00;00;08;28 – 00;00;35;00

Dr. Mona

Welcome back podcast fam. It is doctor Mona. If you’ve been following me on my Instagram, you know that I would love to make this a Encanto podcast, but I’m not going to do that for you guys today. Today we are back. Two podcast episodes and I’m doing another finding Joy episode. And this one is a little bit hard because we had a very rough few weeks as parents.

 

00;00;35;02 – 00;01;09;23

Dr. Mona

We were expecting the holidays to be here, and then Omicron hit and is a racing through our community and we’re worried about our kids, especially if you’re like me that has a child under five. It has been really heavy for a lot of parents, and we have carried a load for so long, and I think you’re going to feel sad, feel better, feel like someone understands you after you listen to this episode, because I’m really just going to lay out what I think is really happening in a podcast form.

 

00;01;09;26 – 00;01;35;04

Dr. Mona

I think we all know what’s happening, but sometimes when you hear it from a friend or hear it from even another mom or maybe a pediatrician like me, it may make you feel a little bit better that you’re not alone, that what you’re feeling and whether it’s anger, grief of the last two years that you feel like you have lost, which I hear so much from the parents in my office, especially the mothers that come in, they’re not going to feel alone in those feelings.

 

00;01;35;04 – 00;01;59;18

Dr. Mona

So this may be a little bit like therapy, in that you just get to listen to a friend, talk about how rough it’s been. It’s also going to be uplifting because these finding Joy episodes always have a point of how can we really look at the difficult times and, you know, navigate through them. And for some, it’s going to take a little bit longer, and for others, you may bounce back a little bit quicker from hard times.

 

00;01;59;18 – 00;02;20;06

Dr. Mona

But the goal is to move through the feelings. The goal is not to ignore them. So that’s what these finding Joy episodes are all about. And I am recording this on a day that I actually probably should have taken rest. But I thought, you know what? This is going to be even better because I had what me and my husband call, throw away day.

 

00;02;20;09 – 00;02;40;18

Dr. Mona

So some days in this pandemic are so much worse than any other day in the pandemic that we just started calling them throwaway days. And I welcome you guys to use the term too. So I had to take my son to swim class. And for those of you who don’t know, my son actually is just recovered from Covid.

 

00;02;40;18 – 00;03;01;29

Dr. Mona

So he exited isolation yesterday, but we tested him. He’s not. He’s rapid negative, and his symptoms are better. So he’s out of isolation. Took him to some class and on the way there, pouring rain, we get to swim class. Thankfully the rain stopped right before his some class. He did his whole half hour swim class and then the rain started right after ruin Florida.

 

00;03;01;29 – 00;03;22;25

Dr. Mona

So it was an outdoor spin class. I get in, I get back in the car, it’s pouring rain, so we’re soaked walking to the car. He doesn’t care because he’s already been in the water, so he’s already soaking wet. I am dripping wet from head to toe and then my husband calls me and tells me that the front, front yard is flooded and the driveway is flooded so that I have to wait a little bit before we come home.

 

00;03;22;27 – 00;03;40;15

Dr. Mona

So he asked me to go get dinner. I try to go and there’s car accidents anywhere. It’s chaos. My husband ends up going to get the food. I end up going straight home. We get home, my dog Shiloh pees on the rug, on the placemat. So I walk in and I could hear him barking. And he never does that.

 

00;03;40;15 – 00;04;01;20

Dr. Mona

He was anxious, probably from the thunder and the lightning. And then I clean that up as I’m cleaning that up, my toddler son tries to flip over a table because he thinks he’s Hercules. He’s trying to get my attention. If chaos. There’s toddlers crying, there are dogs peeing on the floor. And then I dropped the bottle of cleaner that I was using to clean up my dog’s pee, and that it falls everywhere.

 

00;04;01;20 – 00;04;26;04

Dr. Mona

So now I have to clean up that. So I literally text my husband and I’m like, this day is just a crazy day. And I love that. He calls it throw away days. And we really just tell ourselves that. And, you know, I feel like it’s just been a lot of weight for so long. And then Omicron came and it just felt like a slap in the face, especially for those under five who have no option for a vaccine.

 

00;04;26;04 – 00;04;44;05

Dr. Mona

And you know, when we look at overall, outcomes for children under five, I will say there are great outcomes. I think there is a lot of fear. And I will post a lot about this on my Instagram feed, but it’s always been about risk reduction, correct? It’s always been about what can we do to reduce the risk with the understanding that nothing’s perfect.

 

00;04;44;05 – 00;05;10;08

Dr. Mona

And if you’ve been following me on my social media channels, you know that I’ve been preaching that from the beginning. And even more so now with Omicron, because everything’s open. It really came down to each individual family doing that risk assessment. But why is this so tiring? Like, why have we struggled? And I feel like I post about this and then I get so many shares and likes and comments and people DMing me crying like it was like crying emojis.

 

00;05;10;12 – 00;05;26;00

Dr. Mona

Emojis saying no one has ever said it like this or I just feel like I was just hurt. And that’s why I’m doing this episode, because I just want to say why I feel like this is happening. So before a pandemic, you know, you become a mom or dad or a caregiver and I’m gonna use moms because I’m a mom, too.

 

00;05;26;00 – 00;05;48;09

Dr. Mona

Okay, so you become a mom and you are, you know, before pandemic, you have a desire to keep your baby healthy and safe, right? That’s something that I think all of us want. You rely on community and support. So you rely on people coming to visit your baby and play with your kids. And as they grow and become infants, they have playdates and they have all these activities without thinking twice about, well, what about Covid?

 

00;05;48;09 – 00;06;14;03

Dr. Mona

What about social distancing? What about masking? What about risk reduction? You just got to do things. We had freedom to travel, freedom to take our kids to places, museums, events, shows, Disney on ice. I don’t care what it is you had you never thought about anything that you’re thinking about now, right? Financial stability A lot of families are struggling right now with financial stability, and a lot of mothers are leaving the workforce.

 

00;06;14;03 – 00;06;38;12

Dr. Mona

Maybe some dads are leaving the workforce because of childcare instability. This pandemic has opened our eyes to everything that’s kind of wrong with our basic social systems, especially if you’re in the United States. Their childcare is a joke, right? So we have childcare. It’s very expensive for your child to be in childcare in America, especially quality childcare. But besides that, with Covid, things were just getting shut down.

 

00;06;38;14 – 00;06;58;04

Dr. Mona

So even if you sent them and you’re a working mom, you’d send them, they’d shut down. Now you have to take off work. You are having to juggle all of these things that you never had to juggle, had you not been in a pandemic. And I think it’s okay to grieve that, you know, I think we we are by nature, especially women.

 

00;06;58;04 – 00;07;21;22

Dr. Mona

We have this sort of toxic positivity or I can’t complain because then if I complain, then, you know, other people are struggling too. This is not complaining. This is just calling a spade a spade that this has been really hard. The overall theme here is that we have lost stability. And as mothers, especially if you’re a new mom and this is your first baby or first child, stability is really important to everyone, right?

 

00;07;21;22 – 00;07;48;11

Dr. Mona

And I, I talk about financial stability, health security, all the things that make us feel safe. Right. Our homes, you know, things like that. And when you have a pandemic, this is a huge threat to our health and and again, safety, if you will. So it’s really hard. You know, you’re trying to weigh all of these things. And I talk about the mental gymnastics, the constant I you know, I read the news and I’m hearing that this is dangerous at the beginning of the pandemic.

 

00;07;48;11 – 00;08;07;19

Dr. Mona

Okay, okay, okay, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure we don’t get this. I’m going to vaccinate myself. I’m going to wash my hands. I’m going to do everything I need to do social distance, mask wearing. And then Omicron comes and it’s hitting families who have been doing all of those things and more. And then you feel like, well, I failed, but you didn’t fail.

 

00;08;07;19 – 00;08;26;16

Dr. Mona

You didn’t fail because this is a contagious variant. This is something that has been transmitting so quickly before you even have symptoms. And it’s not your fault. It was never a guilt thing. This was more of a you are doing the best you have with the information and resources you have, and that is what parenting is all about, right?

 

00;08;26;16 – 00;08;48;06

Dr. Mona

And when I talk about finding joy as a parent, the message here is you can only control what’s in the now, I, I often talk to my husband about, Ryan’s birth, birth trauma. That happened. For those of you who know and have followed this podcast that happened three months before the pandemic hit and when the pandemic, when we were in the the, you know, the the meat of the pandemic last year, in 2020.

 

00;08;48;06 – 00;09;06;07

Dr. Mona

So not even last year, 20, 22 years ago, I can’t believe I’m saying that. You know, I told my husband, I’m like, I think because of what we went through with Ryan, you know, it really gave us a little more perspective in the pandemic. I mean, we, of course, were terrified of what Covid would be. My husband’s in New York and we saw doctors in Italy dying from it.

 

00;09;06;09 – 00;09;26;06

Dr. Mona

But we also had some understanding as this progressed and as the science came out, that we can only control what we can. And I tie it into birth trauma because I did everything right in pregnancy, right? I exercised, I ate right, I did all the things, you know, took my prenatal and everything. Birth trauma happened, and Ryan had a stroke, had a seizure.

 

00;09;26;06 – 00;09;48;17

Dr. Mona

It all happened and I couldn’t control any of it. And for someone who’s super Type-A and likes to control everything, I had to learn to let go. And in this pandemic, it doesn’t mean you let go of precautions and get negligent, but it’s learning to let go of that mentality that I have to control everything. And if I don’t control everything, then, you know, my kid will get sick because you can’t control everything in your child’s health.

 

00;09;48;20 – 00;10;07;21

Dr. Mona

You can’t control everything in their safety. Things will happen, right? I mean, we talk about children like falling on playgrounds and breaking their arm. That’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything right. You. They fell you with a contagious virus that you can’t see. You can only do what you can control. And it gets really hard right now.

 

00;10;07;21 – 00;10;29;01

Dr. Mona

And we are drained, right? Like, I mean, I am drained. I think people don’t understand that I am I’m living and breathing this too. I contributed an, to an article for Yahoo News about like how why I’m so why we’re so fatigued as pediatricians. And one thing that I said is that we are living this alongside our patients, and we also are living and breathing it for our children, too.

 

00;10;29;01 – 00;10;46;05

Dr. Mona

Like we have the same anxieties as everyone else. And we’re trying to figure all of this out, too, while helping you while you cry in our office, while you’re stressed. And it doesn’t mean that we know everything. It doesn’t mean that we know what the outcomes are going to be. If your child gets Covid, we don’t have that crystal ball and that is really hard.

 

00;10;46;11 – 00;11;10;01

Dr. Mona

As a parent, and that is really hard in a pandemic. So we’ve lost that stability, we’ve lost that security, and we’ve lost the community. And I think that’s why I mean, I felt very lonely in this pandemic. I have this big following on social media, and I love it. And I have amazing friends around the country who call and FaceTime, and we do all of that.

 

00;11;10;04 – 00;11;31;06

Dr. Mona

But I’ve I’ve lost that in-person. Just meet up with someone not have to worry about, hey, are you okay with masking? Are you okay with this? Okay. But, I my kid has a runny nose. Are you okay with that? Like, there’s so much of that mental gymnastics on top of everything we do as mothers or fathers or caregivers, whoever is listening to this.

 

00;11;31;08 – 00;11;50;05

Dr. Mona

So it becomes overload, right? You’re doing everything we’ve had to do for generations. But adding on that layer of being a parent in a pandemic and I think, you know, I talked to my mom and she’s like, she’s I’m trying to help her understand why it’s so difficult, you know? And then my mom has a toxic positivity mentality.

 

00;11;50;05 – 00;12;07;19

Dr. Mona

And I got that from her. You know, everything’s okay. You don’t just always be happy day to day. I’m like, no, mom, I am going to be sad. Some days. I’m going to say that some days are really shitty days. Some days are throw away days. And that is okay, right? Remember, vulnerability is okay in the stock talk world.

 

00;12;07;26 – 00;12;27;08

Dr. Mona

I want you to be vulnerable. So I call this collective trauma. When I say that. I mean we are all going through the same thing in terms of dealing with the pandemic. But of course, everyone also has their own individual struggles that I don’t even know you’re going through. Right? Maybe you have fertility issues, maybe you have, family issues.

 

00;12;27;08 – 00;12;47;13

Dr. Mona

Maybe you have something that I don’t even know what’s going on in your life, and now you’re parenting a child, and then you’re also parenting, parenting them in a pandemic. So we don’t talk about these things because we all feel like everyone’s struggling. And I think this is a very valid thing. You know, we don’t want to put our problems on other people when we know that they also have problems.

 

00;12;47;13 – 00;13;06;12

Dr. Mona

But I really encourage you to find that friend or find that loved one and do protective time where you can vent and they can vent back. But remember something about venting. Venting, meaning you’re just quote unquote if you want to use complaining, but you’re just telling someone how they feel, you have to ask them if they’re ready for that.

 

00;13;06;12 – 00;13;28;14

Dr. Mona

Right. So I now have started to do this more with my husband over the last year. Like, if I’m feeling overwhelmed, I ask my husband, hey, I really need to talk to you, but I’m feeling overwhelmed. Are you able mentally to handle this right now? Because if he’s feeling overwhelmed and if he’s not ready for it, it’s not fair to vent to someone who may who doesn’t have enough space in their cup to listen to what you have to say.

 

00;13;28;16 – 00;13;47;29

Dr. Mona

So you ask a friend, hey, let’s set up. Let’s set aside 30 minutes. And it’s really hard sometimes to do this. As moms, I don’t know about you, but I it’s really hard for me to get on the phone with one of my mom friends, because either time different bedtime is different. We’re so exhausted or, our screaming child is on the phone.

 

00;13;47;29 – 00;14;06;02

Dr. Mona

You know, one thing a tip that I have is, using the audio message function on your WhatsApp or your, you know, texting, so you can record audio messages and sending audio messages back and forth. So that way you, you hear the voice of someone that you love, but they can respond when they get to it or when they’re driving or something.

 

00;14;06;02 – 00;14;23;15

Dr. Mona

Right? It’s like you press a button and it just records your your audio and they can hear it. So it’s not texting because sometimes I can’t text because I am driving. Right. But you can record an audio, and this is a way to create that community with your loved ones, because I don’t want you to lose that. I think so many of us have isolated ourselves.

 

00;14;23;17 – 00;14;44;17

Dr. Mona

Maybe you’ve gone to social media, but I don’t want you to isolate. Even though we physically can’t see each other all the time or you’re, you know, you’re weighing risk and benefit, you can still create that community. So how do you find joy in a pandemic when you feel like everything’s crumbling? And I’m going to use today, for example, like today was a throwaway day, like I mentioned.

 

00;14;44;17 – 00;15;03;24

Dr. Mona

And I was just like I cried, you know, and maybe you’re a crier, maybe you’re not. But for me, crying is very helpful. Vulnerability really helps me to move through my emotions. And also being allowed to be vulnerable helps me as well. So, you know, if I’m feeling like I’m emotional and crying, my husband saying, stop crying, what are you crying about?

 

00;15;03;24 – 00;15;19;18

Dr. Mona

Doesn’t help. But if he’s like, look, just have a moment. I’m here if you need. It is so helpful because sometimes we don’t need anyone to fix our problem. Sometimes you just want someone to know that, hey, I’m just having a really rough time right now, and I’m going to get through this if you need someone to help you with something, you ask your partner.

 

00;15;19;20 – 00;15;43;21

Dr. Mona

But if you really need help or you’re feeling lost, isolated, depressed, anxious of course, seek out mental health counselor or therapist, things like that. Like a professional. But it’s really important not to hold it all in. And when you start to hold it all in, it’ll bubble up right? You’ll start to feel overwhelmed. You’ll start to feel like, well, you know, if you’ve watched Encanto, you’ll start to feel like the pressure of the world is on your shoulders, like Luisa and surface pressure.

 

00;15;43;21 – 00;16;00;18

Dr. Mona

Right? Like you got to remember that you have to be sustaining that mindset of, okay, I have this outlet. I have someone to speak to. Maybe I don’t have someone to speak to. I’m going to write in a diary. I’m going to do things that let my emotions out so that I’m not bottling it up, and that I take it out.

 

00;16;00;18 – 00;16;25;21

Dr. Mona

When my kid has a tantrum, I take it out on something that I didn’t intend to because I’m just holding it all in. So I am asking you to let it out. Whether that means cry in a diary with a loved one, where you spend, you know, 15 minutes, 15 minutes, or you just say, hey, I love you, I miss you, I just want to, you know, tell you that right now I’m going through a tough time, but I’m thinking about you like it’s okay to be vulnerable.

 

00;16;25;23 – 00;16;43;20

Dr. Mona

Some other things that I have found to really help is I do a lot of mindfulness practice. And mindfulness practice doesn’t mean that I’m this the saint that is like, never stressed. I cry like I told you I was overwhelmed today. Like I literally was on the ground crying when I was cleaning up the pee and my son Ryan was flipping tables like, over.

 

00;16;43;20 – 00;17;04;14

Dr. Mona

And I was like, I can’t, I can’t do this. But first you want to accept the reality of what’s happening in the moment and say, this is the moment, right? This isn’t a forever situation, and I’m telling you to do that. On days that are seeming extremely hard. So when I’m slipping the table and things were chaotic, my husband calling it a throwaway day was literally the best thing that I ever heard.

 

00;17;04;14 – 00;17;21;27

Dr. Mona

I was like, yeah, you’re right, this is it. This is one of those throwaway days, meaning this is not how our life is going to be always. This is a really hard day in an already tough time. So it feels even heavier, right? So accept the reality for the moment. I want you to also take ownership of your actions and let go of guilt.

 

00;17;21;27 – 00;17;42;05

Dr. Mona

Right now you may be listening to this and your child may have had Covid, or may get Covid, or may get the flu, or may get RSV. These are all viruses that you can’t see. And I, I find it crazy that we have created so much guilt around Covid when we don’t carry that same guilt during RSV and flu season.

 

00;17;42;05 – 00;17;59;00

Dr. Mona

Of course we don’t want our children getting these illnesses. Of course we don’t want them to be hospitalized or get sick. But Covid guilt has been created because of what you have been told the last two years, right? That you do this and you get vaccinated, you wash your hands and, you know, do all this social distancing and mask wearing and upgrade your mask and downgrade your mask and wear three masks.

 

00;17;59;00 – 00;18;16;12

Dr. Mona

I mean, it’s it’s so stressful to keep up with the ever changing recommendations because the science is always changing, that when you now get Covid, you feel like what I did everything and I still got it. I am a terrible parent and that’s not what this is. Covid is going to happen and you just have to control what you can control.

 

00;18;16;15 – 00;18;36;23

Dr. Mona

So it’s funny because I talked about Covid guilt, like about a week before Ryan got Covid and I didn’t have the guilt. What I had is I just wanted to for him to be safe. And that goes into thinking about the moment and the now. Right? Of course, I can think about all the other things that you read about on the news, but it’s not going to do any sort of any purpose because you need to focus on the now.

 

00;18;36;23 – 00;18;53;20

Dr. Mona

You need to focus on, okay, he has a virus or has a cold. Your daughter has, you know, croup symptoms or a stomach virus symptoms which can all be, symptoms of Omicron. And you just have to focus on the now, right now, how am I going to get through the next 5 to 10 days or 5 to 7 days of illness?

 

00;18;53;22 – 00;19;27;08

Dr. Mona

And that is what I want you to focus on when you’re dealing with those moments that it that takes a lot of training to focus on the now without thinking about the extraneous. So if you’re starting to think about the like, what’s going to happen? Well, what about this? You’re going down a spiral and I really want you to close off media, which means like TV media and really kind of maybe take a break from social media as well because, you know, some parenting accounts and even my account, me, you know, may give you all this information and it’s all information overload when your mind needs to be focusing on the now.

 

00;19;27;10 – 00;19;43;08

Dr. Mona

So whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed, you cut yourself off from like social media. Don’t cut yourself off from every loved one you have, please, and go into nature, whether that’s the snow, like going to play with your kid in the snow, you can do that if your child has Covid, as long as you’re outside, right? You’re not spreading it.

 

00;19;43;08 – 00;20;02;27

Dr. Mona

If you’re in a like, not around anyone else, go outside to the park. Just get outdoors into nature, keep your phone away. You know, don’t scroll social. Just take a break. Take the mental break so that you can focus on the now. Practice gratitude. This is a hard one because when life is crumbling, it’s really hard to find gratitude.

 

00;20;02;29 – 00;20;25;17

Dr. Mona

Like it’s really hard. So I’m not going to say like it’s going to be something you’ll be able to find every day. Like when I was in the hospital with Ryan, there were days where I was like, f this, I’m. I can’t find something to be grateful for. So I’m not asking you to be grateful every day. I’m just asking if you’re able to at the end of a at the end of a throwaway day, I want you to think about something that was really beautiful or something that was really great about the day.

 

00;20;25;19 – 00;20;44;16

Dr. Mona

So today, after our throwaway day, you know, we we kind of let we let Ryan watch Thomas the Train while he was eating dinner, which we as a family don’t usually do screen time with meals. Maybe you do. That’s fine. But we we were we were watching TV, and then him and our dog Shiloh started playing with each other, and they started doing tug of war.

 

00;20;44;18 – 00;21;01;28

Dr. Mona

And I, you know, me and my husband turn to each other and we were just in silence, watching Ryan giggle while he plays tug of war with our dog. And it was probably the most beautiful moment after a day of chaos. After a moment where I was crying on the floor like cleaning up urine, and then spilling the cleaner.

 

00;21;01;28 – 00;21;28;06

Dr. Mona

So it was just beautiful. And it really is. It really is a very great thing to find those moments of gratitude or moments of, oh my gosh, this is so awesome. And sometimes you’re going to turn to your child, right? Focusing on something that brightens you up or brings life into you. So whether it’s a passion project, whether it’s starting a passion, like just say you like to read or let’s say you like to do puzzles, or for me, it’s pizza dog talk.

 

00;21;28;06 – 00;21;47;16

Dr. Mona

I know it sounds crazy to want to do all this on my downtime when I do it for a living, but I get creativity right? So I get to look at my child and look at him play with my dog and look at that amazing moment. But then I also get to help other people and use my education, my expertise to help others.

 

00;21;47;16 – 00;22;09;18

Dr. Mona

So getting through this is focusing on things that enlighten and brighten you. And even though you may not be able to do the trips and the playdates and all those other things, finding that spark in your life, right? Finding that thing that makes life worth living and something. Hopefully that’s not just your child. Or obviously I hope you’re living for your child, but something that else for you.

 

00;22;09;18 – 00;22;31;21

Dr. Mona

Write something that makes you feel happy and give you that light, and that is so important, as you know, to navigate this and just navigate parenting in general. And then the other thing is just letting go of expectations as a parent. And this is something probably even after this pandemic. But I hope this parenting in a pandemic has taught you that you do not need to be perfect.

 

00;22;31;23 – 00;22;52;12

Dr. Mona

You can be a little bit vulnerable, that you could be everything that Encanto has told you the movie like, I mean, literally it is therapy for parents right now, but you can just be vulnerable and you can also just say, you know what? Today I’m not going to do this. Today. I’m going to sit my son at his dinner table, let him eat and watch TV, which is not what we normally do.

 

00;22;52;12 – 00;23;16;04

Dr. Mona

It’s okay to break the rules. It’s okay to adjust and evolve as the situation evolves and you’re going to know your survival days. You’re going to know when it’s time to say, you know what, I need a little bit of a breather, and then I want you to use that and come back. Right. I don’t want it to be where you just say, okay, it’s been five months of no boundaries and nothing, but, you know, when it’s a season of difficulty and I tell you, no, I tell my husband, you have to have insight to do this.

 

00;23;16;04 – 00;23;35;21

Dr. Mona

But I’m like, no, today’s a day that I just need quiet. I just need this. I’ll have a better day tomorrow. And it waxes and wanes. And that is normal in parenting, especially now in a pandemic. There are a lot of hard days. I mean, my husband sometimes turn to each other and I don’t. I’m sure you all agree that sometimes we’re like, is this really happening?

 

00;23;35;21 – 00;23;53;25

Dr. Mona

Like, is this real life? Like, how can it just keep getting worse? Like, it just feels like things are constantly crumbling, if you will, like, you know, daycare closes, Covid happens, and then this and that and that. But you’re not alone, you know, in those feelings are never alone in that. But what I don’t want you to do is sit there and think that there’s no way to get through it.

 

00;23;53;25 – 00;24;09;25

Dr. Mona

Right? Validation of emotions are important, but it’s also important to also say, hey, how are you going to get through this now? How are we going to move through this so that you can be more present for yourself and for your child and not feel this sort of dread and sadness, because I don’t want that for you all.

 

00;24;09;25 – 00;24;33;13

Dr. Mona

You know, I want you to feel more empowered after this pandemic. I want you to remember when this is over, what you accomplished. You will likely never have to parent in a pandemic ever again. I mean, that’s the hope, right? This happens like every 100 or so years and you are doing it. I mean, you’re doing the hardest thing I think any parent has ever had to do, which is parenting in a pandemic with all the other parenting responsibilities we do.

 

00;24;33;16 – 00;24;59;02

Dr. Mona

So let go of those expectations and remember that it is okay to be vulnerable. It is okay to say that this is not easy and you have a safe community on talk talk, and I hope you find these finding Joy episodes helpful. If you do, make sure you add a review, to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to this podcast, and make sure you send me feedback on my social media channel and follow me.

 

00;24;59;02 – 00;25;20;24

Dr. Mona

App stock talk. I love this finding Joy series. I’ll be doing it once a month. Maybe you know, a little less than that, but just really going through some things that I think I would want other mothers to hear, other fathers to hear, but mainly mom to mom because I am also a mother. And I’ve had so many of these conversations in my office and I felt like, well, I had these conversations in my office all the time.

 

00;25;20;26 – 00;25;37;07

Dr. Mona

And I, you know, I get to see mothers vulnerability and were crying. You know, moms are crying and they’re like, I never cry. And I’m like, look, I’m happy you’re crying. Sometimes we can all use a good cry and it can lead to breakthroughs. Like I said, vulnerability leads to breakthroughs and I hope to have you guys back here again next week.

 

00;25;37;07 – 00;25;52;17

Dr. Mona

We will be having episodes every Wednesday as usual. Thank you so much for joining me today. And remember, you are doing a fantastic job doing this parenting thing in a pandemic. It’s never been done before and you are absolutely rocking.