This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to kf I Am six forty,
the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Kay, bye,
Am six forty. You have doctor Wendy Walsh for you. This is
the Doctor Wendy Walls Show. I'm taking your calls at least one more call
and then I want to get into some things that you should always say to
keep love alive. But first we have a caller named Mike on the line.
Hi, Mike, it's doctor Wendy. Doctor Wendy. What's your question?
You're doing? Oh, thank you? What's your question? Love?
Yeah? Question is what you're feeling about the no contact rule? So a
breakup? Yeah. So there's research on this, and I can only quote
the research. The problem with social media, the problem with hanging out with
the same people who are hanging out with that person, the problem with checking
in to see if they're still okay, is it extends the grieving time.
And so by going no contact, it's not like you're mad at the person
and you can't ever you know, eventually be friends. But there has to
be a period where you're not continually triggered that means you've got an unfollow defriend
on social If there are friends that you have in common, you say,
hey, you know it, just don't invite me to things where they're going
to be. And you know, if you have to switch gyms and dry
cleaners so you won't run into them, that's just part of the healing process.
It's a gift to yourself. So I'm a big proponent only because the
research supports it of going no contact for a period of time until you're feeling
bad, until you get your mojo back. That's what I think, and
then how long you think that ought to be. It's different for everybody,
isn't it. I you know there are relationships, Yeah, there are relationships
I've had in my life or twenty years ago. I would never talk to
that person again. Okay, it would trigger me too much, right,
But there are other people that I might have dated for a short period of
time and then after a year or so they become sort of a business contact
friend whatever, because it wasn't that. It depends how much passion there was,
how much emotion there was. But anyway, thanks for calling my going
on contact toll. You get feeling better, alrighty? I've been talking earlier
about phrases that you should never say in a relationship, especially during the heat
of the moment, because they cause more injury. But there are some things
that research shows that if you say on the regular, on a regular basis,
actually can keep love alive. It can help continue to grow love in
your relationships. So let's go through some of my favorite phrases. How about
starting with daily compliments, things like you look great, or you look fabulous,
or I love when you do that. Oh, I love your smile.
I always tell my boyfriend, I love your smile. That's what I
say, just a little comment here there. It really does make you feel
better. Granted, I'm single as the day is long, but i was
having a really bad day the other day and I'm all crying and feel I
saw you got a great hug. But the guy I would talking to was
like, you know, I know you're going through it, but you look
so beautiful while you're crying, and I'm like, yeah, it helps.
It does help, just a little compliment. There's also tons of research to
support those simple words of thank you, but not just thank you. If
it's especially important that you thank your partner every day, for the little things,
for the tiny little things. I got to thank my boyfriend today for
the big things. I forgot to tell you, Kaylo, you know what
he got me for Mother's Day? Why I'm not even his mother. So
I have a new stove that's an induction Bernard, you know what that is.
It's done with like magnets or something. I don't know, and only
certain kinds of pots and pans can work on it. So I had done
some googling, and I said, cast iron does work. So you bought
me a whole set of cast iron pans that are bright blue blueberry color.
They're just gorgeous. They're like works of art. He is white. Just
you just stumbled upon gold with that one. It is so sweet, I
did. I'm really lucky, really lucky. But we work at it,
we do the stuff. But anyway, I thank him not only for the
big things, but the little things, like you know, small things,
giving me a glass of water at night, doing the sweetest little things.
But the other thing the research says is not only thank them regularly for the
little things, but tell them how it improves your life, tell them why
it means a lot to you, And then you know, when I say,
your relationship is a garden, water what you want to grow. Don't
water the weeds by criticizing them. Just literally say thank you for all the
little stuff. Here's a good one. Apparently, when we're in relationships,
we're in relationships with human beings, and apparently human beings make mistakes. And
when they make mistakes, instead of jumping on it going I can't believe you
did that. Oh my god, why did you do that? How about
simply saying it's all right, baby, I love you anyway, I love
you anyway. You see, we all know when we've messed up. But
having somebody there go is okay. You know, I'm gonna give you a
pass on that one. I love you anyway. Another big one, and
this happened recently. I was in a stressful situation about something and I called
my guy and he unfortunately was like, you know how, guys, it's
not their fault. They're really great. This way they try to solve the
problem instead of giving emotional support, well you should do this, you should
call that person, and you should write that letter, you should do whatever.
And instead I said, I just need to know that you got my
back, and then he said those magic words, We're going to get through
this, baby, We're gonna get through this, beautiful. And then the
best phrase, I tell you you're not alone. Right, We're gonna get
we were the royal we Yeah, we're gonna get through this, right because
this too will pass um or on the same line, understand you know you
say something and instead of them saying why do you feel that way? Why
did you do that? Why did you say that? I understand you feel
gotten. You feel heard much better than make you feel crazy and unheard.
Yeah, here's another good one. What can I do for you? Or,
as I like it worded, how can I help you? I say
that all the time to my guy. I say that to my kids,
how can I help? You can when they they're going on about how can
I help? We all need to say that more often to everybody in our
lives, co workers, bosses, our kids, our lovers. How can
I help? That's all we want to know, how we can help?
All Right? Here's another phrase. I love write this down. You need
to say this when you get home tonight. I believe in you. When
you know we have these moments where we're feeling down and our partner is a
little bit our cheerleader, and you need to know that they believe in you.
And as I've said before, the research is very clear, long term
happy couples actually really value their partner. And even when they're fighting, they
don't forget who they fell in love with. They still value their partner.
They think they got a good deal. And so when you say I believe
in you, do you know who you're reminding not just them, You're reminding
your own brain of why you're there in the first place. How about this
one, I trust you. I have said that to my Julio. I've
said I've trust I've trust you to make a good decision. I've trust you.
I trust you to make a good decision. Actually here's another one,
but this was really important. He said it to me because he realized.
So he sometimes hasn't done it in a while, Thank Goodness, goes home
to visit, you know, friends, family, whatever, on the East
Coast, and he will say when he's there, every time, he'll say,
you know, back here, I realize I'm a New Yorker. I
just love New York. I love And he'll go on and on the whole
time, I'm talking about how much he loves New York. This terrifies me
because, first of all, I'm not a New Yorker. And secondly,
I feel like all the time I've spend in New York, I was living
in a filing cabinet. Sorry, Kayla, I know you're from New York.
I'm from New Jersey, but it really felt like I was living in
a filing cabinet. Agree about New York. So anyway, he can tell
that. I get a little bit insecure whenever he goes on one of those
bands. Luckily it hasn't been for a while, but anyway, and so
what he does is he comes back and he says to me, I'd rather
be with you than New York. That's what he says. I'd rather be
with you. D rather be with you. You are more important. No
matter where you are in the world, is where I want to be.
I know. Isn't that great? You know we should all be saying this
to our partner on a regular basis. I'm glad we're together, Appreciate your
relationship, Appreciate that you've got a person, You've got a buddy to go
through life with. And say it regularly. You know, I say it
over and over, and I'm going to say it again. Water what you
want to grow, don't water the weeds. Because here's what's happening. When
you say nice things to your partner, your brain is listening and you are
reminding your own brain of why you're there. I'm glad we're together. You
know this one I used to say to my kids when they were little.
I used to say to them, both of them at different times. Privately,
they never knew I said it to both of them. I said,
you're the daughter I always wished for. You can say that to your partner.
You're the person I always wished for. You're my dream person. Such
a reminder that that person's not taken, taken for brained exactly, that you're
so special that I went my whole life and I wish for you, and
you came. And finally, let's not forget these words have so much value.
I really feel safe with you, or you make me feel safe,
right, If it's true, you definitely want to do listen. I know
it's Mother's Day. I know most of you had your Mother's Day brunch and
you think it's over. But I do want to talk about something that I
haven't addressed. So much yet, which is those people out there who may
have really complicated feelings about motherhood I or Mother's Day, either because they've lost
their mother, either because they've had a negative relationship with their mother. Maybe
they've been trying to become a mother and there's just a lot of feeling of
loss around there. Let's talk about it when we come back. As well
as I want to pull you off the guilt train, moms, there are
ways to be a good mom in a hostile world that don't take as much
time as you think. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on
kf I AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're
listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I AM six forty Am six
forty. You have doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy
Walsh showing. Mother's Day is a wonderful celebration of women who devoted their lives
to raising their children, but for some people it can be a day they
can be very triggering. Some people have had a mother who let them down,
or a mother who wasn't even there, a mother who gave them up
for adoption, a mother who passed away early, a mother who was cruel,
a mother who was hurtful. Maybe you're a woman who's been trying hard
to become a mother and IVF isn't working. Maybe you're a mother whose relationship
with your adult children is challenged. This can be a very complicated day.
There's a reason why when you go to therapy often one of the first questions
a therapist might ask is, so tell me about your mother. I know
fathers are super important, and certainly people can have daddy issues, and dads
can be hurtful and traumatizing and wonderful and supportive. But it is our mother
who grows us literally inside her body and nurtures us with our body, with
her body. It is the most primal relationship, mother and child. I
want you to know if today was a complicated day for you, you're not
alone. One research hole done by you GOV revealed that about a thirty percent
of both men and women don't celebrate Mother's Day at all. They just ignore
it, just let it past. I want to you know. I lost
my mother to breast cancer when I was thirty, and so for me,
I take time to sort of honor her memories. And there are some things
you can do if you've lost your mother, You can reflect on her and
her memories. You know, when I became a mother myself, my mother
somehow came back from the dead because she came right out my lips when I
was under stress all of a sudden. You know, I had two brown
eyed kids, and I would say, they say, Mom, where's my?
Where's my? And I go there, right under your two blue eyes.
I have blue eyes. I heard that over and over again. Just
look. So anyway, maybe you could even take some time to light a
candle for your lost mother, to write a letter to her, to tell
her how good you're doing on your own. Maybe you want to donate to
a charity that she supported, volunteer for a cause that was really important to
her, plant a tree in her memory. My mom's favorite flower is a
yellow rose. I actually have a little tattoo, a memory to memorial tattoo
of a yellow rose. You don't know where, Kayla. Even if I
had a bikini on, you wouldn't see it. I didn't know you were
a tattooed art. It was a memorial tattoo. But here's the problem that
they don't tell you. The tattooed to artist does not tell you this.
When you're thirty and your mother has just died and you go to Sunset Boulevard
and there's that guy leaning over you that when you get pregnant, it stretches
out big and then it shrinks again. And then you get pregnant and it
stretches out big and then it shrinks again. Now it's just a blur that
happens. Yes, whoa, this is a blob and a blur. It
had her name, Frankie, and it had her yellow rose, and that's
just a blur. I'm so scared for the future of my tattoos. That's
right. Oh all you young people, wait till you're walking around the pool
when you're eighty. It will be a site anyway. So, since my
mother's flower was a yellow rose, wherever I own or rent, anywhere I
plant a yellow rose, I always have a yellow rose in my garden.
That was beautiful. That's a beautiful dedication and that rose bush. You know,
I have to tell you something really bad. Can you believe one time
the guy who I want you, who wanted to get back at me,
one time he came in the night and he dug up my mother's yellow rose
and tore it down. Yeah, I had a man still her ring that
I had hit her obituaries and her pictures like six stuff. Oh my gosh,
oh my god. I will say this, if you've lost your embrace
your friends, that means you've got a mom whole that you need to fill
and you have to actively do that. You know. Sometimes, you know,
I always recommend people go to a therapists because I'm you know, a
proponent, a beneficiary of good therapy. But I often will say that therapy
is like reparenting. It's like your therapist becomes your internal mother in some way.
I do want to say that if you are somebody who has been trying
to become a mother, this can be a very tender day if you've been
having challenges, and I just want you to know that your emotional responses are
valid. You deserve to feel exactly the rainbow of crazy emotions you may be
feeling on this day. And I also encourage you to do things, find
things that are comforting and nurturing for you, and talk to your friends about
what you're feeling. You're supportive friends for all of us who may have complicated
relationships with our mothers, It's important that we focus on positive relationships in our
lives. You know, at the end of the day, we are given
this life. Our childhood may be filled with trauma or big bumps or small
bumps, but how our life ends is up to us. Whether it is
attending to all those dings and dings that happened in early childhood, whether it
is doing things differently as a parent yourself. One of the things that I
often say is when I became a mother, is that all I hope to
do is make different mistakes than my parent. And that's evolution, that's growth.
Right, you realize that didn't work. What else can I do?
But they often say that friends are the family we choose, and it is
incumbent on us to reach out and find that social support. Find those friends,
make those friends. And how do you make friends? You be a
good friend, You care for others. You'll be curious about their lives,
You ask them questions about themselves. You find ways to slowly become closer and
more intimate. And I think you know I've talked it last it last week.
The week before I was talking about the loneliness epidemic. I think it
was just last week that it's really up to all of us to reach out
and fill that void that we may have when we come back. I want
to talk about my experience as a mother and a few of the things that
I learned. First of all, I think our culture pathologizes mother motherhood way
too much. I want to pull you off the guilt train and give you,
especially if you're a mom of small children, or maybe a grandmother and
you've got some small grandkids, come in to visit. I want to give
you a little bit of advice from my life of what I feel worked,
and a lot of it came from textbooks that I put into practice so that
we can all be a good enough mother when we come back. You're listening
to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on kf I AM six forty. We're live
everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from
kf I AM sixty KIM six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you.
Motherhood's hard, It's a burden. Our culture doesn't make it any easier.
When I became a mother, I also became a feminist, and I'll
tell you why. You know what, women can be men until a mother
walks in the room. All of a sudden, you realized how disadvantaged and
disabled you are. I mean, I used to complain. I was a
news reporter, right, and we used to go out to cover news stories,
and the information officer from the LAPD would step out and you wouldn't know
which door he was coming, and you'd watch your male colleagues take off in
their suit and flat shoes, and I'd be in my high heels and pantyhose
and pencil skirt, trying to chase after him, trying to keep my hair
look good while I was trying to get the same sound bite. And I
was already mad about that, okay, But then I became a mother and
realized that every time I step outside my door, I have to pay someone
fifteen dollars an hour to replace me. If I want to go to the
gym, if I want to go grocery shopping, if I want to just
take a walk and take a breath. So when people say, oh,
well, women make like eighty percent or seventy seven cents on a man's dollar,
I go, not mothers. They have to take that seventy seven cents
and split it in half and share it with another woman in the form of
childcare. I literally, my heart goes out to women who stand at a
bus stop at six in the morning feeding their kid Thailand all so they can
drop it at a daycare on time and not be fined, So they can
get to work on time and punch their cart in on time and not be
reprimmanded, not lose money so they can pay for more formula for their baby.
Blah blah blah. It's a cycle. It's so so hard. More
than twenty five percent of children in America are raised by single mothers. I
was a single mother for eighteen years. I'm going to tell you a story
where I first learned the term pathologize motherhood, making motherhood pathological. Let me
explain. So we lived at the beach. My three year old loved to
run in the waves. I would chase after her and pull her a little
curly head out of the foaming waves, and she would come up sputtering and
coughing, and I thought, well, this is no way to learn how
to swim, and you are going to drown. But she needs to learn
how to swim. So I asked around the mom world and they sent me
to a woman who in her backyard swimming pool teaches toddlers how to swim.
So we go and my daughter has her first little swimming and it went very
well. And then the woman got out of the pool, got the kid
out of the pool. I had my back turned and I was getting a
towel. And what do you think my three year old did. No,
did a running leap and jumped right back in the pool. No. So
of course the woman actually was closer, so she jumped in and grabbed her
and pulled her up and got her to the stairs. And like, the
woman could not get my kid. I don't know, if you know.
I have a really strong willed daughter and she's twenty five now and save in
the world. She's fine. But and so the woman couldn't get her out
of the pool. So I was using a technique that I had been taught
at preschool, because I'm learning motherhood from everybody around me. At the preschool,
they said, give kids some autonomy, give them a choice. So
I say, Carrington, would you like the blue towel the red towel?
We're getting out now. Which towel would you like? Because we're getting out
of the pool now, right, And this woman lost her whatever and started
saying to me, you need to just grab your child and get her out
of that pool. And then she called me later that night and just read
me the Riot Act, told me I was a terrible mother, told me
that she'd asked around and there was another public school or public pool where I
also didn't keep an eye on my daughter, which really like, now she's
like shaming me in the village the pool instructor girls. So I obviously she
was triggered from something that happened to her in her life and I had nothing
to do with me. So I go to therapy with tears down in my
chin, saying, oh my god, I'm a bad mother, and I
can't believe she said I'm bad mother. And my therapist said, don't let
this woman pathologize motherhood. Mothers are not at fault for everything that happens to
a child. It used to be an entire village that helped raise a child,
and now we put everything on the mother, so much pressure. You
know, back in the nineteen I'm gonna say forties fifties fifties, I think
a psychotherapist named Donald Winnicott came up with this eerie of parenthood called the good
enough mother. And Donald Winnicott believed that the best kind of mother was the
mother who wasn't too doting and solved kids problems for them and was so overprotective
that the kid became disabled. Right. And it also wasn't the neglectful parent
who let the kids stumble and fall and hurt themselves too much. It was
the good enough mother that allowed, because she was a human being, our
children to grow in our gaps, to grow in those moments when we couldn't
be there from them. One of the things I learned from the director of
our preschool, Mary Hartzel, who's still who's passed away now, but gave
me so much wisdom. She said, all kids need our twenty minutes a
day of undivided attention from a parent. That means no other kids, no
technology. Literally, she said, call it you know, mommy, and
the kid's name, my case was Carrington or Jones moumming care in special time.
Have them make a little sign on their door that says do not come
in mommy and Carrington special time, and you do anything the child wants to
do in that twenty minutes. You don't have deep conversations, just what do
you want to do? Can't involve technology though, you can't sit and watch
a video together. Do something that is child led for twenty minutes a day.
If you have three kids, that's in an hour, right? Is
that right? Three times twenty sixty's right? I do? Okay, And
so that's all you have to do to be the good enough mother is listen
to your child. Also, I do want to say this from experience,
allow as much father as possible, whether you're married or whether you're single.
Do not push that father away. I don't care if you don't like the
way he parents. You know what, they're that child and that man are
going to form their own relationship in their own way, and it's not up
to you to get involved in that. Okay, So let fatherhood happen.
Don't be such a perfectionist mother that you criticize his parenting and then he gives
up, throws up his hands in the air and go okay, you do
it right. Also, and this is vital. Build a village. You
know. One of the things I would do is I would use my house
as the play date house, and I would as many kids over as possible,
because in my mind, I was banking childcare. I was banking free
childcare because I knew who I could reach out to when I needed them.
We actually, when the kids were little, did a unique thing. We
did a playgroup with toddlers where one mother always got to leave, so it
was free time for a mother to go to the gym or shopping or do
whatever. And then every week it would rotate a different mother would leave,
but say there were four or five little toddlers there. I also want to
say this, give your kids your time, not the stuff. I remember
going to therapy when my kids were little and crying because my kids didn't have
a yard. They're being raised in apartments, and I felt this was a
travesty that they needed some help, playground equipment, a jungle gym in the
backyard, and they needed a yard to play in. And she said,
a baby's home is his mother's body, and if you have to leave to
go make money so they can have a jungle gym, they're not going to
care about that jingle gym. A child's home is its parent's body, hold
them close and help them leave when they hit middle school or older. Teacher
eighth graders how to rise city buses. Pack them with summer programs that enrich
them. Help them build a resume for college. Help them in high school
get part time jobs, get a driver's license, help them launch. The
favorite bit of wisdom that I ever got from the director of our preschool is,
if you do your job well, you work yourself out of a job.
And that's what parento it is. When we come back, a special
guest, a researcher who studies why some mothers and adult children are no longer
talking. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show and KFI AM six forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh
on demand from KFI AM six forty. Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walsh
Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Okay, we have been talking about mothers. We have been talking about motherhood,
and I know for many people, as I've said, coping with Mother's
Day is sometimes difficult, especially if you have a difficult relationship with your mother
or a difficult relationship with your adult child. So I was going through the
research today and I found this really interesting study called mother's attributions for estrangement from
their adult children. So that's a bunch of psychobabble to basically mean why mothers
and children aren't talking? And I was able to score the lead researcher on
the show. I'd like to welcome from the Ohio State University doctor Sarah Shoppy
Sullivan. Hi. How are you, doctor Sarah. I'm doing well.
Thanks for inviting me on Happy Mother's Day. Yes, Happy Mother's Day to
all the moms out there. So my first question is what compelled you to
want to study this particular subject matter. Well, most of my research has
actually focused on parent child relationships when children are young. But I partnered in
this study with a clinical psychologist who works with adults who are estranged from their
their children, and I've got really interested in the topic because it really hadn't
much occurred to me. I think we so often think of parent child relationships
is a lasting and permanent and so I got really interested in the idea that
that's not necessarily the case, and that there are some adult children who aren't
on good terms with their parents, and that perhaps some people think this is
perhaps increasing in terms of its prevalence. Well, we're going to get into
the reasons why in a minute, but I want to just tell people the
jaw dropping statistic that I read when I read your study that freaked me out.
What your study found, and it was a study of more than a
thousand mothers that fifty two fifty two percent of the mother's surveyed were estranged from
a daughter, and more than half of those moms revealed that they've gone for
more than a year without aiding contact with their children. WHOA, what is
going on? Yeah? Well, one thing you have to keep in mind
is that this study was of over a thousand moms, but these were moms
who were interested in the topic of estrangement. Okay, so this is likely
going to be a sample of moms that are more likely to report estrangement from
their adult children than other moms. So other study don't suggest the prevalence is
that high, which is good. Yeah, but there are some other there's
some other research coming out of some colleagues labs at O'hao State that suggests that
it's about like between six and ten percent of aum adult children report being estranged
for moms. But actually, what's interesting to me is, and it's Mother's
Day, so we don't necessarily need to focus on this, but about a
quarter of adults report being estranged from fathers. So this is not an insignificant
phenomenon even for mother child relationships. But thankfully it's not quite as high in
the general population as it was in our particular study, So well, that's
a relief. But you ask people basically why and what were the most kind
answers? Why are people as strained from a strange from there? Yeah,
and our study was kind of unique because a lot of the research, which
makes little sense, has focused on the adult child's perspective on estrangement, right,
and we focused on the mother's perspectives on why their kids were, you
know, out of contact or in very infrequent contact with them. And what
the mothers thought really was that a lot of it had to do with somebody
else turning their child against them, for example, an ex spouse or an
adult child's spouse or partner, So that was one reason they gave. They
also talked about their adult child's struggles with mental health problems or with addiction,
and they so those were some of the top reasons that they talked about,
which are so different from other research which has focused on, you know,
the children, the adult children's views on why they're estranged from their parents.
Yeah, you know, we don't want to blame the moms here it is
Mother's Day, but in some sense, I do believe that we reap what
we saw in some cases. And again again the pressure to be we've talked
about is how hard it is to be a good mother in a hostile environment
like modern American capitalism that doesn't necessarily support motherhood and all the pressures on mothers
that are out there. So we want to pull moms off the guilt train
as much as possible. But do you think we're seeing a rising number of
you know, attachment disorders, insecure attachment style bonding issues early in life.
Do you think that could be contributing it to it? I certainly think it's
possible. I think you're absolutely right to point out that our country doesn't do
a good job of supporting mothers or parents in general. And you know,
with the increasing pressure on parents, there are norms of intensive parenting. You
know, that suggests that parents need to do all these things for their kids.
The role of parents has really changed over time, and so has been
children's idea of what parent child relationships should be, and the idea that children,
you know, can grow up and think I didn't get what I needed
for my parents. You know, they're they're my parents, but that doesn't
mean I have to have He doesn't mean I'm obligated to have a relationship with
them if I don't think it's in my best interests. So I think there
have been some changes over time that had contributed to this. And also I
do think that expectations for a parents, no matter the fact that we don't
give them a lot of support, the expectations for a parents seem to keep
going up and up and up, and especially for there's a lot of pressure
on others. And so something else we found in our study that sometimes mothers
would say, you know, I did the best that I could. You
know, I was, you know, divorced mom. Maybe they were single
for a while and I was trying to read my child, and some mothers
would even acknowledge, you know, I don't think I did the best job
I possibly could, but you know, this is what I was dealing with
at the time. So I think that there are these different sort of perspectives
on what you know a mother should be. We have these idealized versions of
what you know a good mother is. But then you know, we make
it very, very difficult for anyone to meet those you know, we used
to have a village and a tribe and neighbors and cousins and aunties and grandmothers,
and now we put it all on very often single mothers. I myself
was a single mother for eighteen years, and let me tell you, it
is no easy walk. So I will say that as far as the general
population before we go, if you had to guestimate it's not fifty percent of
adult children not talking to their mothers, what would you guess it might be.
I think it's more like six to ten percent of the general population.
I feel it. Yeah, it just depends on you know, what sample
you're using. But the best sample is out there of just the general population
of adults suggests that it's a smaller number. It doesn't mean it's any less
significant for the adult children or the moms who are experiencing it, obviously,
but it's not um you know, it's prevalent. It is fifty percent.
Thankfully, yes, well, thank you so much for being with us.
I want to remind everybody that's listening if you have a difficult, challenging relationship
with a parent, there's always room for healing. And also there are other
surrogate people you can choose in your life, and it may even be a
good clinical therapist who can help you get to a point of learning to love
yourself. Doctor Sarah Shappy Sullivan at the Ohio State University, thank you so
much for being with us. Thank you, and thank you for listening to
the Doctor Wendy Walls show here on KFI AM six forty. Reminder, you
can follow me on my social media anywhere. The handle is at doctor Wendy
Walsh. But I'm always here for you on iHeartRadio and KFI every Sunday from
seven to nine pm. We'll see you next week. You've been listening to
doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear us live on kf I AM six
forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.