Cathy Adams on Navigating the Complexities of Raising Daughters

Debbie:

Hey Cathy, welcome to the podcast.

Cathy Adams:

Hi Debbie, it’s so good to see you.

Debbie:

It’s so good to see you too. Welcome back to the podcast. I should say this is your third time on the show. And, you know, I’m always happy to have a chance to bring you on. And this is a really good excuse because you have a new book out that we’re going to explore today. But before we get into your book, just take a few minutes and, you know, set us up, set up your work in the world and kind of your passion around the conversation we’re going to have today.

Cathy Adams:

Well, you and I met as, you know, podcasters because I am the host of Zen Parenting Radio along with my husband Todd and we created a conference in Chicago called the Zen Parenting Conference and you were one of our speakers so we’ve been connected in all these many ways. And I, as far as what Todd and I do, our work in the world is I work with women and girls and Todd runs an international men’s organization. So a lot of our conversations are around the dynamics when it comes to gender, when it comes to equality, when it comes to equity, when it comes to understanding each other and having a place that we can meet and have understanding and compassion for each other’s experiences. And it’s been, you know, we’ve been doing the podcast for 14 years and that’s really been the undercurrent, you know, on top of our own personal self-awareness and how we relate relationally.

And so I really wanted to write this book about girls. It’s called Restoring Our Girls for many years because my whole clientele has been women, mostly around our age, Gen X, and for the last 20 years, and then for the last 15 years, it’s been working with teen girls, or 12 to 25. They’re not always teens, but they’re in that place of growth where things are starting to change, they’re maturing and talking to them about their needs. I’m also a professor at a university, so I have all these college students, majority girls because they’re social workers, they’re social work students, and so it just tends to be majority girls. And then I’m raising three daughters. raising daughters and then having all of their friends here and then my clinical work, I’m basically hearing on an everyday basis of what these girls wish we understood about them, the things that they wish that we had a better understanding about how things affect them, how our words land with them. And also they wish we have put a little more thought and creativity into how we have conversations with them. They can really feel the hierarchy and the power dynamic a lot, which really shuts those conversations down and they can become very defensive and then we disconnect and then the communication is poor. And then parents feel really lost and disconnected from their girls. And not to mention, Debbie, that there’s a lot of things in the book about the cultural conditioning of girls, the societal implications, the expectations when you’re raising a daughter or when you’re growing up in this culture as a girl or a woman. It’s very daunting and very paradoxical and very challenging to navigate. that in itself, having conversations with our girls about that fine line that they’re expected to walk without being judgmental of them and being understanding of their experience. This is tough, but this is what this book is aiming to focus on.

Debbie:

So many thoughts come to mind. First of all, I just want to sidebar that listeners, we are going to have a conversation with Dr. John Duffy about his book Rescuing Our Sons, which I think will be nice too, because I think, and you know, we’re not going to get political here. But there’s a lot of conversation right now about girls and boys and their experiences in the media, their experiences progressing in their lives, you know, their potential for university and jobs and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, when I, before I was in this parenting space, I was writing self-help book books for girls because I was a recovering teenager who was grappling with all of trying to unlearn all of the, messaging, that I had grown up with that, you know, I’m still unpacking quite frankly. And so I guess, you know, just to, before we get into some of the concepts in the book, can we just talk for a moment about why it’s so important that we are talking about the girl’s experience at this moment in time.

Cathy Adams:

Absolutely, and like you said, Dr. Duffy is a good friend of ours, both of ours, and he and I have the same publisher, and he and I are doing a lot of events together, restoring our girls, rescuing our sons, so we can discuss this issue, so we don’t have to make this a black and white, are we gonna focus? Because we need to focus on both, simultaneously. We make gender this thing where we have to make this decision, when really we’re talking about how to raise our children. What are the issues that each are confronting? And how does it look? And how does our culture deal with it? And I think you just brought up a few data points about when we talk about girls, there’s a lot of data pointing to, more are graduating from high school. More are getting into college. More are demonstrating being first in the class. The big but there is it doesn’t translate into anything different when they get into the work world. So while we’re seeing this data, you know, and we, that’s optimistic and inspirational. I don’t want to take anything away from it, but we then somehow misunderstand, we believe that that means that then women are getting ahead in all these areas and we’re finding equity. And that’s not necessarily the case everywhere at all. You know, there’s still a perception about women when it comes to work. There’s still a perception about expectations around traditional roles. 

And I would say that more than ever, or, let’s say more than ever in a long time, we are dealing with a lot of commentary about that women should go back to what they used to do well, which is stay home and raise children, which again is not a problem as long as there’s choice, you know, as long as this is being decided by each individual in each family and not being told and expected. So these are you know, we’re always struggling with what feminism looks like or even the word feminism, you know, whether or not someone, I just read something the other day that Angela Merkel just wrote a book and said something about she was trying to decide whether or not to call herself a feminist. You know, think about that. You know, that there’s this word that has so much power and we know what people think about it, you know, or the implications of using it. So we’re even leery to do that. So, you know, what I believe being a feminist is, the belief in equality, you know, the belief in that women should have the same rights as all genders and that’s it. That’s the end of the, like, there’s not much to argue with there, in my opinion. But so, you know, your question is, why do we need to be talking about girls when we’re also talking about how we’re raising our sons? I don’t think there’ll ever be a time that we don’t need to talk about societal and cultural norms when it comes to girls and conditioning. I think we’re always going to need to be having this conversation because there’s a long way to go in some people’s Generationally, think as this generation that our kids are in, I think some things could change maybe a little more quickly. But right now, in this point in time, there’s a lot to discuss.

Debbie:

Absolutely. And you know, I’ve been reading a lot of articles about trad wife culture. And, you know, all of those things are, you know, I’m just, I find it really interesting and curious, because it’s so far removed from anything I would have thought about at that, you know, when I was a young woman. And as you said, it’s also really about having choice and having autonomy over who we want to be and the choices that we make. So, okay, thank you for that. And, you know, I just wanted to pull out a quote that jumped out at me about why, you know, why this conversation now you said growing up as a girl means facing inherent contradictions where moments of joy and risk often collide. And could you just tease that out a little bit more?

Cathy Adams:

Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. There, I think that quote is around a story that I tell about one of my oldest daughters, the first time that she and her friend decided to dress up, put on makeup, walk downtown and go out to eat by themselves. They both had earned some money. They wanted to do something alone. It was, you know, like five o’clock in the afternoon. It wasn’t super late, but they’re like, we want to do this. And I remember the feeling I had, you know, it’s all ingrained in my brain, because of course they had complete permission to do so, but I thought, boy, they’re like walking into a new understanding of themselves and the world in this experience, possibly, you never know. But they, you know, I think I said something about that. It felt like watching the movie Forrest Gump when Forrest puts his son on the bus and his son turns around and Forrest just wants to tell him like, take care of yourself, be careful, don’t let people hurt you. But then just all he says is, I love you, and just lets his son go have his life. And that’s kind of the moment that I had then where I’m like, just go, I love you, call me if you need anything. And so, you know, a really quick summary of their time is they were walking downtown and they were honked at a time or two, you know, took a minute to kind of understand why, you know, it was attention seeking. was, one of them was an older man. And then when they got to the restaurant, we have a college in our town. And there were some college kids sitting at a table and they had been drinking. And so they were trying to get my daughter and her friend’s attention. And then a waitress actually came over and got in the middle and said, I’m here, girls. Don’t worry. I got you. Ignore these guys. Now, why do I say that joy and risk kind of overlap in these situations? Because it’s very confusing for girls. Because it can be enjoyable to have the attention of boys. It can be enjoyable to put on makeup and look older. It can be enjoyable to have somebody wanting to engage with you. And at the same time, this waitress who’s standing there trying to help them, it’s also a moment of you have to be careful.

You can’t overstep here. You have to be thoughtful about where you are and who you’re with. You have to think about the situations you’re putting yourself in. And it’s this once they got home and on the way home, it was getting dark and they were honked out one more time just for good measure. And when they came home, you know, they really unloaded about here’s what happened and here’s what happened. And this boy said this and they had this mixture of laughter and fear through the whole conversation. And if that’s not a young girl’s experience in a nutshell of like, is enjoyable, this is risky, this is scary, this is fun, how far, and this is a conversation. I mean, that’s what this whole book is about is how to have these conversations with our daughters without imposing shame and guilt and a lot of fear. Because you can only imagine these conversations with parents where there’s just so much, you shouldn’t have done that, it’s your fault. Why did you put yourself in this situation? Why do you need to wear makeup? And those are unfair questions because we know why, because they want to grow up and they want to have experiences and they want to learn how to be in the world. And they’re feeling like young women. Of course, they’re not women yet. They’re just developing, but they’re trying to grow into themselves. And so how do we hold all these things simultaneously? It’s very paradoxical and have these very nuanced conversations with our kids. And it’s a skill. And one of my chapters, Debbie, is actually called messy because it’s not easy. It’s ongoing. It’s messy, but necessary.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah. I love the word messy. And I want to get into that in a little bit, because I’m kind of the queen of messy over here. So as you’re talking about this, and I think you described it so beautifully, just how complicated the experience of being a girl or a young woman, it’s confusing. It’s so confusing and we’re getting so many mixed signals and so many parents, especially from our generation, like no one was having these conversations with us, right? And so, you I’m not the parent of a daughter, but for those who are parenting daughters and wanting to have these conversations, there’s so much that we bring into it, right? Like, again, I’m still a recovering teen, I’m 55. I’m still unpacking that stuff. And so you said that we miss out on understanding what our daughters need when we haven’t taken the time to figure out what we need. Can you talk about how parents can really do their own work to show up for these conversations to be effective?

Cathy Adams:

Absolutely. know, probably the base, the baseline or the like the grounding element of all the work that I’ve ever done in my life is around self-awareness because it is and you know, and again, I don’t know, I know what I mean when I say self-awareness, which, you know, some things become clinical things become mainstream and you’re not quite sure how people like engage with the word. But all I’m saying is that we understand our whys. We understand what bothers us. We understand what we’re afraid of. We recognize we’re afraid. We understand where feelings are coming from. And even if we don’t exactly understand, we at least know we’re having a feeling. There is engaging with ourselves before we engage with other people. And even before I had kids, I was working with people who were in relationships, with friendships, considering getting married. And this is still a question in those situations. But as a parent, it comes fast and furious. Like there, you know, there is no mirror like the parenting mirror, which is why am I saying this? What am I afraid of? What do I need in this situation? What am I trying to say? And, you know, some of that we can do on our own time, you know, have our own therapists, have our own friends to talk to, do our own gratitude journaling. There’s a lot of things we can do kind of on the side. But as you know, because you know how much I love your book and, you know, the things that we, you and I talk about. A lot of it’s on the fly. Like you’re learning it in real time as you’re having a conversation. You’re realizing you’re saying something where you’re like, where’s this coming from? What am I afraid of? Because I know when my daughter came home from that experience, what am I afraid of? I’m afraid that someone is going to harm her. I’m afraid she’s going to get in a situation that is possibly abusive or sexual or something that will impact her for the rest of her life. I’m afraid that she may be perceived a certain way by other people when really that’s not her intention at all. You know, I’m afraid of all these things that have happened to me. Let me just be clear. All of those things have happened to me. So my conversations with her need to be less about unpacking my fear on her about this happened to me, therefore it’ll happen to you and more about how we can equip ourselves with understanding. If we do this, here’s something that can happen. If we’re going into a situation, here’s a way to keep ourselves safe. If I need help, this is who I know to go, know, who I need to go to or talk to. We can’t protect them in every situation, but we can give them enough tools where they know where to go if they need the help. Because I think that’s another part of our generation and it’s not even gender specific. I think there were so many things that were secret and unspoken and shame filled that kids didn’t ask for help. We just kind of moved through it. We didn’t talk about sex in the home. We didn’t talk about being harmed. We didn’t talk about date rape. And so now this generation has more language, but we need to equip them also with, I am here to talk to you. And if you’re feeling like you want to talk to someone first, here are other people in your life that you can trust. I’m very big on building community around our girls. So it doesn’t have to just be one person. And also, having enough humility to understand that that’s okay and necessary, not getting caught up in, but why not me? Like, my goal is not to win. My goal is to keep my girls safe. So, you your original question was about, you know, the self-awareness piece. Like, we have to focus on what our needs are, why they’re our needs, and question whether or not that’s helpful in any situation or how it’s holding us back from connecting to our girls.

Debbie:

Yeah. Yeah, I wrote down the word shame as you were talking like that feels like it was the undercurrent of my entire adolescence. So it is really like that’s a really deep, powerful feeling to be bringing into the dynamic with our kids. So you mentioned talking about things that we’re afraid of. And I think it is really important to identify the specific fears, because there’s always an underlying why for the things that are triggering to us. are those fears the things that are even preventing us from wanting to engage in conversations at all?

Cathy Adams:

Exactly. You know, there’s the second chapter or second or third chapter is why we don’t want to have real conversations with our kids. And a lot of times it’s because and this can be kind of a road to even get to this awareness, but we don’t want to know. You know, it’s too much information. It’s too heavy to ask them about their sexuality. It feels too overwhelming to ask them about their friendships. It feels too overwhelming to, you know, question where they were the night before or if we thought they were sneaking out or if we thought they had weed in their room. Like we almost don’t want to know because we don’t know what to do with it. We don’t know how to talk about it. If we know then, you know, what parents will say to me is if I know I have to do something, you know? And I think they’re mixing up the word do with feel something. They have to, you know, have a new understanding of their child. They have to have a new understanding for themselves possibly of how they’re going to talk about things with their kid. They have to confront something. And a lot of times, my goal with this book, like what is my, as a therapist, I am trying to help parents connect with something earlier rather than letting something go on so long that not only do they disconnect from their kid, but their kid can have a lot more challenges down the road. If conversation, if they’re had earlier and there’s more of a team effort around things, I’m here for you, I’m supporting you. I hear you and back and forth, like where your kid is coming to you as well, then it’s not that your kid won’t have any issues. That’s a misunderstanding. Of course your kid will have issues, but they will be handled quicker. They will be attended to easier. There will be more options available versus letting things go and kind of putting up a wall or putting our hands over our eyes and pretending things aren’t happening because they are. Again, we keep saying this about our generation, but that was very Gen X. You know, well, I had to deal with it and I had to move on. I had to figure it out. But as a therapist, I am meeting with these women in my office and they have not moved on. It’s still stuck in there. And so we believe that with time it goes away, but as we all know, it becomes behavior. It becomes an illness. It becomes a challenge in our relationship. So we deal with it either at the beginning, the middle, we deal with it somewhere. So this book is all about let’s jump in and get to know our girls.

Debbie:

Yeah. When you said, if I know about it, then I have to do something. But really, it means I have to feel something. got like chills when you said that it’s so true, so true. So I want to circle back to this idea of a messy conversation. I said, feel like most of the conversations I have with my child are messy. And you describe the messy conversation as both good and bad. So can you explain what you mean by that?

Cathy Adams:

Well, I actually wanted my original title for this book or my original proposal was about how to have messy conversations. And then I found as I was writing it, I was working so hard to make people look at messy in a positive way that I felt like I was kind of, you know, growing upstream a little bit because in our culture, the word, just people think that right. But I did want to at least give messy some props, which is that messy is the only way that we get through something genuinely, authentically, with some sense of humility, with some sense of a willingness to listen and start again, apologize, forgive. Like the idea that we’re going to have relationships with anybody where it’s not going to be messy sometimes. And so let me not even use a word because I’m speaking to you generally. What does that mean? That someone will say something to you that offends you and that you have to bring up to them that word or what you just said is offensive to me. And sit in the discomfort of the other person’s discomfort for a minute so you can resolve it. know, Debbie, I don’t have the stats around this, but there’s something, it’s very similar to what we were just saying about, you know, either you resolve it then or later, is that more people want to avoid those kind of feelings rather than sit in that one minute of discomfort of saying how you feel or asking for what you need.

People would rather avoid for years rather than sit in that couple of minutes of that person realizing that you’re not going with the flow with whatever this conversation is. so that, I kind of feel like we get really good practice in our partnerships or in our friendships. And then we have to continue that practice with our kids because again, we want to teach our kids to have messy conversations with people as well so they can stand on their own and be grounded and get their needs met. But they won’t know how to do that if we don’t do that with them. Not just because we’re these role models, but because they practice with us. They’re able to withstand some discomfort because we’re able to withstand it. And that after the discomfort, we’re still intact. We’re still in a relationship. We still love each other. But a lot of people don’t trust that. They think, if I disappoint you, if I say something that you know, that might offend you or I push back on something, you won’t love me anymore. That’s really the underground, underground, underground fear. You’ll leave me, you’ll abandon me. And if we practice with our kids where we show them, you can say something to me and we’ll figure it out and I can say something to you and we’ll figure it out. I mean, can you think of a more important skill for life? Resilience.

Debbie:

No, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, resilience. Ijust actually interviewed Dr. Tovah Klein yesterday about her book, Raising Resilience. And so yes, it really is about connection and feeling safe, matter what. Safe and seen. So okay, there are a couple of concepts that I wanted you to just define for us. And then I also want to just get into the chapter that’s called Real Things Girls Want You to Know, which is a lot of the book and it was super interesting. When you were writing about some of the vulnerabilities for girls and young women, I found that very interesting. And there were a couple of concepts that came up that are kind of buzzwords right now that I thought might be interesting for listeners to hear about. And the two I was hoping you could walk us through are love bombing and gaslighting. So could you explain those to us?

Cathy Adams:

Absolutely. So, you know, they fall into the chapter where I’m talking about critical thinking and I’m talking about the importance of critical thinking. It is kind of allowing our girls to see a lot of different perspectives, widening the perspective and also simultaneously trusting their own intuition and their own viewpoint on things. I talk about in this chapter, I talk about high control groups, emotionally abusive relationships, and even cultish or cults, you know, it’s like the golden age for cults right now. We’re all learning so much about it. And I talk about it because to be honest, I’ve been involved in several high control groups. I’ve had experiences with emotionally abusive relationships before I got married to my current husband. And so I, you know, I know what happens in those. And it’s not that you’re dumb. It’s not that you are. Usually people who get involved in these things are people who want to do good. They want to help someone. They want to be special. There’s this specialness aspect to it. Like I want to have information. I want to belong. And so there are people who know this. Sometimes I think people who are emotionally abused and cult leaders and high control groups, have they all gone to the same school? Because it’s like they follow the exact same pattern. It’s really crazy. And two of the things that are often used are love bombing.

And what was the other one you asked about? Gaslighting. So love bombing is when someone comes really, really strong right at the beginning where there’s a lot of like, wow, I’ve been waiting to meet you or you’re perfect to be my boyfriend or girlfriend or you’re perfect for this group. There’s this sense of, wow, we have been waiting for you. Wow. Everything you say is so amazing. Maybe, you know, if you’re dating this person, there’s lots of, you know, high profile dates, money spent, you know, lots of dinners, and there’s this ability to bring you in very quickly. And a lot of times there’s an I love you very early or I can’t live without you very early where you let down your defenses and you feel like, wow, I have found my place. Unfortunately, that turns once there is that felt emotional response from you, it can turn very quickly to manipulation where then you’re so emotionally invested that if anything goes wrong, you believe it’s your fault because they’ve been telling you you’re awesome and amazing, so if something’s not going right, you must have done something. So that can very quickly happen. And then gaslighting, this has become way too mainstream because it actually has a true definition. It’s not just someone disagreeing with you. That’s not what gaslighting is. Gaslighting is when someone is trying to tell you that something you’re seeing or experiencing is not what you’re seeing or experiencing, they’re trying to manipulate your thinking. are trying to say, it comes from, you know, there’s a whole explanation, but it comes from a movie called Gaslight, where this, you know, this person starts like literally turning down the gaslight and making it like less bright, but then telling this person, no, I’m not doing that. You know, you’re not seeing this correctly when it’s actually, there’s a whole manipulation tactic behind it. So it’s someone trying to control your thinking, which is very common in abusive relationships and in cultish kind of high control groups. these experiences, again, they may sound outlandish, like, you know, how many people are really having these experiences? A lot. And I, and you know, as somebody who has been with college girls, you know, I’ve been teaching at the university for 14 years and raising daughters and talking to their friends. I would say 75 to 80 % of them have told me about an unhealthy or an emotionally abusive relationship they’ve been in. Now, most of them come out of it and say, okay, this is what I’ve learned.

But my conversation in this book is how can we help them not get into that? How can we help them see the red flags? Now, I have to be very careful, because I also don’t blame them. Because sometimes when we talk about looking for the red flags, all of a sudden we put all the onus on the girls. Like you should have seen it. There is also a lot of compassion for why this happens. And that’s kind of how I come from it because it didn’t just happen to me once. I got involved in many different things where I had to pull out and say, I’m a highly educated person. I have lots of friends, good family, and I still was pulled down a path that was not great. So we also have to have an understanding when these things do happen to not shame our kids, to not be overly judgmental, and just to help them move through it and get out of it. This is, I think the more information kids get upfront, the easier it is to help them renegotiate or get their critical thinking working again to help them come out. But if we’re in a family where everything is about, don’t use your own intuition, do what I say, do what authority says, and we don’t help them understand and trust themselves, this can be a little more difficult.

Debbie:

Those things jumped out at me because they do feel like it doesn’t surprise me that 75 % of the girls that you’ve engaged with have had some kind of experience like this. you know, of course, with the listeners of this show, parents of neurodivergent kids, we know that our kids are more vulnerable to some of these high control groups and seeking that sense of belonging, maybe having a lower self worth so it does make them potentially more susceptible. So it’s good for us not only to have the conversations with our kids, but for us to just be really aware of these vulnerabilities. So, okay, so we are of course running long because that is how I roll, but I wanna make sure that we talk for a few minutes about the chapter called Real Things Girls Want You to Know and you share some of the most common things you hear from girls you work with about what they wish their parents knew about them. And there’s so many in there. I thought it was fascinating. But I’m wondering if you could share maybe one or two that that you think are probably the most surprising to parents, they would have no clue that this is what their daughter wishes they knew.

Cathy Adams:

One that I have found parents to be, they laugh when I say it. So I guess that’s a, you know, that it’s indicative of surprise is not every conversation has to become a lesson.

Debbie:

I’m feeling seen.

Cathy Adams:

Exactly. Your response is exactly everybody’s response, which, you know, it makes sense just in the sentence itself. Basically, when I’m talking to you, do you always have to be teaching me something? Can I tell you something without you thinking I need to glean some great advice from this conversation? Can we just be friendly with each other and just talk sometimes like friends talk and just share information and say, wow, that’s interesting and move on? Because the more capable we are of having conversations with our kids that don’t have all these lessons like weaved into them, the more it’s possible that our kids will come to us to chat. They’ll like being around us. They will consider us a place to hang that isn’t overwhelming. So that’s probably the most surprising one. The one that I love the most because I think it’s the most important and that’s why I put it first is let me tell you about me instead of you telling me about me. And again, that’s the, it kind of brings together everything we’ve talked about, about self-awareness and about understanding our kids’ experiences and that they’re not like ours and to not put our bags in front and say, well, if I had these experiences, you’re gonna have them, because that’s not true at all. There is a, for our children to know that, talk about autonomy, that they can share with us who they are and that we will believe them and that we will engage and become curious and follow their lead, I can’t think of a more connective thing we can do. When we start to push back and tell them, but this is what I think, or I saw this, or what about this? And we start to question, that’s when they start to think maybe this relationship isn’t the place I can go to feel seen.

Debbie:

Yeah. Yeah. And I’ll just add the one that I pulled out that really kind of struck me is feeling judged by you makes me not want to tell you things. And yeah.

Cathy Adams:

Exactly. You know, the judgment thing, it’s so hard. You know, I know we’re running long here, so I don’t want to tell too long of a story, but my oldest daughter told me when she was very young that she would tell me things and my face would change. And she didn’t like it because she’s very sensitive and she’s very observant of the world. And she was just very blunt. She was like eight or nine. She’s like, don’t like the way your face changes. So we figured it took me a minute to have some humility because of course you want to be like, no, it doesn’t. It doesn’t change. What are you talking about? I’m fine. But I believed her and we started instead writing to each other in a notebook and kind of passing it back and forth because I had to take her word that this was hard for her when she looked at my face. Now, we don’t have this issue as much anymore. She’s 21. But it really helped in those really difficult years and that she, even if I wasn’t trying to show judgment, she was seeing it, you know? And maybe I could say, well, it wasn’t judgment, it was worry or concern or whatever, but regardless, what our hope is when we’re talking to our kids is that we are the place that they can go and not worry about judgment. We’re the safe haven. We’re the place that says, I got you no matter what. I got my hand on your back. I am supporting you. This is the place you know that I’ve got you. And that builds a foundation so they can go out into the world. And even when things don’t go the way they want or people don’t treat them the way that they’re treated at home, they know they’re sturdy. But if we’re the judgmental ones, can you imagine how uprooting that feels? And again, we all have our moments. Remember, messy. Sometimes we do judge. But what do we go back and do? Do we clarify? Do we deal with our own stuff and tell them that we’re sorry? Do we have a recognition or get some education and then figure out, you know what, I was wrong. I didn’t have all the information. Now I do.

Debbie:

Last question, you meant you’ve mentioned your daughters a couple of times and they play a role in this book as well. Would you just tell listeners, you know, how they show up in the book? And I’m curious to know about that choice.

Cathy Adams:

Yeah, so my daughters are 21 and 19 and 17. And so, you know, this work I’ve been doing, you know, their whole lives has just really been about Todd and I. Like I, sometimes I talk about them, but not about their challenges. That’s been their lives. But when I was writing this book and I was talking to them about it, they’re like, well, what about this story? And I’m like, well, that’s your story, you know? And they’re like, well, you can share this story. So I was like, I don’t want to share this story, you share this story. So my daughters in the back of the book at the end, they wrote their own story about an experience that they really wanted to share that they still struggle with, you know, or that they’re working through or that they feel like they have information about. And I then wrote like a little prologue to each of it saying the things that I missed or the ways that we did help or the ways that I could have helped better or the things I’m doing now. And just to kind of demonstrate the messiness of when our kids are having challenges. And I think what my girls wrote, what I loved is I had them speak it and then we put it to words. So when you read it, it sounds like them, you know, rather than them trying to write an essay. This is the way my girls talk, right? And their challenges were big, you know, they were significant and we worked through it and we still work through. We talk about these things all the time. There is nothing in our family that is a secret. That’s where shame comes from. So these things are, and this was their desire to share. And that’s why I wanted them to have the ownership of it and write it themselves.

Debbie:

So great. I love hearing more about what was behind it. And they are very vulnerable and generous in their sharing. So I just appreciated that. So, okay, we are going to wrap this up. I’m going to just name your book again for listeners. It’s called Restoring Our Girls, How Real Conversations Shape Our Daughters’ Lives, Help Them With Teen Challenges, and Remind Them That They Matter. And I’m going to have a ton of links in the show notes pages, including all the conversations we’ve had together in the past. You know that I love your podcast. It’s one of the only other parenting podcasts that I listen to and also your pop culture podcast. any like thing you want, like a key takeaway or something you want to just plant in our listeners minds before we say goodbye.

Cathy Adams:

Yeah, I would say, you know, again, what my goal is with this book, because I’ve been saying this is my goal, this is my goal. But really the goal is relationship, right? We just want to have a relationship with our kids and not a relationship where they’re afraid of us or not a relationship just while they’re in the home. You my daughters are, you know, in college, they’re going to be going on with their lives. I want a lifelong relationship. And so that starts earlier. And even if you’re getting to even if your kid’s 25 and you’re picking up this book, then start now because there is a way to build relationship where we can enjoy being with our kids and they can enjoy being with us and that we’re not, know, it’s not that old school like belief that we don’t want to be around our parents. Like what if we were actually supportive of each other? I think it’s possible.

Debbie:

So good. good. Cathy, thank you so much as always. Pleasure to chat with you and congratulations on the book. I’m just so happy for everything you shared today.

Cathy Adams:

Thank you, Debbie.