Podcast Episode 250: How to deal with “Mom, why do you work all the time?” Transcripts

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

Julie Cole: I realized that if I start having that feeling, then I’m the one who can be proactive and be empowered to make a change. So rather than lying in bed, feeling like I’m a terrible mom thinking, Oh, my kids, I’m going to have to start saving for all the therapy for them.

Instead. I’d be like, Hey, I don’t feel like I’m paying enough attention to this one. Or I feel like this one’s having a few extra needs right now. So then I look at my calendar and guess what? I make a shift. I say no to a certain event. I get invited to, I say no to a podcast. I say no to a deadline. I ask for an extension, I pay better attention to my boundaries at work  

JoAnn Crohn: Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I am your host, JoAnn Crohn, joined here by the lovely Brie Tucker.

Brie Tucker: Why, hello, hello, everybody. How are you?

JoAnn Crohn: I love this episode today, Brie, because we really dig into guilt and how, our guest doesn’t let it affect her, which I find fascinating!

Brie Tucker: I, yeah, I think that it was a very fantastic conversation about boundaries, expectations, and, and the benefit of having your kids back to back to back to back.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, back to her. Which would be exhausting, honestly. And hey, before we get into today’s episode, can you do us a favor? Can you go review us on Apple Podcasts? it really helps us get the word out about No Guilt Mom, and every time we see a review, it just lights our faces on fire. That’s, that’s not the best image, but you get the 

Brie Tucker: hearts light, light, lights up our, lights up our, our, our smile. I don’t know, but it’s, it’s fun. Very heartwarming and it’s great to hear what you guys think of the podcast and it helps us as well coming up with our content coming forward

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, and you could even say JoAnn mixes metaphors and she needs to stop. That’s in your

Brie Tucker: mixes metaphor. Oh, I was going to say like, and

JoAnn Crohn: Lights your face on fire. That’s how it goes. That’s how it goes.

Brie Tucker: faces on fire

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, it’s not the best.

Brie Tucker: Brianne needs to stop singing so close to the mic.

JoAnn Crohn: No.

Brie Tucker: Those are the Those are the things

JoAnn Crohn: Well, without further ado, uh, we want to introduce you to Julie Cole, who you will know because she’s the co founder of Mabel’s Labels. She’s the award winning author of Like a Mother, Birthing Businesses, Babies, and a Life Beyond Labels, an entrepreneur, media personality, and mom of three. Six, which we get into in this interview.

So if you have trouble setting boundaries, if you’re trying to work and you have all the mom guilt coming at you from your kids being like, mom, why don’t you stop working? Why are you always working? This is the episode for you. So we hope you enjoy our interview with Julie. 

It’s how it goes. It’s how it goes. Welcome Julie to the no guilt mom podcast. Like I, when I first met you a few years ago and I was like, Oh my gosh, she’s the lady who created Mabel’s labels because Mabel’s labels was like on everything for my daughter. I mean, she’s 15 years old now, everything. I remember distinctly the little pink label on her lunchbox with the heart and like the writing. And so you’re, you’re an icon, Julie, welcome to the

Julie Cole: I love it. I love, well, I appreciate you being a customer and yeah, I mean, meeting, um, you and a bunch of the crew there at mom 2. 0 years ago, it’s, uh, just been an amazing ride over the last 21 years with Mabel’s labels. And now it’s, it’s wild too, because some of our OG customers are actually like they were, you know, if our original customer was eight years old, now we’re making labels for their babies. Like it’s wild. It’s wild. Yeah.

Brie Tucker: I was telling JoAnn before we started this episode, I was like, I told my husband who works, we both worked in early childhood, home visitation, family resource center type settings, and I was like, oh my gosh, we’re interviewing Mabel’s Labels today, and he’s like, who’s that? And I was just so heartbroken. I’m like, you’re not a very good home visitor. If you weren’t giving out this resource to people, like I’ve been doing this since 2002 and it was a resource I told every mom about. And Joey was like, it’s

Julie Cole: You know what? It is JoAnn’s right. It is the mom thing. Although I am shocked now. I think dads are getting more involved in that home life and the parenting and taking a little bit more of a role. And I am surprised how many dads now are like, Oh my gosh, Julie, you’re Mabel’s labels. I’m like, wow, 20 years ago, that never happened. So it’s a nice little change of pace.

JoAnn Crohn: I was thinking about this and like, why don’t dads like know about these things? And if you think about it as a mom, like the social media we follow and it. It’s mostly moms sharing with other moms about cool things they found. And if dads don’t have the same connections as that, they’re never going to be exposed to those things.

Julie Cole: I do think it’s, yeah, I think it’s twofold. I think it’s twofold. I think, yeah, absolutely. Word of mom. I mean, you gotta remember Mabel’s Label started 21 years ago. There was no social media. Like we relied heavily on word of mouth and that was moms talking about us at the daycare drop off the side of the soccer field at preschool, whatever.

And then once social media hit, man, we were all over the mom blogs and you know, moms were Owning Facebook and the mom blogs. And now obviously, TOK and the moms have just really been in this space and moms. The way we make purchasing decisions is that we trust other moms. That’s why influence marketing is so huge right now, because we don’t trust nameless faceless brands.

We don’t, we have to get referrals and that’s how we, buy things. So I think that’s the. That’s the first reason. And the second reason is that moms do make, still make the purchasing decisions for families and moms still are doing carrying the domestic load in families. So we still have a lot of work to do. The moms are still default parenting. We’re still the ones who are booking all the, appointments and teacher meetings and, and, I’ll take the dog to the vet. Like we are still doing all that. stuff that doesn’t really go with mothering, but somehow has been, you know, dropped on us and buying labels and making sure our kids are organized falls into

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. I want to dig a little bit into you starting a business and raising a family because you have, you have five kids? Four kids? Six kids. Six kids. And what are their age ranges?

Julie Cole: Oh, well it’s gotten easy now because they’re big. Like I have, uh, well, one’s turning 15 next month and he’s my baby. And I think he as a baby came to a mom 2. 0 actually. So Finian is 15 and then. 17, 18, 21, 20, just gone 23 and 24.

Brie Tucker: Wow. Did you just decide you were just going to just go through the whole thing at once?

Julie Cole: you know what I did? I’m a big fan of packing them in tight and I can see it was very busy for me in those early days, in the basement making labels and also raising a a bunch of small humans. Like I had my fifth kid when my oldest was six. Right. So I did pack them in tight and I had six C sections. So there was, that as well. Um, some recovery stuff. Yeah. But you know what? Like they really are just. Like the best of friends and like they really self maintain and like they are when COVID happened and I had kids get sent home from college because residents shot and my kids were all like putting together D& D games together. They’re all in the pool together, having movie nights, play Euchre, Monopoly. I was like, they’re still socialized.

JoAnn Crohn: See that’s

Julie Cole: I created friends for

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, 

Brie Tucker: built in friends.

JoAnn Crohn: that’s such an awesome

Julie Cole: I was like, finally, here’s why I had the six of them, COVID! Yeah,

Brie Tucker: me! Mom, she’s touching my snack!

Julie Cole: there was a lot of that. There was a lot of that too, believe you me.

Brie Tucker: yeah.

JoAnn Crohn: starting a business Especially with kids at home like it it’s it’s rough. It’s it’s tough, especially when a lot of the domestic The plastic load is dumped on moms and the moms are at home. I always get mad at those questions asked of moms, like, how do you do it all? Because dads are never asked that question.

But at the same time, a lot of times in the home, dads are set up with kind of, I call it the luxury of leaving home to like go to outside work. What did it look like when you were starting the business? Were you the one home and was your partner at work or what is that?

Julie Cole: so a couple of things I do want to mention because you really make a good point around the double standards and I know I would ask daddyo when he would go in like to an event for work, he has a big job and, and I’d say, Oh, what do you say when people ask you who’s taking care of the kids?

And he’s like, well, oh, no, one’s ever asked me that. And I said, weird, because nobody’s ever not asked me that when I’m speaking at an event. Right. So that’s that. yeah, how did I manage that mother load in the early days? Look, it was, it was tough. I’m going to be honest. I didn’t, I didn’t sleep a lot.

And I think people tend to romanticize, entrepreneurship. They think it’s all like book deals and speaking engagements and Ted talks and things like that. And sometimes that stuff happens after you’re in line for 20 years. those early days were like putting kids to bed. Going into my sister’s basement. Cause I have three co founders making labels till 2am getting up with kids at 6am and then doing the do again. And it’s not all putting kids to bed and pouring a glass of wine and watching Netflix. Like you really have to 

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. 

Julie Cole: there’s just none of that. And I have to be honest. Like for me,we started Mabel’s Labels for two reasons. One was that there was a product missing from the market. So we filled a gap. And the other one was that my eldest child got diagnosed with autism and we needed to, I needed, I want to, I’m a recovered lawyer. I wanted to leave the traditional workforce to have a little more flexibility, but I needed daddyo to make sure that he was pulling in a good salary because we had a lot of expenses cause I insisted on paying for a lot of therapy for my son.

For me, what I did was, yes, I was working really hard on the business and I was, working hard with the kids, but at the same time, it was really important to me that daddyo actually had a good night’s sleep and could go in to work every day. Because he was a bit of the cash cow at the time.

Remember I was starting a business. I wasn’t bringing in money and somebody had to. And so I actually didn’t mind making the sacrifice of getting, I remember one time he woke up and he’s like, how was your sleep? I didn’t notice you in a minute. I’m like, yeah, five pukers. He’s like, Oh my God. I’m like, I know go to work.

The last thing I need you to do is like miss work, not get a promotion, not get your bonus. You know, we, so I think we all had our roles. How Endeavor it’s not sustainable for a lot of people and it was,I, I, it was silly of me that I waited until my fifth kid was one until I got a nanny, three kids too late.

I definitely think, you, you’ve got to really ask for help and you need to manage expectations. And I think that was part of it. You know, was for me, I really did not mind carrying that and being the, like being the caregiver and carrying the load and that, because I really knew that if I were going to.

They can’t feel me had to be sustained financially, and if I’m going to go and drop out of a law career to start a label company in the basement. Well, we have mouths to feed as well. So, you know what? It was, it’s a partnership like, like any, and you manage expectations. You have great communication about, you know, who’s going to do what.

And I think that is an important thing to do because when you go to start a business, You need to make sure your family’s on board and what it’s going to look like. Otherwise, they will be sorely, shocked. 

JoAnn Crohn: I have so many questions to ask about that in terms of like the inner thought process and any guilt you might have and, uh, we’re gonna get into that right after this.

Brie Tucker: it’s interesting you saw a need and you wanted to explore that and you wanted to go for it. And I find that really admirable to like have such trust in your decision that you’re like, I’m just going to quit a law career and we’re going to do this. what gave you that confidence, Julie, what did you see in 

Julie Cole: Well, look, a couple of things. So a lot of it too, was that I did. I was very invested in my son’s progress. so that leaving the traditional workforce didn’t feel like such a leap because I knew I had done my research that. His best outcomes would dependent on how much early intervention I was able to provide.

you guys are moms, you get it. Like it’s, it’s a no brainer. and I, I do also want to say, and I, I, I would like to acknowledge a bit of privilege here because I I’m brave and all that jazz, but I did also have a spouse who had a good And I did also have A law career and a master’s degree and other things that I could fall back on.

And I had people who supported me. I was raised by people who believed me and told me I could do everything. And that actually is privilege. So I do like to acknowledge that because there’s a lot of women out there who are starting businesses. They’re single moms with two kids. They’re already working two jobs and they’ve got a side hustle. To me, those are the real heroes.

JoAnn Crohn: Oh yeah, like I, I see that as well because I acknowledge the privilege that I have in my life to pursue this career because I too have a spouse who has a good job and who brings in the money for the family so that if like the company, like No Guilt Mom falters or has a downturn or anything, we can put the resources in and get right back up to where we are before.

Julie Cole: Exactly. And we know what entrepreneurship can be like having a business is often feast or famine, so it’s kind of nice to have a little somebody with some stability, especially in those early

JoAnn Crohn: The stability is good. Did you ever, feel guilt from your children in terms of the amount of hours that you put in or the work? And not that the kids, necessarily, intentionally caused guilt, but, like, how would you deal with comments like, Mom, stop working. Mom, come on over and, like,

Brie Tucker: You work all the time I don’t get to see you. Yeah,

Julie Cole: Yeah. So there’s a couple of things. I gave up mom guilt about four or five kids ago. Um, I just don’t find it very proactive. 

Brie Tucker: was there a place where you’re able to go drop it off at was there like a collection? 

Julie Cole: Yeah. Right. Right. I’ll let you know. I’ll let y’all know. Your listeners need

Brie Tucker: that’s a new business. Well, hey, that’s no guilt by

Julie Cole: That’s right. You guys are, you guys got that going on. You got that going on. And, and I think it’s because I realized that if I start having that feeling, then I’m the one who can be proactive and be empowered to make a change. So rather than lying in bed, feeling like I’m a terrible mom thinking, Oh, my kids, I’m going to have to start saving for all the therapy for them.

Instead. I’d be like, Hey, I don’t feel like I’m paying enough attention to this one. Or I feel like this one’s having a few extra needs right now. So then I look at my calendar and guess what? I make a shift. I say no to a certain event. I get invited to, I say no to a podcast. I say no to a deadline. I ask for.

For an extension, I pay better attention to my boundaries at work and same the other way. So, you know, I feel like also my kids having been raised in this environment, again, I think it’s been come, come down to managing expectations. So. Remember when we started our company, my 24 year old, my 23 year old, my 20, they didn’t know a mom who had a phone in those early days because we didn’t have phones.

And I will tell you that once we had cell phones, it actually provided me with a lot of freedom because it meant I didn’t have to be at work all the time. It didn’t mean I was. So I would tell them like if we were going into, if I was going to watch one of them do a sport, I’d say, look, I’m going to go on my phone.

Cause I have to do one phone call. Okay. And I have to do one email and then that’s what I’d stick to. So if they looked up and I was on my phone, that’s what I would do. And they realized that me having the phone meant that I could actually be at the sports event or I could go to the, with the kindergarten class, the apple orchard.

So it did provide me with some flexibility. Although all that has to be managed. And I think we all have had that guilt creep in when we’re like, we’re on our phones too much, but come on again, that’s in our power to put some boundaries around that and we just need to do

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, it’s just, it’s all about the feeling and it’s all about how you’re feeling about the activity and you can take other people’s feelings into account, but they don’t necessarily drive your actions. So like the whole cell phone thing, I view my cell phone also as a great device. And there are some times where I notice, work creeps in and starts stressing me out on the cell phone.

And that’s where I’m like, Oh! Throwing this across the room because that’s not making me feel good right now. It’s It’s really like just choices and there’s no cut and dry answer. That’s why it gets me so mad when like people are like, Mom, stay off your phones. I’m like, dudes, stop. 

Julie Cole: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because sometimes I, but it is around again, like the managing expectations, let them know what to expect. Okay. You know, and maybe our family and I do try to role model it. It’s like, you know, no phones go to the table or no phones go when we’re having family meetings or no phone, just like at work.

Like we don’t bring our phones into the boardroom when we’re having a meeting. There are certain times. And I think role modeling, healthy phone use is really important too, to our kids. Right.

JoAnn Crohn: And especially, devices are used everywhere in our lives right now. And it’s not just a simple matter of you’re on your device. It’s bad. But it’s this, Talking of it like I can give you an example from yesterday me and my kids We always talk about mental health and screens because you know There’s a connection there about not being connected with people in real life not experiencing the outdoors getting that vitamin d That’s so forth.

And so we’re always talking about that, but it’s always under my kids Ability to actually put down the screens. I don’t Necessarily enforce screen time stuff. They’re the ones who come to me and they’re like mom. I’m feeling really bad I need you to put the lockdown on my device like To put some limits on there. And I’m like, cool! this is exactly what I want from you.

Julie Cole: That’s amazing self regulation. That is really good self regulation.

JoAnn Crohn: That’s years of talking about it.

Brie Tucker: well, but that’s also like you’re you’re because of the years of talking about it And because of the way that you guys are talking about modeling it they are now gonna be able to go away leave your home And not need you to be the one that takes care of all of it for them.

They’re going to understand what they can do. They’re going to, even if it’s, even if it turns into calling you from college, mom, I’m feeling bad about my screen time. wasn’t there something you used to do? What is that? Like it’s at least teaching them how to be able to be aware of that and moving forward, which isn’t that like our whole goal as 

JoAnn Crohn: That’s our whole goal. 

Julie Cole: it’s also, I think to your point, like they, they’re like, Ooh, this isn’t making me feel good at the moment. And I think that’s the whole thing with mom guilt too. yes, I say if you’ve start, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. I don’t, It’s a bad thing if you let it like perseverate on your brain and it doesn’t, but if you’re like, okay, let that feeling sneaking in now, what can I do?

Let’s use this proactively to make a positive change for my work, for my family, for myself, then that’s okay. it’s just a feeling like any other, but yeah, you can’t let that rule your life and be like, I’m a terrible mother. that’s just useless. And where’s the dad guilt, right? Where’s the dad 

JoAnn Crohn: guilt? But it’s so interesting seeing it like that, like switching mom guilt around to be like, okay, it’s a feeling that tells you that, maybe you’re not happy about something and you want to change something. And it’s time to really dig in and figure out what that is.

I know once a month, and it’s always like corresponds with my cycle. I get this horrible, Mom guilt feeling the shame this. I’m a horrible mother. It lasts for a day. And like yesterday I was feeling it and I’m like, okay, what day is it? Okay. This is the day. This is the day I need to go take care of myself and rest and give myself some self compassion. Whereas nothing really needs to change. It’s just that I am needing a lot more care and love right now. And seeing mom guilt

Julie Cole: That’s great. That’s yeah. That’s, that’s great. Self awareness. that’s great. Self awareness. I also think it’s really important for us in this time to realize, Oh, I think a lot of the mom guilt creeps in because we, we see what we think other people are doing on social media. You know, you’re like, look at that influencer. Why are her kids always clean? Why isn’t why aren’t her kids eating Kraft dinner three times a week? They are. She’s just not posting about it. So I always try to remind other moms that, you know, remember it’s the highlight reel, man.

Like you’re just seeing what, and if, if, and you need to curate your list, if you’re, if you have a list, if you’re following people that make you not well, or let that mom guilt. Unfollow. Unfollow. Unfollow. Curate a list that’s good for your mental health.

JoAnn Crohn: I think that’s so important. And I know that throughout the years, Julie, I bet you’ve learned a lot of lessons about entrepreneurship and motherhood. And I want to hear them right after this. So, Julie, over the years, you have probably learned some ways to balance, 

Julie Cole: This entrepreneurship, running your own company, along with, being there for your kids and being involved. What would you say to a mom who’s struggling right now, balancing the workload versus the family?

Yeah. I’d say you need to say no. A lot more to people, to your kids and at work, I’ll give a few examples of, of what I do. I was actually just telling somebody about this yesterday because it’s just real. If my kid came home from school today and said, mom, I need 24 cupcakes for tomorrow. I would laugh. Are you new here? Have we just met? Never gonna happen. In fact, they would know never to ask. Around here, my mantra is, your lack of planning does not constitute my emergency, 

JoAnn Crohn: Brie says that. Yes. 

Brie Tucker: Coworker that would say that to me all the time because she would be like, Bri, you got to stop putting everybody else’s problems as a priority for you.

JoAnn Crohn: Mm 

Julie Cole: exactly. Exactly. So, you know, those sorts of things, it’s just a natural consequence. Like I’m not, I’m actually not going to bake the cupcakes at all, but I’ll pay a baker to do it and they’ll pay me to make their labels. Everybody stay in their lane, do what you’re good at. but I say no to them about a lot of things and things like, you know, if they forgot their lunch at the store.

At home like I wouldn’t bring it to them. because nobody’s had scurvy yet. They’re fine They can find a brother with an apple and the thing is is that I would spend my life not being productive but chasing six kids around Um for forgotten items. So to me that’s it’s not a punishment. It’s a natural consequence.

I’ll be like, oh dude that Is such a drag, let’s work out a little, maybe I can do a visual for you in the mornings to double check that everything’s in your backpack. So I’ll help them and I’ll feel sorry for them, but I’m not going to save them. So if they forget their gym clothes, they sit out on the bench.

If they forget their homework, maybe they stay in at recess and do it again. If they forget their project, they get a B instead of an A that’s for life, man. That’s how that goes. So I find that when I protect, And, and treat myself with the respect around productivity. So do they, and again, they don’t see it as punishment.

They’re just like, yeah, it’s a drag. That’s what happens. Right. So say, say no to them. And, and also, including them in things like moms always have these big to do lists. what’s your do not do list. Maybe, maybe you don’t have to make dinner every night. Maybe a 13 year old can make dinner.

Maybe your six year old can unstack the dishwasher. There’s a lot that these kids can be doing to pitch in. You don’t have to do. All the things and I’m very similar at work. I’ve got, boundaries. of course, I’m always there to help, but give me a little bit of notification so I can book you in.

So don’t spend all my time, getting interrupted. And, you know, I think that’s true for even events. Let me get us to speak events or go to brand things or whatever. I actually have a 10 point checklist before I say yes to something.

JoAnn Crohn: Oh. 

Julie Cole: Yeah. I do 

JoAnn Crohn: That’s amazing. 

Brie Tucker: what are a few things. on that checklist? I’m curious. 

Julie Cole: So it would be like, is the event or is where I’m going? What I’m doing are there people in the audience that That are worth connecting for my business. Are there people there who have communities that can bring Mabel’s labels to their business? Are there people there who are possibly going to do a great collab with their baby product and my baby product?

There may be non compete, but same market. I have all sorts of things like that. And I will tell you at this agent stage, my number one question, do I want to?

JoAnn Crohn: yeah. 

Brie Tucker: Hell yes. JoAnn tells me that all the time.

JoAnn Crohn: Is it a hell yes? It’s a hell no if it’s not a hell yes

Julie Cole: Exactly. Exactly. So sometimes we have to do that as well because we, again, we have to, value our time.

JoAnn Crohn: I love all this, Julie, and I think you have really reinforced the need for me for boundaries. I’ve gotten so much better over the years because I like to call myself a recovering people pleaser. but just like how, how much we can still grow and improve and say no, especially to To our kids because you’re right like the more you save them the less they learn the natural consequences of things Yeah, 

Julie Cole: lot of my no’s are really more about boundaries. Like I get people all the time, Julie, can I take you for a coffee to pick your brain and talk about, I’ve got a business idea. And you know, I remember at one point being like, I don’t have time to go for so much coffees.

I need to be like raising humans and making labels. So instead what I did is I set up like a half. Every six or eight weeks and people can book me for 40 minute sessions. And then I feel like I’m giving back, which I love cause I love to share. And I love hearing what new entrepreneurs are doing and what their thoughts.

I don’t want everybody reinventing the wheel. If I can make the journey easier for somebody I will, but if they can’t make it, I won’t say, Oh, it’s okay. I’ll see you the next day. I’ll say you can book me in the next six week session. 

JoAnn Crohn: that is genius

Brie Tucker: that a lot. 

Julie Cole: it’s not actually a no, it’s a boundary, right? I’m still helping, but I’m still getting my stuff done.

Brie Tucker: Because you know what? You’re not making their lack of planning a priority for you. 

Julie Cole: my emergency. Exactly. 

JoAnn Crohn: Exactly. Well, Julie, thank you so much for coming here and sharing all of your wisdom. Where can people go and find you?

Julie Cole: So, of course, they can check out Mabel’s Labels at MabelsLabels.com. And, if you want to hear about me or order my book or read my stuff or see me on, in media, you can go to MabelsLabels.com/JulieCole.

JoAnn Crohn: Awesome. Well, we will talk to you later and definitely see you in a few weeks.

Julie Cole: Thanks for having me. 

JoAnn Crohn: Let the universe come to you, Brie. we were just talking before we got on this outro. Brie had something really great to say about this episode, and then it just left.

Brie Tucker: Did and it like, and then

JoAnn Crohn: I

Brie Tucker: was pointing out other things. Like I loved how she talked about what’s on your do not do list. And Oh, Oh, I remembered it came back. 

JoAnn Crohn: trust it in the universe! There you go! 

Brie Tucker: See, okay. So this is just for people listening. This is like the ADHD brain and, and, and real life. this is, this is what it’s like working with Brie all the time. I’ll be

JoAnn Crohn: it’s like working with me. I understand the ADHD. Sometimes I’m like, Brie, it’s time to go on, and she’s okay.

Brie Tucker: Yeah, I can do it. I got it. so no, one thing we talked about a lot is about the mom guilt, right? And about how, how much it, it really does tear you apart when your kids are like, Mom, you work all the time. You’re always on your computer. You’re always on your phone. And,

JoAnn Crohn: I hear that a lot.

Brie Tucker: right? But here’s the thing that I think about a lot with it, and maybe it’s because of the way that my family dynamic is. If that’s all that they know, if that’s all that they’ve ever seen, then yeah, I could see that is their perspective that mom’s always on her phone. She’s always working this, that, and the other, always got 15 things going on. What they don’t realize because they haven’t had the other experience of the, of a parent that can’t leave work, can’t come to school, can’t come to your recital, can’t bring the lunchbox. Can’t volunteer for the field trip, like all of those things that, and I don’t mean it in a bad way people, I’m just trying to articulate that like all those things that they take for granted because they don’t know the life without it.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, I know, I agree with you. It’s, it’s the same way I see with my kids who get mad at us for quote unquote yelling at them. yelling at them in our house is like, I’m really unhappy this happened right now. That’s our yelling. That’s it. That’s what they refer to as yelling. And it took a while and it took like being actually, some of their teachers explained, showed them exactly what yelling was. And they’re like, mom, like, this is not cool. Like that person’s crazy. I’m like, they are crazy. You’re right. That’s, that’s yelling over there. This is same person expressing their emotions of displeasure.

Brie Tucker: Yep. Like we have, we

JoAnn Crohn: very different.

Brie Tucker: we have that conversation in our house all the time. And I do think it’s funny because I am a, I wouldn’t even call myself a recovering yeller. I tend to raise my voice a lot. I get very, very impassioned about things and you know that like my emotions are real big.

A part of, I think being loud in my case is having been the youngest of five. Like I had to be loud to be heard in my household and that just always stayed with me. Now my husband. Miguel is very soft spoken, you know this. So if that man even remotely raises his voice, I will even be like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s going on here? are you so upset? He’ll be like, I’m not upset. You just, you asked me to repeat the same thing three times. So I’m just trying to articulate into And to raise my voice, because I don’t think you could hear the volume was, did I misread the cues? it, it, he, and he, and he does get frustrated because like his, his son, my kids, me, like we all will immediately be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why are you yelling? When all he’s doing is slightly increasing his volume and slowing down his speech.

JoAnn Crohn: Poor Miguel. Always, always Miguel. No, I say that in a fine way. Miguel dishes it out as well. It’s fine. Miguel’s fine. He’s doing fine over there.

Brie Tucker: But I can understand because like, yeah, like it, it, he’ll say like how his, his kids like growing up, his son would be like, why are you yelling? And he’s I’m not, I don’t think I’m yelling. And then he’s like,

JoAnn Crohn: it’s all about perspective. 

Brie Tucker: reflecting back on his life and his family with five siblings. Yeah, that’s not yelling.

JoAnn Crohn: No, but I agree with you on the mom guilt and stuff when kids say those things because they’re only Seeing what they see maybe in sitcoms or because we really don’t have that much of an insight into people’s homes Like they’re real homes. We see if there’s influencers on youtube, especially a lot of the teen influencers my daughter watches you see this kind of Fake version where everyone’s happy and everyone’s lovely because the camera is going and it’s not real life It’s not like how people actually interact with each other and that’s something to keep in mind during this guilt.

I do love all of Julie’s boundaries and saying no and stuff, because I feel like I am very easily pulled into other people’s problems. And I immediately want to help fix it and solve it. And that causes me so much more stress

Brie Tucker: Okay. And I’m going to open the curtain here a little bit for listeners, so people that have been listening to us for a long time know that we have known each other for a long time. We met when our daughters were in kindergarten. So we’re legitimately. Friends. But that boundary gets funky when we’re working sometimes, because I’ll be like, we’ll be talking about work, right, and I’ll start telling you about my personal life, and da da da da, and then all of a sudden we’re off on this other tangent. and it’s hard when you have relationships with people that are multifaceted in different ways. So I feel like I suck you in sometimes, too.

JoAnn Crohn: no, but it’s also like really rewarding I wouldn’t have it any other way because you see these things about oh, yeah It’s so hard to work with my friend and I think those are people who have not gone through the hard like they quit when it got hard instead of actually Going through the hard because when you go through the hard like you and I I think we have a much like stronger Like lean on relationship than we did before we worked on each other,

Brie Tucker: I tell you, you’re my, you’re my sister now. So there you go.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. And I think it was with anything like you, you go through the hard with people instead of quitting and you see like, there’s a lot more wonderfulness on the other side of it. there’s a lot more wonderfulness on the other side of struggle. So I just have to say that. And what helps is listening to other people go through it. So that’s why we’re so open about it with us Brie. I love listening to Arntra Expert with Dax and Monica because they will talk about fights they had and how they got through

Brie Tucker: Yeah. Did you say like they had one where they weren’t talking to each other for a while,

JoAnn Crohn: for like a month and they were still doing their show. Yeah. And you like, it’s just how human beings work and there’s nothing wrong with it. There’s nothing wrong with conflict. I grew up in a house with very little conflict and so I was very conflict adverse. Not realizing that actually conflict is the way you don’t have those feelings inside of you where you just become resentful and angry and mad at everyone because you won’t talk to them about things. that’s why there’s no conflict because nothing’s talked about.

Brie Tucker: eggs. I just saw like a tick tock where there was like a comedian that was talking about that. She was like, yeah, my friend, she, I was like, don’t you ever have fights with your husband? And she’s yeah, sure. I do all the time. Like just yesterday. We had one and he said this and I went, okay. So you see, when you say that, I feel like what I’m hearing from you is that you were saying this about me.

And then the husband was like, Oh no, no, that’s not what I meant at all. And the comedian is like, yeah, that’s not how a fight goes out of my house, my house, exact same situation. I’d be like, Oh, so I’m a crappy wife now. Well, why’d you marry me? Well, why am I here even? And then this huge fight starts. So yeah. Yeah, it’s all about talking about it.

JoAnn Crohn: It’s so funny because I just visited my cousin in Portland over the weekend, and I haven’t seen him for a while, but we’re really close in age, like two years, and him and his sister, who is three years younger than him, and then my sister, we were like a group of four growing up, like it was always great seeing, them, because we just all played together, and because of our age differences, I actually played with my little sister, who’s seven years younger, because they filled in the gaps.

So it was like having, four siblings, anyways, we, growing up together with the same childhood, we started talking about all these things we were seeing and things going on with our family. And we have quite the family secret going on. That’s like, I 

Brie Tucker: I can’t wait to have a conversation post recording on this one. I

JoAnn Crohn: It involves, it’s not like secret, secret. It’s like,there was some drama. There was some drama in our family. And we don’t know the causes of the drama, but we saw it. Growing up a lot of it. and I won’t divulge it here. Maybe I need to write a work of fiction I’ll write a work of fiction with some characters and like divulge it in there with characters, but And then my mom would be like JoAnn No, but a lot of stuff came out and we were actually like my husband prepared us all old fashions And we had two old fashions that night. So there was a lot of stuff that

Brie Tucker: was gonna say that’s when the good conversations come out.

JoAnn Crohn: and we had fun It was it was good. It was cleansing It was so funny because we were like calling like I was calling my mom and i’m like mom And I had her on speaker, Mom, is this true? And like, she’s like, who told you that? And I’m like, Mom, why didn’t you ever tell me this? And my mom’s like, who, me? I’m like, mother! just tell me if it’s true. And she’s like, yes. I’m like, okay, thank you. I love you. I’ll see you this weekend. Bye bye. And then we were like calling my sister on speakerphone. We were getting her into it. It

Brie Tucker: Oh my god, I have the best juicy news.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, it’s, it’s really, it was fun. It was fun. but it’s all about, talking with each other and getting those things out, because things were weird. Yeah. And we had no idea how weird they were.

Brie Tucker: crazy. That’s crazy. So yeah, so hopefully this episode, you, okay, and the other thing too that I didn’t even mention I don’t think was that like, I was like so upset with my husband because he didn’t know who Mabel’s labels were, which then started a whole secondary conversation about how it’s, it’s a mom’s thing.

Moms worry about that kind of stuff. And as someone else who was also in childcare for some time too. I very much appreciate Julie’s work with Mabel’s Labels. It helped us out so much over the years. It’s fantastic. But yeah, hopefully you loved this episode as much as we did. 

JoAnn Crohn: And go review us. 

Brie Tucker: And you’re going to go review us! Yeah, you heard it 

JoAnn Crohn: us. Share it with all of your friends. Help us get No Guilt Mom podcast out into the world because the more guilt we take away from women, the more powerful women can be. So remember, the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you and we’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker: Thanks for stopping by!