A podcast for parents regarding the health and wellness of their children.
The Follow-Up: Unlearning and Re-parenting Together
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This episode is personal.
My husband and I sit down for an open, honest, and vulnerable conversation about what it means to reparent ourselves while raising our son. It’s a raw look at how childhood experiences—good and bad—shape us as adults, and how we can consciously break harmful cycles for the next generation.
In this conversation, we explore:
✨ What “reparenting” really means—and why it’s not about blame, but awareness and healing
😡 How anger, yelling, and emotional reactivity from childhood show up in our parenting—and what we’re doing to change it
🧠 The long-lasting impact of body image comments, even when they seem “harmless”
📊 Navigating comparison, perfectionism, and pressure—especially in achievement-focused households
❤️ The power of modeling emotional regulation, self-acceptance, and growth mindset for our son
🔄 How we still slip up—and how accountability and grace keep us moving forward
This episode is for any parent who’s looked in the mirror (or at their child) and thought: I want to do things differently.
It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being conscious. It’s about healing. And it’s about choosing a more connected, compassionate way to parent—starting with ourselves.
🎧 Listen in, reflect with us, and share with someone who’s breaking cycles too.
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00;00;00;02 – 00;00;23;02
Dr. Mona
Hello, it’s Doctor Mona and you’re listening to the follow up. The only part of your Monday that may question your entire upbringing in less than 30 minutes. Today’s episode. It’s a good one. I chat with my husband, Gaurav. We’re talking reprinting, aka that plot twist where you’re trying to raise your kid but surprise, you also end up raising yourself.
00;00;23;05 – 00;00;47;27
Dr. Mona
I remember after our son was born, my husband and I realized that we weren’t just changing diapers. We were confronting our own childhood stuff in real time, from yelling to people pleasing to retreating when we were unhappy. The comparison trap. It all came bubbling up as parents and in our relationship, in our marriage. And as hard as that was, it also gave us some much needed perspective, not just as parents, but as people.
00;00;47;29 – 00;01;07;28
Dr. Mona
This episode was recorded before our daughter Veera arrived, and spoiler, we’ve learned even more since then, but the core message still holds you can honor what your parents gave you and break the patterns that no longer serve you. So if you’re navigating parenthood while healing your own story, this episode is for you. And hey, if this resonates, do me a favor.
00;01;07;28 – 00;01;24;09
Dr. Mona
Hit that follow button. Download every episode you love, leave a rating or review and share it with a friend who’s doing the work. Your support helps us. Podcast continue to grow and keep these conversations going. Let’s follow up.
00;01;24;12 – 00;01;43;09
Dr. Mona
I think when people hear the term re parenting, an automatic assumption is that there was stuff that was not done well, and I think me and you can both agree that there are things that we look back at our childhood and say, yeah, this was really great and I love this. I want to take this from my childhood and implement it as a parent.
00;01;43;15 – 00;02;03;19
Dr. Mona
But then there’s also those things that just didn’t really work well, and you don’t realize it until you become an adult, and sometimes you don’t even realize it until you’re a parent and you’re staring your child in the face and you’re like, wait, this is taking me back to when I was a kid. So like I said, I just think that this work is so important, and which is why I’m happy that we’re talking about it.
00;02;03;19 – 00;02;27;24
Gaurav
And I think that what’s so great about this episode, doing this, is that you and I do this on a pretty routine basis where we, we kind of talk about some of the things, the ways that you and I both grew up, and we talk about what kind of different homes that we’ve both grown up. And we’ve discussed some of the great things that our parents did for us, and a lot of the not so great things that still carry on into this day.
00;02;27;26 – 00;02;49;01
Gaurav
And we’re always trying to catch ourselves and be like, yeah, this was done back in the day, but does it really relate right now? So yeah, being able to acknowledge those things, recognize them and then turn around and repair it yourself so that you can be the best pair for your child is super important because like you said, I think that there’s the good and the bad.
00;02;49;02 – 00;03;02;04
Gaurav
And, you know, I think that everyone’s parents were doing the best that they could with the information they had at the time. And, you know, they had different stressors and things of that nature. So we all, as new parents, have to evolve and learn new things moving forward.
00;03;02;07 – 00;03;23;05
Dr. Mona
And I think, you know, one of the first things that I look back at my childhood is anger and yelling. You know, that was actually something that was in my house. I will say that obviously when we talk about this, there was a lot of love, a lot of laughter, but there was yelling, and I, you know, had a dad who yelled, and he’s now worked on that a little bit.
00;03;23;05 – 00;03;41;29
Dr. Mona
Not as much as I think we all would hope our parents would change. But, you know, I remember that I had to look at myself and say, I don’t like being angry, I don’t like yelling. And I think you can agree. Like when we first met, I was a happy person, but I still yelled. I still had anger in me when I didn’t get my way.
00;03;41;29 – 00;03;59;18
Dr. Mona
And after meeting you and we had Shiloh, that is when I really realized that this isn’t going to work. When I become a parent. Like this anger and this yelling and, you know, stomping my feet when I don’t get my way or slamming doors. I mean, I’m being very, very honest right now and seeing that that’s who I used to be.
00;03;59;18 – 00;04;16;11
Dr. Mona
And it didn’t make you feel good, didn’t make me feel good. And I started doing that work even before. Ryan, would you say that, you know, the things that we’re going to talk about, do you think that you started doing this work before you had Ryan, or do you think that becoming a parent is what made you change even more?
00;04;16;11 – 00;04;17;27
Dr. Mona
Was it a little bit of both?
00;04;18;00 – 00;04;48;20
Gaurav
I definitely think that becoming a parent was really the catalyst for me to really reflect and look back at the way I was parented and really take, you know, inventory of all of those things and really reflect and be like, okay, there are certain things that I still hold on to to this day that really bother me about the way my parents what about things, and I just made it a priority to not let myself fall into that same trap and do those same things to our son, as he’s going through his most formative years of growth.
00;04;48;22 – 00;05;17;05
Gaurav
Right. And you talk about, you know, you grew up in a household where it was like lots of laughter, but there was also a lot of yelling. Well, you know, I grew up in a household where I was constantly commented on about my weight. And for, you know, those of the listeners out there that don’t know, I’m, you know, six feet, two inches tall and I’m a lean 155 pounds, which, you know, I’ve been in my entire life and ever since I was I can remember I was just kind of tall and slender.
00;05;17;05 – 00;05;42;01
Gaurav
And to this day, I still, am teased about it from my parents and whatnot and those kind of positive comments that you don’t think caused much harm. Looking back, you can see the amount of damage they’ve caused. And, you know, from the issues that I have with my body image and all that stuff, that it’s caused a significant amount of harm and I didn’t want to continue that pattern or that cycle with the next generation.
00;05;42;01 – 00;06;01;29
Gaurav
Right. As parents, we have to do better for our children than the previous generation. And so that’s why I made it a point to really acknowledge all of these things, lay them out there right in the open, like, you know what? This is going to stop here. I’m not going to continue this toxic pattern of behavior or, or commentary as we carry it.
00;06;02;02 – 00;06;05;12
Gaurav
And it takes a lot of internal work.
00;06;05;14 – 00;06;19;29
Dr. Mona
And that whole body image commentary. Thank you for that. Thank you for sharing it, because I know me and you have talked about it a lot. And it was something that even before we had Ryan, even when I found out that we were going to have a boy, you know, I said, look, he’s going to follow our type.
00;06;20;01 – 00;06;38;15
Dr. Mona
He’s going to follow that lean, tall type. And we talked about that. The importance of understanding what was done to you as a child, the commentary that was done and how that can impact how you view Ryan when he is that lean child because he’s going to be lean, right? Our genetics are not a big kid, you know.
00;06;38;15 – 00;07;01;12
Dr. Mona
And that’s okay. And so I appreciate you saying this because I think a lot of times people only talk about children who are on the higher percentiles when body image is affects everybody, right? It affects I don’t care what percentile quote unquote you’re on how we talk or even just talking about weight in general. And the way we approach it is just such a problem with parenting.
00;07;01;12 – 00;07;20;10
Dr. Mona
It’s actually one of the biggest things that I talk about on my platform, you know, that that I always talk about how we don’t need to be commenting on children’s weight, whatever percentile they’re on. It doesn’t really matter, and that’s not their worth. And I just so appreciate you bringing that up. And also I appreciate you bringing this up as a male because females tend to talk more about the body image issues.
00;07;20;10 – 00;07;44;27
Dr. Mona
Right. Females tend to be more verbal about it, but males also go through it. And you even just speaking about it on this podcast, for all of my listeners, means so much to me. And I’m sure everyone listening because it is a reality women are supposed to be then and men are supposed to be bodybuilders. I mean, this is the stupid stereotype that exist about the female body in the male body because of magazines and social media.
00;07;44;27 – 00;08;04;17
Dr. Mona
But the reality is, like you said, we all come in different bodies and yes, this is a huge thing that comes from childhood. The way we approach food, the way we approach body image, it’s sticks and it’s why I’m so passionate about this on my platform, talking about how we need to change this and repair it ourselves, like you said, and tell our children that you’re going to be fine.
00;08;04;20 – 00;08;16;00
Dr. Mona
You’re in this home. You’re loved. You’re worthy. Like everything that you just said so beautifully. Is there anything else besides the body image like something that you’re like, okay, this needs to change. You know, it wasn’t working well in my childhood.
00;08;16;01 – 00;08;57;07
Gaurav
Yeah. I mean, I think that a lot of people, a lot of your listeners can probably relate to the comparison trap. I know that as a child, I was constantly compared to not only my sibling, my older brother, but I was compared to my peers and my schoolmates in terms of academics and just social standing. You know, I’m naturally more of an introverted person, and I still to this day remember my mom constantly telling me to speak more and to talk to more people and to be more outgoing, be like your brother and be like other people and I’m just looking back at how traumatizing all of that stuff was, because all it kept saying
00;08;57;07 – 00;09;20;25
Gaurav
was it was coming back to one unified statement. It’s that you are not okay who you are. You need to change. You need to be someone else. So yeah, the comparison thing was huge. It was a constant in our community. And I think in our culture, it’s more pervasive than probably in some other cultures. But it’s such an easy trap for people to fall into because, yeah, we naturally compare ourselves to those around us.
00;09;20;27 – 00;09;48;15
Gaurav
But when that comparison starts to become a toxic form of comparison, and it makes you question yourself in terms of why you’re not living up to a certain standard, or why you’re not living up to someone else’s ideals and expectations, that’s when it becomes harmful and toxic. And I carried a lot of that with me for decades. It took me, you know, having a child and becoming a father for myself to really reflect and do that work on my own so that I could be comfortable with myself.
00;09;48;16 – 00;09;56;03
Gaurav
So then I don’t have to teach Ryan anything. He will just see it from my own actions, if that makes any sense.
00;09;56;06 – 00;09;57;23
Dr. Mona
Yeah, absolutely.
00;09;57;26 – 00;10;14;25
Gaurav
He will know that. Oh, my dad is confident in who he is. He loves himself. Therefore I’m going to try to emulate that because kids will naturally emulate what their parents do and say. So I don’t need to sit down and have a talk with him. I just need to show him with my actions.
00;10;14;25 – 00;10;38;15
Dr. Mona
I don’t know if this happened for you, but like for me growing up, like especially with immigrant parents that were like, hey, this is how we’re going to do things, you have to be successful. You know, grades are extremely important. Yes. I think there is a great thing about the work ethic that they put into us that we have to work really hard, but there was more of an emphasis on the result rather than the process.
00;10;38;17 – 00;11;04;02
Dr. Mona
Right, that you have to get the A’s, that you have to get to the top of the list, you have to go to the great college. Those things were so much more valued than the ethic, the work process, the effort that we put into it. And so when I didn’t get straight A’s or when I went to college at UCLA, and I got my first ever C and I cried in the courtyard and just couldn’t handle it and thought that my life as a doctor would be over because I got a C.
00;11;04;05 – 00;11;21;10
Dr. Mona
I didn’t learn coping skills with failure until freshman year of college, and I think a lot of people can see this, like a lot of people who are very high achieving, you know, went to like these big schools or went to these big colleges. They can say that they did everything right. They got the A’s, they did all the clubs.
00;11;21;10 – 00;11;46;12
Dr. Mona
The failure wasn’t an option sometimes, or they never were taught how to fail and how it’s okay to fail. And it was that it was subsequent failures that I had. And I like saying it. I’m okay with saying that I failed some exams or I failed certain situations, or maybe some relationships didn’t work out right, like, oh my God, the doors are closing and now I have this perspective that when a door closes, another bigger one is going to open.
00;11;46;12 – 00;12;01;27
Dr. Mona
I just have to wait for it. And that’s perspective. I think we can gain with age, but I believe that we can teach our children this too, that hey, I get it that we didn’t get picked to be on this team or, you know, you didn’t get an E this time. I see that you worked really hard. What can we do next time for you?
00;12;02;03 – 00;12;18;05
Dr. Mona
How can I help or what can you do differently? And that growth mindset is so important to me. And I think that’s something that I dealt with. And I’m curious, I’m sure you did with us to some degree, because Indian families are very similar. But I’m just curious what you think about that too.
00;12;18;07 – 00;12;41;01
Gaurav
Yeah, I mean, definitely I’ve dealt with similar situations and I just want to also just reiterate to everyone listening that you and I don’t have this down to a perfect science, right? Like this is still a constant work in progress for us. You still have moments where you yell and you kind of lose your cool, and you stomp off a couple of times here or there.
00;12;41;03 – 00;12;50;10
Gaurav
I still tend to freak out about Ryan’s weight or my own weight, or make a comment about food. These are all things that are currently works in progress.
00;12;50;10 – 00;12;51;10
Dr. Mona
100%.
00;12;51;13 – 00;13;17;06
Gaurav
Having conversations about them and holding each other accountable is how we continue to grow and learn from those previous pitfalls and mistakes and move forward. Right. And so it’s very difficult to implement when you’ve developed these behavior patterns over decades. Right? These are things that were ingrained in us when we were six, seven, eight, nine years old. And they’ve been with us throughout both of our careers.
00;13;17;06 – 00;13;47;09
Gaurav
Right. We both followed this path where you were constantly expected to shine and outwork others, and your grades were first and foremost, and getting into top schools and getting into medical school and residency. It was this constant hyper focus on competitiveness and outdoing another person, and there was never any room for any failure. Right. But failure, like you said, is a part of life.
00;13;47;12 – 00;14;10;00
Gaurav
And we’re at some point in our lives, we we resisted failure. I think you and I would both agree that right now we as adults we welcome failure. Because we welcome it. Yeah. We know that we’re going to learn something from it that it’s not going to crush us anymore. It’s not going to mean that the world is coming to an end or we don’t cease to exist or anything.
00;14;10;00 – 00;14;30;00
Gaurav
We’re going to gain a valuable lesson from it and we’re going to grow from it. But we as parents have to let go of that expectation that we have. We have to let go of the comparison trap amongst our friends or family or neighbors, other families that are kids, schools or whatnot. This is so pervasive in our society.
00;14;30;00 – 00;15;06;25
Gaurav
And now you throw in social media where we have a bird’s eye view and to everyone’s pretend, quote unquote life that we’re just constantly in this game of trying to outshine others. And what we’re losing is we’re losing, like you said, our identity and who we are, and we’re losing our self-worth at the same time. So as parents out there, to everyone who’s listening, who our parents or soon to be parents, you know, this is the time for real reflection, to look at yourselves in the mirror and be like, okay, I want to take some things that my mother or dad did.
00;15;06;25 – 00;15;39;09
Gaurav
Maybe we had dinner every Sunday together as a family, or we went to the park every Saturday morning and it was the greatest things. And you want to continue those traditions and you should. Those things are awesome. Yeah, but there might be some toxic behaviors in there that weren’t so awesome. And it’s our job to kind of recognize those things and to heal those things in ourselves first so that we don’t, like I said previously, pass those things on unknowingly to our children and continue the cycle.
00;15;39;11 – 00;16;00;22
Dr. Mona
And that’s your follow up. Just a small dose of the real, relatable and eye opening conversations we love to have here. If you smiled, nodded, or had an moment, go ahead and download, follow and share this episode with a friend. Let’s grow this village together for more everyday parenting wins and real talk. Hang out with us on Instagram at the PedsDocTalk podcast.
00;16;01;00 – 00;16;16;12
Dr. Mona
Want more? Dive into the full episode and more at PedsDocTalk.com. Because parenting is better with support. And remember, consistency is key. Humor is medicine and follow ups are everything. I’m Doctor Mona. See you next time for your next dose.
Please note that our transcript may not exactly match the final audio, as minor edits or adjustments could be made during production.
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