Revisit - One and Done

This episode tackles the societal and personal challenges faced by parents who decide to have only one child, focusing on handling external judgments and internal doubts.

1. Many stereotypes about only children, like being spoiled or lacking social skills, are based on misconceptions.
2. Parents of only children often face societal pressure and judgment about their family's size.
3. It's essential for parents to build a positive narrative about their family choices, especially when facing external criticism.
4. Effective responses to unsolicited advice or comments can empower both parents and children.
5. Fostering a child's social skills and ensuring they have opportunities to interact with peers is crucial for their development.

1: Opening Thoughts

Dr. Becky Kennedy discusses the challenges and stigmas associated with raising an only child.
Dr. Becky Kennedy: "Only children get a bad rap. They're often labeled as spoiled or socially inept, which are gross generalizations."

2: Guest Introduction - Sunita’s Story

Sunita shares her personal journey of deciding to have one child due to fertility issues, and her experiences with societal reactions to her decision.
Sunita: "We love the family we have now, even though it's different from what we initially envisioned."

3: Addressing Stereotypes

Discussion on common stereotypes about only children and how parents can confront these misconceptions constructively.
Dr. Becky Kennedy: "It's important to tackle these stereotypes head-on and affirm the positives of having an only child."

4: Coping Strategies

Strategies for dealing with unsolicited comments and maintaining mental well-being.
Sunita: "I focus on what's true for our family, not the stereotypes people throw at us."

1. Validate Feelings: Acknowledge and validate your child’s feelings about being an only child.
2. Prepare Responses: Have ready responses for common comments or questions about having one child.
3. Cultivate Community: Ensure your child has regular interactions with peers to build social skills.
4. Embrace Your Family's Story: Celebrate and articulate the unique benefits of your family structure.
5. Educate Others: Use questions or comments as opportunities to educate others about the joys and challenges of your family setup.

This is a repeat of an earlier episode. Even though the myths about only children have been debunked, the stereotypes remain. Only children are more selfish. Only children are spoiled. Only children are lonelier. In this conversation, Dr. Becky talks with a one and done mom who is tired of answering the question "Are you going to have another?".

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For a full transcript of the episode, go to goodinside.com/podcast
To listen to Dr. Becky's TED Talk on repair visit https://www.ted.com/talks/becky_kennedy_the_single_most_important_parenting_strategy

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People

Dr. Becky Kennedy, Sunita

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Guest Name(s):

Sunita

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Dr. Becky Kennedy
One and done. But sometimes what you're not done with are people's comments. Really? You don't want them to have a sibling? Isn't she going to be lonely or your own self doubt?

I think maybe there's uncertainty about I know what it looks like when you have siblings. I don't know what it looks like when you don't. So that's kind of scary to think so. I think in the uncertainty, people saying things like spoiled, no social skills alone, I'm like, shit, is that true? What is?

I don't know. I've never had that experience before. So is there something I'm actually missing here that I need to be clued in on? And if it is, I don't like what you guys are saying anyway. Only children get a bad rap.

Dr. Becky Kennedy
They're spoiled, they don't know how to share. They lack social skills, they're too dependent. And while these are gross generalizations, if you grew up in a big family with siblings, it can be daunting to imagine being a parent to an only. Child, especially if the road to your. Parenting journey wasn't an easy one and the family you initially envisioned is different than the one you have now.

I'm Doctor Becky and this is good inside. Well be right back.

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Sunita
Hi, Sunita. Nice to meet you. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you.

So sad to be here. Tell me a little bit what's going on for you and what's, what's on your mind for this conversation today? Yeah. So I have a two year old daughter, almost two. She'll be two in April.

And I have loved your podcast the whole time. I found it so helpful. And just being able to navigate, even at such a young age, all the things that are already coming up, like helping her with the big feelings, trying to support myself as I support her, at the same time, trying to deal with other people's reactions. And that's kind of what made me want to ask this question today, is, so my husband and I made the decision to have just one child, and that came after a lot of just challenges and surprises in our fertility experience, having miscarriages, and after that, deciding, okay, our family looks different than we ever envisioned it was going to, but we love the family that we have the way it is now. But for both of us, we come from having a lot of siblings, and it's just so crazy seeing what it's like having a child and telling people, yes, this is our only child.

We're going to have the reactions that we get, the characterizations of her at such a young age already, where she's being called certain things, of being like, oh, you know, she could be spoiled or selfish or have poor social skills or be lonely. It's like she's not even two yet. How. How can we already think this about her? So I think it's just been wondering, like, how to support a kid when people make these kind of comments about her.

That's gonna happen when I'm there and when I'm not there, as well, just how to help her. So, how do I deal with these kind of unwelcome, unsolicited comments about the type of person my kid is going to be? Maybe based on our family composition, but also maybe we stop right there. How do we deal with comments people make about our children, about the type of people they're going to be? Yes.

Yes. That would be so helpful. Okay. And just to add a little more context to this, do you come in with any concerns? Right.

Sunita
Sometimes the comments people make about our kids that irk us the most are the ones that somewhere deep down, we're like, oh, man, I kind of worry about that, too. And you bringing it up makes it that much bigger. Am I responding to your comment? Am I responding to my own anxiety? I don't even know.

So just, like, help me understand what you come in with. And I know you mentioned, so maybe we could flush it out a little. I didn't expect my family to look exactly maybe like this. So my guess is there's some more details there that might even be relevant if you're willing to share. Yeah, you know, I think coming from a family with siblings, so I have a younger sister and older brother, and I'm incredibly close with both of them, particularly my sister.

Like, she is truly, like, my best friend. We spend so much time together, and I always imagine in my head, when we would have kids, we would have kids plural. And then plans all completely went out of the window once we actually started trying to conceive. And we had miscarriage, and then another miscarriage, and then we just kept having to revision our future over and over. Yeah.

Sunita
It is interesting when we find ourselves as adults, we're living a life that you're like, I didn't know I'd be living this life. And other people seem to have a lot of certainty about what that version of a life is gonna look like now and down the road. And it does bring up, like, okay, well, I know. I don't know. This person seems pretty sure and they're pretty bold, like, telling me this.

Right. Do I want to take that in? Is there any part of that that is a concern I should look out for, or do I just really need to work on kind of, like, pushing that stuff away from me? Exactly. That's the thing, is, I don't want to lose the truth of that because it's true.

Yes. Based on the family that we have, we do need to be more intentional and making sure that she's around other kids, that she's getting to learn some of the things that maybe when you have a sibling, it's different. It's more built in and all that kind of different stuff. So I want to stay tuned to that. And at the same time, I don't want to.

I guess I don't want her to hear those things, too. I mean, she's only going to be two here soon, but she just picks up so much. I worry about what's she going to hear in those messages. Yeah. First, I'm thinking about this really concretely right now.

Sunita
I'm going to say three things that I think we can do today, and let me know if that speaks to you or if you feel like we've missed something or if one of those things is not really relevant. Okay. One, I want to spend a little bit of time hearing your feelings about this journey of having one child as if nothing has ever been said to you about it. But if, again, if there's feelings of loss or just other feelings that sometimes come up when our family journeys don't look the same, I want to do that. Step two is I want to talk with you about what part of people's comments does kind of hit a concern you might have, and then what can we do with that?

And then step three, like, what do you say to people in the moment? Like, what are our zingers we come back with? Or, you know, what are some scripts for what we can say to respond, or if possible, it's not always is to keep that out, to keep it from never being said. So those are the three things I'm thinking about. Does that resonate any of them feel like.

No, Becky. That doesn't really strike me as important. I like all of them. I had immediate thoughts and reactions to all of them. Great.

Yes. Can you share a little bit about your fertility journey and what that was like for you? Yeah. You know, I think it was so many things. It was devastating, confusing, sad, surprising.

At the same time, too, I think there was a lot that I didn't expect. There were even conversations that my husband and I had that I don't think we would have had had we not experienced all those really trying to be intentional about what we want our family to look like. What does family even mean to us? I think had our first pregnancy been successful, we would have just kind of kept going. We don't want to question the story that we always grew up with, but because we had to do that again and again, it made us just realize things that we didn't.

We didn't realize we wanted. I think that's the piece. When I think about even just having one child, there's a loss of the story that we have, but there's also almost excitement and relief and definitely a lot of surprise. Like, I didn't know I wanted this, but now that we have it, I'm like, oh, I actually really, really want this. It's been a huge surprise to us that both of us want, only we want this family that we have.

Sunita
Yeah. So it sounds a little bit, like there was, like, a lack of intentionality. Like, we each kind of came from bigger families. So that version of a family just kind of, you know, was the one we filled in, like, somehow that was colored into the book. And then it sounds like that still was on your mind early on.

Yes. What did it take to bring this child into the world? Like, was it. Was it miscarriages? Was it in vitro?

Sunita
Was it just month after month? Was it, like, what did it take? Yeah. So we. After we had our miscarriages, we had gone, and then we'd gotten the advice that it could be helpful to consider IVF and for us, at that point, I was like, I don't know if I want to necessarily do that.

I think there's something about, like, you mentioned the story, fuck. I had been colored in, and we just kind of went along with it, and this felt like kind of another piece would be kind of going on. Okay, let's do the next thing that someone else says. But instead realizing, oh, I think we have actually some. Maybe some limits on what we want to do, what we're willing to do, what we.

Financially, emotionally, physically, just feel able to do. So we. We took a break for a couple of years, and then we got a second opinion who said that, you know what? You may actually not need to do IVF. I say, just go ahead and start trying.

See what happens. And that's how we ended up having our daughter. I had some progesterone and other things just to help, just knowing that I'd had the miscarriage history in the past. But that's what happened for us when we. And there she was.

Yeah, it was crazy. During that past, we had conversations about what would it be like to not even have kids at all, which was a kind of wild thing to think about. But at the same time, there was something that almost felt kind of liberating in that I'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah. And I'm guessing that's a theme that will come up again. This idea of, are we locked into, like, one story of, like, we have miscarriage, we couldn't have babies, and it's awful, and my whole life is over.

Sunita
And it sounds like even in that moment, you were able to widen from that story. Like, maybe there's a world where we like each other and we don't have kids. Maybe there's different versions of happiness that we could find. Is that right? Yes.

I mean, it sounds like your journey to having your daughter involved tough moments, involved surprises, and then also involved a lot of intentionality around having her. Like, we really want to do this. We're trying this again. There was kind of active decision making to make that happen. Yes, definitely.

A lot of conversations. Yeah. A lot of thinking and rethinking things. Yeah. Which I want to pause on because it is interesting.

Sunita
You know, someone once asked me in an interview, did you always know you wanted to be a mom? I was like, you know, I don't know if I'd say yes to that. I also don't think I'd say no to that. Like, maybe it was the book that was given to me, colored in a certain way. So it's hard to feel like you're making an active decision either way.

And whenever we make decisions that way, kind of like, oh, this story was just kind of given to me. A lot of things can happen after. It's like, oh, wow, I just kind of found myself in this story. I found myself having this number of kids, or I found myself living in this area, or I found myself leaving my job or not leaving my job. And I do think kind of being an adult in some ways involves always untangling, like, what was the story given to me?

What's the story I want to write? Are those two things the same and where they're not? Like, what do I want to do about it? And it sounds like the story that was given to you and your husband were like, you're gonna have a family with lots of kids. And then you two actively made a decision of our story that we are going to write involves having one child.

We are authoring that story. Mm hmm. Yes, completely. And so while it sounds like maybe there was sadness and loss along the journey, just in those moments, which are always hard, right when we're trying to get pregnant, tell me if this is right. It sounds like that's not a very big part of your experience right now.

Yeah, it really is. I think I talked about it my husband, a lot, and sometimes he, I think, worries that because I talk about how she, like, amazing and confident and good, I feel about the decision. For sure. There's moments of loss that is still there. I can feel both of those things at the same time.

I think he worries about. Are you sure about this? I'm like, actually, I keep talking. I'm so surprised by. I feel really good about this.

It just feels so right for our family. I don't think I would have known that until I met our daughter. I think that was part of it, too, is I don't know how to plan our family until I actually met our family. Now I met our family. I'm like, oh, this is it.

This looks great. And maybe it sounds silly or concrete, but I actually recommend writing that down, either as a reminder on your phone that goes off or as opposed to somewhere, some version. There's no magic to these words, but something like, I feel good about our family. I feel good about having one child right now, in this moment, looking at our family, which is me, my husband, and our one daughter, I feel very good and complete. Actually writing that down, Sunita, I feel like, would be truly, like, grounding for you.

It feels calming me just hearing it. Because there's such a swirl around us all the time. There's so many, like, I always call this, like, a lot of chirping always, right. All of that chirping has so much more to do with people's struggles in their own story than any of us, but it's hard to remember that. And so being grounded in our own story.

Sunita
Right. And someone might be listening to this thinking, I have one kid and I'm not as confident as Sunita is. I actually still have a much bigger piece of my experience that involves loss. That's okay. That's not better or worse.

It just is. I would still write that down. Me looking at, you know, my family with our one kid or my one kid, you know, maybe your story is, I'm grateful for my child, and I do still have a longing for another. Like, if that's your story, that's just as good to write down. But knowing what your story is, is really key in separating out what's going on for me and what are kind of the other chirpings all around me.

So maybe let's move to those chirpings, right? That's kind of step two. We said, what about what people say maybe does kind of click into a concern or worry you have? So when people say, you know, she's never gonna learn to share, you know, she's never gonna have anyone to play with, she's gonna be really selfish. Right.

These are maybe some of the chirpings people say, I'm just curious if we just take those comments, Sunita, and we say, okay, those are all different comments, but if comments from other people bother us because they tap into some concern or worry we have, looking at that part of it is really, really important and actually really empowering. Cause again, we're just separating you from me. So which of those, even right away, they're never gonna have anyone to play with, they're never gonna learn how to share. They're gonna be really selfish. Which would you identify as?

Ooh, Becky. That's the loudest one in my body. I think it's the play with part, especially because I think about. So I'm indian and my husband is white, so our daughter is interracial. So I think there's something about when people say, like, oh, she'd be lonely.

There's the loneliness that. The loneliness of being interracial that we are not. Both of her parents are not. So being able to, like, if she has a sibling, there would be someone else who at least has somewhat similar experience that we can't replicate that ourselves, we will never be that we won't have her lived experience. Even if there was another sibling, they wouldn't necessarily have her experience anyway.

But I think that's the piece that hits me of, like, is she going to be a different kind of lonely than either of us have ever experienced? Hmm. So there's this story in general of only kids don't have someone to play with. Right. They could feel a little lonely sometimes.

Sunita
But what you're adding is, and tell me this, right, neither you nor your husband is interracial. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. So my child won't have someone else in the family who's living through that with her?

Yes. And so there might be times she wishes she had someone to play magna tiles with or throw football with. There also might be moments, right where she's looking at both of you. And I'm just gonna say, it's like, you don't know what this is like. Yes, yes.

Sunita
And what does that bring up for you? You don't know what this is like. Mom, dad, you don't know what it's like. You know, I'm part, you know, white. I'm part indian.

That is so hard. You don't know what that's like to navigate that. I think the first reaction was like, you're exactly right. You are so right. I know.

And that's the thing. I think I try to pull to my own experience of knowing what it feels like to be not indian enough to indian to be in certain circles. But that's just even as someone who is fully in this group, I think that's me. I'm like, yeah, you're exactly right. I don't know that.

I don't think about that. And that's scary. What I love about your response is when our kids come at us for anything, for you, it may be, you know, you don't know what it's like to be interracial or for someone else, you know, in their family. And might be, you don't know what it's like to be the only kid without TikTok. That reaction of, like, you're right.

Sunita
I don't know. You and I, Sunita write, are both psychologists. And probably all the time we hear people's stories that we're curious about, want to help them kind of figure out their struggles, but inherently, we've never walked in their shoes, ever. Does that ever come up in your private. Do you have a private practice?

Do you see people individually or you work in a different capacity. Yeah. I work at a group practice with adults and, you know, right as you were saying that I was thinking, yeah, you're right. There's so many stories that I don't know. And I think I'm expecting to go into this not knowing the stories, so I can just come and be like, yeah, I'm curious.

I want to know all the stories. And I think already as a parent, I have this expectation. I'm like, oh, I should know how you do this, that I can tell you how to do it. If I don't know how to tell you how to do it, then how do I help you?

Dr. Becky Kennedy
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Sunita
For every family structure, someone has one kid, someone has three kids, all, you know, ten months apart. Someone has kids who are eight years apart, and they wish they were closer. Like, no matter what your family structure is, there's gonna be parts of that that feel easy and natural, and there's gonna be parts of that that are tricky, every single one. And one of the moments that you seem to identify with your daughter that will be tricky are those moments of you don't understand. Or even some kids will say, I wish you had another kid.

Why didn't you give me a sister? Why didn't you give me a brother? Kids say that, right? I mean, kids also with a million brothers and sisters, will say, I wish you didn't have these brothers and sisters. Right?

They both happen. And your stance, I feel like that will just leave you so prepared, is. It's a different version of you're right. But just like, I'm so glad you're talking to me about this feels to me like the number one line parents need to memorize. Like, especially when their kids come at them with, like, feeling upset with them.

You don't understand. I'm so glad you're talking to me about this. Why didn't you give me a sibling? I'm so glad you're talking to me about that. You seem to have thoughts and feelings about that.

You're right to have those thoughts and feelings. I'd love to hear more. Yes. It's such a good point. It's funny, even though my daughter is so young, I feel like saying that in the language that you understand now, but I'm so glad you're talking about this right now.

She's been getting so upset that she wears bangles, the indian bracelets. And she loves wearing them at night. I'm like, you can not wearing that night to bed. But she wants us to sit there, and we just, like, talk about. We talk about it.

You want to wear the bangles? You want to wear the bangles? Yeah. Tell me about that. We're going to take them off eventually, but just having that is all that she needs to.

I was, like, shocked the other day. She handed, like, she put her arm out for me to take them off. I'm like, oh, my gosh, that worked. You're letting me take this off without a full meltdown. Yeah, right?

Sunita
That worked. I know. Those are, like, the most. You're like, wow, there's something to this. Yeah.

You know, and I use that line with a lot with my kids when they're younger. When they were younger, like, they'd have a meltdown about something and saying to them, I'm so glad I know how important this is to you, which is another version of, I'm so glad you're talking to me about this now. Again, that doesn't mean knowing how important it is for them to have, I don't know, the 15th Oreo they're eating doesn't mean I'm giving that 16th Oreo. Like, actually, those are two totally separate things. But there's something about responding to a kid's big emotional expression to us by saying, like, I'm so glad I know about this.

Again. I think if I was really mad at my husband and I kind of raged at him, and he was like, wow, that's a lot. But also, I'm so glad I know about how important this is, I would just melt. I'd be like, oh, you're right. It is important, you know, oh, that's so true.

And so I think when it comes to that worry you have or that fear, right? The worries and fears we have about our kids as they get older. Ugh. What if they're lonely? What if they come at me one day saying, oh, I wish I had a sibling?

Like, in general, I find the things that we worry about with our kids if we turn it to ourselves and say, okay, let me just tell myself that will happen. Oh, I worry that one day my kid's gonna say, you don't understand. One day my kid will say, you don't understand. I worry one day my kid's gonna say, yeah, I wish you gave me a sibling. One day my kid will say, I wish you gave me a sibling.

Right? Like, making it into a fact and then telling myself, and I will be able to deal with that, and that will be a point of learning and probably connection between us, and that will actually probably be a really important, hard, painful, have my own stuff come up, and important moment really changes things from a worry that's swirling around me and making me feel overwhelmed to something I can picture and actually kind of feel competent about. Tell me if that resonates at all. It really does. And, you know, even hearing it that way of just taking that this is going to happen, I feel it would take me away from spending so much time having that thought.

Just circulate, circulate, circulate. The number of times I've talked to my husband, I'm like, what are we going to do when she asks about if she can have another sibling. I spend so much time worrying about that, that I miss things that are actually happening right now. Even I think that's so right. And I'm sure there's people listening and you're thinking like, oh, this issue doesn't apply to me.

Sunita
And on the surface, you know, we all have different issues, but underneath, probably one of the things all of us do as parents at times is we lose a lot of time and energy to worries we have about the future. And one of the things about worries and our own anxiety is that we often think we can make anxiety and worry better by kind of, like, going down a rabbit hole and, like, thinking about it forever or game planning about it. But actually, one of the best things we can do for anxiety is just remind ourselves that we're capable, because anxiety kind of pauses or deescalates when you remind yourself, wait, like, I'm a capable person, and if and when that thing happens, I'll be able to deal with it. And so what about when my kid, you know, asks for a phone and I don't want to give it to them? It's such a swirl, versus one day my kid's gonna ask for a phone, I'm not gonna want to give it to them, and I'm gonna be able to cope with that.

I will. When that moment comes, I will get through it. I am a good, strong, capable parent, and I can do it. And all of a sudden, the nervous spiraling energy transitions into, like, wow, like, I'm kind of a badass energy. Yes, it really does.

It feels like it gives me somewhere else to go, whether it is, like, I'm gonna handle it. And I just love learning. So, like, let me learn about how to handle it. Or just know, like, yeah, I'm gonna handle that. So now we focus on things that are actually happening right now in my life.

Sunita
I love that. I love that decision tree. I'm gonna handle it. Do I wanna spend my time now thinking about how to handle it, or. I'm gonna handle it.

So actually, what else do I wanna put energy toward in the meantime? Yeah, agree. So, okay, so here's the third category of things we said we were gonna talk about. What do we do in that moment? What do you do when you're in the grocery store and random person x behind you is, like, waxing poetic about, you know, your family structure, or maybe it's not there.

Maybe it's at a family gathering and you have the aunts and uncles and grandparents and great grandparents, you know, telling you about this decision you made, where does it come up that's most bothersome or most frequent for you? I think where it comes up the most, probably is within, like, family gatherings and things like that. I can think of a time recently where we were at some extended family and a cousin asked like, oh, so are you gonna have another. Another child? I was like, no, you know, we're just gonna have one.

And we love it. And she's like, oh, you wanna give yourself another sister? Give, like, Sheila, my sister's name. You don't wanna give her a sheila. And I'm like, I don't really want to recreate my, trying to have another chapter, recreate the same relationship I had with my sister, with my immediate response, which landed awkwardly, and then it kind of fizzled away from that.

And I think that's what I usually do. People say something, I just snap back quickly with the first response that comes to my mind, and it doesn't usually go well. Yeah, well, I guess we have to figure out what going well means, right? One of the things that happens a lot in conversations is people do say or ask really inappropriate things, like things that are not their business, things that have more to do with their own stuff than anything to do with us. I always feel like sometimes we're just like, a pawn in their game, and that never feels good.

Sunita
And the visual I always think about Sunita is like, that person puts this awkwardness on us. And one of the things you're saying you do is you just kind of give it back to them. The awkwardness, which I can say, I think, especially women are socialized against that. I think in general, societally, people give women a lot of awkwardness. And worse than that, they give a lot of aggression or a lot of really inappropriate, really uncomfortable statements.

And then as women, somehow, societally, we've been taught, like, our job is to just, like, digest that for them. And I actually think it's a really powerful thing to think, you know what? Like, that wasn't mine to begin with. I'm not taking that like, I'm giving it back to its owner. So when you say back things like, yeah, this isn't really a conversation I want to have, or, you know, that doesn't really sound like a curious question.

It sounds more like a judgment or, no, I'm not looking to recreate the exact family I have. I'm kind of excited as an adult to make my own decisions. It can feel like, oh, that didn't go well. A different interpretation. Could be someone gave me something pretty inappropriate, and I just said something to give it back that wasn't mine in the first place.

You know, that's such a good point. It's actually making me think something I used to love that my husband would do after we had our miscarriages, whenever people would ask about, oh, why aren't you guys having kids? Or, when are you going to have kids? And he would just respond immediately, we had two miscarriages, so we're just taking our time grieving right now and thinking about what we want as a family. Usually be a pretty conversation ender at that point, but I always remember loving that response, too.

But I'm glad you made it awkward right now, because they made it awkward, actually, and you're just responding with our truth. And it felt like he was advocating for me. And I think that's something that I think about, is I want my daughter to know that I'm looking out for her. And I think I would have loved it if someone made it awkward for me growing up, but make it awkward. That feels nice.

That goes through. I love that. I love that. And I do think the image of I didn't start the awkwardness. I didn't really make it awkward.

Sunita
It was made awkward for me. And so I can, like, hit that ball back to the tennis court side where it initiated, like, I didn't serve this ball. You know, I'm just giving it back. And then often, I think as women, again, it's a bigger discussion. We're like, oh, you're so sensitive.

Or, oh, like, you don't have to say it so aggressively. And it's really a perversion of the truth. If you look at it. You're like, I did not begin it. I just hit it back over.

That's an act of self protection. That's really not an act of aggression. Yeah, that's so undership. Is that idea. Like, I didn't make it awkward, you made it awkward.

And I think my impulse is to almost somehow contort it, to make it feel nice and pleasant and not uncomfortable for either of us anymore. But I'm just gonna return it just like I received it. That's exactly right. Like, serves and tennis that are hit hard, even if you just put a racket up, it tends to go back hard. That's because it was served hard, you know?

Sunita
So now I think there's a couple other nuances here. Whenever I think about comments that are said to us that are inappropriate, or often I'm asked, like, what am I supposed to tell my kid to do when they're kind of bullied or when someone says something inappropriate? I think often we really do focus on what do we say back. But my take here is what's way more important is what we say to ourselves. And I think that's something none of us were taught.

Like, when someone says something inappropriate to us, the answer isn't coming up with a good zinger to them. The answer is actually trying to self protect. And so when someone says to you, you know, oh, just one kid, do you worry she's gonna be, like, kind of lonely and selfish? Right? Like, okay, there's the tennis ball.

You're allowed to say whatever you want back, but I feel like, more important, Sunita, is, what might you say to yourself in that moment? Yeah, I feel good about the family that I created. I feel proud of it. I just want to pause on that. I actually have the chills.

Like, it's really interesting visually, I think, to see that ball coming your way, like, oh, do you ever worry she's gonna be lonely? You know, I don't know. You're gonna think of having another kid, and just, like, I don't know why. In the movie of this moment, I picture, like, a pause button, and then you're on your side to say to yourself, like, I felt really good about my family. I felt really proud of my family and the decisions that led to this family, like, maybe bolstering that a little more, just saying, I know that, and no one can take away my knowing that.

Yeah. And then if we played the movie from there, you know, the irony is when we bolster ourselves in that way, we create a little barrier. We're like, yeah, this comment now is no longer infiltrating me. It just kind of lives in the ether outside of me. And then the irony is whether we want to come back with hitting that ball back or, like, a zinger or whether we just decided that moment, like, I just actually think I'm gonna kind of get up and get a glass of water and.

Sunita
Or just say, like, yeah, great question. Anyway, tell me about work. Like, you know, like, it actually becomes so much less important because we no longer use the comment we have to someone else as a way of validating ourselves. We've already done that. And so what happens next is, like, kind of neither here nor there, which feels very freeing.

It really does. When you saw that visual of standing there, you know, saying that and saying, like, none of this other stuff, it really matters. It's almost my mind went to thinking, what was that even? What did you even say? Like, I don't even remember your comments anymore.

I'm kind of into this moment now. That's exactly right. And then I can tell you in my own life, there are moments I'm like, I'm feeling kind of spicy today. I'm just gonna, like. I just.

Sunita
And I know this person, and I just. I'm in the mood, like, I'm gonna, like, kind of give it back, you know? And then there's other moments with the same person or someone else where I'm like, you know what? It's not that. It's, quote, not worth it.

I just don't want to do it. So I'll say something like, it seems like you have a lot of thoughts about how many kids I have. If you're ever coming at that from a place of, like, actually wanting to be curious about my journey, I'm happy to talk to you about that. If it's coming from a place of feeling like there's one right way, that's not a conversation I'm interested in having. I just wanted to lay out those two options for you.

Or I feel like saying, yeah, I don't really. You know, that's not really on my mind right now, but I really heard that you're reading this book, and I want to hear it. Like, I just give myself freedom to say any of it because I've already done for myself what I needed to do for myself. Yes. Yeah.

That felt so grounding to know that regardless of what they do, I know what I'm going to do. And then when the mood hits me. Cause it does. Sometimes I do feel like giving back a zinger or something like that to them. And the satisfaction of seeing it land feels nice, but sometimes I don't feel like doing that.

Sunita
That's exactly right. It's not like you have nothing to prove. You're just, like, might be in the mood, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

I feel like playing this way of tennis right now. Exactly. One day when your daughter faces these things, whether it's, oh, you don't have a brother or sister, is that so sad? Or maybe it's not that. Maybe it is something much more, in some ways, aggressive.

Sunita
Maybe someone makes a comment about the color of her skin, or it's just like, you're no good at soccer. No one likes you. We don't wanna play with you. That idea of, like, I always find it powerful. Like, what if we teach that to the next generation?

Like, it's not about what you say to someone else. It's really about what you say to yourself. And maybe one day I can see a moment with your daughter where you're like, look, actually, there are times people say things to me about having one kid, and this is how I kind of pause and talk to myself. And then you're like, really? In that process together.

So powerful. Yeah, I think that's what I would really want. And I think that's so helpful to hear. Cause I think it's part of my fear of how do I coach her in those moments. I have no idea what the script is gonna be, so I can tell her what her line should be in this.

But what I do know is how we can talk about what she's feeling afterwards, what that was like for her. That's exactly right. You can talk about that. You can teach her. Like, I think kids learning the idea of a mantra.

Sunita
So a mantra is something you say to yourself when everything feels really big. A mantra is something really simple and small. And sometimes it's nice to have something simple and small to say to yourself when things feel really big. Right? I don't know.

Something like that. That's so something we can teach our kids. They'll take that with them to the playground or to that sleepover or to the math class or wherever they feel vulnerable. We don't have to change what everyone says to them if we're focused on kind of what they do and say for themselves. Yeah, we don't have to change what people say to them.

We focus on what's going on with them. And I love the idea of if she's ever feeling spicy, she serves out some whatever serve she would like to that day. I just have an image of someone asking her dumb question, her just coming back with, like, do you ever get sad behind? Yes, very sad. Now, what would you like to do with this?

Where's the conversation gonna go? I think there's something that I get. I hope she gets to do both. I do, too. I feel like I will go on record saying, I feel like we need some more women, like, throwing out some spicy comments, serving the awkwardness back to where it originated.

Sunita
So I will go on record with you saying, we sign, we sign our names to that. More spiciness. Yes, agreed.

Dr. Becky Kennedy
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