Podcast Episode 305: 3 Parenting Rules You Should Totally Break Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

JoAnn 

Welcome to the no guilt mom podcast. I’m your host JoAnn Crohn joined here by the lovely Brie Tucker

Brie Tucker 

Hello, hello everybody, how are you?

JoAnn 

I was just like pulling my microphone away from my face. like, if you’re watching us on Instagram right now or on the YouTube, you cannot see my face because my microphone was like covering it. It was like so big. It was. It was like way up by my mouth. You couldn’t see my lovely red lips. How could you see my red lips?

Brie Tucker 

Well, true, true that. Like you and I have very different views on our camera of us, like yours is much more.

JoAnn 

Rethyps.

Yeah, you’re a little closer to the camera. Mine’s a little farther back. could, it actually isn’t a choice on my part. It’s just whatever my camera shows up at that day. I’m happy with it. My camera picks my own angle for sure. For sure. We are talking today about parenting rules. know, those unsung rules.

Brie Tucker 

it picked what it was gonna do, so.

JoAnn 

that new parents judge other parents with and the rules that they say, my gosh, when I’m a parent, I will never do that to my kids, right?

Brie Tucker 

Ugh! Well, because we’re all experts. We’re all experts. And quite honestly, this episode was spawned because we had an Instagram post that you did. And I would love to take a moment to share the inspiration for this episode. So this was a stitch from a, well, I found it in the Today Show. So let’s see.

JoAnn 

Yeah.

So he does like let’s give him the benefit of the doubt there. He does say we’re only eight weeks into it so we can be cocky. He knows he knows this is a strong opinion that he might be very wrong about. But so many people lashed out against that one feeling personally attacked. Yeah.

Brie Tucker Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like that happens a lot in parenting. And so like that’s it. know, I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves on this. That is what we’re going to be talking about today, how we can get ahead of ourselves in parenting. think we’ve got crap figured out when we don’t. And the rules that we are going to tell you, you can break. are… Yes.

JoAnn You can break these rules right away. So let’s get on with the show.

Brie Tucker 

We got a little ahead of ourselves, didn’t I? Oopsie. Okay. Okay.

JoAnn 

No, it’s okay. It’s okay. It was a good teaser. It was a good teaser. Okay. So we’re talking about parenting rules that you can break, like these rules that we kind of hold ourselves to. And I think that the bad part comes when we start judging ourselves as bad parents, when we don’t follow these rules, like thinking that we are doing something that will be so detrimental to our kids in the future if we don’t stick by these rules.

And one of these rules we teased in the opening, which is that you shouldn’t let your kids have screens, especially at restaurants, right, Free? Like, you know this rule.

Brie Tucker 

Yeah, I would say like these are the things like these rules. I am like, today. I think that these rules are the things that bring in so much guilt. And it’s guilt for a million different reasons. But in this one about the whole restaurant thing, it’s guilt that everybody’s judging me and saying I’m a lazy parent. And I will admit

JoAnn 

Mm yes.

Yes!

Brie Tucker:

So my kids are teens now. Actually, I’ve got a senior graduating high school and I have a junior in high school. And I would say because of that, screens for kids were just becoming a thing when my kids were little. they were just becoming, they were just starting to come out with like little tablets for kids. They weren’t that big of a thing. So I will admit when my kids were really little, I had that same thought process.

We will only play games when we go to the restaurants. I’m gonna have activity bags and we’ll never do screens. Flash forward, well, okay. I did manage to make that last quite a while, but that was also because we didn’t go out a lot. We weren’t a going out often family. Like we would go out like once or twice a month. Like that was it. So just getting to go out was enough cool stuff for my kids, but.

JoAnn 

And how long did that last? Yes.

Brie Tucker 

Now flash forward to teens, and we go out a lot. They’re on their phones a lot. They are, they are. And I don’t, I don’t make them not be on their phones because as far as I’m concerned, as long as we’re still all interacting, it’s fine. But I think that.

JoAnn 

Mm

Brie Tucker 

When I see parents out there with their kids now, like you’re trying to survive people. You’re trying to survive. And I know that what I’m seeing as someone at a restaurant is a glimpse into their life. That is not for sure they’re 24 seven. And who am I to judge what the hell’s happening?

JoAnn 

You are trying to survive.

Yes.

Yeah, it is a glimpse into their life and I think it’s really easy to forget how dire that survival stage really gets. Like especially when kids are like around like starting at two all the way up until probably 10 or so.

keeping kids occupied if you just like if you just don’t want to eat at home if you want to get out of your house because you’ve been stuck there all day and you are tired of the same stuff you have and you just want to have somebody else cook for you but here you have a kid who would like run around the restaurant and make noise like for the other diners nearby and like

just not let you have a good meal. I totally do not judge the parents who have screens at the table. There are so many great app screens and applications too. I mean, when my kids were that age, Toka Boca, we loved our Toka Boca. I put Toka Boca on my phone and my kids would like, especially my daughter. Okay. Toka Boca were these like, I think they’re still around. There are educational games for preschoolers, but they have the preschoolers do like actual activities through them. So it’s not like

Brie Tucker

don’t even know what that is. What is that?

JoAnn 

follow the map, it’s more of like a free, like pieces play, but on a screen. Tokaboka doctor, for instance, you had to go and examine your patient. And in examining your patient, one of them, I remember you tap the patient’s belly. And then it was like a maze that they had to guide like the medicine down, like the intestinal tract. And then there was a little toot at the end. It was all well done. It wasn’t gross at all.

enjoyed that game so like I like playing with my daughter and I’m like, ooh, there was one like you tap the mouth and you like pulled out the rotten teeth. I mean, me describing it, it sounds really, it was good. It was good.

Brie Tucker 

side of it but yeah yeah like it but the point is it doesn’t have to necessarily be your kids sitting there and zombified watching a screen but you know what if they’re doing that you don’t know what else has happened people like we’re like so

JoAnn 

No, they might’ve just had like a horrible tantrum for most of the day and this is like the only time that the parents are getting peace and quiet is here at this table with the kid on the screen.

Brie Tucker 

Right, so like all that we’re saying is, first of all, we all at some point have the thought process that we’ve got this parenting gig down, we figured it out, we have figured out the cheats, the little cheat codes, we’ve got it figured out to a T. Only to find out that the next stage of parenting is not as easy as we, it’s not figured out, the cheat codes don’t work on level two, level three, level four. Let’s just start with that. And you know what though?

Brie Tucker 

Right? Like we were talking, you have to have that confidence. So, or else parenting is just, you, you gotta have.

JoAnn 

Yeah, it’s funny though, because as your kids grow up, you would think it would be easier to go to restaurants with them. And it’s not like there are so many times like my husband and I decide to stay home because our kids just get grumpy at the restaurant. They’ll be like, there’s nothing I like to eat on this menu. And then they will sit there and pout and your whole enjoyable restaurant experience just goes down the drain. So like lately, me and Josh, we’ve just been like, how about you just make a cocktail and we’ll make some spaghetti for everybody.

Let’s just stay in.

Brie Tucker 

Yeah

JoAnn 

And that’s usually the best one.

Brie Tucker 

because what were your, like sometimes what are your options? It’s okay, we’re gonna go to McDonald’s, because I have a play area and the kids will be occupied and fun, but I have to eat food that I don’t wanna eat. Like.

JoAnn 

Can I just say, I need to go on an outside rant about McDonald’s by the way, because I don’t feel like McDonald’s tastes as good as it used to. Like, I don’t know if it’s me or if McDonald’s did something, but like when I bite into a McDonald’s like quarter pounder, I taste nothing. Like I have to douse it with ketchup to even taste anything. It’s horrible.

Brie Tucker 

Yes, let’s go.

I haven’t eaten anything besides chicken McNuggets and fries at McDonald’s since I was a sophomore in college. So I don’t know because well, I would say like back in college, I started being like, I mean, if you love McDonald’s hats off to you, but it’s I can tell you that all the way back in college, in the 90s, I felt like it was tasting weird, but.

JoAnn 

the fries are awful too.

Make…See, I liked it. I liked it in high school. I thought it was delicious, but I don’t like it now. Yeah.

Brie Tucker 

did like it in high school. Maybe it was the town I lived in, because I I went to college in a small town. Maybe.

JoAnn 

Maybe. Yeah, it was small town taste. Cause I remember I loved it when we went to this Odyssey of the Mind competition in Ames, Iowa at Iowa State University. We went to McDonald’s in town. It was like the best McDonald’s meal I’d ever had. My first quarter pounder. This is so good. It was so good. now it’s like, McDonald’s mid.

Brie Tucker 

Yeah. But I mean, so back to the point, like, so when my kids were little, because my, my, their dad hated going out with them because he could not stand, them not being quiet and sitting still and needing attention. and, and that’s, that was his prerogative. Okay. I get that. That was his standard. I’m not saying that it was a realistic standard, but that was his standard. So,

If I went out with the kids, we’d go to like Chick -fil -A for the play area or Peter Piper or whatever. Did I have good food? Hell no. But the kids were entertained. So if I wanted to go somewhere where we could actually eat where my, where their dad would actually join us, we had to come up with creative solutions because, and that’s another thing too. Like this is, God, my ADHD is like popping through on this one. Another thing too is that you talked about how kids would get up and run around.

JoAnn 

Mm

Yeah.

Brie Tucker 

And people may be judging you for having your kids do something on a screen, but if they only knew what the alternative was, was the chucking of stuff and running around and being loud. At least they’re being quiet people.

JoAnn 

Yes, you get judged.

You get judged either way. I remember we went to the steakhouse in downtown Chandler and my father -in -law set it up. It was DC steakhouse when it was in the old location, not the new location. Yes, but like we went at like 5 p like total like early bird dinner time because that was my father -in -law. He does not like to wait. So we go, we had to go early and my daughter was three or four.

Brie Tucker 

Ooh, I’ve never been there. It is so nice, people. This is a posh steakhouse.

JoAnn 

and we’re seated at a table in the back of the restaurant. Like there was maybe one other party there and she was just running around the table. And I’m like, okay, just let her run around. I mean, there’s no one else here. Meanwhile, this asshole guy at the other table is like, what is it? Rompous room in here. And he’s like making all these snide remarks. Just awful. I mean, you could tell I don’t usually call people assholes. If he was, what?

Brie Tucker 

and how that makes you feel.

Brie Tucker 

Bliss in episode, people. We have feelings.

JoAnn 

Yeah, but like it’s just you get judged either way. Like you cannot do anything great as a parent from anybody else’s outside perspective. You can’t. And so break this rule. Let your kids have screens at the table because only you know the whole picture and who cares what anybody else says. They could go stop it in their McDonald’s cheeseburger. don’t know. Bringing up that story again. it me so mad. See how mad it is.

Hi, people. We’re going to talk about the next parenting rule that you can break, and it has to do with when kids behave in a way you don’t want them to. And we’re going to do that right after this.

Brie Tucker 

Takes you right back!

JoAnn 

Okay, here is a big parenting rule. I think it goes along the lines of you need to teach kids who’s boss by punishing them and other word that people use for punishing, give them consequences for their actions. And just side note, giving consequences is not the same as letting consequences happen.

Brie Tucker 

Yes!

JoAnn 

and giving consequences is actually code for punishing. So let’s just lay that out there right there.

Brie Tucker 

I think this kind of goes back to that whole thought process of that you have to be firm. You have to hard rules. Kids need to feel pain. And I don’t mean pain in the physical way. Yes, there are people that feel that way. But I’m talking about the ones that are like, listen, if they don’t feel sad and hurt and upset about their punishment, then they’re not gonna really learn it or feel it. And that, and

JoAnn

Mm

Brie Tucker 

It brings me back to the saying that I remember getting when I first went through my positive discipline training for parenting. Where did we get the idea that in order for kids to do better, we need to make them feel worse? I think we got the idea from the 80s. Right? Actually, probably back to the 50s.

JoAnn 

Yeah, exactly. probably, probably because I think it goes back to this belief that people need to experience consequences for their actions. And a lot of things.

Brie Tucker 

They need to experience pain. I think that that pain word is important. What do you think?

JoAnn 

Yeah, but I don’t think it is so much pain. don’t need, well, I think people may attribute pain to consequences. I think it’s one in the same. But with that, a lot of the things kids do, like you as an adult don’t see any immediate consequences that they’re going to feel as a result of having done it. Just for example, the other night, my 15 year old was like leaving stuff around the house. Like she left her shoes out in the living room and she didn’t unload the dishwasher.

Brie Tucker 

Right. Right.

JoAnn 

And it was driving me insane because I asked her to do it. She’s like, yeah, I will get to it. I will get to it. But my husband was like, yeah, well, it doesn’t affect anyone but herself. Who cares if the shoes are out in the living room? She doesn’t care. It doesn’t affect her. They’re out of her sight. They’re not in her bedroom. Who cares if the dishes aren’t unloaded? Doesn’t affect her.

Brie Tucker 

insane in the membrane insane in the brain sorry great

Mm

JoAnn 

Like she can just unload them whenever she wants to unload them. And I was like, yes, you’re right there. And also it doesn’t mean that the way to solve this issue is to give her a consequence for not doing it. Because if we think about it in our typical life, if you and I don’t follow through on something somebody else wants us to do, the relationship suffers and you are either someone’s angry at you.

or they’re less likely to do stuff for you in the future. As parents, we are here to teach our kids that, but we don’t have to teach them through pain. And I was like struggling with this all that night. I’m like, okay, like how do we solve this situation? How do we solve the situation? When my daughter yelled across the house at me, hey mom, can you change your laundry from the washer to the dryer?

because in my house we all do our own laundry and she needed to do hers. She needed that washer to be free. And so without thinking about it, I went and I took my clothes out of the washer. put them in the dryer and as I’m loading the dryer, I’m like, wait a minute, Bree just sent me a meme about this. And the meme you sent me, you did. And it was like this. Yes, Tom Cruise.

Brie Tucker 

Mm

Is Tom Cruise running really fast? How my kid expects me to respond when they ask for something?

JoAnn 

Yeah.

Brie Tucker 

And then it said like how my kid responds when I asked him for something and the kid was like, no, I don’t know how to do that now. No, it’s not happening right now.

JoAnn 

Yeah, so I was thinking about that meme as I was loading the dryer and I’m like, hold on one second. Like this is exactly what is going on. And so after I loaded the dryer, she was just sitting and eating a nice little snack at the kitchen table. And I told her, I’m like, hey, you asked me to unload the dryer, to unload the washer for you. And I did because that is what people do when they are in a respectful relationship and somebody else needs the other person to do something so that

that somebody else could actually like do the task that they need to do. So I took my laundry from the washer and I put it in the dryer for you. And then I paused there and I’m like, does she get the point? I don’t know if she gets the point. And so I added, I’m like, I am not happy about you refusing the dishwasher and picking up your shoes. And then I just left it at that. And she, she picked up the shoes and she unloaded the dishwasher.

Brie Tucker

Sometimes, okay, here’s my thought process on that. A lot of times, kids don’t understand how their actions impact others. And you just need to give them that extra explanation. Like we recorded an episode earlier that aired like two weeks ago about a mom picking up a cup during a marathon, right?

JoAnn 

Yes.

Mm

Brie Tucker 

The point is, is that kids don’t know what they don’t know. So taking the time to talk to them about stuff makes so much more sense. So an example I’m gonna give that’s similar to that, but a little bit harsher is, so my daughter had an outfit that she wore one day that had a short skirt. And I wanna say she was like 13 when it happened. And she was like, my God.

JoAnn 

Yeah.

Brie Tucker 

check out this amazing skirt. I don’t even remember how she got the skirt to be honest with you because she was 13 so I didn’t take her to buy it. I don’t remember how this happened but she had this short skirt. She took a picture of herself and she put it on her Instagram and I saw it on Instagram and I’m like wow you really love that that skirt that you’re in and everything and she’s like yeah it was really it’s really cute isn’t it it’s adorable and I’m like it is cute

It is a little short though. What do you think about it being like so short and everything? And we talked about it and I just said to her throughout the car, cause she didn’t see anything about that. She’s like, I think it’s fine. I think it looks adorable. I think it’s what everybody’s wearing right now. there other 13 year olds wearing it? Maybe, but not the majority. And I was like, hmm, I don’t know. Like it kind of makes, it kind of makes me feel a little icky. Like you putting that out on the internet. Cause other people could look at it and.

They might not have great thoughts, right? And she’s like, well, yeah, I guess you’re right. And so we talked about it and I’m just kind of ended with the whole like, you you wanting to wear that around the house. I have no problem with that because we’re here at home. But going out places like that and and putting pictures like that on the Internet, I don’t think that you’re I think that you might want to think about being old enough for that. We had the conversation. I definitely made an impact. She did understand what I was saying.

JoAnn 

Mm

Brie Tucker 

Two days later, she went over to her dad’s house. Their reaction was slightly different. What are you doing posting a picture like that? That short skirt made you look like, and they use some very derogatory terms that I’m not going to say on the podcast. That should never be said to a 13 year old. And then it turned into, because you posted this online, we’re going to take away your ass.

JoAnn

Yeah.

Brie Tucker 

And they’re like, you have a choice. We’re gonna take away your Instagram or take away your TikTok. Which one do you want us to take away? And she was like, my TikTok. And they’re like, okay, we’re gonna take away your Instagram because clearly you care about that one more.

And she was so upset. What she got out of that interaction later when she came back and like was talking to me about it, what she got out of that interaction was her dad and her stepmom think terrible things about her and that the way she looks dictates what they think about her and that whatever hurts her the most is always going to be the route they’re going to go.

That was what she learned from that interaction. And I can guarantee you their thought process was she did something wrong. We need to make her feel pain for this consequence. And that’s why they did it that way. Whereas had they just had a conversation with her, it would have had a lot more impact. Now they have a very bad relationship. She doesn’t trust them. And she tries to hide things from them. Why? Because she…

JoAnn 

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

And if you want to know exactly how that method of discipline went, we have a podcast episode for you in the show notes that we will link to about Bree’s daughter’s relationship with her father and stepmom, because that is something that you need to listen to. you have someone in your life pursuing this line of punishment, like listen to that podcast because, my goodness, it does not end well overall. And a side note too.

Brie Tucker

yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, so our point is, yeah, go ahead.

JoAnn 

But a side note on that that I need to put in there is when are we gonna stop holding girls accountable for the actions and thoughts of males and others, especially with like short skirts. Because I mean, like I had the same thing with my daughter too. I just didn’t want her to have to deal with all those comments. I didn’t want her to because people are rude on the internet. They are mean, they are derogatory. And like when we ask our girls not to post things like that, we are trying to protect them from the evil, like the.

I’ll say it again. The assholes out there who decide to comment on every thing about them.

Brie Tucker 

I agree, like it’s another, when I talk to my daughter about a lot of stuff, she actually has a very good thought process. And I have told her, like when I’m afraid of things nine times out of 10, I’ll be honest with you, I’m not afraid of your thought process. I’m afraid, or your actions even, I’m afraid of the actions of others. I’m afraid of what others will do. And that’s what concerns me. And a lot of times like she’ll be like, So like driving.

JoAnn yeah.

Yes.

Mm

Brie Tucker

Like, I’m concerned, like, I don’t want you driving late at night. Why? You don’t trust me? No, it’s not that I don’t trust you. I don’t trust other people that are out after 10 o ‘clock at night. They more likely to have drunk drivers, more likely to have people driving aggressively, more likely for people not to see something. Like, that’s what I’m worried about. And she’ll be like, okay, well then maybe I shouldn’t drive at night as much. Like, when you have that conversation, it helps so much more than trying to make them feel the pain.

JoAnn 

Yeah.

Mm

Brie Tucker

is all we gotta say.

JoAnn 

Yes, yes. And it builds the relationship. It’s really about parenting for the long term here. Any short term benefits you get, they won’t last. It’s like weight loss, you know, when you try like to lose weight fast, what happens? Everything comes back on and then some same with parenting. If you try for the short term solution that fits fixes it for like a few hours. my gosh, it is going to come back to like tenfold in behaviors that you do not want to see.

And we’re going to break this last parenting rule for you about messy rooms right after this.

Brie Tucker 

this is a one. It’s a good one.

JoAnn

Okay. It’s funny when you were talking about your ex and I’ll be like, and you don’t want to get back together with him at all.

Brie Tucker

You know, a good way to get back together with your ex, to get it back is to marry someone else.

JoAnn 

Yeah, that’s that that’s really yeah, that’s true. hmm. Totally. Okay. So we’ve gone through two parenting rules. You are allowed to have your let your kids have screens at the table. You are not required to punish them for everything. In fact, do not because it does not give you the consequences you want for the future. And our third rule is about messy rooms. I mean,

Brie Tucker 

Mm -hmm.

And this one people might feel strongly about, but do hear us out on. We both feel the same way about this. Yeah.

JoAnn 

hear us out on this one. If you have ever walked past your child’s room and you’ve been like, you cannot go anywhere until you clean that room. We beg you to step back and rethink that situation. Because I’ve always been of the viewpoint that a kid needs their own space to learn exactly why it’s important to keep things organized and keep things clean. Now,

That goes in stages. This is like everything in parenting. There is so much gray area here and so much nuance. I cannot tell you just to let your six year old have a messy room and let them have it forever and let them experience the consequences. That is not what I’m saying. But what I’m saying is that it is so much easier long -term to let your kids have control over their space and let your kids develop.

Brie Tucker

Ha ha ha!

JoAnn 

their own systems and their own standards for how they want to live their life. My kids, yes.

Brie Tucker 

gonna toss something in there that you said, I wanna clarify. You said it’s so much easier for them to do this. And what I think that to be clear on the easier part is that you’re not beating your head against the wall, constantly telling them the same thing over and over again, trying to get them to listen. It will make an impact faster and last longer if you try it this way. So that’s why I wanted to throw out.

JoAnn

Yeah.

Try it this way. Yes. So my kids, they both had very messy rooms when they were like six and seven years old. Eight years old, nine years old, 10 years old, even my son, now that he’s 11, he’s turning, he’s making the turn now. But they get to the point in their messy room where they just can’t find things anymore. They are going around the house like crazy in the morning, being like, where is my lunchbox? Where is my other shoe?

Where is this? Where is that? And I know in my head I’m like, it’s probably under like that pile in your bedroom that you just threw everything out. The way I got through to them is every time they were stressed out, I would go in and be like, hey, you know, I get stressed out too when I have a messy room. Do you want my help in organizing it this weekend? And we can work together on it. And each time I’ve asked to help,

They were like, sure. It even got to the point where my daughter was like, mom, I really need your help. I can’t get under control. Like, I can’t get under control. And that, mean, is typical executive control in kids. Like, they don’t know how to organize yet. They don’t know how to put things in places. Nothing. Over a few years, they start to realize that, my gosh, right after my room is organized, I feel better.

Brie Tucker (28:55.992)

Mm

JoAnn (29:22.022)

And this sinks in and this sinks in for them. And then they start taking it over themselves. Like my 15 year old, her room is usually spotless on most days. And when it isn’t spotless, I’m like, Whoa, someone’s going through something. And I’m like there to give her some more emotional support. When she needs it. My son is getting there. He is realizing now how to clean his own room, how he likes things picked up, how to move things around without my help. And

knowing how to do is environment, but none of those things would have happened if I just told them to clean their room when they were like six, seven.

Brie Tucker (29:56.512)

Yeah. And I want to also have you share a little bit more about something. When you help them organize, when you say like, do you me to help you organize your room this weekend? Are you, tell us how that looks. Are you going in and does your kid end up helping you for the first five minutes and then sitting on their bed while you do the rest? Okay. So tell us like, what’s that look like?

No. They’re like, I go into their room and I’m like, Hey, you want to pick some music? And like my son would usually like go through my phone, put on some AJR and we would play AJR. And if it was like, we’d have a specific task. one of them was making sure. Yeah, we would take all of the clothes out of the dresser and make sure that he only had clothes that fit him in the dresser.

Brie Tucker 

you’d help them narrow it down to a specific task.

Okay.

JoAnn 

And so while we were doing that, there were some things where I’m like, okay, here’s what I’m gonna do. I want you to go through and find all the socks that match in this pile. So he needed a specific job to do and he did need to be told exactly what to do as we were going through it. But as long as he had that direction, he did it and he stayed there and he’s like, okay, what’s next? And I’m like, can you go get some garbage bags and start picking up all the trash on the floor? And that’s what he would do. He would go and pick up all the trash on the floor.

Brie Tucker

Yeah, because when you walk into a really messy room, especially as a kid that doesn’t have the organizational skills, right? They don’t have the executive functioning to think if this then that. It’s over freaking whelming.

JoAnn 

Mm -hmm.

Yes, it is. And it’s overwhelming to adults too. I think that’s a lot of what we get in organization and cleaning. We think that we have to figure out the whole problem right there instead of going in and taking these little steps of action where it’s like, I have a messy desk. Okay. My first thing to do is I’m going to clear off my desk and I’m going to throw away anything I don’t use anymore. Okay, done. Then you get clarity on the problem, the more steps you take throughout it. And that’s what you’re teaching kids when you go into clean with them.

Brie Tucker

Yeah. yeah.

JoAnn 

Start with something little and then you get a little bit more clarity and go the next step and the next step and pretty soon you have a clean room.

Brie Tucker 

So, all right, so here is my take on the messy room two, because again, being divorced, having my kids in two households, we have two different setups that we utilize. And I know, right, shocker, we have two different systems. In my house, I agree. Kids need to have their own space, especially in my kid’s case, because they don’t really, ha ha, let me back this up with a little thing that they like to tell me a lot of times.

They are teenagers now, so they have a bit of a dark sense of humor about the whole divorce thing. And they would say that they were homeless. They are couch surfers. They do not have a home. They have two places that they sleep at for a week at a time. And that neither of them are necessarily, because they never, they ask me still to this day, Mom, what address do I put on this form? And I’m always defaulting to like, just put mine, just put mine.

JoAnn 

Mm

Brie Tucker 

That way you just, know what, that way we always know that if we’re trying to figure something out, we’re like, what address did we put? We would have put mom’s down. there’s that. So because of the fact that they have two different homes with two different sets of rules and all that kind of stuff, I have always had the thought process that your room is your domain. That is your space to make the way you wanna look. Now I have some rules. One, no food in the room.

JoAnn 

Mm

Brie Tucker 

Do I catch my kids like sneaking food in their room? Yes, I do. And when I do, I’m like, hey, what’s the one rule we have? And they both will tell you, I can’t have food in my room. Okay, do you have food in your room? Yeah, what are you gonna do about it? I’ll take it out. And they do that. And the only reason I have that rule is because I can’t stand bugs. I don’t like bugs. I don’t want bugs. I just don’t want bugs. Plus my kids are gone every other week or well, my son is, he’s gone every other week. like, don’t,

JoAnn

Mm

Brie Tucker

room is closed for a whole week. And that’s another trick. His room is messy. I don’t like it. So I shut the door. So I don’t have to deal with it. My blood pressure doesn’t go up every time I walk past that boy’s room. right? And it’s not crazy messy. It’s just, mean, it’s not crazy messy, but it’s messy enough that I don’t like it the way it looks. So I shut the door. And then I only have like, there actually, guess there’s two rules I had.

JoAnn 

Yeah.

Brie Tucker

And the second rule was for my daughter. You have to have a safe path from your bed to your door in case of emergencies. That was my only other, no food. And if there’s a fire, you have to be able to get out of your room and not trip on anything. That’s the only things I ask. Other than that, if you keep, like you said, if you wanna keep your clothes in a pile on the floor and all wrinkly and messy to where you can’t find stuff, that’s your own problem.

JoAnn

This is like…

Yeah.

Yeah.

Brie Tucker 

I’m not helping you in the morning when you say I don’t have any clean shirts. that kind of sucks. How come you don’t know if you have any clean shirts? Well, because everything’s in a pile. Wow. Maybe that dresser over there or that closet would be helpful. I’m a bit snarky, I’ll be honest. But at the same time, I will always offer to help them. And my daughter probably has gone through three different organizational systems in her room. Every time she’s like,

Mom, I have too much for my space. Okay, well, you know, they made IKEA for a reason. There’s a way to find space in small spaces, because she has a small room. I’m like, you wanna organize it? Let’s look at stuff, let’s go find what you want. And I will purchase it for you. I will come in and help like, you know, project manage it, but I’m not gonna do it for you. And…

JoAnn

Thanks

Mm

Brie Tucker 

You’re right, like over the years, that system has worked so well. And I can tell you it’s worked well because my kids will tell you, they feel like their space in my house is actually their space. It is theirs, they get to do it as they want. I don’t come in and move stuff. I don’t tell them how to decorate. They have their own space and that’s important.

JoAnn 

Mm -hmm. Yes.

Yeah, it’s so, it is important. It’s important. I wonder a lot about the wrinkled clothes because I see my son get out of the car every day with a wrinkled t -shirt. It drives me insane. Cause I’m like, can I just spray you down? Can I spray you down? But there are not me, but people out there who say, how you present yourself matters. And I get that to an extent. I really, really get that to extent.

Brie Tucker 

I know, right? god.to some extent. Yeah.

JoAnn 

There is, I was reading a book recently, it was called the lion women of Tehran and it’s fiction, but in it, talks about, she goes to like this rich school, they made it out of like the downtown area where they were living poor. What happened to the family is that the father died and so the mom, like she couldn’t work, she didn’t have that money so they had to move to another area. And then uncle came in and married mom and then they got to go to the rich area again.

there’s a lot going on there. But one of the things that the main character Ellie, she talks about is she’s like, yeah, her friend from the downtown area comes into the school unexpectedly, Homa. And Homa is wearing like hand made down stuff and things that aren’t pressed by the maids like Ellie has her clothes pressed by the maids. And she can tell everybody who quote unquote fits in because they have this really pristine appearance.

Brie Tucker 

Yeah.

JoAnn 

not because they work harder, but because they have the money to outsource all of this labor to other people. And so I think a lot like about that recently and I’m like, okay, so you could tell wealthy by they have their clothes pressed because they have this money and other people are like trying to put this on their kids by saying that their kids should like press and iron their clothes and everything. We’re not.

the average Joe has that amount of time to put into their clothing. They have like other things they need to think about or leisure activities they need for their own mental health or whatever. But I think about that a lot when I see parents get a little uppity about their wrinkle clothes and the appearance. it like, is it trying to show the status or trying to, yeah, it’s a class thing, I think.

Brie Tucker 

class. Yeah.

I think it is, I think it is to some extent. I mean, I don’t know, I would love to hear from our audience, tell us what you guys think about this one, give us this feedback. Like to me, I do view it that way as well. And again, that’s from my own upbringing and my own experiences, things I’ve had said, you know, if someone doesn’t have the hair bow that, if the girl doesn’t have the hair bow that matches the shirt, that matches the leggings, that matches the socks, that matches the shoes, then they must not, you know.

JoAnn 

Mm

Yeah.

Brie Tucker 

have enough money. And I don’t agree to that, but I do know that’s a thought process in the town in which we live in because it has certain aspects. I, yeah, so I, yeah.

JoAnn

Yeah.

And I think it’s changed too throughout time. Like here in the Phoenix, Arizona area, we are big in the tech industry, tech bros who show up in jeans and like sweatshirts. like you walk into a fancy.

Brie Tucker 

Well, in high schoolers, high schoolers show up in pajamas, JoAnn. I know that, yeah, my kids go to the first time they’ve ever gone to school without a dress code has been high school. And the crap my kids wear to school. And when I go and pick them up, like before they were driving and I would have to pick them up and I would see other, and I would be like, okay, sorry, I’m like going to billion things on this, but I would see my daughter leave in the pajama pants and an oversized t -shirt and slippers.

JoAnn 

Yeah, you I mean.

JoAnn 

I know, I know you had this, I know.

Brie Tucker

slippers and I’m Right and I’m like, how is that? Okay, and then I’m sitting there at pickup and there’s 20 other people that come out dressed the same way and I’m like What is that? Like it’s they have blankets JoAnn even it’s so weird so crazy

JoAnn 

It’s how they fit in. Yeah. And you cannot tell you can. I know, I know that’s what they do. Yes, it’s you can’t tell anymore. You can’t tell in the terms of class. Like I talked with this about my husband, because I mean, you could walk into a fancy car dealership and you have like salespeople have no idea judging a customer and their worth because people dress horribly here. They dress horribly, especially the East Valley.

Brie Tucker 

It’s 117 degrees for like a month straight. Give us a break. We own one sweater. So collectively people, all of Phoenix, own one sweater. We all share it. It just goes between houses because we have, I was gonna say a day that it drops below 70, those are the single digits.

JoAnn

Yeah, no, it’s funny though

JoAnn 

I own so many sweaters, but I put them on when it’s like 90 degrees because that’s what they’re doing.

I love sweaters. I love it. Well, we hope that we gave you some relief today some rules that you could take out and not worry about so much knowing when you don’t worry about them. You’re really doing the best for your kids. We also included a link in the show notes to the stop doing checklist. So you want some more rules, you could just like push to the side. There are five more in that checklist. So go and check it out.

Brie Tucker 

Yes.

JoAnn 

And until next time, remember the best moms are happy mom take care of you and we’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker 

Thanks for stopping by.