Podcast Episode 243: Navigating Modern Mom Problems with Tara Clark Transcripts

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

Tara Clark: As parents, you have to let your children test the boundaries, learn the boundaries, know when they say, you know what, mom, I need a little bit more, Instagram today. You know what, mom, I’ve had too much Instagram today and that’s where they’re learning. It’s all a learning process. I know I watched a ton of television as a child and my husband will say the same thing. He watched a ton of television as a child and we turned out okay. And I’m not saying like, oh, we turned out okay.I’m not saying it like that. I’m saying like, but we learned our boundaries.  

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

Brie Tucker: Why, hello, hello, everybody, how are you?

JoAnn Crohn: a lovely, lovely morning here as we’re gearing up for the Happy Mom Summit, which is in just a few weeks. 

Brie Tucker: People can’t see me dancing. They just hear me, making weird noises. I’m dancing.

JoAnn Crohn: It is our biggest event of the year. So if you have not got your tickets yet, you can get it right in the link below. and our guest today, Tara Clark is a speaker in the summit. So you’ll get to hear more from her, before we get into it though, Brie and I have something to ask you.

Can you take a few seconds and rate and review the podcast? It really, really helps us out and it helps get the podcast out to more moms, get the message out for more moms. So if you can just take a few minutes, do that. We love it. We will shout you out on air with all the things in the world. It really, really means a lot.

And with that, we’re excited to introduce you to our guest today. Tara Clark. Tara Clark is the founder of Modern Mom Probs. Host of the modern mom probs podcast and author of the book by the same name. She helps moms find solutions for their modern mom problems and is a speaker. Like we said, at our 2024 happy mom summit, as well as alt summit and mom 2.0 this spring. So we hope you enjoy our conversation with Tara and really listen to it. We get into those guilt inducing topics. Screen time. We break it down exactly what we do. You’re going to feel a lot better after you hear it. And what you feed your kids, which I could go on forever and ever about.

Brie Tucker: we take the shame out of that part.

JoAnn Crohn: take the shame out. So we hope you enjoy our conversation with Tara. 

Welcome to the podcast Tara. It’s always a joy to get to talk to you and we’re just gonna have some fun during this show So welcome welcome

Tara Clark: Let’s do it. Hi. Thanks so much for having me. I’m so excited to be with both of you.

JoAnn Crohn: I love your podcast, it’s called Modern Mom Problems because there are, so many problems affecting moms today. What do you think are the biggest mom problems that you’re seeing right now?

Tara Clark: You know, it’s funny because there are so many and then when I tell people about my show or, what I do and they’re like, Oh gosh, yes, I have so many. So people always agree and they vouch for that as well. and I’ll give you a little bit of a background. When I first started the account and I was talking about modern mom problems, I was doing it very tongue in cheek and very like first world problems because there was also an Instagram account called first world problems.

And so, and maybe it was. It’s also a Twitter account at the time because that’s how long ago this was, where people were making light of things, but. As my account evolved and as I was doing it longer, I wasn’t just talking about running out to Target and getting lattes. I started then talking about maternal mental health and postpartum depression and infertility and miscarriage and all other things that do fall under the umbrella of modern mom problems. And so now, here we are all these years later, talking about both Light things and more serious. And so anything that falls underneath that umbrella of a modern mom problem, we’re going to talk about it.

JoAnn Crohn: See I love that and there’s so many problems that I’ve realized that people just don’t talk about and then when it Happens in your own life that you see so much fear about it like we saw today in our balance community where Somebody was talking about how their partners get really upset if the house isn’t completely clean and 

Brie Tucker: don’t get me started on that one.

JoAnn Crohn: And so then they feel it’s their job To keep the house clean. And, I commented on that and I’m like, no, no, that’s your partner’s job if he’s upset. And like all these other women were commenting on it too. And she said, you know what? I, I didn’t realize that I wasn’t the only one struggling with this issue. And just stuff like that and bringing like problems like this out to the surface. have you seen anything recently that you saw that just made people feel less alone by talking about these issues?

Tara Clark: Yeah, I mean, gosh, like, where do we even begin with this? I mean, I’m serious, because, there’s so many things. Like, you, you know, you asked me, I was the first question was like, you know, what are some of the, the modern mom problems, right? It’s, it’s things like the mental load of motherhood, which, obviously, that story falls underneath that.

It’s loneliness, it’s social media comparison, it’s screen time with our kids, it’s what to feed our children. there’s so many things that, Unite all of us that we are all going through to, one degree or another and, and those are the modern mom problems that we have right now, but going back to the mental load of motherhood.

Yeah, that is a huge one. And until people started putting A label to it, and sharing their own stories. We didn’t realize that we weren’t the only ones going through that, because that’s stuff that’s happening in the privacy of your own home. And until now that people are inviting other people into their homes via social media.

And then we get to see insights and say, Oh, wait a second. That’s not how it is in everyone’s house that I have to constantly clean up after my partner and my children. Go, wait a second. And bringing that level of awareness. Changes everything. I say this all the time for all kinds of things, for kid stuff, and adult stuff, and parenting stuff, it’s like, it all starts with awareness. And I think the mental load of motherhood is a huge, huge 

Brie Tucker: Well, I think a big thing you just said there too is about putting a label on it. Like I am a huge proponent of helping find diagnoses, helping find labels to things because it’s that nameless nagging feeling that really isolates you because then you, you don’t know how to verbalize it to other people and you just, and that’s what just perpetuates the whole thought process of, Oh, it’s just me.

It’s just my messed up head. It’s just my messed up feelings. I’m just being too sensitive. I’m just not. I’m the only one who doesn’t have it together, but that label helps it so much. And I love how mental load is becoming such a big thing in social media lately. But also just being able to say so tongue in cheek of like, it’s a modern mom problem.

It’s a, it’s a thing, because if I try to talk to my mom about something and be like, did you ever feel like you had too much on your plate and that, that, that, and my mom comes back and is like, no, no, it was just, it was just a blessing to have you all and I was able to, and you’re like ah. 

JoAnn Crohn: You’re like because okay like I’m so excited. I can’t even get the word out. I’m like No, I was talking with actually my mother in law and I was talking about like this mental load thing and She came back with a comment that was very similar to that. It was like, yeah, it’s a lot to juggle but like I see It is that generation, like that generation was told that, Hey, like you don’t share your inside home life with the outside world.

That is a private matter that is not to be shared. That’s not to be discussed. That is something that you handle from within the family. And I think something that’s different with what we’re doing things now is that we don’t even care. Like we don’t, we were like, we’re done. We’re Done with this crap.

Like we saw our moms go through it. We see exactly what happened when we left the house and our moms no longer had kids to care for on a regular basis and what happened with that. And I think we’re just at the point like, and I’m proud of our generation for doing this and for bringing this out. To the surface and like what you said, Brie, with the vocabulary, it reminds me of a human giver syndrome. And I think I’ve talked with you about this before, Tara. Have I, have I talked, have I

Tara Clark: No, no, let’s talk about it.

JoAnn Crohn: Okay, so human giver syndrome, it is from a book called Burnout, by Emily and Amelia

Tara Clark: Oh, yes, I knew that sounded familiar. I was like, I’ve read that book, and so I vaguely, yeah, we did talk about that.

JoAnn Crohn: yeah, but having that vocabulary of all of us women basically feeling that we need to give, give, give, give, give to everybody else, give to our family, give to our partners, and In my life recently, like my husband’s been working like 15 hour days and I’ve been in charge of everything at home and being the CEO of a company and trying to run that as well.

I am gived out, like I’m gived out so much so that when you want to be like affectionate to the people around you. When my husband comes and he’s Oh, affectionate. I’m like, I can’t like, and I told him that I’m like. Because I had the vocabulary. I have give to everybody else, I just want to be the one to relax and just receive what people give me and have somebody take care of me for once. And I cannot give anymore at this moment. And, yeah, so I think having the vocabulary is so important.

Tara Clark: It’s so important because otherwise we just suffer literally in silence. And I say literally because there is no word to describe that, that feeling that we have, it’s important to, to be able to talk about these things. Cause then at least if we have this, we’re all on the same page of talking with the same, phrase and same terms. And we go, Oh, you feel like that? Oh, I feel like that. Oh, you feel like that? Oh, we feel like that. And, and so then that’s where it builds the camaraderie. 

Brie Tucker: does. And that building of the camaraderie is also what helps make it okay. Because when you’re just saying it with let’s say you had vocabulary and let’s say it’s like, I am feeling burnt out. Right? I’m feeling burnt out and overwhelmed and like I’ve given to everybody in my family and nobody is giving back to me.

Do you feel like that now if somebody were to say that to you and you don’t really know this person or like whatever you might be like, oh, I don’t know if I want to get that deep with this person right away. But the fact that we’re sharing it more in our means that we have our modern means, which is like mainly social media, podcasts, all of these kinds of avenues, it normalizes it more and it makes it less scary to admit to people that we might not know as our besties that yeah.

JoAnn Crohn: I’m feeling like I’m drowning. I’m just, I’m drowning, and I need somebody to throw me a lifeline here. Yeah, well, there were two modern mom problems, Tara, that you mentioned before, the screen time and the what we feed our kids, and I want to get into that right after this break. In terms of screen time, like this is a huge guilt issue for parents. And I think that we, let’s talk about this. And I want to talk about exactly like how screen time looks in our homes. And be totally transparent. 

Tara Clark: You don’t want to know. 

JoAnn Crohn: to hear. People need to hear this. People need to hear this. I’ll go first. I will go first. So, in my home, my daughter she’s 15. She has screen time limits on her phone that she actually requested. I originally took them off for high school. And then my daughter, we talk about, mental health and everything like that. And she noticed that hers were, it was going down the longer she spent on her screen. And so she requested me to put them back on for, Instagram. And she’ll, it’s an hour.

And she’ll come to me and she’ll be like, Mom, Okay, I have more time and I’ll give it to her then, but she likes that. My son has two hours a day to play on Minecraft and Roblox, which he does usually FaceTime with his friends and playing it at the same time. And he’ll come to me and he’ll be like, so can I have, have some more?

And I’m like, Yeah, most of the time it’s a yeah, unless there’s a nagging chore, and if he can’t have more screen time, he usually goes and watches YouTube flight videos. I mean, this, the boy has a lot of screen time, and I don’t know what I would do as a parent without it. And I do not regret it, and I do not see any ill effects from it on his end. it’s, it’s a lot, and it’s going okay in our house.

Tara Clark: I could follow up on that when

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, follow up on

Tara Clark: similar. Yeah, I will. Very similar. So I have an 11 year old son and he also plays Roblox with his friends on FaceTime. So he has it on his iPad and he talks with his friends on FaceTime. And we actually don’t have limit in our house, but, that’s Come out over the course of working through it and now we’ve gotten to the point where we say, okay You have ten more minutes five more minutes finish up.

He does and now he just says to his friends Okay I have to go in five minutes and like it used to be a struggle and it used to be a fight and now The way that we’ve worked it out He respects it. He respects those boundaries. And so thank goodness. And so going back to YouTube, he also loves watching YouTube, but he’s really recently got into anime. So we’ve been watching a lot of anime lately too.

JoAnn Crohn: I remember anime was a big thing in my high school. Like I had a group of friends who loved anime

Brie Tucker: It’s a bigger thing still 

Tara Clark: yeah, we’re watching a show called One Piece, which has a thousand episodes and we’re currently on episode, like, I don’t know. 220. Uh, so it’s, it’s a lot.

Brie Tucker: yeah, but they’re shorter too though, right? They’re not 

Tara Clark: Yes, they, uh, It’s about 20 minutes. Yes, exactly. So, screen time is something That is a bit of an issue. Sometimes my husband will get annoyed that my son’s still on the computer and he’s still talking to his friends.

But then, on the flip side, we’re happy that he’s socializing. He’s not in his room by himself doing that. I should also say that when he’s playing. He’s always in a common space in our house. He’s either in the kitchen or in the dining room or in the living room. We’re all near each other. We all can listen in on his conversation because his friends are screaming on the iPad.

so there’s that. So like, we’re monitoring what’s happening, and we do that by choice, and so we’re obviously very intentional in our parenting, and over time we’ve gotten more and more intentional with the screen time, and letting him know his boundaries. Like I said, and so, I mean, are there days where he plays longer than others?

Yes, absolutely. And are there days where we do have to step in and say okay, come on, let’s go do something productive or go outside. And even if we ever say to him, let’s do something productive, you know what? He comes back to us and he says but what I’m doing is productive because I’m spending time with my friends or we’re working on a project together and we have a goal that we’re working towards. So in his mind, he, he sees it as productive.

JoAnn Crohn: It’s true it is I mean it’s really our adult opinion about productivity That is getting to it because also like I envy them They’re just having fun and i’ve gotten to the point in my adult life where I have a really hard time just having fun because It’s been so ingrained in me that I need to use every moment and be as productive as possible So it’s interesting. It’s interesting about productivity. What about you Brie? 

Brie Tucker: So mine are older My oldest is almost he turned 17 in a couple of weeks and my youngest will be 16 this summer and I’m also divorced and my kids spend half with me half with their dad. And, their mobile devices are split between the two of us, like his dad was in charge of getting my son a mobile device and I was in charge of getting our daughter a mobile device.

So my daughter has an Apple iPhone that that’s with us in our Apple group. And then my son has a Google. with Google phone with his dad and Android. So, I don’t have the ability to put any limits on my son’s phone, with an account. I do with my daughter, but it also makes it harder when they’re not with us.

And they ask for like permissions. So in the very beginning, we, we toyed with the idea, but it didn’t really work out. they’ve always had free reign of screens. I’ll be honest with you. Like, and because of the way that that piece works, and I’m literally just talking about their phones for the most part, but then you also have two different homes with two different households with two setups and, and value systems.

Like I’ll, I’ll admit our two households are. Fairly different. so when they’re here, they use the screen time as they need, and like you guys just said, I noticed that for my son, he uses it for school, and then that’s his enjoyment time, that’s his time that he gets to connect with his friends, because having two parents that live in two different parts of the city, that have, that they’ve been at different schools, he has friends from all over, that it’s not possible for him to get face to face with them.

Between all of his other extracurriculars, so he does that now. Does he use it more than I want? Yes, and JoAnn. No, she’s heard me complain plenty about it where it’s like and his his computer is in his room because of the way that our house is set up. So it is a bit of a pull to get the 17 year old out of there.

But I do feel like for the most part, he’s responsible and if I ask him, I tell him like, it’s important to me that we spend time together. I let him know in advance what my plans are for the day. Like, hey, I really want to spend tonight together. So, try to be done by six so that we can hang out tonight.

And he’ll, do it. He’ll, he’ll maybe mumble shuffle his feet and roll his eyes, but he’ll do it. and then my daughter, she has TikTok, she has Instagram, she has all of that and she, I have noticed sometimes when she was on it too much, seeing some negative mental health as well.

So, like, we’ve talked about that, And I think she’s getting better. But I think part of it too, I mean, if I could go back and do it differently, I probably would figure out some better way to do do limits. But I do think that part of it is them learning how to work with this. right, because in our generation, like, it’s so it blows my mind when I think about what my parents have been through, having a radio at first and then moving into just television in general, and then moving into like the technology we have now, right? Our kids are, they have to learn how to work with this technology, they have to learn the limits of it because it’s going to be there the rest of their lives. yeah, 

JoAnn Crohn: I agree. I don’t feel like you can just, take the technology away or set limits. Like it’s a learning process for

Brie Tucker: it’s definitely an open dialogue. I think that the open dialogue is the key in this. And now granted, we won’t know. Now, talk to me in 20 years, we can flash forward and see how well adjusted my kids are or aren’t, but I think that this conversation with them constantly is the best thing that we can do.

Tara Clark: It a thousand percent is. The whole open dialogue is really the key. I had a really interesting guest on my podcast one day, and she was telling me a story about her college roommate had Cases of Coca Cola from the floor to the ceiling because her parents, when she lived in her parents home before college, wouldn’t allow her to have soda.

So she went the total opposite spectrum and had cases and cases of Coca Cola. And so we were talking about this in response to the screen time, and she said, as parents, you have to let your children test the boundaries, learn the boundaries, know when they say, you know what, mom, I need a little bit more, Instagram today.

You know what, mom, I’ve had too much Instagram today and, and that’s where they’re learning. It’s all a learning process. I know I watched a ton of television as a child and my husband will say the same thing. He watched a ton of television as a child and we turned out okay. And I’m not saying like, oh, we turned out okay.

I’m not saying it like that. I’m saying like, but we learned. our boundaries. If I watched too much, television and, and I was sick of watching Muppet Babies, guess what? I shut off Muppet Babies and then I went to go play with my dolls. And that’s what I did. 

JoAnn Crohn: the Muppet Babies theme song just started going through my head. Yep, exactly. 

Brie Tucker: you. 

JoAnn Crohn: Like that.

Tara Clark: I love that you still know the song, Brie.

Brie Tucker: Every day, every morning. That was my thing. That was my jam.

JoAnn Crohn: I loved Muppet Babies. Oh my goodness. Well, the cases of the coke actually really go in well to talking about what we feed our kids. I feel like this is another modern mom problem and we’re going to do that right after this.

 So I really wanted to touch on this subject about what we feed our kids because it is such a guilt ridden subject for me so much so that when we have guests that come on the podcast, I will like outwardly almost fight them on food related things. Like I have to hold myself back.

Tara Clark: Okay, I want to hear more about this,

Brie Tucker: You have to like refresh my memory on this. Like really? Okay.

Tara Clark: Cause this sounds juicy, no pun

JoAnn Crohn: I’ll be a little more abrasive than I usually will. Oh, she knows exac Brie knows exactly what I’m talking about. And I will, counter every single argument, because okay, so first of all, I, I had an eating disorder when I was in high school. I was bulimic. and it was actually something I just told my mom, like, a year ago.

So I feel, I feel free making this out public. Everybody in my life knows that this happened. And I have a tendency to really concentrate on food. so much so like I went on a macro accounting thing last year and I had to drop it in the middle of the year because all my thoughts were of food all the time and I could not get it out of my head, just because that’s how my brain is wired.

So whenever we talk about food, it becomes a very, very charged subject for me. And in fact, I don’t want my kids to have that same reaction so that when somebody comes on, it’s Oh, you should Feed your kids natural ingredients and do as much home cooking as possible. Immediately I’m like,

Brie Tucker: Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn: Okay!

Like, Cause I’m trying to guard everyone against that raising kids who constantly think about food and label some foods as bad like Coca Cola and some foods as good because it could really, really cause problems in the future. in terms of what I feed my kids, like We’ll take breakfast for instance. My daughter eats those cornbread packets. That’s her breakfast. That’s all she wants for breakfast That’s what she likes. And so she eats cornbread and my son, is right now doing Chobani flips. That’s his favorite 

Brie Tucker: So 

JoAnn Crohn: breakfast. It’s literally 

Brie Tucker: her favorite right 

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah 

Brie Tucker: What’s his flavor? Whatever.

JoAnn Crohn: He’s trying all of them right now

Brie Tucker: Audrey’s, she’s a starch cookie dough one. That’s hers, man.

JoAnn Crohn: But it’s basically like very similar to candy, if you followed natural, food advice, and you still feel like that influx of guilt, but you also feel that, hey, like, they’re gonna eat, our main responsibility. Get them that calories. It’s gonna be okay. 

Tara Clark: Yes. That’s my mantra too. I, I definitely am in the camp of get them calories any way you can. My son is very slim and I just need to get him to eat calories so that he doesn’t fall underweight. it’s interesting. I was always feeling guilty about that. And when we go to the pediatrician, I’m worried that they’re going to tell me he’s underweight.

He’s actually not. He’s exactly where he needs to be. But. The pediatrician said, Tara, don’t worry. you have no idea how many conversations a day I have with parents because obesity is an issue and you’re worried about keeping weight on him. He’s like, don’t give yourself unnecessary. Guilt and stress, you know, if he’s thriving and he’s growing and he’s developing, don’t worry that, you think he’s under the curve because he’s not and so there is so much guilt both ways, either ways and Could my son eat healthier?

Yes. You know, did I start him out eating organic blueberries and all of that kind of stuff, and now does he eat, whatever? Also, yes. You know, when he was a baby, we have this ongoing joke that he used to go through a pint of blueberry, organic blueberries a day, so we said he had a pack a day habit of blueberries. And so we were like, oh, he, he’s a pack a day er. and it’s true. I mean, at one point in his life when he was a baby. we were blowing through money because, you know, berries are expensive.

Brie Tucker: god, yeah. 

Tara Clark: Organic, organic blueberries were like super expensive. Now, he won’t even touch a blueberry. Couldn’t get him to touch a blueberry if I tried. and so obviously tastes change, preferences change, but at the end of the day, is he eating? Yes. Is he starting to now open up his repertoire of what he will try? Also, yes. he got to a point where he was probably three, four years old. He became a very selective eater. And he only would eat certain things. All the classic kid things, Pizza, chicken nuggets, french fries. Tons! Oh god,

Brie Tucker: Those have crack in them, I swear. Something.

Tara Clark: There is something in them. Cause it happens to me. I’ll have a handful and I’m like, oh, then I’m like fiending for them. So there’s definitely something. It’s not just the kids. I don’t know. It’s so much stuff. 

JoAnn Crohn: like all the salt, all the salt is like, ah, the cheese and the salt and the fat and the ugh, It’s, like tongue 

Tara Clark: Hmm. Yes. So that, well, another one in, in our families, but now he’s starting to, eat more steak. He loves grilled chicken and broccoli. And I tell people this and they don’t believe me. And I’m like, no, no, like grilled chicken, broccoli, and rice is now one of his favorite foods. And they’re like, really? He’s a kid that didn’t used to eat anything. And you’re like, yes, guess what? People 

Brie Tucker: because you know why? you didn’t shame him for not eating stuff. And I think that’s where JoAnn, like, your, your There are people in the world that, will shame their kids for not eating their vegetables, everything, and I, now, and granted, we grew up in that generation. I did it when my kids were really little, where I was like, you’re not getting up from this table until you’ve eaten everything that’s on your plate. 

JoAnn Crohn: Mm hmm. 

Brie Tucker: know, there’s starving kids in Africa. All of that came out of my mouth. 

JoAnn Crohn: Well, I know people who do that too. I won’t mention them, oh, you got to eat something. You got to eat something. But I also know that person’s doing it out of fear because, this is a four year old she’s talking about and the four year old becomes massively cranky if he doesn’t eat Yeah. when he needs to. 

Brie Tucker: right, but

there’s a difference between trying to get food in your kid, right? Because you know that their blood sugar is gonna drop and oh my god, where’s the greens on your plate? You’re a bad kid because you don’t like green beans or broccoli or salad or peas, like, not that I’m speaking from experience, but you know, I’m just saying. 

JoAnn Crohn: Well, here’s the other thing. The other thing that gets me about all these food things, um, a lot of in the natural world, they’re like, Oh yeah, you know, there’s all these GMOs and stuff. And there’s all of these like additive ingredients. And my whole thinking of this was turned when I, when I was like, just starting the blog, they had a tour of Arizona dairy farms because they were trying to do a marketing campaign.

And so we went to one of these Arizona dairy farms and, we’re talking to the farmers And he’s Like you know people complain about. These GMOs, but do you know that the only way they are able to like feed people and prevent against scurvy is actually this GMO called a golden rice, which they make, um, where they’re able to put in, um, and I can’t remember, maybe it’s iron in the rice.

I’m not sure. Don’t quote me on that one, but because of these advances, people in underprivileged countries and underprivileged areas are able to get nutrients and the food that they need because they genetically modify the food. and I think that that is so overlooked in this whole process. Like it’s really a privilege thing when you hear about like, Oh, don’t eat the additives, don’t eat these. And it’s a privilege of being able to like completely devote your whole life to thinking about your kid’s food when most people can’t do 

Tara Clark: Add it to the list. 

Brie Tucker: it so is, it so, it so is. at the end of the day, we were all trying, like, I just saw a, an Instagram reel this morning from, Oh my gosh, I’m forgetting. It was Abby and, shoot, Glennon Doyle. Yeah, and they were all like, you know what, being a parent is the biggest farce because like we tell our kids, don’t worry, we got it, we got it. We don’t got it. We don’t know. We are all trying our darn best. We are just trying our best. At the end of the day, we are just trying to get our kids through so that they are happy and healthy. 

JoAnn Crohn: We are! 

Brie Tucker: And can make up their own minds. That’s pretty much like my goal, if you, 

Tara Clark: That’s it. That’s it as as long as my son feels good about himself And he feels happy with himself and then that happiness will obviously extend to the people around him and his treatment of them

Brie Tucker: And if that means that they eat sugar, and they eat non organic food, and they get screen time, and I let them go outside without a jacket when it’s cold out. That’s life. You like that one? I put that one in there for you, JoAnn.

JoAnn Crohn: Amen! That is life. There’s all the modern mob problems that we’re dealing with now. Um, it’s like, it’s a lot. So Tara, to finish this off, what are you looking forward to right now in your life? 

Tara Clark: What am I looking forward to? from a personal standpoint, my, my son’s a tween now and I’m looking forward to, spending as much time with him until he, you know, like really gets to be like a proper teenager where he’s Mom, leave me alone. You know, and he wants to hang out with his friends, but he and I are very close.

Like my husband, the three of us are very close and we have a great family view in it. So I love spending time. with my family. And then from a professional standpoint, what do I like to do? I like to speak with wonderful people like you. I, you know, I, I love to, come on podcasts and chat about this, have people on my podcast and, and talk about the modern mom problems in the hope that we could either find solutions for them. And if we can’t find solutions for them, at least we’re having fun talking about them, which is just as important 

JoAnn Crohn: It is, it is really important to get it out. Make people feel less alone. Well, thank you so much, Tara, for joining us here. And you’re going to be in the Happy Mom Summit with us in March. get your ticket now. I mean, we have a link for you right under this podcast. It’s a free ticket. And, uh, Tara will talk to you soon. Yeah, I could go on and on about what we feed our kids, Brie.

Brie Tucker: Well, I could go on and on too about the whole, like, so I’m just going to say, like, the big thing that the conversations we have in our household with our kids, is that your tastes are going to change over time. So you should periodically be trying different stuff because your tastes are going to change. you don’t like broccoli right now? No worries. No worries. One day you might, and if you don’t, it’s fine. 

JoAnn Crohn: I like that conversation. The other thing we talk about is how people need to poop and like If you eat too much of like stuff without fiber, and if you don’t drink enough water You’re gonna find it really hard to poop and you’re gonna have a lot of stomach aches. So just you know bear in mind that you need to poop and try those things 

Brie Tucker: No, I think that’s a great conversation because you have a diet of nothing but like crackers and apples and bananas and rice and you’re going to be like, why haven’t I pooped in a week? Well, 

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, 

Brie Tucker: a reason for 

JoAnn Crohn: ache

Brie Tucker: Right. 

JoAnn Crohn: for an hour. It’s no fun. It’s no fun at all. So get, get those things in. 

Brie Tucker: many, so many of our, of our parenting dilemmas that we have could be lessened in terms of, for us as parents, if we would just have more conversations with our kids. Now, I’m not saying that’s gonna make our kids listen, but having those, the more often you’re having those honest conversations, the more that they are going to eventually start listening. 

if it’s like, God, mom, you’re so stupid. And then later they’re all like, Oh, geez, I better better drink some water. I haven’t pooped in like a day. You know, whatever it is, right? Like they’ll they will secretly start to hear it. And, or they’ll realize that, again, because it all depends on how you have the conversation, but it’s about, helping them learn things because they’re not going to naturally know that stuff. They’re not. Kids are not going to seek out that information. They’re just not.

JoAnn Crohn: It really ties into this natural consequences. I think a lot of parents see like their kids be constipated and they’re like, okay, I need to make you eat your veggies now. So you’re not constipated. So you cannot eat your veggies. if you don’t eat your veggies, you’re not going to get dessert.

Like, that totally backfires because kids never learn control over their own bodies that way. But when you put it in a thing like, hey, so, you were on the toilet for an hour. You know why that is? You need a little bit more fiber. You need a little bit more water. If you want to fix that issue, here’s what you need to do, but your choice.

yeah, and I think it comes to the same thing with screen time when you’re dealing, like we talked about that in this episode. When you’re dealing with a lot of issues with screen time. There are a lot of great conversations you could be having about it, and I, one thing that I’ve always loved that you’ve done with your kids is you talk to them about how they feel, which is something I think a lot of us miss.

Brie Tucker: Like, I talked to my, my daughter. A lot because she goes on a lot of the social media websites. I talked to her a lot about the whole like beware predators, like people asking you for things that shouldn’t be, um, you know, say negative comments. They come back to get you like or putting up like comments.

Embarrassing videos be aware of these things, but you talk a lot about like how it makes you feel Which I think is is a huge thing that gets missed with a lot of us as parents because we worry about the predator But we don’t always worry about the how that’s that mental health is being affected.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. I just tell my own experiences to my kids and then I’m like, are you doing okay? And usually the first few times you ask kids that question, they’ll be like, I’m fine. I’m fine.

Brie Tucker: I’m not you mom. I’m not 

JoAnn Crohn: I’m not you. I’m not you. I am not an adult now in 2024. I’m a teen and you don’t know what it’s like to be a teen in 2024.

Brie Tucker: I don’t get those words exactly but I do get that. I don’t know I don’t 

JoAnn Crohn: That could be a little, a little over exaggerating on my part, but yes. It’s how it is. It’s how it 

Brie Tucker: It’s, it’s what’s being said, even if it’s not being said verbally, it’s what’s being said mentally, but yeah, so I mean like it, there’s so many things that we could help make better by just having honest conversations with our kids, and that includes, yeah, I messed up and Probably didn’t handle that situation last weekend the best.

I, I’m going off into a little bit of a tangent there, like in a, in a little bit of a different direction. But the point being is like having these honest conversations with our kids, I feel like can go really, really far. But like I also said in the podcast, come talk to me in 20 years and I’ll tell you whether or not this process worked. I don’t know.

JoAnn Crohn: Well, I had to apologize yesterday because, I told you, I was, I’ve been missing, missing appointments lately. I’ve been, like, very, cause I, the workload has increased on my own choices to get, to get more, Outcomes out of it here at No Guilt Mom, doing a lot more things. And I’ve been forgetting things.

I was late to a thing with you. I thought it was at a different time. And then yesterday I was so consumed in doing a video that my phone started ringing in the middle of my video. It was my daughter and I had forgotten to pick her up from school. Now she’s 15. It’s not like it’s a huge 

Brie Tucker: Don’t freak out, 

JoAnn Crohn: not a huge 

Brie Tucker: was sitting there by herself.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, she’s 15, she’s fine. but she got, she’s like, I just don’t like being forgotten. And I, it really triggered me because I’m like, I didn’t forget you. I have so many things I have to do. can you just give me a little grace or a little like, you know, don’t yell at me immediately. And we got into this huge argument.

We were just arguing in the car and then I left and I, I came back up like 30 minutes later. I’m like, I am sorry. I lost track of time. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. My response was more frustration at me. Then at you and I’m sorry and she’s like it’s okay. I’m sorry, too. 

Brie Tucker: like, what, that whole interaction taught her that A, people are allowed to make mistakes, B, that if you’ve, if you feel like you didn’t handle the situation the way you would have liked to, then you can do things to repair it. Right? And that you do value her, her feelings and your guys relationship.

All that right there. I didn’t tell you this, but I was late too. Like I, I had to pick up my daughter from school yesterday, which you know, I don’t do anymore because her brother normally drives, but he was homesick yesterday. I was late going to get her to pick her up, and when I got there she was, she had already walked, also in high school, she had already walked across the school parking lot and was over like where I just came in, so like I pull in the parking lot, first thing I see is crossed arms

JoAnn Crohn: Uh huh. Yeah, I get 

Brie Tucker: me down and I’m like what the, and she gets in the car and I thought she’d be excited because I had her learner’s permit that had just come in the mail, I’m like oh my god look at this, and she’s all whatever. I’m like, why are you so angry? Nothing. I just, I was like, I just don’t like being the last one to be picked up. And I looked around and she goes, well, yes, I’m exaggerating a little bit because I was like two minutes late. I wasn’t, I was two minutes late. And I’m like, I, it couldn’t be helped. I hit every red light. And she’s like, you could have left earlier. And I was quiet for a minute and I went, You know what? You’re right. But it’s been a long time since I’ve had to pick you up from school. I wasn’t expecting this to happen today. My schedule is no longer made where I get to leave every day at 2 to come get you. and then she was like, Fine, I’m sorry.

JoAnn Crohn: Fine.

Brie Tucker: But yeah, so, it was a late day yesterday for all of us in Gilbert, Arizona.

JoAnn Crohn: Exactly. So if you haven’t already, get your Happy Mom Summit ticket. It’s right below

Brie Tucker: It’s gonna be so much fun!

JoAnn Crohn: yeah, it is going to be so much fun. And we go on live every single morning in the group. We’re on live for Q& A’s with the speakers, like you get me and Brie a lot, a lot, a lot.

So if you really enjoy this podcast, you’re going to love the Happy Mom Summit. It’s like the podcast on Spotify. Steroids are really, truly, and until next time, remember the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you. We’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker: Thanks for stopping by.