My mom died 10 years ago today. We weren’t close, but she was my biggest cheerleader. The older I get, the more I understand who she was and how much of the time in history she was born into really shaped who she got to be.

My mom couldn’t wear pants to her segregated school, got married at 20, and had her first child at 21. I came along right before she was 25. She was on the younger side of average at the time, but was relieved to be out of her parents’ house.

In the early 1960s, women then didn’t have a lot of choices. Options for work were secretarial work, nurse, teacher, or domestic labor. None were high paying. Women couldn’t even get a checking account without a male co-signer until 1974.

I tell you all of this because my mom wanted my life to be different than hers. She wanted me to get my education, find a career of my own choice, be able to support myself, not have kids too early, and not get married unless it was a partnership.

She used to say, “Don't do what I did”.

I used to joke with her that I wouldn’t because her life in a lot of ways was truly awful.

As I’ve gotten older I have asked a lot more questions:

• Were the choices my mom made personal failings or choosing from a limited amount of crappy options?+
• If she’d been born in a different era would she have led a different life?
• Would she have waited to return to college after marriage and kids or would she have gone straight through like me?
• Would she have gotten married or even had kids?
• Would she have gotten divorced?
• Would she have gotten the mental health treatment she needed after having a traumatic childhood?

This week on the podcast I am sharing 10 Lessons I Learned From My Mom.

Transcript:

Tami 261

[00:00:00] Welcome, pals. I am back with a little episode a little solo episode because today marks the 10th anniversary of my mother's passing. So. Five years ago, we were all sitting around saying, pandemic, what does that even mean?

[00:00:23] How has this virus spread? What is even happening? So we all experienced a global health event that knocked us all on our ass collectively. And then five years before that my mom died. And I have to say, that also knocked me on my ass. So if you're new here, I'm really glad that you're here. My name is Tammy Hackbarth and I am a life and work coach.

[00:00:59] I am [00:01:00] based in Sacramento, California. I. Believe in 100% guilt-free self-care, rebalancing domestic labor at home, equity at home equity in the world. And I speak about burnout and I speak about issues that get in the way of women typically having the time and energy. To create the world that they want to live in.

[00:01:33] One that is safe and equitable for everyone who happens to be part of it. And on this 10th anniversary my mother's passing, I have been thinking a lot about. How my mother helped create who I am as a person. So a little bit [00:02:00] about our relationship. We weren't close. We both had a traumatic childhood.

[00:02:05] We both were. Grow. We both grew up in the United States when women did not have as many rights as they should. And so I, I am gonna be honest, I judged my mom a lot. Maybe perhaps you've been there too, where you're like, I had no idea why she made that such, such, such a crazy decision. Why would she do that?

[00:02:35] And, and what I've come to realize is that the era where you grow up, the family that you grow up in, the geographic location, the class, how much money you have, how, how able-bodied you are, how, how much mo, how much autonomy and freedom you have in terms of. Your body [00:03:00] and your ability to sustain your family man makes a huge difference, right?

[00:03:09] So while my mom was born right at the end of World War ii, so that means she spent her growing up time in the fifties. She graduated from high school in the early sixties, so my mom went to all segregated schools. Even in California, my mom couldn't wear pants when she went to school. My mom couldn't get a credit card or a checking account or buy a house or open a open, a small business loan. She couldn't do that because it, it was barred by law when one time we were watching mad Men. I love that show, man. I loved it. And I sat down and I watched an episode with my mom and at the end I was like, oh my God, what [00:04:00] did you think? And she was like, fuck that shit. I lived it.

[00:04:05] Sure, the clothes are great, but the dudes were garbage. And that was bullshit. And I was like. I'm sorry, what? Because here's the thing. Women who grew up in the fifties and the sixties and the seventies and the eighties, and let's be real, even in the nineties, ate a shit sandwich from society that women today have no fucking idea existed.

[00:04:35] And. I look back at the decisions that my mom made and my grandmother made, and her mother, and your mother and everybody, and I'm like, oh, oh. They made decisions based on what was available to them at the time. Right. There's this thing where a lot of, let's be real men on the internet are like, why [00:05:00] aren't marriages lasting as long?

[00:05:02] Why, why, why? Well, sir, because we can get our own checking accounts by our own houses and get our own education. Your grandma didn't necessarily wanna be married to your grandpa. She just didn't have any other way to support herself and her kids. So I. I'm feeling a lot of things right now because I now see I'm a mother and I have a daughter, and so I'm looking about how, how being raised by my mom during the time that I was raised shaped me and how me being my daughter's mom will end up shaping her.

[00:05:44] So to celebrate. To honor my mom and what she taught me. Today I'm gonna share 10 lessons that I learned from my mom because I was, I was lucky in a lot of ways. I grew up [00:06:00] in a household with not total domestic balance by any stretch, however. We didn't have girl choice chores and boy chores.

[00:06:12] We all had to do everything. My dad to this day sit still makes dinner every night. My dad ironed his own shirts. My dad like, you know what I mean? And so I grew up in this household where we all learned what it took to run a household. I wish we would've had more financial. Education. Not gonna lie, that was something that was missing and I'm learning it now, but I did learn some fundamentals about being a grownup from my parents that other people didn't necessarily experience because my mom did not take on the vast majority of domestic labor.

[00:06:59] My [00:07:00] mom went to college when. I was, well, I must've been four or five because she gra I saw my mother graduate from college. Let's put it that way. I also saw my grandmother graduate from college at 69. Isn't that bonkers? In the seventies, no less. The point of all of this is, is man. My mom had a lot to teach.

[00:07:27] I have a lot to teach my daughter. And you know, my mom was very famous in my eyes for saying while I was growing up, oh, don't do what I did. Don't make the mistakes that I did. And I would always look at her and say, mama, do not worry. I will very much not be making the same mistakes, because being a grownup looks awful.

[00:07:52] And she would laugh. But it, but it was really, when I think about it, I think, did [00:08:00] she make the best decisions that she could, given the time that she grew up in, given the political will of the time, given the economic reality of the time, I think she might have. That's pretty fucking humbling. So. Again, to 10 years.

[00:08:25] Here's 10 lessons I learned from my mom. Number one, therapy will change your life. See earlier comment about traumatic childhood. My mom had one too. It's a long, convoluted story. I've told it on the internet a little bit most recently. You can hear about it on the Fresh Starts Podcast. That I recorded with Olivia and Jenny, and I'll link to that in the show notes.

[00:08:51] But needless to say, my mother made sure that at age 10, [00:09:00] age 10 in 1980, my mom was like, oh, you're going to therapy. And I thought, she's crazy, but whatever long and short of it is, is, I didn't say much in therapy. My mom, my mom cried a lot. But the fact of the matter is, is something stuck. And I have been in and out of therapy for the last 45 years and I have learned a lot.

[00:09:31] Mostly I have learned that people with my background. Usually aren't as resilient as I am. People with my background usually really, really struggle as adults. People with my background usually die young 'cause they have high ACEs scores. People with my background usually really struggle with substances, alcohol, domestic violence, eating disorders, and I didn't have any of that.

[00:09:57] And I'm just gonna say thank [00:10:00] you. To my mom for insisting that even though therapy was hard, and let me tell you so, so, so very stigmatized. She knew that she wanted my life to be different than hers, so she insisted that I go. So if you have unresolved shit from your past. I know seeking private therapy is a privilege and I know having health insurance that covers it is a privilege.

[00:10:35] And if you can find someone to help you connect with a mental health professional to help you with your childhood trauma, 'cause it can shorten your life. So for that, I say thank you to my mom. So lesson number two, if you wouldn't [00:11:00] want your child, specifically your daughter, to take over your life like Freaky Friday style exactly as your life is now, you wouldn't want your kid to trade places with you, please make some changes because kids don't do what we say they do what we do.

[00:11:21] Now you're like, wait a second. You just talked about how your mom made questionable choices and that you have since thought. Hmm. Maybe it's because of the limitations that were offered to her as options. All that is true. All that is true. And my mom, many times over the course of my life said, what?

[00:11:47] Don't do what I do. Don't do what I did. Make different choices because you have different options because women have fought [00:12:00] for your rights and have come so far and made so many gains. We don't have the same fights. So you can go to college, you can. Get a checking account, a credit card, a business loan, a mortgage.

[00:12:18] You can do all these things. You don't have to get married at 20. I didn't even get married. I didn't get married till I was almost 31. I didn't become a parent till I was almost 41. My mom had two kids before she was 25, right? She's like, don't do what I did. And again, I joked with her like, no worries here lady.

[00:12:39] But also. I mean, I knew, I was like, that does not look attractive. However, I also struggled for a long time when I was looking around and going, okay, if not that, then what? That whole, it's hard to be something you can't see, right? So num [00:13:00] lesson number, haul it out, but also be willing to be a model for your kid.

[00:13:07] And just for the record. I would trade places with my kid right now. I would love her to be somebody who runs her own business. I would love for her to be somebody who's outspoken about trying to make the world a better place. I would love for her to have a podcast and have her own business and help other women take care of themselves and for them to find their identity and find their voice, and to also stand up to make the world a better place.

[00:13:36] I would also like her to be married to somebody that's a partner, somebody who is willing to evolve over time. Somebody who is willing to be a grownup and do their fair share at home. So would I trade places with my kid? Yes. Would I also fail her classes right now in middle school? Yes, because [00:14:00] she's taking classes that I've never even taken because.

[00:14:04] The women after me, after my generation fought for more education for girls, and now she's on a STEM track that I would've never been on. So be the model. Right? And if you're not gonna be the model, call it out, but provide a different. Get, provide your daughter something to look towards so that she can be what you've always wanted to be.

[00:14:31] Lesson number three, make your own money. Mom did not even kind of soften this. She was like, do nothing in your life besides be it. If you cannot pay your own way, do not go. If you cannot pay the mortgage by yourself, do not get a mortgage. If you cannot pay not half the mortgage, if you cannot [00:15:00] pay the whole mortgage, do not get into that relationship, in that legal, like be able to pay your own way.

[00:15:07] Yes, you are likely gonna be sharing resources with your spouse if you decide to share life with someone. Be a full financial partner. With your person. I was like, I don't even know if I've ever heard this woman say something. So, forcefully. And you know what I was like, yeah, okay, well I'm just gonna go ahead and do that.

[00:15:33] I am in fact going to do that. Right. And I have to say, because there's been times in my life where maybe I wasn't making as much money as I thought I was going to, and rather than. Not feel like I was fully participating. I cut my expenses. Right? So the lesson that my mom taught me about [00:16:00] financial autonomy cut deep because my parents got divorced in the seventies.

[00:16:07] My mom did not have a credit card in her own name. My mom did not have a checking account in her own name. And divorce in the seventies, even in a quote, progressive state like California, where there's no fault divorce financial ruin, right? Why? Because even though my mom had more education than my dad, my mom still made less than him.

[00:16:30] Why? Because of policy. So that third lesson about being financially able to care for myself, absolutely. And I'm passing all of these on to my daughter as well. Lesson number four. My God, this is a hard one. Woo. My mom, despite us not really being close because for whatever reason, it's too long to go into, but the fact of the matter is [00:17:00] my mom was never my best friend, but weirdly, she was my biggest cheerleader and and I appreciate that very much.

[00:17:09] Also, my mom told me things over the course of my life that I was like, woman, you just do not understand. But it turns out I was the one that didn't understand. So here's a big one. She would say things like, not everyone is gonna like you. I know it sounds harsh, right? But what she was getting at was two things, three things.

[00:17:31] Really. Not everyone's gonna like you. Therefore you don't have to like everyone, right? You be respectful, but you don't have to be liked by everyone. What? You don't have to be liked by everyone. My mom straight up said, you don't have to be liked by everyone. Let it sink in. I was like, what will I do with all of my time where I'm not trying to people please every goddamn person I've ever met.

[00:17:57] Oh, that's right. Whatever the fuck I want. [00:18:00] And that. If you're not busy trying to shapeshift into being somebody else for someone else, if you're not trying to fit in, by the way I did that I, a very long-term boyfriend. It didn't matter what shape I shifted into, that dude was still like, yeah, you're not, it's not enough.

[00:18:20] So honestly, my mom was right. I tried it. It turns out I'm not that great at shape shifting and the motherfuckers that are always trying to tell you to be somebody else, they are never gonna be satisfied anyway, so fuck them. That's right. Fuck them. Be yourself. Turn it up to 11 and let the fucking people who think you're awesome be awesome.

[00:18:43] I would rather have a small group of people who. Think I am the shit because of who I am. Completely unmasked completely myself. [00:19:00] Some would, some I was gonna say, some would say too much. A lot of people have said, I'm too much. I'm too into, I'm too intense, I'm too this, I'm too that. I'm too, fuck them.

[00:19:10] You're not in the club. Because here's the thing, at the end of the day, I don't want to fit in. I don't want a bunch of dummies being around me being like, oh, look at us. We're all the same. Fuck that. Mm-hmm. Done. I wasn't put on earth to fit in. I was put on earth to be myself just like you were. To have people around me who think I am the shit, and when all else fails.

[00:19:41] You're truly yourself and you enjoy your own company and you think the world of yourself, you're never alone. You belong to yourself. I swear to God. That's why when I read Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown, I was like, you better shut the front door. [00:20:00] That book, I love it. It is about that exact thing, which is don't.

[00:20:06] Let fitting in shapeshifting get in the way of being seen and adored and respected for who you are and for the love of God, do not let your children feel like they have to fit in at home. I was, I was so much myself growing up, so much myself growing up. My mom and my stepdad, and may they both rest in peace.

[00:20:37] Love those two. It's better to belong than to fit in man. That feels good. And I. Appreciate my mom teaching that to me when I was really young and over the course of my life, and God, I hated hearing it 'cause I just wanted to fit in and like these stupid [00:21:00] teenagers to like me and all. And she was like, babe, not everyone is gonna like you.

[00:21:07] And I was like, that is still hurting my feelings when you say that I would like everyone to like me. And she was like, yeah, I would like to be six feet tall. I am five three. So that's not happening, and neither is everyone liking you. So, hey, this is my gift from my mom to you. Not everyone's gonna like you.

[00:21:25] Stop trying so fucking hard. Be yourself, and I bet you maybe a smaller number of people will like you, but the people who do like you are gonna like you so much better. And so are you, because you're gonna feel this deep sense of. Self-respect and self-acceptance.

[00:21:49] Yeah.

[00:21:50] Number five lesson that my mother taught me was be your kid's biggest cheerleader. This goes [00:22:00] back to that feeling of belonging. This goes back to the research that Brene Brown talks about in her booking the wilderness. She works with people of all ages. And this particular book she was talking about interviewing kids in junior high, you know, the actual worst age to be ever in the history of humankind.

[00:22:22] And kids were talking about how it's really hard to fit in in junior high. Yes. And some kid the things, the thing that actually broke my heart and made me cry. Was the kids who were saying, I don't even feel like I belong at home. My parents don't like who I am. My parents don't like what I like. My parents don't try to connect with me.

[00:22:46] My parents want me to be somebody else. My parents want me to be them. They want me to be cool. They want me to play a sport that they either were really good at or they were really terrible at, and they feel like this is their second chance. [00:23:00] Oh my God. Do you know what happens to kids that don't belong at home?

[00:23:06] They go find a place of belonging out there. I will never do that to my kid. My kid wants to be into Lego. Great, by the way, she's super into Lego. So great. I think it's boring, but you know what? I'm learning stuff. Why? Because she likes it. The other day I had a fleeting thought of like, oh my God, should we learn how to play this video game?

[00:23:28] Neither one of us are video game people, but I was like, maybe we would both like it. I, she watches dumb tv. I watch it with her because here's the thing, I want that kid every single day of her life to think. The people at my house know me. They see me. They see me at my worst. They see me at my best. And it doesn't matter what I do, say [00:24:00] how I behave, what my grades are, any of it.

[00:24:03] Those fucking people love me. What is wrong with them? God, they're so into me. I mean, for a while I was questioning my mom's judgment. Like, woman, get some discernment. I am dumb. I'm a teenage girl. Whatever. Right? Damn it. Knowing that somebody who lives in your home unequivocally is the number one fan in your fan club, is really, really grounding.

[00:24:36] And man, I am really glad I got to experience that. So I will pass that on to my kid because it's a gift to know that no matter what happens out there. Somebody at home loves you and that you are always welcome, that you [00:25:00] always have a place, you're always home. Oh man,

[00:25:08] that's a lesson. Oh, here's another one. Okay, lesson number six. My mom would say. I don't know if she was, I'm like, did she ever say this one out loud? She might have in a roundabout way. Okay. So my mom was married twice. The first one, she was really young. She got me and my brother, and she was divorced by 35.

[00:25:32] Then he got remarried. Mm. A few years later. Oh my goodness. The man that she married, my stepdad, Jim. He adored her. They were each other's best company. He was nice to her. He did stuff for her. He, he thought he [00:26:00] acted in a way that she acted towards me and my brother, like we belong. Like she didn't have to be somebody else.

[00:26:09] So that terrible boyfriend I told you about. That guy made me feel like I needed to shape shift, right. That guy wasn't home. And I remember at, and we were together for eight years. So I'm just letting you know, my mom had a lot of opportunities to weigh in carefully on this because, you know, you cannot be telling a teenage girl about her boyfriend.

[00:26:30] However, she did say over the course of the eight years that I was with that guy, but, and after. The value of marry somebody who is nice to you. Marry somebody who's kind, marry somebody who, if not a single thing about you changed, they would be like, well, I got the best. Right? Because we don't [00:27:00] have to be the best capital T, capital B, we have to be the best version of ourselves.

[00:27:06] For the person who thinks that version of you. Is the best, right? I call it being a boutique item. In a Walmart world, I don't want to be desired and sought after by a lot of average, or let's be real below average dudes. I want one dude to think I'm the shit, and for him to be a kind, gentle herring.

[00:27:38] Person who has a similar worldview. So I really appreciate my mom marrying when I was in late elementary school. She remarried somebody who was so nice to her, so nice to her. Then I got that dumb boyfriend, [00:28:00] tried it the other way, and then was like, whoa, this isn't working. She's right. Gonna find a nice person.

[00:28:06] And you know what? I know because I married a nice person that when my daughter decides to partner up with somebody, if she does, no matter the gender of her partner, she is going to look for somebody who is so fucking kind and a team player and a family person, and somebody who wants to have their family have a sense of belonging at their house because that's what she grew up to expect.

[00:28:37] Her baseline. I grew up with a dad who did chores and made dinner right? She's growing up with a dad that does all that and is emotionally available and loves to do stuff with his kids. Why? Because my mom modeled that for me when I'm modeling it for her. So if you're married to somebody who isn't [00:29:00] kind, remember your kid.

[00:29:05] I. They are terrible at listening to what we say. Terrible. It is really hard to go against what you learn as a kid unless you do what? See point number one, therapy will change your life. Unless you do a lot of hard work and therapy, you are very likely to marry somebody who is very similar in temperament, in personality, in all of it to the people you've been surrounded by.

[00:29:32] If you wouldn't trade places with your kid, make some changes in your life. Okay, number seven, lesson. My mom had her own interests that were of no interest to anybody else, and she. It was part of a sorority, a philanthropic sorority. They met a couple times a month. They had these fancy luncheons and fundraisers and this and that.

[00:29:59] I mean, she even [00:30:00] tried to make me go and tried to get me interested and she was like, whoa. She lobbied for like literally 19 years and tried to groom me into this bullshittery, and I was like, I mean, that's nice for you guys. That's not my jam. But you know what, I loved growing up with a mom. That had her own interests because she was not living through me or my success, or lack thereof.

[00:30:24] She was not living for or through my brother or her husband or anybody else. She was out with her friends. They were doing good work in the world trying to eradicate cystic fibrosis. Having fancy lunches and wearing cute outfits and all that stuff. And I say Bravo. That also, by the way, when my mom was at these meetings, I was living with my mom and stepdad and I was an awkward like middle school, early high school kid.

[00:30:54] And when she would go to meetings, my stepdad and I would go out to ice [00:31:00] cream, just the two of us and talk about what was interesting to me. And at that time it was all about boy bands and pop music, and it turned out my stepdad also loves music and he would buy me records and we would listen to music, and then he would make a really great attempt at trying to get me to listen.

[00:31:26] He would try to draw connections between like the Gogos and this band and the Stray Cats and that band from his era. And that's where I spent time listening to music out of my preferred genre, which was, let's be real. It was big band because that was his genre. But the point is, is that dude made an effort to talk to me about the things that I was into over ice cream so that my mom could go out and hang out with her friends.

[00:31:55] My mom got to be interesting because she had [00:32:00] that infrastructure at home. So be interesting. Have your own interest. Lesson number eight. If not, everyone's gonna like you. You should definitely like yourself. I covered this a bit in the belonging and and such, but one of the things that shows. You like yourself is that you actually take care of yourself.

[00:32:23] This is something I had to learn on my own. This is something I learned by going, wait a second. You mean you have to do all that stupid maintenance for your body for it to work? I hate that, but it's true. Number nine, lesson that I learned from my mom is that mental health matters. And what I mean by that is, oh man, mental health seeking therapy, all that stuff was very, very stigmatized. It was. Wow, there was you guys. It was [00:33:00] bad. It was so bad. Oh, it was so bad. And it was unavailable. And if you got it, it was expensive and people around you thought you were crazy and all of these things, and it just wasn't widely available.

[00:33:15] And I have to tell you, having untreated mental health issues from pr, childhood trauma.

[00:33:22] It's heartbreaking because it, it gets in the way of all the things that you wanna do in your life. It, it creates distance with your family. It creates distance. You can't get close to people when you're depressed or anxious. Right. And so, watching my mom suffer really, I was gonna say recommitted. I guess it's committed me to really keeping a close eye on my own mental health and then trying to be as proactive as I can through not only [00:34:00] therapy, not only exercise, like not only meditation, not only yoga, not it's all the shit that people are like, you should do this to release your stress.

[00:34:12] I, I regret to inform everyone. It's the same shit. And you know what it is, and you need to do it because it works. And when you don't do it, it gets in the way of being able to be close to your family and it can shorten your life and that will make your family sad and. That is not a lesson I wanna teach my daughter.

[00:34:34] So I'm doing everything I can now in my fifties so that A, I can live longer than my mom did. She was only 69 when she died. And I would like my daughter to look at who I become as a senior citizen. I was like, damn, girl, look at you. We'll do an X, Y, Z at this age. [00:35:00] Because again, that that is not something that was modeled for me.

[00:35:06] And so the lessons sometimes come from watching what somebody does and saying, I want a different outcome. I don't wanna replicate that. That didn't work for me. It didn't work for her. And so what do I need to do to have a different outcome? And finally. Number 10. The, the, the 10th lesson that my mom taught me is I get to decide who has access to me.

[00:35:41] It could be who has access to my body. It could be who has access, who my knowledge, who has access to my time, my calendar, my affection. Nobody gets to decide for me how I spend my time, [00:36:00] what I do with my body, what I do with my expertise. Again, my mom was limited because of the time and history that she grew up in.

[00:36:12] I was raised in, and she taught me young that I get to be in charge of myself. I get to be autonomous because of the choices that other people made by working on laws that made the United States more fair for women. Interestingly enough, we're having a rollback of these rights. Interestingly enough, there is a reason why I am.

[00:36:51] So steadfast in my commitment to helping people see that it's not always a personal [00:37:00] failure. In fact, it's regular. It's rarely a personal failure. Likely there is a systemic reason why we're suffering. We'll continue to suffer all of us until we realize that we have power to make change. And that we realize that we have the power to feel better in our lives by the actions that we take, that we can feel better by limiting access that people have to us.

[00:37:34] If they're not kind to us, they don't get to hang out with us. If they act like assholes, they can be assholes somewhere else. We're gonna turn ourselves up to 11 and we're gonna belong to ourselves and those that fucking get it and everyone else can get outta here. Thank you for letting me tell you some of the [00:38:00] deep principles and lessons that I learned from my mom.

[00:38:05] I miss her. I can't believe it's been 10 years and that this show is gonna let me hold on to those lessons. I'm gonna share this with my daughter and maybe at some point, you know, she can write the 10 lessons that she learned from her mom, why don't you come over to my Instagram? I'm at Tammy Hackbarth.

[00:38:34] You can find me on Threads as well. You can also find me on Blue Sky. I'm a little bit of everywhere. The point of it is this. I would love to hear from you what lessons you learned from your mom, the ones that she taught you explicitly. The ones that she taught you through, example, the ones that she taught you through, example, that you're like abs of absolutely not the ones that she taught you through.

[00:38:59] [00:39:00] Example that you're like, of course I'm gonna do that. Look how awesome that is. I wanna know more about the lessons that the women that came before you have taught you. Thank you. Thanks for listening. I'll be back next week. We're gonna talk a little bit about how I'm now 55 because next week is my birthday.

[00:39:19] So until then, remember that you matter too.