Jennifer Tracy: I think when we are faced with this Black Friday, and get the deals, and blah blah blah, and Christmas has to meet everybody's expectations, and it has to look Pinterest perfect, and not that it's not fun, and I love all those things, and I love Christmas decorations, and I love the wrapping paper, and I love the tradition of it, and I love the rituals of it. But I think for many of us, myself included, I've gotten caught up in that it has to be this certain way to give him this emotional experience that is going to make everything okay, and the fact is it's just another morning.
Jennifer Tracy: Hey guys, welcome back to the show. This is MILF Podcast, the show where we talk about motherhood, entrepreneurship, sexuality and everything in between. I'm Jennifer Tracy, your host. Happy Thanksgiving. Much of the world is celebrating Thanksgiving today, and it's such an interesting holiday, isn't it? Because it's the start of insanity, especially here in the U.S. I don't really know how it is elsewhere because I've not been elsewhere for Black Friday, but it's a little bit nutty, and everybody's been gearing up for this for the last couple months, all the companies and everything. So, good luck if you're out there and you're already standing in line, maybe you're listening to this while you're killing time, standing in line at the outlet stores or in front of a Best Buy, but hopefully you're cozy at home just in front of your computer, because nowadays you can do Black Friday shopping from the comfort of your own home.
Jennifer Tracy: More on that in a bit, but first I want to just say that today is episode 75. Marvel that I have made it this far and yet as I always say, I am so grateful for my team, just really helps me to do this and have it be the quality that I want to put out in the world. I mean, often times when there's a hitch, it's because I'm the only person recording it, and so I had a sound issue or whatever, but my team really helps me to run this machine smoothly, and a lot goes into recording a podcast. Many people will come to me and say, "I want to do a podcast. How do I do it? Can I just record it on my phone?" You can record it on your phone. You can upload it through, there's plenty of platforms that you can do that.
Jennifer Tracy: That is not how I have chosen to do this. From the beginning, I knew, and this is kind of how I do everything, maybe to a fault, but if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it, A level, or I just won't do it. Which, sometimes that's a hindrance because, I wouldn't say I'm a type A personality at all, but I have a Virgo rising in my chart, and I think that's where I just really like things to be a certain way, and to a certain level, expect a certain level of performance from myself and from the art that I create, and the content that I create. I've had to let a lot of that go with this because it's not always perfect, and it's messy and that's part of the beauty of it.
Jennifer Tracy: So anyway, I don't know how I got off on that tangent. Oh, because I was thanking my team. So, thank you team. I love you so much. Yeah, here we are, episode 75. We did it. We made it and more to come. I want to take a moment to thank one of our two sponsors today, this beautiful company called Gifts For Good. So, this is a company that it's based in Los Angeles, and I found them and I just was really impressed with how they run their business and what they do. So, Gifts For Good is, and you can go to giftsforgood.com and again, this'll be on my website if you want to just go to milfpodcast.com. You can always find anything I talk about on the on the show is always going to be on my website, either in the show notes or a link to the sponsors, a link to the gives that I try to represent every month, not try to represent, I do. I do represent every month.
Jennifer Tracy: Gifts For Good is service that has beautiful, curated gifts, and each gift gives to a charitable organization, not just gives to a charitable organization, but... And I hope I can even do this justice. They provide all these different causes with actual services. So, for example, if you bought a gift box that was connected to helping women at risk in another country, each gift box that you buy will provide 20 minutes of job training for women that would normally not be able to get any kind of job training, so, therefore would not be able to earn money, so therefore would not be able to sustain themselves or their family. It's genius. So, they have been so generous with us, and they are offering you guys a discount code. It's MILF For Good. M-I-L-F-F-O-R-G-O-O-D. You enter that at your checkout and you get a little discount.
Jennifer Tracy: Their stuff is beautiful. They work with a lot of corporate companies. So, if you have a company big or small, and you want to get something for everybody and in all price ranges, you know, from $25 gift boxes to much, much more. And they have... You just got to go to their website. Literally, they have very luxurious gifts. They have leather bags that you can customize and monogram. They have candles, cards, wines, drink wear. You can get a package of food that you can make, like dry goods, that you can make food and that will provide food for, three days in a... I mean it's just amazing and there's so much, I can't possibly give it all a pitch in 60 seconds, which I never do because I go way over 60 seconds cause I can't stop talking about these companies because I'm so impressed.
Jennifer Tracy: Giftsforgood.com it's just a beautiful company. I really appreciate the work that they're doing, and what they're doing in the world. And so thank you gifts for good and you guys be sure and visit that website and use your discount code this month. This is the last one of this. These always go so quickly when I think about that. So the highlighted give for this month awareness is the Global Alliance for Maternal Mental Health. I mean obviously as you know this is something that's very close to my heart because I personally suffered from postpartum depression and didn't know it, and I have met and talked with hundreds of women who have. I feel that we could be doing such a better job of tending to our mamas. However, what we are dealing with here is, we have so much more privilege and so much more access to care then women in developing countries, third world countries, and those women also have maternal mental health issues, in fact, those women obviously are susceptible to more, but they don't have access to the care.
Jennifer Tracy: So what Global Alliance for Maternal Mental Health does, is they go in and they provide that and they work with... There's so many different ways to get involved. So their website is a mouthful, but I'm going to say it, globalalliancematernalmentalhealth.org. Again, this is all on my website if you want to just click there. Your organization can become a member. You can contribute that way. But really just knowing about it and knowing that they have resources to give and just sort of spreading the word of what this organization does, to me that's how we start these things. And that's why I highlight an organization every month, because if we don't know about it, then we can't do anything. We can't be active, we can't talk about it, we can't pass it on.
Jennifer Tracy: So go ahead and check that out. It's really impressive. And again, they work with a lot of other organizations. They work with International Association for Women's Health. They work with International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics tons. So they're up there and really making a difference. Slide just came up, so I'm going to read it. Worldwide maternal depression is the most common serious health complication of maternity. Mental health problems in pregnancy and following childbirth are treatable. The global failure to act, results in a tragic human suffering and huge economic cost world wide. This is something that I'm very proud to share with you guys. So go ahead and check them out, and what else? What are you guys doing for Thanksgiving? I'm working. I am in revisions on my book and this is the book that I always talk about that I've been working on for five years.
Jennifer Tracy: Just so you know, I've got a hot tea and a water that when I record these solo shows, I have to have hot water and room temperature... I mean, hot tea and room temperature water. I don't understand it. And when I go and I'm always, I'm sit, but then I move and then when I'm recording someone else, I'm interviewing someone else, I always sit on the floor unless we're in a studio. But if I go to their home, which I prefer, I sit on the floor and I have them sit in their favorite chair or couch or whatever. It's just bizarre. I don't know how to explain it. And they'll say, "Don't you want to sit in a chair?" And I'm like, "No, I need to be on the floor." It's really weird. So just a little tidbit into my recording protocol. Oh, we have another sponsor today.
Jennifer Tracy: We have two sponsors today. I'm so honored. This is a company that I found through Instagram. Good old Instagram. I saw an ad and I ordered a candle from them. I was like, "What is this amazing company?" So it's called The Growing Candle. As I'm becoming more and more aware of obviously climate change and sustainability, which I'm going to talk about in a minute in reference to holiday shopping and craziness and my kids just insatiable appetite for toys and things is finding companies and products like Katie Brown who was on the show, she has a beautiful line of clothing. Katie Brown, LA, just give her a little plug here. I'm actually wearing my favorite top is from her line. I wore the other ones so much that I literally wore it out and she sent me another one.
Jennifer Tracy: She was the person that told that educated me on the fact that clothing manufacturing is actually the number one polluter. And so she has started this beautiful company that makes women's clothing that is sustainable and makes it in a sustainable way. And her whole philosophy is that. It's really beautiful. So I'm digressing, but when I found the growing candle, I love candles and I love natural candles. I don't like those really perfumey candles. I just can't. I get sneezy. All of their candles are natural made with organic products and natural products and it's pronounced Hooga. It's so interesting that the candle is called Hyggelight. It's a candle that comes to you. I'm getting tongue tied. It's a candle that comes to you in this beautiful ceramic cup that you can choose which cup you want and and choose the scent that you want.
Jennifer Tracy: And then it comes wrapped in this beautiful paper that contains seeds. So when the candle burns down, you take that little piece of paper that has the seeds in the paper, you put it inside the cup and you put water in it and wild flowers grow out of it. What? So you had this gorgeous candle that smelled delicious and made your home or your office, amazing. Then you have a little pot that you're going to grow flowers in. It's so genius. I love it. And I had the chance to try the product and I just, it's really gorgeous. The candles are gorgeous. The little cups are gorgeous and it's a beautiful company. So they have also generously given us a discount code of MILF10 if you go to thegrowingcandle.com, enter in that code at checkout, you'll get a 10% discount.
Jennifer Tracy: It's really a wonderful gift, obviously. So check them out. So now I'm going to just launch into the episode now that I've got all the introduction stuff out of the way. I'm going to take a sip of my tea. So it is Thanksgiving, soon to be holiday craziness, like tomorrow. My son is 10 and he just wants stuff all the time. I remember being that age and also wanting toys and things, and learning about money, and learning about the value of money and who has more money and who has less money. I remember that age becoming aware of that, and he is also. There's an added dynamic, because I'm divorced, of comparing daddy's lifestyle to mommy's lifestyle. And so, I mean luckily my ex husband and I are in a great place and so it doesn't affect the dynamic in any way except for that he's just learning, and we're kind of holding that space for him.
Jennifer Tracy: Usually, and I noticed this when I hired a professional organizer who's incredible. She's here in LA. I don't know how much longer she's going to be living here, but I'll include her website in the show notes. Charlotte, she's incredible. She came for two full days and helped me and my son clean and organize all of his toys, all of my stuff. I mean, I really was working on my stuff while she was doing his, because he had so much stuff and you guys, I realized how much I had purchased things because I felt guilt about my postpartum depression. I felt guilt about the divorce, and I also was dealing, which I had just found out the day before she came, with a child that has ADHD. That had been floating around, that possible diagnosis for three years, but the doctor who's so amazing wanted to wait. He's like, "Well, I don't want to just stamp an ADHD on him." And we had two full assessments, one in second grade, one in fifth grade.
Jennifer Tracy: What I just found out that he for sure 100% has ADHD, which makes it one of the aspects of that is that he has these huge emotions, which all kids and humans do, but at some point they sort of start being able to regulate them more and more and more. And that shifts and changes and some of us really need a lot of extra help to regulate, myself included. But he really has trouble when they're so, so big, he just can't regulate, and it's exhausting for me. He doesn't want to go to school. He has this refusal to go to school things sometimes. He has a complete meltdown. He has had panic attacks and that's really frightening.
Jennifer Tracy: And so part of me buying stuff for him I think has been trying to put a bandaid on that. And that coming face to face with it when we were cleaning out the house was really revolutionary for me, and made me realize like, I'm spending way too much money that I don't need to be spending that I could be... I know I said to Sky when she was here watching it happen, I said, "I'm looking at all this stuff that we're going to end up giving away and I'm thinking I could have taken him to Paris, really." This Christmas, his dad and I, his dad was just over this morning actually, and we were talking about it and it's like we want to do like less stuff and start to provide him with more experiences.
Jennifer Tracy: And as I was thinking about recording this episode, I thought to myself, you know, I have sat with at this juncture, dozens of women and talked about who they are, how they parent, what their philosophy is, what their kids are like, what that dynamic is. Never in a single episode has a mom shared with me, "Oh I bought this for him for his birthday." And, "For Christmas we did this." "For Hanukkah we did that." Never, because it's not important. It's not important. I think when we are faced with this "Black Friday" and "Get the deals and blah, blah, blah." And, "Christmas has to meet everybody's expectations." And, "It has to look Pinterest perfect." And not that it's not fun, and I love all those things. I love Christmas decorations and I love the wrapping paper. And I love the tradition of it and I love the rituals of it.
Jennifer Tracy: But I think for many of us, myself included, I've gotten caught up in that it has to be this certain way to give him this emotional experience that is going to make everything okay. The fact is, it's just another morning and it's another set of gifts, and this kid has received so much shit you guys. I mean it was really embarrassing. I was like, this is insane, like this is not normal. And yet it actually is, because when I go to other people's homes, people who have huge homes, people who have tiny little apartments there, it's all just chalked full because I think we're... Is it chocked full or chock-full? I think it's chock-full. I think that's it, of shit because we're just conditioned and also part of it is sometimes I'm just so tired. It's like if it's going to shut him up, then I'll buy it.
Jennifer Tracy: Whatever it is like, fine, get it. Yep. That's fine. And now we have the digital piece, so he's like, "Mom, can I get more V-Bucks?" For those of you who don't know, probably there's so many of you nodding right now. V-Bucks are a currency within the game of Fortnite, which is a very popular video game that I hope you can avoid only because, I just don't get it. I'm like, I don't understand what's fun about this, but that's okay. But it's like he wants to buy these V-Bucks. So it's like, and of course you get more for the bigger price point. So I'm always like, "Well, just buy $100 worth." Well, doing that couple of times a month... I mean, so anyway, bringing it back is that I really have made this decision and I know that he's going to have some feelings about it.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm going to talk to him about it beforehand. I'm not just going to have Christmas morning be like "Surprise, you're getting one present." You know? But I want to also start giving him kind of more of a perspective, like the things that I talk about at the beginning of the podcast, people in other countries who that's not even in their realm of over shopping and overspending and putting it on a credit card so that they can. I want to start giving him that perspective because he lives in such a white privilege bubble. And not to... That's just, it is what it is. But he needs to know how other people are and yet we drive by the homeless encampments every morning to get to the bus and it's just like there's this dissociation I think that we have to have, otherwise it would just... We'd be... I don't know. I don't know if I'm making sense.
Jennifer Tracy: He wants a ping pong table. I was like, "That's great." I like that idea because then you can be active with your friends when they come over. It's something that's entertaining. It's something that's a little bit physical. It is not involve a screen, it helps with hand eye coordination, all those things. The ping pong tables on the list and then a few other things. And then really I want to say, "Look, I want to take you somewhere this summer, somewhere fun and exotic and different so you can see how other people live." So I want to give him more experiences, even though for him that's not going to count as a gift or whatever. I see how his value system has been shaped and there's two people that are responsible for that. I mean mainly me because I'm the primary caregiver, but I really am face to face with that and I get to look at it and I get to sort of alter the course of that now, which is the perfect time because it's scary.
Jennifer Tracy: So yeah, I kind of wanted to share about that and just over consumption in general that I think happens all the time, but in particular at this time of year, it's really just insane. That was really all that I wanted to talk about today in the podcast. However, at some point I just want to say that I am so grateful for the community of women that have come together because of this podcast. I want to do some sort of gathering. I don't know how that's going to work because people listen all over the world, but I don't know. I don't know what that looks like. I just feel like I had my East Coast team fly in over the weekend, and one of whom I had never met in person, and the other one I had only met one time for a couple hours, and we spent the whole weekend together.
Jennifer Tracy: It was really only like 36 hours, but there's nothing like that face to face experience. And we sat up and sat by my fire and talked until really late, which for me is 10:00 one of the nights. And then the next night I was like, "Guys, it's nine, I've got to go to bed." Nothing compares to that. And I think like the gifts, there's something so precious and potent and profound about human connection that is irreplaceable. And I think that's what Thanksgiving is really about. And bringing people together and bringing love to the table, just bringing love to the table. And I love cooking and I love doing the whole meal. I love doing in Turkey dinner. It's one of my favorite things, but I think sometimes we forget, in all of the lights and decorations and all of the consumerism around us, we forget.
Jennifer Tracy: I think that also I bought into this, "I need to give my child this. I need to make Santa Claus this. I need to make..." And because that's how my childhood was, and to no fault of my parents, they both grew up poor and so they wanted to give me these magnificent Christmases. And they did. And the thing was that I appreciated it so much. My parents are so sweet and so generous and yet really what I needed was more connection with them. I needed more intimacy, connection, and more love from my parents, and more vulnerability. So that's it. That is, that's my Thanksgiving episode you guys. It was a little messy. It's a little rough around the edges, but like I said before, I've had to learn to let go of that. I lost my place a couple of times and that's okay. So, yeah, I love you guys so much. Happy Thanksgiving and be safe out there.
Jennifer Tracy: And just a reminder to check out Gifts For Good, and enter the code MILF For Good at checkout when you buy something. And also The Growing Candle with the code MILF10, all of which is on milfpodcast.com in the show notes. You can see it there. It'll be under the sponsorship little tab and you can go see all the sponsors and click on their websites from that too. I love you guys so much, so much, so much. Happy holidays. I'll talk to you next week.