4:13 Podcast: Can I Drop the Good Mom Myth? With Alli Worthington [Episode 288]

Alli Worthington: The person that planned out our child's life is God. The person who placed us together with our child is God. The person who knew the kind of mother our child needed to have for a wonderful life is God. But the advice that we have been given for decades almost takes God out of the equation and makes it seem like we are our child's God. And once we reframe that and get our perspective back to what I believe God wants us to, that guilt and that mom shame and mom burnout can start falling off of our back.

Jennifer Rothschild: Raising kids who are spiritually, emotionally, and physically healthy is what every parent wants to do, right? And, of course, it's essential. But to accomplish that heroic feat, parents need to be healthy in those same areas also. So today on The 4:13, author and podcaster Alli Worthington -- one of our favorites, by the way -- is here with us, and she's going to give us some straight talk to the moms especially to help us with all of this. So whether you are surrounded with toddlers or teens, or maybe you're watching your kids fly away, leaving an empty nest, Alli is going to give you easy tools for building your confidence as a parent and developing a healthy mom mindset. It's time to rediscover the beauty, the joy, and the sacred and secret art of confident motherhood. So let the podcast begin.

K.C. Wright: Welcome to the 4:13 Podcast, where practical encouragement and biblical wisdom set you up to live the "I Can" life, because you really can. This is truth. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.

Now, welcome me, your host and my soul sister, Jennifer Rothschild.

Jennifer Rothschild: Hey, our friends. That was K.C. Wright. He's my Seeing Eye Guy. And it's two friends and one topic and zero stress here in the podcast closet. I'm Jennifer, and my goal, along with K.C., is just to help you be and do more than you even feel capable of as you're living this "I Can" life of Philippians 4:13. Because like K.C. quoted, it is true, you can do and be whatever God has called you to do and be according to his strength. Not yours, his.

K.C. Wright: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: Which is a good thing because we're talking about parenthood today, and, y'all, that takes 100% strength. And I don't know, but I lived for many -- most years feeling inadequate as a parent. And I think it's interesting that Alli's is going to talk about confident motherhood, because I don't think I ever had a ton of confidence. You know, it was always this sense of, was that the right thing to do?

K.C. Wright: Well, your boys turned out great.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, they did, but that's the grace of God.

K.C. Wright: Yeah?

Jennifer Rothschild: Which is the point, can I just say, to all of you who are right in the thick of it.

K.C. Wright: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: You don't have to be a perfect parent. As Stormie Omartian says, you need to be a praying parent. But Alli's going to talk about the importance of just acknowledging your own needs.

K.C. Wright: So good.

Jennifer Rothschild: Like, you know, you can't have a spiritually healthy child if you're a spiritually bankrupt parent. You can't have an emotionally healthy child if you are an emotional wreck.

K.C. Wright: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: You can't have a physically healthy one if you're just serving frozen pizza and Doritos for dinner every night and wondering why nobody feels good and no one behaves well. So, I mean, there's a lot going on here. So though you may feel some --

K.C. Wright: Spirit, soul, and body.

Jennifer Rothschild: Exactly.

K.C. Wright: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: So you may feel a little pressure. I want you to know there's a lot of hope on this podcast, a lot of practical, practical encouragement. So if you're not sure if you're being a perfect parent, that's okay. You have a perfect Father. So you just pray and you listen to this podcast and watch what happens, right?

K.C. Wright: Yes. Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: So let's introduce Alli.

K.C. Wright: Alli Worthington, known for her straight-talking encouragement and practical tools that help women reach their dreams in business and life, is the author of five books, including "The Year of Living Happy," "Fierce Faith," "Breaking Busy," and her latest called "Remaining You While Raising Them." So good.

She's a speaker, podcaster, and life and business coach who has been on the Today Show and Good Morning America, by the way. Alli lives with husband, Mark, and their five sons just outside of Nashville, and the only golden retriever who refuses to retrieve. Yes, yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: That's hilarious.

K.C. Wright: So this is going to be so good. It's going to be encouragement for your soul. I want you to turn it up, because this one's just for you.

Jennifer Rothschild: All right, Alli, I'm so happy to have you back talking about your new book. And you say in your book that modern motherhood is broken. So I'm very curious about this. So why is that, and how has that shown up in your own parenting?

Alli Worthington: Well, thank you for having me. And, yeah, it is a bold claim to say modern motherhood is broken.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Alli Worthington: But I think if we combine the societal pressure on mothers, plus the pressure that we put on ourselves to be kind of superhuman as moms, and then you mix that with what we have now with social media, this onslaught all the time every day of mothers posting pictures and videos, who really project an image of getting everything right.

Now, we know we only share the good times on social media. It's part of it. But there's something that happens in our brain where when we see pictures of everyone else and their family's looking perfect and their dog is smiling at the camera and everything's clean and peaceful, even though we know it's a highlight reel, something happens in our brain which makes us feel isolated and lonely and like we're getting it wrong because our dog is throwing up on the carpet and our kids are arguing, whether our kids are two or in their twenties, you know. And something happens in our brain, and it's almost like we think other people have a secret that we don't know.

So we have cultural pressure, pressure we put on ourselves, combined now with some really unhealthy effects of social media, and I think it's combined into this perfect storm that is breaking women. But it doesn't have to in the future. We don't have to bow to it. We can be really intentional with it.

For me, I started breaking out of it when I really leaned into what the Lord had to say. Also with research. What is research that's been done over decades with kids and adults long term? What are the facts there? And then having conversations with my girlfriends to say, Hey, this is what's going on in my family. This is my experience with my kids. How is it for you? Because when we don't share and we don't have these conversations with safe friends, it really increases that feeling of loneliness and that subtle feeling that I think most moms -- again, whether your child is 2 or 32, that we're just getting it wrong. It can help that to not be an issue for us.

Jennifer Rothschild: I think you're right, whether your child is 2 or 32. Because I have a lot of empty nest moms listening to The 4:13, and whenever I do any podcast about adult children, I mean, our numbers go sky high. Because this parenting thing and this mom situation, guilt or whatever you may want to call it, it doesn't change. I mean, it changes the texture, but the bottom line doesn't change. We are all still thinking we've done it wrong or we're doing it wrong.

And so you mentioned something that I thought was good, Alli, about facts and research. And it reminds me that for your book, you actually did a survey of over 1,000 moms. And they were all different ages. So tell us what you found in that survey and if any of it was a surprise to you.

Alli Worthington: Yeah, I'd love to. It was such a detailed survey. It took about 30 minutes to do. And I heard from some women that it was so upsetting for them to think about these issues and really go into the pain sometimes of motherhood that they would have to take a break and come back to it. This is parents with adult children, young children, teenagers. It runs the gamut. Because these topics can be stressful for women.

A couple of really surprising things. The first one was that mom guilt is triggered, and the largest trigger of mom guilt -- it's not us, it's not our spouse, it's not our in-laws. It is social media.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

Alli Worthington: It is that feeling of I am living my life, everything's good. I open up Facebook or I open up Instagram and all of a sudden somebody looks like they're doing it better and I think I'm a terrible mom. That was shocking.

Another really surprising thing to me is I found out that women will learn about themselves when they're studying up for their pregnancy. But then -- it's natural, I did this too -- we are only focused on our children, mothering our children, and we really stop caring for ourselves and our needs and even being aware of our own needs as our kids grow.

Jennifer Rothschild: Interesting.

Alli Worthington: Yeah. And when I asked women, "What was the last book on motherhood you read?" most gave me a parenting book. And that's really the issue. We have been so focused on what we do and how we perform and all of this pressure on ourselves -- like every single thing we do matters, right? -- that we're only focused on performance, when really motherhood is more about who you are and not just what you do.

But the thing that I found most heartbreaking from that survey is a lot of mothers shared with me names of parenting books that they have read that they could not finish because it triggered so much guilt and made them feel like they were failing.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

Alli Worthington: And it was when I read that, I went, ooh, mothers have been through enough. Even the resources that we go to for help make us feel bad too. We need something that is Gospel focused, that's guilt-free, that can help us invest in ourselves. Because when a mother is also investing in herself and her emotional health and her mental health and her spiritual health, the natural overflow of that is a happier, healthier family. And that was my passion for this project.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. And I love that you were able -- it wasn't just Alli's experience, it was the experience of thousands of women that went into this book. And I appreciate your phrase "guilt-free," because that is the Gospel-centric way to parent, guilt-free.

And you talk about also in your book something that I found very interesting. I love the term you use in your book to describe mom burnout. Because that's what happens when we just live under piles of guilt and think we're never doing it right and try to perform our way into acceptance as a mom. And you call this the Mother Load. So explain that term and describe the symptoms. Because I think some women may not even know that's what they're experiencing.

Alli Worthington: Yeah. There's this phrase called the mental load. And I think every woman can relate to this. It is our amazing ability as women to care about everything and to keep up with everything. When were the socks last purchased? When did your dog go to the vet? If you're married, when did your husband get his teeth cleaned? Who's buying the teacher gifts or who's planning the grandchild's birthday gifts? You know, all of these little things.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Alli Worthington: And it's the mental load that we all bear. And you combine that with motherhood, and it's the Mother Load, because we are already trying to take care of everything. It's who we are. It's innate to us. We are givers. We're caretakers. But then the responsibility of children.

And I think the advice that was given to us through the decades -- now, my oldest is 24, so I've heard a lot of advice through the years. The advice that was given to us, I think with good intentions, but was kind of shaming to us as mothers, that kind of made us believe every single thing we did was make or break for our children. We missed VBS one year. Forget it, there's no hope for our kids. You know what I mean?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes. Oh, yes.

Alli Worthington: You're not doing family devotions every night? Well, I guess your kids are going to be ruined. And, you know, it is, I think, good intentions, but very shaming to women. And there has been this pressure, this weight on women's shoulders that the Lord never intended. Because the person that planned out our child's life is God. The person who placed us together with our child is God. The person who knew the kind of mother our child needed to have for a wonderful life is God.

But the advice that we have been given for decades almost takes God out of the equation and makes it seem like we are our child's god. And once we reframe that and get our perspective back to what I believe God wants us to, that guilt and that mom shame and mom burnout can start falling off of our back.

Jennifer Rothschild: Ooh, that's so good. Okay, so that's a good explanation of how we get to that point.

What are some of the symptoms that a woman can know she's at that point? Because, you know, sometimes it becomes such a normal habit to us that we don't even notice. We think, oh, well, this is how motherhood should be. So what are those symptoms that would give a mom a red flag that perhaps she's internalized too much of the pressure for the outcome for her child's life and she's experiencing burnout?

Alli Worthington: I think being frustrated, being angry, the thoughts of -- and not all anger is bad. The Lord gave us anger. I say in the book not all mad is bad, but we want to channel it in a proper way.

Jennifer Rothschild: Sure.

Alli Worthington: The constant worry that you are or have messed something up for your children, I think that's the big thing. The worry that I heard most of all from these thousands of women is, I just worry I haven't done enough. I'm worried it's my fault my child isn't walking closely with the Lord right now. I worry it's my fault that my child doesn't have a good relationship with her sibling. I worry this, I worry that. And we're taking on more pressure and responsibility than God ever intended. So this type of constant worry, constant anxiety that we have somehow messed it up, that we are all powerful, and by not working twice as hard or being in three places at once, it's it for our kids, that's it.

And I'll tell you, one thing that really opened my eyes -- and I talk about this a lot in the book. There is a thing that's been going on for decades called the Minnesota Twin Study, where they study twins, and they also study twins -- identical twins who were adopted at birth who were four weeks old. And there's case after case of these twins, both adopted into good, loving families, so they had all the right ingredients to thrive. But there's a case of two boys who literally marry a woman with the same name.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, my goodness.

Alli Worthington: They get a dog and name it the same thing.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, my goodness.

Alli Worthington: They do the same thing for a living. They both live in Ohio and they both vacation very close to each other in Florida. And the similarity -- similarity after similarity after similarity. And when you read about all these twins separated at birth, it is a revelation. Because what God says in the Bible is true. He created our children in the womb. He knit them together. Their personalities, their proclivities, their strengths, their weaknesses, what they love, what they don't like, their little personalities. And when we really embrace that, we can go, wait a minute. My child wasn't just a blank slate and every single thing I did or didn't do didn't completely shape them. Once we kind of unpack the science of how God has programmed our children in the womb, it can really shake a lot of the guilt off of our shoulders, and the responsibility that God never wanted us to bear. He wants us to disciple them and love them and discipline them and raise them up as we should, of course.

Jennifer Rothschild: Sure.

Alli Worthington: But they are who they are.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Alli Worthington: And that's a very freeing message that I think is going to set a lot of moms free.

Jennifer Rothschild: I agree. That was the word I was thinking of as you described that, freedom. And, you know, as a mom sitting on this side of the empty nest, I realize I am not responsible for the outcome when it comes to if my children failed, but I also cannot take 100% credit for their success.

Alli Worthington: That's true.

Jennifer Rothschild: Because just as you described, God is the one who ordained their steps, and they have the autonomy to follow his will. And so just as we don't assume the guilt, we also don't assume the glory. It goes to God.

Alli Worthington: Yeah, that's the unfortunate part of it.

Jennifer Rothschild: Mm-hmm. Right? Right? I agree.

But you do encourage moms in your book -- and I really like this -- to find their own unique mom style. Okay? So how do we find what our unique mom style is, and how does this help us with the mom guilt thing?

Alli Worthington: I think a lot of it is our personalities. So my cousin, for instance, she's very outdoorsy. She's always hiking, you know, her kids all eat organic. Very crunchy. That is her mom style. And if she had looked at me, I'm not hiking. I don't want to go outside unless I'm going to my car or I'm at an amusement park, you know. But I like to do fun things. I like to go on trips, I like to ride roller coasters. If she spent all of her time looking at me going, oh, that's the best way to be a mom, she'd be miserable. And if I told myself, well, good moms take their kids on hikes every Saturday, I would be miserable.

So whether we are kind of a crafty mom or we're a mom that likes to snuggle up and read with our kids all the time, or we're always out on the ball field and we love that, I think leaning into who God created us to be with our natural personality and then going, wait a minute, I can trust that this strength of mine, this personality of mine, is good enough for my kids because God put us all together.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Alli Worthington: And not look at the way other moms are doing it and their natural strengths and going, well, gosh, I should be that way.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Alli Worthington: And I think that's a lot of the danger of social media. Because, you know, maybe there's a mom out there who is growing organic wheat in her backyard and she just really loves making organic food all day long. If I look at that -- and it's probably going to be set to music, and the video and the pictures are going to be beautiful -- I'll be like, well, obviously I'm failing because I don't grow anything --

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

Alli Worthington: -- right? But when we can go, this is how God made me, this is my personality, and this is what I love and this is what we're about in this household, and not look to the left or the right at the way other families are doing it, then we can keep moving forward in strength and keep moving forward in the life that God has for us.

Jennifer Rothschild: That's so good. And I'm hoping I'm hearing some chains breaking right now in some mom's hearts. It's okay to be exactly who God created you to be. And it's important because you also in your book correlate emotionally healthy kids with emotionally healthy moms. So explain that dynamic, please.

Alli Worthington: Well, a counselor told me years ago, a wise counselor, a Christian counselor, she said, "Your children will never -- while they're living with you, they will never be emotionally healthier than you are. You are the lid to your children's emotional health." And I had to sit with that for a while. And as I said earlier, I consider emotional health a combination of our mental health, our spiritual health, and our relational health, our relationships with other people. And that was my first indication, oh, if more is caught than taught, I better give them something to catch.

And I remember when I was eight years old, I was going for an extended Christmas celebration day after Christmas at my Aunt Shirley's house. And when I got there, Aunt Shirley had, you know, told everybody she'd been cooking days. And she was smiling and saying everything sweetly. And I didn't know at eight years old what was wrong, but I knew something was wrong. And I had a really bad time that day and I couldn't figure out what it was. And it wasn't until years after her death that the family -- one of her daughters told me that -- turns out she never wanted to do all that cooking for days, but she thought that was her role. And she didn't think she had permission to raise her hand and go, Hey, how about everybody bring a dish? Or, How about we switch off houses every other year? So she was doing this thing that she thought made her a good mom, but it actually through the years made her kind of angry and then a little bitter because she felt pressure to do it because she never felt permission to take care of herself. So it was her own emotional health that was suffering. And even though that she was doing everything to try to be loving, everyone around her ended up suffering.

And that story stuck with me. Because if we as women don't make sure we're okay, no one around us is going to be okay, whether our kids are 5 or 50.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. It's true, they pick it up, just like you said. And it doesn't just mean the littles that catch it. The adult children do also. That's a really good and difficult story. Because I think all of us, when we hear a story like the Aunt Shirley story, think, ooh, yes, I've been in that situation or I have created that situation. So that's really a good word for us.

And it shouldn't be guilt-inducing, though. So that's what I'm thinking. So what if you're Aunt Shirley and you hear this and you go, "Oh, crud." How do you manage that guilt?

Alli Worthington: That's a great question. It's really investing in your emotional health and figuring out, like, hey, what does it look like to start taking care of me? One thing that we realized with adult children is -- you know, when kids are younger, you can make them spend time with you. But adult children, you can guilt them and that will work a little bit, but they're not going to last long, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

Alli Worthington: With adult children, you really have to woo them to you. They have to want to come and visit you. They have to want to spend time with you. And I think that's the great motivator for us to take care of our emotional health, because whatever we need to deal with, God can work through with us. And again, the natural overflow of that is us feeling better.

One really small step that we can take to work on our emotional health is to ask ourselves this simple question every day. I talk about this in the book, that -- I call the magic question. And it's asking ourselves, What do I need right now? Because most women have lived a life of serving others and loving people so well that we accidentally don't take care of ourselves. And we have no idea what our own needs or wants are. It's like my Aunt Shirley. She never asked herself, What do I need? What do I need help with?

Jennifer Rothschild: Right. Right.

Alli Worthington: So just getting in the habit of getting comfortable to go, What do I need today? And then slowly learning to recognize what we need and then asking for them, whether we need help from someone else or we need to do something nice for ourselves to take care of ourselves. That's a great first step, because we don't want to beat ourselves up for being humans in a fallen world. We want to learn how to treat ourself with love and with grace and understanding, just like the Lord was. The enemy is the one who wants to come in and make us feel ashamed and make us feel like we're failing and make us -- you know, bring up all these thoughts of things we haven't done right. That makes the enemy happy. What makes God happy is us going every day, Lord, show me how much you love me, show me how to take care of myself as you want to take care of me so I can make sure all the relationships around me will benefit from this. That's the key.

Jennifer Rothschild: You know, that's interesting you brought up that magic question habit of asking every day, because literally I was about to ask you that, Alli. So I love that. And I think it's important for women to recognize that's not a selfish question. In some ways, it is a very selfless question. Because when your needs are met, then you have an abundance to give. When they're not met, then we transfer all that frustration to the people around us and, like the example you gave of adult children, they don't want to be around that at all. So that is such a great question. So the magic question is what do I need right now? Is that it?

Alli Worthington: That's it. That's it.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay.

Alli Worthington: And that's the key especially with people with adult children, empty nesters. I think sometimes when people hear about remaining you while raising them, they go, Oh, that's cute. I wish I had that when my kids were little. It is just as important for women to read this with adult children and grandchildren as it was when they were little. This is not a message that's going to make anyone feel guilty; this is a message of freedom. Because I believe that God has such good things for every woman listening, and we can't go, Oh, well, if I had had that when my child was one, things would be better. No. Maybe your child's 41. Let's have some great years ahead. Let's celebrate what we have. Let's get a little bit emotionally healthier and make sure that all the time we do have with our kids and our grandkids are exactly what they can be.

Jennifer Rothschild: Ooh, good word. Because his mercies are new every single morning --

Alli Worthington: Amen.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- so it's never too late. Good word, Alli. I'm so thankful for this resource, and I appreciate that you pointed out it's not going to be if you're rewinding and looking back. It's not a guilt-inducing book, because there's freedom in Christ and the Gospel. We are not the center of it; Christ is. He redeems all things.

So let's hit our last question, because you gave a very practical advice with the magic question, What do I need right now? Okay? So that's one thing that all of us can do. But let's end with this. What is another thing that a mom can do right now, besides the magic question, to help her thrive as a person and as a parent?

Alli Worthington: Oh, such a good question. One thing that I really loved learning when I was researching this book is researchers have found that friendships are actually our happiest relationships. So our family gives us deep joy and meaning, but our friendships are the happiest because we're friends with people because we like them, not because we have to be. And one of the causes of depression in women, especially empty nesters, is loneliness. So whether you're a young mom or you have adult kids, the importance of women's friendships is key. And a lot of women don't have time to get together. We have busy schedules. This great quote that I use in the book is the 30s is when friendships go to die, because we start getting really busy in our 30s and then it just keeps going.

So to really thrive as a woman and a mom, think about making sure that we are carving out a little time for a call with a girlfriend or to have coffee or get together. Somebody that's safe, somebody that gets us, someone that doesn't hurt our feelings when we're with them. You know what I mean?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes. Oh, yes.

Alli Worthington: That kind of friend that we can let our guard down, that's earned the right to be trusted in our lives, making time for them. And I have two friends who have very busy lives, and they don't have time to get together, so they have a Tuesday evening cooking dinner date every week. They put on their Airpods and set up their iPads in the kitchen, and as they each prepare dinner in their own homes, they talk to each other.

So it's this concept called bundling friend time. So you have friend time with the stuff you already have to do, you know, like going to the grocery store, making dinners. You just bundle that together to make that time happier. So whether you have a lot of time and you can get together with a great girlfriend, or just a little time and you need to combine friend time with something kind of boring that you have to do already, for our own mental health and our emotional health as women, as moms, invest a few minutes with a good friend this week. That's a great tip.

Jennifer Rothschild: I love Alli's quote, 30s is where friendships go to die. Okay. Well, I don't love it. I mean, I love it because it's so perfectly stated. So that means, our friends, no matter what decade you're in, carve out time for a phone call or coffee with someone who is safe, non-toxic, and trusted. You need it.

K.C. Wright: Yes. Invest a few minutes today in a friendship. It'll help your mental health. And when your mental health is thriving, that'll be a blessing to everybody in your whole world, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. True.

K.C. Wright: And we're so glad you invested in our 4:13 family today. If you want to read this transcript of Alli's conversation with Jenn, you can simply go to 413podcast.com/288. And we're giving away one of Alli's books as well. You can go to Jennifer's Insta @jennrothschild, or, of course, you can get there through the Show Notes at 413podcast. Com/288.

Until next week, get with your people. You can because you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. I can.

Jennifer Rothschild: I can.

Jennifer and K.C.: And you can.

K.C. Wright: For reals. For reals.

Jennifer Rothschild: That is not a myth. We are dropping the good mom myth, but we are not going to believe a lie that you cannot do this. The truth is, you can do this.