Momfuel & Mindset - SEASON 2: Episode 4 - Summer Pressure

As the school year winds down and summer begins, moms everywhere are feeling the pressure...packed calendars, emotional kids, endless snacks, disrupted routines, and the invisible mental load that somehow gets even heavier this time of year. In this episode, we’re diving into the chaos of end-of-school transitions and the overwhelming expectations moms carry into summer. From juggling activities and childcare to managing guilt and burnout, this conversation is your reminder that you don’t have to make summer “perfect” to make it meaningful.

Transcript

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We're back. It's your mom friends. I'm Chrissy. And I'm Jess. And today we are talking about the end of school year summer pressures. As the school year winds down and summer begins, moms everywhere are feeling the pressure. Pact's calendars, emotional kids, endless snacks, disrupted routines, the mental load that somehow gets even heavier this time of year. In this episode, we're diving into the chaos of end-of-school transitions and the overwhelming expectations moms carry into summer. From juggling activities in childcare to managing guilt and burnout, this conversation is your reminder that you don't have to make summer perfect to make it meaningful. Like you have to be literally feeling this more than I guess there's two sides to this. Like the parents who are like trying to keep up, and then the teachers who are just trying to like the school, just the people who are working in the school trying to close out everything. We, my kids actually only have three days of school left. And I saw one of the teachers the other day, and she was like, We're just, we're just surviving here. We're we're just hanging on just as much as you are. So I think that there is pressure. And so I try to be understanding for the teachers as well. Cause I know that this is a crazy busy time. Everybody's just trying to do the best that they can. But there is pressure. There is the I used to be the mom that tried to keep up with everything. Well, okay, so this is a confession. Riley came home with her yearbook the other day. And she is in fifth grade. So last year in elementary school. And the yearbook part of the section was can you guess the baby? So it'd be the fifth grader, like the seniors of the elementary school. Can you guess the baby? Guess who's the loser mom who did not know, did not see, never saw an email, never saw a paper come home about sending in a baby picture. So poor Beezer does not have a baby picture in the senior section of the yearbook. And I was like, dude, I'm so sorry. She's like, it's not a big deal. I'm like, no, it kind of is. Me just like five years ago, 10 years ago, would have been like the word, I probably would have cried over it. I probably would have been so hard on myself because that is horrible. I literally was like, I just there's some something's gonna drop. And unfortunately, in this season, that's what that's what was dropped. And I apologize, she really did not care. I do feel bad, but we have to give ourselves grace. Like there's there's just so much going on. There's so much going on, and there's, you know, we're we're not gonna be perfect. I'm not perfect. I never claim to be perfect, and ultimately, that was one example of something that I totally dropped the ball on. I don't try to keep it all together. Like, especially this time of the year. I just try to do what I can. Well, yeah, I mean, it's survival of the fittest for sure. For moms, for for dads, for kids, for teachers, for everybody. And this year, there's testing this time of year, there's testing for kids, testing for teachers. It's just there's a lot of pressure. There's field trips, there's just things filling up our calendar that we can't seem to like stay on top of. So things do get missed. And that's okay. It's not the end of the world. And and I'm sorry, and I'm sure you have a great school, but since when do we have the pressure of fifth grade become seniors? And you know, it's just it's like, I don't know, it's it's a special time for sure, and they're moving on to a bigger school. So I understand I want to honor that. And there really is only one time in their life where they're a senior, and that's when they graduate high school. And so I feel like on the other side of that, it's like watering down high school graduation because we are and it's and it's important to celebrate, you know, preschool graduations, kindergarten graduations, you know, fifth grade graduations, eighth grade graduations, like all the different milestones in a kiddo's uh, you know, school career. And there's truly one graduation um for the most part, and that's you know, when you get to your 12th grade graduation, whatever that looks like for you, is not everybody goes to that traditional high school route. But anyway, I say that all to say, like I probably would have been the mom to miss it too, just so you're not alone. Like I and and Emily is constantly saying, Mom, you know, the field trip's in two days and you still haven't signed the permission slip. So it's everything's done digitally now, so it's right on the app. So I'm like, oh shoot, and I go on the app and I find it and I sign it, it's not a big deal, but I miss stuff too, especially in this day and age where most of the content that comes up for Emily is digital. And so they put it out on this app. And also on the app is like updates and they're the school's podcasts and you know, teacher of the month and all the other notifications that go through that app, which is great. It's a great way to keep people informed. However, it's also a good way of missing stuff because there's so much content coming at you you can't fuck with it all. So, someone like myself, I turn off notifications because totally distracting, and then I fucked up. So I'm like, I'm my own worst enemy. I'm my own worst enemy, and I know I can't be alone because you know it's just it's the way of the world. And I'm not saying anything bad about any school, it's just that the world that we live in right now is just so digital, and we are on information overload all the time, and there's going to be things that we miss. It's funny that you say all this because it we talk about this all the time. Like paint is hard enough, and then doing it in the same. So our we are living with the same bodies, the same nervous systems that generations thousands and thousands of years ago are we're living with. But think of like what we deal with or go through on a daily basis. And when you say, like, we live in the world of notifications, there are times I have to take off my watch because it will literally just ding and ding. And it'll be, you know, a social media app notification, an email notification. Like you talk, so the dance school has an app that they use that's completely different than everybody else. The school has an app that they use, right? So you're getting notifications from all these different things. There's days when it's like my my wrist is buzzing all the time because there's just notification after notification of all this stuff. And there, I had I had a conversation with a mom that I was working with who is gets super anxious. And I was like, you gotta take your watch off. Like that's something that I've learned. Like, you we can't, like you said, silencing these notifications, which does make it hard because then you have to remember where you have to go back and see, you know, and I'm the person who lives with like Jimmy can't stand this. You want to talk about total opposites? He has zero messages, zero email. An email comes in, he checks it right away, he does something with it, deletes it, moves it, does something in that moment. Me, I'm sitting on like in one email, there's like 3,700 in one, there's 18 in another. I got 175 texts. There's just this drives him nuts. But so you got to remember these notifications to go back to and go find or whatever. And it just does affect your nervous system. You're just like on edge and anxious in an already emotionally charged season of where you're like, I'm gonna forget something, I'm gonna forget something. It's super easy to do it. I mean, this is such an emotionally exhausting time for moms, but also setting probably one of the seasons of life where we set some of the most unrealistic expectations for ourselves, keeping up with all the things, being able to make it to the field days and the graduations and the parties and celebrations, and then guess what? School's out. Now we're gonna go into summer. And what are we doing? I don't remember life looks a lot different now. But when my kids were younger, like I wasn't excited for summer. I'll say it. Summer was one of the most stressful times because one, I had to shell out a boatload of money for summer camps because guess what? My work schedule didn't change. I still had to get a work at seven. I still worked till five. You know, like great, yay, it's summer. No, because guess what? Now I'm just managing even more of a schedule. And I'm paying soccer summer come summer camp two grand for my kids to go for six weeks. Like it just made life for the work for the working mom or the mom who you know kit needed to maintain a form of a schedule. This time of year was one of the most stressful for us. And it's something you had to plan for. You got to get into the summer camps because let's be honest, like some of them open in February. And did your kid make it? Did they get on the list? What does that look like? What is transportation? Because you know, some of them don't are, you know, are like 10 to 2. Well, that never worked for us, but it was, you know, so it just it was all the logistics that come along with working full time or being a working parent while also maintaining summer. And then feeling like, well, my what kind of fun is my kid having? Like, what is this the summer? Like, we've got to do all these fun things. And it's hard when it's it's not, it's not the norm. Like it my schedule was not changing. So that wasn't a norm for us. Once they got a little bit older, it was a little bit easier to be a little more lax on. And Jimmy started working for himself, so like he could do a drop off, so we could do like a town summer camp. But it definitely is something that I don't think we think about enough. Like the like the the working families that are are struggling with to maintain the expectations of of magical summer for our kids, while also balancing the work, the schedules, and just that everyday, that everyday life of maintaining that. Well, and never mind, like even if you can't get the magical summer because of the reality of your work schedule and you just can't afford it. Like now you have to pay for daycare or camps that you weren't budgeting for during the school year. School is free for most people, right? Unless you're paying for ASP. There's not a lot of money that goes into daycare unless there's some after school before school care. But again, it's not full-time. So now you have to budget in, you know, full-time daycare or find other people to help you with daycare and you're managing all that. And so in that the cost of living right now, let's be real. And I don't know about you, but daycare is in my area, hard to come by. There's not a lot. So, I mean, that's another real struggle for folks if they can find adequate daycare, if they can find affordable daycare, if they can do all the things that they want to do. Never mind. Again, the cost of living has gone up significantly. So even if you get to take them to the beach, or like I'm at the beach today, my back, my my beach today. My background's the beach. So I'm I'm like I'm there. But yeah, you know, I think that's that's another reality for a lot of working families is like I'm living paycheck to paycheck, and now I have to pay for daycare for this summer. How the heck am I going to do that? And then we see kids who might be a little on the younger side staying home, or older siblings caring for their younger siblings, or whatever families doing what they need to do to get through. And then the guilt that comes with that, or the worry that comes with that, or all the things that that is connected to. So it while summer can be a time of like fun and joyful activities and family time, it can also be a time of incredible stress and financially, physically, all the things. So I think that's something that is also that needs to be talked about because everybody's trying to drug all these things. And at the end of the day, if we just don't have the means to make it happen in a way that we want, what do you do then? Right. Correct. Yeah. There is this, and we talk about this on several episodes, but the social pressures, like that, that's the the media and you know, that highlight reel of what piece some you see somebody else, what they're doing, and it's like I feel inferior or inadequate because I'm not able to provide that type of summer for my family or for my kids. And let's be honest, okay. Sometimes I do fun things with my kids and I still end up feeling guilty or I still have emotions because sometimes they're like their kids. They still fight, they still argue, they still get tired, they still whine. Sometimes the kids just want to be home. You know what I mean? Like, I'll plan this whole fun day. And it's like before we even pull out of the driveway, they're like whining and fighting and bickering. And I'm like, why do I even do this? Why do I do this to myself? So it's this, it's a hundred percent us. It's this social pressure that we put on ourselves to be this grand mom of all moms and plan all of this fun stuff to make sure our kids' childhood in summer is 10 out of 10 when sometimes like just being in the backyard, just being at home, playing with a garden hose, like those are some of the things that the kids just love the most. And we put so much pressure because we try to live up to this level of expectation that is set from outside our own expectations, our own values, the things that we want most. Like, if how much time do we spend sitting down and being like, okay, what do I want the summer to look like? Like, not what everybody else's summer looks like, but like, what do I want our summer to look like? To be honest with you, I want our summer to look slower this year. Like, I don't want to plan all of these things. I want to be home. I want the kids to be outside. I want to just like just be in the sun, throw the baseball. Like it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be all of this that we chalk it up to like it has because summer itself has pressures. Like, again, we still work, we still have things to do, we still have a schedule to keep, we still have a routine that has to be kept to a certain form. But that doesn't mean that it's a less than. It's certainly not less than than somebody else who's, you know, vacationing and and doing all this other stuff with their kids, truly taking the time to figure out what it is that we want. I want to connect with my kids. I say it all the time. That can happen literally sitting in the grass. Like it doesn't have to be this huge thing. So I think really getting clear on like the expectations that we set for ourselves. Don't let outside influences, if you have to maintain a summer schedule because you work outside of the home and the kids have to go to camps or you have to, you know, give yourself some grace. Like lower the pressure. Not every day has to be this like Pinterest, you know, perfect summer, magical summer. Like it's simple moments that become the best memories. And I think one of the greatest things that I ever did was loosen my expectations of a routine. Like, I guess, okay, so I've talked before, I don't know if I've talked on the podcast before, but I've definitely talked maybe in Happy Moms about like schedules versus rhythms and really like creating rhythms versus holding myself to rigid schedules. I was somebody who would be like, I need to get up at 6:50, and by 7, I need to be downstairs and I'm gonna walk on the treadmill by 702. And it's like if I woke up at 7, my whole schedule's thrown off. And then I'd start beating myself up and I'd have all this guilt and I'd have all this like anxiety of like, I need to play catch up, or I'm just gonna skip the walking pad, which then is going to create this, you know, again, guilt and and beating myself up over because I'm not able to hold this rigid schedule versus a rhythm that's just looser. It's like, I'm gonna get the walking pad done, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. And really, when I the goal is to create a rhythm in which these habits happen, but they don't have to be in like a rights. I'm not scheduling out 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 9 a.m. I am looking at my day, figuring out when I can fit in, what, and guess what? If it, if it shifts here or there, that's okay because I'm still getting it done because it's a rhythm. And so I think just a flexible structure with yourself over the summer to give yourself more breathing room. And when summer comes, it's for some reason we add this ridiculous pressure to it's even worse. It's even worse this time. I feel like it's like Christmas time and summertime. Yeah. No, I I a lot of what you said, and I and I go back to like when I was uh raising my older kids in on very little money, Rob and Peter to pay Paul, making ends meet, doing what I need to do. I couldn't afford much. I would put a little bit of money aside every year for my income tax, and I would take us to a hotel in the summer. I would save it, chuck it away, and take us to a hotel for a night or two at the beach. And then we would just hang out at home, have sleepovers at home. And I do recall, and the kids will still talk about Siddha, we used to go for milkshake rides. They'd go in my car, we'd go to McDonald's, go through drive through, we'd all get a small milkshake, and then we would go for this ride around. There's like a loop not far from where I live now. And we would just listen to loud music, drink our milkshakes, and go just go for that drive. And it was like fun. They looked forward to it. We giggled, and it took maybe an hour of my time and maybe $15 at the time. It wasn't that expensive. It was something I could afford. Um, but it doesn't have to be anything extravagant, is what I heard you say. And that's what it made me think about. It's really about finding what works for you and your family, what's within your means, your physical means, your financial means, all the things, and really just doing what makes sense for you while also still maintaining some kind of rhythm, right, into the day. Because I think sometimes we go so far off on the other side of the spectrum, right? We're in this very structured routine for school, and then we let it all go when summer comes, and then we have to get back into a routine for school, and it's just that much more difficult. So maintaining some rhythm or structure within your day with the expectation that we're all, you know, contributing to our family. We all have a purpose, we all have to do something to help each other out, right? Some kind of expectation. Maybe doing like a book club with your kid, Jess. You just talked about doing a book club with B, like that's so cool. Like doing something like that to keep them reading and interested or whatever. Just it doesn't have to be a lot, but just a little to keep that rhythm going throughout the summer will make life easier in the fall when it's time to go back to school. So I think it's just finding that happy medium, what makes sense for you and your family. And that's, I mean, that's what I found that works for my kiddos. Now my my third one now. I've as I've said I have adult children who are no longer in the home. But I think just having that expectation, like we're still productive. It's just a different type of productive, right? Uh so yeah, I think maintaining some kind of rhythm is important, not worrying about what everybody else is doing, doing what's right for your family, saying no to things that you don't want to go to, or you just don't have the time or bandwidth. Instead of saying yes out of guilt, say, I can't, I can't do it this time. Thank you for inviting me. You know, I mean, I think that's okay too. I think sometimes we feel the pressure of saying yes all the time, or because we're afraid we're gonna hurt someone's feelings, or we just owe it to them to say yes, or it's the right thing to do, or whatever the case is. No is a complete sentence and it's totally okay to use. So, you know, really doing that as you need to. Say no. Accept the invitations that you want to accept. Don't invite people over if you don't want to, you know, just work within your means and stay with them. Yeah, I wrote down simplifying life. Like, truly, like, not we overcomplicate, we over-schedule, we over just we just overdo it. We do. And so getting being okay with simplifying your life. What matters? What do you want? Like summer goes by so fast. Like we're gonna blink, and it's gonna be the kids are back to school. So when at the end of summer, what do you want to stay? You like I want to get to the end of summer and be like, we truly enjoyed it. It we did a couple of, you know, we were able to do a couple of things that we wanted to. I we just we just had fun. We just connected, we we were able to like I want to enjoy summer. And there have been many, a, many summers that I didn't enjoy because we're just rushed, going through it, trying to maintain unrealistic expectations. Like I said, you know, I was I've I've been through that season of life with little kids where I was just it was exhausting and I was financially exhausted, which adds a whole nother layer of like, I can't believe I have to spend all this money on summer camps. But it's a part of life. I love that you brought up maintaining rhythms because that is something that I will say my kids, I think kids in general, and people could and will probably argue with me on this, but like kids thrive in schedules. They really do, whether you think so or not, and whether they think so or not, right? Because they'll tell you. But kids absolutely thrive in schedules, they thrive in bedtime routines, they thrive in knowing, like the knowing, expecting, having schedules, knowing what's expected of them. They may push back on it because they're kids, but they really do thrive. And so that is something that, and my kids do. I I know that about them, I preach it to them. Deegan with ADHD, like he very much needs to know the schedule, likes a schedule, is completely thrown off if he's not on his schedule. And so that is one thing that did, in hindsight, the silver lining of being a working mom in in the summer, that schedule was still maintained for him, which ultimately helped him function like effortlessly. You know what I mean? Like it just kept him. He still got up in the morning, we he still got dropped off somewhere. He had fun now, he's at camps and stuff, but just maintaining that schedule was super, super helpful for him. So kids that go from structure every day to home that can be a very difficult transition for them. So if you see behaviors and you see different changes within your kids once summer's out, that is a pressure that like we have to understand our kids and understand how they operate best so that we can try to maintain a level of rhythms and schedules within our home to help them thrive. Because if not, we could feel like our kids are being bratty, acting out, like what's going on? They need like what's happening. Like summer can be an added pressure because we see the behavior changes in our kids. So I love that you brought up maintaining some kind of routine because it is really good for the kids. Like to get up and be productive and do something. Because I think that is truly not just a good transition for when school's back in, but and like good for the brain, still learning, still growing. But I think behavior-wise, like that's huge, especially like because kids do thrive on schedules. And so helping them be enjoy summer more is being the parent and being like, okay, we are going to have some kind of rhythm to our summer. Yeah, you know, brains are pattern seeking. And when we can create routines and structure and predictability for kids, they do better, they can grow better, they can take in information, they feel more settled. And they might balk you at first when you try to put in a routine that wasn't in initially. But if you stay consistent, they will, they will eventually fall into line. It's just a matter of staying consistent in making sure that we maintain our boundaries and expectations with them very clear. And I think I've said it before, and I'm gonna say it again takes 2,000 times to do something, practice something before it becomes a habit. That's true for our kids, that's true for us. So, you know, anytime we're trying to implement something new, it's going to take time and time and time again before it becomes natural. So summer's a great time to implement some different practices because we don't have the pressure of rushing out of the house to go to school. We have a little bit more flexibility. So, like if you're looking for better nighttime routines or morning routines, summer's a great time to really practice that so you get it really down for the fall. I think maintaining some, and for those that already have those structures and routines in place, maintaining them, as I said, will only help for the fall. And it's going to become who they are. My daughter now is 14, and she said to me the other morning, Mom, what do I do about this? I'm waking up at 5.20 in the morning every morning. She's an early riser, has always been an early riser. I think I talked about that on a recent podcast about how she's always the first one out at a sleepover. Yeah. So I said, Well, Emily, I said, make yourself productive. Go walk on the treadmill, do a workout, do something. And she's like, that's actually kind of a good idea. So talk about, you know, building healthy routines at 14 that she could take into her, you know, the rest of her life. So I I don't know that she'll actually do it, but I planted the little seed. And then she asked me, Well, what do you do in the morning when you wake up, Mom? I was like, Well, I drink coffee. And she's like, Okay, yeah, what else? Like, we're not trying to wait. I feel like you're calling me out here. I mean, I believe this was not about me. But yeah. So I think it's starting small, but remembering, you know, brains are pattern seeking. They really need that structure and the predictability. Kids do best when they know what to expect. And so having those set expectations for them will make everybody's life easier. And you ultimately we're just growing them up to be responsible, good human beings. Also, that's the end of the day. Like I'm doing my very best to raise Emily to be a productive, kind, empathetic human being. And if she becomes that as an adult, I've done my job. But it requires a lot of work and oversight to get there. And summer is a really good time, not that I want to put more pressure on people, but to start practicing some things that you just don't have the emotional capacity, the physical capacity to do during the school year because you get sports and you get homework and you have all the other things filling up your time. So when you have no school for the summer, it's a good time to kind of reevaluate what's working for our family, what's not working for our family, what can we implement together? Let's talk about it as a family. How do you think mornings are going for you? How do you think nighttime's going for you? What could we do differently? What would it look like if you're feeling better? What would you be doing if you're feeling better? How did we get there? Having those conversations and implementing something small in the summer could be helpful too. Because we we forget that we have the power to change what is not working. We and I redid our, so we moved in the end of July and it was like just a month or two ago. We we redid our kitchen, like where we had put stuff away. And I was like, we forget that we have the power to change. If something's not working, we're adults. We are there are things in our lives that we have control over that we just get stuck in the rut of life, and we're like, well, this is just how it is, and we just have to endure it. And we forget that we do hold the power to change certain things. And Jimmy, I was I kept complaining to him. I'm like, we have so many cabinets, and I feel like we're not using them. He goes, Well, let's change it. And I'm like, what a novel idea. Like, you're right. There are cabinets, it's our crap in them. We do get to redesign it if we want to and change stuff around. And it's like if we we just let life beat us up, we just we get complacent and can, you know, we're just get in a spot where we're like, bedtime routines aren't working. It just is what it is. Like, and we just keep going, we keep going through the same thing at night and the same thing at night and the same thing, and we keep complaining about it the next day. Like the kids are tired or the behavior stinks, or we're like, we're we complain about it, but we're we're not doing anything to change it. And you're right. Summer, I think that a lot of times, right? Like when we come out of this, what they call May Sember or end of school year chaos, where we are just hanging on and we're getting through. And it's like once summer hits, everybody's just like, oh, I don't care what the kids do. I don't care what time they go to bed, I don't care what they do during like it just becomes this release and it's a weight lifted for us. But are we helping ourselves or ultimately hurting ourselves by not maintaining some form of structure for ourselves and our kids? Or, like you said, taking this time to really re-evaluate and be like, okay, what's working for our family, what's not working for our family, what can we spend the next eight weeks or whatever, whatever school is out for? Creating new habits, spending this time teaching the kids, you know, what what our family as a whole is gonna do different, and using that time to really create those habits. I like that you brought that up. People are probably gonna roll their eyes at us and be like, I not. It's so true, and that's okay too. And I and I would have rolled my eyes a few years ago too. Like, what are you like? No, I don't have the time or the the capacity to even have that conversation. Like, I'm just gonna keep rolling with the punches. But no, I agree, and I think getting the input from the kids is super important because we can tell them what we think is a problem. But they and we learned on that our season two, episode one, where you know, B was sharing some great insight and wisdom on what they need from a kid's perspective. And I think sometimes as adults, we think we know better, we we're smarter, we know more. And so we just make assumptions and we don't leave time to ask, right? And I think that's important. So having the conversations with them, asking them what they need, what's working, what's not working, and then helping them like find something they're willing to commit to, not me saying you will go to bed at 9 p.m. What are you willing to contribute to this? Because I think when they have some buy-in and some say, they're more likely to follow through and be part of the solution instead of just balking it. But again, it takes 2,000 times or more to practice something. So it's not gonna happen overnight and understanding that and giving ourselves grace, giving our kids grace too, I think it's important. I love that you brought up how like your goal is to raise an emotionally healthy, kind human who is capable of functioning well in society, you know, after she grows up and and moves on. I also think that this is something that we like we forget. Like we for we get so stuck in life and life happening that it's like we forget that that's what we're doing. We're that's what our goal is, and that's what we're doing. And so our goal is if our goal is to raise, you know, emotionally healthy c kids who can who can be functioning healthy adults, who can make good choices and and be respectful and be responsible and all these things, it really does start now. Like it it's an it's a compound of the way that you're parenting and the habits that you're instilling. And I am a firm believer, like you have to, you have to take care of yourself first because they're watching. Like your actions speak louder than your words. And so, yes, you want to be the fun mom who has the summer of their dreams and you want to create childhood memories. That's great. But if we're not raising emotionally healthy kids to be emotionally healthy adults, then the fun childhood memories are like, to me, it's comes second. Like it's not, it's not my first goal. And so, what do we need to do? Like, what again? It goes back to your values. What are your values? What do you value? What do you want for these kids? What do you want to come of them? And what are you doing to show them, not just tell them, but show them how, like, how to live that out. I just wrote down like no age is too small. Like, there's no ages too young to you, like you said, to have these just these kinds of expectations. Like, not the expectations of I want to have a magical summer. Because you can have a magical summer and not leave your house. Like, you can create a magical summer, like you said, milkshake runs. Like, my kids would live for that, and that's what they would remember. I could take them to Disney World and they would still be like, going to Frost Top and getting a milkshake on Sundays is my favorite childhood memory. Like, that's literally what they would say. And my kids have done some cool stuff, and they will literally tell you like the littlest thing that has that cost minimal is their favorite thing. And I just think that we to like getting back to our values and and what we want for our kids is more important than the pressures we put on ourselves to create magical summers and knowing what you want for them. It is not, it is never too late to start like instilling that today. Your actions. Are you taking care of yourself? Like, if you have to say no this summer, like you said, no is a complete sentence. If you have to say no to something so that you can be more at peace, that's creating a magical summer for your kids. Because if you're at peace, you're teaching your kids to be at peace. You're also teaching your kids boundaries. You're teaching them the importance of being able to say no. You're teaching them the importance, like that stuff is super important. Being able to show them what real self-care looks like, being able to protect your peace. Like, I want to raise a kid who's capable of protecting her peace, of knowing that taking care of yourself, shoot, what did be sits up? She was like, I have a real genuine question. Can you turn off the radio? And she said, You know, when you're on an airplane and they tell you that you have to put your mask on first. She said, But if I was flying with my kids, I wouldn't even care about myself. I would want to put the mask on my kids first. So why would they tell you to do that? And I was like, I get it. Because as moms, we want to save our kids first. We don't care about putting our own oxygen mask. And I was like, sis, listen, I want you to remember this when you're a mom that you have to take care of yourself first in order to take care of your kids well. I said, what if the what if the plane was losing oxygen so fast that if you don't put your mask on, you don't have the capability of putting the mask on your kids. I was like, you have to take care of yourself. And it like took her a few minutes to be like, okay, I think I get it. Like you're right. And it was just like this is a briley is like my thinker. Like, and sometimes she asks questions and I'm just like, can I get back to you? Yeah, I have to think on this for a minute. It was like I said, this is literally where happy moms came from, sis. Like, this is literally what you hear mommy preach to other moms and and women because you do have to take care of, and I want you to see me take care of myself so that you grow up and when you have kids, you know how important it is for you to take care of yourself first so that you can mom well. And that spills over into the summer. Summer is tough. You got to share responsibilities with friends, family, camps, babysitters. You can't carry all of that alone. Well, thanks for hanging out with us on mom fuel and mindset. If today's conversation spoke to you, take it as your reminder that happy moms don't come from doing more, they come from choosing themselves and owning their growth.