How your childhood affects your parenting style

0:00Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place. Today, how to raise emotionally secure kids, hold on to your own identity and essentially not lose your mind as a parent. I still struggle. I'm not like the perfect parent in the slightest. Definitely not the perfect step parent. I still have days where I feel like I'm not part of the family. People talk about intergenerational trauma. It's there. What we really mean is that we've all come through a world where there's been an immense amount of cruelty. Also, the silent emotional load of what you're doing to be a parent is overwhelming and too demanding.

0:41and I just think that culture's very complacent and takes its mothers for granted. I have this love for this, you know, this other being that I never understood before and I don't have any fears or worries expressing that because it's such a good feeling. Right, it's the summer holidays. How are you doing, honestly? Oh my God, I mean, I'm doing all right. It's full on, isn't it? The juggle is unbelievable. finding things to do trying to keep kids off of screens it's really blimmin tricky if you don't have parents that live nearby or help with your kids it is insanely discombobulating and of course there can be brilliant moments of joy and really special times as a family but also keeping on top of work and things in the home it's really really relentless it is petrifying thinking about the impact we have on our children and a lot of that is because we know just how much of an impact our parents had on our childhoods.

1:44Today I've pulled together loads of brilliant bits from our Happy Place episodes that will hopefully help us untangle the difficulties of being a parent and having parents so that we can relax into the beautiful parts. There's Paloma Faith on the pressure for women to have it all, Kate Ferdinand on her blended family and Gabor Mate on why we need wider community support. It's an important one. Then the brilliant Kate Silverton's asking, are kids being naughty or are they just really struggling to regulate their nervous system? Alain de Botton explains how your childhood might still be affecting the way you interact with yourself and others.

2:27And Zane, lovely Zane, he's reflecting on how fatherhood has changed him for the better. If you're a smoker or vapor ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zinn Nicotine Pouches, you'll discover many good reasons. Zinn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus, Zinn offers a robust rewards program. There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zinn. Check out Zinn.com slash find to find Zinn at a store near you. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

3:29expert. That's U P W O R K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. Hey, I'm Dr. Z and I'm a neurosurgeon. So that means long hours, early rounds, late nights, and everything in between. And through it all, I wear figs. They're comfortable when it counts and functional when I need them the most. So where do you wear your figs on shift on call on the couch in the break room, listening to this podcast, wherever it is, they fit right in. And now listeners of this podcast can get 15 % off their first order. Just head to wearfigs.com and use code FIGSRX at checkout. That's wearfigs.com, code FIGSRX.

4:08Right, let's do it. Here's the show.

4:32I really worry as well, like with the modern age, that I'm often preoccupied when I'm around my children because I'll be like replying to a message or like getting a work call, pushing a pram, taking them to the park at the same time, trying to be like a present parent but never fully present in anything. and I feel like society really needs to update because we were sort of sold this dream of like the feminist dream. You can have it all and the reality is you can't have it all. You can't. You can have a bit of everything but you can't have it all and I notice in my life that like as the same as you, like the sort of CEO of my business, is that I'm finding the hardest part being when I'm with my kids because sometimes I haven't had time to plan a brilliant activity or to make the best meal that I want them to eat or like get them into bed on time because I took a work call or whatever and then they're going to be tired for school you know like all of that and you're just and then you're sort of like existing around in a heteronormative sense not I'm not speaking about anything other than that at this point um you're sort of around like a heteronormative guy who thinks that his contribution as either I mean I didn't even have that but like that just contributing to finances is as much as what you're doing and it isn't because knowing what it's like to contribute to all the finances in my case and also the silent emotional load of what you're doing to be a parent and the non-silent emotional load of what you're doing to be a parent is overwhelming and too demanding and I just think that culture's very society's very complacent and takes its mothers for granted I think that's what I wanted to kind of put across in the book because when and the kind of like annoying part about this book I think is that I think quite a lot of women will probably read it but who I'd like to read it would be male fathers because I think that there's this kind of idea that like a mother's day breakfast in bed is enough to say a bit of dry toast and clap, clap, clap, we love you.

7:13It's not enough. I literally just want to throw it in the bloody bin. I can make my own toast, but can you see that I'm doing a repetitive action every day that you could just say, I'm going to do that. And in some cases in marriages, it's been 10, 20, 30, 40 years of people watching their mothers or their wives doing this same thing over and over again and it's like why aren't you just doing it like I think it needs to change in two areas I think that men need to be raised in a different way to actually feel more responsible I think girls are raised to feel responsible for a lot of stuff emotions people's feelings housework contributions like all of this stuff responsibility like I have two daughters and I and I hear myself talking to them I think if I had sons I would do this to them as well like you are responsible for others feelings you're responsible to notice things um so there's that and then I also think that employers as well because there's this idea that sort of comes from patriarchal and capitalist ideologies that money is paramount money's the most important contribution you can make and actually it's not it's it's definitely on an even keel with like emotional labor and in terms of like the running of a successful household and I don't think it's enough for in heteronormative situations for men to think that just bringing money into the house is enough and I didn't even have that either but like I think quite a lot of situations are like that but as somebody who brings money in I know that my workload on an emotional level is way harder.

9:13The point is you like many women out there are attempting to do it all to fulfill all roles so you're a career woman you're driving this brand this company that is Paloma Faith but you're also nurturing and ensuring that you are instilling these you know things into your kids but also keeping the house running and the level of worrying that you're doing and I think for many women today we feel like we've got to be all for to have a whole life so you've got I get annoyed as well with people saying oh she's a bit snappy or she's a bit irritable and it's like always blamed on our hormones but my experience just like when you get drunk it's like it's the same feelings it's just that you express them differently but it's like this vilification of like basically someone who's overloaded and overstretched and rather than being like oh she's a bit snappy maybe we should be asking why she's overloaded and what can I do to alleviate it so she can be the best version of herself which she really wants to be like I know what I'm capable of and I really want to be the best mother and the best human being I can be and quite often I'm not and I think that's because of the exhaustion.

10:47So what were your preconceived ideas of a blended family before you entered one or you forged one because of course if you had that strong feeling that you really didn't want to meet someone with kids I'm imagining that your expectations were negative or the the sort of vision you had of a blended family would be perhaps messy or wouldn't function in the way that you wanted. Yeah I think maybe coming from my parents breaking up and having a stepmom and things like that you know if you start a family with someone first I wanted to do everything first I wanted to have the first child I wanted to experience all of those firsts together I didn't really think about anything else that would be really negative I just wanted to have all of that together but I don't know I don't know why I was so desperate for that but I think it comes down to again books and what we read and what we see when we're young and you don't see blended families it's not the norm is it so you think I was in an abnormal situation growing up that's what I thought and I want to be in a normal one but actually what the bloody hell is normal well exactly and now blended families are so commonplace and I'm I luckily know quite a few people that are in a similar situation to me which has been really handy that's really helped and I think you realize how many people are in the same position but you can feel very isolated when you start out in that role I mean I I approached being a step-mom feeling quite naive and like the whole thing was a novelty so I was like wow we get to like go to a ball pit or go and watch a kids film and I wasn't taking any of it necessarily seriously until I understood the impact that I would have on the kids and that I was going to be a role in their life a guide in their life I had no true understanding of that until I was actually doing it and you are sort of learning on the job how did you find that integration into a family at the age of 26?

12:35I was kind of the same as you. I just thought, I'll kind of get through everything in life. I'm going to get through this. It's going to be fine. Listen, I knew Rio had kids. I knew that they'd lost their mum. I think my naivety was good because it helped me just go into it with not overthinking it too much. Like you, it was only when I was in it, I think actually probably when I moved into the house that I thought, wow, this is, there's a lot more to this than what I thought. Sometimes you just breeze through life and this wasn't going to be one of those situations I had to really you know my children have lost their mum I've got to really think about how to deal with them be like a positive influence and then that was quite heavy but I was already in it so I hadn't thought about it so I was already in it which I think is a good thing for me for me personally because I'm an overthinker anyway and then when you're in it I just wanted it to work so we do whatever it takes to make it work but thinking back now I think someone asked me this the other day if I'd have overthought it when I first met him would I still be here I probably would because I loved him yeah so whatever happens I would still be here but I really felt like I needed I didn't know where to turn like you I just didn't know what to do and I didn't really have anyone in similar situations as quite young 26 all my friends were kind of having babies and I had like Lorenz Tate and Tia who were like six eight and ten I just didn't have anything in common with anyone around me and that's what I struggled with.

13:57Yeah and also you entered not only a family that were formed but also a family in deep grief not only had the kids lost their mum but also their nan around the same time too. That is a lot to take on especially when you're in that you know extremely exciting but kind of strange position of falling in love with someone which is a vulnerable place to be anyway you know taking that risk to sort of fall in love with someone and your life's going down a different path altogether. How did you navigate that? Falling in love with someone, having kids in the situation, grief in the mix, and everyone's also watching you go through this extremely overwhelming situation?

14:36Yeah, it's a lot. When you say it like that, it's a bloody lot. When I think back, I don't know how we've got through. We always say, what did we do? Because it was so hard and I don't know how we've got through. The only thing that I can possibly think that we say is we were just consistent and we showed love to the children and we didn't give up they're the only three things there's not like a particular thing because like you say there's no handbook you don't really know what you're doing so you're going to make some mistakes along the way you're trying to do your best like any parent is I suppose but it was a lot it was a lot and looking back I think that's why then when I had the book in my hands the other day I felt really emotional that I was once in a position where I thought I couldn't even continue and how am I managing this and I feel like I'm failing miserably to now I've actually got a book that is going to help people when they're in this situation.

15:25It felt just really amazing and wow, I've come so far. And don't get me wrong, I still struggle. I'm not like the perfect parent in the slightest. Definitely not the perfect step parent. I still have days where I feel like I'm not part of the family. That is absolutely not them putting it on me. It's my own feelings where you just feel a little bit, should I be here? what would happen you know that sliding doors kind of thoughts but I'm in a much better place than I was six years ago it is now I think but that's why I think the book is so refreshing is not only are you offering up the learnings that you've experienced over the years as well as you've got experts in there who are giving some really solid tips that I found very helpful you're very honest about it's an everyday situation it's an everyday learning curve I feel exactly the same I'm sort of 12 years into being in my stepchildren's lives.

16:17I met them when they were five and nine and they're now nearly 18 and 21. So I've seen this amazing growth and them changing. And I still, like you, have feelings of insecurity. I think one of the things that was very interesting that you touched on in the book that I think most people either moving into this role or step parents who are already sort of living it will feel is the fear of rejection from your stepchildren. And you've obviously now got your son Cree, your biological son, and the feelings can be different towards your stepchildren and your biological children. And again, that is completely normal.

16:55You're not, you know, doing anything wrong having those thoughts. I feel exactly the same that I fear my stepchildren rejecting me much more than I fear my biological children rejecting me. And I thought that was a really interesting point. I don't think I'd ever given it much thought. but the feelings are very, very real. Yeah. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because I feel like we've worked so hard. With my stepchildren, we've all had to work to get to this point that it's scary if it would be taken away from me. When you've got, oh, God, that sounds terrible, like my biological son isn't scared if they were gone, but it's just more of a natural thing, having a baby, them growing inside your belly.

17:36You love the baby before they're even born. You don't have to really work for that bond. It's natural. whereas I feel like with stepkids you have to earn that and work for it and the thought of them not being happy with me terrifies me because I want to be the best version I can be for them. Since the 1930s the gender ratio of multiple sclerosis has been increasing. What I mean is that it used to be almost equal now it's three and a half women to every man. Wow. Yeah which immediately tells us that this is not a genetic condition because genes don't change in a population over a few decades. It's not diet or climate because that hasn't changed more for one gender than the other.

18:17What is it? It's stress. So women have always had the role of being the emotional shock absorbers of their families, including their spouses. Yeah. In fact, during COVID, the New York Times did an article called Society's Shock Absorbers, about how women took on the stresses of their families and their spouses and they felt guilty when they couldn't protect their husbands from stress. So that's a gender role, not biologically determined, but dictated by a certain patriarchal view of women's position. Now, in the meanwhile, for two reasons, women have also entered the workforce since the 30s. In many cases, out of economic necessity.

19:00In other cases, because as you say, people have a desire, a need, and the right to express themselves and not to be constricted in their range of endeavors in this world, which all would have been fine if the stress role had been shared by the genders. But it hasn't been. So now you've got double the stress. You have to make it out there, and you're still playing the same role at home. And there's a third factor, which is the increasing rates of loneliness and isolation. So loneliness itself and the atomization of communities and the breakup of extended families means that women are more alone now with the parenting task and with the stress task.

19:41Well, you get more stress, less support, more disease. We have these nuclear families that we've again normalized that 100 years ago, you would have had grandmas, aunties, cousins, everyone involved, but we don't have that. Let me tell you about an amazing study that some geniuses conducted just a few years ago. So it's good you're sitting down because you'd fall over with amazement if you weren't. You know what they found out? And I don't know how many PhDs it took to figure this one out. But they did research that showed that grandmothers are good for grandkids. And even more astonishingly, they found out that the closer the grandmother lives to the grandchild, even better.

20:24Can you believe that? I think we probably could have worked that one out over a cup of tea. But again, you know, out of necessity or people, I guess, meeting partners from other parts of the world or country, we are tending to move away from where we grew up, where the rest of our family dwells. And again, all of this has been normalized and we're probably not looking at the cost that it has on our mental health. And, you know, I don't live particularly near my parents and my husband's mum died a long time ago. So we certainly haven't had that very close knit sort of community feel raising a kid like most people I know who have moved away from the family area.

21:10And I don't think we really and I think loneliness is such a big part of it. And it's probably why all of these, you know, parenting blogs exist or mum blogs or mum websites, because people feel like, who do I turn to? I don't know what to do. I don't know how to navigate this because I don't have the matriarch to speak to or whoever it is in my community. to get that comfort from. And I think women are expected, certainly as new mothers, to just sort of crack on with it. Yeah, come on, you're all right, crack on with it. You're sleep deprived. You're carrying such a load. Your whole life has changed within a moment.

21:46And you're largely alone with that. Yeah. I mean, what you mentioned, those initiatives for mom websites or blog moms, I mean, those are healthy adjustments to an unhealthy situation, for sure. Yeah. And these are some of the things that people can do. Once they understand what the problem is, there are initiatives people can take on the local level. I talk about interpersonal biology. Our biology is very much shaped by our relationships. Those relationships happen in a context. That context is the community and extended family or the multigenational family that we live in. And the context for all that is the broader culture.

22:25So again, we're biopsychosocial creatures, and the whole tendency under capitalism to individualize everything and to make individuals culpable for how they're failing. If you're not succeeding, you're just not a good person. It's so toxic. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert.

23:09That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. If you're a smoker or vapor ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zinn Nicotine Pouches, you'll discover many good reasons. Zinn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus, Zinn offers a robust rewards program. There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zinn. Check out Zinn.com slash find to find Zinn at a store near you. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Hey, I'm Dr. Z and I'm a neurosurgeon. So that means long hours, early rounds, late nights, and everything in between.

23:51And through it all, I wear figs. They're comfortable when it counts and functional when I need them the most. So where do you wear your figs? On shift, on call, on the couch in the break room listening to this podcast? Wherever it is, they fit right in. And now listeners of this podcast can get 15 % off their first order. Just head to wearfigs.com and use code FIGSRX at checkout. That's wearfigs.com, code FIGSRX.

24:18Okay, here's Kate Silverton, Alain de Botton and Zayn. the word naughty such an interesting word when you dive into it because the general um consensus i guess would be that it's when a kid is not doing what you want them to do if we're just cutting to the chase here and we have felt maybe as parents that it's our job to go no you will do what i've asked you to do and actually what you're saying is when a kid is being naughty quote on quote it's actually it's actually to do with their nervous system so talk to me about this and why a kid might be it could be having a tantrum shouting um being defiant refusing to do what you've asked them to do how does that relate to the nervous system sure so the nervous system all right so every animal has a defense response or a small number of defense responses that we've come to know as fight, flight, freeze, flop, faint, and there is fawn as well.

25:16And every animal has them. So if I am, if we were sitting in here now and suddenly somebody came banging on the door, our nervous system would immediately fire up and go into one of those defence responses. Can we fight? Can we flee? You know, or are we just going to sort of play dead? So our nervous system would get triggered and a whole neurochemical response happens. Now I explain this in the book that, and my brain thinks in a certain way, which is why I use this very visual analogy of these three animals in a tree. So we have a little lizard and that represents our brainstem cerebellum diencephalon, and it's connected to our nervous system.

25:57So the first thing that happens is, even as we're sitting here now, both of our nervous systems are like just tuning into each other in the environment if there was a loud noise your nervous system would immediately go up and I imagine that these messages go up to the little lizard he then goes oh there could be an emergency and then I imagine him running up and this is actually what happens in the brain but he runs up the baobab tree which is represented in my book that's the brain and tugs on the baboon's tail the baboon is the limbic system so this happens in a split second if your nervous system goes I don't like that it runs up the message comes to the lizard the lizard runs up the baboon then hits the amygdala which we all now know about the amygdala the brain's fear and processing emotions processing center and that's when you get this big neurochemical response that makes me and makes our children act in one of those ways fight flight freeze or faint you know you get children sort of just dropping to the floor flop um always in the worst places yes yes always in like the middle of a supermarket yeah and it's probably because it's in the middle of a supermarket so busy so noisy so our so we've got this ability now if something happened now and you and i would immediately process and think right actually maybe that's just the sound man coming in or whatever we quickly would be able to regulate and bring ourselves back but we'd still have a bit of a jolt but our children's brains are not fully developed so the regulatory part of the brain the bit that I call the wise owl that regulates and sort of says to the baboon and lizards, it's okay.

27:29It's just owl coming in from outside. It's all right. You know, they don't have that fully developed just yet. So when their nervous system gets triggered and it can get triggered by physical events like going in for world book day and maybe I'm going to get laughed at or a thought, you know, and if our children's nervous system gets triggered, it can get triggered by physical events so a loud bang in the middle of the night or the thought of something threatening going into world book day and wearing something that someone then laughs at them because our brain hasn't evolved to detect between physical threat and emotional threat so that's why our thoughts can feel as threatening and why we have anxiety so any of that baboon or lizard behavior is what we have then labeled naughty because you're not doing i just need you out the door in your world book day outfit because you're delaying my day just get out there and actually their nervous system is going shit this is dangerous this is scary and and actually our job is to just help them regulate their nervous system so they can learn to do it better as adults and what I liked about the analogy of the lizard baboon and owl is it isn't just something we're putting on the kids like that's what's going on in your brain it's also the same for us and you talk about leaving a stressful situation with your kids safely outside of a room putting your hands over your eyes and deep breathing to connect with your wise owl and to go come on wise owl don't let the baboon win because we all have it you know that's when we want to shout and go oh just stop doing what you're doing or whatever but actually that's not going to help them because then they're not learning how to regulate their nervous system it's so obvious but we're so messed up and we so we've just lost sight of this all together and that's why i think for me the visual because it It helps me.

29:13Yeah, it helps me. It's helped me massively, that one. Yeah. And if you think so, I talked to a lot of different colleagues around the world and one of them is Dr. Bruce Perry, who's amazing. He's sort of like my God when it comes to neuroscience. And I spoke to him and he said, well, Kate, you're absolutely right, because in the wild, baboons, there is something called a stress contagion. So if a baboon in the wild sees a leopard and he starts beating his chest because his stress response will be going, or the other baboons they might not have seen the leopard but they'll pick up on his stress so this is why if our children are stressed it can trigger our stress and then their stress and then but in in real life you just think of it as sort of stress contagion you think that's why I'm feeling fizzy because I'm embarrassed that I'm in the supermarket and my kids on the floor and everyone's going to be looking at me and so my baboon then starts going wild and then we're all in a mess.

30:05Yeah. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R ZINRK.com. Post a job for free and get started today. If you're a smoker or vapor ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with ZIN nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

30:48ZIN is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus, ZIN offers a robust rewards program. There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one ZIN. Check out ZIN.com slash find to find ZIN at a store near you. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Dr. India Woods here. As a veterinarian, I demand a lot of my scrubs on the job. That's why I show up in FIGS. FIGS are made for the sometimes crazy situations I find myself in. It doesn't matter if I have to squat, sit, bend, or even chase after one of my patients. FIGS moves with me and keeps me comfortable in the highest pressure situations.

31:27FIGS gives me one less thing to worry about. Get 15 % off your first order by visiting wearfigs.com and use code FIGSRX at checkout. That's wearfigs.com, code FIGSRX. Very few of us have enjoyed unconditional love, either in the present or in the past. But I think that, you know, it is an enormous gift. And I think we all know people who've enjoyed that love because I think you can tell they have a kind of buoyancy of the spirit, a resilience. and at some level they don't care too much what the world thinks. They're kind of able to have that sort of freedom of, you know, they'd like the world to think well of them, but if the world for whatever reason doesn't, they don't panic immediately.

32:10They don't need to go and kill themselves or create drama. And, you know, I mentioned suicide not, you know, as a throwaway comment. I mean, you know, suicide is often the result of someone who is so not able to be on their own side because they haven't had that experience of feeling sufficiently valuable. In order to feel valuable to ourselves, we first have to have felt really valuable to somebody else. It's a horrible dependence that we've all had on other people. And what I mean by horrible is that many of us don't get it. And if we don't, it's a lifetime's work to ever make up for it. And so the terrible fear of being self-indulgent that kicks in is normally reflective of not having been...

32:55that word indulgent is such a double-edged sword. What do we mean by indulgent? We started by talking about how people will declare something a luxury when actually it's not a luxury at all. It's a real necessity. And people will kind of falsely become stoic in some area and go, no, no, I've got no time to think about myself. I've got to go off and dig the garden or something. And actually you think, really? Really? Maybe you can reorient your priorities. So that ability to feel I can value myself enough to look after myself, I can value myself to endure the criticisms of others and the hatred of others, which is a universal experience.

33:37This is not a given. And it's an enormous gift to do it to somebody else and to have it done to one is one of the great gifts. And, you know, unfortunately, you get families where no one's experienced this. And so that's a perpetuating cycle where the whole concept of unconditional love is alien to everyone in the family. And so the children, but in by a bit from the parent, and then everybody thinks I'm only as good as and it could be all sorts of things. The latest sport result, the financial result, whatever it is. But the point is, it's an external locus evaluation, nothing internal. and that makes for a very fragile life because if you're constantly having to depend on others, you're so at the mercy of prevailing winds.

34:19You can't be very creative. I mean, we've seen so many people that I would deem extremely valuable to people en masse, like Robin Williams, who took his own life, but probably was valued by millions of people. So it shows it doesn't matter. It's not the volume of people that value you or how much they're valuing you. you've got to imbibe that somehow. And I guess for people that, you know, self-loathings just run alongside their life for a long time, it's very hard to get used to sort of going, I believe them and I value myself. It's a tricky skill to learn. Really tricky, really tricky. And it requires so much both, you know, contemporary here and now experience that contradicts that, that actually introduces someone to a different way of relating.

35:02Like imagine if I could love you in spite of whatever it is you think you have to do to be loved. And imagine having a contrary experience. You think it's only your latest paycheck that deems love. There is such thing, and we know it because we see it. There are people who love people irrespective of how much money they're earning, irrespective of how amazing they might be at science, at technology, at sport, or whatever it is. But we may not have had that experience. We may not have tasted love. I mean, if we really boil everything down, there is a shortfall of love in this world. And there's not enough love between family members.

35:43There's not enough transgenerational love. These deficits of love then create cruelty, which is meted out to others. And so we're in a constant sort of sadomasochistic compensation for an absence of love. That's shit. It's a big problem. It's a big problem. It's really not good. It's really not good. When you boil it down like that, I mean, you can see why we were in trouble globally and on a micro level. Of course, and it's the same thing. It's very simple. You know, those words sadism and masochism are absolutely key. You know, when there is a shortfall of love, you've got two options. When you are the victim of cruelty, you've got two options.

36:17Number one, the sadistic option, which is to go off and make somebody else unhappy. Right. And these are these are things we all do. Unfortunately, to become an emotional adult is to have a real handle on that and try, try and minimise that. but we proverbially kick the dog and kick anyone else who's in our way. Someone has evacuated something negative into us, we evacuate it into others in order to alleviate our things. That's the origin of bullying. It's the origin, the bullying child is always the child who's been bullied. They're just passing on. They're letting the world know what's happened to them.

36:47So it's a sort of transgenerational transfer of hurt. And then the other mechanism which is slightly better for the world but not much good for the individual is the masochistic response which is someone's hurt me and I'm going to treat myself like that hurtful person treating me. You will become your inner torturer. So you will call yourself a no good and, you know, a waster, et cetera, like you were called a no good and a no waster. And so you've got in your own head, your own worst enemy. And that makes for a miserable life too. So those sadistic and masochistic responses are, well, if we could get rid of that, we'd have a happy planet.

37:26Yeah. But, you know, the problem is that we've got such an accumulation of hurt. You know, we've been doing this for centuries. We've come from a very fearful place. There's so much fear in everybody's system and there's so much hurt. People talk about intergenerational trauma. It's there. You know, what we really mean is that we're all, we've all come through a world where there's been an immense amount of cruelty. being a dad and having this crazy career do you have to actively carve out this time to paint to cook to do the things that really help ground you yeah definitely um i have my daughter 50 % of the time so i have that luxury you know that like 50 % of the time she's not with me and i try to look at as a glass half full than a glass half empty um so in that time i get things done you know i get a bit of time to myself get to paint and do the things when she's in the house i'm sure you know from having your own kids.

38:17You can't do nothing. So I just... Father then, you know what I mean, from the minute she wakes up till she goes to sleep. You can't even have a wee. You can't do anything. No, you can't go to the toilet. No, don't be mad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I haven't had a wee on my own for years. 13 years. Yeah, it's impossible. Do you think that fatherhood has changed how you approach music, how you write? I think fatherhood's changed me in general. I think it's changed my approach to a lot of things in life. definitely developed a hell of a lot more patience oh my god for things you know it's the one thing that you just don't consider you don't think you've got to be patient you just think oh i'll figure it out it's like patience is number one is key yeah it's key so yeah that definitely has influenced me across the board you know and then the writing process i think any direct correlation to you know being a father is just like having a bit more depth to pull from you know when I'm talking about real life things like what was I gonna write a song about at 17 I just came out of school I did my A-levels you know I mean like I had nothing going on like I've lived some life now I've I have this love for this you know this other being that I never understood before and I don't have any fears or worries expressing that because it's such a good feeling and you know beautiful thing that I've been through and it I don't know it just feels like I want to share that with the world in a mature, fatherly way, you know?

39:44Are you the sort of dad you thought you were going to be? Because I thought I was going to be this really chilled mum. Yeah. Like, yeah, really cool about everything. I'm not. Yeah. Fact, I am not. Yeah, I thought I was going to be worse, stricter than I am. I had this whole thing, like, I'm not going to let my kids get away with this. They're not going to do that. She asked me to do this. I'm going to be like, no. And I do everything she asked me to do whenever she asked me to do it. So, yeah, I found myself in the moment. She's got you rather little finger. It's always the way, isn't it, though?

40:14But, my God, it's a trip. No one tells you anything that you actually need to know. It's all about these tiny details, and then you get into being a parent, and it's completely different. That's for sure. Obsessed that Zane is the exact opposite dad than the one he'd thought he'd be. I love that so much. And all of those stories and gems of information are brilliant. I wanted to share them with you again because they've really stuck with me over the years and I've thought about them all a hell of a lot. How does being a parent affect your mental state, I wonder, in either direction? And what are you aware of from your childhood that is still affecting you today?

40:52I love how much you lot are willing to share with me and our brilliant Happy Place community on Instagram. So come and find us. We're at Happy Place Official and we'll carry on chatting there. I'm back here soon but But in the meantime, a massive thanks again to Paloma Faith, Kate Ferdinand, Gabel Maté, Kate Silverton, Alain De Botton and Zayn. And to the producer, Anushka Tate at Happy Play Studios. And of course, to you. I hope you're getting your own summer break at some point. Big love.

41:58We'll be right back.

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