You’re Not Failing — You’re Human | Letting Go of Perfection in Parenting

It's just hard being, you know, a parent, being a mother, being a father, and we are human. We're all human. I often hear people in therapy talking about, you know, how either themselves or their children, well, we just need to get to this thing, or we have to be like that family. That family has it all together. I can tell you no family has it all together.

Let's just be real. Right? So and and take the pressure off because you know, most of the time we're all doing the best we can. Welcome back to the Parenting Pair Podcast.

I'm Dr. Annalise Caron

And I'm Dr. Suzanne Allen.

And today, I'm wearing a bright electric blue sweatshirt, for for our listeners who aren't watching on YouTube, that says nap. And you know why I'm wearing this sweatshirt, Suzanne? Because I need a nap.

I'm exhausted.

I am so tired. I actually just googled the other day when I was at work in between sessions, Why am I so tired all of the time?

Did it give you an answer?

I mean, you know, perimenopause, menopause, stress. It gave me about 15 answers and all of them are true.

So I don't know which one to address and I don't have the energy to address any of them, so I'm still in the same spot I was.

Well, this

is actually why I'm wearing this sweatshirt and why we're doing this podcast A Little Rogue with really no plan, besides a larger theme, which is because there have been a couple of times recently where people have sort of suggested or been surprised when I've acknowledged that maybe I don't have something altogether or maybe I'm really exhausted or maybe I'm not quite sure how to handle something. And they're like and people have said like, oh my gosh. Or I acknowledged a mistake. Oh my gosh. You?

You? I thought, know, with this idea that I would know exactly what to do. That because maybe, because I'm a psychologist and because I, you know, work with kids and teens that, you know, my kids, I have it all together. I know exactly what to do for them at every moment and this and that. I'm telling you, some of the time no human is like that, but some of the time for me, I don't know what is going on.

And I think what inspired me to text Suzanne and say, I think we should just go rogue on this podcast and share what's going on in our lives a little bit and be real is because though we dress up each week and share our professional expertise, which we believe in and call on and live like how you said

we dress up each week. We come here to pretend. What kind of because my children, as soon as

I get home from work, I'm immediately an entirely different appearing person. And this snap sweatshirt may be part of that vision. But what inspired me to just have our podcast this week be like this was, Suzanne, when you came into the office today, do you remember? Do you want to

share your day yesterday? Oh, yes. Yes, I would be happy to. Please. I had to be somewhere before going into the office.

I had to run a couple errands, do a few things. So I went to go get into my truck. And as I was backing up, my truck is old and hasn't been working and I haven't fixed some things in it even though I promise I've tried, but my rear camera is not working well. And then my husband tried to be helpful and installed some kind of alternative rear camera, but I have to shout at it all the time and say like, turn screen on. And I have to say it the right way.

So it's like, turn screen on, turn screen on, turn and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Yesterday, it wouldn't work either and it would only show me the camera going off the front so I could see through my windshield the front. But you couldn't And through my rearview mirror the front of my car. So now I'm backing up down my driveway and as I'm backing up and just trying to look at the side mirrors and make sure no one's coming

up And I hope you're looking over your back shoulder like we were taught when we learned to drive, Suzanne.

Oh, was looking every which direction, but then I also noticed that all my recycling and garbage was still sitting out. And I have to say I got momentarily distracted by the recycling because I'm really convinced that the recycling guy hates me. And I and this has been long standing. And he he breaks things, and he I know he hates me. And so anyways, the recycling hasn't picked I I no.

No. It's real. I promise you it's real. You told me that

he skipped your house and that you think he skipped your house because he hates you. Yes. But I don't understand

how it could be that the recycling guy would hate you. Sometimes we have a lot of recycling. And my husband doesn't break down the boxes, and then also we use, you know those like mesh and plastic holders that you hold your pool toys in?

Yes.

Well, have an old one and I use that to hold my recycling. And I kind of fully acknowledge that probably when you go to pick that up to dump recycling into the back of the car, I mean it just breaks apart and falls because it's made of PVC pipe and mesh. Again, this is a long list of issues of things that probably I should be addressing, but I have not yet addressed because I haven't had time to

So Reid, Suzanne's not entirely on top of everything, right?

Yes. And so as I was looking every which direction and none of my cameras were working, and then I got distracted thinking about how I could make the recycling guy like me more, which included recently I just over tipped him during the holidays. Which makes no sense because he skipped your house. And he skipped it during the holidays, but I think he came and got the tip. And so the long and the short is I was distracted.

And as I pulled back out of the driveway looking side to side to make sure there were no cars coming in either way, I had a momentary lapse and didn't look directly behind me. And there was a grocery delivery truck parked directly behind my driveway. And I backed into his truck, damaging significantly my car, not his whatsoever, which I was grateful for. We had a hopefully conversation. Then I swept up all the parts and then I wound up talking to him for a while about how my day was going.

And when you got out of your car and were about to talk to him, what also happened? Because you shared Oh this story with my gosh. You're right. So then as I got out of the car after hitting him and I see him just standing there looking at me dazed, like, what is this woman doing? My phone starts to ring and I look at it as I'm getting out of the car and it's a client's parent who was in the middle of a tough situation and was calling me for advice.

And I just started to laugh because the whole thing was so absurd. And I thought, like, if I I should answer this and be like, sorry, I just hit someone's car. Right. Like, how can I help you? But I thought, this person is calling me for advice.

Maybe I'm not the person anyone should be calling for advice because I didn't fix my truck and I'm so worried about the recycling And guy hates then I forgot to look behind me and I just hit a grocery delivery truck.

And in that moment, what was the emotion that you felt, Suzanne? She wasn't expecting that question. Yeah.

I it almost I mean, I to be honest with you, I felt totally out of control. But I wanted to laugh maniacally just because the whole thing felt so ridiculous. And then I I actually wanted to just walk back up into my house and lay on the couch and turn on the TV and be done with my day. And yet, I had appointments. I had to get into work.

Yeah. I I had a number of things that had to get done.

So Suzanne came into work yesterday and shared this story with me and looked a little frazzled. But of course, was perfectly dressed for work and blah blah blah blah. And then, you know, I heard the door open to our office suite and then she politely walked away and said, oh, hello. Come right in. And so we highlight this story and I have a few more for you because, like, it's just hard.

It's just hard being, you know, a parent, being a mother, being a father for the fathers listening, for the women listening, those of you in your late 40s to mid 50s going through perimenopause and menopause, I am so tired. I am forgetful. I am making bad decisions and we are human. We're all human. I often hear people in therapy talking about, you know, how either themselves or their children, Well, we just need to get to this thing.

Or, We have to be like that family. That family has it all together. I can tell you, no family has it all together. And for those of you watching on YouTube, you can see this pyramid to my right. And for those of you who aren't watching on YouTube, it's a pyramid of 18 pet teeth cleaning finger wipes, Okay?

And the reason I have 18 pet teeth finger cleaning wipes is because I ordered them on what I thought was Amazon, but it turns out it wasn't, and I thought I bought one. Why? Because my dog has terrible breath. Bodhi has terrible breath. And I knew that I wasn't taking care of his teeth, but I didn't know you had to take care of dog's teeth.

This wasn't on my radar. And the veterinarian said you need to be brushing his teeth. So I tried to buy one pet teeth cleaning finger wipes, but it ends up that I didn't buy it from Amazon, I bought it from somewhere else and I bought it on subscription. And they come six at a time and I can't stop it. So I went

Because you don't know how? I don't know I can't remember.

And I became so tired and poor born in December, I thought I'll just deal with that in January. And six more arrived yesterday. And so Suzanne got in her accident and I've got all these pet teeth and finger cleaning wipes. And the thing about it is my dog's teeth got so bad because I don't take care of him. He's nine and a half and he's a love.

He's a 40 pound abettin' terrier. And I adored this guy, and I took him to the vet in December, which I was amazed I made the appointment and they said these teeth have to go. So then he had surgery right before Christmas to remove his teeth and now he doesn't have front teeth and his little tongue hangs outside his mouth and I'm sitting here with fifteen, eighteen pet teeth cleaning finger wipes. And so I went on Facebook because there's a Facebook group in the town that I'm from where you can share things for free. I thought, there's probably some people in the world that need this.

And so I went there. 54 replies. There are 54 people that want these. Now how are you going to do that? Right.

How do I decide who gets them? Well anyway, then this was right before Christmas, a member of my family got ill and I dropped it. So I told them I would give them away. I haven't done it yet. I still have the subscription.

I tell you by next week's podcast, I'm going to figure out how to end this subscription. But

This is a good thing to do. Sometimes when you commit things out loud to other people, it does help you get it done.

Yeah. Not always. Not always.

But that's a good strategy. We're throwing that in there. That's a freebie.

But the point is, and you know, life is hard. And the pet teeth cleaning, fingers cleaning wipes I mean, I recently not recently, within the last four months and the dog is reminding me of this. I was running late for work and no one would know this. No one would know this. They come to the office, Oh, hello.

Come right in. Oh, it's so nice to see you. Come right in. And I mean that. And I really love my work.

But I was headed to work and we had had a chaotic morning at home and one of my kids had a lot going on and we got out to school late and it was a whole thing and I was late for work. And so I called that client and I said, I'm so sorry. And I didn't lie because when I called, was on the road and I was in some traffic. I did make it appear as though I was going to be five to six minutes late because I was in some traffic. I was actually going to be five to six minutes late because I was behind, because my life was chaotic that morning.

I didn't say that, but I had the dog with me because one day a week, which is a very privileged thing to say, my dog goes to doggy daycare. And so the dog was in the back. I took him to doggy daycare, and guess what? The doggy daycare was closed. And guess what?

Every time the doggy daycare people go on vacationit's the last weekend in August and it's about the January every year. They go skiing and they bring their daughter to college. Every year. This has been the case for the past five years. Every single year and every year I bring him.

So the dog was in the car. I'm now six minutes late. I bring him to doggy daycare and the daycare is closed. Now to go back home, I'm going to add twenty minutes to this situation. So now I've lied to my client because it's traffic and I'm going to be five to six minutes late, but actually now I have a dog with me and I have a choice.

If I go home, I'm twenty minutes back and twenty minutes back, I'm going be forty minutes late for a forty five minute session. So I drive to work with the dog in the car. And I texted my husband and I said, I'm sorry that you're in a meeting. Going have to come get the dog. And I did half my session with the dog.

I mean, and

I highlighted as he saw me with the dog and he was so nice.

I said, I just I'm trying to show you that no one has it all together.

This was actually a planned lesson. This is

And we're being funny here. Yeah. But that day, I was I was really stressed out. You know, Suzanne yesterday was holding Yeah.

And I felt very fortunate that I hadn't hurt anyone. I think afterwards, after the shock and kind of the ridiculous of of it, you know, later in the day I definitely had a few moments where I felt really scared and overwhelmed and felt like I was so distracted, God forbid, that had been a person that had been Like it was very frightening to me that I had been so overwhelmed, distracted, you know, that that had taken place. So we are laughing about it now. And you were so great with me making me laugh yesterday and kind of, you know, putting that in its place of where it needed to go. But often, these moments feel really, really awful and overwhelming.

And when I did Google that why am I so tired, it was actually I'd noticed a number of signs and things that was really feeling increasingly worried about my fatigue and just about other things and with little kind of idea of what I could do to try to make it better. And a lot of people are struggling and this is all really hard. And so I think that's why we just wanted to talk about this because

Yeah. Like, let's just be real. Right? So and take the pressure off. If you've got a nap sweatshirt or any sweatshirt, just throw it on and, you know, every now and again, just recognize try to drop the pressure on yourself.

Because, you know, most of the time we're all doing the best we can. Right? And we may be able to shift some things and I haven't brought the dog to the office since and I'm making a commitment that by next week

I'm Someone is going to be very lucky.

Someone Yeah. Well, no. A lot of people. Because I have 54 people asked.

Oh, you're going to dole it out? I'm going to dole it out.

Oh. I need to I need to give away the finger cleaning wipes. Anyway

And be nice to each other because, like, your client was very gracious about you bringing the dog.

I felt so embarrassed and yet so grateful.

You made me laugh. I actually wound up I felt so grateful for that that a client of mine who I knew was struggling with some things, I just kind of sent her a message reminding her of a few things but then put at the end, like, you're doing a really great job. This is hard. Because I felt like I wanted to just give that to someone else, like that acknowledgment Yeah. That it's hard.

Absolutely. So I think our what now is Be nice to yourself. Be nice to other people. Try to laugh and take the pressure off. We're all just doing the best we can.

Yeah.

Alright. Well, with that,

I would say rate and review, but people might give us lower ratings. So So just, like, drive safe and check your Amazon account. And be sure

to check your pet's teeth. I guess oral hygiene matters. Bodie. I know. Alright, everybody.

Alright.

We'll see you next week. Hang in there. Bye.

And now a quick word from our lawyers. The Parenting Pair Podcast is designed for informational and educational purposes only. Do not rely on the information presented in this podcast as a substitute or replacement for professional psychological or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have concerns about you or a family member's well-being, please contact a licensed mental health professional or physician.