Content warning: This episode contains mentions of sexual abuse and providing therapy to sex offenders. The discussion is high level and not graphic; it takes place during the first half of the show.

Ashley Charbonneau, a licensed clinical social worker, podcaster, author, and obsessive reader, joins host Emily Hessney Lynch for a wide-ranging conversation about the many different things we're told we shouldn't talk about. We discuss her experiences as a therapist providing therapy to sex offenders, abusive workplaces, healing from career events that shatter you, and the complex issues AI is creating that therapists now have to figure out how to handle.

In the second half of the episode, we explore Ashley's experience as a stand-in mom figure to her younger sibling, who she became the guardian of in 2023. We talk about the value of staying regulated when your kid is upset, how hard it is to be an authority figure to someone you really shouldn't have authority over, and the liberating moment of realizing that you get to choose whether or not to have kids. Ashley also shares how being the oldest of 8 kids shaped her decision to not have biological children of her own. We also hype up the importance of vasectomies (and talking about them!).

Links:

• Pre-order Ashley's book, The Resilient Therapist: Healing from Career-Altering Adverse Psychological Events, out October 1, 2026.
• Listen to Ashley and her colleague Morgen's podcast, The Art of Being a Therapist.
• Regretting Motherhood by Orna Donath is the book Ashley mentions in the episode.
• For more of Ashley, follow her on Instagram and check out her website.
• Follow Emily on Instagram and check out her business, Serve Me the Sky Digital, if you need a social media strategist, speaker, or writer!

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Mentioned in this episode:

Joe Bean Roasters

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Getting Real with Bossy: For Women Who Own Business

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And then you have people in this other camp that are like, basically, what the f are we doing?

And I don't mean that in, like, a funny way or a dark way, but there are so many things happening so quickly in the AI space, and it is impossible for us to keep up.

Hello and welcome to It's A Lot, a podcast about things that are a lot. On this show, we have honest conversations about the highs and lows of social media, parenthood, and more. When it comes to complex topics, online discourse can lack nuance and empathy. That's why we're leaning into deep conversations, making space for conflicting, messy feelings, and keeping it real about how we feel.

We could all use a little more of that sometimes. I'm your host, Emily Hessney Lynch, and today I'm excited to chat with Ashley Charbonneau.

Ashley is a licensed clinical social worker and owns her own private practice called Enso Counseling, where she specializes in providing therapy to therapists. She's also worked extensively with offenders of various crimes, as well as victims of abuse and neglect.

Ashley is the co-host of a new podcast, the Art of Being a Therapist, which I've been enjoying the first couple episodes of. And she's the author of the Resilient Therapist: Healing from Career-Altering Adverse Psychological Events, which is coming out this fall.

Outside of work, she loves to run, travels the world with her husband, and hangs out with her rescue dogs and fosters other dogs. She has also read over 200 books this year. She's got me beat there. That's a lot. Really looking forward to our conversation. Welcome, Ashley.

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here, Emily.

I just want to start by telling our listeners how we know each other because we actually go way back. So when did we meet? How did we meet?

I honestly, like, I thought you were calm and normal, and that is like a compliment coming from me because I came from a really unhealthy high school environment. Lots of hazing, lots of partying, lots of peer pressure.

So by the time I came to college, I felt like I was on the downswing of a lot of experimentation and everyone seemed calm compared to my high school years. So I just remember meeting you and I was like, she's got it together, and I just don't.

That's so funny, because it was like, those days, I had not even gotten to any experimentation or rebellion or anything yet. And it was actually the writing fellows that got me to take my first sip of alcohol in college.

Oh, my gosh. I didn't know that. That's, like, so funny.

Looking back, I know that nerdy crew of writing dorks. We were. We had fun. Do you think both of us have changed a lot since our college days? I mean, I know I have.

I have a lot. I feel like into my 20s, I found myself more.

I was the only person I knew out of multiple friend groups that moved away from New York, Washington, D.C. or Boston. And so I feel like I really had to figure myself out when I moved to Colorado after we graduated.

And then over time, I feel like that just keeps unfolding and in new and new ways, sometimes for the better. Sometimes I learn a lot of lessons over and over again.

What do you think is one of the biggest lessons you've learned since our college days?

That no is a full sentence.

That's a really good one. Yeah. What about you? I don't think I had, like, any boundaries in college and wasn't very good at speaking up for myself.

So I think that's something I've worked on and gotten a lot better at.

Yeah, no is the full sentence. It's a boundary.

I'd love to hear about your career path some more because I know you studied psych at U of R, and I gave some of your bio in the intro, but can you give us kind of a high level walkthrough of, like, how you got to this point in your career as a therapist?

So after our freshman year, the perfectionist that I was thought I needed an internship in counseling or the mental health field right away. Otherwise, I would never amount to anything. And my stepdad's mom knew someone who owned an agency, and he worked specifically with sex offenders.

So picture me at 18, walking into this internship working with sex offenders. And, you know, SVU was very popular when we were in college. I thought it was cool. I thought it was weird.

I thought it was exciting to do something no one else wanted to do. And really actually had a great experience at that agency.

And the owner was a social worker, and he really encouraged me to get my master's in social work. And then I kind of went back and forth, do I want to pursue psychology? Do I want to pursue nursing?

And ultimately did choose my master's in social work and kept in touch with that first supervisor. And that's where I worked after I got my MSW, Stayed there for a couple years. Left that work, hopped back into it.

Left that work, hopped back into it. And that's really been the most of my clinical experience. Experience. And. And now at this point, my expertise.

It's certainly a wild world for lack of clinical phrasing. And I still love it. I mean, it's. It's very challenging. It's very difficult. I conceptualize my work as preventing future victims.

And anytime someone comes at me, I'm like, there's not a billion dollars for prevention. If you want to give me a billion dollars to prevent sexual abuse, I will do that.

But until our society really shifts to prevention from reactionary, I don't think we're going to make a lot of progress in that area.

And so a lot of what I do is asking people to hold themselves accountable, asking them to repair harm, asking them to really explore why they did what they did, and to figure out how to never do it again.

Wow, that sounds really, really intense. with some of the prevention stuff that's not funded, I'm really curious about what could help prevent that.

Comprehensive sex ed, for sure. At least in Colorado. It really varies by school and school district and county. And of course, we know it varies state by state.

I would say also access to reproductive health care and even early intervention as well.

When kids start to exhibit some concerning behavior, we don't always have the resources to give them or they don't have access to a person who can help course correct at that point. I think a lot of it has to do with intergenerational trauma. A lot of most offenses actually happen within the family or with someone they know.

So I think the 90s education around stranger danger really did a lot of disservice in some ways. So trying to undo that and really provide people with the correct education and statistics around victim and offender relationships.

I also think talking about boundaries like you said, and assertiveness skills and communication skills, and even exploring how do you know what you like, not even just sexually, but how do you know that your favorite color is blue and not because someone told you their favorite color is blue or because you saw a TV show and your favorite character likes blue the best or wears blue clothes.

So even from a young age, I think we could do a much better job helping people explore what they like, what they don't like, and how to communicate that in a healthy way, and what to do if someone doesn't respect what they're trying to communicate.

That makes a lot of sense. I think one thing I've heard other parents talk about and that we're trying to do with our son is using the correct anatomical names for body parts.

So we say penis.

We don't say, like, pee pee or wiener or something else, you know, Because I want him to know, like, if someone has touched you inappropriately, be able to say what the part is and not, like, beat around the bush or make things more confusing for them because they're so little. Like, they have to know what things are called.

Exactly. And that is a huge piece of education and parenting, I would say. I do a training with a colleague, and she speaks about a prior client of hers who reported her dad touched her cookie. And it took months for professionals and other adults involved to realize that she was actually talking about her vagina and not an actual cookie.

And I think that's a great example that. I mean, it's not a great example, obviously, like, we don't want kids to be touched, but it's an example that shows the power of language.

And I think you even like connecting this to our writing days and being writing tutors and doing advanced writing classes. The power of language and how do we communicate what we mean? How do we mean what we say? How do we say what we mean?

And how do we pass that on to kids as they're just starting to develop language skills? It's so important.

I am curious, with this sex offender population, can you talk about things that might surprise people about the population? Like, what don't people know about this group? I'm sure it's not a monologue either.

Yeah, I think something surprising is that a lot of them are quote, unquote, normal people. People you're passing on the street. At least in Colorado, a lot of people are sentenced to probation, so a lot of them are not going to prison.

And so, like, there's a lot of people literally living in your community. And I don't say that to scare you. I say that because research shows that a lot of these people are a low risk for re offense and certainly lower than other types of crimes. I think this isn't maybe a surprise, but it's a shock factor for sure.

Like, if we think one in three women are sexually assaulted, and most of us know that one, if not a higher number than that one in three, who do you think is offending against them? It's likely someone they know, which means you know them too. And that is not something fun to talk about, obviously.

But it goes to show that statistically, you know, someone who has caused sexual harm, even if it hasn't been reported, even if they haven't gone through the legal system. And I wish we again had prevention and we were able to have those types of conversations more often because I think it would make the world a safer place.

I know a lot of parents listen to this show and might take away, like it's a scary place out there or like I should be nervous about family being with my kids. Is there anything you would say to those parents, like things you can do to protect your kids or how worried you should actually be?

First and foremost, use anatomically correct language. I think you named it. That's huge. Really having open and honest conversations with your children about who they want to hug them, who they want to shake their hand and why and why that's appropriate or not appropriate, or where that's appropriate and where that's not appropriate. And please believe them and validate them.

If they don't want to hug a member that's walking through your, you know, a member of your family walking through the front door one day for any reason, please support them in setting that boundary. As time goes on, continue to believe them when they say, I don't like this or I don't like that. I think those are my two biggest pieces of advice.

And unfortunately, we do live in a. In a dark world. There's a lot of hope, of course, there's a lot of light, of course. But first and foremost, believe your child.

That's really good advice for a lot of different situations, really. So with this population that you're treating, what does the recidivism rate look like? Do a lot of people go on to reoffend?

This might shock some listeners too, but when we talk about low risk sex offenders, we're talking less than 1% to about 3%. So obviously we don't want anyone to reoffend, but it is pretty low.

When we talk about high risk, we're talking 8 to 15% depending on the literature and time period. Domestic violence recidivism rates are double that Most of the research shows. DUI recidivism rates are much higher as well.

Obviously, our society views sex offenses as the most egregious type of crime, so I'm not minimizing that.

But I think there's also stigma related to that offense versus other types of offenses that can have just as much of an impact on the victim or who's around or the community at large.

And even if it's adults in those domestic violence situations that can still be so hard to get help and get out.

Exactly.

This conversation is bringing up a memory I completely forgot of some U of R professor while we were there who had images of children on his hard drive. Do you remember that?

No!

He like, he smashed the computer and like, hid it in a dumpster behind one of the academic buildings. And like, the police got it and like, pieced it back together. It was a whole thing. Maybe that was when I worked there and not when we were students.

I'm gonna have to look this up later.

Yeah, I'll have to touch base with you offline because now I'm curious and I think, you know, 10, 12, 15, 17, 18 years ago was a totally different time in terms of technology, as you know, of course, much better than I do. Based on your profession. I mean, the ways they can catch that type of thing now is wildly more advanced than it was 15, 18 years ago.

And I was going to ask about this later, but is AI coming up in your work at all? Like with the sex offenders specifically, are they making AI generated images of children? Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh.

And state and federal legislation is just starting to catch on to that because there's been debate amongst lawyers. If this isn't a quote, unquote, real victim, a real child victim, then is there a crime?

And I've heard and people can decide for themselves if it's generated and it's, Is it harming someone?

And I would argue in a lot of ways, yes, because we are still reinforcing behavior that is viewed as morally wrong, culturally inappropriate, legally wrong, I would say, and just generally unhealthy, like in terms of development. But there's arguments in some areas of the, the field that view that as harm reduction.

Like if you're generating quote, unquote fake images, then it's quote unquote better than a real child.

I was just wondering about that harm reduction angle and how you can justify. Or how. I don't even know how that would.

I can't justify it.

Yeah, no. And have you seen. I feel like in some online spaces I've seen people refer to, like, "well, what's someone who's a minor-attracted person to do?"

How do they get these. Have you heard that term before? Like, what do you.

Oh, yeah, yes, I think in the, in the literature. And I mean, there's still some debate in the, the field specifically too, that I work in, whether or not that term is appropriate or helpful or not.

The definition of pedophile is actually very narrow and it is sexual attraction towards people, prepubescent children specifically. And it has to cause the person distress. And so a couple different things to consider.

One, there's a lot of people whose victims are minors but not prepubescent. And so when we call someone a pedophile and that's their victim age, that's not actually accurate. That's called a hebephile. Hebephile. H e B e, is post pubescent, but still under the age of 18. And a lot of people, well, I guess some people may not be distressed by this attraction or their behavior related to the attraction.

So minor attracted person, like it's person centered, it's language that matches the rest of the mental health field and some guidance by various associations and such. But it definitely, the term minor attracted person is definitely a hot topic, I would say.

Yeah, it sounds like it legitimizes it and it just gives me such an ick to hear it.

Well, going back to AI, I'm curious if it's coming up in any other ways in your practice, like if you've seen people developing unhealthy relationships with chatbots or do you know any therapists who use it in positive ways, anything like that?

I don't use it in my practice and honestly I'm a little scared of what information is stored and shared once I type it into ChatGPT, for example.

I think it is detrimental to the field because we have, you know, students and early career clinicians who are using it to conceptualize cases or doing documentation before developing those skills themselves. I think you have to have some experience and some knowledge before you take a shortcut like that.

That's just my professional opinion and I've also, I have not seen this in my practice, but it is on the rise where people are in relationships with bots. And I think again, there's, there's kind of two sides of this argument, right?

Like if someone is genuinely functioning well and this is bringing them joy to their life and not causing them harm or distress, who are we to judge that? And then on the other side of the argument is kind of a philosophical belief that you can't be in a relationship with a non living being.

And I went to a conference last fall and the presenter of one of the sessions, actually this was her topic and she said, I'm not here to debate this, I'm here saying this is happening and I need help. And I thought first of all, what an interesting presentation lens, right? To Just say, like, this is happening in my practice and.

And I'm going to present it and I need help because there's no research on it.

Wow.

Especially it's a very research heavy organization that put on the conference. I thought it was well done, but it really. That was the first time I was like, oh, my gosh. And you had different audience members, all therapists, saying, like, yeah, I would do couples therapy with him and the bot. Yeah, I think this is okay. Yeah. I. As long as the bot isn't just agreeing with everything the client says and there's some, like, back and forth challenge, it's okay. And. And then you have people in this other camp that are like, basically, what the f are we doing?

And I don't mean that in, like a funny way or a dark way, but there are so many things happening so quickly in the AI space and it is impossible for us to keep up.

I was just reading through an Instagram post the other day that there's a filmmaker who made a documentary about people in relationships with chatbots. And he was saying, I didn't come here to dunk on people. I wasn't going to make fun of him. I was genuinely curious.

And as you're flipping through, you see images of this woman's chatbot and he was like, based on a character from the Witcher. And then as you go on, like, the husband's like, oh, I'm okay with it. She needs him. He provides her something different that I can't give her.

And then you find out she had a child die. I don't remember if they were stillborn. But she also made an AI version of her child who died.

Okay.

And the character watched over the child and, like, it was just heartbreaking. And it seemed like it was a way for her to process her grief or maybe she was stuck and not processing it, but it just.

I felt so, so sad for that woman. And it seems like the AI companies are just exploiting people like that who need real help and real connections, but maybe it is.

Yeah. I think that's ultimately my biggest concern, is that these platforms don't care about people.

And that's me coming from a social worker lens, you know, critiquing capitalism and critiquing, you know, the tech space for potentially exploiting, as you said. And then on the other hand, if that person was my client, I would really try not to judge and really try to understand.

And who am I to judge if this other entity, even though it's not a human, is helping someone process complicated grief in a way that I can't help them. And so I think there's just a very fine line between what's helping and hurting and creating barriers and creating access.

And there's not enough time, like I said, for us to catch up to what the AI world is doing or how we're interacting with it.

Yeah, that makes me think I just had an author on who wrote about her grief in a novel and, like, fictionalized it and processed a lot of it through that. So where do we draw the line as what's. What counts as, like, processing and a valid way of healing versus, like, this AI character? I don't know.

And I think it raises a broader question of who gets to determine what is valid versus what is unhealthy.

Right.

And is the person making that determination really understanding the multifaceted aspects of what someone is going through?

Well, I want to pivot and talk a little bit about your book coming out in October. Can you tell us a little about it and what inspired you to write it?

So I was inspired by some of my own professional experiences, and my co author has had her own professional experiences. And basically, I'll kind of distill it down as concisely as I can.

And I know it's been seven years, but at the time, like, I really thought my life was over as I knew it for a lot of different reasons, and felt really isolated in that. Felt a lot of self blame, self judgment, and withdrew from a lot of my trusted supports.

I would say stayed in a very abusive work environment for several more years. And it wasn't until I got out that I really started to heal.

And it wasn't until I got out of that work environment for about a year and a half that I recognized I was engaging in some pretty unhealthy patterns in my professional world. And I didn't really know what to do and kind of figured it out on my own. And then people started sharing with me. Me too.

And I know that's a hashtag now, and I'm not referring to sexual abuse in this instance, but I've heard from more and more therapists these big traumatic events at work that really just shatter them and they. They feel alone. And so that's ultimately how the book came to be.

The book specifically talks about client suicide, client death, being subpoenaed, which actually doesn't bother me. Because I've been in the court ordered treatment world for so long. But it does bother.

It is very stressful for I would most mental health professionals, licensing complaints, professional betrayal. Oh my gosh. I list these off all the time. What am I missing? Client death, client suicide.

It is a lot already.

Yeah, betrayal, complaints.

You could turn it into a really dramatic novel too, it sounds like. courtroom scenes.

The sixth one will come to me also. But my co0author and I talk about six career altering oh, client violence. How could I forget! Yeah, six career altering events.

And the first part of the book is defining those and walking through what those could look like. Some of those are based on my stories, my co author stories. Some of them are composites based on witnessing others and others sharing with us.

And then the second part of the book is about healing and how to heal. Not that I know all the answers, but ultimately reminding people they can heal and they're not alone.

Sounds like it'll be a really great resource for a lot of therapists.

I hope so. That's the goal.

Do you feel like you learned anything about yourself or changed as a writer while working on this?

What I learned is I'm a very academic writer. Thank you, University of Rochester. I frequently forget how research heavy that institution was until I'm involved in a project like this with a colleague who didn't go to a research heavy institution and I'm like, are we using MLA or apa? Are we. How many citations do we need? How do we know this? Where's your research on this? And she's like, I just want to tell stories.

And I'm like, okay, we complement each other very well. But that was something I learned about myself and I had to really keep myself in check in terms of like, who is my audience?

My audience probably doesn't care about APA citations. They care that someone sees them and is validating their experience and someone else has found a path forward and can help them find their own path forward. So that was definitely something I learned.

Having sources to back up your claims and stories definitely matters too. But it sounds like you found a good balance in the end.

Yep.

Well, tell me a little bit about your podcast and what inspired you to start that. I've enjoyed the first couple episodes.

Our podcast is about the gap between how we were trained or our education and what happens in real life in therapy. And I think just having more and more conversations over the years around I know what I'm doing, but what am I doing?

Or I know what I'm doing and this intervention fails.

And that's not a client failure. That's my responsibility as the professional and the therapist. And what do I do next that's in the client's best interest?

And I think so many interventions are pretty protocoled for lack of better phrasing. And what do you do when a protocol doesn't work and you're told the protocol should work?

And then my co host, Morgan, we met a while back through a mutual friend, through my co author, actually, and she and I got coffee earlier this year and she was like, do you want to start a podcast? Yes. Do you need to think about it? No. Are you sure? Yes. And it really has unfolded.

I don't know if this is how your podcast has unfolded, but it's unfolded so organically. Like, I worked this up in my head to be a mountain I could never climb. I could never figure out technology. I could never be organized enough to.

To figure out all these small pieces of a big project. And it has unfolded in the exact way it needed to, in the exact way it wanted to, and the exact way it was supposed to.

And I don't love hearing myself talk, but every time I listen to one of my episodes before we release it, for editing sake, I'm like, oh, I don't like my voice. But I think there's a lot of things therapists don't talk about, and I'm ready to just shine a light on all of those things. Good, bad, ugly.

Yes. Yes. I love that you put it that way.

This has been such an interesting chat. I want to take a quick break, and then we're going to get into a totally different vein of your life with some unconventional parenthood.

So we'll talk more about that soon.

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Check out this Week in Fandom history wherever you are listening to us now. So I know you've had some unconventional experiences with becoming a parent. In a way, you've told me about your sibling living with you.

I don't want to speak too much for my sibling, but from my perspective, their parents really couldn't parent for a lot of different reasons, and my sibling's story is theirs to share.

But they asked me and my husband if they could come live with me us and started sharing more and more about what was happening at home and some pretty significant concerns. And ultimately there was an out of court agreement that was put into place for my sibling to come live with us.

And let me tell you, I thought I was prepared and I was not. I think I knew my husband very well. I still know him very well. I knew my sibling very well. I had a lot of hope.

I wasn't blindsided or ignorant by any means. But I think there was a sense of looking back at my younger self now, oh, this person is 16 and they are independent and they've already been raised.

So again, I don't mean to minimize parenthood at all, but my mindset going into this was this is not going to disrupt my life much. And I was wrong. Not necessarily in big bad ways, but living with a third person in the house thought it would be different or not as impactful.

Hearing someone's footsteps down the stairs when I don't want to gets me every day.

You know, even stuff like that where I'm like, logically, I know this shouldn't bother me and this isn't a big deal, but it's like nails on a chalkboard every day. And I think my husband and I, we learned a lot about ourselves and a lot about each Other.

And to be really honest, we were not on the same page with parenting. We were not on the same page with discipline, with accountability, with allowance, with money, with. I mean, we're on the same page about money with.

Within our relationship. But in terms of like allowance or do chores and we'll pay you. We were as opposite as probably two people could be.

And we had to go to couples therapy over it. And I'm very proud of us for doing that work, but it was really uncomfortable and really difficult.

And I think, at least at the beginning, I'd be curious to see what my sibling says later, maybe in 10 or 15 years. It probably caused a lot of chaos for them because I would kind of classic example. Right.

Like mom would say one thing, dad would say another, mom and dad would fight about it, and kid is all of a sudden in chaos. And I recognize that that's not fair and that consistency is really difficult for children to live in. And it happened.

And I take accountability for that. I'm very sorry for that. And. But that's the reality that that unfolded.

So interesting because I feel like having kids stirs up so much shit in couples that they might not have dealt with. Yeah. Even if they have already done a lot of work individually or together.

And it's funny that, like they were 16 moving into your home and it still stirred up a bunch of shit that you wouldn't have had to sort through otherwise. Yep. Now, do you view yourself as their parent or do you view them more as like a sibling now?

I don't know. That's such a good question. I think it's context dependent. Like if we are out with other people or with other siblings, I really fall into that sibling role.

But if there's a stressor or a dysfunctional family situation or a medical bill or a question about financial aid, I'm like, right back into that parenting mode of like, okay, what's the problem? How do I solve it? How do I give my kids support? How do I figure out all these components? And I think I'm really good at that at this point.

But I also think, like, this has really impacted our sibling relationship. And I hope it ends up healthy in the long run for sure. But I'll speak for myself. Like, it.

It sucks having authority over someone that you really shouldn't have authority over and trying to convince someone, I'm exercising authority for your safety and growth, not because I want to exercise authority, especially if that's been your experience. Experience with parental figures in the past or people in authority in the past and I hope with time they're able to, to see that.

Like it's not a power trip. It's not you being controlling, it's. It's just necessary.

And the toddler era I'm in, there's a lot of like, I'm restraining you from this situation or I'm scooping you up from this because it's unsafe and you don't understand that. But you're in the big kid version for sure. Has your therapist training ever come in handy as a stand in mom?

I think so. I can think of two instances. One was my sibling was very emotionally dysregulated and I stayed calm.

And afterwards they were like, I really just wanted you to be upset with me. And I was like, well, what do you think happens if I get upset?

Then you get more upset and then I get more upset and then you get more upset and then I get more upset. And so I think the emotion regulation has definitely served me well because I really try not to escalate situations.

And I also think connecting to systems, like that's a very social worker thing to say. But like I didn't know how to enroll someone in school. I'd never done it before.

Like, I mean, I enrolled myself in college and grad school, but that was like a couple clicks that wasn't. You have to produce all these things and vaccines that I didn't have records for. Right. Because I'm not their parent.

And signing up for swim team and then there's a whole lot of NCAA rules to figure out and a whole lot of club team rules to figure out and then required volunteer hours for swim teams and stuff. I think the social work background specifically helped me really navigate the complexity of a school and sports system with grace and patience.

I probably did lose my shit a couple times on my siblings coach, but probably no more than any other parent I would assume.

What have some of the more joyful parts of this journey been? Anything that's like surprisingly fun or nice?

Maybe not joyful, but very lovely thing that I reflect on is the boundaries that my sibling has and the ability to assert for themselves what they want and what they need. And when people violate boundaries. I feel like I just started exercising those skills in my early 30s. I'm 35 now.

And they started using those skills when they were 17, 18, 19. And so it's really lovely to think like, oh, someone younger than me has kind of figured a lot of things out earlier than I did.

And I like to think that is at least Partly because of me and my husband and the joy. I mean, watching them get into college and watching them break their personal record for swim races, I mean those are definitely huge pieces of joy.

Watching them get their first job, watching them be able to pay for their first tattoo. Sorry, not sorry to some parents out there that don't want to see that or hear that on their child.

But I also think that's part of a larger, like reclaiming for my sibling just based on her or, you know, their own history. Lots of joy, I would say. I think the hard moments stand out because they tend to be big and the joyful moments tend to be smaller but more over time.

And hearing them talk about the different future paths they have, I mean, I think that's the best anyone could ever want for their kid is to have doors open for them. And I think my sibling had to open a lot of their own doors and I'm proud of them for that.

But walking alongside them and seeing the person they've become and knowing the person that they will become is truly amazing.

That sounds really cool and really special. Do you picture being in their life as like a stand in parent figure forever? Like they'll be coming back to you for holidays and stuff?

Or do you think after college you'll kind of part ways and go back more to siblinghood?

That is hard to say because I'm the oldest of eight and I think I naturally have fallen into the role of, oh, we call Ashley first when we have a problem. I think that's the case for a lot of reasons that I don't need to go into.

You're too competent, you can handle anything.

And I overperform and overfunction and shouldn't.

Classic big sister energy.

That's kind of the flip side of things. So I think yes, in a lot of ways I will be that go to person. Whether or not it's because I served in a parental role. I don't think it necessarily matters. I hope to not be an authority figure over my sibling ever again.

So hopefully it does pan out more to like an equal relationship, especially as time goes on.

I know you and your husband have chosen not to have kids aside from this experience of raising your sibling for a few years. But can you talk a little bit about why you made that decision not to have kids of your own?

Well, I'm the ultimate. So I was in a parental role a lot, you know, even from a young age. Hey, can you stay home with your brother? Can you stay home with your sister?

Can you drive your Sister, can you go get her from this party? And later into my 20s, I was in a friend group where people were just starting to talk about, wait a second, do I have to have kids?

And I remember thinking, oh, I have a choice. Like there's a distinct moment in time where I was like, I get to choose.

And I know that sounds so silly, but it just, it goes to show, like, societal pressure, even peer pressure, family pressure, et cetera. I had two best friends, both child free by choice. Both changed their minds.

Both are amazing moms to one as a toddler and one as a first or second grader. Oh my God, I can't believe how old she is.

But one of them read Regretting Motherhood and she was like, I want to go into this as informed as I can be, and you should read it too. And I read that book and we took totally different things from that book and, you know, diverged in our paths, of course, which is totally fine.

So that was another pivotal moment for me. And then even as recently as 4ish years ago, I would say we were talking about having kids and my husband is a firefighter.

And I was like, I know that people adapt to lack of sleep and that your, your biological insecurity mystiques kick in, but like, I can't imagine being a solo parent two to three nights a week with no sleep or way less sleep. And he was like, well, we could probably afford a nanny. And then it became. And I was like, but I want to work.

And then it became this conversation around, okay, what kind of parents would we be? And there's no right or wrong answer to this question.

It was a genuine question, what kind of parents would we be if one parent is gone a third to half of the time and the other one isn't able or wanting to stay home and is also worried about these other aspects of parenthood and knows they're going to need a lot of help. And so we had some very interesting conversations about that.

And my husband said one day, and I don't know if he even remembers this, but it is such a sticking point in my mind. He said, if you want to have a kid 100% of the time for six months, we will have a kid. We can, you know, get pregnant, try to get pregnant.

And at the time I was like, that is such a cold way to look at whether or not you want kids.

But it was actually very helpful because I would find myself fantasizing and daydreaming about being a mom and the what ifs and Am I going to regret not being a mom? And it was very fleeting for me.

And it was like a minute or maybe five minutes, and I was like, okay, this percentage thing actually is very helpful because the other 95% of the day, I'm like, oh, God. Like, I don't want to be pregnant. I don't want to try and get pregnant. I don't want to be a mom. I don't want to have a toddler.

For listeners, I'm not trying again to, like, distill parenthood or this big decision into something much smaller. That's not what I'm saying at all. And it was not an easy decision for me. I think it was a clear decision ultimately.

But it took a lot of awareness, a lot of insight, a lot of therapy even, for me to make the final decision to not have children. And now we are 100% not having children because my husband had a vasectomy.

So, well, props to him, because I feel like more men need to do that, not make it always be the woman.

And I think more men, at least anecdotally the men that I know, I could list 10, 10 men right now who have had vasectomies, all within, like, the year or two that my husband did. And so I really hope it's talked about more. Like, speaking of topics that are a lot like, I want people to be talking about vasectomies, for sure.

I love that you talk about how much conversation you had about the decision, too, because you also mentioned the moment where, like, a friend group was all kind of like, wait, do we have to?

Because I feel like that is such a thing, especially for millennials, where maybe one of the first generations to really stop and think it through and be like, oh, do I want this? What would it be like? And that idea of picturing, like, how much.

What percentage of your day or how much do you dream about being a mom versus how much do you think? No way. Like, you really put a lot of thought into it and landed with what was right for you. Like, it seems like it all worked out how it was supposed to.

I think so. And of course, I'm here, and I can't tell the future, but I'm pretty grounded in my decision. And I have a nephew who's the light of my life.

I have two God children who are the light of my life. And I could step into a parenting role at any time.

I think welcomed, you know, to take their children away for a couple weeks or a couple months of the year. So it's still accessible just in a obviously like very, very, very different way and very part time way. And I think I was taxed.

I think being the oldest of, of eight, like that's a lot. I did the mom thing. Yeah, it's a lot.

I did the mom thing and I, I really, I really am confident saying that, you know, I'm not a biological mom, of course. And I would never ever pretend to be. I know. It's so interesting talking to other women because some people are like, oh, you're a mom.

Like, don't downplay it. And some are like, oh no, you've never like raised a kid right. So this is different.

And so it's just interesting to see how different people respond to my very interesting life circumstances. But I really believe I did the mom thing. And I'm really proud of where all my siblings are at in life right now.

And I think I played a pretty major role in most of their lives, either as big sister or parent or both. And I don't need to do it again.

They're lucky to have had you in their lives in that role, even if it was taxing. Do you have anything you picture that's like really exciting about a future without kids? Things that you're looking forward to or dreaming of?

I am really glad I never have to sit in a drop off or pickup line again because let me tell you, if you don't get there early, I have been wrapped around the block and a mile down the road and I am so excited to never have to do that again. I think just my time.

And I don't mean this in a selfish way, but it took me a long time personally and professionally to know my worth and to protect my time. And I'm very proud of myself for figuring that out.

And I'm glad I have time to be my authentic self and to have some choices that maybe I wouldn't if I was a parent. I'm really glad I'm not a fire wife at home with little ones. Some fire wives or fire spouses. Sorry. I should definitely be more inclusive.

Some do it really well and some love it and I just know that I would not do it well and I would not love it. I'm grateful again for that time. Like I don't have to give up my time.

Time is such a valuable resource and you don't think about like the things you would miss after having kids that are just dumb things. Like I don't get to just rot and stare at my phone the way I did before.

Having a kid, which is a silly thing to value at all, but sometimes you just need to, like, space out and scroll online or do nothing at all. And I like that time is just gone. Even though it's like not a good use of time, it's just, it still matters.

I agree. I agree. It was the right decision for me to never get pregnant.

I had a pretty significant back injury about 10 years ago and just really struggled with eating stuff growing up and body image into young adulthood. And I'm not confident I would have done okay during pregnancy or on the other side of that.

So I'm glad I honored my body and that in the future I get to honor my body, of course, in a different way than people who get pregnant do. But I'm glad my body is mine. Again, not to be selfish, that comes from a lot of therapy in a water.

You're allowed to though! Just to end with one more question, I want to talk a little bit about books and reading. Do you have any.

Any tips for people who want to read more or like how to find books you actually love? I know a lot of people are trying to scroll less and get back into reading. So what advice do you have for folks?

I think don't set yourself up for failure. Like, don't estimate reading a sentence or a paragraph a day or a page a day.

My husband reads ten pages a day and has for two and a half years now and he will never read more than that. But he has really found a rhythm and it seems very attainable to him and realistic to him to keep with that pattern.

And I think as much as you can buy real books, like, get off a screen, set that boundary for yourself and if you are on a screen, turn off all your other notifications.

Because I think it's very hard for a lot of us to switch tasks and switch our attention from a text message to a book, text message to a book, text message to a book. And then all of a sudden it's like, well, I can't read because I just can't focus.

And it's like, well, you can't focus because that's how phones are designed.

That's such a good point. Meanwhile, I've been over here listening to an audiobook and playing this dumb Tetris knockoff game and just completely zoned out. But it's a good combo. At least I'm not texting and checking apps.

I think that's something we take advantage of for sure. Like, we think we can multitask and we can't. Like, our brain literally can only focus on one thing at a time.

And so if you can give yourself the time to read, even if it is 30 seconds or a minute or 10 minutes or a certain amount of pages and really find something you're excited about, that's the beauty of books like acknowledge the passion that you have for a specific topic or acknowledge that this could be something you could get lost in.

whether it's a devastating memoir or hockey smut.

I know! you know better than anyone, I think, how I vacillate between a smut and like a very, very, very dark, dark memoir.

Gotta have balance in life.

Yes, yes, I agree. I agree.

Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Ashley. This has been wonderful.

Thank you. This was so lovely. And time flies. I can't believe how quickly this went.

This has been a presentation of the Lunchador Podcast Network.