How Not to Live Through Our Kids

20:07Heidi Raykeil:like if you were going to be, you were training to be a ballet dancer. For a while, my daughter was in pretty serious training for ballet. And I was pretty into it. And she wanted to quit and she did quit. And it was definitely the right decision. But it was a little bit harder for me because I loved seeing her up on stage. She was good. It wasn't that she wasn't good. It wasn't that she couldn't do it. It was that she wasn't sure that this was a path that she wanted to continue down. And I could recognize myself like, oh, I like this a little too much. But the good part of it is that you're not jealous of them.

20:39Heidi Raykeil:I mean, I guess some parents would thwart their children's ambitions, but most of us like it a little too much that your daughter is Miss Golden Eagle and she's going to be in the front of the marching band at the football games this fall. It's exciting. It's exciting. It's good. And it did take a ton of labor on your part. Right. So, of course, you're investing in it. I think that goes back to your original point of you're supposed to invest in this. I mean, I think we were talking about it in terms of kids getting into college, right? That there has been, I think, rightfully some pushback to the idea that parents going on social media and, oh my gosh, and here's my kid who got into this great school.

21:19And people are like, well, you know, other kids are still struggling with this. It's a difficult kind of dilemma. But when we had this conversation before I had kids this age, I was very much like, oh, it's so annoying when the moms come on and are like, my kid got into Harvard. And you kind of feel like, OK, all right, lady. But now I have a kid going to college and you see how much work and effort goes into it. Right. You should be able to have a moment of pride. It's not your accomplishment. And I think there's a line where you cross over and you start to get the feeling of like, okay, you might be taking this accomplishment on as your own in a way that might not be totally healthy.

22:01But I do feel proud about what's going on with my kid in college and the amount of strenuous effort they've put in throughout their whole life guided by me. Exactly.

22:15Heidi Raykeil:So the line is what psychologists call ambition transference. there's a line and then there's a bad line so we're now we're just crossing the line into like maybe i'm taking this a little too seriously and not not dance mom's way like we're going to get to the dance moms and what that's about so we're just on the like maybe i care a little too much about who got the lead in the play that's more likely to occur when there is a shared interest or talent like for me and my kid who loves to do plays obviously that's a great shared interest i'm very invested in that it's more likely to happen when it's the same sex parent and kid yes like the dad cares more about the son's basketball career as a rule than the female parent would.

22:54Heidi Raykeil:And then there's another particular intensified version of ambition transference that occurs in kids whose parents were born outside the country or the community that they're in. You're getting the chance that I didn't have. I mean, talk about, it's one thing to drive you to ice practice, right? It's sunken cost fallacy, but it's like sunken cost reality for people too. We got on a boat and like I was a doctor. Now I drive a cab so that you could go to Harvard. That's right. And you are not getting a B. Right. Exactly. You can be compassionate for. I get it. I get that would be really important to me that my kid then achieve the thing that I didn't have.

23:31And also there is some reality in situations for kids where there's a tremendous amount of pressure. But realistically, if your parents sacrificed everything to come here and have you, they're financially also dependent on you making something happen. You know, I mean, it's not just let it go, mom. Like there are some actual realities in these situations that are not just, oh my gosh, stop living through your kid.

24:00Heidi Raykeil:So when I talk about the dance mom kind, like when it goes like too far, because I think that's very, it's kind of fun to make fun of it. It's easy to see in other people. Yes. Very easy to see in other people. So when it really goes over the line is when it becomes something called achievement by proxy distortion. Achievement by proxy distortion is a form of controlling behavior where parents or caregivers exploit a child's talent for their own social, emotional, or financial gain, often risking the child's well-being. Okay, so this is pretty far beyond what we've talked about so far. Common in youth sports or pageants, it involves objectifying the child to satisfy the parent's needs, not the child's needs.

24:40When I was in college, I was an intern briefly on a movie. Pat Conroy all over this episode. Shout out to Pat Conroy called The Prince of Tides, which was a movie, again, also kind of about his life, kind of about his life. Right. But it involved a scene where some very like disturbing violence happens to three very, very young kids. and I was in the casting office and one of my jobs was to explain, to go out and meet with the parents and say, I want you to understand that this scene is very disturbing and I want to give you the opportunity to read the sides. Obviously, it's going to be filmed in a very sensitive way, et cetera, et cetera.

25:24These were like little kids, like seven and under. But I want you to understand this is the nature of this part and if for any reason you or your child is uncomfortable, no judgments. Like, put the scenes down and walk out. And I remember thinking that what would happen is that everyone would leave. I mean, certainly I thought if this was presented to me, I would leave. And nobody left. I mean, every single parent was like, no, no, Janie is very mature. She can handle it. And And I was like, there's no one mature enough. I mean, it just it was jaw dropping. And I basically quit the job. I was like, yeah, I don't want to be doing this.

26:06Whatever this is, I don't want to be near it. And, you know, I understand from a filmmaker's point of view that there's a story to be told. But and they were doing the right thing. They weren't going to trick anybody into it. Yeah, they were definitely trying to say this is very graphic, disturbing and probably like a situation that your child does not. even understand. So how we're going to handle it. And I would be shaking going out to start to talk to these parents like, oh, my God, how am I going to explain it? And I could barely get two words out before the parents were like, not my Louie.

26:41He's very much. I was like, OK, it seemed to be

26:44Heidi Raykeil:more in this category. That would be achievement by proxy distortion. Yeah, I did a sitcom for about a year and a half. I did about 20 or 30 episodes that had kids on it. And so I worked pretty closely. Well, that's how I met Hilary Duff. That's right. Before she was famous. She was in it for a little while. Anyway, I saw this thing happen that in every case, the kid was in Hollywood with one parent while the other parent was back in Michigan, let's say, with the other kids going to high school. It's like the Britney Spears story. I was seeing this play out, but they were chasing the dream with this 11 year old and one parent in LA and the kid was making money.

27:28Yeah. A lot of money.

27:29Heidi Raykeil:A lot of money. Exactly. And so what the kid wants, they're tired and they have rules. So again, like Warner Brothers has rules about how many takes you can do before the kid needs a break, especially little ones. But the parents would be like, no, it's fine. No, it's fine. No, it's fine because they needed this to work and it went beyond it's important to me, which is definitely part of it to like, this has to work. So this psychologist, Dr. Martina Cartwright, she studied pageant moms in particular, which is definitely a brand of this. And she circled what she called distortions that lead to risky sacrifices, which is if anybody's watched Toddlers in Tiaras, that they mortgage their home to buy the outfits for Miss Southwest Sunburst.

28:11Heidi Raykeil:They rationalize that it's going to be worth it. And then of course, you know, watching that who cares if they're Miss Southwest Summers? That doesn't lead anywhere besides another big trophy, but the distortion has set in for the parents. I wanted to make that point when we were talking about this because it's easy to point at the parents and be like, what idiots, they don't care. They only care about this. What happens, I think, in many situations in parenting, but these are just very obvious examples, is that you take like six very well-meaning and well-reasoned steps on a road, and then it starts to get complicated.

28:47I had a situation where very randomly, my sister, Amy's compadre, is an actor in LA. And she sent at some point a casting notice for a kid who was like athletic and could whatever it was, gymnastic. It was just a funny description of my kid. Like, I mean, it couldn't have been more. And she didn't usually do this, but she was like, wow, this one part. She'd never done it before. She just said, Oh my gosh, this is my nephew. She sent it to me. I showed it to him. I said, be funny. Like, let's just, I just literally walked outside the front door, took a picture of his face. And I said, here's my kid.

29:28He does gymnastics, whatever the three things that were needed. He's at the time, I think 12 and they're looking for a 10 year old, but he looks, he's very, very young for his age. Sent it off. They call back. It turns out it's the lead role in a feature film. They call back. We want him to do a self tape. So he tapes, he sends it in. They send back. Is he available to film in October in South America, whatever this whole thing is. And it starts moving really, really fast. And I'm immediately like, well, I'm talking to some friend of mine in Hollywood about it. And I say, it's just moving fast.

30:05It's crazy. And I'm worried that he's going to just hit a growth spurt and he's not going to look 10 anymore. And the person said to me completely unironically, oh, they can give him hormones to like keep him looking 10 for a year. Like they would basically stunt his growth. And I thought, this is how it happens. You know, you think you're making a very small decision. And then the next thing you know, I'm giving my son hormone shots to retard his growth for a year so that he can be the lead in a movie. Because I've already signed the contract and I've written a million dollar check. And now I'm going to tell my kid, oh, by the way, we have to go home because I'm not going to let them give you a shot that stops you from.

30:44Listen, we never got close to that line, but it made me see how quickly you make a very innocent, fun decision. And the next thing you know, you're like, is it OK that my kid spends the night at Michael Jackson's house? Like, wait, what? Like, how did we get here?

31:02Heidi Raykeil:That's a really good point. And I think that it's easy to look at people and say, and I'm in a financial position where I'm not desperate for, I mean, I would love a million dollars, but you know what I mean? Like it was so innocent the way we started it. I hadn't banked on the money. It's just, it's not always parents' fault that these decisions go bonkers really quick. And by the way, the movie fell apart. It never happened. And he didn't get cast. We didn't have to make those decisions, but it just really helped me see how quickly life comes at you. All right, let's take a break. When we come back, let's figure out the right way for us to think about this in our more everyday situations and decisions.

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34:03And now, what we say we do versus what we really do. From the What Fresh Hell podcast. We're having a little birthday party for my daughter on Sunday.

34:14Heidi Raykeil:I've assembled a budget-friendly, yet hugely wondrous Harry Potter-themed party complete with magical gifts, food, and decor for 24 children that will feature simulated broom rides, pin the snitch on the Quidditch pitch games, and a butterbeer drinking contest. It should be a magical two hours that I've been working on for two months. Oh, I just tidied up the house this afternoon. For five straight hours, I completed three loads of laundry, deep-cleaned two bathrooms, did a complete changeover of three kids, seasonal clothing, ran the dishwasher, and vacuumed out the car. I think I've injured something in my back.

34:42Heidi Raykeil:But don't worry, I'll walk it off. My daughter is enjoying soccer. Six months ago, I started observing my kid at play, and I thought she'd be a great fit on the soccer team, so I researched a couple of options in the area and found a great AYSO team for her to join. I got her uniform measurements, signed her up, and got her medical forms completed. Also, a shop for cleats. And now, I get to spend my Saturdays sitting on a wet chair, watching her run in the wrong direction, and occasionally stopping to pick flowers. You know, it's really fun. We had a nice dinner last night. After several years of creating a culture of harmony at our dining table, we sat down to a meal that took me two hours to prepare after months of internet searches to discover a recipe that lays at the exact Venn diagrammable nexus of the eight items that everyone in my family will eat.

35:23Heidi Raykeil:I made sure that my kid who doesn't like mouth sounds or strange smells sat two seats away from my kid who likes mustard on everything, and the conversation cards I purchased last week kept everyone talking and laughing. Two of my kids said the meal was fine and one said it was yucky. I'm going to bed now and crying a little night-a-night. Tonight this has been what we say we do versus what we really do from the wet fresh hell podcast. So Wendy Mogul, we had her on the show a long friend of the podcast. Yes, we had her on and she was our first sort of dream guest. I've always loved her work. Like what if she came on the podcast?

35:53Heidi Raykeil:Yeah, you loved her. I mean, I also admired her, but you were like a Wendy Mogul stan. What if she would be on the show? So she wrote a book called The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, an amazing title. You know what this book is about. And she uses Talmudic wisdom and Jewish tradition to sort of get at parenting, which is a very interesting lens. I read The Blessing of a Skin Knee a long time ago, and the title of chapter two was Your Child is Not Your Masterpiece. And when I read that, I needed to put the book down and think about that for a day. Take a second. Boom. Boom. She says, and this again comes from the Torah, comes from the writings of the Talmudic wisdom that came before us, that our children are not here for us to shape.

36:37Heidi Raykeil:They are supposed to become something. There's something that God intends them to be in this way of thinking. And our job as parents is to shepherd them towards becoming all that God intends for them, but it's not what we intend for them. And she argues that when you try to impose your failed baseball dreams on your child, you're actually undermining what's intended for them and that your job is to keep them fed and safe and happy while they figure out what that is for themselves. Yeah, I mean, love it, Wendy Mogul. Easier said than done, as they say. I agree with it 100 % on paper, but my kid is right now doing the school play and I'm so invested in it.

37:20And if she were to come to me and say, I'm quitting the school play, I would say you can't. Grandma's coming to see you. I mean, that's a small example, but these decisions creep up on you, I feel like, in ways that you don't see coming.

37:37Heidi Raykeil:I guess I would argue if your kid is in the play and enjoying being in the play, we've talked about this in other episodes that we have, like, when do you let your kid quit, right? This is a kid who's finding a lot of joy in this and maybe comes home one day from rehearsal and had a discouraging rehearsal, the director yelled at them, the kids are being mean, whatever, and they want to quit, then I guess I would think, okay, like my child's not my masterpiece, but I do feel like this is what's intended for them, that they do this. This is a place of ease and joy for them. That is guidance to say you had a bad day, you've made a commitment, you have to stick with it versus, okay, and the school play leads to you getting headshots, and then we're going to go to the city, and then we're going to start auditioning for Broadway and guiding them versus driving the boat, I guess.

38:22Heidi Raykeil:Yes. And it's hard to know. Very hard to know. It's hard to find the line in that. We have friends whose daughter was an amazing tennis player and decided to, I mean, she played in college, but like could have gone maybe pro. And it sounds like, well, just don't choose that. That sounds hard. Don't do that. But this was a kid who her first tennis lesson, she was four or something. You know, anybody who ever saw this kid hold a tennis racket would stop what they were doing and said like, holy cow, look at this kid. Like it just was so visible to anybody who knew anything about the sport that her parents were like, OK, all right.

38:53Heidi Raykeil:I guess we can move the whole family to Florida, right? Bradenton, Florida, I bet. Yeah, right. And this kid isn't playing anymore except for fun. So I do think it's hard to know where that line is, but you can't force it. And you need to remember you need to keep in mind thinking again of toddlers and tiaras. Like how many times is there on some kid? There was some famous clip of a kid being fed like pixie sticks. Like she was crying and she didn't want to do it anymore. She didn't want to do the second ballroom part or whatever it was. And the mom was letting her, insisting that she mainline several pixie sticks, which are just like straws full of sugar, full of sugar, full of like food dye.

39:29Heidi Raykeil:So she could get through it. She didn't want to, but she needed to. And that's right. I think that the line is when our kids say, in my own case, when my child was like, I don't want to do ballet anymore. And I was sort of like, what do you mean? And what do you think? Maybe you just take something. maybe you only go two days a week. Why? The kid doesn't want to do it anymore. And I realized that there was some symbolic self-completion happening that I needed to check in myself. And I think with everything we talk about, it's not a series of doors. It's a series of hallways or paths. And you can get lost sometimes.

40:04And then you got to either double back or find the other path. Like these aren't, I think sometimes we feel like I have to choose the door of what I want or let my kid quit. And that's it. Look at the Alyssa Lou story. Like she quit, she came back and she did it. I think sometimes these decisions feel extremely heavy and two pieces of that. One is you can always go back to one. And then the other one, this is how we tend to approach these issues, and I've talked about it with my kids, and we talk about it all the time because I say it all the time because I love this advice. Say yes until you have to say no can be okay too.

40:48So I would say, yes, we'll go take your picture and send it into the casting agent. Okay, they came back and they said they want you to read. No harm in that. Okay, we'll go in the backyard and you can pretend to be cold and I'll tape it and I'll send it in. But understand that this is a process of always saying yes until we have to say no. And when they decide they're pulling out the hormone shot, that's a no. So we are saying yes, but that doesn't commit us to the end of the line. It just commits us to the next stop on the train. And then at that stop, we'll say, oh, you want to shave his head?

41:27Hmm. Let's think about that. It might be a yes. It might be a no. It's probably a yes, but like it just helps the decision making of I used to always joke with my kid who was a very good gymnast as a little kid. You can be as good a gymnast as I have to get up early on Saturday mornings or drive you far away. Like I'm not putting you on the travel competitive team or whatever. I'm not giving up my weekends to sit for eight hours. And if you had another mom, maybe you would have gone to the Olympics. But it's not my thing. I don't want to do it.

42:00Heidi Raykeil:I don't know. I guess I feel like if the universe really intended for that kid to be an Olympian, they would find their way. It would have happened or you would have had 18 people calling you at home like you don't understand. And maybe you still would have said no, but you would have gotten more, more pushback. No, and I think that's right. It can be kind of facile. But I think that having the perspective when you start a journey to be like, let's look for the stops on the train where we can make decisions. So we're not just being carried along by something to a place we're not sure we want to go.

42:32Dr.

42:33Heidi Raykeil:Martina Cartwright said this about achievement by proxy distortion when you sort of lose perspective. She says that this happens when the gains of your children become your primary goals. They're not your kids' primary goals anymore, or maybe they are, but you're forgetting to check that. You've lost sight of your kids' goals and your goals being something that are different. You're not taking your stops on the train to check in and see what's going on. Right. And your goal is your kids' gains. That's not, I want what my kid wants. It's, I want my kid to get ahead and that's all I care about. I think it's a place where, yeah, you can get a little lost sometimes.

43:09Heidi Raykeil:For sure. Going back to like the palm trees in the fourth grade gym, like that is different. That is something that is labor that's being asked to be by the school. The school is announcing it's this event and you're making it fun and then you're being made fun for making it fun. That's different. That is not this. No, but I think it's worth circling back to that example, too, and saying there's a difference between living through your kids and doing and being asked to do and doing competently the invisible labor that makes our current systems run, you know? Right. And so relax. Why are you always so uptight?

43:46Well, because I have a sick parent and a kid who needs to get to school and 800 things that I'm being asked to do. And they're, you know, glass balls, rubber balls, which can you let drop? None of them. I guess I can't. I think that finding worth in your work and noticing the worth of other mostly women's work is really useful as well. That it's okay to be like, Amy, congratulations that your kid got into college. I know that that took a lot of effort from you. It's not an indictment of me. It's to say, listen, yes, your kid did it. It's not your achievement, but it is partly your achievement.

44:31And that's fine. I mean, I've heard people say at first birthday parties, it's the party for the mom. Totally. You made it through the first year. Once around the track. Yeah, like you did it. And I think that we should absolutely resist the story that that work is meaningless. And in fact, the pursuit of that work is embarrassing or to be judged because the system that we work on right now is that the invisible labor of women makes our school systems run. Whether that's a teacher who's going out after the end of the day and going to Staples to buy crayons or to help tutor a kid who needs extra help for free or whatever these mostly female teachers are doing in elementary school.

45:20or moms who are creating nutrition programs, after-school programs, throwing really cool parties that our kids will always remember as they graduate elementary school, that you can goof on those parents, as I admittedly sometimes have, and be like, wow, they're really into, you know, the junior prom committee or whatever, taking it way too seriously. But if you or your child is benefiting from that labor, it's worth just checking in with that and realizing that like, oh, you're so extra, but like you're benefiting from it.

46:01Heidi Raykeil:Can I give you a little more Wendy Mogul advice as my takeaway from this? Always, always up for a little more Wendy Mogul. Again, this is ancient Talmudic wisdom that she sort of puts in for parenting. So this is the Talmudic wisdom is that you have two pieces of paper in your pockets, one on each pocket, each side. One scrap of paper is written, the world was created for me. And on the other scrap of paper, you write, I'm a speck of dust. So you have to hold both of those in your hand at the same time. I'm incredibly important and I'm not important at all. And so she says, keep that in mind for your children that one piece of paper says, my kid is the most incredible kid that has ever lived in the whole world.

46:43Heidi Raykeil:And in the other one, my kid is a speck of dust. Yeah. That the eighth grade play is just that. And the worlds in figure skating are just that. We're all just specks of dust and try to maintain perspective and not let it be more important to you than it is to your kid. And I think what I really learned in this episode is especially the bigger it gets and the more things are pulling you forward. Think about those stops on the train. Where are the times where you're saying like, my kid is amazing at tennis. She's naturally so gifted. Everyone recognizes it. She's had it since she was little. We've put in thousands of hours into her tennis career.

47:24But it's okay to go for something hard. It's okay to like take that leap, but just make sure you're always making decisions that you're never just like on a boat that is carrying you towards something that, I mean, we say it all the time too. You look at all of these stories. My kid is going to be this great child actor. When you look at statistically, that story doesn't turn out well. Right. You haven't seen that turnout. I remember I've told this story before. I think that we were watching one of the royal weddings. I think it was Kate and William. And one of my younger cousins was like, oh, she's the luckiest girl in the world.

48:00And I said, statistically, that doesn't prove out. I don't think that's true that she's the luckiest girl in the world. So just like really checking in to say, is this still what we want? Is this what we thought it was when we started this journey? Holding it a little bit more lightly helps your child hold it a little bit more lightly. You solved it. solved. You don't always say that anymore, but it's just so evidently that one was solved. We can put this one away, guys. We know exactly how not to live through our kids, but how to celebrate the enormous amount of work we actually do for our kids.

48:36Heidi Raykeil:That's right. Both can be true. Done and dusted. If you listen to this on Spotify, leave us a comment. Tell us what you thought of the episode. It'll help Spotify realize they're supposed to share our episodes to more people. little surface it. And you can always share this episode right where you're listening. If it's not on Spotify, hit the little, you know, square with the arrow coming out of it. That's the share button. Send it. Send it to your sister. Send it to your friends. Send it to somebody. I thought this was a good conversation. We would love that. It would really help us find more listeners.

49:04And with that, we'll talk to you next time. Thanks for listening.

49:07Heidi Raykeil:Thanks, everybody.