transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] We have had a lot of conversations on this show about how every child is different and how, especially for kids with ADHD or other learning differences, the world can feel a little overwhelming sometimes. And if you're parenting a child like that, I want to point you to a podcast called Everyone Gets a Juice Box. It's a space where parents are just being really honest with each other about what this journey actually looks like. The questions, the doubts, the small wins, all of it. One part of a recent episode that really stuck with me was this mom who was talking about how she started noticing things early on. Little signals that something might be different. But at the same time, everyone around her was saying she's fine. And she described that feeling so well, that back and forth between I know something's going on and what if I'm overreacting. I think so many parents have felt that tension. And then when she shared this moment where her daughter said, I can feel it, talking about her body, not giving her the signals she needed. And it opened up this whole understanding about how some kids experience the world so differently on a sensory level. It was such a powerful reminder that often our kids are having a hard time. And the more we understand what's going on beneath the surface, the better we can show up for them. I really appreciated how thoughtful and honest the whole conversation was. So if that sounds like something you need right now, go give it a listen. To listen, search for Everyone Gets a Juice Box in your podcast app. That's Everyone Gets a Juice Box. Welcome to The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich, I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside, and I have just read two books out of, I guess, a whole stack of books. There's more for me to read, but two books that I absolutely loved. I love memoirs and I just had all the feels in these books. I read Here Be Dragons, Treading the Deep Waters of Motherhood, Mean Girls and Generational Trauma, and I also read Sparkly Green Earrings, Catching the Light at Every Turn, You Laugh and You Cry Through Them, and the author Melanie Shankle is here. Welcome, Melanie.

Speaker 2:
[01:43] Thank you, Ginny. I'm so excited and happy to be here with you today.

Speaker 1:
[01:47] Can you talk about all of these books that you've written? You wrote six books in eight years, is that correct?

Speaker 2:
[01:52] Yeah, I did. You wonder sometimes, why am I tired? I think that's why. Why do I have nothing else to say? That's why. Now, I started. So you've read the book in. So Sparkly Green Earrings was my very first book. And yeah, it was my first book, baby. And it came out in 2013, I think. And it was kind of the story from the time I got pregnant with my only daughter, Caroline, until I think it ended when she was about eight years old, because that's where we were. And then I've also written The Antelope in the Living Room, which is a memoir about marriage. It's funny, it is not a how-to. So just if you're looking to me for marriage advice, go somewhere else with somebody who has some letters behind their name. Then Nobody's Cuter Than You is about friendship, Church of the Small Things, On the Bright Side, and then Here Be Dragons, which is the one that just came out about a year ago.

Speaker 1:
[02:44] It's a total page-turner.

Speaker 2:
[02:46] Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[02:47] Both books that I have, these book and books, are such page-turners. And they're really deep. I mean, about the Rocky relationships that we have, and yours are especially Rocky. So I would love to talk about your dad. Maybe we can kick it off talking about your dad.

Speaker 2:
[03:02] Let's do it.

Speaker 1:
[03:03] Your parents got divorced when you were pretty young.

Speaker 2:
[03:05] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[03:06] And your mom seeded a lot of inaccurate information about your dad. But your dad, you start to see it, and then you're like your husband, you meet your husband, and he's like kind of joining in the family. And he's like, huh, like your dad calls you every night. Like that sort of seems like a person who really cares about you. Can you talk about them? Stability and sort of retrospect of your dad who's like, how many suits is this going to cost? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[03:36] Listen, that's still his favorite line. And he's retired now. My dad, when I look back, you know, it's the things that you don't know as a kid that you take for granted. And so, you know, my parents got divorced when I was eight. By the time I was 11, my mom had moved us to a town called Beaumont, Texas. So I was about two hours away from my dad at that time. But the fact, looking back now, the fact that he still called me every night of my life through college, I mean, even if it was just a, hey, what's going on? The fact that he would drive every other weekend and stay with his parents in Beaumont so that he could see my sister and me. Now, you know, as an adult going to stay with your parents, that's its own kind of sacrifice. So just the stability and the consistency, it was such a gift and I don't even know if he knew until later on how much my mom had tried to always paint him in this really bad light and made him the villain and really tried to cast him as this man who had abandoned his family. But then when I got older, and you know, especially when I got to college and you start talking to other people about their families and other people who had come from divorced families who were like, well, I never saw my dad again or my dad never cared about what we were doing or he went off and started a new family and you heard that story. I was like, oh, this is not the story of a man who left his family. Like this is a man who continued to show up with character and loyalty and integrity. And you know, he turned 80 in the fall and I look at him and he's still just such a model for just all that is good and true, truly.

Speaker 1:
[05:13] You say, I don't know if there's much that's more damaging to a young girl than for someone to make her believe that her father might not really love her, especially when it's not the truth. You talk about how eventually the truth did come out, that it was your mom that was the one who had cheated. And then she told you and was like, I wish I didn't, I wish I didn't tell you. Yeah. Oh, gosh, it's shocking.

Speaker 2:
[05:34] It's shocking.

Speaker 1:
[05:35] In some ways you're like, is it bad that I'm so entertained by this?

Speaker 2:
[05:41] I mean, listen, that's why we like reality TV, right? I mean, it is you look back and I think especially now as a parent and as the mother of a daughter, where I think, man, no matter what went wrong with my husband and I, if anything went sideways there, I would never want my daughter to feel anything other than his unconditional love. You know, like, why would you do that to your child? Because you so want to hurt somebody else and just how damaging that was to like my self-esteem and the way I felt about myself and all the insecurities that created feeling like maybe my dad didn't love me as much as I thought he did.

Speaker 1:
[06:17] Yeah. So since it's a memoir, I'd love if you tell me a couple more stories. One of the stories was about carrying your own bucket.

Speaker 2:
[06:24] Yeah. So when Caroline, so my husband Perry, we've been married for 28 years. Caroline is our only child. She's 22 now, but at the time she was about 10 years old and they were, live in Texas, so they were down at the ranch, which is just some land where we go and hunt and fish and the stuff. And she loved, she was always his hunting buddy. And so she'd love to go down there with him and they would do all their stuff. She's always said, I'm my father's best son. And so she does all the stuff. And so he had given her a bucket because she would find all these little treasures over the course of the day, an empty tortoise shell and a deer antler, some arrow heads, and she would put them all in her bucket. So part of the story you need to know is that for my husband, his dad died in a plane accident when he was only nine years old. So he lost his dad at a really young age and grew up without a father. And so Caroline was walking around the pond where we fish and picking up all of her stuff. And she was like, Dad, she was like, my bucket, this bucket is too heavy. She was like, I can't carry this bucket anymore. Can you carry my bucket for me? And he said, you know what, when I was 10, my dad was dead and I had to carry my own bucket. And so you have to carry your bucket because I'm not always going to be there to carry your bucket for you. And the funny thing about this is, but they both knew that I would be horrified by this story. So I didn't hear this story, Ginny, until probably 10 years later, at which time my daughter was 20. And she was telling me, yeah, it's like when dad told me to carry my own bucket. And I was like, what? And she told me this story and I was like, I mean, like crying laughing, like that's so inappropriate and so harsh. But she came back and said, but you know what, dad was right. She said, that was a good, she said, that has stuck with me because in life when things have gotten hard or I feel like I can't do something, he knew that I could carry my own bucket. And she said, and that has served me so well throughout my life to remember that I can carry my own bucket.

Speaker 1:
[08:26] Isn't it just a thing when you have these small little catchphrases that end up being passed down? Like carry your own bucket or how many suits is it going to cost? Tell people about that one. I loved that.

Speaker 2:
[08:39] Yeah, so my dad was always, I mean, he was the ultimate business man. He was one of the VPs of a major corporation for all of his career. So for the better 40 years. And it was back in the day when everybody actually wore suits to work. The office, you wore your suit, he put on a suit and tie every day. And so whenever I would call him in a high school or college and I'd be like, hey, so my girlfriends were wanting to take this trip or wanting it. He'd be like, well, let me think about how many suits it's going to cost me. Everything was in how many suits was he going to have to trade in so that I could afford to do whatever this thing was. So my friends still to this day, if I say something, they're like, well, Charles Moreno, that's a lot of suits that he's going to have to sell for you to be able to do that.

Speaker 1:
[09:23] Oh, I know he was never absent, not even for a day. Can you talk about watching your dad become a grandpa?

Speaker 2:
[09:30] Oh my gosh, just the sweetest. I mean, I didn't know how my dad was going to be as a grandpa. I was, you know, I'm his oldest daughter. So this Caroline, my daughter was his first grandchild. And from the time when they got to the hospital the night that I had her, they saw they got there a little bit late because they had driven in from Houston. And he came into the room and he said, well, you wouldn't believe how rough those nurses are being with her. He said, I knocked on the window and had to tell them, like, cut it out. And I was like, well, I think they're doing all the things they're supposed to be doing. But like, they just were best buddies from the beginning. Like he adores her, she could do no wrong. I think he's been to just about every single one of her soccer games. Listen, if she has a self-esteem crisis, it's not because of her grandfather's love, because there has never been a child more loved and adored than she has been by him.

Speaker 1:
[10:25] Wow. Just super sweet. I love the redemption in that.

Speaker 2:
[10:29] Me too.

Speaker 1:
[10:30] Okay. So I've talked about your dad. Should we talk about your mom?

Speaker 2:
[10:35] Yes. Let's go.

Speaker 1:
[10:38] All right. So you have this question in the book. The book is called Here Be Dragons. It's a total page turner. It's entertaining. It's shocking. You have these really deep feelings. I cried near the end. You have this question, when did you know you were damaged? Another question, how does one look at their childhood objectively? It's hard to know how unhealthy something is when you're living right in the middle of it, and often being told you're the problem. I think sort of where my thoughts went with it were, your grandparents, so like your mom's parents, they're the ones that lived on the lake?

Speaker 2:
[11:13] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[11:14] Right. You love to go and see them.

Speaker 2:
[11:16] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[11:17] Well, and you do explain like your mom did have a really traumatic thing that happened in her high school teen years.

Speaker 2:
[11:23] So she did.

Speaker 1:
[11:24] You do see that. But sometimes you wonder, why don't the grandparents step in?

Speaker 2:
[11:30] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[11:31] In some ways they did.

Speaker 2:
[11:32] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[11:33] They were a safe haven for you. But do you think that they didn't even know the extent of it?

Speaker 2:
[11:37] I think they didn't know the extent of it. Or I think, I always say that my grandmother who was my mom's mom, was like she was the love of my mom's life. Like if my mom really loved anybody, it was her mother. And I think my mom was my grandparents got married. My grandfather went off and fought in the Pacific. He came home. They had had a child before that, but they had my mom eight years later and she was just the golden baby. So she had always just been so nurtured. And I mean, you know, the stories were that my grandmother still did her hair for her every single day before she left for school, even through high school. So I think my grandmother, in her mind, my mom could do no wrong. And I think she was always wanting to protect my mom from the consequences of her actions. So my mom never had to face a lot of stuff. But I think, you know, it was funny because I could have conversations with my grandmother where she would acknowledge how volatile my mom was or how she was doing things she shouldn't be doing. But then I would feel like I had an ally. But then once I started to speak up to my mom, then everybody would turn on me. So it was just you started to realize there wasn't really a safe place to voice those things. So I think my grandparents stepped in by their proximity by having my mom because we lived, they actually they had a lake house, but they lived down the street from us during high school. So that became the place where I could, you know, I spent as many nights at their house as I did at my own house. So I think they did step in to some extent, but not the full extent, if that makes sense, you know.

Speaker 1:
[13:15] And maybe they didn't totally know or it's a protective measure. And even like you said, your mom was lying. She was lying about your dad and whose responsibility was who. So you never even really know what are they saying in the spaces that you're not. So then what you talk about is when you have a child. And so you talked about, I've read these book ends of yours. Like so you say in sparkly green earrings, like motherhood is not like anything you imagine when you're eight years old and playing with your baby dolls and dreaming of the day, you will have five children and name them Candy, Andy, Randy, Sandy and Mandy. Like so you got these expectations. And when you have Caroline, it really makes you realize that your mom, I think what you said was didn't really love you.

Speaker 2:
[13:56] Yeah. And I just, it was such a clear realization. Like I will never forget it. And I, you know, I kind of opened the book with this, Here Be Dragons with this, where we brought Caroline home from the hospital and that first night I'm rocking her and we're in her nursery. And you know, you're so raw. You know how that is. Like you're just your hormones. You didn't know you could love something this much. Everything is just, and I was already, I mean, truth be told, I think I was already crying thinking about her having to start kindergarten five years from now. So real rational too. But I just remember so clearly where I thought, oh, it was like a puzzle piece clicked where I was like, my mom never loved me like I love this baby. And I don't even know that it's, I just, I don't know that she was capable of it, you know, and I think this was a time, and one of the things I say in the book is this was, you know, I was born in the seventies, so nobody was talking about bipolar, nobody was talking about mental illness. You didn't, you didn't have those things. Nobody was going to therapy. That wasn't a thing. And so now I look back and go, there were all these legitimate things that were going on with my mom. But in my life as her child at that time, I just knew that I wasn't loved, and I was never what she needed me to be. And so is it just leaves a mark on you.

Speaker 1:
[15:10] Yeah. You say when I think about my childhood, it feels somewhat like a house on fire that I didn't even know I needed to escape from until years later, when I realized it had the power to burn down everything new I was hoping to build. And you had this like really big question of basically like who would I have been?

Speaker 2:
[15:27] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[15:27] You say raising Caroline made me spend a lot of time wondering how different I might have been if I'd been allowed to use my voice when I was growing up. I realized we were each born with a distinct personality, but how is that personality shaped by our environment? How do you reconcile that?

Speaker 2:
[15:44] You know, it's I think when I watched Caroline and the thing about Caroline is I say she and my husband share the same personality trait, which is if you don't like them, then they automatically assume something's wrong with you. You know, like they're like, well, that person clearly has a problem because why would they not like me? I'm a delight, you know? And I've never so when I've watched her go through life with that confidence, I'm like, well, that is fascinating because I always assume I'm the problem. You know, like if I have a weird exchange, I'm like, well, it's because I'm socially awkward. It's because I'm weird. You know, I take it on. But I think so much of that comes from that I spent so much of my life trying to twist myself into this thing that would keep my mom calm and would keep her happy and would keep her at peace because I felt like one little thing for me that was off and it would all blow up. And it was so volatile and so jarring. But I look at Caroline and the confidence that she walks through life with and the way she's not afraid to advocate for herself and the way she's not afraid to voice her opinion. And I think I'm 54 and I'm just now learning how to do that because I had never felt free. And I think I was raised so much with the mentality of if you don't act right, these people are going to leave you. And so it's taken me a long time to settle in and be like, no, people who really love you want to hear what you think about things.

Speaker 1:
[17:05] Yeah, there's a lot of ramifications there. You talk about being a people pleaser. There's a lot. You say the drama of falling in and out of love.

Speaker 2:
[17:14] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[17:15] Alcohol becoming an emotional crutch. So you just see it matters so much. But then you did write a really good book about it. Yes.

Speaker 2:
[17:25] Listen, it's all content, right? I mean, at the end of the day, if you're a writer, it's all content. But it's funny though, because when I wrote, it's interesting that you've read Sparkly Green Earrings because when I wrote that book, I was like, at that point, my mom was still living and I was like, there's so much of this story that I can't tell about why motherhood matters so much to me and why I'm so intentional about it. And why having this daughter felt like such a redemption story for me to get to, you know, I always say that one of the things that's healed me the most is getting to be the mom that I wish that I had had. And it doesn't mean that I'm perfect. Listen, we could have my daughter on and she could tell you a whole list of things that I have probably not gotten right. But she would say there is not one minute of her life that she hasn't known that she is completely and totally adored and loved, you know. And so fast forward to ten years later, and my mom has passed away and I've had the freedom to kind of say, this is why this mattered so much because this is what I came from.

Speaker 1:
[18:34] Yeah. Okay, I'm going to lighten it up a little bit because it's a happy and these books are fun. All right. How do you figure out what is your first urine of the day?

Speaker 2:
[18:42] How do you what?

Speaker 1:
[18:43] Figure out what is your first urine of the day?

Speaker 2:
[18:45] Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[18:47] I don't know either. You wrote about it in the book, which I loved. I do? You were talking about like, okay, I find out I'm pregnant.

Speaker 2:
[18:56] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[18:57] I want to find out if I'm pregnant. So I'm going to go to the store. I'm going to get all these pregnancy tests and it says you have to use your first urine. And you're like, well, what if I'm up at 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. That's right.

Speaker 2:
[19:09] I'm a night owl. What does that mean? What does it mean? How do you, you know, so and I'm a hydrated gal, you know, so it's like I drink my water like they say. So how do you know?

Speaker 1:
[19:22] So maybe there is no answer. They should be more clear on on your first year end of the day.

Speaker 2:
[19:27] That's it.

Speaker 1:
[19:28] All right. Talk about the pressure on mothers. So you had a whole story about about how Caroline need to be completely potty trained.

Speaker 2:
[19:37] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[19:38] To go to the three year old preschool. So there were several stories there. There was the story about when the person comes, like for the home visit. And then there was also like the story of you trying to potty train her and saying the pretty pink pony with the mane will die, you know, your TT on it. But then there was also the story that they were like, they're going to help preschoolers are going to help each other in the bathroom.

Speaker 2:
[20:02] Listen, is there ever been a more ludicrous concept than a bunch of three year olds? Let's not even pretend they can't even stack blocks correctly. But we're going to go through this intricate process. The amount of stress, and here's what I'm going to say. If you're a mom of toddlers, listen, they're all going to figure out how to go to the bathroom. It's going to be okay. But the amount of stress that this caused me because we were up against a hard deadline, you know, because it was like for her to go into the three year old class and she's an August birthday, they were like, she cannot start unless she's fully potty trained. And so I had told the director of this school, I was like, yes, she is fully potty trained and we have been working on it, it's going to be great, whatever. And then they came and they did a home visit. They were like, oh, we like to do a home visit just so we can get a feel for...

Speaker 1:
[20:50] We can see if you're lying.

Speaker 2:
[20:51] That's it. Feel for the child. We're just going to see. And I was like, okay, it'll be great. They came into our house. We're like making small talk. I look, Caroline has disappeared and where she has gone is underneath our dining room table where she is pooping in her pants while they're there. And I'm like, well, I, so I didn't mean to lie, but maybe we're not as potty trained as I thought. And so that's how we ended up finding a different preschool because I was like, we aren't going to reach this particular milestone. Because it's also when they were like, well, that we find, I was like, does a teacher go in and help them at all in the bathroom? And they were like, no, we find that they help each other. And I thought, well, now you're the ones who are lying because in no way is that actually happening.

Speaker 1:
[21:36] You say, her academic future depended on it. But now in hindsight, like you said, she's 22. These books talk about, the two books that I've read, they talk about these type of things, right? But they also talk about high school and her sophomore year. That was so awful. And the other kids, and you're like, now in hindsight, you're like, she made it through. And in the moment though, these feel like such huge things. You talk about birthday parties. Birthday parties have become a new competitive sport. Can you talk about the birthday party where you're in the water? I'm so related to this. I have thrown so many parties where the other moms are there and they're doing nothing. They're just dabbing with each other. And I'm like, I'm really like not here to be the sole, I'm not a clown. You don't want to be the sole entertainer of your kid. So you're actually in a pool. The Indians can hardly swim. And the other moms did not bring their swimsuits.

Speaker 2:
[22:29] No, they weren't in their swimsuits, which listen, in hindsight, respect to them. They were a lot smarter than I was. You know what I mean? Because guess who was fighting for her life, treading water in the deep end, trying to catch everybody's children coming off the slide and the diving board and pushing them. And you know, they don't know how to wait their turn. So somebody's jumping on your head and you're pushing this kid to the side. And listen, the other moms had a lovely time, but it was like in hindsight, I was like, maybe not, but that's the problem with an August kid in Texas. What else are you going to do but a pool party? It's too hot to do anything else.

Speaker 1:
[23:01] Okay, here's what I've heard though. I have heard, because we live in Michigan, it's very cold here.

Speaker 2:
[23:05] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[23:05] So, I've spoken at a couple of conferences, like Florida and Texas. People are like, what are you supposed to do to get outside in the summer? And I'm like, well, you just swim. Duh, go get in the water. And then they said this, the water gets hot.

Speaker 2:
[23:20] It's true. It's 100 percent true. The water gets hot.

Speaker 1:
[23:24] And I had never considered that. They said it's basically like swimming in other people's sweat.

Speaker 2:
[23:30] It is. It is. That's the problem. By August, you're like, the pool is gross. In June, you're excited. June, it's like the pool, hallelujah. This is going to be our salvation for the summer. We're going to be at the pool every single day. And by August, you're like, if I have to get in that nasty, warm pool one more time with all those children eating chicken fingers and then just washing their hands off in the pool, I'm not interested in that.

Speaker 1:
[23:51] And you're catching them. They're probably peeing.

Speaker 2:
[23:54] Oh, you know they are.

Speaker 1:
[23:55] Everyone's sweat and pee and chicken fingers. All right, let's talk about this story. This story is from the newest one, Here Be Dragons. So you talk about your husband, Perry. You plan your wedding in under four months. This is the guy for you. But you have this situation where he's an early bird and you are not. You're like, he likes to get up early. You're like, I like these slow mornings. So can you talk about the story where someone came to do work on the house, and you were still in the bed and they moved the bed with you in it.

Speaker 2:
[24:34] They did.

Speaker 1:
[24:35] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[24:36] We were having the exterior of our house painted and we were newlywed, so we hadn't been married. I mean, it was under a year. And so Perry owns a landscape business, so he's up and gone by five o'clock every morning. Me, not so much. And so I was laying in our bed, and all of a sudden, the painters got there. And I guess they needed to plug in, I don't know, a sander, a paint sprayer. I don't know what they were doing. But I hear the window open behind me, and our headboard is right up against the window. We live in an old house. We still live in the same house. It's a hundred year old house. So the windows, they don't close right, especially back then. They open the window and they're trying to get to the plug. And I'm laying in bed and I feel the whole bed start to move. And I was like, what do you do? So I just laid there. I played possum. I was just like, I'm just going to act like it's OK. And like I'm not in this bed. And so they just scooted me out of the way, plugged in whatever it was. So but we are still that way. Like we laugh like we are. He is early riser. I'm night owl. And now that we're empty nesters, I mean, we really were like we have about two good hours a day that we're together, you know, by the time his day is over. And my day is beginning. That's just where we are. We're two ships that pass in the mid to late afternoon.

Speaker 1:
[26:00] I can't even imagine. You're just in the bed and it starts to move.

Speaker 3:
[26:04] You want to pop up.

Speaker 1:
[26:06] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[26:07] And here's the thing. I didn't, it dawned on me that it was the painters, but it could have also been a robber. You know, it could have been a thief coming in. But I was so embarrassed that I was still in bed, that I was like, I'm just going to lay here no matter what's happening and hope for the best.

Speaker 1:
[26:21] That's a great story. Okay, we're going back down. We're going back down to Hades High School, which I assume is not what it was called.

Speaker 2:
[26:28] No. Okay.

Speaker 1:
[26:31] All right. So actually, I think this is a huge issue, which is that when your child is having issues with other kids, I learned this in the early years, and maybe it was dumb because I only tried it once. But we were hanging out with this family. And I don't know, one of my kids talked to Leach. She had an underbite. She didn't talk well. So she couldn't really explain what was going on. And she was getting bullied by this other kid in the other family. And the reason why I found out was because one of the days my niece was over too, and she was maybe 10. And when the family left, she was like, the little boy in that family is constantly saying, he's going to snap her head in the jaws, and he's going to rip her off. It was just like wild. Yeah, crazy. Yeah. So then I went to go talk to the mom about it and ended the whole friendship.

Speaker 2:
[27:19] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[27:19] So I was like, oh, apparently that doesn't work. So can you talk about this? For Caroline, it was her sophomore year.

Speaker 2:
[27:28] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[27:28] Which is kind of shocking, right? Because you're expecting it to be in seventh grade or eighth grade or sixth grade. But for her, it's her sophomore year. And you say it came in like a lion and went out like an even meaner lion. But talk about the like you've got all these strong relationships. And like the mothers are not only like not doing anything about it, they're also just kind of like, oh, this is just how girls are.

Speaker 2:
[27:56] Yeah. It's just, you know, it started and it's there again. And I will say for Caroline, because of, listen, because of her self-confidence, because of her personality, she, I always said her personality, we laugh about this now. It did not lend itself well to the high school girl economy, which I feel like you get through a lot better if you just keep your mouth shut and your head down. But she was going to call things out and she was going to tell the truth and she was going to say what she meant. And I don't know that at that age, girls have the emotional maturity to deal with that well. And so sophomore year, it just all started, you know, and you know, there's still parts where I'm like, what happened there? But I mean, I think it started because somebody liked a boy and that boy liked Caroline. And then that boy turned them, you know, just the whole thing. Whereas a mom, you're like, I'm sorry, I can't follow this plot. It's like a Real Housewives of Beverly Hills situation where you're like, I don't even know what we're all yelling about. But it was it was constant. And so Caroline, I kept saying, like, can you talk to them? Like, you need to like y'all work this out. And she's like, they won't talk to me. They just won't sit with me at lunch. And then there was one girl who repeatedly kept. I mean, like it was the other girls had kind of backed off a little bit, just like, you can't sit with us. But this one girl got, I mean, she was following her into the bathroom. She was sending her these explosive text where she was flat out say, like, I'm going to blow your reputation up. I don't care what lies I have to tell.

Speaker 1:
[29:20] You should kill yourself to make the world better.

Speaker 2:
[29:22] You should kill yourself to make the world better. I mean, all of these things. And I was like, okay, this is not okay. And because we had raised her in this way of you carry your own bucket, you know, I think part of the thing is you you sit and go, okay, how long do we let her handle it? Yeah, before we step in, because the world is going to be full of mean people. And so you've got to know how to advocate for yourself. But with that, I was like, okay, this is a bridge too far. We're not doing this. And so I called that mom and just said, have you seen these texts? And she was like, yeah, I've seen them. I mean, she doesn't mean it. And I was like, okay, all right. Like this, like I just, to me, I was like, if that, if somebody called and told me that about my child, I would be like, you're never going to have a phone. You're never going to have a phone again. Like you have lost all privileges. I certainly wouldn't make excuses for it. And so, but in that moment, you just realize you're like, okay, well then this is the way she's been raised. And so, and you know, and I don't know all the particulars of her house or what went on, but you're like, but you have a mom who is completely condoning this behavior and excusing this behavior. And so you just realize this isn't going to ever get any better. This is who she is. And so, but man, it's an awful thing. You know, we laugh about it now. And I mean, in our family, like, I mean, speaking of things you say, like when we have something tough, we're, I mean, to this day, we're like sophomore year, because it's like that is just a beast. But we look back and go, you know what? But even that, Caroline learned to be strong. She learned how to advocate for herself. It gave her a story to help younger girls who are facing the same things. And so, you know, I mean, it gave her an experience with something. I think it also taught her empathy. I mean, it taught her, it gave her a heart where to this day, at 22, who she still looks for, who's the girl that feels left out, who's the person who needs a friend. You know, where can I? So, you know, I think there are gifts in that. But at the time, you're not like, well, this is going to be used for a lot of good in her life. At the time, you're just like, well, this is all terrible. And I don't know how it's ever going to be okay. You know, it's just devastating to watch your kid go through that. And I think it's, I mean, I think it's an epidemic. I just, you know, I don't go anywhere to speak or talk on, you know, mean girls or girl dynamics that you don't have a million moms that come up and go, we're either going through it, we've been through it, or we're on the verge of it. So, yeah, I wish I'm like, if I could come up with a fail proof, like 10 step plan to help you navigate that, I would listen, I'd be on a yacht somewhere off the coast of Bermuda. But it's just, it's so hard because I think each girl's personality is so different. I think you've got to figure out what's going on and just kind of figure out how to guide them through it.

Speaker 1:
[32:06] Yeah. Well, it reminded me of your mom, because when you call this mom, she's like, you're just blowing things out of proportion. It's not a big deal. And I feel like that's how your mom responded to things. That's what you say. She was the first mean girl that you ever encountered and you can just kind of see how, if you're not careful, this can just really get passed down. This behavior being excused, that's not doing anybody any favors down the road. It has to be dealt with.

Speaker 2:
[32:33] And I think as moms too, I think we have to be so careful, especially with our girls, because I think as girls, I think our tendency is to compare so much anyway, compare our looks, compare our friend groups, compare our clothes, you know, those things. I just think comparison is built in somewhere into the whole female mindset. And so I think moms, to teach your girls like, hey, your friends are not your competition. Like, we can cheer them on. And if your friend makes the soccer team and you don't, that just means that there's something else for you. So let's go find that thing. But we don't need to tear this girl down because she makes better grades or because she made this team. There's something for you. But I think sometimes as moms, inadvertently, we set up this like compare and contrast thing. Sometimes even in the name of trying to make our daughters feel better, where we're like, well, she's not as smart as you or whatever. But it's like, well, it doesn't have to be either of those things.

Speaker 1:
[33:29] Right. On either way, on either side of it. Yeah. You said like they were fighting by the time they hit sophomore year, they're fighting for the attention of the recruiters, the college recruiters for soccer.

Speaker 2:
[33:39] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[33:40] They're already kind of naturally. It's really unnatural, I think, the situation that they're in, but they're being pitted against each other.

Speaker 2:
[33:48] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[33:48] I do like that you said this. So this is from the book. This is the newest one, Here Be Dragons. Throughout that dreadful sophomore year, Daria and I stuck closer to Caroline than ever before. Teens want to act as if they don't really need or want you around at this time, when in fact, they desperately need you. When their whole world is shaking around them, your home needs to be a safe space, a safe harbor from the storm, a harbor from the storm, a place where they know they are unconditionally loved. I think that's really good at parenting advice. There's a book by Kim Jon Payne called Emotionally Resilient Teens and Tweens, and it's about being bullied, either with your exclusion or text or in person, whatever, all the different types of bullying. And what he says is main thing is to be a safe harbor.

Speaker 2:
[34:30] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[34:31] And you kind of think, oh, that's not enough. But he says it's enough.

Speaker 2:
[34:36] Yeah. And I think it feels like, because I think part of being a safe harbor is that you're the one who's going to get the eye rolls. You're the one that's going to get all the frustration. You're the one they're going to vent to. You're the one that's going to see all the tears that they keep in all day long so that they can put on a brave face at school. So I think when you're in the midst of doing that, you kind of feel like, I don't know that this is doing any good. But I think in hindsight, Caroline would even say home was always her safest place. She knew she could be her whole real self in the walls of our home and feel loved and know that we were always on her side. And that doesn't mean that we always condoned everything, but just that even if we had to point something out or course correct, we'd be like, hey, so here's a thought, you know, why don't you da da da instead? And so my best friend and I call it like, I think the teen years we call it houseplant parenting, which is where a lot of times you just sit in the corner like a houseplant and wait for them to notice you. You know, like sometimes you just have to, because if you approach them, if you're too eager, it's like they sense it. You know, it's like a cat where they're like, you seem way too interested to talk to me. But sometimes if you just listen color by number on your phone while they're talking, like you're only half paying attention, you'll be amazed at what they'll say if you don't act too invested, you know? Just, but you're there and you're listening. And a lot of times, Caroline would say something, what I learned with her is sometimes in the moment, she just needs to vent, they just need to get it out. They need to tell you the whole thing. And maybe like a day later, you come back and go, hey, remember when you said, maybe a better way to handle that is, because you're catching them when it's not in the heat of the moment. Let them know it's safe to feel all those emotions in that moment, because teenage girls, a lot of feelings.

Speaker 1:
[36:27] My favorite line in the whole book was this, and I'm like, I don't even know I've never considered this. So I'm going to lead into it. This is not my favorite line, but I did like this line. You say, God will redeem what you've been through in ways you can't see at the time. He will truly give us beauty for the ashes of things in our lives that have burned down. This is my favorite line. God was so faithful to redeem what Caroline lost in high school. And I guess I've never really thought about God redeeming things for my kids.

Speaker 2:
[36:56] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[36:58] Like you only kind of think that's really dumb. Yeah. You only kind of think about it for yourself. And like, I don't know, I thought about situations for our own kids that have been horrific for them, you know, from their vantage point. And it's like, oh, well, God is going to redeem their story, just like how he redeems my own.

Speaker 2:
[37:15] Yeah. So true. It's so true. And I've continued to see that in different things in Caroline's life where I'm like, you know, things that I can look and go for a year. You're like, well, this is terrible. But you get on the other side of it and I'm like, look at all the good that came out of this, you know, and she would say same. I mean, I think that's the whole thing is if you point that out to your kids, like look for days that this becomes a part of your story that's powerful or that you can use it or that it gives you compassion and empathy for others that you wouldn't have had. You're like, that's what redemption looks like. That's that's it. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[37:46] You know, there are times when everything can seem barren, there are seasons of life that are excruciating the hard and filled with so much pain and emptiness. We have to cut away the parts that are dead, even though it feels like it might take us down. Our tree looks desolate while everyone else's trees seem to be blooming in abundance. But God is always working, even when we don't see it. Where we look and see nothing, he looks and sees the whole picture of the way our lives will eventually bear fruit. If we just hold on and trust him, he is already answering those prayers you are praying. But sometimes you can't see that until the tree in your yard bursts into bloom. Then you realize he was always at work. I'm totally changing subjects. Uh-huh. Go. Oh, that's how it goes in Memrise, right? Okay. Okay. I like Gully's Parents.

Speaker 2:
[38:29] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[38:30] Honey and big.

Speaker 2:
[38:31] Honey and big.

Speaker 1:
[38:32] Okay. Can you talk about, you know, so we've got our oldest is 17, your oldest is 22. You're like shifting into this adult role, right? Where you're starting to like, I say I'm in my grandma era because one of my closest friends just had a grandkid. So I was like, this is really exciting. And you want to, you kind of want to be the grandparents where they come to the house. So you are taking Caroline and your friend Gully is taking her two kids. And you are actually going to vacation. This is your vacation at Honey and Biggs. So can you tell me, can you tell us what it was about how they treated you that made it so you wanted to take the road trip to go be there?

Speaker 2:
[39:11] They just, you know, it's funny because what they did was they unconditionally loved us. They welcomed us in. It was, Honey and Biggs house was for me, other than my grandma, one of the few places I had that always was a safe, it was my safe place to land. It was my safe harbor where I knew she was going to have my brownies. To this day, if I go to her house, she's got her brownies and she tells everybody, don't eat the edges because those are Melanie's favorite because I like, so everybody cuts this hole in the brownies and saves the edges for me. And she's, I'm going to make chicken salad. And every time we show up, she has a gift bag for us that has a candle and some soap and some cute little napkins or whatever for whatever holiday is coming up. And it's not that it's anything so fancy. It was just such a welcome, open, we love you, we're going to be here for you. And it was just, it was a safe harbor in a storm. And so it taught me so much about what hospitality really looks like because I think we make it complicated. Like we've got to get the guest house, we've got to have everything perfect. It's got to be just this. But I'm like, it really is just making people feel welcome and loved like, and those can be in so many little ways. And we still go, and I will say, the biggest testament to Honey and Big and their lasting legacy is they still live in Bryan College Station, which is where Texas A&M is. All of our kids have now, Caroline's still there getting her master's, Gully's youngest is still there, he's about to be a senior. They still go over to Honey and Big's and bring all their friends. And Honey and Big's still take a big group of college kids out to dinner and they love doing that. And I'm like, that is goals. I mean, I'm sorry, but that is what we should all want to be. Because it's amazing and it's a testament to just how they love.

Speaker 1:
[40:56] Wow. Yeah. Like what college kids they want to go hang out with you. You would think in this day and age, they're not going to want to go hang out with grandparents, but they sure do. Everybody wants relationship with someone who shows that they care. You wrote, mainly we knew her mom, Honey, would feed us, which that's got to be a southern thing. Because I've got a friend in Texas who's great. The grandma is called Honey and I was like, I have never heard that in my life. I have a friend whose two kids are at Texas A&M right now. We watched the Thanksgiving. I didn't know that they played every Thanksgiving, but we were with them on Thanksgiving, so we watched the game. Mainly we knew her mom would feed us good food and help us with the kids. It was the closest thing to a real vacation we could think of. I'm like, I want to go to Honey and Bigs.

Speaker 2:
[41:37] Yeah. Listen, everybody does. I mean, once you go, you have to tell people, so this is where I stay, so I have to go find another place. Honey and Big are taken. They're full.

Speaker 1:
[41:47] All right. What's the game? Apple Corps Baltimore.

Speaker 2:
[41:50] Okay. That is a game that I did not know this game, but apparently when we were, Perry and I used to fish with an older couple and when we were newlyweds and our friend Bobby was always, he's a little cantankerous, especially when he's fishing and he's not catching fish. And so we were all out on a boat and his wife took a bite of her apple or like finished it and just had the Corps and everything was already tense. It was hot. We've been on the water all day. We had caught no fish. We were trying to figure out where to go next, the whole thing. And all of a sudden she just shoots this apple Corps, this chewed up apple Corps at him and it hits him in the face. And like you could see in slow motion, like just the saliva coming off of it, just the mess. And he was like, what are you doing? What did she was like? Um, it's that game, Apple Corps Baltimore. And he was like, nobody's heard of that game. Like that is not a real thing. And I really wanted to jump off the boat and swim to shore. I was like, I have never felt so tense in my whole life. And I've never heard of that game to this day, except for that one moment.

Speaker 1:
[43:00] I wonder if it's real. Apple Corps Baltimore. Melanie just had a more drink of her water. So she might have her first year in that one a.m. Okay. All right. Are you still a shirt hoarder?

Speaker 2:
[43:13] I am still a shirt hoarder. Yes. Once a hoarder, always a hoarder. So I am a shirt hoarder.

Speaker 1:
[43:19] Tell us how it helps when you have a child that's throwing up.

Speaker 2:
[43:25] So when Caroline was about to, she got her first stomach bug. It started right after Thanksgiving lunch, which is really when you want a stomach bug to start, after you've just eaten this great meal of the year. You've just had all the stuff. And she climbed up on me. I was like at my dad's house. And she climbed up on me and was kind of laying on top of me. And all of a sudden she was like, mama, my mouth feels funny. And then she just all over me. And so that wasn't optimal. So anyway, we get her back home, we shower, she proceeds to throw up because you know, a stomach bug is always going to last 24 hours. That's how long they last. And I never could, she was so little that I couldn't get her to get the concept of like throwing up on the toilet because she would just cry because it was freaking her out. So I would just hold her and she would just throw up all over the back of me. I went through multiple t-shirts that day, multiple shirts. We finally figured out that when she started to make the sounds that she was going to throw up, we'd just open up our front door and we'd hold her out over the porch, really. And let her throw up in the bushes. I was like, I don't know what else to do. I was out of t-shirts. I was out.

Speaker 1:
[44:40] Even though you're a shirt hoarder.

Speaker 2:
[44:42] I am a shirt hoarder.

Speaker 1:
[44:44] Would you rather a child have lice or hand, foot and mouth?

Speaker 2:
[44:47] Oh, hand, foot and mouth. Lice is the devil. Lice is just, like I'll start to itch right now thinking about it. Like to try to get rid of lice and to think of everything that they've put their little nasty heads on is just about impossible.

Speaker 1:
[45:02] I love what you wrote about when she had hand, foot and mouth and you were like, she slept for three days.

Speaker 2:
[45:07] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[45:09] But you're like, you feel bad that they're sick, but then you're also kind of like, this real nice.

Speaker 2:
[45:13] It's real nice. Listen, she's real calm. It's like that episode of Friends where I always think when Phoebe Buffay had the twins and she was like, I love them when they're sleeping, but pretty soon they're going to wake up. That's like the toddler, you're like they're going to wake up and they're going to be angry.

Speaker 1:
[45:30] Okay, you talked about this celebration. I've never heard of it and I was like, does it still exist? It's two weeks long in San Antonio called Fiesta Celebration.

Speaker 2:
[45:38] Oh yeah, it's coming up. It's every, it's like our version of Mardi Gras. So it is Fiesta and there are parades and floats and there's faux royalty. We have a king, we have King Antonio. Yeah, it's a whole thing. So yeah, it's a, there's Nyosa, which is like night in old San Antonio where there's food booths and there's oyster bakes. And I mean, it's a two week party is essentially what it is. And it still happens every year. And so when your kids are little, part of what they would do in preschool and in kindergarten is they would make a float, like a Fiesta float because you have a nighttime parade, you have a river parade, you have a daytime parade, there's all these parades. So you would make a float that looked like one of the Fiesta floats, and then they would pull their shoebox in a little parade. I'm going to tell you that this is where my obsessive tendencies landed on creating these floats. And Caroline would come up with these elaborate ideas, and then she would just know I would do it. And so it found me I have hot glued a mermaid Barbie to a shoebox. I have cut out letters and glitter. I have created rainbow arches. I've gone to McDonald's to stock Happy Meal characters. I bought 72 Happy Meals trying to get all the characters from the Wizard of Oz Happy Meals. And so I'm real glad every year, Ginny, I have to tell you when Fiesta is coming up, I'm like, but I don't have to make a float. Guess what I don't have to do this year, no floats.

Speaker 1:
[47:08] I thought it is so wild to me. Like obviously I've heard of Mardi Gras, but I was like, how is it that there's these huge festivals happening in the same country in a different state? I was like, I never even heard of this.

Speaker 2:
[47:19] Yeah, no, it's a Santa. But here's the thing, if it makes you feel any better, I grew up in Texas and I had never heard of Fiesta until I moved to San Antonio. So you're not that out of the loop. It's not like, so even statewide, I was like, I've never heard of this, but Perry had grown up here and he was like, oh yeah, Fiesta, it's a thing.

Speaker 1:
[47:38] I just have been so all over the place in this podcast, but I still love the books. I enjoyed reading about not going outside so that you wouldn't get any freckles. I was like, that's kind of the antithesis of what we have going on here. But I mean, to your point, you didn't even learn how to swim when you were little, and then you ended up in that pool having to save all those other kids.

Speaker 2:
[48:00] Listen, things that you do.

Speaker 1:
[48:02] The things that you do. So you talked about how you grew up in a family that was really vain.

Speaker 2:
[48:10] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[48:11] Nanny valued thinness over pretty much all else. And we had to let anybody know if they'd gained a pound or two. She would say things like, you're almost as pretty as your new blonde friend. Yeah, just like entertaining, but also really deeply moving. You did talk about estrangement with your mom. So that's part of it. But I cried, I don't want to give it away. But toward the end, you're talking about when she's at the end of her life, and I just like I cried at that part. Did your sister ever feel abandoned?

Speaker 2:
[48:44] I don't know that she felt abandoned. I just think that she felt a lot of that. I feel like my sister's story is I feel like she felt caught in the middle between my mom and me a lot. My sister is the baby by four years. So one of the things I know now is I think my mom had borderline personality disorder. When you read about that, one of the attributes of that is that they try to pit their children against each other. You never want a team to form. And so I think my mom, I was always the bad one and my sister was always the good one. And so I think when my sister was younger, she really relished that role as you would. It's like teacher's pet. But then I think as she got older and started to kind of see the dysfunction of it. And also once I took myself out of the equation, so much of my mom's volatility and anger started to come out on my sister, where she had always kind of been protected from it a little bit more. So, you know, it's a tricky thing. It's a tricky thing to navigate how to do that and keep the relationships in your life healthy that you want to remain healthy.

Speaker 1:
[49:52] Yeah. I loved it. I mean, these books, the two I read, and the one I have here that I haven't read yet is called Nobody's Cuter Than You. This is about Gulley.

Speaker 2:
[50:03] It is. So it's kind of Gulley and I met in college. There's a lot about Huddy and Big in there. It's just kind of our story of our friendship, and we're still, I mean, she still lives a mile away from me. Listen, she's been texting me while I've been on this podcast. We raised our kids together, is almost like siblings. And so it's just a gift. I mean, 30 years of friendship.

Speaker 1:
[50:26] That is a huge gift. And this one is a New York Times Bestseller. I can't wait to read it. And there's more than even the ones that we talked about here. You say you used to be a pharmaceutical salesperson. Yeah. Now, now you are this incredible writer. You always wanted to be a writer since childhood. And now you've got all of these books. I'm just a girl sitting in front of a computer asking you to love me. I loved it. I loved it. Now, listen, I know that you were trying to save your skin, but we always end our show with the same question. And so I'm hoping you have an answer. What's a favorite moment from your childhood that was outside?

Speaker 2:
[51:02] Oh, that's a great question. I think my favorite moment from my childhood, my childhood best friend, her name was Caroline, actually, lived two doors down. And we both had, now I look back and I'm like, we both grew up in these very troubled situations, which probably drew us together. I didn't know that at the time. But I look back, but I can think of us for hours. I loved Barbies. I was obsessed with Barbies. And I had the Barbie camper. I don't mean to brag, but I had the Barbie Winnebago. And we had this great landscaping in our backyard. And I can just remember for hours creating like these campgrounds for my Barbies and just, you know, little mud swimming pools for the Barbies in the yard. And just, just, you know, I look back and I'm like, man, a kid's imagination. But those were some of my favorite memories. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[52:00] So I love it. Melanie, what a writer you are. What a writer.

Speaker 2:
[52:04] Thank you, Ginny. That means so much to me.

Speaker 1:
[52:06] Thank you. I loved it so much and I cannot wait to read more. Thank you so much for your time and for all of these books that you've written for us to enjoy.

Speaker 2:
[52:15] Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I've loved talking to you today.

Speaker 3:
[52:21] I sold my car in Carvana last night.

Speaker 2:
[52:23] Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand.

Speaker 3:
[52:25] It went perfectly. Real offer, down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong.

Speaker 2:
[52:30] So what's the problem?

Speaker 3:
[52:32] That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes smoothly.

Speaker 2:
[52:34] I'm waiting for the catch.

Speaker 3:
[52:35] Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax. I need to knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this table wood?

Speaker 2:
[52:43] I think it's laminate. Okay.

Speaker 3:
[52:44] Yeah, that's good. That's close enough.

Speaker 2:
[52:45] Cars selling without a catch.

Speaker 3:
[52:47] Sell your car today on Carvana.

Speaker 2:
[52:50] Pick Up Fees May Apply.

Speaker 3:
[52:51] We all want to know what makes people tick, how will they make decisions, handle feedback, and work as a team. The Predictive Index Behavioral Assessment reveals how employees actually think, work, and thrive, like how Marcus fits in a role with structure, and Margot's strength is collaborating with others, because when we understand each other, work just works. Take the behavioral assessment today at try.predictiveindex.com.