In this episode, Joe and I dive deep into the joys and challenges of parenting, particularly with our growing family after welcoming our third child! We discuss how we're managing surprisingly well with a newborn and two older kids - we're actually getting sleep (miracle of miracles!) and taking care of our mental health.

We explore the importance of giving kids tools to become independent adults while maintaining relationships where they still want us around even when they don't need us. Joe brilliantly summed it up: "I want to parent so that my kids never need me, but create a relationship where they still want to have me around."

We also touched on the importance of self-care as parents. Joe's been balancing work and family by taking two days of paternity leave weekly after his initial five weeks off. While the work days are packed, he's handling it well - much better than with our previous children, thanks to prioritizing his mental health.

What started as a conversation about whether having a third child was responsible actually revealed how much better things are now than before. It was a wonderful reminder that sometimes the things that seem most challenging can bring unexpected joy and growth. Despite the occasional falling objects on toes (ouch!), we're thriving as a family of five!

Takeaways:

• Lacey's mental health has improved significantly after taking a break and welcoming their third child.
• Joe shares how his extended paternity leave has made a massive difference in parenting this time around.
• The couple emphasizes the importance of sharing their own experiences rather than their children's stories to respect their privacy.
• They discuss the ups and downs of parenting kids at different stages, from newborn to school age.
• Lacey reflects on how her chronic illness shaped her pregnancy experiences and the lessons learned along the way.
• The duo highlights the challenges of teaching kids about kindness and managing their behavior influenced by peers.

Links

Joyful Support Movement

Lacey's Instagram

Lacey's TikTok

JSM Instagram

Joyful Support Movement Podcasts

Mentioned in this episode:

Cubtail

Cubtale

Buoy Hydration

Foreign to sharing the middle, where we share the stories of the messy middles of our lives.

I am Lacey, and I've been gone for a while.

It's been very good for me and my mental health.

I've been gone mostly because I had another baby.

And I have my husband Joe here if you want to say hi.

Joe, I promise not to do asmr.

Okay.

Thank you.

I invited Joe because we could talk a little bit about parenting, since this is our third go around parenting a newborn up to a six year old.

Joe and I have talked about our marriage a bit, but we haven't really talked about parenting.

Before we even talk, I just want to be very specific and thoughtful that I want us to talk about our experience parenting, not our children.

This is our perspective, our stories.

We're not here to tell our children's stories.

I understand.

Yeah.

That's been a delineation that I've tried to make as I share a lot, is that I want to make sure that I'm sharing my story and I'm not sharing someone else's story without their permission.

Some things we have to talk about to have context, but I don't want us to go deep into our children's psyche because this isn't about them.

It's about us.

A little bit of background.

We are recording this while the baby sleeps.

Violet.

Which is nine weeks today.

Yeah.

Isaac and Iris are at school.

Joe took a few weeks of paternity leave straight and now is taking off two days a week to extend that to give us more time with all the appointments and whatnot.

And it's been really great.

This is a very different experience than we had with the first two because Joe had like two weeks max.

Two weeks of given paternity leave.

I still took vacation in addition or pto.

I would love to hear your experience this time around.

Having more time.

Does it feel different?

It was much nicer to be at home and get to spend more time with the baby.

Even though she was mostly just eating, lots of eating.

But in between, I got to hold her.

It was not something I got to do really all that much with the other two.

Even when I was home with the other two.

There was a lot of stuff to take care of, especially.

Especially after Isaac.

You couldn't do anything for the first two weeks.

You weren't even supposed to be moving around.

You weren't supposed to be moving as much.

You were way more mobile.

This time.

I think everything just went a lot better.

It was a lot smoother.

It was a Lot easier.

And I think for us, it felt more relaxed.

It wasn't just that we had our third kid and, like, oh, you know, once you have your third, you know, take your wallet to the hospital and that's all you need.

I get that kind of thing exists.

But for us, it truly was much easier.

All of the stuff that we struggled with the past two just wasn't an issue this time around.

So it was nice to get those first five weeks off.

I mean, my health was very different.

So as Joe was mentioning, Isaac was a C section.

Then I had a vbac or vaginal birth after C section with Iris.

This one, I did end up having a C section.

Again, I have a lot of complications, no matter what.

And with Violet, this time around, I did not have.

I didn't have any medical complications.

I had some minor anesthesia issues.

Yeah.

Between me and the anesthesiologist, we handled it not like a wet tap or.

Yeah, right.

Hemorrhage, which just made things take a lot longer for me to recover.

And then with Iris, I had a wet tap, which is where they put a hole in your spinal cord where there's not supposed to be one.

And then you get this terrible headache, all this stuff.

So none of the lingering, which bothers.

Me to this day, because they knew they did a wet tap, and they should have given you a blood patch right away.

It could have fixed itself.

Very likely.

But you were having issues.

After she was born, you were having.

Issues, like the story of my life.

They should have recognized we did not have enough information to know what the wet tap was gonna cause.

I understand wet taps are relatively rare, and then complications due to them are also very rare.

But they should have recognized what was happening.

It shouldn't have been up to us to be like this.

Seems wrong.

Yeah.

Well, you and I both wanted a third child, but it did not feel responsible.

It was definitely not responsible for us to choose to have a third child, which we didn't choose.

It first told me that you were pregnant, which kind of found out together.

Of course, I left the option, you know, to you, because we knew that this was going to be problematic.

It was going to be a challenge.

Yeah.

Because with my health, pregnancy, and me, CFS is a big old question mark.

They have done some studies, but honestly, one of my biggest beefs with healthcare research, there really isn't a lot around pregnancy because they're so afraid of it.

They don't want to hurt anyone.

They don't want to do anything, which is very valid.

But because of that.

There's just a lot of times where it's.

Yep.

Pregnancy question mark.

They don't know.

Yeah.

But they're also not funding medically.

Women's research is just nowhere near as funded or studied as men's in it, to me.

That's wild.

We had both felt like our family was not complete.

You knew I wanted three kids.

Joe wanted three kids.

When I was pregnant with the second one, he was like, we'll buy this extra thing if you fear.

We had planned on it.

We had discussed having three children, and we both agreed that we would like to have three.

And then we decided that was part of the reason why we went on our trip, was at the time, we were, like, planning a trip, and we're like, well, we're gonna go on a trip to know Europe, and when we get back, then we'll start trying to have a third.

And that way we'll have, like, nice little us time, and then we'll come back, have another kid, get started on all that.

Been an experience.

We had already booked our trip.

I ended up traveling well, four months pregnant, which actually ended up being just fine.

And honestly, pregnancy for me, and especially now breastfeeding, I feel great.

A lot of those fears that we had ended up being unfounded at this point.

Of course, things can always change.

That's just how it goes for us, is we think everything's smooth sailing, and then it's not.

Or we think everything's going terrible, and then it's like, no, everything's fine.

Poor Joe.

I bring the chaos in.

You do.

So that's fair.

You make your life interesting.

It is definitely not boring due to your illness and how rough the past two pregnancies were.

Yeah, it was.

As we said, it was not even responsible for us to have a third.

Based on how rough the other two were and how your illness was progressing.

It was like, there's not a chance we can make it through that time.

So it was.

We made the responsible decision to start offloading baby stuff, clothes, seeds, just all of it.

I think it's important to start this conversation with the.

We were not planning on this, but it is something that we both wanted.

Yes.

That I'm so grateful for.

One, because Violet's a doll.

She's so much fun.

She's really freaking cute.

She is.

Other two kids adore her.

Yeah.

There is a little bit of, like, vindication of me and my being in this because I was an unplanned but pleasant surprise, as I like to say.

And now that Violet's here.

I'm like, oh, yes, our family needed this now.

I'm like, oh, yeah, I was.

The period on the sentence for us.

All started with the lack of a period.

I know.

I have learned so much from this experience.

One, I need to stop trying to have so much control.

Yup.

It's just never, I'm never going to have that much control.

So I really just need to let it go.

And the other thing for me is chronic illness.

It's hard to feel.

You have a lot of mourning and grief with it and being able to have Violet and have this experience just kind of like, my life isn't over.

Validation that comes with it.

So while she is not planned, she is so deeply wanted and loved and appreciated and I'm so thankful for her.

Absolutely, completely agree.

Now she's awake.

We are now several different stages of parenting.

We've got a newborn, we've got a toddler, and then we have a school age child.

She a toddler?

She's four now.

Toddlers are considered one and a half to four.

Oh.

I think for some reason in my mind, once they turn four, they're not a toddler anymore.

He's preschool.

He is.

But sometimes she gets to go to the pre K room.

She'll be in pre K next year.

And she loves going to the pre K room.

She talks about it every time I go to pick her up.

She's like, I was in the pre K room today.

Get it, girl.

So I think parenting's exhausting.

Physically, yes.

But emotionally, if there's anything this reminds me is that I love babies.

I don't care for.

Toddlers are tiny little tyrants.

I mean, little mini jerks who are just strong enough to completely mess with stuff and have just enough comprehension that they can be mean without fully understanding what they're saying.

Parenting is more about you and your reaction than it really is about the kid.

It's also one of the most frustrating things in the world to try and teach children the skills that they need while also watching them take two hours to pick up four toys.

Could have done that in seconds and then just moved on with my life.

But now I have to sit here and convince them that picking up four toys isn't the worst thing in the world and that they can just do it and move on with their lives.

And yet you have a two hour conversation about why they should do it.

I'll plug home management for kids.

That's what we're working on trying to do in our house is give our Kids the skill to be able to contribute and then manage their own homes one day would be a lot easier just to do it for them.

Sometimes all the time.

Isaac has gotten very good at doing dishes by himself.

That's true.

But man, how many hour long conversations did we have about convincing him of the importance of doing dishes and putting stuff away properly and the fact that it's not that hard.

And yet he spent hour of needing convincing for like five minutes worth of work.

Our kitchen floor is always a mess and it is driving both of us insane trying to find ways to get that done.

They can run the vacuum, but it doesn't clean the floor as well as just a broom.

Yeah.

Because it's bigger pieces and that kind of thing.

So we are trying to figure out.

Because part of it's also making it work for us too.

Right.

And we found that attaching tasks to other things tends to be helpful for us.

Yeah.

We were trying to figure out how we could attach it to dinner.

So last night I suggested maybe before we do dessert, we always have to clean under the table and get them to take their plates to the sink because already something that they do a good job of.

We started last night and Iris was trying to sweep the floor and she was insisting on doing it herself.

And it was torture because you're just like, give me the broom.

This would take a third of the time to get him to recognize, like, man, it's really frustrating, isn't it, that you did that work and stuff just got thrown on the floor again.

He has this expectation that we are supposed to clean because we're the parents.

And it's like, yeah, to a certain extent we are responsible for the house and how it's managed.

But at the same time, you have to tell them you live here too.

You like to have nice things.

You like to be able to play with toys and you have to clean them up.

We are still in the beginning stages of trying to make him recognize he does better if things are cleaned.

He enjoys it more.

He likes to be able to find his things.

His room's the cleanest out of the two.

It really is.

He does a pretty good job cleaning.

Up in the long run.

Hopefully that makes our lives easier.

Do I think it will?

No, because we've got some neurodivergence in this household just a little bit.

And that is going to continue to be a challenge.

So I think the home stuff is a very tangible place to see that.

I will say we're coming up on Isaac being in school for the first year.

And that has also introduced some interesting aspects of, like, friends and things that we learned at school that maybe we don't want to continue at home.

Yep, that's what I was gonna say.

It's interesting because kindness has always been a big thing that we try to promote.

So to feel like right off the bat it's something that's being challenged is hard.

It's tough when you start school and want to fit in and don't know how to do that.

Yeah.

So you're trying everything you can and you assume, well, these kids must be the cool kids.

So you try to imitate them or do whatever they say.

And they're not the cool kids.

They're just the mean kids.

Emotionally, that takes a toll on me because I'm like, this is not the child I raised.

Tell me about it.

I try to have philosophical conversations about kindness and being a nice person.

And their response back is, maybe I want to be a mean person.

And it's like, how do you come back?

And then it plays.

This question that I think Joe and I have been is like, how do you punish meanness?

Like, do you discipline that?

The consequences are much more long term.

It's a dance that I only know two of the steps to, and the rest of the time I feel like I'm looking around, see, hanging by the.

That's a pretty good way to put it.

I would agree.

It's difficult because, you know, you're trying to navigate loving this person while at the same time strongly disliking this behavior that they have.

And, you know, you're trying to give them the tools that they need, but they're actively ignoring that, and they're choosing not to listen to you.

And instead they're listening to someone with six years of life experience.

And you're like, you know, listen, man, I know this stuff.

I figured it out over time.

Just, you know, listen to my advice.

And they're like, yeah, but this person who's six years old actually knows what they're talking about.

It's frustrating and hard.

In my opinion, it is up to us to give him the skills that he needs.

Whether or not he uses them is his choice.

But we have to continue to give him the skills that he needs, the guidance that we can, but we can't force him to do anything a certain way.

And that's.

That's so frustrating because, you know, you want to say, just do it this way.

Just do this.

They have to figure it out for themselves.

Watching them struggle is also tough you have to support them, but you also have to let them figure it out for themselves.

Yes, but I also say I 100% agree with everything that you just said.

But one thing that kind of popped into my head as you were saying it is there are some things that I find unacceptable.

Calling, you know, siblings, names.

Yes.

And so those have consequences in our household, outside of this household.

That may not have consequences.

Clearly doesn't.

Otherwise he wouldn't have picked up the behavior from the other kids.

That's a line to another line right here.

It's something we're gonna enforce.

But I can't enforce you being, you know, not calling someone names at school.

So then what's gonna happen when that comes into this house again?

Maybe he gets in trouble at school from calling people names.

I don't know.

I'm borrowing problems that we don't have yet said.

You have to give them the tools that they need, and whether they choose to use it is up to them.

But you teach them the conseque of their actions.

If you teach them how to treat other people, if you teach them what.

What behaviors, you know, because we have to model those behaviors as parents.

We have to lead by example.

You have to show them how to act.

You have to constantly be vigilant of your behavior.

So, you know, if someone upsets you.

Careful how you talk to them.

That's what they're picking up on.

They're picking up on our little behaviors, which I think we've done a pretty good job so far, because the way that our kids react in general is calm and thoughtful.

We've seen how they act when they're around other people.

Maybe when they're around cousins and grandparents and they have a certain behavior, they're definitely on.

Much better.

It's more than just much better behavior when we pick them back up from them seeing their grandparents or you talk to people about them.

They're like, they're so well behaved.

They're so nice and polite, and they helped us with this.

I do think it's interesting when you do see something in your kid that you're like, oh, that came from me.

Or last night.

I don't remember exactly what was said, but Isaac said, well, you're always gonna love me no matter what.

I said, yes.

And I was like, mom.

Lynn.

Yeah, bud, I am.

I'm good.

You know that you are secure enough to know that I love you no matter what.

You know, I mean, you're.

You don't have to perform for my love.

And that kind of Thing.

So moments like that are wins, right?

Like, oh, what I've been teaching has come through.

But then sometimes when he calls his sister stupid, I'm like, is that for me?

I don't think I've.

You know, he can have a big temper sometimes and really makes me look at myself.

I'm like, do I have a big temper?

Am I saying these things?

Am I doing these things?

I'm like, I don't think so.

But there's, like, a quick element of it where I'm like, maybe this is me.

Oh, it's very tough to look at a child and see the.

The mirror that directly reflects your actions and behaviors and words.

I mean, in general, I feel like we have mostly passed on positive things, but of course, everyone's got their negatives, their traits that aren't necessarily the best, and it's tough to see those mirrored back at us.

My favorite thing that Iris is mirroring back now is sometimes she'll sit down at a table and be.

Open up a question to the group, and this is what I do, and be like, all right, what's everyone's size and lows?

Or, how was everyone's day?

Or we're eating breakfast.

I'm like, does anyone have some intentions for the day?

And see, Iris, like, puts this Persona on, and she'll sit down and, like, she, like, holds her hands a certain way, and she's like, does anybody have intentions?

It just makes me laugh so hard that it almost feels like I'm being roasted.

Feel like I'm being made fun of, but it's fine.

Do you have anything you wanted to talk about, parenting wise?

Like, we covered a lot of it.

It's the, you know, lead by example, having to watch your behavior, constantly watching the things that you say.

Watching children struggle with stuff is so hard because the huge part of you that wants to help them and you know, just like, well, here, I'll just.

I'll help you.

I'll do it for you.

But no, they need the skills themselves.

Them cleaning their room might take three days or a week, and it just might.

But you could go in there and in 10, 15 minutes, make a huge dent or even finish it, just depending on how, you know, messy the room is.

But instead, you have to constantly hound them, incentivize them, and come up with these different methods, Convince them to clean their room and show them how good it feels when your room is clean.

That's our job.

Our job is to give them the tools that they need to teach them upper behaviors so that can handle the world on their own and they won't need us.

I appreciate us talking about this right now because I think that is definitely a philosophy that you and I have that not necessarily everyone does and that's fine.

I mean, everyone's parenting can be different, but yes, our kids have fun.

Don't necessarily think that's everyone's goal or aim.

It doesn't necessarily have to be everyone's.

No, but I.

We're talking.

I'm like, oh, this is a shared parenting value of you and I. Yeah, it really is a big informant, big.

Informer of our decision.

Decision.

Obviously everybody's got their own stuff that they care about.

There is no one right way to handle every situation or every child.

There are some things that should be kind of universal that other people may not feel that way about.

For example, giving your children the tools they need to navigate life on their own.

I know that some people would prefer to hover, would prefer that maybe they don't show their child everything so that when they get older, they don't move far away, they stay nearby, those types of things.

If that's what your family chooses to do, that is absolutely your choice.

But in my opinion, as parents, it is our responsibility to teach children the skills that they need to navigate life themselves.

Yeah, I do think something else we've been doing better about lately too, is that we're a team and we're all on the same team.

I have this instant reaction of like, oh, no, I don't want them to feel like they need to be hyper independent and never need anybody else.

And I'm like, we kind of combat that, don't we?

We really try to say no.

We're all in this together.

I'm here to help you, you're here to help me.

And so when I think about, like my relationship with my parents now, I am so grateful for our relationship because I think we have a healthy level of support of giving and receiving.

They give and I receive.

For example, last week.

No, it was Tuesday.

I texted my mom saying, look, I have a stomach thug.

I'm getting over it.

But if you could come over tomorrow morning, it would be a huge help because it'll at least give me like, buffer.

Mom was like, yeah, we can come before we go to the.

This dinner or lunch that we are going to just seen a lot lately, somehow I've fallen down the side of TikTok where it's estranged parents from their adult children.

They don't have that healthy give and take of what a Parent quote unquote deserves what a kid quote unquote deserves.

Instead it's very one sided and not that I want to parent with the folk to never have them be estranged.

I don't want them to be estranged for me.

But find it fascinating we have good relationships with both of our parents and not a problem we have.

But I do find it very interesting especially as we're talking about giving them the tools to be adults.

Food for thought.

How about this?

I want to parent so that my kids never need me but create a relationship that they still want to have me around.

It's also important for us to impart in them things that we struggle with.

So for example, asking for help.

Yeah, teaching them that asking for help is perfectly fine.

Teaching them that losing at games is okay.

That's not to say like well you know, I lost.

Well, I'm just gonna lose all the time.

That's fine.

No, they can still be competitive but you know, you have to give them these lessons that took you forever to learn or you never learned them and you're trying to learn them.

Another difficult part about parenting is sometimes going against your nature.

For example, asking for help.

Try and teach these lessons to your children because you know that that's the better way to be can be difficult at times.

Imagine how much better their life will be if you can get your shit together.

One thing that I do want to say is I feel like with a newborn and two kids we're like mental health and stuff, doing really good.

We're getting sleep and I don't know.

We'Re also getting the help we need.

We both are talking to people and taking medications that are beneficial and we are paying attention to our mental health.

We're not just we are giving everything we have to our kids but not to our detriment.

We're still doing some self care and managing our emotions.

Do you feel like you're getting enough self care since you've gone back to work?

You're not getting enough?

I'm still taking two days of paternity leave a week.

I job gives 12 total weeks worth of time that you do not have to use consecutively.

Decided to take two days a week off after my initial five straight weeks.

Should carry over for a number of months.

Think easing back into it has been helpful.

I will say work days are not necessarily super pleasant because it's you wake up, go to work, come home, take care of kids, make dinner, put kids to bed, take care of another kid until I can finally come to sleep.

Not A ton of self care going on there.

I know it's only for a couple months.

She'll get to the point where she's sleeping in longer stretches now.

If it, if it continues into year two just like this, I'll be like, okay, something needs to change, but okay for a few months.

I can handle it.

Managing my mental health prior to getting here has helped me be in this place.

Now I think this is another conversation I would love to have with you.

You are in a very different place, mental health wise, than you were with the previous two kids.

Agreed.

I would love to hear more about that internal journey to get to where you are.

Well, I mean, my brain chemistry is literally different from where it was before.

The pathways that are being activated are different because I'm on a completely different type of med.

So it's not the same as it was.

I, yes, I'd be more than happy to talk about that.

But it is important the put your mask on before you put someone else's mask on.

You have to take care of yourself as a parent because your children are depending upon you to lead by example.

They're depending on you to teach them the skills they need.

They're depending on you to be even and level and responsible and reasonable.

So you have to take care of yourself.

You have to take care of your mental health.

If you don't, if you let that slide and you're like, well, you know, kids needed this.

So I just have to completely give up on this for myself.

It's like, no, find the time for it.

Ask for help, call a relative, ask a friend from work to watch the kids, pay a babysitter, whatever you gotta do yourself where you need to be or help stick the kid in a stroller and do your therapy visit on your phone, your headphones on, whatever you have to do to take care of yourself.

You can't give them everything they need if you are not in a good place.

We started this conversation about how we were nervous about having a third child, that I didn't feel responsible.

But as we've been talking, I'm like, oh my gosh, things are better in so many ways now.

And it is responsible.

Yes.

And to be fair, with the pregnancy and breastfeeding actually improving your condition, you know, it's.

It's almost like, what was this?

It's like, should we have made this decision earlier?

I do not regret, I don't regret any portion of this process.

It's all been pretty fantastic.

I know people love hearing from you, Joe.

Do they always people or person people.

There's at least three.

There was only one.

You were assuming it was Sarah.

Yeah, one outside of you.

Not just Sarah.

The we need more Joe folks would always love more.

Thank you very much.

You're very welcome.

Well, thank you for sharing the middles with me today.