[Music] hi I'm Kelly nervous what is there to possibly be nervous it was a bit intimidating at first I thought I was going to ask about why my relationships always seem to spiral out of control Oh and and become unhealthy and so we bring out the worst in each other when it started out not that way and then it becomes that way and that's what you were gonna ask you don't want to ask that anymore well I I do but I also think that my myself as a mother that I am not as good of
a mother's I'd like to be because I have dolls and I would like to heal that and and to really honor my children for who they are you're only ever going to be able to do that when you get over your own shame parents turn their children into dolls when they have shame and so the children have to be a substitute for their own sense of self-esteem so I saw that she sat with the shame I feel it's about becoming for you it's about becoming intensely honest about the aspect of you that is being triggered
by these children um understand what I mean by that my own dinner my own childhood well it always is but that's how to make them not dolls anymore so me to walk you through stereo or maybe you should walk me through one what's the last time you got into an issue with your kids give me the one that gives you the most problems she's um she's 12 she's an artist she has beautiful blue eyes like a wolf and she's intense and I am I was going to give her up for adoption and her father wouldn't
sign off and I couldn't sign off and then he because then he would get her and that wouldn't be good and so I wasn't ready for her and that is literally the best thing I've heard a mother say is such a relief to hear somebody say that instead of I loved you more than anything ever and have it really not actually be the case you see you're taking responsibility for the conditions I was not ready for a child mm-hmm I wasn't and then I wasn't ready for my second child although her father and I have
a better relationship so it's been smoother although I see that I feel like I guess I feel stuck with them I don't really know how to honor them because his life is hard and money can get really tight and I can't for you it's all about finding resources for your children like I I'm gonna just be honest with you because the the major message that everyone gives mothers who are in your type of a situation emotionally is you have to meet all these needs it's got to be you and you got to just suck it
you're gonna hate it and your kids are gonna hate it so it's about admitting and this is the shame it's about swallowing the shame enough as a mother to say I cannot eat my children's needs I actually can't like in the space that I'm in emotionally so what I can do is try to find the places and people who can and trust me it's it to do that takes a self-esteem hit like nobody's business yeah okay so it really want to hit this home it's about realizing you can't be the one to provide all these
resources for your children your job is to find those resources for them because when children get really dysfunctional is when they don't get any resources they have a mom who cares more about their self-esteem than they care about what those children's experiences are and so that is a kid who's starving to death with no resources I haven't spent a lot of time with them sad because the relationships breaking up yep and it's I I hope I am NOT getting into relationships thinking that they will fulfill a role because I I feel as though I I
just want to be loved I just want a partner okay can you explain something do you want to know the single biggest determining to be aggressive because this nobody wants to hear this because what you want me to say today is actually being a single mother is totally possible it actually isn't yeah it's not it was never meant to happen for the human race number one number two single biggest determiner of whether a mother is a good mother what do you think of this this is gonna blow your mind right I tell you the answer
whether they have a supportive partner so the major argument for good dads is actually I can the dad be there for the mom because it's like a direct chain is what we see it what you see is that if you've got a father figure basically who's supportive to the mother the mother's energy goes towards the children but the second that she doesn't have that supportive energy she collapses is what happens and then the kids get starved so it's and we are not actually supposed to be living in a single-family household so it's supposed to be
a lot more support towards mom than just dad but I'm going with standard standard societal structure you are a victim of a society that was never meant to work this way this is why I'm focusing so much of my energy not only on trying to help you with the current situations you've got going but on social change because that's the only thing that's gonna actually make this whole thing work you are not meant to and no children are meant to actually grow up in a single-family home much less a broken home absent of a supportive
support figure yeah yeah it's very hard to date as a single mom because men seem oh it's almost impossible I know yeah and the second my experience has been it seems as the second that they think I am trying to put them in that role but you got to put them in there all you understand yes I do but I also know what the reason I don't it's because they are an individual man and you know if they're signing on for a mother they're signing on to be a dad that's the reality oh yeah okay
and if you don't get that your kids are gonna suffer really bad because they're gonna lose you is what's gonna happen because it will be if you have a man that does not sign on for the family you have a man that's going to put the mother in the position of choosing between him and the children that's I have my stepdad yeah that went well for you in relationships and adulthood didn't it you keep ending up in that situation in your adult relationships yeah yeah where the men seem like they want me but they don't
am i drawing that to me then to heal that aspect of yes of course but it starts by saying I am no longer going to tell the story that I am NOT going to expect this man to be in the dad role and in the family man role I have a family she's gonna be in that role okay and do I put that out there right away immediately immediately okay because if they get squirmy and it's oh it's he'll know okay I have had I was harmed as a child and I have a good friend
that was harmed by her stepdad as a child and he sought the mother for my friend and so a part of me um like everyone always says you know keep the kids out of it for six months don't let them meet the kids don't even mention you have kids you can see could be a you know predator and all these types of things so I get it's very difficult to I I want to just come out with it but they know you're gonna have to come out with it instantaneously and you don't need to introduce
them to your children isn't aeneas Lee you can wash them around children oh okay okay okay so do I take them places that there would be yeah well if I was you I'd do that yeah I feel like we're going on a date this is fun you know where we're going on a day - yeah you gotta watch him okay okay how do i heal my childhood so that I'm not constantly bringing those men into my life completion process I created a process for them okay yeah you got to go back to those childhood wounds
create the resolution so you know what steps to take in your life here and now that's the answer okay this last man I was with I got very angry with him I felt like he tricked me because he wanted to meet the kids and he wanted some time with him and would come over for dinner and things like that and then in the end he said we weren't even in a relationship he never saw that in his eyes and he was upset that I was trying to marry him and now that's crazy time and what
was this man really after I'm gonna teach you something sad about the male race and I'm really hoping that the majority of men who are conscious and in this audience can shift this pattern men have a behavioral strategy that is a holdover from the cave days and it looks like conquest conquest is the male shadow one of them it's I'm going to behave in whatever way I need to behave to get exactly what I want out of this woman it's not really who I am it's basically like a car salesman okay and then when the
game's up and I have some bad news you want my bad news mm-hmm and I need you to really think about this I'm not saying that it's impossible I'm saying you're gonna have to really have discernment and I realize that when you're starving to death for that closeness it's very hard to use discernment it's like if I put if he were starving to death right no water for days and I was the poisonous water and be like really hard to say no to that right but you're gonna have to use your discernment the real sad
aspect that you're going to to accept is that if someone is single at a certain age there's a reason okay pretty sad it's true you're looking at intimacy phobia you're looking at people who have been so damaged in childhood that they can't be authentic I mean you're looking at a whole range of behavioral issues this is why they're not in a committed relationship yeah yeah that's why I'm not so I have to do my work first yeah good men exist in the world but you're gonna have to vet the ones that are not really out
for that yeah okay I can give you a little seed of hope okay that place in you that wants to drink the poisoned water is void it needs you badly it's literally one of the most painful experiences you can ever have going into that consciously sitting with the emotions of that absolute desperate starved powerlessness but if you sit in that void long enough it goes away then you're not a match to other people with the void and you can believe that the conquest men they have a void yes they do and then will this help
heal my children's voids anything you do to heal yourself is going to help your children anything downstream of you is going to instantaneously improve it's why the majority of people in my line of work we don't even work with children because there's no point if somebody drags a child in the first response you have is oh my god it's totally apparent and what happens when you create a shift in the parent is there's a shift in the kid that fast okay I know you've watched your children's like the second you're doing better they're doing better
and the day that you need them to be doing okay and you're not okay is the day that they're on the floor also right yes they will always do that okay when I don't have this is hard to admit but when I don't have mmm it wasn't real love with these men so I don't want to say love but when I don't have companionship yeah I will sometimes feel so bored and suffocated as a single mom Oh like a caged animal in their tiny apartment and you want to sit next to me sometimes like right
next to me we'll be watching Curious George for the thousandth time and I just feel like I'm losing my mind and I feel like they feed off of that from me and so you're just like mom we need your mom we need you mom we need you and I'm just more like yep which makes them cling more mm-hmm you realize you got to change the dynamic that's going on in the house right yeah like literally spend less time with them to spend more time with them if you catch my drift you need to do whatever
it takes in your day-to-day life so that when you're with them you're actually with them okay everything for you is finding the resources these kids need not trying to become that does that make sense yes well you're saying yes but it's like your whole energy keeps going back to it's all about me I don't mean it to I wonder why it's doing that when you say resources like I think about foresee or some type of some type of athletic groups but I their ages are so different there's 12 and 6 and they're such different girls
what they need is people who can give them what you can't mm-hmm that's what I'm saying this is gonna be the worst self-esteem hit you ever take yeah when you can't be stable where's the person who is stable when you can't relate to them where's the person who can your job as a mother is to not leave them in a drought be looking for these people if they can get it from a coach and the sports team then fine I don't care where they get it and you shouldn't limit yourself to where they could get
it you should be looking for this person for these children okay oh maybe that's why my energy trust because I don't know how to do that I don't know how do I know what you mean by also I also don't really know how to I don't I don't know how to do that I have I have friends you know that do love the girls but I don't to have them and I don't know how to do with that - look I don't know what I get I guess I don't know what exactly I'm looking for
I know resources but okay can you feel into your children enough to see what they need what are they lacking by the way many of you in the audience who don't understand how you're supposed to be resourcing this one pretend this is your parent okay what do they need you're getting the missing experience well they need more family but I can't really be around my family you need more Elena doesn't have her dad or her dad's family and because that's not healthy well would having family give them yes I was thinking of the resources might
it wouldn't be my family cuz I didn't get it from them so I don't oh I can tell you if you're sitting up here in this predicament it's not your family it's not my family um maybe when I struggle with is the conversation doing so I let people know that I need their help with my yes yes okay then you just gotta use discernment about what their intentions were saying yes are okay that means connect with other mothers connect with other people if your children have any interests as fast as you can in that direction
and don't teach them that you're the only one who can give these things to them okay I wish I could transport you to Denmark in Scandinavia they've got this I mean they're basically going back towards intentional communities so they're setting up these really interesting buildings where basically everybody has an apartment so like you would have an apartment but it's all communal downstairs so the kids all play together and then it's mandatory meal nights together so like you'd be in charge of one meal night but they get another mothers in charge of another meal night and
the kids are all just running around and having fun together and the success that they're watching actually with the single mothers who live in these types of communities is through the roof and these are the types of experiences that we need to start actually creating the unfortunate situation is because I haven't created it yet is that basically some of you are gonna be in a position of having to actually create it if I got desperate enough which trust me if I was in your shoes I would be desperate enough already I would get to the
point where I'd say okay I have to do this like let's find a house let's find a big freakin house and find other women who are in the same position I'm in and let's all put money into friends house and then I would arrange how we're gonna make that look who's cooking on what day wouldn't it be better if you could watch all the kids on one day yes this is funny i actually had dreams of doing this when i lived at the YWCA we'd lost everything and i had dreams of doing a single mom
i have no idea why you might have had those dreams cuz we all lived in these like tiny little boxes at the Y and and we were still separated and none of us were really helping each other with things like child care and you know that's ridiculous it's absolutely ridiculous you can't have a life and be a single mother I'm never gonna lie to you that you can it's completely BS it's just with single mothers want to tell other single mothers so they don't feel shitty about themselves it's not actually possible to be a single
mother sorry don't even try yeah just figure out how to how to get that support and what it should look like and you're gonna have to get really creative because society is not doing it for you sorry but look at the beauty of this I'm gonna sell you want an idea ready okay let's say you just get sick enough that you're like I'm gonna do this I'm taking the risk I'm gonna get a bunch of these women we're all gonna like put money into creating this thing now let's presume that it works you actually have
a life back you don't have to be the only person providing the resources for these kids 24 hours a day you have some energy what if what you create really works and you can show that to other people what if that's how you now make money what if you're the one sitting in my position talking to audiences in the future saying we have to do this in society let's actually create it let's go to an inner city you know place and like Detroit let's set these things up fun sounds very fun yeah yeah I had
looked at coops and where I'm from you know I live in Madison Wisconsin and most of the coops wouldn't accept children or they would want a lot of money and and I I was looking I because I don't have the resources to create this I was looking for people that could help me create you know to create this I had these dreams of having homes and we have Gardens and we help each other with each other's children because none of us can do it by yourself I have a dream do it do it no other
life makes sense and you're gonna do it one step at a time how do I find these moms because um I have some single mom friends and the issue a lot of times relates to their their exes um sometimes the exes are so unhealthy in domestic violence drugs that sort of thing alcoholism which I'm not judging because that's my daughter's dad and that's why we stay away from him but in this community idea I didn't want the men there however they're the fathers and so that was kind of money that that was one of my
hold ups about who do I invite into this space I didn't want the drunk dad you know banging in the door you can't prevent that with certain parents mm-hmm okay - they were that they're the women that would need this oh I know so you're just gonna have to come up with a protocol for how to deal with that and also resources to call if you get in trouble is what you're gonna have to look at [Applause] [Music]
