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This week's like note we might have been raised by parents,

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but we don't necessarily need to become them.

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Welcome to Life Notes from Chair 17,

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a podcast dedicated to sharing life stories,

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wisdoms and inspirations as we navigate life's journey,

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post chas to share thoughtful perspectives and insights from her own life journey.

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As well as those of special guests, contributors tune in for thoughtful conversations about lessons learned wisdoms,

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gained experiences, had and inspirations shared.

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Find us where you get your podcasts and be sure to hit follow or subscribe,

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so you never miss an episode. Now enjoy this week's episode.

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Alrighty, welcome back in friends to another episode of the Life Notes from Chair 17.

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I'm your host, Ch and I thank you once again as always for finding me in this corner of the podcast universe.

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Returning C 17 ers know that I always like to start off each episode by thanking you for your continued support and tuning in each week.

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This does include our international listeners.

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We appreciate your support. But if you are tuning in for the first time,

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maybe you've just found us on one of the major podcast platforms or maybe out on our website Life Notes from Church 17 podcast.com.

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A warm welcome to you.

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Thank you for wanting to check us out and we hope you like what you hear and you will want to continue to tune in.

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So this episode,

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I want to start by asking this question.

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Have you had the moment in your life where you catch yourself being or saying something that may be one of your parents might have done or let's just call it who might have raised you in this for this episode?

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I'm gonna specifically be referring to parents,

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but ever do that?

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Have you ever caught a glimpse of yourself maybe in the mirror and go oh my gosh.

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I am like my mother right now or I am like my father or I am like my auntie or I'm like my grandmother.

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Anyone bueller, anyone can anyone relate to this?

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My guess is, yes,

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maybe you haven't. Uh maybe you are a very young listener and you haven't quite had that moment yet.

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I feel like this starts to happen somewhere.

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Maybe when you get to 30 maybe in the thirties.

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So perhaps I should have added it into our previous episodes.

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30 going on 30 top 10 list,

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be prepared to have this moment.

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You might have had it when you were younger than that.

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And that's ok. And it does sort of happen as a real clear confirmation to you and you have the self awareness to recognize that you are really doing something you used to observe your parent,

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your parents or let's say those who raised you do.

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And in my case I'm not going to lie.

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It can be kind of a brutal OMG moment,

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especially when it's something I would say we aren't particularly proud of or maybe it's not the best of our parentals behavior.

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I do feel like I find myself going.

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Huh? So, I do that.

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Wait, I think I do that. Oh,

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you know what I do do that and it's in that revelation,

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kind of mindset or realization kind of observation while at the same time,

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sort of also going through,

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I would say the process of accepting why I might do or act in a certain way.

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And yet also then recognizing that does not have to be the know all and all.

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And by that, I mean, we are not solely destined to turn into what our parents were or are we can and we do become our own people and our own persons.

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And if we are lucky,

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I feel we have parents that teach us how to develop our own voice,

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right? Our own point of view, our own compass.

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And I don't want to discount the fact that some parents out there and those might be yours.

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They are and can serve as really big inspirations.

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I know that isn't true for everyone but for some they,

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they really are our biggest cheerleaders and in that and with them being that we can develop habits,

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I think, and tendencies and behaviors that they have that we for sure want to replicate.

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And I feel that's especially true as we get older and wiser.

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And we now observe what goodness they have done for us or we are appreciative of what they've done for us.

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And we, we really take that to heart as the years tick by or maybe the layman's way to refer to this is it's all the good feels,

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all of the things that are, are really good about that influence on our life.

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But I know on the flip side of that and all of the good feels are let's call it the not so good feels.

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And sometimes we do catch ourselves in a moment of those not so good feels.

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And you realize, or you might sort of either have this suddenly come to you or over a period of time you go,

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you know what this is not how I want to be and I'm in a knot,

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repeat that pattern or I'm not going to emulate that.

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And I think,

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or I feel this most often happens when we really do start to develop a different point of view or a different way of expressing ourselves from what had been,

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let's call it the standard when we were brought up.

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Now. It can either happen maybe at a young age,

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it can maybe happen at an older age,

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sometimes it starts to reveal itself right away when young kids get into that independent,

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let's call it independent thinker state.

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Which if I'm being totally honest,

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I feel like this is becoming the kids at three years old are independent thinkers.

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I know they're not, maybe they are,

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might be some parents out there going actually. Yeah,

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for me, I don't know that it was that young,

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but there can be that moment where the light switch goes on and suddenly you're thinking for yourself and you don't necessarily agree with what your parent is telling you or your parental person is telling you and you express that and you say,

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hm, I'm not so sure. Or you just start to think,

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you know what? I don't know if I agree with that could be at a young age,

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could also then happen.

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I would say at a much later period in time in life,

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maybe midlife. And it's a process by which you get to that point of feeling,

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ok, that you cannot necessarily be or do exactly what that parental standard was.

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It just, it varies and it depends on everybody's,

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you know, personal situation now standard disclaimer,

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right? I am not a child behaviorist,

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I am not a psychologist, not a psychiatrist.

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Nope, shocking,

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you know, but as life experiences and lessons and wisdoms go,

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I share that as someone who has taken a while to get to that place of acceptance of,

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you know, look, this is how they were but this is not how I am or have to be or want to be sort of reconfirming that that is OK that you don't have to be that.

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And I have alluded to it before in several episodes that I definitely grew up in a family where the old adage of Children should be seen and not heard was kind of RMO.

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So expressing opinion,

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disagreement, you know,

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altering points of view were not exactly welcomed or let's say you could do so,

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but within a certain confine and I was definitely raised with the concept of it was viewed as talking back or acting out of turn or being disrespectful or fill in the adjective or whatever the verb was.

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I was not raised to, to think actually,

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that's a different opinion. Maybe I don't agree with that and I'm allowed to develop that thought myself and develop that opinion myself and express it without it being seen as some sort of disrespectful,

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talking out of turn and really from an adult hindsight point of view,

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which I sit from now,

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I would argue it is important for the younger child to start to develop that own point of view,

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that opinion and perspective and not necessarily be made to feel like there's something wrong if they do.

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Now, I will say I do recognize there is a fine line here,

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right, a balance perhaps because there are and can be plenty of,

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of kids or Children or young,

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young people that might take this to an ex extreme,

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let's say, and you might be a parent out there experiencing this right now where those parental boundaries and just sort of the,

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the guidelines of just being able to raise a child are pushed really far and,

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or those kids might be,

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let's call it, pushing all the buttons to see what they can get away with.

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There's also the flip side to that where there are no parental boundaries,

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right? And it can seem like the wild west maybe in terms of what a kid ultimately ends up saying,

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doing behaving like. So there's kind of two ends of the spectrum.

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There could be, I don't want to call it traditional because really what is traditional these days anyway,

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it's more of, hey, he, here's some, here's some guardrails and the child goes up against the guardrail tries to see.

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Well, can I get over the guardrail? Can I go a little bit past the guard rail?

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How far can I go? Or there are no guard rails and the child can do whatever they feel however they feel,

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say whatever they feel and to be clear,

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I am for sure not a parent. So I do not want to judge or have any disrespect put out there to those of you guys who are parents because I whatever,

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whichever one that is with guard rails or without the struggle still is real.

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And in this discussion,

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I am likely oversimplifying because we all know that parenthood is truly one of the hardest jobs in the world.

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I have seen friends who are parents feel like they are losing their minds,

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but then regain them through the processing of really what being a parent teaches them as a parent about themselves or how they now see who they were as a child in their own child.

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And is that karmic moment of everything,

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they were good or bad might come back to them through their own child.

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But for the sake of this discussion,

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this is more of an observation or just a general observation that those of us who might have been raised with really lenient lines,

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let's say there were guardrails there,

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but they were lenient and they were monitored,

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let's say, and they encouraged us to find our own voice,

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our own way of thinking our own ways of expression.

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That is a good thing. That encouragement is a good thing.

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But some of us where those guard rails were really,

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really rigid and really you will not step past this guardrail,

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you will not step out of line. That I think for me was not necessarily the best for me to come to really identify who I am,

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how I think what I think. And as somebody who has had to take a hard look at this through the lens of hindsight,

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when one doesn't really get the opportunity to develop that,

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how they think, how they feel. And instead might,

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let's say squash that down for fear of being anything other than what the parent expects or what the parent approves of.

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It does somewhat warp one's sense of self and it takes a lot of conscious work to undo that and realize how that has impacted who you are in the present moment and also coming to accept,

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hey, you know what, I'm not my parents, I am me.

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I'm not what they were or I'm not what they wanted me to be.

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But that's ok because you know what I'm me,

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I'm good. I'm ok.

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And I really hone in on this idea of being able to express oneself,

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not in a con like a conflict way or contentious way.

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Let's call it. But more of a hey, you know what?

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I don't agree with you and I don't have to agree with you,

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but I can still respect you and I expect the same of you to me,

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meaning parent to child and child,

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to parent. And I feel if I'm getting specific on this journey,

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that's really been my journey.

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But at a much later period of time in my life,

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and I do wish it was something I had developed as a,

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let's call it a younger child or even just to call time out on myself and say,

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you know what I am not having a really Good day.

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I'm sorry. I don't think your joke is funny.

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I don't appreciate you picking on me and I need some space.

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I mean, I wish I could have said that.

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And part of the inspiration to doing this episode was when I did see a viral clip from a few months back by this young kid who I would say probably did more to express his feelings in this small clip than most of us ever learned to do.

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And I will put a link in the show notes to it because if you do not see it,

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it's, it's worth watching it. I think it made the rounds pretty much everywhere.

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It was on Good Morning America,

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I think. And it's been, you know, Instagram tiktok,

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all this kind of stuff. Now, I'm not sure the kid's age,

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he might have been maybe, I don't know,

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678, something like it like like that if I've got that way off,

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I'm sorry, I I tend to be really bad at knowing how young kids are or actually how old they are if they're under 10.

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So apologies to parents out there if I completely get that wrong.

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But in this video,

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there is an adult figure that is offscreen and the kid is being filmed,

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I think either by that parent or maybe the other parent and he was just not having whatever the adult was dishing out,

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just not, he was just not in the mood and instead of throwing a temper tantrum or,

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you know, running around the yard hysterically,

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the kid very calmly goes,

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I'm cranky. I am tired and I worked hard at school and he kind of just wanders away after he says this almost putting himself in time out even though he didn't do anything other than express himself.

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And when I saw this as I normally do,

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because I tend to be an observer,

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I went into the comments and I think these were comments on Instagram where there was this debate between,

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let's call it the older generation of parents that didn't like the kid expressing his feelings.

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While the younger generation of parents and even maybe some older generation of parents who had evolved their thinking,

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they applauded the kid and the kid's parents for teaching him how to express feelings in disagreement without being hurtful or angry or whatever the case may be.

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And I have to say I am absolutely in the latter camp.

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Like I would have paid big money back then for that wisdom at that age and that encouragement to be like that at that age because honestly,

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the kid expressed himself better than many adults myself included and the willingness of the parents to equip him to do this.

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I feel in my opinion should really be applauded like pat on the back high five.

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Well done you and I don't know where that would have come from.

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Maybe those parents had the good fortune of having been taught by their parents or,

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and, or they chose, maybe if they didn't have that behavior taught to them,

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they made a decision not to replicate,

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maybe what would have been bad behaviors by their parents and instead teach their child what having a voice can mean and particularly when used.

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Well, even if it is in disagreement now,

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I know, you know, social media doesn't always show the best of us and it can oftentimes be fake or distorted.

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But this one, it's pretty hard to fake this or be distorted.

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And the fact that this particular kid was having a day expressed,

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he was having a day and his parent or parents let him sort that out while supporting him.

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I think teaches us a super valuable lesson and someone wise once told me we are the products of both of our parents,

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but that doesn't necessarily mean we have to be them.

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Sure we're gonna catch ourselves in a moment of somehow seeing some part of us or some part of them in us and it might be cringe worthy.

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Maybe not. It might not exactly be how we envision ourselves because you know,

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when you are young, you don't ever think it will be you going.

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Oh my gosh. I'm turning into my mother or oh my gosh,

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I'm turning into my father or oh my gosh. Fill in the blank.

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I like to think of it. Perhaps as we take the good,

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we learn and adjust from the not so good and we make the attempt to forge the best path ahead for us,

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not for them. So respect that moment,

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be present with who each of you is and are and will continue to be.

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And with that, as always,

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I ask you to be kind to yourself. Take it one hour at a time,

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one day at a time and I'll see you next time.

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Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Life Notes from chair 17.

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Remember to follow and subscribe. So you never miss an episode.

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We'll see you next time.