In short
Conscious parenting for the next generation, using Dr. Shefali’s new companion books Raising Conscious Daughters and Raising Conscious Sons. The episode argues that parents’ anxiety, performance-based identity, and technology-driven “false reality” disrupt children’s regulation and attachment; connection depends on parents’ present-moment presence, not on aesthetics or constant happiness.
Guests
Dr. Shefali (New York Times bestselling author, world-renowned therapist, wisdom teacher, international speaker, founder of Conscious Parenting; daughter in early 20s; wrote the two new books). Host: Lindsay (podcast host; has a toddler son; discusses her own parenting and pregnancy experiences).
Key claims
Pressure parents put on themselves becomes pressure children inherit. Healing and parenting cannot be “perfected”; trying to out-perfect unconscious patterns fuels ego and anxiety. Children borrow safety and regulation from adults, especially under age seven. Performance and happiness are toxic parenting goalposts. Technology and social media can “rob attention” and “rob attachment.”
Notable examples
Fathers raised with “boys don’t cry” scripts; Jamaican/macho culture discomfort with crying. Girls’ estrogen-driven relational sensitivity vs boys’ testosterone-driven silent, shameful puberty initiation (porn/manosphere pipeline). Girls’ skincare talk at a party; boys withdrawing into hoodies and loneliness.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOCultural Messages on Masculinity
0:00 to 1:10
Explore how traditional masculinity affects boys' emotional expression.
“Fathers grew up with the message boys don't cry, boys have to be strong.”
The Challenges of Young Adults Today
5:18 to 7:25
Discuss the pressures young adults face living at home with parents.
“But the fact that so many men and women who are in their early to mid-20s, maybe even later are still at home with their parents.”
The Challenges of Young Adults Today
7:31 to 8:35
Discuss the pressures young adults face living at home with parents.
“just in a season where I feel overwhelmed a lot of the time, but I've realized that it is less about fixing everything in those moments of overwhelm.”
Navigating Parenting in a Digital Age
9:49 to 13:34
Examine how social media and job market fears impact young adults.
“but they're actually disillusioned and kind of feeling hopeless and that is isn't it shocking it is shocking yeah because it is such an exciting time in life it's the best time of your life it really is.”
The Pressure of Conscious Parenting
13:34 to 14:00
Analyze the pressures parents feel to raise children correctly.
“Yeah, I want to shift to those younger years, kind of staying with the same theme of our anxieties as parents and kind of that like hyper vigilance of making sure that you're doing everything right.”
The Impact of Parental Healing on Children
14:00 to 18:18
Explore how parents' healing journeys affect their children and the cultural pressures involved.
“You know, always like observing them, commenting on things, making sure they're staying in the lane.”
Recognizing Cultural Shifts in Parenting
18:18 to 19:54
Understand the cultural shifts affecting parenting today and why parents struggle to connect.
“I think you are almost in the second next one.”
Recognizing Cultural Shifts in Parenting
19:58 to 21:10
Understand the cultural shifts affecting parenting today and why parents struggle to connect.
“So instanthydration.com slash almost 30, you will get 40 % off your first subscription order.”
Recognizing Cultural Shifts in Parenting
21:20 to 21:32
Understand the cultural shifts affecting parenting today and why parents struggle to connect.
“And I may be on my phone and I may be in a panic, but we'll be in a panic about different things.”
Creating Deep Connections with Children
22:58 to 28:00
Discuss strategies for fostering a meaningful connection with children amidst modern parenting challenges.
“to kind of like okay let me learn about things it's almost like a numbing like a this alternate path rather than like turning to the child and really connecting.”
Show all 22 chapters
The Parenting Burden: Impact on Children
28:00 to 29:30
Learn how children's sense of safety and regulation is influenced by their parents' behaviors and emotional states.
“Children borrow their sense of safety and regulation from the adults around them.”
Defining Developmentally Appropriate Parenting
29:30 to 30:50
Explore the importance of developmentally appropriate practices in parenting and the confusion surrounding them.
“children, because it's a lot of responsibility.”
The Toxicity of Success and Happiness in Parenting
30:50 to 33:20
Understand the societal pressures that define good parenting through success and happiness and the impact on children.
“In the book, both books, you really challenge this idea of performance-based identity.”
Navigating Picky Eating with Kids
33:20 to 34:51
Discover strategies for managing picky eating habits in children, including nutritional supplements.
“is so hard to do, but we have to do this, that the ultimate success doesn't come from the outside.”
The Need for Connection in Parenting
36:25 to 40:00
Discuss the importance of maintaining connection and presence as a parent in a fast-paced, technology-driven world.
“So we are more mandated than ever before to teach our children to not follow the crowd, to not get caught up in the algorithm or the matrix or what culture is saying and to more tune in.”
Understanding Gender Differences in Parenting
40:00 to 42:00
Examine the differences in parenting approaches for boys and girls and the impact of societal expectations.
“And that's why we're already seeing the worst mental health crisis in history, in modern history.”
The Differences in Development Between Boys and Girls
42:00 to 47:40
Explore the hormonal influences and societal pressures that shape boys and girls differently as they grow up.
“In the same way, I'm not being less progressive by saying that boys go through something entirely different than girls and vice versa.”
Understanding Boys and Their Silent Struggles
47:40 to 51:38
Learn about the challenges boys face during adolescence and the misconceptions surrounding their behavior.
“Our boys are shamed from the moment they enter any institution.”
Understanding Boys and Their Silent Struggles
52:05 to 53:18
Learn about the challenges boys face during adolescence and the misconceptions surrounding their behavior.
“We have had lots of support in many different ways.”
Navigating Complex Messages for Boys
53:27 to 56:00
Discuss the conflicting messages boys receive about masculinity and emotional expression, and how to support their emotional development.
“So it's these horrifically tragic mixed messages.”
Understanding Boys and Emotional Expression
56:00 to 1:02:50
Explore the challenges boys face in expressing emotions and the impact of societal expectations.
“I mean, I make so many jokes about it, but it's really not fair to them because they don't, they were never taught.”
The Crisis of Masculinity and Femininity
1:02:50 to 1:08:10
Discuss the issues surrounding modern masculinity and the emotional needs of girls today.
“to shift a little bit more into our girls.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Fathers grew up with the message boys don't cry, boys have to be strong. Right now it's changing but in most generations even today that's the internalized script. So now we're trying to change it to boys can cry but the fathers are terribly uncomfortable. My husband grew up hearing that his parents are Jamaican and they just have a very masculine dominant culture of like we don't cry. They actually are more sensitive because their left and right brain is not so connected so they're having a harder time putting words to their feelings they can't even hear themselves because they can't connect the word to the feeling so with your son when he cries he doesn't really even know why he's crying and he cannot put words to feelings so don't ask him to but you can put words to his feelings and he will immediately calm down and then we adult women disparage our men and shame our men and go you don't even know how to talk.
0:51It's really not fair to them because they were never taught.
1:10Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Almost 30 podcast. It's Lindsay. I'm so happy you're here. I'm grateful and I have an episode for you. Okay. I am excited to bring back Dr. Shefali to the Almost 30 podcast. We've had her on before. It was a virtual interview. This time she came in person to have an in-depth conversation about raising conscious daughters and raising conscious sons. She has two new books out now, Raising Conscious Daughters and Raising Conscious Sons. And like all of her books, I believe these are a critical guide for us parents as we raise children in this day and age. So this conversation is, I think, very dynamic in the sense that Dr.
2:05Shefali has a daughter who is in her early 20s. I have a son who is a toddler. We talk about that spectrum, everything in between related to really empowering our children, empowering ourselves as parents to really step into what we know to be the most, the highest version of ourselves to really call forward the true authentic expression of children and also just noting like the world in which we live in and kind of what we're up against as far as technology goes, peer pressure, societal pressures, cultural pressures. It's really, it's not for the faint of heart, but these books I know will support you in navigating this.
3:01So if you don't know Dr. Shefali, if you didn't watch her on Oprah like I did back in the day at 4 p.m weekdays. She is a New York Times bestselling author, world-renowned therapist. She is a wisdom teacher, international speaker, and founder of Conscious Parenting. And again, she has so many books, but these latest books, I think, just must-haves. So in this conversation, obviously, we are going to talk about both raising boys and girls. And it's very different. I think we can kind of read general parenting books, and there could be so much that applies, but raising boys and raising girls is different because they are different.
3:38The big idea around raising conscious girls is that girls are adapting to impossible cultural expectations. And the problem that we encounter as parents is that we are dysregulated. We have maybe a lack of self-healing in this realm, conditional worth, comparison culture. There's body stuff that we have as parents, body surveillance, emotional suppression. And so the goal ultimately is to really empower our girls to feel fully, to trust their intuition, set boundaries, tolerate discomfort, understand their inner power, and develop their inner authority. And we talk about raising conscious boys.
4:28So So the big idea is that we are not raising difficult boys. We are raising boys in a misaligned culture. There's so many things interesting about what Dr. Shivali brought up, but we see a lot of boys completely immersed in a digital world. All that to say, there's so much that we touch on here. I won't go into it any further. I think we should jump into this conversation with Dr. Shivali. Her new books are Raising Conscious Daughters and Raising Conscious Sons. They are out now. You must get both. If you want to just read one and gift another one, that is how you should do it. Everyone needs these books.
5:07I am so thrilled to share this conversation with you. It was a potent in-person conversation here in New York. And I'm, yeah, I'm grateful. Thank you to Dr. Shevali. Again, you can get the books anywhere books are sold, but you can also go to drshevali.com and find all of her other books, events book tour all the things you're gonna love it so thank you again and i will see you on the other side i'm so excited to have you in person last time we spoke it was virtual but i'm just so many years ago so thankful i know i've had a couple kids are about to have my second i'm so thankful for your new work and your new books raising conscious sons raising conscious daughters have just been released.
5:55Yes. So exciting. I actually want to start with what we were just talking about for a second, because I actually think it's such an interesting place that kind of connects back to what we're going to be talking about mostly in those early childhood years. But the fact that so many men and women who are in their early to mid-20s, maybe even later are still at home with their parents. Yeah. We were talking about how this generation of kids, my daughter's 23 and she's still living at home and all her friends, not all, but many of her friends, over 75 % of them are living at home still. And you were wondering what parents were doing.
6:43Like, are they encouraging this? And why is it so? I think, well, cost of living is so high. I think the kids are feeling a sense of helplessness, despondency. Job market is scarce. I mean, they're feeling all the helplessness that we may not realize is infiltrating
7:02Lindsey Simcik:their algorithm and is kind of depressing them. And they're not looking forward to their new life. I mean, you would think in their 20s, they're going to springboard and feel all this enthusiasm, but they're kind of feeling a sense of dread and foreboding. And I think we parents, our generation, your generation, needs to kind of become aware of that because we can mistakenly call them lazy, unmotivated. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp, just in a season where I feel overwhelmed a lot of the time, but I've realized that it is less about fixing everything in those moments of overwhelm. And it's more about just being aware of the feeling, of being present to the feeling.
7:43Lindsey Simcik:and oftentimes that reduces the feeling by quite a bit. I also know that having support is integral. I am in therapy. I've been in therapy for years and at BetterHelp, they have an incredible array of therapists to support you through any type of overwhelm you might be moving through. It is so easy. You just take a quick survey and they match you with a licensed therapist. They have thousands of therapists. and millions of members in over 100 countries. And people are really changing their lives by really prioritizing their inner world, their inner life and wellbeing. And life can be overwhelming, but we don't have to be taken down by the overwhelm.
8:30Lindsey Simcik:So sign up and get 10 % off at betterhelp.com slash almost 30. Okay, I feel like this is one of those things that would be shared on like a mom thread, like where it's like a hack, like a total secret, it, but I'm going to share it with you all here. Rebel, R-E-B-E-L. Okay. I have to tell you about this. This is one of those things that you find and you're like, wait a second, this exists. Are you sure? It's a shopping find. Okay. You get real brand name products for up to 70 % off. Like I was like, wait, like how is that possible? Just don't ask questions, Linz. It just is. And it's possible and Rebel is it.
9:04Lindsey Simcik:So, um, you don't have to choose between the brand you actually want and the price you actually want and the finds are constantly changing which is kind of part of the fun i like like being perusing the website you might find something from brand you already love or like stumble across a new product that you can try didn't know you needed until this moment it kind of feels like catching a really good deal before everyone else catches it there's like a fun in that too so i would check out rebel now before you pay full price for anything especially for like home baby outdoor finds go to from rebel.com top brands at home baby and outdoor up to 70 % off so amazing f-r-o-m-r-e-b-e-l.com go check it out before it's gone but they're actually disillusioned and kind of feeling hopeless and that is isn't it shocking it is shocking yeah because it is such an exciting time in life it's the best time of your life it really is.
10:03And also so much has changed since I was 21, 22, 23, especially, you know, as far as social media goes and also the job market. Um, and I also think like the parent child relationship as affected by those things, especially kind of, um, the, this generation's like addiction to social media in a way. I don't know if it's created a chasm between them, but I guess what would you say to both parents and young adults at that age to just kind of reorient them to the future that awaits and kind of empower them? That's why I wrote these two books, one for sons and one for daughters, so that we parents are equipped with a blueprint.
10:53So like you, when your kid reaches 21, they are well-prepared and they are emotionally grounded, connected, and resilient. So what can we do with our current set of 21-year-olds, right? The Gen Zs, my daughter's right in there. How do you instill a sense of enthusiasm and curiosity and awe and transcendence about their life when all they're seeing on social media is a constant stream of negativity and chaos and really irresponsible leaders out there. Yeah. So they don't feel safe. You know, it's really hard. And I think we parents, because we are feeling pressure about how they are going to manage, we kind of transfer this anxiety onto them.
11:39So what I try to do with my daughter is keep instilling this sense of curiosity and hope and wonder, you know, you're at the best time of your life. I know it feels really hard, but this is your time to experiment and to find out who you are. And I keep that sense of discovery, but I can also see my friends and myself slipping into a sense of, okay, but make sure you're going to be able to find a job and what are you going to do and how much you're going to make. And that anxiety that is pervasive, it's currently out there. I mean, if you turn on any channel, you will invariably bump into an AI so-called expert talking about how 30 % of jobs are going to disappear in two years and then 60 % of jobs are going to disappear in 10 years or five years.
12:26So imagine our children absorbing that message, right? They're wondering, where should I turn? Many of them are moving away from dating, moving away from getting married, moving away from having children. Now, some of this may be a positive thing, right? Because maybe marriage is not the answer either. Having children may not be the answer either. But they're doing it not out of a conscious awakening. Out of fear. But out of an emotional fear and a reactivity, a rebellion or a repulsion almost to grow up. So adulting is really a very somber endeavor. You know, every time I tell my daughter things like, Like, oh, you're really adulting.
13:08That's so mature. She's like, don't talk like that. Like, she almost is like resisting it because it's a scary thing.
13:14Lindsey Simcik:Yeah. And for your children, you know, mothers and fathers of really young children, that's why my books will be so helpful for you because it outlines all the things that are currently, quote unquote, going awry in our 20 year olds that you can now prevent for the next generation. Yeah. It starts so young. It starts so young. Yeah, I want to shift to those younger years, kind of staying with the same theme of our anxieties as parents and kind of that like hyper vigilance of making sure that you're doing everything right. You know, maybe it's the helicopter parent. Maybe it's just the always have eyes on them.
13:59Yeah. You know, always like observing them, commenting on things, making sure they're staying in the lane. And also your generation of parents is really one of the first generation that are trying to heal themselves. I agree. Right? I mean, when I wrote my books 16, 17 years ago, no one was talking about conscious parenting. It's true. Right? So at that point, parents used to get angry with me when I said, let's look at ourselves. Let's heal ourselves. But now, you know, you're 12, 15 years younger. that wave is now solidified it's i mean it's it's there in the culture so you all feel the pressure of not effing it up right you all want to make sure that you get this right so you're extra hyper vigilant and extra anxious yes but then that can also turn on itself how like yeah can we paint that picture of what that is actually potentially doing to boys and girls and yeah I'm assuming there's a little bit of a difference in how it's affecting them.
15:02Yeah. Well, on one hand, it's wonderful that parents realize that they need to heal themselves. That's good. Yeah. But where that pendulum can swing to an extreme is where you are trying to out-perfect your own unconscious. You cannot outrun your unconscious. You can't avoid it. You know, you can't will it away. You have to heal it. And healing takes time. And then you're on your feet and you're looking at the perfect home and the perfect bodies and the perfect school lunches. And you're trying to compete constantly with this image of a perfectly curated parent journey, parenthood journey. But there is no perfect journey.
15:47So that anxiety to do it so well, even to heal, but to heal so well, is still coming out of ego. It's still coming out of desperate anxiety. So what we need to understand instead is that parenthood by its nature can never be perfected. It's an impossible ideal. You will mess up your children or quote unquote mess up your children. You will make unconscious mistakes. You will leave trauma to some degree. And when you ease into that, you're not so trying to curate parenthood, but you're trying to show up. with the full experience of an imperfect human in an imperfect life? What if we all could just let go trying to perfect ourselves, our faces, our bodies, and parenthood?
16:41This doesn't mean we go the other extreme of negligence, but we stop this manic, obsessive, compulsive, really, disorder, really, now to the level of a disorder that we're trying to fix every strand of hair, every wrinkle from the tip of your nose to the butt, to the ankles. I mean, every part of our real estate on our body is being treated as something to be constructed. So that energy then permeates into parenthood. And then it permeates into our children's bodies because they are beginning to look at themselves. I have to say I was at a party the other day and there were two kids who happened to be there an eight-year-old and an 11-year-old and both girls and they both talked about their skin care and they asked me what I do for my skin care wow and I asked them what do they do and they they could they gave you a routine yeah a routine and products and wow and my jaw fell to the the ground and my mind was filled with judgment.
17:47But however, I reminded myself that they are growing up in an era that we are not prepared for. And that's why I wrote these books, because I was listening to the pulse of culture and I realized that we are at a dangerous inflection point where our children now are being raised in a world that we don't recognize. So what happens when parents don't recognize the language, the ideologies, the cultural ethos that their children are growing up in. Every 10 years is a new generation. So I was in one. I think you are almost in the second next one. And then after you, there are two or three, right? So then there's my daughters, which is Gen Z.
18:30Then there's Gen Alpha. And your child in your belly, maybe the beta or maybe one after. it's going so fast. So I call it the false reality syndrome where none of us are in the same reality anymore. We're all in a different reality. So you may be on your phone and you may be in a panic.
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21:18Lindsey Simcik:Go to absorbmore.com. Use the code almost 30 for 35%. And I may be on my phone and I may be in a panic, but we'll be in a panic about different things. Right. You may not even know about the tornado, which I'm panicking about. And I may not know about the 10 vehicle crash on the 495 that you are panicking about because you have to go home on the LIE. So it's a completely different reality. So we don't speak the language. We don't understand the ethos. We don't understand the problems that our children are facing. And when I realized that, I said to myself, parents understand that there's a problem, but they don't understand the path out of the problem.
21:59They don't have a solution. They don't have a blueprint. So what if I took every problem that I'm hearing my clients talk about and dedicate a section to it and then give you the tools? And that's what I've done in this book. From self-harm to feeling out of control of your eating, to body dysmorphia, to gender issues, to aggression, to anxiety, to competition, comparison, perfectionism. Every issue is covered in this book with the tools, though. Like, okay, so do these seven things today. And the minute you realize you can do something about it, you feel the sense of calmness. definitely but all the tools all of them revolve around connection i was just about to say you know the the obsession with wanting to better parent a child who you feel very disconnected with because to your point they're living in another reality i think brings a lot of us parents to the phone to kind of like okay let me learn about things it's almost like a numbing like a this alternate path rather than like turning to the child and really connecting.
23:14So before we go into kind of the difference between boys and girls and delving into different things that come up when raising boys and girls, can we talk about, you know, how we can take the next step to really creating lasting and deep connection with our children because I think also it's it's such a it feels like such an undertaking it feels like overwhelming because you want to do it right you know you're thinking about how your parents raised you there's so many layers to the the approach that maybe we're over complicating things but I guess what would you say to parents when when supporting them and connection with their children.
23:58Yeah. So what is connection, right? Connection feels like this amazing bond that you have with your children where everything is flowing and we're optimizing our wisdom and our consciousness. Connection has nothing to do with the aesthetics or kissing and hugging or even having a good time. It's not about being happy together. It's not about being even joyful together. What does it mean to truly connect? To connect means to show up as you are in the here and now with as little resistance to whatever is happening. So it means that I'm connected to the present moment and the people in that present moment, accepting them for who and what it is.
24:48You understand? So if your child is having a tantrum, you're not thinking to yourself, you know, I followed everything Dr. Shefali said, and now he's not connecting to me. Connect to me, you know, be calm and connect, right? So it has nothing to do with what is happening between two people in terms of the quality of what it looks like, but what it has to do with the quality of your presence in that moment. So it's not about what your child is doing to you. So if your child hugs you or kisses you, that doesn't mean they're connected to you, or that doesn't mean you're connected to them. It's how you can show up in the mess of it.
25:28Yeah. Very raw, very present, and not wanting it to be anything other than it is. So if we're in the tantrum, we're in the tantrum for the next 20 minutes. Oh, we got to leave Target. We got to leave Target. Or, oh, my kid just, you know, dropped a whole bowl of macaroni. I'm in the whole bowl of macaroni damage control now. It's whatever is showing up, I'm there fully. And that takes a ninja warrior in terms of being present, dropping the agenda, and completely showing up for whatever life has to bring you. I think we've forgotten the art of doing that. And children do that. I mean, look at children.
26:10They're in a puddle, they're in the puddle. Then they're in the rain, they're in the rain. Then they're crying over, you know a scraping you know scrape on their knee they're crying then they're laughing over you know something joyful they can shift and morph because they are in the present moment yes i think us as parents i was talking to a parent last night and she was talking about how she's feels like she's always rushing to the next moment yeah and our kids feel that yes you know they feel the rush and they're kind of like, wait, I'm still, I'm still in this moment. And, and I wonder, I guess, what is that?
26:49Is that culture and society? Is that just not feeling comfortable in our own nervous system to be in this moment? What, what do you think that is? So to raise conscious children, the first thing we need to be is in our body, in our easy nervous system, which means we have to pause and we have to breathe a lot. A lot. Because our children are going to pick up on the breathlessness and the anxiety. So what does that mean? We have to really slow life down, like big time. Children are not designed for this, you know, the minute real. The life that we're living is like these reels now. So we're constantly looking for the next hit.
27:39We're not here. And children are here. So children live in the time zone of the present. And we parents live in the past or the future. So I call it the clash of the time zones. So when there's a clash of the time zones, they're looking into our eyes and they can see that we're not here. So children borrow a sense of self from the adults. Children borrow their sense of safety and regulation from the adults around them. So we can no longer pretend that we are here just doing our life anymore once you have a child. They are stalking you and taking from you every tiny message around how to be in their bodies, how to live in this world.
28:23Is it a safe world? Can I trust? Can I expand? Can I lean in? Can I fail? they are picking up on everything from you and that's the hard part about being a parent and that's why we have to become conscious because we're clenching our jaws or gritting our teeth through life not realizing well that's what they're going to pick up that life is to be dealt with or lived with live through like that yes yes they pick up on you holding your breath but they also pick up on you when you take that deep breath too I noticed my son like yeah he'll he'll start to take a deep breath you know i was like wait where did you learn what just happened but if i like consciously take a breath yeah you know he's they're always watching especially young children yes under the age of seven very absorbent very sensitive very permeable yes so whether you like it or not your psyche is directly colliding with theirs at every moment it is a responsibility.
Read the full transcript
29:24It is an onus. It's a burden. But that's why we have to be conscious before we have children, because it's a lot of responsibility. I remember I used to drive and look in the rear view mirror, and 90 % of the time she was looking at me through the rear view mirror, right in their little car seat. For them, we are everything to them, because we are. We are their life support, their immunity, their second skin, their spine. They are borrowing everything from us. So if our nervous system is dysregulated, if we are chaotic, if we are under-resourced, how can we ever resource them? So for the first seven years of a child's life, I always tell my parents, no burden, but you have to kind of give them your entire life support so that they can begin to resuscitate and live on their own and breathe on their own eventually.
30:21But at first they need you as their primary anchor. And then you start releasing them, right? And now my daughter's 23 and now I have to completely cut the cord, even if she's not ready, because it's developmentally appropriate. Sure. So we need to do things that are developmentally appropriate. And I think as a culture, we're forgetting what is developmentally appropriate now because things are so skewed. Things are so confusing for parents. parents don't know what is developmentally appropriate anymore. It's very true. In the book, both books, you really challenge this idea of performance-based identity.
30:57And I think our culture is just obsessed with like achievement, you know, even like in the earliest years, the milestones, you know, if you're not hitting a milestone, you should worry. And I think it gets more intense as, you know, the children get older, but I feel like it's also replaced kind of this emotional, what we're talking about, that emotional connection piece. Can you speak to that and just what you've observed in your parents around achievement? Because I think it becomes this default that parents kind of turn to like, okay, let's hit the milestones or let's hit those, you know, milestones of success as a parent and as a child, and then I'll be a good parent.
31:41Yes. So I've been talking about the two main toxicities of parenthood, I don't know, since 20 years. And the two of them are the desire of the parent to create a successful child and a happy child. So success and happiness are the two goal standards, right? As long as my child is successful and as long as they're happy, I'm a good parent. So we have defined good parenting based on these two matrices. matrices. And if they do not come true, then we look at ourselves as failures and we then look at our children as defective. So let's talk about success. When I was raising my daughter, the markers, the pillars of success were very, very standard.
32:29Good grades, be in a popular group, get a good job, get married, right? It was very predictable. But as the generations are now ever shifting, yours included, but certainly after you, those pillars of success are no longer standing as tall and true. So what is success today, right? How do we define it? Now with AI and technology, if the job market is going to be terrible and AI is going to take over, will getting a good job be the standard? Because what if 80 % of our kids don't get a good job? So are they all failures? What will be the marker of academic achievement? Will it be going to an Ivy League college?
33:10Will that stay? Everything is changing so rapidly. And that's why what I said 20 years ago holds true today. We have to teach our children that the ultimate success, and this is so hard to do, but we have to do this, that the ultimate success doesn't come from the outside. I've been saying this for 20 years. It's the same wisdom that now has become even more crucial to impart because there's more chaos out there and there are more, you know, toys and baubles and, you know, little things to seduce us.
33:42Lindsey Simcik:Okay. Can we talk about picky eating for a second? I have a toddler. I'd like to say he eats a little bit more than other kids, but he is still picky. So if you have a kid who basically survives on the beige foods, you know, the struggle. And with Mav, I just don't want every meal to turn into that negotiation. That's why I have been giving him Ella Ola. It's basically a completely tasteless, colorless vitamin powder. It's not a gummy. It's not a chewable. So into his water, I have electrolytes in there too, but I put it in his water or his milk. Sometimes he'll have yogurt. I'll throw it in there.
34:14Lindsey Simcik:His oatmeal, don't tell him. Smoothies, super easy. And he literally cannot tell it's in there. So it has 19 essential vitamins and minerals, plus nutrients from 15 organic fruits and veggies, including B12, D, zinc, and it'll support his mood and brain development. It's pediatrician and pediatric dietician developed. It has zero sugar, it's vegan, gluten-free, free of the top nine allergens, and has no artificial sweeteners, dyes, or additives. And honestly, for me, it's just one less thing to stress about at mealtime. Ella Ola is offering our listeners 20 % off your first purchase, just go to ellaola.com slash almost 30.
34:55Lindsey Simcik:That's E-L-L-A-O-L-A.com slash almost 30. The discount is automatically applied at checkout. So you don't need a code. You can try it risk free with Ella Ola's 45 day money back guarantee. So go to ellaola.com slash almost 30 for 20 % off your first purchase. So this was the second time that I was pregnant and I just love pregnancy because I get so attuned to like everything that I put in my body. And one of those things is my prenatal. A prenatal I recommend highly is from Ritual. The Ritual Essential Prenatal is a part of my routine and I really love it because it has just these essential nutrients that we need during pregnancy, especially like choline, like folate and omega-3.
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36:14Lindsey Simcik:Save 25 % on your first month at ritual.com slash almost 30. That's ritual.com slash almost 30 for 25 % off your first month. Constantly. So we are more mandated than ever before to teach our children to not follow the crowd, to not get caught up in the algorithm or the matrix or what culture is saying and to more tune in. I mean, when I was raising my daughter, you know, 23 years ago in her first early years, back then without a cell phone in my pocket, I found it impossible to be present. And I used to talk about, wow, parenting really takes a lot of attention. You have to be right here, right now.
37:00That was back then. Now, I mean, look at us. We cannot even read a book anymore. We don't remember any phone numbers. We don't remember directions. We use technology for everything. But now what's even more scary is that technology is now not only robbing attention, but it's robbing attachment. It's taking away the most human thing we have with each other, which is our attachment to each other right now you see men are dating ai bots and they have ai girlfriends and then they have therapists for themselves and the ai girlfriend right haven't heard that one yet yes i believe it wow so we are now down a very slippery slope where we will eventually lose sight of what makes us human that is why i wrote these yes i mean lindsey these are my books eight and nine.
38:00I did not want to even write another parenting book because I thought I was done with my last one. But then I saw that parents are not waking up and they need a blueprint. Parents need to wake up to realize that how they have been parenting is not going to work, right? Ten years ago, it did not work to be distracted, to be chaotic, to focus on performance, to focus on happiness. Certainly now that's not going to work. So performance-based parenting has to end because the odds that our children feel whole and secure based on performance are very high they're not going to feel secure anymore we when I was growing up sure you could go to an ivy league school you could get a good job and you could get married in your 20s and feel successful because you checked off some boxes but now the the odds to feel successful are so high You have to look fit.
38:58You have to be a mother, but then you don't have to be a mother. You have to have a team of nannies, but then you only spend three hours a week with your kids, but then you have to be a full-time mom. And then you have to be a conscious parent, but then you can't be too gentle. And you have to run a business and be an entrepreneur and be a philanthropist. Now the odds are so stacked against you that you will not get your worth based on performance. Therefore, we can't even try. So what do we do instead? We must raise our children to understand that their connection to themselves is the only point of life because it really is the only point of life.
39:34But certainly in this storm of external seduction, if they don't have that internal connection, they're going to get lost. And I worry for our children. Yeah, I do too. Because the pace of life is just so fast now that if they're not anchored to a real connected foundation within themselves or with you, the parent, they are going to flounder even more. And that's why we're already seeing the worst mental health crisis in history, in modern history. What would you say is, is there a difference between boys and girls when it comes to cultivating a connection within themselves, like how that happens or what blocks them?
40:18Yeah. So on a general level, there are standard principles, right? The parent needs to be present in their own body. The parent needs to be regulated. The parent needs to enter without judgment, come with beginner's mind, be curious about your children. Don't put labels on them. Don't call them good or bad. Truly meet their essence, right? These are standard conscious parenting techniques and tools, but there are differences. And I did not, I struggled a lot with whether I should put it in one book or why am I, you know, creating this division and it's political. But I became very clear that I'm not creating division.
41:03I'm actually creating the continuum. And these are both companion books. People should read both because both genders affect each other. Both sexes affect each other. And if you have a boy, you need to know what's going on with girls and vice versa. And I did not want to reduce the sexes or the genders, but I wanted to open up conversation because they are different. As you know, entering your midlife and for all women out there who are menopausal, we know how much a hormonal blueprint affects us. Yes. Yes. It's all the rage. Yes. Right. Everywhere you turn, we're talking about estrogen and progesterone and testosterone more now than ever before.
41:45That's true. Okay. So if we honor that women are going through menopause and men are not, correct? Correct. Your husband is not going to go through it. Not that I know of. And you're going to get really pissed off that he's not going through it. Yes. But it's a fact. Can you do anything about it? Are you being less progressive if you say that you're going to menopause, but he's not? No, it's a fact. In the same way, I'm not being less progressive by saying that boys go through something entirely different than girls and vice versa. So what are the main differences? For one, girls have a preponderance of estrogen, which makes girls more relationally attuned, more relationally sensitive, exquisitely sensitive to nuance, to tone, to eye contact.
42:31You watch when you're going to have a girl. Yes. She's going to notice everything. Why did you say it like that? Why did you use that word? I remember myself feeling that way. You were hyper attuned. Hyper. And even now, when you scroll through social media or your own comments, I'm sure you're noticing everything, the period, the inflection, the tone, right? My daughter told me the other day that my color mood board on my socials was all off. And I was like, I'm not even paying attention to that. But she is. She's listening to aesthetics. She's paying attention. So girls are very attuned to relationships.
43:08What does that mean? That means in today's world, this assault, this onslaught of stimulation is driving her nervous system crazy. She cannot handle it. Because we women, because of our estrogen, our oxytocin, we develop a sense of self through our relationships, through our container of us and the other. the container is so big now right if she opens her instagram it's the world that is telling her who she is at every point so she scrolls she needs to be the hustle girl she needs to be the boss babe she needs to be the trad wife she needs to be the glam girl she needs to be the simplistic girl she needs to be all these messages and she's wondering who am i then she looks at her mother and her mother is, you know, doing 10 ,000 things to her body or her face or her mother is distracted or her father is.
44:07And she's wondering, where can I find who I am? And the mirror is really damaged, broken, shattered. And that's why our girls are suffering. I mean, anxiety is through the roof. And you're wondering, as an older parent, I wonder, why are you suffering? You have everything, right? I sometimes tell my daughter, like when I was your age, if I had the tools you have, But she looks at me like I'm crazy because she's thinking to herself, I wish I didn't have all this. It's too much. So we need to have great compassion for what our girls are going through. They are being relationally assaulted and they don't know what to do with all their feelings.
44:47Boys are not so relationally attuned. They are attuned to other things. So their main hormone is testosterone. well. Not that we don't have it as women, but they have it 50 times more. And in adolescence, there speaks to like levels that are unprecedented. That 14-year-old boy is in his room, probably masturbating to porn, and no one has told him about anything that he is initiating into adulthood. Women, at least girls, because we have a period, the mother has to talk about it. Sure. Otherwise, the girl is going to think she's going to die. Right. So we have to say, no, no, no, don't worry. This is what you do.
45:31This is how you wear a tampon. And there's some clumsy, but some initiation into womanhood. The boy has a silent initiation into adulthood in a dark room, silent, shameful, not knowing what's going on with him. And therefore, he will turn to the manosphere or to porn. I interviewed 100 children, over 100 children, 50 boys, 50 girls. And the things I heard made me feel so bad, so empathic for this generation that I had been secretly judging. I was judging away. These children, these kids, they have it so easy. They're so entitled. They're so fragile. But man, if you were growing up as they were, without the tools, you'd be like that.
46:23So for boys, their sexuality is being ignored. And then they grow up to be perverted males who are doing all sorts of things in child trafficking and in all sorts of ways. And then we are yelling at our adult males, but we're not asking, how did the adult male grow up like this? I will tell you that the reason I wrote these two books really was because I wanted to write a book for the boys. Because our world has a wounded male problem, adult male problem. But if we keep blaming the male, but don't trace the pipeline back to how do we now, that's why I wrote this book for the boys, for mothers to raise their boys differently and for fathers to pay attention and to be there as a brotherhood, as the initiators for their sons.
47:15And this is so missing in our boys today. And that's why our boys are growing up to be angry, young, lonely men, very angry and very lonely. Yes. How would you, specifically for boys navigating that, you know, puberty time. Yeah. What would you say to parents? How to kind of, you know, bring them into awareness of what's going on and feel more empowered and less shame? Yes. So much shame. Our boys are shamed from the moment they enter any institution. Actually, they may be shamed even before that when the mother or the father tells the boy, of course don't cry or why can't you talk like your sister tell me how you feel our boys cannot use language like girls they are way behind in their language skills because of the way their brain forms than girls brains so if you have a daughter you will constantly compare your boy to the daughter because the daughter is so much more coordinated her network and her brain is talking to each side.
48:21She has a way more sophisticated prefrontal cortex far earlier than boys do. Few years earlier. So the boy is looking terribly immature in front of his sister. And he's silently getting the message that he's not as mature. He's not as focused. He goes to school. He can't sit in circle time. The teacher's like, what's wrong with your boy? And the teachers are mostly females who don't understand what's wrong with these boys squiggling away. But boys are not supposed to be sitting in certain times. Even girls are not supposed to be sitting. But certainly not boys who have so much testosterone, which only spikes in adolescence.
48:59And that's when you experience the boys shutting down, withdrawing, wearing the hoodie and disappearing into the room. And the loneliness starts. I'm getting emotional because it's so true. Yeah. It's sad. Yeah. we terribly misunderstand our boys. Our boys are constantly being told to be more like girls and don't be like boys. So they're like, okay, who should I be? Boys are not good, but I don't know how to be a girl. But you're telling me boys are terrible. And many mothers, right? You can relate to this, I'm sure, who grow up with their own trauma around male violence, around male betrayal.
49:41They have an internalized anti-male agenda as well. You know, we talk about misogyny, right? That men have towards women, but women have something back towards men. Sure, of course. So when you see your boy being a wild four-year-old biting you, hitting you, because he doesn't know how to regulate himself, you're thinking, oh, you think you're going to be another man who's going to boss me over? or you think you're going to hit me? And all that rage that we've been suppressing comes out at the four-year-old. And the four-year-old goes, I'm just a mess. I just need help. I'm not a violent boy. I'm not going to grow up to be a perpetrator.
50:23I'm not a domestic abuser. But you're acting like I am. Because the mother is going all out. I mean, she has nowhere to go with her feelings. No one told her that her son could actually be a healing force. So she's coming with the energy of like, don't you grow up to be another abuser? And the boy is going, I'm not going to abuse anyone. Why are you acting like I was?
50:49Lindsey Simcik:I just took my son to the dentist for the first time. It was very cute. He did a great job. I was very nervous that he would just have a total meltdown and not let them look at his teeth. But did a great job. But I was thinking about my own dental health, postpartum. got to get back to the dentist. I was really excited to find this brand for us all. Okay. So it's called Lorene and this is a chewing gum. Okay. This is a chewing gum that is better for you, better for your teeth. It uses nano hydroxy appetite, and this is the mineral your teeth are actually made of. So this is going to support your enamel health.
51:24So if you're eating and
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52:10Lindsey Simcik:We have had lots of support in many different ways. And Upwork was an essential part of our growth and our evolution at points. You can't do this alone. So you must, you must outsource at points. That's why Upwork is just incredible in bringing very highly skilled freelance specialists for almost anything you need in building a business, whether it's marketing, design, AI implementation, business operations, but you don't have to commit to a full-time hire. So it's really kind of like this freelance vibe, but everyone is vetted and incredible, especially in this age of AI. I feel like people are overwhelmed by the idea of incorporating AI into their business.
52:56Lindsey Simcik:So Upwork has got you. You can browse profiles. You can see their past work. You can even like get help scoping the role. We have used Upwork for creating graphics, for designing a campaign, for a partnership. And with Business Plus, AI-powered shortlisting can deliver a curated shortlist of top freelancers matched to your goals in under six hours. So visit Upwork.com and post your job for free. That is Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That is Upwork.com. So it's these horrifically tragic mixed messages. And for fathers, right? Fathers grew up with the message, boys don't cry, boys have to be strong.
53:43Right now it's changing, but in most generations, even today, that's the internalized script. So now we're trying to change it to boys can cry, but the fathers are terribly uncomfortable. Yeah, my husband grew up hearing that. you know he has uh his parents are jamaican and they just have a very um masculine dominant culture of like we don't we don't cry we you know right toughen up etc and so he's been very conscious of that in um in us raising mav and also he's had moments with me where he's like you can't can't baby him right you know like those little moments of and i'm i'm i'm open to hearing kind of and looking at what I'm doing of course and also I'm like he is a baby you know there's moments of that where there's nuance in it all right um where of course I don't want to over smother yes because we mothers can smother of course yes I do it well I can do it well but um but also you don't want to get caught up in this macho patriarchal let's not baby a baby Sure.
54:56Right? Sure. He is a baby. Yeah, he's a baby. And boys feel as much. I know. Do they feel more? They actually are more sensitive. They are more sensitive. Because their left and right brain is not so connected. So they're having a harder time putting words to their feelings, right? So feelings come from right brain. Words come from left brain. So we're asking them to put words on feelings, but their left and right brain don't talk to each other as well as girls. That's why girls can easily put words to feelings. When we put words to feelings, what happens? We feel calm. We feel ease. We feel heard.
55:31We feel understood. They don't feel understood or heard. They can't even hear themselves because they can't connect the word to the feeling. I feel like a lot of adult men don't have the words. Words for the feelings. Even many of us women don't have. We're trying. Sure. So if we're having a hard time, adult men don't even understand. and they were trained out of feeling, right? So they have this void and then we adult women, you know, disparage our men and shame our men and go, you don't even know how to talk. I mean, I make so many jokes about it, but it's really not fair to them because they don't, they were never taught.
56:07First they were never taught. Then they were taught not to feel. And then they were lagging anyway in the integration of word with feeling. So with your son, when he cries, he doesn't really even know why he's crying. And he cannot put words to feelings. So don't ask him to, but you can put words to his feelings. And he will immediately calm down. But if we don't do that and we teach our boys to outthink their feelings, then they will grow up dissociated, angry, not knowing what's going on in their bodies and have all this energy and not know what to do with it. Right. yeah i want to stick with boys for a second and just this escape into the digital world and like gaming oh yeah that you talk about is betting gaming porn porn um yeah it's it was really interesting to just read what you wrote because it kind of shifted my perspective on it because i think i too have like judgments of like this generation they're just on their devices all the time, like what's happening.
57:16Parents are letting this happen. But you talk about competency and how they kind of escape into that world. To find competency. So here's what's going on. What is? So our boys, just talking about boys. Yes. And this doesn't mean there aren't 99 % of girls who could be like this, but most boys, I'm just talking on the main, have all this energy, right? This is not new. All boys have this tremendous energy. They're not supposed to sit still. They're not supposed to be going to school and sitting in circle time with the girls. They're not. They need something else. They need a whole different curriculum.
57:55They need to run. They need to seek adventure. They need to solve puzzles. They need to pursue risk. They need to feel like they're achieving, that they're finishing, that they're completing, that they're fixing, that they're solving. This is testosterone. Testosterone is the driver of pursuit, the hormone of adventure, of risk-taking, problem-solving. This is how boys develop competency. I literally teach parents that if they have four-year-olds, five-year-old boys, don't make them go brush their teeth. Make it a scavenger hunt. Make it a jigsaw puzzle. Make it a go outside and look for the toothpaste.
58:35And then he will brush his teeth in two seconds. But because he has all this pent up energy that needs to find an outlet. Then when you come to adolescence, now you have energy plus you have sexual energy and aggressive energy. And if you don't provide an outlet, you will have a rapist on a college campus or you will have an angry man shooting up a school. Why do you think all the school shooters are male, young males? I mean, they're young white males, if we're really honest, mostly, mostly. Yes. But forget the race. They're young males. Why? Because males were supposed to be out in the wild hunting and fighting and looking and competing and finding strength in the pack, in the tribe, where older men checked the younger men and initiated.
59:29The brotherhood is very important. And look at our lives now. Many single parents, many times as single mothers. Where's the brotherhood? Where's the big gang on the basketball court in the neighborhood? Everyone has disappeared onto their tablets, onto their devices. So now we take all that testosterone and we put it in a chair with headphones now he needs to put all that energy somewhere so he's in violent video games and he's in fortnight or whatever the games are right and he's shooting and he's hunting with his virtual brother brothers in a virtual brotherhood but the body doesn't know any different right so he may be shooting right in his mind but his body is still holding all that energy.
1:00:18Boys are dating. Boys and girls are not dating anymore. They're not having sex as much. They used to go out 13 hours a week. And now in the last decade, it's gone down to five hours a week. So they're at home. All that energy, all that life trial and error, risk-taking, falling apart, getting rejected, scraping your knee, twisting your ankle, life's friction it's gone so we've anesthetized our boys all that energy is going to mutate it's not a good thing and then they're watching porn which is the most unrealistic of reality so then when they come across a woman who doesn't show interest doesn't give them any interest because in porn everyone every woman is interested so the man is thinking why are you not interested in me.
1:01:13And in porn, there is no foreplay and there is no awkward dating. There are no awkward conversations. It's just so easy. And the woman is ready to do anything for you. So why should I have to work hard? So when the woman in real life rejects my 17-year-old son or my 25-year-old son, he's going to be mighty pissed because he's not had training to realize that rejection is part of your competency building. You need to get rejected so you up your game. Yes. Become more competent, become more attractive, have something to offer. So, you know, so many young women, I'm sure in your generation, you hear them saying, where are all the good men?
1:01:55Because they are not being raised in their competency. Actually, the greatest disservice to men is to humanity is to men, right? And no one wants to hear that because men are the evil. They're the perpetrators. Okay. But why are they that way? We have to ask why, right? And we have to have compassion and be curious. So we can keep blaming the men, but then we'll never change how we parent our sons right if you just say it's a male problem then we just keep blaming them and yelling at them and sending them to jail but we have to go and ask what's the core what's the core cause yeah and that brings parents into the picture and that's why i wrote these books yes thank god yeah so much to say for the sake of time i i want to shift a little bit more into our girls.
1:02:55You write that girls are learning to be perceived before they learn to be. Can you talk about that? Right. I call it the perception prison because they are in this hall of mirrors where they're constantly being seen by the outside gaze, right? The male gaze, the stranger's gaze. They open their Instagram and they're constantly seeing other women that are being perceived all the time. So how they are perceived becomes more important than their own self-perception. And this is where, and I talk about it in the book continuously, how we parents can embolden our daughters to step away from that perception prison and develop a deep inner self-authority, self-authorship, a sense of voice, a sense of inner knowing, inner sovereignty.
1:03:52All those things were important when you and I were growing up, but it is all the more critical right now for our girls. How do we support our girls in connecting to their own voice? Yes. We start when they're two years old, right? We first become aware that our voice can drown out their voice. We are the first perpetrators. So what does that mean? We need to listen more. We need to ask more questions. We need to help guide our daughters back to their knowing. So a two-year-old can come to you and say, I'm ready to brush my teeth. And then you go, okay, do you want to put the toothpaste or do you want me to put the toothpaste?
1:04:31something so simple choices but giving activating the sense of you know what you can do for yourself tap into that but it takes mindfulness and in a world of busyness and chaos we can bypass those very critical years where we can instill the sense of inner reflection and inner knowing it starts from age two yeah and how we speak yeah about ourselves i think too you know if i I think about from my childhood and my mom was incredible, but I also know that she kind of inherited some self-talk from her mom. And yeah, it was just something that I do remember. Yeah. One thing that hit me too was you said that girls become these caretakers emotionally.
1:05:17Yes. I definitely experienced that from a young age. Is that dependent on the parent or is that just something that's innate in their nature? Well, I think it depends on every family system, But for the most part, that's why I put it in the book, most girls are raised as emotional janitors of their home or emotional surrogates and emotional, you know, caretakers. And that parentified daughter grows up with this inordinate sense of responsibility to manage, to fix. And she puts other people's needs in front of her own. I mean, this is standard protocol for most women. Sure. Self-abandonment, self-betrayal, self-erasure.
1:05:57It's just happening all the time. So in this book, I teach parents how to not do that for your daughters, you know. But it takes a very strong parent, fathers and mothers. And fathers play their own role in teaching daughters to separate from their authentic selves. Fathers, the way they talk about women, the way they treat them, the mother has a direct bearing on the daughters. And let me say one thing about our daughters. You know, for our sons, I talked about porn and the manosphere. For our daughters, I'll leave you with this one very alarming fact. Our daughters are being raised with this false sense of empowerment, I believe.
1:06:36They're being raised to kind of bear their body and get on OnlyFans and commodify their sexuality. Right? They can make so much money, they're told, to be an influencer. earth. But what our daughters don't realize is that they are part of the same toxic patriarchal script as we were. It just comes with more money now, a lot more money. That's it. And more virality. Yes. But it's the same subjugation to I can make money through the male gaze and by fitting into an idea of sexuality that males enjoy, right? And very few of us enter our beauty or our sexuality out of an organic evolution. Most of us are just following the new wave.
1:07:23So our current girls are all, you know, trying to be on OnlyFans. And I don't talk about all girls, but it's the trend. Or they're trying to be an influencer. They're trying to be more visible. Or you go to a gym and you'll see six girls on their phones recording their sessions, right? All of this, they don't realize, is still part of the same toxic patriarchy. Yes. Because you're selling yourself for validation from the outside world. And just creates that disconnection, I think, between you and your own voice, but also just that sense of self. Yes. Because then you're just getting the sense of self from what people perceive, like you write about.
1:08:01Um, last question. And I think this leaves enough for people to, to read more on these books. You must, you must, you must, uh, get these books, Raising Conscious Sons, Raising Conscious Daughters. What's one thing boys deeply need that culture misunderstands right now? And what's one thing girls need that culture misunderstands? I always say that we are in a crisis of masculinity. Our boys need a blueprint for masculinity, which is what I tried to provide in this book. And if parents can kind of follow this blueprint, our sons will reclaim their inherent masculinity, which is not a bad thing.
1:08:39It's a beautiful thing. And for our daughters, they are in a crisis of self-abandonment more than any generation I've ever seen. So they need to be given permission to not follow a trend, to not follow the perceptions of others and to really reclaim their inner sovereignty more so today than ever before. Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Dr. Shivali. Thank you so much. So good, thank you. The books are out now, Raising Conscious Sons, Raising Conscious Daughters. So thankful for your writing over the years and especially now having a son and a daughter. So I appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Dr.
1:09:21Shivali, for joining us on the Almost 30 podcast. Again, her new books, Raising Conscious Daughters and Raising Conscious Sons are out now. You must get these books. They are a must read as a parent, a soon to be parent, maybe gift the parents in your life. Much, much needed. I just adore her work. Go to drshefali.com for more on her other books, events, and any general information about Dr. Shefali. Okay, y 'all, thank you for listening to Almost 30. Thanks for following us on socials, Instagram at almost 30 podcast, TikTok as well on YouTube, almost 30 podcast. You can subscribe to us there.
1:09:59We are on gorgeous video. I am very pregnant. Almost there. I can't breathe. Yeah, we're just so grateful for all of your listenership, subscribership. It means the world to us. It's how we just spread the word about the show. So thank you for being with us over the years. I'm at Lindsay Simstik on Instagram. Would love to connect with you. I also have a sub stack for all the mamas out there, all the parents. It's called Momplex. And I would love for you to subscribe if you want to learn more about Almost 30 and what we do over at Almost 30, almost30.com. Okay, we'll see you on the next one. We love you.
1:10:39Bye.
From the publisher
Dr. Shefali, bestselling author + expert in conscious parenting, joins us for an honest conversation about raising emotionally resilient children in a world that is increasingly disconnected. She shares why parents must stop trying to perfect themselves—and start showing up fully as they are.
We talk about the hidden ways anxiety, achievement, social media, and performance-based parenting shape our kids, and why true connection starts with our own nervous system. Dr. Shefali explains how to raise children who trust themselves instead of chasing validation, success, or approval from the outside world.
She also gets real about the different ways boys + girls are being impacted by modern culture, from shame + disconnection to self-abandonment + the pressure to perform. This episode will challenge how you think about parenting + personal growth.
We also talk about:
Why parents can’t “out-perfect” their unconscious
How children borrow regulation + a sense of safety from us
The difference between connection + simply being happy together
Why performance-based parenting is no longer working
Social media, comparison, beauty standards + the “perception prison”
Raising boys with less shame around emotions, sexuality + masculinity
Why girls are learning to be perceived before they learn to be
Parentification, self-abandonment + emotional caretaking
How to help children develop inner authority + self-trust
Dr. Shefali’s new books, Raising Conscious Sons + Raising Conscious Daughters
Resources:
Books: https://www.drshefali.com/raisingconscious-daughters-sons/
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