Speaker 1: Hey, fam, I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Speaker 1: Red Table Pop podcast all your favorite episodes from the
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Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts. Do you have a difficult relationship with
Speaker 1: your mother? I just learned a new term, and I
Speaker 1: know it will help so many of us mother hunger.
Speaker 1: Meet the trauma psychotherapist who says there are three critical
Speaker 1: things every daughter requires from her mother. If these needs
Speaker 1: aren't met, the effects can be devastating. I used to
Speaker 1: hold a lot of shame in thinking that I was
Speaker 1: too emotional. When I was going through my second divorce.
Speaker 1: I went to my mother and how was her response
Speaker 1: to you? I started drinking when I was fourteen, Tanico,
Speaker 1: Were you ever told I love you? My thing was
Speaker 1: just not having protection. That's my biggest wound that comes
Speaker 1: out in all my relationships. Those women that you see
Speaker 1: and you think are so strong, there's this terrified little
Speaker 1: girl underneath and that's me. Oh mother, Well, this is
Speaker 1: a nice mother daughter, field coordinated, and you are as
Speaker 1: bright as the sun. I'm a walking or go maker.
Speaker 1: I thought I would bring this flower as just continuously
Speaker 1: remembering how beautiful we all are on our journey of healing.
Speaker 1: A friend gave me this book and it has been
Speaker 1: eye opening. We all have mother wounds. We all do.
Speaker 1: After years of working with patients, trauma psychotherapist Kelly McDaniel
Speaker 1: witnessed a frequent pattern of harmful behaviors and women, which
Speaker 1: he traced back to mother hunger. I just want to
Speaker 1: take the time and just say thank you. You're welcome. So, Kelly,
Speaker 1: you say that there are three critical pillars of mother hunger. Yes, nurture,
Speaker 1: into protection, and then guidance. Okay. Nurturance is everything that
Speaker 1: involves eye contact. Little girls are little communication machines. Baby
Speaker 1: girls are worn starving for their mother's eyes. Wow. So
Speaker 1: that's part of nurturing. Touch, holding, cradling. The more we
Speaker 1: hold our babies, it literally grows their brain. I was
Speaker 1: obsessed with cuddling ass and unfortunately many times babies are
Speaker 1: left too long, often in a stroller, when all they
Speaker 1: want is the constant touch and holding. So touch deprivation
Speaker 1: that comes from forcing independence, which really started back in
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties with a behaviorist who thought we could
Speaker 1: train train babies like we trained dogs right in leading behaviorists,
Speaker 1: Dr John B. Watson conducted one of the most controversial
Speaker 1: experiments ever to prove that babies could be trained like animals.
Speaker 1: He used a series of highly unethical tests on a
Speaker 1: baby nickname Little Albert. This baby, known as Little Albert,
Speaker 1: initially found delight in touching a rabbit. Yet as Watson
Speaker 1: began to claim and steel rod and claw hammer behind
Speaker 1: the child's head whenever he touched the creature, the reaction
Speaker 1: became not one of delight, the terror. Watson then created
Speaker 1: what he claimed was the full proof parenting method. The basics.
Speaker 1: Never hug your child, never let them sit in your lap,
Speaker 1: shake hands to greet in the morning. A pat on
Speaker 1: the head is allowed if they've done an extraordinarily good job,
Speaker 1: and to get them to sleep, baby should be left
Speaker 1: alone to cry it out. At that time, Watson was
Speaker 1: extremely popular. He was the president of the American Psychological
Speaker 1: Association and wrote a best selling parenting book that continues
Speaker 1: to influence generations of parents and pediatricians whoa that doesn't
Speaker 1: really work. I mean it works because babies will adapt,
Speaker 1: but they will be starving and deprived underneath for touch,
Speaker 1: and that deprivation is easily transferred into kneeding and wanting
Speaker 1: more sex, because that's one way we get touched, needs met. Right,
Speaker 1: that makes so much sense. The next one is protection.
Speaker 1: We're hunters and gatherers, so in the days of living
Speaker 1: on the land, if you left a baby alone unattended,
Speaker 1: that's going to be a dead baby, right, I mean
Speaker 1: if they cry and alert an animal or a predator.
Speaker 1: So mothers didn't let their babies cry. They kept them
Speaker 1: in a sling near the breast where they could always
Speaker 1: feed and always be safe. So babies really aren't designed
Speaker 1: to think, no matter how cute that nursery is, I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to be in a crib. That's scary. Yeah. Babies,
Speaker 1: unfortunately get labeled. Oh she was a difficult baby. Well
Speaker 1: what made her difficult? Well she cried a lot. Oh
Speaker 1: so she wanted you, and so anythink we really have
Speaker 1: to turn around what this good baby thing is? All
Speaker 1: babies are born good. Yeah. And you can't spoil a baby. No, no,
Speaker 1: And I love that you brought that up, because the
Speaker 1: definition of spoil is to leave something on a shelf
Speaker 1: to rock. So we spoil our babies when we leave
Speaker 1: them alone too long. What we know now is if
Speaker 1: you leave your infants alone too long, you're creating neediness. Exactly.
Speaker 1: I never had them in a crib in a room
Speaker 1: by themselves. They slept with We were obsessed. I love
Speaker 1: that co sleeping is what we are wired for. We
Speaker 1: come into the world expecting to stay close during sleep,
Speaker 1: and when we separate mom and baby for long hours
Speaker 1: during the night, we're really looking at creating a separation anxiety.
Speaker 1: That's where mother hunger begins. So anyway, the nurturing protection
Speaker 1: are the two most primitive parts baby girls, baby boys.
Speaker 1: Everyone needs that. Where things change a bit is as
Speaker 1: we move into adolescence. Little girls are still looking to
Speaker 1: their mother's for guidance, which is the third pillar. Little boys,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, may then at that point, yeah,
Speaker 1: look to the world of men. Not that boys don't
Speaker 1: want to be proud of their mother, I don't want
Speaker 1: to minimize that at all, but girls really are still
Speaker 1: going to stay connected. When Willow was becoming a young woman,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, no, I want her to know
Speaker 1: I'm her person to guide her through her emotional development,
Speaker 1: her physical sexual development, her everything sexual. In the physical development,
Speaker 1: I always felt so like open and and accepted because
Speaker 1: you never made me feel like you hadn't been through something.
Speaker 1: And I feel like a lot of moms want to
Speaker 1: keep this kind of like picture perfect look of themselves,
Speaker 1: even to their own daughter. Well, sometimes I think some
Speaker 1: women have a lot of shame from around. There was
Speaker 1: so much taboo around back there. But I understand too
Speaker 1: for me what my mother's experienced where us. So she
Speaker 1: was just trying to keep me from making the mistakes
Speaker 1: that she were trying to keep me from making mistakes
Speaker 1: that you made. And I decided to bring you close
Speaker 1: to show you that you didn't have to deal with
Speaker 1: our misguidance and over protection. I love that you mentioned
Speaker 1: over protection though, because as women, we all know what
Speaker 1: it's like to walk down the street and have our
Speaker 1: car key ready out right. We're wired to know we
Speaker 1: could be in danger. We're going to overprotect our daughters.
Speaker 1: You don't want to send your daughter out there unprepared.
Speaker 1: So the pillars, my thing was just not having protection.
Speaker 1: That's my biggest wound that comes out in all my relationships.
Speaker 1: And I've looked for craziest kinds of protection, and I
Speaker 1: don't have a really good sense of like what's safe
Speaker 1: and what's not. I'm either extremely protective or extremely defensive.
Speaker 1: And I tell you why, the environment. It was my addiction.
Speaker 1: She found her security through my mother, right, But mommy
Speaker 1: died when Jada was thirteen. When mommy died, that's when
Speaker 1: my addiction really took off. That's a really important time
Speaker 1: to feel secure and safe. That's when your womanhood starts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's when she lost her security. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 1: my mother was her backbone and her house was safe, right,
Speaker 1: And so once she was gone, there was no safety.
Speaker 1: So then I went into the world and created my
Speaker 1: own safety. And that was crazy. So I had to
Speaker 1: deal with a lot of stressful adult things at a
Speaker 1: young age. I didn't have the ability to deal with
Speaker 1: the emotions that were coming with it. I just had
Speaker 1: to buck up. And so those women that you see
Speaker 1: and you think are so strong, there's this terrified little
Speaker 1: girl underneath, Yeah, that's me. Yeah. Yeah, I mean this
Speaker 1: is why we do the word part of the journey.
Speaker 1: You know, Willow, do you have any understanding of your
Speaker 1: mother hunger yet? Obviously I was so supported throughout my
Speaker 1: entire childhood, but there were definitely times where you had
Speaker 1: trouble looking at your anxiety and your hurt, and so
Speaker 1: when I was trying to be open about mine, there
Speaker 1: was no room for that at the time, like a
Speaker 1: lack of emotional support exactly. That's kind of how I
Speaker 1: was raised, and that's how I raised her. It was
Speaker 1: like toughen up up. Yeah, I used to hold a
Speaker 1: lot of shame in thinking that something was wrong with
Speaker 1: me or I was too emotional, I had problem. But
Speaker 1: then when I asked you, like, I want to know
Speaker 1: you as Jada, Like I don't want to just know
Speaker 1: you as my mom, And we started opening up that conversation,
Speaker 1: and I had learned more about her childhood and the
Speaker 1: kind of environment that you grew up, and I was like, obviously,
Speaker 1: me being a bleeding heart at every turn is gonna
Speaker 1: look extremely dangerous. Of course, like that makes all the
Speaker 1: sense to me. Well it's just foreign totally. But now
Speaker 1: I'm an adult and I still come to you all
Speaker 1: the beautiful But even my girlfriends, like I know some
Speaker 1: of their mothers have this idea of like you turned
Speaker 1: eighteen and yeah, I don't need to deal anymore, and
Speaker 1: they're like, but but this is the moment when I
Speaker 1: actually need like your real wisdom. I love that you're
Speaker 1: saying that because it speaks to what I've noticed in
Speaker 1: the years of working with women. We never outgrow our
Speaker 1: desire for our mother, especially when we go through developmental milestones.
Speaker 1: I remember when I was going through my second divorce
Speaker 1: because the first one didn't really count divorce. I went
Speaker 1: to my mother and how was her response to you,
Speaker 1: m She kind of wanted to know what I did exactly,
Speaker 1: What did you do wrong? What did I do? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And that was that generation, wasn't it that if there's
Speaker 1: a divorce, that had have been something you did wrong,
Speaker 1: thing that I did. I'm sorry. Yeah. So for me
Speaker 1: the pillars, it wasn't protection. It was a bit of nurturing.
Speaker 1: And then I was the youngest of four. I needed
Speaker 1: more touch and cuddling and that didn't happen. And then
Speaker 1: there was the over protection with the guidance of just
Speaker 1: having in her mind how she wanted things to be
Speaker 1: yea and her expectations, and when it came to sex,
Speaker 1: trying to scare you out all yeah, you know, and
Speaker 1: everything is dirty. She guided me. Her mother taught me
Speaker 1: everything about sex in a way that was helpful. Yes,
Speaker 1: you were okay with your mother helping Jada with her
Speaker 1: with sexual guidance. I didn't know that's how it goes.
Speaker 1: I would have been okay with it had I know,
Speaker 1: just the fact that she didn't feel the need to
Speaker 1: inform me another of but that was also probably her
Speaker 1: ownership of you, like Adrian, her mother, but she's my responsibility,
Speaker 1: you know. It was funny. Gam did show up at
Speaker 1: some really pivotal moments. The day to day guidance was
Speaker 1: really not great, but when they came to some real
Speaker 1: life changing experiences, whether I'm going to stay in college
Speaker 1: or go to law school, she was like, Oh, no,
Speaker 1: you meant to We're going to Hollywood girl. You know
Speaker 1: what mother tells that. Yeah. I was gorgeous guidance because
Speaker 1: I felt all the confidence in the world. Because if
Speaker 1: she had said to me everything else that other people
Speaker 1: were telling me, like that's a waste of time, you
Speaker 1: need to stay in school, my mother was like, Oh no,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go to California and we're gonna figure this out. Okay,
Speaker 1: didn't you feel like you can do anything? Exactly? So
Speaker 1: it was moments like that got into some real difficulty.
Speaker 1: In Baltimore. She got me got and she was like,
Speaker 1: pack your right now, get in this car. And so
Speaker 1: that put me on the trajectory that I needed. I
Speaker 1: feel like you saw her in a way that no
Speaker 1: parent just says that to a child if they don't
Speaker 1: see something special in them that they're like, Okay, there's
Speaker 1: a spark there that I don't feel like it's gonna
Speaker 1: get ignited in a courtroom. Yeah. Well, you know what.
Speaker 1: There was another time to gam when I was in
Speaker 1: Italy by myself, and I called you because remember when
Speaker 1: the valet said to me, I have a boat. I'm
Speaker 1: going to take you out today, and I'm thinking in Italy,
Speaker 1: I'm Twinny exactly. So I called my Mother's like, Mom,
Speaker 1: the valet wants to take me on this boat. She said, well,
Speaker 1: first ball, if he has a boat, what's he doing
Speaker 1: parking cars? And second of all, you are not getting
Speaker 1: on no boat with nobody. If something happens to you,
Speaker 1: nobody's gonna hear you. You're gonna be in the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere, do not Jada. And I said, oh snap, mom,
Speaker 1: you're right so good. And let me tell you, because
Speaker 1: I was about to get on that boat, how old
Speaker 1: were you? I was twenty? Say, still need a mom
Speaker 1: that's beautiful and speaks to the bond, even though the
Speaker 1: bond had been through periods of times that were had
Speaker 1: broken points. A daughter always wants her mother, yes, and
Speaker 1: if a mother is ready to receive and be there,
Speaker 1: then there's always time for repairing. Because for all why now,
Speaker 1: I could have been traffic, you could have been straight
Speaker 1: up because they knew I was alone. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I think to that day, I'm like, she saved my
Speaker 1: life again because both of the pivotal the pivotal moments
Speaker 1: with you guys. Another moment for me was when you
Speaker 1: asked me to go to Australia with you. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: when I got the matrix and I literally just had Willow.
Speaker 1: We were going to be in Australia for like a
Speaker 1: year and a half and I called my mom and
Speaker 1: I was like, I need some help. And I did
Speaker 1: not hesitate, I did not have a conversation with my
Speaker 1: husband at the time. She asked me, and I immediately
Speaker 1: said absolutely because I knew that it was an opportunity
Speaker 1: for us to heal. There was this healing and watching
Speaker 1: her gift to them what we didn't have, but we
Speaker 1: were having it through them. What a beautiful way to
Speaker 1: step in and read Mother Jada as you helped. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Jaden, she had them both. The book was really
Speaker 1: helpful in me seeing how I was able to change
Speaker 1: for you, because one of the things that was so missing,
Speaker 1: and my relationship with my mother and with Jada was
Speaker 1: just touched very rarely. And I even touch, yeah, hug,
Speaker 1: and if we do, it's awkward. It's because we didn't
Speaker 1: hug in our family. We knew we were loved, but
Speaker 1: it just wasn't that kind of nurturing touch. And you
Speaker 1: remember how you always wanted to cuddle and sleep with
Speaker 1: us and you let me sleep with you, but that
Speaker 1: was different for her. She and it felt so good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it felt so good to be able to have that
Speaker 1: and I never had it when I had it with you.
Speaker 1: Then I missed it with Jada. I realized how much
Speaker 1: I missed with her. But then here's the thing, here's
Speaker 1: the beauty of it, how it was able to change.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing. That's what this is all about,
Speaker 1: is trying to break the pattern and the totally so
Speaker 1: entertainment reporter Tunika Ray says the concept of mother hunger
Speaker 1: socked her to her soul. Nika hosted extra for seven years.
Speaker 1: She says, growing up in the affluent suburb of Brentwood,
Speaker 1: California didn't exempt her from having severe mother hunger. The
Speaker 1: way I was mothered was unsatisfactory. My mother and I
Speaker 1: just don't speak the same language. We don't agree on
Speaker 1: the sky color. We don't agree on anything. Her thing is,
Speaker 1: We'll forget it. I just won't ever give you advice again.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, mom, whatever. My cries for help were ignored, criticized,
Speaker 1: and others. When you have an emotional child that needs
Speaker 1: to be heard, it's dangerous. I learned at such a
Speaker 1: young age not to depend on her. But when I
Speaker 1: had a child, that's when this like ghost voice comes
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. No, just stop, Oh God, why am
Speaker 1: I using that voice? That aggressive voice that that then
Speaker 1: made me coward? My daughter said to me at age six, Mommy,
Speaker 1: why don't you and Grammy hug? Broke my heart? A
Speaker 1: Appearances are really important to my family, but there was
Speaker 1: no intimacy or love in the house. And I always
Speaker 1: call myself a survivor because I was. And I don't
Speaker 1: want to cry, but I was so depressed. I started
Speaker 1: drinking when I was fourteen. In it. So I want
Speaker 1: to make sure that I don't have that my daughter
Speaker 1: trying to escape me going forward, and that she knows
Speaker 1: that I'm a safe space. Wow. Thank you, thank you
Speaker 1: for your testimony, thank you for having me. I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful for this book. I've been really proficient at putting
Speaker 1: all these feelings away, but I guess God felt like
Speaker 1: this was the time for me to finally face this crap.
Speaker 1: I have been a fountain, a waterfall of tears, and
Speaker 1: so I'm going to try to keep it together. But
Speaker 1: what I realized, thinking I had eating disorders, that I
Speaker 1: have a problem with love and receiving it, that I
Speaker 1: had all these things that I needed therapy for. The
Speaker 1: nugget at the center is this mother hunger, because our
Speaker 1: first experience of love comes from her touch and how
Speaker 1: she feeds us. So food is our first experience of love.
Speaker 1: When I work with women with mother hunger, there are
Speaker 1: food troubles. What we start with is just whichever hurts
Speaker 1: the most. Tanika, your acknowledgement that you your parents were
Speaker 1: very giving as far as material things, that doesn't soothe
Speaker 1: our need for love. Material things doesn't do it. I've
Speaker 1: had so much shame in my life because why do
Speaker 1: I have any space to talk about my issues. I
Speaker 1: grew up with things and to have the life experiences
Speaker 1: that I have. How dare I have even a moment
Speaker 1: of complaint about not receiving love? So that has kept
Speaker 1: me quiet and really just kept the pain cycling and
Speaker 1: just getting darker and uglier. Right, I really really just
Speaker 1: relate to what you just said. I feel like, let
Speaker 1: the tears come because that internal we've just been holding
Speaker 1: so hard for so frozen. That really hit me when
Speaker 1: you called it that, Like I'm thawing out, yeah, because
Speaker 1: I'm always crying to Tana defrost de frost. What's interesting though,
Speaker 1: mother hunger weights, and it waits, and it is frozen
Speaker 1: grief until there's enough support that it can thaw. Our
Speaker 1: body knows what we can handle in what we can't,
Speaker 1: and if our life is too difficult, this won't come up.
Speaker 1: But I think that's part of the reason why, you know,
Speaker 1: a little bit of that emotional nurturance wasn't there with
Speaker 1: us and my child, absolutely because you didn't feel safe
Speaker 1: enough to thaw. At that time. I was looking at
Speaker 1: you like, how dare you wrong? It's wrong? You've got
Speaker 1: everything not knowing that the very essential things she needed
Speaker 1: was frozen in you. It was frozen and in me, Tanico,
Speaker 1: Were you ever told I love you? Never? It's one
Speaker 1: percent so painful to think about. Considering that I have
Speaker 1: my own daughter, that's a whole other type of pain.
Speaker 1: And my grandmother, my mother's mother, died unexpectedly when my
Speaker 1: mother was two months away from delivering me. So there's
Speaker 1: grief as well as trauma. I was born into grief
Speaker 1: and sadness. I tried to talk to my mom about
Speaker 1: these things and I said, you must have been really
Speaker 1: sad when I was born. No, I was fine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she can't access it. That's so core to mother hunger
Speaker 1: that you brought up shame. Here's how our brains work
Speaker 1: as little girls. If our mother is somehow compromised, she's traumatized,
Speaker 1: and therefore she can't care for us. The message we
Speaker 1: get isn't something wrong with mom. The message we get
Speaker 1: is something's wrong with me that she can't love me.
Speaker 1: We don't never stop loving her, we just don't learn
Speaker 1: to love us. And that is the shame that's core
Speaker 1: and mother hunger. Yeah, is there any benefit to Tanika
Speaker 1: sitting down with her mom? It's pretty rare to have
Speaker 1: a group like this of mothers and daughters. They could
Speaker 1: actually sit and have this conversation. I don't generally encourage
Speaker 1: going to her mother because sometimes that leads to another disappointment,
Speaker 1: maybe a fresh rejection, and it's very, very risky, which
Speaker 1: is why I think it's important that we come up
Speaker 1: with who our celestial mother is. The mother we create,
Speaker 1: is the mother that adores us, wanted us, who we admire.
Speaker 1: And you may actually think of a woman that you know,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, yeah, I wish my mom were like that.
Speaker 1: You create that mother, and that's who you cry to,
Speaker 1: that's who you talk to, that's who you pray to,
Speaker 1: that's who you curl up with at night and say
Speaker 1: thanks for keeping me alive today. Right. I think when
Speaker 1: you realize what was lost. Did I miss out on nurturing,
Speaker 1: did I miss out on protection? Or maybe it was guidance,
Speaker 1: we go replace those things ourselves. We are the mother now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have two girls. You've got your daughter, and you
Speaker 1: have your little girl inside of you that so needs
Speaker 1: you too. So if you can extend the same yummy nous,
Speaker 1: the nurturing, the safety and the guidance, for you that
Speaker 1: you're giving her. That's going to help a lot heal
Speaker 1: what you didn't have. When you don't have the mother
Speaker 1: that you wished you had the only thing you have
Speaker 1: left to do is to mother yourself. That's right, You're
Speaker 1: already a cycle breaker because you are aware. And I
Speaker 1: can say this that every bit of you that you
Speaker 1: heal your daughter inherits. You don't have to say a word.
Speaker 1: I know you got this beautiful, shining heart of yours
Speaker 1: every day. Yeah, thank you, thank you for sharing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the no, Tanka's mother's going to see this, and I
Speaker 1: want to Nika and her mother to know that we
Speaker 1: have compassion for whatever she hadn't been given because she
Speaker 1: has a story. Every mother is first a daughter, Yes,
Speaker 1: every mother is first. A daughter is deep. I've always
Speaker 1: wanted to have a table and find information where people
Speaker 1: could have a guidance towards healing. And your book is
Speaker 1: that for the mother daughter relationship. But I also think
Speaker 1: for sons. You know, when I was reading this, I
Speaker 1: thought about Trey and Jaden, you know, and I thought
Speaker 1: about you know, their mother hunger was and I was like, oh, snap,
Speaker 1: yeah that's also real too. Thanks for bringing that up.
Speaker 1: All right, we have twenty five year old Katrice. She
Speaker 1: has a deep case of mother hunger. Katri says she's
Speaker 1: feeling hopeless and has struggled with low self esteem most
Speaker 1: of her life. Growing up, she didn't know her biological
Speaker 1: father and her mother was battling with a crack addiction.
Speaker 1: My mom she depended on my stepdad for financial reasons,
Speaker 1: and when he passed bay it was really really hard
Speaker 1: and like we couldn't afford to really live where we live.
Speaker 1: I kind of held that against her, and I felt like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe she should have, you know, gotten her life together.
Speaker 1: Katri says her life has been racked with instability. When
Speaker 1: I was in college, I actually had to go to
Speaker 1: therapy because I had like crippling anxiety about leaving college
Speaker 1: because it was such a safety net for me. I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I have an apartment and I have
Speaker 1: food here. When I graduate, I'm scared that I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna go home and I'm gonna have to take care
Speaker 1: of people and not live my life. She says she's
Speaker 1: learning to heal from the resentment she feels toward her mother.
Speaker 1: I'm realizing like she overcame an addiction. She might just
Speaker 1: need a hug and for someone to tell her like
Speaker 1: they're proud of her. Wow. Yeah, welcome to the table.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys for opening up this space to just
Speaker 1: be vulnerable and talk about these hard things because it's
Speaker 1: new for me. Yeah, something that so deeply touched me
Speaker 1: when you said sometimes she just needs to hug. What
Speaker 1: about you who gives you a hug and says I'm
Speaker 1: so proud of you. Look at you. You're in your
Speaker 1: mid twenties and you're doing all this. Yeah, I learned
Speaker 1: like over the years too kind of give that to myself.
Speaker 1: I was oftentimes just trying to satisfy my mom growing
Speaker 1: up and doing things that would stand out to make
Speaker 1: her proud. And me and my mom kind of butted
Speaker 1: heads growing up a lot in terms of that because
Speaker 1: I needed that and she was this strong woman who
Speaker 1: dealt with her issues just by like keeping it moving,
Speaker 1: and I was more of a person who wanted to,
Speaker 1: like cry it out. I wanted to and she was using,
Speaker 1: you know, deal with like she was like and got
Speaker 1: things to do. We don't have time for all life.
Speaker 1: Let's go. Yeah, we come from that too, so but now, yeah,
Speaker 1: my mom have to work on our relationship, you know,
Speaker 1: because I've been kind of facing issues with wanting to
Speaker 1: have my own children somethday and it's like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be in a cycle of causing trauma to
Speaker 1: my future kids. So I've had a lot of anxiety
Speaker 1: around wanting to become a mother myself because of trauma
Speaker 1: wounds that I haven't healed from. Yeah. Well, the good
Speaker 1: thing is you don't have to have any kids anytime soon.
Speaker 1: But I'm doing I'm glad you're not before becoming a mother, right,
Speaker 1: And is this a journey that you really want to take,
Speaker 1: because I think people still are having kids and not
Speaker 1: giving much thought into what that really means, and that
Speaker 1: saddens me. It is it's tragic actually, So I kind
Speaker 1: of think you're already being a really good mother because
Speaker 1: you're asking yourself these questions, So whether you have children
Speaker 1: or not, or when you're already loving your unborn children
Speaker 1: by becoming aware. Yeah, well, thank you, Katrice, thank you.
Speaker 1: So we have Rochelle, a mother of two daughters, and
Speaker 1: she shared how a lack of nurturing played out in
Speaker 1: her life. My mom died when I was two and
Speaker 1: my dad remarried, and she died when I was six.
Speaker 1: There was never that person at home, UM who had
Speaker 1: me in the way that a mom would have their daughter.
Speaker 1: I had bought my own myself. I went through puberty myself,
Speaker 1: I figured things out. I knew when I became a mom,
Speaker 1: I had to do everything I could to ensure that
Speaker 1: my kids would never feel the pain or suffer without
Speaker 1: a mall Ruschelle says she refuses to be away from
Speaker 1: her kids for more than a few hours, turning down
Speaker 1: invites to girls trips and going to dinner only if
Speaker 1: she knows she'll be home for bedtime. Her social life
Speaker 1: is basically non existent. My daughters are fourteen and eight,
Speaker 1: and neither child goes to bed without mama, and I
Speaker 1: want them to know that I'm there at the end
Speaker 1: of every day and at the beginning of every day,
Speaker 1: and that they will never be without me. Ever, it
Speaker 1: brings me a lot of healing, um, but it's always
Speaker 1: conflicted healing. I look at both of them and I
Speaker 1: admire them so deeply because they're strong and yes, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: they are just um, such beautiful young women, and I
Speaker 1: feel proud of them like I so wish my mom
Speaker 1: would have told of me, but I didn't help that. Hello, Hi, Yeah,
Speaker 1: those tears make so much sense, so much sense. You
Speaker 1: lost so much as a very little girl, and it
Speaker 1: goes right to the heart of deprivation. Just have to say,
Speaker 1: I love that you're there at the start of every
Speaker 1: day and the end of every day, because what we know,
Speaker 1: those are the most important times for bonding with our children,
Speaker 1: and your daughters are so lucky. You're doing such an
Speaker 1: excellent job giving those girls what they need, which means
Speaker 1: pretty soon it's going to be your turn to find comfort,
Speaker 1: probably from women who can hold you, guide you, and
Speaker 1: help you defrost this grief that is in your body
Speaker 1: waiting its turn. The little two year old that lost
Speaker 1: a mother, the six year old that lost a mother,
Speaker 1: they still so desperately want one, they do. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: find myself just always longing for my person. It's like
Speaker 1: that long for what for me isn't ultimately insatiable at
Speaker 1: this point, but it's so real. But it seems like
Speaker 1: once your girls are able to branch out a little bit,
Speaker 1: you'll have a little bit more time to have some
Speaker 1: relationships of your own outside of your girls. Yeah, you do,
Speaker 1: and I think sometimes it can be really difficult to
Speaker 1: find friends that you trust to come in to support you,
Speaker 1: because if you've never learned to rely on your mother,
Speaker 1: relying on your girlfriends is really tricky. And this is
Speaker 1: where sometimes I courage people to go ahead and find
Speaker 1: a coach or a professional who can be that surrogate
Speaker 1: mother for a while. Sometimes that's a safer way to
Speaker 1: go because this person is designed to be here for you,
Speaker 1: to hold your secrets, hold you in a gaze one
Speaker 1: on one, which sometimes your girlfriends aren't there to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes the story is too heavy for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: and perhaps there's a neediness from that emanates from me.
Speaker 1: So I think that gets heavy for people sometimes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Rochelle is understanding mother hunger, giving you hope. Oh absolutely.
Speaker 1: I searched, and I searched as a motherless mother and
Speaker 1: a motherless daughter for what was wrong, and then you
Speaker 1: find a resource that gives you words to explain what
Speaker 1: you feel on a daily pieceis I do think that
Speaker 1: once there's logic attached and there's a reason I feel
Speaker 1: this way, then put the pieces of me back together.
Speaker 1: I can't do it alone, Like, there's no way, as
Speaker 1: much as we'd like to do it ourselves and go
Speaker 1: it alone. We've been doing that too long. We know
Speaker 1: how to do that, we know how to be tough,
Speaker 1: we know how to be lonely. It's time to really
Speaker 1: let ourselves be helped. Yeah, and vulnerable, right, and and
Speaker 1: vulnerable and stating that we need to help. Yeah, thank you, Rochelle,
Speaker 1: I'm giving you the biggest virtue all Thanks for being here. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me. Kelly. Your work is just
Speaker 1: so important, so yeah, thank you for all you do.
Speaker 1: Thank you what a treasure. Yeah, sweet soul, I just
Speaker 1: want to say it's never too late to heal yourself
Speaker 1: or to try to heal with your children. And my
Speaker 1: acknowledgement of my frailties and my failures have just been
Speaker 1: way for me to heal and heal with Jada. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just acknowledging. It's beautiful. Our life was not perfect,
Speaker 1: and that is a living apology, and you get to
Speaker 1: be a new mommy exactly. I just want to say
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for all three of you just wanting to
Speaker 1: be better women and therefore be better mothers. Let's hold
Speaker 1: her hand. Let's hold hands. This was really great. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. I feels so odd to sit here
Speaker 1: with you and you're finding this book. It's going to
Speaker 1: help so many women. This book needed you, Thank you,
Speaker 1: and we needed it. And an elephant herds girls elephants
Speaker 1: and mothers and grandmothers never leave each other ever. The matriarch,
Speaker 1: the grandmother, she is always in charge of her. And
Speaker 1: the little girls never leave their mothers. The goals. When
Speaker 1: they get a certain age, they will go on, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's beautiful. To join the Red Table Talk family and
Speaker 1: become a part of the conversation, follow us at facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash red table Talk. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: this episode of Red Table Talk podcast, produced by Facebook Watch,
Speaker 1: Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.