Episode 9: COVID Parenting & Careers—with guest Laura Hofmann, M. Ed.

Episode Notes
Written By

In this episode, we interview Laura Hofmann, M. Ed. about parenting during COVID, trauma-informed career counseling, and The Great Resignation. Laura is an adjunct faculty Career Counselor and instructor at Miramar College in San Diego. She is a first-generation college student and holds a Masters of Education in Counseling & Guidance for Higher Education from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Her Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology was conferred by University of California, Berkeley. Her career in education and counseling spans nearly 15 years spent in adult and youth career services. 

00:00 Anne and Alison catch up

Anne and Alison read some podcast reviews! (Thank you!) We b*tch about the evils of Facebook, the patriarchy, MLMs, the US economy/political system, and more!

21:13 Interview with Laura Hofmann

Being a first-generation college student, parenting when you experienced Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), parenting from the inside out, power, The Great Resignation, Latchkey free-range childhoods, career planning, women's career issues, COVID child care issues, and more.

Theme music is “One Cloud is Lonely” by Proxima Parada.
Audio mastering is by Josh Collins.

Show notes:

Introduction:

Interview:

Guest Bio:

Laura is an adjunct faculty Career Counselor and instructor at Miramar College in San Diego. She is a first-generation college student and holds a Masters of Education in Counseling & Guidance for Higher Education from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Her Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology was conferred by University of California, Berkeley. Her career in education and counseling spans nearly 15 years spent in adult and youth career services. 

Transcript

Anne Sherry 0:03
Welcome to another intro episode lacks key

Alison Cebulla 0:08
or truncheons and frown

Anne Sherry 0:13
Halloween edition.

Alison Cebulla 0:15
I'm Alison Cebulla.

Anne Sherry 0:17
And I'm an sherry. Welcome,

Alison Cebulla 0:19
welcome. And I just want to say thank you to everyone who gave us a rating or a subscribed that went up in a big way this week for us on Spotify and Apple. So we got a couple of reviews and I'll just read a couple. Meredith left us one and said, This is what I needed to listen to. I've done a lot of my own work, but listening to you talk about what we grew up doing and dealing with is so helpful. Keep this up. It's awesome. So our

Anne Sherry 0:53
dad was a pool buddy of mine. So yeah, she remembers the day she reminded me. She said I had good backstroke. I was like, Oh, that's so cool. Because my little kiddo who's just starting Swimming has he's kind of a natural backstroker. So yeah, so it was really

Alison Cebulla 1:12
good. She was a longtime friend.

Anne Sherry 1:14
Oh, yeah. Yeah, we went to I mean, last touch, you know, I don't know after high school. But thank you Facebook and fuck you Facebook to also your face. Yeah. What are we gonna do with that?

Alison Cebulla 1:28
I don't I don't I don't it's not

Anne Sherry 1:31
too big of a topic. I can't thank you and fuck you.

Alison Cebulla 1:34
Okay? Yeah, not you, Meredith. Nice. Well, we love Meredith. Okay,

Anne Sherry 1:38
we love Meredith

Alison Cebulla 1:39
Yeah, we got another review and anonymous that said if you were ever a child you should listen to this podcast and this this we can't let this go to our egos and said even though they're casual banter is actually interesting to hear which is not always the case of Elizabeth a lot of

Anne Sherry 1:57
that fucks me up like nobody say anything. We want review. But don't just

Alison Cebulla 2:04
know nice things. No. Thanks. But

Anne Sherry 2:07
we okay receive receive. Yeah, yeah. But none of this guru worship. You know how Allison and I feel about cults and Guru worship and handing your power over to somebody. We're all we're all the same.

Alison Cebulla 2:20
That tick tock you sent me this morning was amazing. A woman really just laying down about how not to be a leader. So I'm going to put that in the show notes book. Yeah, she

Anne Sherry 2:29
covered everything. She I think I told you, I refer to it as the sort of fleshed out intellectual version of bateau ology. Yes. Yes.

Alison Cebulla 2:39
Which yes, no. Mad About I posted our head to Instagram and people were like, No, this is good. This is okay. Good.

Anne Sherry 2:47
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, if you start like feeling your soul being, like, handing it over to somebody, it's okay to have mentors and be inspired. But do not cede power to people. I see it in workshops with this, all these trauma gurus to they're like, oh my god, you're so amazing. You say things so great. Rare. Yeah, they also shit, you know, like, do not hand your power over to anybody. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 3:19
Why don't we do that?

Anne Sherry 3:21
I because we don't want to, we don't want to take responsibility for who we are in the world. And do I think doing I gotta

Alison Cebulla 3:28
say, though, I just listened to a new podcast this week, it was recommended by the spirituality, guys. It's the dream. I can't recommend it enough. It's about MLMs. And our whole culture and society built around our MLM, multi, multi level marketing, pyramid schemes and crap. So I they really dug in there. So for example, it's like, well, it is these MLMs are a pyramid scheme, they rely on recruiting. So eventually, your market will get saturated, and there won't be enough people at the bottom of the pyramid. Yeah, because the old simple versions of a pyramid scheme were like, you'd go to a party and you'd bring $1,000 and give it to your host. And then the next person next here would host a party, but then pretty soon you'd run out of people. So whoever's at the bottom just lost their 1000 and never got 1000 back. And so that's what makes a pyramid scheme, a pyramid scheme. And a lot of these multi level marketing is like doTERRA or Herbalife. Say no, we're not. It's not a pyramid. But but it is. And they say and their reasoning is, well, a pyramid scheme is against the law. It's a Ponzi scheme. It's against the law. So how can you say that we are because we exist, but apparently the biggest. The biggest of these is Amway, which is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, you know, our lovely recent ex, the whatever, education director, Betsy DeVos. Yeah, this is her father in law, who started Amway does you know the Amway runs or created the Chamber of Commerce.

Laura Hofmann 4:58
Wow.

Alison Cebulla 4:59
No and

Anne Sherry 5:01
the Chamber of Commerce that all small chamber,

Alison Cebulla 5:05
which is the largest lobbying group in the United States.

Anne Sherry 5:10
That's crazy. Yeah. And so I think America is a multi level marketing. No, no,

Alison Cebulla 5:14
it is. So you have to have like the US. No, no, it literally is. So but okay, so you so it. So just one more point, which is that yes, you were asking why isn't this industry regulated? So it goes back to fucking Gerald Ford, when he became president in the early 70s, because Nixon had to go. There was a big Amway case that came up, but he's also from Grand Rapids, Michigan. So I guess they can't really prove anything, but they were in the same social circles as the Amway guy. And so that's it. I did that all the sudden, the FTC is not regulating Ponzi schemes.

Anne Sherry 5:51
What the hell? How do you know all this shit

Alison Cebulla 5:53
from the drink from this podcast?

Anne Sherry 5:54
Oh, from the podcast? Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 5:56
you gotta listen. It's so good. Yeah. Okay, the dream. And you know which state is the MLM capital of the US mounds? Like

Anne Sherry 6:04
m&ms? I had some m&ms recently. So good. MLM. What state? Utah? Yes. Yes. Why did I say Utah?

Alison Cebulla 6:16
That's I don't know. That's great. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 6:22
Okay, and then

Alison Cebulla 6:23
season two is wellness and supplement industry, which was also a giant scam. And Utah is also the supplement capital.

Anne Sherry 6:31
What the hell? Why do you know? Yeah, it's like getting said American like trying to get rich. Why do you why do you want a bunch of shit? What what do you want?

Alison Cebulla 6:40
Like why we're in America? No other countries like this. I went lived in Belgium and the Netherlands after college because I just was dying to know what a more socialized country felt like. And people are not obsessed with being a millionaire. They're right. No one is obsessed with that people are just, they go on vacations. They're really happy. Everyone takes the month of August off. They're super happy to do it. It's very chill. People are not working like 24/7 No one is trying to be a millionaire. Right? What the fuck is going on here? Why are we so sad? Oh,

Anne Sherry 7:12
no. I'm because people must make a lot of money off of this keeping you just looking outward? Because you were saying What did you just ask about? Why do we do that? Why did we cede our power away? Yeah. Are we elevate the fuck out of people? And like people? I don't know. I mean, I'm seeing it in a healing community. I was people who went to really good schools that have money, they can talk good. They can write good. They can like GEICO websites it looks good. It's just this look. And I can't I mean, somehow that's there's an importance to getting information out there that we need but or that helps you feel I don't know just information about trauma and stuff. But like you would set it I was like God, Allison and you're hanging out with Bessel Vander Kolk. And, and Gabor Ma Tei. Holy shit. You're like, you've made it and you were like, You know what, they're just fucking dudes. They are there. Just people.

Alison Cebulla 8:20
Yeah, we're monta. So that was one of the most stressful situations of my entire life because he's like, oh, like, I do so many zooms. I don't have to show up on time. I was like, you need to you need to show up. I was producing a series that he was a guest speaker. And I was like, We need everyone there. 10 minutes early to check sound and light. I don't care how important you are. The stress falls on me. You know, and that's abusing your power. And he he come he shows up two minutes before we have 5000 people waiting for this webinar. And his his sound and lighting is off. And we have to launch our program like 10 minutes late. And I've never been so stressed. I'm like calling his assistant like, where is he? He pops on, you know, two minutes before we go live. And we have to fix all these issues. It was I've never been so stressed in my whole life. And after that,

Anne Sherry 9:06
like cut that fucking shit out. Just because you're bored monta and everyone's giving you all this power. You still got to like, think about other people

Alison Cebulla 9:16
paid I mean, there's just something about power and I don't so I don't blame him or anyone else to be honest, because there's something inherent in power. A Dacher Keltner from Berkeley wrote a great book called The Power paradox which is that you you ascend to power by helping people that's how we give people power in our country but then there is something about power that if you then be once you have it you probably start using it in your ways. There's just it's just inherent in power and there's like studies have been done that the wealthier you get are the more powerful you get the less empathetic you are.

Anne Sherry 9:51
Oh for real my chocolate everyone I got all that chocolate. Like by nefarious means I'm I'm always up for a loophole, you know. And I was like, I'm not sharing this or I'll I'll give you the shitty chocolate. I hate these truffles. They were like these weird, like, I don't know, mint truffles and I was like, Okay, I'll take these and give these so I'll look really generous, but I'm giving you this shitty truffles. Yeah. And I have Meanwhile, my freezer is just Chaka with chocolate. Yeah. So yeah, it's just you just Yeah. So it sounds like having structures that don't allow, like, we need to be managed, we need to be fucking managed. Structurally,

Alison Cebulla 10:36
I think we need I think we need more power literacy. I think we don't talk about power in our households or in schools. And that's I mean, the whole fight over critical race theory in schools is also a fight against social emotional learning. What a lot of these white parents are saying is, we don't want our children to grow up questioning power structures, we do not want that curriculum in schools. That's what it's that's what it's about. Because if you look at the history of enslavement in the United States, you're looking at power structures, right? You're looking at the fact that the foundation of our country was that it was these land barons from Europe that said, how can we go find more resources and extract them at the, you know, at the cost of all other human lives and make the most money possible? And that's the actual American Dream?

Anne Sherry 11:30
Yeah. Yeah, right. That's make make America great again, whatever. Yeah, just what we were talking about with the patriarchy to that women basically are little manufacturing machines, right? Yeah. We're like, like, we got to control that.

Alison Cebulla 11:47
I don't know why that. Yeah, that's not taught either. It's funny, because I feel like I grew up thinking. So you know, I was in elementary school and middle school, the 90s in high school in the early 2000s. And I grew up thinking like feminism solved it. Like, we're like, now we're equal, like, that was in my head. And then I actually got out into the world. And I was like, oh, fuck, like, I'm a second class citizen as a woman. Yeah, yeah. Um, and then, you know, that book that I've been reading the creation of the patriarchy by Gerda Lerner I've been really digging in. And since since the you know, since society started she's, she's a historian, and she's looking at ancient Mesopotamia. Women were being traded, bought and sold as either a wife, a concubine, meaning like a second wife, or a slave, and used for their reproductive ability. And children and women were always always always since the beginning of civilization thought of as commodities to be bought, traded and sold. So it's pretty dark. And we're we haven't, we haven't made it. Yeah, this, you know, this kind of brings us so we're interviewing today. My friend Laura Hoffman, who is a career counselor career guidance counselor at Miramar College in San Diego. And we're going to talk about you know, parenting COVID parenting and it's, it's the moms that have gotten the short end of the stick here with copious.

Anne Sherry 13:19
Yes, absolutely. I had that. I still liked this analogy, like musical chairs, which was a very, I don't know, did you play that? Yeah, like, okay, stressful as fuck. I mean, if you really want a chair, right? Yeah, I'm like, kind of tripping people of course. So I you know, I was rough on the musical chairs like that Joe, but down and

Alison Cebulla 13:44
like, scoot somebody out one nail at the dodgeball.

Anne Sherry 13:47
Totally, I was rough. And I kind of saw COVID That kind of, okay, the music has stopped. And I know our I mean, it really just highlighted what was going on. But some people had chairs and a lot of people didn't have chairs. You know, if you had a job if you had two people in the household, a job that can be done online to people in the household, so you could share like Kid duty even though it was hard. But so many people didn't have chairs and like so on some level like why do we have so fucking few chairs and why is it the scarcity mentality? Like we need what it feels like we need to focus on is like, everybody gets a chair.

Alison Cebulla 14:30
Like seems like the very basics, like very, I didn't know. Like, why are we afraid

Anne Sherry 14:37
of that? Like it's just the I think it's I think it's doing this thing like you're lazy. You got to work for that chair. You didn't you know, but like we have lots of chairs. Go Okay, rich people, really, really rich people. We don't. Yeah, no, we don't well, if you know that you probably do have I mean, there's a ton of wealth that's about to transfer right With this the greatest generation or whatever, but the I can't I don't know. But there I have been seeing things that like the latchkey generation is about to inherit, like a lot of a lot of stuff a lot of money. So I am, but go in your basement, go on your attics, get your chairs out or like, I don't know, offer a chair and you stand for a while or something.

Alison Cebulla 15:24
I guess I'm not gonna do that. And that's why I'm so tired of this call to individuals. You know, I mean, I know I'm gonna find this. That can't be

Anne Sherry 15:36
the only thing but also but I do know I spoke when we were in Europe. This. There's a lot of disgruntlement about the way that how highly taxed they are. You know, it isn't like, oh, we just give this you know, so I don't know what the being able to feel a certain level of love for oneself. And then so therefore, I can love someone outside. It's got to be both. It's always both, I think, right? Structurally, we gotta say, we have a we have a economy of love, which then helps I think you love that you're

Alison Cebulla 16:10
like quoting Marianne Williamson now and we got to cut you off right there. So okay. I'm gonna read closely that you're going to read this quote, though, we'll come back by a non ghire at us. And he wrote a great book that I've referenced about what's wrong with philanthropy, I'll put a link in the show notes. He said, which rich person or corporation has done more for old people than Social Security has, has done more for black people than the Civil Rights Act. And the Voting Rights Act has done more for women than suffrage. The idea that solving things through policy is inefficient is straight up corporate propaganda. Yes. So I pray that You sent me that. Yeah, I really think that what the main thing holding us back in the United States is civics and policy ignorance. And so you do keep advocating this idea that if you love yourself enough, the whole world will change. And that is important. That is important. But I'm like,

Anne Sherry 17:13
I didn't say oh, you can say and I'm not

Alison Cebulla 17:17
saying that. That's that we've been brainwashed to think that if we just work on ourselves enough, everything else will fall into place. And it's like, no, you need to go figure out how to change policies in your communities, in your state and in your nation. Agree each need to engage civically, you can't just, we can't just sit at home and meditate in a corner, right? Yep. Well, and that was the piece too, of just how we are. We see national news wise, remember, I

Anne Sherry 17:46
think we were talking about this last week or, but we you are overwhelmed by like fires and wherever or the horrible things that are happening in China, which you need to know about, I guess. But on some level, it's like, my little piece. It's not enough. I mean, it goes into that, that experience. I'm not enough. It's not enough, right? It's got to be worked out from both completely top down, bottom up processing top down would be civic policy, but like, the bottom up is like, who am I as a human? Do I have love in my heart, though? Do I give a shit about myself if I give a shit about myself truly, and love myself truly, that, to me feels like the engine to go to the city council meetings or to sit on a board or to you know, make your voice heard and say matters? Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 18:42
But I do. I do think we have this kind of thing that that feeds really heavily into our MLM culture. That's, like the culture of the secret, which is like if I just think it enough like that, that'll wrap Napoleon Hill or whatever thinking grow rich, he was a con artist, like historically, he was an actual con artist completely. And that book is bullshit. However, it's like still one of the top selling like on the top 10 best selling business books still, today, a con artist. That if you just think enough positive thoughts, you know, will come to you. It's also like kind of the karma teaching. It's the prosperity gospel teaching. And in public health, we talk about behavior change, and systems change. And we talk about attitudes, behaviors and skills. So to me, I think we don't focus enough on the skill part. I mean, the great attitudes and behaviors is kind of what you're talking about, like you need to actually love your neighbor. Right? Yeah. But do you have the skill set to work with a group of people to change a policy in your town?

Anne Sherry 19:46
zero chance of that, right? Yeah, yeah, no. I get it. I get it. A lot of shit needs to happen kind of quickly. And I think large As refer to that, I mean, she's the talking about the people that she's working with and the first generation college students and just what they're up against. Yeah. And she individually is saying, look, it's a system problem. I got you. This is how you can do it. There isn't shame in that. But just like she's that thing of like, where we get helping, like, they talk about babies falling over, you know, they're coming over a waterfall we get just completely like, Oh, I'm saving this baby and handed Right, right. It's the whole piece of like, what was whose pumpkins around the babies and the water, go get that motherfucker. So I think that's sort of, if we had those skills, then we would know to go upstream and do that on mass. So we're gonna lose when we do that, like, Who is this gonna?

Alison Cebulla 20:46
No one has literally no one is gonna lose because no one needs to have $36 billion in the bank just so

Anne Sherry 20:52
great. It's a hoarding disorder. It's

Alison Cebulla 20:54
an order.

Anne Sherry 20:56
Allah said we're in a fucking Colts. goddamn fucking calls.

Alison Cebulla 21:03
And on that note, here's an interview. Okay, the amazing Laura Hoffman. Okay. Keep telling you. All right. Welcome, Laura. This is Laura Hoffman. She is a career guidance counselor at San Diego Community College's college district in this in the San Diego area. And she has a master's degree in career counseling and and has been doing this work for a number of years and is also one of my best friends in the whole world. We met in theater in when I'm when I was a teenager. We actually met because we wanted to sing all the Eagles and journey songs and Phil Collins, the top of our lines. Yeah,

Anne Sherry 21:57
I'm so grateful for Spotify and alone time in the car like I Led Zeppelin. REO Speedwagon journey Boston, I went on. Blue Oyster Cult, huh. Reefer don't fear the fuck and Reaper and dark

Laura Hofmann 22:21
Godzilla? Well, I almost I almost lost my voice in the car. teaching myself the new adult single Yeah, I don't smoke, but it sounded like I had a smoker. So good.

Anne Sherry 22:45
Seeing at the top of our lungs when we can and my kid won't let me he's like

yeah, I'm just like,

Laura Hofmann 22:56
when I'm frustrated with the kids. Yeah, I'm frustrated with the kids. I actually make kind of like, these really strange showtune type songs. There'll be like fighting and I'm like, and if you don't stop fighting, I'm gonna run out of this house. And it's like a really kind. It's like a kinder way of just showing them about done here.

Anne Sherry 23:27
So when they're on our podcast when they're older, like Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 23:32
our kids

Anne Sherry 23:34
wouldn't really neglect. The show tunes came.

Alison Cebulla 23:41
Almost done.

Laura Hofmann 23:44
And Allison see how the theater it just stays with you. Yeah, that's great. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 23:49
So we're here to talk about parenting COVID COVID parenting, um, other issues, especially around how the pandemic has affected women, you know, who are moms. And so, you know, Laura, you've been texting me from the depths from the trenches, you know, just like, I know, we haven't talked in, in in, you know, six months, but just I'm barely surviving over here. I mean, like, I sent you a birthday present in the mail and you didn't open it for like two months.

Anne Sherry 24:25
Yeah. So, yeah, Laura, how old are your kids?

Laura Hofmann 24:32
They are 11 Just in middle school in sixth grade. And nine and seven. Okay. Three, three, on purpose. Oh,

Alison Cebulla 24:43
you did this to yourself. Okay.

Anne Sherry 24:44
The one I'm doing this right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But they can form a little gang against you. Right? Do they do their gang against each other against you? Which other Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, that doesn't help. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So we had done how how does we sort of starting as full Krista tippity isn't it we're getting we were going to ask about an embarrassing poop story

Alison Cebulla 25:16
we gotta learn from the best.

Anne Sherry 25:20
So we could get somewhere in there but some of it is like your your upbringing.

Alison Cebulla 25:25
Were you a latchkey? Do you identify with latch? Can you identify with urchin? Do you have your own thing?

Laura Hofmann 25:31
Yeah, yeah. And and Alison, the podcast. It's my new favorite podcast. So. So yeah, it really is. It's validating. It's perfect. It's exactly. I mean, I was definitely a latchkey. And I was like, right. In between the type of latchkey you were and and the type of latchkey Allison was because I was born in 79. Ah, that was like I was right at the tail end of the 80s or 90s. So, and I had two older brothers, and they were in charge of me and my little sister. And I think I was a typical latchkey child, and you all bring up amazing points about how you know, it wasn't necessarily our parents fault. They were part of a structure. Yes. And they had their own generational issues. My dad came from a very large Catholic family, seven children. And that's kind of like everyone just figured it out on their own amidst crushing religion. And then where was your dad and

Anne Sherry 26:29
the lineup of seven? Like,

Laura Hofmann 26:31
he was towards the end, like the last third? Yeah. And, and then my mom, I was saying, there's like alcoholism in that family. So that had an interesting piece. And then my mom's side, her mom died when she was 14. So her and her three siblings really had to it's a very old school family. Also alcoholism, they just had to kind of pick up where they left off and carry on. Right, very little parental interaction. And so my mom and dad had us very young. And there were four of us and we were born close together and my parents had no college education. And so set it set them up for having to basically work and never having enough money and just leave us at home. You know, older siblings would take care of the younger ones. And I love like the recipes, the latchkey recipes you all are talking about because the cinnamon toast happened

Anne Sherry 27:27
there was no internet.

Alison Cebulla 27:29
How did we know to do that? Like consciousness

Anne Sherry 27:35
showed me that because like your two are like our first Yeah, we had Yeah, we talked with another person who was like, oh, yeah, the cinnamon toast. I was like, did you catch the oven on fire? She's like, of course you know, like,

Laura Hofmann 27:47
yeah, and there was a show called Super sloppy Double Dare on Nickelodeon, which is like an obstacle course of messes. And we would do that in our house yeah, we would mix up like flour and water and food dye and eggs raw eggs. I mean, we would just plant things around the house and run around and make total disasters and clean it all up before my mom got home and then chain one

Anne Sherry 28:15
and think to shit man, right? Yeah.

Laura Hofmann 28:18
And say yes, a vinegar. Yeah. Yeah, by the gallon of vinegar i

Anne Sherry 28:29
Oh, my God. Yes. Yes. Did

Alison Cebulla 28:31
you I wouldn't recommend any other latchkey meals. Anything we can include in our cookbook?

Laura Hofmann 28:36
It was a lot of ramen. Yes.

Alison Cebulla 28:40
Ramen Noodles the question to ask everybody. Oh, you didn't like it? I didn't like the ramen. Okay, okay. Okay.

Anne Sherry 28:46
My kid loves ramen. That's one of the few celebrar new foods he'll eat Yeah, yeah

Laura Hofmann 28:53
90 days but that piece

Anne Sherry 28:54
of like growing up with so much our own entertainment and then having children you have three I have the one but Tom and I can get so like, oh, I have to entertain or be with them or like can they not figure out a Nickelodeon type entertain entertainment for themselves? I mean, there's this this pressure I think on when you grow up like having to have done all the stuff yourself that like then you're supposed to this not good enough? Is my kid reading at the right time? are they writing or why is this handwriting or? And is sort of being lost around? Like good enough parent how to get to the good enough parenting? So I don't even know if that's a question.

Laura Hofmann 29:38
I think I'm okay with that. I think yeah, my master's it's actually it's an education but it's counseling guidance for hire you Yeah. And I spent over 10 years with preschool and elementary school and I love education. I volunteer at my children's school. I love that and so I've always been very involved in purposely entertaining them, you know taking them places. is setting up activities like buying books and all this sort of thing, which I think is like the traditional, like, you want to make up for what you didn't get. And so I want them to have enriched lives. And I think I want to be involved, I only work part time I want to be with them, and I want to give them the things that I didn't have. And one thing is, and this does kind of connect to pandemic is child care during the pandemic, I am not okay, because of I would say, you know, physical, verbal, even sexual abuse that happened to me by people that I was basically left with as a child. I don't want to go into like deep detail, but it happens if you don't leave your children with the right people, especially for girls, it things are gonna happen.

Alison Cebulla 30:45
Yeah. That on this before? Absolutely, yeah.

Laura Hofmann 30:48
So I have been just very vigilant. And in terms of being a helicopter parent, I'm not a helicopter parent about academics. I'm a helicopter parent about, you know, sexual abuse, bullying, I don't want those things to happen to my children. So I'm with them, I watched them, and I will be with them and watching them all the way through high school, you know, again, to a point like, I want to give them those pieces of freedom that are a bit more organized or structured, where I say, Okay, I'm going to drop you off and pick you up. And I want to give it to them, but within kind of safe, safe boundaries, if that makes sense. So I think I focus more on that I want them to grow up without experiencing some of the things that I experienced because it changes your whole life. Completely. Yeah, absolutely. And going to college, I was first generation and I want them to struggle less because I always worked through college, but I want them to be able to just focus on school or maybe work part time and maybe learn about saving money instead of spending every last dime on you know a can of beans for dinner. Yeah, right in that case. In that case, might somebody latchkey recipes persisted through college?

Anne Sherry 32:04
No doubt I think that Yeah, cuz I can remember going to the ATM like praying that $5 was in there. Like you can't take out $5 Now, right?

Alison Cebulla 32:15
When I lived in Asheville, I used to take a calculator to the grocery store with me because it would be so embarrassing. Did this ever happen? Guys? When you get up there, and your debit card, it wouldn't it wouldn't approve the thing like you didn't have enough money and you had to like decide really quick and everyone's aligned behind you like what you're gonna put back? Yeah. So I would take a calculator with me this is before we had smartphones. And just as I was going, like, make sure that it was all good. I had the money in the account. Yeah,

Laura Hofmann 32:42
yes. Yeah. To light, the delight at the gas station and the delight at the grocery store after getting a college education. It it never goes away. Like I'm delighted every time I'm like, it's amazing. I get what I need. I thought I don't.

Anne Sherry 33:01
Yes, yeah. Just being able to buy and like, yeah, some of that. Yeah, but there is your way, Laura, that little piece of you know, August. I don't know, the kids asking for something and my immediate tends to be almost a no, we can't afford that. Or I don't know, just this because it was we just had this discussion about layaway, you know, as a kid. I don't know. Like, if

Laura Hofmann 33:27
we did lay layaway. So good. Yeah. Oh my gosh, talk about shame. You guys talk about shame a lot. Yeah, yeah, there is total shame. That came from knowing that our parents didn't have money. And yet they had to buy us clothes, they had to buy a shoe.

Alison Cebulla 33:41
Same or, yeah, some of the biggest tantrums in my household were we know that when we just had like a school project where I'd be like, I have to, I have to have a costume for this thing, or I have to buy a thing for my class. And the money wasn't there. And that's where like, the childhood emotional neglect stuff has roots in economic economics. Because if you can't buy the thing they need, there's a problem in your household all of a sudden, you know,

Anne Sherry 34:12
right, right, right. And all the companion kids are not necessarily kind to each other at school, or I asked August about that actually, because, I mean, what maybe we're not there but he is just he does not care. I was like I brought you some shoes home and I was at Target like, you know, like, is he gonna like these black shoes, you know, their tennis shoes. I don't know if that goes with you know, wondering like just assuming there's gonna be something around that and he's like, cool, you know, really literally doesn't care. Yeah, I don't know what that age. I don't know.

Alison Cebulla 34:46
Social emotional learning now may be so their

Anne Sherry 34:49
social and emotional learning that they're not going to beat each other up about that or I don't know if that's normal, or I don't know why I'll

Alison Cebulla 34:57
never forget the time that I showed up. up to seventh or eighth grade with and so I was in seventh and eighth grade in the late 90s. And happy faces, we're having a big comeback, you know. And so I had this really cool happy face shirt. It was like a little patent leather happy face in the middle with like a rainbow strike. And it was such a cool shirt. And I wore to school and I was so proud of my cute shirt. You know, I'm like a little 13 year old and someone said, Wow, you finally got a cool shirt for once.

Laura Hofmann 35:28
Oh, oh, sorry. You know what you have made up

Alison Cebulla 35:38
your wardrobe these

Laura Hofmann 35:39
days, you have great fashion sense and

Alison Cebulla 35:43
trauma, it's

Anne Sherry 35:43
because of the trauma you buy. Yes, sometimes trauma leads you to dressing really nice as an adult.

Laura Hofmann 35:50
I remember you both were talking on a different episode of like, you first have to escape certain layers of trauma, to then be able to rebel against it. Because even rebelling against it or rejecting it is a luxury. You have to first escape it. Yeah. Right. And I feel that a lot because yeah, with my children, because now they don't have to suffer in a lot of ways that I did. I actually have a bigger menu of like, what suffering Should I save them from? Right? Like, you don't want to save all of it. Be entitled? Yeah, yeah, adults, but you're like, I want to save them from most of it. So like, Where's the light of? Right? Yeah, cuz

Alison Cebulla 36:28
Tom was talking about that in in the episode. I'm your husband and like letting your kids experience like that? Because he what he calls the what did you call it? Chill the fuck out parenting? Yeah. Like, let,

Anne Sherry 36:44
that's my title, actually. But whatever.

Alison Cebulla 36:46
He owned it as well. Okay. Um, yeah, yeah, that

Anne Sherry 36:52
does make me say inferring is the engine of change, right is one of his sayings that like a certain amount of suffering, you know, and like, I don't know, just. And that's a form of, of love to actually be like, the other day, honestly, sitting at the table. Like, we're like, oh, yeah, we forgot, like cursive writing is important or something. And he is just losing his mind sitting at the table, like sitting there, and no one sat with us to do I mean, I don't know how our homework got done. It was like really, truly up to you. Like, there was no monitoring of that I can remember. I don't know, having a poetry something due in third grade. I hadn't written a poem all all semester, or whatever it was, I'm like, eight. And it's the night before. This is like the beginning of my procrastination. Or maybe I always, I don't know, if it's everything, everything is not my fault. But just like, I don't know, like losing my mind to have to write 20 poems the night before, I still have that poetry workbook. Like and I'm just like, This is shit. You know, at least it's written in cursive, but he can't handle him. I mean, he's just like, why is cursive exist? So that just really be able to sit and just be like, ah, yeah, of course. It's hard. Hmm. Your brain is fine. Fine. Like, ah, and that Tom and I are texting each other. I'm like, how am I doing isn't going, okay? He's like, what you do? It's great, you know, but I'm just not. I'm just like your desk, you've got, you're gonna do this. So if

Alison Cebulla 38:26
you do have a few bit, but if

Anne Sherry 38:28
you do, it's that constant giving in or, like, Oh, God, I can't tolerate that this child is suffering. So let's, it's okay. And they will take you up on that. You know, they were his. Yeah, his negotiation like today for swim practice. He was like, I really don't think Sunday, you know, I'm already gone three days, and I was like, you're going because you don't want to go. Shit. Yeah, I like that, like, kind of build some of that resilience. So

Laura Hofmann 38:56
yeah, because that was a luxury to even have extracurriculars. So I thought the people who went to boys and girls club were wealthy. When I was a child, they are rolling in the dough after Right, right? Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 39:12
Oh my god. I remember after school program I spent an elementary school spent my life at an after school program my whole life. Yeah, that's what my brother was like, because you know, I'm sharing with my brother about the podcast. He's like, I don't really remember being at home ever but we just always always always were at these stupid you know, and they were very lonely these after school programs. Just sitting in like a big cafeteria hall like a big empty cafeteria hall like doing your homework, you know, waiting for your parents to remember to come pick you up.

Laura Hofmann 39:48
I know that now. Allison. I know now as an adult what they really are. But when I was growing up, it was like anything except your two older brothers watching you and constantly they would like fight Yes, yeah, it was a disaster. And also talking about food. The kids who if I somehow made it to their house, very rare because my mom didn't really let us go to people's houses, and they would open an after school snack drawer. And there would be specifically processed, usually fruit snacks, fruit rolls, granola bars. Oh, my God, I was floored. And they would say, Do you want one? And I'd be like, I mean, yes. And where do you want another one? And how many can I ask? Because, like, my mom, we didn't eat healthy, but we ate inexpensively, like big, huge bags of oranges. Which nothing wrong with an orange. But well, when you're in elementary school, and I would love a fruit roll, right? Yes,

Anne Sherry 40:48
completely. Well, does. I think I talked before it those were the kids that, you know, I would like seek out i My friends were only the ones. That's how I picked my friends. Like who had good snacks because there was like shit, and yeah, well, we weren't there was. I mean, why they couldn't, I think there was a cost factor. But it also like nothing would last you know, it was it was like we were fucking termites or something. Like, just like, it was all gone. My mouse like, Brian, you guys anything? Why? Because there's no one there to monitor it. But yeah, I also remember that like, that big ol snack thing. And then I would not be invited back. Because I wouldn't ask like how many I could have. I would just be like, let's eat all of them. You know, that's fine.

Laura Hofmann 41:38
Here's, here's a complex person.

Anne Sherry 41:42
It does. It does. Yeah, yeah.

Alison Cebulla 41:45
So but I do want to ask, I do want to ask Laura about what it's like, to parents right now, you know, during COVID. And the stress that that has put on your career and how that's kind of universal to a lot of women right now. And this has been something that that's been a little bit of a struggle, and maybe that you've been grieving, you know, the past year and a half.

Laura Hofmann 42:15
Yeah, and I keep thinking that I am lucky. I'm actually one that has a master's degree. And I actually worked for I worked for Miramar College. And my supervisor and the assistant dean are very flexible with me, they have been all three years and even more so during the pandemic. Because I was remote, and I was doing remote school with three children. It was each day felt impossible. And each week, I felt for sure, I'd have to quit my job. This is a week where I have to quit my job. But I just kept, you know, I keep the lines of communication open with my supervisors. But usually it's people who have an education, who can claim that kind of flexibility at work or have the ability to work remotely. If you're a service provider, you need to be in person doing that work. And so it's very clear that this experience of the pandemic was not the same for everyone. There are plenty of people who were able to pay or had family who had more help than me, but I focus on the gratitude that I have. It was really hard, hardest part of parenting I've done yet. But I know that there are people who had it much harder than me. And I I was I feel like grieving because I'm a career counselor, I saw what happened to people's careers all around. And I think I grieved collectively, for what was happening, especially with kids at home. You don't know who they're with? Who's watching them. Again, I have like trauma associated with that, right? Watching these kids. Yeah. Besides whether they're learning, right? A lot of kids just didn't learn because no one no one was helping them navigate online learning or they needed help, but there was no one to help them. But even just like who was watching those kids, what they were exposed to, and were they being treated kindly and well and loving, or did a mom or dad who just needed to work needed to show up to work, had to clock in, needed that money, couldn't call in sick, you know, have to just thrust their child at whoever could watch them that day. And if it was consistent, and so I think I felt that I went into this pandemic, just knowing too much about the possibilities right. And I think that did make me the gratitude that I felt for where I was at and just knowing this could be so much worse. Kept me It kept me going. And I'm very fortunate because my husband, he's the primary wage earner. So I didn't have to worry about if I did have to quit my job. I didn't worry about advancement. I'm where I want to be in my career and I wasn't going to lose That advancement, but I know that that happened to a lot of people. And they had to make really hard choices. One thing I want to mention too, is having a perspective because my husband is from Argentina. He grew up wealthier than I did. He was upper class, socioeconomically and I was poor. So it was interesting. Just even though he comes from a third world country, he had more resources growing up and more financial stability. And then going into this pandemic, kind of in reverse, Argentina was hit very hard with the pandemic, and they did not have as an economy, they didn't have the kind of the infrastructure, they needed to even roll out vaccination. So their economy was already struggling, and it got even worse. So having these perspectives of just how much worse it could be, it makes you grateful for what you have and what you're able to hold on to. So I'm not saying it wasn't hard, it was incredibly hard. But I, I've always had a lot of gratitude. So it kind of keeps me going.

Anne Sherry 46:06
Yeah. People had to draw on so much to just like, get, you know, as a therapist, to trying to like support people I it didn't stop, you know, this thing hit. And then it was like, therapists could go online, there was no, you know, people being like, I'm gonna make sourdough bread, and I'm gonna, you know, all this

Alison Cebulla 46:30
day, you know, for those of us who don't have kids,

Anne Sherry 46:34
my mom and two, she had just had surgery. And at that point, you know, it was like, Oh, God, everybody's gonna get get this thing and we don't know who's gonna live. So I had, you know, so I had that. It was, ah, yes, gratitude and had a husband there, we both you know, so the, the monetary piece, but just the, that being run ragged all day, you know, and being with each other and caring for an older person that was, you know, it was kinda like, I'm glad I can do this. But like, I don't know, I didn't know how to do that. And she had a lot a lot of needs at that point. So there was this like, that gratitude, yet at the same time having to hold space for your own exhaustion as your own. So it was just this strange. So many things happening all day long. And it was just sort of like trying to balance that I think as well and also laying there just how we need to restructure our societies to like Allison, what you were talking about was we're in this for five years, you know, or more, we need a five year plan. So we really I hope that we stay focused on no we have to have some level of childcare or paying people to take care of elder people in there you know, why aren't we paying that was in one of the bills right to the the plans that is getting whittled down by Christmas whatever the cinema mansions Joe Manchin President mansion and vice president cinema why aren't we paying people to take care of their elderly relatives, their moms, their dads elderly you know, like it is a real job to care for somebody and there is obviously enough money in the economy to do so. So it to me it plays into that just severe neglect in this extremely wealthy country if

Alison Cebulla 48:41
your cultural conduct level Yeah, we do not care about human beings we do not want anyone to be able to care for and nurture your children your elderly, your own selves we do not want this

Laura Hofmann 48:55
you're there to produce to produce contribute and once you fall away from that ability then best of luck to you

Anne Sherry 49:04
this is why I really digging I don't know what exactly how but the fact that lower wage earner there's a there's a revolt, I mean, essentially a strike is occurring,

Alison Cebulla 49:15
like you know, how are they doing? How are they doing?

Anne Sherry 49:18
I don't know but but the all the places where we expect you know, why do I have to wait so long in this drive thru? Or why are they closing like, oh my god, they're closing at nine o'clock or nobody wants to work and it's like, no, we're not gonna be treated like shit in that way. So I don't know how people are staying away. But I'm, if I could contribute to a GoFundMe or whatever, like somehow to like, encourage that, but they're having to these corporations are having to restructure and say, No, we'll give you benefits will pay you more and it's like, oh, you really needed a pandemic to make people give something you know, and

Alison Cebulla 49:57
have I made you both listen to pitchfork economics. Yeah, far some veteran some don't. Yeah. That my life yeah, those are my ones that I'm obsessed with. But pitchfork is saying that everything that you think you know about economics and I took economics 101 And we learned a bunch of bullshit and they deconstruct it and it's a guy who's an almost billionaire. So he's he has all this money and he's like, I can only buy so many pairs of pants. Like I this money is not helping America to just sit in my bank account like I can't we have to redistribute the wealth. Nick Hanauer is the name of the host. And I his podcast is so so so good at helping me undo the brainwashing that I learned about it's like the the wealthy people like they're the ones that create like the Fox News that disseminates all the brainwashing stuff about how the all the the ways of the economy that definitely doesn't work to think that oh, no, you trickle down. People at the top should they earned it CEO pay should be a million times you know what labor pay is. But what they keep coming back to you in the interview, every expert imaginable is that increased wages, and decreasing that disparity between what that person at the top makes and what the person at the bottom makes will solve everything? And there's proof?

Anne Sherry 51:20
Yeah, Laura from from a career counseling, I would love to hear like, do you? Are you able to, like, either suss out like, like what's like, I guess somebody's childhood emotional neglect? Not that I know, from a counseling perspective, you've been sure you can feel some of that. But just as you're helping people kind of step into like, who they are, what they want to do, like, how do you? How do you address that with them or, or just know it internally. And, again,

Laura Hofmann 51:55
a lot of a lot of that. I want I want to go back and mention something about what you were just talking about? Is that what they're calling what you're talking about? It's called The Great resignation? And it's yeah, it's so in August 2021, there is a record high of 4.3 million workers that quit their jobs. And that's the highest monthly total since December of 2000. And

Anne Sherry 52:22
that's not employment, it's like, I'm quitting my job. It's almost another metric that's really important to pay attention to.

Laura Hofmann 52:29
Yes. And, yeah, 1.8 million of those people are women. And there's many, many reasons why they are either quitting their jobs or not returning to work. Yeah, it's complicated. It's childcare. It's the pay the risk you take on the health care, the mental health piece, you know, being seen as a as a disposable object of productivity, you know, there's a lot of things I know, I, everybody went back to campus, and it took me six more weeks to go back to campus because of childcare issues. Yeah, school opening or closing COVID regulations that kept them home and quarantine, you're on not gets

Alison Cebulla 53:11
us our runny nose, you got to come get your kid. That's right. And

Laura Hofmann 53:15
then they get the test in their home for three days. And with three children, it you know, it multiplies. And then they have different days off. And again, I'm one who has a master's, and a good job, and an understanding supervisor and Dean and a husband who works full time. But imagine what that does to families who do not have those safeguards. You they quit, I almost. And that is a big thing of what's happening. So it's interesting that you're talking about career counseling right now, because people want to work and they oftentimes cannot, they cannot find a way logistically to make that work right now, because of mostly children. Their children are not fully back yet at school, or there's these closures still happening or they're home. And some of them, the wages don't warrant the cost of childcare. It kind of just breaks the equation. And also College. The enrollment numbers are very low for college. So talking about people wanting to get an education and finish college or transfer. They're kind of they've turned the button on pause, hopefully pause and knock off as far as that goes. And that's because of this crushing experience. And I think we talked about collective trauma, societal trauma. Children know when they're not being cared for adults surely know when they're not being cared for. And so I think collectively as a workforce, we know when we're not being taken care of. And I think that's reflected in people's willingness to or even ability or wherewithal to somehow make this all work. And so everybody's experiencing trauma right now. And that is reflected in when I'm doing my counseling because I don't want to say people are giving up. But they're, they're frozen. If anything, they're taking a step back. They're saying, You know what, I'm going to drop a class or two, or you know what I'm taking a semester off. And usually when I give different job opportunities, and see I found something's amazing, you know what I'm gonna wait, because things are really tricky right now with my kids, and I'm not gonna bite off more than I can chew. And then in terms of going way back to positive and adverse childhood experiences. That is almost a whole other podcast episode. The way that comes into play, but the short answer is yes. And I myself use education to escape like I told Alison about this saying that I call escape velocity, education and books were my way of escaping into a better life for myself, financially, mentally. And my purpose of being at a community college is because I went to a community college and transferred, and I am there to serve and help other people do the same, because I know it's so ticket out. And for people of color, first generation DACA, recipients, dreamers, immigrants, single mothers. Yes, they have been through some things, and the pandemic has reopened wounds and retriggered in so many ways and re traumatize, but in my little small part time, you know, me fighting to even be able to show up, I'm also fighting because I know that I can be there for those people too, and help them on their journey. So if they show up, I'm there to help them and, and motivate them and to normalize what we're all feeling and to normalize and validate what they went through. And to really be an example to them of what is possible. So I am not a person of color. I'm a white, middle aged woman, I did have plenty of adverse childhood experiences. And I made it through and I definitely am there to support them. And that's why it's so important that aces change their name to paces because it's also positive. And it's about knowing maybe what you're up against, and knowing that there are lots of supports to overcome that.

Alison Cebulla 57:21
Yeah. Really quick, just so I work. Laura is referring to the company that I work for, which is called paces connection, we communicate the health science of positive and adverse childhood experiences. And Laura did an awesome talk for us last year about racial equity and career paths that I'll share in the show notes. It's an amazing, it's on YouTube. What if you're a person of color? What do you need to be thinking about, especially in your career? And what obstacles are you up against? So it was a it was a really brilliant talk? So it's, it's really amazing that you could be there for your students in that way?

Anne Sherry 57:54
Absolutely. Yeah. Because there's that again, that just even private counseling, like, it's only, I don't know, in the last couple of years, maybe that I've said, Hey, we had to think about this the structure that we're in, you know, because people go into the literal opposite. What's wrong with me? Why can't I keep up what you know? And it's like that it's such a breath of fresh air, or puts a new lens on it to say, look out there. It's a shit show. Everything that

Alison Cebulla 58:27
ran against you, it's red.

Anne Sherry 58:31
So there isn't a whole, you know, so it sounds like, Oh, God, then there's nothing I can do. I can create this helplessness or something. But just the acknowledgement, I find that people will be like, Oh, it's not all me. There's just like, immediately some level of compassion or let me fight you know, it, it gets people I think out of the frozen lore, I think you're you're right, that people are like, Oh, God, this is impossible.

Alison Cebulla 58:55
Possible. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 58:57
And just again, growing up with that neglect piece, we often are like, don't tell anybody don't say anything. Don't ask for help, you know, all the nutty ways that we learned to to organize ourselves around that. It's just like, stay right here. And yeah, you're just you're not going to be one of the ones that makes it because you're you're not strong enough, good enough, whatever, and that all that narrative crap. So

Laura Hofmann 59:22
and I actively push back against that resilience narrative. I'm like, let's just debunk that. Because that really assumes a lot that I don't think it's fair to assume about people. And it's not about resilience. It really puts that back on the person and there's a fine line there because you want them to know that they're empowered and that they are capable of overcoming a lot. Yeah, that resilience kind of goes back to that bootstraps mentality of like, you just kind of power through you just kind of power through. Right? That's right. Yeah. It's in service of resilience. What if you completely break down and you never Go back and you never signed back up for a class. So I talked more about plans, short term plans, long term plans, systems, and things that feel more in control. Yeah, for each person and, and allowing people to take those breaks without shame. Yeah, but this this break or take, you know, taking one less class is maybe the best thing you can do for yourself right now. And as long as you have a plan for what you'll do next, and you will come back and you will finish and this doesn't have to be the end for you or to show that you're weak or not resilient enough, you know, this is you actually being smart and assessing the situation and what you're able to do.

Anne Sherry 1:00:39
Yeah, totally, I love that, like that manageable stuff. Because if you get into that dynamic, I'm gonna finish college by this time or, or, or what, you know, it's just but like, it's okay to make Well, we're just gonna make some adjustments. Okay, like, you know, so it's like, it's that that that part of that Timo Coons, a white supremacy culture, it's like that it is focusing on like success, or you meet your goals or, you know, goal oriented rather than, like, what about if we just make some adjustments? You know, what if we just have a deep trust that you will, we're lacking that kind of trust, peace, you know, that internal trust, so to have people remind us, like, I trust you, I trust you. Let me sit side by side here with you, which is not an experience, you got a lot if you your parents weren't around, or you know, a figure, like where August is like, breaking, he probably went through five pencils, you know, I like I trust you'll learn to do cursive writing and writing, but I really trust that you're gonna get there, you know, that feels like

I know, I know. Yeah. But I mean, we have to, again, in a two parent household, Tom and I can tag out I mean, Tom will be in the other room, I'm sorry, people who really liked his spot. And think he's this super calm, chill parent. We're not, you know, we're just, you know, but he will be like breaking his glasses, because August will just take him to the limit. And then we can tag out. So in a single parent household? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's really I don't know, if you that inability, like hashtag, oh, just take a break? Well, what if you can't, you know, it's like, so there's Yeah, just to say that it's almost an impossible task to single I really, almost couldn't think about it during the pandemic, like, what does a single parent with multiple children do? What are they doing right now? You know,

Laura Hofmann 1:02:54
there's there's no time for pauses to nurture their socio emotional learning and have over difficult, you know, emotional regulation and frustration tolerance. No, it's like, we got to go out the door, because I got to get to childcare, I'm going to be late, my boss said one more time, and everybody has to live under that. And then on the flip side, when we're talking about the college student, sitting in front of me or zooming happy, if they also didn't get that luxury of being given that time to pause, breathe, reassess your okay. Yeah, that is something that we can give them and kind of try to fight back against some of that productivity culture that exists in America. It's like a very industrialized productivity feature. And it doesn't give people time to be human. But I am seeing a change in the schools with more advanced social emotional learning. And I am seeing it change in workplaces with you know, mental health days and personal days, like written into the guidelines, I am seeing it change and so any, any role I can play at the college level, and as they're working through classes, and truly speaking from experience, I, I show myself to my students, you know, men, women, old young parents, not parents, I need them where they're at, and I show and I'm vulnerable with myself and my journey. Because I will never uphold a power dynamic that I'm any better than them just because I made it through. I remember. Yeah, I want to be really with them where they're at and help them through and it feels so rewarding. And so good to do that. And to you know, attempt. I know parenting is not easy, but I attempt to do that with my kids. And Allison knows, I call her and it's like, Am I doing this right? For the love of God, this is so hard. And I've told her so many times when you come from adverse childhood experiences or childhood emotional neglect and kind of parenting yourself just surviving by the seat of your pants. It's really hard to learn quick enough like I needed I needed to learn everything I know as of today, before I had kids, and constantly trying to build the plane while I'm flying. And I'm like, I gotta get ahead of this. I don't want to be working through my crap. While I'm trying to help them successfully navigate child Alton, I think I think I'm doing an okay job like a good enough job, which is the goal, right?

Anne Sherry 1:05:05
Yeah, totally. And I do think it's just as you were talking about being with your students, I mean, to give ourselves that, I mean, I think we can even say to our kids, I've never been a parent, you know, I am figuring this out as I go. So I could use, I could use you guys like a little bit of compassion or space, or, I mean, there's an appropriate amount to share. Do you know, like, I think, bringing kids in, I think parents can get sort of that investment or oversharing. But also just like, look, we're in a community together, you know, yes, I have some of the power. But we're doing this together. So that that peace of being as authentic as you can, and you can still hold boundaries, or they can be safe. But I mean, that was for me. I don't know what my parents were thinking about talking about. Nothing was shared.

Laura Hofmann 1:05:59
I think that that's, that is something we can all give to our kids. And it's part of their resilience and their growth, and hopefully, their gratitude as well. And yeah, I definitely don't think we're serving anyone. If we act like we're better than even our children like the apology, some parents will not apologize to their children. Oh, yeah, I apologize at a time all the time. I'm so sorry. I was I was tired. I was in a bad mood. I didn't mean to shout or, you know, I didn't mean to sound impatient, or, you know, or, you know, can we say that till later, I'm, like, exhausted, just let me get in the house, get the groceries out. And then we can chat. Because you give us something to hold on to? We can revisit it today or?

Anne Sherry 1:06:40
Yeah. Well on it, then you're, again, you're a human to I think if our parents are like, you know, these these like, oh, exactly. Yeah, you're demonstrating like, No, I also have needs or I we can negotiate this or we can come to and I think it builds compassionate case, actually, I find August like so such a nice person who thinks about others. I'm like, I never thought about others. When I was a kid, it was just me out for myself. Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 1:07:10
I've been thinking about whether authoritarian family structures at home have what have led us to like the society that we have, I know, it's like a chicken and egg thing that all fastened together. But like, then people leave their homes. And they really think that there's this person or a couple of people at the top, or parents or whatever, or the Catholic Church or something that should tell us all what to be doing and what to be thinking that we need to follow that. And then we get into different things where we get taken advantage of in the workspace, because we're really just doing what we're told from whoever's at top like, we just are so power ignorant, because this thing is like, put into us from a young age to just blindly obey. And then we get out in the world. And there's all these power struggles happening all the time. And as women that could manifest as sexual assault or sexual harassment at the office, and for people of all kinds that could be getting caught and taken advantage of not understanding that you could ask for more pay there. I mean, there's like a million examples of how power shows up and how people get taken advantage of. But, um, I feel that it starts at home with like, what kind of parenting Did you see? Like, did your parents make you believe that they were like the ultimate authority and that everything else was wrong? Or were you in like, you guys are trying to parent or do our parenting? Like, you're part you're part of that we're all part of the family here. Like we all have some power. Right.

Anne Sherry 1:08:39
But did you experience or?

Laura Hofmann 1:08:42
Definitely authoritarian it was? I mean, we were spanked for sure. And it was we were too afraid to disobey or question. And we would never have been like, why the fear base? Or we wouldn't we would never have negotiated. It was like the first answer was the last answer at the end. And obviously, I'm doing it completely different. And sometimes when my husband and I are I chat with my friends, and I'm like, lamenting, like how I mean, my children are all very independent, fiercely independent. I mean, they are all going to be I mean, they're argumentative, in a good way, like and sometimes not always a good way. But it's like, sometimes when I'm talking to my friends or family about how they are, they're like, Well, you you created the beast, because you gave them the autonomy from the time they were little, and you gave them choices and you let them know their strength. You let them know their power. And honestly, even though it makes parenting so much harder to do it that way. You know, positive parenting, respectful parenting, parenting from the inside out, you know, all this. Yeah. So it's the long route. It's not the shortcut. It's the long route and that's why it's sometimes if you don't have that luxury, you don't even have the luxury of parenting at that pace. Because you have to make it happen. And if you happen quickly with that, so yes, or like, Yeah, I'm gonna get in the car. I'm gonna spank your butt. There's no time for those rich conversations about why and well can I negotiate? No. And so that's why it's the long route. But for as far as I'm concerned, the kinder, safer, more human centered route. But as a parent, truly, especially when you didn't, you were not modeled that it's really exhausting. But what I want to say is, in the end, I will never regret it, because I see tiny peeks of the how the investment is paying off, and at the expense of my gray hairs, and then kind of constantly thinking everything is open for discussion, but I would not, but I would not change it for the world. Yeah, I would not change the world. Like it's killing me slowly. But I'm, I'm willing, you know, they're gonna go out in the world so strong, no one's gonna take advantage of them. Like they're gonna like, I finally got some boundaries about my own family talking about family systems. Like I finally got some boundaries like this last year, because of Trump. And me too, I finally just made some really strong boundaries with my own family. It felt amazing, it was liberating. And I'm 42. So I'm like, I don't want my children to wait till they're 42 to have necessarily strong boundaries. And I don't want the boundaries, they learned to have to come at such a painful cost. And so I'm giving them shortcuts. And like I said, about working at the college, I like to give my students shortcuts like, everybody have an easier time than I had an hour I can do that. So So yeah, it is. It's a wild ride, though. And as you know, if you, if you try to do it that way, you gotta be ready for some, oh,

Alison Cebulla 1:11:36
I have some

Anne Sherry 1:11:37
negotiation, right? What is that little piece and we're actually okay with August using the F word. Not as liberally as I do, but he, and I can't I don't know if I've shared this on the podcast or not, but like, hid the story where I was doing a self like parenting move, you know, like, something went awry around him. He got past the point of hunger and like, I was like, Oh, he's really, really upset. I need to show up for him and tell him you know, like, it was very mechanical of like, no one. Like, when I was really angry, I just disappeared. People pretended I didn't exist, you know, and I would just scream myself until I passed out. And then so I was like, I'm just going to August, I'm right here for you, you know, I'm holding space, but in he had told me like, just leave me the fuck alone. Like, I just so passed right now. And I was like, Oh, I get this. It doesn't mean really leave him alone. It means common, you know, but I was completely parenting from my wound. And he got up in my face. And he was like, you know, what is so fucking annoying about having fucking therapists for parents? Because he won't fucking leave me alone when I tell you. And I was like, he stays right. He is so right. He was called it exactly what I was doing. He called me on my shit, you know? And I was goodness, like, in a place of like, Oh, that's right. I am parenting from what I needed. You know, and I've got a securely attached kid that's like, says I want space and give him some damn space. You know? So I was like, Oh, I gotta be in there folding clothes. And certainly he like, you know, crawled into the closet and was like, continued to berate me of how terrible of a person I was, and how shitty I was at everything, and blah, blah. I was like, Oh, God, that's a lot, you know, and I'm just gonna keep folding clothes. You still want space? You know? And then, and then it just he found me. I just needed to hold this, like strong sense of self. Might just be like, Yeah, and I let him come to me. But it was and there was repair. Yeah, I love that he can do and I've gotten caught on him saying the F word one or him yelling at me. Oh, he was or the emotionality of it and said, You don't talk to me that way. I mean, granted, I've been studying therapy for a long time, and I was able to see what was happening, but it was like a really cool experience of like, I was doing what I didn't get, you know, and I think we just that's sort of parenting on the fly Laura of like, healing my shit. And being able to have a nice interaction of like, oh, I it's not killing. It's not upsetting me that he's upset with me. I didn't Yes, I did something wrong. I fucking did something wrong. I gave him what I needed. I was okay. Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 1:14:29
I want to interject just that. A professional acquaintance of mine wrote a really cool children's book called bad day. And it's an award winning children's book. A heartening Her name is Ruby Roth gives us a heartening story of a little boy who's had a bad day and just need some quiet space to work out his feelings his own way on his own time.

Laura Hofmann 1:14:53
Oh my god, and in contrast, and because I that example was so beautiful like my kids do not cuss. We He set some boundaries of like, maybe when they're older, they could cut this, I'm actually okay with it. And sometimes I do cut. But yeah. But everything else is a perfect example of how we have to work so hard. I'm talking about us as a parent to undo and assess, like, I don't want this to be my stuff, but I gotta do this, right. And you described it perfectly. And also, I have to say, like, it does not do justice, the way you described it, about how hard it is to do that. So I just have to say, bravo, bravo. And, I mean, that is the gist of my life.

Anne Sherry 1:15:36
The career peace, I'm just, I'm just soaking this up the way that the lens that you have on that I'm just, yeah, and how to sort of be in that place of, from a childhood emotional neglect lens to do the career pieces, just so you know, because I think of that as, let's just give you a battery of tests, and oh, you're good at this. So that's what you should be doing. That's sort of how I've like experienced career stuff, you know, like, go be in your this quadrant, go do that somehow, you know, and I'm just loving that. I don't know the authenticity that you're bringing to it is and sharing your story. And being a model is just like, phenomenal.

Laura Hofmann 1:16:20
Thank you, because career is a huge part of our day. And it's a huge part of our ability to live our livelihood. Yeah. Yeah, infiltrates, how and who we can be to our loved ones in so many ways, like symbolically and actually, like physically and mentally, how can we show up for them or not? After a day of work? There is a lot that goes into it. And I'm really I'm really, like, it's the right field for me for sure.

Anne Sherry 1:16:49
Yay. Well, Laura, thanks

Alison Cebulla 1:16:51
for sharing like your experience during COVID. I love the lens, because you talk about how grateful you are. And yet you're also someone who is able to be really honest about what you're feeling and what you're going through. So thanks for kind of modeling that really good balance that like it is actually important to do both like you want to you want to say like wow, today really sucked. But then you also do want to say like, well, what am I grateful for? Because I find like if I just do the feeling stuff without the gratitude, I hate my life. Yeah, you don't want to do the toxic positivity and just like it's great. It's great. It's great. It's like you want to do both. And I think that yeah, really good job of holding space for both. I really admire about you.

Laura Hofmann 1:17:31
Thank you. I actually want it to be toxic ly positive my whole life and I never could do it. But I just kept waiting. And now Now I'm invoking my ability to be toxically positive.

Alison Cebulla 1:17:46
So, thank you so so so much, and

Laura Hofmann 1:17:50
thank you for having me. It's super fun. Yeah, so good

Anne Sherry 1:17:53
to see you, Laura. 15 years later, and you're single and taken Allison away, or did you bring her to ash? Oh, yes. What a mess.

Laura Hofmann 1:18:05
Yeah, I had just met my husband and then we got married.

Alison Cebulla 1:18:08
Yeah, yeah, another time. Another time. Yeah, God. Yeah, you both okay. Yes. Love you. Thank you. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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Episode 8: Where the F*ck Were the Adults? Grief and Recovering from Childhood—with guest Tamara Hanna, LPC