Eps 533: Restoring our girls with Cathy Cassani Adams

What does joyful courage mean to you

Another iteration of what it always means to me: when I am feeling like myself, when I am listening to the music I love, wearing the clothes that feel comfortable to me, talking like I like to talk, having the emotional experience that I’m having, connecting with people I love – I don’t feel like there’s anything I can’t do.  That’s when I feel the most courageous and when I’m willing to go to a party where I don’t know people or fly to a city and talk to people I’ve never met.  When I’m feeling like myself, that’s joy, and that’s where everything comes from, from that place.  That’s when I have all the courage in the world.  If I don’t feel like myself, I can feel scared to death. 

 

Resources

Zen Parenting Radio Podcast

“Restoring Our Girls” Book (comes out December 10, 2024) 

Joyful Courage Episode 326: Zen Parenting with Cathy Adams

“Zen Parenting” Book 

“Untangled” Book

“How We Grow Through What We Go Through” Book 

“Run Like a Girl” Commercial 

Cathy on Substack

Subscribe to the Podcast

Transcription

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
parenting teens, joyful courage, adolescent challenges, membership program, Zen parenting, restoring our girls, teen struggles, emotional expression, critical thinking, self-trust, societal pressures, real conversations, peer relationships, self-awareness, parental support
SPEAKERS
Casey O'Roarty

Casey O'Roarty 00:04
Hey listeners, welcome back to the joyful courage podcast, a place for you to hopefully feel seen and heard as we talk about all the things that come with the season of parenting adolescents. Parenting teens is messy, no doubt, and when we remember that our kids are growing through what they're going through, and we are too things can start to feel okay. We can have faith and believe that everything will be okay. I am Casey overdy. I'm your host. I am a positive discipline lead trainer, a parent coach and the adolescent lead at sproutable. I have two young adult kids of my own, and have been in the trenches just like you. I love supporting families. I work one on one with parents all over the world, and run a thriving membership program. Speaking of the living, joyful courage membership program, doors are opening for new members, January 1. I would love for you to consider taking part in it. We currently have 40 members, many of which are in their second or third year. We do twice monthly group calls, quarterly, one on one, calls, office hours, and we have an active community forum. These are real parents moving through real challenges, showing up vulnerably and feeling the love and support from a like minded community. This is my favorite way to support parents, and I want you to check it out. Go to be sproutable.com/l J C, and before January 1, you can join the wait list and get early access to enrollment. Woo hoo. Again, that is be sproutable.com/l J C, for more information and to enroll, doors open January 1. Thank you for listening to my little promo. Let's get on to today's show.

Casey O'Roarty 01:51
Hi listeners. Welcome back. I'm so excited to have a return guest today on the show. Welcome Cathy. Casani Adams back to the pod. Kathy co hosts the long running Zen parenting radio podcast and founded the Zen parenting conference in Chicago. She is the author of Zen parenting and living what you want your kids to learn, both Nautilus award and International Book Award winners and her upcoming 2025 release, which is outdated. It actually comes out the week that this pod is going live. Yeah, I got pushed up. So exciting is called restoring our girls. Kathy is a clinical social worker, certified parent coach, former elementary school educator and yoga teacher. She was a blogger for The Huffington Post and a former columnist for Chicago Parent magazine. She previously worked as a child and family therapist and clinical educator at Laurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and now teaches in the sociology and criminology department at Dominican University. She lives outside Chicago with her husband, Todd and their three daughters. Hi, Kathy, welcome back. I can see Thank you. I'm

03:02
so happy to be here. You know you were one of my very first emails saying this book was coming out, because I love your podcast. So thank you. Yes. Thank

Casey O'Roarty 03:09
you. Thank you. And listeners. Go back after you listen to this show, to episode 326, Kathy came on and promoted her last book, which is Zen parenting, which is another great book. I loved it so much that I brought it to my memberships book club. I love that book, and now you're back with restoring our girls, how real conversations shape our daughters lives, help them with teen challenges and remind them that they matter. So you know, other than probably having three daughters of your own was a lot of motivation. But what else has been coming up that inspired you to write this book? Well, there

03:46
have been many things. Because my whole history, as far as being a therapist or being somebody who works with families and was that I was very focused on women and girls. That's kind of been my primary focus since I started, not knowingly at the beginning, but then as I started to kind of find my path, I was working with women our age and again, all through this process, you know, we were just talking before we started about where, you know, you're empty nesting. I'm very close to that. But I started working with women when they were new moms. I used to run new moms groups, so I've kind of and send parenting radio. Started 14 years ago, and as we know, the primary listeners of our podcast, even though we love having all genders, tends to be moms, so that's been my audience. And the other part has been that, as a therapist, I've worked with a lot of teen girls, and as a college professor, that's my class, because I teach social work. And so again, the primary gender in my classroom is girls, and I've been teaching at this university for 13 years. So it's my whole world, plus my daughters, which that is not just my daughters, that's their friends. That's, you know, it's so wide and vast. And what's interesting is, what I love about being in my home is that my husband runs in International Men's. Group. So there's a lot of back and forth between Todd and I about the different challenges of women and men and boys. And you know, Casey, I've done a few interviews about this book, and the question that I often get first is, aren't we supposed to be focusing on young boys right now? Like, aren't they the ones that are going through the struggle and why girls? And to me, there will never be a time, at least in my lifetime, where we will not be talking about girls. I mean, there are things that I can point to data and say, you know, their anxiety levels are higher statistically than boys, their depression, their ability to talk about their challenges, but then not have a lot of advice that can help them change things around. A lot of things are cultural issues, societal pressures, and so to me, there will never be a time when we shouldn't be talking about what's going on with girls. And I really wanted to, you know, when I decided to write another book, I was already kind of taking I had been taking notes for decades, and I wanted to help girls tell their parents what they tell me. Because the first chapter of my book is, actually, can you tell my parents this? Because the girls will come into my office or my classroom and they'll tell me a whole story. And when I suggest, hey, let's get your parents involved, they'll say, Will you do it? So this is what this book is. This is what girls have been telling me, and then I'm also bringing the part about being a parent, and again, I tend to speak to moms, but there's no reason that men and dads will not appreciate what's in this book, because this is information about your daughters and what they're dealing with and what they wish you understood about them. So I think it kind of you know crosses everything you know, and anybody who's interested. But for the moms, when we're raising girls, there's a lot of stuff we have to look at too, you know, a big self awareness experience. And I'm sure there is, you know, you're a parent of boys, I'm sure there is with raising men as well. But there just tends to be this thing where our girls mirror to us, not just our personality and our lives, but also the societal concerns and the cultural pressures that we face growing up.

Casey O'Roarty 07:06
Yeah, and I have one of each. Actually my Oh, you're gonna be Yeah, my oldest God, and she has been my teacher, and this book would have been so useful, but I remember when she was younger, and she kind of started moving into the teen years, when I figured going into it like, you know, it's probably not going to be that hard for me. I mean, I teach parenting, and we've got this great relationship, but teen brain development happens no matter what turns out, and mental health and, you know, the layers that I wasn't in control of. And I remember I had read untangled Lisa de Morris book when she was probably 10, and then she was 1415, and I read it again, and I was like, Oh, okay. And then I left it by the toilet and said, you know, Ben, you might want to check that book out. And he read that book, just going back to what you said about this book being for moms and dads. And he was like, oh, everything started to make sense. And I feel like that's what you've created. Another resource for those of us raising girls where it's like, oh, there's so many entry points back into relationship. And what our girls need throughout your book that you really offer. And I love that. Of course, the girls are a part of helping you really create this so it is real. I mean, that's always been my inspiration for this podcast. You know, I have guests on, and we talk about the things, but then it's like, Okay, what about the nitty gritty? Like, what about boots on the ground? Because, you know, I see all of you listeners, I know you're out there, and many of you are deep in the trenches, and I just really appreciate, like, the raw, real, practical pieces that exist in your book for sure. And there's one sentence in particular that really stood out for me as I reviewed it and you write, growing up as a girl means facing inherent contradictions where moments of joy and risk often collide. And this is huge. And as my own daughter was moving through the teen years, I found myself really in that messy all of those messy contradictions, and the pendulum swing was so extreme. So talk a little bit more about the power of contradiction and the expectations that we have of girls, or that they have of themselves and the world and

09:20
that society has of them, yeah, yeah, you know, because that's the inherent contradictions. Are internal, and there are also expectations. So I think that part, I actually share a story where the first time she was like, I'm gonna go downtown with my friend and we're gonna go eat by ourselves. I don't want you to go with us. They were 13, and they got really dressed up, and they put on makeup, and they looked older. And I think I actually say this in the book, but it was like, my, I call it my Forrest Gump moment, where I wanted to be like, Okay, girls, you know, at the end of Forrest company, yes, like, wants to tell his son you're getting on this bus, and I want to warn you about all the things in life, but he ends up saying nothing. But I love you. Which is, I'm gonna go let my son have this experience on his own without telling him all my baggage. And that was my moment with my oldest daughter, where I knew she was now walking downtown. And again, let me be very clear, I live in a very, you know, relatively safe suburb of Chicago. It's not that I was fearful in the someone was going to take her. She was with a friend. It was light out. It was more about what's their experience going to be, or maybe no experience, but I just didn't know. So it turns out it was a very rich experience, because they ended up walking downtown, got honked at a few times. That wasn't clear to them. Why? I don't think it was because they were crossing the street at the wrong place. I think there was attention. You know, we've all gone through cat cough phases of our life. When they get to the restaurant, they sit down. There is also a college in my town, so there's a lot of college kids who are at the restaurants and bars, and there was a table of boys who were drinking, and they were talking to my daughter and her friend and trying to get their attention. And then it gets even richer, because then there's this waitress watching this happen, telling the girls, ignore them. I got your back. And the girls think about all these things that are happening. Because one thing is they're feeling, you know, and this is the nuance. They're feeling flattered. They're feeling like these boys find us attractive. That's why we got dressed up. At the same time, there's a woman saying, ignore those guys. This may not be a safe thing to do. I don't know who these guys are, but I'm going to be in between you. And then when they were walking home, it was getting darker. They got honked at a few more times. So when they got home, and I was like, you know, what's this story going to be? And they told me all of these pieces, I thought, wow. How many things we need to discuss here and not discuss in a lecture. Sure, this is the thing about the book. It's about how to have real conversations as your girls are getting older, not in a here's how you do it. Here's my lecture. But isn't this interesting? And what conclusions do you draw from this experience? And is it okay to want to look nice and feel special. Is it okay to be flattered by someone who is interested in you in a romantic way, or a, you know, just because of the way you look? Yes, do you also have to be safe? You also have to think about who you're with? And these are things, you know, I'm sure you've had these discussions Casey in your home too, but like when Todd and I were first married, and I used to be a kind of free because we lived in Chicago together, and I would be like, lock the car doors. We need to lock the door. We need to chain it. And sometimes he would come home, forget go to bed. I'm like, Oh, listen, here you're living with a woman now, and that can't be and he originally, and this is 20 years ago, was thinking I was being neurotic, where I'm like, oh, no, no, I have a different experience in the world than you do when I am walking through a parking garage. I always have keys in my hand. I often had mace and other and horns and stuff when I was living in the city, I always park under a light. Did you know that? And these are things that my husband did not know, and these are conversations we need to have with our daughters, not about go out and be afraid of the world, but go out and experience the world with these things in mind, right? And that is a very to your point. They're not always contradictory, necessarily, but they have to join somewhere.

Casey O'Roarty 13:16
You know the sentence that I wrote you know about that sometimes the greatest joy also has inherent risk. Yeah. So these are hard things to talk about. They really are. And I remember, you know, as my daughter moved into high school, you know, eighth grade was a turning point for her. She's always been just adorable, right? But something happened in eighth grade where she began to be noticed for how she looked. She's been on the pod, and we've talked about it before, and it's like, exactly what you said. It's like, Look at me. Like, I'm getting ready. Look at me. Don't look at me. Right, right? It's that both and, and, yeah, and she's got her mace, and she's a little bit, you know, she's like, ready to be attacked, kind of like in the 80s when we were growing up and everything. Was like, I don't know. I always expected to get kidnapped. So I was like, Who wants me? Like, I'm ready. I know what to do. But yeah. I mean, what an interesting experience and and confusing. I think I was less eloquent than you were early on, because Rowan would look at me like, What are you even trying to say right now? It's like, I know it's messy, yeah. And I love what you were just saying. It's not about a lecture. I like to use the phrase enthusiastic curiosity. So even when you know my son one night, he snuck out twice in the same night, it's pretty impressive. So the next morning, I remember being like, so tell me all about your night, like I want to know, like, tell me about your adventure and the thought process that took you to deciding again, after we were already like, go to bed, you went out again, and such a beautiful opening, and there's so much more space for critical thinking and self reflection and learning when we can kind of come alongside. Them with curiosity. So I love that well. And

15:03
you use two of my favorite words, which you first said, It's messy. And I actually have a chapter called it's messy or messy, that was my original like proposal for this book was to talk about the messiness, yeah. And what I found is that I was working too hard to get people to understand that the word messy doesn't have to be bad, right? And I thought, okay, I don't want to deal with that on top of all these other things we need to talk about. So I just made it a chapter, because the truth is, if you are having a conversation, that is going to be valuable for their critical thinking, which is the other favorite word, or two words that you used, is it's going to be messy. You can't to think that you have, as a parent or as another human being, an answer, a solid answer, to these life questions. Because, you know, like you said, eighth grade started to change this book, although ideal for anybody, like, if your girls are young, just like you reading untangled early, and, you know, you kind of want to understand these things early, but I'm really talking about Gen Z kids, which is now age 12 to 25 and so it's this range where the whole idea is, first of all, their brain is developed enough. Yes, it's going to develop more as they go. But they can be abstract, they can be rational. They can hold a lot of things at once. Is it fully developed? No, but let's develop it. Yes alongside the brain, right? Let's not be like, they won't get this. Let's talk about the messiness. Of course, it's okay to want to be special, because who doesn't like and anybody who's like, oh, that shouldn't be important to you. Are you crazy? Everybody wants to be special. But let's also talk about how that doesn't mean you're more special than other people. This isn't a king of the hill thing where you've got to knock other people down, you know. Of course, it's, you know, okay for us to share, you know, as parents, our teenage experiences, but let's not believe that our teen experiences are like their teen experiences. They are from a totally different generation. And so we can share, you know, because a lot of parents are like, well, I share my stories, and they just like, you know, blow me off, or they don't want to hear them. And I'm like, well, pad them with I know this is different for you. Let me share a piece of this now. How is it different? In the same the curiosity you were talking about, like, have some humility that you don't have the final answers for them. You're just trying to engage in a conversation, which is how our kids learn. They don't learn from lectures. They may hear it, and they may get annoyed at you, or they may be afraid of you because of them, but they learn by watching how you live, which means they learn how to be by having conversations with you. There's so many layers here, so our ability to engage without needing to have all the answers and allowing them to give us feedback about what we're not seeing. This is how, not only there's so many levels, you create a relationship with your kid that's long lasting, they trust you. They know that you're not the source of judgment, you're a source of curiosity. And on top of it, you are teaching critical thinking. And honestly, Casey, I can't think of anything we need more right now than critical thinking. Yeah, because I'm not seeing it in the big picture. I'm not saying nobody has it. I'm just saying, as far as you know, many facets of our culture and society right now we're not using it right, right effectively. I think this is something that we need to make more of a priority when we're raising our kids. Yes,

Casey O'Roarty 18:30
I love critical thinking, and I use, you know, I talk to parents about broadening their lens, right? We want our kids to do the same. And critical thinking is like, you know, something we get to nurture through our questions, through that conversation. No, I don't want the kids to do stupid things and make mistakes, even though they will more than that. I want my kids, when they do make mistakes and stupid decisions, to think, Huh, look at what I created. Could I have done that differently? Might I do that differently? Right? What was my thought process? And they're not gonna have that. They don't get that through our lectures, right? They only get that when it's like this, non judgmental, like you said, curious conversation and listeners, I hope you're having the experience that I'm having, which is like, yes, Kathy is speaking our language, right, which is what we talk about here. So tell me now, what are some of the big rocks as far as what's really getting in the way for our girls right now, our Gen Z girls, what's going on with them?

19:29
You know, I have a whole chapter about the things that are challenges from the real baseline things, the fact that our girls grow up in a society where they learn all about historical figures, and maybe 5% of them are women. You know, all the presidents have been men. Even when we talk about music, we talk about extraordinary musicians, David Bowie, you know, we talk about you two, we talk about Prince and I'm not in disagreement. But then as soon as we say, Beyonce, there's like a well. So, you know, yeah, she's great in this way. But, you know, here's the challenge. Are we talking about Taylor Swift? And it's like, yeah, but she's really just important to teens. Or there's this often inability, or this is, like, we have to, like, fight, yeah, and I don't mean fight like, you know, with this, but like, we have to, like, have this really, you know, rich vocabulary and understanding to speak up for, you know, figures, historical figures, or, you know, current cultural figures, to say why they're meaningful to us. And there's a lot of pushback. And again, it won't happen in every conversation. And again, when people are reading this book, when we're talking about these things, this necessitates nuance too, because sometimes people get really focused on their own life, and so they'll say, Well, I've never had that happen to me. That's fine. That's great, but a lot of girls do, and so we have to understand that, you know, it's kind of like when me too happened, and there was conversation, and I would talk to women, and I'm sure you did too, who's like, I've never experienced this, and I'm more worried about the men right now, and this is not something that I'm seeing in the world, and that can be true for you personally. But are you listening to all the women who this has happened to, where they have a story that is being shared, and this is a struggle we have. They're not always unspoken, but these underlying feeling of that women are over sensitive, quite dramatic, women and girls not to be taken seriously, often, liars. And anyone who pushes back on that says, well, that's not true. When we talk about women who have been sexually assaulted in our culture, and they speak up about it, the first comment, at least in big culture, maybe not in the home, but in big culture, is she's lying. She's doing it for money. She's doing it for fame. And I can tell you, as a social worker who has worked with women who have been sexually assaulted, the percentage of women like it's somewhere between 2% and 5% of false reports about sexual assault, and only about 30 to 40% of people actually report sexual assault. So we're not even tip of the iceberg with what happens with women. I'm using these kind of some light, like music and culture, and then heavier concepts like assault, where there's this feeling, this underground feeling, and I think this is a very real thing right now in our culture, with the election and everything that when women share their stories, they may be heard in the moment, but not taken seriously as far as when we feel unsafe, or what's happened to us, or what our viewpoint is, and this is a very difficult conversation, because this is a very ingrained way of viewing girls that we often you know, I remember this is more like a decade ago, but there were All of these dove commercials that started coming out around how we see girls. And there was this one part, and I could send you this, or we could put it as a link, where there's a bunch of people standing in there, and they're like, run like a girl. And then everybody, like, all these boys, start running like their you know, their legs are flying, and it's kind of like a joke, run like a girl. But then they ask a little girl, run like a girl, and she runs as hard and fierce as she can because she hasn't heard yet these stories of running like a girl means running like a joke. And there are still coaches in many communities where to encourage boys to use fear with boys, shame with boys, they say things like, you're running like a girl, or quit being a girl, or, you know, pull your tampon out, or things that are very indicative of how we feel underneath about girls and women. So individually in our home, I hope we're not perpetuating those stereotypes. And I, you know, I like to give people the I assume they're not. But then when girls go out into culture and they hear this, you know, the first time a kid girl gets her hair pulled her or, you know, someone kicks something on her, and then a teacher will say, well, it's just because that boy likes you. That's a very confusing message. So if I'm liked, someone treats me poorly, and I have to be okay with that. That's a very if you get that message early, you can understand why abusive relationships or toxic relationships can take hold so much easier. And I do a whole section on, you know, abusive relationships, cults.

Casey O'Roarty 24:10
I love that you talk about cults, but I saw that. I was like, I

24:13
know, yes, well, like, I don't know about you, I'm upset. I'm kind of obsessed. Yeah, and not just because of the cultural like that. You know, it's I've been in some, yeah, I call them more high control than cult, but I have been someone who, as a seeker in my life, sure have wanted to be special. And I've been like this, this group, you know, my yoga training, or my, you know, I'm going to be real holistic, and I'm just going to use oils and personal growth

Casey O'Roarty 24:39
and development companies I've been Yeah, for sure, it's fascinating to me. It's

24:44
fascinating, and there's so much nuance, because I still use oils, but I also have, I still do yoga, but not to a point where people are telling me what to think, who to be, and to not trust my own intuition. So

Casey O'Roarty 24:57
yeah, and I mean, there's the subtle and the not. So subtle. I saw when I was moving my son into college, him and his best friend are roommates, and, you know, we're talking and, you know, at one point or the other, somebody's like, manupia. And I was like, hey, guess what? That's like the strongest organ there is. So maybe you should call each other ball sacks, because that's tender and weak.

25:19
Just hang in there.

Casey O'Roarty 25:22
Just Just hang in there. Vulnerably, right? So the boys were like, oh, geez, but I just kept well, you know, you're giving him a big compliment, calling him a pussy and Casey, just

25:32
to add to that, because this is perfect, what you and I are doing, because you and I have been on this earth a long time. We know as women too, we have to share these things with humor and with lightness. If you were to turn around and say, Hey, Listen kid, and you were to really give him a lecture, it would be like, Oh, dramatic,

Casey O'Roarty 25:50
sensitive. What's wrong with you? Can

25:52
you not take a joke? You and I have been women in the world long enough that we know how to communicate in a way that allows us to be heard without anyone being too offended by us, right? And so I just mostly, yeah. I'm not saying it's never happened, you know, but it definitely has. But this is a conversation with our girls too. Is when they're in the classroom and they they say something or they're like, Hey, you haven't turned in your thing for this project. And the boys are like, get over it. What's wrong? I'm not saying all boys do that. I'm saying when that has happened and they're like, wait a second, shouldn't I be a leader in this? This is what we're talking about, as far as talking about this at home, yeah, and allowing them to integrate all of these pieces and also push it a little bit, in terms of making sure that, when I say push it, make sure they understand it's okay for them to be lead, to lead and be angry. Anger is not a problem, yeah? We think it is with girls, yeah, but it's not

Casey O'Roarty 26:46
Yeah. So and delivery matters Absolutely. This is one place where we overlap. My son and I definitely have the similar personalities, but Rowan, she gets feisty and emotional and mean, and I'm like, Babe, that delivery is not really gonna engage conversation at the dinner table with your brother, you know. And here's another way, and I know it because I'm the same way, you know. And I get really emotional with my dad, and he's like, quoting the Economist. And the next thing is happening is I'm in tears, and my point is lost, and now it's like, okay, see, she's so dramatic, right? So, and

27:21
this is so born of what we're given permission to be like early so, as we know, girls are given more permission in our society to have a lot of room for emotion. I'm not saying it's all accepted or that people are cool with it, but there's more space to have a lot of different feelings, except for anger, right? Right, right, right? But with boys and men, it's the opposite. They don't have the space to be sad, you know, they're told when they're young, Buck up, you know, all the things. And so then in conversation, when your daughter is having her very real experience of having a lot of feelings about something which she has learned how to do culturally, but when she's talking to her brother, or, you know her, you know your dad, or whatever there is, we have to, like, realize that doesn't work with them, that doesn't resonate, it's not useful in that situation. And again, nuance, you know, let's just keep pulling at this because it's messy. I don't think it should be that way, that we have to keep ourselves low key to make sure the men and boys in our lives aren't offended by us. That doesn't always seem fair. If I'm sad and I'm crying, am I over dramatic, or am I having a real experience that they have not culturally, it has been normalized for them. So they think we're the ones with the issue. When Why aren't you crying about this? Why doesn't this bother you? And so I have no answers for this. I'm not like so here's what we need to do. I just live in the mess of like. I just don't want my girls to ever think their emotional expression is a problem, right? When I, as their parents, may say, okay, like you did, to get your point across, understand this person. It communicates this way. That's just called being a good human being. You know, let's but your daughter's inherent emotion not a problem. It's just, how do we regulate? You know, because we can't fall apart at work, or sometimes we do, but, you know, it's not encouraged. So how do we regulate in certain situations, to have an important conversation, to deal with something challenging? I mean, I love it, because I like engaging in this, but I can understand for parents, how sometimes it's like, just tell me what to say, right, right, right. You know, right, right, right. Do you get that a lot?

Casey O'Roarty 29:27
Well, oh yeah, I want you on my shoulder. I'm like, Listen, I want myself on my shoulder, absolutely in the moment, like you keep mentioning the nuance, the threads, the layers. Like everybody we're having this collective experience and in the down and dirty, we're also having this personal emotional experience, and it's messy. And what I love about you, and I love this in your writing and when you speak on the podcast, is the skill with which you share what you might want to say to your girls versus what thinking. About what is it that the girls need to hear? And as parents, as mothers and as fathers, we want to soothe. We want to soothe and comfort them, right? We want to tell them everything's going to be okay and that it'll work out. And as you write, it might not, it might not, and that tension of life is going to continue to ebb and flow until the end of time. So what can it sound like to encourage our girls to move through what they're going through? Is it validating that they're going through something? Is it, you know, kind of finding the light or the strength inside of it when we don't ultimately know how things are going to play out? What can it sound like to encourage?

30:41
Yeah, you know, when I wrote Zen parenting, like the that book, the thing about it, and it was, you know, a little before 2020, and so there was a lot of, like, COVID stuff in that book, and it was about managing unpredictability, right? And, you know, this book, you know, restoring our girls, there's obviously unpredictability, uncertainty, and how to, you know, I guess I could say critical thinking again, but how to understand that we have what it takes, and I don't mean this in a you know, affirmation way to get through anything, and our way of getting through anything will be messy and not clear and linear, and that here's people, and that should include us as parents, that we can support you in getting through whatever is next. Now, why this is so important in the big pictures? Let's just talk about school stuff. For example, you have a kid who's trying out for a team. I work with a lot of families, and you may too, where a kid doesn't even want to try out for the team because that risk feels so heavy. Yes, of the not getting or they've been on a different team, and now they want to try a different sport, but they're like everyone's been playing this forever. And so what ends up happening is, if our kids start to not take risks or not do things because they don't know how they're going to emotionally regulate or handle, you know, people call it failure, but I just, you know, this one didn't work out like we don't have to have a big word for it if they don't think they can manage that, they're not going to do much. There's going to be a status quo, and they're not going to feel like they need to take a lot of risk because they don't think they can tolerate it. And my hope for our girls, but all of our kids, is that no matter what happens, if you want to go after something, or you want to do something, or you want to try it, it may not work out, but guess what? There's people here at home. They're going to help you through it. We are going to talk about how much more important it is to take these steps because regret. You know, Daniel Pink did a great book about regret a couple years ago, and regret really is just the not attempting of things. It's not about the success of it, or how much money you made, or if you made the team, or if you played. It was about I took the step. Because oftentimes taking a step takes us in a different direction. Maybe you tried out for diving, you didn't make it, but the swim coach is like, well, you can swim pretty well, so why don't you come over here? You do not know the thing you were attempting may not be what you succeed at, and I'm putting that in air quotes, but where does that take you next? Like, whenever my girls are going through something, I'm like, you will inevitably become the person that other people come to around this issue, because you are figuring out how to manage this in a way that is authentic and genuine and integrative, and I'm using a big word there, but meaning you're not pretending it didn't happen or defending yourself against it. You're integrating it into yourself you had, you know, something that didn't work out, and you're that's becoming part of who you are. So you're becoming more compassionate understanding, and that's how you create a whole human being, not by having success after success after success. There's no such thing, yeah, just not living Yes.

Casey O'Roarty 33:56
And listeners, you can't see me, but I'm like nodding and smiling. I love this. I love it because it's so practical, it's so grounded, and it's also so woo, woo. Like, I just freaking love this. I love living through this lens of, like, Chris Willard wrote a book called growing through what you're going through, and I've kind of taken that like, oh my gosh, there's so many gifts. There's so many gifts, and what I'm hearing you say is the power of we have a space here that can hold whatever unfolds, right? So it's okay to have this uncertainty, because we've got you where you're soft landing. I just love love, love that. And not

34:39
only do we have you, because there's a I wrote about this in Zen parenting, but I included it in this book too, because it's very specific to girls. You know, when they turned 13, I had like, a party for them where I invite it wasn't just a birthday party, it was a you are 13, life is getting real. So I invited all my women friends, including my sister and my mom. And you know. My aunt and my nieces, and they all read letters to my girls, and they all gave advice to my girls, or, like, here's my favorite quote, or here's what I wish I would have known. And then my whole point to my girls was, hey, I'm always here. But if you don't want to come to me about something, all these women and all these, you know, because some of them were young, you know, 20 years old, they have your back. So you know the last part of the subtitle, such a long subtitle. Subtitles are tough. I love it. I know I'm always like, let's add this word, but that you matter, not because you made a team, not because you got all A's. I don't expect these things from you. Those are like icing on the cake of life. What you need to know is you matter to these people and to us, and I want you to matter to yourself. And you know, again, there's a whole other section in the book about, like, pointing out awe and wonder to our kids. Like, let's be excited because look at the stars. Let's be excited because this dog absolutely loves us more than anybody in the world. Let's be excited because, you know, my parents, they've both passed, but my girls lived through me taking care of both of them. They my girls were never alive without one of my parents being sick. You know, my dad died of heart failure, and my mom died of dementia, so they watched people be sick and taken care of and what family does for each other. And a lot of people say, like, isn't that so hard for your girls? I'm like, but this is life, yeah, yes, and it wasn't on their shoulders. We were a team. It wasn't like you have to do this, but I can't hide when the goldfish dies. You have to say the goldfish died. You don't go get another goldfish and keep this thing going, you know. And I'm using lots of different examples here, but we need to teach them how to live effectively through disappointment and challenge. And as you said, there's so much beauty and woo, woo in it. Because sometimes my most painful moments are, strangely enough, my most joy filled moments, yeah, because it's clear, yeah, I'm clear, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 36:59
yeah. I mean, I think about my husband was sick through COVID. He has multiple myeloma. So like, cancer, worst thing, right? Anyway, and coming out of it, like you said, like recognizing being able to sit with like, God damn. Look at me. Look at how I navigate that. Look at what happened in our family, like it was really cause for celebration. And I would always say like, Sorry babe, that you were the one that had to be sick, right? And what a huge gift, in so many ways, for us to see what we are capable of and how we can come together. So I love that. So speaking of your long subtitle, you talk about real conversations, right? How to have real conversations? And what would you say? What are some of the real conversations that the girls are bringing to you and your practice that you're recognizing? Oh, there's a gap here. What are a couple of those that parents can be thinking

37:50
about? Well, I put these in two categories. Obviously, some of the real conversations would be things about sexuality, or, you know, just sex in itself, like, you know, normalcy, of the feelings I'm having, of the body changes, of talking about puberty, of what do I do? It can be around things that are, you know, shadow parts of us, where our kids are feeling like they're the only ones who think a certain thing, or they're, you know, challenged by something, maybe a learning disability, or they are on the spectrum, and they're confused about themselves and how they relate to other people and where they fit. And these conversations are big in that this is about who our kids are. And a lot of times, you know, I have a chapter about why we don't have real conversations. It's because it makes us so uncomfortable, because we love our kids so much we struggle to hear their pain and challenge, and so we don't allow for it, and we tend to assume, you know, like a lot of parents will say to me, Well, nobody talked to me about sex ed, and I figured it out, and I'm fine. And I'm like, Are you really because you're here in my office talking to me how sex with your husband is not going anywhere, that you're not talking with your significant other about this. So did you get a base, or, you know, some understanding about your own needs? You know, if you're not able to communicate it at this age, do we really think our kids have an understanding of themselves? And, you know, maybe they do need a little more support in this area, a normalization of, you know, the changes, and again, back to the word messy. I know these conversations are uncomfortable, but again, that's part of life as well. The idea that we're just going to teach our kids to be happy makes no sense. We have to leave room for Wow, that's confusing. Wow, that's uncomfortable. Wow, that sounds painful. And yes, we are left with sometimes that residual pain, you know, like, where we're like, Oh, I'm so worried about my kid. You know, I don't even know if I called residual, it's like, we're right there in it with them, but that's my job. Then, to have my own therapist, a woman's group, a partnership with my husband, where we share it, talking to my sister about it. Like. We've got to be able to process and regulate ourselves, so we can be a grounding force for our kids, rather than avoid or pretend certain things aren't happening. So that's one side of real conversation. The other side of real conversations is everyday stuff. Like, I would say 10 to 15% of conversations with my girls are about heavy things, and the rest of it is like, do you like this Gracie Abrams song? Are we gonna watch this show tonight? Did you go see you know? When are we gonna see wicked Did you see this meme? It reminded me of you. Real also means everyday stuff. Peer relationships with our kids. Yes, again, 12 to 25 like my girls are now 21 my middle daughter just turned 20 the other day, and then my youngest is 17. They're adults, yeah, so the relationship that I've had to build with them over time is now we are more peers. Yes, I'm always their parent. They're very clear. I'm not their best friend. You know, everybody relax when I say that. Everybody's

Casey O'Roarty 40:55
always like and I know people get really worked up, but it is both and, and I love that it's a both, and it's

41:02
so fun. It makes the relationship one of the most enjoyable and meaningful you know, to have all this love and all this history with this person who's depended on you, and then you watch them do things. It's not about just again. It's not about career and grades. It's about you watch them talk to someone in a way that you're like, Oh, we used to talk like that. Or you watch them be in relationship, and you're like, Wow, what a great relationship with them. You're watching them be humans. Yeah, and to engage in that with them, for them to want to still go to movies with us and share their playlists with us like, you know, we were just talking about that before we started. What a joy it is to have adult children. Oh

Casey O'Roarty 41:40
my gosh, it's so fun and it's so funny. And sometimes it is a little like, well, you don't need to share everything with

41:46
me. TMI,

Casey O'Roarty 41:50
but also, you know, it's what I live and so when I'm sharing with others about, oh my god, I got this because Ian and I really only communicate through Snapchat, and he's my only Snapchat contact, because I don't do that. But he was like, Listen, if you really want me to respond quickly, like you got to get on Snapchat. I was like, Okay, babe, and I'll share with others about what he shares with me. And it's like, wow, that's really cool that you know you seem to have a really good relationship with them, and I do. And man, it is a lot of internal work. When they do bring up choices that they're making or things that they're doing where I want to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, or my own regrets around, you know, silly, messy, poor choices that I made come up, and I want to protect them from that, but they don't learn through us telling them what not to do. They learn through experiencing their world and having someone who's like, Ooh, wow. How'd that work out? Versus Why would you do that? Is a different opportunity for them to grow through those experiences. It is and

43:00
that self trust, like if you start talking to your girls about or your children about, you know, really basic things when they're little. You know which outfit do you want? Well, I trust you. I know you know your own style. You know which one do you want to pick out? Yeah, you want red. Sounds good. That's your thing. That's your favorite color. If you continually give them opportunities for them to choose themselves where they are. They're feeling their own intuitive pulls. And instead of us like saying, no, go this way because it makes me feel safer, or go this way because all the other kids are doing this, but you're really listening. And sometimes it's tough. It's things like, you know, when they were little, Mom, don't leave this classroom. You need to stay here while some not going to stay and having to be like, Oh, God, this is so embarrassing. Like, it's not always easy, but I'm telling you something now with adult children, is that what it doesn't mean they make all the right choices, because it's not just about them. There's other people in the mix. There's the world, and so sometimes things don't work out. But what I have wanted my girls to have is a sense of, you know, autonomy, a sense of sovereignty, where they're like, I am going to choose because this feels right right now, and there's interesting conversations later where they're like, that felt right right now and it didn't work, and I'm like, Well, let's talk about what work means, like, but what about that this person you ended up meeting them, which wouldn't have like, sometimes It's really kind of filtering out why things don't work and why they do, but that self trust that you keep it doesn't decrease. It keeps growing like because decreasing is when we say things like, and this is one of the things that parents, I have a list in the book of things we need to stop saying to our girls. And one of them is, I told you so, oh man, you know, right? And like you said, Casey, in our heads, we think it like I told you, this wasn't gonna work out, but to say that to our girls means I know about you more than you know about you, so listen to me and not yourself, yes, yeah, and that is no good, because that can then be transferred to another person. Well, they'll. Say, Well, this partner knows better for me than what I know, and then they get lost in that or a friendship.

Casey O'Roarty 45:05
So, yeah, I think that's so so important. And again, it's about developing their inner dialog for them, right for them. And listeners, I have to tell you the fun thing about reading Kathy's work or listening to Zen parenting radio is I love your pop culture references. You're mentioning the shows that I'm watching. You're mentioning music that's been a part of my life. You're so beautifully Gen X as am I and it's so fun. So there's that piece, but yeah, I mean all of chapter four, I love chapter four. It's all about what girls really want us to know. And you know, as I went through this whole book, it just drives home again and again, humans want to be seen like yes, we want to be seen for who we are and for our essence and for our light. And I think when we're in the trenches. And this, again, is for those of you that are really in it. Because, man, whenever I get an explore call with someone, and then it starts with so I have a daughter who's 15, I always am like, you're in it, you know, you're in it. And it can feel really hard to remember that even with all the layer of challenge, there is a girl who is has a deep desire for you to just see her, see her pain, see her experience, see her joy, see her light. And you know this is really a guide for that. This book is really such a strong resource for that. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Of course, is there anything you want to leave listeners with before we wrap up today?

46:45
Well, I will just add to what you just said, because, and I really appreciate that that's a really high compliment, and that, you know, on a real basic level, like, what are we just taking this all down to the studs? What are we saying appreciate and be with the girl that is in front of you, regardless of the grades and the things they're doing and the activities they're in, or what a lot of times we give attention, or even it can feel like love to the girls, meaning they feel like love is being withheld, unless they're doing something performative or showing up in a way that makes you feel important. As a parent, I know there's it makes sense to why we do this, because, again, like we were saying before, we all want to be special, and we want our family to be special, but what our girl needs and our woman when they become adults, is just to know that who they are at their essence is enough, and that you see them and that you love them, and that all the good stuff that's going to happen to them, because good stuff is going to happen, that's icing. That's what makes life exciting. And then when bad things happen, challenges, they're going to be okay. It's just part of life, but the essence of who they are hasn't changed. And that's a really, you know, that can be a woo, woo concept in itself, but that's what this book is about, like being able to and the last chapter is about my girls. They wrote their own chapters about an experience they had and how I missed it or didn't miss it, what we said, what we didn't say. And it's a, you know, their own processing now that they're adults, of their own challenges. And so again, even to have that ability, you know, for our girls to share. This is what's hard for me, even with you as a parent, you know, and can we figure out how to communicate even when they're young? Yes, you know, it's a big ask, but it's helpful in the long run. So I just appreciate this conversation with you, because, as you know, there's so many things you and I could go into here, but I think we hit a lot of the most important notes.

Casey O'Roarty 48:39
So good, so good. And so last question, in the context of restoring our girls and everything we talked about, what does joyful courage mean to you today? Oh,

48:49
you know another iteration of what it always means to me when I am feeling like myself, when I am listening to the music I love wearing the clothes that are comfortable to me talking like I like to talk having the emotional experience that I'm having, connecting with people I love. I don't feel like there's anything I can't do. That's when I feel the most courageous, where I'm willing to, you know, go to a party where I don't know people or, you know, fly to a city and talk to people that I've never met, when I am feeling like myself, that's joy, and that's where everything comes from, from that place. That's when I have all the courage in the world. If I don't feel like myself, I can feel scared to death. Oh, I love

Casey O'Roarty 49:31
that. Thank you. Where can people find you and follow your book and find your book? And it comes out the 11th, right?

49:36
It comes out the 10th, December, 10. And like you said, he was supposed to come out next year, tomorrow,

Casey O'Roarty 49:41
and it'll be tomorrow when this published. Thank

49:44
you. This is perfect timing, because the campaign was around it coming out in January, but it was getting some good response, and so they're like, Hey, let's do this before the holidays. Yes. So it's December 10, it's coming out. And you know, Zen, parenting, radio.com, is the best place, because there. Is, you know, that's where everything is. But for any of you who are on sub stack, because it's like, my new favorite place, Kathy kasani Adams on sub stack is where I do all my writing. So I write something once a week there. So on top of the book, that's another place you can go. Can I ask you, what is sub stack? Oh, great question. Yeah. Okay, so I'm fairly new, so I don't want to be like, oh, you know, I've known this all along, but, you know, I've been around long enough, and you probably have too that I was a blogger. Okay, so I used to blog and I had a newsletter. I mean, we're talking like, 20 years ago. So I've always wanted a place to put my writing, and then I did columns and stuff. Sub stack is, like, a they don't call it a blog. It's more of like, it's a sub stack, you know, it's a new word, but it's a place that you can do your writing and you can share it in the sub stack community. It's its own like app, you know, so you can scroll through just like you went on instar Facebook. But it's also newsletter, so people can subscribe, so as soon as you write, it gets sent out to anyone who subscribes to you got it, and I'll say this Casey, if you like to write, which I know you do. It is a beautiful place to be, because there's so many brilliant writers there where you're like, Oh, here's all the you know, it's just really, and it's not necessarily because of their followers, but it's a great place to go.

Casey O'Roarty 51:11
I love it. Okay? Thank you, great. Thank you so much. Kathy, this was so fun, as I knew it would be. I so appreciate you spending time with me.

51:19
Thank you, Casey, and thanks for everything you

Casey O'Roarty 51:28
do. Thank you so much for listening in today. Thank you to my sproutable partners, as well as Chris Mann and the team at pod shaper for all the support with getting this show out there and making it sound good. Check out our offers for parents with kids of all ages, and sign up for our newsletter to stay [email protected] tune back in later this week for our Thursday show, and I'll be back with another interview next Monday. Peace. You.

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