made, to laundry being done,

50:43

grocery shopping, our Costco big

50:46

box you know trip that we make

50:48

um every couple of weeks or so, to watering

50:51

the plants. And there are

50:53

basically columns next

50:56

to each one. And my husband's got

50:58

a column, I've got a column. Now,

51:00

each one of our kids has a column. And

51:03

what we do is we put x is underneath

51:06

people's names in order

51:09

to kind of decide who should

51:11

do what. And it's a

51:13

really incredible list for a couple of reasons.

51:15

One is that it's very obvious

51:18

that even with two adults and

51:20

four children living in a home and

51:23

a number of x is underneath people's

51:25

names, that you still couldn't

51:28

possibly do everything required

51:30

in order for your home to function as smoothly

51:32

as you would like it to be inside of your mind.

51:35

And so it really gives all of us permission

51:38

to just say, you know what, some

51:40

things are not going to get done. And the most

51:43

important column on the sheet is the No.

51:45

One column. It's where we put

51:47

an x next to what we all agree

51:50

no one's going to do. So the car is

51:52

just going to be dirty for three months. We're not

51:54

going to actually fold the clothes. We're just gonna pull

51:56

clean socks out of the laundry then, and

51:58

it allows us to not develop a sense

52:01

of resentment because things aren't happening.

52:03

But the other reason why that Excel

52:06

list and also that No. One column

52:08

has become very important for us is

52:10

because when we do reach

52:12

points of overwhelm. There have been

52:15

times, for example, when my husband's traveled

52:17

for long periods of time and out of parts of

52:19

the world and a neighbor or

52:21

friend or community members says, hey,

52:24

do you need help with anything? We always

52:26

have our No. One column to look at to say,

52:28

oh, my gosh, our car is really dirty.

52:30

Do you think you could take it to get it washed? Or

52:33

I haven't really had time to do a costco run,

52:35

would you mind doing that for me? Or

52:38

you know, it would really be helpful if like

52:40

someone came and folded a load of laundry,

52:42

because we actually are kind of tired of just pulling

52:45

the fox, you know, out of the laundry

52:47

ben and because we have specific

52:49

tasks that we can assign to people. It's allowed

52:52

us to build a really robust village

52:54

of support, and it's extended

52:57

our ecosystem. It turns out people want

52:59

to help, and when you actually give them something specific

53:01

to do, it just encourages

53:04

them to help you even more.

53:06

So. There are lots of things about our relationships

53:09

and in the dynamic of our relationship and our friendship

53:11

and where it all began, but I think the most important

53:14

tool for us has been them out. I love

53:16

that. I mean, listen, when my dad was in the hospital,

53:19

all my friends were like, what can I do? What can I do?

53:21

What can I do? But that's almost

53:23

another task. And so if you're overwhelmed someone

53:26

being like I want to help you, what can what can I do to

53:28

help? That's like, if you're overwhelmed,

53:30

you can't even like think to be like, oh

53:32

I need the towels folded or I need

53:34

someone to make dinner or whatever. And so having

53:37

that system, it takes the emotional labor

53:39

off of the person who's in need exactly

53:41

exactly, and really a lot people do want

53:44

to help, and it makes it easier for you to help

53:47

people help you and have that

53:49

ecosystem function efficiently. It really

53:51

reminds me of what you mentioned briefly

53:54

earlier on in the episode Tiffany, which

53:56

was the experience of single mothers, especially

53:59

Like, first of all, nobody exists in without

54:02

community. No, especially as parents.

54:05

Like the community that you create through

54:07

your children's lives and through the social

54:10

uh structures that you begin to partake

54:13

in as a parent or just as an active member of

54:15

a community. It seems

54:18

so critically important, especially

54:20

for those who don't have a partner while

54:22

they're while they're raising children, right, Like,

54:25

it's just a reminder that none of us have

54:28

to go it alone. And I wish

54:30

we could see more of that instead

54:33

of this tired old bologny narrative

54:37

around the mommy wars, Like, I wish

54:39

we could see more of a communal narrative. And I think

54:41

we are seeing more community

54:43

structures emerging, especially as

54:46

millennials try to figure out this parenting

54:49

thing and millennials are wading into

54:51

those waters of what does it look like to

54:53

be a member of a household nowadays? Do

54:56

you feel like you've seen that sort of communal

54:59

approach as being instrumental

55:01

in your life? Oh?

55:03

Absolutely, I wouldn't be here without it. I

55:05

mean, I'm literally the cumulative investment

55:08

of a lot of other people, and

55:11

that starts from culture. So you

55:13

know, it's one of the benefits of growing up in the black

55:15

community, as I had multiple care givers.

55:17

I had multiple people who could tell me what to do, um,

55:20

and at that time could even want my behind, which I know we

55:22

don't do anymore. UM,

55:25

who could hold me accountable, that's a nicer

55:27

way putting it. I

55:30

loved that reframing of spankings.

55:35

UM. So I certainly have this

55:37

ethos in my mind, in my

55:39

heart that children should be raised

55:42

by villages. And I hope

55:45

that as opposed to driving my kids

55:47

crazy, which they in the future could

55:49

say that it did, I hope that it actually has

55:52

allowed them to be exposed

55:54

to different points of view, different lenses,

55:56

different perspectives. Because even

55:59

in our own home, we have this philosophy

56:02

that when in Rome, you do as the Romans do. So

56:04

you know, when the kids are with me, for example, there

56:07

is dancing on the sofa. You

56:10

know, no one has to really eat all of their food.

56:12

They just only have that one opportunity

56:14

to eat, whereas you know, and there's

56:16

like no ball throwing. But when their

56:19

dad they like throw balls all the time.

56:21

There's no dancing on the furniture, and they have

56:23

to eat all of their food. And my kids

56:25

know, when I'm with Mom, this is how it is.

56:27

When I'm with Dad, this is how it is. And

56:30

I just I feel like we need more

56:32

people in the world who can adapt and who can

56:34

be flexible to different environments

56:36

and different experiences. So I hope that you

56:39

know we're exposing our kids through

56:41

all of the people that are in their village to different

56:44

ways of thinking, and that we're increasing

56:46

their sensitivity around diversity.

56:49

But you know, I think that you're right. It's

56:52

harder, certainly when you have

56:54

less people at your disposal. But

56:56

I think that it's really important

56:59

for us to also keep

57:01

in mind the narratives that we tell

57:03

ourselves in order to potentially access

57:05

things that we didn't think we're there before. I

57:07

mean, if you had a suggested

57:10

to me ten years ago that

57:12

part of the key to me excelling

57:15

professionally and living a life that

57:17

I'm passionate about and not being overwhelmed

57:19

and stressed every day was my husband

57:22

doing some things around the house. I

57:25

had a strong enough marriage that I would have said

57:27

to you Oh, I think that's a great idea. I

57:29

mean, he's just so amazing. But in

57:31

my head I would have been thinking, oh, my

57:34

gosh, these young girls, they are clearly not married. Otherwise

57:36

they would know that husbands are useless, that

57:40

that is just a terrible idea and that's never gonna

57:42

work. So even though I've

57:45

had a husband, right

57:47

that you would think, oh, well, because

57:49

she's married, she has it easier. In my own

57:51

mind, in my own narrative, he

57:54

was not a resource for

57:56

me. And I think getting

57:58

creative about who we have access

58:01

to and who are resources are is

58:03

really important. And one of the great examples

58:06

of that to me was a couple

58:08

of women that I interviewed for Dropped the Ball

58:10

who were single moms. They were both

58:13

divorced, They both had sons that were

58:15

about the same age, and they decided to become

58:17

all in partners by moving

58:19

in together and they shared household

58:21

expenses. They collaborated on child's

58:24

care, and one of the funniest

58:26

quips was that when either one of them would go out

58:28

on a date, the one would say to the other, Okay,

58:31

have fun, girl would don't go crazy and marry

58:33

him, don't replace me. They

58:37

had this this really great, So I just thought

58:39

it was a really creative way, um

58:42

in a really meaningful way of them finding

58:44

a resource and finding partnership

58:46

in one another. Tiffany, this has

58:48

been such a fascinating conversation and really

58:50

like almost like a personally clarifying

58:53

conversation. If I can be honest with you, where

58:55

can our listeners find out more about what you're up to? And

58:57

where can they access all your different tool that

59:00

are out there? Oh, they can go

59:02

to Tiffany do food dot com.

59:05

And thank you so much for your support and for having

59:07

me absolutely, I mean, you are the coolest

59:09

mom on YouTube in the block,

59:12

right, yeah, Tiffany. If your kids are

59:14

listening to this, yeah, I hope you know your mom is

59:16

a cool mom. Yeah, a regular mom. She's

59:19

got Tiffany's epiphany's. You gotta check

59:21

them out. I'm a big fan. Well,

59:23

thank you so much. I know our listeners

59:26

are going to have a million follow up questions

59:28

for you, and so listeners, sminty

59:30

listeners, we really want to hear from you. Let's

59:33

keep this conversation going. Hit us up on

59:35

Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Ask

59:37

your questions about working

59:40

motherhood. Roll overload and how

59:42

you define what it means to be a good

59:45

mom on Instagram at stuff Mom

59:47

Never Told You, And as always,

59:49

we love getting your emails at mom's

59:51

stuff at how stuff works dot

59:54

com. Thanks so much again for joining us,

59:56

Tiffany, and we can't wait to keep this conversation

59:58

going. He stop