Episode 60: Self-Kindness, Growth & Boundaries with Ida of To Every Mom (Motherhood Series No. 3)
/We are going to have another amazing episode this week for the Motherhood Series on The Balanced Parent Podcast! I’m so excited and if you will notice from the introduction, I had a little fangirling moment because the guest that I interviewed for this episode is a TikTok sensation whom I love and adore.
Every time I feel like I am failing as a mom or I feel low at the moment, I go to her Instagram or TikTok and watch her videos. And every time I do, I am always reminded that I, too, am worthy of the kindness & grace I offer to my kids. And THAT is what we are going to tackle this week!
So, join me and Ida who is a single mom to a beautiful girl. She does so much amazing content on Instagram (@toeverymom) on how to be kind to yourself and how to hold healthy boundaries with others. Here is an overview of our conversation:
How to cultivate self-kindness and grace
How to set internal boundaries
What to do to raise our morale
To get more content on this topic, subscribe to Ida's YouTube Channel To Every Mom and follow her on Tiktok @toeverymom. She also has a new children's book series coming out, so we will get to hear about that too!
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts, and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello, everybody! This is Dr. Laura Froyen in and today on the balance parent podcast, my heart is beating because I've got somebody I guessed to share with you that I love and adore and I'm so excited to introduce you to her. So her name is Ida, her handle on Instagram is to every mom and she just delivers so much amazing content on how to be so kind to yourself, how to hold really firm boundaries with others and with your own brain and I love her and so we're going to talk about how you're doing better than you think you are and how to be really, really just kind to yourself today and I think that this is going to be a boost that all of us need.
So Ida thank you for being here with me. Thanks for putting up with my like a fan girl giggles. I'm so excited. So everybody, when I am feeling low and like I'm a bad mom, I go to her page on Instagram and I watched her reels. This is so like I feel like I have this little secret and I'm sharing her with you. So I thank you for coming here and putting up with my little fan girl this right now, I'm so excited to have you Welcome to the show. Will you tell us more about yourself and who you are and what you do?
Ida: Of course. Oh my gosh, what an introduction. Sorry, who are they talking about you?
Laura: It’s you, You're amazing.
Ida: Thank you so much. I am so honored, so humbled. So all of it to even be on your podcast and I'm so grateful. Oh my gosh, what do I even say? So I'm happy to be here because I've always wanted a space where I could talk to moms. I've always wanted to do that. And it seems that some dads kind of chat to me to online, but my name is Ida, I'm a single mama to one beautiful, beautiful chocolate girl and I could just eat her up.
And I have gone through a lot of stuff, a lot of things as we all have. And those things have brought about the lessons that I love to share through comedy, through heartfelt messages to moms and even through some, like some beer statements about where we need to stand when it comes to a loving ourselves and taken up for ourselves.
And that's what I do online. I'm also an entrepreneur. I just started my own business in January because I was working 12 hours, 10 to 12 hours a day during the pandemic, as a single mom with a baby at home and I knew I wanted to do something else and I didn't know what it was, but being on Tiktok in Instagram has helped me. Thank you, thank you so much. Yeah.
Laura: that moment of like realizing what is happening right now is not sustainable and it's not going to work and I need to find a different path, like at that moment in my life where life handed me a path that I was not expecting, you know, I had a half mapped out and car accident, you know, while I was pregnant just couldn't, that path was no longer an option. So I had to take a different path and I love that you're in this place where you're taking a different path. That was a little bit about being there. I mean, you tell us what you wanted to tell you that.
Ida: I would love to hear about your story. Oh my gosh, we're probably going to have to chat off line if that's okay, I get so inspired. And yeah, I have just like anyone else. Whenever stress gets into my body and I'm no scientist. But when stress gets into your body, it can cause all kinds of health issues. And my job is very stressful. And I was beginning to deal with health issues because of it. And it's not that my job is bad.
It's just that my body couldn't take it any longer. And when the pandemic hit, that's when I started on Tiktok and I just wanted to be there because Gary V said, get there. I didn't have a business in mind. I was writing a children's book, but I didn't even know whether that was going to be anything and also some children's music and that's to come soon.
But Hi, I'm Susie with the Z and you won't believe what happened this week. Hi there. I'm idle with an eye and I'm the author of the Susie with the Z mystery series, come and join us on this incredible adventure as Susie and her mom discover what caused her cold. Susie with the Z mystery series is created to encourage and empower young people to ask the big questions because we know when little ones ask big questions. It leads only to one thing case solved. Find Susan's handwashing song on Youtube and the case of the mysterious cold on amazon.
Ida: And then I jumped on Tiktok and just started doing mom content. But the job got harder and harder. So I had to kind of package my life into one hour of me doing something for me. And that was my TikToks and spending time with my community because the community is everything. I love my babies on both platforms and beyond also YouTube.
But you know, that was one of the major things that really catapulted me into now doing my own thing for myself in my own terms. But what I went through to kind of learn the stuff that I know has just been less challenges my and I'm sure he won't mind this because we have a great communication, but my ex husband no longer wanted to be married.
For various reasons of his own and we won't judge his reasons. I'm totally fine now and I felt shocked and I wanted to maintain the relationship as best as I could and it was not going to work, but found out shortly that I was pregnant. Yes. And you know, in my late 30's and I knew there was no way that I was going to let this baby go. And I knew that that even if I was not going to be with him, I was going to do all I could to be on my own. We were divorced shortly after, you know, a couple of years later, we managed to get divorced.
I did try to fight. I say in quotations by waiting and seeing if maybe he'd change his mind. There was nothing no indication that he would. But I did wait. This might be a shock for him if he ever hears this. I did wait. And then finally I just thought, no, I want to get a divorce. And so I filed for divorce and I've never shared this very publicly before. But I think it's important to share. And then I was pregnant on my own, you know, delivering on my own, taking care of a newborn on my own, doing it all on my own.
And I had to learn to give myself grace, which is something I'm still working towards, but also rise up in my power. Those two, it's like binary where you're doing something like betting on yourself, but you're also saying it's okay if I mess it up. You know.
Laura: that's what, that's the balance. That this is what it's all of my show balanced fair. And because it's all about all of these dualities, all of these things. It's about the both and yeah, the both and not either or it's yes, I can be compassionate and kind and loving to myself and believe in myself and hold myself accountable and be responsible to myself, into my family. It's both.
Ida: And yes, it is. Oh my gosh, please put that on a mug or a shirt. I will wear it.
Laura: Uh Yeah, I mean, but I think that that's what I love. The content that you create so much, especially your mama, a character you created its self love, but also fierce commitment to your like in a kind, gentle way, but also in a fierce way and I just I love that. Absolutely. So how do we go about cultivating that kind of, that balance between? I'm going to be so kind to myself and I'm going to strive, how do you cultivate grace?
Ida: Yeah,
Laura: in a space that's hard on mom's?
Ida: I think it's a combination of things. So first of all, we are all brand new at life. All of us were only born once and we're all doing this for the first time and the last time, you know, boom, boom, boom, Well, well, I mean, depending on what you believe in, but let's just say this version of life, we're doing it once in my opinion. And even if we do it five times in your opinion, let's just say, this is your first go around, We're still new at it. We don't know what we're doing. And so we got to be patient with ourselves.
And that also helps me be patient with my daughter when I remember she's new at this, and I'm not always getting that right y'all. I don't want to be the person to say, let's be patient with kids. Let me tell you, I fail at that daily multiple times a day. Same. Yet still, I still work at it. So I think that it's just that understanding that you're new at it, but you won't let that be an excuse to not be great, the greatest you can be at it.
So yes, this is my first time encountering being a mom, a single mom, you know, but I can learn, I can google, I can ask questions, I can still do my part, We can always still do our part and if you're part fails or if you are lazy one day, don't beat yourself up because you need yourself to get back up the next day.
Laura: And I think it's so hard because the internal voice that we all have is one that we learned growing up and was handed to us by our parents and was likely handed to them by their parents, right? And that voice we think and we use it with our kids too, so we use it with ourselves and we learn best by berating, we learn best, but you know, we will change our behavior if we are critical.
You know, if we point out what we're doing wrong and these patterns, I think that we have to change and we have to change inside first if we're going to change them outside with our kids, like, you know what I mean? So what are some things then that you say to yourself in those moments?
Ida: in the moments where I'm feeling low and I'm kind of berating myself, what do I say?
Laura: How do you talk yourself?
Ida: Sometimes I just let myself do it, but not for long. Sometimes I let myself do it like that wasn't right ida because sometimes I need to get it out And yes, it's gonna leave a scar. Yes, it may leave a wound, but at least I have a time limit on it now. You know, it's like even if it's 10 seconds, it's like now we're done now.
Laura: We're done with boundary with it. There's about boundaries, you're so good at boundaries. I love the way you talk about boundaries.
Ida: you didn't have them growing up. I think that's why I have them now in my forties.
Laura: Oh no, you have a couple of really great little videos on boundaries on other people's business. You know, like if you were in my business, who's taking care of your business or what are some of the other things that I loved your what your like and other people's opinions to their underwear? You don't belong in my house around my floor.
Ida: unless there's a reason why you're here. I love it.
Laura: I mean, and I think that's an internal boundary. I call that an internal boundary or a psychological boundary where we are firm with ourselves around what we're going to let in, that other people's opinions of our parenting really don't matter as long as we're sure of what we're doing and we're connected to our kid, you know?
Ida: Yeah. Something I told myself one day because I used to struggle and crumble under what everyone thought of me and I still have to work with that I do but crumble to the ground. And I think it's when I was filming a Mama Aji video and I was like, you know Ida, the next person has an opinion about you go ahead and take it on, but send them one of your bills like send them the water bill because if they're going to invest in your home, then they definitely have a say in how you do things.
And I was like, I could never send them. My water bill was like, well Ida, you're the only one here handling the business. So if you're handling the business then your say is all that matters. Yeah. And then I was like, okay, well then that's true. So I'm talking to myself, you know about it because so I gave myself the ultimatum, send them a bill and tell them come on and bring all your opinions and don't forget to pay these bills because you know, that's how you get a say.
Laura: I love that. Oh my gosh, no, I mean and this applies like, so you and I were out there in the public space, we're putting our selves out there, but this applies to your mother in law who has an opinion about what you're doing to the lady in the grocery store who's giving you the side eye while your kids throwing a tantrum over not getting a sucker. You know, like it applies, oh my gosh. Unless they're paying rent or paying the bills in your life and the, you know, the paying the emotional load to, you know.
Ida: helping you with the kids, washing the dishes. If they're making any investments, then they've got a little bit of a say.
Laura: Yeah, they've got room for an opinion. They considered, but if they're not right, if they're not.
Ida: if there's not one investment that they're making to make your life better, then they don't have a say.
Laura: Yeah, that's good. I think that this applies to what we allow in. So when we're scrolling, we come across the accounts where that look perfect, beautifully curated. We start doing this to ourselves, right? We start letting their view what they think. You know what they're showing means something about us. So if I'm going to be a good mom, I have to do it that way. If I'm going to be a yes, got to do it that way. And it's the same thing as we have to set that boundary of like, no, that's their life, here's my life. They can have it that way. And yeah, I love talking about boundaries so much.
Ida: I used to do that. Like I wanted to be a good mom and I was new and so I went through all the videos, all the blogs, all of everything and all these moms were cleaning and all of that stuff. That's why I have my parody of my morning routine. I don't know if you've seen that one, that's one of my favorite videos because I'm showing you what a morning routine really looks like, you know, and I'll send it to you after this.
But, but the thing is that I used to think I needed to be like them. And we went out on vacation once. My daughter was six months old and my daughter was a high needs or still is high needs person. She needs love, touch attention and you know, I get with it. But at the same time when I need to eat and I noticed I never ate at restaurants, we never ate period. I would put an Ipad in front of her and there was this mother, we were in Hilton head in south Carolina.
She looked over at me and she just, she scowled, you know, and that her son was like looking back at Paw Patrol and she says, do not look at that. And I just thought she is judging me from head to toe, but does not know that this is the one moment I have to do something for me, No grace, no mercy. She's not in my home. She doesn't know my daughter doesn't sleep at night. Really. She doesn't know how exhausted I am.
She doesn't know I'm struggling financially because my husband is no longer here. She has no clue that this is my one moment for joy. So I'm gonna go ahead and let her have what she has and I'm going to thank her for what she just taught me because I'm moving on and letting her watch all all the Paw Patrol.
Laura: Oh my gosh! Yeah. Okay. I love this. I think it's so important for us to because it's easy. We live in a judgmental world. We live in a place that were, you know, we are mothering, we look at what people are doing and we judge, we layer on the should the woods, you know, all of those things you do, we all do it. We do. And I just love that you talk to yourself because I talk to myself all the time you do. Oh yeah, totally. I mean I talked back to myself too.
I have the little sub personalities that I chat with. You know, they're like, hello, little critical and I know come closer. You don't like what just happened. Yes. I know you think I'm terrible and I love you and you know, all of those things, I'm super kind to my inner parts because some of them are quite nasty and I think just like kids who are bullying like or even like the mean moms that are out there in places, usually those people who are mean or judging usually have something going on with them, but they need a little bit of kindness, a little bit of love. So I'm super kind to my, my inner parts.
Ida: Yeah.
Laura: I love how good you were at recognizing this person does not know my story. They do not know what's going on with me with my family and they maybe need this moment of judgment for themselves and so they can have that. But that doesn't have to be mine. I don't have to take that on. Oh God, it's beautiful and that's what we're getting. You know? So often I think people think about boundaries as in like this is the boundary I'm going to set with other people, but really boundaries are about us.
Ida: Yeah, completely About us. It's like a territory, the United States, America has boundaries to protect America. It's all about the country. Every country has their boundaries to protect themselves. And it's not about, hey, we hate you. It's about this is what we need to do for us in our, in our government, in our world.
Laura: Yeah. I love it. I love talking about boundaries.
Ida: Me too.
Laura: Okay. And so then what are some things like when it's hard and it is hard at times? What are some things that moms can do to kind of raise morale? Because I think that's really what I go to you for is when it's hard, I go for some kindness. I go for a little bit of tough love and like a lot of humor. Honestly, you make me laugh a lot. Thank you. Yeah. And those three things I feel like are so powerful kindness, a little bit of tough love and humor. Those work really well for me. How do we raise morale in our own homes?
Ida: How do we, you know, I think that mom's kind of get out of touch with the things that make them happy and then the things they enjoy and I think even as adults period people do that. So it's a good idea to have a running list of things you love and if you start adding things like if you fall in love all of a sudden with a flower that you didn't love before write that down. I think it's good to have a running list of things you enjoy.
So firstly, if your content creator, you can always create content from that, but secondly, you can, you can always think, okay on Wednesday nights I do one or two of those things or twice a week, I do one or two of those things and you start penciling it in. I think that that is one of the number one ways to boost morale is to have fun.
A lady told me that when she was counseling me and my ex husband on our marriage because you guys don't need to come and chat to us right now. You need to go have fun that will mend a lot of pain, you know, and I stick with that advice even as a single person that you know, and I need to do that more with my daughter. Not I think about it when things are tough, we need to just probably go have some fun.
Laura: Yeah, I prescribe yesterday as to my clients who are in a tough space with their kids. Do you know what I guess? Yeah, I mean. So I have a blog post. I'll put the link in the show notes. But yeah, so oftentimes when you're stuck in a rut and our families where things are low, you're so right, We need enjoyment. We need fun. And so yesterday can be really, really fun for kids. You put boundaries on it.
Like the amount of money you're going to spend, you know, the amount of screen time that goes well in your family, you know how much sugar you're willing to let the kids, you know, but you go in with the intention of, we're just going to follow the kids leave and whatever they want to do whatever sounds fun to them, We're going to do our very best to say yes to it within bounds. It's so much fun.
And most of the time I have the parents that I work with not tell their kids about it, so it's usually don't even know that it's happening. They just get this kind of this experience of their parents saying yes to them and parents making it really fun to. So yesterday's are a beautiful way to bring out.
Ida: I'm going to use that. I need to do that. She loves being loved, like I told you she's very in touch with what she wants and she wants it. You know.
Laura: I think though, like what you're saying though is that we need to be saying yes to ourselves a little bit more to be on the lookout for ways that we can bring enjoyment.
Ida: And it needs to be intentional. It needs to be scheduled in because over time because you start being your resented your resenting something. You don't know what you're just like, oh and your kids can feel that you're irritable and so you're lashing out and then you go to bed mad and you're like, why was I mad because I got the leftover food the time, the energy from my husband.
You know, if you're married or you stopped the love, everything is getting the leftovers and it's like, you don't matter. No one wants to live in this world feel like they don't matter. And you know, I talk about this a lot mothers, you are part of your family. So when you say you put your family first, do you mean you you have to mean you you're part of that family that you put first? That means 30 minutes a night. I'm having my screen time watching my favorite show like Brigid in. Okay husband. Okay wife.
Okay. You know, whatever your relationship looks like and even to yourself, single mom. And then you also need to say and I'm going to eat something I like or drink something I like. I love t who I'm a tea person and make sure that you do that every time you feel like you need to do it, schedule it in a please mama's.
Laura: Yeah, thank you for that. Thank you for that permission and that encouragement. So being intentional and prioritizing it. And I think you're so right. This idea that oh my gosh! We do. We settle for the leftovers in our lives and no one wants to live a life of leftovers.
Ida: No one
Laura: no wonder we feel exhausted and resentful when that's the case.
Ida: You would never treat your husband or let's just say your spouse because I know everyone has a different type of or your significant other. You never treat your significant other the way you treat yourself sometimes and you'd never treat your Children that way or your mother in law. You know if the kids need new shoes, you buy them. If you need new shoes, what do you do keep your weight? Yeah.
And I know we all have financial priorities and even time priorities but if you just pencil it in, if you say one time a month you're going to buy something for yourself, you know, even if it's one time every two months, as long as it's in my sister, as long as it's in, put it in.
Laura: 100%, I think it's so important and we're teaching our kids what it means to be parents to all along the way and and in doing so. We are also giving them permission to do it themselves if they choose to become parents were walking advertisements. One of my previous guests said that that we're walking advertisements for adulthood. Do we want them to think that it is a life of sacrifice and drudgery? No, that's not what I want my kids to think, motherhood.
Ida: Not at all. And that's what I think my daughter thinks it is at this moment I'm getting better at it. Maybe I'll master by the time she's 27 you know, I'm just joking, but you know, I'm giving myself time to do the best I can and she's going to have things that she's going to work through even if I got everything right, she going to. But there was something that was going to say because when you just said what you said, I'm like, yes, that's so true. Can you say that last bit? You said just now?
Laura: I don't know what I said. I know something low aren't we know, it always happens. Something about where a walking advertisement for adulthood and I don't want to like think it's drudgery. So I'd like to add to that as well. And that is, my mom taught me that parenthood with sacrifice and I used to see her just only do stuff for us. So I grew up thinking things are done for me. She didn't do it forever. She kind of stopped at a point and that was a shock to my system. I was like, she's so selfish now, she's going to listen to this and she's going to like what I did and you know what she was doing.
She started standing up for herself and I didn't understand what that was. It didn't make sense to me because she never communicated that to me and I became I was a little bit selfish and spoiled and I thought the world revolved around me. So I say this as well, Mom's, you don't want them to think it's a drudgery, but also you want them to value you, you want your husband or spouse to value you and therefore you tell them on Wednesdays, It's my day.
I have to do something for me. Okay, little ones, Mommy's queen at 8:30 I got to go be queen. Okay. And they will understand, okay my mom took time for herself. That means they get older and they will tell their boyfriends in college. I'm sorry Tuesday explained a love you to bits, you know the girlfriend same thing, I'm sorry, I'm hanging out with the boys tonight. Love you to pieces. Like they will start understanding that same self love.
Laura: But so I so agree. And I think that we can even with young kids we can hold these boundaries. So when my kids got to be about three every morning before I would take them, you know we would, you know they had to go to daycare or something for part of the day. I would have what we called in our house, Mommy's quiet moment where they were playing and I was drinking tea and reading or journaling and they were not allowed to talk to me.
And I mean it was when they were little it was five minutes. We started out with just five minutes, five minutes on the timer of you not talking to me, We pause the timer if they interrupted me, okay, once you go back to playing, I'm going to start the timer again and then we built up so I would get 20 or 30 minutes of no one talking to me. That's a boundary that is really important for me for my energy. But quiet moment.
I mean and having had that in place when the pandemic happened and all the kids came home and I was able to say, okay girls, we're going to go back to Mommy's quiet moment now. Right now we're going to have you know, half an hour. We no one talks to me and I did something I did not clean. I did not do any of the house stuff. Just something for myself and that's so important.
Ida: You literally just taught them self love and doing that.
Laura: Yes, I agree so much. Yeah. And they know it naturally, you know something when my oldest, she's eight now, but when she was a year and a half, we had just gotten her out of the bathtub and they had her laid out, you know, getting dried off and getting her diaper on on the changing table and she looked up at me and she said, I love mommy, I love daddy, I love me.
You know, she's a year and a half. She knew like I love mama, I love daddy, I love me. She just like, that's like, I just never want her to lose that and I know I have to show that that, that I love me and that means if you climbing on my body doesn't feel comfortable, I'm going to say no thank you to that. You know, you're in my face talking to me, I'm going to say, honey, take a step back, I want to be able to hear you and I can't pay attention when you're that close. You know, I have a sensory seeking daughter who's on me a lot. Yeah, it's ok. Oh my gosh, that is in the process. You teach them self, love, you teach it by modeling it and having it for yourself.
Ida: and confidence too. like, I mean, I think if I were a teenager that and my mom is still some great things in me, some really good things that I'm taking on to my daughter and had I known the things you're talking about right now, it would have looked like a friend saying, hey, let's just go, come on, I really want you to come with me. And I would have said no, I'm actually tired tonight and it being okay in high school, you know, or in middle school it being okay for me to say no, I don't feel like doing that. You know.
Laura: I think about that a lot. My mom always was willing to be the bad guy for my friends so that I could take care of myself and not have to set that kind of abrupt about boundary. She's always like, you know, we had a signal that I could wave to her where she could say no, Laura, you're not allowed to do that where Laura get off the phone. Like we had this signal. So that,
Ida: that is awesome.
Laura: It was awesome. It was so awesome. But I think about like my daughters, they are going to need that. They're going to be able to I know that they will, I know they'll be able to say like, okay, I'm done talking by.
Ida: Yes.
Laura: Okay.
Ida: That is exciting. It is exciting living in a world where our daughters and our sons can say no, but still be loving at the same time. That is a dream.
Laura: Oh, it is the dream. Yes. Oh, love it. Oh my gosh! I feel like that's the perfect end to a wonderful dreamy episode. Thank you so much idea for coming on and I'm just sharing your brilliance with us and with the world. I just adore, adore what you're putting out into the world. I'm so grateful for you.
Ida: Me too. I'm so glad I met you and I'm so thankful that you had me on by y'all.